If you’ve looked at social media over the past couple weeks, even for a second, there’s no doubt you’ve seen an endless stream of “back to school” photos from all your friends who have kids.
And, hey, they’re pretty adorable!
By now, it’s a time-honored tradition to post a pic of “Lucy’s First Day of Second Grade” or “Timmy’s First Day of Kindergarten.”
But there’s a flipside to all of this joy…it’s what the kids look (and feel) like after that big first day of school. And it is pure exhaustion and trauma. Take a look for yourself:
This morning I woke up crying cause I had a bad dream and my half asleep boyfriend hugs me and says “don’t worry babe it’s cause the planets are in Gatorade remember” LMAO
Didn’t see my boyfriend for like a week and when we sat down to eat at this restaurant he pulls out a bit of paper and said “ I had so much tea to spill that I didn’t want to forget any details” lmaooooo
my boyfriend was like "you want me to sing you to sleep?" i was like uh you've never sang me to sleep before what's going on here??? and this dude started yodeling like the lil boy from walmart oh my god
I forgot my bfs phone was dead, so when he went to the bathroom I decided to roam around Walmart. About 20 minutes later I hear “Alyssa Stockton, your child is at register 10”. I walk over there and there he is..my boyfriend..sitting there..on the bench..pouting that I left him.
I sent my bf to pick up some concealer for me and I told him to show it to me on his hand so I could see the color. This is what he sent me lol pic.twitter.com/QYQ54oEsQd
This morning I woke up crying cause I had a bad dream and my half asleep boyfriend hugs me and says “don’t worry babe it’s cause the planets are in Gatorade remember” LMAO
Didn’t see my boyfriend for like a week and when we sat down to eat at this restaurant he pulls out a bit of paper and said “ I had so much tea to spill that I didn’t want to forget any details” lmaooooo
my boyfriend was like "you want me to sing you to sleep?" i was like uh you've never sang me to sleep before what's going on here??? and this dude started yodeling like the lil boy from walmart oh my god
I forgot my bfs phone was dead, so when he went to the bathroom I decided to roam around Walmart. About 20 minutes later I hear “Alyssa Stockton, your child is at register 10”. I walk over there and there he is..my boyfriend..sitting there..on the bench..pouting that I left him.
I sent my bf to pick up some concealer for me and I told him to show it to me on his hand so I could see the color. This is what he sent me lol pic.twitter.com/QYQ54oEsQd
If you’re not familiar, the traditional version involves focusing on a task for 25-minutes, then taking a 5-minute break. After four Pomodoros, you get a longer, half-hour break.
People use different variations, but Alexey Guzey has hacked a way to make the technique even easier to use. Guzey suggests the reason why you might give up on Pomodoro is your brain is using energy to think of how to get a task completed in 25-minutes. Or at least getting to a point where taking a break doesn’t interrupt your flow.
Then, there’s the problem of interruptions. Do you restart your Pomodoro timer or keep going?
Guzey says that a better way than using a timer is to keep a calendar with fixed Pomodoro times. Each hour and half-hour starts with the 5-minute break. After three hours, you get a half-hour break.
Work: 9:35 to 10:00
Break: 10:00 to 10:05
Work: 10:05 to 10:30
Break: 10:30 to 10:35
Work: 10:35 to 11:00
Break: 11:00 to 11:05
Work: 11:05 to 11:30
Break: 11:30 to 11:35
Work: 11:35 to 12 noon
Break: 12 noon to 12:35
After a few days, this daily schedule should become a habit. And in case you do get interrupted or distracted, you can check the time and know exactly where to pick it back up.
The calendar/Pomodoro method is also good for reminding yourself to avoid distractions.
For those of us who like schedules, this is a pretty good hack. With or without the Pomodoro timer app, it’s great to be able to see at a glance where you are in your productive hours.
Social anthropologist Kate Fox revealed which words are banned by the British Royal Family, and, more importantly, why, in her book, Watching the English.
1. Tea
Around the United Kingdom, tea is used to refer to the evening meal. This is considered a custom of the working class. The royals are to say dinner or supper instead.
The royals are not Spice Girls and neither they, nor anyone they know, use that word. You are permitted, however, to say smart. As in, “My, how smart you look in all that Prada.”
