Works for me Wednesday: KP help

I have keratosis pilaris, a constant chicken-skin-like rash caused by overkeratinization (hardening) of the hair follicles. The standard treatment seems to be lotions with either alpha hydroxy acids or lactic acid, which "eats away" at the keratinized clumps at the follicle. I had been using an "aging skin" lotion, but the bumps had not gone away.

Then I became a BzzAgent (which you can read about here), and I received the Clean and Clear "Soft" line of products to try and tell all my friends about. Well, the shower facial was too strong for my incredibly pale facial skin, but it worked wonders on my KP bumps! Three days of use and my legs are noticeably smoother. It burns a bit going on, but I will take that for finally having smooth legs.

Oh, if you don't know how BzzAgent works: You sign up at bzzagent.com and take surveys about your demographics and habits (do you smoke? do you travel? do you shower?) and they match you up with companies that want to do word of mouth campaigns. You sign up for campaigns that sound good (it is slow going at first) and they send you a kit to let you "experience the product" (ie they send you full-size products or instructions for an online service, etc.) and you spread the word about the product to your friends. Fill out a simple report, and you're done!

So, I guess that is two things that work for me: Clean and Clear "Soft" Shower Facial and bzzAgent.

Head over to rocks in my dryer to see more tips and tricks!

So I met Chelsea Clinton today

... and I touched her. In a non-creepy way, I assure you.

Now, I am not a fan of any of the Clintons, but I thought it would be amusing to listen to her spiel about Hil. And really, Hillary has a lot of good ideas, except when they are really awful.

Letting the uninsured or unhappily insured buy into the Congressional insurance plan: good.
Mandating insurance: bad, and reeking of socialism.
Making schools accountable for teaching children: good.
Using "individualized" testing as the only marker: bad, and not really useful. You have to have a baseline standard, man.

And anyway, the whole thing about the US being "so far behind" in advanced math and science... we are 27. That is not bad. If there are 100 kids and all of them earn an A, would you say the person with the lowest A performed poorly? And that is with educating every child on the same level. Most countries don't educate everyone on the same level (say, kids taking plumbing don't take calculus).

But that is a whole other issue.

Whole lotta math stuff

So for all of you who care about these types of things, I finally got tapped into the national math honorary, Pi Mu Epsilon. That whole C- thing in Cal 3 freshman year was bringing me down, but I have finally defeated it! Woo hoo!

In other math news, Abstract is kicking my butt-- not really content-wise, but time-wise. We are supposed to spend 6 hours a week on homework (which is already a bit crazy) and it ends up taking more like 12 hours.

I also found out I can graduate a semester early-- meaning only one and a half semesters left in my college career. Exciting and super-frightening.

The continued saga of my hair and a recent obsession of mine

So, I have been dying my hair with the SAME dye for, like, two years now. And now it turns my hair purple. I apply the coloring a little unevenly so I get some fancy highlights and lowlights (it's only about two shades off my natural color), and the lowlights turned purple. My stylist had two suggestions: 1) color-correction, at way too much money to contemplate; or 2) wash my hair with some horribly cheap and bad for you shampoo. Since I am a college student (read: dirt poor), and my stylist as back home in Memphis, her doing color-correction is not an option, and because I get paid on the 10th of the month, I have exactly $0 to buy shampoo. But there is light at the end of this oddly-colored tunnel! I normally use a shampoo that helps you retain your dye, so I washed my hair with that.... 15 times. Seriously. Until it quit feeling so absurdly plastic-y. And now I am down to only one purple streak (and a minorly plastic feeling). Maybe in a week it will be normal-looking again. The only thing I did differently this time was made sure to leave it on for the right amount of time; previously, I had included the application time in the total dying time. Won't be making that mistake again.

Thanks for everyone who gave me advice! As soon as I get paid, I'll be getting some Prell to keep on hand for emergencies like this.

Oh, in case you were wondering about my picture, I recently have become obsessed with the blog of one Pioneer Woman. One of her obsessions is Photoshopping / photography. I got really bored one day, and so I played around with some of her suggestions. If you have been living life without layers in your photos, your life has been really dull. Or at least your pictures have been. I love how that picture of me really highlights my *cough* naturally auburn hair, the same color I had attempted to dye it recently. Anyways, photography obsessions can apparently be transferred across DSL lines, so proceed to her blog at your own risk. I personally find that working on photos is a much better use of my time than, say, working on my math homework. But that's just me.

Patrick Swayze

According to People.com, Patrick Swayze has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. The 5-year survival rate is only 4%. He may have only weeks to live.

Let us all bow our heads for a moment and pray for / send good energy towards / do a chemo dance for / whatever it is you feel like doing to help Patrick, the star of the most fabulous Dirty Dancing whose viewing was a critical formative experience in my and many other 80's-babies lives.

Get better soon (as soon as is possible with cancer, I guess), Patrick, and remember that many people's thoughts and prayers are with you now.

For the full story click here.

Works for me Wednesday: backwards edition

Today Works for Me Wednesday is a backwards edition-- that means asking a question all you readers will undoubtedly want to answer, rather than giving y'all my fabulously insightful advice. So here's the question: I have brown hair which I have dyed red. However, instead of being copper fabulousness, I have some weird emo-red / purple streaks. I used Loreal Color Match, which until now I would have heartily recommended. Anyone have any solutions?

Head over to Rocks in My Dryer and answer more questions!

Musings on religion and news round-up

Lately I have been thinking about religion. I grew up in an ELCA Lutheran home, going to church almost every Sunday, really involved in church activities. I loved it. But now that I am in college, i am finding that the religion of my youth is not very fulfilling. I joined Jewish Cultural Organization and found the Jewish faith, with its reliance on traditions and ritual to be very beautiful. But I also find some of the Wiccan beliefs very beautiful as well. Is it possible to reconcile all these influences?

I have been having trouble believing that a human really came back to life from the dead. Yeah, Jesus was cool and all, even maybe the coolest man to walk the earth. I like love. But rising from the dead?

I have looked into some of the history of the Gospels, and I am really having trouble trusting some of the early church fathers and their seemingly arbitrary choice of gospel. I have been reading fictional accounts which portray Jesus as a married man (yes, to Mary Magdalene) and I find these accounts more... believable, realistic, more in line with what my heart imagines Jesus of Nazareth to be.

I read a great explanation of the phrase "blessed be" in the Wiccan tradition-- read it and see what you think.

Are Wiccan traditions or rituals even that incompatible with Christian religion? Sure they are polytheistic, but can't those "deities" be thought of as different manifestations or understandings of God, much like the Trinity? And really, anything that connects someone with a spiritual realm and a path towards goodness can't be all that bad.

And so I come to no conclusions. But isn't that life?

Today's interesting news round-up:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080216/wl_canada_afp/canadapoliceshippingoffbeat_080216200359