RIP

my dearly beloved ipod,

this is a eulogy for you. in the event that you do not fix yourself, magically, as what happened to rachel's speakers much to the angry disbelief of our friend abi. if you, however, fix yourself you will not be greeted with angry disbelief or any negative emotion. instead you will be cradled in a postive psychological field of reinforcement and approval, to the sounds of my ecstatic "THANK YOU STEVE JOBS." but in fact, the Most Illustrious Jobs was not involved in your life or creation but probably i should be thanking Hua Luoyin the replaceable factory worker who brought you into being seven thousand miles away in a shitty plant in Shenzhen China.

oops. i'm sorry. that was a digression away from the positive emotions you should be experiencing. back on track now. dearest ipod (i named you vivaci, in a sophomoric fit of drama and musical appropriateness), you literally died by chocolate. it's a much spoken of dream, amongst us humans, to die by chocolate. in fact we have numerous desserts which capture our hopes of a passing as delicious as that, but no one that i know of has done so yet. you are the first; you are not a human but you are a pioneer! the first, the last, the best. no death by washing machine is good enough for you (followed by emergency resuscitation in rice), no final free fall from the depths of a safe pocket, no everyday act of god that is not covered by apple's warranty.

"it died in chocolate," i mournfully told my friend over internet chat.

"u tried to eat your ipod?" he replied. he knows me so well. indeed, i am that greedy. i poured chocolate over you and tried to eat you.

HELL NO. i would sooner eat my arm. probably because it's actually marginally edible, which brings me to the second thing i talk about much more than is normal, namely, cannibalism. but i digress again. you were just an innocent bystander to the deceptively non-threatening lindt truffle ball (irish cream--it wasn't even that good but it was going to be my lunch on the bus ride back from minnesota) which proceeded to explode itself all over my bag. i would make a horribly non-politically correct comparison to terrorist bombings but i am much too good for that. even the truffle isn't all to blame: i also blame OPEC for producing the oil that allowed me to go to minnesota in the first place. expect a lawsuit.

cherished electronic, we have been together for...um. hold up a sec. ah yes, five years, back when i was still a foolish youth entering the life changing and beautiful experience of high school. we flew to china together, dropped you and dented your left corner, did forensics, pumped up before tennis games, moved out, went to college, walked to class, tagged and tailed mice, met new people who became friends, made explosives and founded sigma aldrich. the last one i made up. if that were true i could buy a lot more of you and be like haha i broke one of my twenty three ipods. actually i can't remember what we really did together nor do i really feel all that much nostalgic emotion associated with your little silver body. i just know that i miss you like i'd miss my left nostril (when you need you really really need it otherwise you forget it's there).

otherwise, the apple store will fix you for a cool $129. you better fix yourself you little shit.

lovingly,
your Person Connie

I was working in the garden and saw this little guy: it's the tendril of a long bean plant that grew away from the main plant and managed to find a tiny, bug-made hole in our nearby rhubarb. The picture doesn't do it justice because the rhubarb is huge and the bean tendrils are so small. Such precision! How the hell did the runner find that small hole and grow into it? It couldn't have covered all the underside of the rhubarb leaf, it would've expended too much energy. There's something awe- inspiring about how such a seemingly delicate thing can unerringly find its way through the obstacles around it, ending up exactly where it needs to go. 

Every day has so much beauty and happiness if you notice it. But I think you have to actively notice it, call it out from the background of the mundane that it weaves its way into. Luckily, there are so many small riches you can find in the everyday that it makes the act of searching worthwhile, because then you have an inexhaustible supply of happiness. And it's one that belongs entirely to you, grounded in the interactions you have with the world, so it's reliable as well.

