Erin Ruffin’s Weblog

I. Love. This.

Eco-Graffiti using moss.  The artist calls the project “Mossenger”.

See her website here.

Stanford University in California did a study to determine the difference between the response a person 65+ years old has to winning/losing money and the response a member of Generation Y has to winning/losing money.

The participants were shown cues that they could either win money or lose money.  Their brain activity was monitored throughout the experiment to show what their anxiety level rose to.  The participants also had to rate their excitement and anxiety based on how they were feeling.

The researchers found that both the self-reports of how they felt and the brain monitoring showed that the Gen Y’ers got much more anxious about the prospect of losing money than the 65+ participants.  When it came to the excitement of the prospect of winning money, the responses were the same regardless of age.

It’s interesting to think about the economic fear that Generation Y is experiencing for the first time.  We grew up during the internet boom years, our parents worked really hard to provide for us and the economy has been strong for pretty much as far back as we can remember.  The disastrous economy right now hasn’t been easy for us to stomach, while our grandparents can sit back and say, “yeah, yeah, we’ve been through this before.”

We could probably take some notes from our grandparents in this department – maybe being a little more frugal, living closer to our means, and for goodness sake stop consuming so much stuff.  I don’t want it to come to the point of food rations, bans on nylon, and cutting out everything except the absolute necessities of life like our grandparents did during the depression, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world, would it?  We could probably stand to be more conscious of what we’re buying, use less electricity and water, recycle bags and containers, the list of ways to save money and help out a little goes on and on … and maybe we’d all be a little less stressed out!

This is an ode to my amazing parents.

I was out to dinner last night with my sister when I got a text message from my mom’s cell phone.  I figured it was my dad on my mom’s phone because my mom doesn’t text.  She just doesn’t.

This was the text message:

“Dad is teaching me how to text. What r u eating? Love marm.”
(I call her Marm because that’s what the girls in Little Women called their mom.)

I laughed out loud and passed the phone for my sister to read then she laughed out loud.

I responded with:

“Marm! You’re texting! We shared a pizza with mozzarella and basil. Love Erin.”

I called their house tonight and Mom answered the phone.  10 seconds later I hear the second receiver pick up – there’s Dad!  So I’ve got both my parents on the phone and I ask Mom if she received my text message in response to hers last night.  She said:

“NO! I didn’t! You responded?! I didn’t get it!  It didn’t work!”

Then Dad said:

“Erin, we got it.  It came through – I just haven’t shown her how to read her messages yet.”

Awwwww.

About a year and a half ago I read Barack Obama’s book Dreams From my Father.  I was mesmerized by his story and shortly after I finished it I read The Audacity of Hope.  I knew from reading those two books that I would vote for him if I had the chance.

I followed the news, read the articles, watched the debates and talked about this election probably more than was healthy.  I devoured it mostly because I believed the opportunity to vote for someone like Obama is rare, probably a once (hopefully twice)-in-a-lifetime event.  The poignancy of his words, the promise and hope in his leadership, and the understanding he has for the average American sets him apart.  For these reasons, I hardly slept Monday night before Election Day.  On Tuesday, I was up before the sun and at the voting booth early along with a mass of other excited, early-rising Brooklynites.  The energy in New York City was electric even at 7 in the morning.

I said a prayer.
Then I voted.
And I walked out of PS 196 on Bushwick Avenue in Brooklyn with a smile on my face and so excited I thought I could explode.

That evening, we watched with the rest of the world as the overwhelming majority of America elected the first African-American to be president of this nation.  We listened to the speeches, cried, hugged, screamed, and jumped up and down.  Swarms of people poured into the streets shouting with excitement, smiling, and united by the fact that the majority of our country had put an “X” in the same box.  It was an X that stands for our belief that Barack Obama and Joe Biden will make this country better.  It was an X that stands for so many things we want to see changed and improved.  But in that moment the X we all put in the same box stood for those millions of faces flooding the streets in NYC, packing out the city of Chicago, and celebrating all over the country.  The first change in this country happened that night – it was those few hours after Obama accepted the nomination for presidency in which we were united and smiling.  The words “united” and “smiling” have not been used to describe this country for a long time.

There is hope here again.  I can feel it.  And while, we’re not even close to approaching the finish line, I trust that our decision yesterday will put us on the right path.  And I pray that Obama is given the strength and the wisdom he needs to lead this country and to do the right thing regardless.

God bless America.

Vive le Obama.

Thanks for voting.

obambulate

Pronunciation: (o-BAM-byuh-layt)

Meaning: To walk about.

Etymology: From Latin ob- (towards, against) + ambulare (to walk). Ultimately from the Indo-European root ambhi- (around) that is also the source of ambulance, alley, preamble, and bivouac. The first print citation of the word is from 1614.

ORIGINAL

POPE

SOUP NAZI

BOB HOPE

AMY WINEHOUSE

John McCain

HAIR SALON

See the rest in a slideshow here.

Oh yeah, and don’t forget to VOTE tomorrow!!!!