Dream hairstyles

Every once in a while I fall in love with a hairstyle I see in a movie or book. I really liked Amelie's hairstyle (in Amelie), and I kind of liked Trixie's hair (in Speed Racer). But they have black hair, which I would undoubtedly look sickly and ugly in (not to mention it's straight). So it wasn't until I watched Wild Strawberries that I really liked a hair style that I could actually have one day: Sara's hairstyle. It's short, yet girly, but not annoyingly so. I'd like to just walk into a salon and give them these screenshots and say, "cut my hair like that!" Does anyone know if it has a name ("poodle cut"? that sounds horrible! The sides are a little different I think)? I'm not sure I could pull if off, though. The movie itself was great, by the way. It's about a professor who realizes he's been mean to people, but only at an advanced age.

Found it

For years I have been looking for this Russian movie I saw when I was in high school. I could only remember vague details about the plot - there was a boy, and he was in the snow a lot, and there was an older woman who worked at a printing press, and it was really artsy and all. I finally found out what it was today! The Mirror, directed by Tarkovsky. Yes, I'm feeling very satisfied at the moment.

Another departure, another road

A professor of mine died recently - earlier this month in fact - but I didn't find out about it until yesterday. I was thinking about Dr. Inouye, and how he sincerely believed in all of his students, but he managed not to be too serious all the time (he would start telling a joke in the middle of a lecture, and for the longest time I had trouble telling when he was joking and when he was lecturing). He loved making horrible puns, which of course reminded me of my family and my high school band teacher (seriously, what band teacher doesn't like bad puns?). It was for his class that I made this other blog, which as I look back on it, seems horribly dramatic and over-philosophized. I'll probably think the same thing reading back on this entry in two years.

He was a strong supporter of learning as an eternal principle, which, upon examining my own beliefs, is one I've adopted myself. I am beginning to think of my learning as part of my religion, as strange as that sounds. I think that explains why I get so annoyed at students who don't appreciate that they have a great opportunity to learn, students who don't milk their classes for all their worth. I'll admit I'm guilty of it sometimes, but most of the time I'd do the assigned reading, ask tons of questions in class, and seek out professors who I felt had more to offer than the small share of information imparted in class. I'm also getting increasingly frustrated with how stagnant most professors are in their way of teaching. So all this contemplation about education made me think that I should look into graduate school in education, not just literature or psychology. But I think in some ways it would make me more unhappy to study education...

Confession:

I've always wanted to take my manual typewriter to the library or a coffeeshop and start typing, ala improv everywhere's mobile desktop mission. I don't have the guts to do it though.

Russian DOS games

If you're a Russian student and you want to play a Russian game, I recommend Heli. Basically you're a little helicopter that matches an English word to a Russian one. Some of the vocabulary seems simple, and it's a little frustrating that it doesn't tell you the correct answer right afterwards, but it might beat actually making flashcards (you'll need winrar to decompress it and DOSbox to play it). I'm still looking for some Russian adventure game, let me know if you find one that works.

Hidden cost of happiness

Happiness in children may impair attention to detail. (I have the PDF if you want it)

I'm not too worried about this, because what child is happy every single minute of his life? But it brings up a good point - different moods are useful and we shouldn't say one is better than another just because it's more pleasant.

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Now playing: We Are Scientists - The Great Escape

FREE EDUCATION

Ahhh! I'm so excited! Podcasts of an entire course on existentialism in literature and film, from UC Berkeley (via free online courses; scroll down for behavioral neurobiology, awesome)! I can keep pretending to be a student, oh, I am so happy.

Internet Adventures

Okay, recently I joined pmog.com after my brother mentioned it to me. I'm not very interested in the role-playing part, but I am interested in how I'm learning about internet sites I had never heard of before but are still interesting to me. The "missions" you can go on are basically guided tours of different sites, and some are very informative. I recently took one about Last.fm applets, and was introduced to the recommended artists generator (although lots of things can recommend artists to you), as well as the music "openness" test (I scored 121, the graph is to the left; "fractured disco" was the least listened to at .09%, haha). I also revisited the great freeware database of games in some retro-gaming mission I went on (and have been happily playing an adventure game from it).

Food Experiments: Chili

So, perhaps you recall my experiment with chili last year: I combined it with rice and ate it in a tortilla. This was a good combination as it lengthened out my chili and made it more digestible (a good trait for foods I eat). Tonight I decided to combine chili with spaghetti and tomato sauce (apparently chili spaghetti isn't that weird of a dish).

The spaghetti didn't stick to the chili+sauce as well as it does to the sauce alone, and the chili beans had this habit of falling off my spaghetti-laden fork, so I ended up eating them seperately most of the time (but when I got the right combination it tasted almost identical to the rice and chili). I think rice is a superior partner here, as it combines more evenly.

Amazon mp3 deals

Guys, guys. The Decemberist's album Picaresque is on sale today for $2.99 from Amazon mp3 (look on the right sidebar here). If you haven't heard it yet, I highly recommend you buy it. I also recommend Amazon's mp3 album deal of the day (they are 320 kbs, if you were wondering). That's all.

The Clash

So, I convinced one of my professors to share me some* music, and he included The Clash on one of the CDs he gave me. At first I honestly couldn't stand the vocals - poor enunciation, yelling, etc. But after the fourth or fifth listen I really got to liking them! It's nice because if you sing along you feel like you have a good voice, and the music itself is really quite versital. Yet another instance of anecdotal evidence supporting the mere exposure effect (you like familiar things more than unfamiliar ones, basically, which explains why proximity plays such a role in initial attraction in romantic relationships, etc.). Um, I also got a manual typewriter the other day and I really like it (except I end up neglecting my pinkies in favor of my stronger fingers).

*like that construction of "share"? I thought that I made it myself, but it turns out there are 92,000 Google hits for "share me some."

Survivor

My little Cruzer flash drive survived a load of laundry! I'm so relieved. I guess it's because it's just soap and water, so it's not actually hurting any of the parts that matter. Phew.

Baudelaire was an emo poet?

...For look - I am at war, my dear,
With the whole universe. I know
There is no medicine for my woe.
Believe me, it is called Despair.

It runs in all my veins. I pray:
It cries in all my words. I am
The very glass where what I damn
Leers and admires itself all day.

I am the wound - I am the knife
The deep wound scabbards; the outdrawn
Rack, and the writhing thereupon;
The lifeless, and the taker of life.

I murder what I most adore,
Laughing: I am indeed of those
Condemned for ever without repose
To laugh - but who can smile no more.

-Heauton Timoroumenos from Flowers of Evil by Baudelaire, trans. by George Dillon

Colours Are Brighter

Colours Are Brighter

An album of hip children's music. Streaming from their site! Recommended.

A letter

To the young man who sat across from me in the library:

The Stuff of Thought is a good book. But don't read Psychology Today. Even Scientific American: Mind would be better, or Seed (granted, the Provo library doesn't hold those titles). Also, nice shoes. That's all.

Advice column

If you have been looking for a more vulgar version of The Board, I recommend "We Are Scientists"'s advice column. Also, Franz Ferdinand is coming out with a new album this year! In October.

These shoes have a name

They are called winkle-pickers. I've always wanted to know. They're part of the Mod retro style.

Adventures in Music

Recently I stumbled upon gnod. It's a... an artificial intelligence project? It looks at things people like and makes maps out of them. It's helped me find some cool music. I've also been just looking around for music (on Pandora, on blogs, etc.). So here are the best artists I've heard recently (you can look them up on imeem.com if you want to listen to them, even Rautavaara! If you have problems with imeem, just disable adblock on that site... sometimes there's a price to pay for free music):

• Rautavaara: for people who like the modern side of Shostakovich
• Radio Department: for people who like The Postal Service.
• The Foals: a music child of Of Montreal and Philip Glass? Dude, rad.
  
• Ladytron: think a modern Depeche Mode with a female vocalist. Also, more existential lyrics.
• Origa: Kind of along the Ladytron line, only more Russian and Japanese. She did the opening song for Ghost in Shell... so she's cool.
  
