For the LOVE OF GOD, just PASS me ALREADY!
October 21, 2007 
For the LOVE OF GOD, just PASS me ALREADY!
When you see a white Mazda Protégé somewhere along the way to Wal-Mart, Fred Meyer or around Farmers’ Loop, give me a break. Just pass me already. For your sake and mine, just go around. Nicely. Is it really necessary for your gargantuan pick-up truck to kick up a flurry of snow-white dust?
I drove in the snow for the first time on Thursday, October 18– all the way from an undisclosed location off Farmers’ Loop to the University and back. It’s 10 minutes in good weather conditions at 50 MPH. With snow and ice, 30 MPH seems too fast. For someone who lived across the street from the ocean, 40 degrees (that’s above zero) is cold and rain is dangerous.
I drove almost without incident. I admit to sliding while stopping at the light at one intersection. Silly me forgot to pump the brakes and gently push on them. Luckily, I saved myself and as always everything was cool. Maybe I heeded The Engineer’s telepathathic message: pump the brakes and push the brakes.
I always say that if you can drive Los Angeles freeways safely, you can do anything. And for the record, I have never hurt anyone or myself while driving (read speeding or stop and go at 20 MPH or slower) on a Golden State freeway. Besides, you can bet the vehicles on Alaska and Southern California freeways both have drivers carrying guns.
The Engineer is impressed.
Fat or SAD?
October 15, 2007 
I heard the most terrible thing about anti depressive drugs—they could make me fat. Since I have already gained at LEAST TEN POUNDS since moving from California to Alaska, the last thing I want to do is gain more weight. All my cute summer clothes (the only kind I wear in Long Beach) are mostly too fight. Not that I could wear a frock at 30 degrees- below or above zero.
So imagine my horror when read a piece about how Wellbutrin XL prevents season affective disorder (SAD). According to consumer reports, about 10 percent of Alaskans compared to a paltry 1 percent of Floridians suffer from the winter blues. If I am going to gain the transfer 15 pounds, wouldn’t it be better for me just to gain the weight and not use another drug (besides coffee)?
If you do feel you need to turn to pharmaceuticals to help relieve your SADness, Consumer Reports offers five tips to see if you need a chemical intervention?
A Light Box of a Different Color
October 1, 2007 
A colorful light box is giving happiness the green light. A Manitoba physicist has been marketing a green hued light box since the mid-1990s. In today’s a Winnipeg Free Press Murray Waldman says his green gleaming light box for seasonal affective disorder (SAD) also helps sleep and mood disorders. This light box’s green gleam is from the phosphor used in the fluorescent bulb.
Waldman says the advantage of his green light box is that green light is easier on the eyes and more practical for a business setting that does not want bright light. His light box offers the same affects as the bright white-light box but with a much softer light.
Presently, bright white-light therapy is the gold standard treatment for SAD. My own light box is on as I write this. An advantage of the standard light box is that it is much cheaper than the green light box. The UAF Health Center says you can buy a light box for around $200 in Fairbanks or online. Waldman’s green light boxes are about $750, but his company Sunnex Biotechnologies will rent them.
For now, I will be sticking with my standard light box, what about you?
Natural Mood Booster From The UAF Cafeteria
Before scooting us out the door in the morning, my Mama would give us a banana. Bananas are portable, sweet, inexpensive and easy to take with you from the UAF cafeteria. Athletes are partial to the yellow fruit for its natural sugars and nutrients offer enough energy to sustain a rigorous workout.
High in fiber, nutrients and natural sugar, bananas are an alternative to the vending machine. Choosing a banana over chocolate also may help ease depression. Recent studies indicate that Bananas contain trytophan, an amino acid that is converted to serotonin, a chemical that is known to help you relax and beat depression.
The Happy Box
When I announced to may friends that I was moving to Alaska, I was warned about the darkness. During my summer visit for a weekend, I was amazed at how long the daylight lasted. It was cool to have a long day that stretches until about midnight.
What goes up must come down. Now the days are transitioning to less sunlight. The UAF Health Center had already lent me a Light Box as a preemptive strategy. The light boxes can be checked out for two weeks. Before you leave, you go through a short training on how to use the “happy box.” You sit about arms length from the box. The bright light mimics bright sunlight without the harmful, cancer causing rays. You don’t stare into the light, but rather absorb the rays into your corneas. It was suggested to me that I read for class for 30 minutes every morning.
At the end of the two weeks, the health center suggests that you purchase your own Light Box. Before the end of the semester, you may consider it, the best money you have ever spent with the exception of wool underwear and extra wool socks.
