delayed

I've been meaning to post this cute picture of one of my favorite celebs. You'd think I'd have a life of my own, but celeb gossip is just way too tempting and indulgent; plus, I try to refrain from talking about "real" people because I just feel way too guilty after character-bashing.



Last week of the semester! I'll be on this thing more revamping my writing skills, or lack thereof, once I have more free time. Stacks of magazines and books await me. I seriously cannot wait to delve in.

Latest covet:

I've been meaning to get one of those furry vests that have been in vogue (see my main blog picture to your left), but I'm scared PETA will attack me; after all, we do live in the "Go Green" initiative state of California.

I've been meaning to contact a friend I turned a blind-side to, but I have no idea on how to slip myself back into her life again minus the whole FB networking portal. I feel like I would be bothering her if I did give her a call. Plus, lately, I've been in a funky mood or moving at a dizzying, frenetic pace to where I prefer the solace of solitude at home with my two fools; this "mood" means that I am leaning towards the anti-social spectrum. Gah!

I gotta' go before I start over-analyzing such a banal and trite topic!

P

nostalgia

I miss posting blogs, especially when it involves my critical commentary regarding a NY Times article. I have so much to talk about-even more so now that I am watching "The View" on a daily basis (Isn't everyone tired of my talking about that dang show?...I can't help it though because it is such a comprehensive show covering politics, fashion, entertainment, self-help...I LOVE IT!). Not to mention, that daytime show is actually affording me a certain degree of sanity during the chaos (a good chaos, of course) going on in my life. I am BUSY ALL THE TIME!!! Even when I'm sitting on the john, I'm busy reading something- most likely, Twitter updates haha. No really, I am probably reading some sort of study guide or notes, which brings me to my closer in this hodge-podge post: My eyes are getting bad, I'm certain.

P.S.
Thanks, K.O., for reading my blog; you were the motivation I needed to post some old running articles I've been meaning to pick apart on this thing. :)

Jimmy Choo for H&M...are 'choo serious?!

Hey Y'all!

I know, you're totally surprised to hear from me. I actually got up early enough to do something non-school related, so now I'm surfing my most favorite blogs.

Does anyone except for me think it's completely preposterous and unheard of that Jimmy Choo is coming to H&M? I can't wait until November '09 to see wassup.

DWTS-so glad they won!

As I type this blog, I am watching "Regis & Kelly" and looking forward to seeing yet another live performance by Shawn and Mark Ballas. I know I already did a Facebook status update on my happiness of their winning, but I can't stress enough how HAPPY I am for them! (I think part of my over-inflated giddiness is due in part to my infatuation with Mark! :D)



On a side note: I have soooo many things to look forward to for the remaining of 2009...
1. Acceptance into The Johns Hopkins University! I'll be starting classes at the end of May.
2. My 2_th birthday next month...I'm trying to be optimistic and actually be happy that I'm getting that much closer to the dirty-30s.
3. A trip to NYC at the end of June- hopefully I will be a Ninang and get to celebrate a 65th birthday party for Lats' mommy.
4. HAWAII with Lats the first week of November! My first excursion to the tropics...it better not rain.

P.S.
5. My cousin from Florida is here to spend some time with my broham and me...we've shared soo many laughs thus far and I am hoping his trip fares out to be fun for both parties despite our respective budget cuts.

I'm BACKKKK,
P

wait-don't swallow that pride just yet

I can't really shake my routine in light of the reduction in workforce; I'm still trying to keep my morning runs/workouts intact and maintain some sort of semblance to my "normal" life. I am actually trying to work into my budget the daily commute to work just so I can frequent my favorite gym (almost a 45 minute ride away)...I find this unnamed gym quite cleansing on so many levels and that is prolific to say about an establishment unless it's a church!

I liked this NY Times article about keeping your pride when all else is lost. Read below!


When All You Have Left Is Your Pride
By BENEDICT CAREY
Look around you. On the train platform, at the bus stop, in the car pool lane: these days someone there is probably faking it, maintaining a job routine without having a job to go to.

The Wall Street type in suspenders, with his bulging briefcase; the woman in pearls, thumbing her BlackBerry; the builder in his work boots and tool belt — they could all be headed for the same coffee shop, or bar, for the day.

“I have a new client, a laid-off lawyer, who’s commuting in every day — to his Starbucks,” said Robert C. Chope, a professor of counseling at San Francisco State University and president of the employment division of the American Counseling Association. “He gets dressed up, meets with colleagues, networks; he calls it his Western White House. I have encouraged him to keep his routine.”

The fine art of keeping up appearances may seem shallow and deceitful, the very embodiment of denial. But many psychologists beg to differ.

To the extent that it sustains good habits and reflects personal pride, they say, this kind of play-acting can be an extremely effective social strategy, especially in uncertain times.

“If showing pride in these kinds of situations was always maladaptive, then why would people do it so often?” said David DeSteno, a psychologist at Northeastern University in Boston. “But people do, of course, and we are finding that pride is centrally important not just for surviving physical danger but for thriving in difficult social circumstances, in ways that are not at all obvious.”

