Omphaloskeptical meme

So, I’m home sick today. I think my body was just tired of all the work and decided to wave the white flag.

When I’m home sick, I spend a lot of time free-associating. Since I had just finished reading How Sassy Changed My Life: A Love Letter to the Greatest Teen Magazine of All Time last night, Sassy was on my mind. I honestly think that it was one of the biggest non-person influences on me during my early teens. It gave me a vocabulary to understand my ideas on feminism and self-esteem. It showed me that there were girls like me everywhere that also didn’t want to think of other girls as the enemy and boys as the ultimate prize in life, that what I had to contribute to the world, not just in the future, but as a teen-aged girl, could be valuable.

And truly, I know how lame that sounds to anyone that was not a Sassy reader, but if you were a reader at just the right age, you’d get me.

So I was thinking that I’d make a list of the top five movies/books/magazines/tv shows/songs that had a direct impact on me when I was in my tweens to teens. Now, I’m not talking about movies I liked or my favorite songs; no, I am talking about things that actually changed something about me, whether it was how I behaved, who I decided were attractive, how much I wallowed in my room thinking no one understood me, how I decided to join a club or movement, how I decided to stop judging others, whatever.

Here’s my list:

• Somebody, song by Depeche Mode
• The Breakfast Club, movie
• Sassy, magazine
• The Outsiders, book & movie
• The Bluest Eye, book

I could probably come up with a much bigger list, but having to stop at top five really forced me to give it some thought. Each of those things has left an indelible mark on who I am. Or perhaps they resonated with me so much because of who I already was, or who I was on my way to becoming.

Either way, I am glad those things were in my life at the time that they were. If I were to stumble across them now for the first time, I’m sure that they would have a different sort of impact on me than they had, but the first time around, it fit a perfect groove in me.

Crap, now I want to add Love Story to the list.

Anyway, it’s your turn.

Reading others

I think everyone likes to think that they can read other people well. I am one such person. 😀 I just took a test linked from an article in the Scientic American that discusses the role of the ability to read other people:

We must understand “where others are coming from” not only to pursue our individual goals but also to facilitate social harmony more generally. Specifically, we need to recognize that other people can have thoughts, beliefs, desires and feelings that differ from our own — and that those thoughts, ideas, and desires can drive their behavior. This understanding in turn allows us to predict how others will behave.

As I love learning/thinking about people and why they behave the way they do, I naturally enjoyed this article quite a bit.

I also took the test that was linked, because, well, I love taking tests. 🙂

I scored a 29 out of a possible 36. I think they said the average was around 26 and that those with Asperger syndrome hover around 21. I wonder if there will be a correlation in results between this test and the one AngryChad posted from NewsWeek.

How do I not post this video?

Wazzup with zee cupcakes?

You may have noticed, if you subscribe to my Google Reader shared items, that I’ve been sharing a lot of cupcake pics. This is because Seppo and I are making cupcakes for Holly & Mack’s wedding next year!

I’m so happy & excited, yet terrified now because my last few batches have been utter crap. But I’m a scientist at heart and I’m applying the scientific method to cull down to the best process and recipe that I can learn. So far, I only know what doesn’t work.

Hopefully, I will made a few batches in the very near future that taste and look kick-ass, at which point I will post them to the food blog. Nothing has been that great so far.

Dun dun dun.

The weight of responsibility

I’ve been furiously searching for a name for my soon-to-be nephew. My older brother called me the other day and asked for help. I love looking at name origins in general (goes along with my interest in etymology as well as my interest in cultural self-identity), so it’s not a task I am not excited about — I am!

But man! It’s hard. I have two requirements from the big bro:

• It must be unique, but not so unusual or wacky that it’ll be a constant source of teasing for the kid.
• It must sound “strong”.

I’ve already had a list rejected outright, except one name, which made the cut. In addition, the ladies of the family (the mom-to-be, my sister, my mom) all are interested in a name with a biblical link of some sort. My brother is like, “Eh,” about the idea, but he’s not against it.

So I’ve been trying to do modern variations on some of the lesser known biblical names, but it’s really hard. I’ve been using the following to websites as my primary resources in research:

• Baby Name Wizard’s NameVoyager (associated blog here)
• Nymbler (this is also associated with the same person as the above websites)

I have come to the amateurish conclusion that the letters p, t, k, m, n, and x (when not at the beginning) are “strong-sounding” letters and that the letters h, l, j, r, b, and s are not, where “strong-sounding” is extremely subjective.

And no, I’m not thinking of your name and judging you or anything like that. 🙂 I’m sure whatever you think I am thinking of your name, I have never thought it.

Anticipation

Warning: lame blog entry coming.

I’m really excited about Rock Band for the XBox360 and Gilmore Girls – The Complete Series Collection coming out. Both are coming out in November. Arg, it’s only August!

I figure Rock Band can be our Christmas gift to ourselves. For the dvd collection, I am thinking that it’ll be the reward for another successful NaNoWriMo. Because these things come out in November, I will most likely not be able to enjoy them until December, since every minute I am at home and awake will be spent on writing. Hmm. I’ll have to figure out a good schedule to keep things sane. It’s also possible that I might push off NaNoWriMo this year for another month entirely. We’ll see how it goes. I really want to spend a lot more time this round on plotting and setting, and polishing the core story so that it stands up well and has a good pace.