Mish Mash

Tested

I found out last week that my brain is neither male nor female, but perfectly neutral. I took a 6-part Brain Sex ID test on the Science and Nature section of BBC's website.

I found out:

• that I am good at identifying people's emotions by their eyes (perfect score)
• that I prefer male faces with more feminine traits
• that men (and me) generally have a ring finger that is longer than their index finger, which gives them a lower ratio than women, whose ring and index fingers are usually of equal length. "It's thought that the ratio is governed by the amount of testosterone you were exposed to in your mother's womb. Studies have found that men and women with lots of brothers generally have more masculine finger ratio."
• that men have the lowest levels of testosterone in the springtime.
• that, on average, women use 15,000 words a day while men use 7,000.
  "Women took about twice as long as men to end their online instant messenging conversations in a 2003 study of US university students. The study, which was published in the Journal of Language and Social Psychology, also found that women were much more likely to use emoticons (representations of emotions using punctuation marks). The most popular emoticon was the smiley face :- ) "

I also took the How Disgusting quiz, where you rate disgusted you are by various pictures. "This experiment was designed to test the theory that disgust evolved to protect us from disease. The more something resembles a disease threat, the more disgusting it should be."

A Winning Weekend

Friday night (Happy Birthday, Tyler!) I was in a bit of an anti-social mood, but managed to rally a bit for a few hands of poker. I'd seen Texas Hold'em on late night TV in the States, but this was my first time to play. No money changed hands. Pete kept up his role from the Murder Mystery party of being a drunk-losing-gambler, but no suspenders this time. : )

On Saturday, I had great success shopping for Christmas presents (already know what's to be had at the market, so hit up the nice stores/craft galleries). We went to the new A&C Shopping Mall, which is unlike anything I've ever seen in Ghana before. I think I could safely say it was like going to Disneyworld: Ben&Jerry's at the supermarket; Victoria's Secret at the store upstairs; "The Scoop," which only sells soy-based ice cream; a huge kiddie play area; a roller-blade/skateboard skate ramp; parking spots delineated by painted lines. And to think you have to go way out to the 'Burbs and then down a dirt road to get there...Follow the yellow brick road, follow the yellow brick road!!! (Now I'm mixing my metaphors!)

Ended the afternoon with a great lunch at the Orangery: pumpkin soup and crabbed cream crepe (say THAT, or my other favorite 'pasta with prawns, pinenuts and peppers,' 10 times fast. I attempted to watch a coworker's burnt DVD of Labyrithn (David Bowie, very old school), which unfortunately it didn't work. I made brownies! and had a yummy chicken-mango-avocado salad for dinner. Jane bought us a backgammon board at a garage sale (so now we don't have to use the cardboard one I made, which is good because without dice, we were left to draw numbers from a cup). I headed over to Annie's to sleep peacefully (no water at our house from Thursday night to Monday morning).

I woke up well-rested Sunday morning, having dreamt that I went to get my hair cut and the woman chopped it to college-length-spikes; I was in a tizzy because that meant no one at home would see my luscious locks. Annie and I leisurely got ready to go to the beach, snacking on fresh fruit, Japanese rice crackers and some cream cheese spread, plus she made us eggs and I got Roobis tea. We headed to the beach and had no traffic problems and since Annie was driving, I could request a pee break, no problemo! The perks of non-tro-tro travel. We arrived at the same time as our other friends and we spent the day sun-burn free. No traffic problems on the return, either. Another hot shower and some leftovers, and I was ready to crash.

It was a fabulous weekend!

And I heard that Yale beat Harvard in a triple-overtime battle, 30-24. Yea, Bulldogs!

On the Move

I leave tomorrow morning for Guinea on a 10-day work trip to interview/process refugees (mostly Liberian and Sierra Leonians). I'll be working through Thanksgiving, my first sans turkey (at least I got to celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving last month). Enjoy the food and spending time with your loved ones!