I was talking with one of my professors today. She told me a story that went something like this: "One of your classmates came to talk to me and contrasted themselves with you. This student said that they felt like they didn't know enough about social psychology and that you know so much it is very intimidating to be in class with you."

I assumed she was telling me this because she wanted me to be more careful in how I presented myself in class, so I played it off by saying that I just talk a lot, so some of the stuff I say must turn out to be true due to the sheer volume of information that I present, and I added that I could tone it down by just piping down a bit.

She said something along the lines of, "no, no, I mean if you're intimidating people, you must be doing something right, so keep it up."

Right now, my mom is thinking of commenting in the following vein, "Watch it mister, or I'll have to go get a pin so your head doesn't swell up too big." A smarty-pants might reply with: my head is only growing so that it can continue to contain my obviously expanding brain. A neuroscientist might inform the smarty pants that his brain size isn't indicative of intelligence. Brain density and the ratio of brain size to body size are correlated much higher with intelligence. A neuroscientist might also inform my mother that hydrocephalus is a serious condition that cannot be fixed with pin pricks and is likely to lead to serious brain damage and/or death in an adult such as myself.

It's normal to make up imaginary conversations among caricaturized versions of yourself and your mother, right? Someone with an intimidating brain would do that, right?

Excellent.

Yesterday I was playing basketball, and I hurt the pinky finger on my right hand (piece of advice, when you're going for a steal, don't swipe at the ball and hit a forward-moving elbow mid-swipe). It felt so much more severe than a normal jam that I went to the health center after I got done playing to get it looked at. There was a long wait, and I ended up missing a class. They put on a splint, and I even had one of my classmates drive me over to the x-ray place to get the x-ray (which, fortunately, was all free--student insurance works for once; also, having a friend works for once).

Short story short, I got the results back, and it turns out that I am unbreakable. At least now I know. They told me to keep the splint on for 1 - 2 weeks, but with the aforesaid unbreakability, I have obviously already removed it.

Over a week seems to have gone by without me updating or posting anything. Oops. Nothing terribly exciting has been happening. I've been pretty busy with school. I had a bunch of research coming down the pipeline, a neuroscience exam, and 4 presentations to prepare for. Progress on some of those things remains ongoing...

Here's an interesting study. Researchers had students rate their teachers' performances after having them in class for a semester. Then researchers took three 2-second video clips of those same teachers teaching. They showed the clips to another group of students and had those students rate how good they thought the teachers were. The 2-second ratings and the semester ratings were virtually identical.

The researchers hypothesized that people are very good at determining someone's ability based on limited information. I wonder, though, whether it's actually the other way around. Maybe it's that the students (the ones who rated the teachers after a semester) actually based their decisions on limited information related to their initial impressions.

In either case, here are some lessons from the study. These factors had, by far, the most influence on the ratings. When speaking to a group...

1) Look toward your audience (never look down or away)
2) Keep your hands quiet (never fidget with an object)
3) Smile (never frown)

Giving a paper heart to your wife on Valentine's day: touching.
Giving a paper heart to your dog on Valentine's day: sad.

Doing your homework on the train: productive.
Doing your homework on the toilet: gross.

Baking a nice dessert on a cold day: thoughtful.
Baking a nice cat on a cold day: yummy.

Saying "happy Valentine's Day!" on St. Valentine's Day: celebratory.
Saying "happy Valentine's Day!" on St. Patrick's Day : inadvisable.

Happy Valentine's Day everyone.

I always appreciate everyone's comments very much. If you happen to notice that one of your comments has disappeared, it's not because I didn't like it. I always try to be careful to remove all references to our city or my school.

You know, in case the "man" is listening.

Update: four-day weekend! That's what I'm talking about!

And there's actually quite a bit of snow--I bet there's about 8 inches in the back yard. Nice, wet snow. It's been coming down all day, non-stop. Everyone is outside making snowmen--I even saw two kids using one of those big Rubbermaid containers to make blocks, with which they were building an igloo. Everything, and I mean everything, is shut down already for tomorrow because the weather people are saying that all the wet, slushy snow is going to freeze into a solid sheet of ice overnight. Since they don't use salt here, we're in for some ice.

But if we lose power, I'm going to be VERY displeased.

I was all set to have a busy day of lecturing and administrative tasks at school today, but it turned out that there was an inch of snow overnight. Snow day! Now I can actually get some work done at home. I'd better get to it.

I was just playing basketball, and I took a forearm to the face from a history professor who said it was retaliation for when I elbowed him in the back a few plays beforehand. Here's a history lesson: I didn't elbow you in the back. Also, you should be fired.

In his defense, I may have elbowed him in the back, but it wasn't on purpose, and I don't remember doing it. Not in his defense: every child knows that two wrongs don't make a right. What stage is below child? Infant?

My response was to stop playing immediately and ask him (loudly) what he was doing. Here's how the rest of the conversation went.

Me: Stops playing. What are you doing?!?!?!?
Him: Bugs eyes out and raises his fist. (That's right, raises his fist!) What are you doing?
Me: What am I doing? I'm absorbing the blow from your forearm. What are you doing?
Him: You elbowed me in the back!!!!!
Me: Pointing. You're a professor!
Him: You elbowed me in the back!!!!
Me: Shame on you. I should report you.
Him: Face goes white. You elbowed me in the back.
Me: I don't know what you're talking about.
Him: I bet you don't!!!
Me: That's bull crap. And you're a very bad man.
Other players: Laughing. (At me and my use of the term "bad man.")

 The game went on. After the game, he came up to me, stuck his hand out for a hand slap, and said, "Good game." No apology. No more berating. Just, "Good game."

Are you kidding me?!

I gave the lectures today in the Intro Psych courses for which I'm the teaching assistant (or TA, in the lingo). Later I was grading today's quizzes, and I found this on the back of one student's paper.