No pic again, sowwy

Anyways, it’s been about a month since my last post and honestly things haven’t gotten better. Let’s see if I can compile the list of things that have been happening this last month into something that may be half decent to read.

Spring break was just not relaxing. My computer contracted a HUGE virus and was taken to geek squad to fix. I didn’t have it from about Tuesday of break until right before I drove back to school on Sunday. Lucky for me, Warcraft was on an external so I just plugged it into one of the desktops at home and played away.

The virus was bad. It got to the point where it blocked every website that had anything to do with spyware/virus removal, and when we talked to the geek squad person, she had had the same virus and it had gotten so bad on her puter that she couldn’t open the My Computer window. So not fun.

Anyways, it gets fixed and I go back to school with tons of work, and roomies being worse than usual. I got the virus -again- because guess why? It’s on the school network. Not cool. I only know because I saw one of the computer lab computers with the same pseudo blue screen of doom. So, I’m trying to stick out the school year with a virally infected computer so we don’t have to pay $200 to get it fixed again.

School has been rough. Lots of tests and I have a huge 15 page paper due in a couple weeks. It’s a lot of pressure and my body is just freaking out, so not only am I stressed and trying to get stuffage done  but my body is sitting there going “newp, not going to work, sorry, try again later!”

Roomies have been even worse. Not cleaning and what not. They left me a nice note to clean and I told them I would when they do their dishes, clean the kitchen, clean the living room, and pick up the rest of their crap in the hallway. It’s been pretty tense since, and I have a meeting on Tuesday with the area coordinator from housing. I’m getting my roommates friend banned from the room- sorry if you’re going to be a douche bag but I’m going to be one right back.

Let’s see what they have done the past few weeks:

1. Gotten hair dye on one of my towels
2. Left a dirty tampon applicator on the bathroom floor
3. Got a huge blood stain on my mat
4. Take showers together, knock all my shit over, then not pick it up
5. Keep shaven beard hairs in and around the sink
6. Trash the living room… and barely pick it up
7. Throw all their crap on the kitchen bar… and never pick it up
8. Leave trash all over the kitchen.. rather than walking 5 steps to the trash can…

THEN they get mad at me when I ask them to clean it up! They signed a contract to clean up after themselves so I don’t have to ask them to- well if you’re going to ask me to clean, when you trash the rest of the place, I’m going to tell you to pick up your fking mess first.

Anyways, having that meeting, getting girl kicked out. /endrant

My fishy also died He hadn’t been eating and passed. R.I.P Vladimir Wolinski <3 I shall miss you.

My daughter Hailey in SL also left. I’m not going to rant about that, but I am still sad/upset about it.

Oh and to top off all these AMAZINGLY AWESOME things, my external harddrive died T_T

I kid you not, yet another one has crapped out on me. Luckily the company is replacing it so I’ll get it back in a few weeks. CT Xue is helping me out a bit and I am so grateful.

I actually was supposed to get one from CT on Friday (when tons of dramz started) and it didn’t show. Matt (boyfriend) told me to just go out and get a new one, he’d reimburse me. So I REALLY did not want to go get one because I didn’t want to waste the money when I really just need a new computer, but I cave and go get one. SIX hours after bringing it home it dies. I returned it today for my monies back and CT is helping me get a new puter in a few weeks. I am so done with external harddrives it’s not even funny T_T

(Did I mention how full of awesomesauce he is?)

ON THE BRIGHT SIDE!

Yes, there is one, I swearz! My birthday was April 2nd and I turned the ripe old age of 21 I went out Friday and bought some beer (well, smirnoff ice- aka girl beer) and vodka. I’m drinking some vodka mixed with cranberry and orange juice right now and it is fab. Just what I need when I want to kill things around me.

My drive that CT is coming on Monday, so I shall be able to kill things in WoW then. For now, I guess I’ll just try to get through some homework that has worked up and keep the drinks coming to get my mind off stuff.

<3,

Alexa

Bad blogger bad! Not posting for nearly a month! Whoops, sorry about that, I was doing so well for a bit too…. So where the hell have I been?

Well, remember that thing called real life? I know it’s a stretch, but I’m actually a college student there. That whole college thing is stealing my soul at the moment. I have been so ungodly busy this semester that I’ve had barely any time or energy. For instance, I wrote this blog post during a 40 minute break between my intro to psych class and a make-up organic chem lab because I didn’t have my puter with me (my psych class got out early, so instead of a 10 minute run to the next class, I had 40 minutes).

