Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah! Happy Winter!

On the road again

This blog has been suffering terribly since I started writing in my actual paper journal again... Blame it on graduate school!

I'm all packed to go home again, although the appointed day and hour have yet to arrive. My apartment is an unredeemable mess -- well, probably a redeemable one, but not in the time I have before I leave. January will be a very housework-y month.

Boyfriend is out Christmas shopping. Soon he'll return, and we will head off to a fancy dinner and a Christmas concert in the city. Tomorrow morning, we'll have "Christmas morning" at his place, and he'll drop me off at the airport many hours early, to give him a chance to get home to the mountains before too late at night.

I can't believe it's only four days to Christmas. Will the years keep on getting shorter and shorter the older I get?

Merry almost-Christmas, everybody!

Eating habits

All of a sudden, when I want a snack -- particularly after dinner -- I'm as likely to want, say, a little bowl of Boyfriend's beef stew and a biscuit as I am to want a zillion cookies.

It's amazing what a little mindfulness, along with keeping the pressure off myself as much as I can (which isn't much), can do.

Or maybe it's that I keep reaching my absolute sugar consumption LIMIT earlier in the day, being surrounded with Christmas cookies. :)

But I like the mindfulness answer better!

Aw...

Both Boyfriend and I are nearing the end of a 24-hour take-home exam.

Boyfriend just knocked on the door of my office, entered, left half a dozen Christmas cookies and a cold bottle of water on my desk, and left without saying a word.

Self-education 2006

From Seasonal Soundings:

Now is the time to start thinking, planning, gathering, and preparing for your reading and self-education in 2006. You know, if you aim at nothing, you will hit it everytime.

January 1 will be here in, what?, 31 days!

I have been planning my reading for several years, and it has made a world of difference even though I'm never without a book in hand. A plan, a system---flipping around what Alexander Pope said, I say "Without a plan, you have a mighty maze."

We need a variety of selections.....
---for our hearts, some inspiration, some fluff, some brain candy;
---for our souls, some constancy, some daily reads;
---for our intellects, some meat.

Right on.

Some things on my list for January:

Daily Mass readings.

Rice's statistics textbook, because I need to learn a LOT of probability.

Stephenson's Quicksilver, because I'd like to eventually someday finish it.

Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy, ditto.

Fruits and Vegetables

Lately my body and mind have been dragging a lot. I have riding lessons on Sunday and Monday -- my major exercise for the week -- and by Wednesday I'm still not just sore but exhausted, dragging myself up the stairs on my way to class. My brain doesn't seem to be working quite right, either. Since "graduate student" is my main occupation right now, this is kind of a problem.

There are a lot of things I need to do to fix this: get more sleep, eat better, work more effectively, relax better. Right now I'm thinking about eating better. My eating habits right now are sort of bipolar. My meals are really pretty healthy -- whole grains, plenty of milk, and so on. On the other hand, I'm not always eating enough at meal time, and my snacks are not especially nutritious. I also don't eat nearly enough fruits and vegetables. The obvious solution would be to eat healthier snacks. The obstacle: at snack time I want sugar! And chocolate! There's nothing wrong with chocolate, but it's not a great nutritional stand-in for fruit. Peanut-butter toast often satisfies me when I think I want a donut or cookies, but I'm already having it for breakfast nearly every morning, and my diet's lacking in variety even more than it's lacking in veggies.

Finally, I've tried, but my warped tastebuds refuse to accept good, plain fruit as a complete snack. What's a girl to do?

Here are some ideas to remind myself:

• Salad at dinner
• Fruit salad for lunch or snacks
• More expensive fruit (peaches, berries...) might be worth it if it gets me eating fruit
• Frozen veggies to microwave with dinner
• Carrot sticks and something not too overwhelming to dip them in
• A supply of plastic cutlery for my office!

I'm starting to feel a little bit like I'm feeding a stubborn toddler.

Got any other good ideas?

Breakfast of champions

Tall Little Brother (I still can't believe he's a frat boy now) emerges from the basement bedroom just in time to grab some food and catch the end of the Macy's parade.

Mom: Ham sandwich and a beer? Breakfast of champions!

Hope you're all having a delightful time preparing for turkey dinner, or whatever floats your boat.

Home again

It's good to be home.

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

I'm sorry.

Boyfriend, who checks this thing more regularly than I do, pointed out that I should at least say:

Hello, Internet... I am alive.

See? Boyfriend just took this picture today...



Those are pine needles, not leaves... Pine trees are deciduous??

Sorry if I worried anyone - I'm touched that someone noticed I was gone :)

Be back soon. Sooner than this time, anyway. And I'm quitting with the memes for a while. So depressing to find nothing but memes on my front page...

Updates? What updates?

