What the?!?

What's with blogger spam??

I was feeling special when I saw that I had 11 comments on my last blog. Turns out, the blogger world has been infiltrated with spam comments.

Shitty...

Fun in the Sun

Another summer is coming to a close, and I thought I would be brave, and blog about the beach. Well, I guess blogging about it isn't brave per se, but posting a picture of me in a bikini, all pasty white and chubbed up a little for the winter could be considered brave.

Anyways, as you can see behind Bri, Gullivers (or Guvillers...I never know) is a beatiful little beach on which I spent a few days this summer. Soaking up the hot sun (I know you can't tell, shut up!) during my extended period of unemployment. I can't think of many better ways to spend a summer day, than with my family or my best friend at the beach.
I was able to post this picture of Bri, and one of Rachel, but infortunatly I was threatened with child abandonment if I posted one of my mom, so sorry guys...She was there though, and I assure you she had fun in the sun too!

For those of you whom have not had the pleasure of meeting my best friend Rachel, this is her, and she's sometimes as sweet as she looks in that picture. As you can tell, when I'm at the beach with her, I don't have to be worried about people looking at my pasty ass! Anyways, we had a great time blowing up those rafts. The first time we went, we pumped the air pump thing for an hour, and couldn't figure out why it wasn't full yet. Rachels brother eventually showed up and used his muscles not only to pump the air pump, but to put the plug in the hole that was letting all the air out. Smart eh? I know...

Day at the Zoo

As I mentioned months ago, I went to the zoo for my birthday, and I took a crap-load of pictures so that I could remember the day, and share it with you! So, I finally got the pictures into the computer and I thought it's about time I throw them up on here.

Above is a cute freakin monkey. I love monkeys, for those of you that didn't know, and I almost stole a couple for my birthday. Unfortunatly the zoo is full of security and chains / glass protecting the animals. Damn them.

On the right there, you'll see a huge tiger that was pretty cool if you ask me. This was one of the animals that I was glad was behind thick fencing. I really considered throwing some peanut butter and jelly sandwich to see if he'd catch it and eat it, but me and Greg decided next time we'd bring him some raw hot dogs, or maybe a tuna. But I thought twice about the tuna, cause I was sure I'd get some looks if that smell was coming from my bag...




This guy was another cutie, and deserved many pictues. In fact, he modelled for me and even turned around so I could snap a shot of his blue bum. I'll save you seeing that one though, I don't want a lawsuit on my ass. Wait...is naked monkey butt considered porn?? I think so...



Aww, I was inches away from this sleeping beauty. She opened her eyes for just a second, but I couldn't catch it on the camera. As you can imagine, I had to fight and push about 15 children under three to get this photo. Little buggers should learn to respect their elders. In my opinion they should have non-childerens day at the zoo...is that mean?



Aww, another tinsy weensy animal I would have stole if he wasn't behind glass. This little baboon was about as big as a kitten and faster too. I took about 25 pictures, but he kept hiding and running too fast. I figured the only shot he would let me get was his cute little tushie, and I was right.






This lion was peaceful and beautiful, but very far away. For anyone who goes to the zoo, I would be almost tempted to suggest bringing some binoculars.






His mate was pretty georgeous too. Geeze, lions just don't have to work to be beautiful. Humans are so different, and soo much less significant. Well...most anyways.

This is getting long, so I'll show you a couple more cool pictures, and then you can conjure up images of all the other typical animals (elephants, zebras etc. get kinda boring after hundreds of thousands of pictures).

While snapping this photo, Greg stood behind me, shouted "whooo" right in my ear and grabbed my sides. I almost pissed my pants, and I'm sure I let out a bit of a shreek. I felt like a moron, and then I beat him. He deserved it...







Speaking of Greg, I should have thrown him in with this big guy. Payback's a bitch eh?

We decided to pack a half dozen hot dogs for this guy too. He'd be almost cooler then the tiger.



This is a red panda. I had to squirt him with my water bottle to get him up and running around. In fact I did that to a few animals that day, including a porcupine. As an afterthought...pissing of a porcupine is a bad idea. They throw needles, and needles hurt.

OK, OK that's enough. I know you all hate me, and are pissed that I ruined the zoo for you, but trust me, there are many more cool animals. I have another 300 or so pictures to prove it. But I wont...don't worry.

