Serendipity

I am a somewhat frequent flyer. Once or twice a month I get out of bed in the middle of the night, schlep to the airport bleary eyed, slog through the security line, deposit my goods in bins, take off my shoes and assume the position in the body scan xray machine.  The amount of radiation that I am exposed to is considered minimal - I only fly a couple of times per month. The scanner shows an awful lot. Privacy concerns have been a hot topic for years, but it didn't come up in class.  I was surprised to see these scanners on the low end of the Radiation Dosage Chart from informationisbeautiful.net - equal to eating a banana. I was also surprised to learn that there is not real standard for communicating the amount and type of radiation that we are exposed to.  How many banana's isn't as crazy as it sounds. The article "RADs on a plane - The Round Trip" noted that radiation exposure is higher in first class, and as the plane reacher higher altitudes.  It wou...

A kiss on the cheek is a placebo too. Jesca Hoop - Hospital (to win your love) In our class discussion last week I heard a lot of resistance to the research presented. It's a theme that bubbles up frequently in acupuncture school.   I get it.  In research methodology class we learn to be skeptical about the motivations of researchers and publishers and the nuances in study design, the measurement of results and analytical approach. In the media we read sensational or reductionist headlines proclaiming some half baked study now has the answer, and its often intended to discredit acupuncture or herbal medicine - which we hold dear!  I feel compelled to protect traditional medicine, to practice time tested techniques and subtle manipulations that are the result of careful observation and repetition...   We who are called to study traditional medicine value it for those qualities specifically, as do many of our patients.  But many of them jus...

I love my fabric softener.  Snuggle reminds me of childhood, and feels like some outdoor scene I know only from a commercial on tv. I like folding towels. I use Snuggle Liquid and especially like the lavender scent.  I know... more chemicals.  Snuggle gets a D from the Environmental Working Group.  The entire class of Cationic Fabric Softeners does.  Cationic fabric softeners are listed as "of moderate concern", and they appear on the Association of Occupational and Environmental Clinics (AOEC) list as Asthmagens.  It also contains some detergents that are listed on the EU Ecolabel detergents database, which are of "some" concern, and a couple of cationic fabric softeners which are of low concern... at least some of the ingredients are biodegradable?  This product also gets a D due to the lack of information provided on its label.  That is for the liquid fabric softener.  I found the Sun products corporation Safety Data Sheet for the Snug...

Week 1: Is this loafing? Habit: an hour off after work/school - first thing when I get home each evening.  I take and hour give or take... it's busy time though. Put away the stuff, find a remote control, pet the cat, make a cup of tea... they're things I don't think about much Monday (June 25): Play with the cat. I think i'm more interested in the rainbow ribbon than he is. Homework and tv... is this loafing?  Upon asking the question i put my feet flat on the carpet, take a deep breath and straighten up seated... in a minute I'm bored. Tuesday (June 26): Orthopedics midterm. Finished early and went to Agave for happy dinner. Ceviche was great. I often dine alone, people watch, read the phone... lost in thought.  Is this loafing?   Tuesday evening outside with the cat, massage session with the neighbor and some new vampire of an acquaintance drained all my energy and time over-talking on the phone. Is listening loafing?  That was such a drain.  ...

Mondays are trash day at the dome, and my usual fridge cleaning opportunity. I was motivated when I got home last week. I had gone to the grocery store over the weekend but wasn’t thinking about color at the time. I found a large stack of white: tofu, shiratake noodles and rice cakes; and an equal array of mushrooms: shiitake, woodear, enoki...brown, white and beige. The dairy section was also white: yogurt and labne, white cheddar, blue and Parmesan cheeses. There was a variety of greens: a salad mix, basil, cilantro and mint, dandelion greens and broccolini. Red was scarce: in the drawer a tomato and a pepper, red miso paste, some old salsa... could the miso count as orange instead? Odds and ends included a bag of avocados, lemons and limes, garlic and green onions, blueberries, cheddar cheese and pickled ginger. It was an odd array. I haven’t ordered a meal kit or produce box in weeks. I was craving mushroom stew when I chose the Koreans Plaza to shop that week.  The freezer was...

Hello.  I'm Heather, and I have never taken a chemistry class. I went into a nursing program post secondary and missed the usual high school requirement, then transferred to a social work program at a university that didn't require it. I almost got away with it too!  O.o The reading today included a few concepts that I was pretty confident with, but the quick quiz proved me wrong.  Differentiating chemical and physical changes wasn't immediately as apparent as I had assumed. I remember discussing this idea in class last week.  I hope not to be one of the students comes out of their first chemistry classes with a misunderstanding of what it is. I don't have a bio to present so I'll just tell you a bit about me.  I am in my 4th year at ACCHS.  I've been progressing through second year curriculum, and am *finally* in my last trimester of working full time. In my work, I manage an SAP consulting firm in San Francisco covering the roles of AR/AP, Payroll...

I spent a lot of time listening to podcasts and videos on the topics for this post and I'm afraid I only succeeded in confusing myself.  Searching for uncertainty and causality led to some fun discussions of free will, which I didn't realize was such a debated topic! I learned that Einstein was a Determinist. His position was the everything has a cause, and therefore all actions are determined by a previous event. Looking at it this way, we have little to no free will but instead are palying... But the Uncertainty Principle threw a wrench in that too.  If we can change a particle by observing it, there must be a multitude of possibilities before us.  We then must be able to exert our own choice... Determinism = everything is a series of actions and reactions dependent on the last and within its set of circumstances.  There is no free will - everything lies withhin a set range. Causality = the principal that everything has a cause. There must be a reason. I lo...