You fit in with: Humanism Your ideals mostly resemble that of a Humanist. Although you do not have a lot of faith, you are devoted to making this world better, in the short time that you have to live. Humanists do not generally believe in an afterlife, and therefore, are committed to making the world a better place for themselves and future generations. 20% spiritual. 40% reason-oriented.

Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

Finally, an update....

I'm embarrassed to admit that, when I'm on the Internet, my attention span is SO short these days that I almost ran out of attention before I finished this post, but I'm glad I didn't let that stop me. I found it strangely moving, and I'm looking forward to seeing what comes after "part one".

Quack

This is Julie's fault again...

You Are A: Duckling!

The cutest of the cute, these baby ducks are often spotted in the spring following closely behind their mother. As a duckling you will grow up quickly, becoming one of the adult ducks seen commonly in ponds and streams. Playful and timid, charming and vulnerable, ducklings are nature's very definition of innocence.

You were almost a: Duck or a Frog
You are least like a: Groundhog or a PuppyWhat Cute Animal Are You?

Great Blogroll Purge

A blogroll, a blogroll, burn it!

All right, that's it. Dy and her family have REALLY BIG NEWS, and I didn't find out about it until today because my stupid Blogrolling update notifier didn't notify me.

This might not be Blogrolling's fault -- it's entirely possible that I just didn't look at my blogroll during my update-notify time window -- but the fact remains that this tool is not working for me.

Furthermore, I'm spending WAY too much of every day looking at blogs, and WAY too little living intentionally and dealing with my (inevitable) woeful ignorance.

It's getting to be a problem.

I'm not taking a blogging fast or an internet fast or a blog-reading fast, though; I'd hate to cause pain to any of my fellow addicts. :)

Instead, I'm making a Great Purge of my blogroll. Sort of. I mean, I have vast affection for every one of you on the blogroll (and a great many who aren't), but it's just too much temptation, having all those titles there waiting to be clicked. On the other hand, I still believe in the Mystical Power of Linking Good Blogs. So the whole blogroll is still there -- but it's further down, and in a smaller font. There's a Special Abbreviated Blogroll at the top.

I don't want to step on any toes, so listen up, this is important... The blogs that are in the super-secret tiny blogroll are blogs I love just as much as all the others. But, for any number of reasons, it's not the best use of my time to check them compulsively. Some don't update daily. Some, I've found, I enjoy more when I can read a whole glut of recent entries all at once (as I've mentioned before, I like to treat some blogs a little more like novels). And so on.

Another mini-post

I guess my Gentle Readers will find out if this is one of those "you had to be there" things... But, I have to say, this sentence (at least in context) brought me joy and laughter far disproportinate to its length. :)

"Nu? What's with the brown challah?"

I what?

Unfortunately, this result isn't reproducible, since the Advertising Slogan Generator gives you a new random slogan everytime.

But, really and truly, the first slogan it gave me for Hypatia was this:

Hypatia Saves Your Soul.

Hm. Suggestions?

All right, I read all the way through my Questions For the Month again, and they're a little more Aggressively Pious than I'm really comfortable with.

Anyone have any lists of self-examination questions on hand? Google's only finding me breast, testicular, and vulvar (vulvar?) self-examination; I could, and should, do an examination of conscience, but I don't really feel like confessing all them sins to the Internets.

So, oh brilliant readers.... any ideas?

(Update: Maybe I'll do something like this?)

Agh! It's October!!

I've been writing the date on things for three days now, and my last few days of posts would seem to indicate that I realized what month it is, but really I didn't. How on earth did it get to be October already? What happened?

A reminder I could often use...

From Wittingshire.

Daily stuff of the day for Sunday

Today's question:

2. What's the most humanly impossible thing you will ask God to do this year?

Er. Um.

...

So, after putting this one on the back burner for half an hour, I still don't have an answer. Frankly, it seems kind of presumptuous to me -- it smacks of giving God a deadline. Which can be useful from time to time, I think, when it's very important to get a sign or guidance; but it's not a "bargaining chip" I want to use lightly in prayer.

Quite honestly, what I've been praying for a lot lately is something like submission -- the ability to take what the universe throws at me and use it gratefully. I'm pretty sure I'll be praying for more of this quality all year, and possibly it's humanly impossible. So can that be my answer? It seems kind of smarmy, but still.


Today I am thankful for: Boyfriend's ability and willingness to watch my back, and arrange things in a way that takes good care of me. I have always appreciated this quality in him, and he's getting better and better at it.

http://www.scrappleface.com/MT/archives/002340.html

The examined life

Some time last week, I found this list of "Ten Questions to Ask at the Start of a New Year or On Your Birthday". There are ten main questions, and twenty-one extras to expand the list to a set of daily questions for a whole month. It's not my birthday, and it's not the new year (though it would be close if I were Jewish); it's just a new month, and a month that conveniently has enough days for all these questions. :) It seems like as good a time as any to begin examining my life a little more methodically.

