First Draft

New thing of the day, got a first draft done for my first graduate paper.

I started typing letter to word document about a week ago. I finally started putting some ideas, thoughts and quotes up in an organized fashion. 7 pages later, I have a first rough, very rough draft. It needs a serious grammar check, an MLA formatting review/update, and a lot of work, but it feels really good to get some progress done on this awful awful project.

I think the thing that bothers me most is the inability to find pertinent articles on my topic. It's a bit obscure and I've had trouble searching for evidence pro and con for the topic. I like to be thorough, so not finding criticisms on my paper thesis is well, dumb. I need more evidence!

Anyway overall it's a good first draft, but missing a lot of pieces. Still a lot of work to be done, but at least, a big chunk of clay got some molding today.

Dogs Decoded

New thing of the day, watched Dogs Decoded.

The documentary is by Nova - don't you just love Nova? Anyway this is a great documentary. Was recommended by a coworker so decided to try it out. It was really really cool, very interesting and brought about some new insights on dogs.

Plus - there was one really really cute scene with puppies.

Anyway basically the documentary goes over how dogs and humans can read each other through language, barks and expressions, and scientifically proves what owners have always felt. That dogs are in-tune with a human's emotions and can read us. They also had humans listen to various dog barks with the surprising result that dog owners can tell between "playful" and "threatening" and "sad" barks of different dogs.

Apparently it seems we have grown-up with dogs and found a way to communicate with them. There's a scene where a woman can point with her finger or eyes, and dogs and even puppies (the adorable scene) will pay attention to the human and go towards their pointing. Whereas chimps and intelligent primates don't pay any attention and don't follow human social cues.

One neat feature was they bred for tameness and aggressiveness in foxes - and found that after a few generations, the genetically tame foxes became like modern domesticated dogs, trainable, sociable and livable with humans.

Another neat scene is where they show how wild wolves were raised in homes with humans, to see if nurturing would tame them. Unfortunately the "wild" came out in the wolf after a certain point and no amount of training would work.

So it was interesting to see that some dogs/animals are just genetically too wild, and the modern dog is different through generations of tameness and sociability with humans.

They even think that dogs were essential to the beginnings of civilization with herding and survival. They believe the cooperation between dogs and humans has lasted much longer than previously believed.

Lots of great stuff in here. If you haven't seen it - I recommend! It's worth even just listening to if you're doing chores, but you may be hooked to watch some of it.

Fantastic! Catch it on Netflix streaming :)

Mad Men

New thing of the day, saw the first 3 episodes of the show Mad Men.

We heard good things about this and so wanted to give it a shot. It's sorta cool watching 60s era stuff like the sexism, racism, lack of technology and fashion style. I love how women in this show have curves. Kudos to a woman's self image!

It's a bit hypnotic to watch, but overall we're not really thrilled or get why everyone loves it so much. I know it's the first 3 episodes so it might take some time to get good. Although the main character is so brooding and serious it's a bit annoying. I think I like it, but I need to see more. I will probably see where it goes. I didn't like the first episodes of Family Guy but as the season and shows progressed it just got better and better. I'm willing to give this show a shot.

Least to say I love the style of the era. Blast to Americana past this weekend. I like the fashion. I think I like all the gimmicks more then I like the story so far. The husband isn't on board for this one, but maybe this will be one of my shows? Who knows, verdict still out but so far it's slightly intriguing.

The Edison Downtown LA

New thing of the day, made our way to The Edison in downtown LA.

It's a very cool place - and not in that obnoxious pretentious way. It's a semi-historical place with original Edison generators and 20s style decor and themes.

I absolutely LOVED how the place was decorated. We came in at about 9:20 before a line started outside, and you have to walk downstairs to get to the club. The smoking room is very cool and the downstairs club/bars are amazing as well. Dress code is more formal and even the bouncers and security look very classy. When we came in there was a fairy selling absinthe. There were a few couples dressed all 20s style and swing dancing in the middle all place. They had old silent movies playing in the background and there was a stage where a burlesque dancer danced every 45 minutes or so. We went to the bar and got good fast service. I tried a Mistress Nouveaux - a champagne twist for vodka martini lovers. It was pretty tasty. Overall, the place was a lot of fun and had an amazing atmosphere!

