A Friend, A Bride, A Toast, And A List

Today, assuming that the snow doesn’t get in the way, my lovely friend Melissa will be flying home with her husband(!), Andy, from the Dominican Republic. Before I get distracted by how warm it is in the DR, let me return to my point.

This did not happen at the wedding,
thank goodness/unfortunately

Last Saturday, I had the privilege of giving a toast at their (absolutely beautiful, wonderful, tear inducing, I’m getting distracted again…) wedding.  After working with Melissa at a wedding venue (coincidentally, the same one where her wedding took place) for a number of years and watching a lot of horrendously bad toasts, I knew that I needed to keep things short, which is absolutely not in my nature. I managed to do this by only telling the guests the the top three reasons that Melissa happens to be the best friend a person could have, which was a painfully short summary of a very long list.

I am not going to subject you to the entire list either, but for those of you who know Melissa, those of you who want to know what to look for in a friend (we can do a character study!), or those of who you are otherwise avoiding working/studying, the following is a slightly more complete list of the reasons my friend is the best friend.

10. Melissa is crazy silly and fun. Who needs alcohol to have a ridiculous good time? Not us. Shenanigans have been had by one and all as a result of a certain seester-cousin from ze Banana Republic whose eastern European accent iz preetty good and qvite entertaining. This same person was, in fact, responsible for a certain rabid dog episode at Lincoln Diner, and is rather adept at hiding mini Tabasco sauce bottles. Long storie(s) short, Melissa is a pretty silly girl who keeps us all laughing, and she brightens my day quite a lot.

9. Melissa is extremely responsible.  She thinks ahead and plans for things, then remembers her plans, organizes them, prioritizes them, and executes them. It’s great. When she make plans to do something, you can depend on her to remember whatever you have decided to do and show up at the proper time to do this thing. Whereas I probably get about an 85% at this trait, Melissa gets a 97%. So not only is she a great example to me personally, but the general benefit of having a responsible friend is that you can trust her to take care of important tasks. I know that she will come through for me on the important stuff because she consistently does.

8. Melissa is exceptionally intelligent. However that cliché saying about being friends with people who are more intelligent than you goes, it is true. While Melissa does not make an ideal companion for watching Ace Ventura, she is an ideal companion to have a scintillating conversation about pretty much anything with. She is smart and a creative problem solver, which has been helpful not only in going to Nashville Tennessee four years in a row, but also in getting out of all those life scrapes that kind of happen when you aren’t expecting them. Also, she once let me explain mitochondrial DNA to her (and some of the exciting implications implied in the subject) during a run on the Gettysburg battlefield together, and although I was lightheaded from lack of oxygen by the end of the run, she totally understood mitochondrial DNA. And that is a delightful thing to have in a friend.

7. Melissa is observant and thoughtful. These two words more or less convey her unique ability to notice and remember both important and less important things about people. I love to randomly ask Melissa what color someone’s eyes are for no other reason than the fact that she will be able to tell me. It’s just a detail that she unconsciously stores in her memory when she is talking (and therefore making eye contact) with someone. But her abilities far exceed that example… she reads body language or word choice, preferences, or offhanded comments and then is able to recall these things later. Somehow, this is more than being able to read people (which she can) or having an excellent episodic memory (which she definitely has), but additionally being able to sort through and identify which details are important and worth remembering. I have strong suspicions that this trait is only the tiniest bit trainable and that it is largely a natural gift.

6. Melissa challenges me to grow in areas where I am weak. She also happens to balance me out in many of these areas, a coincidence (or, you know, divine sovereignty) that both makes up for some of my shortcomings and helps me to see them better. She talks to the customer service representative for me, but also makes me talk to customer service representatives myself. But really, she thinks and responds to life differently than I do, which helps me see what I am missing and how I could be responding differently. She knows my weaknesses and will both compensate for them and call me out on them.