• Laura Veirs: way way cool, think The Decemberists but with a female vocalist (and not as gritty)
• A Hawk and a Hacksaw: Classical folk music? I'm excited to somehow get ahold of their albums. That guy from Beirut has sung with them.
• Devics: I have one of their albums. Great dream-pop (I still don't know what that genre means). It sounds kind of singer-songwriter, but cooler.
• Morcheeba: I found their album Antidote in the BYU library (not to be confused with the Foals's Antidotes). It's... it's got some nightclub-style vocals (not sure what the correct term is, wikipedia says they have blues, pop, rock, and trip hop influences. GREAT). I like their song "Everybody Loves a Loser."
• Gregory Page: He's written some nice ballads and came up on my Beirut Pandora station. His record sounds a little unpolished, but it's a charming sort of unpolished. I'm also amazed at how much of the production he did himself. Let me know if you want to borrow his album Love Made Me Drunk. The only thing I didn't like was the use of flute in one of the tracks. I'm a flutist myself, but I find that a lot of times flute just sounds lame in pop or folk music (sorry... it was a good thought?). Morcheeba used piccolo very effectively on one of their tracks though (it was more of a musical effect than a meldoic part).
  

Guys I am on the path of becoming a snobby music elitist, as we all know that making lists of recommendations is the first step on that primrose path. Yay? Also, feel free to comment with music recommendations. I know ThirdMango sent me a recommendation recently, but I can't remember their name... some European group I think it was. I have yet to check out that Iron and Wine group, and their description sounds cool (folk rock).

Memory loss!

So I was cleaning out my wallet and I found a receipt for $92... I was like, "what the crap did I spend that much money on??" I was a little worried that I had gone out a bought something without my own knowing, or perhaps it was a clue left by my impersonator! So I looked up the company. It was for my glasses. Duh...

Scientific American has an article on blogging: "As social creatures, humans have a range of pain-related behaviors, such as complaining, which acts as a “placebo for getting satisfied,” Flaherty says. Blogging about stressful experiences might work similarly."

Bahahaha

Purge

Now that I am through with classes, I'm terrified that I'll be bored. I always manage to keep myself busy though - I have lots of books I want to read, movies and shows to watch, instruments to learn, and skills to master (in this case... piano technician skills). I really don't like my job (data entry), but I'm good at it, it pays well, and I currently have no replacement, so I feel a little stuck there.

Lately I've been trying to get rid of clothes that don't fit me... I had all these shirts that were too wide and the sleeves were too short, and I was very glad to purge myself of them. Unfortunately I'm still having difficulty replacing them, probably because I never go shopping for clothes unless I'm at DI. Speaking of which, I recently bought a bunch of cool books at DI for way cheap. Yeats for $1! I am so excited.

I recently finished downloading the docudrama "The Doctor Who Hears Voices." I haven't seen it yet, and I'm afraid it will be really cheesy. I mean, docudrama, come on! It sounds like it's in the same genre as mockumentary or soap opera.

Memories of friend's houses in childhood

I was listening to a radio show on Proust this afternoon, and today I seem to be remembering my childhood. Specifically, friend's houses.

My neighbor friend, Jeff, had a house that smelled like cinnamon, and his mom made great sugar cookies. We played this board game, I think it was called Labyrinth, and it had pictures of little monsters. In the summer sometimes we'd go outside, and once I had a cherry tomato, although I was disappointed that it didn't taste like a cherry. After Christmas one year, Jeff got a lego castle set. It had a drawbridge you could open and close. There were copper dough molds on the walls, and they had a copper-colored dog named Rusty.

Summer afternoons, we would eat macaroni and cheese out on the patio (this is a different friend). They had a picnic bench with an umbrella, for shade, and it was always in the wrong spot. After lunch we would get otter pops from the freezer in the garage. There was a kid's table that had a scratch n' sniff sticker on each corner. I was always trying to sniff the pizza-flavored one. We made miniature golf courses in the sandbox. It was cool when we could make an arch that the ball could go over and under. There was a large bush on the hill, and we would play in it and on it. It was kind of prickly though. Their computer was in his parent's room, and it was right next to a window, so his mom could see from the backyard if we were still playing a game.

At Lisa's we would often play super Nintendo together. We played Super Mario Bros. 3 and Donkey Kong 2. We also played Aladdin. I was never very good at the games, probably due to my lack of practice time. She had lots of Barbie dolls that we would play with, and we would trade Sailor Moon cards from the quarter machine in Toys R Us. Her mom had a collection of elephant figurines that we would look at sometimes. There was one made of pewter, supposedly cursed, that looked like it might steal your soul. Once I started eating a huge bowl of Honey Bunches of Oats, but my mom came over before I could finish it. I felt really bad about that. During one of Lisa's sleepovers we did a play of the movie "Chucky," which I had never seen. I was a very good actress and screamed quite convincingly.

Books want to be read, research says

New research from the University of Winnapeg in Teluma, Kentucky shows that books are designed to make the reader want to finish them. "Chapters are shorter and end in cliff-hangers. These are all designs to keep readers feeling like they're covering a lot of ground and to keep them curious about what happens next," says Dan Sharpe, first author of the article entitled "Ways books help themselves: The changing novel in the 21rst century."

"Back in the day, books only had to have an interesting first five pages. Now readers expect an interesting first 100 pages." Sharpe says this increasing demand from books is the result of our fast-paced electronic era. Steven Bloom, a used bookstore owner from Lehardia, agrees: "You can now find book reviews in a few seconds using the Interweb. It makes it much more difficult to sell a book that might be more difficult to read."

However, the advent of the Internet has also allowed book buyers to find more books they want to read, with GoodReads, online book groups, and Amazon's "if you liked that you will like this" feature. Time can only tell what the future of the novel holds.

Easily confused things

-Sons and Lovers and Fathers and Sons (and "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers," at some point)
-Mel Brooks, Mel Gibson, and Garth Brooks
-"onomastic" and "onanistic"
-Kuragin and Karagin in War and Peace
-Bob Marley and Bob Dylan... until you realize that one is totally reggae and the other is folk rock!
-Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix (they both have... rare letters in their names!)
-All The King's Men and All The President's Men
-Dr. Zhivago and Dr. Strangelove (people? books?)
-"Cat's Cradle" the Cat Stevens song and Cat's Cradle the Vonnegut book
-Virgil, vigil, and virginal
-etymology and entymology
-Guns and Roses and Iron and Wine
-philandering and philanthropy
-Bob Dylan and Dylan Thomas
-fornication and formication
-other things that I will think of and add later

research paper... on fiction?

I'm attempting to put together a research paper about Anna Karenina, specifically, the psychology of Anna and Kitty's illnesses, which are caused more by psychosocial stress than anything physical. But stress affects people physically! That is the least of my worries. I feel weird saying that characters in a novel exhibit features of a mental illness. Am I trying to diagnose a made-up person? The world of fiction is separate from ours! I am imposing science's reality on Tolstoy's diagetic reality, and it isn't jiving with me. "Not jiving" is a poor excuse though, so I'm going to have to write the paper anyway, even though I disagree with the whole idea.

Why am I having such a hard time with this paper? My last research paper practically birthed itself, although then I was mostly summing up research rather than analyzing a text with the analysis supported by research. The two epistemologies are so different! Writing this paper is like trying to explain why we like apples by putting a slice under a microscope and describing its structure. It's just so much easier and makes so much more sense to be superficial... the apple tastes good because it's sweet, there. Granted, it doesn't take up 12 pages...

Too late

Why didn't anyone tell me about this last October??

Destination: Uncertain

I didn't make it into any of the graduate programs I applied to. I wasn't surprised, because they're very competitive, but all the people who were said, "you'll get in somewhere!" were like, "what!?" So I don't know what to do with my life now. I'm not sure if I even want to go to graduate school, it was just the next step in the path I was headed. It's really frustrating. I felt like this was like my destiny in life. So I'm considering reapplying, maybe not this year since not much will have changed, but maybe the year after. Maybe I could join the peace corps and my knowledge of Russian would actually come in handy. Maybe I could just work odd jobs... I don't know, learn how to tune pianos (I think instrument repair would be really fun). Or I could become a wandering street musician. Or a bum? A life of no connections is kind of appealing in a way... the Buddhist dream! Maybe I'll just keep my part-time job as long as possible, and in all my free time just read books and play video games. I could do some volunteer work to pad my Vitae for grad school... but yeah, I have no idea. It's kind of exciting! but also, really annoying. Suggestions about things I would excel at?

Princess Maker

Recently I have been playing a game that I used to play when I was younger called Princess Maker 2. Now, before you go about dismissing the game because of its really girly title, just give it a chance. I recently had my daughter grow up to be a fighter hero! I am seriously addicted to this game and usually end up spending more than an hour playing it once I've started. Sometimes I think about it in my spare time! This is a bad sign... but it is soooo cool. I'm starting to wish that my life were like princess maker and that going to school would raise my intelligence points and stuff. Would psychology classes raise my sensitivity? Maybe they would lower my refinement. Would successfully preparing a new recipe increase my cooking stats? Maybe going on dates would increase my charisma! Okay, seriously I need to do something else. I want to get the queen ending though, and I tried the wrong strategy on my character. I raised her sensitivity so she could talk to the monsters instead of fighting them and now she runs away all the time (running away decreases her reputation in everything, plus then she can't work or go to school that month). So much for that!

