george was a guest of Academy Award nominee Abigail Breslin, of Little Miss Sunshine, last night!! apparently, he even made a few appearances on screen though argggh, ironically, i never caught a glimpse of it!!
i googled afterwards. seems she’s a fan of curious george 
 yay for other people liking george! maybe this is the start of his comeback. winnie the pooh’s got nothing on my monkey!!
even though i think i act the same around different people, the dynamics of the different groups of people vary despite myself seemingly remaining constant. for example, i am AWESOME at games when i play against high school friends (i allllways beat angela and mariam!) and college friends (i always beat chubacca and ren-yi and changer banger regardless of what we’re playing… well, ‘cept thumb war). but with after-college friends, i find i suck at whatever we’re playing… what the heck?
one of my friends said she notices that people change their tone when they answer the phone. she says she noticed a lot of her guy friends lowered their voices when picking up the phone, particularly when they were talking to other guys. i’ve noticed that a few of my guy friends’ voices sound lower over the phone, but i always attributed it to the phone distorting their voices…
i guess we make subconscious adjustments when around different people (… like maybe i just feel bad for my after-college friends so in order to boost their self-esteem, i let them win at whatever we’re playing!), but i wonder if it’s ever so extreme that you have split personalities? i could see how one might be more outgoing with a group of people they’re very comfortable with… that’s not the “act different” that i’m thinking of. i wonder if it’s like two distinct personalities… like with one group of friends they’re calm, organized, and level-headed and with another group of friends, they’re crazy and insane. (i’m stereotyping here… of course you can be both calm and crazy, but u know what i mean)
isn’t he cute?
977 984 1498421
why the fuck are you calling me repeatedly at 6am in the morning??? i just got at least 5 phone calls from this phone number in the past 10 minutes. each time i pick up and say hello, they hang up. at first, i thought i heard sounds in the background and the connection was just bad. but after the 3rd time, i actually said fuck off right as i picked up. yet, still more calls. (oo… two more since starting this entry) and i’ve stopped picking up and turned off my ringer yet THEY CONTINUE TO CALL. and at 6am, it’s a bit late in the night (plus it’s a WEDNESDAY) for any drunken, prank callings…
when the phone rings at 6am in the morning, i get startled. i wake up immediately and rush to the phone. at 6am on a weekday morning… if there is a phone call, i think it’s only natural to worry that it’s something urgent from someone i love….
so i googled the area code to find out its in nepal??? does that make any sense? WHY ARE THEY CALLING AMERICA AND ISN’T IT COSTING THEM A FORTUNE???
so i tried to call verizon wireless to tell them to block the number from calling me. and i get a message saying they’re not open yet, their regular hours are 5am to yada yada… it’s 6AM…… !!
edit: seems drunken nepal guy woke up 6 hours later and is trying to reach me again. i tried to get verizon to block his number (he called twice while i was on hold with verizon) but apparently, they can’t block just his number. so the total count is up to 14 today. tim actually spoke to him for awhile too… pretending to be borat and an indian guy. haaha, it actually seemed to get the guy to speak more.
interesting article in the washingtonpost today about a 20 year long study to see if your behavior as a 1 year influences
your future romances.
oh weird… i hadn’t even noticed but it mentions a researcher at CMU!
from: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/11/AR2007021100931.html
Plagued With Relationship Troubles? Blame Your Parents.
By Shankar Vedantam
Monday, February 12, 2007; A02
So, Valentine’s Day is two days away, but you know he isn’t going to bring you any flowers. And instead of a cuddle and a kiss, you know she is going to dig up that old canard about your mother.
Does your relationship feel like an endless rerun of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” — Edward Albee’s grim masterpiece of domestic disharmony? Do you always spend Valentine’s Day alone? Do all those smooching couples sound like idiotic moths banging their heads against a windowpane?
If the answer to any of these questions is yes, science can finally provide a simple explanation — and a measure of grim satisfaction: Blame your parents!
