So this might be my first...

So this might be my first nutrition related post.  Other than the occasional post on weird things that happen to me during my internship I haven't written to much on the topic that I am choosing to spend the rest of my life studying.  Right now is different though.  Enter nutrition related post:

So I was sitting around bored during my internship today (future employers- you didn't hear that).  The topic of the rotation I'm currently doing is diabetes or the 'beetus for you Wilford Brimley fans.

Quick refresher on diabetes; it's a chronic illness that presents in a few different ways.  It effects the way that your body absorbs and uses the energy you get from food.  All food gives you energy, but food specifically in the form of carbs (bread, rice, cereal, pasta, fruit, and sugar) turns to sugar in your blood. Type I diabetes is when something happens early in life to signal your body to attack the cells in your pancreas that produce insulin.  No insulin = food that you eat doesn't enter your cells. Now it can't be used as energy and stays in your blood which raise blood sugar.  With me?  Type II can be caused by a number of different risk factors; age, weight, race, family history, inactivity.. blah, blah, boring dietitian stuff.  Either way Type II is when these factors cause your cells to become resistant to insulin made by the pancreas.  This forces the pancreas it to create more and more to the point that it eventually gets pooped and stops making as much.  Diabetes can be discovered at any point along this physiology and is a dangerous and difficult disease.  People with diabetes go through a lot when they first realize they have it.  Classes on carb counting.  Classes on blood glucose readings.  Classes on insulin delivery methods.  Kids can even go to special diabetes camp to learn how to live with it.  I've seen patients that finally got the hang of it after 20 years of battling.  20 years.  Not only is it life changing but it can also be scary.  If your blood sugar is too high for to long you can destroy your eyes, feet, heart and kidneys.  If it's to low you can faint and even fall into a coma.  So basically if you are insulin resistant or have diabetes and have it under tight control give yourself a pat on the back.  If you don't I can refer you to some dietitians I know...

So I'm at my rotation today dreaming of the 'beetus and I had a realization.  Diabetes is the Earth's way of getting back at human for treating it so badly!  Human treat Earth like a giant BM, we all know that.  We ravage resources for our own consumption with little regard as to who or what it will affect years in the future.  Well I think that Saturn and Mercury, as concerned friends of Earth's probably staged an intervention. After all cave men are like the marijuana of evolution and modern humans are the heroine.

Voice over (probably Morgan Freman): Earth has been struggling with it's human addiction now for thousands and thousands of years.  If it doesn't get better, the humans will destroy him.  Earth's closest friends and family have gathered to stage an intervention.

*Curtain opens on Saturn and Mercury sitting in a living room.  The year is 12,000 BC, before modern agriculture was on the map. Venus, the Moon, Uranus and Pluto are also there.  There is an 'INTERVENTION' banner hanging up in the background.*

Saturn

'Earth, we're all here today because we love you and Sun couldn't make it back from vacation in time.'

Mercury

'Yeah man, we love you and we hate to see you destroying yourself like this.'

Earth

 *somewhat annoyed*

'Look guys, I've got control of this, I'm just going to let the humans be here a few thousand more years... they promised they wouldn't evolve any further than this and they don't even have domesticated crops yet!'

Saturn

'Dude, you're letting them start fires and take advantage of your floods... it's only a matter of time before they are flying around you and tearing down your trees'

Everyone

*in mumbled concern*

'yeah Earth, yeah, yeah, you have control over the humans, don't let them take advantage of you!'

Earth

'... I suppose you're right *deep breath* I don't have control over the humans. *starts to feel better* Wow! That feels great to say! I guess the first step is admitting it.  Ok! What do I have to do??'

Enter Wilford Brimley

Wilford

'Ok Earth, what we're going to ask you to do is not going to be simple.  It's not going to be easy. You are going to have to work very hard at it, for a long time...'

Earth

*with a shaky voice*
'I think I can do it... with all of your help of course...'

Wilford

'Alright, the first thing I want you do to is let them plant their crops during the flood season'

Everyone

*Gasp*

Pluto

'But that means, agriculture, domestication, technology! The mind boggles with what they could come up with!'

Wilford

'I know it's a risky move. But if we can get them to settle into one area and plant in the same spot year after year, we'll have a chance.  After we lure them into thinking this is a safer way to live... then, we introduce to them wheat!'

Earth

'Wheat? But how's that going to help my human addiction, isn't it just going to feed them?'

Wilford

'Well, I'll tell ya, humans love wheat, and it can be a great nutrient for them!  But human don't have the will power you planets do.  They won't be able to control their consumption and they will eat to the point of self extinction. '

Earth

'You mean to say, I provide them with the tools and they will cause their own extinction?'

Wilford

'Precisley!'

Earth

'But what will be call the disease that they get from the inability to store the wheat they are eating?'

Wilford

'Well we'll just have to call that the DIAAAABEETUS'

Earth
'There's got to be anther way!'

Wilford
 *Slams fist on table in frustration*
'THERE IS NO OTHER WAY!!'
*starts to calm down, takes a deeps breath*
'Look, Earth, you're a good planet, and I hate to see the humans ravage you like this, and just imagine your future... this is the only weapon we have against them, they are already to strong...'

Earth

'Well.. I don't know..'

Mercury

'Oh come on Earth! Don't be such an oxygen producer!'

Uranus

'Yeah, Earth, you have 2 choices, kills off the humans slowly over time with the only resource you have... or let them continue to evolve and destroy everything you have worked so long to create...'

Moon

'Yeah Earth, what's it going to be??'

...
you get the picture.  Mercury and Saturn are bullies and obviously this is a dramatization but if we don't do something the human race is doomed to a slow and painful sugar extinction.  Or as we, in 'the biz' like to call it the diabeetus.

So here's a little story about...

So here's a little story about those times in life that you just have to laugh at yourself.  It was one of those amazingly mundane yet profound moments that nobody really realizes has this intense effect on you because it's just a part of their regular day.  Like I happen to know, for a fact that this moment held no weight or impact on either of the two other people that it involved.  If asked about it in a month they probably won't even remember it happened.  But for me it was one of those 'what the fuck am I doing here?!' kind of moments.  One of those moments you just have to laugh at yourself and say 'chill there girlfriend, you were kinda just taking things way to seriously there for a second'  then buy yourself some ice cream and call it a day.

