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Friday, February 16, 2007
Sleepless Activity: Flickr Badge
My old friend Insomnia paid a visit this evening, engaging me in a pleasant evening of flow... (see earlier article on happiness) meddling with my kids' photos in Flickr.
Now I've been a faithful Picasa user for eons now (in Internet time of course) but I have to say, the Flickr Badge got me hooked. Their nifty upload tool helped some although not being able to edit offline like Picasa's app, niggled at me. The tagging, failure of really, annoyed me some too as The Baking Tray's remarkably delicious pineapple tarts burned in my stomach.
Finally I had to add all the baby pix to one set since Flickr doesn't allow me to add 2 sets, nor did it recognise my tags. Never mind, now I have a neat Flash badge with my babies' pix on both this blog and the cats' blog. I feel actualised.
For about 50 years, caloric restriction (CR) was the only proven method to extend an organism's maximum life span in a healthy way.
Then in 1996, scientists discovered a type of mutant dwarf mouse that lived up to 70 percent longer than its non-mutated peers. The rodents' stunted growth was due to a change at the genetic level that reduced production of hormones related to growth.
Using mice, the researchers found that mothers fed protein-rich diets during pregnancy, but low-protein diets while breast-feeding, had pups that lived up to 50 percent longer than those for whom this feeding pattern was reversed. If a similar approach could work for humans, this translates into a difference between reaching 50 and living to be 75 years old, the researchers said.
Important for Susan Greenfield, a professor of pharmacology at Oxford University, her theory is a distinction between 'consciousness' and 'mind,' terms that she says many of her colleagues use interchangeably, but which she believes are two entirely different concepts.
"You talk about losing your mind or blowing your mind or being out of your mind, but those things don't necessarily entail a loss of consciousness," Greenfield said in a telephone interview. "Similarly, when you lose your consciousness, when you go to sleep at night or when you're anesthetized, you don't really think that you're really going to be losing your mind."
But whereas the mind is rooted in the physical connections between neurons, Greenfield believes that consciousness is an emergent property of the brain, similar to the 'wetness' of water or the 'transparency' of glass, both of which are properties that are the result of -- that is, they emerge from -- the actions of individual molecules.
For Greenfield, a conscious experience occurs when a stimulus -- either external, like a sensation, or internal, like a thought or a memory -- triggers a chain reaction within the brain. Like in an earthquake, each conscious experience has an epicenter, and ripples from that epicenter travels across the brain, recruiting neurons as they go.
Happiness is 50 percent genetic, says University of Minnesota researcher David Lykken. What you do with the other half of the challenge depends largely on determination, psychologists agree. As Abraham Lincoln once said, "Most people are as happy as they make up their minds to be."
One route to more happiness is called "flow," an engrossing state that comes during creative or playful activity, psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has found. Athletes, musicians, writers, gamers, and religious adherents know the feeling. It comes less from what you're doing than from how you do it.
Make lists of things for which you're grateful in your life, practice random acts of kindness, forgive your enemies, notice life's small pleasures, take care of your health, practice positive thinking, and invest time and energy into friendships and family.
"Research shows that people who are grateful, optimistic and forgiving have better experiences with their lives, more happiness, fewer strokes, and higher incomes," according to Gregg Easterbrook, author of "The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse" (Random House, 2004). "If it makes world a better place at same time, this is a real bonus."
I've been thinking a lot about what I want to teach Jack, particularly when it comes to food. A lot of the turmoil I feel is the conflict I have within myself about eating meat. Now, I have gone vegetarian twice and suffered immensely nutritionally. It doesn't help that I dislike eating vegetables, although I do try to eat at least a portion a day for health's sake.
I love my burgers as much as the next person. When I take a tally of what I eat every week, it comes up mainly fish. I am not ecstatic about chicken, pork, or beef. I don't touch duck, deer, quail, or any baby animals (I used to love baby squid when I was a kid but stopped when I decided it was cruel to eat an animal that never got the chance to live out its life - read: no suckling pig). I have not touched shark's fin since I was in my teens and have never failed to tell people why.
Yet making the permanent transition has not been successful.
There's been much documentation about the cruelty of many slaughterhouses. In fact, there are many images of the fact I'd like to erase from my mind. Still, I truly enjoy ham, bacon, and the occasional KFC or burger - food that has become depersonalised from the animals they came from. I go into denial when I eat. That's nothing to be proud of.
Now, onto the most popular food I relish: fish. Asphyxiating is not the best way to die, not on a hot sunny day on a fishing boat, or any other day. I looked into the eyes of several catfish and groupers in a seafood restaurant recently and it saddened me greatly. They travelled miles from their own home in the sea in undoubtedly what must have been a tiny transport and now swim in a small tank waiting to be eaten.
All that is said, I need to eat to survive. Plus I need to stay nourished enough to continue breastfeeding my son. My humane eating plan has always been to limit the number of lives that have to die to sustain me each day, but there are a few more things I can do.
