Wordless Wednesday

Daddy's Girl

Just before prom, 2001

When my little brother was born

The day they brought me home from the hospital

I LOVE YOU DADDY!

And it's pink!! ;)

I've been wanting a netbook for a while now. But last Thursday tipped the scales and I realized I needed a laptop during class. I have a laptop but it's huge and a pain in the ass to haul to class, which I did have to do for a whole 9 weeks for a class that required a computer.

I spend two days researching computers, talking to friends online, my father, and the IT guy at work. I get home Friday and Joe tells me that he'd prefer if I just bought a Sony Vaio. And quite frankly, that was my first choice, but they arent the cheapest netbooks. But they also come with 4GB of memory and the best... um... speed (can you tell I know very little about computers?) But thankfully I know many many people with an opinion and knowledge of most electronics.

Okay, and I know what you're going to say, the same thing Joe did...... it's pink. Yes yes yes. It's pink. But it comes in 2 colors, pink and silver. And I could have the pink one for no extra cost. And I think it's so cute!!

There's a girl in my current class with this netbook. It's a big plus that I've been able to see it in person. It's the perfect size too. Not 10 inches, like most netbooks. And not 14 inches, which is just too big (my current laptop is 15 inches wide anyway). This girl said her husband, a computer guy, picked it out for her, said it was what she needed for class. Like I told my IT guy at work, I'm surfing the net and writing notes in class. I might work on a PowerPoint on it. That's it, I'm not doing espionage. My main thing was battery life. But as Joe said, batteries have powercords, it's memory and speed you need to think about. Just plug the darn thing in. I guess he's right.

I cannot WAIT to get this thing!! It probably wont make it here by the time my next Thursday class rolls around, but that's okay. I'm leading the presentation next Thursday so there wont be much time for notes anyway. And on that note, I need to get working on my presentation. :)

Flirty Girls

Flirty girls -- my newest pet peeve.

I am 27 years old. Married. And very friendly. Joe says I can make friends in a Wal-Mart pharmacy line. And it's pretty true. I like to talk to people.

But I've met a few ladies recently (and not so recently) that seem to flirty with everyone. And when I give them the look (because they are married, their husband is deployed, the person they are flirting with is married, etc,) they tell me it's just because they are friendly. Well, I whole-heartedly disagree.

My mother has told me since the day I was old enough to understand - Be a person first, be Sara first. Then be everything else, woman, wife, mother (someday). But you have to be a strong individual first to get anywhere in this world. My mother is an architect. There are only 11% women in the field. I've met a couple others. But most people don't know any female architects. My mother walks onto job sites and has to be even better, even more professional, than the male architects to play the male-driven game in the South. I also have an aunt who is a PhD astrophysicist. Same thing. These are the female role models I've had growing up. Smart, strong, independent women.

So the flirty women, the ones that bat their eyelashes at every guy they see, really annoy me. You can have a conversation with a male without flirting with him. You really can. You can be friendly without acting like a middle school child with a crush on every person with male genitalia.

On a related note, I also know some females that believe you have to be a bitch to get your way. Also completely wrong and fairly inappropriate. The very first time I heard someone say this I was in high school and on a job site with my mother. Some female interior decorator said it. My mother turned to me the moment that woman left and told me no one respected her and she was horrible to work with because she was always in some defensive bitch mode. Talk about a good example for a impressionable teen. I currently hear this from female Soldiers. (Yes, I understand I am not and will never be a female Soldier, but I've heard my husband talk about them enough to know a good female Soldier, whom everyone likes and respects, from a bad one, whom no one likes and they all want out of their unit.) The job has to be similar to any other male driven field. You don't get far "acting" like a girl.

So I guess the take home message here is that most women annoy me you can act friendly and professional without being a ho or a bitch. I wish more women understood this.

Play a game with Megan Dub-Yuh! #3

Let's play again!! Come on guys! Run over to Megan Dub-Yuh right now! Takes just a few minutes to link up!





Megan's question is:
Now that it is swimsuit season and everyone is heading to the pool or the beach do you wear a 1-piece or 2-? What type of SPF do you use?

