why zebras don't get ulcers ch 7 to CH 12

Ch 7 sex and reproduction pg 101

You should watch the anime cells at work

Stress makes it hard for men to reproduce because it makes to election.  Different thong for femail human as stress can lead to fat loss and the body needs a certain amount of fat for female reproduction to work.  Hyenas get erect I one under stress as a means of showing subservience.   Breastfeeding can affect fertility.   Cultures that breastfeed once every fifteen minutes for the first four years of a child don't ovulate cause of the way breastfeeding this way creates hormones.

Ch 8 immunity stress and disease pg 126

The theoretical steps that start with stress and end with disease are

1 stress

2 stress response

3 lowered immunity 

4 disease

It's super hard to test this theory in non lab conditions cause your average human doesn't really know if they've undergone serious stress and even if they do there's no good way to measure whether or not you have lowered immunity due to that stress.

This pattern appears to be true for armed thongs like the common cold,  UT not so muchnwoth other things like cancer.

Ch 9 stress induced analgesia pg 159

Stress creates opiods as natural pain killers so your body can still function when you're running away from a lion or whatever.

Ch 10 stress and memory pg 172

When we undergo stress our body releases glucocorticoids, which go to our  hippocampus in our brain 🧠  and for a short period of time help is create and retrieve memories.  This is a short lived phenomenon.   To much of this for too long and it starts to fry your Nurons.  This is why we remember some stressful times but can't recall other far more stressful/traumatic times.

Ch 11 aging and death pg 195

When we get old the parts of our brain that sense levels of glucocorticoids are too high don't function as well.  This causes neuron damage, which causes stress, which causes more release of glucocorticoids and the cycle is very destructive.   It's what causes salmon to die right after they spawn.  Same with some kinds of mice.  We get old, we don't handle stress as well and it kills us.

Fuck you glucocorticoids.

Ch 12 why is psychology stress stressful  pg 211

 Having friends around during stressful times is one way to mitigate the negative affects of stress.

The Outstretched Shadow (the obsidian trilogy book 1) ch 15 through 18

CH 15 pg 300

the demon prince is doing some magic.  he kills three fawns and uses their blood to do a scrying spell to spy on the big city mages.  There's talk that not only are current event with kellen and his dad being influenced by the demons, but that the demons have been working to make the big city more closed off and more athoriterian for quite some time.  the more big city expands, the more the outside world will hate them until there is eventually war.

kellen is beside himself with worry that he and his sister are gonna turn into demons as a result of wild magic.  He eventually gains the courage to talk to Idaho about it and she dismisses the idea as crazy talk.  Wild magic makes people think independently and that's why the big city hates wild magic.  Kellen does a scrying spell of his own and he and Idaho see a vision of a circle of demons and other monsters converging on a centeral point.  Kellenis at that central point.  He thinks it's a vision that he's gonna turn evil and join the demons.  Idaho says it's much more likley that he's there fighting the demons.  Idaho does a scrying spell and she sees their dad running the city council meeting where he says they've gotta expand the city west to go after Kellen cause he's super powerful and if they don't go after him now, he'll build up an army to attack big city.  What a dick.

Now dad's assistant is our viewpoint.  Turns out he's  a super powerful mage and he works for the demons.  He had a big part in making sure Kellen's dad had this vision of Kellen as a super powerful wild mage that was a clear and present danger that needed to be addressed immediately.

ch 16 pg 324

Everyone is getting out of town and heading for the big  mountains to the west.  The centaur village people have a going away party for Idaho.   Idaho and kellen and unicorn head out.  Unicorn 🦄 has beef with being close to Idaho for any period of time ⏲️  so he and kellen ride a ways back.

Ch 17 pg 354

Idalia and Kellen make their way to the elven town.  It's an amazing thing of beauty.   Unicorn leaves to join the unicorn herd here.  Idalia gets a visit from an old lover.  There's drama cause he wants to marry her, but she won't cause he's gonna live for another thousand years after she dies.  Elves only marry once and if their SO dies they are doomed to a life of loneliness after that.  This is less of a worry when you marry another elf.  But it's a known problem if you wanna marry a human or any other  shorter lived race.