Being Ill: A Cautionary Tale

Back in September I had some mild atelectasis (partially collapsed lung). Since atelectasis almost always results in infection, I took some antibiotics to guard against getting sicker. At the time I didn't think much of it - mostly I was glad for the codeine to quiet my cough and the breathing treatment. It was nice to have a few days off from school and play some super mario, and I had a pretty optimistic outlook about recovering.

So, I recovered, but I had some other crappy health problems (literally crappy... bowel problems). I didn't really do anything about it for a month or so, because hey, sometimes bowels are just irregular! Then in December my doctor says I have a staph infection and refers me to a specialist, who, just yesterday, told me that my infection is gone! Yay. Unfortunately my symptoms are not gone, and I am the proud sufferer of post-infectious irritable bowel. FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE! So, if you ever take antibiotics, remember to eat yogurt or something while you're taking it so you don't get an intestinal infection and then irritable bowels for the rest of your life, like what happened to me.

On the bright side, I will always have an excuse to be irritable!

This pity party is over!

wildlife

In the mornings I enjoy watching birds at the bird feeder. I think it rained last night and I could see mist evaporating into the morning sun. I breathed in some of the outside air, and it was like a sauna, only refreshingly cool instead of sweat-inducingly hot. A small murder of crows walked around in the front yard as a squirrel dug in the grass. How picaresque!

Even though I'm enjoying my break, I'll be glad to come home on Friday. There is someone I've been missing!

Briefcase

Recently I have tried not to covet after expensive things. It gets easier after time, especially if you can just buy something if you really want it. However, I was definitely struggling yesterday when I decided to do some browsing on leather briefcases. Who knew that professional accessories could be so expensive!

Why briefcases? Well, I decided that I'll be going into the real world soon, or at least the graduate school world, and I want something that looks a little more professional than my backpack I've had since high school. I do have a canvas shoulder bag that looks a little more fashionable, but not necessarily more professional. When I interview I want to have my Vitae ready in a container that says "contemporary academic" yet "not too concerned about expensive clothing; can live off of a small stipend." I've set my heart on the turn-of-the-century European-looking briefcases. What else could set a better impression on old professors than a combination of youth and classic style? Nothing! So, I may have to work an extra ten hours some week, or beg my parents for this necessary article, but it will be worth it.

But what is this interest I have in resurrecting old things into our modern era? I'm quite sure it's not unique - I mean, other people are interested in wrought-iron curly fences and calligraphy pens with changeable nibs! Maybe it's nostalgia for a time we never knew, that we feel had to be simpler and therefore better. Is this more past-centrism? Only time will tell. For now, I still fantasize about getting one of these leather briefcases and carrying it out on a hike with me, complete with a metal (not plastic!) thermos, binoculars, a hard cover bird-watching guide with color, hand-drawn plates, an apple and a sandwich in a tin lunch pail, a wooden bird whistle, and no cell phone.

Next Bestseller

I just thought of the next Bestseller! The only problem is, I haven't written it yet. It would be like a handbook and arranged alphabetically, and the title would be "How to Tell if Someone's Faking..." Entries would include "limping," "social status," "love," and "illness (mental or otherwise)." Someone just has to write it now and give me the credit! (This has always been one of my favorite webpages on lying. Not the most credible, but hey!)

100th Post

I feel that since this is my 100th post, it should be somehow special... but let's face it! All my entries are homogeneously Whistler-written.

In case you didn't catch the gossip, yes, my boyfriend and I broke up... for a total of four days! As I told my mother and other unsympathetic ears, they were the longest four days of my life! I even wrote this depressing poem in my Russian journal for the occasion. I didn't want to tell anyone because I think I was in denial, or something. Maybe you're wondering why we even broke up? Well... I'm not exactly sure why... but let's just say I wasn't being a paragon of reason. I was getting really nervous about dedicating the next six or seven years of my life to graduate school. I mean, what if I decide halfway through that I don't like it? I guess I could quit. But I really dislike not finishing things I start.

Well, that and losing 10 pounds to that intestinal infection are the big things in my life. Oh, do you ever start walking, and realize that there are people all around you? I mean, individuals, who have lives and parents and people who love them and everything. Sometimes I try to look at people's eyes and think about that. Maybe we're exchanging biophotonic particles (through our eyes?)! So reading dinosaurcomics has really affected my writing style. I'm using many more exclamation points! But I assure you it is in a semi-sarcastic manner. :-[

I finished reading The Golden Compass again last week. I thought it was good juvenile literature, and that the so-called atheist points were... not that atheistic. Besides, it's another universe/dimension, perhaps they don't have a deity! Okay, the truth is, I had a conversation with some family members about the series and they were all unjustly against it. So out of rebellion and nostalgia, I bought the box set from the BYU bookstore. And it's been so fun to read! I feel all up on popular culture but reaching back to my youth all at once. yay!

It's the weekend!

...and I'm sitting here writing in my blog!

You know how sometimes you think things work a lot more nicely than they actually do? For instance, for some reason, I thought that all webcomics would get as nicely into Google Reader as blogs do. Boy was I wrong (sidenote: dinosaurcomics.com = much fun. It reminds me of the "high-brow, yet low-brow" humor a, erm, friend of mine enjoys. It may even inspire me to change the links on the side)! Also, have you ever filled out a bubble sheet and thought about how a computer will just read it? People have to correct errors on those things. Or when you place an order online and think, great, machines are going to put all my books in a package and send it to me, why does it take so long? It's because people are involved! Bah.

I recently had a conversation with my, ah, friend about how to match clothes. I insist that I have an intuitive sense about what colors match, which includes some heebie jeebie about shirts having the same about of brown or black in them (note: brown and black rarely go together). This site has some theory about color wheels. I think the term analogous is the one I've been searching for. For instance, you probably wouldn't couple autumn orange with lime green, but it might go well with forest green. Also, the army times has some good tips (scroll down), but I'm still going to recklessly wear various shades of green. Personally, my technique is to pull a shirt and pants out of my drawer, imagine what they look like together, and then choose a different shirt.

Also, have you ever had a problem where a shirt is too short? I have a bunch of long-sleeved shirts like this, so I end up wearing t-shirts over them. Then I instantly look like a skater chick (unless of course it is a turtleneck)! Another way to combat this problem is to always wear a sweater over or around the offensive skin. So uncomfortable! My pants are frequently too short as well; I've taken to just ripping out the seam at the bottom... I mean hey, the frayed look is in now, even if it is against the honor code (but the bookstore was selling frayed clothes/shoes! Such hypocrisy! (/irony)). Uh... bye now.

Great day

This morning was interesting. I slept for 10 hours and then grudgingly got up at 8am to go to a work meeting at 9. My roommate had a puzzle on the table, so I ate breakfast on my table. I also put my fresh gallon of milk on this table. Perhaps you can see where this is going... my table has about a 30 degree incline (darn writing desk), and midway through my second bowl of cereal, the milk slid off the table and onto the floor, spilling a good two cups of milk on the floor. First I was worried about losing this milk, but then I realized I had to clean it up. So, since I was running late, I biked to school. No one showed up for the meeting, and I was starting to get upset until I realized it was scheduled for next week. I then spent the next four* hours working on my statistics take-home test.

*or three, or two and a half, I don't really know


So, another thing I tried to do today was to cook a sweet potato. I worked out okay, and I ate the whole thing, but I managed to burn some brown sugar on the bottom of the pan. Go me! Also, I have either styes in my eyes or pinkeye. Hooray!

Um... it's November... and I need to get my applications together...

Playlist

So, today, for fun, I decided to make a playlist of kind of depressing and deathly songs, but not too depressing. Maybe what one might listen to after hearing about the death of an old friend. It's still in the works. I'm going for detached contemplation rather than in-your-face angsty. I'm thinking of taking out the Franz Ferdinand (I've already taken out, well, many songs). I consider this a bit of a landmark for me - knowing enough about popular music to make a playlist. Yet I know I still know very little about the genre. Suggestions welcome.

