B-A-N-A-N-A-S

I would like to briefly discuss the versatility of bananas. The bananas is awesome by itself, but there are several ways the fruit can enhance the awesomeness of other foods.

• Dehydrated Bananas (not necessarily an addition, but an enhancement nonetheless). Dehydrating bananas transforms the bananas chip to a state that draws out the amount of time it takes to eat the banana, thus enhancing the awesomeness.
• Banana and Peanut Butter Sandwiches. There are few things better than peanut butter during a long day's hike/climb. Peanut butter is often consumed in sandwich form, so why not stick a few banana chips on there? Its a flavor combination that will blow your mind and leave you ready to climb mountain peaks.
• Banana and Mt Dew. This is simple: 1) eat a banana 2) drink Mt Dew. This flavor juxtaposition will make your mouth do a happy dance.
• Banana chips + Strawberry/Raspberry jello. Quit hating on Jell-O. Jell-O is awesome, and the awesomeness is mind blowing when bananas are added. No arguments.

I think the various stages bananas go through are also awesome. Do you want something firm? Eat a green banana? Would you prefer something more flavorful, and a little squishier? Eat a spotted banana. I'm not ready to completely commit to the notion, but I'm beginning to believe that the banana is the best fruit ever!

*There's a Church of the Banana. If that isn't awesome, I don't know what is. That's where I got the picture from.

Hypochodria

So, as you may know, I am a mild hypochodriac (a diagnosis I made for myself. Mild hypochodria is characterized by continuous diagnosis of various maladies that produces worrying. What divides mild hypochondria and regular hypochondria is that I don't seek a doctor's advice about the maladies I diagnose myself with). The past few weeks have been fun, because I've found two real illnesses I could have: narcolepsy and telogen effluvium.

Narcolepsy: According to the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute, narcolepsy "is a disorder that causes periods of extreme daytime sleepiness. It may also cause muscle weakness. Rarely, people who have this disorder fall asleep suddenly...Most people who have narcolepsy also have trouble sleeping at night." I've always considered my proclivity for day-time napping to be a personal preference, even a bonus of my constitution. I love napping, I feel bad for those who are unable to nap during the day. However, the desire to nap comes at inopportune times, almost always. There are rarely days where it's ok for me to curl up and sleep in the middle of the day (that doesn't mean I abstain).

The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke goes further in describing narcolepsy as "...a neurological disorder caused by the brain's inability to regulate sleep-wake cycles normally. At various times throughout the day, people with narcolepsy experience irresistible bouts of sleep. If the urge becomes overwhelming, individuals will fall asleep for periods lasting from a few seconds (in Becka-terms: "The Nod") to several minutes." They call this "excessive daytimes sleepiness" or EDS. Damn. They have that exactly right, the irresistible urge to sleep hits me often.

I've avoided looking up the symptoms of narcolepsy until recently, in part because I didn't really want to know if I had it, and in part because I thought it was just lack of motivation to stay awake (which is silly, I've fallen asleep during a lot of lectures and movies that I thought were really interesting). There are other conditions that narcolepsy can cause, including cataplexy (sudden loss of muscle tone when you're awake), hallucinations (vivid dreams that occur while falling asleep and waking up) and sleep paralysis (which prevents you from moving or speaking while waking up). Thankfully, I don't experience much but the hallucinations (as far as I can tell), and they're actually kind of fun. I'd claim sleep paralysis for the reason I don't always answer the phone when people call me early in the morning, but that would be incorrect.

These symptoms occur because people with narcolepsy fall into REM sleep quickly and wake up directly from it. This seems an apt description of what my mom calls "The Death Spiral." Again, I've almost always seen this as a benefit, once I determine to sleep it usually happens quite quickly. Unfortunately, I have little control in determining when to Death Spiral. Waking up from REM sleep is what causes vivid dreams. This all may be caused by low levels of Hypocretin in the brain, which is the chemical that controls levels of wakefulness. However, little is known about what causes one to have lower than average levels of hypocretin.

All of this would be great to know if there were a treatment that could prevent me from falling asleep during the middle of the day. There are some behavioral modifications that could help regulate symptoms, including maintaining a regular sleep cycle and scheduling small daytime naps during times where the desire to sleep is strongest. I wonder if my future employer will be alright if I schedule a siesta into my work day (it can be an off-the-clock siesta, that's totally fair)? I'm hoping that once I finish this thesis exercise that I will be better able to regulate my sleep cycle. I guess we'll just see.