5. Melissa lets others speak into her life. A technical, wordy way to say this is that she is open to reproof and correction, and holds many of her opinions with an open hand. In real life, this means that someone (I) can lovingly say, “I think you were wrong,” about something. Rather than immediately becoming defensive, she listens to what they are saying and considers it. This trait is rare (for it takes a delicate blend of humility with lack of insecurity), and is delightful to have in a friend, because it allows for change and growth. Not only does Melissa accept constructive criticism, there have been specific occasions in our friendship where she sought out such feedback out of a desire to grow.

4. Melissa is remarkably wise. This is even better than being intelligent, because it is more than just being right… it is also knowing when to be right. Melissa knows when to speak and when to remain silent, when to correct and when to just encourage, when to be silly and when to take everything seriously. She can discern which truthful thing is the right thing to say in the moment. This means that she gives great advice (with bonus relevant scripture, because she can magically recall it to mind when pertinent) and can handle a situation delicately when needed. Again, I trust her to do the right thing and to help me figure out what the right things is in my life.

3. Melissa is exceedingly generous. She is one of the few people I know who is truly generous with both her time and her possessions. Anyone who has ever lived with her and borrowed all of her clothing (a rather long list of ladies) can attest to this. So can all of the people who have ever gotten a ride from her (this is a much longer list). When my ipod was stolen in Nicaragua 2 ½ years ago and I didn’t know how to function without constantly available music and Mark Driscoll podcasts, Melissa ‘lent’ me her ipod. I still have it. There is a line in the song “Friend Like You” (by Joshua Radin) that says, “If you had three, you’d give me two.” It always reminds me of Melissa because of the way she freely gives what she has.

2. Melissa is unfailingly faithful. I do stupid things. Often. I can be a whiny, overly sarcastic, thoughtless, selfish person. And somehow, she is still my friend. I cannot credit this to any bribing or coercing on my part, and am left with the explanation that Melissa is just loyal and committed to loving the people in her life. When there is conflict, she approaches it so it can be resolved. When there is hurt, she forgives it. Basically, when it would be easier to walk away, she doesn’t. This characteristic results in deepening relationship over time rather than just coasting along, maintaining the status quo, and a security in relationship that leads to freedom to be yourself and take risks.

1. Melissa is daily becoming more like her first love, Jesus. She has many of the wonderful traits that make her who she is because she is actively seeking to grow in her relationship with her savior, and as she does this, she grows more like him. I have seen her grow for 11 years now, and as she does, she becomes more Melissa than ever before, and Melissa becomes more of a joy to be around. She is more life-giving, more thoughtful, more wise, more faithful, more loving than she was when I first met her. This is one of the most wonderful things about being friends with her… it keeps getting better as we go.

I hope that you all have the joy of having a friend in your life as wonderful as my friend. Ultimately she isn’t Jesus, but I am still extremely fond of her :)

P.S. Speaking of friendship and things that aren’t quite as great as Jesus, here are some pictures of cats and the people they love. YOU DO NOT WANT TO MISS THEM. The pictures of the elderly people with their cats slay me (although little ones with their cats are great, too). I hope one day to be old and have a snuggly cat.  

Cats and Penitence

Okay, dear readers… I owe you an apology.

Yes, its true… I didn’t blog at all last month. I was busy (wedding! holidays!). I was tired (work! no sleep!). I didn’t want to subject you to only whining, complain-y posts (Too much work! Not enough science! What am I doing with my life?!). But I’m still sorry.  

So as an act of penitence, I have collected a rather stunning array of cat-themed articles (the term 'articles' is really a stretch, since most of them come from BuzzFeed) that I will be including with all of my posts for the foreseeable future.

Basically, I am giving you extra cats per post. Also, if you have cute pictures of your cats (or, you know, other people’s cats… I’m not really that legalistic about who the cat belongs to), by all means send those to me as well! I hope to incorporate some new adorable feline friends in here soon.