1. Death Cab for Cutie - What Sarah Said
2. My Brightest Diamond - Disappear
3. Sufjan Stevens - To the workers of the rock river valley region...
4. Franz Ferdinand - Fade Together
5. Radiohead - How to Disappear Completely
6. Yann Tiersen - Comptine d'un autre... (from Amelie)
7. Sufjan Stevens - Casmir Pulsaki Day
8. The Decemberists - Of Angels and Angels
9. Coldplay - The Hardest Part
10. Radiohead - Street Spirit (Fade Out)

A Dollar Buys Impulse

Yesterday I had a very, very strong urge to buy an accordion. I was looking at some deals on eBay and thought that maybe I could get one (including shipping) for $50 or so. Then I thought, who knows in what condition it's in? Would I ever have time to learn how to play it? If I couldn't figure it out on my own, where would I find a teacher? How would I take it with me to graduate school? Where would I practice, and could I lug it all the way to the HFAC? If I decided to do street performing, would I really want to go all that way to Salt Lake? I finally talked myself out of it.

Then this morning I was walking through the bookstore on my way to work. I thought, "hey, my birthday was recently, I could buy myself something else other than that calligraphy set." I walked over to the classics section and decided $24 was way, waaay too much to pay for a book in the public domain. However, the Dover Thrift section really tempted me. For a minute I was about to buy Walden, Madame Bovary (both of which I have read), and Flatlands. I think it would have amounted to seven or eight dollars total. But I withstood this impulse: I've already read those books, and besides, I already own several books I haven't read yet (Don Quixote and volume two of Proust's Rememberance of Things Past chief among them). I could probably buy the books more cheaply at Moe's if I really wanted them.

Then this evening I went to the grocery store. I was about to buy a can of chili for a dollar, but told myself that I already had a few cans of chili and plenty of Ramen. Finally a deal presented itself that I didn't resist. A Hershey's Symphony bar (are candy bar names italicized?) for a dollar. And yes, I did have about 6 candy bars at home I hadn't eaten yet. Did I lose self-control for a moment? Did my impulse get the better of me? I don't really care. And this candy bar tastes sooooo good.

Use of tomatoes

My grandma frequently gives me food items that I don't really know how to use. Tomatoes are one such thing like this. I love tomatoes, but I don't really have any lettuce to make a really good sandwich with them. So this morning I made an omelet with a few slices. Verdict: A piece of bread with a tomato omelet is necessary. I wonder if you can fry plain tomato slices, and if they would taste good? Tomato chips?

Uses of tomato sauce (cont.)

So, last week I made a strange dish I'd like to call "lazy man's raviolis." It consists of those shell pasta things, chili, and tomato sauce. If you're skillful you can get some meat in the pasta and have that tomato sauce savor!

Dreams

Tonight I made a strange soup. It didn't even contain said oregano. However, it did contain tomato sauce, eggs, onions, and the usual vegetables. And now I have a bunch of leftovers and a stomachache.

I had a dream last night. I was on a mountain of evil, and I was trying to get away. There was a shortcut, but I had to say goodbye to the mountain and bite my wrists as I slid down to the water below. Blood was trailing everywhere. After I swam to a nearby island I thought I would feel better, but I didn't.

A dream I didn't have, but I should have, went like this. I was in Japan appreciating all the foreign-ness of the surroundings. I even ate some sushi (apparently I forgot that I am allergic to it). I ate a lot of rice too. Unfortunately I had a plane ticket for the next week, even though I was really enjoying myself. I decided to stop eating all the good Japanese food so I would miss it less when I went home. Then I became very unhappy.

A dream I didn't have, and shouldn't have had, went like this. As a rabbit with myxomatosis, I was isolated from all of the other rabbits until I went blind. Then I died.

So, the new Radiohead album is pretty awesome. It's a little short, which I guess is okay. Optimistic. says that it doesn't feel like an album as a whole, but could be listened to out of order and still make sense. I agree, but the songs on the album have a definite common feel. Kind of like, more electronic, more melodic, more minimalistic. The first listen was good, and I am just getting to like it even better (as we know familiarity breeds liking, in some cases). I did think to myself though, do I just like the songs because it's Radiohead, or is it genuinely cool music? I guess I'll never know... but it's really cool. I think my favorite tracks are "Nude" and "Videotapes."

I am now the proud owner of Mexican oregano. Or, as a friend of mine likes to call it, Mexican "oregano."

Soup

One of the best things about cooking is that I am always discovering new things. For instance, how incredibly easy soup is to make. Sure, peeling all those vegetables takes some time, but there's nothing horribly difficult about it. No strange "only stir for five minutes" or "change pans at least three times" complications. Lately I have been making different kinds of vegetable soup. It's cheap, hot, and healthy (Ramen only fits two of those criteria). I was even able to use up a tomato I didn't know what to do with. It was great on a sandwich but it was really huge so I still had a lot to eat in a short time. I hear that canned tomatoes work just as well though. Another thing I'd like to try is different spice combinations. Currently my spice collection consists of cinnamon and Garlic salt. I should at least have some basil or oregano. Oh, and I definitely want to eat spaghetti next week. Or how would spaghetti sauce taste in a soup (the answer is, it has been tried before)? Or chili? There are so many possibilities that I can try without having an extensive knowledge of chemistry.

I feel like I don't want to tell you about my life. I've returned to this blank blog page again and again, and I can't think of anything I want to share. Selfish me.

My old room

I've been home for a brief break in between the end of summer term and the end of my contract, and I've been staying in my room. The shelves full of books and the pictures on the wall bring back old memories, and the whole room seems like a shrine to my childhood self. Part of me really misses having my own room and a 2nd-story window overlooking a hill full of trees. I look at my old copy of the Aeneid in Latin and wonder how I ever pretended to translate it. My beanie babies on the shelves remind me of how I used to act out plays with them all as characters. They represented different people in my life... I'm a little concerned because the one that represented me is missing. It's like I'm not a part of their group anymore. I'm a stranger in my own room.

They are the same!

This is an announcement: I am not crazy. The melody in the Gorillaz's "Feel Good Inc." is almost identical to the part in No Doubt's "Comforting Lie" where she sings "I am Jekyll I am Hyde." And you know who came first? No Doubt. I wonder if it's a small enough similarity to be legal. (The part about not being crazy is where my roommate didn't believe me while I searched frantically, remembered the tune, but not the lyrics.)

google chat conversation as poetry

I can tell you a story about something disguisting I ate

remember how I bought that Rice Roni?
I bought it because it had the Golden Gate Bridge on the box.

ah, yes?

well I fixed it tonight

it said to saute the rice and vermicelli

so I did

then I was supposed to put in some water

and I almost burned myself

with all the steam

when it was finally done I was really hungry

but it was so salty

and the vegetables were dubiously real

and not very present

I ate half a bowl while watching TV

(and I can eat some pretty gross things while watching TV)

and I couldn't take anymore

it was an insult to my tastebuds

I should throw out the rest

No Dark Sarcasm in the Classroom

Suddenly all of my bark has been biting me. That is to say, all the research I have been involved in is suddenly asking me to do things other than attend meetings. This has caused me a little stress over the week, stress that induced me to make some lemon curd today and work 7 hours at work (as you can see I have great procrastination abilities). I'm also worried about my performance in a certain essay-intensive class. The thing is, I hate editing my writing, and I like getting things right on the first or second try. Lack of editing and overfaith in my sheer brilliance have led to some dull grades on essays, and I hope I don't make the same mistakes again.

I started Hofstadter's new book I Am A Strange Loop last weekend. It's great. Possibly more accessible than GEB, but not quite as funny.

Do you ever start thinking about life and think that it's all a charade? I became disillusioned with the music world when I discovered that politics play more of a role than skill at times. I didn't think psychology would similarly disillusion me. I feel so powerless to change anything in the world of psychology, let alone the world at large. I often feel like just another brick in the wall. Like it isn't worth it to actually think things out because it will only make me more unhappy later on if I see others with differing opinions.

Short

I bought new shoelaces yesterday. It was quite exciting. I also bought a pair of men's shorts that was on sale, and I can see why. No self-respecting man would wear these shorts. First, they are grey-black suede. If a man has suede something or other, it's probably going to be a wallet, or perhaps a jacket. Not shorts. The shorts are also impractical. There is no button-zipper mechanism, but only a strip of velcro (I can only imagine what difficulty this presents for the standing-up fashion of relief). To make matters worse, there is only one side pocket, and a lacey shoelace to mask the velcro. Don't you just love ugly clothes?

Hospital

Q: What do you call a psychotherapist who says that the far side of the moon is responsible for your primative urges?