Forget about Hallmark cards and chocolate. Just in time for Valentine’s Day, scientists are announcing the results of an astonishing two-decade-long study that explored the connection between insecure infants and relationship problems in young adults. Turns out the kind of baby you were at 12 months can say a lot about the kind of lover you will be at 21.
“If you are more insecure when you are 1, you are more likely to experience more negative emotions in your relationship with your current partner when you are 21,” said psychologist Jeffry Simpson at the University of Minnesota.
People from Sigmund Freud on down have made arguments about the role of early relationships in later life. But Simpson and his colleagues have shown for the first time, in a paper in the current issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, an empirical connection between early behavioral patterns and romantic relationships years down the road.
The study closely tracked 78 people over a quarter-century, starting when they were babies. Mothers and infants were brought into a laboratory, and the mothers were asked to leave briefly. The infants became upset, of course, but the psychologists were interested in what happened when the mothers returned. Some infants clung tightly to their mothers and sought comfort. In a little while, they calmed down. But others refused to calm down even after lengthy soothing. And some babies refused to turn to their mothers for comfort at all.
Simpson said research has shown that secure infants turn to their parents when they are upset: “The kid learns, ‘I can count on my parents to calm me down.’ They learn to turn to others. Whereas insecure kids learn that my parent is either rejecting or they learn my parent is neglectful. Or ‘I have to protest to get attention.’ ”
The researchers checked in with the children again when they were in first through third grade. They asked teachers how each child compared in social skills with other children in the class — especially when the child was upset. Did she act out her anger or reach out to others to solve the problem?
The next check came at another developmental milestone, when the kids were teenagers. The psychologists studied how the adolescents reached out to their best friends for support: “Do you rely on your best same-sex friend at 16 to calm you down or do you distract yourself?” Simpson asked.
Finally, the researchers studied the people when they were between ages 21 and 23. They asked the volunteers how often they felt happy or sad in their romantic relationships. The volunteers’ romantic partners were asked to describe the relationship as well. Finally, the couples were presented with a conflict and given 30 minutes to try to resolve it. Researchers videotaped the couples as they dealt with the problem and the emotions it produced.
“We find if you are insecure at age 1, that predicts being rated as being less socially competent than your peers during grades one-two-three, which predicts less reliance on your best same-sex friend when you are upset at 16, which then predicts more negative emotion in a romantic relationship at age 21 to 23,” Simpson said.
Does this mean all insecure infants are doomed to a lifetime of unhappiness? Simpson argued otherwise. Human destiny is not so circumscribed, he said. What the study showed is how each developmental step influences the next, positively or negatively. While it is certainly best to be started in the right direction, people can always learn the skills needed for successful relationships.
At its core, said Brooke Feeney, a social psychologist at Carnegie Mellon University who published another study in the same journal, research into the factors that predict happiness in our personal lives reveals a paradox about relationships — and a timely lesson for Valentine’s Day.
Contrary to the popular American myth that people left to fend for themselves become strong and independent, the psychological research seems to show exactly the opposite is true: It is the people who are confident enough to reach out to others for help — and to whom help is given — who become truly capable of independence.
Like those crying infants in Simpson’s study who turned to their mothers for support and, once comforted, resumed their explorations of the world, Feeney found that romantic partners similarly become more independent once their emotional needs are met.
“It is a lot easier for people to take risks and accept challenges when they know someone is available to help them and comfort them if something goes wrong,” Feeney said. “The most secure individuals are able to turn to other people for support.”