For those of you that love pictures, stay tuned for the rest of my summer adventures. Man, this could get addictive. I'd show party pictures too, but come on, my grandma reads this. (hi grandma! )

I'm alive and Kicking

So, I was sitting outside last night having a friendly game of cribbage with mom and Robbie, and I feel a tickle under my shirt. I thought it was a fly, so I went to swat it away, and felt a prick. Being allergic to bees and wasps, I immediatly started to panic. I told my mom I had just been stung and I got my epi-pen close by just in case I was going to swell up and pass out. I wasn't sure what to do, as I haven't been stung since I was about 18 months old. That time, I was stung on the face, which may have been part of the reason I has such a severe reaction.

This time however, I lived to tell about it. I got a toonie sized welt on my back right where I had been stung, and eventual hives like crazy. I took some Bendryl, and continued my game of crib. My throat didn't close, although I was having a little bit of trouble breathing. I think I was having a bit of a panic attack because let's face it, I was scared I was going to have to take a needle. Funnily enough, I am not scared of passing out, but I AM terribly afraid of needles. I would have my mom stick me after I passed out.

Anyway, I am still itchy like I have chicken pox, but the rash has gone down, and I am alive. So, I think I might be safe after all (in terms of dying) when I get stung. I will still carry my pen just in case I react worse to a wasp sting, or in case I get stung on the neck, or some such situation. It wasn't nice, but now I know what it feels like, and I don't feel so left out.

For those of you that are with me in the summer months, you can still feel free to protect me when the time comes. I would prefer not to experience that often.

I downloaded all the fun summer pictures I took in the past few months, so be sure that there is a nice fun long blog coming this weekend. I might split it up into a few, to save getting yelled at by those that hate long blogs. But it doesn't count if there's picutres right??

Good Luck Jen!!

So, Jenny went to University today to move into her dorm room at teacher's college. She was scared of a new beginning, but as we all know, new beginnings are scary, but usually worth it. She packed all of her stuff into the car last night, and left at 9:30 this mornin to Oshawa. When she arrived, she found that she only has two drawers to keep her cloths in. No closet, no dresser, no nightstand. She has a tiny counter with a sink, a very few cupboards, and a short bar on the wall to hang clothes from. How can a university get away with charging an arm and a leg for a room when there isn't even a closet?? Hello? Am I the only one who sees a problem with this? Freaks.

So, she put her groceries into her two drawers and I guess she'll live out of suitcases...geeze. She'll figure somehting out I guess. She always does.

We had a great dinner for Jenny's going away slash mom and Robbies anniversary. It was a nice chance for the family to spend a little time together before we all split for the school year. Crappy as it is, we only have one more year away from home, and then the next time we split will probably mean that one of us is moving out with a man or something.

I am sad that she's gone, but I got less attached over the summer, as we both had separate lives. I am sad that she's soo on-track and I'm still lost about what I am doing after I finish school. I am sad that I have to make the move to university in two weeks, and I'll be by myself in a house full of people.

I am happy that Jen is so on-track. I am happy that we both got the opportunity to go to school, and to make anything of our lives. I am happy that I only have one more year at Laurier. I am happy that my mom and my best friend both got new cars, and have promised to come visit me during the year.

I wish my sister the best of luck. I hope she makes friends, and that she fits in. I hope she learns alot and takes advantage of every opportunity. I love you Jen!

xoxo

March of the Penguins

I thought I would rave about the documentary "March of the Penguins" For those of you that have not yet seen it, Go already, what are you waiting for??!!

Basically, this is a documentary about Emperor penguins that make the long (70mile) treck to the spot they were born every year to find a mate. This is the thickest spot of ice so the penguoins gathe rhere for 9 months of the year to raise their chicks. The problem is, it is very far from the sea, and so the poor penguins don't eat for months at a time.

As you can see above, the penguins are very cute, and the chicks are even cuter. They mate with one partner each year, and spend all of there time concentrating on keeping the egg / chick alive and warm in the -50 degree weather (not including wind chill). Many die, and it's sad. But at the same time, it is amazing the journey these birds take throughout their life.

The mating rituals are beautiful, and the movie is narrated by Morgan Freeman. I encourrage you to go visit the website to see some pictures and get a great synopsis. http://wip.warnerbros.com/marchofthepenguins/

Spooning

For those of you that were wondering...on the left is a rather family-friendly version of what is called "spooning"

The story begins with my best friend Rachel, being slightly intoxicated and feeling lonely. She was at a bar one night with a guy friend of ours that has recently been dumped by his long-term (5 or so years) girlfriend.

Rachel, being simewhat open with her feelings, is discussing with this guy friend the fact that they are both lonely. Now, if you new Rachel, this story is very very funny. She sais to guy-friend "are you lonely?" to which he reponds "yeah" and she proceeds to ask him "wanna spoon?" LOL

I'm sorry, but as a 22 year old adult, this is about the last thing I would have thought I would hear coming out of her mouth. These two have a totally pleutonic relationship, so it wasn't like that...but come on! that's a hilarious thing to say. So I thought I would share it with you all.

