Curiosity, Kitten, Doesn't Have to Mean You're On Your Own (unless you are busted for growing drugs.Then I'm outta here.)

Sometimes I worry about my own curiosity. Most of the time I think of it as a sort of hyperactive aspect of my personality that occasionally leads me to say or do odd things. Things like sticking an avocado pit into one of my mom's flower pots to see if it would grow (which I am happy to report it is and I am thrilled about the prospect of homegrown avocados, in a few years of course.) Kind of quirky, but I can live with that. But sometimes, such as following my latest experiment, I worry for my health and or safety and freedom.

This June has been rather more wet and rainy than in recent years, which everybody seems to have an opinion about. I don't really care one way or the other, though I am hoping to get a few good swimming days in sometime this summer. At any rate, the rain has led to some prolific plant growth in the backyard and this has lead to some curiosity (or stupidity) on my part. One plant species especially caught my interest, though not for its bright pink petals.

We have some poppies in the backyard that have been there forever without me taking too much notice of them, other than steering clear of their dark black polleny centers that stain your fingers and clothes. (And when it comes to staining clothes, I am enough of a slob/klutz on my own that I don't need any outside help, thank you.) However, this year these giant pink poppies caught my eye because they reminded me of a film we watched in my "Drugs and Human Behavior" class fall semester.

The film was about the opium trade in Afghanistan and (you tell me if this is a good or bad thing to show in a classroom setting) they actually demonstrate the way that opium is harvested. Now, because I know that most of you probably have a better handle on your curiosity than I do, I will tell you that you basically take the center of the poppy inside the petals and make a few horizontal slices to it, at which point it starts oozing plant gunk. After a few days the gunk dries andthe Afghans scrape it off and collect it into little balls of sap. Then, when they need some pain relief/a fix they just pinch off a tiny bit and eat it. All of this was shown in the film, which makes me think that the class might more appropriately have been titled "Drugs: A How-To Guide for Human Addiction Behavior." (Incidently, in this same class we also learned that various drug education programs, such as DARE, have a pretty lousy track record of preventing drug use and may actually increase students' curiousity about drugs. Now there's irony for you.)

So when I saw the poppies this year I got a little curious. First I just wondered if they were the same kind of poppies they have in Afghanistan and if they would bleed opium sap. I wasn't so much concerned with the actual opium as with the harvest process. So I thought I would test it out. And sure enough the stupid black pollen stained my hands and clothes. Oh and also the poppies did bleed some sort of sap and I though that was pretty interesting, because it makes you wonder why we don't hear about the police raiding poppy farms in the US.

So up to this point, my curiosity is pretty much at its normal level and I was just weirdly slicing a few poppies in the backyard. No big deal. It's not like I am going to harvest it and sell it or anything. And since I am not a drug addict and have no plans to be one I wasn't going to eat it either. So I pretty much left it at that. I checked it a few days later and saw that it had indeed hardened into a tacky sap, as was demonstrated in the video. With the experiment over I went inside and made a sandwich and being the klutz that I am I promptly sliced my finger. And being the overly curious person that I am I decided that, although completely unintentional, this kitchen mishap provided a perfect opportunity to test the poppy juice. This is where most people would rationally say to themselves, "Hmm, I have an open wound that could be subject to infection. Should I rub backyard plant sap into it or try the neosporin instead? I think I will go with the neosporin." Wise choice, but unfortunately not the one that I made. Oh no, not at all the one that I made.

It is only now as I look back that I realize how stupid this was. Not only was I going to put plant guts all over an open wound, the plant guts could contain opium, a controlled substance in the United States, if I remeber correctly from my "How to Be A Drug Dealer" class. This means that theoretically I could be charged for possessing it. As I said, I worry that my curiosity is a danger to me sometimes. It's as if it takes over the rational part of my brain that says, "Lindsey, you are not a drug addict. Keep it that way." So I merrily rubbed the plant gunk into my fresh wound.

The good news about my curiosity problem is that I generally learn from my mistakes pretty quickly. It only took me one time of exploding an egg in the microwave to learn not to put raw uncracked eggs in the microwave. And it only took about ten seconds of burning, stinging pain to go wash the poppy juice out of my wound and put some neosporin on it.

