The Experiment: Find a Penny, Pick it Up?

In my Social Psychology Lab we had a group assignment to develop an experiment, collect data, and perform data analysis for our final.  Or if you’re really bad, you do it on your own because you got kicked out of a group.  Luckily nobody got kicked out of a group though a few people were close to being “fired”.  My group wanted to examine how social norms of luck and superstition can play a role in behaviors.  More specifically, if people are more likely to pick up heads-up “lucky” pennies than tails-up pennies.  We predicted that a significantly significant difference in the number of lucky pennies picked up compared to unlucky pennies.

To try to manipulate the situation and to bring luck and superstition to a salient state in our subjects’ minds we handed out fliers that read “Good Luck on Your Finals" half the time and a non-luck related flier the rest of the time.  We had two experimenters handing out fliers and one to record any data and to replace any pennies that had been picked up.  The two of us handing out fliers stood on either end of a section of pathway on campus and in between us was the “penny drop zone”.  Within this drop zone two pennies were placed about three feet away from each other, one heads up and the other tails up.  The pennies were placed close enough that people would see both but far enough away from each other that they could easily pick up one and exert themselves to grab both.

After three hours, nobody had picked up a penny.  Not one person.  Nothing.  Nill.  Nada.  Zip.

We felt there were a few factors working against us that day and came up with a second experiment to try to get some data.  For the second experiment we would set up at the main vending machine location on campus.  We placed the pennies in front of the vending machines in locations that would be visible by subjects collecting their purchase and change.  Rather than hand out fliers this time we had the fliers taped to the machine at eye-level.  As observers we were sitting at a table nearby but not so close that it was obvious that we were watching if the pennies were collected.  Again we stayed for three hours and only one group of people picked up the pennies.  One guy stopped and stared at it for a while, considering the penny, but did not end up picking it up.

Here’s what happened with the only penny collection from the two days: a group of three girls came to the vending machines to buy a water and one of the girls saw the tails penny and picked it up.  “Scha-weet, a penny!”  (Most likely not a direct quote.)  But her friend noticed that it was not heads-up and urgently prompted her to put it  back because heads-up is for good luck.  So she puts the penny back as a heads-up penny.  Her friend then picks up the newly lucky penny and the first girl spots our heads-up penny and grabs that.  Follow?  Grab tails, put tails down as heads, grab new heads, collect original heads.  Excellent.  That’s the way to make your own luck!

I’m sure that you’ve assumed that we found no statistical significance in our data.  Hard to when you have basically no data!  Oh well, it was fun either way and we even came up with more ideas of how we could continue to improve our experiment.  Such psychology nerds.

Loves.

Three Months, One Post

Ok so it is obvious that I am incapable of keeping my blog updated and concentrate on school at once.  You’ll notice that the majority of my blog postings are either during winter or summer break, or right at the start of the quarter when there is significantly less homework.  It’s not that I don’t think about posting, it’s just that by the time I’m done with homework I would rather do something besides continue to stare at my computer screen.  Maybe I can train Dixie to post for me…she’s got long toes, I’m sure they’d aid her in her typing…

So I am going to try to engage my brain and quickly go over fun things that I’ve missed posting about.  After the Hollywood Phoenix concert we meandered around Universal Way for a while and I found the most amazing candy store in the world!  It is seriously gianormous!!!  And they have everything there and crazy versions of the best candy.  Take this multi-pound gummi bear:

I think the big orange one is five pounds?  I can’t remember, I just know that it’s so much sugar that it’d take a year to eat it or you would be put into a sugar coma.  So if you want to see more candy than you’d know what to do with and some really cool imaging then check out It’Sugar.