Here's today's question, and my thoughts on it:

1. What's one thing you could do this year to increase your enjoyment of God?

I could definitely use some improvement in my ability to remember the good and lovely things that happen each day. I'm good at noticing them, but it's too easy to forget them. For at least a little while, I'll try to keep a record of at least one thing I'm grateful for each day. Fall's a good season for that, what with Thanksgiving coming up and all.

Why all this meditation and borderline saccharine posting lately? It's a little hard to explain succinctly. To begin with, I read a lot of the blogs I read because I like getting glimpses into the lives of their authors. An awful lot of the people on my blogroll are people I want to be like in some way or other: they're funny, or wise, or good parents, or joyful, or good writers (those are inclusive, not exclusive, or's). Now, I definitely enjoy a good snark as much as the next person, but I'm not always that great at being funny about them, so I'm trying to take a bit of a break from the snarking until I can take myself less seriously. I haven't got any cute kids to tell stories about, and don't anticipate having any in, say, the next few months.

So what's left to emulate? Well, one thing I've been thinking about a lot lately is the care and effort some of my blog-friends put into examining their lives and making changes to reflect what they really want from life. Amira and MFS and Alaska and Sarah and Sora come to mind, but they're far from the only examples. Left to myself, I analyze and over-analyze details, but I haven't historically been that great at looking at the bigger picture, at figuring out what I want and going for it. So, this year, I'm using whatever gimmicks it takes (like this month of questions and gratitudes) to haul myself over to the track I want to be on -- the big wide road of Examining My Life, where hopefully I'll be able to find the side roads and tiny paths I want to set myself on.

Today I am grateful for: The weather! It's finally fall here. The daytime sun is warm, but there's a chill in the air when I wake up. Cold air feels clean and wakes me up, and makes indoor spaces seem that much warmer and cozier.

Isn't this just lovely?

link

Restful Saturday

It is awfully nice to have a whole day, every now and then, when I don't have to leave the house. I slept in a little, had breakfast and a (very short) walk in the morning sunshine, and since the late morning I've been implementing my plan for today: Be Appallingly Domestic.

I've done the dishes and started laundry; when the laundry's done I'm going to vacuum (my apartment is desperately in need of a vacuuming). I made a reasonably decorative foil-and-cardboard thingy to sit under my dining-table candles, which WILL keep dripping wax no matter how many times I scold them. I'm going to make bread, and also either cookies or oatmeal bannocks. And I'm going to wash my sheets, and I'm going to spend some time outside soaking in the GORGEOUS fall day. (Probably I'll have to take some homework with me for that last one. Silly homework.)

Even my lunch is both healthy and tasty (the "healthy" was NOT in the plan, but it's nice that it worked out that way...) Hot mulled cranberry juice, fresh coleslaw with ranch dressing, and shredded wheat with melted cheese, salt and pepper, and just a touch of honey. Kind of weird, but also delicious. Also nearly gone, so I had better start peeling myself off the computer before it totally sucks away this rare fit of work-ethic....

Eh-oh...

Looks like Boyfriend and I will be having a long-distance relationship in the afterlife. Here are his Inferno Test results:

The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Sixth Level of Hell - The City of Dis!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Low
Level 2 (Lustful)	Moderate
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Moderate
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Very Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	High
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very High
Level 7 (Violent)	High
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	High
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	High

Take the Dante's Divine Comedy Inferno Test

Just made it.

Continuing my tradition of following Julie through the meme-world...

The Dante's Inferno Test has sent you to Purgatory!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very High
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	High
Level 2 (Lustful)	High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Very Low
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Low
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very Low
Level 7 (Violent)	Low
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Low
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Very Low

Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test

I'd thought I was writing more obscurely than that...

That's the fifth sentence of my 23rd post. Not as evocative as Amira's, but not un-representative.

More notes to self: Sleep

All right, my daily life is clearly in need of revision.

I am very very happy with the framework of my days. I like my field, and I love my department, where, contrary to the usual grad-school stereotype, everyone really seems happy to be there. And they're letting me study Arabic! Even though it's not math at all! I have good friends with all sorts of interests, a strong and happy relationship with Boyfriend, and a world of interesting thoughts to run after on the internet.

However, I am not using those days especially well. Running after thoughts on the internet is taking up WAY too much of my time. I am staying up WAY too late at night (as the time of this post can attest...). For too much of my day, I'm too tired to do homework or research or really anything but blog-surfing.

School's been in session for a couple of weeks now, and I've been planning all this time to come up with the One True Life Plan that will send me flying through the semester, scattering homework right and left (preferably ahead of schedule), scrubbing and decluttering my apartment bit by bit until its default state is "clean and restful" instead of "cluttered with tripping hazards," and of course being available for all manner of Fun Stuff with my friends too.