Anatomy, Physiology, & Pathophysiology (APP for short) has kept me the most busy. A few week sago we had a lab quiz, protocol due, a test, AND a 6-8 page paper due in the same week. Like, WTF?! Not cool. I also meet with my study/lab group at least once a week for a few hours (one week I met with them 4 times!). We’re currently working on a semester long project which I’ll eventually write a blog post on.

I also am taking 4 other classes on top of APP which also have work and tests and what not. I honestly think I was on crack when I made my schedule or something. Last semester I had time in my schedule for naps…. this time not so much so I have been constantly tired. I have classes every day of the week minus Saturday (yes, I even have a class on Sunday), so my one day off has turned into a sleep day. I usually am in bed until 2-3pm and then have some work to do. I know that’s probably not the best thing I could do for myself, buttttttt I desperately need the catch up on sleep.

I’ve also been going to the gym about 4 times a week! Good thing is my muscular pain has gone down slightly (YAY!), but it’s bad at the same time because my sleep hasn’t gotten any better and I think my joint pain is actually getting worse (BOO!). Blah. I go to the rheumatologist on Monday so I’ll be having a nice chat with her on her “magic treatment”.

Another horrible RL thing is that my family has just experienced a loved one passing away. He died about two weeks ago and was totally unexpected. He was diagnosed with cancer in October of 2008 in his esophagus. They ended up removing the part that was cancerous, and replacing it with intestinal tract. Cancer didn’t spread, but the doctors messed up and there was a leak in his esophagus now where it was sutured.  That took a couple months to heal (he was even in the hospital for Christmas) and he lost loads of weight since he wasn’t allowed to eat anything but popsicles. In late January/early February he went home and the leak closed. He was FINALLY starting to feel better, putting weight on, able to go up and down stairs- and his spirit was coming back full force, and then his heart gave out February 21st and passed. Totally devastating after he had gone through all that. Last week we had the wake and funeral and it was very beautiful and awesome considering the circumstances. He’ll be missed, but at least he’s not suffering anymore.

So, with all that, I’m sure some of you have noticed I’ve been MIA in SL. This is due to my lack of energy and time. SL is just not helping me either, it sucks tons of energy for me since it is a communication with others based world. This takes more energy for me than most people because at night my coherence and cognition just plummets and I sound like an idiot, and then try super hard to not sound like one which makes me more tired. Viscous circle. Also, there’s drama in SL and I really really have no time or patience for it. If you want to get in touch with me, leave an offline with your msn/yahoo name and I’ll talk to you there. You can also follow me on plurk by either going to my page or checking out my little blurb thing on my sidebar here at the blog. I update all the time. Create an account if you don’t have one, it really is awesome.

Since SL isn’t doing it for me, World of Warcraft has once again become my game of choice. It allows me to destress (wooo killing) and I don’t have to socialize with people if I don’t want to. EPIC WIN! Matt (RL boof) and I finally hit 80 and got ourselves all geared for heroics, so the game is taking a turn that I’ve never played before. If you’re interested- you can see my 80 resto druids character page here. We’ve also become good friends with another player, and we’re all grouped up together for heroics. Between the 3 of us there is a healer, DPS, and tank. This is awesomesauce (for those of you that play WoW) because it is sooooo easy to find 2 DPSers for heroics. Last night Matt spammed looking for group channel only once for 2 dps for a heroic, and got 8 whispers within 30 seconds. It was grand. If you DO play WoW- I’m on Hydraxis US servers and my main characters are named Lynja and Zaelyn, whisper me sometime!

Next week is spring break- a full week with no classes. SCORE! I’ll be around much more and you may see me in SL. After that, I can’t promise anything. I miss you all much and hopefully things die down soon so I can get decent sleep and be able to log in. See you laterz!

xoxo,

Alexa

I know many people are blogging about this topic right now- but I seem to be in a different situation than most.

Plurk just announced a few days ago that Second Life is now considered a “country”, and then I found out World Of Warcraft is now one too! For those of you who aren’t on plurk, your location you pick your city, state, country- so now instead of the USA I can pick Second Life or World of Warcraft.

Why did they do this? Because there are *so* many avatars on Plurk. No seriously- there are hundreds of Second Lifers on there! This now makes it easier to find other second lifers as well! Time for celebration!