The bad news is that sometimes you don't get a chance to learn from your mistakes. I realized this as I was contemplating the field of mushrooms that has also popped up in the backyard as of late. I started wondering if they were edible and if I could use the internet to identify them. I was nearly to the point of formulating recipes before the rational me stepped in and said, "Are you crazy? People die from eating poisonous wild mushrooms and even the experts can have a hard time telling which ones are edible. Plus, the dog uses the backyard as his own personal bathroom. Do you really want to be eating the fungus that pops up back there? Go finish your sandwich and stick to the avocado experiments."

I am thinking that maybe it would be good for my health if the rain started clearing up soon, before the beanstalk gets climb-able.

Favorite Things

Fact: There is not much going on in my life, at least that I can write about.
Fact: There are not a lot of pictures on my blog.
Fact: This makes for a very boring blog.

To remedy this, I decided to post some random pictures of things that I like and that make me happy. Maybe they will make you happy too. Or at least relieve some boredom.


These are California Poppies. They also grow in Seattle, which is where I first saw them, and in Utah. I like them because they are basically weeds in that they grow pretty much anywhere, but they are more pretty than your typical weed. I love the bright bright orange color. And they're not like other poppies with papery petals that fall off in a day. They actually last quite a while.


This is a Slurpee. The Epitome of Summer. If you have never had one you haven't really lived. If you live in the South, I am very sorry for you. They do not exist there. I will cry for you.



This is a water garden. I think if I wasn't born human, I would have been a frog (which would really have freaked out my mom), and if I believed in reincarnation that is what I would strive for in my next life. I really love water and like to spend as much time in the water as possible. I don't swim so much as I doggy paddle, and I prefer non chlorinated bodies of water. Someday I will have a water garden of my own. With frogs, of course.
These are the Seychelles. They are an island chain in the middle of the Indian Ocean and someday I will visit them. They are really bio-diverse and super cool in that they are 1,000 miles from the nearest continent and yet are made up of continental rock, rather than volcanic rock. Also, they are beautiful.

This is Scientific American Frontiers, where I probably first heard about the Seychelles. (I'm sure it was a PBS special of some sort anyway.) This man has my dream job. Basically he goes out and learns about all the cool scientific advancements and research, interviews the scientists, tests the theories, and sums it up for the average viewer in 60 minutes or less. I like watching it and dreaming that someday Alan Alda will retire and give me his job.


These are the Counting Crows. My all time favorite band. (I know, I am stuck in the nineties, but hey, it was a good decade!) I wish they would tour in Utah. In the meantime, I will just have listen to some old classics. You should too. I highly recommend them.

These are real life mermaids. Really. They live (and work) in Florida and put on a show every day, which I will someday watch. So you know how I tell people that I want to be an undercover mermaid in the Atlantic Ocean and they think its a joke and that such a job doesn't exist and laugh at me? Well look who's laughing now!

These are books. I like to read. I especially love when I find a really really great book. This happened quite frequently in Logan, where the library is awesome. In Springville, this is not the case, even though Springville is a bigger city than Logan. I don't know what gives, but it got me to thinking. Why isn't there a Netflicks for books? Wouldn't that be the most awesome thing ever? I would most definitely subscribe. (And yes, I know that is the basic idea behind a library, but it is also the same idea behind video rental stores and netflicks still succeeded.)

Anyway, hope that spiced up your day a little bit, or at least stimulated your eyes somewhat. If you would like to stop being subjected to boring posts by me, please leave me a suggestion for what you would like me to write about in the comments. Thankyoucomeagain.

M&M Evolution

So since not a whole lot is going on with me, other than finishing school and moving home and getting an internship at the Huntsman Cancer Institute (I guess that is a lot, but there really isn't a lot more to say about it), I decided that I would post this link about M&Ms because it was so funny it made me laugh out loud. It reminded me of a game my siblings and I used to play with gummy bears when we were little in which we would stretch them out while counting as fast as we could until they broke. The number at which they broke was their "age" and we always felt really bad for the ones that only lived till like 17. Maybe we should have mailed the oldest ones to the gummy bear factory. We might have gotten some free gummies out of it.
Anyway, here it is. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
http://naurunappula.com/z/72813/

And amazingly I passed all my classes this semester so now I am just 400 unpaid internship hours away from graduation. After all this I really feel no need to ever run a marathon.