Strangely enough, I haven't yet had time or energy to sit down and even really begin writing out this plan.

So instead, I'm going to try going at things FlyLady style -- change one or a few things at a time (even though ohmygoodness I can't possibly fix this without fixing all these other things!), and work up from there. It's working for the lime scale in my shower; will it work for my schedule too?

My schoolwork habits are probably most in need of revision, but I don't think anything's going to get better until I figure out how to have more energy. Getting back to regular light exercise will probably help with this, but in the last week I've been too sleepy to seriously consider getting off the couch. So, first things first, I'm going to fix up my sleep schedule.

At the beginning of the school year, I really liked having the flexibility to stay up as late as I wanted, without the pressure of having to get up far too early to drive to my summer job. Too much draconian structure, of course, is bad for anyone; but I personally don't do too well without a little structure to hang things on.

So, as an experiment, I'm going to try getting up at 6:30 every single morning (or at last 6 mornings each week). No snoozes, no excuses, but naps are allowed later in the day. I'm also going to set a "Go to Bed" alarm for 9 PM -- it usually takes me up to an hour from the time I think about going to bed to the time I'm in bed, and I like to have some time to read, and I get draggy if I'm not getting around 8 hours of sleep each night, which will require me to be snoring away by 10:30 whenever possible. (I assume that when I have kids a Biological Miracle will occur to get rid of this 8-hour requirement. Otherwise, we're all doomed...)

So, yeah. If I commit to this experiment in front of the whole internet, will it last at least a week or two? (I don't expect it to last longer, since it's only a first draft and will need to be modified once I find out which parts of it are least realistic...)

(Image cribbed from an instant-messenger icon set formerly available at http://www.illwillpress.com)

Is this creepy?

So, I have a fairly well-established habit that works like this:

1) Find a new blog I like (usually via an already-liked blog's blogroll).
2) Read all the posts on the front page.
3) Notice that those posts refer to past events, and, gee, it sure would be nice to have more context about this new person.
4) Read the whole entire blog in chronological order.

Step 4, obviously, normally takes several days to complete.

I can't decide if this is normal behavior (like reading, say, a novel from start to finish), or internet stalking of strangers.

I do mean well...

Note to self

Apparently I am conditioned to think "Food, but not what I'm hungry for" when I see a whole fruit. Which is puzzling. But when I see sliced fruit -- especially if, just moments ago, it was that not-quite-appetizing whole fruit -- I am conditioned to think "Yummy!" A similar principle applies to vegetables, I think.

Maybe I should print this post out and tape it to every piece of produce I buy, so that I don't keep forgetting them and having to throw the poor things away.

Not entirely unpredictable.

"God will not suffer man to have the knowledge of things to come; for if he had prescience of his prosperity he would be careless; and understanding of his adversity he would be senseless."

You are Augustine! You love to study tough issues and don't mind it if you lose sleep over them. Everyone loves you and wants to talk to you and hear your views, you even get things like "nice debating with you." Yep, you are super smart, even if you are still trying to figure it all out. You're also very honest, something people admire, even when you do stupid things.

What theologian are you?

A creation of Henderson

Tag!

Hang on -- wait -- what?

Penni at martha, martha tagged me to fill out Getting to Know Me by fructus ventris. (Is this some kind of mixer, to introduce me to new blogs (from the others who were tagged)? Because, if so, hooray!)

5 things I plan to do before I die:
1. Publish something (do math papers count?)
2. Travel: visit every continent at least once (yes, Antarctica too!) and go all over Europe and go on a pilgrimage if I can
3. Become a polyglot
4. Figure out what I really want from life
5. Raise a family
6. Become a better teacher
7. Get my Ph.D.

5 things I can do:
1. Read fast
2. Write fast and well
3. Understand French as spoken by a toddler
4. Get my master's degree in applied math (don't have it yet, but it's within reaching distance)
5. Play the piano

5 things I cannot do:
1. Run fast or far
2. Do a chin-up
3. Understand French as spoken by an adult
4. Work while listening to music
5. Control my moods nearly as well as I'd like to

5 things that attract me to the opposite sex:
1. Patience
2. Thoughtfulness
3. Beautiful hands and forearms
4. Beautiful eyes and smiles
5. Intelligence

5 things I say most often:
1. "Dude!" (It was an inside joke in college... now it's just a bad habit.)
2. " ... like, an order of magnitude more ..."
3. " ... n times, where n is large ... "
4. "Bad computer!"
5. "I love you."

