dzgenesis

[dzgenesis]

Bruce: Don’t fear death, fear the state you will die in.

Jason, whispering fearfully: New Jersey

[dzgenesis]

Botanical Sexism Cultivates Home-Grown Allergies 

Arborists often claim that all-male plants are “litter-free” because they shed no messy seeds, fruits or pods. In the 1949 USDA Yearbook of Agriculture, which focused on trees and forests, this advice was given to readers: “When used for street plantings, only male trees should be selected, to avoid the nuisance from the seed.”  In the years following, the USDA produced and released into the market almost 100 new red maple and hybrid-maple-named clones (cultivars), and every single one of them was male.

It took a number of years for these new trees to mature enough to start to bloom, but eventually they did and with them came more city pollen and the “epidemic of allergy and asthma.” Many of these same trees are still alive and well and getting even larger, and the bigger they get, the more pollen they shed.

Allergies are rarely triggered by small amounts of an allergen; they are initiated by an overdose. Small amounts of pollen exposure are actually good for us, but if we have highly allergenic trees or shrubs in our own yards or lining our streets, we will soon enough be over-exposed. In order to put the brakes on America’s allergy epidemic, we need to reverse the trend toward male-dominated landscapes and stop selling and planting any more of the most allergenic trees, shrubs and grasses in our cities.

and the kicker:

Female trees produce no pollen, but they trap and remove large amounts of pollen from the air, and turn it into seed. Female trees (and female shrubs also) are not just passive, but are active allergy-fighting trees. The more female plants in a landscape, the less pollen there will be in the air in the immediate vicinity. By relying less on males and paying more attention to the allergy-potential of all the plants in our urban landscape, all of us may one day breathe easier.

[dzgenesis]

All the tools you need.

[dzgenesis]

Hey so if anyone here has dyslexia or trouble concentrating, these extensions for google chrome can help so much. I was told about them through an occupational therapist today and just got them and they’re already helping. “OpenDyslexic” makes the font different (shown in the picture of the extension) and “Read&Write” can read you the text, highlight things and a few other things. Please spread the word about this they’re great apps. (This post is not sponsored I was literally told about them today and they’ve been helping so much) With that being said, feel free to message me any time bc 1- I need friends and 2- I would love to help people so hmu 

[dzgenesis]

[dzgenesis]

2018 Favourites

Thought I’d share my favourites from a few different categories for the year. The social media categories are great for inspiration/motivation while the other’s have just made an impact on me or made my year a little bit better.

Instagrams: 

Lifestyle, Self Care, Journals, Books

Kalyn Nicholson 

Aileen Xu - Lavendaire

Lovely Threads - Self Care Threads 

Selfcareslut 

Alivia D’Andrea 

Anna - Alukewarmmess

Penguinteen

YouTubers: 

Lifestyle, Self Care, Self Growth, Bullet Journal, DIY

Kalyn Nicholson | Koze

Alivia D’Andrea 

Adeline Morin | Camera Roll 

Lavendaire 

AmandaRachLee 

Bargain Bethany 

Beauty/Skin Care Products

Humphrey’s Witch Hazel 

Garnier Micellar Water 

Valjean Labs Glow Serum 

Freeman’s Tea Tree Oil and Manuka Honey Face Mask

Nature’s Bounty Hair Skin and Nail Gummies 

Elf Oil Control  Blotting Powder 

Benefit Bad Gal Bang Mascara 

Books 

The Little Book of Skin Care by: Charlotte Cho

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by: Marie Kondo 

Hush, Hush Series by: Becca Fitzpatrick 

Caraval & Legendary by: Stephanie Garber 

The Princess Saves Herself In This One by: Amanda Lovelace

Apps

Evernote

Trello 

Google Keep 

Unroll.me (condenses all your emails in your inbox) 

Google Photos 

Sworkit

Choices 

All the links should be correct but do let me know if something goes haywire.

[dzgenesis]

Mental Health App Recommendation: What’s Up?

I am always interested in good mental health apps. The thing is, I could never really find ones that tickled my fancy beyond Calm Harm.

