Goodbye my Lovelies. . .

Since this entire blog wasn't really a blog and was actually and English assignment (Matrix?!), and today I am writing in response to a prompt given by the English teacher himself. How have I changed this year? Well, sitting here thinking about it, I have changed quite a bit, in many different parts of my life. I have improved as a dancer, I figured out how to french braid my hair, and I went through a leggings and sweatshirt everyday phase. But, I'm assuming Mr. Parker wants me to talk about how I've changed academically, so here we go.

First, I learned how to write as if I weren't a college professor from the 19th century. In other words, I learned how to write in a non-formal way, although I don't think I would actually know how to write like a college professor from the 19th century. Did they say thou back then? I don't know. Because of this blog, I stopped treating every writing assignment like a persuasive essay, even most of the time they were. Through this blog, I found my voice, but I can still write a kick ass formal piece of writing. If you look at my very first post, It is so stiff, and proper. But, those days are behind me, and now its all my voice, all the time. Except during essays.

Second, I learned time management. Although throughout the year I still had my fair share of panic attacks about an assignment that I didn't do that was due in 5 minutes, I have improved of my non-procrastination skills. And, I think that this blog forced me to do that, kind of. No one likes a blog that is dead silent for three months, then has 6 posts within 2 hours. Like, eww. So, I had to force myself to spread out my writing, or I would become OCD about how the dates and times are too close together. I may have not succeeded at that all the time though, and I'm pretty sure I'm not actually OCD, even though I do occasionally have to re-organize my closet before I can fall asleep.

Another thing that I have learned, that you may or may not agree on, is that I'm absolutely hilarious. If I make myself laugh, than that definitely means you, my non-existent audience, are laughing.

A picture of me being Hilarious with cute puppies

So, there you go, my probable last post ever, as funny as ever. Lets hope I get an A.

~Mia

Naturebox to the Rescue!

Hello internet. Today I'm going to tell you about this wonderful new subscription/product/thing that I've discovered in the recent months. It is probably the most amazing thing to ever happen to me, and I want to share it with you. Since one of my favorite things to do is eat, and snack, and that kind of stuff, I was on a mission to find healthy snacks that are also delicious. Like, who wants to eat kale chips? Those are so not delicious.So then one day, as I was exploring the internet, I found this thing called Naturebox. Naturebox is this wonderful beautiful amazing subscription that sends you bags of snacks once a month. They are so delicious, and they don't have any food coloring or artificial flavors or any weird chemicals, which is hard to find in this day in age. You pick the snacks that you want to get every month, and when you pick your snacks you can refine your search to things like gluten free, nut free, low sugar, non-GMO, less than 150 calories, and like 20 more. It's kind of amazing, and is my new favorite everything.

So far, I've gotten three boxes, a total of 15 different kinds of snacks. And, my favorite ones (so far) are. . .

Sea Salt Pop Pops- these are like popcorn, but 100 million times better. because it doesn't have any gross stuff like butter on it. Literally, the only ingredients are Whole Corn, Soybean or Sunflower Oil, and Sea Salt. Like, what even? How can something this delicious have practically nothing in it. I would recommend this snack a million times, but that would take to long and I have a 500 word limit. 

They come in the cutest little bags, too!

Pistachio Power Clusters- Holy lord these are delicious! They're little squares of nuts that are so yummy! Each bag comes with, like, eight squares, but one square is enough to fill you up for your entire life! These are super amazing, especially if you like nuts. It you are allergic to nuts, avoid this product. 

Uh, YUM. Courtesy of Happy Mothering

Something that I've learned from my Naturbox experience is that when you have a food that you like, and you are going to eat, you have to hide it from the rest of your family. I learned this the hard way when I came home and my brother and his girlfriend had eaten all of my Naturebox snacks! Like, come on guys, go buy your own food.

~Mia

OH MY GOD I'M STUCK HERE

Today I have the pleasure of spending 15 hours at Herriman High School for a dance competition. I will be dancing a total of 7 minutes and 10 seconds, but I get to spend 15 HOURS in this terrible, windowless choir room. I'm bored out of my mind, to say the least, and am so tired that I am literally drifting off while I write this. The saddest thing is that I've passed the time by watching old Barbie movies. I think I need an intervention, because now I know all the words to all the songs.

The Terrible, Windowless Choir Room as seen at 5:37 pm.
Shoutout to Sami for posing for my picture.

The point of may rant is that I realized that lots of people probably have to go through these terrible days, and its hard to eat healthy, especially when you're in Herriman, Utah. If I walked down the hallway right now, I could buy pizza, a donut, and a soda for 5 dollars. Or, I could buy one small Jamba Juice for 5 dollars. Not the best options. So, I've decided to tell you what to do in these situations, when healthy food is impossible to find.

First, you need to PACK SNACKS. Snacks will save your life. One of my favorites for dance events are my Flax Seed Energy Ball Things, because they are delicious and nutritious. Another great snack is protein bars. They're super delicious, and not messy to eat, and you can hide them almost anywhere. Today, I have been relying on Quest Bars and Luna Bars, which are both completely amazing. Another great snack is fruit, because it gives you a quick burst of energy without the perils of artificial sugar.

 My bag of snacks. I already ate most of them.

