Please pray for my new boyfriend, Ben. He has a certain form of cancer and is not responding at all to treatment...It's estimated that he'll live about another year.
Also, sadly when he showed up for his regular appointment with his PO officer, he was sent to the country jail...neither him, his NAMI support team, or I know why.
I'm really scared about this situation, he found out that he's not responding to treatment and then the next morning he's put in jail.
He's a really good man that in the past has made some terrible mistakes, gotten involved with the bad people and was in a very traumatic/abusive relationship.
Please, join me in prayer.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Friday, March 19, 2010
Monday, March 15, 2010
50 Random Things About Me
1. The first name I go by is AnnaClaire. That’s right; it’s one word with a capital ‘C’.
2. My legal first name is Claire. When I was a toddler and before I can remember, I decided that my name was now Anna. My parents had no idea where I had come up with the name ‘Anna’ because I knew no people by the name or any characters by that name. They thought it was cute and called me by my nickname, Anna, for a few years. When I was about to start kindergarten, my parents decided that it would be a good idea for me to go by Claire in school and keep my nickname for only at home. However I was a stubborn young child and absolutely refused to go to the kindergarten room if I had to be called Claire. Six years go by and I was about to transfer to a new school for sixth grade; again the parents decided this was the perfect opportunity to start going my Claire at school and my nickname only at home. The thing was, was that I honestly don’t remember a time when I went by or was referred to by Claire save doctor appointments. I couldn’t imagine going by Claire or answering to that name. I had no concept that Claire was my ‘real’ name. I just couldn’t do it. So we made a compromise that I would go by AnnaClaire and I’ve gone by that name for over 8 years now. I will probably legally change my first name whenever I have the time, finances, and ambition to go through the court process.
3. My last name is the name of one of the original characters in Loony Tunes.
4. I’m currently 19 years old and will turn 20 on May 8th. When people usually ask me how old I am, I usually reply that I’m ‘almost 20’ because I hate the fact that I’m still considered a teenager.
5. I’m very much a left-handed person and proud of it. I often use it as a characteristic to describe the way I think and process things and ideas. The numerous theories about the differences of people who are right-handed and left-handed all seem to describe me to a ‘T’.
6. I’m trained as a Jazz Trombonist musically; and at one time, when I was actively still playing on a regular basis, considered to be a quite talented Trombonist in all genres.
7. I grew up doing community theatre, a lot of which were musical comedies. I was in my first play in kindergarten at age 5 in the production of “Cotton-Patch Gospel” at a local college. Since then I’ve been in approximately two dozen performances, not including dance recitals, until my last play “Jesus Christ Superstar” in sixth grade when I was about aged 11.
8. When I was in kindergarten I appeared and was paid to be in a national commercial for “WG&R Furniture Store”. Although I have a videotape of the commercial, I have never once seen it on television.
9. I started writing simple poetry casually in third grade and write simple poetry on a regular basis in fourth grade. Since the middle of fifth grade, the vast majority of the time I have been actively writing in some sort of blog.
10. In fourth grade I was misdiagnosed as having and was treated medically for major depression. The day before highschool, I was officially diagnosed as having Manic Depression/Bipolar Disorder and about six months and one hospitalization later, was properly medicated for it. In my second year of college, when I was 18, I was diagnosed with Unspecified Inflammatory Arthritis and it wasn’t controlled for about 3 or 4 months and I was incapacitated by my Arthritis. Now I’m properly treated and medicated for both my Bipolar Disorder and my Arthritis. I’m proud that even though I have two chronic illnesses, neither one of them control my daily life.
11. ~I own a ’98 maroon Ford Taurus XL. My parent’s ‘bought’ it for me the summer I turned 18; I’ve completely paid them back at the beginning of 2010.
12. I own both a laptop and a desktop computer. My laptop has become like an extra appendage to me and now I’m a firm believer that more places should have working free Wi-Fi.
13. I took formal dance classes for thirteen years; twelve years of Jazz, 5 years of Hip Hop, one year of Lyrical/Modern, one summer of Ballet, and a week of traditional West-African dance at a dance camp.
4. My current favorite poets are Poetri, Taylor Mali, and George Watsky.
15. My favorite movies, in general include, Kissing Jessica Stein, Pulp Fiction, Some Like It Hot, Wanted, Ringu (the original Japanese version of The Ring), and The Incredibles.
16. For the past ten years or so, my favorite song has been “God’s Country” by Ani Difranco (it’s about getting a speeding ticket), but currently my favorites are any duets of Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday.
17. My favorite non-caffeinated soda is probably Diet Mug Root Beer. I do also love Diet Non-Caffeinated Pepsi, simply because it tastes like caffeine but isn’t.