The Running Commentary That Is My Brain

Just wanted to say hello and let you know I am still alive. Mostly I am just working on the last few details of the last few weeks of school, which makes for boring blog entries so I will spare you the details. One of these days I will write something interesting. For now my brain is pretty much fried so I will just share a few random thoughts I have had lately. In no particular order.

If I had to nominate the world's worst singers, the "winners" in the male and female solo artist category would be Neil Diamond and Madonna, respectively. Sorry mom, I know you love hairy bear man, but I think he is not "pretty amazing." And Madonna just needs to fade into oblivion. She's kind of like the fire alarms on campus. They are blaringly loud and sound important but usually just mean that somebody has burned soup in the microwave or overdryed their hair. And I don't usually like to attack other people's physical appearance, but honestly, with all the dental technology we have now you'd think she could do something about the grand canyon in her front teeth. It's amazing she isn't a famous whistler instead of a singer. She doesn't have much talent in the latter category so I am not sure why she is even famous for that.

People seem awfully concerned about death. And don't take this the wrong way or think I am suicidal, but I want to die. Someday. In the distant future, of course. Maybe this is a symptom of working in a nursing home for the last 18 months, but I honestly think I would just get bored if I lived to be 90. Of course, it's possible that I will change my mind if I get to 89, but I guess I don't get what the big deal is. This is probably a symptom of thinking too much and means I should probably get out more (But even if you get out, can you really escape your thoughts? I can't. I have a sort of running commentary going on in my head all the time, like I am being interviewed for a tv show or something and for some reason everybody is interested in my opinions. Which is kind of funny to me because I am not a strongly opinionated person. At least, I don't think I am. Maybe I am wrong on that. )

Anyway, I got to thinking about dying because of a combination of epidemiology and books I have been reading (Neither of which are particularly morbid. I don't know why they got me thinking about it). Anyway, I won't bore you with the details (too late) but it has just amazed me the lengths people are willing to go to in order to live longer, no matter what their quality of life might be. And the whole reason that studies are done is to influence health status. If we weren't trying to reduce the death rate from heart attacks, why would we study them right?

But it all just begs the question, what do we want? Ten more years? 15? To never die? Do we think that is possible? And are we willing to give up life now to gain more life later? Meaning, if you never let yourself have that cupcake that you want because you want to achieve some holy grail of health, aren't you missing the point that health is not an end goal but a means to an end. Is your health good enough to allow you to do the things you love to do, and if it is then why do you want "better" health? I am just now realizing that is something I have probably been looking at the wrong way, which as a health educator is kind of ironic. So I thought I would share it with you. I may have to revisit it later but my thoughts are kind of jumbled right now so I will just leave it at that. And also, I really am not suicidal so don't worry :)

Have you ever wondered why they are called third world countries? It begs the question (and where does that phrase come from really?) are there first and second worlds and if so what are they? I figured the US would be a first world country if such a phrase existed but second world kind of threw me. Anyway I have always wondered about it but never got around to researching it. But I had the good fortune to find out as I was reading something the other day.

Turns out the US is a first world country and that second world countries do exist. First world denotes a democratically free, economically stable country. Second world was a phrase coined (another phrase whose meaning I need to look up) for countries that are economically stable but not democratically free. Places like what Russia was during the Soviet era and like China today. (Basically, it was a euphemism for communist countries.) The third world countries are mainly categorized by being not economically stable. They may actually have communist (or more likely fascist) governments, but they aren't doing anything for the common man. Thus they have the opportunity to become first world countries (which is what the US would want. Notice how the options are ranked. Not Blue countries and Yellow countries, but first and second. And nobody wants to be second. Clever strategy. I wonder if China thinks of itself as a second world country?)

Bananas are dying. I read it in National Geographic, which I have decided is a guilt and fear inducing magazine that I should avoid except maybe for some of the photos. Basically they show you all the cool things in the world and then tell you how they are dying off and going extinct and that it is probably your fault. Really. So it turns out that bananas are on this list. Apparently some weird fungus is attacking them and it makes them shed their leaves and exposes them to too much sunlight which kills them. And since the bananas are all genetically identical it is going to kill them all. Scientists are working to develop new breeds of bananas but we may have to make do without banana bread (which is not bread at all but cake. Now there is some clever marketing for you.) and certain flavors of smoothie. I wonder if there will be a save the banana group? Will you join with me if there is?