5 celebrity crushes: (do I have to do this, too? I may never hear the end of it...)
1. Johnny Depp. Can't pass judgement on that Chocolate Factory thing, as I haven't seen it, but Pirates of the Caribbean? Hmmm... Chocolat? Mmmm....
2. Orlando Bloom. No, seriously. What??
I don't really do celebrity crushes, though. If I'm going to have a crush on someone I'll never meet, might as well be a fictional character with a personality instead of a pretty face...
3. Henry (and Clare, for that matter) in Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife
4. Adam Eddington in Madeleine L'Engle's Vicky Austin books
5. Hugh of Harrowfield in Juliet Marillier's Daughter of the Forest

5 people I want to do this:
Dy
Alaska
Chris Never mind, he did it already.
Amira
Jo(e)

"They look at you, and worry for themselves."

What, no free Wisdom of the Ages?

From a displaced New Orleans intellectual on the September 9 edition of This American Life:

People ask what it's like to lose your house, and your friends, and your life, and your town, and begin to look scared when you answer. They want to care, but they can't. They look at you, and worry for themselves.

OK. Guilty as charged.

And from an insightful entry on depression at Mental Multivitamin:

As anyone who spends any time here at M-mv knows, my mantra is "It's. Just. Not. That. Hard." Few people have ever truly understood that sometimes this can be as good as saying, "It's as hard as sh-- that's been baking in the California sun for twenty days, but I choose to ignore that particular aspect of the journey and focus on all of that less-hard stuff because, because... LIFE IS SHORT! And I'd rather celebrate and sing than spend my life acknowledging some of life's inherent sh--iness, OKAY? Okay."

Heh, heh, heh. Maybe you get it, huh? Yes, tell yourself: It's. Just. Not. That. Hard.

And maybe tomorrow, or Friday, or next Tuesday, it won't be.

I don't know them, not really, but the Family M-mv often serve as both gadfly and polestar for me. So I'd better listen to the buzzing and stinging, get back up out of that there self-pity, and see what I can do.

Money, happiness and guilt

I've spent too much of today worrying about money and time and happiness -- what I have, what I don't have, and what too many other people don't have.

A few weeks ago, I made a budget for myself, on the "pay yourself first" plan that many financial advisors, um, advise. I subtracted 20% from my (expected) paycheck, to begin with (10% savings, 10% for charity). Then I subtracted all my regular monthly bills. What was left over, I divided by five, and that became my weekly "allowance". (I divided the charity money into a weekly allowance as well.)

My allowance doesn't feel like enough. I "pay" myself on Sundays. This Sunday I went grocery shopping, and accounted for an allowance-overdraft from last week, and I'm out of allowance money already.

This terrifies me.

And yet I'm miles, hundreds of miles, away from starving in the streets. I have plenty of food in my cupboards and refrigerator. I live in an extremely nice apartment in a moderately snotty neighborhood. My parents subsidize my gas and other car-related bills, because they still own the car. I have cable internet access and books galore and all sorts of other things. I grumble about being out of money, but I still have my savings, and I buy things that aren't really necessary. It's self-discipline, not painful necessity, that makes me say I'm out of spending money.

And there are so many people who have it so much harder. I don't live in a part of the state that's especially prone to natural disasters, but if one happened I could get away. I don't have to make "tomato soup" from ketchup and hot water, or survive on ramen noodles, or rush a child through toilet training because diapers are too expensive. I don't really know a damn thing about being poor.

So I'm worried about my budget, but I'm also paralyzingly ashamed of being worried. And there seems to be so little I can do to help. If someone I know is suffering, I can talk to them. Maybe I can cook for them, clean for them, give them money, or help them in some other way, but at the very least I can be there. But what can I do about large-scale poverty, about far-away violence? How can I go on with my own life in a world where so many people have so much less? As a Christian I'm told to "sell all I have and give to the poor," but I'd make a terrible Mother Teresa -- I'd probably end up being a drain, not a help, to my neighbors. But how do I find a "lesser" answer that's satisfying?

I know many of my readers here are people who I consider wiser than myself, so I'm asking you for your advice, or at least your experiences. How do you find a way to live abundantly, to enjoy the world and its gifts, and yet also to help those who, because of grief or poverty or injury, can't enjoy them as fully?

How do you do it?

Three memes in a row..

Eeek. Three memes in a row!

meme |mēm| noun (Biology) an element of a culture or system of behavior that may be considered to be passed from one individual to another by nongenetic means, esp. imitation.

DERIVATIVES memetic |mēˈmetik; mə-| adjective ORIGIN 1970s: from Greek mimēma ‘that which is imitated,’ on the pattern of gene.

Haughty Intellectual You are 57% Rational, 14% Extroverted, 42% Brutal, and 71% Arrogant.