But here is where I have the issue. Yes, my account name is my second life name- but I only really did that because I’ve been in Second Life for well over 2 years- when I signed up for plurk I was actually on an SL break! Alexandra has basically become my online identity for everything because of the privacy behind it. But then again I also play World of Warcraft… and most of my plurks are about real life!!

Oh noes! Identity Crisis!

How is one to choose? I play both games pretty much equally nowadays, but technically my plurk account is of my SL toon, but again most of it is real life plurks…

*SCREAMS*

It’s like one of those doors that goes around in constant circles. I could sit here and knock down and support  all 3 options all day.

And I mean, what’s the big deal with putting your RL location in plurk? You already are using a fake name- are you afraid someone is going to come to your town and ask every person if they play SL and then if their name is [insert your SL name here]? Probably not, but I also understand that people want to be known as their avatar only.

And what about the WoWers? Would you put your server name as the city and then World of Warcraft as your country? What if you play on multiple realms? Do you have a pic of your character?

Not only do I have an identity crisis going on, but yesterday, there was also a debate on whether World of Warcraft and Second Life were going to be allies or enemies. Vint blogged about it here. ACK! Most of my friends on plurk are SLers, so I wouldn’t want to betray them- but at the same time my WoW time is so usually my stress free time. Do I fight with my friends to maintain peace? Or do I go against them to help defend WoW against SL?

I have to say though, if I was forced to choose I’d side with WoW. We have a much bigger population, and I refuse to let the drama whores clog up my drama-free game. Sorry guys! Yes, SL is the shit and what got me into “gaming” in the first place- but I keep falling back on WoW when I get bored or the drama gets to be too much- and then when I get bored of WoW I go to SL- find more drama- go back to WoW. Viscous circle ain’t it? The no-drama sort of appeals to me more, especially since all of my best friends in SL have my outside contact info.

So what am I going to do about my damn location? I’m keeping it as my RL one for now. I pretty much will tell anyone who asks, most of my friends on plurk have probably already visited my page to find out, and RL is supposed to come first right? I mean I plurk about it enough sheeesh.

Congrats to all of you who fought the war in getting Second Life added as a country. Imma stick with my RL one. Good luck trying to find me! [Oh wait- I has the little widget on this blog. Damn. Well- good luck to those who do not read my blog and want to be friends with other SLers!]

Hey all! Give my daughters Jen and Hails some new blog lovin! I helped them create it tonight and hopefully we will see lots of awesometastic stuff from there!

CLICK MEEEEEEE

Chivalry is dead. Manners are gone. Seriously, have you spent anytime with people lately? It almost makes me sick. I used to think it was just my generation, being raised by the hippies during the “child punishment” revolution where we went from spankings and time outs to  not yelling at them and having “serious conversations about their behavior” etc, but no, no I think it’s nearly everyone. Why do I say this? Well here are some things I’ve seen the past few days/peeve me off:

• Shopping carts in the middle of a parking lot. Not just there, but also *next* to the carriage corral rather than *in* it. (Is it THAT hard to put something away?)
• Trash left on the counter. Not just any trash- wet, nasty paper towels. (Apparently the 15 second walk to the trash barrel is far too long to do it at that moment- it MUST be postponed a day.)
• Someone going up to a group of people and *burping* a greeting. (I’m not even kidding!)
• Looking behind you to see if anyone is there, and still not hold the door for said person behind you and letting it slam almost in their face. (owwww)
• Using dishes that are not yours and then not cleaning/putting them away. (Insert angry face here)
• Not saying thank-you after your roommate does your dishes. (Here too)
• Leaving your trash in the movie theater. (Yes, there are people that clean it up, but imagine if you were that person? Wouldn’t you love it when people cleaned up the majority of their mess, such as throwing out their cups/bags o popcorn?)
• Not flushing the toilet in a public restroom. (Gross!)
• Texting during class. (Is it that important? Seriously! And people who do this lots wonder why they have bad grades)

What is with this behavior? Is it just because I’m in a hick town? No, that can’t be it because I even see it at home. Seriously what is the deal? If my mom saw me doing any of that she’d smack me! I’m not even kidding!

For the college crowd that does it- I have a feeling it is partially due to the “holy crap I can do whatever I want!” mentality. Yes, there are no parents to scream at you- but you still have to do your chores, which only include picking up after yourself. How hard is that? Do your dishes within 3 days, don’t leave a common area trashed.