Kellen goes out to explore the town.  He finds a child to be his tour guide.  He has a good time.  The child takes him home and it turns out his mom is the queen so he has dinner with the queen.  She tells him about the drought problems they have and asks if he and Idalia will help and he's like of course we will.  Then he goes back to his place and has a long talk with Idalia.

Ch 18 pg 383

Kellen's dad has big time trouble.  He told everyone that the western lands were fertile and rich and would give them tons of new tax dollars.  But instead they found a bunch of abandoned lands and villages and the one's that weren't abandoned wouldn't let them in.  I'm a little confused as to why the scowering hunt wouldn't have be useful there.  One of the mage council members puts forth a thing for vote that not only do they abandon these new western lands but all lands outside of the city walls.  The vote passes 10 to 2.  Kellen's dad's assistant that works for the demons likes it cause it gives more oportunity to the demon queen.

Idalia goes to a water well to do some investigatory magic.  The idea is if she does some magic on the water maybe it can tell her why there isn't any rain here.  She tries a number of things and all her magic stores and doesn't really find much.  What she concludes is that the drought must be unnatural.  Like maybe the big city did it but she sort of dismisses this idea with the statement that the Elves have older more powerful enemies.  I'm choosing to interpret this as it being the work of the demons.

Kellen talks to an old gardener elf and then to an old potter elf.  Then again compared to Kellen all elves are old.  The potter elf has a fun way of looking at the average human life "Tehir lives are spenti n one blind hurrying rush into death, without one moment to think or reflect on any of the things that give Life meaning or beauty"

From talking to the elves, Kellen comes up with a theory that the bug city used to use wild magic and switched to the current system cause it was easier to control. He wants to ask an elf about it, but elves find direct questions to be very rude.  Kellen goes to visit unicorn.   It's a very short visit cause unicorn goes running off into the woods with the other unicorns.  Unicorn is a dick.

Elf boy shows up.  He is with the water brigade.  They take spring water and water plants in the forest. 

Idaho figures out whatever is causing the drought is up north.

Persepolis Rising CH 18 through 35

CH 18 Bobbie

They have gone through the buerocrasy and have been rewarded with an hour long visit to their ship.  Clarrisa gets a much needed med bay visit, Amos gets some tools and Bobbie and Alex get some useful Intel on the state of the ship.  Now they're gonna try to get in with the rebellion.  Alex asks Amos how he intends to do that.  This is an occupied space station, not Baltimore.  Amos says "everywhere is Baltimore"  

They end up at a shady meeting with some shady belters and Bobbie isn't loving it.  But then Holden shows up.  Not exactly loving that either cause when Holden's around, he's the captain, which means Bobbie is not.

CH 19/drummer

Things are bad and then they get worse when the president of the coalition of ring planets (which was previously just a ceremonial organization) has a press conference saying the Laconians are our friends and all the planets beyond ring gates should support Laconia as Laconia will protect their sovereignty from earth and mars.  Drummer tells her assistant to tell everyone that she has the situation under control.  She does not.  Also some science guy comes along and tells him about the gamma radiation out of the ring gate thing.  But the way he describes it as space boiling and we don't know why.

CH 20 Singh

Singh is thinking about the guy that he saw get shot in the head and then he throws up.  The admiral comes along to tell him that duarte has read the report on the gama radiation magnet shooting thing.  He agrees that with this discovery they can move up the time line.  So the big ship witht he magnet gun is gonna go fight earth and mars and another laconian ship with a big magnet gun is gonna come take thier place.  In the mean time Singh is in control of the station without any ship support.  Admiral gives him some shit for how he fired his head of security who had TONS of actual fighting experience.  Singh calls the former head of security to apologize.  

ch 21 holden

Bobbie and Holden have a real solid heart to heart I'm which Bobbie explains to Holden that he's super famous and as such things come to him easily.  He's the lead singer of the band and as far as the rest of the universe is concerned the rest of crew that was involved in all these historical events don't matter.  The punchline is that Bobbie has good ideas but she's nobody so Saba and the others in the revolution won't listen to her. So she's gonna tell Holden her ideas and Holden is gonna present them as his own and then they will do them cause it came from Holden.

