Horror Countdown

Horror: The Greatest Genre

I have always been an avid horror fan. When I was little, I would ask my mother to tell me scary stories. The frequency for this request became so great that she decided her creativity was suffering, so she resulted to telling me Stephen King stories. I ate them up. 

What I love is for a scary movie to be done right, and hopefully done originally. This brings up the obvious issue of how we have no original stories left to tell, and I understand that. The issue that I am discussing here is the problem of too much repetition seen in several movies that come out consecutively - looking at you, all movies like the Ring and the Grudge - as well as the lack of story depth, character development (once again, I was raised on Stephen King, aka, the King of character development), and cheap scares. 

The past decade has not been kind to the horror movie genre. This is not to say that there has not been some great movies released recently. My only issue is that there has not been enough, and it is too difficult to find the better ones because the most popular tend to be the worst, or at least the most boring cinematically. 

I recently went to see It Follows. I had heard superb things about this movie: how it will change the genre, how it is the best movie for the genre in the past few years, how it is so terrifying, etc. 
Ultimately, the movie was an “eh” for me. It was clever though, really really clever. What it is not is terrifying. Yes, the tension builds like a classic 1970s horror film, but it did not have the climactic burst at the end like I had hoped. 

In light of my recent let-down, here is my personal list for the best 10 horror movies:


10. The Silence of the Lambs

Cannibalism, Anthony Hopkins, and some good suspense. 

9. Poltergeist 

Ever since I was 10, there is something inherently terrifying about that clown. 

8. Jacob’s Ladder

Not only are you super confused the whole time, but that one woman grows a tail while they’re dancing. Ew.

7. The Others

This one is more of a drama/thriller, but it scared the pants off of me the first time I watched it. 

 6. The Amityville Horror (old and remake)

I know it is a fake story, but oh well. 

5. The Conjuring

My sister and I watched it together when it came out a couple years ago. We almost had to sleep in the same bed that night and we are grown. 


4. The Babadook

Very new and very scary. 

3. Misery

Kathy Bates is absolutely terrifying. Also, read the book first, obviously. But no seriously, read the book first. 

2. The Shining 

I’m sorry Stephen King. If you ever read this, I truly love you. I really really do. But Stanley Kubrick did the movie so much better. 

1. The Exorcist

It is number one on everyone’s lists because it is the scariest forever, duh. Watch that home alone one night and tell me you weren’t a little scared. 

Tips on Crow Pose

This pose is the one that I have been most proud of in my yoga journey. When I first saw someone do this pose, my jaw dropped. I had no idea what they were doing, or how to do it. When I decided that it was time to incorporate the pose into my routine, finding the right how-to was imperative for me, as I am a poor college student and cannot afford proper yoga classes. 

Here are some of the Mental Tips that I needed to try this: 

1. This pose uses core, not arm strength. If you have some Betty Spaghetti arms like I do, arm balances look very difficult and unattainable. However, Crow pose is a lot of core strength, as opposed to arm strength. 

2. You are not that far off the ground. If you fall, it won't hurt. Just stay aware and if you feel that you are falling, position your body so that you don't fall on your nose. 

If you do feel like you're going to fall, hopefully someone is around with a camera and maybe you'll get a spot on Ridiculousness. 

3. Yes, you can actually balance like this; it isn't some voodoo magic. 



Here are some of the Physical Tips that I needed to try this:

1. Your feet will go higher off the ground with time and practice. At first, you might just get the toes off the ground. 

2. Use a yoga block or a stack of books to balance your head if you're having trouble balancing. I do not have a yoga block, so I had a stack of about three Stephen King books (hardback-the thick ones too, like the short story compilations) as a substitute for a yoga block. Just watch the books; sometimes they can slip. I'd go into the pose and balance my head for a couple weeks until I was ready to balance sans books. 

3. If you are worried about falling, practice this on days when you are totally on your game until you get better at it. My balance can be hit or miss sometimes, so I only worked on this pose if I knew my balance was doing well.  

4. I did not use Frog Pose to get into this one. I get into this pose by doing a forward fold, then bending my knees. With that bend, I put my knees as close as possible to my arm pits. This helps for my knees to not slip off the arms. 


Once I got this pose down, I found it was incredibly easy to master tripod pose, which is a precursor pose for a headstand. 

Taco Tuesday

Eating Clean while injured

My last post was about the joys of yoga. Ironically, I have injured myself from this practice (that doesn't mean that you will too, I just have some pre-existing issues, like the arthritis), and I have had to take two, going on three, months off of all exercise. It is worse than Madonna’s Super Bowl performance like three years ago. 