So this is what I have decided.
1. Stop eating LIVE seafood - those fish in the tanks. 2. Be informed about slaughter methods of the food I eat. 3. Don't order meats I don't enjoy eating anyway. 4. Don't waste any part of the animal. 5. Eat more nuts and cheeses for protein instead of meat. 6. Eat more fruits instead of meat.
It's not perfect but it is a start. Only by reconciling with myself my stance on meat can I sufficiently teach it to Jack.
Since Blogdrive doesn't quite have a monthly archive script yet for us and I hadn't been able to find one online, I figured out the only way is to do it manually.
1. Go to "Blog Configuration" in your Admin.
2. Go through your blog and locate the last post of every month.
3. Create a link to each last post and label it [Month] [Year].
4. Place them under the Calendar.
It's not perfect, granted, but it allows visitors to access the archives faster than clicking Next at the end of each page.
Maintenance is low. Once a month when you write your first post of the new month. Just follow steps from 1-4.
It was a shock to hear that Anna Nicole died so soon after her own son Daniel died in her hospital room after she gave birth to her daughter Dannielynn. As a mom now too, I can't even begin to imagine the grief she felt.
I remember seeing a picture of her a long time ago scrubbed and looking very young, innocent, and beautiful. That's how I will remember her. Rest in peace, Anna Nicole.
Jack loves his plastic bottles. He gives me the excuse to buy those 500ml Pokka Green Tea (and assortment of flavours) just so I can quickly drink them up and he can play with them. We have the Green Tea Jasmine, Honey Lemon Green Tea, and Lemon Tea. He is however, most fascinated by the 1l bottle I keep by my bedside - very important for nursing moms at night.
My Mom mused that he must be wanting to emulate me drinking water and truly, when I remove the lid and let him drink, he chomps the water down. A bit messy, but he always rewards me with a toothy grin after. Even now, a couple of months or so after the fetish started, he is still fascinated by them and will sit there for a while patting the bottle on his lap.
Stuff Jack has sunk his teeth into lately: a plum he grabbed out of the fruit basket, a small organic carrot, my shoulder, my knee.
The bags and cat pendant I ordered from The Animal Rescue Site Store on 22 January arrived. Great quality gifts for friends and myself and in buying, the order gave 56 bowls of food to to a rescued animal in a shelter or sanctuary.
The aesthetics of this carrier were enough for me to give it a second look, and then a third look. But as a Bjorn user, I contemplated the financial wisdom of buying another carrier. Baby is now 9kg and carrying him in the Bjorn feels like being 9 months pregnant again. My knees ached and I felt tired and unwieldly. After a conversation with several moms, I decided to give it a go.
The purchase process through MummysMilk was fast and very pleasant. Lulu, the owner of the cool online establishment, herself an AP (attachment parenting) mom with 2 kids, was a delight to talk to. Her articles on AP are a must-read.
After I paid last night via Internet Banking, the Ergo arrived the very next day via courier. Mom was surprised how small it packed into (as a packing genius herself). It is light, comes in a clear A4 pouch, with clear instructions in print and in a DVD. I wasted no time opening it up.
Like kids under the Christmas tree awed by the lights, Mom, Jack, and I gathered around to have a look at it and oohed and ahhed. Visually it is as beautiful as it appears on the picture. No boring navy Bjorn or tired navy triangle hip carrier, this is jet black with a maroon trim. Definitely the epitome of cool.
While my Mom carried baby, I strapped the Ergo on and sat baby in it. I felt no weight at all! No sigh of weight like when I put baby in the Bjorn. Jack was rather amused by the new experience and beamed widely as I played with the straps. We danced around with it for a while. Then I decided to try putting the poncho on him. He brushed it off three times (okay, I put it on him 3x) and began to fuss.
Removing Jack from the Ergo (reach behind, unstrap + undo arm strap) is way faster than with the Bjorn, which is a three-action removal (undo button x2, undo long pin). I just undid the neck strap, undid one arm strap, and off he went chasing after the DVD box and the other papers in the pack.
For me, the Bjorn felt safer when baby was small and now, when bending over to pick up something while carrying baby. It gives better head support too without the use of a poncho (for fussy bears who hate stuff on their heads) and you can turn baby outwards. I'd been concerned about him being held by the crotch for a while on the Bjorn and am pleased that the Ergo carries him by the rump instead. The Ergo also allows back carrying and is certainly better for Mom's back.
"I reckon we're pretty lucky kitties to have been rescued by Mom and Aunty Mini when we were mere kittens. Mom's always taught us to help others if we can (well Tuxie still demands food but I think the rest of us got the lesson).
The good kitties at the Paw Pledge Shelter need your help. Please pop by their website and blog to say hello. They've got cats up for adoption and neat merchandise you can buy to help the shelter."
"To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness." -- Bertrand Russell
"Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages."
-- Thomas Edison (Harper's Magazine, 1890)
A woman's romance with motherhood, green living, finance, and this heady thing called life.