But what about all the adults out there? I’m sure half of them complain about my generation and how “bad” we are, but they are just as bad as us lately! Leaving carts in the middle of the parking lot, barking orders/demands at employees at stores, letting their kids run around terrorizing people in public.

To me, this all seems like common sense, then again I was also raised to do all these things. Yes, I am human and not perfect and sometimes leave my dish in the sink longer than it probably has to, but I try very hard to *not* procrastinate doing cleaning that involves my crap in a common area. It actually bugs me if I accidently forget to check behind me to see if anyone is there, and I end up shutting the door on them.

Here are some easy ways to make someone’s day:

• Say please and thank-you! I know, your parents probably railed it into you when you were a kid- but seriously, it can make all the difference.
• Hold the door for someone behind you.
• Put anything you used away- regardless of whether there is someone that is paid to clean up your mess or not.

If we all do these simple things daily- I’m sure most of us would come home in a much better mood! I know I would have today!

**WARNING: THERE IS NUDITY ON THIS POST!**

OK so bare with me. I am no fashion blogger- never have been and never will be- BUT I love these tats too much to NOT share.

So, I’ve been wearing iNFLiCTS “Summer Calls” tattoos for awhile. They were my first full body ones and I love them to death. 

These new ones however are the ones I originally picked out. They are a little more detailed and Sypher talked me into getting the other ones to “start small” and make sure I liked em before blowing money on these babies.

I am now sporting “So Sparkle The Night” by iNFLiCT! I love them so much <3 here’s some piccys:

I love the uber attention to detail in these. The front is so pretty and feminine. I love butterflies and flowers (okay so I am a complete girly girl sometimes- so shoot me) and how they just wrap around everything.

Here’s the back: 

Okay so I’m not the biggest fan of the flying buttcheeks- but other than that I love em. Buns will be covered 99.99% of the time luckily. The owl scene on my back is drawn just amazingly (like the rest of it) and looks almost real.

The set also comes with a different option for the bottom half, not shown here.

My most favorite part is that iNFLiCT comes in ‘darkness’ options: light, medium, dark or tintable! This is the light version of them. 

I am so happy with them and hopefully you liked em too!

Check out the tat’s from iNFLiCT here. They are some of the best SL tats in SL that I have seen- perfect seams, wonderful drawings, and look great on the avie itself (not just the pics!)

Other Credits for all you wondering:

• Tattoos: So Sparkle the Night by iNFLiCT
• Glasses: Linea by PrimOptic
• Hair: Yvette blonde burnt by ETD
• Skin: Anna 09 Portrait skin by Laqroki
• Shape: Original by moi
• Eyes: (Starry-Eyed) Emerald by PixelDolls
• Poses from Boudoir Rouge set

I was tagged by Danni to do this 25 things meme. I will try not to overlap too much from the 16 Things meme, but I can’t promise anything! Some of these “things” will be RL and some will be SL… so here we go!

Rulezors are as follows: Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you. (To do this, go to “notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.

25 Things You Didn’t Need to Know About Alexa, but will Find Out Anyways!

1. I am not a morning person at all, but at the same time breakfast is my favorite meal. Even if I get up at noon, I will still eat breakfast and call it such. My fav breakfast food is french toast!
    
2. I had this brown teddy when I was little, and one day his head got partially decapitated (the head fell off in the back, so it was hanging in front). I cried and screamed until my mom did surgery to fix him. I still have the bear to this day and he is still mah fav!
    
3. I danced for just about 10 years. I have taken ballet, tap, jazz, pointe, and ballroom classes. Yes, pointe is technically ballet, but it was separated from the normal ballet class due to the pointe shoes. Tap dancing is my fav do to it’s awesometastical stress relieving powers. Take a class for an hour where you bang on the floor? I’M THERE!
    
4.  I’ve been in SL since June 2006, and I’ve been in the “kids” SL world since January 2007. I wouldn’t change it for the world!
    
5. I can’t go to bed  unless my teeth are minty from toothpaste/listerine. If I brush my teeth and by the time I’m ready for bed they aren’t minty anymore, I have to go and re-brush them.
    
6. I am a creature of habit. I do nearly the same exact thing every morning and every night. The only exceptions are mornings where I don’t have classes or something to do shortly after waking up. If my routine gets messed up in any way, shape, or form- I freak out and the rest of my day is just awkward.
    
