collection drives

collection drives done thus far. some have overlapped and some were more casually done than others but i've basically done one a year since 2009.

2009 - shoes - soles4souls
2010 - eye glasses - lion's club
2011 - school supplies - school on wheels
2012 - cell phones - hope phones
2013 - formal dresses and accessories - prom project
2014 - natural wine corks - recork
2015 - shoes - protect a sole

still deciding on 2016's drive, either gaming stuff or dvds. gaming stuff i'd want reepal's help on so i've asked him already. if he says yes we'll do that. if not i'll likely do dvds.

dgaf

some people naturally put in more effort. i rarely buy gifts, so i generally put a bit more effort into buying them when i actually do. my group of girlfriends does secret santa each year, and we pool our money for each others' bday gifts.

all this gifting has been going on for years and years. and since there are five girlfriends total we do this multiple times a year. so of course trends have emerged. our online wishlists (links usually included) save us a ton of time / effort, tho of course someone needs to actually get it done. that person is usually me, and i generally don't mind. (and to be totally honest, i prefer doing it because i do the most research to find deals. which i think is important cause why wouldn't we want to spend the same amount of money to get you more stuff?) of course we've also noticed that one of us generally doesn't participate in the gift giving preparation process. half the time this person also doesn't pay us back.

i'm closer to this person and she's been very generous to me a few times so i don't mind as much that she doesn't always pay me back. it bothers a couple of the rest of us a lot more tho. in fact, they've considered taking her out of the gifting altogether. i don't have anything really to say about that. i understand their point of view but i just don't feel as strongly about it.

background over. actual story:
last year x was secret santa to y. x forgot to get y a gift. =\ y was already annoyed (see above) at x anyway. so when xmas came around this year i reminded x that she had forgotten the year before. (y had brought up the forgotten gift a few times over the year so i knew it really bothered her) x remedied the situation by getting y a gift this year in addition to getting her person a gift too, which, coincidentally, happened to be me.

that we have wish lists means we nearly always get exactly what we want. some of us keep a long list and will bold a few especially favored items. of course we try to get you those items first. it doesn't always work out because of budget constraints but we do try. i have a long list (a buncha books) and several bolded items, one of which is a book. it was awesome to get two packages this year from barnes and nobles cause i knew it meant books and i was expecting my bold item but it turns out i didn't get that. i got three other books from my list. i didn't get any bold items this year.

i know that it's shitty to complain about getting gifts, especially when you got what asked for. but, well, i'm petty. and i admit, i felt disappointed that i didn't get a bold item. BUT it's not just about being petty. i felt stupid because i had stood up for x over the years. others have complained about her basically being a crappy friend. they said she just didn't give a fuck. i just thought she didn't make it priority. i don't know the exact circumstances (maybe it was sold out), but that she got me only books and not a single bold item, not even a bold book, says to me that she didn't really spend much time / thought on my gift. it was convenient to shop from a single retailer, so that's what she did. basically, she put in a minimum amount of effort.

oh well. honestly, this doesn't change much for me. i still don't prefer to take her off our gifting list and i won't put less effort into her gifts in the future. but it does make me think a little differently of x. as always, my naivete about people disappointed and surprised only me.

recork tally

FINALLY dropped off the last of my corks. finally, i say again!

585 natural corks and 59 synthetic corks

this drive was actually really easy since i didn't really have to do much. corks are small, easy to store, and don't smell bad. also, i only had to drive to the local bevmo to drop them off.

HUGE thank you to ting who helped me collect over half these corks!! i guess she has a lot of drinkers in her office. ;)

btw, i would like to encourage you to make an effort to purchase wine using natural corks. they are a million times better for the environment, and possibly even better for the wine. even if you don't recycle said cork, it has the possibility of biodegrading, whereas plastic never ever ever fully goes away from the environment.

put some color on

mom: did you buy anything? [at the carlsbad outlet before coming home]
me: yup. I bought a jacket from Reebok.
mom: another jacket?
me: yeah, but it's in a color I don't wear normally.
mom: what color? [starting to get excited] orange, purple, pink?
me: nope, dark green!
mom: ...

crying again?!

'Reasons my wife is crying' - Internet goes wild for writer's unbelievable list

"...a recent study found that people who cry more readily can experience more happiness as a result. Researchers showed volunteers some highly emotional films, and roughly half of the participants cried while watching them. While the mood of the non-criers was unchanged after seeing the films, those that had cried suddenly experienced an upsurge of happiness around 90 minutes later. "

so interesting! i tear up easily. so easily that i always get paranoid if i'm pregnant, or if someone else thinks i'm pregnant. i don't cry easily tho, since i generally don't let it go that far. but i also feel like i laugh a lot more than most people. when i lol and haha in chats, i'm actually loling irl too.

rip thinks i'm angry a lot, which i disagree with. and not just in semantics (because i think being irked, annoyed, frustrated are not the same as being angry/mad). but recently he thought i was mad when i was absolutely not. my emotions were neutral and my body was lazy. also, i think that when i get irked or annoyed, it tends to pass quickly. i rant for a bit, and it's gone. it can come back easily, but i'm pretty much over it.

one other not terribly related thing. i don't think my lows are as low as most people's. i get sad, for sure, but i don't really get sadder than sad. ...i don't even really know the words for it. depressed? heartbroken? grief-stricken, sorrowful, mournful, despondent? i certainly do get pensive and unhappy. and i've experienced heart-brokenness, but only for a minute or two, only once or twice, and not for years. i'm very lucky. not just in life, but i think in natural temperament.

i ---- you

when on my trip last month, i didn't say "i love you" to reepal very much. i didn't notice it, but he certainly did. he informed me after i'd come back and i was shocked (and appalled and embarrassed). more than once i went thru all our text messages trying to prove him wrong. (tho he wasn't wrong enough to matter.) i don't know why i didn't say it, but i did say "i miss you" a lot.

thinking about it recently, i had the thought that "i miss you" says more than "i love you." subconsciously I feel like I already knew this, and i think that's why i'd been saying that instead.

i love you. to me, it's a passive statement. it says nothing more than exactly what it is.

i miss you. there's longing there. there's a wanting. it's certainly more active than I love you. it's physical. I feel a pulling in my chest when I say it and mean it. my missing you implies that I want to be with you, to be close to you, to interact with you.

when away, I was very conscious of an emotional distance I'd been feeling with rip. I'd not said anything to him about it tho, but I think that feeling manifested itself in my verbiage. rip didn't say anything to me about it at the time either, about me not saying "I love you" and I wonder if he noticed that I'd instead been saying "i miss you" kind of a lot. probably not, as I was away and missing him should've been a given. ...as was loving him, tho I couldn't be bothered to express that...