To keep myself feeling somewhat healthy during this time off, I have been trying new healthy recipes. Therefore, I am combining my intense love of Mexican food with my desire to eat healthy and keep tons of proteins in my body. The more proteins you keep in your body during your training, and/or during time of due to injury, the better prepared your muscles will be. This is obvious. However, if you are dealing with injury in any way too, remember this: your muscles are going into like a “sleep mode” because you’re not using them. You will lose definition, but once you’re healed and you reactivate them, you’ll gain it back quickly. Protein keeps your muscles prepared to, I guess, “awaken” again. However, if you’re completely fine and you just want some awesome tacos/burritos, that’s great too!

Anyways, I made this meal last night with the help of my good friend Aleathea. I hope you enjoy it too: 

Avocado Chicken Tacos - 

**A note before you begin to cook these with my instructions,
I am not a cook. I do not know cooking lingo. Sometimes, I make things and they turn out okay. Other times, the meals become punchlines for jokes. I've made some franken-cookies that should have never graced this earth. So, sorry for improper cooking vocabulary and overall knowledge.  If you want the real recipe from someone who really knows what they’re doing, I have a link attached at the bottom. 

**Disclaimer: Because people plagiarize and steal others' ideas on the internet all the time, I'm going to make it known that I did not make this recipe up on my own. I found it on Pinterest, which was linked from Vera's Sweet and Savory Kitchen Adventures. I edited a bit of it, but I didn't create it. I'm not that talented. Also, whoever Vera is, she's like really good at cooking. 

Necessary Items:

This amount makes two tacos for three people, which is more than enough.



Cilantro (the massive bunch that you can get at Kroger, because they are trying to get rid of their cilantro or something. I don’t know why they don’t have smaller options.)
Four Chicken Breasts
One Purple Onion
Three to four avocados (depending on how much avocado you like)
Mozzarella cheese, shredded (depending on how much cheese you like)
Salsa verde/Tomatillo salsa (you can substitute red salsa, I won’t judge you)
Small/Big whole wheat tortillas, soft (depending on if you want some burritos or tacos)

Step 1: 

Depending on whether your chicken breast is frozen or not, thaw it as need be. 

While you’re doing that, you’ll want to preheat your oven to about 400 Degrees. If you don't need to thaw it, slice it up into pieces; size doesn't matter. 

Step 2:

Take your purple onion and dice it. 
Last night, I did about half the onion and I wish I had added more, because onions are delicious. But, depending on you and your likes, add the onion as you see fit. It will get thoroughly cooked if raw onion is gross to you. 

Step 3:

Dice some of your cilantro as you see fit for your tastes.
I did waaaay over two tablespoons, and the original recipe said just two tablespoons. 

Step 4: 

Once your chicken is ready to be cooked, place it in a pan on the stove and set the temperature between Medium and High. If you haven't already, chop the chicken into chunks - size doesn't matter - before or after you start getting them cooking. 
For me, it didn’t matter. I had to cook them a bit and warm them up before I could cut into them. 

Step 5:

Place the chicken chunks in the pan. Pour the bowls of chopped onions and cilantro into the chicken pan. Add a tablespoon or more of olive oil. 
I love olive oil, so I always overuse it. 

Step 6:

Add salt and pepper to taste as you see fit. 
I stayed away from the salt last night (mostly because my roommates and I are out of it), and I just did a few shakes of pepper.

Step 7:

You will want to cook the chicken until it is done. No pink. 
This took me about fifteen minutes last night. 

Step 8:

While you are waiting on your chicken to cook, you can get out your tortillas. 

Step 9:

Once the chicken is cook, take each tortilla and place one to two spoonfulls of the chicken/cilantro/onion deliciousness in the middle of the tortilla. 

Step 10:

Sprinkles some mozzarella on it. Then, you will want to fold or roll the tortillas as best you can, they need to be tight (Aleathea did that part because I’m not adult enough to know how to fold a tortilla). 

Step 11:

Place them in some pans. Before putting them in the oven, rub some vegetable oil on the outside of the tortillas. Don’t slather them; just get a paper towel and rub some oil on them. 

Let them cook for 10- 15 minutes. 

Step 12:

I don’t recommend cutting the avocados until you’re almost ready to eat, because they get brown so easily. But once your ready, just cut them open and cut them however you want. Mine are always messy; they’re between a dice and a slice, but they’re also kinda mushed. 

Step 13:

Once your tacos/burritos are done, you can open them to put some fresh avocado on the inside. You can put the salsa on the taco/burrito now too.


Now you can enjoy the deliciousness that you have just prepared. #LiveEveryDayLikeItsTacoTuesday

Here is the link for the original recipe:
http://omgchocolatedesserts.com/chicken-avocado-burritos/

Surviving Grad School with Exercise

One way that I unwind from the stress of Grad school is to exercise. The following is my experience participating in the world of yoga. 

