bang, fingers, tourists & apple humor
this spring has been intense, w/ typical school stuff (papers/deadlines), plus a new field research project, which now has me getting up super early to travel far out to elementary schools in surrounding counties several mornings/week. i'm helping wrap up the final phase of data collection for a study my professor/advisor is conducting on self-control in children. i'd actually kind of dreaded this job before it started for several reasons, but am pleasantly surprised to find it enjoyable! some of the kids are really endearing & the underlying science is quite interesting. did you know that finger-length ratios are an area that a some behavioral research has begun focusing on? yeah. (but more on that later).
in other news: i'm getting more excited about my trip as summer draws closer. there's lots to do to get ready. i've got my passport. now i'm toying w/ the idea of playing it safe and getting a Hepatitis A vaccine. lots to do!
i haven't been overseas since 1994 and haven't visited the far east (asia) since 1981. foreign languages were never my forte, but i *really* want to try to properly learn at least bits and pieces of the language so i can be reasonably proficient/conversational, and not completely look like what the rest of the world probably sees as a shorts-wearing, camera-around-the-neck, American tourist when i'm there. they might be more foregiving of that if i were a blonde-haired, blue-eyed American, but since i'm actually an American of korean heritage/descent, people there will (fairly or unfairly) expect a little more of me than what they see as the "average" (i.e. white) American tourist. maybe rightly so b/c this trip is a special chance for me to discover new things about my ethnic roots and capture a link to my family history that can only be bridged via my parents. it's important to do it now that my sister & i are grown-up. and NOW is the time, b/c our parents are aging, and they're really our only reliable connection to our ethnic heritage. oh yeah, i'll still wear shorts if the weather is searing hot, & you bet i'll take my camera, but just not hung around my neck along with a fannypack around my waist that screams "TOURIST!" no matter how you cut it, i'll be an american tourist...but one who has a personal connection to the land she's touring! :-)
OK, i'll leave you w/ some apple humor in the form of the i-rack:
