The Time I Overcame a Couple of Fears and Felt Really Good About Myself.

I'm in the midst of final preparations for my second year exams, but after reading for 6 hours today about knowledge representation models, I'm really fine with taking a break to write this post.

Last week I had a glorious 8 day stint in Grand Rapids with Eric and the rest of my college crew. Before you get too happy and congratulate me on my awesome week, it was a working "vacation". I.E I spent all day skyping, emailing, and calling my lab to make sure everything was going smoothly, and well..studying.
That being said, the week was still amazing.
I did a lot of really fun things with friends, and I could go into all of them but instead I'll just focus on the things I did that really pushed the comfort zone (because frankly they are a little bit funny).

1. Driving a Stick-shift

When I was about 12 my grandfather (Papa) and uncle tried very diligently (but ultimately to no avail) to teach all of us kids how a manual transmission worked. The car in question was an old maroon clunker of a pick up truck that we all called "big red", and it resided on the private centennial farm up north. I can remember piling into it for a driving lesson. It was perfect because of it's bench seats..a carefully supervising rider could easily slide into the driver's position if necessary, and take over the wheel. That being said, it was also terrifying.

p.s this is not big red.

Big Red stalled out like nobody's business. Seriously. Perhaps if you are reading this, and you drive a stick, you have experienced your car stalling out. And if so, then you probably remember the experience as perhaps a little embarrassing, but relatively mundane. When Big Red stalled out, the beast would shudder and clunk violently before shivering to a halt. Furthermore, that shuddering clunk was a sign that you screwed up. Needless to say, no one liked learning to drive on Big Red.

7 years later I was pretty convinced I was never going to have to deal with driving a manual transmission ever again, and got pretty darn comfy driving my familiar automatic. I was able to get around, and my discomfort with learning the manual transmission didn't impact my life in the slightest. But then I met Eric. And Eric drives a stick.

This past week Eric attempted to teach me how to drive a stick. Now, I can be a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to performing for people I really care about. My dinners and desserts are perfect when people come over, my handwriting on thank you notes is beautiful, my presentations and essays are extremely well researched etc. In other words, I avoid failing at things in front of people (I care about) absolutely as much as possible. But on top of that, there are some things I don't learn very quickly! Like, kinesthetically in particular. So obviously this was a recipe for disaster.

Thats because driving manual transmissions is a lot like dancing -- it took me a solid two months to learn how to swing dance remotely well, and I'm sure it would take me just as long to really learn how to drive my boyfriend's car. Clutch in, first gear, "clutch out/gas" dance, clutch in, second gear, "clutch out/gas" dance, clutch in, third gear, "clutch out/gas" dance, and all this time I'm thinking what the hell am I supposed to do when someone in front of me stops suddenly? Or when a dog runs out in the street? What am I supposed to do when I park it?
We took Eric's car out to a church parking lot somewhere in northwest Grand Rapids to practice all of this, and I attempted to be perfect and listen to everything he said, and still failed miserably and stalled the living hell out of his beloved automobile several times. I also made it make some very strange/scary noises while shifting too.

Most importantly though, I DID it. And while it was a challenging couple of hours, I definitely know more that I did previously. Now I think I just need to practice. Who wants to supervise??

2. The Conjuring

Unless you've been living under a rock for the past 3 months, you have probably heard about the newest horror movie in a theater near you. It's called the Conjuring, and critics and laypeople alike have been raving about it.
I saw the ad for this movie earlier in the summer, and it looked intriguing...not all that much worse than "the sixth sense" in terms of creepiness factor, but it was about witchcraft. Furthermore, I actually did a lot of research on the witch hunts in europe while I was studying abroad, and I was looking forward to maybe getting to use some of my knowledge while watching this film. Maybe they'd explore it from a sociocultural/historical perspective and I'd get to learn something. Maybe there would be a 2013 feminist undertone (oh lets be serious, OVERTONE). I told Eric I might be interested in seeing it, and before long, I was roped into a concrete plan.

It wasn't until the day before that I realized what I had gotten myself into. If you get a moment, I recommend reading the reviews for this movie. People are ecstatic about it, for all the reasons I wanted to back out immediately. It's been compared multiple times to classic game-changers of the genera, including "Amityville Horror" and "The Exorcist". I accidentally saw part of the exorcist once, and had nightmares forever. And that was like...30 seconds of that movie. No big, I'm sure it's just really good like those movies, not actually similar to them, right?
Nope. Read on. "The climax of the film harkens back to the exorcist", "audiences will find themselves witnesses to a terrifying demonic presence complete with exorcism". It might have well said "if Lillian Asiala attends this movie, she will have nightmares forever".

I tried, for a good 30 minutes, to convince the people in our party that we didn't want to see this film. It wasn't going to be worth it! It was stupid! Let's see World War Z. Let's see The End. Let's see anything besides what I know is going to be the most horrifying experience of my life.

Eric would have none of it -- reminding me that I had in fact, promised to go. And go we did.

Approaching the ticket booth, my final attempt at freedom presented itself. "The Conjuring is sold out, right?"
"No, we have lots of seats open."
We got our tickets.

