Quirk.

I am afraid of feet. Thankfully it's winter here so feet are covered generally and I don't have to see or think about feet much at the moment, but seriously they freak me out. Generally I think most people's feet are pretty unattractive (no offence), but that's not what bothers me. What I really can't stand is having people's bare feet touch my skin. It actually happens more than you'd probably realise (if feet don't bother you) - under the table when eating, people sitting closely on the lounge or on the floor - it's creeping me out just thinking about it!

AAARGH they're coming right for us!!!! [via]

As someone who studies psychology, obviously I've considered that perhaps I had some sort of foot-related traumatic incident in childhood that haunts me to this day. The thing is, I really have no recollection of such an event. Maybe Freud was right and repression is real, and I'm just that good at making sure this foot memory never comes to the surface... NEVER! 

I also can not endure shoe sharing. The reason I bring this up is that yesterday my sister nicely lent my mother some of her slippers to wear since it was cold, but it really freaked me out. Other people were very shocked and confused at my reaction that I would refuse to give my poor mother some slippers to borrow if she were cold. Sorry Mum but knowing our feet skin cells would be interacting makes me want to vomit. 

Baby feet: allowed.

The problem with telling people is, they then seem to think it's highly amusing to go out of their way to TOUCH ME WITH THEIR FEET. Boy feet are definitely worse, and they are the feet that have been shoved in my face. The thing is though, if someone says they are scared of spiders, do you rush out and find a spider to dangle in their face? I hope not. So what gives? Perhaps the difference is that a spider phobia is really quite reasonable, since well the spider could bite you and you could die (or at least experience some pain). The consequence of people's feet touching me is... tinea or something I guess. Yeah I realise this is a stupid thing to be afraid of.

Ahem. Anyway, sorry about that crazy rant. I will say that for some reason I can tolerate baby human feet (not sure why) and I've forced myself to become accustomed to Husband's feet - though this has definitely not generalised to other people (even his identical twin who genetically has the same feet). 

Do you have any quirks like this that people love to tease you about? Would you try to touch me with your feet if you were to see me in person?

Husband Quotes: Sleep Talking Edition #2

Two down, 9998 to go. [pic source]

Just a short-ish one for today [original sleep talking post here]. 

When we were still going out, Husband would often come over to visit and promptly fall alseep as soon as he was stationary (he also fell asleep a lot when we were on the phone - I try not to take it personally)!

One time this is what he said while asleep:

"When we get married I will buy you ten thousand milkshakes!"

Later when I explained what he had said (I was not so concerned this time as to wake him up and make him explain himself), he had no idea why he said that, but maintained that if I did want 10 000 milkshakes he would get me them. I don't drink milk much, so don't really see the need for that many shakes of the milk variety, but it's the thought that counts, isn't it.

Weird Searches

If you follow me on twitter, you'll know that every now and then I mention weird google searches that seem to bring people to my blog. Here are a few I found particularly amusing, and my thoughts on those... 

"How do I get the smell of burnt chocolate out of my house" - Haha sorry I only cause burning smell problems in my house, my blog is not the place for solutions, I'm afraid!
 

Or if you do find out where to buy them, come back and tell me. They are super cute.

"Where can you buy a pygmy hippo" - I know I said I want one, but I didn't actually get one, and even if I did YOU CAN'T HAVE IT! 

"mr hand addams family" - Well I assume this person found my blog due to my post on Alien Hand Syndrome. For future reference googler, it's called Thing, not Mr Hand! 

"strange things were afoot" - At least they aren't afoot anymore? Also, perhaps you mean this.

"annoying friend of spouse" - Please come back and tell me if you found my conditioning post on 'fixing' annoying people useful, or at least that you liked the picture of the rat playing a pan flute. 

"nyan cat website" - I just find this amusing, because if you google "Nyan cat website", the first option is of course, the Nyan cat website! How did they end up at my blog post on it then? Perhaps a more appropriate search then would have been: "Nyan cat, and those who love him" (or her?). I think I might just say Nyan one more time for good measure: Nyan. 

"i am a zombie" - Well don't come looking for me - aargh! And definitely don't read my post about where I plan to hide in a zombie outbreak. Also, I know I make a convincing looking zombie, but that's just a costume. I don't want to be friends at this point, sorry. 


