Let me know if you'd like me to add you! I'm always up for making new friends!

Highway 71 is the road connecting Marble Falls to Austin. The scenery around the road is beautiful, it's nestled in the Texas hill country, but the road itself is windy and rather treacherous in parts, it doesn't have shoulders, guard rails or a turning lane.
This is the road (combined with the rainy conditions) where the fatal accident occurred this weekend, claiming the lives of those three teens, and injuring 5 other people.

Last calendar year, I remember that 3 teachers from Round Rock were also killed on the same road, again - in rainy conditions.

If you feel so inclined, please click on the link below and sign the petition. Help get Hwy. 71 fixed so it doesn't take another precious life. Please send this to everyone you in your contacts list.

Petition for Changing HWY 71

Additionally, there's a TXDOT open house meeting on Feb 26th, to discuss the proposed changes to HWY 71. It's from 6 to 9 at the Travis County West Rural Community Center, 8656 Hwy. 71W, Building A, Austin, TX.
Everyone invited to attend. In addition to the discussions, there will proposed schematics available for viewing.

Euh oui, en effet ;) faut pas etre aigri hehe

Oh, little displaced Ugandan kids...I'll miss Grey's Anatomy for you.

You're an apogenous, bovaristic, coprolalial, dasypygal, excerebrose, facinorous, gnathonic, hircine, ithyphallic, jumentous, kyphotic, labrose, mephitic, napiform, oligophrenial, papuliferous, quisquilian, rebarbative, saponaceous, thersitical, unguinous, ventripotent, wlatsome, xylocephalous, yirning zoophyte.

( Translation )

Cute title full of big words that mean nothing collectively :) but give the impression they do.
Oh how I long to go back to school.

2007 is a La Nina year. That's bad news for Texas, means drought and increased heat this summer. Honestly, I can't imagine summer being hotter than it was last year.
Means increased tornado activity in the Atlantic area, and milder spring/summer in the northern states.

Meeting for The Invisible Children tomorrow. I just joined invisiblenomore and ugandacalling

Proxemics (n): Branch of psychology aimed at the study of human (and animal) spatial requirements.

Non-verbal communication (NVC) is almost as interesting as linguistics. But not quite. Some anthropologists argue that 60% of all communication is non-verbal. That figure seems somewhat high to me, only because the meaning behind countless gestures and our body language has solid meaning only when performed in conjunction with some sort of verbalization. But no doubt, much of what we think is readily observable through our movement (facial, bodily) and other instinctive, coded and acquired gestures.

Anyways, I love the elevator example. It stood out as one of the most salient examples from socioling, and I can't remember what we were discussing in class - but elevator etiquette is really a lot more important than we might realize! Example of socio-cultural awareness perhaps. I came across the elevator example again today, when I picked up this little book on cultural taboos concerning gestures. A big cultural taboo for us is certain unaccepted behavior on the elevator.
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Elevator Proxemics

Here is the setting:

If there are only one or two people on an elevator, they usually stay at maximally distal points from each other, they may lean against the walls of the elevator. If four people board the elevator, the four corners are undoubtedly occupied.

However, when the population reaches 5 or 6 people, everyone begins to obey more complex rules of elevator etiquette. It is almost like a ritualistic dance. They all turn to face the door. Hands and purses and briefcases hang down in front of the body (that's called Fig Leaf Position btw). They mustn't touch each other in any way unless the elevator is crowded, and then only at the shoulder of lightly against the upper arm. Also, there is a tendency to look upward at the illuminated floor indicator. If they speak, it is definitely in sotto voce.

If you doubt this is the standard - almost sacred - elevator behavior, then try this: Next time you walk on to a crowded elevator, don't turn around and face the door. Instead, just stand there facing the others. If you want to create even more tension, grin. Very likely the other passengers will glare back, surprised, grim and upset. Reason? You have broken the rules.

One person who tried this experiment actually heard someone in the back of the elevator whisper "Call 911. We've got a real wierdo here."

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In that socio class, the professor challenged us to go break a behavioral norm, a social-spatial convention. I can't remember what others did, but mine included sitting at someone's table at Spiderhouse without asking. We were to document the person's reaction. The person looked initially surprised, but ultimately didn't really care. It would have been a much better experiment if I has RIGHT NEXT to them. Instead of across and over.
But I was already quite out of my comfort zone when I pushed myself to do that assignment. :)