You are the Haughty Intellectual. You are a very rational person, emphasizing logic over emotion, and you are also rather arrogant and self-aggrandizing. You probably think of yourself as an intellectual, and you would like everyone to know it. Not only that, but you also tend to look down on others, thinking yourself better than them. You could possibly have an unhealthy obsession with yourself as well, thus causing everyone to hate you for being such an elitist twat. On top of all that, you are also introverted and gentle. This means that you are just a quiet thinker who wants fame and recognition, in all likelihood. Rather lacking in emotion, introspective, gentle, and arrogant, you are most certainly a Haughty Intellectual! And, most likely, you will never achieve the recognition or fame you so desire! Sweet.

To put it less negatively: 1. You are more RATIONAL than intuitive. 2. You are more INTROVERTED than extroverted. 3. You are more GENTLE than brutal. 4. You are more ARROGANT than humble. Compatibility: Your exact opposite is the Schoolyard Bully. (Bullies like to beat up nerds, after all.) Other personalities you would probably get along with are the Braggart, the Hand-Raiser, and the Robot. * * If you scored near fifty percent for a certain trait (42%-58%), you could very well go either way. For example, someone with 42% Extroversion is slightly leaning towards being an introvert, but is close enough to being an extrovert to be classified that way as well. Below is a list of the other personality types so that you can determine which other possible categories you may fill if you scored near fifty percent for certain traits. The other personality types: The Emo Kid: Intuitive, Introverted, Gentle, Humble. The Starving Artist: Intuitive, Introverted, Gentle, Arrogant. The Bitch-Slap: Intuitive, Introverted, Brutal, Humble. The Brute: Intuitive, Introverted, Brutal, Arrogant. The Hippie: Intuitive, Extroverted, Gentle, Humble. The Televangelist: Intuitive, Extroverted, Gentle, Arrogant. The Schoolyard Bully: Intuitive, Extroverted, Brutal, Humble. The Class Clown: Intuitive, Extroverted, Brutal, Arrogant. The Robot: Rational, Introverted, Gentle, Humble. The Haughty Intellectual: Rational, Introverted, Gentle, Arrogant. The Spiteful Loner: Rational, Introverted, Brutal, Humble. The Sociopath: Rational, Introverted, Brutal, Arrogant. The Hand-Raiser: Rational, Extroverted, Gentle, Humble. The Braggart: Rational, Extroverted, Gentle, Arrogant. The Capitalist Pig: Rational, Extroverted, Brutal, Humble. The Smartass: Rational, Extroverted, Brutal, Arrogant.

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 40% on Rationality You scored higher than 11% on Extroversion You scored higher than 49% on Brutality You scored higher than 81% on Arrogance

Link: The Personality Defect Test written by saint_gasoline on Ok Cupid

Silliness and Swedish

I've rapidly lost my stomach for all the personal and public sadness that's going on these few weeks. It's not that I don't want to know, but I want to have a safe haven where I can plug my ears and ignore the world for a while.

Unfortunately, I don't have any deep, inspiring Safe Haven thoughts this afternoon either. So you get more silliness and memes instead:

First, some evidence of my brain-dead state: I totally missed that this was an Onion article at first.

You Should Learn Swedish

Fantastisk! You're laid back about learning a language - and about life in general. Peaceful, beautiful Sweden is ideal for you... And you won't even have to speak perfect Swedish to get around!

What Language Should You Learn?

I am a sheep

I wasn't going to do the Top 100 meme. Really I wasn't. But temptation got to me.

It's behind the "read more" link, though, so nobody has to read the longlongLONG list...

I got this from Laura, who got it from Susan, who got it from the Chronic Curmudgeon. Look up the top 100 songs of the year you graduated high school (scroll down the page) and bold the ones you liked.

Guilty pleasures are in italics, and songs I noticeably dislike are crossed out.

1999 - the last year I actually went to high school

 