Ok. I think that is enough from my head today. In summary, Madonna has no talent, man's perspective on health and death are weird, China might think the US is a second world country, banana killing fungus is proliferating. What does it all mean? Lindsey has a lot of homework she has been avoiding. Back to the grind. Save the Bananas!

Linguists, Dilemnas, and Other Sundry Stuff

This post (at least the first part) is pretty much going to be about my friend, whom I will call Marbles. Marbles is a linguist and I recently discovered that there are many benefits of having a friend in this profession. More than you might think actually. First and foremost is the sheer coolness of being able to say that you have a friend who is a linguist. I mean, who wouldn't think that was cool? More than this though is being able to consult a linguist when you don't know the answer to something. Like why, for example, a person from a place that has an accent, we'll say Arkansas theoretically, would NOT have an accent even though they were born and raised there and their parents have accents. Further complicating the mix is the fact that this theoretical person has siblings who also don't have accents and this person used to have an accent but has since lost it. So what gives?
For this, I give you Marbles' answer:
"This guy probably had an accent when he was young b/c that's the way his parents talk. So they were his main influence. But once kids enter school, they quickly adapt to the accent and speech patterns of their peers. (Aka they want to fit in so they change the way they talk to match what everyone else was doing.) The kids at their schools must not have much of an accent or something. That would explain why all of the kids in the family don't have an accent (and the siblings would reinforce each other.) Also, this change to having less of an accent is reinforced by the media, travel, and the internet...so most accents aren't as strong as they used to be or are dying out. "
Can I just say Awesome! I think I finally understand a little bit about the joy that my friends feel when I answer random questions for them. See, I kind of always thought that my friends must think I am a know-it-all, which is not really a good thing and so I was kind of confused as to why they would still like me (I mean, not that I don't have other good qualities but I was confused as to why my know-it-allness seemed to be the most celebrated quality. It's kind of counter-intuitive.) Anyway, when I consulted Marbles on this "theoretical" question I figured that she would know the answer, and she did, but even more than that she included fascinating information that I would never have guessed at, namely that accents are diminishing due to the media, travel, etc. (That has got to be one of the most ridiculously ungrammatically correct sentences I have ever written.) Who knew?! Well, Marbles did, but now that she has shared that information with me I am thouroughly fascinated and edumacated on the subject of accents.

And that is not the only benefit of having a friend who is a linguist. Oh no. There's more. (And if you call now, we'll include the all new whizamagidgit absolutely free!) In addition to this cool information and the answer to my question, a linguist has an appreciation for all accents and will not laugh at you when you try to speak in a Brooklyn accent or fail horribly at a Scottish one. In fact, she will probably speak them along with you (probably better than you too:). And if your linguist friend happens to be Marbles and going to pursue a Ph.D at Penn State she will also be happy to tell you about Pennsylvania Dutch, which she will be studying and which is the German-ish language spoken by a lot of the Amish. And once she has studied that she will be able to tell you what kinds of words they use for technology that they might not use (Television, computer, etc.) Do they spanglicize it like computadora or do they just use the english word or do they make one up or what? Interesting, I know. And I will be sure to keep you posted as her studies progress:)

So, there you go. Just in case you were wondering if you should befriend a linguist know you have the go-ahead.

On to dilemnas: First, I realize that I spelled it wrong but that is how I am going to spell it for the rest of my life. I don't know why I thought that was how it was spelled in the first place but somehow it got stuck in my head and now it has become sort of an inside joke with my family so I must continue to misspell it for the remainder of my natural life (which is an odd phrase, no? I mean, is there an artificial life?) Anyway, the dilemna is what to do for my internship. There are a couple opportunities that have come up and I am not sure what to do. So, I will tell you what they are and you can make my decision for me:)

1) Migrant Health Outreach worker in New Jersey. May through August. $10 per hour using my spanish skills to discuss health issues with migrant farmworkers.
Pros: $$$, see another part of the country, get all my hours, use my spanish (which has gotten so bad that I really could use the practice, though I would feel sorry for the poor farmworkers getting me as their caseworker)
Cons: It wouldn't really allow me to network to get a "real job" back in Utah, which is sort of my plan lately. Not sure if it would help me develop my health ed. skills (which is much more than just teaching health, I have discovered)

2)Ouelessebougou-Utah Alliance. 200 hours. Non-profit doing aid work in Mali. Not paid. Based in Salt Lake (not Mali, otherwise my decision would be made:)
Pros: I could live at home. I like the idea of a non profit. Would allow me time to network in Utah. Possibility of going to Mali in the future.
Cons: I would have to help write a grant and I would rather poke my own eyes out. No money. Commute to Salt Lake. Also not sure if it would help me develop my health ed skills. No real possibility of a position opening up there since they only have three full time people in Salt Lake.

