2011 is here!

Wishing everyone a wonderful New Year!

Food List for Braces

From what I have heard, and read, dental braces can come with a lot of pain and discomfort. But even more annoying than the constant pain is the fact that you will NOT be able to eat some of your favorite food. However, a few simple changes in your diet can solve this problem and ensure that you consume a wholesome and enjoyable meal.
I am an ovo-lacto-pescetarian, which means I do not eat meat, but do eat fish, egg and milk. This is an advantage for me, and all other vegetarians with braces, because eating meat with wires in your mouth is nearly impossible.
What braces do is slowly and steadily push teeth into the right position. This means there is a lot of strain on the gums causing them to swell and hurt. Every time we try to bite into something hard, a lot of pressure is exerted on these already weak gums, sending surges of pain through every nerve ending of your mouth. Moreover, sticky or hard food can also get tangled in the wires and pull them out. Therefore, the best thing to do is to simply avoid hard food.
So, as I am planning to get my braces in exactly one week, here is my Shopping List.

SHOPPING LIST FOR THE DAY BEFORE BRACES

Staple Foods

• Rice (cooked till very soft like porridge and/or blended in a food processor)
• Pasta
• Soft bread

Vegetables, Fruits and Legumes

• Bananas!!
• Tofu
• Dahl
• Potatoes

Dairy Products

• Fresh milk
• Yogurt
• Fresh Milk
• Curd

Snacks

• Soft cakes
• Soft biscuits (drench a biscuit in tea or milk to make it softer- delicious!)

Desserts and Drinks

• Ice cream and Popsicles (eating cold food can help with the swelling but remember to brush after eating too much sugar as teeth are more prone to decay when braces are on) 
• Pudding
• Moss Jelly
• Sago
• Fruit Juice
• Tea/coffee/cocoa

X Rays for Braces: CHECK!

Three Types of Dental X-rays

Today I also completed the X rays that are required for all the pre-braces procedures. My doctor prescribed three x rays in a medical-encrypted form. This is what I was able to figure out from Wikipedia.org :

Lateral Cephalogram- This is an x-ray of the whole head from a sideways view. This one shows how big-headed you really are! And all the hollow space within the skull is also, shamelessly, revealed. This is another special x-ray available only at two locations in our island.

OPG (Orthopantomogram)- This is an x-ray that provides a two dimensional panoramic view of both jaws. I was asked to stand straight with my mouth slightly open while the x-ray machine rotated around my head. This is a special dental x-ray and is ,apparently, only available at locations in Sri Lanka.


IOPA (Intra Oral Periaical) x-ray- This is just the fancy name of the type of dental x-ray most people are familiar with. I had two of this type taken- one of my upper central incisors and one of my lower central incisors, i.e. my bunny teeth!

Tips:

• Taking an x-ray is a super simple, super safe procedure. Don't sweat it.
• If you're going for OPG or Lateral Cephalogram you will be required to remove anything metallic from your head region. This includes earrings, hair clips and pins etc. So it would be wise to leave valuables at home.

Separators Are On

A few hours ago, I had dental separators inserted around my back teeth.
Separators are tiny blue colored rubber bands that fit in beside the molars. They push them apart and create space so that, when the braces go on in weeks time, the bands can be fitted in without trouble.
It feels somewhat uncomfortable and my gums are sore. Eating (and sneezing!) is difficult because I tend to bite on the rubbers, forcing them deeper into my gums. However, there is no major pain or discomfort.
My next dental appointment is in a week.

A Thousand Acres

King Lear Retold in the Pulitzer Winning Fiction A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley

There is the silhouette of  two people- a man in a cowboy hat is leaning against a red truck, and a woman, standing beside him, is merely touching his hands with hers. A neat barn with a white roof stands witness to their exchange, and above them the clouds are washed in the colors of a summer evening of this Iowan landscape that stretches beyond the horizon.
When my eyes first absorbed the cover illustration, an oil painting by Michael Bennallack-Hart, I imagined a story of love and peace, of reaping golden harvests and enjoying hearty dinners around family tables, of heroes and heroines in the tranquility of rural life.
However, Jane Smiley's Pulitzer Prize winning novel, A Thousand Acres (1991), dwells deeper, unraveling the cruelest of human experiences in her modern version of Shakespeare's King Lear.
Larry Cook is one of the most respected farmers of Zebulon County, Iowa. His thousand acres of fertile land reflect the peril of generations of proud farmers. When Larry decides to retire and hand over the work to his three daughters in a joint ownership, his family, as well as the whole neighborhood, is taken by surprise. His two eldest daughters, Virginia and Rose, who have spent their whole lives on the farm, are enthusiastic about the idea. Together with their husbands, they dream of expanding the business to a hog operation of hundreds of animals, a modern farm equipped with the latest technology of the 1970's. The youngest daughter, Caroline, a successful lawyer living in Des Moines, is apprehensive. Her father misunderstands her rejection and cuts her out- "he took the door in his hand and slammed it shut in her face".
The names of the characters themselves are evidence of Shakespearean influence- Larry Cook is King Lear; Virginia, known as Ginny, is Goneril; Rose is Regan and Caroline is Cordelia. Harold Clark is not only their neighbor but also Larry's oldest friend and keenest competitor. He and his sons, Loren and Jess, serve the role of the Earl of Gloucester and his sons. Jess, who later becomes entangled in romance with both the elder sisters, leading to a breach of the strongest trust and love portrayed by the Cook family, is 'illegitimate' because he escaped to Canada to evade the Vietnam Draft.
However, the most striking resemblance to King Lear is the plot. In spite of some differences, the flow of the story is mostly identical. Memorable scenes that are reproduced include Larry stubbornly walking out into a storm after cursing his daughters, Rose's husband, Pete blinding Harold Clark by planning an accident with anhydrous ammonia and Caroline's last attempt to defeat her sisters by declaring a war, a lawsuit for 'mismanagement and abuse of property'.
Unlike Shakespeare's tale, A Thousand Acres, told from the point of view of the oldest daughter, Virginia, evokes a sympathy towards the eldest daughters and seemingly justifies their actions. Their mother dies when they are teenagers and they nurture Caroline, a child of six, to the best of their abilities. Their father is unsympathetic, cruel and dictatorial, beating them harshly for the slightest error. They try hard to save their little sister from the wrath of their father. With the passage of time they both, under different circumstances, grow up to become farm wives. Virginia is plagued by miscarriage after miscarriage and Rose is battling breast cancer and a marriage of broken dreams. But thanks to their efforts, Caroline, who dreamed of becoming a farmer instead of a farm wife, becomes a lawyer and settles in Des Moines. But in the wake of this battle for a thousand acres of greed and love, the dark past of the children reveal themselves as old scars are remembered.
A Thousand Acres is a story of dark pasts and unfulfilled dreams that has the rare ability to haunt its readers, inducing a strange sense of sympathy and longing for the characters Shakespeare once proclaimed to be unconditionally evil.

About following the Creative Zest

Here is an interesting article I came across....

Creative Butterfly

Sticking to one art form . . . or not.

By Deborah Atherton

Although some of us wake up one morning at age six with full knowledge of who we are going to be and what we are going to do, many of us have creative interests that vary widely from year to year. This is a tendency that many, artists and non-artists alike, look at with some suspicion — “last year you did pottery, the year before you were into film, and now you want to start print making? Can’t you pick one thing?”
Well, no, maybe you can’t. In theory, picking one thing would set us up to become tremendously expert at that one thing — which is certainly what our well-intentioned inquisitors would like to see from us. Isn’t it better to be the best print maker in the world than a kind of print maker/potter/documentary film maker with no clear direction? Maybe — or maybe doing the pottery piqued your interest in looking at things a certain way, which brought you to film making, and later to print making. I know skills are hard to acquire, and it can take a lifetime to become a great painter or poet — but many of us just aren’t designed to only paint, or only write poetry. (In fact, I’ve noticed, for instance, that there seem to be many, many writers of various kinds who are also into painting or graphic design — and most of them garner a lot of criticism for not sticking to one thing.)
But how do we know when to stick to one art form and when to move on to the next? How do we know we aren’t just being dilettantes who can’t settle?
The key is whether or not we are able to finish the work before we move on to the next thing. If we have a basement full of pots that never made it to the kiln, or a desk piled high with unfinished screenplays, we may not be answering the inner call of a new means of expression — we might be just dodging our frustration with the work we are doing now. We owe it to ourselves to make our best effort to finish the work in front of us before we abandon it for the ever-so-alluring new form.
Of course, you can’t always finish. Sometimes you genuinely realize half-way through that this thing you thought would be so beautiful is really not good, or not good enough. Or maybe you just aren’t ready for it, whatever it is — maybe your craft hasn’t caught up to your ideas yet. And in that case you do have to put it aside, at least for the time being, until you catch up with yourself. That may not be the worst moment in the world to try something else for a while.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with being a creative butterfly if you can stay honest with yourself about the process, and know that how ever many different forms you try, it’s still yourself you have to come back to in the end. •
© 2010 Deborah Atherton. All rights reserved.

