AAAAAAAAARRRRGGGHHH!! I ACCIDENTALLY SHRUNK THE PUNK SHIRT THAT HA GOT ME FOR MY BIRTHDAY!!! AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!

today is just not my laundry day.

okay. i just did something so incredibly stupid. and embarrassing. so embarrassing that i almost don't want to blog about it. well, it really isn't THAT bad; i may have overreacted a little. and in all fairness, this was NOT just my fault. half of the blame goes to sanaz as well. and i know that we're not the first people to do this (and i have this nagging suspicion that this isn't the first time that this has happened to ME) but that doesn't make it any less stupid or embarrassing.

so here's the thing: me and sanaz washed TWO loads of laundry WITHOUT any detergent (yet i somehow managed to remember to put fabric softener in there). TWO LOADS. i sort of had like, a hysterical reaction when i realized that. i really wanted to just laugh and cry at the same time. and gross sanaz was just like, "so? it smells clean." hello?!?! wouldn't it bother you KNOWING that, while your clothes may SMELL clean, they are, in fact, NOT. i mean, c'mon!! i would be wearing my clothes and in the back of my head, this tiny, vicious voice in my head would be chanting, "your clothes are not clean. your clothes are not clean. yourclothesarenotclean!!!"

i know what you're all thinking. how stupid can you be? to do it TWICE?!?! and i know what else you're thinking: why don't we just do the laundry over again? but you don't understand! it was TWO loads of laundry!! TWO!! it'd be such a waste of water and energy! so what we ended up doing is just washing all the underwear over again. because i even told sanaz, "c'mon. wouldn't it bother you knowing that your underwear isn't really clean??" and she said, "yeah...you have a point." see?! SEE?!?!

AG;OIWERUOIAJ;AKLEJROAWIERJ!!!! !@#$^#^#^&&*!!!!

really, this made me a little hysterical. (well, my trip to japan may have also affected my [over]reaction). i wanted to laugh because it was so funny but cry at the same time because it was so tragically stupid and embarrassing. so you can just imagine the look on my face. this almost beats the time me and helen accidentally put dish washing liquid in the dishwasher and caused it to overflow all over the kitchen floor. these household appliances just bring out the stupidity in all of us.

and, as my closing statement, i would just like to reiterate the fact that this was NOT just MY fault. sanaz bears half the responsibility. you should not have just ASSUMED that i would be smart enough to put detergent in there. you should've made sure and asked me!! so what if i would have yelled at you, "how stupid do you think i am?!?" because as this situation has proven, i AM quite stupid. but this is SO NOT JUST MY FAULT. because sanaz's clothes were in there as well. so THERE. HAH! AHHHH!!! HAH!! AAAAAHHHH!!!

okay, just as a disclaimer: this blog is going to be entirely about the psych 199 i'm doing and i happen to find it really interesting and really fun but i realize not everyone will be wowed by my academic story so just stop reading right here if that's you and when i see you in person later, i'm just going to bore you with this story then. [okay, really though, i honestly find this very cool and funny, and i apologize if i tell all of this really badly, but humor me and read it anyway!]

i LOVE the psych 199 experiment i'm doing! i get to eat cookies and lie to people. ;D

so it's a social psychology experiment to see how people influence the behavior of other people. here's the basic background: people have a tendency to do what other people do. there was this famous experiment a few decades ago by milgram (or ash, i forget) where they basically asked the subjects a really simple question (which of these three lines is the same length as this other line?) and then they had confederates (research assistants pretending to be subjects) give the wrong answer every single time. eventually, the subject would doubt themselves and give the wrong answer - the same answer the confederates gave. so it was basically an imitation study. and there's like a bunch of other studies like it. debra - remember what we used to do in high school? look up at the sky at nothing and wait for people to look up in curiosity as well? there was an actual experiment that did that too.

so you get the point, right? so what we're going to do is expand on that a bit. here's the premise: a subject comes in and is interviewed along with one or two other "subjects" (confederates, really). now based on which condition the subject is put in, he/she may discover that one of the subjects is surprisingly a lot like them. the other subject is basically their long lost twin sister. the other subject, they will discover, is completely unlike them. total opposite. the subject may have both confederates, either confederate, or no confederate in their condition, depending. what happens next is that the experimenter makes an excuse to leave the room. but, in one condition, before he leaves, he tells the subjects that they can help themselves to a bowl of cookies on the table. and, naturally, the subjects go ahead and eat some cookies. but in the OTHER condition, the experimenter leaves the room and says nothing about the bowl of cookies on the table. in fact...the cookies are placed right next to a sack lunch that looks suspiciously like it belongs to the experimenter. now the trick is to have the similar confederate go ahead and take some of the cookies and wait to see how many cookies the subject will eat or even if the subject will take the cookies which, really, they probably will.

see, the guy who's heading this experiment did a few different versions of it before this one. one version is where he asked people to rate a particularly nasty piece of music. he found that subjects rated the music positively if the similar confederate rated it high and negatively if the dissimilar confederate rated it high. here's the funny thing: i was actually a subject in that experiment last year. i got TOTALLY duped. now that i think about it, it was really funny. i had a similar and dissimilar confederate in my test. it was pretty funny because the similar confederate was incredibly similar to me. she was vietnamese, had practically the same name as me (my vietnamese name!), had the same major, came from fremont as well, even went to mission!! yeah, i know, i know, how could i be so stupid? but well, clearly, i am not the only person to have fallen for this! i just remember going home to sanaz that day and saying, "you will never believe what happened in this experiment i went to today!! this girl i met was like EXACTLY like me!! it was so weird!" yeah...i feel stupid now.