A: A Neo-Floydian


So my adventures continue. On the fourth of July I was watching the fireworks from right behind the stadium, and unfortunately, I caught a burning ember with my eye. I had to go to the doctor's to get the ember out, and then see an ophthalmologist to determine that yes, there was nothing else in my eye, but it appears to be burned.

The ophthalmologist had a curious instrument, full of mirrors, lights, and lenses. I guess it could have been a phoropter, I should have asked. I wonder what my cornea looks like. I secretly like going to the doctor. I like waiting in the room and looking at all the bottles on the shelves and wondering what is in the drawers (after I've been to an office a few times, I usually garner enough courage to open the drawers and gaze at long, slender, stainless steel instruments). I like looking at other patients in waiting rooms and guessing what they're in for. Sometimes it's fun to look at the old magazines in the waiting rooms and see which articles are the most-thumbed. I'll bet the nurses have secret codes for things too.

Summer and school... great

As depressing as my work is sometimes, I try hard to make it funny. Unfortunately making fun of suffering people usually makes me look callous.

I don't really like my classes so far. They're at awkward times in the days and my teachers aren't super amazing or anything. Sometimes I still get frustrated that so many people have studied the art of teaching and how to teach in such a way as to make learning quicker and easier, and yet rarely do teachers actually use all this knowledge. I myself am guilty of this, which makes it all the more frustrating. I don't know why I'm taking classes this term, I should have taken some time off to just read books and study for the GRE. I'm tired of always having to be somewhere.

It's not really that bad of a life and I don't mind it. For one, I'm ungrateful. For two, listening to a lot of the same arguments is getting old. I should be more patient.

I was making a wishlist the other day. A very impractical one. It includes a lab coat, a typewriter (one of those classy manual ones), bowling shoes, and classic novels I have not yet read or purchased. Buying more books is problematic, because I already have six or seven books I still haven't read. Sometimes the acquiring of an object is more fun than actually using it though. I should explain the lab coat too. I pass them every time I walk through the book store. I think it would be hilarious sometime to show up to psychology research meetings in a lab coat. Maybe I could put cool things in the pockets, like... pencils for filling out questionnaires, rat chow, mini inkblot cards, and a pocket watch for hypnosis (kidding... there are better ways).

A pocket watch has long been an object of slight coveting for me (check out this baby). My $7 Target watch finally broke. Well it was just the straps, so I've been carrying around the actual clock portion like a pocket watch. Sometimes it's more convenient than a wristwatch, but a lot easier to lose. If you put a watch on your desk, it doesn't look as rude to the professor when you check the time. Pocket watches are also loads classier than wristwatches, although I've seen some nice wristwatches in my lifetime.

To complete the victorian entourage that comes with typewriters and pocket watches (or did they have typewriters back then), I would probably also have to have a nice pen and an inkwell to go with it, and perhaps some stationary so I could sit a write letters all day by candlelight. Sounds terribly boring, doesn't it? Gears are just so much nicer than batteries, I say. They should make an mp3 player that you can crank instead of putting batteries in it.

Care

Lately I've taken to appearing not to care about my studies. Someone will ask, "Aren't you worried about all your assignments that are due?" And I'll reply, "I'll worry about it when it comes up." The thing is, I really do care about my classes, but I wish I didn't care so much. Discontent with one's accomplishments can be a blessing though. While it prevents me from enjoying some of my free time, it also prevents me from wasting much of that time. At the very least, appearing as though I don't care will instill in others either contempt, a sense of awe, or help them feel calmer about their own studies.

Oh, summer term, you are so close. With your eager, just-graduated freshmen and your workaholic, no-nonsense seniors... teachers who are wearing shorts and cut the hard parts out of the syllabus. EFers running all around, and the hot sun beating on your back. Running through sprinklers on midnight strolls in the dark heat. Laying on the couch with ice in your mouth because the heat can't be beat. Ahh...

Privileged

Now that my honors thesis proposal has finally been approved, I get to check out books from the HBLL for 13 weeks at a time instead of 3. It was so worth it (granted, I'll be checking out more books like Watership Down, but hey, it always takes me more than 3 weeks to get started on these things).

Bass

How people interact is quite fascinating, because it's only predictable within a large behavior set.

You know, I feel incredibly blessed. I've been able to learn from a lot of people in my life (and a lot of books too, come to think of it).

So, me and the bass boost option have been at odds for some time. I refused to use bass boost because, well, that was artificially making the bass more prominent, and that means the music is not the same. Well, it turns out that the threshold for hearing low notes occurs at a higher volume than for mid and high notes. I knew this before, but it came up in one of my classes. So basically, if you're listening to a CD player at a low volume, you need bass boost to even hear those notes. Now I use bass boost, and I have no qualms about it. Yay!

Hot Dog!

I think the title is sufficient explanation.

Hot Plates

Hot plates are undoubtedly very useful. Not only can they be used as a scientific heating device, but they make stove top cooking more portable and convenient than a microwave. I imagine that, had I a hot plate, I could enjoy freshly warmed chili during class by strategically sitting near an outlet. I could warm my hands rapidly on a chilly day, and I could have a space heater for my room. Just think of all the possibilities. I bet you want one too.

Today I ate a combination of foodstuffs that managed to satiate me before it disappeared. It consisted of a baked potato, rice, and chili. And some tortilla chips.

Muse

Confession: I really like the band Muse. They are performing a concert at the UVSC auditorium in September. Does anyone want to take me? I will pay for my own ticket! Please comment or send me an email. I'd really like to go!

complaints

why did I eat a whole bag of kettle korn
now I feel fat

one debt I do not mind working to pay
is a sleep debt
unless I have midterms

why is there television online
there is a reason I don't have a TV

toothpastefordinner
makes me want to write dumb things
so I can giggle at them

Groceries

I went to work for over four hours today. That's not too bad, but I hadn't worked that long before. I kind of felt like this:

toothpastefordinner.com


So in other news... I think I am not eating enough vegetables because I'm getting dark spots under my eyes. I've heard that such things can be caused by vitamin K or iron deficiencies. I pretty much just eat grain and dairy... so I should probably learn how to cook meat or something. I was thinking of getting some meat today but I find the meat sections of stores really intimidating, not to mention that meat is a heck of a lot more expensive than bread. Today feels like Saturday. That's kind of cool because it will be like I have two Saturdays in one week.

I've been checking out lots of CDs from the music library. It makes me feel cultured. I went shopping today with my own grocery cart for the first time. Food is really expensive. Especially when you buy fancy things like a potato masher. I went when I was really hungry and I was really proud of myself for limiting my purchase to under thirty dollars (so I made more than I spent today, yay!). I did buy a piece of chocolate cake for $0.75 though. I felt justified because it was on the clearance rack. Hopefully it doesn't taste too much more worse than it looks. I think it has a gold leaf on it too. I'm excited to see if that's edible.

One thing I am really scared of is running out of milk. I think I drink a gallon in a little less than a week. That means my grocery day would have to be staggered, or I would have to go through periods of overlap between gallons. The other day I was at work and one of the... erm... grown-ups at work saw me in the hall and made me drink the rest of the milk she had brought with her. It was really good. They have their own milkman deliver milk every week. I didn't even know milkmen existed anymore. That made me happy. Also, toothpastefordinner makes me happy. I want to pace myself so I don't rid myself of all the novelty of the archives at once. It also makes me want to start my own webcomic, although I know that it wouldn't support my eating habit. *sigh*

Secret Room

Felicity had a mansion to herself. It had many rooms, which she enjoyed exploring. Even limiting herself to the west wing, she was occupied for many days. Some rooms had extravagant tapestries and pictures in them. Others were somewhat bare. She had a hard time staying in either kind of room. She wasn't very expensive or plain herself. One day she came upon a room that was different from the others. It was in the corner, and the windows were covered with heavy drapes. For a while she had to use a candle in the room. The ceiling wasn't too high or low, and the chairs were not too soft or hard. Goldilocks would have liked this room. She didn't consider it her favorite though. She liked the ballroom and the billiards room. Despite her lack of outward preference for the room, she found that it appeared more often in her wanderings. It was so convenient that she started spending more and more time there. She figured out how to use the drapes and let some light in. She discovered that the room was much more delightful than she had at first thought. There were many books in the room, some of which she had read and enjoyed and others which she started reading and also enjoyed. The carpet was also a wonderful rich color which she hadn't noticed with just the candlelight. The chairs which at first had seemed a little unwelcoming were now the most comfortable in the mansion. She would stare at the pictures on the walls for hours. She was always reluctant to leave when she had to go to her bedroom for the night.