Chapter Twenty-Two: Bobbie 

The plan is to piggy back on Medina stations communications array and record all their communications to the laconian destroyer.  People on the inside gotta turn some stuff off so all sorts of alarm bells don't go off when Bobbie and Clarissa are outside the ship in Vax suits unplugging thh9ngs and plugging in their stuff to monitor the data.  It works.  Now they gotta figure out how to decrypt that data.

Chapter Twenty-Three: Drummer

Drummer has a nightmare that her husband on medina station who's the head of the rebelion is dead.  In a way she's happy in that dream cause now it doesn't matter if she fucks shit up super bad.  He's not alive to be disappointed.  She wakes up and walks around.  This is the night shift when most people are sleeping, hence why drummer was sleeping.  Avasarala is still on the station.  They make fun of each other for not sleeping.  They talk about how crazy and arrogant it is that the laconians are just sending this one ship at them. In war you don't just send a single ship.  You set up supply lines and what not and you dig in for a counter offensive in case the ships you send out don't get the job done.  But not the laconians.  They just send this one ship.

Chapter 24 Singh

There's been anotehr terroritst attack.  Another Laconian has died.  His security guy is working on finding the culprits.  They're talking about what to do when they catch the guy.  Singh is thinking they need to have some sort of public trial.  They've got 7 suspects, Singh says to keep them in the holding area to question them before they do anything publicly.  he talks to all of them at once.  He says a judge is gonna find them all guilty and have them shot.  Whoever rats first doesn't die.  The new security guy thinks this isn't a great idea.  We're not gonna win over any hearts and minds with a firing squad.  Also, marines aren't great police.  It might be a good idea to have an actual police force for this sort of thing.  

Singh is gonna go talk to Carrie Fisk, the president of the organization of worlds.  Singh tells her to send a message saying anyone that sends any sort of offensive force at medina station will have their planet completely sterilized.  Carrie doesn't love this.  But what's she gonna do?  Her job is basically just to tell the other colonies what Laconia's gonna do.

Chapter 25 Holden

The whole group is sleeping together in relatively close quarters.  On the Roci everyone had thier own room.  So it's quite the adjustment.  Saba is the name of Drummer's husband.  Tight quarters and low use of resources is an absolute must for a group trying to keep a low profile. Being in a revolution isn't easy.  Naomi also can't sleep and they chitchat.  They head out into the station proper.  it's tight quarters on the station as well.  Most of the people here would normaly be on thier own ships and they're not allowed to that, so it's real crowded.  Holden gets some real bad coffee.  People don't get scared when the laconian marines go by on patrol anymore.  They're all aclimatized now.  

Saba tells Holden about the bombing.  Also that nobody's talking about it so the laconians are keeping it quiet.  There's lots of laconian data from Bobbie's idea, still no luck on decrypting any of it.  Holden talks to Saba about Bobbie and how she should really be in charge here and Holden should be on a beach on one of Titan's moons.  Saba talks about how it's rough getting old OPA people united.  People that used to be Frank Johnson's OPA vs people that used to be Marco's OPA.

There's some unencrypted laconian communcation they can see.  They know the Typhoon is coming and it's the same ship as the one that easily took out the station's railguns and Medina.  Holden wonders how many of those huge fancy ships they got.  

chapter 26 bobbie

Bobbie and Alex complain about the belter food.  Also it sucks that these folks coming out of the Laconian gate aren't wierd aliens.  They're martians.  People they might know from back in the day.  If they had still been in the martian navy back then, they might have been convinced to come along with Duarte.  Bobbie is kinda pissed off about this idea.  But when it comes down to it, a third of the martian miltary went along with Duarte.  Going to a planet where they could breath the air and drink the water is very appealing.  Not to mention all the kick ass Roman technology they found.

Amos comes and tells Bobbie the captain wants to talk about the bomb that went off.  Bobbie and Clarissa talk about how Amos is calling Holden captain immediately as soon as he comes back.  Bobbie is hurt by this and thinks she might have to have a talk with Amost about it.  She's the captain, not HOlden.  Even if they're not allowed to go to their ship caause of the invading army.  Clarissa says be nice, he's having a hard time.

Holden's idea is that they gotta figure out who did this bomb cause they sound like they'll be a good ally for the revolution.  So they're gonna try to figure it out and talk to these people.  