So I'm in this dietetic internship right now, right.  And right now the majority of my day is spent doing the work that real dietitians don't want to do.  So whenever an A1C screen come through- A1C being a test that can indicate pretty well what someone's blood glucose has been running over 3 months, which is especially important for diabetics since it tells me that while you claim your blood sugar runs 'somewhere between 90 and 120' that really it's more like 190 and you're a lying asshole.  Anyway.  The hospital I'm working at screens; meaning we look through the patient lists for our floors and just browse for specific criteria for why we might go see a patient- we screen, for an A1C level of over 8%.  This means their average blood glucose level is ~183 which is much higher than the norm ~90 and your diabetes is getting out of control, you're going to lose the feeling in your fingers and toes... blah blah blah *dietitian talk*.  So anyway, we screen for these A1C tests and we have to go discuss with the patient why their blood sugars are running high and like 99% of the time it is because the person genuinely doesn't give a fuck.  Not to generalize the diabetic population; how undietitianlly of me. But at the very least my small. tiny. insignificant experience tells me that IF your A1C levels are running high, and have been for a while, you don't want to hear about carb counting and we're both going to sit here with smiles on our faces talking about things neither one of us wants to talk about.

Those are the kind of people I get to go see during this internship.

So I've got this patient.  And in an attempt to not break HIPPA we'll call them Daffy Duck.  Now Daffy Duck's condition I can't really describe either so let's just say that Daffy's principal problem is that someone ate his peanut butter.  Now along with someone eating his peanut butter Daffy also has dementia.  The doctors describe him as 'pleasantly demented' but he has it never the less.  So I'm in Daffy's room and my plan is to go through my typical laundry list of things I talk to patients about, bowel movements, nausea/vomiting, how you eat a home...the good stuff.  So I'm talking to Daffy and first question in he starts going off.  He's going off about how scary someone stealing his peanut butter is and how he doesn't want to be in the hospital because it scares him and how they got his diagnosis wrong and really they just THINK someone stole his peanut butter but really it's just someone playing a prank on him and they just hid it under his bed.  And so on and so on in a sort of gibberish, demented, smile and nod along sort of way.  But still I'm starting to feel Daffy's emotions and starting to connect with him when I realize I haven't asked any of my questions!.... So I panic.  I decided I have to interrupt Daffy.  I really didn't want to do this but it was getting to be to long, out of my scope of practice and I did have other patient's lives to save.  So I do it. I interrupt Daffy right smack dab in the middle of this really heavy conversation.  And I ask. I ask, in my grown up *loud and slow* so the patient can understand properly voice,  I ask, "SO HAVE YOUR BOWELS BEEN MOVING ALRIGHT RECENTLY??"

So I made this huge mistake...

So I made this huge mistake last week.  This wasn't any old, left my hair straightener plugged in all night and now there is a char mark next to my sink kind of mistake.  This was a brain mistake, the kind where I screwed up my train of thought out of purely selfish actions.  And now I'm writing about it to help myself understand and get back on track.  This is for me, not you.

So I finished my food service rotation of this internship that consumes my time last week.  To remain politically correct about the experience, I learned a lot from it.  And that's all I'm saying, fill in the blanks on that one, mind reader.  To celebrate the fact that I was done I spent the weekend preparing for my next rotation... CLINICAL!  To answer your question, yes it is a scary as it sounds!  My name is out there in the medical field- after only 4 days there I am officially official.  If something gets fucked up with one of these patients my name is on their chart.  Legitimately Legit.  So, in order to prepare for this rotation I... studied from old textbooks, reread some old case studies from college, took a prequiz, tried to relax, and dusted off and watched some episodes from one of my old favorite shows, House. Ok, that last part wasn't exactly a way that I was preparing for my rotation but I was bored and House was on the 'flix.  This was the huge mistake I made.

I go into my first day of the rotation a nervous wreck just trying to make it through.  The first patient chart I look it was pretty standard.  Coronary artery disease, which like most other heart failure patients had run it's course in the rest of the patient's body.  This lead to some elevated laboratory findings, some renal issues and a nutrition consult.  So silly me, after watching like 13 hours of a television show about a doctor dedicated to only solving the cases that others can't, my mind starts freaking out! What does that lab mean? Is that the only thing going on with them? How do those medications react with those ones? What about all the crazy underlying issues that we haven't tested for yet? Are we going to test fro them? What kind of healthcare workers are we? How is this going to progress to a more complicated case? Don't they all do that??  I forgot to remember that like 99.9% of the people that end up in the hospital are standard patients whose problems run a standard course and there is a standard treatment that, if followed properly, will lead to a discharge.  So now I'm grounded from watching House and I'm not allowed to assume someone's prognosis is immediately going down hill.  SORRY for caring...

Once upon a time...

Once upon a time there was a pretty pretty princess.  The princess lived in a tiny, secluded, and protected part of the northeastern part of the country.  We'll call this place "Vermont".  I'm going to tell you a gripping story of how she dropped her glass slipper (who wears shoes made of glass), let down her beautiful hair, and moved half way across the country.

Growing up:
So... there was this princess.  Most of the life she could remember happened in tiny little 1 hour radius in the Adirondack region of New York, with 130 other people her age that knew every single thing the princess did from the moment she stepped into her first kindergarten classroom to when she tripped and fell across the stage at high school graduation.  I'm saying- EVERYONE knew EVERYTHING.  They knew when you picked your nose, they knew how you liked your milkshakes, they knew exactly why you weren't wearing your NHS sash during said graduation. Now, the princess didn't exactly love where she lived growing up- standard teenager complaints, nothing to do, nowhere to go, boring people yadda yadda yadda, but she didn't exactly hate it either.  There was enough room in her street that she could play roller hockey with the neighbors until the street lights came on, she had best friends that would do anything for her- like punching someone in the face after they tried to push your friend out of a moving vehicle- and there was always adventure to be had in the mountains on the weekends, well the weekends that she didn't have basketball or track practice.  The princess had experienced other parts of the country too, ski trips to Colorado, visiting family in Chicago, flying to Disney World to hobble around the whole week with a questionably sprain ankle... and recently a vacation to Barcelona, but that deserves a separate story.  The princess was by no means "sheltered" but she also was not exactly well traveled.

