The best of Tiff's "What would I say?"

For those of you who have not seen this yet, there is a trend starting whereby a website ran a program to mash up old comments and statuses together into new hypothetical statuses for you. Most of it is gibberish or ridiculous and I imagine this is more or less how reading over drunk texts would feel like. However, there have been a few gems I wanted to share some of the more colorful ones generated from my statuses and comments over the years. Let's start shall we...

Yes. They absolutely do.

Not even the right professional field....

Ever the optimist.

Well, that's a bit of a problem. We should always feel FABULOUS.

If you think you ate something, you probably did.

Lolskis, indeed.

Were it only that simple >.<

That's pretty true, I guess.

With awesomeness, I hope

HOLY CRAP, WELLESLEY, you're awesome and terrifying and I hate you but I also love you. It's complicated.

The Lemon Plants are alive and well!

It's been a while since you've seen anything about the lemon plants and that's mainly because I haven't seen much of them myself! I took one pot with me to school in an attempt to grow them in my room but unfortunately they were not flourishing. As such, after about a month or so of waiting for sprouts, I decided to take them to the Wellesley Botanical Gardens to see if they could rehabilitate them. I was hoping that the warmer temperatures and more abundant sunlight would give them the extra boost they needed. 

Taken 19. October. 2013

And behold...the new sprouts! It's been a much slower process than what I observed in the summer with my first two pots but they are trying really hard to grow! It was a little weird that I had put so many seeds in and only got 5 sprouts back because one seed can give way to about 3-4 sprouts because of cloning. But, it only takes one plant to become a tree anyways! It's also nice that they are currently being housed in the Greenhouses because that means I need to go at least every other day to go and water them. If you haven't visited the Greenhouses yet, I highly recommend it because it's like going into a retreat without ever leaving the Science Center. Unfortunately, I think I will probably need to bring this pink pot home for the winter within the next month because it can't really stay there indefinitely. For now though, it has a cozy little home and lots of visits from me :)

So how are the original plants doing? Well Mama C and I repotted them this morning! I didn't count but I would guess that there are 30 individual sprouts so they were getting desperately crowded! I haven't ever repotted plants that were this mature(They're about 4 months old) so they had pretty extensive root systems which were difficult to deal with. It was actually a kind of violent process and I think it's a little bit traumatic for the plants but hopefully they'll be okay. I'm a little worried now that we're going into the winter months that some of the seedlings won't be strong enough to thrive after the re-potting but since I planted them in the height of summer I hope it will work out. I believe it takes about 3-4 years before they'll look anything like trees but at some point, I'll try to repot some to give them more room to try and become trees. For now though, they're kind of cute little shrub-by things. I am kind of in awe of what you can accomplish. This was really just meant to be small project because I saw it one day on Pinterest and now I have three pots of pretty sizable plants. And while 3-4years seems like quite a far ways out from now, I think it will be really fun to come back and look at these posts again. I think that planting these little buggers from seeds and seeing them grow into something is one of the most rewarding and easiest things you can do. 

Taken 3. November. 2013

Hopefully more to come!

"10 Things I know to be true"

I recently saw a TedTalk where there was a poet/teacher who asked people to think about the things they know to be true as a mechanism for writing poetry about things they care about. Here is my list:


10) I have never regretted a work out. It is a pain in the butt to try and get yourself to go to the gym but how could you possibly feel bad about doing something to make yourself stronger?


9) Swimming can wash away most of the evils of everyday life. There have been many times where I haven't really been able to think about what has happened to me, only that I knew I wanted to swim and I knew I didn't want to stop. If nothing else, it will make you tired enough to collapse into bed and a new day will come that much faster.




8) Tea is good for your soul. It may even be the closest things we have to magic.

7) I say that New England is most beautiful in Fall and Winter but let's be real, it's beautiful all year round. Though if we're being honest, mid-September to early January is still my favorite time to be in the city ever.

6) Reading a good book is the fastest escape from the world you could possibly have. Whether it's a new one or an old favorite, a book will never judge you for opening its covers.

5) The perfect cup of coffee can make your day that much better. It's one of the smallest yet most important joys I know.