For most of its existence, the field of psychology ignored pride as a fundamental social emotion. It was thought to be too marginal, too individually variable, compared with basic visceral expressions of fear, disgust, sadness or joy. Moreover, it can mean different things in different cultures.

But recent research by Jessica L. Tracy of the University of British Columbia and Richard W. Robins of the University of California, Davis, has shown that the expressions associated with pride in Western society — most commonly a slight smile and head tilt, with hands on the hips or raised high — are nearly identical across cultures. Children first experience pride about age 2 ½, studies suggest, and recognize it by age 4.

It’s not a simple matter of imitation, either. In a 2008 study, Dr. Tracy and David Matsumoto, a psychologist at San Francisco State, analyzed spontaneous responses to winning or losing a judo match during the 2004 Olympic and Paralympic games. They found that expressions of pride after a victory were similar for athletes from 37 nations, including for 53 blind competitors, many of them blind from birth.

“It’s a self-conscious emotion, reflecting how you feel about yourself, and it has this important social component,” Dr. Tracy said. “It’s the strongest status signal we know of among the emotions; stronger than a happy expression, contentment, anything.”

In one continuing experiment, Dr. Tracy, along with Azim Shariff, a doctoral student at British Columbia, have found that people tend to associate an expression of pride with high status — even when they know that the person wearing it is low on the ladder. In their study, participants impulsively assigned higher status to a prideful water boy than to a team captain who looked ashamed.

The implications of this are hard to exaggerate. Researchers tend to split pride into at least two broad categories. So-called authentic pride flows from real accomplishments, like raising a difficult child, starting a company or rebuilding an engine. Hubristic pride, as Dr. Tracy calls it, is closer to arrogance or narcissism, pride without substantial foundation. The act of putting on a good face may draw on elements of both.

But no one can tell the difference from the outside. Expressions of pride, whatever their source, look the same. “So as long as you’re a decent actor, and people don’t know too much about your situation, all systems are go,” said Lisa A. Williams, a doctoral candidate in psychology at Northeastern University.

The various flavors of pride may even feel similar on the inside, when the stakes are high enough. “She was always scrupulous about keeping up appearances to herself,” wrote Edith Wharton of her tragic heroine Lily Bart in “The House of Mirth.” “Her personal fastidiousness had a moral equivalent, and when she made a tour of inspection in her own mind there were certain closed doors she did not open.” If you believe it, so will they.

A feeling of pride, when it’s convincing, acts something like an emotional magnet. In a recent study, Ms. Williams and Dr. DeSteno of Northeastern had a group of 62 undergraduates take tests supposedly measuring their spatial I.Q. The patterns flashed by too fast for anyone to truly know how well they did.

The researchers manipulated the amount of pride each participant felt in his or her score. They either said nothing about the score; remarked, in a matter-of-fact tone, that it was one of the best scores they had seen; or gushed that the person’s performance was wonderful, about as good as they had ever seen.

The participants then sat down in a group to solve similar puzzles. Sure enough, the students who had been warmly encouraged reported feeling more pride than the others. But they also struck their partners in the group exercise as being both more dominant and more likable than those who did not have the inner glow of self-approval. The participants, whether they had been buttered up or not, were completely unaware of this effect on the group dynamics.

“We wondered at the beginning whether these people were going to come across as arrogant jerks,” Dr. DeSteno said. “Well, no, just the opposite; they were seen as dominant but also likable. That’s not a combination we expected.”

Therapists say that in time, people usually do better when they come clean. “In some ways it’s easier to do this now, with so many people out of work,” said Michael C. Lazarchick, an employment counselor in southern New Jersey. “You may very well find out that others are going through the same thing, or something like it — ‘Oh yeah, I just took a big cut in pay.’ ”

But in the short term, projecting pride may do more than help manage others’ impressions. Psychologists have found that wearing a sad or happy face can have a top-down effect on how a person feels: Smile and you may feel fleetingly happier. The same most likely is true for an expression of pride. In a 2008 study, the Northeastern researchers found that inducing a feeling of pride in people solving spatial puzzles motivated them to try harder when they tackled the next round.

Pride, in short, begets perseverance. All of which may explain why, when the repo man is at the door, people so often remind themselves that they still have theirs, and that it’s worth something. Because they do, and because it is.

However much pride may go before a fall, it may be far more useful after one.


****

I think, therefore, I am-
P

Bethenny vs. Kel-amity: a reprise

Alright, Bethenny's book wasn't spectacular, but I still love her! (After all, she did have a ghost writer helping her, which may have had an impact on what information was actually imparted...I'm rooting for you, Bethenny!).

I'm watching the "Bethenny vs. Kelly" episode that I missed last week and my heart was doing somersaults and palpitations during the girls' confrontation. I was absolutely disgusted with how glib and half-baked Kelly comes off as on the show (and in real life, for that matter)! I hate that woman! Okay, I love my share of celebrities and their respective lives (the gossip the drama...*start the music*), but I will not shut someone out of my life or turn my nose up to a non-celeb. I found the outright embellishments and lies Kelly was throwing out to Bethenny on their date PREPOSTEROUS!

Wasn't Kelly arrested for punching her ex-husband/boyfriend last week? That woman has issues...