Modified coq a vin with a glass of pinot noir

So me and my roomie Pranav were going to go out to Michel's (fancy restaurant on Palmer Street here in Townsville) but ended up staying in, so we decided to cook coq a vin. Since we didn't have any red wine, we biked to the corner store, hoping to get some wine and some bacon and chicken with the bone still in. Turns out that BWS (Beer wine spirit) store was open (YAY alcohol!) while the butcher shop was not! (It's closed on Sundays...darn it!) so we had to improvise and make some changes. We tried as hard as possible to stick to the original recipe by Julia Child but ended up not having bacon, not having chicken with the bone in, had no mushrooms and so we ended up using potatoes and minced beef to replace those (well we had chicken thigh/ breasts but they didn't have the bone in them so we just used the ones we had). We were originally going to add in carrots as well (as another part of our improvisation but decided that the sweetness of the carrot probably won't go well with the bitterness of the red wine so we ended up eating that with a french onion dip as a starter. Since I was still hungry, I suggested that we have some brie cheese and some crackers while waiting for the coq a vin to cook (I guess that was our 2nd starter or a mini-entree). 30 minutes later and with a still-growling stomach, it was finally done! Here is what it looked like:
Served it with a glass of pinot noir. It did taste good but Pranav said that it wasn't THE BEST (yeah well go figure since we didn't use the original materials...he said that he will make the actual one sometime in the future and that it will be super delicious). So after that, I was still hungry and so I made myself a banana split while watching an episode of Gossip Girl and CSI NY with Pranav (I tried to spice things up by eating the banana split while covering myself up with my fleece blanket since I was cold hahah I'm convinced that I'm pretty crazy). Halfway through the shows I was like "Hmm, I think you're the only person who can tolerate my craziness.." and Pranav nodded. LOL. I spent half of the last part of CSI NY falling asleep though I did figure out what finally happened to the victims though!
All in all, it was a great fun-filled evening :)
Wow, I feel old.

Nice walk by the river followed by a hearty dinner

My roomie Pranav always goes for his daily "river walk" and I never come along (let's admit it, I am pretty lazy when it comes to walking and getting sweaty) but today I made it an exception and decided to come along. Turns out it was quite a scenic walk and a pretty relaxing one. I must say that I've realized quite a few things during this walk, one of which included the fact that I'm not such a great listener and that I tend to zone out when others are talking to me (then later on when they remind me of what they told me I don't remember hearing them speak of that, to their annoyance). It's a bad habit and I've come to strive to improve upon daily.
On top of that, knowing that the brain cannot actually multi-task efficiently, I've come to realize that giving someone or something my undivided attention would be a more efficient use of my time (i.e today afternoon for example, when my mom called me I was trying to listen to her while trying to cook my honey glazed chicken. Funniest thing was when our conversation ended and I hung up the phone, I recalled our conversation very hazily, and I had a hazy idea as to what I did to my chicken while I had this conversation with my mom.) Also, I realize that I tend to worry a lot about things- especially things out of my control. Worrying does not help solve things. Pranav was describing to me it's like a swimmer trying to get across to an island with weights tying him or her down (weight equivalent to worries and burdens of being attached to material possessions). We spoke about attachment to material possessions as well since I raised the topic of this book I am reading by Robin Sharma called "The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari" that points out that attachment to material possessions is one of the causes of unhappiness.
He then described to me the origins of yoga and the importance of controlling your breathing. Apparently once you master your breathing, you can master your mind. (I think this is important because then you can be disciplined enough to focus on one thing only- once again, be more efficient). This is a goal that I also strive to work towards- having discipline of my own mind.

Along the way, we saw a few pretty houses by the river and got to talking about what kinds of houses we see ourselves settling down in in the future- he prefers the more traditional ones (chateau looking ones) while I prefer the modern-looking ones (preferably ones that are 2 storeys) with the glass decks (more minimalistic style I suppose).

The walk itself was pretty long, I'd say it took us around 2 hours in total but it was really relaxing and allowed me time to self-reflect through my conversations with Pranav. When we got back home, we made dinner with our other roomie Christine. Christine made some salad (tomatoes with spinach and feta goat cheese and balsamic vinaigrette) while Pranav made his chicken salad. I made steak pita with caramelized onions and steak with Japanese teriyaki sauce, pineapples, lettuce and tomatoes (I made too much and the fillings would not fit the small pita so I put it all on top of the pita and things were constantly falling out- it got messy though it was delicious!). Then we cleaned up our entire kitchen and then I made us some Cadbury hot chocolate with marshmallow (inspired by my Qantas flight- I was served this exact same concoction and it was delish!) and we sat around and chatted for a bit. Then Pranav went to stick his head into a bowl of steaming water with eucalyptus oil and looked really silly doing it. I took some pictures of it but felt bad since he was hacking up his lungs. It was funny nonetheless. So now I'm exhausted but I do feel content. Even though I did not do much studying (actually none), I feel like I've accomplished quite a bit.

