liurschiy, XovcmlxT 29, 2007
{ T he B LUE B ANNEr}
Lifestyles
Page 6
:h-
By Courtney Willis
SfV» WM"m-
Donna Hollinshead could
hardly make it through the day
without the chocolate she kept
hidden in every drawer in her
house, but three weeks after the
independent distributor of
MonaVie began drinking the
juice, her chocolate cravings
ceased.
“Now that I’ve been drinking it
for a year, I don’t think I could
ever go without it. I even have
gel packs for when I travel,"
llollinshead said.
I'he MonaVie Juice is a blend of
19 body-beneficial fruits. It has high
nutritional value and provides pro
tein, glucosamine and fatty acids.
One should take a minimum of four
ounces a day; however, one can
drink up to a bottle a day if he or she
ch(K)ses.
Ilollinshead’s good friend gave
her and her husband each a bottle to
try, Ilollinshead’s husband had hip
surgery and said his Joints did not
ache as much after drinking
MonaVie.
' fhe outcomes were very subtle.
It wasn’t like a miracle for him. but
within a week we both knew from
our energy that we were taking
something grxKl." llollinshead said.
"I gel up to Jog at 6 a.m. every
morning, and I used to struggle
waking up. I would hit the .snx)/.e
button two or three times. After
three days of drinking MonaVie. my
alarm went off, and I was up and
ready to go,”
The key ingredient to .MonaVie is
the Brazilian acai berry, said to con
tain higher nutritional value than
any other food. Dr. Nicholas
Perricone calls the berry the No. I
super frxKl.
The acai berry is unique because it
has the protein profile of an egg, and
it is rare for fruit to contain protein.
It has oils such as omegas three, six
and nine as well as anti-inflammato
ry properties.
“Because the berry itself grows at
the equator, there is extreme heat
and a lot of pests,” llollinshead said,
"They live where it ITxxls, and the
berries that actually ripen and sur
vive are very dark in pigmentation
and they have a lot of benefits. So
anything that is grown under
those conditions and lives offers
a lot to the person eating it.”
The berry can help protect
against disease because it con
tains several different antioxi
dant agents that neutralize and
minimize the effects of cell dam
age, according to MonaVie Inc.
Acai is also said to help people
with diabetes, low energy levels,
arthritis and fibromyalgia, a dis
ease resulting in terrible aches
and Joint pains.
“,My mom’s friend has
fibromyalgia. Most days she
couldn't get out of bed, and after
four months of drinking
.MonaVie, she said that she felt
good enough to go dancing,”
Hollinshead said.
MonaVie does not make any
medical claims, and the Juice is
sold by independent distributors
and only adverti.sed through
word of mouth, according to
Hollinshead.
“My friend told me about
MonaVie and that it made her
feel really good,” said Liz Bollis,
Asheville resident. “1 was
extremely skeptical at first, but
after a week or two drinking it,
my coffee intake was down by
half, and 1 actually had energy to
get through the day. I don’t sell
it, but I would definitely recom
mend it to everyone.”
Although the acai berry has
been proven to be beneficial to
one’s health, there are still some
who are skeptical about
MonaVie.
“I think it tastes like cough
syrup,” said Lindsay Mosley, 23,
“I drank it for about two weeks and
I didn't feel any different, and it’s
just hard for me to have to remem
ber to drink something twice a day
sia; Juice pace 71
junior management/marketinq
student
This is an original black and
white abstract design. “The
concept is based on two
intertwined entities that do not
touch, basically quantum
physics relating to the
composition of the universe. It
was inspired by recurring
dreams.”
Emily Gray - St.aff Photogr.apher
Oksana Kukharets
Seamus McNerney, humanities lecturer, went through two years of conservatory training and uses music
in several of his lectures. Usually, the music is his own piano playing.
McNerney recalls college life
By Jennifer Saylor
Staff Writer
Wearing black Jeans and
Doc Martens, a humanities
lecturer plays Schoenberg on
a piano in Lipinsky as his
long, shaggy mane of gray
hair moves dramatically with
the music. Seamus
McNerney didn’t mean to cut
such a showy figure, but the
hair tie that held his ponytail
together broke.
