her blog is better than my blog

It is Confucius's Day today, which is just a coincidence. People who know me, the real me, know that I am not a big fan of Confucius, even though I was able to memorize all his words for exams (of course I forgot them all together at the moment handing out my tests).

But the date is relevant to the topic.
Rose started appearing in my photo albums three years ago. Yes, it was Sep 28, 2004. Amazing how time flies, right? I did not know it was exactly three years ago until three minutes ago I had found her first image on my hard drive.

The reason why I wanted to find her image because I wanted to promote her blog. She was the sweetest girl in the coolest sense among Americans. She is the reason why I do not dislike all Americans. I say to friends "See? Rose is a great example that there are cool Americans. There is still hope for the country."

Her debut in my albums was of course not ordinary. See it?

Yes, she was the only one who was looking at the camera. She was so supportive that she even passed the blocker Nina in order to show her smart blue head.
I have to smile. I have liked her at the moment I saw her when she was just visiting PennState before becoming a grad student, because blue is her favorite color. Because blue is my favorite color too :)

Just recently, I was personally informed that she was a blogger too. I always like her writings, the David Sedaris type of humor plus Rose's semi-cynical accent. You can find the link on the right column. If you can't (because you're lazy or you don't know where to look), click here.

Another reason that I want to promote her blog is that it makes me happy. Call me selfish.
I like smiles. Rose's smile makes me smile. Her blog is better than my blog, which is literally said when you click the link.

You don't know how her smile makes me smile? Here's an example.

Mairead and Kieran, since then, call her Tigger.

(Oh, btw, that was a VIP Lab party for Zabeth's departure. Zabeth was a visiting grad student for the summer. Now all of them, Toby, Cathleen, Mairead, Kieran, Rose, Teresa, and Zabeth are in Iowa. The VIP Lab was no longer existing. But they are still and will always be VIP for me.)

looooony 嚕嚕嚕

月亮節過了,但是月亮一直都會在
小時候的時候,以為月亮會跟我回家,坐在車上向窗外一直看著她
現在,月亮在我家
都肥肥圓圓笑臉迎人

小月是幾米的作品
跟著我從台北一路飛來美國,搬了幾次家,還是笑得很燦爛

餃子頭是多明尼加的月神小像
當地早已經沒有土著了,不過還是靠土著的崇拜物生財
我在紀念品店挑了好久才決定要她的,其他的 luna 沒有她可愛

中秋啊,對我來說不是鄉愁,是傷感
那天剛好又染上傷感的病毒
連了好幾天昏昏沉沉
不過臉還是肥
笑容還是在
所以日子繼續過啊
讓大家擔心了,胚沒事啦

不再見

就在現在這個時候，一場告別式正在進行，我們機構的總裁在五月過世了，所謂的告別式籌備委員會終於喬出一個大家似乎都有空的時間，而所謂的大家包括總裁先生的老友、同事、學生和家人，大概有幾百人之多吧。

不包括我。
我見過他一次而已，那天我來面試，他是唯一一個讓我覺得不太想雇用我的人，他拿著我的履歷咄咄逼人的說：你的投稿都還沒有刊出過。還一邊說一邊搖頭。
不過我沒有不喜歡他，因為以他的地位和角色，給我下馬威是他的工作，他的職務就是要確保我們機構的研究水準和成績，成績就是以刊出多少論文來定論的。
總之，我覺得他跟我說再見的時候不很誠懇。

結果就真的沒再見了。
聽說是心臟手術後的併發症。

不想去他的告別式當然是因為我跟他一點都不熟，不是因為我覺得他不想再見我。

另外一個原因是我有一種快要陣亡的感覺，好像哈利波特故事裡的 dememtor 來親了我一下，快樂全然消失，覺得沒有能力再有單純愉悅的微笑，一切都失去溫度，我在大太陽底下穿著皮衣卻還在發抖，難過生氣失望絕望全都一起來。
因為他又犯了錯，這回是莫大的錯。