So, I just spent about an hour looking for something to wear. Thing is, I Never do this. I hate to do this, and in fact, I make fun of people who do this. So...here is my delemma. I hate my cloths. I don't put them on and think "which outfit would make me look best?", nor do I think "which outfit would be the perfect outfit for such-and-such ocasion?" I hate all of my cloths and I just spent an hour deciding what to wear to sit in my backyard and have a few drinks with friends. These people know me, they know that I'm generally a slob, and I never put two seconds thought into what I'm wearing. The reason for this...I hate my cloths. I haven't bought new cloths since highschool (save WLU $5 t-shirt sale) literally. I have bought 2 tank tops and about 7 WLU T's in 4 years, totaling about 75 bucks.

I'm torn though, because I have tuition to pay, and books to buy. Therefore, I am wearing Bri's jeans and the two tank tops I bought last year. I'm overdressed for a backyard party but it was either this, or a WLU t-shirt. And so, I am grumpy, and I feel self-concious. I just thought I'd vent...

Aimee

Thesis on the Mind

So for those of you who were wondering, I feel the need to stay up a little later then I should, to post about my thesis after our baseball game (which we lost btw). Now most of you will have no clue what I'm talking about, so you can skip the rest of this blog, and I'll write something a little more interesting later this week. For those who care (mostly you, Nicole), here goes nothing.

The short version: I have decided to study criterion changes in single item and associative recognition in the context of strength-based mirror effects in recognition. Basically (or not so much) the idea is to differentially strength pictures and words (both within and between lists) to see whether I can find mirror effects.

For those of you who don't study cognitive psychology, and are still reading for some reason, the simple version is this: When people see lists of words or strings of pictures, they tend to remember them differently based on a few main conditions. Firstly, if you see a list of very common words, then it is likely that you wont remember if you saw the word in the list, or if you just think you might have seen it. So, any words in the list that are used less frequently in English are more likely to stand out at test if you did see it in the study list. Secondly, if you study a word for a longer period of time, you are also more likely to commit it to memory than if you only see it for a second. So...this works about the same for pictures, and people change the way they think when they are tested depending on these things.

For example, if you are being tested on the words or pictures that tended to "stand out" at study, then you are tougher on yourself when you have to make the decision that the word/pic is old or new (have you seen it before at study?). Basically, people will generally adopt a more conservative decision criterion following "easy" study lists, and a more liberal criterion following "difficult" study lists, because they know that their memory will be different in the two conditions. Hense the term "mirror effect", because you will have more correct decisions and less incorrect when the study list is easy, and the opposite if the study list is hard. The question is, can people change their criterion item-by-item, or only list-by-list.

For those of you that are confused, take my word for it, if you were participating in my experiment you would likely criterion-change. It's something we all do without thinking. So...this hasn't been studied with pictures and words together in the same lists...that's where I come in...

So, I've bored some of you.

Truth is, I suck at coming up with ideas and when my thesis prof sent me his paper (currently in progress) I picked up on an aspect of it that hadn't yet been studied. This late in the game, I can't be choosy. I'm scared to death of writing this thing. I am also scared to make a decision about taking my masters. I don't want to write the graduate record exam, and I don't know what I want to do with my life.

So, for those of you that have made this decision already, be happy that you aren't 22 and can't answer the grade 1 question "so, what do you want to be when you grow up?" A shitty thing happened. I grew up already. I will fall into something.

Anyways, it's WAY past my bedtime now. I'm thinking too much, and so I must retire to my room to numb my mind with some TLC and try to get some sleep.

Can I tell you, it sucks being pretty good at most things, and having no passion for anything. I can enter bills like a bitch though I tell ya...

Aimee

In Desperate Need of Midol

I am sitting at work, and our system is down again as usual, so I am not getting much done (by no fault of my own). But, I am sitting her dying of womanly cramps and wondering why all of the women in the office don't carry midol. I can't talk really, because I also don't have any...but still! I tried advil but it doesn't work for this purpose apparently.

Anyways, I know it's been a while since I wrote but, I have been working 8-4 and then doing extra work at home. In my spare time, I have been working on the dreaded thesis. I have picked a topic, and have officialy started working on it. Besides all that, I have been sick, and sleepy so...

Anyways, I just got an announcement that the system is back up. I must get to work. I'm on the clock.

Aimee