The college years:
The princess spent a lot her first year of college- we won't call it miserable- but... without a proper social outlet.  She was struggling to find her niche at such a wonderful place and could not grasp how people made new friends so easily.  Don't get me wrong she had friends that she went to go get pizza with at 2am, and would let her into their rooms while her roommate got busy with the guys down the hallway, and granted some of it had to do with the fact that she lived on a primarily sophomore status floor she couldn't help but to be jealous when she saw people getting to know each other around her instead of with her.  Now the princess got very lucky toward the end of the year freshman year and made some wonderful friends that she would eventually go on to live with and spend the next 3 years of college making amazing memories with, but like I said she got lucky and she did this with the help of one specific and very special friend.

Post coital I mean college:
All through college the princess' confidence was growing and by the end of college she had blossomed into quite the young lady.  While her group of friends had shifted somewhat she was a part of a group of people that had gone through a lot together already and had much more coming for them, and she was proud of that.  After college the princess was terrified to venture out into the world alone.  She claimed time and time again that she was only moving if she had someone to do it with, after all who just goes to another city without and friends or plan or anything to do??  The princess continued to live her new-experience'ly' challenged life (and I hesitate to call it that, I did have some major adventures, they all just happened in New England, but I couldn't figure out what else to call it) until one day she decided to move half way across the country...

Ok she didn't just decide, she was forced somewhat by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, the IUPUI dietetic internship program, and the inability to attain those things we call "dreams" without fulfilling a certain amount of supervised practice hours which based upon selection criteria has landed the princess in the flattest part of the country.

Opening a new chapter:
So the princess moves to a city who's population is larger than the population of the entire state that she moved from, that she had never even been to, and into an apartment with 7 other princess' in the same situation.  And you know what she's learned so far.. she's learned that when you know where you're going and you avoid the hours between 7 and 9 in the morning and 4 and 6 in the evening, you barely even notice the size of the city.  She's learned that even though it's a bigger city, there still is very little to do, very little that costs very little at least.  She's learned that you can make your city seem smaller by going to even larger, dirtier, meaner cities (sorry Chicago).  And she's learned that making friends takes practice.  She learned that all those kids at the beginning of college, or those people that start a new job and are immediately part of the team, aren't necessarily better people or more charismatic, they just have more practice at meeting new people.  They've had the opportunity to make mistakes. And life is all about making mistakes; and learning from those mistakes.  That carries over to meeting people: you meet someone, you talk for a little while to see if you're on the same page and if your not you find out how to be.  When you've done this enough times it becomes second nature, but if you've never had the opportunity to meet people that are different from you (like never leaving New England for more than a week at a time), you don't get to have the opportunity to practice.

Now, I don't know if you could tell or not but, drum roll please... the princess is me!  Yes, moving to a new, big, scary city has been quite the learning opportunity... I'm getting lots of practice meeting new people and I flipping love it!  When I got visit home in December I'm going to be the friendliest mofo you've ever seen!  And to thank you for your time here is a little preview to the holiday card the IUPUI Internship Class of 2015 will be putting out this season.  Side note, we got yelled at by our teachers for laughing too much during this photo shoot. We hot cause we fly mother fruckers.

So I took this personality thing...

So I took this personality thing called the MBTI and it was awesome!  I really recommend it to those that are interested in knowing more about themselves.. although I might've just liked it because that is apart of my personality type.  I do think it's really fascinating how one species (humans) can be so different though, which is why I think everyone should take the test and get back to me (especially those people that I know well).  For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about the MBTI is a personality assessment- you answer some questions and it gives you 4 letters that detemine your personality type.  Here's a summerized version of what the options are:

You are assigned one letter from each category depending on your source of energy (extroversion vs. introversion), your way of gathering information (sensing vs. intuition), your decision making (thinking vs. feeling), and how you relate to the world (judgement vs. perception).
 Now here are the awesome things that I have found out about myself:

1) I scored as an INFP, although after reading about the types I'm realizing that I am more of an ENFP. To justify the switch I was only slightly an I and there is an explanation for that..

• I had to take the personality test as part of class and- as per my personality type- I lost interest and only half assed some of the answers (don't tell my teachers).  
• The personality types are very similar and a lot of people are saying they cross over easily depending on the situation, meaning INFPs are the 'extroverted introverts' and ENFPs are the 'introverted extroverts'.

2) I have one of the most underrepresented personality types!

• One of the coolest things I've found out about myself is that I am severely underrepresented (only 7% of the American population is ENFP) making us ENFPs feel lost growing up feeling like no one understands us (maybe a reason for the emo stage I went through in high school, although that might've just been because that was when it was cool for some reason).  AND I have one of the most complicated personality types making ENFPs often seem like the free-spirited weirdo.. fine by me.

3) ENFPs and INFPs both love writing.. and while I've only started this blog almost a year ago I love doing it, it really helps me sort out my feelings (now we know why) and I have gotten great feed back on it.  And now I am writing about my personality to understand it.. bear with me.

4) I share a personality type with Adolph Hitler which is a little strange because (and I'm not using this as an excuse) I have always had Jewish friends..

• I also share a type with Robin Willaims (RIP), Dr. Suess, Bob Dylan, and Sandra Bullock.

5) We are severe optimists and our energy is contagious.

• Another thing I never understood growing up was why no one shared the outlook I did.  And it continues to drive me CRAZY when people are repeatedly negative but..

6) When something does not fit into my personal beliefs I tend to ignore it.

• Which again explains why I end up just ignoring a lot of people who shove negativity in my face.

7) We are brain stormers and idealists.

• I come up with ideas and am very enthusiastic about said ideas, but have a hard time following through. Example: I usually write papers, and blog posts all in one sitting and have very little editing.  In fact my whole life is full of rough drafts made to look like finals, I've always had my mother do my editing since I could never be bothered with it, I often loose my train of thought and once it's gone.. say goodbye.

8) ENFPs females have very satisfied male partners in marriage but are often unsatisfied themselves because we seek change and adventure.

• Something I have to look forward to.  But again as per the personality type we will do whatever it takes to make ourselves happier in our marriage (see what I'm starting to get at with the complication of the type).

9) ENFPs often go into business for themselves.

• Not something I am particularly striving toward but I guess we'll see.  We also have a tendency to change careers and college majors a lot, but since I went into college with one major and left with the same, I think I broke the mold on that one.
• Plus I found a website that ENFPs also make great nutritionist, and while I will be correcting people my whole life that I am a dietitian and not a nutritionist, that made me feel better.