Telogen Effluvium: I just read about this disorder today, but I can definitively say that I have suffered from this condition. If you want anymore proof, just talk to my vacuum (or anyone who has ever shared a living space with me). TE is a sudden hair shedding (up to 1/2 or 3/4 of your hair) caused by sudden physical or emotional stress. It is usually noticed when handfuls of hair come out while shampooing, combing and running hands through your hair. Um, all of that has happened, almost always during periods of high emotional stress (Hello, thesis).

There is one exception to this, in my life. One day I went camping with my family and got my hair caught in a tent zipper. In an effort to be efficient with his time (maybe?) my dad cut my hair out of the tent zipper, but did not tell me. The next day, while brushing my hair, I noticed a huge chunk of hair whipping around my brush and almost burst into tears because I thought I was losing my hair (truth be told, I thought I had developed cancer, forgetting that you have to go through chemotherapy before your hair falls out). Everyone got a good laugh out of it, but I'm pretty sure the emotion stress of potentially losing all my hair caused me to actually lose quite a bit. This stress was compounded a few days later as Liz and I frantically tried to wax my hair down for senior portraits.

So, there it is. Two real disorders that I might have, and some fun facts. I'm pretty sure the internet is only serving to make me more of a hypochondriac, but I love it!

(*Explanation of photos: the first one is me pretending to sleep in my truck, because I can. The second is me experiencing extreme emotional stress, in the form of fear, as the St. George wind tried to blow me out of my truck. I feel like a post without pictures just couldn't be as fun, but I was having difficultly visually conceptualizing hypochondria, narcolepsy and telogen effluvium.)

The Ballad of Jose O'Flannigan

Until recently, I was afflicted by a fungus that was not ring worm. Beyond not being ring worm, this fungus was resistant to Lamisil. Also, it was named Jose O'Flannigan. I posted a picture of him above (yes, he's a sword and flag waving pirate fungus). We'd had an encounter last spring, but I was able to repel him with Lamisil. Then he came back this fall. My personal theory is that he hid in a sweater that didn't make it into the washer before I put it back in my closet. That was unfortunate. I let the fungus progress, because I thought I could beat it back with Lamisil again, and why would I go to the doctor unless I was really sick.

Fast forward to January. People at the climbing gym started noticing my fungus, and they started touching it. It was time to fix it. So I went to the student clinic with my fungus, where I was scraped and prodded, and given a vague "Well, that's not ringworm, go get this anti-fungal medicine" diagnosis. If I had gone in a few months ago, when I had health insurance, this wouldn't have been such a big deal. However, I am one of the uninsured masses, so I paid $53 for my generic Loprox cream and steroid. It would have been tragic if it hadn't worked. Here is the progression of my fungus over the past two weeks.

Day 1

By Day 5 if had progressed to this, much better.

And Two weeks later I have a fairly normal looking arm. (I was going to do a real progression analysis, but I lost my pictures) There's still some redness, but its smooth and un-itchy.

Now some fun facts about skin fungi from the National Institutes of Health:

• Fungi are primitive vegetables. (I find this a little suspect. Last time I took an evolutionary survey of plants, it seemed the relationship between plants and fungi was still unclear).
  • Fungi lack chlorophyll (thus the tenuous relationship), so they must absorb their nutrients through dead organic matter (go to the rain forest and see decomposer-fungi at work immediately!)
• Molds, yeasts and mushrooms are types of fungi. Mushrooms are a particularly delicious type of fungi. They can live in the air, soil, on plants and in water. THEY'RE EVERYWHERE!!!
• Fungi can be difficult to kill (I can verify this)
• There has been a significant increase in fungal infections in the last 30 years, due to both increased awareness and increased use of medications that suppress the immune system
• Fungi reproduce through spores (like aliens in some movies), which are tiny, and airborne.
• Skin fungi are usually of the Tinea genus, I have decided that's what I had. It can be contracted through skin to skin contact, contact with an infected animal or soil. It could have been an infected animal, as I did once work at a zoo.
• My dad and sister are allergic to the fungus that produces penicillin. It kind of sucks for them.

Now, go forth and disseminate the word about fungus!

My Tickled Fancy

So, fun fact, I'm not sure how to spell ticklish (that's how spellcheck said to spell it, I don't like it). Anyways, while looking through my phone for pics I found a couple of things that had made me giggle over the past few weeks, and I'm sharing them with you now. Enjoy.

