April 16, 2012 – Totally Morbid Thought of the Day
16 Apr 2012 Leave a Comment
in Food, Health and Healthy Living, Mental Diarrhea Tags: food, free range, meat, organic, twilight, vampires, vegetarian
So I’m cooking this unfortunately oh so tasty marinated beef shank for dinner.
Poor cow.
I feel slightly sickly every time I cook meat.
So I’ve been cooking meat less and less.
I really don’t feel bad for tofu, but I do feel bad for animals, especially because of the conditions in which they are often raised.
I wonder what they think about while they are alive
I wonder what sort of hopes and dreams they have for their children
So my totally morbid thought of the day is this:
If in the future there exists a species higher on the food chain than humans, I hope that it will grow us in free range, organic circumstances, and in the end, find us very tasty and satisfying, cooking us in a multitude of different ways, before eventually going through this existential crisis on the whole whether or not to eat meat thing because it’s cruel and inhumane.
Vampires excepted.
There will be no talk of twilight silliness on this blog.
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March 15, 2012 – More Trapezery
15 Mar 2012 Leave a Comment
in art, Circus, Exercise, headache & migraine, Health and Healthy Living, Photos, Rowing Tags: circus, headache, migraine, photography, trapeze
March 15, 2012 | Trapeze Hands
Thus ends another thursday. Another headache, another awesome trapeze day. I don’t know what it is about thursdays that causes migraines! It hit me during my IAT 380 Sound design lecture in the middle of our quiz. And suddenly I couldn’t think. Oh well. Managed to slip out of class to go get my trusty advil, then squinted at the overhead projector while pushing on my left brow ridge to numb the sting, and by the time it was time to leave for trapeze, it had dulled down to a manageable level.
Yes, that photo is of my trapeze hands. Today was the first day I had blisters pop! And more than one, too! Yummy. (eew.) And I don’t really know how to tape up my hands, so this is how they ended up. Worked okay for the most part. The edges roll up and get sticky but it wasn’t too bad.
GODDAMNED KNEE HANG on swinging trapeze. It’s supposed to be like the easiest thing ever but yet i screw it up every week. this week i fell straight into an ankle hang instead. ha.
anyway, sleep. sleep. sleep. now. i want dark, dreamless, quiet, sleep. Which has been hard to come by lately. Some terrific and very wild dreams, but I get so much adventuring done during the night that I wake up exhausted. Perhaps tonight will be the night I won’t dream at all.
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March 8, 2012 – 2nd Half Redemption
08 Mar 2012 Leave a Comment
in Achieving WIN, Acting, art, Being a Woman, Circus, Exercise, headache & migraine, Health and Healthy Living, Linguistics, music, Simon Fraser University, Tech The Crazy Tags: aerial, circus, design, hoop, SFU, sound, static, swinging, trapeze, USRA, VPR
The second half of today redeemed the first half. Most definitely.
Woke up with that vague neck/headache that often foreshadows a migraine. Couldn’t focus. Had that ‘so tired my limbs are going to fall off’ feeling. Showered. Did breakfast. Went back to bed. Read a little bit. Then slept. And I think I must have been trying to scream in my dreams because I woke up with a sore throat of not the sick kind. Huh.
Managed to find some clothes that didn’t match, left the house with no socks and no sweater on top of my tank, beneath my coat.
This is where it gets good.
Got to my class (lab) in surrey. Checked my email. Found out I got the VPR USRA (vice president research undergrad student research award…or something like that) for summer 2012. Which means I’m going to be making some money doing useful stuff over the summer. Which is excellent.
Went shopping at the surrey mall between classes to find some kind of covering shirt because my tank top only thing was ridiculous. Ended up finding an awesome $7 shirt at sirens. one of those loose flowy shirts that’s super loose yet immediately elegant and comfy. Good find.
Went to lecture. They showed my project 2 in sound design class critique as one of the good ones. Highly embarassing and unexpected, but awesome. Although in my opinion that project deserves no more than 12/15 …being generous.
Went to circus. Headache still present. Bought Advil. Took Advil. Bliss ensued.
Static trapeze coach started me on The aerial hoop tonight (thus far i’ve only been on the trapeze) with the Ovo, man on the moon, and two variations on the mermaid. Also learned the inverted planche and straddle mount (as opposed to the pike) on static. Awesome.
Then swinging trapeze class! Coach gave us horse wraps (padding for our feet!) which turned out to be incredibly awesome! No more random rope burns from ankle hangs! Apparently got the jitters out of my system in static class, so swinging was a lot less tense and sweaty than it usually is. Got my hop off on the first try, and learned the full angel sequence. Also worked on releasing into my knee hang because I fell off (we’re harnessed so no biggie) doing it in my first class and since then I’ve had issues letting go (haha)
Then trekked up the hill to SFU Burnaby for the Rowing Team’s no pants pub night. 
gave $10 instead of $5 at the front door…with the caveat that nobody would try to twist my rubber arm into drinking…(once I start it’s kind of hard to stop) and so stuck with my diet coke and lime. Which is super awesome because I’m going to be totally functional and less fat (so many calories in alcohol) tomorrow!
