Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Psyche


Okay, so I took Psychology 101 in high school and had to take the Myers Briggs test. I don't remember how I scored other than that I got an I for introvert. In college my hall was doing a residential activity bit and we were asked to take the test again. This time I scored an E. Two years later and its popped up on my radar again. GUYS. You have no idea how insanely correct this description is, and it nails down my weird quirks. It bothers me that my personality fits into four little letters but, all the same. Go here, and click on the 'Do it' button. This will take you to a shortened version of the test. But if I were you I'd go over some of the different personality types here. To make sure you didn't misunderstand one or two of the questions. I'm so excited to say that my personality type is the same as MARY, MOTHER OF JESUS and AUDREY HEPBURN and AMELIE and CALVIN [from Calvin and Hobbes]

You really should look into the website, I actually think I learned something about myself. Like why I make the decisions I do.
Check it.

This made me super ecstatic:
"INFPs never seem to lose their sense of wonder. One might say they see life through rose-colored glasses. It's as though they live at the edge of a looking-glass world where mundane objects come to life, where flora and fauna take on near-human qualities"
INFPs are focused on making the world a better place for people. Their primary goal is to find out their meaning in life. What is their purpose? How can they best serve humanity in their lives? They are idealists and perfectionists

INFPs do not like conflict, and go to great lengths to avoid it. If they must face it, they will always approach it from the perspective of their feelings. In conflict situations, INFPs place little importance on who is right and who is wrong. They focus on the way that the conflict makes them feel, and indeed don't really care whether or not they're right. They don't want to feel badly. This trait sometimes makes them appear irrational and illogical in conflict situations.
-i'm not sure if this fits me exactly. but Corinne, my MB well versed brilliant house-mate said i might just be intelligent in my decision making. but am possibly still basing decisions on emotions. hmm. 

Well-developed value system, which they strive to live in accordance with. Extremely loyal. Adaptable and laid-back unless a strongly-held value is threatened. Mentally quick, and able to see possibilities. Interested in understanding and helping people.
INFPs are usually very talented writers. They may be awkard and uncomfortable with expressing themselves verbally, but have a wonderful ability to define and express what they're feeling on paper.
-HA.







HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY BABY BROTHER
i feel like this picture captures it all. 

    Tuesday, March 30, 2010

    Brain Drain

    HEADLINER: I GOT THE JOB
    oh happy day
    Listen to this: Lights Out


    today was one of those fabulous days where sunshine is just flowing out your fingertips. This last week and a half I've been feeling a bit sour. Well, the reason newly unmasked itself today. I realized I felt this strange guilt that had wrapped itself  around my neck and was weighing down my heart. Guilt that I'm not 'in like' much less 'in love.' I mean isn't that a part of the normal human being condition? But, I came to the conclusion that I don't have to Love every boy that knocks on my door. It really doesn't make me all that weird either. Okay I know you're probably like, 'Oh Child. Why are you dim?' But I get so mad at myself when I meet lovely people and don't swoon in desire. But it just hit me over the head this morning. 
    I'm not going to fall head over heels for every boy and that is just how it is. 
    Ahhh. you don't know how freeing that is. Its like I realized my heart isn't messed up and crazy. And it most certainly is not cake, well if it is, it is my cake to decide who to give it to. I don't have to give it to everyone just because they ask. 



    So this is Article is about the condition called Capgras, a rare delusional disorder. 
    It gives some examples-click the link above. 
    but the intriguing bit I took from the article was that "our visual system and auditory system have different connections to the amygdala, so while the auditory recognition triggers an emotional response in his patient, visual recognition does not." The amyglada is the part of the brain that activates emotions concerned with certain situations, or people in this case. So how cool is that? That the auditory system is much more strongly connected to emotion. It makes sense if you think about the power of music. If you look a bit further into the science of today, researchers are trying to discover how to erase traumatic memories for phobia ridden patients. Their work deals particularly with the amygdala. I've never seen "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," but it rings true to what I've heard of the plot. if you think about it, it's actually a bit scary. So much power. 



    I found this on NPR, Intriguing. Take it with a grain of salt for certain. Morality Gap

    "The fact that scientists can adjust morality with a magnet may be disconcerting to people who view morality as a lofty and immutable human trait, says Joshua Greene, psychologist at Harvard University. But that view isn't accurate, he says.
    "Moral judgment is just a brain process," he says. "That's precisely why it's possible for these researchers to influence it using electromagnetic pulses on the surface of the brain."
    The new study is really part of a much larger effort by scientists to explain how the brain creates moral judgments, Greene says. The scientists are trying to take concepts such as morality, which philosophers once attributed to the human soul, and "break it down in mechanical terms."
    If something as complex as morality has a mechanical explanation, Green says, it will be hard to argue that people have, or need, a soul."