1. Believe, Cher

2. No Scrubs, TLC

3. Angel Of Mine, Monica

4. Heartbreak Hotel, Whitney Houston

5. ...Baby One More Time, Britney Spears

6. Kiss Me, Sixpence None The Richer

7. Genie In A Bottle, Christina Aguilera

8. Every Morning, Sugar Ray

9. Nobody's Supposed To Be Here, Deborah Cox

10. Livin' La Vida Loca, Ricky Martin

11. Where My Girls At?, 702

12. If You Had My Love, Jennifer Lopez

13. Slide, Goo Goo Dolls

14. Have You Ever?, Brandy

15. I Want It That Way, Backstreet Boys

16. I'm Your Angel, R. Kelly and Celine Dion

17. All Star, Smash Mouth

18. Angel, Sarah McLachlan

19. Smooth, Santana Featuring Rob Thomas

20. Unpretty, TLC

21. Bills, Bills, Bills, Destiny's Child

22. Save Tonight, Eagle-Eye Cherry

23. Last Kiss, Pearl Jam

24. Fortunate, Maxwell

25. All I Have To Give, Backstreet Boys

26. Bailamos, Enrique Iglesias

27. What's It Gonna Be?!, Busta Rhymes Featuring Janet

28. What It's Like, Everlast

29. Fly Away, Lenny Kravitz

30. Someday, Sugar Ray

31. Lately, Divine

32. That Don't Impress Me Much, Shania Twain

33. Wild Wild West, Will Smith Featuring Dru Hill and Kool Moe Dee

34. Scar Tissue, Red Hot Chili Peppers

35. Heartbreaker, Mariah Carey Featuring Jay-Z

36. I Still Believe, Mariah Carey

37. The Hardest Thing, 98 Degrees

38. Summer Girls, LFO

39. Can I Get A..., Jay-Z Featuring Amil (Of Major Coinz) and Ja

40. Jumper, Third Eye Blind

41. Doo Wop (That Thing), Lauryn Hill

42. Mambo No. 5 (A Little Bit Of...), Lou Bega

43. Sweet Lady, Tyrese

44. It's Not Right But It's Okay, Whitney Houston

45. (God Must Have Spent) A Little More Time On You, 'N Sync

46. Lullaby, Shawn Mullins

47. Anywhere, 112 Featuring Lil'Z

48. Tell Me It's Real, K-Ci and JoJo

49. Back 2 Good, Matchbox 20

50. 808, Blaque

51. She's So High, Tal Bachman

52. She's All I Ever Had, Ricky Martin

53. Miami, Will Smith

54. Hands, Jewel

55. Who Dat, JT Money Featuring Sole

56. Please Remember Me, Tim McGraw

57. From This Moment On, Shania Twain

58. Love Like This, Faith Evans

59. You, Jesse Powell

60. Trippin', Total Featuring Missy Elliott

61. If You (Lovin' Me), Silk

62. Ex-Factor, Lauryn Hill

63. Give It To You, Jordan Knight

64. Black Balloon, Goo Goo Dolls

65. Spend My Life With You, Eric Benet Featuring Tamia

66. These Are The Times, Dru Hill

67. I Don't Want To Miss A Thing, Mark Chesnutt

68. I Do (Cherish You), 98 Degrees

69. Because Of You, 98 Degrees

70. I Will Remember You (Live), Sarah McLachlan

71. Chante's Got A Man, Chante Moore

72. Happily Ever After, Case

73. My Love Is Your Love, Whitney Houston

74. All Night Long, Faith Evans Featuring Puff Daddy

75. Back That Thang Up, Juvenile Featuring Mannie Fresh and Lil' Wayne

76. Almost Doesn't Count, Brandy

77. Man! I Feel Like A Woman!, Shania Twain

78. Steal My Sunshine, Len

79. I Need To Know, Marc Anthony

80. So Anxious, Ginuwine

81. Faded Pictures, Case and Joe

82. Back At One, Brian McKnight

83. When A Woman's Fed Up, R. Kelly

84. How Forever Feels, Kenny Chesney

85. Amazed, Lonestar

86. Sometimes, Britney Spears

87. Ghetto Cowboy, Mo Thugs Family Featuring Bone Thugs-N-Harmony

88. Out Of My Head, Fastball

89. Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem), Jay-Z

90. Jamboree, Naughty By Nature Featuring Zhane

91. Take Me There, BLACKstreet and Mya Featuring Mase and Blinky Blink

92. Stay The Same, Joey McIntyre

93. Lesson In Leavin', Jo Dee Messina

94. Iris, Goo Goo Dolls

95. Satisfy You, Puff Daddy Featuring R. Kelly

96. Better Days (And The Bottom Drops Out), Citizen King

97. Music Of My Heart, 'N Sync and Gloria Estefan

98. Write This Down, George Strait

99. When You Believe, Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey

100. God Must Have Spent A Little More Time On You, Alabama Featuring 'N Sync

 

2000 -- the year I got my diploma

 

