Health

I apologize that lately my blog is more about linking to other sites in the Internet that caught my attention, but I just need to point out some of the stuff out there....

Today this article is prove that nothing is impossible in our world. A man in China Man died from exhaustion after too many hours on the Internet. If this happened in America someone would be getting sued right now. I can't help but imagining people colapsing in front of computers screens around the world. Perhaps they found the way of making a computer virus escape through the computer screen?

Speaking of health issues, I also found this other article on CNN about things you must know and do when a loved one is sick. Today, everyone must be prepared to be their own health advocates and even doctors and nurses. I've had my share of crazy health issues. My personal favorite being an accidental malaria pill overdose after a doctor prescribed the wrong dosage even though I asked him twice if he was sure that taking 5 pills at once was safe. My personal advice: never go to the doctor alone and do your own research before you step in their office. As a dropped out pre-med student, I have my own theories about how the health care career must be reevaluated and restructured, but I will leave that for another blog opportunity. For now, I will recommend you read Mrs. Clinton's new health care plan proposal.

Blood Suckers in Brazil

My brother spent about 8 months this year in Brazil studying abroad. Early during his trip all his scholarship money got stolen from his bank account after using an ATM. After a lot of headaches, the bank eventually gave him back his money. Today on cnn.com they posted this article about the ATM fraud in Brazil. Hopefully no one else will go through this again.

Back to school

So, I'm starting my 3rd week of class! I'm really happy. I'm taking Supply Chain Management for my masters. It is a great class. Everything we learn is so interesting. I already had my first presentation which went great. I'm also taking an undergraduate photojournalism class. This class is just for fun and it is really exciting because at the end of the semester we will be presenting some of the work we do in an exhibit!!! Which will cross out one of my life list wishes to have a photo in a gallery! So far it's not to busy... Classes are more like a hobby I really, really enjoy. I'm sure it will start to get a little tedious when it starts to get dark and cold. But I feel a motivation I have not felt in a very long time.

Eat, Pray, Love

I've mentioned a few times in this blog my extraordinary ability to remember my dreams. And then today I read Alejandra's blog about how much she goes around life dreaming.... And I thought about this book I'm reading.. its called Eat, Pray, Love, about a woman's search for pleasure in Italy, devotion in India, and balance in Indonesia over the course of one year... The reason I mention this is because while she is in India learning about yoga, meditation, religion, spirituality, etc...one of the things she talks about is the four states of human consciousness: 1. the waking state, 2. the dreaming state, 3. state of deep sleep, 4. turîya, which permeates and transcends the three states of ordinary consciousness. Only the most experienced, gifted yogi can achieve a permanent state of turiya, which is the closest you can get to be with God, while at the same time God is within you and you are God. Some of us can experience the turiya without even trying... its like experiencing a sudden happiness that you cannot explain and then it goes away without any explanation either. She says that remembering your dreams can an example of turiya... How interesting...

Now, I haven't finished to book. I just started to read about her journey in Indonesia. I highly recommend it though. Eat, Pray, Love is a memoir by Elizabeth Gilbert. It is really, really, good. Her writing style makes you feel like she is sitting in front of you. It cracks me up. In this book you can find yourself and your friends and learn and explore where you are in life. I'm telling you when I was reading all about her Italy experiences, I was inspired to eat and cook delicious stuff. Her studies in India had me all thoughtful and evaluating every aspect of my life... We'll see where Indonesia takes me.

Spell Check

I was reading back to some of my old blog entries and I realized with horror how many spelling and grammar errors I've made... To make it up to you, I'm giving you:

the alphabet..
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

the alphabet capitalized....
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

and a bunch of punctuation marks...
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,...................;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
!!!!!!!!!!????????????:::::::::::

This way I feel redeemed because you have the tools to correct me.

Thank you!

I'm a Grad Student!

Today I got a welcome email for the Master of Engineering Management Program I applied. I am extremely happy. I won't officially be a degree student this semester though. As a WashU employee, they pay 50% of the tuition costs... but it was a nightmare to get this straight with the Beneftis department and I was not able to apply until last week, giving me no time to gather all my references. But I'm already one step in!!! I haven't registered for classes yet... I'll probably take a Supply Chain Management course on Thursdays... and perhaps an undergraduate photoraphy class om Mondays! I'll be busy, but boy I am so happy right now!