I love sitting here, listening to bird chirps and bug noises, looking out at the growing things.  I'm kind of going to miss living by myself at home when my family comes back from China. One thing I've learned more and more is that all things pass. Everything. What happened yesterday suddenly becomes something that happened two days ago, four days ago, a week, a month. To be honest, when I was in China I sometimes counted the days until I could come back to America--in the moments when even my heels hurt from the weight of my feet resting on them because the bed was so damn hard, when everyone was nagging like it was an Olympic sport and they were all going to win gold...of course, I didn't spend all my time thinking like that or even much of it but there were moments. And I'd be like, oh my god there's still x amount of days until I can get a good night's sleep again. But now, suddenly, I'm in America and it's been almost two weeks since I came back. Which just goes to show--why not enjoy some unique things of that stretch of time while you can? Even if it's not something you expected to enjoy, it'll probably never happen again. Even if it's something like the absence of someone, or silence, etc. Be happy!

Aaaaand here's a granola recipe, randomly. It's so easy to make and so tasty for snacking or pouring some kefir over it or eating with yogurt or eating as cereal or using as confetti haha no:

HEALTHY HIPPIE GRANOLA GREATNESS 

3-4 cups of grain. Oats will be the major grain, usually, but you can also include things like flax seed, rolled barley, other such edible grainy/seedy things. Using rolled oats will be better than using steel cut oats. 

Eyeball amount of nuts. I tend to use the kind that you can buy in bulk which has almonds, cashews, walnuts. You can add sunflower seeds, peanuts (if you are into that kind of thing, being, boringness), sesame seeds--go crazy, you're a granola making hipster now! If you want a rough measurement, anywhere from 1-2 cups. Chop up the larger nuts. You can also include accessories like shredded coconut. 

~1 tsp salt. If you used unsalted nuts, add some salt for taste.

Cinnamon. Eyeball, or apply liberally.

Roughly 3/4 cups of goo. You can use straight-up maple syrup (although this is very expensive, especially if you use actual pure maple syrup which I'd definitely recommend--Aunt Jemima should stay out of this) or make a mixture out of melted butter, brown sugar, honey, and/or some sort of vegetable oil. You can also add maple syrup to that for some maple taste. Just estimate how much of everything you'll need, the point is to create a sticky sauce that will clump together your grains. Oh, but you'll definitely use more oil and honey than melted butter, I only use about 1/2 stick.

Mix the grains, nuts, cinnamon & salt together, while making the goo in a saucepan. Once that's done, pour it over the dry stuff and mix in evenly. Spread the granola mix over a large baking pan. Bake at 325 degrees for anywhere from 15-35 minutes. Every ten minutes or so, use a spoon to turn the granola so the bottom layer doesn't get burnt. If you spread it out in a thin layer, it will only take 15 minutes but will require two batches. Once the granola is a golden brown color, remove from oven and let cool--the longer you let it cool, the crispier granola will be. 

Once cooled, mix in your favorite dried fruits and/or chocolate. 

Enjoy, too often probably.

Kelly is a tiger-sister

Hi Connie, this is an email reminding you to FOLD MY BLANKET when you get to the U.S. Please do so immedietly when you get back! (and don't chicken out if there are bugs! Please if possible send me a picture of my room too, if you have time. Oh and I would like you to check my phone, to see if Sally called back. If she did, please tell me what she said on the message, if there is one. Thanks! Heres a list to make it easier.

1. Fold My Blanket

2. Send Me Picture Of My Room

3. Check On Phone (It should be on my desk in the playroom or in my room) and tell me if Sally called and what she said in the message if there is one.

That's right, boss me around child (I folded her blanket)

old post that i wrote somewhere else

Yesterday, Scott and I walked down by the lake and sat on the steps for a little while. Not too far from us a guy was playing guitar, quite well I may add; two men stopped to listen and talked to him a little bit. Then, to my complete delight, Guitar Guy passed his guitar to one of the strangers who began to pick out what sounded like a piece that you’d normally play on a classical guitar. I felt unreasonably happy at the exchange. What are the odds that someone walking by can play guitar too? Or more pertinently, I was marveling at the fact that someone walking by could have hidden in them knowledge that connected you to them—in this case, the knowledge of guitar. People can be such props and extras in our lives. Just shift the frame and it’s a completely different story though: they walk by, you walk by, you run past them sitting at the union, they watch you go. You’re an extra in someone else’s story too.