7.  I have the best freaking SL daughters in the entire world! They are not only my daughters but some of my favorite people in RL and my best friends! *sends them all smoochies*
    
8.  I am horribly addicted to SL, World of Warcraft and plurk.
    
9. I am a sarcastic bitch. This is how I was raised. My entire family is sarcastic- and if you don’t get/like sarcasm you would probably want to kill yourself if you ever came over my house. We torture new freinds/boyfriends that come over for dinz. You’ve been warned!
    
10. I hate fire alarms at my school. As I was writing this ours went off- we go outside and wait. And wait. And wait some more! Security comes out “There’s a problem with the building and we don’t know what it is” Wut? “you have to go somewhere else- could be about an hour” *stands in amazement for 30 seconds* fire alarm goes off and we can go in! Or another time when it went off at 4am and we had to be moved into the library for over an hour. 
     
11.  One time at a restaurant my sister’s bf found a bug in the bottom of his beer. Beer was empty when he found it. Instead of being totally disgusted my entire family was laughing hysterically and out of control. We ended up getting 50% off our meal or something. It was a good laugh and has gone down in the record books.
     
12. The only hair I wear in SL is by ETD in blonde-burnt flavor, I only wear one skin, and I not only made my shape but have had it since I rezzed. I love that people can recognize me by my look and not just the name tag floating above my head. That and I hate change LOL
     
13. I love and believe in the Supernatural. We actually think there’s a ghost in my attic that likes to throw suitcases at my brother.  My favorite show on tv is also Supernatural <3
     
14. Speaking of tv, I hate it most of the time and don’t watch it since I’d much rather be on the puter. The only shows I do watch are Supernatural, CSI (all types), medical shows, discovery channel, House, and only a few others that I’ll think about putting on. I do LOVE movies though!
     
15. DVR is a gift from god. My family would probably die without it.
     
16. I can’t be doing just one thing at a time, even while in WoW. I always have my main application going (SL or WoW) plus plurk and instant messengers while probably browsing a few sites as well.  
     
17. The only thing I’m really scared of is small spaces- but only ones that are unfamiliar to me. Spiders don’t bother me too much, I love snakes, and I think bats are the cyootest things evar! (I think that covers some of the most common fears) Needles don’t bother me either, like at all. The only thing that bothers me about shots is the burning sensation and soreness due to the vaccine. I am actually fascinated by getting my blood taken and sit there and watch. Glucose tests (for diabetes) don’t bother me either. No, I don’t have diabetes, but had these tests in AP&P a couple days ago.
     
18. I have way too many doctors for someone who is 20. They include my normal doctor, eye doctor, rheumatologist, gynocologist, dentist, chiropractor and neurologist who I visit on a regular basis. I’ve also been to orthopedists, pediatrist, and dermatologist. I’ve also had 12 months of physical therapy, 2 knee surgeries, multiple ingrown toenail removals, and a few weeks of occupational therapy. I’ve had an MRI on my head and both knees, tons o x-rays, echocardiogram, and many EKGs. All of this and I surprisingly don’t have any life-threatening illnesses (YAY!!!)- though I do have fibromyalgia and chronic migraines.
     
19. I love to travel. I have been to Florida, Wisconsin, Arizona, and every state in New England. Out of the country includes Barbados, Aruba, Russia, and Belarus. I liked Aruba more than Barbados but my Russia/Belarus trip was my fav!
     
20. Every summer my family hosts kids from the chernobyl region in russia/belarus. They spend the month of July in the USA for medical treatment and FUN! Summer of 2009 will be our 10th year hosting, and I honestly can’t remember what we did in the summer before we started hosting, my guess was it was very boring.
     
21.  My sister was born in December of 1990. That year my older brother had the chicken pox and chased me around the house until I got it. I did get it, and had it through Christmas. 
     
22. I have had lyme disease despite having the lyme disease vaccine. Only I could pull this off I think.
     
23. If I go to sleep upset- I usually either can’t sleep or have nightmares all night. Also, even when daydreaming I’ll always think of a cute scenario and things will go on and somehow always turn it into something morbid or horrible. I have no idea how or why I do this but it’s probably due to too many horror flicks plus CSI episodes (I just luffs them so much!)
     
24. I am a music FREAK! I love almost everything and always have some sort of music playing somewhere. I would probably die without my iPod too.
     
25. I am actually an extremely shy and paranoid person in RL. This is mostly due to how awkward I feel in my body since I’m always in pain from the fibro. It’s almost like what my brain says and what my body does is totally different so I’m always self conscious. I am, however, trying to fix this.