3) Other Utah options, including Multicultural Health Services, Clinica de Buena Salud, Diabetes clinic, Huntsman Cancer Institute, Health Department.
Pros: Networking in Utah, possibly paid, live at home, develop my skills
Cons: maybe not paid, possible commute, haven't actually applied so I don't know that I would get one.

So, any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. I have been working on an internship for forever and I am mostly just sick of it, but it is probably good practice for the job search so I should just stop complaining I guess. Anyway, I think at this point my brain is just fried and that is contributing to my indescisiveness. (And my inablility to spell).

And that is about all from me. Just one last thought. Or question I guess. (Do you like how this blog is called Ask Linds and yet I am the one who asks all the questions lately? See, that was even a question!)
Anyway, the question is: How do you plan your life not knowing what the future may bring? Up until this point I have just lived my life as if I would be single until I graduated. And wouldn't you know it, that is the case and things have worked out ok. But now I am not sure where to go from here. I can continue to live my life as if I will be single forever but I don't really think that will be the case. Do I plan for another five years? Do I take a job in Indonesia and then meet somebody two months before I move and tell them "Sorry, you have to move to Indonesia to keep seeing me"? Do I decide to go to a grad school that will take up a significant amount of time and pursue a full time career and if I do meet somebody keep going in that direction?
I don't know. I think I just need some perspective because I am sure the answer is just that you take it as it comes and stop fearing the unknown. But maybe one of you will have a fresher way of putting that so that it doesn't sound like the therapist telling his patient who is afraid of being buried alive "Stop it or I'll bury you alive in a box!"
Anyway, I had better end this post before I use the word anyway one more time. And I may have to update this thing more frequently so that each entry doesn't become a chapter in a really lame novel.
So I will leave you with those thoughts and one additional benefit of having a friend who is a linguist. That is, if you ever have this problem in a foreign country, you will know how to say this phrase in no less than five languages: I Have a Cat in My Pants!
(And she will be able to say it in no less than 15!)

A Retraction. Sort of.

