Chemistry of Life: Diffusing the Tension

I was having a conversation with some friends about how one uses the expression "diffusing the tension" to describe making an environment less stressful. You can guess that I immediately connected this to my Chemistry of Life analogies. So today, you can hear all about tension and how "diffusing the tension" is an expression that really does make sense.

When something gets stressful, one notices the tension increasing. Let's use pressurum from my new periodic table of feeling elements (which I need to update onto my blog, as I realized there were problems with my old one), abbreviated as Prs, as our example.

What one needs to realize is that there are always lots of Prs atoms in the room, floating around, doing nothing. They're all spread out, as if they were gases. When something gets stressful, they clump together and form double bonds (meaning they bond with each other) to form molecules of pressure/tension/stress. Their presence is now felt more by people in the room, because the concentration in an area seems much greater.

While the Prs atoms form molecules, they also release heat, like a normal reaction. That's why some people get sweaty or nervous as the stress in the system increases. The Prs molecules themselves stop moving around so much and clump up together, like solids, and keep releasing heat.

There are ways to diffuse the tension. If someone new comes into the room who is not stressed, they usually become a bit nervous or pressured by looking at the situation. What's really happening is that the Prs molecules are going from an area from high tension to low tension, and start to spread out a bit more. As they continue to do so, the molecules diffuse by using energy in the environment (so people are not sweating anymore). The concentration of Prs molecules balances out again.

This is applicable to real cases. When people keep thoughts bottled up to themselves, they become more stressed. If they share their thoughts with others, the Prs molecules spread out and diffuse to others, which may cause them to be a bit stressed, but not as much, and it helps both people to interact with each other.

This cycle repeats again and again, with tension building up and then getting released.

I know this was a bit complicated, but I hope you understood why people can use the term "diffusing the tension" now in relation to science! Stay tuned for more chemistry of life if you enjoyed this one :).

Happy New Year, New Year's Resolutions, and Happy Birthday to my Blog!

Happy New Year everyone!

Courtesy of Giphy

I hope everyone is excited to start off the new year with their resolutions! In case you need some inspiration, here are the ones I have in relation to blogging and reading.

Also, what a coincidence. My blog turned three two days ago! It's the perfect time for some resolutions :).

1. Read at least 100 books this year.

2. Read three classics.

3. Meet an author (and get their autograph).

4. Write at least 100 blog posts.

They're all relatively simple, but I think they're good goals to aim for this year. What are your resolutions for 2018?

Blogging and the Books in 2017

The year is now at an end! There are only two more days until January first, so here's an update on what I've done this year in the aspects of blogging and reading.

Including this post, I've written 101 posts this year!

Courtesy of Giphy

Woo-hoo! I have met my unofficial goal of 100 posts, doubling the amount of posts I've written compared to 2015 and tripling the amount of posts I'd written in 2016!

I know, I'm literally so awesome.

Courtesy of Giphy

I also chose a new template for this blog, and started adding blockquotes. I'm thinking of uploading my new book reviews onto Goodreads in 2018, which I've already done to most of my book reviews.

In addition, I managed to read some great books this year. I read about 85 books in total (I kept track of 77 of them, but I haven't written down the last few ones so 85 is my estimate), averaging about 7.1 books per month, or 1.6 books per week. I suppose that's fine, but I want to read a bit more next year.

I did manage to keep my reading journal from February through November, which I think is a pretty good accomplishment. I'll be using it again in 2018, and it's likely going to look pretty similar (aesthetically speaking).

Here's a list of some of the books I read this year that I enjoyed. If you haven't read any of these, don't worry! It isn't too late to read a good novel, as someone famous once said.

"It isn't too late to read a good novel"-Me

The links lead to my reviews, if applicable.

A Dog's Purpose by W. Bruce Cameron

Spy Ski School and the rest of the Spy School Series by Stuart Gibbs

Stef Soto, Taco Queen by Jennifer Torres

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Frazzled by Booki Vivat

Jacky Ha-Ha by James Patterson

Revolution is Not A Dinner Party by Ying Chang Compestine

Only the Good Spy Young and the rest of the Gallagher Girls series by Ally Carter

All Shook Up by Shelley Pearsall

Real Friends by Shannon Hale, illustrated by LeUyen Pham, colored by Jane Poole

Can You Spell Revolution? by Matt Beam

Lemons by Melissa Savage

The Silver Mask by Holly Black and Cassandra Clare

I also finished The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (I might have a couple of pages left, but I'm 90% sure I'm done...either way I'll aim to finish it by January first).