But alas!! I found one by accident that has done a better job guiding me than 6 months of therapy. (Note: this is not to say that you shouldn’t go to therapy, or that this app is a therapy replacement. My therapy experience just wasn’t extremely helpful, and this shining star filled in the gaps. But go to therapy and take your meds, folks.)

What’s Up?

What’s Up? Can guide your thinking, help ground you, and provide you with comprehensive information on anxiety, anger, stress, depression, and self esteem. You can also track your good and bad habits as well as your mood from day to day.

The information section tells you what common symptoms of each illness is, what your thinking probably looks like, and dozens upon dozens of easy to comprehend ways to guide your thinking to a better path (I’m using these as prompts for a mental health journal I’ve started) Here’s a single screenshot from the self esteem portion of guided thoughts; the list is much longer than this:

I absolutely adore the grounding game. REALLY hopeful when, like me, you can’t remember the grounding steps.

All in all, a superb app that has been so very beneficial for me. There’s many other features that I recommend you try to navigate when you’re doing ok, so you know right where to go when things go south.

Even if you don’t suffer from a mental illness please share this and help someone!

[dzgenesis]

hey everyone! it’s been a while since i made a masterpost, and i recently found some good health-related apps on the play store that i thought to consolidate into a post.

all these apps are available for both ios and android users! i’ve also grouped similar apps together.

fyi: these apps are not intended to replace your therapist/counselor – they only act as an aid. the apps listed here are those that seemed credible enough and had good ratings on the play store. some may help you and some might not. since i don’t have depression or panic attacks, i can’t speak for the efficacy of some of the apps here.

For stress, depression, anxiety, or panic attacks:

Rootd: exercises to help with anxiety and panic attacks, as well as lessons understand anxiety. it also includes emergency contact if you need help and a personal stats page.

Self-help Anxiety Management (SAM): exercises to help you manage your anxiety. you can also build your ‘anxiety tookit’ and chat with other SAM users.

PanicShield: for those who have panic attacks. it has a breathing tool to calm you down, information about panic attacks, and two techniques to train your mind to have fewer panic attacks (based on two types of therapy). 

MoodSpace: short, interactive mood workouts that may help treat depression.

InnerHour: a self-help app for stress, anxiety or depression. it has small daily tasks, helps you deal with distressing situations, helps control your stressful thinking patterns, and has a relief box.

Moodpath: an interactive two-week depression and anxiety screening program that tracks your emotional and physical wellbeing and generates a personalized mental health assessment that you can discuss with therapists.

Calm Harm: tasks to help you resist or manage the urge to self-harm.

To generally improve your life:

Youper: conversations with a bot to improve your mood and emotional health. it also has mindfulness and meditation exercises, a mood tracker, journal and symptoms tracker.

Wysa: similar to Youper, Wysa is a chatbot who reacts to the emotions you express to help with anxiety, stress, low mood, anger or sleep issues.

Primed Mind: a life coach to help you reach your personal goals and improve yourself. it can help you build habits, calm down, fall asleep quickly, and study effectively.

Headspace: meditation and mindfulness exercises

Just Rain: a soothing audiovisual rain simulator where you can control the degree of rain sounds.

[dzgenesis]

anyway, abusive women are just as bad as abusive men.

[dzgenesis]

“The Buddha said, “The moment you know how your suffering came to be, you are already on the path of release from it.” If you know what has come to be and how it has come to be, you are already on the way to emancipation.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

[dzgenesis]

baby meeting cat for the first time

[dzgenesis]

[dzgenesis]

By: Uplift Connect | Pic by: Corlyce Olivieri

Source: https://www.facebook.com/303661393104182/posts/1444946485642328/

[dzgenesis]

“I met the wolf alone and was devoured in peace.”

— Edna St. Vincent Millay, from The Collected Poems; “True Encounter,”

[dzgenesis]

english: coconut oil

french: :)

english: oh boy

french: oil of the nut of the coco

[dzgenesis]

What are the stages of drafts? I'm trying to write my own book but I dont know how to draft properly and I feel like I'm gonna be stuck in a gutter if I don't know

Yesssssssssssssss someone finally asked it!!!

