Because I'm Very Visual?

There's an article in the Wall Street Journal today about faceblindness. The online journal links to a test you can take to determine how well you do with remembering faces (and names and objects).
My scores:
Face Recognition Memory
Overall, you got 72% correct! The average score on this test is 85% correct. Your percentile rank on this test was 9. (booo!)

Object Recognition Memory
Overall, you got 88% correct! The average score on this test is 86% correct. Your percentile rank on this test was 55. (yay!)

Verbal Recognition Memory
Overall, you got 33% correct! The average score on this test is 77% correct. Your percentile rank on this test was less than 1. (boooooooooo!)

How well can you do?

From the Desk of Dina M. P., Secret Assistant to the Regional Manager, Dunder-Mifflin--Scranton Branch

I'm going to say a few more things and you're going to hear me out because that's why you read my blog.
1. For an entire year I worked at an offive where I was the only female in a group of 50 Russian alpha males. Sometimes funny things happened. Sometimes awkward things happened. Sometimes ridiculous things happened. But I didn't write a single post about the place because I was always afraid that one day I'd apply for a job and they'd tell me I'm not wanted because I blog about my offive. And so, I'm informing the public that I want to be appreciated for something I did not do and look forward to being rewarded at some point in the future.
2. It's 11:38 and I'm shocked that I'm still awake...which more or less rhymes. Eight, awake. Like I said, more or less.
3. Today I wasted a stupid amount of time walking to the wrong side of the building that hosts one of the only kosher cafes in the area where I work only to find out that I had to enter the building on another street. When I went inside I was informed that the kitchen was running late and that they didn't know if that meant 30 minutes or an hour, so I left. All that combined took about 20 minutes of my lunch because I was in the mood to wear heels today and walking to the middle of a street, continuing around so that you can go to the middle of the next street, walking through that building that is located in the middle of the middle of those two streets, and then walking back from the wrong entrance to where you came from takes a long time in spiky heels.
4. A while back I made a new banner which you can see if you click here. When I tried pasting it into the html for this page, it didn't work. I don't know why it didn't work. The image, as you can plainly see, is available at the link I put in and since the image I removed was actually removed, I clearly knew where to paste the url. At first I was disappointed in the missing banner, but now I realized I can check my blog from work and not have people far and wide seeing what site I'm on. Not that I've actually checked it more than once this week. I get lazy like that.

The Freckles are Coming! The Freckles are Coming!

Yesterday when I stood in the grocery store aisle debating over whether to purchase a regular moisturizer with low sunscreen or a night moisturizer with no sunscreen, I reminded myself that in the summer I use sunblock as a moisturizer during the day anyway and besides, I still had half a bottle of the same low sunscreen moisturizer at home. Obviously, I needed the night moisturizer (technically, I don't, but I think I'm supposed to start moisturizing my face more to keep it youthful). So this morning when my already broken low sunscreen moisturizer bottle broke even more, I was left with no choice but to slather the right side of my face with my new night moisturizer. It was that or search my room for 10 precious morning minutes for a potential sunblock find. And just as the bread always falls on the buttered side, the sun was hitting me hardest from my right all day.

I Accept Your Pity

I walked into the body shop and waited for the car guy to put down the phone. He looked at me and I grimaced.
"My car's smashed up," was all I said.
"The '04 Maxima?"
I didn't even tell him my name or what car I had because he's seen me so many times it's unnecessary to do so. Classic.

And have a wonderful Shabbos.

Gettin' and Jettin'

This not working thing is making my brain soft. Last week I lost my wallet. Yesterday I was running late and stressing out about my piano lesson. Today I couldn't find my keys which were already in my bag the whole time. And in addition to all this, I keep buying clothing. I don't know how the unemployed do it, but if I don't start working again soon my brain is going to rot.

This Day is Bananas! B A N A N A S!

I have so much to say recently that my writing abilities shut down. Oddly, I started this so that even when I'd have too much to get down I'd be able to. So I'm going to free-write rant this one. Without going into detail, someone I know got suspended from school for a day for hurting another kid in his class' feelings. In addition to that, the kid with the hurt feelings punched another kid and gave him a bloody nose, but he wasn't even asked to apologize. Which is what the kid who hurt his feelings should have been asked to do instead of being suspended. Sounds ridiculous enough to not believe, doesn't it? But it is true. And I've been obsessed with this story since it happened because if the suspended kid wouldn't have parents as great as he has, I'd be giving him a few years before he learns how to add up the hypocrisies and goes "off the derech" as they say. What does it take to get qualified educators to run yeshivot? In addition to that, now the kid who punched the other kid knows that if anything happens to him, all he has to do is run to the Principal's office and tattle and the kid who hurt him will get into big, fat trouble. And no one likes a tattle-tale, so he'll be even less tolerable to his classmates than he was beforehand. Basically, this solution solved nothing at all and aggravated more than it should have. Speaking of tattlers, there's a certain unspoken alliance peers have and once someone goes to an authority figure and tells, they lose the respect and trust of the others. Which happened to me once and I'm still not really fully able to trust the girl who did it. Weird how trust works. Saturday night at about 3:30am, two cars crashed on my cousin's corner. We opened her roommate's window (I was using her roommate's bed) as far as we could and leaned out to see what had happened. There had been at least two people in each car and they were all shouting at each other. We felt bad for them and discussed calling the cops (they were seriously loud) but decided it wasn't necessary unless they started fighting and Zahava started to get off the bed but toppled down and fell off the bed on the side where her roommate keeps a stack of containers with hair accessories and such and it was hilarious, but she got very hurt. We sat on her bed with ice on her bump talking about the weekend when we heard, "Your ankle hurts? HURTS? YOU WALKED ALL THE WAY OVER HERE WITH IT HURTING? I WORK IN THE HOSPITAL AND I..."

It Goes, "Beep, Beep, Beep, Beep, Beep"

I have a stop watch/timer/compass that I purchased for hiking purposes. There's just one problem--the alarm started going off regularly Wednesday night. At first, it had me getting out of bed every five minutes from 1 to 2 am to stop it. I couldn't figure out how to turn it off for good so it kept beeping again and again. Eventually it either stopped or I learned to ignore it. The next day it started again around 10 am and kept going off every ten minutes for another hour or until I left the house. It was quiet since until I pulled my sneaker out of my gym bag and without thinking threw it onto the floor. Unfortunately, it landed itself right on top of the stop watch/timer/compass and the alarm went off. I shut it and ten minutes later, it went off again. Ten minutes after that, it went off again and I walked out of my room. With Shabbos starting shortly, I'm pretty sure I'm doomed.
Shabbat shalom!

When Chances Breathe Between the Silence

There is nothing this clear, spring-smelling weather makes me want to do more than go hiking all day, have a baby, and bake for Pesach. Don't ask me to explain--I don't know. I went hiking for a little bit yesterday and because no one was able to join me (sorry Sara, I didn't know!), I just went to the waterfalls and back. Over the course of the winter, or at least since the last time I was there, the waterfalls froze into layers and layers of very thick white ice--pure beauty. But what made it breathtaking was that there were pockets where the ice must've melted and broken off and through those little windows, there was visible rushing water. I can't describe it so well, but it was so beautiful it made me cry.