    Sit Anywhere

    Listen to this: Norwegian Wood


    All is right with the world again. I have my glasses. 
    They fit perfectly on the bridge of my nose and the arch of my ears.







    According to Unite for Sight, the global need for glasses includes:
    • Over one billion people in developing countries need eyeglasses but cannot afford them.
    • 25 percent of the global population needs eyeglasses.
    • 50 percent of children in institutions for the blind in Africa would be able to read normal or large print if they had eyeglasses.
    • The price for glasses in many African countries can exceed three months’ average salary.
    • Despite this need, over four million pairs of eyeglasses are thrown away each year in North America.

    Sunday, March 28, 2010

    imma let you take me higher


    So this weekend was a mess of insanity. A lot of being told what to do. I couldn't help but think back to a childhood hero, Amelia Badelia. She always took figures of speech literally. That would ultimately lead to her down fall. Except it righted itself by the last page. So when someone told me to prance, by golly I got on my toes and paraded on the catwalk. I mean one of the songs I had to walk to was Blue Jeans, tell me you were going to take me seriously? It made the ten hours pass swifter then one could hope for. Well, hold up, hopes were met when I got to walk to Rude Boy by Rhianna. My new guilty pleasure. Imitation is a fabulous compliment.
    These pictures are amazing.
    The closest thing I could find to a magical portal. Social Documentary
    [via. Talia]
    Taking you to COMPLETELY different worlds

    "Traditionally, Thai tattoos are believed to be more than just a decorative art. Recipients believe that each tattoo carries protective properties and it is in search of these that people gather at the temple every spring...Devotees come to pay their respects to their religious teachers and to receive tattoos that are created at the hands of these spiritual leaders. It is not only the application of the tattoo that has significance, it is the magical activation of the designs that believers seek..."
    photographer: Gavin Gough
    Social Documentary

    designs are decided by the tattooist 

    Outside, in the strong heat, devotees sit and meditate.
    Then they become possessed by the spirits depicted in their tattoos.

    "In Bangalore's granite quarries, bonded laborers, heavily indebted to the quarry owners, work as virtual slaves. Theirs is a back breaking life as they dig with picks and shovels, dynamite slabs of rock and burn the stone to extract great slabs from the ground, all for a few rupees a day, most of which is paid right back to the people that employ them."
    photographer: Nick Spiker
    Social Documentary






    -i love this picture. and i can't quite put my finger on why.

    Thursday, March 25, 2010

    Roy G. BIV

    Up Down Up Down, such was my day. So much living done on this Thursday. Life is the most grand thing. Sadness and Happiness, the heart fluctuates and sees the world differently through each vantage point. There is so much beauty in it. I think that if I forgot how to find it I would go mad, and put myself out of that misery. This afternoon I got a devastating phone call and it changed my world. This evening I got a hug from a friend and it changed my world. Don't you think that is beautiful? I also met a baby possum today.





    "... Why can’t everyone see them? Why did colors disappear?’&
    The Giver shrugged. ‘Our people made that choice, the choice to go to Sameness... We gained control of many things. But we had to let go of others."
    -Lois Lowry [The Giver]






    "'I liked the feeling of love,' [Jonas] confessed. He glanced nervously at the speaker on the wall, reassuring himself that no one was listening. 'I wish we still had that,' he whispered. 'Of course,' he added quickly, 'I do understand that it wouldn't work very well. And that it's much better to be organized the way we are now. I can see that it was a dangerous way to live.'
    ...'Still,' he said slowly, almost to himself, 'I did like the light they made. And the warmth.'" 
    -Lois Lowry [The Giver]



    "My skin is kind of sort of brownish pinkish yellowish white. My eyes are greyish blueish green, but I'm told they look orange in the night. My hair is reddish blondish brown, but its silver when its wet, and all the colors I am inside have not been invented yet." 
    -Shel Silverstein [Where the Sidewalk Ends]






    "I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it" 


    -Alice Walker



    I
    When in good humour, 
    Give grass its green 
    Blazon sky blue, and endow the sun 
    With gold; 
    Yet, in my wintriest moods, I hold 
    Absolute power 
    To boycott color and forbid any flower 
    To be. 
    -Sylvia Plath




