It’s Been a LONG week

This week was finals week for my summer classes. I had a ton of algebra to finish if I wanted to get it all out of the way before the Fall semester.

If that wasn’t bad enough, I also had a quiz, a test, a paper, and a final exam all due throughout this week in Nutrition class.

If THAT wasn’t enough, I was scheduled for FOUR days at Hy-Vee. I usually get just a couple days, so why they chose this week of all weeks to give me a ton of hours is beyond me.

But wait, I’m not done. If those four days weren’t enough, one of my coworkers asked me to fill in a few hours for him because wasn’t going to be able to make it to work at 4 the next day, so I told him I would.

Is that all? No! At the beginning of the week we heard from Jared! He was headed for home! After a year in Afghanistan his tour of duty was finally over! So in addition to all this stuff I’ve had to deal with, I now had to find someone to cover my hours on Saturday, so that I could go with my family to meet him.

Needless to say this week has been just slightly stressful.

I suppose you are wondering how my finals went. The algebra class was a Pass/No Pass class. If I didn’t learn enough to pass I would have to pay for another semester and keep working on it this fall. Joel had already taken the course and he told me that everyone in his class had taken two full semesters to complete it. I did not want to do that. I do not like math. I “Get” math and I generally don’t have a problem with it if I know what I’m doing, but I do not like it, and I really did not want to have the expense of another whole semester. So I worked my tail off and this afternoon I took the final assessment to find out if I had learned enough to pass. And I did! I did in one half semester what it usually takes other students two FULL semesters to do. And I NEVER want to go through that again!

As soon as I was done with that test, I logged onto the school website to get into my final exam in Nutrition. As I explained before, our teacher is not in Harlan, so we had classes in the basement of the library, with video cameras and microphones. Our tests and assignments were all done at home over the internet. I was a bit nervous about getting that test done because I knew I’d be working on math at the same time the test was open. There was only a three hour window in which we could take it. I finished the math test about an hour before the nutrition test closed. Thankfully I knew the stuff on the test and I completely aced it. Zero questions wrong!

I got home at about 5 that evening and I was starving. I had been so busy with school stuff, and nervous about the tests, that I hadn’t eaten anything all day. That was rather new for me. I’ve always heard of people being “Too nervous to eat,” but I’d never had it happen to me before today. Mom called me soon after I got home and asked me to make tuna salad for supper. She had been at work all day and was headed for home. We were going to leave right after supper, and as you might have guessed, I hadn’t even thought about packing yet.

Right now I am in bed in my grandparent’s basement. I have no internet connection, so when I’ll get a chance to publish this is anyone’s guess. I hope I’ll be able to find a Wi-Fi hot spot somewhere tomorrow before we meet Jared, but if not, you’ll read this when we get home tomorrow night.

I’d better sign off for now and get some sleep, we are going to try to get to Cedar Rapids by noon tomorrow, so we’ll probably leave at ten in the morning.

 

EDIT: As you can see I didn’t get this published before we met Jared. I took lots of pictures, so look for them sometime soon!

Eating Disorder Hilarity

I posted this on facebook, but since I have readers who do not use facebook, I decided to post it here as well, since it was so funny.

In our latest lesson in nutrition class we learned about eating disorders. In the section on bulimia the teacher told us how bulimics use ipecac syrup to induce vomiting. This was covered on our latest test, with a question asking what to use to induce vomiting. This was a multiple choice test and one of the choices was broccoli. I seriously cracked up. :D