So without further ado…

(Elizabeth seems to be drawn to my bed if I am using my lightbox in it, and both of my cats regularly donate their fur to my body blankets. I guess that means they have been taking care of me.)

Guess What Today Is...

 Today is my Grandmother’s 72^nd birthday. In honor of that, I am going to share some things I am grateful for today that relate to my Mam-maw.

1.     Mam-maw is more pop-culture savvy than my beautiful mother. Thus, when I referenced the hump day camel to her, she laughed with me :)

2.     Both of my grandmothers had children ridiculously young (by today’s standards). Why am I grateful for this? Because I have had the blessing of knowing all of my grandparents and several of my great-grandparents. Mam-maw was a decade younger than my mother was when each had their first child, and as a result, Mam-maw was spry enough to play with me when I was growing up.

3.     Every time I think my Mam-maw is ready to depart from this life, she doesn’t. She has had medical issues since before I was born, and yet, here she is. When she lost her right leg to arterial disease the summer after my freshman year of college, I really thought she wasn’t going to live long. Two year later, she went on a trip to Israel and walked up mountains on her prosthetic leg because she had always wanted to visit the places where Jesus walked. Like a boss. 

4.     She and my Pap are farmers. Not only did I get to run around all over a farm when I was a kid, but do you have any idea how many cats they've had? Their excuse is that the cats keep down the rodents around the barn, but I know that deep down, they just like cats, too. And I have gotten to play with and name so so so many kittens. (Also, they consistently conspire with me to convince Mom to let me bring home kittens. I got two cats this way).

According to the caption under this picture I found, I named the white cat
Precisoca. But I didn't bring cats home until my debating skills became as creative
as my naming skills... Mam-maw and I just played with them at her house.

(gratuitous kitten shot)

5.     There are brave men and women who fight to protect us, and keep fighting when they come home. I am grateful for their sacrifice and courage. (How is this related? Shortly before losing her second leg, Mam-maw confided in me that they had shown her a Wounded Warrior video that showed how the double amputees put on their prostheses, and that she was pretty sure she couldn’t do it. Until she explained it to me, I didn’t realize how much harder it was to put on two prostheses instead of one, or just how much strength was required. Somehow knowing that makes me appreciate our service-men and -women even more.) 

(more gratuitous kitten shots)

6.     Mam-maw is generous, hardworking, and cares for others in her life sacrificially. I have learned from her example to value life, even if the life in question isn’t given much value in our society, like my mentally and physically handicapped aunt. My Mam-maw loves people in her life for who they are, not for what they can do, and I am exceedingly grateful for her example. 

Ready to Mingle? NO.

There are, occasionally, times when I wish that I weren’t single. I am not going to enumerate all of those here, but one such time is during my weekly (or sometimes more frequent) efforts to settle in to my new church[i]. This is not because I feel uncomfortable as a single person at my new church, or that all of the young married couples make me wish for what I don’t have (although there are many cute young couples... some of them with even cuter babies). The main reason is actually that I wish I had a companion and a teammate in all of this 'being the new person' business.

In my mind (in some part that I apparently don’t pay much conscious attention to, since I only just noticed this recently), I feel like it would be easier to reach out and get to know people if I had a base to reach out from instead of feeling adrift in a sea of 300 people I don’t really know yet.  This is true from both (1) an emotional energy perspective as well as (2) a behavioral perspective.