YADIER MOLINA

ORGULLO BORICUA! If you don't know who Yadier Molina is, you are definatly not my friend... kidding... Anyway, he is one of the greatest baseball players in the world. He plays for the St. Louis Cardinals. Up here, you can see Ryan, Yadier and me. Yadier is wearing the Carolina Gigantes jersey, the team for whom he plays during the off-season in Puerto Rico... We went to a game last december wearing our Cardinal's gear. We got there early for batting practice and when he saw us he came over, talked to us, gave us his autograph, and took pictures. He was awesome!!!

Below I copied an article by Bernie Miklasz from the St. Louis post-dispatch about Yadier. I was at the Aug. 22 game the article talks about. Makes me so proud to watch a fellow Puerto Rican make history. =)

Let's get defensive: Molina's unparalleled

By Bernie Miklasz

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

08/23/2007

Whether they excelled with their arms or bats or led with a bulldog attitude, the Cardinals have been served by excellent catchers through their history.

The roll call would include Walker Cooper, Tim McCarver, Joe Torre, Ted Simmons, Darrell Porter, Tony Pena, Tom Pagnozzi and Mike Matheny.

Before his career is over, Yadier Molina might prove to be the greatest of them all.

No, Yadi won't hit like Simmons or Torre, though he did have a fifth-inning solo homer and a score-tying double in the seventh Wednesday in the Cardinals' 6-4 victory over Florida at Busch Stadium.

Molina is batting .378 with three homers and 14 RBIs in 74 at-bats since July 26. Jim Edmonds won Wednesday's game with a two-run homer, but Molina's double to deliver Scott Rolen for a 4-4 tie was a pressure point that cracked Marlins starter Scott Olsen.

"That's as clutch as you can get, what he's done for a while here," manager Tony La Russa said. "Yadi is having as good at-bats as anybody."

This started last fall, with Molina's signature moment, the winning homer in Game 7 of the National League Championship Series that beat the Mets to lift the Cards into the World Series.

Molina has made genuine progress as a hitter. After batting only .216 in 2006, he's up to .282 this year. And because he's already posted a personal high for most walks in a season, Molina's on-base percentage has climbed to .356.

With Molina, offense is a bonus. In terms of defense, Molina is setting a standard that exceeds anything we've seen before in St. Louis.

And because we see it every day, we may take Molina's defense for granted. But Cardinals' opponents don't overlook him except in the voting for the Gold Glove awards.

"It's not even close," former Cardinals manager Whitey Herzog said, when asked if Molina is the NL's best catcher. "It's not just the way he throws people out. But he's so good, teams don't want to try and run on him. He just takes away the running game. I don't know how they could vote for anyone else."

Florida's Hanley Ramirez entered this series with 39 steals, third in the NL. He immediately tried Molina, in the first inning of Tuesday's game. Result? See you later.

The Marlins didn't try to steal a base Wednesday night. Nothing new; teams have tried to run on Molina in only 26 of his 77 games this season.

In an inexplicable and bizarre outcome, Houston catcher Brad Ausmus was awarded the Gold Glove last season, despite throwing out only 12 of 72 base-stealers, or 16 percent. Molina clipped 26 of 63 stealers, or 41.3 percent.

I'm not sure how these wise men plan to vote this season, but Molina has done enough (again) to bring home the gold. He's nailed 18 of the 34 who have dared to try him. The caught-stealing rate of 52.9 percent is the best in the majors this season. Second in the NL is Cincinnati's David Ross, at 38 percent.

It's a huge gap between Yadier and the others. And the same is true of Molina and other Cardinals' catchers.

As good as Matheny was, he snuffed base stealers 31.7 percent off the time, compared to Molina's career rate of 48.6 percent.

And when the Cardinals don't have the big cat behind the plate to pounce on the mice, they take advantage. Opponents have succeeded in 28 of 31 steal attempts against the Cardinals this season when Molina isn't there.

Molina's career caught-stealing rate of 48.6 percent might not seem like a sensational number, but consider this: the best percentage in major-league history is 43.2 percent, by Ivan Rodriguez. Molina will be No. 1, all time, as soon as he logs enough innings to qualify.

So the next time you're at Busch with the kids, point to Molina and make sure they realize they're seeing one of the great defensive catchers in baseball history.

The end of Harry Potter

I tried to be strong and avoid this social/cultural phenomenom. But after the influence of some friends and perhaps trying to recover from one of the worst summers of my life, i started.... and i finished the first 6 books in 20 days. Then I saw the movies, eveloped my own theories... and, I admit, started to write in a fanficition site. I know. I'm a nerd.

I waited with anticipation for two years.. for the 5th movie and the last book. After an unsuccessful attempt to watch the Goblet of Fire in an Imax screen in Chicago, I was determined to watch the 5th movie on the 3D screen. I failed once again in this attempt, to much deception since the last 20 minutes of Order of the Phoenix are probably the most exciting, filled with special effects & sound I've ever seen on the big screen.