Writing for Inspiration

I have taken on a quest to write something everyday for at least 20 minutes. Now that sounds challenging doesn't it?
I came across a list of inspirational words at http://www.creativity-portal.com/
Let's see how many I can conquer before the year is done.

Ability | Age | Animal | Autumn | Average Bandwagon | Beauty | Body | Book | Cage | Camping | Cartoon | Chain | Chance |Clover | Coincidence | Color | Creative | Develop | Destiny | Desire | Environment | Esteem | Experience | Fade | Flower | Food | Forest | Friend | Generous | Group | Grow | Honesty | Help | Honor | Idea | Image | Incentive | Innovative | Internet | Joy | Kindness | Kindred Spirit | Ladybug | Learn | Light | Love | Mature | Memory | Metal | Modest | Mood | Mountains | Museum | Music | Myself | Mystery | New | Novel | Night Dreams | Ocean | Opera | Peace | Picture | Privacy | Quest | Quiet | Rainbow | Remember | Realize | Shape | Snowflake | SunTime | Truth | Waterfall | Wellness | Youth

Impressions- Check

So on Saturday I had my dental impressions taken. It didn't even take five minutes. An absolutely painless, fuss-less procedure. It did feel like my mouth had been stuffed with cold toothpaste.
I am going for my x-rays next week. And if all goes well, I will have my braces in time for new year! That means 2012 will be my year of braces. Does that count as a new year's resolution?

Saying NO! to Violence Against Children

Proving the power of social networks once again, Facebook users the world over have stepped forward this weekend to protest violence against children in a very simple way: by posting a picture of a cartoon from their childhood.

I chose a picture from Disney's Pocahontas.

Change your facebook profile to a cartoon from your CHILDHOOD and INVITE your friends to do the same. Until Monday Dec.6th there should be no human faces on Facebook, but an invasion of memories! This is for a

------------ CAMPAIGN AGAINST VIOLENCE ON CHILDREN!!--------     Pass it on

These pictures will act as a silent reminder of the fantasies, wishes and dreams we shared as children. These memories will bring with them the vulnerable innocence of childhood. Thus, reminding us that every time an act of physical, verbal or psychological violence is directed at a child, their innocent dreams are crushed and souls are broken beyond repair.


I hope you take this opportunity to show you care. Spread the word!

The Beauty of Erotica

The Naked Maja (c. 1800-1803) by Francisco de Goya

To draw the line between erotica and pornography, between passion and merchandise, is like splitting whisky from ice. What truly sets all forms of erotica, ranging from literature to art to motion pictures, apart from the cheaply downloadable, commercial pornography, is the intent of the producer.

The creator of erotica is an artist. His or her motive is to express and illuminate the intricacy of the emotions of our sexual experiences, experiments and fantasies. The producer will choose between what is to be presented and not so as to create space for the imagination of the audience. He or she will draw us into her world and allow us to roam freely, our minds touching the surreal.

Pornography, on the other hand, is a record of a sexually explicit scenario in ostentatiously graphic detail, whose only purpose is to elicit a sexual desire in the audience. The audience is merely that, an audience, dumb spectators.

If you are daring to take a step into a lovelier, darker and deeper experience of art then visit the Misty Mountains. Enjoy!