I have a weird relationship with words. I generally take them too seriously. but I also use them too casually, especially curse words. when asked to describe something in a few words I take forever to do so. in fights I can latch onto one of your misspoken words, even though I know you're not as careful as I. so that's probably all this is. but still. I think I might prefer someone expressing that they're missing me, rather than just loving me.

menstual cup - update

i finished my second cycle using the cup and yeah, it was better this time round. not perfect tho. i spent a lot of time stressing about leakage since i still haven't been able to rotate it 360degrees. but, overall, i do like it better. same complaints as before, but at least it's easier to get in now.

interestingly, i feel like my period was somehow shorter this time too, as it was last time. but i think that's cause i was traveling and traveling always screws me up. which makes for two consecutive travel periods so imma probably get real fucked up in December. =/

female privilege

we always hear about male privilege, which totally exists. but you know what else exists too? female privilege. some examples from a random internet article. this author doesn't mention the other really big one that makes me angry: that women aren't required to registered for the military as soon as we turn 18, which means that we'll never get drafted. the other terrible one is #6 and #7 which i'm pretty sure i've mentioned before as being ridiculously unfair.

i don't agree with everything on the list tho. #12? no, people do express surprise that i have feelings. and i don't think #15 is even true. yeah, we do graduate more than men, but i don't know how much of that has to do with being encouraged and supported. and i'm pretty sure that female are NOT favored in school, regardless of age. i know there were numerous studies about how boys were called on more often than girls, and i can't imagine that in the 10 years since learning that things have changed so much girls are now being called on more than boys.

anyway, didn't really want to comment too much on this. just wanted to say that we each have our struggles. everyone deals with discrimination of some sort, and on the flip side, everyone has their privileges also.

menstrual cup

I Spent My Whole Period Using a Menstrual Cup for the First Time, And Here Are All the Gory Details
   and
An Ode Of Hatred To My Diva Cup

after learning about menstrual cups a couple years ago i finally got one. what took so long? i like to stock up on tampons when they go on sale. i still have a fucking hundo of them, in assorted sizes, sheesh. so why finally switch? i was going to china. i didn't feel like bringing a couple dozen tampons and i know they're more difficult to buy in china. (plus, i generally insist on using cardboard applicators, which are harder to buy even in america). so anyway, i got one before i left, looked up how-tos, and even solicited advice from friends i knew who used it (turns out there are a lot).

improperly wearing my diva cup

i didn't actually try the thing out till sf tho. the morning before heading off to the airport, annie pressed up against the frosted glass window of her bathroom and read me directions as i struggled to push a silicone cup up my cooter. annie was the absolute best tho, even offering to come and personally help me, lol. luckily, it didn't come to that.

i practiced it a couple more times before actually starting my period tho i never left it in for long. come period time tho, i finally committed.

the issue i have with the cup is that it's big. i even got the smaller size! (diva cup recommends women over 30 or those who have given vaginal birth to use size 2. i bought size 1 anyway [why? honestly, because i'm asian. and we generally have have smaller coochies, lol]) so you fold the thing then shove it up your vag. which isn't easy. (tip, moisten with water [or whatever] before inserting) then after you get it in, you're supposed to turn it a full 360 degrees, which i still haven't ever managed to do. partly because 1 there just isn't much to hold onto to get a firm enough grip and 2 i'm not used to putting fingers up my snatch.

once in, it feels fine. like a tampon. like nothing. i didn't have any major problems with leakage tho i never did fully rotate the thing. getting it out tho, ugh. did NOT like that. firstly, the cup has who knosw how much liquid, so you have to be careful how you angle it out. second, the thing is open, so like, it feels fucking weird when you take it out. like, really fucking weird and uncomfortable. blegh.

all in all, i'm ready to give it a second go. but i don't think i'll ever feel comfortable taking it out when i'm not able to immediately rinse it off. i wouldn't want to wipe it off then put it back in. it's pretty interesting tho. i've never had such a good look at my menstrual blood. it's actually quite different that i thought. hahaha, which is fucking embarrassing, really, having had a period now for over half my life and not ever really paying attention to it. but i feel like that's in direct correlation to how our society is hush hush about menstruation, except to use it as a put down when women are expressing their emotions.

anyway, final final thoughts. i don't love it so much that i've fully switched over. i think i'll likely alternate between the cup and tampons

2015 china playlist

much smart this year, remembered to bring my mp3 player as well as my phone. both full of music. rip had asked why i keep around my old mp3 player. it's because planes don't always let you use your phone (even when on airplane mode). and, actually, if you do use your phone on the plane, even just to listen to music, sometimes the sound comes out distorted.

short playlist this time. i really only listened to it in shenyang and harbin. in no particular order:


the weeknd - earned it
who is fancy - goodbye
charlie puth ft meghan trainor - marvin gaye
miley cyrus - adore you
shawn mendes - stitches
the temper trap - sweet disposition
the cinematic orchestra - to build a home

wish i had added the temper trap - love lost and the weeknd - the hills!!

harbin cabbie convo

had an interesting convo with my cabbie tonight. I show him the screenshot of my hotel info which includes the name and address in English and Chinese. he looks at it and says "I can't read this." I respond "i can't either!" "you can't read either?!" "nope!" he gives me a look and reads it, confirms the location, and tells me to get in.

we drive a bit in silence. then he asks "what are you, Korean?" "nope, I'm American." "oh, yeah, I didn't think you were ugly enough to be Korean." lol.

we talk a bit. where I was born, how come I know Chinese, what my parents do, how much they make, yadda yadda. I mention that my dad's retired. he asks how old. I him he's about 70. cabbie gives me a look. "I'm 32!" "you don't look it."

he thinks a bit. "you came here alone?" "yup" "aren't you married?" "nope" "why not? you're so old already. don't you want children?" "I don't think I like marriage, and no, I don't like children." he gives me a look. "you Americans have too much freedom. girls should get married and have children. in my generation, you got married and had children. if you didn't have children right away we blamed the woman. she must be sick or something. and the husband would kick her out to find another wife." I knew this, but we've had a fun conversation so far so I'm just being me when I reply "well that's stupid. what if it's not her fault? what if she wants children but *he* can't have them?" he looks at me. "we say that the woman is sick. it's like a chicken who cannot lay eggs. you kill the chicken." I laugh, "but women are not chickens!" he mumbles "it's just an analogy!"

I laugh again "good thing I'm American!" he concurs. we chat a bit more about other things. as I'm getting out of the cab he admonishes me to get married soon, before I'm too old. I laugh.

fearlessness

the Chinese are fearless. they are nonchalant about sanitation. they get too close to cliffs, traffic, and train platforms. maybe it's their history that makes them so.

i feel like i have a little of that fearlessness. touring china on my own certainly takes some courage. i can barely read or write and even my speaking and listening skills aren't that good. sure, i do a lot of prep at home (i booked all my hotels in advance this time [tho i didn't last time]) but still, i've left most things unplanned. some of it is laziness, some of it is a prudent wait and see. a lot of it is for the adventure of being alone in a foreign place. i often think "what's the worst that could happen? plausibly, anyway?"

i think you learn most about yourself when alone. and i think i've come to learn a lot about myself this trip.

ps, i get that i'm not the most brave ever, touring china. i DO speak the language, after all. it's not as if i were touring japan or wherever.

ti 2015 review 2

ti sunday morning we headed out a bit later than saturday as the whole house overslept, lol. i was hoping to get into the finish line / judges' tent but that stuff is pretty sensitive so i didn't think i'd get the chance to, and i didn't get to. which is fine since i've never done that at lb anyway, and we have a totally different camera / computer system.

anyway, most of the morning i worked at the registration tent signing in volunteers and such. that was interesting because after two minutes of training, the lady walked away to do her other stuff. lol.

later, i got to work marshaling, which is where you call teams to wait in the tents before they go over to the docks to load onto the boats. marshaling can be pretty frantic, but it's much better at ti than at lb. a lot of that has to do with venue, i think, how there is a lot more room to space things out. anyway. so there is, like, the marshaling tent with two staff there who count wristbands and such, and there is a single marshaller who calls teams over. i hesitate to call anyone the head marshaller, because it's not quite clear at ti who's in charge. anyway, so i was the marshaller who was alone. of course. because why wouldn't i be alone in a key position after only minimal training? lol, i also tried to tweet out the heats, but for some reason we couldn't figure out the password and such so we abandoned that. i would have loved it tho since i manage the tweets for the scdbc, haha. working this department was so good tho. marshaling is where i think we most need to improve at lb. (excluding behind the scenes stuff where we could improve the absolute most) but anyway, i have a few ideas about noise control which might help the lb situation. hopefully i'll be able to play around with things here.

after the tourney we helped pack up a little and at night we went to the unofficial paddler's party. i got drunk, lol. i didn't even really know until i looked back on my goodnight texts to rip. sheesh. but basically, i played a drinking spin game on a phone with some totally random people and had a bunch of beer. blech.

monday morning i spent with thaddeus helping with a little tear down. we visited two cdba practice sites: lake merced and jlac. so great that i finally got to see these place he's been talking about for years! he also gave me a tour of their equipment storage where i got a few ideas. it was very useful.


all in all i had an amazing time. i learned so so so much! the stuff that won't translate to lb is fine, because i learned how ti does it and that's a great thing anyway. i'm told that eventually i'll take over the scdbc. which is not something i'm looking forward to, but even i have to agree that currently there is no one else available, or even seemingly interested. most of our staff do their own thing and kind of keep their head down. i'm always interested in learning all i can, and i'm constantly looking for feedback. i actively want to improve our club and our tournaments. and i don't think there's anyone else as outwardly aggressive as me in wanting those things at lb.

ti 2015 review 1

ti was great. seriously. I've been wanting to go as a volunteer for a couple years now and this year I actually did. why did i want to go volunteer? ti has an excellent reputation for being well organized etc, lb does not. so i wanted to see what i could learn and hopefully bring back some changes to lb. thaddeus (cdba safety director) and I talk a lot and have been talking about cdba / scdbc steers reciprocity and he primarily came to BLB this year to volunteer steer so this was an excellent year to go up and volunteer. even better, I could leave sf directly to start my China trip a little early!

so, friday I drive up with xg. friday night was mostly the paddlers' party then some planning with thaddeus on guest steers for saturday. it was my first time going to the ti paddlers party and it was at a very pretty rooftop bar. great because I got to meet a lot of cdba people. thaddeus was staying at mabel and ben's house for the week. mabel is cdba and ben, her husband, is renegades(?) team chef. anyway, they were so kind to let me stay with them as well! it made more sense that I stay with thaddeus rather than the team at the team hotel because as volunteers our schedules are different than paddlers'. we even got our own rooms at ben and mabel's!

saturday!! we woke up DAMN early (earlier than i ever do for scdbc races, ha) and got to the site. in the early morning i worked the registration tent handing out paddlers wristbands and checking in volunteers. after the captains meeting i headed over to the dock to help out there. i'd met kerry, the dockmaster (at several well respected tournies, actually), before and he vaguely knows me (we're fb friends and he actually pm'ed me fairly recently) but i was really surprised how much trust he placed in me. i figured i would be helping people in and out of boats, easy stuff, while keeping an eye on operations in general, but instead he introduced me to the crew as co-dockmaster! pretty nice what the "safety director" job title will get you, huh? anyway, kerry explained that icdbf training is where they basically just drop you into the situation and get very little pre-training. so he did the first race, and from there i basically took over all major duties for the next 10 heats with him supervising, then he left, i think. lol. it was pretty crazy! i mean, jesus, thank god i have enough leadership skills and a strong enough personality where this worked, but i can see this type of training completely backfiring on, i think, most people!

but that's the great thing. dockmastering is a complicated job that i will not be needing with scdbc likely ever. our venues are drastically different and unless we change locations it's just not a skill that i'll need. also, i'll likely never be docking/marshalling again since i'm "moving on up." honestly, marshalling is not the hardest job. it's generally where you place the least experienced volunteers. lead marshalling and dockmastering is, of course, much harder, but i've moved away from that department. but anyway, the great thing is what i learned, and that's that this type of training is NOT an effective one. i've been to ti a couple times, but years ago, and well before i got involved with race officiating, so i don't remember the dock process very well. being thrown into the fray the way i was, meant that i learned a lot, but it was mostly me doing it as i would do it, with parameters. but since i didn't really get the chance to observe beforehand, i didn't have any time to come up with a good system, it was just figuring it out on the fly. and there's incredibly little down time, so i couldn't work out a better system. also, i'm very aware that this isn't my tourney, and i know they do things a certain way already so i didn't know how much leeway i had to change things. kerry told me that certain boats were to load from or off certain gangways so i followed that. if he hadn't given me that directive, i would've for sure done it differently. there were inefficiencies in the system that i would have fixed if i knew i were allowed to. but, again, it's not my tourney, and he has to dockmaster the rest of the weekend, so i don't feel comfortable "training" the teams to do a certain thing when he's going to do it a completely different way the rest of the time. i want to be respectful of the system already in place. but, yeah, i learned a great lesson in leadership that morning.

after lunch i was on the starter's boat with kim. who is practically "famous" for her skills as a starter. she's amazing and i learned a shit ton. i didn't get to actually do starting, but she answered all my questions in such a thoughtful way. even better, these skills will directly affect me since i'm a starter at baby and big lb. i'd never gotten any training as a starter, so this was a super valuable experience. i know i'll be better for it, and in turn, our tournies will be better too. and that was the whole point!!
furthermore i learned her philosophy about officiating which i think will be the biggest lesson i take away from this weekend. 

saturday night was mostly just resting, hahaha. 

(i didn't go too much into what i learned about specific tourney things, let's be honest, most of you don't care)

snip snip!

haircut again yesterday! this was the longest my hair has ever been. nearly down to my waist!! it was actually getting a bit difficult to deal with, quickly turning my head when sitting meant i might get jerked back because it was between me and my chair back, ha.

donate 15 inches braided. a record! i do wish i'd cut my hair a bit shorter but when you give the  stylist almost complete control you end up with what you end up with. oh well, that only means my next haircut will come sooner. :)

cecil the lion

cecil the lion
(yes, wikipedia, cause i'm blogging about this like a week after it happened so i can't be bothered to find an article about it from then rather than from now)

i'm not particularly against hunting; i do eat meat, after all. but lean towards the thought that hunting should be to serve another purpose than for fun or sport. good reasons include hunting for food, keeping animal populations in check, killing off animals that are obviously sick or have hurt humans previously.

anyway, regarding the actual american dentist who killed the lion. if it's true, that he didn't know that it was illegal, i don't think he should be prosecuted. it's not fair. he hired a company that promised him whatever. it's not crazy for him to assume that they would do it legally. the professionals that he hired, on the other hand, should be prosecuted. they should have known what they were doing was illegal, and if they didn't, then they're still shady as fuck because they're running a company so they should be prosecuted anyway!

