Lydia Schoch

Here is this week’s list of blog posts, interviews and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.

Two Little Girls Explain the Worst Haircut Ever. I cut my own hair once as a kid. It was just one curl, though, and when I didn’t like how it looked I tucked it behind my ear until it grew out again.

From Procrastination Rules:

In ancient Egypt and Rome, procrastination was thought to be useful and wise. Only a handful of early writers, such as Cicero and Thucydides, admonished people not to delay. Until the mid-eighteenth century, procrastination-hating was a minority view.

32 Year Old Has Conversation with 12 Year Old Self. Unless this is some sort of elaborate hoax 20 years ago Jeremiah McDonald taped himself asking and answering questions of/from his grown-up self. The resulting conversation is brilliant.

Could Your Favourite Colour Actually Guide Your Career? This is one of the goofiest ways to pick a profession I’ve ever seen but the first half of the description at the end of the quiz actually fits me pretty well:

Best Occupational Category

You’re a CREATOR

KEYWORDS

Nonconforming, Impulsive, Expressive, Romantic, Intuitive, Sensitive, and Emotional

These original types place a high value on self-expression. They enjoy working independently, being creative, using their imagination, and constantly learning something new. Areas of interest are far beyond the expected fields of art, drama, music, and writing. There are many occupations that allow creators to express, assemble, or implement ideas and maximize resources.

ally offer the latitude to make a difference. Most enjoyable workplaces allow for self-expression with the capability to improve the status quo.

Don’t be befuddled by the word “Creative.” Creator workplaces are much broader that the “Typical Creative Careers” like interior decorating firms; artistic studios, theaters and concert halls; institutions that teach crafts, universities, music, and dance schools. In order to see your best recommendation, check out the Color Career Indictor 4.0 for actual occupational listing.

My second best occupational category was almost 100% inaccurate, though. I’m occasionally witty..and that’s about it. How did you do on the quiz?  :

You’re a PERSUADER

KEYWORDS:

Witty, Competitive, Sociable, Talkative, Ambitious, Argumentative, and Aggressive

These enterprising types sell, persuade, and lead others. Positions of leadership, power, and status are usually their ultimate goal. Persuasive people like to take financial and interpersonal risks and to participate in competitive activities. They enjoy working with others inside organizations to accomplish goals and achieve economic success.

Embarrassing story time: I tried to play spin the bottle once with some of the other youth group members at church. I would have been about 12 or 13 at the time. We were all too Christian to actually break the “no kissing” rule, though, so we ended up hugging one another instead. It turns out that hugs don’t feel terribly rebellious, though, so we never played that game again.

 The Science of Kissing is about, well, kissing: why we started doing it, why some cultures value it more than others, whether you can tell how good someone is in bed by how well they kiss and much, much more. Had it been written years ago I might have done some light reading after church instead of trying to circumvent the rules. 😉

What have you been reading?

Here is this week’s list of blog posts, hearing tests, videos, comics and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.

High Frequency Hearing Test. Using an admittedly poor set of speakers I could hear something up to 17 kHz (and couldn’t quite tell about 18 kHz.) According to the link most adults over 25 cannot hear frequencies above 15 kHz. I don’t know how true that is, though. 25+ readers, how high could you go?

How the Kindness of a Black Man Changed the Mind of a KKK Kingpin. This is quite the story. I’m not sure what I think of not pressing charges against someone who sets your church on fire. Thoughts?

How It Looked, How It Felt.This is a nice addendum to my post from earlier in the week about not feeling like an adult.

From Just Say No to Beating Yourself Up:

When your brain wants to go on a rant on why you’re not measuring up, just say no. After all, you’re in control… No matter where you are or what you’re doing (or you’ve done), you’re enough. In fact, you’re pretty fantastic.

From A Former Teenage Carjacker Reflects on Supreme Court Ruling in Miller vs. Alabama:

Families are mourning still, even as I write this. Yet mourning, no matter how painful, does not change the fact that juveniles are different from adults. Their potential for change, for growth, for understanding, is greater. If our system is not, ultimately, to be based on vengeance, we need to recognize that potential of change, and give it the opportunity to take place.

Little Heathens  shares rosy memories from a woman who grew up on her grandparents’ farm during the Great Depression. Mildred Armstrong Kalish’s mother raised several young children as a single parent living on virtually no income at a time when social assistance for families like these was scanty. Surprisingly this is not a sad story. Mildred and her siblings had  wonderful childhoods (although I do wonder how much they knew about the family hardships at the time.)