I've had the same black and white one piece for a few years now. I used to have a green tankini that I just loved, but I think my mom stole it when she got her Jacuzzi.

I haven't been swimming in the day light (just in the jacuzzi at night) in years. I'm not sure I even own any real sun screen, just the usual moisturizer I use daily. But when I liked in AR and went to the lake, I'm sure I used sunscreen. But I'm lucky enough to usually tan, not burn. But here in Colorado, where the sun is SOOOO close, I burn if I'm outside too long.

Evolution

I thought I had gotten away from the uber religious people when I left Arkansas. For a person like me, growing up in the bible belt wasn't a fun thing. Most religious people don't bother me. You believe what you want. I'll believe what I want. Unless you are a teabagger trying to take away my rights, I just don't care what you believe. When you start to push YOUR religious beliefs on ME, whatever it is, then I will care, loudly.

When I started grad school, I was in many classes where we had some very good debates, I could share my views, and others could too, in a very healthy way. We are all adults. No one picked a fight. No one acted offended. It was very refreshing for this Southern girl. Psychology is a science. And one of my favorite things about science is that there are very specific ways things have to be proven, over and over, repeatedly.

But something happened last night that had the whole class, all ten of us, plus the professor, completely dumbfounded. I'm in a Cognitive and Affective Bases of Behavior class taught by a women with a PhD in neuropsychology. We've met twice so far and I LOVE this class. I could totally be a neuropsychologist. It's just fascinating. In true grad school (read: nerd) fashion, when we come into the class, we start talking about the chapters even before the professor comes in the room. I walked into a conversation from a few people, one being someone we will call John. "When I became a Christian, I said to myself, John, you can't be having sex with everyone you meet." I sat down and the conversation continued. This particular male has been in two of my other classes. His specialty is sex addiction. He talks about it ALL the time. Every presentation he gives, every example he cites, and apparently he once had a problem with it himself. So as the class is filling in, and the professor starts to set up her laptop, she asks the class what we thought of the reading. And John says he found a "fault" in the text. I read the chapters and didn't find any typos or missteps, so I was quite curious about what I could have missed while I was reading. So John quotes from the book: "Evolution has encased the brain in a rock-hard vault of bone, wrapped it in layers of tough membrane, and cushioned it in a viscous bath of cerebral spinal fluid..." (the full quote is located at the bottom of this blog). And we all wait for the punch line. And John doesn't let us down. He asks the class... "So before evolution, did people have soft skulls? That makes no sense at all. The book is just wrong about this one."

And the whole class just stared at him. Even the professor. What do you say to someone that obviously has NO grasp of what "evolution" really is?? John goes on to say that the Cro-Magnon man had a hard skull, so that once again proves the book wrong. And that Adam and Eve didn't need evolution and neither does he, he just doesn't "buy" into it. The professor is an older woman, probably 55 to 60 years old, and very German, her accent rocks. The look on her face was humor, as I'm sure she thought he was joking for a moment, then shock and finally a blank stare, a poker face if you will, something good psychologists have honed as to not offend or give anything way to their patients. She finally says that the fallacy he is stuck in is that we -- the planet, humans, animals, plants, etc --have evolved over billions of years... not only 6000. And that he needs to think of the evolution of the brain from when it started.... billions of years ago. Well, this really pissed John off. He mumbled some inaudible things and the class started.

How does one get to be a grown man without taking a basic science class? I was a biochem major for 3 years as an undergrad and had many religious classmates that still believed in evolution. The woman that works in my apartment complex office asked me a few weeks ago if I believed in evolution. When I told her yes, um.. of course I do, she told me I needed to take another look. These people confuse the shit out of me. What do you MEAN you dont believe in evolution? You REALLY think that poof... Adam and Eve appeared, looking just like we do now? REALLY??

Here's a link to a video one of my friends posted the other day. You HAVE to go watch this video. I cant get it to embed in this post, so I'll post the link instead. http://youtu.be/IguW9xHd2qo

"Evolution has encased the brain in a rock-hard vault of bone, wrapped it in layers of tough membrane, and cushioned it in a viscous bath of cerebral spinal fluid. These protective shields post particularly difficult challenges for scientists who would like to observe human brain activity directly." - Gordon Bower