Gesundheit

I find the customs related to sneezing somewhat amusing. It is one of the few "noisy" bodily functions that is socially acceptable and even politely accepted, most cases. Coughing rarely brings out a sympathetic response from others unless it goes on for a prolonged period or is accompanied by choking gasps, but it is tolerated as long as the one doing the coughing covers his or her mouth in one way or another. Hiccups are either ignored or laughed at. Audible burps are considered mildly embarrassing (at least, in most public situations in America) for the one doing the burping, and he or she is afterward expected to request the pardon of the others present. Passing gas generates a wide variety of responses, depending on the individuals present to perceive it, and I won't go into detail on that for now, but it is definitely not socially acceptable.

Sneezing is different. When I sneeze, I cover my mouth and nose, usually by pressing them into the crook of my arm. In nearly all social situations, someone around me will soon say, "Bless you," or, "Gesundheit," or some variant of those phrases. Tales of the origins of this practice are varied, and they are interesting, but I am more interested in the modern usage.

Take my workplace, for example. If one person sneezes, another person nearby will soon say, "Bless you!" The sneezer is then expected to express gratitude for the statement, though it is still a mystery to me as to how anybody truly benefits from it. If the "thank you" step is ignored, the sneezer is considerably less likely to hear a "bless you" after a future sneeze.

I can discern no rules--other than proximity, though that seems to have several variants on its own--that regulate which person is supposed "bless" the sneezer. I have, however, determined that social messages are embedded within the length of time between the sneeze and the invocation of the sneeze blessing.

If it is immediate, then the person offering the "bless you" is aware of the sneezer on a personal level.
If it is delayed by a second or two, then the person offering the "bless you" is still aware of the sneezer, though perhaps on a slightly less personal level, but was likely waiting to see if any more sneezes were forthcoming.
If it is delayed by several seconds, then the person offering the "bless you" is only aware of the social requirements driving the statement and said it simply because he or she was in proximity and because no one else had said it first.

What I want to know is how long the window of opportunity stays open for a person to say "bless you." At what point after the sneeze does the statement lose its positive social value and dive toward insult. If a person waits a full minute and still says "bless you," does that action indicate the person simply does not care enough about the sneezer to do anything right away, or does it indicate that the person is oblivious, forgetful, or not fully aware of the passage of time?

Still, sneezes can be funny. Like the other day...
Me: *Sneeze!*
Co-worker 1: Bless you.
Me: *Sneeze!*
Co-worker 1: *Laugh!*
Co-worker 2: Bless you! Geez!
Me: *Sneeze!*
Co-worker 3: Okay, knock it off already. Now you're just doing it for attention.

Alien

As a kid, I used to make up my own words for things. I don't mean that I made up new combinations of familiar words to describe something with which I was unfamiliar (though I did that--thinking that French toast was very similar to pancakes in the way it was cooked and eaten, I called it "pan toast" until I could pronounce "French"). I mean fully made up words--random syllables strung together in no particular pattern with just enough structure to sound like speech. I was likely following English linguistic patterns (for example, the ng sound never occurs at the beginning of a word, most unstressed vowels are softened to the schwa sound, etc.), but since none of the "words" I spoke were anything I'd ever heard before, it counted as a foreign language to me.

Once, I even sat down with a dictionary and tried to write down a word-for-word translation of my language. I got as far as "aardvark" before deciding that it would take too long.

I still use made-up words, though. Writing fiction, especially sci-fi and fantasy, I have to make up words from time to time to describe objects or events that do not exist in any reality I know. But I use made-up words in other situations, too. And, for some reason that I haven't figured out, most of them are lifted in one way or another from Star Wars VI: Return of the Jedi.

My most common computer password is a phonetic spelling of a word spoken by one of the many aliens on Tatooine. Though I combine it with numbers and symbols as well to make it more secure, I can't imagine that any person would be able to guess it, and I expect that it could foil many basic password-guessing hacking tools as well for the simple fact that it is rather long and does not appear in any dictionary or even in a Google search.

When I'm annoyed, instead of swearing, I might mutter under my breath an Ewok utterance. It's one of the first things viewers hear any of the Ewoks say, and it sounds something like "ee-CHOOT-tha." It makes for a good grumble.

I suppose I should be careful, though. I can't use any words from Star Wars languages in my writing. I might get in trouble for copyright infringement or something. That is, if anybody ever figures out how to accurately transcribe Wookiee.

