Are you right brain or left brain?

You may have seen this before, but my friend Heather sent this along. Check out this link here and let me know if you see the girl rotating clockwise or counterclockwise.

At first all I could see was her turning clockwise, which I guess means I use more of my right brain. This was interesting for me to know, because I never thought of myself as particularly a right brain thinker. But I guess if some of the qualities of a right-brain thinker include "big picture oriented," "can 'get it' (i.e. meaning)," "presents possibilities," and "risk taking," then it makes sense. (Although of course I associate with many of the left-brain qualities, too! Like "words and language," "acknowledges," "forms strategies," and "practical.")

I wasn't able to get her to switch directions until Heather suggested looking unfocused at her feet, and then she switched. So weird! Some of my friends were convinced that it was some technical trick, but yet when we looked at the same screen at the same time, I would see her turning clockwise, while another person would see her continually switching. I'm baffled as to how it works.

So, which part of your brain do you use the most?

Okay, I just had to post it

The Red Sox are in the World Series!!

For a while, I thought that maybe I had jinxed them (typical sports fan reasoning), because I couldn't find another picture of me in my Red Sox hat. So I cheated--this one was taken yesterday as I walked all around Manhattan in my hat (I walked from the Upper East Side to the East Village--a good three miles--and then from there all the way west--11th Street--in Hell's Kitchen). It was such a gorgeous day.

I promise...I'll have a real post one of these days. In the meantime, check out my post over at the Blue Rose Girls on Peter Brown and his fabulously bouncy, exciting, pretty good week.

What I'm working on now--another sneak peak.

I just posted over at the Blue Rose Girls about what I'm working on now, plus I also highlighted a few of the books I've worked on that are available this fall. Check it out here.

Red Sox win again!

Red Sox won last night! I don't know why, but I'm getting a kick out of finding old pics of me wearing a Red Sox hat. Coincidentally, this one is also an icy setting--this is from my family reunion a few years ago to the Canadian Rocky Mountains. I'm on the Columbia Ice Field.

I was originally planning to go to the Rutgers One-on-one conference today, but am attending a former colleague's wedding in the Poconos instead. This has been an unbelievably hectic week, and I don't see it letting up until two weeks from now at the soonest. I'm trying to get my four novels on the Fall 2008 list into copyediting in the next two weeks. They're getting there...in the meantime, a lot of my other work/emails/reading has been put on hold. Bear with me, please!

Go Red Sox!

Yankees are out. Too bad.

:)



P.S. This is a picture taken at Kindling Words in 2005, I'm sitting on a frozen Lake George. I won't be attending Kindling Words next January, unfortunately--I had been four years in a row and love it! But I'll be going to China (exciting!) for ten days in January and just couldn't swing it.

Blue Rose Girls starting back up this week

We're resuming our regular posting over at the Blue Rose Girls blog today. I posted about the Carle Honors dinner I attended last Tuesday.

As for this blog, I'll try to post soon...

UN for Taiwan!

Last Saturday, September 15, hundred of thousands of people rallied around the world to support Taiwan's bid for UN membership. I participated in the peace rally in NYC across from the UN (although I wasn't able to stay for the march).

There were a lot of people there despite the early hour and threatening rain. Everyone was festive and friendly, excited. The speakers energized the crowd--it was hard to judge how many people were there, but I'd guess 500-1,000, some of them having traveled from far and wide, some caravaning together on buses, to be there. There was even a performance of John Lennon's Imagine. I wore my "Dai wan lang" (Taiwanese) T-shirt, waved green flags, and chanted "UN for Taiwan! UN for Taiwan!"I'm not an overly political person (although I of course do have certain strong beliefs), but I do think that Taiwan is rightfully an independent, sovereign country--it's a democracy, has it's own president and political system, and is so separate from China in almost every way. Unfortunately, the UN rejected the membership bid. I don't know when/if Taiwan will ever win their bid, but I know they will keep trying, and I applaud everyone's efforts.

You can read more about the rally and the politics behind it here and here.


UN for Taiwan!

100 Words a Day

My roommate Rose has been contributing to the blog 100 Words a Day. Check it out here. It's a cool idea and an interesting exercise; I think 100 words can sometimes last forever, and sometimes seem way too short. At any rate, I decided to make this post exactly 100 words to see how it feels. A bit weird, to be honest. Each word feels at risk of being wasted, but also feels worth something more.

I've been thinking about trying something new every day. This is one of my new things for today. My very first 100 word post.

Poems for Grace and Robert

Elaine has recently posted two lovely poems on Wild Rose Reader for Grace and Robert that really touched me. Read them here and here.

New beginnings

It's been a roller coaster few weeks for sure, going from sadness to happiness, mourning to celebration and back again. To highlight the celebration, I thought I'd share my animoto.com video from my cousin Jason's wedding to Jen in NYC, including a few pics from the after-party and after-wedding picnic in Central Park. It was a beautiful, personal, flat-out fabulously fun wedding. I wish them all the happiness in the world.