i bang my head a lot. my head is oddly shaped because of too many bangs to the head. i used to visit the school nurse in elementary school at least once a week because of getting hit in the head during recess and/or gym. i just had another big head bang this weekend. i’ve had to eat advil the past 2 days because of pain (and i never eat medicine!!) so i thought i’d start a top 5 list of head bangs. granted, i can’t remember all the details to them all. that might be bad…
. I was just learning to walk and was in one of those wheelie walker things. My older sister (I blame you!!) liked to tease me by running up to me, teasing me, and running away quicker than I could. One day, she did this to me and I gave chase. And somehow, fell down the flight of stairs (we lived in a split level house so it was “only” half a flight of stairs) WITH the walker! I’ve had a bump on my head since I can remember (it’s on the side and seems unnatural unless I was born with a deformed head…) so I’m guessing it’s from this fall (though my mom claims I also liked to jump out of my crib when I was a baby… maybe I’ll clump both of those as one “bang” on this list of bangs). My mom says she and my grandma found me at the bottom of the stairs and that I was unconscious for a bit. They were freaking out and were just about to take me to the hospital when I woke up. So I blame YOU, Leslie, for my idiotcy… I would’ve be a Nobel-winning doctor or something!!Honorable Mentions: 1996-2000? Chinese school volleyball when someone spiked directly onto my head, Harleyford townhouse 2006 when I banged my head right at the point of the corner of the dining room table, 3rd grade recess soccer game when someone kicked the ball right at my head, 9th grade Gym class again during the Badminton unit when a birdie hit me in the forehead… that didn’t hurt as much as it stung from the speed of the birdie, 1991-1995? swimming class when we were learning flip turns… I miscalculated the distance to the wall and started to flip too close to the wall, banged my head on the wall.
ok, enough blogging… going to try to go to sleep on my sore head 
honking my car horn seems to cause me a lot of problems.
one of the first times i ever used my horn in traffic was at travilah road and darnestown road. yup, i remember the intersection. i was about sixteen or seventeen. as i was pulling up to the light, it turned from red to green. there was one car that had been waiting at the light… they didn’t react to the light so i waited a bit. after what i felt was a reasonable amount of time, i gave what i considered a polite honk. the driver reacted and made the right turn. i followed and soon passed the car on darnestown road. i wasn’t going terribly fast. those who knew me in high school know i drove like a grandma back then and would’ve only been going, at most, five over the speed limit. i think i just passed the car because i felt a little ackward following a car that i had just honked at.
it was a couple of weeks later, after chinese school, that my mom and i were driving. we were turning left onto travilah road when my mom suddenly brought up – one of the chinese school teachers said that you drive recklessly! huh??? i was so confused! who had seen me driving reckless? what did i do that was so reckless? so apparently, the lady who was stopped AT A GREEN LIGHT told my mom that i had rudely honked and then cut her off. ummmmmm… yeah, i honked because you were stopped at a green light and not paying attention to the road! and i passed you legally and safely!! i was pissed ’cause here she was tattling on me, when honestly, i felt i was being a safe driver. luckily, my mom had actually defended me against this teacher and told her that she must have been mistaken as what she was described didn’t match the kind of driver she knew me to be. anyways, it made me paranoid about driving in the area for the longest time… what if other chinese school teachers were around, reporting back to my parents my driving behavior?!!
anyways… today, i was on my way to proctoring a SAT. i was exiting 66 and going quite fast (no more grandma driving for me anymore ). there was a somewhat slow car (maybe going 45-50 mph) already on the exit ramp and i was, on the highway, going about 75. i was letting the gradual hill of the exit ramp slow me down and had pretty much drop down to 55 and was approaching the slow car. admittedly, i probably should’ve broke but i didn’t think i’d hit the car or anything. suddenly, the car slams on its brakes! i slammed on my brakes (as in bookbag next to me fell to the ground and binder flew out of it kind of slam-on-the-brakes) to avoid rear-ending the car and instinctively honked my horn. (not the annoying honk, just a short honk) i wasn’t sure whether the car had just realized it had exited at the wrong ramp and was suddenly thinking of veering left back onto the highway or something… why the abrubt braking? anyways, we pull up the top of the exit ramp where there’s a red light and we both come to a stop. suddenly, the car door opens. and a man pops out. standing in the road, he starts yelling profanities at me and asking me if i was in a rush. (well, yes i actually was. but that’s not the reason i honked at him.) during this time, the light turns green and the cars in front of him move. he gets back into his car and starts to drive only to be stopped at the red light again. smooth, real smooth.