I’ve been waiting for the perfect opportunity to explain this and show everybody my inverted pyramid :D :D :D

I present, The Inverted Pyramid of Revising a Book

Now I’ll explain each section of the inverted pyramid:

THE FIRST DRAFT

This should be self-explanatory. You write the first draft. For novels, 75-150,000+ words of the world inside your head.

PLOT, CONTENT, SCENES, AND MAJOR CHARACTERS

Go back and fix it all up. Did you tell the story you wanted to tell? Did you include scenes and events that add up to the conclusion you present?

Are there any unnecessary scenes you could delete, or scenes that are redundant to other scenes? Get rid of them. If this means entire chapters have to go, wave bye-bye.

Do your main characters have believable back stories and arcs, and do they act appropriately in character at all times?

Is there any point in time when your characters do something that they literally WOULD NOT DO? Change that up.

WORLD-BUILDING, CHARACTERIZATION, HONING IN PLOT POINTS

Now pay attention to the deeper aspects of the story. Delve into the world your characters live in. Do they react appropriately? Does any part of society influence them more than others?

What does your world look like? Delve into the setting. The cultures, the technology, the history.

Work with your secondary characters and how they interact with your main characters. What role do they serve overall? Does the main character’s journey affect them at all, or vice versa?

Tighten up plot points. Stay concise if possible.

SENTENCE STRUCTURE, FLOW AND PACING OF SCENES

Now that the major parts of your story have been patted down, you can begin focusing on the technical stuff. Start broad.

Do you have redundant sentences? Do you start multiple sentences the same way?

Throw in short sentences.

Drop the pronoun from the beginning of a sentence every now and then.

Use commas instead of ‘and’ if you find you use ‘and’ a lot.

Does the flow of sentences and paragraphs fit with the tone of the scene?

Chop sentences apart. Use quick, sharp words.

Or combine sentences and flowery language and soft words.

BETA READER CRITIQUES AND SUGGESTIONS

Now that you’ve really patted this thing down, find people willing to read your work (hopefully for free).

Ask them to point out inconsistencies. Are they confused by anything?

Beta readers can tell you when things are boring or exciting. They’ll laugh. They’ll fangirl. They’ll beg you for more chapters.

Your brain is soft from so much revising. Beta readers are fresh, and will pick out things you’ve glossed over from seeing it so many times.

Shake things up and host a video chat for you and your betas! It’s a great way to make friends :)

PUNCTUATION AND MISSING WORDS

NOWWWWW you’ve finished all the major revisions and your story makes sense!!! All that’s left to do is get the broom and sweep it up (or the vacuum cleaner, or generate a black hole from the Large Hadron Collider to suck out all the errors because that’s super-effective**).

This is the nitty gritty stuff, and I highly recommend either forcing yourself to read really, really slow, or better yet, read your book out loud, start to finish.

You’ll trip up over misplaced commas and periods.

You’ll literally hear when a sentence is awkward.

Your brain will get confused when there’s a missing word.

Fill in the gaps, hammer down the boards, tidy up the place like you’ve got guests coming over.

THE FINAL DRAFT

OMG

OMG

OMG

OMG IT’S FINISHED AND YOU CAN SHARE IT WITH THE WORLD AND BUY PHYSICAL COPIES THAT YOU CAN HOLD AND SMELL AND RUB ALL OVER YOUR FACE AND DRAW IN AND DOG-EAR AND TOTE AROUND TO SHOW PEOPLE AND SIGN AUTOGRAPHS AND BECOME YOUR OWN LITTLE CELEBRITY!!!

Email the newspaper (I’ve appeared multiple times).

Email the local TV station (I’ve appeared on live TV).

Email book talk radio shows (I’ve had a Q&A for an hour on live radio).

……..Marketing is hard.

I hope that helps!

N.B. **please do not ask CERN for permission to use the Large Hadron Collider to create black holes that suck out all the errors in your book. You’ll look silly, and you might destroy Earth in the process.