Productive June Starts TOMORROW!

So May was particularly unproductive in the first year of my PhD (that's sooo 2009, but anyway). Only being 2 months in, I thought that I'd be still madly reading and coming up with awesome ideas for my thesis, but the procrastination had already set in. Another PhD buddy and I even bought a whole-year pass to the uni gym as a way to get out of the office. Bad news is we procrastinated from that too and actually wasted a lot of money by not really going ever. Oops.

So as a way to get back on track, 'Productive June' was born. Basically this meant we put up propaganda posters to try and motivate/guilt us to do more work. It wasn't overly successful - because mostly we spent June making posters and running around to see if other people were being productive. Yet it somehow stuck. Last year was yet another 'successful' Productive June.

This May has actually been (well mostly) productive for me (read: me going AAARGH and running around like a crazy person because of all the deadlines I had to meet). So hopefully that will spill over into June. At the very least, the conference at the end of June (in NYC woo!) will be good. 

So without further ado, behold my propaganda posters (and mad putting text over clip art skillZ) - feel free to use them if you also need to be guilted into doing work this June.

Click to enlarge; Feel free to use these (with credit)

Any creative Productive June slogans you can think of? Let me know and I might make more posters (after I've finished being super-productive, of course)! :)

Creativity attempt - complete!

So in my new quest to accomplish 30 life goals before 30, I became re-interested in #9: finishing my honeymoon collage. See here for the before shots.

And now for the finished product (prepare to be underwhelmed hahaha):

Love a good bandwagon.

So I have seen quite a few blogs recently that have lists of life goals they'd like to accomplish, usually 30 things before 30. Or you could be really ambitious like my buddy Anide and have 111 things to do in 2011! As I'm quite good at sitting around doing nothing, I'm not so brave as to attempt the 111... so I'll just have to settle for 30 things to accomplish before I turn 30 (which is coming a bit too soon for my liking)! 

So here goes...

meh.

I have a very important talk on Friday - it's to the psych department at uni about all my PhD research so far. Also, I invited some important people in my area to come listen and give feedback. I'm now regretting doing that!

I think this cool picture sums up pretty well how I feel about working on this talk right now:

[source]

Thanks to TriGirl for pointing this out to me!

*Update: Talk finished, ended up going quite well. Thanks for the support :)

WTH Wednesdays + Husband Quotes: Combined at Last?!

Planking Australia Facebook Page

I think it might be mostly an Australian thing (although there are fears it's SPREADING TO NZ!!!) so far. Love it or hate it, it's caught a lot of attention: PLANKING. What is it? Well, it "involves somebody lying flat on their stomach in unusual or different environments, [it] is a burgeoning internet craze that has attracted thousands of fans right across Australia" - Article from the Brisbane Times.

Here's where the husband quotes part comes in. Last week I came back to my desk in the PhD office to find the following note about a called I'd missed:

"[husband] called, he wanted to tell you he went on facebook finally. He took a planking photo". 

Husband never uses facebook (to the point where he'll attempt to boycott events where he was only invited via facebook - at least he gets into the boycotting spirit) and so he thought it worthy of calling to tell me he'd gone on to post his planking picture. While some of these attempts can be amusing and require a fair bit of skill (I'll admit I attempted it badly on a table), people have taken it way too far and mostly it's just become pretty dangerous. This is evidenced by reports of people being seriously hurt attempting these stunts. I have one word for these people (no offence Husband but you're included hehe): GOOBERS. 

P.S. According to this article, planking is so out, and teapotting is now in!? Slow news day I guess.

Awards!

I've been a bit slack in getting around to this, but I've been nominated for two blog awards!

Annoying Friend/Co-worker/Spouse? Operant Conditioning to the Rescue!

One of the courses I tutor in Psych relies heavily on learning principles such as operant conditioning. The (very) basic premise is, if you want a particular behaviour to increase, reward it. If you want a behaviour to decrease, punish it. The most classic example is teaching a rat to press a bar in order to receive food. Obviously once it learns bar press = food, bar pressing behaviour steadily increases. You might even be able to teach a rat to do this for food:

[via]

This year students had to apply these principles to themselves in order to increase studying and decrease procrastinating, to varied success. I am currently in the process of marking their reports about it (which also vary in level of success).

The reason I am mentioning this though, is that recently Husband has been dealing with a very difficult co-worker who is very grumpy. I thought - why not try to shape his behaviour into a more tolerable version? 

The End is Nigh - Allegedly.

So according to these goobers:

SMH news article

The world is ending: TOMORROW! How do they know this? A series of numerological calculations of the bible of course. I find this interesting since I'm pretty sure the bible is kinda against this sort of practice!