Then in October was an even that I’ve been very (and I mean VERY) excited about: Maroon 5 concert.  Really, need I say more?  I am in love with them, have been since the beginning and forever will be.  This was the second time that I was able to go to one of their shows and it’s always a great show.  They get onstage and perform for you and sound great live.  Bruno Mars and then One Republic were the opening acts so really, it was like three concerts in one!  I went with a friend from work and we had really good seats (within the first 20 rows), there was no general admission-first-come-first-serve-standing-room-only area which was nice because I don’t like having to fight for my life while singing along to Give a Little More and Stutter.  Some shows I’m fine with getting there early and using my boxing-out skills from years of basketball but that can take a lot of energy.  Especially when people are trying to get closer to Adam Levine in the hopes that he’d spot them from a distance, mid-song, and fall in love with them.  Not gonna happen girls, at least not to you.  Maybe me, but not you.  haha

Halloween was exciting.  I worked.  We had a floor-set so I was there until midnight.  I dressed up as a college student who had too much to do with too little time to do it.  That was about the time that the second set of mid-terms was coming around and term papers were due soon too.  So I was all school all the time with less sleep than I normally like.  Until that next weekend.

Friends from back home came to visit for the weekend and it was nice to hang out and check out some places around town that I hadn’t yet.  And Lindsay was craving Sonic so we went there about five times.  No joke, and they got here Friday night and left Sunday.  The girl working at the Sonic closest to my house (we went to a few different ones) was recognizing us because we visited that often.  Aside from there we also went to a place called Monster Mini Golf which is an indoor mini-golf course that is completely lit by black lights.  Very fun and very cool!  Lindsay’s shirt was a bright yellow and glowed the best, mine was pretty good too because it had yellow, purple and white stripes.

It was a very fun weekend, a good intermission before the craziness of finals and term papers.  But I really need to learn to better budget my time so that I stop procrastinating and don’t get stuck with 16+ pages of term papers to write in one weekend.  Yep, I didn’t get much of any sleep one very long weekend because I was glued to my research and term papers.  I did find it funny that a nice break from my homework was an experiment I was working on.  Not as a subject, though I’ve been one before for a study on false memories, but as a researcher.  I’ll dedicate a better post to that one later and it should be soon since I’m on winter break now.  Which means that I can finally catch up on my giant stack of books that I keep thinking that I’m going to read much faster than I do.

Loves.

Went to Hollywood for Phoenix

The first weekend of fall quarter (classes started Sept 13th) was a girls’ weekend.  An amazing and fun band that I’ve recently fallen in love with (thanks for the intro Nicole!), Phoenix are touring and my friends Lauren and Lindsay (and myself as well) really wanted to see them.  We knew that they were going to have a show in Santa Barbara at the bowl but it would not be a possibility for me because it was a Sunday night and I have school Monday mornings.  But then we realized that Saturday night they were going to be performing at the Hollywood Bowl and that would work perfectly!  So we bought tickets for the Hollywood show (first show of the tour as it turned out).

We decided that we needed to go ahead and make it a girls’ weekend since we’d all need to drive a few hours to get there.  And nobody wants to drive home after a concert, especially when you’ll be driving separate ways.  So we booked a hotel in Burbank near a big shopping center and located conveniently for us all.

I got down there earlier than Lauren and Lindsay on Friday night because they had league bowling.  So I got to check in and take over the room for a few hours.  Muhahaha.  I drove down earlier in the evening because I hate driving in Los Angeles (and yes, this trip just reinforced that) and didn’t want to be trying to find the hotel too late or be driving the 5 after any possible fog rolled into the grapevine.  When I got there I grabbed some dinner and then made sure that the television was functioning properly.  Though don’t think that I only goofed around, I did do a smidge of homework by reading an article for my Monday class.  Gotta do the work if you’re gonna have fun all weekend!

Saturday morning Lauren and I walked over Target to buy me a swimsuit since I forgot mine and then to Kispy Kreme and bought a few donuts.  I love watching the donuts being made, the icing waterfall is my favorite part.  Wouldn’t you love to go under it, mouth open?  Yeah, me too.