Vitamin K

Today in nutrition class I met my teacher for the very first time, and we are over half-way through the summer semester! As I posted when I first started, our nutrition class is very different than any other class I have attended before. We attend class in the basement of our library in town, and we communicate with our teacher with microphones and cameras. So until today, she was basically a TV show to us. Sure we could talk to her, but it was still not the same as having the actual person there. I really enjoyed class today. It was nice to have a living breathing person in front of us instead of a slightly blurry TV screen.
The reason she came all the way to Harlan, was because today was the day we gave our presentations in class. There really would be no good way of doing that in our current situation, so she drove two hours to see us.
My presentation was on Vitamin K. As part of the presentation we were to create handouts for the entire class. The main part of everyone’s handout was a copy of our PowerPoint slides, but do you think that was good enough for me? Of course not! Some suggestions that were given to us for things to put into our handouts were a quiz, or a word scramble. I did both, and I reformatted my PowerPoint slides, so that it was basically a trivia list. The answers to the quiz came from this list. But of course, my quiz was no ordinary quiz. :)
Those of you who have been reading my blog from the beginning, (Probably almost a year now! I should look up when my first post was…) may remember the questionnaires we had to make for speech class. If you don’t, you can find my first one HERE, and my second one HERE. I had a lot of fun writing those, and I thought I’d do something similar for my quiz.
I ended up having even more fun writing my “Vitamin Kwiz” than I did writing my speech questionnaires. I cracked myself up through the whole thing. As a classmate told me when I told her that, “That’s how you know it’s good.” :) Of course I will have to share it with you all, so you can see what I’m talking about. Who knows, maybe you’ll all learn something new about Vitamin K in the process!
Also, as part of the presentation we were to find a recipe that contained the vitamin we researched, so for the first time in months, I am posting a recipe! And it’s one I invented myself! No pictures though. So sad. Anyway, enjoy the Kwiz!

Everything You Never Wanted to Know About Vitamin K!

By Jonathan North

 

Vitamin K is a family of fat soluble vitamins all known collectively as Vitamin K.
This group of vitamins got its name, “K”, from the Danish spelling of the word “Coagulation”.
Vitamin K was discovered in 1939 by a Danish biochemist named Henrik Dam.
He was actually awarded the Nobel Prize for this discovery in 1943.
Vitamin K activates proteins in the blood and in the bones.
It is essential for blood clotting.
It is also essential for strong bones
As with other fat soluble vitamins, Vitamin K is absorbed in the intestines.
Females need 90 micrograms of Vitamin K per day.
Males need 120 micrograms.
Vitamin K can be found in plants and plant oils, as well as meats and fish oils.
The main sources of Vitamin K are Green Leafy vegetables such as Kale, Dark Green Lettuces, and Spinach; but you can also find them in Broccoli, Peas, and Green Beans.
Other food sources are Liver, as well as Soybean Oil, and Canola Oil.
In addition to the Vitamin K we receive by eating Vitamin K rich foods, some Vitamin K is also made in our own bodies, not by our bodies themselves, but by bacteria living in our small intestines.
There has never been an upper limit set on the amount of Vitamin K you can ingest, because there have so far been no known toxic effects from eating too much.
The main signs of a Vitamin K deficiency are hemorrhaging and fractures.
Vitamin K helps the body absorb calcium, which is why it is essential for strong bones.
 

Vitamin K Edutainment!

Vitamin Kwiz!

 

1. What kind of prizes do discoverers of Vitamin K receive?

a. Oscars
b. Tonys
c. CMAs
d. Nobel Peaces

 
2. Jamie needs at least 120 micrograms of Vitamin K every day. What gender is Jamie?
a. Male
b. Female
c. Robot
d. Genderless Earthworm
 
3. Susan loves Kale so much she just totally pigged out! What going to happen to her since she ate WAY more than 90 micrograms of Vitamin K?
a. Three weeks of an itchy rash.
b. Cancer of the pinky toe.
c. Gasping, wheezing, and coughing, followed by possible lifelong asthma.
d. Absolutely nothing.
 
4. Bob hates absolutely every kind of leafy green on earth. He refuses to eat any vegetables, and he won’t even go near supplements. Liver makes him gag, and he only cooks with bacon grease. Obviously he’s not getting enough Vitamin K. If he falls down three flights of stairs, what will probably happen to him?
a. He’ll probably be OK.
b. He’ll drown.
c. He’ll be mugged by a feral herd of rodeo clowns.
d. He’ll break every bone in his body, and then bleed to death.
 