Now, I will address the issue of boredom, which, I know, has absolutely nothing to do with food, but I think that I've learned a lot about boredom today, and I want to share my newfound wisdom.

Number One- Don't bring your homework, because you will never end up doing it. You will always find something more interesting to do, like play with string or *ahem* watch Barbie movies. So, it's just a waste of energy to bring homework, so don't do it.

Number Two- Bring movies, and a way to watch them. This came in very handy for me, and lots of other people, too. Apparently lots of people at my dance studio like watching Barbie movies, so we all watched them together, like a team bonding exercise. You could maybe even say it was productive. You can also bring other things to watch, like TV shows or whatever. I chose Keeping Up With the Kardashians as my TV show choice, which, looking back, I now regret.

Number Three- People watching is always an option. The people watching in Herriman at a dance competition was especially entertaining. That was definitely my favorite activity of the day. Besides dancing, of course.

There you go, my personal survival guide to a day destined to be mind-numbingly boring, and when bad food is unavoidable.

~Mia

Three New Ways to Not Run

Do you hate running more than anything else in the world? Well, I''m here to help. Hi, I'm Mia Taylor, a student at a junior high. I have some important information that you need to hear. Do you ever think, "gosh, boy do I hate running, but I have to so that my heart doesn't fail." Well, I have good news for you. With these new, top of the line exercises, you may never need to run again! If you do them now, you can loose an unspecified amount of weight! But wait, theres more! Exercise now, and you will loose double an unspecified amount of weight in an unspecified amount of time! It's almost to good to be true, so you better go quick!

Say no to running! Courtesy of Sync Fitness

My first magical exercise to replace running is the stationary bike. Its like a regular bike, but when you pedal, it doesn't go forward- crazy right? But, spinning on these bikes can burn calories like nothing else, and is a great way to get in your daily dose of cardio (or monthly, if you're like me). Another plus? If you have really bad joints, like knees or ankles or something, spinning on a stationary bike can actually help you joint pain. It really is like magic. You can go just six minutes on this thing and get all the cardio you need for the day. If you don't have any idea what to do on a spinning bike, you can go to a class (the one I linked to is for a really good spinning class at Silver Mountain Sports Club), or look up one of the billion routines that are on the world wide web. Here's one that Japanese speed skaters do, where you get your total cardio workout in jut 4 minutes! Wow, how exiting, only 4 minutes of exercise a day.

Ooh, how realistic. Courtesy of PixShark

So, there you go, something to do instead of running. I hope you enjoyed this infomercial. 

~Mia

Infinite Reasons Why Sugar is Bad for You

I am here today to crush all your hopes and dreams. My previous posts may suggest that gluten is the worst thing you can eat, or simple carbs, or the paleo diet. But no, all of those guesses are incorrect. The absolutely worst thing you can possibly put into your body is sugar. There is so much wrong with sugar it's not even funny. The astounding wrongness of sugar can be proved through biology, evolution, and my blog.

The average American eats 170 pounds of sugar a year.
Sorry if this exploded your brain.
Parks and Rec is amazing.
Courtesy of Tumblr

Lets travel back through time to when the human race lived in caves, and didn't have iPhones or glowing mice or Obama. These people were primarily hunters and gatherers, but mostly gatherers and a nice hunk of protein was a treat for them. Sugar, along with simple carbs and m&m's (no, not m&m's) were so extremely rare that they practically never had it. Think about it, you can't go outside in nature and find a naturally occurring thing that has sugar in it (fruit has good sugar, so be quiet). So, if you think really hard about evolution and stuff you realize that the human body is not meant to have sugar. Just like we aren't meant to have processed foods. If we aren't biologically designed to eat it, then it will obviously have terrible effects on our body. It's almost like feeding cows skittles (yes, there are companies that do that. Buy organic, free range beef!)

Because of this, sugar has several horrible effects on your body. Number one is that it makes your insulin levels go whacko, which is why you get a sugar high, then you crash, etc. Bad insulin levels from eating to much sugar is how people get Type II Diabetes, which is a super awful disease that is and epidemic in the US. Europeans are skinny because there is literally no sugar in their grocery store. Trust me, I went there once so I know everything about Europe.

This is the market in Versailles, France, and I was totally here,
I just didn't take a picture. Sorry.
Notice- there is no sugar.
Courtesy of Trip Advisor

Second, sugar feeds cancer, and oxygen kills cancer. Since cancer is the uncontrollable division of cells, and insulin is one of the hormones that contributes to that process, sugar feeds cancer, literally. Now, since oxygen kills cancer, you should breathe a lot. Just Kidding, if you have cancer you should go to a hyperbaric chamber. They give you oxygen there.

Third, sugar makes you fat. There is no better way to say it. It's what gives you high cholesterol, it makes you swell up like a balloon, and it's highly addictive so you can't stop eating it (it causes major dopamine release in the brain, which is pretty much the same thing that illegal drugs do. And most non-illegal drugs).

In conclusion, don't eat sugar. Also, if this post doesn't make sense it's because I drank a latte before I went to ballet so I wouldn't fall asleep during adagio. I'm still super amped up. So just don't mind me over here laying upside down listening to Coldplay, but definitely do what I say. Always.

Ooh, now I'm listening to Hozier. Like Real People Do is the best song ever.

~Mia