10) We are extremely compassionate and caring but our level of complication does not always let us express this compassion in a way understood by other personality types.

• A note to the other personality types though, we go all in so don't let our complication stop you or let you think we are blocked off. We have a strong sense of traditionalism, we will stand by our relationships until the day we die, and WE DO CARE!

11) We are overthinkers and this causes us to stress out easily.

• This trait causes us to constantly seek approval from others and question ourselves when it does not come across.  Daunting I know but knowing is the first step in overcoming I suppose.

12) Lastly, I love my personality type!

Based on what I've read ENFPs are creative, charismatic, enthusiastic, kind, complicated, and adventure seekers.. sounds just about exactly how I want to be described so thank you for letting me brag about how awesome my personality type is and I hope you gained some insight.  Now go out and take the test and learn about yourself!  You can take it here: http://www.capt.org/take-mbti-assessment/mbti.htm for a small fee or I'm sure you can get a good reading from a google search.  Seriously I want to know..

And to thank you for reading here is one of the cutest pictures I could find of my parent's little puppy Hooker Lee!!

So I know it's been forever...

So I know it's been forever, March in fact, since my last post but I got really caught up in this whole getting an internship and moving half way across the country thing.  I was actually going to write about getting the internship and how in your 20s you do things with your friends that you did with your family growing up (ex. birthdays, holidays, own pets, spend most of your off time together, even take vacations) and eventually your friends become like your family making it even more difficult to leave since you have to say goodbye to 2 families.. but you can see where the topic became to painful to write about.  Also I found myself with very little extra time to write, but now that I am here, in this new city, almost 900 miles away from my 2 families and all my puppies and am having trouble sleeping- but at least I can write again..

Anyway I don't know if you are familiar with the recent thriller/ scary movies The Purge and the second one (which was even better, but don't get me started on the squeals of movies and there quality)? If your not, brief summary of the idea behind the movie (not the actual movie since that is kind of unimportant right now, but highly suggested for your next movie night): it's based in the future where the government has decided that to control crime they allow it for 1 night a year.  Yes, 1 night out of the year you get to do whatever you want, without the influence of the police, including murder and it is supposed to have this magical effect on crime and unemployment rates (since all the homeless people have no where to hide so they get purged by the assholes who just go out and kill anyone they come across).  It's really an intense thing, like the hospitals shut down for the night, people buy really expensive home security systems that shut down their whole house just for purge night..  I really recommend it to those fellow scary movie lovers, it's really quite creepy and it's kind of an obscure topic, but anyway..

I JUST HAD THIS DREAM!! Right now it's like 3:30 in the morning and I can't sleep in my new box store bedroom because of this dream I just had and I really needed to write it down since it is going to be another one of those million dollar movie ideas. I'm going to get copyrighted if I can ever figure out how to and if you look back in my blog you can find others, but this one is good I promise- just stick with me.  Also it's one of those things that if I don't write it down I'll just lay here and think about it the rest of the night and not sleep anyway, so this is just as much for me as it it for you.  Either way-

I just had this dream where the purge got even more advanced. Like to a multi-national level. They (the over-viewers of the earth, since there are those in the future) decided that the earth was to populated so they introduced this team that, on purge night, come in on planes and cause some major terror amongst everyone.  I remember this one specific scene where everyone in the town I was living in watched as this really low flying plane passes over a few times and kinda just pauses over the city as if they are surveying for the proper victims.  Only after a few passes and pausing in the sky does the plane land and these guys in swat team uniforms and big fire proof haz-mat outfits come out and start purging.

They only had certain targets though because the government had decided that they wanted to improve the national 'average' levels in most areas. So you were safe if you were close to the new 'average' and they got rid of you if you were way too dumb and even a few that were too 'by the book' smart (since they only wanted to keep those that were intelligent but also critical thinkers- really creepy stuff if you actually think about it, I know. Because, like who are they to decide who gets to live and die and weird to think that they can mess with national statistics like that but..). Now, since it was my dream obviously I was safe but I didn't know that- so I spent most of the dream running from these people sent to purge the town.  They were basically tearing through houses leaving those on the list and killing anyone that wasn't on it but no one knew this was going on, so we all thought everyone was getting purged.  Like I remember a scene where I had run to this library and had hidden myself terribly and part of the team comes in and takes out the librarian that had helped me hide but glanced over me pretending not to see. So next I fled to this summer camp, again unaware that I was safe the whole time. This one really creepy girl, in charge of purging this camp caught up to me and was being disgustingly nice to me, while in the same sentence was beheading another girl without blinking an eye. I spent a lot of time at this camp avoiding her, trying to figure out who I knew that was still alive, and just what the heck was going on. Once the purge was over she- for what appeared to be no reason- let me go reassuring me that I wouldn't be killed because I was close enough to the new 'average'. I was still skeptical until I was driving away and the access road to camp had this new parking garage gate across it. The person in front of me scanned their ID badge (since this is the future and everyone has them and that's how you pass through certain check points along the road like this one) and they we're supposed to be killed.. so someone was air dropped in and sliced them up.  Still skeptical of the situation, (which I know is stretching it by this point, but hey, still dreaming) I sped away.  I was driving around the new world and it was so erie and quite and destroyed by the plane swat team that I had to wake up, but let's say for cinematographic reasons (and I just spelled that right on the 1st try) that's when the credits roll.

Thanks for reading along but now I've got a 4 hour computer training demo to go to tomorrow so I think I should get back to sleep, but, again if you are some big shot movie producer in Hollywood and you are reading this.. maybe we can work out a deal for The Purge 3?  And all I'm asking for is like.. 10%??

As you may or may not know...

As you may or may not know I work with young athletes for a living.  Which you should know based on my previous postings... Anyway, I work with young athletes; technically 7-18+ but mostly I work with the older kids so let's say 12 and up.  Not that it exactly matters.  Either way, I love my job and I'm actually about to write something really positive about it, which in it of itself I think is an amazing thing that I get to do.  When I spend 12 hours at work just to go home and return in another 12 hours, it actually doesn't make me that upset because I know what I'm getting myself into. Oh and by the way this might be a somewhat serious posting so if you are looking for the lighter banter that drips in sarcasm that I usually write, I would turn around now.  I would suggest checking out buzzfeed maybe??

