Classically Conditioned

When I took Psychology last summer, one thing we briefly studied was classical conditioning. The example the textbook gave was of a guy who came to associate the smell of onions with being kissed by his girlfriend, who had onion breath. From then on, he would supposedly get tingles up and down his spine whenever he smelled onions--and without being kissed (awkward, yes?). I was sort of incredulous about that guy's experience until yesterday, but as it turns out, onions do have the power to condition you very strongly, and take you on vivid sensory trips. Last evening I was in the kitchen, feeling very "present," my mind set on the task before me: peel the onion. As I sliced the top off, I was quite unprepared for the onslaught of memories that flooded my mind. The overriding sensation was "summertime," but in a split second it branched out to memories 2-5 years old. First I was in the garden weeding the onions with my siblings, then I was in Grandma's kitchen canning tomato sauce, and finally I was in the Spano's kitchen, watching the adults laugh and cook and talk theology on a hot day that I had a head cold (I remembered the salsa and sunshine greatly remedied my symptoms). I saw all that in less then two seconds--and all because I sliced open an onion! Though it happened again a little later when I went to chop up some parsley. This time, I was ten years old at our home school medieval feast celebration, giving a speech on how artists made paint in the middle ages. As an example for the audience, I had made green paint, which consisted of egg whites and some very pungent parsley.

 Anyway, how the human brain stores and retrieves memories, and associates them with various stimuli, is enthralling. Beyond me, but enthralling all the same.

Today I smelled some vinegar, and that made me remember Saturday night. Mom and dad were taking Andrew down to State College where he was meeting some fellow students who would all travel back to Bryan together. Since the rest of us kids were alone, it called for doing something. The something ended up being that glow stick idea Sanna had given me last summer. I had finally remembered to get some glow sticks a few weeks previous, and it was mild enough outside to have a little skin exposed. We grabbed the camera, paper towels, scissors, and of course the glow sticks, and set ourselves up in the driveway under the full moon.

It was an epic fail.

First, you have to be very careful when "painting" yourself (or rather, when painting your siblings, since we all took turns decorating each others faces), because of the shattered glass tubes inside the rubber casing. Second, the glowing liquid oxidizes within seconds, so a minute after you put it on, you can't even tell it is there. Third, it smells like vinegar. Yuck. Fourth, it was still too cold. Fifth, it does sting if you get it in your eyes (though it looks really pretty in your hair). I attempted running around screaming and glowing at the same time, but it just didn't have the effect I was looking for. Within a few minutes we were taking the halved tubes and just spattering the stone wall. That, at least, was relatively cool, but I don't think I'll be making it into any kind of tradition. Though the whole thing may be more fun/doable in warmer weather.

So we went back inside and showered. Sunday was church, and the continuation of the sermon series on prayer, which I am quite excited about. After church we went up to the Hinterberger's for, in Joseph's words, "It has been a whole two weeks!" That, of course, was very fun, and this time during Josiah vs. Mattea pool Josiah still won but I did not lose quite so miserably. Perhaps there is hope for me yet. We also went for a walk in the woods. It started snowing, which was quite pretty, but suddenly the snow started stinging our eyes. Explanation: some of the snow was ashes, because Isaac had randomly decided to start a fire. It was right next to the creek though, and when it came time to leave I stamped on it a few extra times for good measure. It is two days later, and to my knowledge the forest is still there so so far so good.

Yesterday nothing particularly eventful happened except dad gave me another standard driving lesson that was uneventful as well. Although crazy standard driving adventures are fun to tell, I'm happy not to have one to write about. =) Note: that does not at all imply that I am good at it. Ha ha.

Today I switched reading to Grandma to this morning instead of the afternoon like usual. After getting abnormally hypoglycemic from starvation (it had, after all, been a whole 3 hours since I'd eaten breakfast), I ate two sandwiches and a glass of milk before jumping in the car to run errands with mom, dad, and Maryah. I didn't buy anything which technically defeats the point of a shopping trip, but I had fun anyway. In Staples, they have these little pads of paper that you can test their pens out on, so I wrote down random Switchfoot lyrics on them for whoever will try the pens next. Then I saw some fun looking magnets, and since the fridge does not have cool magnets on it I asked mom if she would buy them. "They're $3," I said. "Could we get them? They're so cool! And they'd be useful" She looked at them and said, "Oh, sure." I said, "Yes!" relatively loudly, and relatively excitedly. At that, the woman right near us looks at me, raises her eyebrows, and I swear her jaw dropped a little. It was like she was saying, "seriously? You're a grown teenager and you're excited because your mom just said she buy you some $3 magnets?" Well, the magnets may have been cheap but her reaction to my reaction was priceless. And, to answer your unspoken question Random Staples Lady Customer, I shall have you know that I will continue getting excited about silly little frivolous purchases until the day I die because it makes life so much more funner. [Hang on, why is my spell checker recognizing "funner" as a word? Did something change that I don't know about? Weird.]

After that we when we were in Target Maryah and I tried on crazy gold stilettos, and practiced running. Good times.