On a particularly sunny day, Felicity started closely examining the floor, which was made of wooden boards. She rolled back the carpet and started looking at the grain of the wood. It was a good grain, unexpected in such a room. One board stuck out to her. Yes, it was a loose board. It contained a box with a single pearl in it. She felt like it was the room's gift to her and she started carrying it with her in her pocket constantly. She didn't find anymore loose boards though, and eventually put the carpet back in its proper position (but with the smug knowledge that she knew it was hiding something).

She had not discovered all the room's secrets though. Next to one of the bookcases were two metal grooves. She had puzzled over this for several weeks when she realized their purpose. She pushed the bookcase and it rolled in the grooves. Behind it was a door. The door had a window in it, through which she could see another sunlit room. This room was in the tower on the corner, so its windows surrounded the room. It had a bed in it and some very interesting-looking books. She wanted very much to enter the room, but the lock held fast. She still spent much time in the room, searching for the key or just thinking about what it would be like to live in the secret room. She wrote to her father asking if he knew where the key was and if she could use the room. All he wrote was, "The room is not ready for you, and you are not ready for that room." Visiting the room became difficult yet exciting to her. Sometimes she would try to pick the lock, but without success. Eventually she was worried that she would try to break the door and thus ruin the room. Not wishing to mar her favorite room, she left it one day and nailed it shut. She really missed it, but she tried not to think about it. After a few weeks she wanted to check on the room to see how it was doing. She pulled the boards off the door and walked in. It was the same room, but she felt like she couldn't stay long. The shelves were a little dusty from being left alone so long. Without even rolling the bookcase over she knew the secret room was there, waiting for her. She left with a sigh and bolted the room. She walked back to her room feeling resigned, gripping the small pearl. Then she cried.

Update

So in the last week I quite literally had one of the crappiest days ever. Yes, I had stomach flu, and it affected my GI tract. I'm sorry if any of you had to hear about it.
I got my grades from winter semester. It was pretty much my worst semester for grades, but it really wasn't that bad, considering everything I was doing at the time and how much I procrastinated work for ALL of my classes. Classes for this term aren't extremely exciting. One of my classes goes for three hours straight twice a week. Hopefully I won't die of boredom. My conducting class should be good though. I feel like having taken it might make my callings a little more predictable.
So, I'm in my own place now, with [a writer who shall remain unnamed]. We party it up all the time. My brother comes over frequently and it's kind of fun to see him a little more. I like being a little more independent. Mostly I just like eating whatever I want, whenever I want, and not having to be home at a certain time for dinner or else incurring the wrath of someone. So... yeah. Also, Tangerine is in our ward. Fun times.

Shoes

I went shopping for some tennis shoes today. I biked down to Shopko on a grand adventure. I feel so indecisive about buying shoes. It feels like I'm making a major life decision. I mean, whatever shoes I buy will end up being a major part of my life and identity. I ended up buying two pairs of shoes, which means my total is seven pairs of shoes. I don't know why I buy things when I don't especially need them. I did need tennis shoes though, for my upcoming racquetball class. They're these white shoes with a blue stripe (bent at about a 75 degree angle). I had trouble finding cheap shoes with arch support, so I might just buy new arch supports to use in shoes. Maybe ones that are thinner than the Dr. Scholl's ones I have. The other pair was a little bit of an impulse buy. I wanted a flat pair of summer church shoes that would cover my toes, so I bought a pair. I think having cash from selling books increases by chances of buying things. Oh well, at least I don't go shopping often.

Data and I broke up Tuesday. I miss him.

Pound - #

So, yesterday at work I was unpacking everything, and I discovered that we had lost our voicemail password. I called OIT to see what I could do about it, and they reset it for me. I tried manipulating the system to set my own password, but the phone began acting very strangely. It would ask me for unrelated things like my ID or last name. So I called OIT back up. Halfway through my conversation with them, I had a revelation:

Me: Wait, I have a dumb question.
OIT guy: Okay.
Me: Is the pound key the star one or the number sign?
OIT: Um... it's the number sign.
Me: OH... that was probably the problem. Sorry to bother you for such a dumb reason.
OIT: No problem.

Yeah, I felt smart.

Top 10 Artists

More not studying

This morning and afternoon were very painful. So painful, in fact, that I had to watch 8 episodes of The Office in order to get through them. I had a science final and I had already studied my brains out. The questions were so ridiculus that, had I spent that time studying more, I would not have done any better on the final. Example:

Which is true, A or not A?
A) Always A
B) Always not A
C) All of the above

That is just ridiculous. Talk about learned helplessness. Usually I feel like studying more will help me, but not so in this case. I was very anxious, and usually I'm not that nervous for tests. Two more finals left (essays). Hopefully I can do something about it tomorrow. Maybe I'll watch some more online TV instead.

Not Studying

Now I am Not Studying. I had lunch at the MOA today. Yummmm... cheesecake...

So, I've been casually packing when I have a spare minute. I realized that some of my heavy textbooks are not going to be able to go in a flimsy cardboard box. Should I just use my suitcase? Distribute said textbooks among other boxes containing lighter things?

Oh, and I want to add that I think it is amazing how much stuff I have accumulated. I started out with 2 suitcases, a backpack, and 2 boxes of stuff. Now I have like... 10 boxes of stuff. Where did it all come from? Have I really been buying that much stuff? It's true that there are many books I never sold back... and a bunch of books I brought along after various visits home... but this is ridiculous. Why do I need the short stories of Guy de Maupassant? Goethe's Faust? I am such a sucker for pretty old books (another reason to keep me away from book sales and used book stores). Hopefully I can find a cheap bookshelf (or... I could just keep them in boxes).

I just answered some Board questions! They weren't the best answers... but someone needed to give some lame answers to cut down on the inbox.

A Lion's Meal

Today for a class of mine we all went up to Salt Lake for a luncheon. I was in the car with my professor, and his driving made me really nervous. I thought for sure we were going to crash. Utah drivers...

I had a four course lunch today. It was amazing. The first course was a shrimp cocktail (I think that's what it's called). It consisted of some shrimp and lettuce and sauce. The second course was a salad that was really amazing... lettuce, cherry tomato, and other salad-y things. The main course was crepes and rice. The crepes had chicken and pineapple in them, which was amazing. There were rolls too. I love rolls, and these were especially good rolls, with honey butter. Dessert was strawberry cheesecake. It was so delicious. I didn't think I could eat that much, but I totally polished off every dish. Needless to say, I wasn't especially hungry for dinner today. I think that's the first time I've had a multiple-course lunch. Um... yeah, it was amazing.

That reminds me of another multiple-course meal I attended last week - the BYU Seder service. I was so full that the next day I ate like... one full meal. I also drank a lot of grape juice, and when you put it in a wine glass, it tastes really good. I was a little disappointed that we didn't have lamb though. I haven't eaten lamb before.

My blog just shrank

So... I decided to save some posts as drafts. I was feeling insecure about the security of my identity.

Toilet Talk

Toilets in Utah amaze me. They rarely get plugged up, even though it often looks like they're about to overflow. There must be a few gallons of water in there. California has some regulations on toilets, so they can't use as much water (which means they plug up easier). That must be one of the reasons Canada's top illegal export is toilets (the things you learn in American Heritage!).

The problem with Utah toilets is that when they DO get plugged up, there's so much water in there that they're bound to overflow. I found this out the hard way a few days ago (the same morning that my shoelace broke, my cheese was moldy, and I got a piece of pollen stuck in my eye). Isn't it interesting that humans defecate in water? I should hope that such an activity doesn't occur very often in the wild. I guess it is the easiest way to get rid of something or varying... um... viscosity and concentration.

I went to the dentist a week and a half ago, and while filling out my personal information sheet the week before, I contemplated how much we trust dentists. My account number? My mother's social security number? Have I ever been on drugs for mental illness? Why does a dentist have to know these things? This dentist also kind of creeps me out. He has these pictures of people with cheesy smiles on the walls. I would be much more impressed with a Van Gogh print or something.

I finally turned in my IRB form for my honors thesis (again). I was so nervous. I hate paperwork. I wish I could just do experiments without anyone approving them.

So, I said goodbye to my red shoes today. One had a hole in the bottom. I didn't want their life to be completely wasted, so I took one apart. There were these card-stock kind of layers in the heel and the toe to keep them from just smooshing around. There were also a few layers of gauzy stuff, for insulation I suppose. There were only two pieces of metal in the whole thing, and they were little round bits to hold the rubber part to the part under where the insole is glued. Um... yeah, it was fun.