I tag: Danni (though she already did it- but it’s in teh rulezorz!), John, Misty, Velveeta, Loaf, Roxette, Smiley, The crew at SL Rev, and anyone else who happens to read this (Yes, that means YOU!!!!).

Stupid questions. Teachers/professors have always told me “There is no such thing as a stupid question”. Sorry, but I beg to differ. There are such things as stupid questions.

I first laughed about this when I saw one episode of Gilmore Girls way back and Lorelei wanted to ask Luke a question, and she said it’s stupid, and Luke responded with there are no stupid questions, and she sarcastically replied “How do pens work?” or something to that effect and Luke replies “Ok, so there are stupid questions, what was yours?” I don’t even remember what the original question was now, but that little tidbit has stuck with me for years.

Stupid questions really bother me. I know in reactions to some things, it’s almost an automated response, but there are some questions asked in certain classes/situations that I’m just sitting there thinking “this person can’t be serious right now” and almost want to come up with a sarcastic answer to mock them with.

Does this make me a bad person? I don’t know. I have probably asked some *really* stupid questions in my time- but for some reason they still bother me to no end.

For example, when you are trying to buy something, and hand the cashier a $20- and they respond “so you want this out of 20$?” I know that there have probably been people that hand them the wrong bill (such as a $20 when paying for something that’s $1), but I almost want to say “No, hold on, let me get out my $50 so you can make even more change”

Another one (more SL example)- when the ETD sale first gets put out and EVERYONE rushes there- I’ve gotten some “are you just looking?” “are you here for the sale?” No, I’m here because I LOVE going to ultra-laggy sims that are commercial and not for relaxing. SERIOUSLY people- only those going to the sale are going to go even if they end up walking like they’re in molasses- not your casual shopper or looker. Even those that were just there to look and didn’t know of the sale and ultra lag would probably quit trying when they find out the sim is filled or when they TP in and can’t move.

Or another. Sitting in the library with books and notebooks all around- someone looks at you and goes “Are you trying to study right now?” No, I just enjoy reading massive textbooks and doing research for fun!

This post is stemming from an incident tonight. My anatomy/physiology/pathophysiology (APP for short) lab was doing a blood glucose experiment. We had to come up with a procedure that could ultimately change the levels of your blood glucose. My group decided we wanted to test cold temperatures and the effects it has on blood glucose levels. I got to be one of the lucky people to sit outside for twenty minute increments x3 (testing our blood glucose every 20min with meters). Don’t ask why we decided to do this, the person that had the original idea got to stay INSIDE, the two that stayed outside (myself included) were the two that were probably going to bitch the least.

So one of my group partners and I are sitting outside in jeans and a tshirt on lab stools. It was 25F/-3.8C outside- aka COLD! Most  people stared at us with omgwtfbbq?! looks but a few responded.

Random student: OMG! Aren’t you guys cold???

Sarcastic response: No you silly person! We were actually so warm inside we decided to come outside with lab stools and chill out here in our tshirts. I actually shiver and convulse whenever I want to- not just when I’m cold.

Random professor: Is this for an experiment?

Sarcastic response: Nope. Our professor got REALLY mad at us so he took our jackets and threw us outside with some lab stools to think about what we had done since he was all out of dunce caps.

Next time you want to ask a question- think about it in your head for a second before it blurts out of your mouth. Ask yourself ”Do I already know the answer to this?” and if the answer is YES, don’t bother asking it.

Ironically, while outside shivering my partner and I realized three things:

1. He was probably having a hard time getting blood to come out of his finger to test glucose levels since we were outside in the cold. One of the first things your body does is start reducing blood flow to your extremeties.
2. We found no studies like this on humans because it would most likely be considered unethical and not pass a review board since there are risks such as hypothermia.
3. Never, ever, ever on your own free will volunteer to stay outside, sitting (aka can’t move around) for that long  in a tshirt when it is this cold. Whether it is for the love of science or not- just don’t do it!

*Grumbles and cuddles under blankets with some hot cocoa. *

Edit: The results of the experiment (if you were interested) were surprising. The control group (the two lucky assholes) had no significant change in their glucose levels (which is expected). We expected glucose levels to go down in the cold since your muscles would be shivering. What happened was after the first 20 minutes they only dropped slightly (we were also wearing sweatshirts) but could also be explained by the first exposure to cold and muscles using up the glucose real fast. After the second time outside glucose levels elevated dramatically. This can be accounted to glucagon (a hormone released by pancreas) starting to be released to break up glycogen stored in the liver into glucose, as well as stimulating your liver to make new glucose molecules. Both of those would increase the amount of glucose in your blood. After the 3rd trial outside our glucose levels dropped again, more dramatically this time- which we can say happened due to the glucose that was just released/made was used up already. 