4) Time to yourself is important but you need never be alone if you don't want to be. This is a more recent one that I learned and I think I'ms till getting the hang of it, but it's also the most rewarding thing you can do for yourself.

3) Given the opportunity, I will always return to the seashore. It is one of the most (if not THE most) beautiful places I know.

2) It is really hard to be productive when your bed is close by. I don't know about yours but mine is fluffy and warm and pink. This is not conducive to homework in the least.

1) You can never go wrong with small acts of kindness. A smile, a text or even a meal can make huge differences in someone's life to know that someone cares. I know it has in mine.

We were instructed not to think that deeply about this list so there's my list with minimal editing and  here's the video if you would like to watch it because I highly recommend it! I should have more posts up soon, there's a lot of topics in my queue waiting to be written.

Bises,
T

Started from the bottom, now we're here.

This is my first post of my junior year of college.

I have been thinking of what to write almost every single day of the school year so far but haven't really known what I wanted to say. I've tossed up ideas about different series to start writing about sharks or jellyfish or just anything else but what was really on my mind. This is not going to be a funny or witty or even a particularly interesting post. But it's one that is symbolically and emotionally important for me.

It's been an interesting start of the semester to say the least; I think I've experienced every possible emotion in the last month. The gory details are not important but it's been a time of transition in more ways than one.

For awhile, I've been concentrating on myself, on doing the bare minimum, on just getting by. It was a pretty isolating to be completely honest. It was an odd existence, to be constantly surrounded by people but always feeling lonely. Over the past few months, I've wondered if that's just what it meant to grow up, that adults just don't interact the way that we used to when we were in high school. But I think I've realized that connecting with people is a conscious choice that we make and that the way I was going through my college career is not something I want to continue and this year. I've given myself a few challenges to change that. Maybe I'll share the others in the future but I think one of the most important ones right now is letting people in and letting them really know me. I think for a long time I wanted to keep people at a difference to keep up the appearance of gliding through my time at Wellesley but that is simply not accurate.

And that's okay. It's okay not to be okay.

It's okay to admit you need strength from others.

In the last few weeks, I have found support from my friends in incredible ways and I really can't say how grateful I am to be surrounded by these wonderful people, you know who you are.

In a fairly recent vlogbrothers video, John mentioned that most successes belong not to one person but that they are the product of teamwork and collaboration of many different people. It made me think of how my getting through this, as I am reasonably confident I will, will not just be my victory but the victories of my friends as well.

This is a departure from my usual subject matter, it's much more personal. But I wanted it to be out there, in the open.  I think it's important and I don't want to forget it in the future.

To my friends, I just want to say: I appreciate you and I am lucky to have you in my life. Thank you.

Plant Update: I am a botanist.

We are inching ever closer to the beginning of a new term at school and my plants are similarly inching their way towards the sun. It's been about a week since the first lemon seeds germinated and they're kind of just going wild now! I'd been experimenting with a couple different ways of speeding up germination periods by removing the tough outer seed coat on the lemon seeds as well as softening the coating by soaking them overnight. The first pot had seeds treated slightly differently so they didn't all sprout at the same time as seen here:

Progression of Pot 1

Day 1 of germination

Day 2 of Germination

Day...7? I don't even know

Day 3 of germination

I'm really pleased that these even came out, to be honest. But even more good news: About a week and a half ago, I started another pot of lemon seeds that had been pre-treated the most to hopefully speed up the germination process. I saw my first sprouts yesterday but I woke up today to see this:

Day 1 of Germination: Pot 2

There are so many seedlings coming up at once! I'm hoping that in a couple of weeks, Pot 2 will have a fairly sizable lemon bush-type growth. I don't think I'll be able to bring that particular pot back with me to school immediately because I want the stems to be a little stronger and some more leaves. College room environments aren't the kindest even on tougher plants(as evidenced by the poor state my Rhoeo plant Ferb was in when I brought him home). However, I think Pot 1 is getting strong enough that it will be able to survive the harsh conditions that are my dorm room. I'm just kind of excited that something I found on Pinterest actually worked!

More updates to come!