不再見，我說不出口，氣我自己說不出口，為什麼我對他依然有憐憫的心呢？
因為我的臉上有他的影子。
誰可以救他？誰可以讓他看清他自己然後覺醒呢？
好久以前，當我下定了不再主動跟他聯絡的決心時，我很樂觀的相信著「佛渡有緣人，無緣人自有人渡」，而我肯定不是他的有緣人，但是我希望他會好起來，他的心會好起來。
現在我發現是他不讓渡啊！
行不正，心不直，又不自量力，這樣子的努力不會有好結果，努力的過程中也很難遇到貴人來渡。

再見不再見呢？
我一直在等他的表現，結果等到這樣的結果。

頭痛喉啞眼乾，沒辦法裝出「節哀順變」的告別式微笑，連昨晚的探戈也讓我快樂不起來。

american flags

This is horrible.
Yeah... the more flags the more you are likable. The more flags the less likely you are going to be attacked by anti-American people. Yeah, you keep believing it. I wish there actually is a God trying to help those embarrassing Americans.

PDA creater's theory on the brain

I like his enthusiasm and the topic of the talk.
I like the way he points out how little we know about the brain in terms of how it works.
Neuroscientists have to work with psychologists, please.
One day I dinnered with a friend's friend who happens to be a wet neuroscientist ("wet" means that he wears a lab coat for protection from wet things coming out of his experimental subjects such as mice or a mice's cells.) (I many times wear a lab coat because the AC is so strong that I cannot type) That neuroscientist insisted that eventually we would understand how the brain works when we know every detail to the molecular level of the brain. I simply shook my head and smiled.

This good TED talk (all TED talks are good, but I pick my favorites to be posted here) proposes a theory or a framework for how we can understand the brain better. I do not agree with him on his theory that intelligence is defined by prediction. Intelligence is defined by much more processes and outcomes, mentally and neurologically, besides prediction.
You can condition a pigeon so that it can predict if it is going to be fed when seeing a light.
Intelligence is defined by .... It depends.
How connected brain regions are may be the key. Which may result in how one connects events around her. Which may result in intelligent behaviors such as wise decision, creative action, and socially favored sentences.
This is my theory today. Tomorrow if I learn more, my theory may change, theoretically.

vogonism

After only 5 hours of sleep (for tango and other stuff worth my time), I ran 4 subjects. Ok, for people who have no idea what I mean, a "subject" refers to a human participant in my study. When writing journal articles now, we are encouraged to use "participants" instead of "subjects" because "participants" sounds more human-like and more respectful. However, in lab or in this jargon-filled research field, we researchers still call participants subjects when talking to each other.

Alright, I sat in the room, running 4 subjects from 10 am to 3 pm. I did my best to keep my eyes open without help from coffee. Well, it's Friday, meaning I want to sleep well and long tonight, suggesting coffee should be avoided.
Anyway, finally I finished today's duty of running experiments.

Millie the lab secretary came to me, telling me I should have booked the room before I ran experiments. She was nice and helpful. She taught me how to book the room.
I know it's necessary since our lab does not own the room. This kind of bureaucracy is very mild.

And then I started making copies of all the consent forms.
Yes, formS.
When I was in Penn State, there was only one consent form with 2 pages max.
Now my subjects have to sign 6 to 8 forms and fill out questionnaires, taking 10 to 20 minutes before actually doing the experiment. And I have to photocopy everything for them.
I have taken it as well as I could. No complaint. At least not this moment.

I was sitting in the room doing 3-holing and filing. Kristen came to show me how to send checks to subjects who had participated in the study.
I thought it was as easy as enveloping the check and mailing it.
No, in stead I wrote down 8 steps for the whole procedure. My head was aching. I missed my bed.

Many photocopies have been made since I started my job. Each copy of the same information goes to different departments for almost the same purpose. The same evidence has been scattered to the entire research center and beyond for the purpose of "protecting" participants and ourselves.
If A is not done, B cannot be done. If B is not done, C will come to yell at you, and no one will notify you which step has gone undone.