(1) I don’t know about you, but I find it emotionally draining to socialize with a ton of people that I don’t know well. The reverse is true of my close friends; spending time with them is relaxing and rejuvenating. I also find that it’s less draining to socialize and meet new people when I am with someone I am already comfortable with. I suspect that this is partially due to acceptance/approval and having a base of support. When you are meeting people and making new friends, you want them to like you (that piece of genius comes to you thanks to an expensive college education. You're welcome). Thus, when you are around new people, you are monitoring acceptance/rejection cues with more sensitivity, and I believe it makes a difference emotionally to have someone with you who is a solid base of acceptance. It's comforting and refreshing to know there’s already someone in the room who definitely likes you :)

(2) When you are around your friends, you act like yourself. When you are making friends, you want to do this, because if they don’t like who you are when you're comfortable, the friendship isn’t going to go far. However, you don’t act like yourself completely when you first meet people, because you want to make a good impression and, lets face it, deep down you are a weird, quirky, socially awkward person and you don’t want to overwhelm people the first time they meet you ;) I think that having a good friend with you when meeting new people acts as a behavioral buffer... you end up acting more like yourself because you are more comfortable, and people get to know you more easily.

Basically, going in pairs to a place where you are the only new people probably makes life easier.

Need more reasons why two are better than one? Ecclesiastes 4:9-12. And my cats.

So am I here to whine about how I don’t have a partner?  Nope. Been there, done that. I realized this week that I had been subconsciously resentful at God for sending me to church on my own, and then I reasoned out why (see above). And after allowing me my five-minute pity party, God shifted my perspective:

I have loved you with an everlasting love… (Jeremiah 31:3)

…I will never leave you nor forsake you. (Joshua 1:5)

Accept one another then, just as Christ accepted you… (Romans 15:7)

How easily I forget that I already have a base of support.  

Then, God reminded me that he uses seasons of life for a reason, and I realized that it is probably really good for me to learn to be myself around people that don’t know me without the benefit (or perhaps in my case sometimes... crutch?) of having a friend around. That seems like a good skill to learn, even if I find the alternative to be more comfortable. And even in this desire, it's not as if God has never blessed me with companionship. I went to college with my best friend, for goodness' sake, and half of the reason I know why it’s easier being new with a friend is because I can analyze my freshman year and the way we got involved in things together. 

So yes, I am getting involved by myself this time. And I am going to trust God’s timing and that he knows what he is doing with this. I don’t feel particularly more keen to go mingle, but maybe when I do it anyway, I will be a bit more like myself and less like that nice, shy girl that recently started going to Sovereign Grace. 

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[i] I found one, isn’t that great?!?! I am attending Sovereign Grace Church of Frederick, and I love the people, and the doctrine, and the worship style, and the preaching style, and the pastors, and the vision… basically, I am as happy as my friend Allison’s cat, Lilly, who got ALL the attention and cuddles she wanted when I visited last week.

 

Book Nerds and People Lovers Unite

This post brought to you by: Research I am not being paid to do

Hopefully someday I will tell you about my current unpaid research. But as I can’t do that right now, I wanted to tell you about some exciting research, which is tangentially relevant to my work, and was just published in Science by Kidd and Castano.

We read social cues all the time, pretty much without being deliberate or being taught to do so. Basically, humans have built in tools to help us get along in a social environment (and I think that is super cool, since we happen to live in a social environment). One of the major skills we have is inferring what people are thinking or feeling from their facial expressions. Now, there are a lot of ways that we do this (I’m not even going to start on how much I enjoy the show Lie To Me, which is loosely based on the life and work of psychologist Paul Eckman[i]) but a main source of information is the eyes.

Practicing reading Lilly from her eyes. In case
 you were curious, I scored a 30, so I'm
average. I think Lilly would have done better
than me, but she had trouble with the
trackpad on my laptop ;) 

“Reading the Mind in the Eyes” is a psychological task designed by Simon Baren-Cohen that is used to determine how well an individual can read other people’s emotions. How good are you at this? You can take a modified version of the test here. Some people really struggle with recognizing facial expressions; a marked inability to read facial expressions is common in disorders such as autism[ii], asperger’s, social anxiety disorder, PWS, etc. But even among people who can read facial expressions, there is a range of ability... in the task adaptation above, people with “average” ability fall between 22-30 correct out of 36.

