Hey, all! I thought it was time to do another one of these. Any of my answers that has not changed since the last life update post will be colored in purple. Let's begin!
Date: 6/25/18 Time: 11:03 AM Current mood: Happy (just got my work permit!) Books I'm currently reading: The Mark of Athena (The Heroes of Olympus) TV shows I'm currently watching: Supernatural, The Office, The Amazing World of Gumball, Chibi Maruko Chan (anime), Sailor Moon (anime) Current favorite episode (of anything): "Dinner Party" (The Office 4x13) TV shows I want to watch: "Scrubs", "Daredevil", "Lucifer", "My Hero Academia" (anime) Current favorite movie: "The Incredibles 2" Current favorite social media platform: Instagram Current favorite chips: Kettle brand chips (sea salt), Boulder Canyon kettle cooked chips (avocado oil, sea salt) Go to drink: T4's mango royal tea with rainbow jelly (both of them are boba drinks), plain jasmine green tea, lemon black tea Current favorite meal: All you can eat hot pot buffet Current favorite restaurant: Boiling Point (Taiwanese hot pot) (I go here every week!) Favorite song right now: "Love Lies" (Khalid + Normandi), "Nice for What" (Drake) YouTubers I'm currently watching: Pewdiepie (for the horror!), Lifesimmer (sims), Strictly Dumpling (food) Types of YouTube videos I'm currently watching: Gaming, lifestyle Current favorite subject: Graphic design Current favorite season: Fall or winter (loving the cold weather!) Current favorite type of weather: Rainy! Current preferred style of clothing/dress: Comfy (basketball shorts and T-shirts) Current favorite meme: Snapchat map memes! Current favorite obsession: The Sims 3 What's currently on my mind: Work, college apps Current desire: Sims 3 expansion packs, new Vans Funniest thing I overheard this week: People LOUDLY talking about farts in a restaurant Funniest thing I've seen this week: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JojyTvgyvjY I want to dye my hair this color: Bright purple I want this eye color: A light striking blue I want to meet: Stephen Curry / Kevin Durant / Klay Thompson (players of the NBA team Warriors) I want to go to: Japan / South Korea, Greece Current favorite quote: "Every precious drop of change has a ripple effect on the ocean." - Trudy Vesotsky Current favorite scent: Citrus
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Hey guys! Today's post is going to be more on the educational side. I'm going to be talking about the toughest animal on the planet. Before we get started, if I were to ask you all what animal you thought was the strongest, most of you would probably say, I don't know, a lion or a shark, right? Well, it's actually something most people have never even heard of before. I know I didn't; the first time I read an article about it, I was super confused. The very animal my blog post is going to be about today is.... the tardigrade! Let's start off with some general information about the tardigrade, and what makes it so special. First, a tardigrade is in fact an animal, although it may not look like an animal judging from the picture I have of it above. They have their own phylum, called the tardigrada. They are aquatic animals, but they can live virtually anywhere that is moist, such as soil or plants. Anatomy-wise, they have 8 legs with claws on each leg. Their mouths contain something called a stylet, which helps them pierce and eat food. Their diet consists of other microscopic organisms, bacteria, fluids of plant and animal cells, and they even participate in cannibalism; yes, they eat each other! They are really really tiny; they range from 0.05 to 1 millimeter length-wise. That means that with the naked eye, we CAN see the biggest tardigrades, although we would still need a microscope to view the details. As for reproduction, they can participate in both asexual AND sexual reproduction. Something different about the tardigrade is that when the young are born, the tardigrades will have adult cells. As they grow, the cells don't actually divide; they only enlarge to help the tardigrade overall grow in size. Each tardigrade can have their own offspring within two weeks of existence! So far, scientists have discovered about 1000 species of tardigrades, but they speculate that there are over 10000 total. Alright, so how is this tiny, fragile animal the toughest being on the planet? Get this: They are able to survive in EXTREME conditions. I'm talking about areas like OUTER SPACE, people. Yes, you heard me right: OUTER SPACE. No animal can survive there, except for the tardigrade. They are able to do this by transforming into something called a "tun." If a tardigrade encounters bad conditions, they can enter a dehydrated state that resembles death. Remember when I said that the tardigrades need moist conditions to live. Well, when the environment they're in is super dry and therefore cannot support a tardigrade, they will morph into a tun. This process is called anhydrobiosis. Basically, tardigrades curl up into a little ball, which is their dormant state. Their metabolism slows and they're basically in a near death state. Anhydrobiosis involves the usage of trehalose, which is a sugar that protects the tardigrades from dehydration by preserving the organelles and membranes in the cells of the tardigrade. They can actually stay in this dormant state for up to 120 years! However, in their normal, active state, the most they can survive is 10 years. They change back into the normal state when returned to their ideal conditions. The more time a tardigrade remains as a tun, the less chance it'll be revived in its normal, functioning, alive state. This, ladies and gentlemen, is how a tardigrade is able to survive in space. Here are some other ways tardigrades can survive. If the oxygen concentration of its aquatic environment drops, meaning there is less oxygen available for cellular respiration, tardigrades enter a state where their metabolic rate is reduced and their muscles relax which lets water and oxygen enter their cells. If the temperature is way too low for their liking, the tardigrade becomes a cold-resistant tun with molecules that stop the formation of ice crystals. This is important because ice crystals can damage their membranes. Because of their amazing ability to survive in extreme conditions, some people think that tardigrades actually originated outside of Earth. But many scientists hypothesize that they did in fact come from Earth. Now I want to quickly talk about some more interesting facts about the tardigrade. The average human consumes tardigrades on a daily basis because they are found everywhere - in leafy greens, in water, etc. However, they have little to no effect on humans when ingested, and the reason why is this: yes, it can survive harsh areas but you know one