5. Bob does get a little bit of Vitamin K because something makes it for him. Where does Bob’s very limited Vitamin K supply come from?
a. The tiny Vitamin Fairy who lives behind his ear.
b. Jojo the tapeworm
c. The Vitamin Fairy’s husband. She sits at home all day watching her stories while he works in the Vitamin K factory.
d. Bacteria
 
6. The maker of Bob’s Vitamin K supply has to live somewhere. Where do they live?
a. Under his left big toenail.
b. Um, behind his ear, don’t you pay attention?
c. The Vitamin Fairy’s husband moved out from behind his ear three weeks ago. He lives in the men’s bathroom at the Vitamin K factory now, in the handicapped stall. He’s a pretty big guy and it’s a lot roomier than the other stalls.
d. In his small intestine.
 
7. Bob just got into a huge fight! That little girl just punched him in the nose! What will happen to him now?
a. He’ll black out, but in a couple hours he’ll wake up and be fine.
b. He’ll have a scarring memory of being beaten up by a little girl and need therapy for the rest of his life.
c. He’ll fall over backwards and crush an innocent street mime who was just passing behind him.
d. Death by bloody nose.
 
8. Bob drinks tons of milk, but without Vitamin K it is pointless. Why?
a. All of life is pointless. Vitamin K means nothing on a cosmic scale.
b. Vitamin K is like chocolate syrup or Capn’ Crunch. You HAVE to have it with milk, or the milk is just gross.
c. Duh, the Vitamin K has magics in it, everyone knows that!
d. Vitamin K helps the body absorb calcium. Why else do you think falling down three flights of stairs would be a death sentence for him?

 

How Many Words Can You Make Using the Scrambled Up Letters in the Danish Name for Vitamin K?

K O A G U L A T I O N S V I T A M I N

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BONUS “CHOCK-FULL OF VITAMIN K” RECIPE!!!

 

Asparagus Casserole

1-2 lbs. Asparagus
Cream of Mushroom Soup
French Fried Onions
Chop up the asparagus into bite size pieces. Prepare just like a green bean casserole, but bake for at least a half an hour, if not longer to make sure the asparagus is cooked through.

So, that was what I’ve been working on this week. Don’t you all wish you could go back to school and learn about vitamins now?! :D

EDIT: So mom informs me that you have to add milk to this recipe. I don't remember that I ever did, but she makes it more than I ever do, so you'd probably better go with what she says...  :)

School Update

I don't usually do many picture-less updates for my blog, but lots of people write about their lives without pictures, so I figured it wouldn't hurt this once.

I started my summer semester this week. I am taking two classes, three days a week. On Mondays and Wednesdays I have Algebra class. Not fun, but I have to do it. As has always been the case for me with math, I don't like doing it, but I don't have many problems with it. In fact, when I took the pretest to find out where I needed to start learning, I scored so high my teacher had me skip the first section completely and move right into the second section. There are only three sections, so I am already over a third of the way done, and I've only been in the class a week. And I am so far along in the second section, that I doubt it'll take me more than a week or two to finish it as well.

On Fridays I am taking a nutrition class. I know it probably sounds weird that an art student is taking a nutrition class, but we have to take so many random general education classes from all different categories of knowledge. Nutrition counts as a science class, so that's why I am taking that one. Plus out of all the classes that were offered, that one at least sounded interesting, and it seemed like something I should learn, so I decided to go with that one. It is a very different learning environment than I have had before. For starters, it is not at college, it is at the library. There is a conference room in the basement set up with cameras and microphones. Our teacher is not there, she is in Clarinda. She has a similar set up where she teaches from and we see each other with a big screen TV. I'm not sure how homework will be handed in, I'm assuming we'll have to type everything and e-mail it to her.

The last thing I want to report, is that this week I got a letter from school telling me that yet again I have made the president's honor role. So far I have gotten almost all As and very few B's in everything. Hopefully I am able to keep this up all the way through my education! :) Minus the B's, I'd much rather get A's. :) Yes, I probably am an overachiever. :)