My Brain!

Five-ish years ago, I entered myself into the University of Oregon's human subject's pool as a requirement for my intro psych classes. Throughout the next two years I participated in a number of studies. I only really remember three of them. One I won ten dollars during (some game theory experiment,) another I got hooked up to machines and yelled at while performing math problems (physiological stress experiment) and lastly, one in which I got forty dollars to get my brain scanned while they intermittently fed me chocolate. The last experiment resulted in me having a digital fMRI scan of my brain which I can slice, rotate and manipulate using a program called Space.

So, if you cut my head like this,



you would see this.



That's right people, that is my brain. I thought I would show you the unadulterated version first, but here is the same thing with some key landmarks labeled.



Note, the extra space (for knowledge) created by a bump in my skull. Not really sure what the skeletal abnormality is about.

Pretty cool huh?

A Really Good Week

This week was really good. Here's why...

On Monday Callie was in town (so glad to see her), so I went over to the Stark’s house for dinner. Shepards pie, cheese, wine, good conversation, you can’t go wrong. Plus after dinner we took a hike in the arboretum behind campus and then got some delicious ice cream at Mallards. [photo courtesy of google images]

Tuesday, I was back at Callie’s for dinner. Ratatouille, polenta, wine (Malbec!), cheese (smoked gouda!) and lemon polenta cake. So good. Plus, I made some new friends.

Wednesday, Kate and Becca came to visit. First, we went down to Fairhaven and walked to Boulevard Park. It was a beautiful day. [Next three photos courtesy of Kate]

Me and Becca.

Me and Kate.

Me, Becca and Kate.

Then, we decided to splurge for dinner at Hearthfire (also where we met up with Kelly.) Martinis, crab and artichoke dip, steak and prawns and berry shortcake, all while sitting next to the bay. Delicious. I spent my weekly grocery allowance in one night but, delicious.

After dinner, we went to Jamie’s so we could briefly discuss our counseling scenario for Thursday. Jamie and I quickly decided it was barely worth preparing for, so we left. The rest of the night was spent watching old Friends episodes at my apartment and trading back rubs.

Thursday, Jamie, Alicia, Nicole and I went to Red Berry to celebrate finishing our counseling scenarios. [Again, thank you google images]

Friday, skype-date with husband :) We watched two episodes of Angel and planned our honeymoon. Here is a picture of us just for fun.

Saturday, I went to lake padden to lay out in the sun and finish the last 300 ish pages of my book so that I could go see the movie. [I have a policy about seeing the movie before reading the book. Basically, I don’t do it]

I really liked it. The thing about books that land on the NY best-sellers list is that they are usually pretty addicting page-turners. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo was no exception. It was intricate, fast-paced, gritty, and my favorite, full of unique, multi-faceted characters.

Today, I caught the last showing of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo at the Pickford Theatre with Maggie. It was fantastic. They left out some layers of plot and changed a few things, but overall it was a faithful adaptation. I really like foreign films, and I was happy to see that they had subtitled it rather than dubbing. My favorite part was how well they cast the part of Lisbeth Salander. She was bad-ass.

Warning, the movie has some violent and graphic scenes in it. It is not rated (since it was made in Sweden) but if it was, it would most definitely be rated R. After the movie was over, the little old lady I walked out with said it all with the following comment.

"Those were some really violent Swedes"

After the movie, Maggie and I went to Henderson Books to look for a copy of the next book in the series, The Girl Who Played With Fire. It was my first time in this particular used bookstore.

I fell in love.

I didn’t find what I was looking for, but I did find a pocket-size copy of Machiavelli’s Il Principe in the original italian for four dollars (score!)

Next, we went to Village Books were I successfully purchased book two and signed up for the VB book club. I plan on finishing the book within the week because the movie is coming to the Pickford next weekend.

Anyway, then Maggie and I met up with Sydney and walked to Boulevard Park, pausing briefly en route so Syd could jump into the bay.

At the park, we read and did some people watching.

Then, I went home to whip up another batch of these cookies (the dough is refrigerating as I type) and watch Bones.

In short, my week was filled with close friends, delicious food, an addictive book, and a captivating movie. Which (conveniently) made it easy to ignore all the school bits.

I wish every week could be this good.

Why You Shouldn't Take Meat from Strangers

This is one of my favorite travel stories, mostly because it is so ridiculous. But before I get started, a little background information.

Spring quarter of my sophomore year of college (so a little over three years ago) I studied abroad in Siena, Italy. I spent three months living in the most beautiful place on earth soaking up the Italian language with some of the coolest people I have ever met. We spent all morning and part of the afternoon at the Universita per Stranieri (studying Italian) and the late afternoon at the AHA office (studying Art History and Italian Culture.) Fortunately for us, Italy is a Roman Catholic country; this meant quite a few days off for religious observances. We used these long weekends (and our week-long break between class sessions) to travel around Italy.