I reserved my copy of Deathly Hollows the first day I was able to do so on Amazon.com and was looking forward to wake up on Saturday July 21,2007 to UPS buzzing my apartment.... Yet my parents decided to come visit me that week and I spent the weekend in Chicago.... while my copy of the book arrived to an empty apartment... waiting to be read by its rightful owner.

Yet, on Sunday evening, when I saw the book on my desk, where Ryan had put it, I was almost afraid of opening. I've been a fan for only 2 years... less than most people our there... and here I was about to read the end of the story I had become so attached to. I took the cover out and placed it in a safe place so I wouldn't damage it while I was reading, opened the book to the last page and looked at the last word. It wasn't scar. And I started reading. And it took me 6 long days to finish. Before starting that epilogue I took a deep breath... it would be over soon... And I got all teary eyed as I closed it. "And it was well"

Its been a few weeks since that historic moment... yes, historic... because I was part of the generation that started reading without knowing the end. Yeah, probably the book will be studied in classrooms, and our kids and their kids will read them... but the anticipation of not knowing... thats only part of me, and us. We were here, it became part of our lives, and we made it history...

Legally Blonde

If you are a Legally Blonde fan this song is for you. It's the opening song for the new Broadway musical version. If you download it within a week or so, its free... Hopefully I'll get to see this show in NY during labor day weekend!

Puzzle @ Craft Alliance

A few weeks ago I mentioned that my friend Leslie had been at my home taking pictures and made sketches for a painting.... Well, don't be surprised if you walk into Craft Alliance in the Loop and you see me there! The painting is displayed will be displayed until Aug. 26. Here are some pictures...





























Check out Leslie's website.

Prision Dance

Today I entertained myself away from Harry Potter 7 spoilers by looking up on youtube videos of prisoners dancing. They are almost 1000 inmates in the philipines and from what I gathered they were trying to break world records of dancing... I personally think that more people should be sentenced to entertain the workforce making internet videos... It's a good way to give back! Can you imagine real bad people doing this kind of stuff.... Maybe this should have been the prison for Paris Hilton: Here are some of my favoirites:

Algorithm March


I will follow him


Thriller

Missing Girls

64 days ago a British girl Madeleine McCann disappeared from her hotel room while vacationing in Portugal.

Yeserday another British 3 year old girl was kidnapped in Nigeria. Margaret Hill was snatched from a car as she was driven to school.

It's so sad to see news like these. Makes me scared of the future we have. I'm babysitting Ryan's nice, Ava on Sunday... a beautiful 4 mo. old girl... And one day I hope to have my own kids.... it's hard to put all this in perspective... I can't help to wonder if I'm going to be in a situation similar to this one day and it scares me a lot. I don't think I'd be able to manage... So I pray....

Master in Engineering Management

So, today I got my supervisor's signature which will allow me to take graduate courses at WashU and they pay 50% of it! I'm looking forward to join the Engineering Management Program... It will take me two years to finish the program taking 2 classes every semester, including summers... I'm a little scared about that... I don't know if I can handle working full time and the program... so I want to see what I can work it out. Perhaps taking one class in the fall to see how it goes and get a feeling for it... I really want to finish it as quickly as possible... then leave the university and start working in the industry where I'll earn the money to pay off the thousands of dollars in student loans I'll have by the end of my student career. I've been stalling on applying, but now that I've posted it here maybe it will give me a little bit more motivation so I can impress my readers.... There's an information session on July 17. I'm excited!

Cicada

Last night I learned a lot about these annoying little animals. A cicada is an insect with big eyes wide apart on the head an usually transparent, well-veinged wings... I would have to agree with the notion that it looks like a roach with wings.... So, there are approximately 2,500 species of cicada around the globe... and we have some of them here in St. Louis. Their remarkable acoustic talents came to my attention for the first time during my freshman year.... The only reason I look forward to winter is because they dissapear. But these annoying insects have a very interesting life cycle, and for that I give them some credit. Here's a little something from a wikipedia entry:

"After mating, the female cuts slits into the bark of a twig and deposits her eggs there. She may do so repeatedly, until she has laid several hundred eggs. When the eggs hatch, the newborn nymphs drop to the ground, where they burrow. Most cicadas go through a life cycle that lasts from two to five years. Some species have much longer life cycles, e.g. the Magicicada goes through a 17- or occasionally 13-year life cycle. These long life cycles are an adaptation to predators such as the cicada killer wasp and praying mantis, as a predator could not regularly fall into synchrony with the cicadas. Both 13 and 17 are prime numbers, so while a cicada with a 15-year life cycle could be preyed upon by a predator with a 3- or 5-year life cycle, the 13- and 17-year cycles allow them to stop the predators falling into step.