So with the job that I have, I literally get to watch these middle and high schoolers grow into better athletes.  And if nothing is going to boost your confidence as an athlete in high school, running faster and being more agile definitely will at any level; all the way from the kid who maybe wasnt going to make the team at all to the leading scorer.  And as their performance coach I sometimes think about how my life would've been different if someone like me taught high school Lisa the things that I know.  That's a little confusing even to me so I'm going to try to break it down a little more.

My life as an athlete:

So here I am maybe age 4 or 5 rocking a bomb dot com outfit and some goalie gear.  I never played hockey but boy did I want to.  I used to get home from school every single day, lace up my roller blades and play roller hockey either with my neighborhood friends or against the invisible team that would always let me win.  I also played in every youth sport league you could think of.  At one point I was the only girl in the baseball little league and man did I crush it (until I broke my nose that is)... so I think it's safe to say that I was an athlete growing up.  Since my high school kind of sucked; admit it, the people there... really? They were all kind of losers, I mean it was plattsburgh, and most of them are still there.  And not only that, but they all thought they were being followed by a full filming crew 24/7 and were going to be the next show to make it on MTV.  To get away from all of them I channeled my energies into all of the sports.  I played soccer, swam, played basketball, ran on the track team, and raced mountain bikes.  Now don't get me wrong here, I had plenty of people help me out a lot along the way, but future Lisa could've helped young, struggling, lack of confidence Lisa a lot.  I do remember one soccer coach in particular though.  When I was in like 5th grade he taught me everything I know about soccer IQ.  When someone would come at me while I was playing defense and get around me- it never struck me to, instead of backpedaling, turn and run by them to get on the other side of the ball- until he taught me how.  Now I didn't end up playing soccer all the way through high school... but I still play now, so suck it senior year coach!  Now my basketball coach in 8th, 9th, and 10th grade I actually owe a lot of thanks to and Mrs. Wilson, if you're out there I hope you understand what you did for me.  I didn't realize until I started working at Parisi that female athletes and male athletes have very different approaches to sports and working out in general.  Believe it or not girls can be afraid of athletics and working out.  They think it makes them seem like a lesbian, or boys won't like them or they will get big legs or any other stereotypical thing you can say about female athletes.  A little more on that later, but it helps young females to have someone show them that it is ok to be an athlete, and that is what Mrs. Wilson did for me... she was the best, wasn't she?  Now I didn't end up playing basketball though out high school but good news for me, when I stopped playing junior year I joined the indoor track team.  OHHHH the indoor track team...

Here we are after going through the lost and found in the girls locker room >>> that was a fun team.  Not only a fun team but also the first time I learned how to lift weights.  Actually this wasn't my first time lifting weights, I remember doing some sort of strength and conditioning camp in the summer of 9th grade with Brett Willmott, who I owe a lot of my athletic abilities to as well.  He taught me the 101 of olympic lifting and how to front squat and a whole bunch of other stuff but that's all I can remember.  So doesn't count- sorta. Not that he's not the man either, (he might be one of the greatest coaches I've ever worked with.  He was my college track coach as well and has so much coaching experience under his belt.  He's actually more of a role model for me now as a coach than when I was an athlete) but I have a hard time remembering the time I spent with him when I was younger since I just wasn't that into it then.  Anyway, my indoor track coaches were still in college though, and really only had the job because they ran track themselves (sorry Mehan and Vern, but it's kinda true).  They have since grown as coaches and have done a great job creating some fantastic track athletes, but when I was on the team it was like their 2nd year coaching.  Practice went a lot like this: go out for a run on the cold snowy streets of plattsburgh, anywhere between 1.5 and 4.6 miles.  When you got back it was either time to practice starts, handoffs, hurdle or jump form or you would go into the weight room.  Since my brother was a jumper for the outdoor team and I had been to the previous season, that's what I did for indoor.  There was another girl jumper on the team and we actually managed our way around the weight room with the help of Vern, our trusted jump coach.  He would have us leg press and squat (very intelligent of him) but then sometimes I definitely remember doing bicep curl pyramids with the EZ curl bar???  And I had absolutely no idea what I was trying to do.  One thing I try to do at Parisi is quiz kids on what exercise we're doing and what muscles it uses and why we're doing what we're doing.  When I was lifting I would just do it, I didn't realize that the hamstring and glutes were the dominant muscles while leg pressing and they were the same muscles used in running and jumping.  And that didn't even get any better in college (confession of a fitness professional- I didn't know that bench pressing what a chest exercise until I graduated college) BUTTTTTTT!! in Vern's defense I did jump the furthest of my life that season.  And that includes the season I spent jumping in college before they switched me to a hammer thrower.  And you know what the best part is... no one made the connection for me that lifting weights was the reason why I jumped so far that winter.
So here's what I'm concluding about my athletic career based on what I know now and what I just told you.  If someone had bothered to help me make the connection between lifting and my athletic performance I probably would've stuck with it for longer and probably would've been a better athlete in college and might've played a different sport all together instead of longing to be on a team sport.  But that's kind of a different story.  ANDDDD now that I know what I'm doing- I can squat and deadlift more than when I was a division 1 athlete, I can do more chin ups than I ever had, and my push up form in pretty spot on... look at this kid.

Training female athletes and what I would've told high school Lisa:
The greatest part is, I don't even feel like my talents are being wasted.  I LOVE training athletes.  Especially female ones.  When I first started at Parisi it was just another job for me.  I hadn't had the joy of training athletes so I didn't realize how much I liked it. To be perfectly honest it continued to be 'just another job' until I found my niche.  Once I was done paying my dues and only training the kids under 12 I graduated to the older kids, and that was not as easy as it sounds.  I spent plenty of time sitting in the corner, head in hands after getting completely worked by 9 year olds, taking the 2-3 minutes I got before another working.  It was after I started working with the older kids and the middle and high school females that I realized what I get to do for them.  I get to be that coach that makes it ok for them to like sports.  I get to explain to them that chin ups work the same muscles as the ones used for proper arm action and how that makes them faster.  I think it is very important for young female athletes to lift weights since it helps so much with injury prevention, ladies your ACLs can thank me later... not only that but I LIKE making them like it- and they love it!  I had a group of 6 or 7 girls over the summer that got so into working out and strength training that they would try to pick some of their own exercises, and I would let them since most of the time they would pick the right ones.  And the way I do it, you ask??... well I turn up the beyonce (another strong, independent, female role model), we don't 'train chest'- we 'do push-ups' (to get away from the negative connotation that comes along with training a specific muscle group, even though doing push-ups won't make you look like a big scary man- women don't have the proper hormones for that), I create a positive workout environment (I like to show them how proud I am of them when the squat the 50 lb dumbbell for the first time, and I like to compliment them on how strong they look and how ok it is that they do look strong), and I talk to them like they are on my level.  Now if I could just get them to show up to workouts on time...