but now i can't WAIT to do the same thing to other people!! *rubs hands evilly* they're even going to train us to lie really well and how to not get caught. the grad student running the experiment was like, "by the end of this quarter, all of you are going to be EXPERT liars!!" aaahahahahahahahahahaha <-- evil maniacal laughter. i can't wait!! and the best part is that i'm getting credit for all of this!! (not to mention loads of free cookies which, truthfully, i'll probably get really sick of, but whatever).

i'm so excited about this! i feel like such a nerd, i've never been so excited about anything school-related before. but i can't help it! i am!!

after a crap-ass day yesterday, i had a not bad one today. pretty good, almost.

so, first off: highlight of my day - met a cute guy from new zealand while waiting in line at the psych department. didn't even notice his accent at first, it was so subtle. but once i noticed it...mmm...i love how he said "berkeley." um...i sorta forgot to get his name though. but that's okay! he was cute. well, not cute, more handsome. ruggedly so. mmm...doubt i'll ever see him again, but that's okay.

and then the day just got better from there. so i didn't get into the honors program, but whatever. i'm actually sorta glad i didn't get in because i would've been under so much pressure to do well. but i still got into advanced stat. the psych advisor was nice and let me enroll in the class. but i have to get an A- or else i won't be allowed to continue (it's a series). but that's okay because i plan on working my ass off this quarter. so now i have two classes! and one of them is psych!!

but wait! there's more!! so i went to this interview thingy for a psych 199 position. it's not a class; you basically help professors, grad students, or faculty members run their experiments. but it's really good experience for going into experimental psychology and grad school. and the experiment that this prof is running sounds really interesting. it's about how people are affected by other people such as family, friends, etc and who affects them the most. the interview went pretty well (okay, so it was more like he was talking and i just nodded and smiled) and he said that i'm pretty much in if i want it which...i do. and i'll get units for it too!

so yay! good day. much better than yesterday. had such a bad day yesterday that i baked a big, gooey chocolate cake with lots of chocolate frosting and drowned my sorrows in it. or...well...whatever the equivalent would be for food. but today i ate some more of the cake in order to celebrate my good day. i think i will continue my celebration by knitting. :)

holy crap. it's windy. but warm. strange.

depressed now. am convinced that entire world is conspiring against me to make me unhappy. must bake big chocolate cake with lots of chocolate frosting to compensate. sigh.

what a depressing day. didn't get into any of the psych classes i wanted. pretty much EVERY psych class is closed. unbelievable. waited in this long line this morning at the psych department only to have two white trash bitches behind me cut in line prompting everyone else behind them to follow. i bet if they hadn't cut and allowed everyone else behind them to cut as well i would've had a better chance. but no. if i see them on campus, i'm ripping out their hair.

so now i'm stuck with...a weird quarter. still don't know about advanced stat since that class is only for honors students and the psych department is STILL processing the honors apps. my whole problem this quarter is entirely due to the psych department here. but hopefully i should be able to find out this afternoon if i'm in or not. but even if i do get in, i don't even know if i'll be able to get into advanced stat seeing as how everyone else wants to get into that class too. argh. so now i only have two critical gender studies which isn't TOO bad since i was thinking of minoring or at least doing my area of focus on critical gender studies. and i'm going to try to apply for a bunch of 199's (research) and see if i can get in one of them. but still. it's going to end up being a weird quarter. not BAD since i'm sure studying won't be too difficult for me this quarter, but disappointing and depressing since i didn't get into any of the classes i wanted. plus, this will probably set me back a bit. will kill those two white girls.

whatever. i'm going to knit and think about my depressing future now.

helloooooo...internet. ;D

so let's see. drove back to san diego yesterday. took a good eight hours. not bad. visited the vietnamese supermarket nearby and a pho place for dinner. you can tell this was all at my mother's insistence. then went back home to clean up and put up my pretty pink curtains. well, first my father had to take down my closet doors which proved to be very difficult. but the pink curtains look so pretty! my room is very very girly now. very. you just have to see it. then parents went to bed and i stayed up and talked with sanaz while her family invaded our house. persians EVERYWHERE. it was pretty funny actually.

then woke up this morning and had a huge argument with my mother. huge. not fun. especially considering that this is also her birthday. but she totally started it. anyway, it was bad. whatever. parents went home. changed clothes and started unpacking. then went grocery shopping with sanaz. came back and tried to get internet working again once melissa came back. definitely no easy task. just ran into tons of problems with the router. but whatever. clearly, we got the problem straightened out. i kicked it and threw it against the wall multiple times followed by a good bitch-slapping.

ooh, exchanged gifts today for the house secret santa. this is our third year doing this and it's just dawned on me that sanaz is jewish. hmm. anyway, my secret santa was helen which melissa helped me to realize by process of elimination which i just did not understand. helen made me a scarf!! a big, white, fluffy one!! and then she bought me these two really cute candles. more candles for me!! [just as an off-note, guess how many candles are in my bedroom. let's just say there's one for every year of my life. ;D] and she also gave me a gift card for barnes & noble! yaaay!!

okay, internet's down again. crap. oh! now it's back!! quick, must post must post!!