Smile and Say Princess!

The Today Show just had a story recently about smiles in childhood photographs in correlation with the likelihood of divorce later on in life. Apparently the more you smiled in your childhood photographs can directly correlate to how well your marriage does. The theory, although there is nothing concrete, is that smiles are contagious and the attitudes of those around people who smile more are impacted for the better.

I thought this was an interesting story mainly for selfish reasons: Recently the new girl at work told another coworker and me that she thought my daughter looked "sad" because of the pictures I have hanging on my bulletin board at my desk. Mind you, she has never met my daughter, so she doesn't know anything different than what she has seen from those pictures. Obviously this is all about perceptions, but I can honestly say this never, ever occurred to me! I love my daughter and her smile, but artistically speaking, the pictures I love the best of her are the less traditional ones. I am soooo not a fan of awkward, cheesy school pictures that look like the child is being forced to smile at gunpoint. I do like pictures with my daughter smiling, but I especially like the ones that show her character, such as her "I am a princess and you should treat me as such" attitude or her fantastic sense of humor. That and it is very near impossible to get a candid picture of her smiling. When I point the camera in her direction, she constantly poses for pictures by doing her "pouty" look, or her "serious" look, or "surprised" look - you get the idea. So I guess, for the sake of her future relationships, we need to work more on her "happy" look. No problem! She has an incredible smile!

Another note on perceptions: I feel like I should have been more aware of how others view my daughter's pictures because this is basic human nature stuff here. For my work, I had to attend one of those personality seminars where they explicitly tell you that some 60% of your results will be what you think, but 40% is based on what other people think. The truth is, whether or not we like it, perception is everything. No matter what we see in ourselves, it does no good unless that is the image we are portraying to the outside world - often it is not. Often, we think we are this fantastic person that everyone should love, but in actuality we have idiosyncrasies that people really do notice. I can't speak for myself, because I am perfect (kidding, only kidding), but I work with people who definitely think they are much more agreeable and easygoing than they actually are. Anyway, it's all about perceptions and I am going to try my best to be more aware in the future!

Genetic bad habits?

An episode of the Today Show mentioned a new study showing there might actually be a "cheating" gene. There is evidence that there is a gene that shows whether or not a man has more of a capability of cheating on his wife. I was thinking about this and wondering whether or not it would be a good thing to be able to detect this kind of thing. I should interject that it's not because I am suspicious, it was just part of my usual insomnia - laying awake with nothing to do but think. Anyway...wouldn't this be bad? No one would ever go into a relationship with one of these individuals and may be missing out on a really good thing. The people discussing the gene said that many factors influence whether or not a person will cheat, such as upbringing, not just the gene. I was also thinking that this would be a real bummer for those that knew they had the gene. There might even be a wave of scheming and conniving to cover up results, such as men switching urine or blood samples to throw a girl off the scent of his impending fate. Plus, would people start avoiding those people just for the purpose of gene refinement? So if someone has a bad trait, do people choose not to procreate with them so that their offspring can avoid the gene? Craziness! What if you were really in love with someone and discovered this? Do you just kick them to the curb?

This also reminded me of a conversation about ethics in one of my counseling classes. There is a code of conduct stating that a therapeutic professional will not get involved with a client or friend/family member of said client for 5 years. We were discussing this in class and someone posed the question about what would happen if you didn't know the person was a relative and you were in love. One girl said that you would just have to end it, which seemed pretty cold. I can't imagine just walking away and saying "See ya" just because of a law and having it be so cut and dry. Luckily I am married and I imagine this sort kind of thing is pretty rare, but it was kind of on the lines of the cheating gene. Could I just walk away? That would be crazy; although I may want to reevaluate this on a day where I am not mad at my husband.

My favorite podcasts for now...