If I could go back and coach high school Lisa, the amount of confidence I would inspire in that girl would be unreal.  I would inform her that yes, the soccer team is better when she is on the field and she is one of the faster female athletes in the school and not to hide her talents because of her crippled self esteem.  I would've also bullied her into doing a lifting program that not only helped her run faster and jump higher but I would've shown her that lifting weights was definitely the reason why it was happening.  AND I would play for her beyonce albums cover to cover to show her what a real queen B sounds like!

So I haven't written a lot recently...

So I haven't written a lot recently, but it's only because I had nothing to write about.  As nauseating as it sounds I didn't have a lot of drama going on in my life so I had nothing to rant about and I'm not creative to come up with other funny shit.....but then is happened upon me.  So I'm watching a scary movie at my friends house, which is a fucking story in itself- so we watch a good amount of scary movies which means a few things 1) most of the movies on netflix and any recent and decently good ones, we've seen which brings me to number 2) we can't even remember which ones we've seen.  Now granted we've watched so many by now that we mix up titles like insidious and the conjuring (both good ones that I recommend, especially insidious.. I mean the conjuring).

So we finally end up choosing a movie. It was called the orphanage and it was in spanish with english subtitles........ I know! So eventually I can't take it an more and I make everybody in the room turn it off.  We end up discussing the movie and end up on the topic what the characters should and should not have done.  Which ends up remind me of these rules that my friends and I had back in high school that we would get super angry about and yell at the tv while we thought we were being so super cool staying up all night eating pizza and watching scary movies- I know, really cool right?

So we discussed the rules of scary movies and they are:

1) NEVER split up! - dumbest thing ever! Like c'mon all of the groups that split up and up dead.
a) along the same lines- don't pick up hitchhikers or add people to your group. Like really??

2) Don't be black.

3) If there is a creepy gas station I would suggest avoiding it and moving on the the next one that probably won't give you directions to some torture  chamber- just saying. In general I would suggest avoiding all creepy locals

4) Don't go snooping around other peoples stuff.  It's impolite and their stuff might be haunted.

5) Never ask 'who's there?'. It's never going to help you in the long run, forget about the fact that you just totally gave your own position away but even if they do answer- what are you hoping they say? 'Oh, it's just me.  The really super scary dude that is here to kill you/haunt you/cut you into a million pieces and if I'm really fucked up I might make you do it'. Then you're just like 'Umm no please?'

6) If a town is abandon, then it probably is for a reason. Don't go setting up your camp there and just hoping for the best.

7) Dead people always lurch.
a) but don't always go assuming that they are dead. they never are.

8) When the power goes out, it's never because of the fuse box- you might as well save yourself the trouble and not go into the basement. But it inevitably will so make sure your cell phone is always charged.

9) I'm all about physical relations between two consenting people, and even spicing it up with a location change, but once you've decided there is a creepy demon presence or murder inside you house it might not be the best time so keep it in your pants. And speaking of inappropriate places to be doing things, same situation might not be the best time for a nap/shower/changing your clothes

and the final rule issssss....:10) Don't be an idiot- c'mon people lets be smart about this... you've got some sort of demon/monster/dude with an axe/murder following you and you need to live through this, let's use our heads about ALL of the decisions we make from here on out.

So there you have it... the rules of life if you find yourself in a scary movie situation and want to live through it. I'm glad the writers block was gone for long enough for me to get those written down and out to the public.

So I'm pretty sure...

So I’m pretty sure the next workplace comedy show is going to be based on the place I work.  When I say workplace comedy I’m talking about The Office or Workaholics.  And I’m saying that if it isn’t based on the Edge then it probably should be.  So I work at the Edge.  The Edge is in Vermont and the moment you walk into the doors of the Edge the entire culture that Vermont prides itself on goes out the window.  Well actually, technically I work for the Parisi Speed School.  The whole premise of Parisi and what I do there is so wonderful.  We work with kids between the ages of 7 and 17 on ground speed training and on lifting weights for the first time.  Now mind you the middle school and high school years of your life are a very scary time and what is more important to you as a high school athlete is how you perform.  I work with these kids on foundational athletic movements to improve their performance.  And really this athletic performance bull-shit is just a vehicle to handing out life skills.  And what boots your confidence more than actually running faster than you used to.  And before you go reading into all of this, I actually do love my job and everything I do there.  I get to see the look on a kids face when they do their first chin up or when they get a higher score on our scoring system and not much beats that, so don't go running to hills shouting about how much I hate my job... because your pants would catch on fire. Anyway...

What I’m talking about in the whole ‘my life should be a television show’ thing is how my life should actually NOT be a television show.  I think someone much funnier than I am should take ideas from my life and magnify the characters like 10-fold and produce THAT shit.  A health club right? How can there be so much drama at a place like that? Now let me tell you… there are 100+ people working in like 8 or 9 different departments as a part of a bigger team that involves taking money from all the same people in a small area in northern Vermont.  Now since everybody at the club is fighting over taking the same money from the same people to go to the same place you can see where there would become some conflict.  And this conflict is the dumbest conflict ever.  And everyone just LOVES to get sooooo offended BY this dumb conflict. We fight over space, people go over other people’s heads like all the time and which department the money is getting put into the cash register as ugh the list goes on and on…

Not only do we have the conflict for a comedy show but, man, do we have the characters too.  We have stereotypical creepy old guy (very much a mix between Kevin and Creed from the Office):

                                                                       +

gay and accepted:

and yes, he does teach group classes, and I love him.  The super religious girls that WANTS to be offended every time you say dick:

the 23 year old that is ready to pop with her second child:

multiple douchy managers, girl that won't shut the fuck up, crazy stalker girl that brings very little to the table, the guy that will go to the higher ups about anything, and meth head cleaning staff. Another list that goes on and on...