Anything that is sweet is never called a dessert, or a sweet for that matter. That’s too boorish. But they will have a pudding, which is a word that covers all sweet desserts.
According to NewsWeek, “An undercover investigation in the United Kingdom revealed that warehouse employees resort to urinating in bottles and trash cans around the warehouse so that they won’t miss their strict time targets.”
For obvious reason, Amazon has been on a mission to squash these so-called rumors, so they turned to their “FC Ambassadors” for help. These employees are on a team that posts on Twitter and social media about how much they enjoy working with Amazon.
While the retail juggernaut insists these people are real and speaking their true minds, Twitter followers smelled something fishy. Many were curious about the strangely stilted language being used. This FC Ambassador mission started over a year ago, and since then there has been some serious backlash.
One Twitter user wrote:
the newest twitter rabbit hole i’ve fallen down is the fact that amazon makes some of its employees write tweets that are *not at all* suspicious pic.twitter.com/uvhWWCxpTP
Here are some Amazon FC Ambassadors doing their thing…or not…who knows?
Are these people even real?
Mental Illness is no light subject. As a person who suffers from Depression, I am happy to know i have resources thru my job to help me if I need it. #youarenotalone This job can be tough, it isn't for everyone: but just like puzzle pieces we fit into different pieces.
— Hannah – Amazon FC Ambassador (@AmazonFCHannah) March 13, 2019
Back from more than a week of absence at work. Good thing I was able to cover it up using my time bank. (Personal, Sick, and Vacation).
— Rafael – Amazon FC Ambassador (@AmazonFCRafael) August 5, 2019
Took a picture of the leadership principals I see on the wall every day while walking to the break room. I love the abstract design, simple, and elegant all at once. #wallart#leadership#amazonpic.twitter.com/V5ChTmrmO6
— Rafael – Amazon FC Ambassador (@AmazonFCRafael) May 6, 2019
I can honestly say, in the 3 years I've been working at Amazon, I never thought I'd get to do what I am doing now. Amazon has offered me a lot of opportunities but being able to see what people actually think about my job has by far been the most interesting. #PHL4forLife
— Dylan – Amazon FC Ambassador (@AmazonFCDylan) May 13, 2019
An Amazon spokesperson said,
“FC ambassadors are employees who work in our FCs and share facts based on their personal experience. It’s important that we do a good job educating people about the actual environment inside our fulfillment centers, and the FC ambassador program is a big part of that along with the FC tours we provide.
Thousands of guests across the world have come to see for themselves what it’s like to work inside one of our FCs. If you haven’t visited, we recommend it.”
You get the point. As a way to combat this further, Amazon has been offering FC tours for anyone who would like to check it out. You can follow #AmazonFCTour for more on that. In the meantime, we can all sit back and watch this unfold.
We live in strange times – college kids eating so much of the cheapest food they can find that they’re winding up needing medical intervention they can’t afford.
Tuna, in case you fall into this category of unaware, contains the heavy metal mercury, which is toxic in fairly small quantities. It also accumulates in the body, which means that eating too much, too close together can result in mercury poisoning, which shows up as poor cognitive function, blindness, and impaired lung function.
Researchers out of the University of California, Santa Cruz published a study in Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry that revealed many collage students are unaware of the issues with eating too much tuna – and they’re eating a lot, based on the mercury levels in their bodies.
54% of students reported eating tuna at least three times per week, a frequency that exceeds the maximum dose of methylmercury that the EPA calls “safe.” 7% of students surveyed reported eating more than 20 meals a week that contained tuna, and the tests on their hair revealed mercury that rose to “a level of concern.”
A post shared by HannahEats (@hannaheatingfood) on
The lead researcher was inspired to conduct the study after hearing her students talk about how much tuna they ate.
“I’ve been dumbfounded when students have told me they eat tuna every day. Their lack of knowledge about the risk of exposure to mercury is surprising.”
Over 99% of the study participants reported low knowledge and low confidence in their survey answers regarding the potential danger and toxicity of tuna – they thought it was safe to eat 2 or 3 times the amount of tuna deemed “safe” (which is just two to three servings per week).
“It’s not a large sample size, but only 1 out of 107 students surveyed had a high level of knowledge as well as confidence in that knowledge.”