    Wednesday, March 24, 2010

    Mark My Words

    "Our truest response to the irrationality of the world is to paint or sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth." 
    -Madeleine L'Engle

    The corn market expresses the subordination of agriculture to value relations, as strategies to enhance corporate profits equate fuel with food. And corn’s impact on the food system is extensive, via its significance as a feed-crop for beef, poultry, eggs, dairy and pork production, and as a component of sweeteners for candy, cereals, soft drinks and other supermarket staples (Philpott 2006). As Michael Pollan (2002) observes: “a Chicken McNugget is corn upon corn upon corn, beginning with corn-fed chicken all the way through the obscure food additives and the corn starch that holds it together. All the meat at McDonald’s is really corn. Chickens have become machines for converting two pounds of corn into one pound of chicken.” In other words, the threading of certain basic foodstuffs through the manufacturing of animal proteins and convenience foods expresses a recombinant process of dietary reconstruction increasingly reflected in agribusiness conglomeration
    -"Global Food Crisis"- McMichael 

    -Just let your mind sit on top of that one for a minute, let it hatch, now BAM. Converting machines, and then just the diction of this paragraph is just brilliant. 




    One of my favorite women of all time:
    "When I am writing, I am trying to find out who I am, who we are, what we're capable of, how we feel, how we lose and stand up, and go on from darkness into darkness. I'm trying for that. But I'm also trying for the language. I'm trying to see how it can really sound. I really love language. I love it for what it does for us, how it allows us to explain the pain and the glory, the nuances and delicacies of our existence. And then it allows us to laugh, allows us to show wit. Real wit is shown in language. We need language." -Maya Angelou


    I found these in a message I had sent long ago:
    December 3, 2007
    "when i'm stressed i grab my ipod and walk around the arboretum or go running. the world just sort of slows down and my mind centers. and now is so perfect for running because its cold enough that you cant feel anything but your feet hitting the pavement and the air rushing down your throat.
    -side note- i would of course avoid the arboretum after 8; its sketch."

    and then this memory was recovered as well:
    "today i got the flu shot. it was actually quite a happy experience because i went with two people. one of which has bothered me to the core from the beginning of the school year, but i ended up holding his hand as he got the shot because he was shaking and surprisingly scared. actually i had to hold both of their hands. the other person is one of my closest friends-ive known her since elementary school and....its funny im writing this all out...anyhow it was just nice to be there for them. oh how pain will bring people together"





    Tuesday, March 23, 2010

    Crayola Crack




    My feet are aching and the heels of my feet are bleeding. But that is what you get when you walk around in three dolla shoes from South Africa shipped via China. I marched my weary limbs to the Church of the Cross on Franklin st. There is this square of grass about the size of a living room. The grass is rooted in mud perfect for digging your toes deep into. You're shielded from the outside world by the stone walls. And you can't help but feel cradled by the Earth, as the sun peeks in to this square of happiness.

    Watch out tylenol:



    Isn't this intriguing? It's worked for me before, getting rid of a headache. But then again it could have been a different variable. All the same, the idea of these connections are wild.


    i figure this could come in handy:

    Sunday, March 21, 2010

    Do you ever doubt yourself? I mean I think a good dose of humility in decision making is brilliant. But I just want to give a shout out to my gut, to my instincts, to that little voice in my ear. It has instigated the best choices so far.  Sometimes hindsight bias kicks in and has an argument or two, then I'm won over a bit and the self-doubt starts up. Yet my instincts keep being proven true, and they've led me to this most lovely place in my life. So three cheers to the intuition inside!

    Saturday, March 20, 2010

    Da de dum


    so I'm riding in the passenger seat as my brother jerks the car through the heavy traffic of Charlotte. The windows are rolled down, which just makes the moment all the realer. When the glass panes are rolled high I stare out and feel like I'm watching the world in a television set. You can't touch it. Something about the physics of it all makes me feel as if i'm without motion, despite what my senses signal. But when you roll down the panes its as if you've unlatched the lock and the wind is free to whip your mind into the moment. so there i am gliding down the streets with this crazy one that im genetically linked to, and the speakers are shaking as they pound out some songs from his ipod. Breaking from new age technology he looks through the cd's that have collected dust in the five disc changer. The first is a mix of songs he put together during what he deemed as his "rock bottom period." Jackson Browne belts some lyrics and then he flicks through to the next. "Your Love" by Outfield spreads its melancholy over our ears. He chuckles as his hand clutches the wheel, watching the road with his eyes, but using his brain to trace through the memories reeling in his mind. I love how music tends to link to a period in your life, a person from your life, a mood, or a particular experience. Most studies show that smell is the best arousal of memory, but for me it all comes back with a song.