USA TODAY's Popcandy
Amateur Traveler
FM94/9 San Diego (Interviews)
MSNBC Countdown
NBC Today Show
Stuff You Should Know
VH1 The Best Week Ever
Oprah.com's Spirit Channel
New Yorker: Fiction
This American Life

I think I have said this, but I spend a lot of time at waiting around at ballet and other activities, so I use this time to catch up on news or other interesting information. The following podcasts also help keep me awake while driving or during other boring activities, so I thought I would share:

• FM94/9 San Diego (Interviews) - I stumbled onto this podcast after a recent trip to San Diego while driving up the coast to Hollywood, but basically 94/9 seems to be the best station in the country as far as I can tell. The interviews are with some well-known and some not-so-well-known bands (Artists such as Plain White T's, Perry Farrell, and Peter Buck), but they are all really interesting. The DJ who does most of the interviews (Halloran I think??), has a great ability to conduct interviews. I think he talent is mostly due to the fact that he really knows his stuff musically-speaking. I just wish they would keep the live versions of the songs in the podcast; most of them are cut out of the interview. Maybe that has something to do with licensing.
• USA TODAY's Popcandy - The funny thing about this podcast is that Whitney Matheson is really into comics and Battlestar Galactica, which I am not into at all, but yet the entire podcast is really engaging and interesting. The topics of the podcasts are diverse, such as the interviews she conducts with directors, actors, etc. I am often wishing the podcasts were longer than the typical 20-30 minutes. I especially like when she has a call-in session with readers of her blog and you can listen to them talk about the most off-the-wall things.
• Amateur Traveler - I love to travel and this is a great podcast to get you motivated and to find out about places you may have not have even heard about. The host Chris Christensen is also smart and likeable simultaneously.
• MSNBC Countdown - I know it doesn't seem this way, but I don't have a lot of spare time. Countdown is a daily news dose, without all of the commercials and extra fluff stuff that wastes time. The show leans towards the left, but in an educated, well informed way. Plus, the show manages to make news entertaining, which is not always easy to do.
• NBC Today Show - For obvious reasons... mostly diversity of information though
• Stuff You Should Know - Short five-minute podcasts telling you about well, stuff you should know, like How Yawning Works. I like the guy who hosts, he is funny in a weird way.
• VH1 The Best Week Ever - Enough said, and they even have full episodes.
• Oprah.com's Spirit Channel - Corny, I know, but I find that these give me a little extra motivation to "deal."
• Nick Jr's Making Fiends - Okay, at first glance this cartoon is really bizarre, but the more you watch, the more you get sucked into the ongoing saga of Vendetta and Charlotte's one-sided friendship.
• New Yorker: Fiction - I already gave an overly detailed explanation of this; however, I will say I work in, let's just say, a financial type of job and tend to find myself craving more thought provoking activity throughout the day. This podcast allows me to use the more creative side of my brain when I find the time to listen.
• This American Life - A new one for me, this podcast has the ability to grab the listener's attention through short stories from different people, based on a particular theme. One podcast about lack of knowledge talked about a woman who didn't realize that unicorns weren't on the endangered species list, because well, they are not real. She discovered the truth at a keg party with her friends staring blankly at her. I was laughing out loud at some of the people's confessions of stupidity, or maybe just naivety. I would just say to avoid the one called "Life After Death" because it is sad, although very interesting still

Do you do this? Or is it just me?

The Today Show featured this article the other day in the New York Times called "The Ideal Husband" and, despite the fact that I already have a husband, I was curious what they had to say about the topic. I often find myself reading these Cosmo-type articles and making comparisons to see if I made a good choice, which is probably an odd thing to do I am guessing and because he is really pretty great. I can't help it, I get sucked into the titles like "Are You and Your Mate Completely Wrong for One Another?" and find myself skimming the material "just to be sure" that I haven't been living with the wool pulled over my eyes and thinking "Are we totally wrong for one another??? What will I do?" Anyway...I think what was most interesting about the article is that the advice was given by a priest, who obviously wasn't married himself (although the article was written by Maureen Down I believe). Listening to what he had to say, I must say that I fully agree with him! There are times where I wish I had looked into a couple of these issues (uh, mother attachments [cough, cough]). I think knowing the full extent of what you are getting into up front by investing a little time and effort and yet still rationally making the decision to go ahead with a relationship takes away any excuses you have to say "I didn't know" in order to justify the relationship not working. I also liked what he had to say because he specializes in helping high school children, who I plan to be working guiding these same individuals on their future paths soon and believe this to be a topic that may arise in my future expeditions.

To check it out:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/06/opinion/06dowd.html?ex=1373083200&en=fbf7febd9931c3f7&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink