[Rosela's Scrapbook] Stuff goes here.

by **Rosela** on March 9th, 2015, 1:56 pm

Sometimes You Just Need Some Goddamn Oreos

Things have been a smidge stressful in our house lately, mostly revolving around phase one of our master plan for this year – my boyfriend getting a job. The downward spiral this weekend wasn’t the result of a rejection, even though he’s had those. It wasn’t the result of a bad interview, and he’s had those too. In fact, it was because he got an interview…the sixth in a series of them at a very nice company who’s clearly interested in him. The problem is, when he got the call to set up a 15 minute ‘chat’ on Friday afternoon, we both excitedly assumed the call was to finally make that all-important offer. So when you’re expecting an offer and instead the guy starts asking you about your strengths and weaknesses, it’s more than a little disappointing.

So Saturday was a bit of a downer as we tried to remind ourselves that this was a good thing and meant they were still interested. We just had to wait even...longer...for that offer to come in. I tried to make the best of it with some Miz time, some anime, and I did get all my cooking for this week done, but come Sunday morning, we had to try hard to snap out of it.

And you know what? It worked. We spent the majority of the day munching on Oreos (chocolate-on-chocolate, YES) and playing Fallout. I can’t remember last time we had a lazy day like that, and it was the most enjoyable day we’ve had in a long time. Yes, I needed to do laundry, and I know I needed to clean the house, and sure, I’d wanted to work on the Eyph rewrite some more. Oreos and Fallout didn’t really help anything, but it turned out to have been the best thing we could have done this weekend.

So if you’re in a bad place, maybe see what can wait for tomorrow, pick up a game or two and take a pause in front of the cookie section in the grocery store. The world may seem a little easier to face afterwards.

by **Rosela** on March 13th, 2015, 4:52 pm

Magpies!

Came across a neat story today about a magpie that was nursed back to health by a family and became pretty much part of the family. The article primarily consists of some amazing photography, but it’s one of the more pleasant things I’ve seen in a while. I’ve been particularly interested in magpies for a while now, mostly for the interesting symbolism many cultures have about them, usually surrounding magpies in a specific number. There’s a ton of variation, but many of the western meanings are close to those in an old nursery rhyme about them:
One for sorrow,
Two for joy,
Three for a girl,
Four for a boy,
Five for silver,
Six for gold,
Seven for a secret,
Never to be told.

The boy/girl lines tend to stick around, but the first two I’ve also seen mean danger or a warning, and then a union or safe travels. Have to admit, I never knew the rest of the rhyme until I actually looked it up. The story of them being attracted to shiny objects is also a bit of a myth, as well as them being thieves at all. It was studied as recently as late last year, and researchers found magpies were not attracted at all to shiny things, and may even be a little afraid.

Also, if you’ve never heard the call of a magpie, it’s really cool:

And they’re crazy smart. They’re said to have the intelligence of 5-7 year old children and can understand metaphors, solve complex problems, and understand the concept of ‘self’ in that they can identify themselves in a mirror.

However, if you look up magpies, the focus on their intelligence usually takes a back seat to their aggression problems. From August to December, when their eggs start to hatch, males get extremely territorial and will attack anything that passes near their nests. The internet is full of stories and videos of people getting swooped and attacked, to the point that many people know more about this than anything else.

There’s no magpies where I live, but with our future a little up in the air right now, maybe we’ll end up in a place that has them?

by **Khida** on March 13th, 2015, 5:32 pm

Magpies are very pretty birds. I've only seen them in person a couple of times. My grandparents had a house on a ridge outside of town, and one summer a group of four magpies flew into the area, stayed for a week, and flew right on out again. There's also a particular curve of highway near my undergrad college where magpies are resident, one of very few places in the county, and I caught a glimpse of one there once.

The story of them being attracted to shiny objects is also a bit of a myth, as well as them being thieves at all. It was studied as recently as late last year, and researchers found magpies were not attracted at all to shiny things, and may even be a little afraid.

I didn't track down the original article, but I wonder if there's a population or education effect at play. There are elements of preference/attraction which are hardwired, and there are elements which are learned. The stories trace back a very long time, and if a preference for shiny things was learned, it might have been lost since. Or it might have been most prevalent in a population different from what was studied.

Shiny things may have once been more associated with slain soldiers and wealthy people, for example, both of which might provide easier access to food; whereas now, shiny things are present everywhere and have no particular association. If anything, shiny things are more likely to be noisy and fast-moving and dangerous.

That's not to say even those hypothetical historical magpies were as grabby as lore suggests. People being people, we share around stories, distort, overgeneralize, and blow them all out of proportion.

And we also make up things that suit our narratives, so perhaps there really never was any basis to begin with.

by **Rosela** on March 13th, 2015, 6:25 pm

All those are definitely possible

Another idea is the whole territorial thing; if people didn't know a magpie's nest was nearby and he swooped to attack, they may have assumed they were trying to steal their shiny things?

by **Rosela** on March 24th, 2015, 2:51 pm

Good News, Everyone!

The past week has been big in our house. And I mean BIG. Honestly, I don’t even know where to start.

I guess firstly, we’re moving! Mid-late June, we’ll be moving for my boyfriend’s brand new job! He’s been busting his butt since October/November to make this happen and we’re still reeling from the news that it finally is. It’s a good job, it’s a good company, and while neither of us are strictly big city people, where we’re moving is without a doubt the Big City, so it’s a huge change.

We also decided to change around our plans for my future employment. Originally, I’d planned on telecommuting with my current company for a couple years, and then moving on, but now, we’re thinking I’ll start looking within the next year. So, once we move, I'll officially be on 'skill-beefing time' and will be doing all kinds of random projects to jazz up my resume.

And lastly…I’m engaged!

His proposal was sweet and incredibly romantic, and of course, I cried like a baby. With us taking this first step into real ‘grownup’ lives, my fiancé (hehehe, I have a fiancé!), wanted us to start it as a married couple. Well, engaged at least.

So what does this mean for Rosela and my Mizahar time? Not much for now. Late June will see some downtime as we start moving, and for a while afterwards as I balance Mizahar time with skill-building time, and then whenever we get married will see some time away as well. For now though, I’m just basking in the glow of knowing I’ll spend the rest of my life with the man of my dreams ^_^