no lectures, please

last year a friend of mine cheated (once) on his fiancee. he told me about it before he broke up with her. he basically just told her that it was over and didn't mention the cheating. i think in the space of him cheating and him telling her, it was a few days to a week. i didn't immediately tell rip, but i did tell him before my friend told his fiancee.

this week there was poll thing going around on fb. someone asked if they saw the friend's significant other cheating, would they want to be told. this friend of mine very quickly and unequivocally answered yes.

i messaged him to say that his answer was interesting because rip and i actually got in a fight about just this thing last year over his situation.

rip had met the fiance a few times. he didn't know her well, but he would have recognized her on the street. rip felt that he should tell the fiancee about my friend's cheating. if nothing else, it would help her get over my friend faster. i didn't argue that point, but i felt he shouldn't say anything. i mean, he only knew her because of me and my friendship. he's knew my friend way before the fiancee came into the picture, and i don't think he's ever personally contacted either of them. certainly not the fiancee! i figured he also shouldn't say anything because my friend was imminently going to break up with her. and, yeah, also cause him telling her would put me in a really terrible position.

there is a little big more to the story, but it's too long to type out, and is besides the point. but basically, rip wanted to tell and i didn't want him to. he eventually didn't.

at the time, i didn't tell my friend that i told rip. i mean, i kind of figured he knew. rip and i had been dating for 14 years so yeah, it's a pretty good assumption that i'll probably tell him what you tell me. mind you, i don't tell him everything. he doesn't know your sexual predilections, your serious crimes, your drug or sex abuse, or any trauma in your life. he doesn't know anything you would basically only tell a therapist or a priest and for some reason trusted me enough to tell me. i wouldn't tell him that stuff unless it was actually imperative he knew. and i can't imagine why that would ever be. but he does know why you and your last relationship didn't work out, and what i honestly think about that.

anyway, back to my friend. so i told him what happened with rip and me. my friend said:
"Well I didn't think they were friends. And I didn't know you decided to tell rip but that's fine." etc "It's one thing to tell someone something you saw. It's another to say something you know third hand that you probably shouldn't know anyway."

you know what also isn't okay? a fucking lecture. esp an indirect one. you know that saying? "don't do something if you don't want people talking about it." now, that's obviously a general statement that doesn't hold true in every situation, but... it's a big fucking deal: you cheating on your fiancee. we've all known each other for years and here we all thought you two were well on the way to marital bliss. i kept my mouth shut for the months afterwards when you decided to not tell any of our mutual friends. and in fact, i don't even know /remember if you did tell them because we all generally respect your privacy so none of us have discussed that portion of the breakup.

and, dear reader, i know you might think i may be reading into his message to me, but no, trust me. there was more to his message to me that i'm not including. anyway, i just had to vent this a little. but what do you think? do you tell your significant other everything, nothing, or something in between?

leaning away from god

thank god no one from my small group reads my blog, but i think i more naturally tend towards buddhism than christianity. true buddhism is human centered (even self centered), while a lot of monotheistic religions seem to be more god centered. and that it's more of a philosophy than a religions probably appeals to me. the basic tenets of buddhism also really speak to me:

(1) to lead a moral life
(2) to be mindful and aware of thoughts and actions
(3) to develop wisdom and understanding

a lot of small group is focused on "what does god want from/for me?" "what does god mean when he does this?" "what does the bible say about that?" i just can't get myself to care about him, his intentions, or his word. i feel like if you were to ask a christian to describe christianity in under a minute, their definition would talk more about god, jesus, the church, than on what it actually *means* to be christian (which, to me is basically to live life according to wwjd). buddhists tend not to proselytize, and while a lot of them certainly worship buddha, i feel like their under-one-minute definition of their religion would focus more on the philosophy of the religion rather than the structure of it. i like that.

also, from what i've seen. a lot of christians missions trips are more focused on spreading the word of god than actually helping people. (that's an unfair way of putting it, i know, because christians believe that spreading the word of god is the best and most important way to help people. but i think that's a easy justification for those of us who live with more than enough money, food, shelter, health care access, education, etc) the buddhist missions trips i've heard about go to disaster areas to help out and *not* talk about their religion unless asked. that's pretty cool.

when speaking of christian missions, i'm always reminded of the desmond tutu quotation: “When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said "Let us pray." We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.” i don't think that applies so much in today's world, but has it ever applied to buddhists?

i wonder if there are any buddhist "life group" equivalents in our area?

random article: Big Drop in Share of Americans Calling Themselves Christian

periods

6 Guys Get Quizzed On Periods — And Fail Miserably (article)



i asked rip and he gave himself a 2, which i thought was pretty fair rating, tho also probably a bit low since he has two sisters and i'm pretty open about talking about my period. i also asked him how often he thought women change their tampons and he, correctly, said that we probably change them at different intervals depending how far along we were on our period, and that we change them 3-4 times a day. actually, at first he said 2-3 times, so i clarified and said "so every 12-8 hours" and he said "oh, right, cause it's like 24 hours." hahaha, so he changed his answer to 3-4 times a day, which is a great guess!

i'd give myself an 8 on period knowledge. i know a lot but i certainly don't know everything!

i also think we should really talk more about periods. half of the people will get them at some point in their life. and i did some math before and figured that at any time, 1/10 of the population is menstruating.

trans-racial?

rachel dolezal - white person who identifies as black (and head of the spokane chapter of naacp)
caitlyn jenner - biologically male who identifies as female

here's why people shouldn't compare dolezal to jenner: there are significant physical differences between male and female brains and there are none in brains of people with different ethnicities.

scientists can look human brains and be able to identify the sex of the person the brain belonfed to (maybe not like, just, on the surface, with after poking around the brain a bit). scientists can do this with good certainty and be correct a large majority of the time. they can't for brains of people of different color. not even "purebreds."

a lot of what we consider ethnicity, honestly, is culture. sure we have a lot of physical differences and some of those are not entirely superficial (like how hair, eye, skin colors are pretty much insignificant, whereas differences in muscle and tendon physiology makes for different kinds of athleticism which certainly influenced our history as developing cultures [which isn't so important now, but would certainly matter if zombies turn out to be real and we need to run from them {tho really, physical fitness will matter far more than types of muscle striation}]).

some people have come out to say they doubted dolezal's "blackness" based on things she would say. specifically, how she said it. read: accent and slang. but that's dumb. if a black person were raised in an amish community, in rural mongolia, or by the british royal family they wouldn't talk the way blacks do here. those are cultural differences. they are not innate. identifying as black implies that there are significant biological differences amongst races, which i think most people would deny (and not just so as to appear politically correct).


speaking of biological differences in the brain. i'd love for transgender people to donate their brains to science so we can see if there are differences. esp if the transgendered person wasn't on hormones.

dress codes

High School Crop-Top Dress Codes Send the Message That School Is for Boys

i've never understood why women need to protect the chastity of men (or vice versa). how difficult it is for a man to NOT rape a woman anyway? i would think that it should be quite easy, should he respect her as a human being who has rights to her body the same way he has rights to his own. and since you can't completely cover up every woman, covering up the majority of them really draws attention the ones who aren't dressed as modestly. furthermore, rape is a global problem. but it seems like the majority of violent rapes (or group rapes) are in counties where there are less individual liberties, and are especially high in countries with more gender inequality.

on a less broad topic though, should minors be allowed to wear whatever they want to school? i would argue no. not because girls who dress provocatively will distract boys, but because minors shouldn't dress sexily at all! there should be modesty codes at school because they are kids. just as a kid shouldn't swear in school, they shouldn't wear crop tops, sag so their whole ass is hanging out, or wear unsafe shoes. unsafe shoes? yeah, i  think kids shouldn't be allowed to wear stilettos or flip flips to school (well, kids under high school anyway). those shoes aren't good for your feet. arch supported flip flips i can get behind, but since it would be crazy for schools to allow some flip flips but not others, they should probably just ban them all. anyway...

the author does make a really good point about how schools do allow boys to go shirtless when playing sports, btw. i didn't realize how much more sexual a girl's belly is than a boy's whole fucking torso.

another girl took to her senior quote to speak out about dress codes.

cheating stats

a few infidelity statistics

Marriage Infidelity Statistics	Data
Percent of marriages where one or both spouses admit to infidelity, either physical or emotional	41 %
Percent of men who admit to committing infidelity in any relationship they’ve had	57 %
Percentage of women who admit to committing infidelity in any relationship they’ve had	54 %
Percent of married men who have strayed at least once during their married lives	22 %
Percent of married women who have strayed at least once during their married lives	14 %
Percentage of men and women who admit to having an affair with a co-worker	36 %
Percentage of men and women who admit to infidelity on business trips	35%
Percentage of men and women who admit to infidelity with a brother-in-law or sister-in-law	17 %
Average length of an affair	2 years
Percentage of marriages that last after an affair has been admitted to or discovered	31 %
Percentage of men who say they would have an affair if they knew they would never get caught	74 %
Percentage of women who say they would have an affair if they knew they would never get caught	68 %
Percent of children who are the product of infidelity	2.5 %

Infidelity has a lot of names; cheating, adultery, extramarital sex, or having an affair. Most people would consider any violation of a couple's assumed or stated agreement regarding emotional or sexual exclusivity. It is reported that 2.5% of all children born were secretly conceived with a different partner.

interesting stuff!! i think the most shocking stat for me is that the average length of an affair is two whole years. i mean, that's a damn long time! also interesting is that it seems as tho the main reason people don't cheat is they they're afraid of getting caught. i wonder what exactly they're afraid of? i believe that a lot of people who cheat still honestly love their spouse. so are they afraid that if they're caught cheating then the relationship will be over? because that seems like a pretty likely. or are they afraid of hurting the person? (i hope this is the one!)

btw, i think the % of kids resulting from infidelity is so low because these adults are lying to themselves (or are being lied to). but, of course, cheating can be defined in many ways and it doesn't always have to involve sex.

another interesting article about how cheating may be genetic. 

truth in acting

at small group we've been talking about charismatic churches*. rock harbor, the church our life group is associated with, is trying hard to be a middle of the road church, not too charismatic or the other way round.

our leaders asked us what we thought of very demonstrative people. most of them seem to be in agreement that they view more dramatic reactions are show, and are not genuine. more than one person said they were suspicious that these people were doing it for the attention.

as an atheist who doesn't remember ever feeling the stirring of god, any higher power, or anything supernatural, i'm fairly neutral towards the subject. everyone's different: some people never cry, not even at a death, others start bawling and ripping out their hair over split milk. so one person not being physically moved by god makes just as much sense as a person "over-reacting" for god.

personally, i'm less comfortable with charismatic churches. tho i say this having never been to one. but i'm a fairly reserved person anyway, so the fainting or faith healings is a bit too much for me.

*from what i understand, charismatic churches are the churches where the people are more demonstrative when they feel god. this could be anything from raising your hands in the air, to shouting "hallelujah", to speaking in tongues, to rolling on the ground. non-charismatic churches tend to stay away from that. i think they're more structured in general. so less going with what you feel than going to what's on the schedule.

social surrogacy

"Should a woman be allowed to hire a surrogate because she fears pregnancy will hurt her career? Or "ruin" her body? What if she's just afraid of giving birth?" An article from ELLE May 2014 about  social surrogacy

our society place value in motherhood and pregnancy, but we don't really. we may coddle pregnant women, but we also have like the shortest maternity leave of any 1st world nation. we expect women to immediately return to pre-baby bodies, we freak out at women breast feeding in public, and find fault in stretch makes.

i'm a fairly practical person. so it doesn't make much difference to me why you want to hire a surrogate rather than having one yourself. honestly, i feel like purposely setting out to create a kid, even one you diy, is a little bit a selfish thing anyway, so adding vanity to the mix is no big deal. so yeah, i think social surrogacy is fine. i mean, it's not the best thing ever, but since you can't deny surrogacy based on motive alone... i do think the best alternative to not carrying your own child is to adopt. but that's a whole other thing.

what we all want

What Guys Really Want In A Partner Is Super Depressing

numbers aside, what it comes down to is this. men want wives to be nothing like daughters. which is, in case you didn't get it, an impossibility. in general, men prefer daughters to be smarter, stronger, and more independent than their own wives. good thing for wives tho, we're supposed to be pretty in a way our daughters are not encouraged to be. lol.

the article does a weird guy bashing thing where it tells men to "get over it." that's rude. i imagine women feel much the same way about their husbands and sons. no one wants the short end of the stick. and most of us would prefer a spouse to be successful enough to make enough money so that we can loaf around at home all day. but you wouldn't want your son (or daughter) to marry a lazy gold digger. even tho you'd like to dig right alongside of them!

fyi, the article this article talks about is also worth a read: an insight into the 21st century man

sex for prudes

from the atlantic's The Sexually Conservative Millennial

"[Public Religion Research Institute] surveyed 2300 Americans between the ages of 18 and 35, and found that 37% think "sex between two adults who have no intention of establishing a relationship" is morally wrong." assuming this is consensual sex, WHAT?! hahaha, i can hardly believe it! i mean, i totally can, but nearly 40% seems damn high!

of my close friends, very few of us have sex as described in the situation above. i have no idea how most of my peers are sexing. but media would lead me to believe that much more than 60% of us would have thought non-committal sex was totally cool. though, of course, your thoughts on something don't always reflect in your actions.

and for the record, i'm part of the 63%. consensual sex between adults is a nearly always a good thing. do it however you want.