Shoes

I have a thing about shoes. It's not a fetish, because they don't sexually arouse me, but I definitely appreciate a good-looking shoe. One example is the male dress shoe, particularly the black Oxford type. They are just so darn attractive, it seems like a normal-looking person wearing good-looking shoes can gain about 50 hotness points just by wearing the right kind of footwear.

I'm not sure why I like leather foot coverings so much. I remember in particular an instance where my attraction increased curiously to a nice pair of shoes. Back in high school, I played flute. The kid who played piccolo sat next to me, and we were friends. He was also gay, so there was no way I was going to have a crush on him. Yet when he wore his black oxfords to a concert, I thought, "Wow. Those shoes have made you extremely attractive, even though your sexual orientation decreases your attractiveness to me." I didn't say that though. I probably said something like "nice shoes." I remember being so disappointed that he actually didn't like the shoes that much.

Brown oxfords are also really good-looking. I especially like the 70s type shoe (or maybe it's a 60s style?) where the shape of the sole is like those old-school footprints in Carmen San Diego or something like that (you remember that game, don't you?). I was watching some Franz Ferdinand music videos the other day, and one of the band members was wearing a pair, with those long, thin dress socks and probably like a shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a thin black tie with a vest. Um... yeah, it was really hot. You have to have the right hairstyle to go with it though. While oxford shoes can redeem someone with a crew cut, they look much better on someone with a haircut that has some bangs or something. Like the Beatles or someone.

I'm not really sure which color brown I prefer, although I suppose it really depends on the pants. The darker brown to my left here would go nicely with khaki, dark brown, or maybe even navy pants. The lighter brown above would go swell with some olive pants. Ones that aren't too baggy. Actually, I think they would go well with anything. I almost want a pair for myself, although that would drastically decrease the novelty of hot shoes. Oh man. I wish all the guys I knew had nice shoes so I'd have something good to look at when I talk to him. Erm... I mean, I always make eye contact when I'm talking to a guy. ;-)

Fish Soup

I fell asleep reading my science textbook, and then when my roommate woke me up at 6 I didn't know if it was morning or night. I was so confused.

I have not had any epiphanies this week. I am getting sick of my classes. It would be pretty fun to take off a semester, except not for very long. Every now and then I get sick of the research they do at my work. Like it's going to make a difference.

Sometimes I think that people caught up in alternative medicine are weird. Like every physical problem you have is correlated with a mental problem. I just think that's kind of silly. I'm pretty close-minded I guess. I wonder if my professor reads my blog...

I want a day off, except I am terrified of missing class. To me it's like a sin. Especially since that class time is coming from tithing funds... although if I missed one day of a 3-credit class it would probably be okay, since if I had 3 less credits tuition would cost the same amount. Did that make sense?

I am getting worse at whistling. Sad.

Behavioral Engineering

"I'd just read an article that I'd always meant to write, and I was quite unhappy. But the tracts on Jealousy cured me immediately. They're little masterpieces in behavioral engineering. As a matter of fact, I wrote them." -Frazier, Walden Two

hahaha... interesting how we can cure ourselves.

Pretend someone else wrote this

Data complained that I don't write enough about him on my blog. He's my boyfriend.

Data has yet to go on a mission. That means that our relationship has little hope for a future. We agreed not to have an exclusive relationship. He's very good to me, but we're breaking up at the end of the semester. Sometimes I wish he were an RM. Then things would be different, maybe. Since I know we're going to be estranged, I'm already looking for a replacement, as horrible as that sounds. I'm constantly torn between expressing my affection and repressing it. In my reluctance to admit my conflict, I often say nothing about it. I mean, it really doesn't matter in the long run. Either way, the outcome will be the same.

I don't like joking about Data on my blog. I like my entries to be light-hearted, and if I started writing about how my grandpa is sick or my dad is out of a job, or I got an A on a paper, it just kills the tone. I think the same thing goes for writing about actual relationships. I'll write about them in my real journal, but a blog? No. Some aspects of my life are going to remain personal (although I think I violated that rule of mine in the above paragraph). My blog is selective for a reason: I like to control the information people have about my internet persona. I like distorting the image of myself to something drastically different from who I actually am. I like appearing flirty, thoughtful, and socially ept, even though the opposite is frequently true.

I also feel embarrassed about mentioning readers on my blog. It's just awkward. I mean, if they already read my blog, they don't need to know about the things I did with them, since they were there. Also, it could infringe on their freedom to create an internet persona for themselves. Maybe I shouldn't have quoted Tangerine's shocking advice about getting over a kissing phobia. Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned my presence at the Board booth. To me it's fine to mention people who will never read my blog, but to mention readers, or even people my readers know... that's something I'm not as comfortable with. Maybe it's just me.

Variation

So, Uffish and I went and got contracts for the place we're going to be living in during S/S. I'm excited. It's a house! With its own little mailbox! Optimus Prime and his wife will be living in the basement beneath us... so we could have some pretty awesome Board parties. Hopefully I'll be able to manage my social life and academic life, unlike I am doing now. I'm leaving more things until the last minute... and I don't even care that much. That kind of thing scares me, because previously I've been very aware and diligent in my schoolwork. I still feel like education is mostly a farce.

So addendum to previous acronym: CAPS is more of a CA?PS. And if I didn't know better, I'd say he's trying to avoid me. He just doesn't know that he's madly in love with me yet... (I say these kinds of things to make myself feel better... just so you know that I'm completely aware of my self-deception). Perhaps CA?PS should now be CUPS (Cute Uninterested Professor's Son). That's the problem with human variables: they change based on one's knowledge of them.

Sentimental

So tonight we had a ward dance, which was somewhat fun... but also awkward. I felt like I was out of the loop and not exactly the coolest. It was a great contrast to when I caught the tail end of a Board party later that night. I don't know... all the Board members are familiar faces, funny, and know who I am. I felt so much more comfortable, and I really enjoyed myself. It's like we're a somewhat dysfunctional, large family. Perhaps I like groups of fifteen as opposed to groups of seventy... but I felt at home with my fellow Boardies. This sounds really cheesy, but it kind of feels like when I move away and change classes, the Board will still be there for me. Hopefully my role as an answerer won't define the rest of me... but I like it, more than a lot of other things I've done. I'll be sad to leave when I graduate next year.

...boring post...

We had the Board booth today. I wore a paper bag and a tie. The RRRR raffled a can of soup. We had trivia contests.

I also went to a presentation by Dr. Slife. It made me feel all existential about science. That feeling is uncomfortable. I like my niche of empiricism.

I changed the layout of my blog today. I like it better now. It's green. It also doesn't feel like a zillion other blogs. A little customization goes a long way. I found a really neat picture (see above) on an old friend's blog. It's gorgeous. Especially if I could fit it in in the original dimensions.

Sadness

I am devastated.

My senior year of high school, I took AP Biology. Everyone had a hard time with this concept called the "action potential." I too had difficulty understanding this concept. So, I made a movie using artpad.art.com's beautiful software. I emailed it to my teacher, and he even showed the class, where I was a 5-second celebrity for my skills. He said it was "pretty damn good."

Flash forward. I am now in a neuroscience class where we are learning about action potential. Hoping to benefit from my high school insanity/devotion, I find the link again in my old, old email. I click. I wait. I turn the speed up to "high." Nothing happens. Could they have erased my masterpiece? I turn to the terms of service:

"Art.com reserves the right at any time to change, modify, add to, discontinue or retire any aspect or feature of the Website or ArtPad including but not limited to storage of the Content, email capabilities, access, server capacity or ability to use on any particular device or communications service."

Why? Why should such a great service be rendered educationally useless?

Tell me if you find a sweet action potential movie.

Research Angst

So I spent the last hour trying to figure out what this article I'm reading was about. I tried to have fun with it. I looked up some of the measures they used and even took them myself (yeah, they were on depression, so... that was depressing). I couldn't find all of them though. I've found that when I want to really understand something THOROUGHLY, I feel like I have to look up every reference and measure and have it in my hands before I REALLY understand it. I guess I'm pretty literal that way. I mean... I rarely actually do look up references, but I also rarely feel like I understand the professional articles I read.

So the ward missionaries came tonight and manipulated me into committing to go to the referral center this Sunday. At least they were cute... but I was in such a bad mood from fruitlessly efforting over that article that I was quite rude. Example:

Man: I don't know why, but I always feel elated after going to the referral center.