I was reviewing a few of my blog entries and it seems that I have some pet subjects. I don't think I realized that I talked about them as much as I did. On the one hand I feel that it makes me even more boring than I thought was and that I should move on and discuss other issues. On the other hand, there are not a lot of things that get me riled up, or even that I am particularly passionate about. (One of my favorite words is "meh" so that should tell you something.) So I think I tend to dwell on those things. And I am not stopping today. So if you are sick and tired of me beating the dead horse of daylight savings time then just ignore this post and try to catch up on the hour of sleep that you lost this week. But if you want to possibly be shocked then keep reading.
You see, I have learned a few things about daylight savings time that have made me reconsider my position on its existence. In case you forgot, I pretty much consider it the bane of my existence. But I am afraid I will have to issue a retraction on that position. Sort of. Allow me to explain.
First, it is important to understand the reason why I hate daylight savings time so much(which I will now abbreviate DST for the rest of this post.) You might be surprised to learn that it has very little to do with the loss of sleep. I actually don't care about that too much. And anyone who knows me knows how shocking this is because I LOVE sleep. Almost more than anything. I would probably rather sleep than eat and I love food. So you would think that losing sleep would be a big deal to me. But in this case, it's not. The reason being that as much as I love sleep, I hate it when it gets dark at 5:30 in the evening. HATE it! It makes me feel so unproductive no matter how much I accomplish. It just makes the day seem so much shorter, despite it actually still being 24 hours. SO, when it comes to losing an hour of sleep in exchange for more daylight, I will take the sun. Always.
Now, up until this week I was under the impression that DST ENDS in the spring and BEGINS in the fall. I realize that is a fairly large mistake to make, especially when I profess such a hatred for the practice. You would think that I would at least understand something I have chosen to despise. I chalk it up to the fact that it is a tricky concept to grasp and I can't be blamed for misunderstanding something as complex as the reordering of time. (See, when I put it that way it almost sounds plausible that nobody is capable of understanding DST. Then I don't feel so bad for not getting a fairly basic concept:)
Anyway, my hatred of DST comes from the fact that I was under the impression that when it starts we LOSE daylight, and when it ends we GAIN daylight. So of course I would hate a concept that I believed deprived me of precious daylight.
So now I have a dilemma (not a dilemna, as I always thought the word was). Do I continue hating DST despite the fact that it actually extends daylight hours, something I like? Or do I admit my mistake and make my peace with the institution?
Well, after much debate I have come to a conclusion. Drumroll please.
I, Lindsey Schultz, will continue to hate daylight savings time. And there is still a good reason to do so. You see, the earth has a natural cycle wherin it rotates on an axis and orbits the sun. The effects of these motions are what account for the various seasons. As it turns out, in the course of this spinning and rotation the days naturally get longer in the summer and shorter in the winter. (I guess that's confusing because there are always 24 hours in a day, but what I mean is that there are more hours of sunlight in the summer.) This results in the longest day of the year falling around June 21, known as the summer solstice, wherin there are 12 hours of daylight. 12 glorious hours! Of course, this is countered by the winter solstice, falling in December, in which the sun gets really tired and goes to bed early. But, from that point on the days get gradually longer and longer, which makes me happy.
So what it really boils down to is the principle of the boiling frog. If you throw a frog in hot water he will hop right out, but if you gradually increase the temperature he will slowly cook his own goose (or frog. I'm mixing metaphors here.) Anyway, the same goes for me. I would like to think that I would be smarter than a frog and hop out of the slowly warming water, but most likely I wouldn't. (Plus I like really hot showers so that would probably work against me too.) So if you got rid of DST I might notice that the days were getting longer or shorter, but it would happen so gradually that I wouldn't wake up one morning in March or November feeling robbed of either sleep or daylight, as I do now. And you wouldn't have to listen to my constant rants on the subject. Like I said, write your congressmen.
So, this is why daylight savings time will stay at the top of my "Things That Must Go" list. But on the bright side, at least I have a better understanding of my dislike of it.
A few other random notes about DST:
There were missionaries in my mission who were from Arizona (the smartest state in the union, due to it's refusal to participate in DST) who actually thought their companions were trying to play a trick on them by telling them to change their clocks. That would be a hilarious joke, but unfortunately it is one that the government continues to play on us each and every year, making it cumulatively less and less funny.
And aside from the government, guess who else is in on the joke? Lobbyists. Yep, lobbyists from the candy companies. And why would the candy companies benefit from DST? Three words: Trick or Treat. Yes, the candy companies are responsible for extending DST so that the little ghouls and boys don't have to go trick or treating in the dark. Kind of makes me wish dentists were more effective lobbyists. Though the downside to that would be SWISH. Did anyone else have to take SWISH in elementary school? It was a flouride treatment that they brought in and you had to swish it around in your mouth for 1 minute and then spit it out and then you couldn't drink anything for 20 minutes. It was awful! I hated it even more than DST and finally convinced my mom to stop making me take it when Alan Erdmann threw up after taking it. Seriously, it was that bad. So I guess I will just have to look on the bright side. I could be taking SWISH in the dark:)

Experiments: Natural vs. artificial

Recently we have been discussing various ways of gathering data in my epidemiology class. Epidemiology is the study of disease distibution and probable causes and has nothing to do with skin, unless of course they happen to be studying the flesh eating bacteria or something.
I mention this because I am currently reading a book that was written by an epidemiologist. She mentions in the intro that when people ask her what she does for a living her reply is "sex and drugs." Apparently if she says epidemiology people equate that with a skin condition and thinks she is some sort of dermatologist or something. I was kind of surprised that people would think that but then I was telling a friend about the book and when I said she was an epidemiologist he asked if that was some sort of skin specialist. So apparently she knows what she is talking about. Though really, I think being able to say that your job is sex and drugs is probably just a good conversation starter, more than a clarification.