If you didn’t understand that at all- glucose = simple sugar and your fast acting energy source. If it still boggles your mind you can either ask me about it OR just go along on your merry way I don’t expect many to understand that whole little explanation.

Today is Johan’s birthday! Yes, the purple king himself has finally grown up and is not a teen anymore

I just wanted to give him a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY and wish him all the best for the next year. He has been one of my best friends for about 2 years now, and even though we’ve fought and had our differences he is still here for me. (He even stays by me as I insult him daily…)

So HAPPY BIRTHDAY! And I hope you have a wonderful time at Danni’s this weekend!

<3,

Alexa

p.s. Did I mention that not being a teen anymore brings you a little bit out of FAIL? Not enough to make much of a difference- but at least you are a teeny tiny bit closer to WIN!

Wow it has been a long time since this morning when I mentioned the blog was going to be under construction. Well guess what, IT’S DONE!

Honestly, I wasn’t expecting it to get done today. Seriously- I was hoping to be done by Sunday, nevermind tonight.

Why did I want the change? Honestly, because I’ve been tired of the theme. Not only that but the “blog” column wasn’t wide enough to my liking, and had those ugly scroll bars on the bottom. I also wasn’t able to make bullteted or numbered list outlines, which is rather obnoxious sometimes. I was originally going to design my very own blog and have someone code it for me- but nobody I could think of knows how to code nearly that well.

Since I figured out I was going to need a template, I searched around until I found something I loved that could easily be changed. I stumbled onto this theme and fell in love. Little did I know it was going to be such a bitch to work with.

So why was it a bitch? Well, for starters it wasn’t widget enabled. What wordpress theme these days isn’t? That took me *hours* to figure out. In fact, Johan killed my blog more hardcore than I did due to his “brain malfunctioning” from lack of sleep. I managed to get one part of it done, to allow the theme to have widgets, but couldn’t figure out how to make the actual sidebars widget-enabled.

I thought that was done for. I started looking for a new theme that was widget enabled. I couldn’t find anything. That’s when I became determined.\

I should say now, I could not write any html or css script if you asked me to. Not ever. I am okay-ish at reading it though- which was a huge help. Also helps that my dad is a software engineer, so I may have some of that in my blood somewhere.

Anyways, stared at the code. Asked a couple people for help and they pointed me at some sites. Finally I said screw it- posted this code in- and magically it worked! WOOHOO!

Wait, did it? Kind of. Only the green bar is widget-ized because the grey one really isn’t a bar! Well, it sort of is. It is an entirely coded bar. Yes, coded.

So now I’m widget-ized. What did I do? Well, the green bar had a calender and the “Categories” coded into it. I got rid of the calender because the widgets piled on top of both the calender and categories and I like that on top. Took it out of the code (yes, I found it!) and all was good. Next was the darn categories.

This took me sooooo long. I had to not only delete it from the green bar- but program it into the grey one with the right colors, code, and asterick thingers. I managed to do it after lots of trial and error.

This took all of, I don’t even know, a long time. 5ish hours is my guess.

After all the coding was done it was time to DECORATE! So here is what I did: 

1. Most obviosly, the header. I wanted my avie on it, and for it to be cute. I’m not 100% satisfied with it, but it’s a good start.
2. Colors! I changed the color of the “home” bar to blue and the green column bar to a much brighter shade of green (which Jenny helped me decide on!). 
3. I also changed colors for some of the different things on the left bar. I changed archives to purple and then categories to pink. I did this due to OCD and wanting everything to match. the only color that doesn’t have the same color somewhere else is the yellow on the meta part- but I’m not the biggest fan of yellow so I’m fine with it staying that way.

Did I mention I ended up doing this all by myself- me, the one with no coding skills whatsoever (other than attempting to read)?

Well, people helped by allowing me to bitch and pound at my keyboard until I finally figured things out. Jenny also helped me pick out the green color, other than that- I did it all by my lonesome! 

This was a huge accomplishment for me and I am just happy as a clam at how everything came out. I hope you all like the new setup as much as I do

*Wanders off to go find food and water.*