And now because I’m home and decently caffeinated and well socialized and adrenalized from all that trapezery and headache free to boot, I’m going to go work through a bunch of MAX/MSP tutorials and try to figure out how the hell I’m going to build my final project for sound design class.
12:27am. It has been a really good day, even if the first half of it was wasted feeling ill. This rambling post has been brought to you by WordPress for iPhone.
Feb 28, 2012 – Swinging Trapeze @ Vancouver Circus School
28 Feb 2012 Leave a Comment
in Achieving WIN, Circus, Exercise, Health and Healthy Living, Peculiarly Awesome Tags: circus, exercise, fitness, new westminster, river market, static, swinging, trapeze, vancouver circus school
Started taking swinging trapeze classes @ Vancouver Circus School this month. Here’s a pic of me on the static trapeze doing an angel hang
The swinging trapeze is higher off the ground and you get harnessed in before climbing up and swinging around (so you don’t fall and break things)
Fun times. You should go check out the VCS website. Super fun stuff..and you don’t need to be fit or skinny or young etc. to give it a try. Aerial silks is also very fun – I did that for about a year before starting this trapeze thing.
Feb 28, 2012 | Angel Hang, Static Trapeze @ Vancouver Circus School
Propranolol for Migraines & Indomethacin for Exertion Headaches
24 Nov 2011 Leave a Comment
in Exercise, headache & migraine, Health and Healthy Living Tags: Ankylosing Spondylitis, drugs, headache, indomethacin, migraine, propranolol, side effects, stroke
*Edit Dec 21* – So far I’ve been mostly okay still on the Propranolol! I’ve figured out that it is the Indomethacin that makes me SUPER dizzy…like 3 glasses of wine dizzy. Use with caution! As I mention below, Steve was on Indomethacin for a while for Ankylosing Spondylitis, but it never caused any side effects for him. Any side effects from the Propranolol seem to have worn off for the most part. I mean it’s only 10mg!
So after a bad spat of exertion headaches and migraines (6 of 9 days ruined!), I went to go see my doctor about it. She looked and sounded SO alarmed, brought out big scary words like STROKE, and BLOOD CLOTS. So I got alarmed, and promptly started crying.
Anyway, after some kleenex and a long discussion about what to do, stuff like I’m not getting an IUD instead of using the Nuvaring because I want kids in the near future; using Nuvaring back to back might help hormone fluctuations; Yes I understand the estrogen might be making things worse, but my PMS migraines were so bad before I went on Nuvaring anyway I don’t think it’s making it worse or better, she poked around her computer a little bit, and we decided to try a couple of new medications – one she had prescribed me in February, with the instruction to give it a try if my headaches got to the frequency of 1/week. I never filled that prescription, but thought that now would be an appropriate time to give it a try.
So I’ve been on this new medication, Propranolol, for about a week now. It’s supposed to help prevent migraines. I think it’s too soon to say whether or not it’s working yet, but I have noticed some side effects.
I’m on one 10mg pill per day. I’ve been taking it in the morning with breakfast, mostly. The warnings are that it might make you a little bit dizzy and tired, which I have been finding to be true. For rowing, perhaps due to a combination of having just recovered from a cold, followed by a bad 2 weeks of headaches, the drug, and horrid sleep etc, my power has just been disappearing. My latest 6k and 2k test results were embarrasing. So embarassing.
The other major side effect seems to be that I get major cold sweats when exercising. My face and chest will just LEAK water. I’m usually a sweater, but not this much, and it’s usually warm! And it seems to be less salty than usual as well. My body’s warm, but my skin goes cold. So cold. Even in a cardio room at the gym that I’m sure is more on the warm side than not. The cold sweat and the slight dizziness I’m pretty sure are side effects. The tiredness and groggy brain-ness…well, that could just be me in general.
So feeling a little bit foggy is annoying, especially when you’re trying to interact with people. Also, feeling weak and a little bit dizzy is annoying for morning rowing practices. So last night I tried taking the Propranolol with dinner, thinking that I can handle being groggy before bed. Unfortunately, it just caused my skin to go cold before I went to sleep (different feeling than just being cold and needing more blankets), and I woke up a few times during the night with my skin and sheets cold and soaked with cold sweat.
I mean, I have been having trouble this year with night sweats, but it’s usually more GROSS, and not COLD.
Man, I really gotta get this shit figured out. Perhaps I can try taking it with LUNCH tomorrow?
Happily, the vertigo/dizziness seem to have decreased in the past few days, so maybe in time the rest of the side effects will go away as well.
The other medication I’m trying is Indomethacin 25mg before intense exercise – it’s supposed to prevent exertion headaches. Have only used it twice so far – Steve was on Indomethacin for a long time for his arthritis and it ended up giving him some kind of ulcer, which was a real pain to fix, so that one I will use sparingly and with caution.
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