was it wrong of me to have honked? i don’t really think so. i wasn’t honking to tell him to get out of my way. i wasn’t trying to tail him; perhaps i should’ve started braking sooner but i felt that i was being reasonable (albeit not necessarily the most precautious) in my driving. i only honked because i felt like i was about to rear end him. it was a instinctive and defensive reaction.
i don’t think it’s smart to slam on your brakes. that is THE dumbest way to handle a tailgater. i’ve taken a defensive driving course and that is just about the worst way to handle it. not only do you increase your risk at getting into an accident (sure it’s HIS fault, but your insurance company may not care!) and getting seriously hurt, but you may just end up pissing off an already unpredictable driver . who knows? maybe i’m a psycho aggressive driver and if you continually threaten to cause me to get into an accident, i’ll just whip out my gun and shoot you down!! this sounds crazy, but crazier road rage accidents have occurred!
i’ve only used my horn minimally in the nearly 9 years i’ve been driving. and i think i know why i avoid using my horn often. i have way too many crazy horn-using incidents.
i forgot who i was talking to about this, but…
guys’ public bathrooms vs. girls’ public bathrooms, which one is cleaner?
on the one hand, there’s the stereotype of guys being dirtier. on the other hand, there’s the fact that women must use the toilet whereas guys have alternatives so therefore, the amount of “abuse” a toilet takes in a women’s bathroom is much more than in a men’s bathroom and the chance of a mess being made with toilet paper is increased.
i’ve only seen the inside of a guys’ bathroom once (1st grade, sitting in the hallway waiting for math to finish up. curiously, i’m not sure why i was OUTSIDE the classroom for math… perhaps that’s why i’m not that strong with my numbers), but i’ve seen plenty of women’s bathrooms and i think they are quite dirty. i don’t know why some women are as disgusting as they are. it only takes 2 seconds to flush….
when i was a kid, the main street that i lived off of was this 4 lane road with lots of bright street lights lining both sides of the street. it was slightly uphill and at the peak of the hill, you made a left to turn into my community. for reasons unknown to me (at the time), i always thought that an airport lay further up the road, beyond the top of the hill. i thought this until nearly the end of middle school when i realized that only my friends’ houses were beyond the top of the hill. i couldn’t figure out why i thought an airport was there. maybe it was the bright lights that i thought it was like a runway? maybe it was because the road was quite straight and wide? maybe i was just an idiot!
i didn’t realize until i graduated from college and moved to VA why i thought an airport was up the street from my childhood house. after graduating, i moved back to the area of VA that i lived in until i was 3 years old. i barely remember the house we lived in, let alone the community. but we lived right by dulles airport. you can see the planes taking off and landing quite easily from my old house. the sound can actually be quite loud. most importantly, you literally are right down the street from the airport. there’s no need to take the dulles toll road to the airport; you can take local roads straight to the airport. THAT’s why i thought, when i moved to MD, that the airport was right up the street from where i lived!
i think it’s funny how kids are, on one hand, quite observant and, on the other hand, quite innocent and unaware of the world around them. they can make innocent assumptions that adults would just laugh off. as a 3 year old, i was aware enough to realize how close we were to an airport, but dumb enough to think that all houses must be just down the street from airports. there’s always those TV shows/email forwards of “kids say the darnest things” that show the little things kids notice and the big assumptions they make off of those observations.
i also find it interesting when those childhood impressions of things get shattered. i’m not talking about the moment you realized santa didn’t actually eat those cookies. that’s traumatic. i’m talking about the moment when you realized that it’s ok to eat fruit seeds; the fruit won’t grow in your stomach. (although that’s a bad example. that’s just your parents making up stories to prevent you from eating the seeds.) i remember being quite disappointed to realize that an airport didn’t exist up the street from me. and also quite confused as to why i even thought that.
any good amusing childhood assumptions/impressions of things you used to have? what happened when you figured it out?
