Don't be stupid.

You know how that voice in the back of your head that tells you when something is stupid?

I can hear that voice. It's very clear. It's a bit of a mocking tone, saying 'Duh, Jordie, don't do that! It'll ruin your chances of living happily and innocently afterwards!'

I don't block it out. I don't ignore it or anything. It's just that sometimes, where there's a will there's a way, even if that means hitting the sane and logical voice in the head and going 'Duh, Little Voice, you can do this and not die!'

Like,

'Duh, Little Voice, you can cut slippery kaffir lime leaves with a sharp knife and not stab yourself!'

and, my favourite,

'Duh, Little Voice, you can pour hot caramel onto a balloon!'

Moral of the lesson: Don't. Be. Stupid.

Fifth Day of Spring

Like I said, it's the fifth day of spring and I have gazillions of bacteria and other general lifey stuffs in my jars!

Yesterday they didn't look so promising so I was glad that some bubbly action was going on when I had a look at them this morning. That and the combined effect of pretty much neglecting them opening-wise for the jars that are hard to open and not pressing the weird carrot salad thingos down once they started floating. I actually have no hope in that one.

And I tried an orange from the bag that the orange segment ferments are from. They are the blandest and least tasting oranges I've ever tasted! (however, I must admit my orange tasting hasn't been challenged much) So I also don't expect much from those. I did put a pinch of sugarcane sugar in them, but that doesn't mean it'll actually work.

Anyway, enough about my gloomy bacteria that are set up for failure:

I popped into the physics class this afternoon, just for fun. And even though I did gather a partial headache which barely happens to me any more, it was actually FUN. Yes, I am saying that learning about how wavelengths are entertaining and enjoyable. I learnt a heap of random stuff I won't be able to use apart from cool party trick conversations ('Did you know that that star is mostly helium?'), mostly that the visible wavelengths (light) that a gaseous element emits when heated is unique to whatever that element is (for example, helium emits orange, green and blue wavelengths, because of how far electrons jump across electron shells), that the word 'assess' in an exam question means that you have to state one side and give reasons for it, and that the elements that make up a star can be shown in the aforementioned 'blueprint' each element had.

And we had a discussion about whether copying someone's exact molecules and locations of such and whatnot, and replicating them elsewhere, was moral or not and if that's the same person or not. I don't think it would be. I think there's other things in the human that we have absolutely no idea about. Like why living outdoors more is better than living in the exact same way, but inside and all artificial and stimulated. There's gotta be stuff that we're missing out on when we chemically replicate stuff. For example (I'm just throwing this one out there), if there's some chemical or hormone or SOMETHING in breast milk or exchanged between mother and daughter when breast feeding that we just don't know about yet, and we give our babies formula made of all the stuff we do know, they're not receiving all that unknown good (or bad) stuff, and thus not being as nicely developed as another in the same environment but with a boob in their face instead of a plastic piece of junk. 

Actually, come to think of it, why the hell do we use friken PLASTIC bottles to feed our babies??

Cognitive Development - Really?

Studying for early childhood, I came across this scale in my textbook. It's logical. It's accurate. It's correct. But it opened my eyes to how kids see things.

You know how kids are more 'cavemany' than adults? This definitely proves that. I remember reading somewhere that babies under six months are the only ones to understand the whole Schrödinger's Cat theory thing. This charty thing kinda enforces how children think so much less scientifically and more based on really basic stuff that we should all just worry about.

Also, have you ever read one of those reports like 'Chimp completes an IQ test' which say that they have the brain of a two year old or a five year old or thereabouts. You notice how that doesn't go above about a six or seven years old?

Maybe we're not meant to mentally develop too much more than teenage years. Which is when we're really meant to be having babies. ENOUGH THINKING for now! Back to studying!

My Right Hand Needs a Holiday

It's nearly exam week - the biggest exams of the year, where we're tested on the whole year of stuff. I better be writing more notes than what I will be writing in the exam, or my hand will die...

Time of high stress is when you mostly want to go on holidays, so in the time that isn't really spare but I procrastinate in anyway, I've been doing a bit of reading and thinking about health. Ok, obviously, but more so in the aspect that maybe diet isn't the most important aspect as to how you develop, age and die. I especially loved the NY Times 'The Island where People Forget to Die'. Google it if you want. I'm going to Ikaria one day.

I was watching some sbs show while packing up slices of banana bread to sell and a cook was up in some mountains in a traditional tribe area in Thailand and made some meat thing that was put in a bamboo tube, topped with a banana leaf, and put in a fire to cook. And as I watched him lovingly and rustically creating this age old dish, I realised that the reason why we love recipes is the fact that they're passed down through generations, like a story. And it has a story of instruction to keep you alive, but there's a side that comes from that tribe, or from that family, or from the heart of the one showing you how to make it.

Recipes aren't instructions for making something to keep you alive.

Recipes are special stories that provide you with love in your heart to make you thrive, physically (the food) and emotionally (the love).

Quick Update

I have a teeny bit of time to write today but I have nothing to say! At all! Ok, so maybe that's a lie, because I'm saying something now, right? I thought I should just update you all because I haven't posted in a while.