I'm signed up for Google to alert me whenever something is posted on the Migratory Bird Refuge and other Bear River things. Today I was shocked to discover that BRMBR is a sign of prostate cancer (at least that what I would have thought if I had not clicked on this).

This just proves my point, fake mashed potatoes are bad for you. They're never "Best If Used By" they can only be "Better." Lame.

So, this is a double yoked egg! Imagine if it had gestated instead of been fried up for a sandwich. Can twins be born in one egg? Would they be able to fit?

So this stamp is probably supposed to be of a parade float. I thought it looked Gingerbread-Zilla!

Picture 1 of the Coolest Toilet ever. Pull up to flush urine, push down to flush a deuce. And its green because the handle has some anti-bacterial something on it.

Picture 2: the diagram. Fun fact, these pictures were from the Georgia Center in Athens, but I also found these toilets in the Smith's in Logan. Awesome.

Also from Athens, locked up condoms and pregnancy tests. I figure its probably because they don't want them to be stolen, but at first glance it seemed like a ridiculous way to dissuade people from having safe sex, and then from knowing exactly whether they're pregnant until it becomes obvious.

I really appreciate when things are labeled like this. I hate looking over the label for sneaky things like bullion and fish sauce (they really seem to hide in labels).

I thought about buying the dressing, I was having a bad day and buying comfort food at the grocery store. However, I couldn't tell exactly what type of dressing it was, and I didn't think it would go well with my Dollar Pizza and edemame.

This really tickled me the other day. Someone built this snowman up on campus. It's a little morbid, but mostly awesome.

This actually did not tickle me at all. I left my truck in the church parking lot overnight and they plowed me in! I had to go back and get my shovel and dig Gus out because his 4-wheel drive isn't working and I was surrounded by cars, so fish tailing would have been very bad. I was pretty seriously irritated. Look at how closely they plowed me in! It was deliberate! The plow man was trying to ruin my day!

Shortly after that I went down the old court house in Logan for a water users meeting and found this delightful sign in the ladies room.

One more to add to the list of silly books I walk by in the library. I don't much like catfish, I imagine their culture is lame (I, of course, am speaking of culture like the think people try to acquire or the thing about human civilizations you can study; this book is probably about farming catfish).

A nice follow up to the Jose O'Flannigan post. Out earth is moldy (or mouldy).

I want to feel bad, because I blogged instead of working on school stuff, but it's been a long week for me, I'm exhausted. I can't believe its only Wednesday.

Into the Thick of Things

Well, I've been in full on Thesis Mode for a couple weeks now, and its killing me. OK, that's an exaggeration. It's actually really exciting to be closing in on the completion of my degree. Its stressful though. I addition to trying to write up a year and a half's worth of research into two distinct ideas, I also have to stay on top of my graduate school paperwork. I learned when I graduated Weber State how much messing up your paperwork can ruin your life, so I'm hoping things will be smoother this time through.

Anyways...A few weeks ago I had the file with the latest draft of my thesis on it tell me it was corrupted (because I'm the File Whisperer). It was tragic, I lost 3 pages of work, and it totally changed the mood of the day. Because of this, I started saving my files as .doc instead of .docx (what kind of company changes their file extensions with the latest version of their program? An evil company), and then attaching that file to an email, in addition to saving them on my thumb drive and computer.

And here's the string of ridiculous emails I have to prove just how far I've gone to ensure I won't lose my file. I think the progression of screen captures really shows the progression of my insanity. Also, the ads on the side entertain me, because they're in part based on the text in your email, so there's a few for pet nail clipping and shower heads.

And yes, I did save my draft as "The The Thesis." The next, less rough draft may be labeled "The The The The Thesis." I may also start calling it "Where My Will to Live Has Gone to Stay."

Horn Tooting

So, it's a little late in the game, but I've finally started writing my thesis! There's some other things that need to be done before I can really do some good analysis, but I heard that just starting was a major thing to accomplish, and its totally true! Before you know it, I may actually defend this thing, then graduate, then get a job, then make my dreams come true saving the world and travelling wherever I feel like.....

Goodness, the possibilities are enough to make me delirious! Yay, me!

Also, I went grocery shopping yesterday, fresh off a good paycheck, and now have enough food to eat well for, like, two weeks! I'm well on my way to fulfilling my New Year's cooking resolution, I bought the ingredients for Spinach Enchiladas and Not-From-A-Package Fettuccine Alfredo. Also, Life Cereal was on sale, so I bought 3, because few things are better than Life Cereal.

Sorry for being so self-indulgent, I'm just really proud to finally feel like I'm moving somewhere.