Backdating

Backdating is entering a previous date on a record or document. For example, if I wrote this observation on 29 August 2010 but marked it as 01 July 2010, I would be backdating the entry.

In the legal arena and in businesses and organizations subject to FDA regulations, this is a federal offense because it falsifies information in a way that could prove detrimental to a person's independence, financial standing, or health.

Fortunately, my blog is not regulated by the FDA.

My reason for backdating? Let's call it "technical difficulties." And by that, let's mean, "Technically, I don't have any difficulty procrastinating."

Companionship

I often see homeless people as I commute to and from work. Generally, they're just standing or sitting on the side of the road with their standard cardboard signs, hoping a passer-by will offer a handout of some kind. I'll also see some of them relaxing under a tree near a highway off-ramp or at the edge of a retail parking lot. Most of the time, I try to assume that they really are in desperate need of cash for food or other essentials, but I know that's not true for all of them.

Recently, however, I have noticed a number of homeless people who have a pet dog with them. I've seen three or four people now, each with a dog in tow, and it got me thinking.

If you're out of cash and nearly desperate for food, why would you willingly bring along a pet? It needs food and water just as much as you do, and it doesn't understand the concepts of sharing or rationing. It's just another mouth to feed. Having one along seems counter-intuitive to me.

However, I can easily understand the need for companionship. Having a job and an apartment (and even family) can somehow seem lonely at times. Undoubtedly, being alone while surrounded by deliberately oblivious strangers would magnify that loneliness. Having an animal along provides some other being to talk to and share experiences with, even if it doesn't understand what's going on. Still, I can also imagine a point where I would choose food over companionship.

It's also possible that they're keeping dogs with them for protection. I sometimes feel vulnerable enough behind a locked door. An extra set of eyes and ears (not to mention sharp teeth) would easily offer a sense of security in an otherwise completely insecure setting and may even serve to reduce psychological stress.

My first thought upon seeing a homeless person and his pet was that if he could afford to feed and keep the dog, he didn't really need an extra handout from me. Now I'm not so sure. Perhaps the down-and-out man (or woman) and his (or her) dog are really a package deal. Perhaps one really does need the other in more ways than I can know without experiencing the situation for myself.

Now my question is: Who chose whom? Man or beast?

Meteorology

Is anyone ever satisfied with the current weather conditions?

Everywhere I go, I hear someone talking about the weather. And, as much as I try, I can't help occasionally joining the conversation. It's a universal topic, I suppose, because we cannot control it, and we are all influenced by it in one way or another. Still, I've been paying attention to how people talk about the weather lately, and I've noticed a few trends.

1- Conversation about what the weather is "supposed to" do. This stems from watching meteorologists on TV attempt to predict upcoming weather conditions based on current conditions and complex atmospheric modeling systems. I find that they're frequently accurate when it comes to temperatures but almost never accurate regarding precipitation. However, there are people who take the weather forecasts as definite plans, explain what the weather is going to do in the next few days, and how they intend to react to it, then promptly complain that the meteorologists are never right.

2- A casual debate about the quality of the weather. One person mentions that he or she enjoyed the previous day's sunshine. Another person will complain that it was too hot. The first person will then agree and express a hope that temperatures will become more pleasant in the near future. The second person complains about the usual causes of cooler weather, such as clouds and rain or wind. The first person agrees that all those things are unpleasant. I (as an observer) note that these people must only be happy in climate-controlled buildings.

3- Pointing out the obvious. "It's raining." "Yes, it is."

I like the rain. When it leaves, I enjoy seeing the sun again. When it comes back, I welcome the clouds. Hot weather means I can leave the windows open at night. Cold weather means soup for lunch and more blankets on the bed.

It's probably a good thing we can't control the weather anyway. Not only would we manage to screw it all up somehow, only the person who had access to the weather-control system would ever be happy with the results.

iFriend

What does this say of our society?

I saw two girls (if I had to guess their ages, I'd say they were sophomores in high school or just a bit younger) walking down the sidewalk today. Each had a pair of earphones connected to her own personal music device. Judging by their proximity to one another and similar clothing styles, I had to assume that they were friends.

They did not speak. However, twice during the period I was stopped at a light and able to observe them, one would look at the other, smile, and nod her head in a rhythm (which likely coincided with the music she was listening to). The other would return the smile and nod her head as well, but to a distinctly different rhythmic pattern.

This counts as friendship these days? Listening to completely different music together? That's not social interaction at all!

Soft

Why are the backs of the conference room chairs padded?