Everyone on this station is real polite.  But the Laconians here are all military.  You forget that and it could go real bad for you.  Bobbie talks to Amos and is like "I know you're having a hard time, if need anything, I'm there for you."  Bobbie is now talking to a lady that's former OPA.  She sounds smart cause she talks like an earther.  Catria wonders why Saba sent Bobbie and Amos rather than coming to her himself.  Bobbie says cause it's not about belters against everyone else.  It's about everyone against the laconians.  Amos threatens to rip a kid's eye out if he doesn't stop staring at her.  Theese people are the voltaire colective.  Now we're really fighting.  Bobbie gets hit in the head.  Amos is fighting 3 dudes.  She punches a guy with a crowbar in the throat.  She gets kicked real bad.  She breaks that guy's arm.  Amos and Bobbie tie up the rest of the group.  

Chapter 27 drummer

The Laconian ship (The Tempest) is close enough that they can communicate now.   The admiral tels them to not interfere or they'll get messed up.  Drummer says fuck off.  All the ships set up in defense of the inner planets are spaced out so they can't take out a bunch of them at once with their magnet beam.  We're shooting missles at the Tempest.  They're all getting blowed up by PDCs.  They're trying to see what they're using for PDCs cause the readings aren't just like "normal" pdcs.  The railguns have more success.  They get some impacts on The Tempest.  But then it seems to heal.  The hull ripples like water as they are impacted.  They see The Tempest has its own rail guns.  Lots of rail guns.  And they're somehow faster than regular rail guns.  They've blown up a few ships.  Also the free city of independence, a HUGE space station with over 100k people living on it also gets blown up.  

Drummer is real bummed out.  Avasarala tries to cheer her up by explaining that all these poeple idn't die for nuthing, they died so they could learn more about The Tempest.  Now maybe the next group of ships from the inner planets might do something more effective.

Chapter 28 Holden

The Laconian press is reporting on the battle.  Governor Singh gives a speech.  He calls this a tragedy for us all.  Moment of silence for the warriors lost defending their homeland.  He says we're only defending ourselves.  He says call home and tell your family and friends to surrender.  Some of the revolutionaries say they should just go cuttin' throats.  Saba's like, don't do that.  Every Laconian throat you cut will end up with 10 dead belters.  Despite all their rage they are still just rats in a cage.  Bobbie says there's no point in not being rats in a cage cause if they escape they're not gonna join the fight cause it's pointless.  The entire solar system is hopelessly outmatched by this single Laconian ship.  But they got 33 days til the other laconaian ship shows up.  So maybe they should try something before that happens.  

Bobbie talks to Holden.  she says Amos is gonna be a problem.  He's resorting to violence too soon.

Holden goes to find Amos.  Amos is doing some welding without any protective gear.  a clear indicator that he ain't right.  Amos is hard to figure out.  Amos seems calm, but holden can tell there's a lot of anger underneath.  Amos claims he just got excited to do some violence.  

chapter 29 bobbie

The voltaire collective comes to the meeting real careful like. Ready for violence if need be.  They check Saba and Holden for weapons.  Amost points out guys he doesn't recongize.  Maybe these new guys are even more hardcore and Amos will get to fight again.

Saba says he and Catria gotta have a private conversation.  The rest of the Voltaire collective hates this idea.  But they came a long way so Catria figures it's worth it.  They want Catria's help unencrypting the communication they've been able to get from the laconians.  Bobbi has identified where they think the laconians are doing their unencrypting.  The plan is to break into that room incapaciate the folks inside and then make a copy of the encryption device.  

part of the plan involves Amos and explosives.  This makes bobbie very nervous.

Chapter 30 Singh

He sends and ensign to go fetch president CArrie Fisk.  There's a message from his wife.  Her work with sheep breeding is going well and she could do that work on Medina.  Singh is getting emotional.  He needs time to cry for a while before Carrie Fisk shows up.  He sends a reply to his   wife saying there's plenty of room for sheep here.  Carrie Fisk shows up.  It sucks that whenever Singh wants her, she is dragged to his office by marines.  Singh tells her that she's now president of  "The Laconian congress of worlds"

Singh tells her to tell the 1300 portal worlds that they can begin trading again.  

Carrie points out that she's basically just the Laconian press secretary.  Singh tells her that when Duarte gives an order, you don't question it, you do it.  