(Sorry the photo’s not great, it’s from my phone)

After our donut run, and hanging out a little more chatting in our room Lauren and I wandered down to the pool area to take a little swim.  Lindsay wasn’t feeling super hot so she was relaxing in the room but ended up coming down later.  After spending a few hours at the pool we got ready for the concert.  After a quick but yummy dinner at Sharky’s we made our way to the Hollywood Bowl, at some points moving much slower than others.  It’s amazing how many cars can converge in one area at one time out of nowhere.

Once we finally got to the Bowl we bought our concert shirts (a must if you want to be sure to get the one you want and in your size) then made our way to our seats.  Now, I’m going to be open and honest here, we had to ask where the heck we were going a few times.  It felt like we were just walking up and around and we were sure that we’d get there someday but we wanted to be sure we didn’t go too far.  I know that makes it sound like we had bad seats but in actuality, they were pretty good.  Plus the jumbo screens help when you can’t see through the head of the moron in front of you who keeps raising his hand like he was hoping to be called in.  Raise hand, count to two, lower hand, bob around a bit, drink more wine, repeat.  One of the perks of where we were sitting would have to be the guy behind us.  He had some of the best one-liners ever.   When one of the opening bands took the stage: “I’m not drunk enough to ‘woo’”  When an interestingly attired man was walking past our section looking for his seat: “Dude, it’s a pirate!”  (Which was exactly what we were thinking)  When the guitarist were playing as silhouettes within two spotlights on a white curtain: “It’s like they’re playing in giant butt-cheeks!”  Yep, we were laughing pretty hard at that one.  Here’s what I’m talking about:

Phoenix’s show was pretty short but we weren’t too surprised by that since they’ve only had two hit singles in the States (they’re from France) so far: 1901 and Liztomania.  In fact, I’m willing to bet that you’ve heard 1901 without realizing it.  Seen any Cadillac commercials recently?  Yeah, that song that’s playing is probably Phoenix’s.  But don’t be assuming that since the show wasn’t very long that it wasn’t good.  Because it was great!!  There was a lot of light work so there were a few songs that you could hardly see the band but that didn’t matter because they sounded amazing live and the lights really went well with the music.  But when the lights were on the band I loved watching the drummer, he gets so into the music and plays so large that it’s fascinating to watch.  You can see him a bit in this video from the show.  This is also a good example of the light work.

So to sum up the show: fantastic!

I’m just going to leave you with that and next time fill you in on the rest of our girls’ weekend.

Loves.

Beginning of the Last

School has started again and it’s the start of my final year at CSUB.  I am taking three classes this quarter, one of which is a lab.  This lab, social psychology lab, is turning out to be my favorite class this quarter.  Though I’m not surprised since I enjoyed the corresponding class when I took it and this professor is one of my favorites.

One of my other two classes will not be making any sort of appearance on a favorite list.  I am only taking this particular class because it is a requirement for graduation.  It is a science class—energy and technology—and I take about three pages of notes (front and back) per class.  I may end up needing another notebook at the rate we’re going!  One thing that is making this class tolerable is that I’m taking it with my friend Dina.  You know what they say: misery loves company!

My final class is doing double duty.  It counts towards my major and fulfills yet another requirement for graduation: gender, race and ethnicity.  The class is psychology of women.  It’s…interesting…not exactly what I expected, it’s taught from a feminist point of view and well…it’s interesting how some of the theories look at the differences or implied differences between men and women.  There are four guys in the class and they are pretty comfortable speaking up in class so I’m proud of them for that, especially since our professor is a self-identified feminist.

So far I’m three weeks in of my ten weeks and it’s going pretty good.  But don’t expect that same response in four weeks when I’m in the middle of my term papers!

Loves.

And OR Fun

As I mentioned previously I recently went up to Bend, Oregon to check out the OSU-Cascades Campus.  I had Dad drive up with me so that we could do the drive in one shot, it’s about a twelve hour drive.  He drove over here on Wednesday then Thursday morning we hit the road for the long haul.  We then drove back down on Tuesday.  Luckily we had a rather uneventful drive up and we really only hit construction once while I was driving but we only had to slow down to about 45mph.  The drive back down was equally smooth though we did have to slow to 25mph for about a quarter mile at one point.

