Ten on Tuesday

1. Laundry on a hot day is not fun to do. I'd rather be at the beach.

2. I have someone coming to look at my old living room furniture. I've had it stacked in my bedroom since my new stuff came and I'm tired of looking at it. It really was quite an accomplishment for me to have bought new furniture

this is my desk and bookcases from Crate and Barrel

my fold out couch and adorable chair from Jennifer Convertibles (not pictured- love seat)

3. The Jennifer Convertibles website is the most underdeveloped website I think I've seen. No shopping online, no paying your bills. It's basically a place to find a store and to browse through a catalogue. They really need to join this century, especially because their products are so good.

4. I finished God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. I really enjoyed it, but it took me a long time to come to a place where I could. He seemed extremely condescending to the idea of faith through half the book. But I really enjoyed the second half where he took a close look at morality and where it comes from and dissected religion's negative affect on morality. Anyway, I highly recommend it. I think it's important to be fluent in both sides of an argument before coming to conclusions. He also recommends fluency in the Bible because of its impact on the world in not only religion, but also in art and literature. I have to say that a greater understanding of the Bible really would have helped in my Shakespeare classes in college.

5. I am going to be part of a psychological study at Columbia University. I once participated when I was a teenager in a study that my mom played a part in setting up and I remember it being kind of fun and interesting. I had to take a psychological bubble test once honestly and then a second time I had to pretend as if I was hiding something. This Columbia study includes an MRI and a Petscan which I've never done before so that should be interesting.

6. It's the type of day that sitting in one spot causes a lot of sweat. (Accuweather says it's 95 degrees with the humidity at 42%- I suppose it could be worse).

7. There is no "degree" symbol on the keyboard. I wonder why?

8. The Kent State (my Alma Mater) building for Math and Computer Science's roof is the sine wave from trigonometry. I was always very good at math and particularly loved trig. It's strange to observe a loss of knowledge. I'm going to find a way to relearn this.

9. Alma Mater: I decided to look up it's etymology. It is from Latin meaning "nourishing mother" I also found one that said the Latin was "fostering mother." I think we need to instill in children and young adults this concept before they graduate. I think students would be less disrespectful of their teachers and institutions if they thought about it as a place where they receive maternal nourishment.

10. I could not find a video of the Dialogue Series with John Edwards, but you can download the interview portion with Brian Lehrer from WNYC. On this page it says "Listen to entire show." Click on this link to hear it or download the podcast to your ipod. Below is a short video clip which the John Edwards campaign put together from his opening speech. I am very disappointed how difficult it was to locate this program in its entirety.