JSJ: Jin Shin Jyutsu

    At one of the Mardi Gras Balls that my mom went to this break, she talked to her friend about my sickness.  Her friend recommended something she had done to her child while her child had mono that helped speedened her recovery! Her friend had recommended Jin Shin Jytusu, which is an ancient art of releasing tensions in the body to promote health and well-being. Willing to do anything to get me better again, the next day, my mom went to her friend's house to pick up the instructions.
 To do Jin Shin Jytusu, another person must place their fingertips in certain "safety energy lock" located along certain energy pathways of your body where and keep them there until the two pulses beat together. There are many different combinations of locations of these safety energy locks. There are 26 energy lock locations on the human body where energy tends to become stuck. (It sounds crazy, I know!)  By stimulating these areas, its is believed that you can release toxins, eliminate stress, relieve pain, decrease muscular tension, improve digestion, and temporarily relieve acute and chronic conditions.
 It's really soothing and I enjoy it, actually- it's like a massage!

Oh Mono

The entire week before I left for Virginia to visit a boarding school, I began to feel drastically more fatigued, irritable, sore, and weak. I also had been experiencing rapid heart beat. Also, I noticed a change in attitude towards going to school and doing what needs to be done. I was certainly not myself; I had mononucleosis and did not even know it. Before the trip, I thought I was just tired and anxious from school. I thought I had been under too much stress. However, when we started to travel, I knew there was something wrong. It was very discomforting to carry my luggage and backpack around the airport. I did not have much of an appetite that trip either, even though the virus was at its peak and my body was working extra hard to fend it off. Once we got to our hotel/spa, I was already dying for a massage appointment! We had only spent a few hours traveling and I was drained. The next morning was no sleep in day either. I got up at 7:00, only a 25 minutes later than I normally wake up on a school day, walked slowly to the shower, and spent about 20 minutes washing my hair/ trying to keep myself awake. Thank god the hot water was running out otherwise I might have fallen asleep while I was shampooing my hair! Not only did the mild shower water get me going, but my perseverance to get into the school miraculously got us dressed and out of the hotel in time to make my interview.
  Everything about that school woke me up for the entire time I was there. I loved everything about it; the dorms, the people, the teachers, the facilities, the views... I could go on and on! Seeing the school really did wake me up, then after, my mom and I decided to go see Georgetown. This is when I realized something truly must be wrong with me. If I wanted to leave my favorite store, Cusp by Neiman Marcus, to go back to the hotel and sleep, and skip out on a wonderful meal in D.C., then there MUST be something wrong! As I was trying on a pair of jean shorts, I pointed this out to my mom, but somehow she urged me to go try dinner nearby. And after dinner, I was lured into a little more shopping. Talk about shop til you drop, Mom! The next morning I felt like I'd been body slammed by a sumo wrestler. There wasn't a muscle in my body that was not sore. I admit, it was a pretty tiring day I was recovering from, but with mono, everything was 10 times worse. I felt like I'd been hit by a bus! On that trip, my body had been pushing itself to the limit with mono, and all my symptoms had worsened.
When we were back in Baton Rouge, I did get my extra sleep, but I was feeling weaker and more fatigued. While my mom and I were trying to piece all of my symptoms together and research them on the internet, my dad called the doctor. We searched a few sicknesses, but none matched up quite as well as Mononucleosis. The doctor's office was not open on Sunday, so I had to go to the Pediatric ER. They did several tests on me, including an I.V. (ew!) It was a long wait, but it was worth it. We were actually happy when we found out I had mono, because it could have been worse, and we knew many people who have had the virus before. I spent the rest of my week, including my entire Mardi Gras AND my golden birthday (turned fifteen on the fifteenth!) on bedrest. I'm still not fully recovered, and feel incredibly weakened and always fatigued, but with the help of the right diet, lots of rest, and lots of vitamin C and water, I am slowly getting back on track.

Global Issues Paper & Nervous Conditions

Global Issues Paper- To be honest, this weekend I haven't spent time on editing my paper. I am very grateful for my extended deadline because of my parental-excused visit to Washington, DC. It has been very hard to find time squeezing homework in, but I plan to work on it on the plane and on Sunday. This week as a whole, I would say that I spend an hour on my research paper, maybe a little more. I'm still unsure of whether I am doing the right thing, so I am planning to come to Dr. DeGravelles during my breaks/ tutorials next week.

Nervous Conditions- I actually enjoy this book. The cover did not look very alluring, but it is not that bad. I highlight all the words that I don't understand and look them up in the dictionary of my macbook. It's very helpful because it takes only 1 second to type in the word on the search bar and it'll give you a definition! Then, I write the definition off to the side of the word, and re-read the sentence with the word. Some people in our class don't do this, and I advise that they should, because it really helped me! Also, I want to try to get ahead because I don't want to have to worry about not being able to finish. I have read a total of three hours this past week. I'm guessing that it is 45 minutes for each chapter (including annotating).

Reading in French

Very soon, I'll be having to read French novels/ chapter books for a set time each night.  When I found this assignment, I let out a large sigh. I do think it would be interesting to read in French, and it's not the idea of reading in French that made me sigh. It's the workload that accompanies it. Our French class, with the majority of the students taking more than one honors (some of us three) had warned her that we will be reading ALOT in our English class too, and she basically responded that it doesn't matter, and that this is French, and French has expectations too. I completely understand where she is coming from,  but the homework load this year in all my classes has really started to take a toll on my health.
I find myself comming home from practice, completely exhausted, eating dinner, then finishing  homework or studying for the rest of the night. On the weekends, I am doing homework ALL Sunday, plus some hours on Friday and Saturday too! When I signed up from my classes, I knew that it wasn't going to be easy, but I figured that there would be some time where I could relax or go out with friends. School has made my stress level rise tremendously and I'm constantly getting sick. I want to find time where I can do the things I love, and not have to worry about sports practices getting in the way. I've been trying to figure this all out, but in the meantime, I'll just do what has to be done. I wouldn't be surprised if I found some gray hairs along the way!

I Can't Wait!

 Last year, after finally arriving in America from a French Trip to Quebec with my French class, we find out that our plane is delayed. We all thought that once we had crossed the border to America, all our troubles would end, and we would be able to make it safe and sound back to Louisiana. I will always remember it; we were waiting in the D.C. airport late at night, and found out that our connecting flight to New Orleans was delayed, and we had to spend TWO MORE NIGHTS in Washington DC. At the beginning of the trip we had to stay an extra night there before we departed for Quebec. We were not willing to do this AGAIN! Anything that could have ever went wrong on that Quebec trip did- one girl threw up on the bus (I am terrified of throw-up!) Erika got frostbite while dogsledding, we went skiing in a blizzard, my friend and I got lost while skiing in the blizzard, Mary Michael and Mallory accidently went down a black diamond and lost some skiing equipment, and the scary part is: that's just a few examples that I could think off the top of my head right now! Let's just say, it was a long time before our French class could even mutter the word "Quebec" or "Canada."
Looking back at it though, I got real lucky. The next morning I woke up and called my mom.  My mom had known I was miserable- we all were. Some parents were even considering flying up there to get their children! Charlotte's dad was a pilot, and he actually did.  My mom suggested staying with the Lily's, whose daughters go to my camp. So my parent's called the school to get an 'okay,' and Mrs. Lily picked me up the next morning. While everybody else stayed another night, I got to stay at one of my mom's friend's houses in D.C.!
    Driving from the hotel to her house, I found that Mrs. Lilley was one of the nicest people! She and I chatted the whole car ride about the trip, her daughters, and Camp Merrie-Woode. She was so welcoming and was excited that I'd be spending the night. It was nice to have a motherly figure to talk to after the chaotic, dare I say it, Quebec trip. The first thing we did was go to her son's beautiful middle-school bake sale. We opted to be one of the judges, and then  got to taste-test a variety of homeade treats.  Man, it was the best comfort food. We hadn't had any good food in Quebec. Then, after we stuffed ourselves on sugar, we picked one little girl up from school and another, Madeline (5th grade) from ballet. Madeline knew who I was from camp, and they were both so happy to have an older girl spend the night with them. They lived on a long street facing the river in a cute, welcoming house. Mrs. Lilley had shown me my guest room, and I had to get dressed for the girls' lower school event. After the event, Mr. and Mrs. Lilley took me to Vietnamese AND Fro-yo afterward. I couldn't believe it; those were my two absolute favorite types of food in the entire world, and I had been craving them all trip. I didn't even tell them! The next morning, on the way to the airport,  Mrs. Lilley and the girls took me to Georgetown and we passed some of the monuments on the way. We grabbed some delicious cupcakes for my French class (since I felt really guilty!) and I went to the airport. Staying with the Lilleys in Washington D.C. turned my disastorous French trip around. I loved every minute of it!
 The title for this post is "I Can't Wait" because I am visiting a school near Washington D.C. next week. I had was considering this school in while I was in eighth grade, but I didn't want to go Freshman year thinking I was missing out on home life. Now, I am sure that I want to go, so we are doing as much as we can to get in. I'm excited because we will be having dinner in D.C. with the Lilley's again, and I will be able to see a camp friend who goes to the school I'm visiting. Ahhh! I am ecstatic!

Twinkies, Deconstructed

This past Monday, I was in the library with Melissa as she was finishing some homework. I was getting a little bored, so I decided to make my time in the library productive, and I asked the librarian if she had any books that contained information about genetically modified/engineered foods (GMOs). I am doing my Research paper on a controversy in America about GMO in foods, or genetically modified crops that are available for Americans to eat. She pulled out a few books from the shelves and one in particular caught my eye- "Twinkie, Deconstructed," by Steve Ettlinger.  The librarian promised me that the book was very interesting, and we looked in the index to find out if it had facts about my topic. It did, so I decided to check it out, and quite honestly, the title succeeded at luring me onto the first page, for I enjoy reading anything involving with health.
The first question that came to mind was, "How does a man write a whole book about Twinkies, and what is the significance of the twinkie?" To my satisfaction, the Ettlinger does an outstanding job in the first chapter of the book explaining his purpose to the reader. He narrates that that one afternoon, Ettlinger was shocked to hear his young son articulate an ingredient on the package of his ice cream to ask him what it is.  Ettlinger could only muster the answer, "Uhh..umm..I uh...don't have a clue, honey" (2). At this moment, he began to ponder about what some of his foods contain, and became upset that he did not know about half of the ingredients in processed food that he eats and feeds to his children. This realization led him to unravel the mystery of ingredients in the Twinkie, which he chose because of its iconic image in America. Ettlinger clarifies the origin of all ingredients found in a Twinkie, from "enriched bleached wheat flower' to 'sorbic acid' to inform readers about the unbelievable processing in American foods. Not only does it help me with my research paper, but it is a book that I willingly enjoy reading.