One of my biggest pet peeves is smokers who litter their cigarette butts. It's like they think it's not really littering-oh, it's biodegradable. Um, NO! You might as well go around pouring toxic amounts of arsenic into people's drinking water. I hate smokers anyway, but walking down any sidewalk these days is just repulsive; cigarette butts are everywhere. It's gross and dirty. I'm thinking about becoming a really militant non-smoker; pulling cigarettes out of mouths while yelling, "Thanks a lot for killing me too!". The other thing that really disgusts me is people who smoke inside, or even worse, in their cars. Ugh. The other day I saw a woman sitting in the back seat of a truck smoking. Her window was down, and the smoke of course was blowing right into my car, but SHE HAD HER BABY ON HER LAP. How could someone be so stupid? I feel very lucky right now to live in a state where you can't smoke indoors in public places. It's a beautiful thing to go into a restaurant where one can actually breathe.

blogthings.com

What's Your Element?
Your Element Is Water
A bit of a contradiction, you can seem both lighthearted and serious.That's because you're good at going with the flow - but you also are deep.Highly intuitive, you tune in to people's emotions and moods easily.You are able to tap into deep emotional connections and connect with others.You prefer a smooth, harmonious life - but you can navigate your way around waves.You have a knack for getting people to get along and making life a little more peaceful.


What Flavor Pocky Are You?
You Are Milk Pocky
Your attitude: caring and charmingSmooth and silkly... invigorating and natural.You are like comfort food for the soul.


What Kind of American English Do You Speak?
Your Linguistic Profile:
55% General American English
25% Yankee
15% Upper Midwestern
5% Dixie
0% Midwestern


What Does Your Birth Date Mean?
Your Birthdate: May 16
Your birth on the 16th day of the month gives a sense of loneliness and generally the desire to work alone. You are relatively inflexible, and insist on your being independent. You need a good deal of time to rest and to meditate. You are introspective and a little stubborn. Because of this, it may not be easy for you to maintain permanent relationships, but you probably will as you are very much into home and family. This birth day inclines to interests in the technical, the scientific, and to the religious or the unknown realm of spiritual explorations. The date gives you a tendency to seek unusual approaches and makes your style seem a little different and unique to those around you. Your intuition is aided by the day of your birth, but most of your actions are bedded in logic, responsibility, and the rational approach. You may be emotional, but have a hard time expressing these emotions. Because of this, there may be some difficulty in giving or receiving affection.


What Age Do You Act?
You Are 16 Years Old
Under 12: You are a kid at heart. You still have an optimistic life view - and you look at the world with awe.13-19: You are a teenager at heart. You question authority and are still trying to find your place in this world.20-29: You are a twentysomething at heart. You feel excited about what's to come... love, work, and new experiences.30-39: You are a thirtysomething at heart. You've had a taste of success and true love, but you want more!40+: You are a mature adult. You've been through most of the ups and downs of life already. Now you get to sit back and relax.

I got the new Jaci Velasquez album, "Beauty has Grace", for my birthday, and highly recommend it to other Jaci fans. She's taken her sound in a new direction, still very pop-oriented, but with an edge, and I like it a lot.

So is anyone else as disturbed as I am that Britney Spears is pregnant before me? Poor kid...
I was just reading my sister's blog, and it's interesting to see the similarities between her and my youngest sister. I guess depression takes the same voice in every body-I know during my teenage years, and even some more recently, my journal entries had that same tone. But here's the thing that's great; even when you're sad, and you're going through a lot, someone has always gone through it before you, and survived. I know it feels like you're all alone, and experiencing something that's completely brand new, but if you talk to anybody about it, they have felt the same way. (I understand that in a way, this is also a little bit discouraging-surely there's SOMETHING unique about me!-but we'll just overlook that part for now.) Here's a quote I like: depression is just anger without enthusiasm. I think that's true. If you can get back to the enthusiasm, the passion, then you can generally get yourself out of the rut of depression. And sometimes all you need is a sunny day. :)

Hee-hee. I was just reading my sister's blog and decided to start another one of my own, and then I saw I already have this one, and it's been exactly a year since I wrote. :)
I'm taking a psych 1 class this semester. It's not really the most exciting psych class ever, but it is interesting. However, at our last class meeting we were going over the chapter in the book that talks about eating disorders, and the teacher barely even glossed over them, getting all kinds of things wrong in the process. It very much irritated me. I know that since that's my "niche" I'm much more knowledgable about eds than the average person, but it's not that hard to get your facts right. So here are my corrections, and some basic ed info.
Contrary to popular belief, there are not only 2 main types of eating disorders. There are actually 4, which are classified as anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, compulsive overeating, and EDNOS (eating disorder not otherwise specified). EDNOS is the most common, and includes chronic dieters as well as those who have eating disorders that can't be diagnosed (in order to be diagnosably anorexic, you have to be at least 25% below your lowest healthy body weight, and, if you're a girl, have stopped menstruating). About 93% of females over age 9 are EDNOS, because the definition also includes those who are obsessed with weight and/or body image, those who exercise excessively, etc.
Anorexia nervosa is intentionally starving yourself with the intention of losing weight. Some studies show that it is not necessarily a psychological disorder; sometimes it is actually a chemical imbalance (serotonin affects your appetite). Anorectics typically have extremely low self-esteem, have trouble feeling emotions, cannot accept compliments, think that they're fat even when they are excruciatingly thin, and enjoy cooking for others.
Bulimics binge and purge. They will eat huge amounts of food, (I've heard of cases where a person will eat 50,000 calories in one binge, covering a time period of about 8 hours), then purge it from their systems through vomiting, laxatives, exercise, or a combination of any of the three.
Compulsive overeaters also binge, but without the purging that bulimics use. This is considered an ed because it usually involves emotional eating-that is, eating to fill some kind of void. Where anorectics starve themselves so that they will feel something, compulsive overeaters eat to smother their pain.
There is another misconception that eds are a psychological problem. This is actually not the case. Eds are merely a symptom of the problem, manifesting through the psyche, which could be any one of a number of things. Most eds begin either at the beginning or the end of puberty (age 9-13, or 18-25), two periods of drastic life and physical changes.
Eds are somewhat romanticized by the media and our thoughts-people think, oh, to lose weight I'll just be anorexic for a few weeks. Unfortunately it doesn't work that way. Eds are really serious problems-they can be equated with drug addictions in how they take hold of you physically and mentally. The main difference is that drug addictions are actually easier to overcome than eds; you can avoid drugs, situations with drugs, and drug dealers, but you can't really avoid food. A recovering anorectic, for instance, is presented 3 times a day every day with an opportunity to relapse. And as far as the media goes, the coverage of Mary Kate Olsen's ed disgusted and saddened me. Any time an actress gains an ounce, tabloids are all over her, speculating on whether she's pregnant or unhappy, talking about how awful she looks, and then when she's a little too thin, they're all over her for that. It's a very thin line. Those recovering from eds are already going through enough; they certainly don't need their picture up everywhere.
And that's all I have to say about THAT, for right now.
My other class this semester is American Sign Language, and I LOVE it! My teacher is completely deaf; for the first hour of the first day of class we had an interpreter, and since then we've been on our own. It's actually a really good way to learn, I think; we learn a lot faster, although it's a little bit frustrating at times. I'd like to be able to have a real conversation with him, not one that's a few signs thrown into my finger spelling of words whose signs I don't yet know. Anyway, I'm really happy that ASL is beginning to take off in the hearing world-it's a good skill to have, and it's actually a much more effective form of communication than verbal speech.