Do you know of any particularly odd google searches that somehow led to your blog? I'd love to read about them in the comments! 

Seemed like a good idea at the time...

I did some odd things as a child. It's probably because my frontal lobe was not properly developed enough for me to accurately consider the consequences of my actions, but I like to think that it's because I was a budding scientist, keen to test hypotheses. 

Coffee: not for fingers. [pic via]

Here are some examples:

When I was around 4 years old, I decided to see what would happen if I placed my fingers in a fresh cup of coffee. Burning, is the answer. 

Also around the same age, at pre-school I wanted to see what would happen if I hit someone with my barbie doll. So out of nowhere I just walked up to some boy and hit him on the head with it. It turns out he didn't really enjoy that (as evidenced by all the crying), and neither did the child-care workers. I received a time out, but I don't remember being all that concerned about hurting the poor kid. Well thank God I didn't turn out to be a psychopath with this somewhat concerning behaviour...

...Or did I?

Shifty eyed dog from The Simpsons [via here]

Err, anyway...

When I was a bit older (around 10-11) I went for an investigation of the sewer with some kids from school, just to see what it was like. Not surprisingly, it didn't smell great, was wet, dark and a bit creepy. When I returned home I noticed my previously white socks were now brown from the sewer water. Concerned I would have to answer questions as to my whereabouts (really where else would you be going that could turn socks brown), I threw them out. 

Also around that age, some other kids in the street and I decided it would be fun to ride down a (somewhat steep) hill in the park in our street in a shopping trolley - you'd get in (at least I had the sense to wear a bike helmet) and the other person would give you a push, and then run after you to try to catch the trolley before it rolled into the big ditch at the bottom of the hill. Thankfully nothing bad ended up happening! 

Not tasty, but not awful. 2/5 stars. [via]

Besides all this weird stuff I got up to, I don't think I was an overly naughty kid. Feeling jealous that I'd never said anything bad enough to get my mouth washed out with soap (which was supposedly all the rage at the time) I asked my babysitter one night if she would do it for me, which for some reason she agreed to. I still didn't actually swear mind you. I also don't know what I expected - of course it tasted like I had soap in my mouth, which really although not appetising, wasn't awful. I'm not sure how deterring this would have been had I actually wanted to swear up a storm! 

I guess they all seemed like good ideas at the time, but looking back now some of these things are a bit baffling! Did you ever do similarly odd things as a kid (or last week even)? Please make me feel better about my strange behaviour by sharing in the comments!

Husband Quotes: Sleep Talking Edition

A habit that can sometimes be irritating, but other times very amusing, is sleep talking. Husband talks in his sleep probably once a month or so. There are three main categories of sleep talking Husband does:

1. In Greek (which makes sense, since he is Greek). However this means I have little idea what he's saying then, but he usually sounds cranky in these ones - at least I can surmise that he's not cranky at me since he doesn't often speak Greek with me! 

2. Work (he's a carpenter): so it involves instructions such as "Pass me that (specific type of wood I know nothing about)". These can be fun as I often reply to these and say "sure, here it is!" and he'll thank me. Though sometimes if I do that he says "No, I didn't want that, I wanted (other wood type)!", so then I usually just go "Sorry we're all out of that" to which he just goes back to sleep. 

3. The last category of sleep talking involves just completely random and bizarre utterances, some of which I thought I'd share over a few posts. Here is the first:

One time when Husband (then boyfriend) was at my house he was having a nap while I watched TV. He mumbled something which instantly made me jump up in alarm, it sounded like "I love you Jane" (my name is NOT Jane). "WHAT DID YOU SAY!?!" I yelped. Still mostly asleep Husband answered more clearly - "I love you Dean". I wasn't sure if this was better or worse! I made the poor guy wake up and asked again what on earth he was talking about. Apparently in his dream, he was actually me, and I was getting married to a guy called Dean. Not any Dean however, THIS Dean (from awesome TV show Supernatural): 

"I love you Dean" [image from here]

Well, that I can deal with (Husband clearly has good taste for me). Unfortunately for Husband though I've never let him live this down, and every now and then "I love you Dean" features in some good-natured teasing (by not only me, but also some family members since I was unable to keep this to myself obviously). 

Stay tuned for future posts of bizarre sleep utterances (or don't I guess, if you thought this sucked, but why would you think it sucked? Do you hate me? WHY!?!). 