I love being able to ride shotgun through beautiful areas because I don’t have to watch the road and I can take about 20 photos with my phone so that I can get one pretty good shot of Mt Shasta.  We ended up getting a lot closer as we drove the 5 but by that time I was tired of getting photos of the trees along the side of the road.

Friday we checked out the OSU-Cascades campus and then did a tiny bit of scoping out of where the nearby apartments are and what the areas look like.  We didn’t do too much looking since there’s no need to do too much until I get in for sure!  (Here’s hoping!!)

That evening we then went to Bend’s 6th annual Brewfest for a few hours.  Over thirty breweries were represented with two brews each available to taste.  Of course there was food too and apparently an area had foosball and ping-pong but I never did see that area.  I think they were misleading us.  I had four 4oz tastings and my favorite by far had the best name: Skip and Go Naked, and it was brewed by Mt. Shasta Brewing Co.  It was a light, strawberry ginger ale.  I also chose to snack on a super yummy blueberry lemon crepe.  Sure I ended up with powdered sugar on my jeans but that was a badge I was proud to wear.  I would have bought another if we were there long enough.

The beer in the photo was not Skip and Go Naked, but one I didn’t care for very much, Moose Drool a brown ale by Big Sky Brewing Co.   And if you were wondering, yes I do get to keep my mug.  In fact, it’s chillin’ in my freezer now.  Ha, get it?  Chillin’ in my freezer?!

Sunday we got to really hang out with my uncle Kris.  We went out to his place and then Kris, Jan, Dad and I went to Three Creeks Brewing for drinks, food and to play pool.  I was going to be driving home so I sampled their soda selection and enjoyed the Pepsi that they had on tap.  One of the things that we ordered was a starter, Cheese & Crawfish Dip, and it was so good!  I’ve never had crawfish before but the flavors in this dip were to die for.  After our food we relocated to the pool table and Kris, Dad and I played quite a few games.  Turns out that despite some really good shots I’m not good enough to beat Dad.  We would play winner and Dad never lost but I always beat Kris.  Sure quite a few games were won thanks to a scratch on the 8 ball or calling the wrong pocket but hey, we were having fun so it didn’t matter!  I have no photos of this because I was silly and didn’t take my purse which had my camera inside.

Our last day in town the Grandparents drove us on a very large loop of the mountains and lakes to the west of Bend and it was beautiful!  We stopped at Elk Lake to stretch our legs and have some ice cream (I opted for blackberry) and I was able to get some photos.

Doesn’t this seem like a beautiful place to spend a summer day?

It’s ok, take a mental vacation here for a moment.  There’s plenty of seating available!

Loves.

Summer Homework

Nobody on summer break wants to have homework.  Especially when it’s self-assigned homework.  That is what I’ve been slowly but surely working on this summer.  Two different self-assigned tasks.  The first one was by far the most fun and the second one is much more time consuming and important.

The first was working on a “Best Of Santa Barbara” guide for a friend at work who is transferring to UCSB this fall.  I thought that it’d be nice for her to have a quick cheat sheet for finding the best hangouts or restaurants.  I think that every school should have a welcoming committee for transfer students with a best of guide.  I know that I would have found one useful transferring to CSUB.  For the longest time I was driving to a post office 3.5 miles away when there’s one 1.5 miles in the other direction.  Oh well.

Today is her final day at work before she moves to SB so I gave her the guide yesterday when we both worked.  It ended up being about 10 typed pages which I broke up into different categories such as “Food & Drink”, “Going Out”, “Hobbies & At Home Entertainment” and “All About You”.  Then I had some fun with stickers.  So in the end it ended up being pretty cool looking and she was so surprised that she ended up tearing up a bit.  Go me, mission accomplished!  Not that my mission was to make her cry, more of to surprise her with something that she’d really like and be able to use.

