Strange Little Collecting Project

So, in case you haven’t heard North Carolina has been passing some pretty awful laws over the last few months. The Amendment One Crusade was followed by House Bill 819, the bill that has made science illegal when it comes to rising sea levels on North Carolina Coasts. Last Friday, the House passed a bill that would make fracking legal in North Carolina within the next few years. It passed in a 66 to 43 vote. The bill will return to the Senate today where it will likely pass. I think I’m most upset because many North Carolinians don’t know what fracking is, yet it is a process that is being voted on that could affect some of the most densely populated areas of the state. Fracking—also known as hydraulic fracturing--is the process of extracting natural gas from shale that lies deep below the surface of the earth…like a mile deep or more. Fracking uses vertical and horizontal drilling to reach the shale basins deep in the ground and then water, sand, and “other components” (la...

Recently I’ve developed this really persistent and abrasive cough. I’m not entirely sure where it came from, but my most educated guess is that it came from cleaning out 4 years of stuff from my classroom. The Donny Darko sized dust bunnies managed their way into my lungs and now I sound like Joan Rivers’ great-grandmother. The problem with coughing though is that it’s not at all socially acceptable. Even though I've managed to embarrass myself with a powerful sneeze, typically people don't seem to mind if you sneeze... especially strangers. Since most people have very distinct sneezes, strangers don’t know what to expect. They don’t find sneezes to be incredibly obnoxious…even if they are in fact obnoxious because of the uniqueness and novelty of the sound. But most people sound relatively the same when they are coughing which I think leads to an overall intolerance of coughing in our society. If you don’t believe me, think about what you say to someone who is sneezi...

We live in a country that is obsessed with information. I consume more information than I ever realize on a daily basis because it’s literally everywhere. If I’m pouring a bowl of Cheerios, I learn that “three grams of soluble fiber daily from whole grain oat foods, like Cheerios cereal, and a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol, may reduce the risk of heart disease.” As I pour my soymilk (lactose intolerance sucks) over the cereal, I learn that soymilk contains isoflavones and “medical studies show isoflavones may have potential health benefits [such as] lowering LDL cholesterol, maintaining bone density, [and] providing antioxidant protection against harmful effects of free radicals.” I usually eat my breakfast while watching the local morning news, and there is usually a ticker-tape of news whizzing by the bottom of the screen giving me more information, so I can watch the news while I watch the news. A lot of times I will watch the news and eat my cereal while scrolling throu...