As we entered the theater, I started to relax a little. Eric assured me that this would be good for me, and that I was psyching myself out way more than was necessary. Just then we were accosted by the security guard demanding out ID's and I remembered that I was attending a film deemed so terrifying that those under 17 were not permitted to see it. But soon I was back to laughing with my friends and eating gummy bears like we were at a new Harry Potter.

"This will honestly not be that bad. Really, even if it's scary, how scary could it actually be?"

Opening scene, and I realized the magnitude of my mistake...this movie opens on the most horrifying looking doll in the history of the world.

get me the HELL OUT OF HERE.

Google it. Legit. I don't want to ruin this movie for anyone, but the scariest character in the whole thing is an object! It's a DOLL.
As a side-note, it's a doll in the apartment of three young nurses. What are three 20-somethings doing in a modern day apartment with the world's creepiest doll? wouldn't you think they'd take one look and be like "Yeah, this is going to Good Will, get this the hell out of the place we intend on sleeping on a regular basis". Then the doll gets inhabited by a "ghost" and the girls are like, "well, I guess the ghost can stay too". WHAT??!
But all in all, I am happy to report that I survived. I actually did see the movie, and it didn't give me nightmares forever.

And I actually recommend it. It was extraordinarily well done, the actors were wonderful and the story was impressively executed. I imagine I may even see it again (because as many good movies go, I don't think I caught everything the first time around). It turns out that a truly scary story is survivable when the narrative is good.
That being said, I really hope no one heard me very quietly singing "Jesus Loves Me" to myself at the end.

Milestone Moments: Update from Spain!

While I don't want to give you the full Spain story right now (because I'm actually currently here and will have plenty of time to regale you with my adventures when I'm back in boring Corn Town USA) I did want to post a quick update of what's going on across the pond...

For those of you who didn't know, this week I went to Valencia to attend the annual research conference for the Society of Text and Discourse. This is a collection of people that study reading comprehension, argumentation, and general discourse processes from all over the world, and from just about every angle you could imagine. Unlike the Psychonomics conference I attended last year in November, this conference is made up of a smaller and more specialized collection of scientists and their humble students who are lucky enough to tag along, such as myself.

So far my experience here has been incredible. I presented the research I worked diligently on over the course of this past year at NIU to a very thoughtful and supportive audience much to the pleasure of my advisor who made this all possible by giving me the project in the first place (and guiding me along the way when things started falling apart mid winter -- if you knew me during that time, I'm sorry about the crankiness by the way. It ended up being worth it).

Then I got a chance to have dinner with my current NIU peers, professors, and some GVSU professors. It's pretty bizarre to present research you conducted to a person who taught you a great deal of what you know about the field in the first place. But my "academic family" couldn't be more supportive and generous with their critiques and suggestions, and I am so lucky for their influence.

Being in Spain in itself is a totally fun cultural adventure. I can only remember having food that remotely compared in quality to this when I was in Germany (sorry England). There will probably be a blogpost alone about the food and wine that I had here. The streets have been sunny and bright every day, and everyone has been very friendly (although I must say that may have something to do with the fact that everyone also assumes before I open my mouth that I am fluent in Spanish). hehe I must look like a native! It would be a complement to say the least...Valencia is the city of very tan, very beautiful people.

Stand by for more details soon!

Becoming "Week Day Veg"

So no offense to anyone reading this blog why might be a vegetarian but...I used to judge vegetarians.

Sorry. But up until about about a year ago, if you told me you were a vegetarian, I probably put you in a camp of some kind of extremist and no matter what you told me your reasoning was, I was going to think that you were extreme and incapable of finding balance in your diet, or that you were pretentious about your food choices. Or both.

And while I KNOW there are people who brag insipidly about eating their all organic local blah blah blah, *yawn* this summer I believe that I have seen the light, and am finally starting to understand what it's all about.

1. Animals are sentient beings with (at least some form) of cognitive ability and don't deserve to be mistreated.

Look, these cows like jazz! Can you really bring yourself to eat something that enjoys jazz???

But in all seriousness
Does that mean that we shouldn't eat them point blank? No. People evolved to eat meat -- there are those who will try to convince you that it's "unnatural" to want to eat animal products of any kind, and while we were eating meat long before we developed the ability to digest lactose over the age of like..12 months, we still evolved to be able to digest both meat and dairy efficiently. And evolution is about as natural as it gets. However, the farming industry today is generally pretty disgusting, and mega farms zapping cows painfully in the head or forcing chickens to sit their entire lives in overcrowded dirty cages is really not ok. What's worse is how we make commercial veal. I can't even talk about that here, look it up though.
And whether you want to accept it or not, the reason we need these very efficient and extremely cruel conditions is due to our demand for meat. NOT the fact that our population is so large that we need that much meat to feed everyone. Nope. Not true. It actually turns out that people could eat less than half of the meat they consume every day and be more than fine on the protein front. Ask the CDC. If our country cut our meat intake, farmers wouldn't need to resort to cruel conditions and practice in order to meet our demand.

