Oh, for the love...

Pictured below is the day's take:

Are you kidding me? The text is centered again? I should re-name my blog a 2nd time and call it "Centered Text." Anyway, as you can see it wasn't much, but it was honestly more than I expected. I ate only the Ferro Rocher (or whatever) and disposed of the rest, ever mindful of the Legend of the Poison Cupcake.

VD (yeah, I said it again) is a good day to examine the fourth chapter of National Geographic's brain special, "The Emotional Brain." This is the final chapter I will cover. The 5th chapter, "The Aging Brain" is not something that interests me, as I already know that our brains start preparing for death as soon as they reach maturity around the age of 24. Borrowed time, indeed. So, back to the emotions. 

There are only six, according to the scientists quoted in the booklet. They are fear, anger, sadness, joy, surprise, and disgust. An interesting factoid is that humans have what is called an "impact bias" by which we imagine events happening and predict that our reactions will be far more intense and long-lasting than they really are. The booklet also says that we humans underestimate our own resilience. 

On the joy front, 60% of people's predisposition toward joy is genetic (nature). The rest is born of our experiences (nurture). Things that increase happiness include: strong ties to family and friends. Charitable actions. Here's one of Miss Gokey's favorite quotables, verified in...well, blue and yellow text: EXPERIENCES MAKE US HAPPIER THAN POSSESSIONS DO. 

Miss Gokey always uses this as an excuse to take a trip instead of buying furniture, and I totally agree. Finally, older people tend to be more satisfied with their lives than younger people. 

Despite all of these happy facts, the brain, says Nat Geo, has a definite negativity bias. This is apparently evolutionary. We still feel a primal need to protect our family from a looming woolly mammoth. 

The booklet does go into love, but mostly lists the chemicals and brain regions it affects. Nothing good for your VD reading. So, that, over the course of several weeks, has been your brain. Enjoy it while you can, before a zombie comes to make it her/his lunch. 

I have a load of laundry to finish and new episode of Supernatural to enjoy. Although there is a piece of mail I keep waiting for that refuses to arrive (I called to check this afternoon, and it's going to be another two weeks yet), I did get something good in the mail today. If you don't know what it is, you just haven't been paying attention. 

Hopefully my Granny got something good in the mail today, too, from me. Today is her birthday, may it be a fun, productive, and memorable one filled with the kind of joy that lights up both sides of the brain. 

A funny thing happened on the way to the magazine...

I misspoke and said the subject of the most recent chapter in the National Geographic special on our brains would be, "the subconscious mind," but it is not. It's "the unconscious mind," and so I haven't read it yet. The subconscious interests me much more than the unconscious. We all know that we can breathe and digest food without thinking about it. Let us take a moment to be extremely grateful for that fact.

A while ago, a Pinterest board called "infectious" invited me to pin to it due to my "Apocalypse" board. You can check out "infectious" here if you are on pinterest and into The Walking Dead and all that good stuff. There are some nice Zombie Valentine jokes and such.

Speaking of zombies.

Today in hour 6, I noticed an off-task student with a graphic novel in hand. He's an "A" student, and the graphic novel was Max Brooks's Recorded Attacks. Needless to say, I immediately swiped the book under the guise of confiscation to check it out and blog it in lieu of the brain special. In this way, the student was able to actually label about five of Europe's 49 or 50 countries. (When he fell to being a "D" student is difficult to say...)

Recorded Attacks maps and gives a graphic (by which I mean cartoon, not bloody) history of zombie infestation from the beginning of human time. The graphic depiction includes delicious MAPS and tidbits of actual history like Ancient Egypt, the Roman Empire, etc. After flipping through it, I approached my student and said to him, "Now explain to me how you are able to differentiate reality from fiction in your brain." There is only one word to describe his response. He stammered. "Uhhh...mmm...uhmm..."

From one row over and three seats behind him, one of the other two "A" students in the class piped up, "Hey! That's *my* book!" So I snatched it from D and waggled it in front of A (yes, he had >30 countries labeled at that point) and asked him the same question. He answered easily, "There's no such thing as zombies." I pointed out to A all of the savory geography/history bits in the book and then asked him a follow up question: "How can you be sure when you hand this book to a classmate that the classmate is able to keep reality separated from fiction in their head?" He answered easily, "I can't."

I informed him that if anyone included zombies in their upcoming narratives of the Roman Empire, I would seek him out and make him accountable for the error. He agreed and was happy to have the novel back. This may not be the most appropriate use of my class time, but it's kind of how I get things done.

And now the answer to the burning question that's on everyone's mind:
What happens when you pour vinegar into your ears?
Well, at first it's unpleasant. Then dizzying. Then, there is little to no effect. I am in fact supposed to be at a middle school basketball game right now, but I felt the need to pour more vinegar into my ears and relax in front of my replacement show for The Walking Dead season 2, which turns out to be Supernatural season 8.