I don't mean the seat back that I lean against when I'm sitting in the chair. I understand that padding, and I prefer it over hard plastic or metal.

I mean the back of the chair--the part I look at when approaching the chair from behind, the part that gets pushed up against the wall. Why is that part of the chair padded?

It's not like anybody's going to sit there...

Absorbency

I noticed something this morning. My breakfast cereals absorb the milk differently.

I think I always knew that, but it registered consciously today. I have to pour more milk in the bowl for some cereals than I do for others. It seems the "puffed" varieties require less milk to make the bowl look full enough but soak up more of it as I eat them, sometimes almost leaving me dry at the end, so I have to compensate by adding more than I think I need. The flakes seem to need more to make the bowl look full, but I often have too much milk left over when the cereal is gone, so I have to compensate for that by using less to begin with.

Now that I think about it, though, I realize that I'm assuming this has to do with cereal absorbency. I do think the "puffed" cereals can take up more fluid than the flakes can, simply because of their more porous nature, but it is possible that what I'm observing has more to do with the cereal's density, making me think that one type needs more milk than another because of some kind of optical illusion effect.

And here I just wanted breakfast.

Redundancy

I took a different route home from work today. I passed a furniture store. It sold only furniture, as evidenced by its name and slogan. For example's sake, let's say the store was Lots of Furniture and its slogan was "The best place to buy furniture." It had an elaborately painted advertisement on its front windows that said, "Furniture Sale."

Couldn't they have just called it a sale? Did they really have to specify that the sale covered furniture?

Graduation

For a long time, I thought that big graduation ceremonies and such were reserved for high school and college graduations. Those marked major milestones and/or major accomplishments. When I first heard about kindergarten graduations, I rolled my eyes. I didn't think that completing the first year of the American public education system deserved any special recognition.

I didn't get a kindergarten graduation ceremony.

My problem was the source of the idea for kindergarten graduation ceremonies: building a child's self-esteem. I don't want to make anybody think that self-esteem is bad or unnecessary, but I noticed the trend of kindergarten graduation during a time in which the self-esteem movement had many followers. People--parents, teachers, mental health professionals, family therapists, and many others--claimed that a positive self-esteem is so absolutely vital to a child's well-being and ability to grow up without becoming a serial murderer that everything had to have a positive spin. No more keeping score in sports, no more honor rolls listing the top achievers, easier assignments, more praise. I even heard that one teacher regularly responded to incorrect answers from her students by saying, "Well, that's the right answer to a different question." I found this movement absurd. A child who does not deal with childhood disappointments and failures will not grow up knowing how to deal with adulthood disappointments and failures.

I assumed that kindergarten graduations were part of the self-esteem thing, and it's likely that they were, but I have changed my opinion of them.

In some other "first world" and "developing" nations with compulsory education, the children perform better in nearly all subjects than American children do. Researchers propose that a major cause for this disparity has to do with culture. All children in all schools have to learn some difficult subjects, and few will report that school is always easy. But some have a different attitude toward it than others, and the attitude is usually that engendered by the adults in their lives.

In Russia, the first day of each school year is a national holiday, and it is customary for each child to bring flowers to his or her teacher. In another Asian country, children wear yellow hats on their first day of school, are escorted to the school by their parent(s), and are welcomed to the school by the older children. I've heard of schools in which children are rewarded with honey dropped on a writing tablet so that "learning becomes sweet" to them. In Jewish cultures, the most educated are the most revered; to be wealthy was good, but to be wise was better, as evidenced in Fiddler on the Roof when the lead character stated that he would like to be rich so he could spend his time studying scripture.

In America, we take our kids clothes shopping and plan what we're going to do when they have a vacation. We place more emphasis on sports or performance prowess than on learning. School and studying are viewed as means to an end, as unpleasant chores, almost as necessary evils.

Perhaps kindergarten graduation ceremonies, if they are used as a way of celebrating school and learning and not as a joyous escape from burdensome labor, can help us recapture the love of learning that should exist in childhood.

Beverage

For a variety of reasons, I rarely drink carbonated or caffeinated beverages. Today, I got a free 16-ounce Pepsi with my lunch. I made it last through the last four hours of work, drinking from it at a very slow but steady pace. I was able to observe the effects it had on me.

My body is simply not accustomed to carbonation or to caffeine.