On one of our breaks, Andrea, Kate, Megan, Jess, Ali and I traveled south for a visit to the famously picturesque Almalfi Coast. Honestly, just the bus ride along the coast would have been worth the trip. I am not joking people, it was one hell-of-a panorama. It looked a lot like this. [Note: I did not take this picture, I got it off the internet.]


On the trip, we stayed in a cute cabin at a camping hostel in Sorrento. The bathroom was kinda funky and a tail-less lizard lived in it, but overall it was perfect. The best part was that the cabin was only a short, steep walk away from the hostel’s private beach.


I could write an entire book using only stories from this trip as material. Regardless, I am going to try my best to stay focused on the story at hand and leave the other pieces for another day.

Ok. The story. So somewhere around the third day of the trip, we walked from the hostel to these castle ruins that were a mile or two away. When I say ruins, I mean it. There was really nothing left that you could recognize as castle. But, it was beautiful and right next to the ocean. [*Note: from this point forward, all photos are courtesy of Andrea, as I cannot find my own from this adventure.]

It was a gorgeous day and we weren’t in any hurry, so we sat down on the ruins and tried to take in all the incredibly blue sky and ocean for a bit. We hadn’t been sitting long when a young (ish) Italian man with a backpack strolls up.

One thing you should know is that I LOVE speaking Italian, especially with honest-to-god Italians. While I was in Italy I jumped on any chance to talk to strangers because it meant I got to practice my language skills. Another thing you should know is that I had at least a year more language experience than anyone on that trip, so I tended to assume the role of interpreter.

Anyway, the guy approached us and we started talking. Turns out he was a refrigerator repairman from a nearby hilltop town. He seemed nice enough, but in retrospect I should have noticed some troubling signs. For example, after stunted introductions our “conversation” went a lot like this;

Random guy: Barca. [“boat,” as he points to one in the water]
Me: Si, e una barca. [“Yep, that is a boat”]
Random guy: Cielo. [“sky,” as he points to, you guessed it, the sky]
Me: Si, e il cielo. [“Yep, that is the sky”]
Random guy: Mare. [“ocean,” again with the pointing]
Me: Lo so. [“I know”]

At first I thought that he was drastically underestimating my Italian skills. But as the conversation continued and he answered my syntactically well-constructed questions (I was using congiuntivo for heavens sake) with object labels I became suspicious. Right about here is where he asked us if we were hungry. Before we could even answer, he opened up his backpack and pulled out kindling, a metal grill rack and a Tupperware of marinating meat. At this point, my companions and I are both fascinated and completely sketched-out.

Talking amongst ourselves (safely, as it was clear he did not understand English) we decided there was no freaking way we were going to eat meat that had been taken from a stranger’s backpack and cooked on top of castle ruins. The novelty of the situation kept us sitting there watching him (and in my case, journaling,) despite the fact we were wary of his meat and had no intention of eating it. So, with us watching, he built a fire.

Which turned into a raging flame.

Then it burned down and he started grilling the meat.

As it cooked, the most amazing, mouth-watering, meaty smell you could possible imagine surfaced on that castle-top. I don’t even like meat that much and I was practically drooling. We talked amongst ourselves some more. Ultimately, we decided it was probably safe to eat just a little bit, but only if he ate it first because somehow that made it okay.

When the meat was ready he divided it up into small pieces (necessary, as there were six of us) and then reached into his backpack. Turns out, he still had a box of vino and two plastic cups hiding in there. He graciously offered us the two cups and the whole box of vino and then ate a small piece of the meat. We looked at each other, shrugged, passed around the box wine, and grabbed a piece of meat.

Here is a direct quote from the end of my journal entry from that day, written moments after the picnic was over to immortalize the moment.

We were weirded out at first, but that was some really, really good meat.


So anyway, after we had eaten this stranger’s meat and drank his wine we decided to explore the area a little more.
Too summarize, the guy got weirder and weirder after the picnic. The worst part was that I was the only one really talking to him so no one else had noticed just how strange his one-word-utterances-with-creepy-smiles had gotten. However, once he started asking us for American money it became more apparent.

Another thing you should know. One Italian word that we used a lot, was “andiamo” which can mean “we are going [to someplace]” or “let’s go” depending on the way you say it. In our group of travelers, it had become something of a battle-cry, capturing our excitement for whatever it was we were going to do next.

Anyway, eventually he got too strange for me to be comfortable with, and I signaled the sentiment to the group with a very definitive “andiamo” (as in “We are leaving, now.”) So we jumped up and headed out at a brisk walk.