Finally, a perfect eggs benedict!

Perfectly poached eggs, melted brie cheese, perfectly toasted english muffin and hollandaise sauce homemade goodness (except for the hollandaise sauce because the last time I did that I used so many eggs aka 13 eggs over a span of 3 days...i might keel over soon because of that) = heaven. It's DEFINITELY going to be a good day!


As you can tell, I have not yet figured out how to rotate this diagram on this blogging platform...tips anyone?

Good love is on its way!

So I woke up early today (aka 4am) and ended up watching John Mayer's Where the light is DVD that I just bought a few weeks ago via amazon.c a and I must say, it's one of the best live performances recorded ever (well I haven't been to many but I'd like to say it's pretty up there). This DVD has 3 different performances- acoustic set, trio set and the band set- all 3 are amazing and I would have a hard time picking a favourite. Alright, well John Mayer may be a douchebag when he's not singing, but I must give it to him, his recorded live performances reaches deep within my soul (I shit you not) and makes me feel these raw emotions I've never felt before . I love the passion he shows when he performs his music. So to honour his musical geniusness (wow that's not even a word), I basically compiled my favourite screen shots of him. Notice his facial expressions- they are all borderline sexual and it's amazing how much he gets into his music.

Lessons learned from some Jim Rohn, Anthony Robbins, Jack Canfield & Arnold Nerenberg

So I woke up at 2am today and decided to watch some motivational speakers on youtube. This is a summary of what I’ve learned:

“Work harder on yourself than your job” – Jim Rohn

Anthony robbins says that:

- The difference between those who succeed and those who don’t is in their musts and shoulds so you should turn your shoulds into musts (basically must be disciplined)

- life will pay any price you ask of it- if you only want 25 cents, you will get only 25 cents

- clarity is power- so you know the exact result you want in all aspects of your life

- purpose- ask yourself why you want to do this?

- you must use RPM to get to your goal:

result- you must know what result you want to succeed (clarity of it)

power,

massive action plan? – what do you need to do to make it happen

Jack Canfield says that

- it is very important to plan your day the night before because then you know what YOU want and you won’t just be responding to the needs of others

Arnold Nerenberg says that

- keeping your priority requires you to have a congruency of words and actions (something I definitely need to work on…funny he said “im going to study…and then you dont study” LOL exactly what i’m not doing now)

-priorities are governed by pleasure and pain (we are motivated by avoiding the pain and maximizing the pleasure) and this is tied together with your values (i.e. family)

Practice makes perfect concept applies to cooking too!

Yesterday when I was making eggs benedict my hollandaise sauce ended up being too buttery and my poached eggs were an epic fail, the egg yolk was totally separated from the strands of egg white. It was quite disgusting. Today morning I woke up and decided to try it once more. The hollandaise sauce was much better and tastier, not too buttery and my poached eggs were beautiful (well it’s still not perfect but it’s one step closer to what it should look like!). Voila! (I’m well aware that I should have a slice of ham on it and an english muffin instead of a piece of toast, but I had to improvise since I wasn’t planning on making eggs benedict this week at all and so didn’t buy proper ingredients from Coles a few days ago!)

There is NO CHEMICAL SUBSTITUTE for sleep!

So on the flight back from Los Angeles to Brisbane, I watched a whole bunch of shows available via the in-flight entertainment system- amongst them I watched the movie Julie/ Julia (a good movie about this girl who decides to undertake the mission of cooking all of Julia Child’s recipes from her Joy of Cooking book + her rise to fame by writing a food blog!) and this documentary called “Awake is the New Sleep” and “Planet Insomnia”. So like a good nerd, while watching this documentary , I took notes on 2 puke bags (double sided too! so I had to rip open the puke bag – I’m pretty sure I got some weird stares). Anyways, here are some notes that I took from both documentaries that I felt were pretty cool/ important/ eye-opening:

- Apparently you need 8 hours of sleep a night- 3 hours for shallow sleep, 3 hours for deep sleep (needed to revitalize the body) and 2 hours for dream sleep (needed to recharge the mind)

But we get 90 minutes less sleep than our ancestors and as a result, we carry a SLEEP DEBT that we pay the price for it

How vital is dreaming?

- Harvard Medical School research has found that during dreaming, our brain plays through the learning sequence and this is the time where the brain consolidates memory

- With sleep deprivation you get, cognitive slowing, attention lapses which is then followed by microsleep (where brain grabs quick naps without your knowledge)

- after 16hours of not sleeping, you get impairment similar to someone with a blood alcohol level of 0.08%! (HEY, who needs alcohol when you can just hallucinate and feel drunk by just not sleeping?!?!)

- After 5 days of 3 hours of sleep a day, your REM mechanism is activated while you are awake and you also get hallucinations

- Also, you start to lose the ability to regulate your temperature (you get very cold, and in fact, this phenomenon is seen when your body is under extreme stress)

There is a new technology called the OptaAlert that uses the fact that when drowsy, your eyelid blinks 3 times slower, helps detect if you are in fact fatigued

How does the mind suffer from lack of sleep?

- you have this unpredictability – where you get induced parasomnia and also experience something called a “reverie” whereby random thoughts intrude into another to give mental disorientation

In fact, there is also a connection between lack of sleep and mood- in children, the risk of depression is linked to sleep deprivation

How about sleep loss and your immune system?

Sleep loss is related to a decrease in immune system response

How about sleep loss and risk of diabetes?

When you simulate an older person’s sleep (whereby you don’t get deep sleep, so only shallow sleep), it was found that you increase risk of diabetes b y 50%

sleep deprivation = stress = inhibits pancreas from releasing insulin

How about sleep loss and weight gain?

Your hypothalamus is deaf in sleep deprived individuals (lateral and ventral hypothalamus as I learned before in a physiology course) and you get excessive hunger and weight gain! (So all of that jet lag explains why on the plane my body is confused as to when to eat/ how much to eat/ if I’m full or not…Cool!)

- In fact, in the individual part of the documentary’s study, in just 1 week of sleep deprivation, he had lowered his insulin production to 1/2 of what it was, his leptin levels (signals of satiety) dropped by 50% and his C-reactive proteins had dropped significantly as well…WOW i totally was unaware that sleep deprivation had such a large impact on our body’s physiology!

There is essentially NO CHEMICAL SUBSTITUTE FOR SLEEP!

Many people have forgotten what it feels like to be fully awake!

Sleep is essentially a pillar of health too!

Alright, as for the documentary “Planet Insomnia”, this is what I’ve gathered:

- Insomnia: defined as the inability to fall/ remain asleep

- It is actually the world’s most common medical disorder (I always wonder about the accuracy of these sorts of statements- “world’s most common”- so the next time in class this ever comes up, I’m going to mention this answer and see if it’s the right answer or not)

- There was an interesting case whereby a sleeping pill triggered this lady to break and enter without her knowledge…now that’s pretty bizarre! (I know for sure I’d stay from those pills…not that I do take any…but for future purposes I meant)

What happens to make you fall asleep?

Melatonin switches on the sleep switch and the thinking brain is turned off – so in those individuals with chronic insomnia, they have to exhaust their thinking brain so that it eventually turns off! So there is some logic as to “tiring” yourself out before you sleep. I suppose then thinking exercises would exhaust your brain more than just physical exercises then? Alright, I’m severely jet lagged now, WHERE’S BOGGLE?!? (Yeah, I don’t do well with riddles)

What about sleeping patterns and growing adolescents?

In developing teens, you see a delayed phase insomnia where their sleep cycle is altered to be later than usual due to growth hormones coursing through them. So teens essentially don’t get enough sleep and this has been linked to depression and suicide (I say this is good reason to start classes later…like NOT 8am…reason: well, you don’t want kids killing themselves now would you teach?)

Other things can disrupt this sleep cycle rhythm as well, irregular bed time & jet lag that causes circadian rhythm insomnia that is apparently very common the trucking industry.

Apparently, shift work is the biggest disruption of body cycles (funny how my mom had mentioned this to me before because I had told her that I loved emergency medicine and would LOVE to work in the ER as a career…and I’m starting to see her points through these scientifically-based documentaries…now I’m starting to wonder how she knows about so much of these things!) and individuals doing shift work suffers insomnia 3 times more than normal folks (now that ER career doesn’t sound AS appealing now…)

How can you treat insomnia?

Changing patients’ perspectives on sleep- insomniacs think that they are not asleep when they are- when an experiment was conducted whereby individuals were woken up in different time periods and asked how long they thought they were asleep, they said none when in fact they had been sleeping for a period of time!

Behavioural therapy- this usually works for adults- like getting them to do yoga (or anything that really brings their anxiety level down a notch because stress makes you release cortisol and cortisol in turn inhibits melatonin that is needed to get you to sleep!)

Bright light therapy- exposure to light of a certain wavelength(because only a particular wavelength of light that resets our biological clock) to reset clock to appropriate times

In fact, there is a portable device now that you can use to reset your circadian rhythm that can cure shift work induced insomnia (so does that mean that shift work isn’t AS bad then? I’m going to delve deeper into this and find out for sure then!)

How does Ambien work?

- It turns on receptors in the sleep switch!

What’s the relationship between caffeine and insomnia?

Apparently, caffeine can trigger insomnia (uh oh, this is news to those who love coffee…)

And that’s it! So I think I’m going to try to sleep for a full 8 hours and see how much more awake I will be. Will I feel 10 times more epically awesome? Will the fully awake me give our more hugs? Will I sing more? Tis to be discovered in 8 hours! Until then, good night and sleep tight!