I think I've come to the realisation that I don't want to involve my ENTIRE existence around food. I've been... not thinking deeply, but just coming to lots of little realisations... that I don't want to devote my life to food and health in terms of finance. I love cooking and learning what's healthiest for the body, but the reason I love it is because it doesn't currently take up 24 hours of my day. I love singing while spilling the meal I'm making over the stove and seasoning it far too heavily to keep my tastebuds sane. I don't love stressing over the food I eat, perfecting techniques and making caramels (however, I made a marshmallow recipe the other day and it turned out terrific! Kinda.) like a French patisserie ultra precise chef.

I tell everyone I'm going to have a gap life when I leave school, and that does not involve cooking a bajillion meals to pay for it. I'm starting to seriously consider in the drama branch of work. Maybe like a reviewer or something. Or a costume designer/maker could work. Maybe a catalogue or catwalk model or an actress if I get my act together. I'd love to be a getaway-style-show presenter. I don't know. I'll do what comes I guess. And be fabulous at it.

Ignore that I was laying on the beach when I was thinking this

Guys have it so much easier than girls. The way they work out is expected to be lifting a few times a week, playing soccer with friends or playing in general with friends/kids at the park, and sometimes they can be builders, meaning that they're lifting and cardioing all day. Whereas women are expected to (and mostly do) do heaps and heaps of cardio squeezed into their stressful day, and not having time to play because they're either doing stuff that's stressing them out, or relaxing and trying to destress. What has society come to?

I was sitting on the beach peoplewatching, and I noticed that all the guys were up and playing ball games while all the women were laying around on the beach getting their tan on. Now, I'm not for overexercising or anything, but wouldn't it be nice if the women were up and playing something too? You can still get an even tan playing around with a ball... or running around with children... or building sandcastles... or even just walking on the beach with someone. Going to the beach shouldn't mean lay on a plastic (or cotton) cloth and sloth about for hours on end to come home with slightly darker skin. Going to the beach should be a fun day out to play around and enjoy what nature has to offer. The beach should be an active playground, not an excuse for an outdoor bed.

I Did It Again

Well, let's just say it's been a looooong time since I even thought about blogging, but here I am again. I think I need a strategy for this. That works.

I'm thinking really ultra short entries. Things that take me two seconds to write. Because I can write a hell of a lot when I get going, so I think my entries should just be short and sweet.

I was hoping to rekindle the fire of my blogging by making them more like Facebook updates and short things that happen, such as:

"I went to dad's, and since he buys EVERYTHING when they're on special, he branched out of his usual jams and bought a St Dalfour's Fig Jam. Not only is the jar super pretty (can't wait to ferment some asparagus in there!) and it's from France (I've been a little obsessed with France since I read the beginning of 'French Kids Eat Everything'), but it's PALEO!! Oh yes, there is a god. All of their jams. All they have is the fruit, fruit juice concentrate (ok, so maybe Grok didn't have access to that), some citric acid - normally just lemon juicey type of stuff - and some have pectin (from fruit). Ahhh! So I had a spoonful of it with my persimmon. I know, I'm weird, ok?"

That would be the entire entry, maybe with an additional photo or two.

Or, if it's more lengthy, it'd only be like this:

"Today I took my time to volunteer at the Tough Mudder that I had signed up for. I wanted to do it myself but 20km? In mud? With all those horrific(ally awesome) obstacles? Not with this bendy boney body. So I turned up hopeful to make a possible friend or two, and see how difficult this challenge was.

I turned up and after looking anorexic and not eating much of the free lunch I was given (a veggie burger, a bag of chips, a cookie, and an apple - which I ate slowly), I was sent out to man the mohawk and mullet area, and I only shaved two guys' heads since everyone else shaved theirs before (I got there at midday). Then one of the head volunteer guys came over and dropped me at the finish line to put the glorified orange headbands on everyone.

I was there for a while. I, along with a girl called Dana who had volunteered over her hours, and an American couple of which the guy was the winner this morning, stretched the headbands around the wet and muddy heads. A few people asked us to 'crown' them, a couple of guys got down on one knee (the guy knighted him), and I even got a lovely sloppy muddy hug. A few dainty girls came out the other side of the electric shocky thing crying. But I think that if I was to do it, I'd give the poor volunteer a messy hug and make sure they got muddy. Hehehe.

And when it was over, I followed David, one of the main volunteer guys, around like a lost puppy and he got me to cut all the zip cords on the banners. That was not fun, I can tell you. But after doing it for a while, I came out of the portaloo with him an some other main volunteer guy telling me that they wanted me to sign up to do paid volunteer-style work. I could be paid for this sort of stuff! So we exchanged details and I took leftover bananas and solo cans home.

But getting a possible job wasn't the only amazing thing today. I learnt how to quickly lever zip cords out, I learnt that you don't have to be ripped (or even have any nice physique) to be a Tough Mudder, and I learnt that doing good gets you places."
And sometimes it might just be:

"I MADE MYSELF A BEANIE! It's hot pink and ribbed and the perfect size for my head and I'm actually going to wear it places. Yaaay!"