A guy with a big nose that's been repeatedly broken (one of the "new" voltaire collective guys) says he's got real important information for Singh.  He says his sister is in a cell and if he lets her go, broken nose guy will give Singh important information.  

chapter 31 drummer

people are dying their hands red in defiance of the laconian invasion.  She's got a mesage from an earth admiral sayig he wants to sacrifice pallas station to draw the tempest inot a position that makes it easier for the rest of the union to attack it.  Drummer issues an evacuation order for Pallas station.  

Chapter 32 holden

The plan is still in place but just barely.  A bunch of Saba's people have been rounded up.  Holden grunts when he's upset.  Amos and HOlden and CAtria are getting ready to blow a hole in the wall they wanna get through.  Clarissa says they're clear.  Alex is doing something with drones getting into teh room with the decryptor through the air ducts.  There's a little lag with these drones andd so alex is quiet on the coms and that makes Bobbie nervous.  Alex says we've got a problem.  one of the guards in the room is holding a dead mans' switch.  This ruins their plan of doing this job without alarms going off.

Holden says wait for the 10th alarm.  He borrows Amos's wrtench to break a pipe that causes some sort of goo to start spewing out.  The idea is that you have alarms going off a few different places and then manybe when the alarm goes off in their target spot it won't be that big of a deal.  a laconian marine in power armor slams into holden.  he really wants to kill Holden, but his partner talks him out of it.

Chapter 33 bobbie

With guards heading all around the station after all the other alarms, they can proceed with the plan.  The two guards have been thoroughly blow up.  Amos and catria are hiding in a rdiation shelter.  Amos says he's gonna go get HOlden.  Bobbie says we don't have time for a rescue.  Catria says we gotta blow this fucker now.  Amos is throwing a bit of a fit.  Bobbie says we don't have time for this shit and they blow the charge.  The bomb and then the damage caused by all the air going out of the hole in the station is way worse than they expected it to be.

Theyt alk about how they hurt the laconians with this today.  They're gonna hurt us back.  Also they're gonna lash out to hurt people they think might have been involved to make themselves feel better.

chapter 34 drummer

We're getting ready for the tempest to go after Pallas station and then they can counter attack.  The problem is that when the tempest gets to pallas station they fire the magnet weapon and Pallas station just disappears.  They're trying to work out what the hell happened.  The theory is that the magent gun isn't really a magnet gun, it's a wierd portal gun that works kinda like the ring gates and takes whatever you shoot and makes it go somewhere else.  But it didn't work that way when they were in the slow zone.  

Drummer is losing it so she's screaming at the scientist that's trying to explain this to her that she needs answers.  The scientist doesn't really know.  Not only that, they don't know if the laconians know or not.  Maybe in their system and in the slow zone it works like they expect, but here in the Sol system maybe it works different and the Laconians are just as surprised as we are.

Drummer knows one thing, the tempest is gonna report back to Medina and then Medina is gonna report back to Laconia and they're gonna know what they say cause of what Sabba and Bobbie and the group have accomplished.

chapter 35 Singh

Security guard is telling Singh about the Bobbie's terroist attack.  Thus far 5 laconian fatalities and 7 injuries.  2 local fatalities.  They have Holden in custody.  Singh says we're gonna need the strongest possible response here.  Security guy once again suggests this is not wise as it will encourage the insurgency.  Problem is insurgents are hard to stop cause they are not truly an organized group that you can really stop.  You kill people that you think are insurgents and you piss off more "normal" people and they become insurgents.  

Singh finds the broken nose guy from the voltaire collective.  His name is Jordow.  He says if Jordow doesn't get back in good with the terroists and get Singh actionable information so he can bring the culprits to justice, he's gonna have Jordow's sister executed.  

it's gonna be 11 hours before they can get a new encryption system up and running to communicate back to Laconia.  The tempest is sending data to Medina station the old fashioned way.  By sending a small ship with a data chip and then the sailor from that ship ran that chip a few kilometers from the ship named "The Storm" to Singh.  The message is from Admiral Trejo.  They've taken on a passenger of sorts.  It's a floating sphere of light and darkness,  Oh, we know that's the Gual thing that what's her face walked through hauling the robot that was being posessed by Miller.  This anomoly showed up when they destroyed Pallas Station.  appearantly it made the crew black out for three minutes.  Singh says he's gotta go to "The Storm"  Singh suddenly rembers something like the anomaly.  He space googles it and he finds an article about the anomaly on Ilus and Holden's involvement.  He's gonna have to talk to Holden about this.