What have you been reading?

One of the reasons I started this blog was to pull down the masks we wear. It’s easy to pretend to be someone or something you’re not in order to get through the day.

Is this necessary sometimes? Yes.

But it’s not the only way to live.

“The Things We Dare Not Tell” by Henry Lawson reminds us why.

***

The fields are fair in autumn yet, and the sun’s still shining there,
But we bow our heads and we brood and fret, because of the masks we wear;
Or we nod and smile the social while, and we say we’re doing well,
But we break our hearts, oh, we break our hearts! for the things we must not tell.

There’s the old love wronged ere the new was won, there’s the light of long ago;
There’s the cruel lie that we suffer for, and the public must not know.
So we go through life with a ghastly mask, and we’re doing fairly well,
While they break our hearts, oh, they kill our hearts! do the things we must not tell.

We see but pride in a selfish breast, while a heart is breaking there;
Oh, the world would be such a kindly world if all men’s hearts lay bare!
We live and share the living lie, we are doing very well,
While they eat our hearts as the years go by, do the things we dare not tell.

We bow us down to a dusty shrine, or a temple in the East,
Or we stand and drink to the world-old creed, with the coffins at the feast;
We fight it down, and we live it down, or we bear it bravely well,
But the best men die of a broken heart for the things they cannot tell.

A question, readers. But first a little backstory.

I’m 29 years old and still don’t have any interest in many grown up activities.

I rarely drink alcohol and I’ve never learned to like beer or wine.

Dinner is always casual – often it’s leftover from the night before or something simple like soup or a salad. I never make multiple-course meals.

Brussels sprouts will always be unpalatable.

I don’t own dressy clothing and have no desire to change that.

I still think science fiction is better than serious literature at pointing out the flaws in our current societies or governments.

As much as I like being married I have no desire to push others into it. Being single (or being in a relationship that isn’t legally recognized) isn’t something that needs to be fixed. There are as many ways to live a good life as there are good people.

When I was a kid I thought becoming an adult meant taking on more serious opinions and roles. Most of the adults around me seemed so sure of what they were doing and what they wanted out of life.  Some of them had strong opinions and had no problem pressing those beliefs on others.

I didn’t feel or act that way but assumed I would as I grew older.

It never happened.

Tell me, readers –

When did you first feel like an adult?

If you were uninterested in stereotypical adult things as a teen or young adult did you ever learn to like them? Or have your interests stayed more or less the same over the years?

Here is this week’s list of blog posts, photographs and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.

The Link Between Reading and Being Thin. Interesting stuff.

35 Lifechanging Ways to Use Everyday Objects. My favourite was the can opener trick.

21 Pictures That Will Restore Your Faith in Humanity. I don’t normally post multiple links from the same site but I could decide between this link and the one above it! As much of a cliche as this is to say there is so much good in the world if you go looking for it.

All the Angels Are Smiling with Bob. I didn’t know Bob personally but this was a fantastic online eulogy for someone who sounds like an incredible human being. Non-theists, don’t worry – despite the title it’s not a religious piece.

From Why We Shouldn’t Judge People of the Past with Our Knowledge of the Future:

We often believe that in our own worst moments that we will be our best selves. So we create an infallible righteousness persona and time travel inside of our minds to a different era. We state hypotheticals…It is easy to be an armchair revolutionary.

Canadian readers have no doubt heard of this book already but As for Me and My House is an  eerily accurate look at what it feels like to be closely related to a pastor. Mrs. Bentley, the narrator, is the wife of a Protestant minister living in a small prairie town during the Great Depression.

As a former preacher’s kid I know exactly what it’s like to live with the impossibly high expectations placed on the wives and kids of ministers, to grow accustomed to the loneliness that comes with being a good example and to be the unwitting target of small town gossip. Mrs. Bentley and I may be separated by six decades but some things never change.

To my international readers, you may not be able to find this book at your local library, but this is something that’s well worth purchasing online or at a bookstore.

What have you been reading?

I’ve learned so little about this picture.

It was created in 1884 by Anna Bilińska-Bohdanowicz, a Polish painter who was known for doing portraits of women.

I do not know the name of the woman in this painting. Her eyes haunt me, though. A story still smoulders behind that faraway gaze.

Does anyone know anything more about her?