1. Breathe, Faith Hill

2. Smooth, Santana Featuring Rob Thomas

3. Say My Name, Destiny's Child

4. I Wanna Know, Joe

5. Everything You Want, Vertical Horizon

6. Maria Maria, Santana Featuring The Product G&B

7. Bent, Matchbox Twenty

8. Amazed, Lonestar

9. I Knew I Loved You, Savage Garden

10. He Wasn't Man Enough, Toni Braxton

11. Higher, Creed

12. .Try Again, Aaliyah

13. There You Go, Pink

14. Thong Song, Sisqo

15. Kryptonite, 3 Doors Down

16. Jumpin Jumpin', Destiny's Child

17. What A Girl Wants, Christina Aguilera

18. Doesn't Really Matter, Janet

19. Music, Madonna

20. Back At One, Brian McKnight

21. Bye Bye Bye, 'N Sync

22. You Sang To Me, Marc Anthony

23. I Need To Know, Marc Anthony

24. Get It On Tonite, Montell Jordan

25. Incomplete, Sisqo

26. I Try, Macy Gray

27. It's Gonna Be Me, 'N Sync

28. That's The Way It Is, Celine Dion

29. (Hot S**T) Country Grammar, Nelly

30. Bring It All To Me, Blaque

31. Show Me The Meaning Of Being Lonely, Backstreet Boys

32. Hot Boyz, Missy Elliott Featuring Nas, EVE & Q-Tip

33. Back Here, BBMak

34. It Feels So Good, Sonique

35. Absolutely (Story Of A Girl), Nine Days

36. With Arms Wide Open, Creed

37. Be With You, Enrique Iglesias

38. Come On Over Baby (All I Want Is You), Christina Aguilera

39. No More, Ruff Endz

40. All The Small Things, Blink 182

41. The Way You Love Me, Faith Hill

42. I Turn To You, Christina Aguilera

43. Never Let You Go, Third Eye Blind

44. I Need You, LeAnn Rimes

45. Thank God I Found You, Mariah Carey Featuring Joe & 98 Degrees

46. Let's Get Married, Jagged Edge

47. My Love Is Your Love, Whitney Houston

48. Then The Morning Comes, Smash Mouth

49. Blue (Da Ba Dee), Eiffel 65

50. Desert Rose, Sting Featuring Cheb Mami

51. The Real Slim Shady, Eminem

52. Most Girls, Pink

53. Wifey, Next

54. Wonderful, Everclear

55. Oops!... I Did It Again, Britney Spears

56. I Wanna Love You Forever, Jessica Simpson

57. Give Me Just One Night (Una Noche ), 98 Degrees

58. Take A Picture, Filter

59. Otherside, Red Hot Chili Peppers

60. Big Pimpin', Jay-Z Featuring UGK

61. Purest Of Pain (A Puro Dolor), Son By Four

62. He Can't Love U, Jagged Edge

63. Separated, Avant

64. I Wish, Carl Thomas

65. U Know What's Up, Donell Jones

66. Faded, SoulDecision Featuring Thrust

67. Only God Knows Why, Kid Rock

68. Shake Ya Ass, Mystikal

69. Bag Lady, Erykah Badu

70. Meet Virginia, Train

71. Party Up (Up In Here), DMX

72. Case Of The Ex (Whatcha Gonna Do), Mya

73. Forget About Dre, Dr. Dre Featuring Eminem

74. That's The Way, Jo Dee Messina

75. Swear It Again, Westlife

76. The Next Episode, Dr. Dre Featuring Snoop Dogg

77. From The Bottom Of My Broken Heart, Britney Spears

78. Crash And Burn, Savage Garden

79. Yes!, Chad Brock

80. The Best Day, George Strait

81. How Do You Like Me Now?!, Toby Keith

82. Where I Wanna Be, Donell Jones

83. My Best Friend, Tim McGraw

84. Broadway, Goo Goo Dolls

85. Dance With Me, Debelah Morgan

86. Don't Think I'm Not, Kandi

87. I Hope You Dance, Lee Ann Womack & Sons Of The Desert

88. Better Off Alone, Alice Deejay

89. What'chu Like, Da Brat Featuring Tyrese

90. Cowboy Take Me Away, Dixie Chicks

91. I Like It, Sammie

92. 24/7, Kevon Edmonds

93. Girl On TV, LFO

94. Bounce With Me, Lil Bow Wow Featuring Xscape

95. What About Now, Lonestar

96. I Don't Wanna, Aaliyah

97. Independent Women Part I, Destiny's Child

98. Shackles (Praise You), Mary Mary

99. Waiting For Tonight, Jennifer Lopez

100. Gotta Tell You, Samantha Mumba

Hoping.

Double-posting again, like yesterday...

I learned at Phantom Scribbler that the Red Cross is not being allowed into New Orleans (details on their webpage).

On the surface, this shocks and angers me. The Red Cross seems to be taking it pretty serenely, though -- they point out that "The Red Cross does not conduct search and rescue operations. We are an organization of civilian volunteers and cannot get relief aid into any location until the local authorities say it is safe and provide us with security and access." I hope that they are being given an honest appraisal of the situation. I don't hope, at all, that it's still so dangerous in New Orleans that the Red Cross can't be allowed in; still, given that they're not allowed in, I hope that this, or some other real reason, is the explanation.

Whether or not they're allowed into the city, the Red Cross is still doing a lot of good elsewhere by giving food and shelter to those who have escaped New Orleans. Donate elsewhere if you choose, but please don't let this bewildering situation sour you on giving aid in some way, however you can.