The caffeine affected me first. I could actually feel when the chemical entered my bloodstream. My heart rate increased slightly. My blood pressure increased slightly. I had a marginally easier time keeping my eyes open through some mind-numbing tasks. After a little more of the drink, I noticed a vague tingling sensation within my chest that resembled the feeling I get when I've been flexing a muscle for too long (like when lifting and holding a heavy box) and suddenly relax it. I also noticed a tightness in my neck. Those sensations didn't increase any further as I finished the Pepsi, but I did become significantly more fidgety toward the end of my shift, to the point that I wondered if I could handle sitting still for the last half hour or so.

The carbonation affected my stomach a bit, giving me the tiniest hint at a suggestion of bloating. It affected my breathing more. As the carbon-dioxide entered my bloodstream and affixed to the red blood cells, there was less room for the necessary oxygen. I found myself breathing just a little deeper and just a little faster as a result.

I think I understand why I rarely drink such things any more, and I find myself becoming increasingly confused by people who have a soda with nearly every meal and/or several times throughout the day, by people who give soda to their children, and by people who live on coffee.

Footwear

I saw another one. I'm no closer to an understanding of where they come from or how they get there. I haven't noticed any correlation of weather, time of day, or location. In fact, there's probably no pattern at all, but I will wonder every time I see one.

A shoe on the side of the road.

Just one shoe.

A child's shoe this time.

Still tied.

Inequality

I have discovered an advantage to working in an office with a 1:4 ratio of men to women. That advantage is that, for me, the bathrooms are almost always vacant. No waiting, no awkward conversations, no running into someone opening the door. Just quiet.

Smile

Thinking about my most recent visit to the local DMV office, I started wondering why so few people (according to my observations, anyway) smiled for their driver license pictures.

Is it because the folks behind the counter running the camera don't tell them to smile?
Is it because they've had or seen bad license photos of people smiling, so they don't want to risk repeating that?
Is it because they're aggravated with DMV for some reason related to getting their license?
Is it becoming the societal norm to not smile for these pictures?

I don't know. I smiled. I always have for my license picture. I have no reason not to. And I certainly don't want to have to present my license as ID with a picture of me that looks like a prison mugshot.

Stereo

I like to listen to music while I work. I usually go for things with complex harmonies and a good, strong rhythm. With that broad base, my musical preferences span several genres, so there isn't much I don't like.

If the work I'm doing is manual labor, then I want my music to have lyrics that either tell me a story or let me sing along--general rock, Broadway, a little bit of country. If the work I'm doing requires thought, then I prefer to stick with instrumental stuff--techno, classical, big band, etc. Most of the time, I have speakers playing the music from my computer, radio, or CD player, but I'll occasionally use headphones. In any case, the music enters my brain through both sides of my head, and I know how to keep doing my work even with that stimulus coming in.

At my job, I'm allowed to listen to music, but I have to use headphones. I find it funny that the policy states I'm to use "headphones" (plural) when it really means just one headphone. I can only listen to music in one ear. That didn't bother me. I tuned the balance of the work computer's audio all to one side, creating monophonic sound instead of stereophonic, and put the earbud into my left ear, which was simply closest to the computer at the time. I continued using it that way for several weeks.

Today, my left ear was irritated for reasons I don't yet know, so I tried to switch the earbud to my right ear while I processed my paperwork, and I suddenly found that I could not focus! My ability to multitask with music and documents was paralyzed until I put the earbud back into the left ear. Of course, then I was stuck thinking about that for a while.

Did it have anything to do with the sides of the brain? Did one half process the music while the other processed the paperwork, and did I just happen to pick the sides correctly the first time around? Doubtful. The research I've read says that the auditory nerves send sound from each ear to both sides of the brain.

What's more likely is that I had become accustomed to music from one side. Moving it to the other side was a significant change in the source of the stimulus, dramatically changing my work environment on the sensory level, even though I knew it was the same music coming from the same place as it had been for the past few weeks.

I have to wonder how long it would take for me to adapt--to get my performance level back up to what it is now--if I made the switch from one ear to the other. Too bad I'm not being paid to do that kind of research on myself...

Towing

I bike to work. Nearly every morning, on a few blocks that make up part of my commute, I see another man on a bike going the same direction. He's usually ahead of me, but he turns down some other street long before I make my turn. He wears a bright orange reflective vest like many other cyclists do, but his has the name of a towing company printed on the back of it.

I have to assume that this guy works for the towing company, that the vest is part of his work uniform, and that he just bikes there and back every day.

Still, I can't help picturing a guy on a bike trying to do the job of a tow truck... It's absurd, but it makes me laugh just the same.

