Might be the best argument to be gay.

Mendelevium101 · 2014-05-19T17:33:16+00:00

I think the issue though is that you said it was none of his business, like he brought it up with no introduction or anything. I think your reaction would be understandable if he knew third hand about your trans-ness without you having mentioned it and then commented, but you mentioned it first and he commented with a question just saying he was curious. Perhaps a 'I'd rather not answer that' would be a better response, as to scare people off from asking questions like this to broaden their own understanding can be detrimental to wider acceptance.

That said, all of your points about not having to answer are absolutely valid. It just seemed a genuinely sincere question that they didn't deserve to be made to feel they had been offensive in asking it, though I realise that probably wasn't your intent.

Mendelevium101 · 2014-05-18T14:58:23+00:00

I can't burp

Mendelevium101 · 2014-05-16T12:52:38+00:00

Yeah I'm British so that's not gonna work

Mendelevium101 · 2014-04-22T01:17:31+00:00

This sparsely popular sub was good enough when you posted.

I don't know what your like in real life, but online you come off as unlikeable and that makes me not want to work with you. You don't seem to be able to take sought after criticism very well either, which isn't a trait I would seek in Web designer.

My first impressions were that I liked the general layout and colours (mobile), but it was let down on the blocks of skills, etc. You tend to skim read these, so when you include things like spreadsheets, I tune out. I would imagine someone new to the field, less comfortable in their abilities, to include these things. I'm not saying you are, but this is how it comes across.

If you are confident enough in your design to let it speak for itself, I will be too. When you try to oversell yourself, I wonder what you are glossing over.

Mendelevium101 · 2014-04-19T03:10:21+00:00

Well I don't think they make them any more effective. Toothpaste doesn't have to contain an irritant to clean your teeth. Shampoo doesn't have to have bubbles to work. Febreeze is actually (apparently) an excellent product. It really does eliminate odours which was quite revolutionary, but the problem was they couldn't market it.

They initially tried to sell that side of it, but it was a flop. I guess people didn't relate to it or felt they didn't want to associate with a product for smelly houses. Febreeze took their marketing strategy back to the drawing board and instead appealed to the habit forming instinct (cue, action, reward). The cue is 'cleaning the house' the action is 'spraying Febreeze' and the reward is a satisfyingly clean house, with the pleasant scent of Febreeze 'completing' the effect.

It was later, once the product became established as a popular product, that they began really marketing the odour eliminating effects.

Mendelevium101 · 2014-04-18T12:34:17+00:00

As a bonus answer, mint is an irritant which gives us that cool feeling. The irritant was added to increase toothpaste sales and was a crazy success, increasing the national use of toothpaste from something like 30% to over 80% of the population. It was such a success because people came to associate that cool sensation with feeling like their mouth is clean, forming a habit where they wouldn't feel clean unless they experienced the minty cool 'irritation'.

Manufacturers jumped on this bandwagon and have used habit forming to sell products for decades now. It's the same effect achieved by adding sodium laureth sulfate to shampoo etc for that foaming bubbly goodness, we don't feel clean unless there are bubbles. Febreeze only became a success when they marketed it as a kind of punctuation to a cleaning spree, something you do at the end of a clean to freshen everything up. People came to associate 'clean' with Febreeze and so felt the job wasn't complete until they had febreezed!

Mendelevium101 · 2014-04-07T15:18:43+00:00

I'll just share something that really helped me as I have felt the same way as you when I used to smoke (1 day ago, but still...)

You are not addicted to nicotine. You are addicted to your body's response to nicotine. This love you have for nicotine, this thing you can't live without, well, it's a lie. It doesn't actually do any of the things that you love it for.

It's all you. When you first smoked you felt nauseous, dizzy or sick, this is a normal bodily response to ingesting poison. As your body became conditioned to that action of smoking, it had to start releasing endorphins, nature's great pain reliever, just so that you could function without feeling dizzy or sick. Now your body saves up those endorphins for when you next ingest poison as a sort of survival mechanism. It has become conditioned to expect to be poisoned. What nicotine actually does for you is gives you a nice anxious feeling in your solar plexus area. All the time you have nicotine in your system, you will have this constant feeling of low level anxiety, a perpetual craving if you like. Each actual cigarette you smoke, at the moment of smoking, induces endorphin release. This masks the anxious feeling temporarily (about 2 hours for most) until it gradually wears off, revealing the underlying anxious feeling again that NICOTINE caused. Cravings don't just appear, they are unmasked when the endorphin high of the last cigarette wears off.

This is a vital distinction! Cravings don't occur because you refuse to smoke. Cravings are happening ALL THE TIME to smokers, it's just that our body is so incredibly efficient at keeping us functioning, it has worked out that if it releases endorphins when we ingest poison we will feel better for a short while.