My second homework assignment has been to investigate graduate programs for my masters degree in counseling psychology.  Quite a few graduate schools have psychology programs but about half of those are doctorate programs or are research based degrees.  So right there, I lose a lot of options.  Then I don’t want to live in Los Angeles so again, a reduction in options.  Anyways, I’ve been trying to determine where I want to go to school next and then potentially begin my career.

Right now my number one pick is Oregon State University’s program.  Their program is not on the main campus in Corvallis, Oregon (south of Salem) but in Bend, Oregon (east of the mountains).  Last week I was able to check out the campus.  Dad and I drove up in one day to my grandparents’ place in Bend and stopped by the school the next day to check it out and talk to a woman on campus about the program.  I was surprised at the size of their campus.

That’s basically it.  One big building.  But it is on the Central Oregon Community College campus so they apparently share resources such as the student union, library, and bookstore.  But the plus about there just being one big (and did I mention nice?) building is that in the winter I won’t be schlepping from one building to another.

Hopefully this will be a common sight this next school year.  And my “Don’t Be Trashy, Recycle” bumper sticker would be more congruent with the attitudes of Bend than those of Bakersfield.  But I won’t get into that now.

Loves.

A Casual 4th of July

I hope everyone enjoyed their 4th of July.  I didn’t have any real plans for two reasons: 1) I had a call-in shift at work and 2) I didn’t make any plans.  The extent of my planning for the 4th included me thinking “well, if I don’t work I can do whatever I want…maybe I’ll have some barbeque…”  Ended up they used my call-in at work but then it was so slow they sent me home an hour early.  Déjà vu from last year when they sent me home early on the 4th because it was, shocker, slow!  Actually, slow isn’t the correct word here, dead is more accurate.  But I didn’t mind either way since I didn’t have any plans to get messed up and I was getting paid overtime since it was a holiday.  Woo-hoo!!

Once they sent me on my way I figured that I might as well have some barbeque or at least something with barbeque sauce.  Gotta stick with my semi-plan from earlier and it’s only appropriate on the 4th to have barbeque.  So I went to Wingstop.  Their boneless chicken wings are so yummy and their fries are always perfectly salted/seasoned.

After dinner I had a mini-marathon of Cheers while waiting for the sun to go down and the fireworks to begin.  I’ve always enjoyed Cheers but I recently discovered that Hallmark channel airs about 6 episodes a night and they’re running through the entire series in order.  So I’ve been Tivo’ing it and watching it when I have lunch or before bed.  Though sometimes I feel guilty when I’m watching late at night because I laugh really hard.  Especially to the intro from this episode:

Seriously hilarious.  I was crying from laughing so hard.  And then once I mostly recovered, I rewound it and watched it again.  And again.  And again.  Then when mom came to visit me I made her watch it.  And then I rewound it and we watched it again and again.  Still funny.

Ok, so I’ll pause on my love of Cheers and get back to the 4th.  Fireworks are legal here (um, hello emergency personnel who’ll never get the 4th off) so I was thinking I’d just walk out to the street to enjoy the show that my neighbors would be putting on with their purchased exploding devices.  It was pretty cool and they’d loaded up the street so there was no shortage of sparklers, screamers, whizzers, sparkers, wing-dingers, and whateverers.  Shortly after I headed out the big fireworks show that the near by country club hosts started.  That’s the show that last year Jaslynn and I watched from a nearby neighborhood.  Turns out, I can see it from my mailbox!

Someone even had AC/DC playing and it was a much better soundtrack to fireworks than the normal patriotic fare.  Not that I have anything against being patriotic, but a slow version of “God Bless America” doesn’t have the same punch as “T.N.T.” or “Thunderstruck” when paired with fireworks.

At the end of the night, it was a nice, causal 4th of July.

Loves.