Anyway, back to data collection. We have been discussing the differences between types of studies. An experiment is like the third grade science fair where you put the penny in the various solutions to see which one cleans it best and you manipulate variables and all the classic stuff that we have learned since grade school. (Is there anyone who hasn't done that experiment? Spoiler alert: tomato juice works best. Though I don't really know why anyone would need to clean pennies, let alone have the time to do so. Its kind of a dumb experiment when you think about it.)
(Also, did you know that nowadays pennies are made mostly from zinc and cost more than one cent to produce? And they tend not to circulate very long because they get lost or tossed or stored in a jar somewhere and forgotten about (mom:). So the US government is losing money on making pennies. They have actually considered doing away with them and rounding up, which is just another one of the reasons why economics makes no sense to me (You have no idea how close I came to using a pun there). But do you know why they haven't done that yet, other than for fear of confusing all the economics dunces like myself? Because of lobbyists. Specifically lobbyists from the zinc industry. Who knew? Well, now you do. More useless information. Unless you have a desire to become a lobbyist. Which I actually find tempting, but I don't want to lose my soul and I think the two are mutually exclusive. So I will stick to health ed. Which brings me back to the point.)

The point being that in addition to the typical experiment you also have other ways of gathering data, including the natural experiment. This is where you just sort of gather data from a scenario that is happening that you didn't really have anything to do with. Kind of confusing right? That's what I thought. Until this weekend. You see, it suddenly clicked when I realized that if anyone wanted to observe a natural experiment they could just observe me this weekend. Or read my blog, which is pretty much the result of the natural experiment.

You see, my roommates all went to Oregon this weekend. They invited me but I decided not to go because I have a bunch of homework and tests next week and a health conference and blah blah blah. So I stuck around and became a natural experiment instead. Essentially, the question being asked is, what does Lindsey do when nobody is around? Now, if they wanted to do a regular experiment they could just put me in a big glass box by myself and observe, like that stupid pledge commercial where they make the lady wait a week in a glass box. But you will notice that there is no bathroom in that box so it makes for a pretty implausible, unethical study and a stupid commercial. And since I would not likely consent to such a study, and an ethics board might take issue with it, they would have to wait for a natural experiment in which I just happen to find myself alone for three days. (I might think that my roommates were in on the study from the beginning but then I remember that a) they invited me to go with them, and b) there are far more important things to study than me. Such as physiology, which I am not studying right now.)

So, here I am, a natural experiment. Now, what can we learn from all of this? Well, it is now day two of solo time and I am writing a rambling, random blog post and I won't have any human contact until church tomorrow. (Do you think I can make it? The suspense builds.) So we learn that while Lindsey is ordinarily quite easily amused, this is not the case when she has nobody to share her amusement with. (See "pennies; made of zinc" from above for proof:)

We learn that she tends to watch a lot more TV when she is by herself. (Memo to me: Don't buy a TV.) Though, a confounding factor in this conclusion is that her roommate's boyfriend happened to leave season three of The Office at her apartment and she may have been inclined to watch that whether she were alone or not. Hard to say.

We also learn that she tends to mimic things that she reads rather than people that she speaks to. The style of this post is rather more similar to the book she is currently reading than the usual language of, "like", "seriously", "lame", and "I know" that she usually uses. So without human interaction she resorts to interacting as though she were talking to the things that she reads. Which probably also explains the scientific theme of this particular post. It is also a good indicator that she ought to stop reading and boring people with her ramblings and go to bed.

What else will we learn from this natural experiment? Only time will tell. Though I have a hunch I will probably do well on my epidemiology test:)

One final thought. Sometimes the results of experiments are not what we wanted or thought they would be. This seems pretty obvious, but there was a time in my life when it was not. Back to the third grade science fair. My first experiment was to determine if Coke would cause a nail to erode or a piece of ham to get holes in it. I was told that this happens and so was much disappointed when this turned out not to be the case. The ham and nail were a little sticky after three days in Coke solution, but none the worse for wear. Meanwhile I was scrambling to find dirty pennies I could clean with lemon or tomato juice for the science fair the next day because I thought that since my experiment failed to prove my hypothesis it was no good and I had to do another one. It didn't win any prizes and I went on believing that I had somehow done my experiment wrong.
Lesson learned? If you want to win a prize at the science fair, have your mom do it for you. Yeah, I'm talking to you Shannon B., Westside Elementary.
Also, Coke will not erode your stomach. Or ham.