Onward to the tea tree oil. I will avoid antibiotics yet!

The Unconscious Brain is coming soon, or perhaps a little story about How to Discipline a Gum-Chewer, My Version.

In the meantime, if you are still preparing for disaster, you're supposed to buy another can of meat/veggie soup, and some sunscreen.

A Few Media Footnotes

1. I am currently watching Supernatural, and the apocalypse has finally come into the show. I'm waiting with bated breath to find out what happens!

2. I am satisfied that my fellow graduate of Indiana University, Suzanne Collins, did NOT plagiarize The Hunger Games from the "original survival game" Japanese novel called Battle Royale. Granted, I am only about halfway through Battle Royale. The concept is similar, but there are points that make it different enough to not be plagiarized. I will update my loyal readers on this book as I make my way through it.

3. DETENTION OF THE DEAD, starring one of my favorite young actors, Jacob Zachar, is premiering this weekend at the Newport Beach film festival. Sadly I will be unable to attend. But I look forward to the film coming to Las Vegas where I can thoroughly enjoy it.

4. Finally, it's been a long time since we've checked in with the Doomsday Dashboard. Trending tonight:  nuclear war is winning at 27%, followed closely by pandemic at 26% and economic collapse at 21.

The 3-Month AAR

In some relationships, the parties in the relationship sit down after three months and decide how it’s going, and in what direction. The Single Girl’s Guide to the Impending Apocalypse and I have existed together for three months, so I figured I would do kind of a tying-up-loose-ends post that tracks where we’ve been so far and where we’re headed from here. In the title, AAR stands for “after action report.”

Time is indeed running out. Whether or not the world ends, as the Maya may have predicted, in December 2012, this blog will either cease to exist or revert to its pre-apocalyptic state. I predict that readership will stay about the same. I think it’s fair to break the posts into a few distinct categories: TV/movies, reading, supplies and skills.

On the TV/movies front, I am currently working my way through season 2 of Supernatural at the advice of my family and friends. This show is delicious in its angst and teaches us next to nothing about the apocalypse. If you like scary shows, it’s good for teaching you the (real) history behind some of our society’s treasured urban legends and monster-hunting techniques. I have a great many episodes of Supernatural remaining to be watched, so I don’t plan on switching to/reporting on any apocalyptic TV in the near future. Lucky for us, I’ve reported on some TV about which I was tipped off at the last minute. I found some fun links on buddytv while searching for Supernatural images and then deciding they're probably all copyrighted, including "Which Supernatural Character Are You?" 

As for reading, I’m about halfway through Alas, Babylon. I don’t like to say “original” anything, because as a history teacher I know that there is always something else that came before. Now that I’ve safely set up my disclaimer, I will say that Alas, Babylon MAY be the original American post-apocalypse novel. MAY be. Written at the height of the Cold War, it envisions the trials of one neighborhood of people who are struggling to deal with the destruction of most of the U.S. at the hands of the Commies. It is fabulous. I hope that it is enjoying a sales surge in this, what may be the last year the world exists. After I finish, I plan to read One Second After at the advice of a former co-worker. While reading Alas, Babylon, I am also casually finishing the James Wesley Rawles books as well as Independence days. I stopped reading The Zombie Combat Manual when I got to the part with the workout. I bookmarked the workout, haven’t done it yet, and left the bookmark where it was. I have nothing new to report on the youth or YA fiction fronts.

Like Randy, the protagonist of Alas, Babylon, I’m stocking up, but I’m not sure I’m stocking up on the right stuff. I have a two-month supply of foods like soup, oatmeal, clif bars and protein powder. I also have an obscene number of first aid kits and an outsized supply of Band-Aids. If the apocalypse happens in summer, I will also have a large number of board markers to contribute to the cause. I have enough light to get me to a store where I can loot more light – I probably need to work on the light situation. At least I’ve invested in good food sources instead of Swiss chocolate.

As for skills, I’ll make a bulleted list. I now know how to do the following things which I did not know three months ago:

-          triangulate my position on a map

-          tie a few various knots

-          make 67 rows in a knit stitch

-          get ready to make pointy weapons out of rocks

I may have said it before, and now I will say it again. I wish I would have started preparing for the end of the world a LONG time ago. But I am happy to say that I am starting now, which is better than not having started yet.

On Friday after school, I casually mentioned “zombie apocalypse” as a student I don’t teach was walking by. She said, “That’s stupid. Zombies don’t exist. They never will.”

I said, “You’re right. But the apocalypse WILL come, eventually.”

I hope she takes my words to heart, but she probably won’t. After all, it IS spring break.