Terribly Aware

Have you ever experienced the following?

You hear something, and you kindof process it, and then you just bury it in the back of your mind, and you never FULLY process it and realize all its implications.

That happened to me the other day, when I read an article (thank you, once again, StumbleUpon) about Koko the gorilla.

pictured: the stuff of nightmares

Why I didn't just immediately give the page a thumbs down and frantically hit the "next" button, I'll never know. I had heard the story of this monster before, but this time around I really became aware of certain aspects I had never really paid attention to before. Two things:

1) Koko was a gorilla - and she had a PET CAT. Yes, we gave an animal a pet. That is weird. That falls in the realm of "being too close to a human" which, like fetuses and other monkeys, is indescribably scary.

2) They taught her SIGN LANGUAGE. That means she could COMMUNICATE with us. Have you NOTICED how often I'm using all capital LETTERS in this blog post? That is because I just had to do a google images search for "koko the gorilla" which spiked my heart rate up to approximately 4,000 beats per minute. GAH the things I do for you. But for real - can you even believe how creepy it is that she could talk to us? That she even thinks like us and can form coherent sentences is scarier than a *graveyard full of clowns.

I've said it before and I'll probably say it again, but in this case, ignorance really was bliss.

*almost.

The Shrine

I hesitate to use that word, because I don't actually worship MJ, but there's not really a word for a collection of home decor devoted to someone that you admire but recognize is not deity. So, for lack of a better word - I'll just go with shrine.

I swear I did one of these posts last year in my old apartment, but I just spent 20 minutes reading through all my blog posts from last year, and I couldn't find it. As a side note, some of those blog posts are FUNNY! I was actually chuckling to myself at a lot of them. Way to be funny, 19-year-old Melissa.

Well I just wanted to show you my bedroom.

You see, I have amassed quite the collection of MJ memorabilia over the years. I still don't have a beat it jacket (it's on my "buy when I'm rich" list) but in the home decor department... let's just say I have a lot. The other day I had a very important realization called, "a calendar is just a collection of PRINTS!" I know many people are able to come to this conclusion before they have been on the earth for a solid two decades, but better late than never, eh?

So today I cut out some of my favorite pictures from the 2010 calendar my sweet brother Garrett got me for Christmas a couple years ago and spent well over 45 minutes playing with the arrangement. I took over the whole living room. My roommates didn't verbally complain, so, bonus!

At last, my roommate Julia was home (she understands the love) and helped me balance the purple/green issue, the face/profile issue, and the different eras of face, and also came up with the idea to put them in this arrangement with the words going diagonally like this rather than words in the middle. Such a good call.

Then I spent over an hour (not an exaggeration) cutting out the letters. Not a fun task, I tell you. But hopefully it was all worth it.

Anyway - here you go! The finished product!

Yes, the "you make" could be centered better - I'll WORK ON IT when I have more time, okay? Stop harassing me about it.

I'll throw in a few other shots for you so you can see the other elements and how they are positioned in relation to each other.

Make that change

Let's be honest. I know that the main reason most of you come to this blog is because you want to hear random Michael Jackson trivia. Well... you will not be disappointed today.

Can you guess what happened 23 years ago TODAY?

Think to yourself for a moment and then highlight below for the answer, once you are ready:

"Man in the Mirror" was released and he donated 100% of sales from the single to charity

Did you guess right? Congratulations.

This has always been one of my favorite MJ songs. When I went and saw the midnight (read 10:00 pm) release of This Is It I was doing pretty good in the "contain your tears" part of my life. At the very end of the movie, however, when this song accompanies a touching montage - I lost it. So great.

To celebrate I have included, for your viewing pleasure, my very favorite live performance of this song. It's from the 1988 Grammy's.

So many messages to be gleaned from this gem of a song.

Remember, "if you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and then make that change"

Nugget #1

Yes, this is ANOTHER new feature here in good ol' bloggyland.

I love to learn, I love interesting facts, and I am at a great place where I get to learn interesting facts all the time! Man, I should be a walking gratitude tree. (^ wha???)

Because of this, I would like to share some of these interesting facts with you, because hey, if you don't want to learn - get the heck out of here. This always has been, and always will be a learning zone. (<--- but seriously, what is going on in my brain tonight?)

Today's nugget of knowledge is brought to you by molecular biology, aka my archnemesis.

My professor explained it as the "CAT vs SERENDIPITY Principle".

A long long time ago back when we humans were just learning about parts of the cell, there was a debate in the scientific community (and you know how THOSE can get) about what part in our cells contained our genetic information and was passed on to our offspring. Today, that's an easy-peasy answer (say it with me now.... deee enn eh) but back then it was as mysterious as the deep, dark sea. The consensus for a while was that it had to be the protein in our cells because, hello - protein is more complex! There are more letters - you can spell long, complicated words like "serendipity" out of the named types of proteins! What does dumb ol' DNA have? G, A, T, and C? Those are the stupidest letters I've ever heard of. The only things you can spell out of those letters are "cat" and "tag". Lame much?

So there you have it. Scientists later proved (obviously) that it is actually DNA that contains, you know, the key to LIFE AS WE KNOW IT.

It just goes to show that you can't judge a book by it's cover; or as I like to say, "You can't pass judgment on the genetic merit/storage capabilities of a microbiological substance based solely on the complexity of the words you can spell using its alphabetically-assigned nucleotide bases."

Mindless Fun

There are some computer games in my life that affect me in a special way.

I call this the Tetris Effect.

I hope (for my sake - so I don't feel so lame) that you are all familiar with this phenomenon. You lose track of time when you play it... but it's not mentally stimulating, so you can't justify it as "special learning time." For me, I get playing it late a night, and then when I close my eyes to go to sleep, that's all I can picture! Yes, I have played many a Tetris game on my own eyelids late at night. (The best part is that I ALWAYS get the long blue piece right when I need it)

Well, friends, I have found another.

I ran across it on StumbleUpon. If you don't have one of those, and you want to waste your entire life, GET one. It's very entertaining and has introduced me to many life-changing, and mentally stimulating articles adorable pictures of animals!! like this, this, and this. (Hint, don't list "cats" as one of your topics of interest unless you REALLY like cats, and pictures of cats, and stories about cats)

Anyway, here is my new virtual obsession:

Chain Reaction

It is very, very easy, and so ridiculously addicting/mesmerizing - I highly recommend it.

If you get bored of that version, click the link down at the bottom to try the advanced version.

You're welcome! and... I'm sorry.