18. My favorite caffeinated soda is either Vault Zero or Diet Wild-Cherry Pepsi.
19. My all-time favorite hero is probably Ani Difranco (celebrity), or Jeremy Kriedeman or Ruth Schmeckpeper, which are both former teachers of mine.
20. Strangely I have some crushes (not looks wise) on some dead guys: Jean Piaget, Mark Twain, and Albert Einstein. I commonly refer to them as my ‘Post-Mortem Crushes’.
21. Sexual Orientation wise, I consider myself ‘Straight but Not Narrow’. I’m mostly more attracted to men than women, but I am a firm believer that you fall in love with a person and not their private parts.
22. I was an avid volunteer at my local library and in 2005; I was awarded Teen Volunteer of the Year.
23. My current major is Early Childhood Education and I’m officially going to be double-majoring in Alcohol and Other Drug Associate come summer.
24. Ideally, when I grow up I would like to be a social worker that helps children get out of unsafe situations or mentor new families.
25. I’m taking fifteen credits this semester but have worked it out so that I’m only taking two classes (5 credits) the whole semester, two six-week classes (2 credits), and three half semester classes (8 credits); so it never seems like I’m taking that many credits at any given time.
26. I’ve gotten really into looking up quotes lately and learning from them. I believe that quotes are a good representation of a certain sub-culture at a certain period of time, and that what was said was said for a reason.
27. I’m constantly making to-do lists; I find it a stress coping method and something to do with my hands while listening to lectures (I never have to take notes because I have Arthritis in my hands).
28. As a preteen I realized that the religion that I was brought up in (UUs), just wasn’t for me. Since then I’ve gone to different churches at different period since then including a UUC church, a Conservative Non-Denominational church, a Spiritualist church and am currently considering maybe going to a Synagogue in the future.
29. As intelligent and articulate that I am, I still swear on a regular basis. It’s sort of my Archeries’ Heel.
30. Lately I’ve been really into motion typography. It’s a hard thing to explain but I have an example here and here from past entries.
31. As a whole, I spend way too much money on coffee and pizza. That’s actually where the vast majority of my money goes to.
32. I believe in multiple soul mates, since I believe people change so much as they move through their life stages. A best friend could be your soul mate as a child, a boyfriend in highschool could be your soul mate, the person you marriage, well, they should be your soul mate. At any given time, you’re at a different stage in your life, so the person that compliments you as a whole can change throughout life.
33. My first job was at Parent Connection, which is a sub-company of Family Services doing childcare.
34. On the first day of that job, I stood up wrong, heard a big pop, and went to the hospital in an ambulance. Consequentially I had badly dislocated my kneecap.
35. My family currently has a cat, Annie, that we adopted from a previous home because she was terrified their toddlers.
36. I find it a bit creepy to call an animal a version of your own name, so I call her either Kittie or Baby Girl, which she is starting to answer by.
37. I was born, raised, and currently reside in the same town, and same house for that matter, all my life.
38. I grew up in a home of three children with married parents.
39. My parents met at a bar, that was in a town where neither one of them lived, got engaged within six weeks of the time they met, and were married within a year.
40. Amazingly, they are still married. It will be thirty-one years this June.
41. As a teenager and young adult my dad had terrible acne. So bad in fact that he wasn’t drafted in the Vietnam War because he was considered ‘prone to infection’. On one hand it’s great, because he wouldn’t be the man he is today and on the other hand he sometimes feels guilty that he wasn’t able to support his country at a time when he was needed the most and feels a great regret about that.
42. I’m the baby of the family; I have a sister that’s twenty-two and a brother that’s twenty-five.
43. My brother is gay and is actually a Wedding Planner for a living…. To which I find really amusing if I think about it.
44. My sister is studying at a Top Ten University to be a Chemist.
45. My brother had his Wisdom Teeth pulled this month.
46. My maternal grandmother is currently on her fourth husband and has never gone a year between men in all her adult life.
47. My maternal grandfather, her first husband, is a felon. He was almost on America’s Most Wanted, but my mother absolutely refused. He was in prison for the vast majority of my life and I didn’t meet him until I was about fourteen.
48. My paternal grandmother, with whom I was very close to growing up, now has advanced Dementia and lives in an Assisted Living Center. I find it really sad and struggle with this reality a lot and cry about it occasionally.
49. My paternal grandfather and his brother (my great uncle) were semi-famous Forester Professors and almost had a dorm named after them.
50. Even though my dad come from a family of three and my mom comes from a two, I have exactly two cousins. One of which is in her late twenties and I didn’t meet until I was a teenager and the other is an infant, both of whom I’ve only met once.