People have some really mundane jobs.  *GASP* 'you're not smearing someone else's career choice are you?!'  Well... no I'm not trying to, I'm trying to get everyone to understand that there are more important things in life to get stressed out about then who is using the field house space at what time, and when to change over the load of towels in the laundry (there have been multiple strings of emails going around due to missing towels- like I'm afraid I'm going to get fired if I try and shower at work- kind of hate).  Your job is not the most important one here! and neither is mine.  Yes, they are all very important to the day to day operation of a company that is dedicated to improving lives- but I'm sorry they just aren't the MOST important, and that's why we have so much conflict.

Now knowing all the personalities that I work with and knowing that everyone gets offended by every little thing, can you see why the characterization of these personalities could make a great office comedy?  And I didn't even start on the dramatics of who is sleeping with who.. I think the fact that it’s a health club could just bring such life to the show as well. Everyone in the health industry thinks that they know more than anyone else, and instead of sharing that knowledge... we like to use it against each other.  Think about the big meat head assholes that only lift upper body just to check out their pump in the mirrors... I work with them.  And when I'm doing dry land training with the swim team (a sport that requires a lot of upper body and relative body strength) and you are telling my not to do push ups with them- we're going to have a problem. My god, it could just be SO FUNNY, especially if we don't focus on the goofing off like most office comedies, but on the actual arguments that go down.





So here's part of an episode for you to get to know what I'm talking about... actually this is more like the part about goofing off so it might just be the second story in the episode since it's a little thin on conflict material but it is just chalk full of comedy.  Also I don't want to offend anyone, yet, by talking about our arguments.. So here we are on a rather regular day in the club.  It's the beginning of the month so no one is trying desperately to steal money from anyone else (which is totally a running joke on this show). So I've heard enough about working out or world hunger from the people I work closest with and I'm wandering around the club debating between going to watch TV in the cardio room and flicking paperclips at who ever is working the front desk when I walk by the office of my partner in time theft and he looks just as bored as I feel.  "Oh thank goodness! we need to have a meeting ASAP," and when we say meeting we really mean sitting there complaining about the world and watching youtube clips of cute puppies or going to the big open field house where we have field goal kicking competitions. "Yes, yes come in," he says and whips out a very funny clip of a husky telling his owner he doesn't want to go in his crate- really solid stuff. These meetings have been pretty frequent recently so there aren't anymore youtube clips to share, but wait!! "I just got turned on to this weird game that all the high schoolers play.  It's called... flappy bird??" Ahhhh yes! Flappy bird- now I could write an entire blog post about how that ruins your life, but I'll spare you as the reader. For those of you that live under a rock Flappy bird is this dumb game where you try to fly a bird though a bunch of pipes, kinda like the swimming level on Mario...BUT LIKE A MILLION TIMES HARDER!! and that's it.

So we start playing this game... when all of a sudden it feels like years have passed by around us.
So since this game is extremely repetitive we came up with some, admittedly, very funny material about it.  The bird's name is Toppy, since he's so top heavy and obviously he's trying to get through all the pipes to his unlimited supply of beer at the end...  There is heavy debate over whether or not the bird is cute and playing just once is out of the question so we tried a few different things like racing through at the same time, coming up with 10-game averages (yes we played enough to have multiple 10-game averages, and coming up with distractions for each other.

Now this all really happened.  And it happened until someone came in, called us freaks, and we went back to work- like 4 hours later. But the beauty of office and workplace comedies is that they can take a story like this a multiply it out so far that it is insanely funny.  I can just picture one of us strolling into work the next day and the other one just sitting at the desk all sleep deprived, crushed up red bull cans all around and crazy 'no shower hair' just look up and be like "I had to beat my high score and I couldn't move from my lucky seat... can you cover for me while I go get showed and grab a coffee?"

And that could just be a back story. One to fill in while everyone in the club is fighting about who can use the towels.

Now this ended up going in a completely different direction than I originally thought.. so lets call it the icing on the workplace comedy cake. but WOO! that took a lot out of me.. you too? OK I'm sorry. Now to recap: I don't hate my job. I don't have the most important job. I actually love most of the time I spend inside those walls. I get to work in shorts and a t-shirt all day.  IT COULD BE WORSE.  We are having an entire team meeting though this Sunday.  And when I say entire team meeting I mean like all probably 400+ people that work at a 5 different locations... so that's going to be a bundle of fun, and most likely an entire episode of this show- but I swear if they mention the towels ONE TIME...

So I had this idea...

So I had this idea... right?  It's a million dollar idea and when someone makes a million dollars off this one day I hope that I at least get like 15% of the profit.  This idea is coming in the form of a movie and since I'm doing you all a favor right now and not copyrighting this I would expect to get some kind of recognition.. I don't need a lot.

So this movie...

I started working with this guy (we'll call him Trainer Doug).  Now Trainer Doug is one of those people that when they start talking you just want to hear everything they say.  And Trainer Doug studied philosophy in college (he also reads like a ton of things), making him a very smart guy.  Trainer Doug liked to bring up weird philosophy things when he first started working with me.  One of the first conversations I had with him was about the Ship of Theseus.  Which is basically a set of super deep questions about ships and the planks that make them up and new ships and ownership of the ships and blahty blahty blahhhh about the ships that I could definitely write an entire new blog post about in it of itself.

So we're talking philosophy and he's blowing my mind and decides to bring up the human brain and how we process memory.  Now he claims that our memories only work in reverse and in a linear sense, which is why we feel like 3 dimensional characters moving through a 4th dimension (time), but in actuality (and this is where he loses me) time is already laid out for us and time is just happening to us.

 Yep.  Let that soak in.  Now the thing that always gets brought up when I've since talked about this with others is that TD is suggesting that our futures are already pre-planned for us and we are just waiting for them to happen to us.  Most people are very uncomfortable with this and I think it is because they don't like to think about the fact that they dont have any control over their lives to that extent.  But what if we weren't... What if there was a world where we knew what was going to happen to us for the entire day from the moment we wake up in the morning.  What if we knew what career we would be holding down and exactly the day and time we have the interview for said career defining job.  What if we knew exactly how many children we were going to have, whether they were boys or girls and the exact moment they are going to be born.  And! not to mention we are OK with all of it.  People would be very accepting of this kind of human brain function, just like at the beginning of the Hunger Games the people of Panem are totally OK with sending children off once a year in a battle royal to the death.  What kind of characters would we build, though, if everyone just went through life being satisfied with not being able to control their own destiny.  People would just drone on, like cows in a pasture waiting for their life to play it's course, achieve those things they are supposed to achieve and crumble to the ground when life sees fit.  What if, even when some one was dissatisfied with their future and tried to change it, it was impossible to do.  No matter how hard they try the right things would fall into place to have their preplanned future happen to them.  Here's the kicker though.. they are pumped about it!  They realize the mighty-ness of the powers at be and just never question why they are working a job that doesn't allow for the lifestyle that they crave, or NO MATTER HOW HARD THEY TRY, they will never be able to catch the eye of the one they desire, or why they can't stop their pet hedgehog from pooping all over the house.  And they are totally fine with it.