(can i just say, i had to rewrite these last lines a couple times. kept wanting to... generalize it. was going to say that "sex is a good thing. do it however you want." but no, it's not always a good thing. rape, for instance. so i added "consensual." but there's also statutory rape, or consensual sex between kids, so i had to add the "between adults" thing. i made one more addition and decided to stop clarifying it. blarg.)

fights

reepal believes that fights are from someone making a mistake. i believe that fights can stem from many many many more reasons, including a difference in opinion. sure, a difference of opinion should lead to discussion (as reepal said), but i think that depending on the context that difference will very frequently lead to a fight.

bad publicity

at small group we're reading a book on christian identify. i was curious if any in our group publicly said they were christians. not that these are closet christians, or ashamed of their religions beliefs, but they don't, like, first thing, especially in secular environments, identify themselves as christians.

it's because of the crazies they said. they're nervous that outright declaring their religious beliefs would somehow brand them as being one of the religious crazies. they were also worried that non-christians would challenge their beliefs or ask theological questions they didn't know the answers too, which would probably make the non-christian very smug. and no one likes a smuggy buggy.

i think that's sad. the crazy religious make far too much noise. they also get far too much air time. this is, of course, because crazy is as crazy do and crazy makes for good media. but it's sad for the regular tho devout religious. they're shamed into hiding their identities because aggressive idiots will say inappropriate things to them. but the regular joe believer should try to make more noise than the crazy believer. that way idiot non-believers will be like, hey, not all religious people are nuts. i know that competing with crazies isn't usually a great idea, but believers need re-branding!

i'm not saying that believers should go back to shoving their religions down everyone's throats. i mean, i fucking hate it when i do something nice for someone and they say "god bless you." exactly, fucker, god blesses me, not you. just say thank you so i know you appreciate it. you're not in the position to be rewarding me with god's gold stars anyway! but maybe they should talk about their beliefs more openly. instead of "i can't make it saturday morning, sorry" they can say "i'm volunteering with my church on saturday so i can't make it, sorry." or instead of "i don't want to watch that movie" say "my church said this movie has a really bad message so i'd prefer to watch something else." and, as a bonus, i think both my alternatives are more likely to lead to discussion / questions about your beliefs. hopefully they won't lead to arguments tho!

at small group someone said that they hope to behave / live life in such a way that someone will eventually think "oh wow, bob is such a great guy. there's just something special about him." and ask bob what his secret sauce is. ...this is clearly unrealistic. and i don't like that it seems as tho your religious identity should be some sort of guessing game. you've dedicated your life to your beliefs. so do it loudly and proudly!

rock climbing

rip and i have been rock climbing a lot lately. maybe three times in two weeks? i love it! i love that you get dirty, that you get strong, that you get high (well, ish, since i don't like to belay, only boulder), and that you feel the muscle burn right away! i even love that they call it problems!

rip and i got a two month groupon, tho i think when it expires i'll probably take a break for db season. after the season i'll get back to climbing again. rip even got me a pair of shoes for my birthday! turns out that a major rock climbing shoe company is located right in beuna park and they sell factory seconds for cheap, over half off!

i wish there was a gym closer to us tho. the current place we're at may be the closest but i'm not that into them, and it's not even that close. blerg.

the slap

nbc has a new show that sounds really interesting, tho i've not watched it. after watching the trailer, what do you think? should he have slapped the kid? did he deserve it?

i'm going to answer in a really round about way, in the way that i usually do:

1. in general, i'm okay with corporal punishment. but to a point. i don't think slapping someone in face is acceptable. a swat on the bottom is generally cool. hitting someone in the face is really crossing the line. you're not just disciplining someone, you're insulting them too. that's how i see it, anyhow.

2. can you hit someone else's kid? this is a really though question. i really don't think you should. even if their parent is being negligent, i don't think you have the right to touch their kid like that. the commercial is interesting tho. this kid is being dangerous. he's swinging around a baseball bat! then he kicks the adult! but, if you'll notice, the adult holding the kid's arms down by his side. i mean, i would feel threatened if someone tried restraining me that way. i might kick them too. in a way, the man provoked the kick. adults are supposed to remain level headed and kids... well, they don't have to.

3. so, specifically, should he have slapped the kid? no. did he deserve it? no. the kid had something coming towards him, but it wasn't a slap across the face. he should've been swatted on the butt. and i think that in this case, it would've been okay for a non-parent to do it because the kid was behaving dangerously towards everyone in his vicinity.

steering tests

this year we finally put our steering tests online. we have two; practice and tournament. you need to pass the practice one to steer at practices, and both tests to steer at our BLB in july. both are set at 80%, which is pretty high. but most of these questions are repeats of what's been on the tests before, most answers are in our safety manual, and at the top of the test it says that people can email me to double check their answers before they submit them. if they fail the test, they're required to attend the safety class. fail the class and don't take the test? get de-certified. if you pass the practice, but fail the tournament test and don't take the class, you'll only be tourney de-certfied.

you can read more about why we're requiring the tests on our forum. of course there's been push back on the tests. some steers don't like taking them every couple years, especially since they passed it before.

anyway, i'm mostly writing about my feelings, not about why we're making people take the tests. i'm having a terrible time with these. god. i hold my breath every time the results load because the results load slower than the updated number of people who've taken the test. i actually yip for joy when people pass. when people fail i know i have to write an uncomfortable email. ugh. getting bad news sucks. delivering bad news is worse. i'm fucking embarrassed, tho i know i really shouldn't be, because it's your stupid fault you failed! but still. i feel terrible about it. have almost come to tears a few times since i know almost all these steers.

anyway, no real conclusion / point to this post. just that i've been having a hard time with it. hard looking people in the eye at the beach later too after you've sent that email. btw, i can't even bring myself to write FAIL. i write NOT PASS. most people have been pretty cool about it. they know they took a risk and understand that it didn't pay off. i've only had a couple complaining emails. and one person who failed BOTH tests, btw, wrote an angry email back about how he'd rather forfeit steering altogether than waste more of his time at a safety class. his email wasn't at all rude, but of course still rather angry (he did actually say "waste more time"). it was a bit hard since i've known this guy for 8 years now and have always gotten along with him, tho we did have a few difficult moments n china a couple years ago. most awkwardly was that he was literally the first person i saw at a party i went to just a couple days after i notified him of his failing. i was just going to wave and walk past but his daughter basically waved me over. lol. anyway. that's life tho. as the head of the program, and certainly the most visible person of the program by far, i get all the credit as well as all the blame.

check that out!

The Psychology Of Why Guys Really Check Out Other Women!

lies!! as a woman who remembers every man i've ever seen in a bikini AND whether or not either of us was on a beach, i cannot believe that men don't remember every bikini-clad woman they've seen!!

hahahah, but seriously. i get it. mentally it all makes sense. emotionally tho...

last meal

On Death Row, Women Want Salad for Last Meal. It’s no secret that men and women eat differently. Turns out, they stay true to their habits to the very end.

firstly, i wonder what women in other countries / cultures want. is it the same type of thing? do women or men in the isolated jungles of the amazon also do this?

second, i wonder what i'd want! i'm tempted to list every food i love, but they'd never let me have so much... i'd definitely order a lemonade. maybe steak and mashed potatoes. well... some kind of potatoes. or maybe a grilled cheese sandwich and herbed potatoes. mac and cheese with scalloped potatoes? or ramen from santouka, or a cup o noodles, or french onion soup, or soondubu. maybe some charcuterie and a simple cheese plate, with olives. a fruit salad with berries mango and pineapple, or strawberry surfrider smoothie from jamba juice. or a small bit of french bread with tons of butter. for dessert i'd want either a fruit sorbet or rainbow sherbet. hahaha, i'm pretty set for the drink and dessert, it's everything in between i'm having trouble with. there are definitely fruits in my last meal tho. veggies... not so much.

third, alcohol is prohibited, right? that's why no one got any? that seems a little unfair. i mean, they haven't even have like, half a shot of whiskey or half a pour of gin?

what about you?

no bread no fish

stuff like this is just so sad: man is arrested for feeding the homeless.

i get that we have to have laws and ordinances regarding public spaces and food safety to protect us from the bad, stupid, or careless people. but this man is obviously not one of them.

as someone who makes some of the rules for an organization, i understand that any good policy needs to be practical and easy to enforce. this means that sometimes sweeping measures work better than separate rules for every situation. still, i wonder if there isn't a better way to govern...

sea quotations

all taken from Donovan Hohn's book Moby-Duck: The True Story of 28,800 Bath Toys Lost at Sea & of the Beachcombers, Oceanographers, Environmentalists and Fools Including the Author Who Went in Search of Them

Wallace Stevens - "The wilderness rose up to it, / And sprawled around, no longer wild."