Over the past two years, I have picked up yoga. I’ve never been athletic, and I can’t do a lot of heavy-impact activities. Yoga just stood out to me as something cheap and easy to do. Obviously, yoga is not easy to do, and I learned that after the first try. There are a ton of poses that I still cannot dream of doing, and I’m nowhere close to being able to help other people with their own yoga. As a non-athletic and clumsy person, these are some of the things that I have learned through my journey as the average, sub-par yogi. 

Your body is capable of things that you never thought you could do. 

Since I could walk, I have been known to have the worst balance. My cousins would ask me to try to skateboard so they could have something to laugh about. My balance is a truly laughable concept. I trip on everything and nothing, always. Sometimes when I’m standing still, I fall over. There are times when I come to the mat that I can’t even get into crescent pose without stumbling. Sometimes my tree pose looks like a slapstick routine. However, you learn to keep trying and to push through. I have learned that some days my balance is awful, like usual, and some days I can get into King Dancer pose like a boss. Never in my life before yoga did I think that I could do anything like King Dancer pose, but now I can. My body is learning to balance, as slow as possible, but it is still learning. My sister has even said she is proud of what I’ve accomplished with my yoga, since she knows better than anyone else how clumsy I can be. So, be patient, be kind to your body, and be happy with it every day. Just remember, some days are better than others, and be happy with the good and the bad. 

Yoga is for everyone. 

I am not into that third-eye, chakra nonsense. I’m not into the holistic, vegan lifestyle, and I am not a very spiritual person. A lot of people I know are skeptical about yoga because of these concepts, especially my sister. She had a yoga instructor tell her to take cold showers and to search for her inner-eye. She quit because these concepts aggravated her. If you love the spiritual stuff, great for you. If you hate the spiritual stuff, great for you too. Yoga, to me, is not about that. It is about getting to know your body, loving your body, and being healthy. Since I was eleven, I have had arthritis in my left ankle. There is enough metal in it to make me feel like a bionic terminator. I don’t have full range of motion anymore - I think it is at 85% to 90% now. I can’t wear heels, and I can’t walk longer than ten minutes some days. Also, as stated before, I’m not the graceful swan that most yogis are. I stumble, fall, look ridiculous, and I embarrass myself. However, I come to my mat almost five days a week and I try. And you know what? I’m succeeding in my own eyes, and in the eyes of those close to me. If you want to try yoga, try it. Figure out what makes your body feel good, ignore the concepts you don’t like, and embrace the ones you do. You don’t have to believe in all the mumbo-jumbo, and you don’t have to have a certain body or a certain level of physical fitness to do it. Just embrace your body, and try the things you want to try. 

You learn things about yourself that you didn’t know before. 

I never thought of myself as brave. When it comes down to fight or flight, I am 100% flight. I was always that kid that chickened-out and was scared to get into trouble. Because of my bad ankle, I wouldn’t do the hilarious, dumb physical blunders that most kids do. My cousins would jump out of trees, do flips on the trampolines and diving boards, skateboard, snowboard, everything that could be potentially dangerous. Since my accident, I couldn’t keep up. Even riding a bike scared me so bad because I could get hurt. There was just something about not having my feet on the ground that always terrified me. Now after two years of yoga, I can do a headstand...not a great one and for not very long, but I got my feet off the ground. I did something that I thought I could never do. To me, I have been brave! My confidence has been boosted. If I can overcome this small fear, I can overcome other things like interviews, graduate school, moving across the country, whatever comes my way. 

The small things really matter. 

Obviously, learning to do a headstand is minuscule compared to other achievements like graduating from college, having a baby, running a marathon, getting the dream job, going to the moon, whatever it is in your life that you’re incredibly proud of and is unique to you. Now, I have recently graduated from college with my undergraduate degree and started graduate school. Besides the massive amount of fear from the change, there was also pride. I was proud the day I walked across that stage and got my degree. I was proud knowing that I got into graduate school. Love ones celebrated for me and with me; they were proud for me. But the day that I finally got my feet off the ground and over my head was all for me. I was proud of myself on this strangely deep level. It was a regular day, nothing special to anyone in my life but myself. I had overcome a small fear that had plagued me since childhood. I didn’t celebrate with anyone but myself, and that felt great. It was a small accomplishment that wouldn’t be as important to anyone else but myself, and you know what? Sometimes it feels really great to celebrate with yourself. It was a small thing that just made my day and it reminded me that sometimes those small things that make our days are vastly important. So with whatever small thing you’ve accomplished that you never thought would happen, good for you. Sit down, call your best friend, have a glass of cheap wine, watch your favorite show, and celebrate with yourself, for yourself. Don’t think its dumb to be proud of the small things, no matter how small.