The kids in the study hadn’t yet reached alarming levels of mercury exposure, but they were at a point where it was recommended that they limit what they were eating.
The team worked with UCSC administrators and the dining hall to put up signs that will hopefully educate students about how much tuna to eat in the future.
It’s hard, even in places that have banned cigarettes, to make it through a meal or a movie without a fruity-smelling cloud emanating from somewhere in the room. Have you noticed that?
And it’s very hard to convince anyone who loves vaping (or is addicted) that they should be more cautious with a technology that’s too new to have been thoroughly studied by health professionals in the field.
Smoking during the teen years is especially harmful to a still-growing brain – studies have previously shown that if a person can hold off smoking until they’re in their 20s, the chances of getting addicted reduce drastically. And while fewer teens than ever are trying traditional cigarettes, a disturbingly high – and growing – number of kids are vaping.
“Nicotine mimics the chemicals that brain cells use to communicate with each other and causes the brain to reconfigure itself. The nicotine molecule is shaped a lot like acetylcholine, which the nervous system uses to communicate, so it fakes out and overstimulates the nervous system. This rewiring of the brain is bad for adults, but it’s especially bad for young people because until around age 26, the brain is still developing. When you start messing up normal communication between nerves as the system is still being built, the adaptations are a lot more permanent.”
21% of high schoolers report using e-cigarettes. In 2011, that number was only 1.5%.
4.9% of middle schoolers are vaping, up from just .6% in 2011.
So, the problem is not only growing at an alarming rate, but levels of kids who are addicted to nicotine are reaching levels that should concern everyone, says Dr. Stanton Glantz.
“Our understanding of e-cigarettes is still accumulating, but at this point, we are pretty confident that e-cigarettes are at least two-thirds to three-fourths as bad as cigarettes. And remember, cigarettes are pretty horrible. Vaping is like, instead of jumping out the 40th story of a building, you’re jumping out of the 30th story.”
We’re starting to see evidence of this showing up in the news from around the country, too.
This summer, 8 Wisconsin teens were hospitalized with serious lung damage – some of whom found themselves on ventilators in the ICU – due to their vaping habits. A few weeks later, 4 Minnesota kids spent weeks in the hospital battling vaping-related lung troubles, after which the state’s public health department issued an official warning against the use of e-cigs.
Then, an 18-year-old Florida student’s lung collapsed after regular JUUL use, and the FDA reports that they’ve received 127 reports of seizures and other neurological symptoms also related to vaping over the past 10 years. And there has now officially been a death caused by lung illness linked to vaping.
None of these types of issues were seen with traditional cigarettes – so what’s different about vaporized nicotine?
Cigarettes contain 69 known carcinogens, but the juice needed to get a nicotine buzz from an e-cig isn’t harmless – it also contains an assortment of chemicals that go straight into your lungs (and then into the air) that scientists are starting to realize can be as harmful (if not more).
The fact that kids are getting “nic sick” – experiencing nausea, headaches, lightheadedness, and vomiting, none of which was a side effect of traditional cigarettes – seems to point to the fact that the nicotine in e-cigs is ultra concentrated.
Stantz explains how and why these findings are possible – and super concerning.
“Free-base nicotine, which you get in a cigarette and an older-generation e-cigarette, is very alkaline and hard to inhale, so it triggers a gag reflex, which limits the amount of nicotine per puff. Juul transitioned to nicotine salt and added some acid to the e-liquid to make it less alkaline, as well as adding flavors. When you put all that together, it is much easier to inhale, so Juul devices deliver a much higher dose per puff.”
Setting aside the increased nicotine content there are more reasons that, even though they contain fewer known carcinogens than regular cigs, the e-cig vapor is just as dangerous.
“It consists of ultrafine particles that are about 100 times smaller than a human hair. These particles include acrolein and formaldehyde, as well as diacetyl, cinnamaldehyde, and other flavorants that are fine to eat but not to inhale as fine particles.”