Media is already covering Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) and light therapy. Last week, <ahref=”http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/news/20070919/seasonal-depression-tied-to-serotonin” Web MD posted a story about how linking seasonal depression to lower levels of serotonin in the brain. It is not known why serotonin drops in winter. The piece goes on to say that antidepressants and a light box are accepted treatment for the winter blues.
I am still trying out the light box so I really can’t comment on the effectiveness yet. But as a preemptive step, snag a light box.
What’s More UAF than Starvation Gulch
One of the best ways to intergrate yourself into a new community is to hang out with the locals. Before you know it, even if you have an penchance for too much eyeliner, you start to blend in. This weekend everyone is hanging out at Starvation Gulch. The bonfire that anyone who is anyone is going to be hanging out tonight.
It sounds like a cool tradition and the pyro in me (ten years of working with fireworks and pyrotechnicians) is excited about going. Nothing like fire.
But there is more to Starvation Gulch than just fire. It is symbolic of “passing along the torch of knowledge” says a news release of UAF media relations: http://www.uaf.edu/news/a_news/20030925155321.html
It’s a university. There has to be a lesson for students even if they
Sleepless in Fairbanks
I love my roommate. We both consider ourselves luck that of all the people residing in the residence halls, we were paired with each other. We have things in common. We have mostly the same time schedule. We became fast friends after looking into each other’s makeup bags. Hey, how can you not love a girl who wears your same brand of mineral makeup?
One problem. She snores like the Alaska Railroad freight train. It’s not really in her control. And since we are friends and get a long in every other way, we have had to work out a solution to our dilemma. For the first week of school, she was ill with the cold that every other person in my residence hall suffered from. Her illness made her snoring worse.
So loud that even my industrial strength earplugs (http://www.galeton.com/item_group.asp?GroupID=80&CategoryID=22) failed to block out the noise. So I now run a small fan, my earplugs and a humidifier to create white noise and block out most her snoring. Besides, the snoring has gotten much better now that our suite visited the UAF health center for free cold medicine.
I am not the only student struggling for slumber while living with someone who could wake the dead. I was hearted to read that ear plugs rank number one on the list of 18 Over Looked Things Everyone Should Bring to College. http://www.collegeandfinance.com/18-overlooked-things-everyone-should-bring-to-college.
And for the record, I had brought everything the piece recommended but the tools. I prefer for someone else to perform handy man duties.
When I sleep now, earplugs firmly in place, I dream of my solitary living around the corner from Seal Beach.
Nothing but the Truth
If I would have been told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, I don’t think I would have moved to Alaska. Now that I have lived in Alaska for about a month, I am convinced that the man in question did not know any better. Growing up in rural Utah like we did, the greater Fairbanks area could be construed as a “large city.” Especially when we came from farming communities of about 13,000 people.
For the past ten years, I have lived in Long Beach, California. World famous as the hometowns of movie star and former runway fashion model Cameron Diaz (www.cameron-diaz.com), hip hop icon turned youth football coach Snoop Dogg (www.snoopdogg.com), Tennis superstar Billie Jean King and Cleveland Browns linebacker Willie McGinest (www.williemcginest55.com) who sports three Super Bowl rings and inspires inner city kids playing for the Snoop Youth Football League’s team, the Long Beach Browns.
Long Beach is a coastal city situated on the border of Los Angeles and Orange counties. The weather is nearly perfect. Living only two blocks from the water, it got cold (60-50 degrees) at night. However, most days (especially so close to the Pacific Ocean) were perfect, like 75 degrees. Traveling further inland, the weather is hot like 85 degrees. If one would go to Hell also known as the Valley or the Inland Empire, temperatures would reach around 100 degrees. When temperatures plummeted to 40 degrees earlier this year, the dramatic headlines—Cold Watch 2007, Will the Southland Survive the Cold? —were the top stories on radio, TV and newspapers.
This blog details my “trial by ice.” How an Angelino adjusts to snow and ice. Also, how does one rearrange their life from an over worked professional to a full time college student? From climate to humidifiers and on campus life, my blog illustrates how to cope with the transition from city dwelling
Pods, Blogs and New Media
It’s been a month since I have been a professional. I miss my work. Ordinarily, a stickler for deadlines, I missed my first deadlines for this class. I guess I was too busy dreaming about the beach and wishing I had not left everything on a whim. I juat got myself fired.
In my Pods, Blogs and New Media class, I would like to learn how to use the World Wide Web to better communicate and establish a web presence for my clients. I am interested in learning how one gets paid to blog, how to use the World Wide Web as a marketing tool, how to create a podcast, the social ramifications of the internet and how it affect busineswsw and how I can compete in a flat world.
Hello world!
Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!