place a tardigrade cannot survive in? The human digestive system. These little animals don't fare well when they face stomach acid. They die in the stomach and therefore cause little harm to our bodies. So tardigrades can take up to 5000 times - yes, you read that correctly - 5000 TIMES the radiation that an average human being can, yet it doesn't do well with acid. One more cute little tidbit is that tardigrades are also known as waterbears, because they do in fact look like a bear and they do in fact live in aquatic conditions. Super interested? Yeah, me too. Here's a video to help you better visualize the animal: www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHsVyb_VfeA Hope you learned something. Happy Sunday! Hey guys! Today I wanted to officially document what I do on a normal school day, starting from the moment my alarm clock rings to the second I get into bed at night. Now that school is over, I can sort of average out my school days and write about my general routine. Let's start! First, I wake up at 7:10 to the lovely ringing of my alarm clock. Ahh, what a great way to start my day. I give myself 2 minutes to quickly check my email and my snapchat, and then I start getting ready for the long, long day ahead of me. I brush my teeth, put in my contacts, get dressed, and put my hair in my classic ponytail. This takes me about 12 minutes. I don't wear makeup or anything so it doesn't take me very long at all to get ready. Afterwards, I'll go downstairs, and my mom usually cooks breakfast, so I eat whatever she's prepared. Usually it's leftover rice or noodles, but sometimes she'll toast some Eggo waffles (my favorite is the cinnamon one!) and grill some sausage patties. She makes breakfast and packs lunch for both me and my brother. It takes me 5-10 minutes to eat. After eating, I bring out my vitamins. I consume gummy vitamins everyday, which include vitamin A and D. I pop them in my mouth, put my lunch and water bottle into my backpack, and head out to school. Again, my mom drops us off. Here were my classes in order: AP French, Digital Imaging, Precalc, Honors English, -lunch- , US History, and AP Biology. Out of all of these, my favorite one was definitely Digital Imaging because I love graphic design. Out of the 5 academic courses, I prefered biology. I find biology so fascinating and I loved my teacher. Plus, it doesn't hurt that biology comes naturally for me. I had a strong A in the class. The worst class for me is always math, so of course, this year, I absolutely LOATHED precalc. I ended up with a borderline A in the class, only because my teacher decided to boost everyone's grade up last minute. If that hadn't happened, I would have been stuck with a B. After school ends at 3:00, I go home and make myself a snack. Chips are probably my all-time favorite thing to eat after a long day. I rarely grab something sweet to munch on because I'm definitely more of a savory-over-sweet kind of person. We also always have juice or soda in the fridge and I grab one of those as well. Sometimes, my mom buys boba for us so when she does, I have that instead of my usual beverage choices. I eat and relax for about half an hour before I get started on my homework. On average, I've had about 3 hours of homework each day from Monday to Thursday. I have about 5 hours of total work each weekend, and I divide that up through Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I like to start with the easy stuff first, and that's usually history. I save english homework for last because it's usually the most challenging. The homework for that class is usually analysis work, and I'm not the best at it. I like to take breaks after each subject. Around 7:00, I'll go take a shower until 7:15, and I usually eat dinner around 8:30, so after my shower I'll either continue with my homework, or if I'm done I'll watch some YouTube videos. I watch an episode of The Amazing World of Gumball and an episode of Sailor Moon. I go downstairs, have dinner until 9:30, and then I have another hour before I get ready for bed. In this hour, I'll continue studying for any tests / quizzes I might have the next day, or I'll read a book. I'm currently reading The Mark of Athena. At 10:30, I pack up my backpack and start getting ready for bed. Now, the latest I let myself sleep at is 11:30. If I'm not done studying by then, I will stop, because sleep is more important to me. I brush my teeth and change into some comfy pajamas, and I give myself 15 minutes just lying on the bed going through my social media once again. At 11:00, it's lights out for me. I get some much needed sleep for the next day. That right there was a documentation of an average day in my life. Now, it's summer, so obviously my day looks quite different. Anyways, hope you all enjoyed this post! Exercising is super important. Whether it be going on a jog, biking, swimming, or even just simply moving around, exercise is essential to a healthy lifestyle. For today's post, I'm going to talk about my 2 exercise routines that I like to alternate every time I work out. I am by no means a specialist in health and fitness; I simply wanted to show you guys what I do, and hopefully it'll inspire those of you who are like me and can't seem to bring yourself to work out! Also, I do all of these indoors, never outside, the reason being that my grandma who lives with me doesn't want me out alone even though I'm almost 17. But whatever. Let's start.
Routine #1 (1 hour including breaks) This routine is definitely more vigorous of the two, and focuses on developing the arms. Of course, I take short breaks after each step.
Routine #2 (45 minutes including breaks) This routine is more general, and is definitely the less vigorous of the two.
As you can see, I keep the first five things constant with both of my routines. If I don't have much time or I'm feeling particularly tired on a day, I will stick with doing just those 5. I personally believe the second routine is less strenuous of the two mostly because in the first routine, I added in burpees. Burpees are super difficult for me and leave me feeling really breathless after doing just 5. I try to do 10 but I usually only make it to 8. There's also one more exercise involved in the first routine; there are 10 steps as opposed to the 9 in routine #2. Both workouts leave me feeling sore the next day, in a good way. I try to exercise once a week during the school year, one day on the weekends. However, during break I will try to exercise every other day because I have more time. Anyways, that's it for today's post! Hope you enjoyed. Happy Sunday! |
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Blog posts basically about anything remotely interesting going on in my life.
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