In fact, Harvard researchers have discovered that diacetyl and its chemical cousin 2,3-pentanedione – found in 90 percent of e-cigarettes tested – do damage to the cilia lining the lungs and airways, which increases the risks of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
“E-cigarettes also include heavy metals like lead and silica. Their wicks often have silica, and when they wear out, you can get little particles of silica in the lungs, which is very harmful. Additionally, e-cigarettes disable normal functioning of macrophages, cells within the lungs that gobble up bacteria and other infectious agents we breathe in. When you disable them, you are more prone to infections.”
Like smoking old-school cigarettes, vaping also puts people at risk for cardiovascular issues, like heart disease, heart attacks, and strokes.
So, even though Glantz estimated that e-cigs are around 75% as harmful as smoking regular cigs, even he doesn’t think that number will stay the same as more research surfaces.
“With the data we should have about 3 or 4 years from now, I think we’ll find that e-cigarettes are equally as bad or worse in terms of overall health risks.”
Just say no, y’all, and if your kids are vaping or think it’s cool, please step in. It’s not harmless, and as with everything this big, bad world throws at your teen, it’s your job to help them mitigate as many risks as possible.
It’s pretty obvious that streaming TV shows and movies is becoming a preferred way of watching them and more services with more selection are coming on the market soon.
But the services do cost some money. Fortunately, there’s a way to shave off a few dollars.
MoneyTalksNews writer Donna Freedman explains her hack for saving money on Netflix and Hulu if you pay for them through iTunes. Simply put, Costco sells iTunes gift cards at a 15 percent discount. If you use the gift card to pay for the services through iTunes, then BAM! You save on your streaming.
When your account depletes, just buy another gift card.
There are a few catches:
The Costco discount on iTunes cards only happens a couple of times a year, so you have to stock up when you get the chance.
Only existing users of Netflix through iTunes can pay through iTunes. New purchasers have to pay for Netflix directly through their portal which does not take iTunes gift cards as payment.
If you aren’t a Costco member and you have no interest in becoming one, you will have to find iTunes cards at a discount through online gift card resellers or have a friend buy them on your behalf.
If you aren’t paying for Hulu through iTunes, you will have to cancel and sign up again through iTunes.
Still, the savings are there if you are willing to do a little work. Depending on what city you’re in and the cost of living you have, this kind of hustle may be worth it – especially when rate hike time comes.
We’ve always heard that red wine should be served at room temperature. That said…the temperature isn’t the same in every room. Even in the same room, the temperature will vary depending on the time of year, or even the time of day.
The way to balance this out and get the most consistent flavor from your favorite red, it turns out, is to let it spend a little time chilling in the fridge.
“Each wine has its own specific ideal temperature range but generally you want to lean on the cooler end of things than the warmer,” explained Ferrier, “because it’s always nice to drink a wine that’s warming up.” In terms of degrees, “you always want your reds at least in the 60- to 70-degree range. The main reason you don’t want a wine warmer than that is that the aromatics start to shift and the sensation of alcohol starts to take over when you stick your nose in the glass. You especially don’t want a warmer big red wine that tends to have a higher alcohol content. In general, think of it like drinking a warm Pabst versus an ice cold one. You taste different things and the mouthfeel is different.”
The lighter red you’ve chosen, the colder you can go.
“Generally,” explained Ferrier, “you can cool lighter reds even more, down to traditional white service temps [49-55℉]. You don’t want a big red to get this cold because, among other things, chilling the wine can increase the sensation of tannic structure and can make a wine bitter and sharp. With a lighter red it can brighten the acidity, enhance the structure and show off more floral aromatics. Every wine is different and has its own sweet spot.”
“As far as sparkling reds go, the wine itself generally follows the same principle as far as aromatics, structure, etc., but the big difference is the carbon dioxide in solution,” Ferrier told me. “If your wine is cold, the carbon dioxide stays in solution well and you get excellent fine bubbles, if it’s room temp your bottle probably will explode a little when you open it. Aside from that, it’s like a warm soda versus a cold soda— the carbonation is rough and unpleasant. The wine might be nice as it warms up, but at the point of opening a traditional ‘champagne style’ cork, you want an ice-cold wine.”
Go ahead and try it, see what you think! Either way, you get to drink some wine, so it’s a win-win!
(@gisexllee) 
(@Keally22) 
(@AmazonFCHannah) 
(@sabina_sinn) 
Lien dans la bio #juul #vape #vaping
#weekendwine #wine #chilledredwine
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