2. My legal first name is Claire. When I was a toddler and before I can remember, I decided that my name was now Anna. My parents had no idea where I had come up with the name ‘Anna’ because I knew no people by the name or any characters by that name. They thought it was cute and called me by my nickname, Anna, for a few years. When I was about to start kindergarten, my parents decided that it would be a good idea for me to go by Claire in school and keep my nickname for only at home. However I was a stubborn young child and absolutely refused to go to the kindergarten room if I had to be called Claire. Six years go by and I was about to transfer to a new school for sixth grade; again the parents decided this was the perfect opportunity to start going my Claire at school and my nickname only at home. The thing was, was that I honestly don’t remember a time when I went by or was referred to by Claire save doctor appointments. I couldn’t imagine going by Claire or answering to that name. I had no concept that Claire was my ‘real’ name. I just couldn’t do it. So we made a compromise that I would go by AnnaClaire and I’ve gone by that name for over 8 years now. I will probably legally change my first name whenever I have the time, finances, and ambition to go through the court process.
3. My last name is the name of one of the original characters in Loony Tunes.
4. I’m currently 19 years old and will turn 20 on May 8th. When people usually ask me how old I am, I usually reply that I’m ‘almost 20’ because I hate the fact that I’m still considered a teenager.
5. I’m very much a left-handed person and proud of it. I often use it as a characteristic to describe the way I think and process things and ideas. The numerous theories about the differences of people who are right-handed and left-handed all seem to describe me to a ‘T’.
6. I’m trained as a Jazz Trombonist musically; and at one time, when I was actively still playing on a regular basis, considered to be a quite talented Trombonist in all genres.
7. I grew up doing community theatre, a lot of which were musical comedies. I was in my first play in kindergarten at age 5 in the production of “Cotton-Patch Gospel” at a local college. Since then I’ve been in approximately two dozen performances, not including dance recitals, until my last play “Jesus Christ Superstar” in sixth grade when I was about aged 11.
8. When I was in kindergarten I appeared and was paid to be in a national commercial for “WG&R Furniture Store”. Although I have a videotape of the commercial, I have never once seen it on television.
9. I started writing simple poetry casually in third grade and write simple poetry on a regular basis in fourth grade. Since the middle of fifth grade, the vast majority of the time I have been actively writing in some sort of blog.
10. In fourth grade I was misdiagnosed as having and was treated medically for major depression. The day before highschool, I was officially diagnosed as having Manic Depression/Bipolar Disorder and about six months and one hospitalization later, was properly medicated for it. In my second year of college, when I was 18, I was diagnosed with Unspecified Inflammatory Arthritis and it wasn’t controlled for about 3 or 4 months and I was incapacitated by my Arthritis. Now I’m properly treated and medicated for both my Bipolar Disorder and my Arthritis. I’m proud that even though I have two chronic illnesses, neither one of them control my daily life.
11. ~I own a ’98 maroon Ford Taurus XL. My parent’s ‘bought’ it for me the summer I turned 18; I’ve completely paid them back at the beginning of 2010.
12. I own both a laptop and a desktop computer. My laptop has become like an extra appendage to me and now I’m a firm believer that more places should have working free Wi-Fi.
13. I took formal dance classes for thirteen years; twelve years of Jazz, 5 years of Hip Hop, one year of Lyrical/Modern, one summer of Ballet, and a week of traditional West-African dance at a dance camp.
4. My current favorite poets are Poetri, Taylor Mali, and George Watsky.
15. My favorite movies, in general include, Kissing Jessica Stein, Pulp Fiction, Some Like It Hot, Wanted, Ringu (the original Japanese version of The Ring), and The Incredibles.
16. For the past ten years or so, my favorite song has been “God’s Country” by Ani Difranco (it’s about getting a speeding ticket), but currently my favorites are any duets of Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday.
17. My favorite non-caffeinated soda is probably Diet Mug Root Beer. I do also love Diet Non-Caffeinated Pepsi, simply because it tastes like caffeine but isn’t.
18. My favorite caffeinated soda is either Vault Zero or Diet Wild-Cherry Pepsi.
19. My all-time favorite hero is probably Ani Difranco (celebrity), or Jeremy Kriedeman or Ruth Schmeckpeper, which are both former teachers of mine.
20. Strangely I have some crushes (not looks wise) on some dead guys: Jean Piaget, Mark Twain, and Albert Einstein. I commonly refer to them as my ‘Post-Mortem Crushes’.
21. Sexual Orientation wise, I consider myself ‘Straight but Not Narrow’. I’m mostly more attracted to men than women, but I am a firm believer that you fall in love with a person and not their private parts.