“Yes, this is all very logical,” you are thinking to yourself. “I know some people who are more sensitive to the emotions of others around them than others. It makes sense that some people are better at this reading the eyes thing than others. But what’s the big deal?” 

Well, other than the fact that I think this is intrinsically cool, Kidd and Castano found out that you can manipulate this by reading. In their study, they had participants read literary fiction (think Jane Austen, Mark Twain, etc), popular fiction (think Hunger Games, Harry Potter, etc), serious nonfiction, or nothing for five minutes and then complete several tasks, including Reading the Mind in the Eyes. They found that people who read literary fiction performed better compared to all other groups. Reading for only 5 minutes improved recognition of facial expressions! The researchers suggested this might be because literary fiction, with its rich descriptions and complexity, leaves more to the imagination and causes the reader to make their own assumptions about characters’ emotional states.

Basically, reading well-written books is a good work out for the part of your brain that interprets people in real life. And it never hurts to be better at that. :) 

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[i] I am going to ramble about Lie to Me a bit, though. It is a very interesting show (which, alas, only ran for three seasons) about a man who is an expert in the science of facial expressions and body language. Not only is the show’s lead charachter, Cal Lightman, based off of the professional and personal life of Dr Eckman, but Eckman actually critiqued each episode on his blog, which I find both fascinating and hilarious.

[ii] There is some interesting speculation about a lack of theory of mind/inability to read other's emotions and an absence of eye contact in people with autism. They haven't established a causal relationship yet, but there are early intervention strategies that involve training kids with autism/aspergers to make eye contact or look at people's faces. 

True Confessions: I Might Be A Terrible Driver

I fear that there mayyy be something about driving that makes me a terrible driver. 

This realization was totally unexpected. I actually enjoy driving just for the fun of it. I think I am, generally, a calm and alert driver. My driving record is so clean you could eat off it. Mothers can trust their children to my car. But I am beginning to think that I may have a previously unnoticed driving flaw.

I made this discovery while making a phone call on my way home the other day. Yes, I know that talking on the phone isn’t something you should do while driving. I am perfectly acquainted with the studies demonstrating increased distractibility and likelihood of accidents when talking on the phone, as well as the fact that talking on the phone while driving is mildly illegal in Maryland (secondary offense=mildly illegal?). Basically, I know it’s not a good idea. But even as I recognized my unavoidable distractibility, I found myself compensating by hyper-focusing on the road. And it was super fun. I took all the sharp turns easily one-handed, deftly avoided hitting a raccoon crossing the road, kept an eye on the runner on the other side of the road and found so much more joy in my daily drive than I usually did. I felt like a champion.

And therein lies the problem. Driving is so much more fun when it is a challenge.

As I made this realization, data started to fall into place. This explains why I love driving manual transmission cars… it’s just difficult enough that it feels like a challenge. This is why, if I wasn’t such a natural rule-follower or there were no speed limits, I would totally go at maximum speed anytime I drove alone.  This explains why I like driving trucks while pulling ATVs in ridiculously big trailers (well, also because there are going to be ATVs wherever the destination is…). I like driving when it is fully engaging and I have to work to get wherever I am going; on the flip side, I get bored and driving is considerably less pleasant when everything is easy and normal.

I’m not entirely sure why this is the case… if it’s an extrovert thing* or if I am just weird. I’m also not entirely sure what to do about it. I obviously can’t just make driving harder all the time… talking on the phone really is unsafe, if I bought a manual transmission car, driving it would eventually become easy, and listening to CS Lewis or Mark Driscoll while I drive uses a totally different part of the brain (I enjoy listening to both of them, but I don’t think it improves my driving… it just pulls my focus away from the road and eventually makes my brain hurt from exertion). 

The faint glimmer of hope I have is that I don’t have this problem at all when there are other people in the car. For some reason, when other people are with me the goal of driving seems to switch from enjoying the mechanics of driving itself to getting to our destination safely. So perhaps I can retrain myself to prioritize safety all the time (although that sounds soo boring). Or just learn how to ride a motorcycle.