I think 2017 was a pretty great year. I started writing books down for my to-read list, got more page views, posted more often than previous years, and had a lot of fun.

A shout out and thank you to all of my followers! I appreciate every single person who reads my blog deeply! Y'all are the best audience a not-a-prima-donna-girl could want!

How was 2017 for you?

My Christmas Wishlist for 2017

I actually had misplaced my reading journal, which had all of my to-reads. Luckily, just in time, I found it yesterday, so here are some books on my wishlist (which I know is a bit late since Christmas is in two days, but maybe I can just get them later? Santa's supposed to be really nice... :)).

All covers courtesy of Goodreads.

1. Prisoner of Night and Fog by Anne Blankman

2. Piecing Me Together by Renée Watson

(I actually thought this title was Piercing Me Together when I first saw it...which sounded very painful! Oops!)

3. The Shamer's Daughter by Lene Kaaberbol

4. Fallout by Todd Strasser

Other than books, I don't really want anything else but some more polymer clay. Perhaps a cute plushie or two would be nice. Also, I need to drink hot chocolate and bake gingerbread cookies! Yummy!

What are your plans for Christmas? What are some items on your wishlist? Any Christmas traditions? Tell me below!

Polymer Clay Wonder Woman

In honor of the movie that recently came out (okay...so maybe it's not that recent), I modeled Wonder Woman out of polymer clay! This time, I'm even providing a tutorial! Yay!

Get your polymer clay ready!

You will need:

• White (optional) and yellow, red, bue, and skin colors of polymer clay
• Tools (a plastic knife is fine, and a rolling tool helps as well)

Take some of the skin color clay and flatten it out into a circle as shown below for Wonder Woman's head.

  Roll some red polymer clay into a cone for WW's top. Stick a toothpick through one side of the head, making sure it doesn't come out through the other end. Then, slide the cone up to the head.

Is it a kebab? Not really!

Roll out some blue into a rectangle that is fairly thin for the skirt. There is an example below, but I didn't use this exact one. Make the rectangle fairly large, definitely large enough to wrap around WW's top a few times.

Fold the longer side of the rectangle accordion-style. Do not do anything with the other three sides. The skirt will flare out automatically if it is folded right. This may take a few tries, and you might need to change the dimensions of the rectangle used and go back to the previous step. Take your time on this step so the skirt looks nice :) !

Attach the skirt onto Wonder Woman by pressing its edges onto the top. (The picture below already has arms, but the making of those is demonstrated in then next step.)

Now, you can make the arms and legs. For the arms, take two pieces like shown below, roll them into cones with a large heights and small bases, curve them slightly, then stick them on. Refer to the picture above to see how they look.

For the legs, take another piece like below (but slightly larger). Wrap some red clay around the tips, with a yellow stripe going up the middle of them (or use a white stripe, but I ran out of white clay and made due with yellow).

Your Wonder Woman should look like this now:

Bold and beautiful :)

  Now, there's the hard part: the hair! You can do any style you like. I was trying to make curls, but since I'm not so experienced with hair yet, they didn't turn out that way. To make curly (but primarily wavy) hair like I did, take strips of brown and lightly wear your plastic knife down, being careful not to cut through them. Then, twist the ends of the strips. Before attaching them on one by one, take some clay and add it to the back of her head in a dome shape for depth.
Also, I added a yellow collar between her head and top. Just roll out yellow clay into a noodle-like shape and wrap it around WW's top.

  To make the cape, take a large piece of red clay, roll it out so it is quite thin, then cut it out into a trapezoid shape. Attach it to her shoulders.

To make the "W" on the back of her cape, flatten out an oval of yellow clay a bit and make some cuts for the letter.

Can you find the "W" among all of these lines?

Pop it out and cut three lines through the sides of the letter.

Attach it onto the back of her cape. 

  Make her shield by taking flat circles of red, yellow, and blue (largest to smallest, respectively) and stacking them together. Make another "W" with the steps above to attach them onto the shield.

Now you're done! 

  I have made this project using some techniques (such as the skirt folding) I've learned during this tutorial I before mentioned for making Hermione Granger. I am also providing the link for the image that inspired me to create the shield of this craft (the image was actually two earrings).
For the inspiration of shields

I know I've made the skirt a bit long in comparison to how it really is on Wonder Woman, and other small parts may not be as accurate, either (she went from having black hair to brown because I also have no black clay at the moment). However, I think she turned out quite well! The Harry Potter gang and Belle can welcome another friend now :).

Have you created any Marvel or DC Superheros out of clay? What about with other mediums? Tell me below!