Weapons of Mass Destruction: Nerve Agents explained

For those who have not yet heard, there have recently been toxic chemical attacks in Syria that have killed hundreds of citizens outside the capital of Damascus. Many news outlets believe that this is the work of the government against its own people in a tragic demonstration of power. Most specialists seem to think that the deaths were caused by nerve gas due to the lack of wounds on subjects as well as several other symptoms. This has previously been defined by President Obama to be a "red line", which would prompt "enormous consequences" should we find out that they are being used(presumably through US military involvement).

But what are nerve agents and what do they do?

Simply put, nerve agents are biochemical weapons that affect the nervous system by inhibiting certain neural enzymes. It is considered to be a weapon of mass destruction because they are very toxic and spread rapidly.

It's necessary to review a bit about the nervous system to understand the effects of nerve agents. A class of neural enzymes are called neurotransmitters and are essentially responsible for the proper transmission of impulses, the mechanism through which the brain sends messages. Particularly, acetylcholine(ACh) is important because it controls the contraction of a variety of muscles. However, ACh is fairly ubiquitous and can be found in many different types of motor neural pathways in both the peripheral and central nervous systems(PNS & CNS).

ACh is controlled by acetylcholinesterase, a neural enzyme that breaks down ACh, which allows muscles to relax. Nerve agents inhibit this enzyme which leaves muscles in a state of constant contraction and excitement. It basically acts as an "OFF" switch for neurons, so without it they are constantly "ON". The effect of prolonged neural stimulation can be absolutely horrendous. Initially, subjects will feel nauseous and their pupils will constrict but that can escalate to vomiting, crying and an inability to control bowel and muscular movements(paralysis). The ultimate cause of death however, is from hypoventilation or complete respiratory depression. Subjects will not be able to breathe and take in enough oxygen to offset the carbon dioxide levels in blood. Since the heart is also controlled by muscular contractions, subjects' heart rates can be much faster than normal, which may exacerbate the condition through increased blood flow.

Personally I think that biochemical warfare is more terrifying than traditional tactics because according to the BBC(info originally compiled by the CDC), this nerve agent was odorless, colorless and tasteless. It spreads quickly and does not discriminate subjects(it can even be mixed into water!); it's basically undetectable. For Sarin in particular, the time between inhalation and death could be minutes which is not a lot of time to administer antidotes, especially if there is little way to know that there are nerve agents present.

I know this isn't the most polished piece ever(I wrote it up as soon as I saw what was on the news) but I thought it was a really important topic. I myself didn't know a lot about nerve agents before I wrote this, so I hope it was informative; I will continue posting sources for you to learn about it for yourself.
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Resources:

• ATSDR Case Studies in Environmental Medicine: Cholinesterase Inhibitors, Including Pesticides and Chemical Warfare Nerve Agents U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
• AChE inhibitors and substrates – 2wfz, 2wg0, 2wg1, 1som in Proteopedia
• [Brain hypoxia and the role of active forms of oxygen and of energy deficit in the neuron degeneration].-Review
• Emergency management of chemical weapons injuries.-Review
• Center for Disease Control: Sarin Overview

Plant update: I see sprouts!

It's actually blowing my mind that I need to go back to school soon, excited as I am for it to be Fall again.

I hate to be making a reputation as that crazy plant lady but I am excited to tell you that after a couple weeks of waiting, my lemon seeds have finally sprouted!

I was worried that they wouldn't even grow because I'd been informed that commercial lemons that you buy from the store are often sterilized radioactively. However, these little ones seem to be alive and well so I think the hardest part is past.

I'm hoping that they'll grow enough for me to be able to take them back to Wellesley safely in a couple weeks! (Side note: I can't believe I have to go back to the nunnery in a couple weeks). Pinterest keeps telling me that they are a great natural air freshener so I'm hoping to put that to the test in the coming months.

Ferb the Rhoeo plant is still also doing well after being rehabilitated by Mama Chan because I nearly killed him during the spring semester.

I don't know why exactly but there's something deeply cathartic about planting something and watching it grow. Though, I think my parents think I've gone kind of nuts because in addition to the pot pictured above, I have about 20 seeds in another pot that I'm waiting to sprout too. Scientist that I am, I pre-treated the 'new' seeds differently to try and speed up the germination time so, fingers crossed!