Posted early to help someone out with pics. Will add actual review later.
With the Brain Cell inside, fits two large textbooks and a paperback with no stuffing. Probably one more paperback if I stretched it a bit. The weight of the bag in this setup is 22.6 pounds. This is more than I would almost ever carry… usually one book and the laptop.
I was riding my bike down the South Oval to my dorm this week. To get back home, I have to cross one street, with a traffic light east-and-west and a crosswalk north-and-south. The crosswalk light shows a white light of a person walking when you can cross, and an orange hand when you can’t. After the white walk sign, the orange hand blinks 15 times before turning solid orange to give you time to cross (15 seconds).
I was about 20 feet from the street and looked up to see that the white walk light was on. I had at least 15 seconds to cross, since the orange light hadn’t started blinking. I looked back down to make sure I wasn’t going to run over anything icky in the road (it was wet) when all of a sudden a car almost hits me! I looked up and made a “ahhh what are you doing you almost hit me!” face. I finished getting across the street, when all of a sudden, a police officer jumps in front of my bike and starts yelling to stop!
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At the beginning of this semester, we always get a lot of "OUMM"— OU Mass Messages— in our e-mail boxes. Most of them either don’t apply to anyone but a select few, or are things that I knew already. One of the messages, however, caught my eye…
Paid Exercise Study
The department of Health and Exercise Science is looking for volunteers for a 12-week study examining the effects of a 10-calorie energy drink (Celsius™) on fitness, percent body fat, and nutritional profile.
What’s in it for you?
- $200 for participating
- Accurate body fat measurements and fitness evaluation
- 10 weeks with a certified personal trainer
- A chance to lose body fat and get in great shape
What does it involve?
- Consume one energy drink per day or one placebo per day for 10 weeks.
- Choose exercise or non-exercise group:
- Exercise: 25-35 minutes of training 5 days per week
- Non-Exercise
I’m not particularly physically active (I play racquetball on occasion and like to bike, but do it less than I used to) for a couple reasons. Truly, the least important reason is the work involved; that doesn’t bother me so much. Much more annoying are the time commitment and the boredom of biking or running on a stair machine. A secondary reason was that I really don’t know what I’m doing in the gym, especially with regards to weight training… how many reps, how long, what weight, even proper form. As a result, I pretty much never hit the gym; my exercising is limited to biking to classes and such. If I participated in the study, I would find out exactly how I should be exercising, and that was way more valuable than the physiological side of things to me. So I replied to the e-mail and told them I was interested!
I went in last Thursday at 5:30 a.m. for Body Composition testing— basically an über-physical that looked at body volume, body fat %, lung capacity, residual lung capacity (how much air is left after you get rid of all you can), X-rays, and more. One of the testers commented that the tests cost almost $1200! I started fasting last Wednesday about noon, and I didn’t sleep all night either, so by the time testing was over about 11 I was drained. I went to our health center, Goddard, for a blood draw (first time I’ve ever had blood taken, but it wasn’t bad), and after that I could finally eat and drink. Mmmm food hadn’t tasted so good in a long time. Then I slept all afternoon and again the whole night!
Last Friday was “max testing”— designed to test to see how far I could push myself. First, I rode a bike while the wattage increased slowly every few seconds. I was hooked up to all sorts of monitors, including a sort-of SCUBA mask that measured O2 draw and CO2 exhalation. I made it to 240 watts and started blacking out, but thankfully that was farther than most of the guinea pigs had gotten! (Yes, my ego still requires me to feel like I’m at least above-average, even in an area where I am admittedly extremely weak 
) Then they tested bench-press and leg-press by adding more and more weight until I couldn’t lift anymore… and I am totally not admitting how much little I could lift.
Now I’m in a regimen 5 days a week. M - W - F is cardio training on a bike. T - R is strength training, on bench press, leg press, curls, pulldowns, and more. As someone used to biking (especially back in high school when I would regularly do hundreds of miles a month), the cardio training is not disagreeable (yet— they say they’ll ramp it up soon). The weight training is brutal though. I’ve only done two sessions, and I’m more sore than I’ve ever been in my life. Even if I’m just sitting, things hurt. Forget trying to move. (On Tuesday, laughing hurt, thanks to my rectus abdominus being tender) But I know it’ll get better, and it’s great that I’m being forced to go even when I don’t really want to!
Time to go to the beach for spring break…
Upcoming posts: Tom Bihn, my new workout program, jQuery tricks, and Twitter and its uses in staying connected away from the Internet. (3)
Yesterday I loaded up and drove to Tulsa, where I met Mom and Dad and we came the rest of the way home to Joplin.
Today, we left about 10am for Springfield, arriving just after 11. They dropped me off at the Prometric Testing Center to take… the MCAT! I had been studying quite a bit ever since Christmas break started, so I felt pretty ready. The test took about four and a half hours but honestly it was pretty fun and I enjoyed taking most of it. All except the chemistry– I hate chemistry 
Background on the MCAT: it’s the exam needed to get into medical school in the US; you take it the year before you apply (your penultimate year of university). The test comes in 3 and a half sections. Physical Sciences includes physics, inorganic chemistry, optics, E&M, and electrochemistry. Biological Sciences includes human biology, genetics, organic chemistry, and vertebrate anatomy. Verbal Reasoning has reading passages and associated questions. Each section gets a score of 1 to 15 points, where 15 is the best. The “half section” is essay-based; you write two short essays in 30 minutes each about a provided prompt. Some highlights:
.I think I did pretty well but scores come back in a few weeks, so we’ll see! Yay for it being over!