Fanfare

Operant conditioning is a psychological concept that involves, essentially, teaching a behavior by a system of rewards and punishments. It is this concept that has brought the often-misused terms of positive and negative reinforcement into everyday conversation. I understand this concept, and I use it from time to time--deliberately on my son and unintentionally on others such as co-workers. Everyone uses it to some extent, and everyone is affected by it, but we usually don't notice it acting on us.

Today, I noticed it.

I was required to watch a series of safety training videos for work, and each video was followed by a short quiz. The quizzes were on a computer, and they were all multiple-choice or true-or-false questions. I answered the first question correctly and was rewarded with a peppy musical fanfare sound effect. I rolled my eyes, thinking that such a thing was silly. It continued, playing that fanfare after every question I answered correctly (which, for the first series of videos, was all of them).

When a series of videos completed, I was presented with a cumulative quiz that repeated some of the questions I'd previously answered. It looked exactly like the short quizzes from before. I answered the first question correctly and fully expected to hear the fanfare. But the computer did not play it! I was initially perplexed. After a few more questions, I determined that the format of the cumulative quiz was slightly different from the short quizzes, and I inferred that it did not have sound effects. I was disappointed.

And I was surprised by disappointment!

As I completed that quiz, I found myself thinking about what I was experiencing (an activity called metacognition, or thinking about thought). I had become accustomed to the fanfare, as silly as I might have thought it to be. I had subconsciously enjoyed it and had come to expect it. When it didn't come, I missed it. When I realized that the cumulative quiz was not going to reward me at every turn with the happy sound effect, my motivation faded.

During the second and third sets of training videos, I was again rewarded during the short quizzes, but the sound effect had lost all the absurd excitement it had previously carried with it. I didn't care about it anymore because I knew it was just going to disappear again. Thus, I did not care at all when I answered a question wrong and got what amounted to the descending "Sorry!" scale so often heard on game shows. It would go away, too, and would therefore be meaningless to me.

Four

Two girls--probably around age seven--were rollerblading around my neighborhood today. What caught my attention was that each had on one rollerblade and one normal shoe.

They were sharing. Four wheels each.

I had a hard enough time doing that sport with eight wheels, so I was impressed both by their sharing and by their abilities to make themselves mobile and still keep control with wheels on only one foot.

McBreakfast

I just saw a television commercial for McDonald's, and I found myself rolling my eyes at it.

A woman claims that she likes to bike to work "when the weather is right" and that she often stops for breakfast at the McDonald's at the top of a large hill. The ad did successfully show the potential pleasantness of a morning outdoors, and the woman (as portrayed by the actress, of course) was clearly happy. Still, I can't help thinking that the writers and producers here missed the mark.

If McDonald's was trying to appeal to cyclists, they failed. I doubt many cyclists stop for McDonald's food on the way to work. And most cyclists don't just ride "when the weather is right. Instead, they try to ride unless the weather simply won't let them.

The advertisement did manage to suggest that a McDonald's breakfast was tasty and could be a pleasant part of a person's morning, but I don't believe it. I had a breakfast from there once. I was not impressed. In fact, McDonald's would be the last place I thought of for breakfast on the go.

Finally--and, though I could elaborate, I'll leave it at this--I have a difficult time connecting fast food breakfasts with the generally healthy lifestyle required for biking.

Traps

At some times in human history, land has been left in such a state that future generations of people (or animals) can safely inhabit it. This does not necessarily stop them from settling there--because they may not know of the dangers--and suffering some unpleasant results.

One example would be valleys downriver from mining complexes. Dangerous elements and chemicals (lead, arsenic, cyanide, mercury, etc.) leach into the rivers, soil, and water table. Those living nearby are, essentially, slowly poisoned.

Another example might be modern toxic waste dump sites or areas downwind from nuclear testing ranges. In such cases, dangerous chemicals again play a role, but they're joined by radiation and its long-term harmful effects.

Today, I thought that spiderwebs made a good parallel to such unhealthy areas. A spider builds a web and lives there for a time, doing spidery things. Then it leaves. Perhaps it dies; perhaps it just moves. From personal experience and from movie sets, I know that most spiders don't remove their webs before leaving. Bugs come along and get stuck in those webs, just as they would normally do, but now there is no spider around to do anything with them, to clean the web, to shove out the bugs it doesn't want to eat, and so on.

What I'm trying to say is that I should probably sweep up the abandoned spider webs that have built up around the front porch light.