Me: It fits into the opponent-process theory of emotion. The a-process is your anxiety of going to the referral center, and the b-process is opposing elation formed to offset the a-process. When the anxiety is gone, you're left with the b-process: elation. It's just like skydiving.

Yeah... I'm kind of a jerk sometimes. I feel bad about that. But after studying behaviorism, sometimes I just feel like everything can be explained somehow and we don't need to wonder why we feel a certain way or not. That's one of the puzzles I feel with life: why do things make sense when I analyze them, but then I'm not satisfied with those explanations? Having logical emotions doesn't make them any more pleasant.

Also, I had the pleasure this morning of attending another research meeting, at which I feel completely useless, and I don't even know why I'm going, other than to make myself even more famous. I guess it's fun to be "in the know" about research in the Taylor building... but seriously, am I going to have a career in this stuff? Even if I do, why should I care about being "successful"? I don't think I can make a difference even with my impressive effort.

POWER

I get a trip on power. Today at work I realized I have admin rights. I'm still a little scared to see just how far my power extends (after all, that would mean it has limits), but today I found a new feature of my power, should I wish to wield it. It's not just at work either. In my childhood and adolescence, I would often press my friends to tell me who they had crushes on. Once I extricated this information from them, I could use it to tease them or threaten to reveal their secret. Watching them squirm as I held a thing of power - a name - was highly enjoyable to me. Sometimes I can make guys squirm just by lightly flirting with them, which is also amusing to me.

Of course, sometimes I am on the receiving end of the squirming. My friends don't really have holds on me this way, but my professors know how to make me blush. It is the oddest thing. I like the attention I get when I'm teased, but I feel so helpless sometimes that I wish to avenge my embarrassment. The only reason they have such power over me is that I care about what they and others think. Ah, how simple.

NT

Oh. My. Goodness. I am even a bigger nerd than I ever thought possible. I just finished making a spreadsheet (a spreadsheet!) of the number of times the General Authorities cited the New Testament, Book of Mormon, and D&C/PGP. I should have included the OT in there too, because now I feel like it wasn't complete. But here's some of the data (don't use any of this for anything official, chances are I miscounted a few):

BoM

NT

D&C/PGP

TOTAL

TOTAL	179	147	120	446
RATIO	0.4	0.33	0.27
Pages	531	403	336
RATIO	0.34	0.36	0.36

This is so exciting! I like it when I can think I'm doing original research!

Breaking Things

I am really a fan of taking things apart, even if it involves breaking them. Hopefully this doesn't reflect the way I interact with others or myself... but ripping plastic does give me a sense of power.

Materials:
1 hopeless watch
1 Responsive Innovations response card (that is useless to me)
needle-nose pliers
small screwdrivers
pocket knife
pocket wrench

I attacked the response card first. I couldn't get the screw off, so I pried off the plastic backing in pieces. The batteries came out nicely (they're lithium Toshibas), but getting the electronic card out from the plastic was a little more challenging. They had screwed it in so the heads of the screws were facing the inside. I pried those off too. Next came the watch. I screwed off the back and found, happily, that the battery inside matched those I had just extracted from the response card. After figuring out how to take off the aluminum clasp I changed the battery, but that didn't help the watch (it must have been because I needed to touch it with AC current for 2 seconds... yeah, I don't have that around). So I gave up on fixing it and took it apart. I was happy to get to the crystal part... er... electronic screen part. Fun fun fun.



Wait... that was a complete waste of 100 minutes! What the heck? What am I DOING? Ugh...

Hmmm

So, in my last post, I mentioned that something I wanted was to get rid of all the clothes I never wear. Today I suddenly had this urge to purge myself from all those clothes, probably because I felt bad about something I did. But the crazy part was when grandpa walked into my room and said, "I'm heading over to DI today, let me know if you have anything you'd like to donate." Would I ever! Let's think of some possible explanations:

1. Coincidence
2. The "law of attraction" which shouldn't be working because I don't believe in it
3. Grandpa is psychic
4. I mentioned something about having too many clothes at dinner sometime

What a puzzle!

What Whistler Wants

In one of my classes we were discussing the law of attraction. The basic idea is that if you think about something a lot you'll get it. I don't believe it. I may have mentioned this before, but when I was a kid, I was convinced that I was going to be teleported to some fantasy land any day. I would spend every night daydreaming about it, and I really believed it would happen. According to the law of attraction, all my attention and belief should have made that a reality, especially given that this went on for several years. I know I'm being unrealistic, but the law of attraction is kind of unrealistic.

However, the teacher of the day requested that we make a list of the things we want. I think this is silly. It's egotistic and vain and against all my ideas about what Really Spiritual people do. Really Spiritual people (and this is my bias) don't care about money, expensive cars, having a tasty sandwich for lunch, or scoring well on the GRE. They care about other people and God's will. Now that I've gotten that out of my system, I'll make that list, since I'm such an obedient student.

What Whistler Wants

• time and desire to read lots of books (specifically, to finish Les Mis and start on or Atlas Shrugged or Walden Two)
• a tasty sandwich
• not money, and not to get married for another year (so far so good)
  
• to be spectacularly healthy
• for it to be green and 50-65 degrees outside (sweater weather)
• to get rid of the clothes I never wear
• to understand the things I'm learning in my classes and remember them for more than a semester
• to find that postcard I had a stamp on and everything but fell out of my back pocket before I reached the mailbox (granted, I had forgotten all about it)
• to be able to sleep less; to be more awake and alert with less sleep
• to score in the top 5% of GRE takers and get into a grad school that is wonderfully famous and will pay me to go there
• to get my honors thesis approved in the last two ways I need and then finish it
  

Oh yes, those are the things I want more than anything, and I'm sure if I had them all I would just be a caseless basket, a bundle of joy, and an amazingly awesome person. No, seriously, if I had all those things, I would probably just as awesome as I am now. Sorry guys.

First day of school

So, last night I didn't sleep well, even though I didn't think I was nervous about the first day of school. I mean, I have had so many first days of school within the past year (four), I should be an expert at this by now, right? Yet I still feel vaguely nasous (no, seriously, I have never felt this poorly about the first day of school before). I had a long nightmare about the first day of school: first I messed up because I did my homework and THEN went to class (so... it was too late for many of my classes... only someone as silly as I am would get that out of order), and then I couldn't find any of my classes. However, my dreams were not prophetic, and I succeeded in sucking up to a good 50% of my teachers. I'm so talented!

A New Year

I've noticed all the New Year's posts on various blogs, and I just have to join in the fun. I have decided to dub 2006 as the Year of Dating. I think I went out with five or six different guys over the course of the year, which is fairly remarkable, considering in 2005 I went out with two. I also had a boyfriend for the first time during the beginning of '06. It was also the Summer of the Rorschach, and the Fall of the Thesis (and I mean "fall" in the punny sense, as a previous post about my IRB approval would reveal). It ought to also be the Fall of Music Education (I've been educated in Coldplay, The Decemberists, U2, Pink Floyd, Joanna Newsome, Muse, Oasis, Erasure, etc.). I'm trying to decide if I've changed much since last year. I definitely have more knowledge, but that's kind of a given. The question is: do I act differently as a result of my knowledge? I'm inclined to say, "No, any progress I perceive is an illusion, and my bad habits will remain even though I know they're awful."

It's been strange to come back to my old room. It's so... high school. I told one of my teachers that I dislike fantasy novels because they're so unrealistic, but looking at my room, you wouldn't guess that. I have a big unicorn poster on my closet door, pegasus figurines on my shelf, another print of a unicorn on the wall, another paper cutout of a unicorn on my table, a dragon on my dresser, and a fairy on my bookshelf. Not to mention a ton of fantasy books. You also wouldn't guess that I am disillusioned with classical music. I still have that Oberlin poster on the other panel of my closet, and a whole shelf of classical CDs. I'm not really interested in manga either, but I have a shelf full of that. I guess it's pretty to look at... and kind of fun to read... but it rarely teaches things. There was one Kare Kano book that I liked though. It had a play about a girl who was a machine, and there was a quote that went, "Being perfect will not make people love you. The more 'perfect' you are, the more you become nothing more than a 'machine' or a 'piece of art'." I identify with this quote a little, because even though I'm not a hardcore perfectionist, I think some people still dehumanize me when I do well on tests or relate my short academic career. But I also disagree with it. A perfect person shouldn't just be someone who always does things the right way; a perfect person will also love others to the point that other will want to love him back. That's the part of perfection I'm missing the most.