The insects spend most of the time that they are underground as nymphs at depths ranging from about 30 cm (1 ft) up to 2.5 m (about 8½ ft). The nymphs feed on root juice and have strong front legs for digging.

In the final nymphal instar, they construct an exit tunnel to the surface and emerge. They then moult (shed their skins), on a nearby plant for the last time and emerge as an adult. The abandoned skins remain, still clinging to the bark of trees."

Update 7/6/07

The night after writing this article I saw Black Snake Moan.... I still haven't finish the movie... but the creators decided that every time the girl had anxiety attacks and memories of being abused by her step dad, the cicada noise became increasingly louder... No I can't help but associate the noise to bad things...

Gmail

I think that the people behind google are fantastic.... so why send chain email conversation to other addresses than your gmail account! This has been really bothering me for a while now. Call it OCD, Type A, or maybe I'm just a bitch about it. Gmail has the wonderful ability to gather all emails with the same subject so they don't clog your inbox and are easy to find and follow conversations. If you have not discovered this wonderful gmail feature, you have not experienced heaven on the internet. Try it. Any how, if you are ever trying to reach me, use my gmail address... don't use my wustl account unless it is work related. Thank you very much.

Terrible Coincidences....

Some horrible cases have been on the news lately...

In a "terrible coincidence" someone posted Benoit's wife death on wikipedia before the bodies were discovered.

A few weeks ago... in a "terrible coincidence" someone left a newborn baby at the doorstep of a nurse's house, only a few miles away from the home of a missing 8 month pregnant woman in Ohio.

In a terrible coincidence, Avril Lavigne's Japanese version of her hit song Girlfriend foreshadows these events.

311 & Matisyahu

Last night Ryan got VIP tickets from his boss to go see 311 in concert. Matisyahu was the opening band. I'm not a fan of 311. The only song i know from them is Love Song, which happens to be a The Cure cover (I don't know who they are either). And I didnt' know who Matisyahu was, and much less what the word meant. But I had a good time.


















Matisyahu is a very interesting guy. He is a member of Chabad-Lubavitch, a chassidic group of Judaism. He stands out for wearing the traditional clothing of Hasidic Jews and not performing on the Sabbath. He is also a reggae musician!!! BTW, if you a curious, Matisyahu is the Hebrew and stage name of Matthew Paul Miller... Very amusing to watch.

311 was great too. Pretty loud though for some Omaha natives. I really enjoyed the drum song... Reminded me of the Blue Man Group. I was very impressed by how great they look. Most of them are in their late 30's and are still jumping around the stage like the cute 5 year old seating in the box in front of us. Specially that Douglas Vincent Martinez guy... my advice to him is to change shirts before they play the drum song... he was disgusting.

But the best part of the entire night, was the VIP treatment. Our own special entrance, Golf cart transportation (although we didn't use it), free popcorn, cleaner bathrooms, VIP room, box seats...with our own table, comfy chairs and a waitress! There's no way I'm going to a concert again

A Case Against Statehood for PR

I came across this article at the beginning of the month. "Deceitful Tactics Used to Make Puerto Rico A state", written by Phyllis Schlafly (yeah, from the beer family). I was disgusted to read it. An educated woman, a so called feminist.... Yet fails to make an article that can be backed up with facts, has no argument or evidence. I'm embarassed for her.

First, Puerto Ricans do speak English. Since 1993, English has been declared as an official language in the island. By law, English is taught in every school, public and private. Besides, the US Government may not want to accept it, but the reality is that the United States is already not only a bilingual nation, but a nation that speaks almost every language in the world. This is the land of the free, and the United States would not be what it is today without the first immigrants that arrived to Massachusetts (a state, like 3 others, that is designated as a 'commonwealth' the same political status of PR, yet they get to vote - in 2006 the Supreme Court turned down an attempt by a Puerto Rican lawyer to gain presidential electors for the island). If this nation does not change is policy of language, the dollar will not be the only thing falling behind Europe.

True, the Puerto Rican socialist groups have committed several acts of domestic terrorism, but so-called American patriots have committed similar acts, like the Oklahoma city bombing, for example. However, you failed to mention how Puerto Rican troops fight with the United States. Recently, more than 70 Puerto Ricans have died serving in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. Infrastructure and environment is not far below American Standards. In fact, the island is home to the nation's only National Rain Forest Reserve and we abide by federal guidelines of construction and environmental policies.

