Independence vs. Security

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After 3 straight nights of shots. Granted, not many shots per, but still.

I’m writing this at my parents’ house next to my boyfriend in the room I slept in when I was in 8th grade, under the covers of a decade-old sheet and pillow set, on a super comfortable mattress we purchased in 2008 that has my body indented in it. Read More

Woman crush of the week: Tracey Stewart

I know I’m supposed to wait until tomorrow, but I have time now that I don’t know when I’m going to have later on this week, so I just wanted to make a short post high-lighting how cute I think Mrs. Stewart is!

(Also, I WILL put up a post detailing my Saturday at the Sniffapalooza Fall Ball, hehe. Once I get some time and regain some energy!)

Tracy Stewart Counts Her Sheep, and More – NYT

You may have heard that John and Tracey Stewart are opening up a Farm Sanctuary branch in Middleton, NJ. Read More

Fjallkonan: Iceland

Check out this wonderful video Mr. Chokkattu made of our time in Iceland!

Both Jonsi’s Helmgilas and Phoenix’s Love Like a Sunset were songs we played over and over driving through the country and I think Iceland’s beauty can really only be underlined by someone from there. We both miss Iceland dearly, and personally, for me this video is a tribute to happiness.

(If you see some Asian dork in blue, it is 100% NOT ME. NOT ME AT ALL.)

Things I adored about Iceland

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A picture Mr. Chokkattu took of me while we were on a kayak.

This will be my last post explicitly about Iceland!

So we all know now that I adored the country of Iceland, and I want to go back some day really, really badly, with maybe a job long enough to support me for a few months or just some more cash in my pocket. And that the scenery is beautiful and the landscape breathtaking, etc. But I have to share some of the specifics I jotted down. Some of them are important, some of them are surprising, some are less about Iceland and more about trips in general, and some are pretty stupid but whatever they seemed important enough to write down at the time. This list is a little long, so let’s get started:

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Iceland Day 6: Penultimate Post!

This will be the second to last post about the most beautiful and refreshing place I’ve ever visited. I will miss a number of things about Iceland, which I will enumerate in my last post, but can be summed up as: how the hell did this little island slip my travel plans. It was only because of Mr. Chokkattu that I thought of this place at all as a potential destination and that’s insane to me now.

We filled our last full day in Iceland with Snæfellsjökull and rounded the trip out back in Reykjavik at the Settlement Museum before we bid the country adieu the next morning. My last glut of pictures, 60 altogether:
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Why dogs are the best

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2014/02/21/280640267/how-dogs-read-our-moods-emotion-detector-found-in-fidos-brain

You need me to lie still inside this noisy MRI scanner for 10 minutes? No problem. Just give me some treats. Volunteers pose with the brain scanner at the MR Research Centre in Budapest.

Photo from article

Humans detect one another’s emotional states without body language because of a piece of brain neurologists call the “voice area” that is stimulated specifically when vocal sounds are heard. The brain filters out non-vocal noises like tapping and snapping and pays attention specifically to highs, lows, and the length of what’s being processed. It is located in the back of the brain behind the ears.

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