Which is why I thought it was so cool that randomly, momentarily, people passed a guitar around, sat down, and played some music. I watched Neil deGrasse Tyson’s video about “The Most Astounding Fact” on youtube (set to music and sights of space that bludgeoned you over the head with the sheer gravity and size of his message) after he came to talk on campus (where in the world is…), and he says “that’s really what you want in life isn’t it—you want to feel connected.” Because suddenly, that person stopped being an extra. Suddenly, you made a connection. No matter how brief or how long.

Unique in each way you can see

Lately I've gotten into making things on your own, from things that you have. Or simple life hacks like turning all your hangars to face the opposite direction that they normally do, then as you wear an article of clothing, turn it the normal way. At the end of the year you'll see which clothes in your closet you actually wear and which are simply part of the "crap we accumulate," and get rid of them accordingly (donate/sell/store).  The internet is this amazing treasure trove of ideas if you can sift out the shit from the win.

Also, I'll admit it: I have a pinterest account and it is great. Like any tool it can be used for good (blackberry cheesecake in jars) or evil (Feminst Ryan Gosling). Actually, I tend to 6-degrees-of-connections my internet hopping, instead of browsing through pinterest itself. If there's a blog that's creative and catches my attention, I'll click through which ones it links to since as in real life, communities aggregate on the internet along lines of similarity.

So there's my statement of affection for crafty/diy/idea sharing blogs. Now let me get to the observation that made me want to write a post. If you ever click through these blogs you'll notice they're all written by the same person. She (invariably) has a fairly recent husband who wears a fedora/hipster glasses/stubble/a beard/A Beard; her blog layout is white and/or full of Artsy Photo Links plus curly script; it features Instagram/crazily expensive camera photos with lots of negative space and one artfully arranged succulent plant. She ends every post with xoxo/love. She shops at farmer's markets, likes j.crew and looks exactly the same whether or not she is blond/a redhead/resembles a monkey. It's like the internet coughed up a real life trope.

This is probably offensive to anyone who has a style or craft blog and yeah, no one's making me look at these blogs. I like them. On the whole. It's just that when I look at them it feels like a completely different part of my brain gets activated in contrast to what lights up when I'm enragedly shouting at thinking about politics, or studying for the mcat, or reading a scientific paper. I don't meant to say that one is > than the other but I think it highlights some points:

1) The rich get richer is a saying in neuroscience as well as economics, which describes how if you exercise a synapse you make it stronger. Using only certain "parts" of your brain and neglecting others surely leads to brain specialization. Specialization may be necessary for civilization but the thought of specialization in the brain is somewhat scary to me; after all, that's how we perceive the world, form connections, and seek out information.

1.5) Is anyone really a well-balanced individual or is that just some great myth College Board seeks to impose on our earth. 

2) How can people be so similar to each other? Why do we, when given 7 billion flavors of human, still choose to follow certain typsets, whether it's consciously or unconsciously? I'm sure I'm no exception. Does being a certain type of person predispose you to liking certain things/engaging in certain activities? It's kind of cool when you come across someone who seems to be one way but has a passion, or quirk, that seems to be completely out of their character. Here's to you quiet, insanely smart, well-read girl who fucking loves lamborghini. We're all snowflakes distinct among snowflakes!

3) Crafting seems to exist in a vaccuum. When the Wisconsin recall election was going on and the UN is being turned away from Syrian villages, the crafting world presents cardboard cameras, felted flower headbands, and "electronically knitted spam poetry." Sometimes I can't help but feel disgusted at how trivial it can seem...but the benefit of a doubt: when you're only asking for one thing, you'll only get that one thing, I guess.

4) Will this be the first era of the hipster grandpa and gradma. Since what else can married couples like the owners of this house turn into?

Since this is all so trivial in itself, here's a really interesting TED talk about happiness, self-worth, and vulnerability:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCvmsMzlF7o

and a scary article about how we are all going to become Winston circa 1984 thanks to the kinect.

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/06/microsoft-wants-to-serve-you-ads-based-on-what-you-do-in-your-living-room/258351/

Remembering

What are the sounds that evoke emotions the most strongly for you?