Long story short, he managed to get even more strange, following us back toward the road labeling trees, bugs, plants, animals and anything else in his field of vision. When I started ignoring him, he began singing “American Pie” at the top of his lungs. Once we got to the road I firmly told him something along the lines of “Thanks for the meat, but we are going now.” He crossed the street but kept following us, still singing, but also managing to intermittently label things. For instance, the big piece of steel he picked up, which he tried to mail by pushing it into a big red mailbox.

Never fear, the story ends well. I am a little fuzzy on the details, but I am pretty sure we lost him before we got to the hostel and that we told the hostel desk guy about him in case he came looking for us.

The moral of the story: Don’t take meat from strangers, especially when it comes from a backpack.

Awkward Neighbor Situation: Update

Hang on to your hats people, I might be telepathic. I may also have a cyber-stalker.

Let me explain. It has been approximately ten days since my senses have been assaulted by my neighbor's toxic cigarette smoke. If you read this post, you may note that ten days ago roughly corresponds to the day after I wrote about the issue. Creepy huh?

The way I see it, there are a few viable possibilities here.

1. I am telepathic and my aura of hate projected through the wall I share with smoker neighbor, causing him to inexplicably quit smoking. Ultimately, the fear of my wrath being stronger than his nicotine addiction.

2. Smoker neighbor,who I have never spoken to and would not recognize if I passed him on the street, somehow stumbled on my blog, recognized my schematic of our balconies and was shamed into quitting.

3. Smoker neighbor went on vacation, but will be back to taunt me soon.

4. Smoker neighbor is in the process of moving and for once, the strategy of "ignoring the problem until it goes away" actually worked. [Note, this possibility is substantiated by Jamie claiming to see boxes stacked in smoker neighbors apartment via the glass door leading to the balcony... I haven't tried to look in yet, but as of now the smoking chair and ashtray are still on his balcony]

I am favoring option one, but willing to admit that it could work in tandem with any of the other possibilities.

In any case, I am enjoying my smoke-free environment no matter how temporary it may be, especially since it has been so hot lately that I have to keep my balcony door open. However, I admit I was almost looking forward to what I assumed would be an awkward encounter worth sharing. Who knows, if option three is true I may still need to use the diplomatic solution I was working on. Only time will tell.

Distance Education

Once again, last Friday found me throwing my possessions into a laundry basket (sans mango this time) and driving 273 miles southbound. Then, after spending a fantastic weekend with my family and friends celebrating the birth of our country, I threw it all back in the basket and drove up that same 273-mile stretch of interstate. Holiday traffic was horrific both ways. Ultimately, I spent roughly 11.5 hours in the car.

Thank goodness for National Public Radio. Here are some things I learned in the car this weekend. The first few are courtesy of NPR’s Science Friday. The list is by no means exhaustive.

•July 11th there will be a total solar eclipse visible from the Caribbean. Many astrologists booked rooms on Easter Island years ago to make sure they could see it.
•Scientist’s have identified a genetic “longevity” signature unique to individuals who live to be 100 years or older. The crazy thing is that the centenarians still have genetic markers associated with life-threatening and chronic diseases; but, the researchers think that they don’t manifest because the genes that make up the longevity signature somehow neutralize them.
•The allium genus includes garlic, leeks, chives, onion, shallots and more veggies that I can’t remember. A guy whose name I don’t remember wrote a book about them. Fun fact: if you crush up garlic and put it on foot fungus, it will kill the fungus. It will also burn the skin off your feet.
•Geneticist’s are working to isolate genes for scale and eye color in Sticklefish. I forget why.
•General Patraeus will replace General McChrystal as the top US Commander in Afghanistan.
•Age-related cognitive decline (subtle, but present as early as age 25) can be linked to a build-up of neurotoxins in the brain resulting in a decreased ability of the brain to metabolize oxygen.
•An author named Karen Slaughter (not a pseudonym) writes crime fiction. She likes to murder someone within the first chapter of each book.
•A company in Alaska has started producing Salmon flavored vodka. They distill the alcohol in smoked salmon and then strain it out. The company suggests using it to make Bloody Marys.
•There is an exhibit is some city called Burke that showcases art by individuals recovering from traumatic brain injuries.
•In 2000, Stephen King was hit by a van. He broke almost all the bones on the right side of his body. His family later bought the van and had it impounded so a crazed fan wouldn’t buy it and make a profit on ebay.
•The first tar balls washed up on the beaches of Galveston, TX. The oil catastrophe (I refuse to minimize the incident by referring to it as a “spill”) has officially hit all the gulf states.

Thank you NPR, for sharing your knowledge and making my drive bearable.