Anyway, the reason I'm so amused by this is because when I was 8 years old, I remember a similar group of weirdos were proclaiming the world was ending on the weekend. I was too young to realise how misguided these people were, and spent the whole weekend terrified! I honestly did not sleep the whole time and was a wreck. Obviously, it worked out OK with the world not ending and all.

 

Just in case on the minuscule chance these people are right, I don't want to leave you in the lurch. After all, I do try to make this a helpful blog, what with my 'how to look like a banana' posts and such. Luckily you can be prepared for this: the CDC has kindly made a guide for Zombie Apocalypse Emergencies.

Thanks to EK for pointing this website out for me!

Make sure you check it out, because well you never know...




*Update: Well it's Sunday here and the world hasn't ended - big surprise. 
**2nd Update: It turns out that the 'similar weirdos' from when I was around 8 (which was 1993/4) was actually THE SAME guy. If he was wrong last time why did people believe him again!?! I now would like to sue this dude (he's got enough money) for contributing to quite the anxiety-filled childhood memory. Pfft.

Internet Purchase FAIL.

One midnight a few months ago, I was bored and very sleepy. This is a dangerous combination. Exhibit A; I thought it would be a good idea to buy clothes on the internets from the US. This has not always worked out so well in the past - I once received a custom made pair of shoes about 3 sizes too big for me, and they wouldn't let me return them even though I was pretty sure I could prove they made the size mistake. Part of the reason though that I try to internet shop is I don't really like interacting with shop assistants (I used to be one and I didn't like interacting with me then).

Anyway. I came across this picture:

[source]

And I really liked that outfit so I decided to buy the same yellow coat so I could look EXACTLY like that. The sleepy Lozzz123 obviously did not consider that I may not actually look like that in reality:

excuse the iphone blurry photo quality!

The thoughts that come to mind are: banana (this may in part be due to the fact I'm posing like a banana), and hazmat suit. Actually going to a fancy dress party as a banana, or for lab emergencies may be the actual times I'd ever consider wearing this out in public.

P.S. Husband was quite bemused with my insistent demand to take a picture of me being a banana.
P.P.S. Feel free to also pose like a piece of fruit and put it on your blog. That way I won't feel so awkward. You know you want to.  
P.P.P.S. Bet you didn't think this post was going to say the word 'banana' that many times. BANANA. 

WTH Wednesdays

Now I've heard before of who people look like their pets, but this is taking it a little too far!

Fans of Twilight be prepared to meet Robert... Cattinson?

[source]

[pic via here]

I'm not usually a fan of those furless, wrinkly kitties at the best of times, and I can't say this helps. People are weird.

Thanks to my cousin Nat, who first brought this to my attention!

Friends?

original moustache-free pic here

On the bus to uni today a girl got on who was dressed like she was from the 1930s*. It was awesome, and I immediately thought I should be friends with this girl, because she must be interesting.

However, I did not talk to her; I've had my fair share of experiences of bus weirdos, so I don't want to be a bus weirdo myself!

It did make me think though about how difficult it is to befriend people in adulthood. Everyone is very busy with their own lives, and often already have 'enough' friends. I know I don't make it easy for strangers to talk to me!

What would you do? Would you talk to strangers if you thought they looked interesting or would you think that's weird? ...If I tried to talk to you on the bus would you think I was a looney??

*I've added this pic of Angelina Jolie because she is kind of dressed like how my bus friend was. I however don't care much for her, hence the moustache.

Passive Aggressive Notes

Well as can be seen in my 'Websites I Frequent - Sometimes Too Often' list, one of my favourites is Passive Aggressive Notes. Basically, it involves people sending in pictures of weird notes they've come across. 

The reason I'm mentioning this, is that a little while ago Husband and I were looking for an apartment to live in. Two streets away from where we ended up, we came across a place that was kinda crummy, except that it had a pool. But then again - sharing a pool with randoms is a bit gross. Anyway, while on the way out, I came across these notes in a common area and couldn't resist taking a picture. The second one is long, but quite amusing and well worth the read (click to open in new window and enlarge - if in a hurry at least skip to a bit after half way). I'm almost a little sad we didn't pick this place because Ivan* seems like a fun guy.

*different Ivan to this one.

WTH Wednesdays

I've decided to have a new theme for Wednesday entitled What-the-Hell Wednesdays (Note the H, not F as I'm trying to keep this PG people)! Basically it involves me posting something weird which made me think... WTH?

So here is the first one, which I first noticed over here. My favourite part is the random alien going past every now and then. Oh and the flying, of course. The only thing I can say about the Hoff here is - at least he tried.

Enjoy!

Going to New York!