P.S. At least I don't let my cat drive my car. Just sayin'.

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* I am not referring here to the “do you like to be around people?” delineation that most people use for introversion/extraversion categorization, but Eysenck's arousal theory of extraversion. According to this theory, the level of stimuli needed to reach an arousal threshold is higher for extraverts than it is for introverts, which explains their different preferences for activities. While an introvert could find an evening alone reading a book to be perfectly stimulating, this falls below the extrovert’s threshold, who needs to be doing something fun with a big noisy group of people to reach the same level of arousal. Similarly, since the introvert’s threshold is much lower, s/he would likely find the big noisy group’s activities to be over-stimulating, and therefore overwhelming after a short period of time. This also explains differences between introverts and extroverts that aren’t related to being around people. The extrovert may find extreme sports, like sky driving and bungee jumping, to be extremely fun because of the high level of arousal, while an introvert would be entirely over-stimulated and finds the same activities stupid and dangerous. This theory changed how I think about extraversion/introversion and all the weird people in my life :) 

The In-Between Life

Last night, I watched the movie Julie & Julia. Besides making me want to cook and eat everything that has butter in the recipe (isn’t everything better with butter?) it reminded me of how long it had been since I had worked on my blog and posted real updates about my real life. But the thing is, I don’t want to update you about my real life.  I feel like my life is frustrating, inconsequential, and not going as planned. As I consider updating you, I feel quite a bit like Julie did while having lunch with her friends. 

(Except that I love cob salad. And I am not 30.)

Like Julie, I don’t feel particularly keen to tell you about my life. I can give the peppy, chirpy, 5 second sound bite I give people either to convey that I am quite happy with the way life is going or to make my life seem as impressive as possible (and imply that I am succeeding more than I am failing). But it’s more propaganda than news. Talking about my real life causes that squirmy, shame-y feeling.

The truth is, I haven’t found the job I have been looking for. I am past the deadline I set myself, and its time for me to look for more ‘in-between’ jobs to pay the bills and those approaching student loans. I don’t want to give you that update, because I don’t like it one bit. Truthfully, I want to be in grad school, and the research job I need to get me there was already supposed to be my in-between job. I don’t want an in-between-in-between job. So I feel frustrated and edgy, and I’m probably not very nice to the people around me most of the time. It feels as if I am a rough chunk of rock (maybe sandstone?), and whatever layers of fabric I normally have wrapped around to make me look all pretty and cuddly have mostly disappeared, so now anyone who gets close ends up with scrapes. Its not a very pretty picture, is it? Life isn’t going the way I would like, and I am not responding in the way I would like.

So yes, I don’t like telling you about my life when its not going smoothly the way I want towards clear success at an appropriate pace (according to my assessment). However, no one else likes talking about their life when it’s like that, either, so we all just feel alone and isolated when actually we’re not. I have found that when I talk about how things really are and how I really feel, people often encourage me by talking about a time when the same thing happened to them, or they open up and actually tell me about the current struggles in their lives that leave them with feelings similar to mine. This may come as a shock (I feel like it shocks me over and over), but frustration and shame are not uniquely mine. Who knew?

So take heart. Things aren’t amazing and awesome in my life at the moment. My unsuccessful job search leaves me fighting frequent feelings of guilt, shame, and failure. My grandma is really sick—she had to have her second leg amputated a few weeks ago, and her recovery is slow—leaving us (particularly Mom) worried about Mam-maw’s health and care.

Catnip mice. Absolutely hilarious.

Most of my friends are far away and I miss Gettysburg. But there are good things, too. I am knitting a sweater and its going really well. I gave my cats toy mice rolled in catnip yesterday, and it was hilarious. My car has been getting an extra mpg every time I check it, which means my gas is going further (yay!).

Most of life is lived in-between the highs and lows. And that’s where I am. It’s okay to be there.