“But that’s modernity,
right?” McNerney said,
referring to his lecture’s
bleak topic of post-World
War 11 collapse. “Even
though it’s broken, you keep
going.”
It’s a motto McNerney
could have applied to his
college career, one that
included skipping class the
entire week of finals to tour
with his ‘80s-era punk band,
the Rock Tots.
The University of Colorado
at Boulder wasn’t forgiving.
“They kicked me out,”
McNerney said.
After sacrificing his final
exam grades on the altar of
rock and roll, there were
only two ways the university
would allow McNerney to
resume his attempt at a col
lege education. One was by
taking a three-hour, once-a-
week, summer night class
that lasted until 10:30. The
other was by taking a morn
ing class that began at 6 a.m.
McNerney chose the night
class. And the adjunct pro
fessor who taught college
philosophy late into the
evening turned McNerney’s
priorities around completely.
“The guy was so passion
ate. such a brilliant teacher,
with a great sense of humor,”’
McNerney said. “It was Just
a phenomenal experience,”
The self-described “terrible
student” was re-admitted,
and a second-chance philoso
phy class with a stimulating
and inspiring teacher led to
an undergraduate degree in
philosophy, as well as anoth
er in history. McNerney
Seamus McNerney
humanities lecturer
33
It’s one thing to make an
argument and another to
support it. The Athenian
city-state let Socrates
question fundamental
assumptions and upset
the status quo. That’s
what’s valuable about
what the humanities can
do. It makes students ask
themselves why they have
certain assumptions.
Why is this wrong?
Why is this right?
Seamus McNerney
humanities lecturer
eventually added an M.L.A.
from St. John’s College.
UNC Asheville hired
McNerney 11 years ago, and
he now teaches nearly every
humanities level the univer
sity offers, as well as an Arts
and Ideas class. Arts of the
Modern World.
McNerney said the value of
the humanities lies in help
ing students learn to ques
tion fundamental assump
tions, withstand a critique of
their ideas and better them
selves by evolving and
replacing ideas that don’t
stand up to examination.
“It’s one thing to make an
argument and another to sup
port it,” he said. “The
Athenian city-state let
Socrates question fundamen
tal assumptions and upset the
status quo. That’s what’s
valuable about what (the
humanities) can do. It makes
students ask themselves why
they have certain assump
tions. Why is this wrong?
Why is this right?”
McNerney points to an idea
from the work of Sigmund
Freud as something he said
he tries to impart to his
humanities students.
“If I am shown to be wrong
with anything I am doing, I
am improved,” McNerney
paraphrased.
McNerney said he has
whole passages of Freud and
other thinkers covered in
UNC Asheville’s humanities
courses committed to memo-
ry.
The instructor has little
choice but to memorize lec
tures and readings. He is
slowly losing his eyesight to
retinopathy (damage to the
blood vessels of the retina),
an incurable condition not
correctable with surgery or
lenses.
His retinopathy is progres
sive, McNerney said. His
vision, once keen at 20/10,
will continue to deteriorate.
But teaching from memory
is not a problem, McNerney
said. Not only do strong
powers of recall let him
memorize long passages of
text, but two years of conser
vatory training let him le^r”
music by ear as well.
“Thank god,” he said. I
wouldn’t be able to handle it
Otherwise-
Devices for the visually
impaired help him do in his
office what teachers need to
do. A desktop magnifier lets
him check e-mail and re^d
Web content in a large font’
A scanner helps display stu
dents’ papers in large print
on his computer monitor.
McNerney said he has no
plans to give up teaching-
“I love working here, he
said. “I know it sounds trite,
but for all my frustrations.
on a bad day I still like com
ing in. And on a good day,
am ecstatic.”
What kind of student makes a good impression on you?
“Students that are intellectually curious. Curious not just in Septemb
t the rest of their lives. They want l
talk. And they re disturbed by the material. This is disturbing stuff
read (in humanities classes). It should keep you up at night.”