The Outstretched Shadow (the obsidian trilogy book 1) ch 9 through 14

CH 9

They didn't make it to the border.  They gotta find a place to take a stand against the wild hunt   kellen finds a stick and they climb up a ravine.  Kellen is able to bash up the stone dogs as they come up the ravinr to get them.  Additiomally, the unicorn can make their magic animation stop if he touches them with his horn.  So kellen keeps bashing and unicorn keeps unanimating and they are able to defeat the wild hunt.  Funniest thing, there's another wild hunt right behind them.  At first Kellen is feeling hopeless and defeated again.  But then he's filled with rage at his lying asshole Father.  By some miracle his rage powers him through to bash the hell out of the second pack of stone dogs.  With what strength he has left he rides the unicorn to the border and falls unconscious.  He wakes up being fed some fowl tasting liquid.

CH 10 

Kellen wakes up and all his wounds have healed.  He doesnt even have any scares.  there's a lady.  He's instantly attracted to this lady.  He immediately thinks to himself staying celebite for a year is going to be hard.

And of course he's horny for this lady cause its his sister.  All the best SciFi / Fantasy has that thing where the main character is horny for his sister before he finds out she's his sister.

I forget his sisters name, but it starts with Id so from now on I'm calling her Idaho.  Idaho is a wild mage.  She's well known as the wild mage healer lady that lives near the border.  That's how the unicorn ended up bringing Kellen here.

She tells him that their mother isn't dead.  At least she didn't die in the city like their father claims.  So she'll probably come back in chapter thirteen.  I guess she was a wild mage too and that's why the books found Idaho and Kellen.  Idaho was banished just like Kellen.  The way she escaped from the wild hunt is she wished she could fly.  She turned into a rare bird and the spruce for the magic was she had to find another bird to mate with before she was turned back into a person.

CH 11

Idaho is teaching Kellen more about wild magic.  Lesson 1 is soul stones, or whatever they're called.  You can save your life force in the stone and then you can do small spells with that magic rather than having to pay the unpredictable wild magic cost.

They talk about how if you get a bunch of people together they can share the cost of the magic.  This point is proven when a bunch of unicorns show up with and injured young unicorn.  They all share in the cost of the healing.  God talks to them and tells them what they need to do.  It's pretty cool.  She can't touch the unicorn because she's had sex.  So kellen has to do the touching while Idaho does the magic.

CH 12

Kellen and unicorn go to.pick blackberries.  A 

Centaur comes by and says these are His BlackBerry.  When kellen tells him he's Idahos brother he gets a lot less aggressive.  Unicorn comes back and delivers a real smooth "we got a problem here" and centaur gets to skooting.  Kellen helps his sister clean up a dirty spring pond.  Then they go swimming in a warm stream.  Then on the way back kelen asks about demons.  A Fawn shows up and is all NEVER SPEAK OF THEM!!!!

CH 13

This is a demon chapter.  Queen demin knows kellen was banished and lived to tell the tale.  Queen sends her son up world to sew seeds if discord.  He disguised himself as a rich human and finds Garen Min, who he knows is a spy for Kellen's dad.  He tells him about kellen and Idaho so dad will do something rash.

CH 14

They're doing work around the cabin.  Lots of Kellen/Idaho inter monologue about what it's been like to live together for a half year.  The jerk centaur comes back and demands to be healed as he's been stung by bees.  Idaho does so and they go to the centaur village as the cost for bully centaur is that he hauls an old womans cart for a year (a lot of wild magic cost seems to be a thing you do or don't do for a year) and Idaho's part in it is that she has to announce this to the centaur village council.  It's a whole fun scene.  Humans and centaurs and other magical creatures all living in town together in peace.  Something Kellens father tiled him was impossible. Then they take baths and eat dinner and the old man healer says Idaho and Kellen should stay for the winter.  Idaho says no and Kellen suspects has it has something to do with the wild magic association with demons his father spoke of.  Like somehow Idaho is tainted by the demons and doesn't wanna spread it to the villagers.