Lieutenant Parry - "Success in my enterprise is by no means essential to our joy. tho' it might have added something to it; but we cannot, ought not to have everything we wish."

Herman Melville - "When seamen fall overboard, they are sometimes found, months afterwards, perpendicularly frozen into the hearts of fields of ice, as a fly is found glued in amber."

"A vessel's center of gravity is analogous to the metronome's sliding weight. You can adjust it by adding or discharging cargo or ballast water. Make the center of of gravity too low and the ship will be "stiff"; a stiff ship is stable, but like a metronome set to allegro, it will jerk violently back and forth in short, quick rolls. Makes the center of gravity too high and the ship well be "tender," rolling steeply, righting itself slowly. With every roll the crow's nest will swing way out over the water to starboard, then way out over the water to port, describing long, but-wrenching arcs." (p245)

"Preventing liability is the second most important part of the captains' job, after ensuring the safety of his crew." (p246)

brain quotes

all from dr. norman doidge's book the brain that changes itself: stories of personal triumph from the frontiers of brain science

"...a powerful signal has greater impact on the brain. when we want to remember something we have heard we must hear it clearly, because a memory can only be as clear as its original signal. finally, merzenich discovered that paying close attention is essential to long-term plastic change. in numerous experiments he found that lasting changes occurred only when his monkeys paid close attention. when the animals performed tasks automatically, without paying attention, they changed their brain maps, but the changes did not last. we often praise 'the ability to multitask.' while you learn when you divide your attention, divided attention doesn't lead to abiding change in your brain maps." (p68)

"on disturbing study showed that the closer children lived to the noisy airport in frankfurt, germany, the lower their intelligence was. a similar study, on children in public housing high-rises above the dan ryan expressway in chicago, found that the closer their floor was to the highway, the lower their intelligence. so merzenich began wondering about the role of a new environmental risk factor that might affect everyone but have a more damaging effect on genetically predisposed children: the continuous background noise from machines, sometimes called white noise. white noise consists of many frequencies and is very stimulating to the auditory cortex. 'infants are reared in continuously more noisy environments. there is always a din,' he says..." (p81-82)

"a major reason memory loss occurs as we age is that we have trouble registering new events in our nervous systems, because processing speed slows down, so that they accuracy, strength, and sharpness with which we perceive declines. if you can't register something clearly, you won't be able to remember it well." (p86)

"as we age, we stop seeing clearly, not just because our eyes fail but because the vision processors in the brain weaken." (p90)

"pornography's growth has been extraordinary; it accounts for 25 percent of all video rentals and is the fourth most common reason people give for going online. an msnbc.com survey of viewers in 2001 found that 80 perent felt they were spending so much time on pornographic sites that htey were putting their relationships or jobs at risk.' (p103)

"the usual view is that an addict goes back for more of his fix because he likes the pleasure it gives and doesn't like the pain of withdrawal. but addicts take drugs when there is no prospect of pleasure, when they know they have an insufficient does to make them high, and will crave more even before they begin to withdraw. wanting and liking are two different things.' (p107)

"...subjects who had done physical exercise increased their muscular strength by 30 percent, as one might expect. those who had only imagined doing exercise, for the same period, increased their muscle strength by 22 percent." (p204)

btw, this is not the most interesting book ever, but you really should read it if you're interested in how our brain works. lots of really interesting studies are mentioned. you'll be surprised at some of the crazy stuff out brains can do!

parents know best?

quoted from theskimm.com:
"Did you hear about the Connecticut Supreme Court decision? Yesterday, CT’s Supremes ruled that a 17-year-old girl can be forced to undergo cancer treatment, even though she doesn’t want it. The girl was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma in September, but after undergoing chemotherapy, refused to continue with treatments. Her mother accepted her decision. But child services intervened, with her doctors saying that she stood a good chance of surviving if she completed treatment. She was placed in state custody so the state could make medical decisions on her behalf. She’s been living in a children’s medical center, undergoing chemo for the last few weeks. The girl’s lawyer says this is about having the “fundamental right” to choose what happens to her body, and that she will be appealing the decision."

what do you think? i think that while i generally believe we should have say of what we do with our bodies, that she is a minor complicates things. she is 17 tho, so she's pretty close to being an adult.

i think that in this case i do agree with the state. i think that her mom *was* negligent in her care and handling of her daughter's cancer diagnosis and treatment. (article here) and, maybe unfairly, it does matter to me that cassandra has been homeschooled. for some reason i feel that were she in a traditional school she would have made a different decision. she has an 85% chance of survival, after all. this is super high!

going off on a bit of a tangent here. but recently a few people were killed when little little kids got a hold of guns: 2yo shoots mom, 3yo shoots 18month brother, 3yo shoots mom. my my mom asked how this could have happened? i said "bad parenting." and that's really what it was. my dad has always had guns around the house. but they were *never* left unattended in the open. they were locked up, hidden away, put somewhere inaccessible to me. they were also never loaded. my mom had a really good point about the wal-mart tragedy. she said that if something bad were happening, the mom should only worry about protecting her child. she should not be a hero and with her gun confront someone. this made a lot of sense to me. if alone, i might stand up to the car hijacker/bank robber/looter/crazy gunman. but if i have my child with me i am not leaving my kid alone so they can see me get killed. i'm sorry, but someone else can try to save us all because i choose to be selfish and not put my kid thru that level of trauma.

a lot of the time it's difficult to know what's best for your child. but i think in some of the cases mentioned here, what's right was obvious.

professional help

in a marriage, is sex a reasonable expectation? if it is, it seems to follow that if you're not sleeping with your spouse, they should be allowed to get it somewhere else, right? morally, you can't really be upset. especially if they're sexing up a pro (ie a prostitute). i mean, if they were sleeping with a friend/coworker whatever there's risk of them crossing the line and developing feelings for them.

it's weird tho. cause people like sex at different frequencies. so at what point do you draw the line?

say you like sex a couple times a week. but you're willing to settle for a couple times a month, at a minimum of 20 times a year. this is already much less than you'd like! now say you and your husband haven't had sex with in 3 months, and you've averaged only 10 times the last two years. your husband is able to have sex, just doesn't want to. you've been to counseling, done dr prescribed drugs, and everything else just short of rape.

how mad can he really be if you find yourself a gigolo?

buffets

Jed Oelbaum - All-You-Can-Eat Buffets: The Scourge of Modern Behavioral Economics

interesting article! and so many interesting factoids i'll list them here!