22. I was an avid volunteer at my local library and in 2005; I was awarded Teen Volunteer of the Year.
23. My current major is Early Childhood Education and I’m officially going to be double-majoring in Alcohol and Other Drug Associate come summer.
24. Ideally, when I grow up I would like to be a social worker that helps children get out of unsafe situations or mentor new families.
25. I’m taking fifteen credits this semester but have worked it out so that I’m only taking two classes (5 credits) the whole semester, two six-week classes (2 credits), and three half semester classes (8 credits); so it never seems like I’m taking that many credits at any given time.
26. I’ve gotten really into looking up quotes lately and learning from them. I believe that quotes are a good representation of a certain sub-culture at a certain period of time, and that what was said was said for a reason.
27. I’m constantly making to-do lists; I find it a stress coping method and something to do with my hands while listening to lectures (I never have to take notes because I have Arthritis in my hands).
28. As a preteen I realized that the religion that I was brought up in (UUs), just wasn’t for me. Since then I’ve gone to different churches at different period since then including a UUC church, a Conservative Non-Denominational church, a Spiritualist church and am currently considering maybe going to a Synagogue in the future.
29. As intelligent and articulate that I am, I still swear on a regular basis. It’s sort of my Archeries’ Heel.
30. Lately I’ve been really into motion typography. It’s a hard thing to explain but I have an example here and here from past entries.
31. As a whole, I spend way too much money on coffee and pizza. That’s actually where the vast majority of my money goes to.
32. I believe in multiple soul mates, since I believe people change so much as they move through their life stages. A best friend could be your soul mate as a child, a boyfriend in highschool could be your soul mate, the person you marriage, well, they should be your soul mate. At any given time, you’re at a different stage in your life, so the person that compliments you as a whole can change throughout life.
33. My first job was at Parent Connection, which is a sub-company of Family Services doing childcare.
34. On the first day of that job, I stood up wrong, heard a big pop, and went to the hospital in an ambulance. Consequentially I had badly dislocated my kneecap.
35. My family currently has a cat, Annie, that we adopted from a previous home because she was terrified their toddlers.
36. I find it a bit creepy to call an animal a version of your own name, so I call her either Kittie or Baby Girl, which she is starting to answer by.
37. I was born, raised, and currently reside in the same town, and same house for that matter, all my life.
38. I grew up in a home of three children with married parents.
39. My parents met at a bar, that was in a town where neither one of them lived, got engaged within six weeks of the time they met, and were married within a year.
40. Amazingly, they are still married. It will be thirty-one years this June.
41. As a teenager and young adult my dad had terrible acne. So bad in fact that he wasn’t drafted in the Vietnam War because he was considered ‘prone to infection’. On one hand it’s great, because he wouldn’t be the man he is today and on the other hand he sometimes feels guilty that he wasn’t able to support his country at a time when he was needed the most and feels a great regret about that.
42. I’m the baby of the family; I have a sister that’s twenty-two and a brother that’s twenty-five.
43. My brother is gay and is actually a Wedding Planner for a living…. To which I find really amusing if I think about it.
44. My sister is studying at a Top Ten University to be a Chemist.
45. My brother had his Wisdom Teeth pulled this month.
46. My maternal grandmother is currently on her fourth husband and has never gone a year between men in all her adult life.
47. My maternal grandfather, her first husband, is a felon. He was almost on America’s Most Wanted, but my mother absolutely refused. He was in prison for the vast majority of my life and I didn’t meet him until I was about fourteen.
48. My paternal grandmother, with whom I was very close to growing up, now has advanced Dementia and lives in an Assisted Living Center. I find it really sad and struggle with this reality a lot and cry about it occasionally.
49. My paternal grandfather and his brother (my great uncle) were semi-famous Forester Professors and almost had a dorm named after them.
50. Even though my dad come from a family of three and my mom comes from a two, I have exactly two cousins. One of which is in her late twenties and I didn’t meet until I was a teenager and the other is an infant, both of whom I’ve only met once.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Intro to Mind and Body by Angus Gellatly
Intro to Mind & Brain by Angus GellatlyMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Great book, a real turn-pager.
I loved how it went through the history of how cultures thought about the brain in the past, the history of theorists on the brain and some of the strange beliefs about the brain (standing on an electrified fish for treatment),lots of information about how the LH and RH work, and details about some really cool disorders that I have never heard of like split brains, Wernicke's vs. Broca's Aphasia, Balint's Syndrome.
The great thing about this book is that throughout the information, there were comics,drawn pictures, and lots of maps to easily understand where the part of the brain they are talking discussing.
Very cool. Read it in about 3.5 hours.
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