    "If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music." -Albert Einstein





    Friday, March 19, 2010

    Lasso the Moon

    Listen to this: We Looked Like Giants
    Oops, I've fallen for Death Cab for Cutie.


    God. Sometimes I wish He spelled it Tac. I remember getting into an argument with a dog lover and their final point in dog supremacy was that dog is God backwards. Low blow, so from here on out in prayer and conversation I shall know him as Tac...Not really, but I do have beef with the man behind the English language.

    I was talking to Katherine last night and she got me thinking about how I view God. She rehashed a view I shared with her at the beginning of the semester. "I think God is like that quiet kid in the back of the classroom." In the midst of telling the beginnings of my metaphor she started laughing. Oh Grief. I prepared myself for the explanation I had given. "You said, that you feel like God is that 'introverted shy kid in the back corner that wants to be friends with everyone, but he won't really speak to anyone either. He's just so quiet and shy. You've just got to go up to him and start telling him all about your views and feelings. He's totally listening, and eager to hear it all, but it might be a while into the relationship until you start hearing anything back. Maybe years, but thats just how introverts are.' And then you went on to tell me that you know this is a good comparison because you were pretty sure that: 'God very much wants to hear from us, in prayer in such, pointing out that its very rare that a bush will communicate with you'."
    Apparently I'm not giving God enough credit. We're working through it.


    Have you ever seen that movie, "It's a Wonderful Life"? Well in the movie the main character --eek what's his name---ah, George Bailey, well, he wants to commit suicide to solve this crazy debt that he fell into, of no fault of his own. [Imagine the IMF. Haha, just kidding] But then an angel comes to him-Clarence. Clarence is a beginner angel that has yet to 'earn' his wings. In the movie this is literal. His task is to show George how much impact he's had on this world. That God has used him to make a difference in other people's lives-for this point was lost on George. Well maybe we all have these guardian angels? I figure if I have one, well my poor angel is standing there stomping his foot thinking, GOD I am never going to earn my wings with this one. She never learns the lessons we're trying to get through. The movie's most famous line is "everytime a bell rings an angel gets his wings." Well to make my angel happy I think I'm going to go around ringing every bell in my reach just to counteract my learning curve problemos.

    oh there's this one scene that is just so wonderful


    Guess what is playing at the Varsity theatre?!
    I think it's best if I just tell you. THE BREAKFAST CLUB. 
    oh snap.


    What's bizarre? I mean, we're all pretty bizarre. Some of us are just better at hiding it, that's all 
    -The Breakfast Club

    Wednesday, March 17, 2010

    i dream of far off places, so i read about them instead



    "This is a very symbolic way to express that our blood, the people's blood, is power," he said.

     Thaksin Shinawatra 
    Shinawatra was the prime minister of Thailand before a military coup in September of 2006. His removal came after a jury found him guilty of corruption and conflict of interest. But his 'red shirt' supporters claim the jury was unfairly biased. During his five years in office he was 'enormously popular, especially among the rural poor, but also proved a divisive figure and was deeply unpopular among many of Bangkok's [the country's capital] rich elite.'(bbc.com). These rural poor are taking a stand with their own blood. Donating their bodies' life sustaining fuel to his (and their own) cause of democracy. The idea is that the massive gallon collection is splashed on the government buildings.
    In Bangkok, red-shirt leader Veera Musikapong was the first to donate blood for the protest.
    "This blood is a sacrificial offering. To show our love for the nation, to show our sincerity," he said.
    "If Abhisit is still stubborn, even though he does not have blood on his hands, his feet will be bloodied with our curses," another leader, Nattawut Saikur, said. [BBC.com] Not all of the blood has been used. Red-shirt leaders said more would be poured at other sites if their demands were not met.

     Abhisit Vejjajiva
    For a two sided understanding: The man being protested is Abhisit. He is the current Prime Minister of Thailand. He is a member for the Democrat party-his slogan is "Putting People First."
    The Democratic Party failed to win power at national elections, but in December 2008 a Constitutional Court ruling removed from power the government led by allies of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
    Amid the turmoil of the airport blockade caused by anti-Thaksin protesters, a few Thaksin loyalists changed sides.This enabled Mr Abhisit to form a new government and become the next prime minister without calling elections.




    Shedding blood, without violence, to make a point. Irony filled craziness.I think this video says a lot to the point.


    on the note of protests, I thought these were a bit comical:



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