Whenever I hear crickets, I get immediately and viscerally thrown into a certain mood that's connected strongly with certain memories. But it's not quite the same as hearing crickets and thinking of, say, camping one summer: it's more like the sound recalls an amalgamation of multiple memories and the emotions associated with all of them, blurred together into something equally composed of campfires, melancholy, darkness, solitude and perfect companionship at the same time.

Memories are complex, beautiful things. As a neurobio major, I get a lot of exposure to the functional side of memories - cases that proved the different types of memory, where those memories are "stored". At the broadest level, we have two categories of memories: implicit and explicit. Implicit memories can't be expressed verbally and include procedural memories, like how to ride a bike, as well as memories we associate with classical conditioning. Explicit memories can be communicated and are either semantic (facts) or episodic (tales of our lives). I wonder, though, where these visceral/emotional memories fall in this system. Maybe it's more accurate to call them them sensory memories.

I think there is a certain type of memory which you can describe, with difficulty, that stems from sensory stimuli, but doesn't match with a specific event or episodic story in your life. This type of memory is almost affect to affect matching, as in what you feel now maps to how you felt before, but maybe in multiple occasions. The smell of your elementary school. The sound of snowplows going by. A feeling-memory floods through your body and makes throws you into a different feeling. Many of my memories are like the synopsis of a book, or movie: "remember that time when..." and you recreate the scene, you see the people moving through it, you watch it play out. In comparison to the sensory memories, it's like describing a scene rather than experiencing it.

That ties into something I've wanted to convey for a very long time, but haven't attempted to because I don't think I can communicate it. But here goes. You're walking down a street in a city on a rainy day. You can experience this in two ways:

1. You think to yourself, "I am walking down this street on this rainy day."
2. You do not think, you simply walk down the street in the rain.

One is meta thinking, one is not. The first is oratory, descriptive, analytical and the second is experiential, sensory. To do the first requires distancing yourself from yourself but to do the second is to be yourself. People probably do not march down streets during rainstorms actively thinking about what they are doing but the principle can be extrapolated.

(Oh what you don't make pedantic and obscure lists about meta analysis for fun?)  Now I can't think of a way to return to a more concrete blog post. Curtain down! No transition!

Sensory/visceral memories are extremely fleeting and strangely, often sad for me. Are they for you? What stimuli send you into actually feeling what you have felt before?

what's this connie? two posts consecutively and not a full day apart? well, don't get excited yet because this is all trivial. a fart into cyberspace, if you will.

i'm so tired of studying half-heartedly for my final, and i have a cold that prevents the usage of my nose. noses, wouldn't you know, are kind of important for biological function. they're so under-appreciated, until they go. then you're stuck wondering okay body, what if my mouth were suddenly incapacitated and i could no longer breathe through it? would my nose unclog itself? or would i just suffocate to death because my body part is too stupid to realize that it's working against the rest of the organism, and let me go gasping to my death while merrily producing mucus, like someone very carefully locking their bike up while a horde of unwashed huns and every dictator that ever lived armed with nuclear bombs is approaching over the hill. never mind the goddamn bike!!! (answer: it would not unclog itself. i ran the experiment by holding my breath).

this is not an honorable post and now i shall exile myself to my notebooks.  

sidenote: i always forget that tahini is ground sesame seeds, because it sounds like a hawaiian fish. but i looked up a recipe for hummus and it has tahini in it. yummy.

ETA--
this morning, i had a dream i was playing soccer with a soccer team. we were playing a really good team but we were winning against expectation! the score was 5-3. it was a very realistic dream, with none of those weird pauses or interludes, strange scenery switches or physics-defying happenings. so we were playing and one of their forwards managed to break past the defenders and charged towards the goal--it was one of those goals where only the goalie could stop it but couldn't decide whether to run forward to take the ball while the person was dribbling or whether to wait and block the shot. our goalie kind of flopped between the two, so the ball went in, and the score was 5-4 and everyone was so charged AND THEN I WOKE UP. it was like watching the world cup and right when the game got tense, potentially close, all the power went out. this might not convey how frustrated i was to wake up. i tried to go to sleep and change back to that dream channel but alas. now i can't ever find out what happened.

still bothered