I had advertised my study through email and many listservers and by posting flyers.
Now I cannot do that. Everything has to be proved before hand. As if I was going to inject illegal drugs to subjects. As if I was going to wash subjects' brains with my boring visuo-spatial tasks. As if I was going to lure more people with thirty dollars.
Yeah, 30 bucks sound good for an hour of participating in simple behavioral experiments. Back in Penn State, we only pay at most 12 per hour for time-consuming psychophysiological experiments. However, if you paid me 30 bucks to drive away from my home or work, I would have rejected you.
Campus is always the best place to get healthy participants. But I am not on campus now.
So my point is why the IRB restricts me so much now!

Paperworks slow down progress.

Yet another real example happened these past two days.
I wanted to go on the website of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention but found it blocked.
I was like WHAT? WHY? It is a government website!
Immediately I emailed the good geek IT person (not Mr. M) and complained. Mr. B told me to send an evaluation of the website so that the IT consultant company could unblock it.
How could I evaluate it without seeing it? So I wrote on the evaluation page that CDC.gov is a government website with information for the public and I have no idea why you think the website is not appropriate for people who work in medical research institutes to have access to it.
Well, actually I did not write the words after "and" in the last sentence. I was being nice.
After one day, it was unblocked.
After precious 24 hours, it was unblocked and I had forgotten why I wanted to go there in the first place.

Vogonism!

Yes, I invent this word from the vogons in the movie "the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy". Vogons do not do anything without paperworks.

I spent one hour doing paperworks after running experiments today. Unbelievable.
I could have read a paper, written a paper, or gone back to my bed for that hour.

Ugly fat vogon!

cute butts

This is the first time I acknowledge this model is cute. Or it is cute because it is parked right there with the contrary color to my bug.
Normally I call it the ugly car. Yes, scion xb is ugly.
It is like a TV set running around. How cute a TV set can be? Never as cute as a beetle!

I call it ugly in a proud way every time I see one of this kind on the street. I never miss the chance to call it the ugly car because it is ugly. Even when I am not able to say it out loud, I say it in my head.

Or sometimes I rephrase it as "the uglily cute car" for Jason.
Jason had one ugly car. I have written something about it in my old blog.
When he had the ugly car, I was using a nickname "xb". He thought I knew the model of his car. It was just a coincidence.
Jason only owned the car for a little while because he moved to China.
And I was never called xb by the person who had nicknamed me.

xb did not last for long.

Well, it sounds kinda sad now.
But when I took this picture I was smiling and simply enjoy the scene of these two cute butts. They were so innocently located there. Nothing was upsetting. They did not have emotions, either. They were alive only because of my smile of acknowledgment. I was only a bit sad when linking the past to the present view. Everything was in my head.

Being sad or happy or purely enjoying this visual input onto my retina is just an option.
I decide what I feel. (Cognitive psychologists rule over affective psychologists)

Do I?
No, of course not, and luckily I cannot decide what I feel. So all my smiles and tears are genuine.
(Of course, cognitive psychologists and affective psychologists are both equally interested in how mind works. And I have to say that affects many times rule over cognition. Humans are more emotional than intellectual.)
I cannot help but smile almost everytime when seeing my bug's smile. Can't fake that. Can't hide that.

This is how I know I truly like something or someone.
Yup, something or someone with a cute butt.

mashimaro

Someone (I know this someone is reading this) has said I look like Mashimaro. One day, pei will be beautiful as a grown-up. Wait and see!

I was searching this video for a friend, and realized how far away the mashimaro era has been.
My first mashimaro stuffed toy was given by Lyndsey. See? Even you cannot believe it, right? I had mentioned it to her before my first Psychonomics meeting, which was in Vancouver, where Asians are everywhere in town. We went to the meeting together. She bought the little toy without telling me until my birthday. I was very moved.

In two months, I was in Taipei for the New Year. I had my first shooting game in a night market. (Yeah, I know. Normal Taiwanese have played this game since they were 10. My childhood was difficult.) I was very good at shooting! I got the target 10 out of 10. So I won a prize. I picked a mashimaro.

It is like why I like Garfield. These characters are so honest. They do not hide their dark sides for being popular in the society. Isn't it ideal? You being you and I being me and we are all happy without offending anybody. No. The happy part actually is offending somebody as shown in the animations. The ideal part is that people who are offended are able to take nothing personally and be forgiving.

Too ideal to be true. So enjoying the animations is good enough. In the real world, I shall be nice most of the time.