“Given a choice between…their absolute favorite food or…a choice from a buffet of options, capuchin monkeys will opt for variety.” ... people ate almost 43 percent more M&Ms when there were 10 versus seven colors of candy in the bowl. In fact, the more options we have, the more us hungry, hungry hominids will eat in general, leading to the next point in buffet economics: the glutton factor."

"Other researchers have correlated the quantity of repeat trips one makes to a Chinese buffet with a set of traits, including body mass index, or BMI. While this conclusion—overweight people eat more—might seem obvious, the researchers also connect the quest for seconds and thirds with factors like plate size, how long one spends surveying their options before taking their initial serving, and whether the patron is seated facing, or turned away from, the steaming trays of lo, chow, and other various meins."

"People also may think they’re at buffets to eat a lot of cheap food, but according to science, the cheaper that buffet is, the less happy you’ll be... low prices at buffets leave people feeling less satisfied. That’s right, paying more for one’s food is a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy, also tied to our sense of value."

"Eat at pricier buffets with as many options as possible, in order to maximize your own satisfaction and the appeal of the meal you’re taking on. Use a large plate, and sit facing the buffet. By doing these things, you increase your chances of actually “beating the house”


me? i don't like buffets (according to the author, this is because i'm apparently a jerk!) because i can never eat even close to the charged amount. therefore, i prefer breakfast buffets. because i don't generally fill up on bread items like waffles, pancakes, toast (i prefer meats) and i LOVE berries, which are expensive.

my usual modus operandi at a buffet is to hit up every station, but one at a time. unless i know i won't like something i take a little bit of every item and go back to my table to try it all out. this way, if it turns out i don't like something and don't want to finish it, i waste very little. after finishing my samples from that station, i go back and get the items i like. if i didn't like much, i move onto the next station and repeat the process. i always try fill my plate and generally eat everything on it. i start with salad and finish with dessert. sometimes i try the soup, but not usually since i find most soups rather salty, and besides, they take up valuable stomach space. or, if i'm interested in the soups. i'll fill up on the main courses first then move back to soups. i also generally do not try to "over" eat on the expensive items. i like what i like and i'm not going to eat food i don't like just to "make it worth my money."

usually, at home, i eat until i first feel full. then i'll finish my bowl. when eating out, if i can't finish what's on my plate, i'll generally eat half so i can take the rest home. i don't like taking home less than a meal. it seems wasteful. when at a buffet i always overeat, lol. another reason i hate buffets! but i tend to eat slowly so can actually eat way more than i normally do. i seem to have a very elastic stomach. a time or two, at a $40+ vegas buffet i've actually eaten until my stomach hurt after. :( that was stupid and i don't intend to do it again. tho, coincidentally, i usually have to poo midway thru a long meal. and always after eating a big meal, within the hour!

snowpiercer

i watched snowpiercer, which was a really weird movie. i don't think i liked it. i'm not really gonna bother summarizing the movie cause i have a headache now. probably wondering from wtf i just watched. suffice to say that these peoples are on this train encircling the world. and this train won't / can't stop for nothing so it's a closed ecosystem. they grow their own food (they even have cow and chicken carcasses somehow...), somehow produce energy, and get a lot of the water from the snow outside, tho they do also recycle the water.

everything else aside, it had at least one major stupid (as if you didn't already think of several). a big part of the movie is that everyone has their place. we need an upper class, a working class, and a ... sheesh, not even lower class. but a class of destitutes. more than one time they talk about having to maintain a perfect balance, including, of course, how humans factor into it all. but why do they need a class of destitutes? like, what is even the point?

they apparently eat energy blocks made of bugs, so it's not like they eat regular food. but, like... there are fat destitutes. and there are a LOT of these destitutes. i mean, bugs have a lot of protein, and they procreate really quickly, but where do they get so many bugs to feed so many people?! and these people must still create a lot of waste. which they do what with? and more to the point. WHY?! the fuck is even the point of keeping these people around?

some of it might be a social thing. like, scare the other classes to stay in line or they'll be relegated to the lower class. but, like... why? if they fuck up that bad, just kick them off the train. duh. wouldn't that be way easier? this train even has a whole car of drug addicts sleeping it off in morgue-like box compartments. they also have another car of druggies just passed out on the floor. ...but... why?

part of the story is also that the conductor needs little kids to help run the engine. cause they're so small, see? and apparently the lower class breeds a lot. and i assume it would be inhuman or something to make rich kids work. that's not explained. but like... there are OLD destitutes. and a lot of non-procreating ones. basically, they got a lot of useless people back there. i mean, they do seem to do some manual labor, but not nearly enough to justify keeping them alive. furthermore, some of the destitutes, regular age and really old are handicapped. missing limbs. so they're probably not able to do a ton of work.

i dunno. it's all i could think during the movie. pretty sure that's why i have a massive headache right now. brain kept screaming "WHY?!"

seating etiquette

the other day, rip and i were having dinner with a teammate of mine named lee. rip is not on this team, tho he has met a lot of them since he went with me to my team's year-end dinner. lee sat down first. rip was getting a drink, so i was to sit down next. and wouldn't you know it. i had no idea where to sit! we weren't in a booth; it was a long table with individual chairs. lee sat at the end, across from the side rip and i were to sit. so do i sit across from lee or have rip sit across from lee?

i ended up sitting across from lee. because i figure lee is my teammate, not rip's, so it would make more sense for me to sit across from him, rather than rip. but i wondered, because, well, i dunno. he's a guy, so i felt like i shouldn't sit across from him. lol, i have no idea. if it were just me and lee we would obviously sit across each other. if we were with the team i'd have rip sit across from lee so i'd be next to a teammate, because rip isn't on the team. but in this situation i, for some reason, thought it awkward to sit across from lee when i was with rip? ...i know, it sounds as if i'm cheating on rip with lee so i'm hella paranoid to "just act normal."

lol, anyway, i think i did fine. i think it was all *very normal*. hahahah. but seriously. have you ever randomly freaked out a little over seating? it's strange. like, i don't want to accidentally offend rip somehow by sitting across from some dude. tho if rip were to get offended by this, our relationship has some crazy problems. but, lol, turns out it's just me with the crazy problems.

tread lightly

quotations from eric blehm's the last season which is about randy morgenson, who "was legendary for finding people missing in the high sierra... then one day he went missing himself."

alden nash - it's hard to feel sorry for a man who's standing on his own weenie.

radny morgenson - "that a humanoid god willed all this into existence simply to glorify himself (a bit too egotistically human), and/or for us, his greatest creation, and our pleasure, use, misuse, seems not either to fit... I wish only to be alive and to experience this living to the fullest. to feel deeply about my days, to feel the goodness of life and the beauty of my world, this is my preference. i am human and experience the emotions of humanity: elation, frustration, loneliness, love. and the greatest of these is love, love for the world and its creatures, love for life. it comes easily here. i have loved a thousand mountain meadows and alpine peaks. to be thoroughly aware each day that i'm alive to be deeply sensitive to the world i inhabit and the world that i am, not to roam roughshod over the broad surface of this planet for achievement but to know where i step, and to tread lightly. i would rather my footsteps never be seen, and the sound of my voice be heard only by those near, and never echo, than leave in my wake the fame of those whom we commonly call great."