Now of course for the movie to be a best seller and at the top of all the charts there would have to be some kind of conflict.  By the way all I can think about right now if how similar this is to Paycheck with Ben Affleck, where he can see into his future and he changes it to stay in love with his girlfriend, Uma Thurman.  It's a great one, you should check it out.  I hadn't really thought about the conflict all that much but it would have to have something like to so that the movie could target all audiences.  I havent thought of any kind of movie title either, but that can be a job for someone else once the idea gets picked up.

Thatsssss all for now folks. Thanks for reading and if any of you have friends in the movie biz pass me along!

and dont forget:

Before I trust anyone...

Before I trust anyone that I meet I put them through a serious assessment. I go through my mental check list: height, weight, ability to survive a potential zombie apocalypse... the important things.  Then when the timing is right (and I make sure it is since this can sometimes come off the wrong way.  I highly suggest you try this as well) I ask one simple question, a question developed by my friends and I while watching shark week one summer in college... who would win in a fight to the death:

BEAR VS. SHARK

Now I know what you are thinking.  Blah blah blah whats the environment? Blah blah blah they have different attack mechanisms. Yeah, I don't care what you think. Have an imagination and make this fun which you clearly cannot do if you can answer a simple question that requires like the smallest amount of creativity ever.  Which is why I can't trust you if you can't answer this question and why it's the most important to consider while judging the potential friendship being laid out in front of you. I'm a good friend to have too; I'm really fun and enjoy doing things like making smores in the toaster over, playing the lava game while drunk at 2:30 in the morning, and making blanket forts in preparation for big weather like Hurricane Irene and Superstorm Sandy.  But if for some reason you can't figure out a way to come up with some sort of answer for this question, all of that fun is off the table! It doesn't even need to be the right answer (which we'll discuss later), it just needs to be your opinion of whether or not a bear would tear a shark apart at the gills.

Which brings me to the real part of this blog.. 

OF COURSE THE BEAR WOULD WIN!!! I know he looks all nice and innocent in the picture obtained from Google as pasted above but come on! A bear would fuck you up..

 

Usually when I bring this up and people decide to get snooty and bring up the fact that bears and sharks don't share the same environment (like I didn't know that) I like to give them something to hang on to for a second chance at the fact that maybe they aren't a huge douchebag, but chances aren't good. So I tell them to imagine the bear and shark in some sort of vacuum or in space or something.  This usually brings them down to a level that we can share a friendly debate over the topic which usually ends poorly since there is clearly only one way this could go down and here it is: the bell would ring and the shark would immediately dive down and dip back up quickly to get a fast attack on the bear, but the bear, completely aware of whats going on takes a single step back.  The shark, on his way up to tear the bear's intestines out gets stopped by the bears razor sharp claws.  The bear digs his claws deeper into the sharks gills cutting off the only sharks hopes of breathing the water/air hybrid that apparently exists in space.  While the shark is getting his gills ripped out the bear is also goings after the shark right under his massive jaw since there is a major artery.  The bleeding kills him before the lack of oxygen...... but that's only my opinion.

Now this technique on prejudging potential friends in the scary world out there is almost proven to be 100% effective. Almost everyone that has answered this question turned out to be really chill and fun and those that couldn't have been eliminated from my life.  I highly recommend it as a topic for your net dinner party.

PS. we came up with if first.

So a little advice...

So a little advice about going to the grocery store:

1) Make yourself a list. The amount of time I've spent in the chips and salsa aisle debating over peach salsa versus mango is ridiculous.  And don't even get me started on ice cream flavors...

and 2) Keep your head down. I'm not saying you should avert eyes due to your appearance, I'm saying to avert them due to others.  When I'm doing mundane activities such going to the grocery store or taking the city bus in a city with a very interesting homeless culture (which I was forced to do this past weekend due to a little breakdown in the battery of my car), I can't help myself but you come up with stories for the people around me to occupy my mind with something.  For example, the guy in front of me in the bakery section of the store that looks like a skinny santa clause is definitely the heir to some fortune off shore and he's just waiting for his brother to die in a russian prison so that he can cash it in and ditch his job doing mortgage taxes to take off on his newly purchased private helicopter to Hawaii to live out the rest of his life spending his mornings clamming down at the beach and returning for afternoon snack of oreos and his daily cribbage game. But that's just a guess.

Unfortunately for the guy with the big beats by dre headphones and ray bans hanging off of his tank top at the gym (even though that's a completely ridiculous place for them because, you know, you could drop your super heavy weights onto them while you are bench pressing. Not that it would matter cause, bro? you got the weight up) that I see while I'm just trying to enjoy a casual ride on the stationary bike; he is home on break from school across the country in Long Beach and while he's home he's blacked out with his friends like 5 times and the past time he slipped and fell on the ice and twisted his ankle.  So now when he goes back to school in a few weeks he won't be able to take the ball to the hoop during the 3on3 basketball tournament he and his friends are signed up for. But who am I to judge.

Now don't even get me started on the dude in the car in front of me on the highway on the way home from work.  He's got to get home faster than usual today since his bid war on eBay for the last piece of equipment he needs for the machine he invented and is building that actually turns lemonade into ice tea, is almost over. And if he loses the bid war it will set him back at least 6 months.  The only problem is that he's had chicken in the crock pot for the past 10 hours while he was out ice climbing and he's got to remember to check on it to make sure it's not over done, but when he gets in the zone about the Lemon2Teaerator there is no pulling him out of it.  He's gone on 3 day benders before, forgetting to eat and sleep all while trying to figure out the calculations for this silly machine that his wife can barely believe she puts up with.

2b) If your going to look up at the people around you I don't suggest looking at women first. Whenever I come up with a story for them it always ends up bitchy and materialistic and, I just, can't.


That's all for now, in the mean time here's me at age 2 with pudding all over my face: