If you’ve been keeping up with me for a while, you’ll know I’ve been on the quest of trying to find something healthy/refreshing to eat when I start feeling like it’s time to take a nap halfway through a morning lecture. 

Previously, I essentially ate 3-4 oranges a day before realizing that over dose on healthy life is not the way to stay awake halfway through a lecture [ if you’re interested, you can read the post I did on that here] After going to Target, I came across Tic-Tacs. Now, I remember just taking a few and my breath being fresher than fresh water wayy back when tic-tacs were THE THING. So I thought why not give it a try when I feel sleepy?

I did this for about a week and essentially what would happen was I would be ready for success once I took a tic tac, but then five minutes later crash. I should probably state I ate about 3 at a time because I felt that having 1 was like .1 seconds of freshness and I wanted more freshness than that so thought to just take 3 at a time. #thatlogic


Looking at the ingredients on the back, it contains 0 grams of sugar [doing more research it actually contains 0.5g of sugar] .

By taking three every single time I felt tired in a lecture, I was essentially eating sugar. And everyone knows, if you have sugar you’ll just be on a sugar high roller coaster that only goes up The Fault in Our Stars style for a little bit before coming back down to earth extremely sleepy and wishing your professor had a snooze button.

Lesson learned: Tic-Tacs + Morning Lecture = ABORT ABORT ABORT

PS. I found this funny: So on the back of the tic-tac box

but then on the top side it said


# that moment where tic-tac can't choose a country to be loyal to

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 In one of my previous blogposts, I have challenged myself with the task of becoming apart of the USA Olympics team for Tokyo 2020 for running (I’m gearing towards 5000-meter run aka 3.1 miles based on google). If you haven't read it, you can click HERE.

When I’m on campus, I go to the indoor track and run laps there (with the assistance of the RunKeeper app that tells me what type of run I should be doing because wow personal trainers offered at my university are PRETTY expensive like did my university forget I’m actually a student???). On the weekends, I go a few laps around a lake by my house (one lap and a half averages to about 1 mile). Something that I realized is that my speed on the track in school vs speed at the lake was actually faster? I wasn’t sure why that was since I’m the same person running on the track as I am at the lake, so why the added time on the lake? At the lake, a mile would take me 8-ish minutes while on the track, my fastest time yet was 6:45. That's a whole minute and a lil bit extra!


I was talking to my sister about this and she said she read something about that on the New York Times and how it’s some sort of science. Now of course I couldn’t find the article after countless of scrolling, if I find it I’ll edit it in! I did find another site stating the difference between track and road running. On the track, when you see those white lines, it happens to keep your mind focused. I can admit when running around the lake, my brain would be like oh I can stop on this lamp post for a little walk and then I can pick up again at the next lamppost. Or my pace would slow down a bit because of lack of motivation. Meanwhile on the track, I’m more focused on running and not on stopping. Also, whenever there are other people on the track I always make a point to pass the person ahead of me, sort of as motivation to go faster. (That’s how my speed per mile went down!) Also, I feel like the while lines sort of serve as a reminder to keep on going, and keep doing the loops around. (You can read the article here if you want!)

But the benefit of running on the road is getting yourself into the environment for 5K’s or marathons you plan to run. I personally hope to run a few 5K’s soon, here’s to getting my focus on speed and not on stopping when road running!

 I would have to say a tip for making your speed per mile go down is to find a place where runners frequently find their inner Usain Bolt, and make it a point to pass them. Sometimes the best motivation to go faster is to have the mindset I can pass this person, yes I can, YES I CAN.


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How many of us actually smile as something apart of every day and not something that's rarer than a relaxed Sunday? (I'm currently a university student where Sundays are filled with getting assignments done by 11:59PM.)

 In my biology class last semester, my professor asked "What's something that's contagious?"IN TERMS OF PRESENT DAY DONT GO THINKING OF THAT BUBONIC PLAGUE SPREADING LIKE IT HAD A VENDETTA AGAINST HUMANKIND  Now in my head I was like oh obviously it's smiling because when you see a stranger smiling in your direction- in that awkward situation when making eye contact- you also send a smile their way. 

 Well apparently I wasn't getting this answer correct even though I 100 percent believe I was right.  The answer was Yawning. In retrospect yes this is true, when you see someone yawn it's like a domino effect, one down everyone else to go. 
me not knowing how to pose for a photo
I think this sort of showed where my head was. In my religion of Islam it is a Sunnah ( teachings, deeds and sayings of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, as well as various reports about Muhammad's companions -If you'd like a more elaborate definition of Sunnah here you go: HERE) to smile; it is considered charity. The idea is that every good thing is a charity. When we think of the word "charity" we think of money donations. Smiling at someone is like making a donation to brighten the moment you managed to catch a stranger/friend in.
guess who figured out how to pose for a camera after five hundred photos later
Currently, I would say I smile but just not enough. I guess I have some more smiling to do in my life; it lifts my mood up and can lift the moods of people around me. Not all charity has to be a bill from your wallet, share a smile and it is charity enough. Here's to cheesin' through life - just because the world can be dark place does not mean you can't be that lil star shinning bright like a crown.

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Last month, I was sent on the quest to retrieve 15 different species of trees that are native to my state for my Ecology term project. Now, this began with me looking at a tree, scissoring off a branch and concluded with me getting odd stares from people who were probably wondering why exactly I was taking nature with me.

this right here- if I identified it correctly- is Kentucky Coffee Tree
Gymnocladus dioicus

The process of gathering 15 difference species of trees took about three days. In the first day, I brought home about 10 species to identify. There was a small portion that were native to my state while there were others that were native to U.K., Asia, Norway etc. Some of the nicely shaped leaves - this is what happens when you’re an ecology student: you look at leaves and start complimenting its structure like it’s the Beyoncé of trees- sadly weren’t native which was rather annoying due to the effort I put to hop up to grab them.
no i was not climbing this tree; I’m not tarzan or jane for that matter.. also the splinters I would get from this tree god save me

Something that this project taught me is that America is made of bits and pieces of everywhere else. We are the youngest country comprised of different religions and cultures (and trees) all meshed into one United States of America. Yes, there are trees that aren’t native to my state but are here, by some miracle. Does that make them less apart of the place that they stand? Some were native to U.K but extensively planted in my region for the past few decades, does this still make them foreign to the land they’ve occupied for the latter half of the century?

No.

Why?

Just because they weren’t the original settlers in the tree-universe, that doesn’t make them less apart of the land. Yes they came later than the natives, but here they are settled in my native state that has been their home for the last decade. Are they originally foreigners? Yes. Are they foreigners now that this is a place they have grown roots into the ground literally? No.

They are as much apart of the earth as every other native tree. What matters isn’t how long they’ve been here, but the diversification they brought to the land. 

America is made of bits and pieces of every else, and that is what truly makes America the great country it is.

me cutting branches down responsibly

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