I'll see if I can keep entries up once a week (I'm thinking Thursdays), but let's just see what exciting happenings happen.

:)

IF

I know it's not real healthy for someone who's underweight to IF (or fast at all for that matter), but I'd forgotten my lunch and I was going to the library at lunch to work anyway (and I've got a photoshoot on Sunday) so I thought that maybe I should just see how I go, and this way I wouldn't be too stressed about it.

IF (intermittent fasting) is a paleo concept where you fast for a period of time to let your body sorta catch up with what you've eaten, clear the digestive system a bit, and something to do with the muscles growing. I'm not quite sure. I haven't done much reading on it because I've been trying to eat as much as possible, but I'd read enough to know that you can fast healthily and that it's nothing to worry about if it's once in a blue moon like it is.

Brussels Sprouts Craving

My food choices have been pretty weird lately. I haven’t been inspired by anything, and I’ve been getting interesting change-of-season produce for an attempt at a pick-me-up. All last week I had exciting foods, and now I’m starting to stress because I can’t come up with anything.

Tonight’s dinner was using up what we had – thawed chicken breast – and Brussels sprouts to add some green veggies into my diet that wasn’t cucumber or broccoli. I wanted a stir fry thing (which is what I basically always have when my last resort is chicken breast) so I boiled my Brussels sprouts in slightly salty water (because salt levels go down when you’re stressed, and with two exams up my sleeve I’m not the calmest person around!), coated my chopped chicken breast in Fijian curry powder and fried it up in some bacon fat.

I’d read somewhere that Brussels sprouts and butter was a good mix, so I decided to give it a go. Once my chicken was out of the pan, I chopped the sprouts up a bit (1/6ths) and added them to about 2 tbsp butter. Then I added another tbsp as I swirled them around the medium-high heat pan, let them caramelise/sauté in the buttery juices and put them on my plate once they looked alright. And put about another tbsp of butter on top of that.

Well what can I say. My taste buds are excited after a drought of slightly boring and tongue-burning food! These sprouts were amazing and they were the main part of my plate. They satiated me so well (the glorious buttery fat is to thank for that) that I didn’t want to go all caveman on my brother’s leftover chicken wings like I have been doing for the last three days. And that’s saying something.

Me right about now:

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m85r6xALcm1qbeii4.gif

Creative Thinking - personalish

Today was the first day in my six day course in the city yay! It's a course about modelling and acting which, I know, seems suuuper unrelated to yoga and health and wellness stuff like that but it's just so much fun. I could also be Tara Stiles-y and model and act out my yoga and cooking skillz via commercials and stuff like that. Which would be pretty cool, I reckon. Because modelling is so much fun!

Meditating

I have been so stuck for blog post topics so you might have noticed that I completely missed Sunday’s post. And I’m not even sorry.

The whole year our religion class has been going to meditation fortnightly and today was the last time we ever got to go. I don’t think we get to do it in senior years unfortunately. But the 80-something sister sang a Christmas song to us and it was really really cute :) Anyway, meditation.

Meditation, scientifically, is something like bringing your brainwave rate thing down to a stage of half-asleep or something, but most people recognise meditation as something to fix your mind up somehow, whether that be calming you down or focusing your attention. There’s a thousand reasons why people meditate, but here’s the main reasons why I meditate:

- to improve my focus. I want to strengthen the part of my brain that yells CONCENTRATE at me when I’m doing some sort of hard-to-focus-on work, and I’m sure studies have backed up meditating for focus somewhere.

- it calms me. Just give me five minutes when I’m agitated or angry and after a little sit-down, I’m a little less agitated and angry.

- it's part of my sleep. Kinda like the calmness thing, I meditate last thing before bed because it really relaxes me. It gets me from a pace of working to a pace of slowness and usually sleepiness. Doing meditation before bed helps me settle down and it's like someone in my brain goes around and switches off every last switch during those five minutes.

Camp - for friends only

So I've gone another day not posting again. At least I realise it! I was only on camp for three days so I could've posted yesterday buuut... I was too caught up in knitting and dehydrating almonds. By the way, when they say that dehydrating nuts takes a while, they actually mean that it takes a while. How did I think I could spend 24 hours obsessing over the oven? I think it would be a lot more enjoyable if I could smell the almonds or if I focused when I first soaked them. I may have forgotten about vinegar-to-water ratios and now whenever I open the oven it smells like vinegar... Another oopsie. But I'm learning. I added some rosemary to counter the smell but it still hasn't gone away!

Bracelets for Weight Loss (or any longish-term goals)

Since about April or May this year, I've had a bracelet around my wrist.

No one but mum has known what it's for, and no one really asked me. I usually don't like wearing things on my wrists apart from my watch so I've been surprised that no one has asked me why I kept a dirty little ugly-coloured braid on my wrist. The only questioning I've had about it was from one of my teachers who was out hunting for detentions to give to people when she saw my bracelet.

"What's that?" pointing to my bracelet.
"A bracelet..."
"Can you take it off?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because I can't."

Physically, by that stage, it was easily able to be removed from my wrist. But mentally? This bracelet was more about looks. Actually, if it was all about looks, it would have been long gone.