P.S. Until then you can visit Sleep Talkin' Man (where this woman's husband seems to sleep talk every night) - it's very amusing in parts, though be warned some things Sleep Talkin' Man says are offensive/gross/definitely not PG rated.

P.P.S. This was posted with Husband's approval - I am not so mean as to share this without asking!

Is your hand an alien?

No, not like ET. [via]

Is it weird that I have a favourite syndrome? I really don't wish to make light of what I'm sure is a difficult situation, but I truly find Alien Hand Syndrome (AHS) fascinating. It also probably doesn't help that there are documentaries about it that have terrible/amusing re-enactment scenes (I love dodgy re-enactments). So what is it and how does it happen?

 

I should note this is really quite rare; according to this BBC article in 2000 there were at that time approx 40 people with an Alien Hand. Basically, although it can occur due to brain damage (and possibly even a prion disease), it is most well known for occuring following a surgical procedure called a corpus callosotomy. Some people have seizures that are so severe that medication does not help. As a last resort (though to be honest I'm not sure how often this happens now), surgeons will sever the two brain hemispheres at the corpus callosum - the part of the brain that allows the two hemispheres to communicate with each other. Doing this means a seizure will only be localised to one hemisphere and the seizure can no longer spread to the entire brain. This means the effects of the seizure will be far less debilitating for the sufferer. However this often brings with it a curious side effect: sometimes parts of one side of the body will at times no longer seem to be under the person's control. As the left side of the brain generally contains most of the language functions, and the right side does not, when they are separated it is hard to consciously understand what occurs on that side - hence the behaviour of the left hand seems inexplicable and disobedient (yes I said left hand - this is because the hemispheres of the brain control the opposite side of the body). As such their hand appears 'alien' to them and does all sorts of bizarre behaviours. 

No, not like Thing either.

Anecdotes include a person with one hand trying to get dressed and doing up buttons, with the alien hand simultaneously trying to undress them; one hand trying to put a cigarette in their mouth and light it, while the alien hand slaps it away "I guess he doesn't want me to smoke!"; and enter the terrible re-enactment - the alien hand trying to drive the person off the road (at ~5 min of this youtube clip of an AHS documentary, though consider watching the whole thing, pretty interesting). 

What can be done about this 'wayward' hand? In case of brain injury, it is possible that with time and recovery it will gradually come back under the control of the person. However in other cases where the connection has been permanently severed, this may be less likely. There has also been a study that tried antipsychotic medication and botox injections to control 'limb leviation' frequency in the alien hand; however the antipsychotic was found to cause a psychotic episode (yes strangely that can happen), and I'm a bit unsure what I think of the botox idea - isn't it just paralysing the arm? As such management techniques may be better: for example, occupying the hand with other tasks such as grasping an object.

I remember seeing some of the abovementioned documentary when I was younger, and it further cemented my love for psychology and neuroscience. Also with AHS comes some intriguing philosophical questions: Does the less dominant right hemisphere actually have a different (potentially more primal) personality that is usually under the control of the more rational left hemisphere? Does AHS refute free will /are we really in control of our own actions? Do you love poorly-acted re-enactments as much as I do? Ok the last question isn't so philosophical but important nevertheless. 

P.S. If you're interested in more information please feel free to ask me, as I obviously love talking about it! This 'stuff you should know' clip on AHS is cool too. 

P.P.S. For no real reason I can think of except all the cool kids are doing it, I now also have a facebook page. So please 'like' it for updates and special extras*!

*content may not be special or extra.  

Strange things are afoot...

Just thought I'd share three odd/cool things I came across the other day.

The first: love a bit of alien conspiracy!

"there will be space ships by then"

The second: I'd just gotten off the bus at uni to see this - an elderly conga line! So cute, and yet entirely random.

sorry for crappy photo quality - had to covertly snap on my iphone!

The third: thanks to @cestaz for pointing this article out to me on twitter... apparently some zombies got injured on the set of a movie. Paramedics arriving at first thought some terrible catastrophe occurred and couldn't immediately tell all the blood was fake! It's funny to me especially, because the other night when I was dressed as a zombie I said to husband: "today would be a really bad day for a car accident - paramedics would have no idea which were my real injuries!"

That is all.