In addition, throughout the years, PR has had both republican and democratic representation in congress. The current Resident Commissioner in Washington, DC, Luis Fortuño is Republican.

---

Monica Vega Hernandez... her response to this entry:

I agree and disagree in several points.

1. About Puerto Ricans speaking English or not.

You are right in saying that English has been declared as an official language in the island and that by law, English is taught in every school, public and private. This fact does not imply that all Puerto Ricans know English. The reality in Puerto Rico is that a high percent of the population don’t know English fluently because most of the population is educated by the public system which has very poor English teaching techniques, specially lacking in conversational skills. Another fact is that Puerto Ricans by nature prefer to speak Spanish, although most of the population agrees that learning English is to their best interest.

Something else to point out is that people usually learn things for necessity. I the case of the metropolitan area, people need to learn English because the metropolitan area is the center of business making and tourism. In other parts of the island English is not necessary therefore the input people put on learning is much less.

In summary I agree with both of you partially, although I will put it in this way:

“Puerto Ricans are exposed to English by law from early stage in both, public and private schools. Nonetheless only a percent of the Puerto Rican population does learn English and another percent don’t”.

2. A comment about the paradox of having American citizenship and not being able to vote for the president of the USA.

It seems logical that because we are, by law, American citizens we should vote for the American president. Why then we can vote for the president only if we live in the USA? This means that Puerto Ricans have a degraded citizenship. Our citizenship does not grant us with the same rights a citizenship grants the mainland-born Americans. The reason for this “degraded citizenship” responds to the interests of the USA in a specific historic time.

When Puerto Rico became a colony of the USA thru the Hispanic-American war most of the Puerto Ricans wanted the independence from Spain. This means that at that point in history and 40 years down the road the majority of the Puerto Ricans wanted to become a Republic and though that the American invasion was something transitional.

Soon after the Hispanic American War Puerto Rico became the main place for guarding American military installations in the Caribbean. Puerto Rican independence at that point in history would have been detrimental for the USA military, therefore an intelligent way to assure dominance over Puerto Rico was to grant Puerto Rico with the American citizenship. They first inquired Puerto Ricans if they wanted the American citizenship, Puerto Ricans said NO to the citizenship, a fact that not many know about the history of Puerto Rico.

Later the Jones-Shafroth Act was imposed (1917) and we were granted the so call “citizenship” with out another consultation. In summary the American government does not care for the Puerto Ricans vote because we are not really view as real citizens we are just an “interest” at that point in history. Fair or not.


3.USA becoming a bilingual nation issue.

It seems to me taken out of proportions Schlafly’s worries for becoming a bilingual nation. I really see very far from ever to happen that including PR as a state will displace English from the position it poses now. Or that even having another official language will detriment the nation. Many other countries have multiple languages or dialects and they still successful and economically stable, for example Spain. Besides, English is the language of science, hence, any one from any country that wants to do science has to speak English. Similarly this happens in other disciplines. This means that English is one of the languages with more international growth in addition to be spoken by a more multicultural society. To my surprise Schafly, an educated woman, states that learning many languages would not be good,which has been proven to be stimulating to the brain and a common capacity among highly intelligent people.


4.Why are we not a state or an independent country already?

I do believe Schlafly is correct in stating that many of the conservative representation in the government does not approves of Puerto Rico becoming a state for the reasons mentioned. This is a true trend among conservatives whether is fair or not.

5.The overall tone of the article is flaw

I agree with Isabel in that I don’t like the article, but the main reason I don’t like the article is the tone Schlafly uses. She seems to be lacking knowledge of the nature of the Puerto Rican culture, history and politics, for example, when she generalizes about the Puerto Rican independence faction whom not only include the leftist portion but also people like me that believe in democracy.

The tone that she placed in the article seems to imply that Puerto Ricans are lazy, for example when she mentions that Puerto Ricans are not open to learn other languages and our general infrastructure is below standards. This type of generalization makes the article too subjective and ethnically racist.

Girl Power!!!!

Spice Girls are getting back together!

How will Harry Potter End?

Keith Olbermann's Harry Potter spoiler

Warning: Stop reading now if you don't want to know the ending!

Harry, Ron and Hermione enter a diner. They order Butter Beer and onion rings. Voldemort is sitting at the lunch counter, marking time. Outside, Ron’s sister, Ginny, is having a hell of a time parallel parking, even though she’s using her wand. And just then the door to the diner opens and Harry Potter looks up and—the last 11 pages of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” are freaking blank.

If you want to read the complete article go to http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19436954/