2. Animals require a lot of upkeep, making them pretty unsustainable long-term.
Think for a moment about what would happen if one day someone just gave you a cow. Like, for a pet. Unless you're my dear friend who happens to live on a farm with her husband and have a very large backyard complete with large shed, I highly doubt you would be thrilled about your new pet cow. 1st of all, you probably don't have the space. But you also probably don't want the increase in watering the cow added to your utility bill. And you probably don't want to pay for all the feed! And eventually if you want the cow to be of ANY use to you at all, you'll probably want to turn it into steaks, which takes it's own energy altogether.
Now think about how many people have pet tomatoes. Pet green beans? Pet peppers, pet berries, pet chives, pet herbs, you get the idea. Pet veggies are a joy to grow and lots of urbanites and farmers alike enjoy growing them as a hobby. It takes MUCH more energy and many more resources to get the same amount of food from a cow as you would from plants.

3. Furthermore, all that food has to go somewhere!! Cows release methane gas into the atmosphere during potty breaks, which in small amounts is fine. But we've got a LOT of cows with a LOT of gas and methane contributes significantly to global warming.

So what's the solution? It seems to me that bringing down the demand for meat would contribute significantly to this problem. If farms weren't pressured to meet the needs of the market we've provided them by being our good ole' consumer selves, then the terrible conditions and the morally reprehensible tactics wouldn't be necessary. And while some people go full out vegan, this just isn't the right choice for everyone. Humans are social animals, and a big way we connect with one another is through sharing food together. Thus, the food you grew up eating provided to you by your parents and grandparents helped foster that social bond and maybe even taught you how to take care of yourself in the long run (my mom's creamy chicken breasts are still one of my all time favorite things to prepare for myself and was the first dinner I ever cooked for my boyfriend).

One idea that has really stuck out to me however, in learning about all this, is becoming a "weekday veg". It's exactly what it sounds like -- your week days/work days are devoted to eating a primarily plant-based diet with nuts, legumes, whole grains, and lots of fruits and veggies. However, the weekends and holiday breaks are your choice entirely. This way you don't need to give up steak. Or burgers. Or chicken. (but you have to give up veal, really people. stop eating veal.) You just  eat them less. And if everyone --not that everyone will-- did this? Our consumption would go WAY down. And I'm starting to believe that would be better for everyone :)

Summer Lab Woes

Well, we're all right in the thick of summer, and apparently that means SUPER CONSTRUCTION for NIU's campus.....

in particular for the area directly above our lab.

In case you didn't know -- the cognition labs at NIU are primarily in the basement (I guess they think nerdy grad students that spend all day thinking about thinking belong in a dark damp basement. It's ok, we make the best of it).

(the picture above are the list of things that could be happening that we as grad students wouldn't know about because our lab has no windows, and is underground... might I mention that once we had a tornado here, and a colleague of mine had NO IDEA until he walked outside hours later and found the tree branches on the ground).

But it is hard to deal when the very diligent construction crew hired by the university to beautify and/or fix our building and surrounding areas is turning our workspace into what is starting more and more to resemble a bomb shelter in a war zone.

How am I supposed to read for my thesis with this racket?? Ugh. Totally should have worked from my back deck today... 6pm cannot come soon enough.

p.s this isn't my back deck. but I wish.

I invented a soup!

So I'm pretty busy but this evening I had a bunch of random ingredients that needed to be cooked and so I made up a new recipe, which actually turned out really well! (go me, right??)
So before I forget it, here it is

ingredients

1 chicken breast (cubed)
3 potatoes (peeled and cubed)
1 or 2 diced carrots
a "pinch" of salt (you will salt the broth to taste)
a "pinch" of pepper
a "dash" of Franks Red Hot wings sauce
1/2 diced red onion
shredded sharp cheddar cheese
butter
milk
water

this will make enough for two people (I'm taking leftovers to work tomorrow!)

You'll notice my measurements are a little creative. This is because I was improvising with what I had and didn't bother measuring anything as I went along. But the good news is that this  is very easy and conducive to "taste as you go" so I promise you can't go wrong.

directions

Brown cubed chicken in a soup pot using the butter (rather than using spray or veggie oil -- it'll taste better with the broth). After chicken is cooked (about 10 minutes) add diced onion and sauté with chicken.
Add potatoes and carrots.
Add milk and water combo. You can vary the amount of each that you use -- obviously more milk will make a creamier soup. I used roughly one part milk and two parts water (because I ran out of milk). Basically you need to have enough broth to just about cover all of your soup ingredients).
Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes stirring occasionally.
By the end of the 30 minutes your potatoes will have cooked so much they are falling apart a little. THATS GREAT because it will add to the creamy texture of the broth.

Here's where you can get fancy. Salt and pepper the soup to taste. I wasn't sure how the hot sauce would taste in the mix, so I added it to a small "sample" bowl that I served myself. It ended up being delicious so I would have just added it to the actual soup, and probably will next time.
Top soup in bowl with shredded cheese and microwave until cheese has melted across the surface of the soup.

Serve with your mother's bread :)