Nov 30

this is one of those “if i never had to work what would i do (beside photography and travel)” things.

BBC posted an article on Romantic love ‘lasts just a year’ citing a research article. i love these kinds of news as they lead to a fantastic amount of facianting research.

so, again, upon reading such an article i jet to e-resources of u of t and try to find the original. unfortunately news articles cite their sources very liberally (i.e. mention the author and journal, but not paper title or anything like that), thus it involves some looking up.

the moment i open any given journal on scholar’s portal (biggest collection of online research journals and articles at u of t), i start to drool and wish i could read alll of them. i still haven’t found the original of the BBC article, but here is a skimming from today’s “casual research”; the articles i’d love to read just to gain the knowledge:

  • The role of the amygdala in human fear: Automatic detection of threat
  • Stress hormones in health and illness: The roles of work and gender
  • Coping with critical life events and lack of control—the exertion of control
  • The effect of a low dose of alcohol on allopregnanolone serum concentrations across the menstrual cycle in women with severe premenstrual syndrome and controls
  • Weight loss strategies, stress, and cognitive function: Supervised versus unsupervised dieting
  • Prenatal stress and children’s cortisol reaction to the first day of school

    • these are from Psychoneuroendocrinology journal.

    i couldn’t find the article there (grr, and google scholar ain’t helping either), so i looked up “romantic love” in the u of t scholar’s portal. results (ohmygosh! hesi i think you’ll like this) - there is a journal called Psychology and Marketing .

    articles from that:

  • Romantic love and sex: Their relationship and impacts on ad attitudes
  • Direct evidence of ending-digit drop-off in price information processing
  • On-line product presentation: Effects on mood, perceived risk, and purchase intention
  • The dark side of discounts: An inaction inertia perspective on the post-promotion dip
  • A cognitive and behavioral hierarchical decision-making model of college students’ alcohol consumption
  • Memory for advertising and information content: Comparing the printed page to the computer screen
  • The interaction of retail density and music tempo: Effects on shopper responses
  • A cross-cultural exploration of attitudes toward product expiration dates

    • the The Journal of Comparative Neurology Volume: 493, Issue: 1, 5 December 2005, pp. 58 - 62 has an article titled Romantic love: An fMRI study of a neural mechanism for mate choice

    i want to read them all, collect them all. and this is just from a 15-20 minute casual browsal/search of just one of the many (at least 10 major, 50 minor) online collections of journals, all searchable.

    and each article has references, which lead to more facianting stuff, and and and this is just the latest research (all of these are at most 6 months old - nearly nothing, given how my friend published a linguistics article on a book written in 1973!)

    i wish i could be one of those people who writes news articles based on these journals. that’d be FREAKIN’ SWEET!

    P.S. Tickets to Australia bought. Tickets to New Zealand bought (open-jaw - flying into Auckland and leaving from Christchurch). Residence secured (the mixed orange roof thing around a big tree). All that’s left is visa (easy), and figuring out the pleasantries of what to do in NZ, and what and how to pack. i foresee a lot of pleasant shopping for bags for me.

    update: boingboing to the rescue! they posted a link to the original paper i was looking for

    Nov 30

    dreaming about warm weather in australia and the pretty things i could wear given how i won’t bike and will live about 3 meters away from campus.

    my current favourite:


    Nov 29

    Case Logic laptop/camera bag
    it fits a camera, 3 lenses AND A LAPTOP

    Nov 25

    from http://www.kundalini-tantra.com/rtbrain1.html:

    Surround yourself with as many things and methods capable of bringing fifth circuit brain activity as you can. To do this, a partial listing of techniques follows:
    1. Unlearn traditional ways of thinking. Don’t judge or analyze others and their actions or thoughts. Function on a basic, physical, fourth brain circuit sexual plane. Be patient. Be creative. Be different than you were. Give up the past and the disastrous training it contains.
    2. Meditate 38 minutes daily. New ideas indicate good meditation.
    3. Be aware. Notice everything about you; colors, sounds, people, trees, etc., and try to increase that awareness every day.
    4. Listen to dreams, hunches, intuition and sort them out according to second circuit, first circuit, or possible higher brain circuit emanations. Dreams represent the firing of brain cells in specific brain circuits. Many times these are just random firings and mean nothing. Some times, they are not random and tell you what a specific brain circuit is focused on.
    5. BELIEVE YOU CAN DO THIS! Don’t rely on the opinions of others to judge and evaluate your path. Rely on the discernment of your teacher and guide as you build a new ability to rely on your own discernment based on the new understanding and knowledge of the world around you.
    6. Surround yourself with the following:
    flowers, potted or fresh cut
    music, classical or light classical
    bright colors
    bright lights
    bright odors
    sensual touch and thought
    sexual activity
    views of scenic nature
    helpful, respectful, and similar friends - crap, where do i find these ;)
    7. Be creative to some extent each day
    8. Read about your Path. Study regularily
    9. Good nutrition
    10. Use activity to open the fifth brain circuit. Practice Tantric rituals of all levels where legally possible. The physical world works to bring forth physical energy. Don’t rely on mental energy to boost your physical energy to the levels required to reach your goal. These methods abound and are great for the spiritual couch potato. Get off your couch and make some mental, spiritual, and physical progress each day.

    from my researchig for paper due today. (yesterday + 1 day extension)

    Nov 24

    禅

    zen

    fresh snow.

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