This is one of my favorite LA spots now. It's not super loud so you can talk with your friends. If you want to sit down you have to spend $25 a person at various reserved sections. Drinks average $9-15. They also offer food - also pricey. Overall it's pricier for our taste, but not bad for a hip LA club. I would happily and easily go back again, maybe dressed a little better :)

Christmas Shopping

New thing of the day, attempted to do all Christmas shopping Friday afternoon after work.

As school finals and papers are due, and the past shopping excursions have been a lot of browsing and not very productive, plus with the family's Christmas lists, I thought we might try doing ALL our Christmas shopping in one action packed driven evening.

Overall it started out well. I pre-planned our stops by looking up specific items' prices to see which stores were the cheapest. We knew online buying was an option, but for the most part we hit the stores. Then after work we had a game plan and stuck to it pretty well.

There weren't any crowds, as it's still early in the season and we went on a Friday night. First Walmart, then Best Buy, then Lowe's, then the mall at a few shops, then we ended our evening at Target. I have to say having a specific list really helps with cutting down the browsing and time wasting. We only browsed and wasted time on people we didn't have specific gifts for. That was the hard part in my opinion.

So it was not a complete success. We had quite a few people we didn't have a specific item in mind for, so we weren't able to find them something on our trip that evening. Although we were able to get everything for who we had lists for, except one book that was out of stock. We did a bit of shopping for ourselves as well. Not a bad first. We'll do it again probably. I really liked having a plan and a set goal when we shop.

Snapfish

New thing of the day, ordered a gift off of SnapFish.com.

Not too many details on this one, but I selected and uploaded photos onto a gift for someone on SnapFish :) It was surprisingly not that stressful or bad, more fun. I've uploaded photos, but I've never ordered a gift through them. They updated their photo upload site since the last time I uploaded anything, so it's much faster now and more convenient. Only bad thing is we were out of internet connection earlier this evening, and the checkout page is taking a long time to load so I'm not sure if the problem re-surfaced again. At least if I don't order/buy the item tonight, it's already prepped and ready to go. Also will use a coupon code!

Let the Christmas buying begin! We're going to try getting all the shopping done tomorrow evening after work. SnapFish - very awesome site and services :)

Torn

New thing of the day, I tore my right calf muscle, yeay!

So lately I haven't used my 24 hour gym membership. With everything plus holidays, going to the gym after work was becoming more difficult and I had other priorities in the evenings. So last Sunday I weighed myself after the Thanksgiving weekend and I weighed more that day then I have the past 2 years. We didn't even eat that much over the weekend. I've just been slowly gaining.

Anyway decided to start back up at the gym and mornings were the best times with my schedule. Monday I did a short 15 minute walk then a 10 minute light jog and felt nauseous and light headed after that. Decided to take it easy with the workouts, so decided on Wednesday morning I would just do a walk on the treadmill. 

The workout was going well. I didn't stretch, but I was walking on the treadmill like I had a million times before. The only difference was that my right calf had been tight the past week or two. Not sure how or why, but it was. I decided that walking would help stretch it out. To increase my workout exertion without running, I kept increasing the incline at 5 minute intervals. At minute 25, I increased another notch. Uh oh, spaghettio - felt a tear in the back of my right calf.

I immediately stopped even though I wanted to "walk out the pain". I knew from past knee injuries not to push my body. Went to stretch out and sit awhile, then limping, went back home, got ready for work and had husband drive our carpool.

I didn't know what happened to me until I looked it up online. People ask if it's "just a strain or a pulled muscle", but I looked up the injuries and I've had pulled muscles before. This was definitely a tear. Luckily I'm pretty sure it's a grade 1 - small tears. I only felt a few or a little bit of my muscle tear, so it wasn't too bad. If I limp and walk around a certain way it doesn't bother me as much.

As the day progressed, my calf started to swell and feel funny. I elevated it, kept off it most of the day and was conscious to rest it and stretch it slowly whenever I had an opportunity. Wasn't too painful. Anyway the afternoon it felt almost walkable and I was like, maybe I overreacted, but then after limping/walking for about a minute, I felt it again and was like, nope, it's there. 

So that was a first - torn muscle. Apparently the tightness was probably a combination of cold and strain from the weekend, and the tear was a result of overexertion or changing incline too quickly on my treadmill. I think I'll stick to upper body exercises at home until my leg heals - approximately two weeks :( We'll see how it goes, but man, do I feel old.

Important lesson learned - I am out of shape so I must now stretch before any kind of exercise. I should pay attention to tight muscles. And must be unambitious in my workout routines - BOOOOOO!