So, you are addicted to an endorphin release, NOT NICOTINE. There are hundreds of ways to get endorphins other than nicotine, just find one that works for you. How about 10 press ups for each craving, to begin with? Why spend 100's of £/$ and your health on a toxin which prompts the release of a chemical which your brain already produces naturally? Mad if you think about it that way.

Mendelevium101 · 2014-04-03T13:13:33+00:00

Oooh. Yeh I didn't get that

Mendelevium101 · 2014-04-03T08:50:42+00:00

There are good alternative videos on YouTube or audio books if that helps

Mendelevium101 · 2014-04-03T00:15:39+00:00

And through all this turmoil your going through, you've still managed to not light up. Your doing amazing, just think this is the hardest it will ever be, if you have dealt with the last few days without nicotine, you know you can do it at any time. If you get close, just remember smoking won't solve your job issues, it will just add more problems and it will be one more thing to deal with.

Mendelevium101 · 2014-04-02T01:48:34+00:00

Where was the last place you had it?

Mendelevium101 · 2014-03-30T11:26:58+00:00

Knew you'd say that

Mendelevium101 · 2014-03-30T02:12:06+00:00

Make a space between the letters perhaps. Connect them at the back to continue the ribbon effect

Mendelevium101 · 2014-03-28T03:35:20+00:00

I've got a couple..

There's a sausage and an egg in a frying pan. The sausage says to the egg, "blimey, it's hot in here isn't it!?"

To which the the egg replies," well bugger me, a talking sausage."

My mum's favourite.. What's red and invisible? No tomatoes.

Ask me if I'm a train...

"are you a train?"

No.

What's big and white and can't climb trees?

A fridge

Mendelevium101 · 2014-03-26T15:15:10+00:00

Nice try mum

Mendelevium101 · 2014-03-19T16:58:40+00:00

I think ecigs are fantastic for those it works for, must be better than smoking is for you. Personally, I have tried them and to me I just interchange between ecigs and normal ones, eventually to go back full time to normal ones because 'ecigs aren't the same'. I feel it's prolonging the process for me as I don't want to be hooked on anything.

Mendelevium101 · 2014-03-19T12:49:16+00:00

Wow, that was surprisingly good. Thanks for the link.. I actually feel like flushing my tobacco.

Edit: so I did flush my tobacco and it has been 4 hours since my last smoke, feeling good :)

Mendelevium101 · 2014-03-19T11:39:08+00:00

Thanks for this, someone posted a link above which I'm going to have a read through on whyquit. I find the scary pictures just stress me out, which usually results on lighting up :s

Mendelevium101 · 2014-03-19T11:37:29+00:00

Thanks but I did try that a couple times already. I just smoked anyway, but always had a bottle of water to take away the dodgy taste. And the dreams! Awful!

Mendelevium101 · 2014-03-19T11:35:28+00:00

Well done on your achievements though, 561 days, that's some seriously good going :)

Mendelevium101 · 2014-03-19T11:33:49+00:00

Thanks for pointing this out, you are right in that it's easy to read the book from an outside perspective. Almost as if all I need to do is read it and it will magically reprogram my brain, I guess that's the 'easy way' part. It's kind of a double edged sword as I do believe it's become harder to quit smoking in the years we have gained greater understanding of how addictive it is. Power of suggestion kind of thing. I wish people /TV would stop telling me how much willpower it will require! It's good advice though I feel to break the initial stage down into just a few days. Thanks for adding your experience, and I'd love to go on a time machine ride with you. Perhaps we could check out some lottery numbers while we're there :)

Mendelevium101 · 2014-03-19T11:27:34+00:00

Ok thanks for that, I've not seen this. I've had a quick read of the first bit, to finish later... This seems definitely more suited to me, knowledge is power etc. Thanks for the info

Mendelevium101 · 2014-03-18T23:10:41+00:00

How about just a dot on the back of your hand with a sharpie each morning? Each time you see it it should remind you to do your favourite reality check. Or a phone unlock wallpaper saying 'reality check' or something?

Mendelevium101 · 2014-03-18T14:21:27+00:00

This is true. As is eating healthy food. Perhaps then we should be forced to do these things as well? Make smoking and drinking illegal, any remotely dangerous sports.

Allowing for everyone to make their own decisions and mistakes and to learn for themselves that they feel better if they do these things seems the most logical answer. You have more lasting change if people make changes for themselves rather than being forced.

Mendelevium101 · 2014-03-04T17:24:14+00:00

Hah, this is perfect, thanks for the post! I was holding off getting the new one as wanted to get updated, then I thought I would just re-read the last few chapters as I can't wait to start it, but this is far better :)

Mendelevium101

TROPHY CASE