There is a conference at the end of June where I'm going to present some of my research, and it just so happens to be in New York (which I've never been to before). It also just so happens that the university is paying for me to go! Tough life. 

I am very much looking forward to it - however not so much the flying for hours alone. On our recent trip to Europe I was mostly ok, but it was comforting to look to Husband for reassurance when turbulence hit. When I'm by myself there's nobody to calm me but myself (and I'm rubbish at that). I know rationally how safe flying is, but when I'm in the air it's definitely a different story. Anyway enough of thinking about that, I'd much prefer to think about...

Shopping! The conference is on 5th avenue, and I'll also be staying at a hotel on 5th avenue. I think there's a couple of shops around there hey? :P

Now I just need to make sure I have data before then...!

[source]

P.S. Any suggestions on what to look at, where to go etc. would be welcome! :)

Marking on a Saturday - BLERGH.

[source]

So this semester I have been involved in teaching two courses - a Forensic Psychology course for Criminology Masters, and also 2nd year undergraduate Psych. It just so happens both had their major assignments due within a week of each other. So guess what I get to do on my weekends. Well actually at the moment the answer is procrastinate, of course. 

The one thing that has opened my eyes from marking though, is the variety of students that take the courses. When you're actually doing a course you really can only go by how much effort you're putting in to your assignments. So it's interesting to see the range of assignments from intimidatingly awesome (where I feel like they should be marking MY work, not the other way around), and unfortunately to the other end of the spectrum - laughably horrendous. I of course don't go into marking hoping to laugh, but sometimes it's either that or cry out of frustration. Year after year I go into a LOT of detail about what I'm expecting from the assignments, and year after year there are people who just don't listen to me and do it all wrong. So perhaps now you can understand why I'm off to sweep, do the washing, and whatever other chores I can think of!

This comic sums it up pretty nicely (click to enlarge)!

I applaud you if you actually stuck around for that whole gripe of mine. I'll write about something more interesting next time, I promise (well actually it's subjective as to whether you'd find it interesting but I can only hope hey)!

UPDATE: 3pm, lots of cleaning done, not so much on the marking however. Oops.

Attempt at Creativity

This is something I've been meaning to do for a while, but forgot all about. However after being re-inspired, and due to my wish to expand my ever-growing list of ways to procrastinate from uni work, here we are.

I wanted to make a collage of memorabilia from our honeymoon. When going through all the stuff, I remembered I also bought a bunch of post-cards from nearly every place we went, so now I have enough for two large frames. They're definitely not finished yet but I thought I would show where I was up to anyway. I'm very picky so it may actually be some time before I get them to how I want.

This one is from tickets, maps, guides etc. from Greece, Italy and the UK. Currently I think there's too much white, and kinda just looks like a school project. (click to enlarge)

These are all the postcards I bought, I am having a lot of trouble arranging them to how I'd like!

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

P.S. It's now finished! Check here for the result :)

Police Puppies!

[source]

Super cute. You can vote on facebook to name them! 

"They will play catch like regular dogs but instead of balls and sticks they will retrieve drugs and explosives and track down bodies." ... AWWW (?)

Read more here.

P.S. Thanks again to AR, purveyor of cute things.

You tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is, never try.

[source]

- Homer Simpson. 

I am a chronic quitter. Seriously, here is a list for you:

• Piano: I quit because the lady who taught me was mean - she would yell "NO" at me whenever I hit a wrong note
• Karate: I got up to white belt, yellow tip (basically the lowest besides the white belt alone). 
• Tennis: wasn't good at serving
• Japanese: The teacher was mean
• Drama: I don't remember why I quit this one, apparently I'm quite adept at being dramatic (I'm sure Husband would agree!)
• Debating: I only wanted to be first-affirmative speaker (so basically just doing a speech without any debating)
• Swimming: I didn't like diving (I can actually swim, but never did learn how to dive properly, belly flops all the way)
• Hockey: Well I actually liked hockey, but I dislocated my knee during the first game. That sure was painful, and awkward. An ambulance had to come take me off the field. Maybe one day I'll play it again.
• There is actually more, but this is starting to be embarrassing and I think you get the point.

The Day I Met My Husband

In honour of our 6 month-aversary yesterday (which was very nice by the way) I thought I would get a bit lovey-dovey here (I'll wait while you vomit - also feel free to skip down to the end of this post where I have a section for you cynical types) and talk about the day I first met Husband. 

The actual first time we met was in line for school photos in year 12. Husband has a twin (identical), and Twin was friends with my friend so we were all in line chatting. I couldn't tell them apart, and Husband doesn't actually remember this. So we don't really count this one. Anyway, a bit later I ended up becoming friends with Twin.