Abstract Random

Hello and happy 2010! (Do you say "two thousand and ten"/"two thousand ten" or "twenty-ten"? I'm thinking twenty-ten is the way to go.)

Anyway. After two lovely weeks of sloth it's back to the usual work routine for me this week. The hardest part has been readjusting my sleep schedule from my ideal stay-up-till-1, sleep-till-9 back to the necessary 11:30 bedtime and 7:00 wake up. I hate waking up early.

I'm not one for new year's resolutions (I usually save that sort of thing for my birthday) but in advance of my rapidly approaching 35th birthday, I have resolved to rededicate myself to the gym in an effort to feel good and be super fit for then instead of feeling old and icky. I've got 11 weeks and it's not like I'm completely out of shape so it's doable. And it's nice to have a goal to focus on instead of working out just enough so I can eat without guilt, which is my usual motivation.

It was another great weekend. Days were quiet and lazy, consisting mainly of Tour de France-watching and naps. Nights were more active.

Friday night we discovered the deliciousness that is Calabria pizza, thanks to a recommendation from our amazing hair stylist. We also went to see The Brothers Bloom, which was really great. Think Dirty Rotten Scoundrels meets The Royal Tenenbaums. Go see it.

Saturday we went to see Moon at The Bytowne, which is also worth watching if you're at all into sci-fi. Afterwards we hung out at Zaphod's till way late. Fun.

We were in the mood for comfort food last night so we made sliders for dinner using this guy's recipe (with the addition of a pickle slice on each one). They were amazing. And so tiny and cute! We will totally be making them again.

I have a question for you, internet: How do you sign off your emails? I'm talking casual business emails, not notes to your sweetie.

I find not signing off at all obnoxious but I know some people who think "cheers" is annoying, apparently "best" is rude but "best regards" is too formal, and "thanks!" only works when you've asked for something. I've been using a lot of "talk to you later" lately but, you know, meh.

My new year didn't get off on the right foot. Literally. Upon arriving home from our new year's celebrating, I discovered that I had somehow managed to zip that little leather strip that lines the zipper of my perfect, waterproof, leather boots into the zipper from bottom to top and the zipper was stuck. Like, stuck stuck. Like, more stuck than any zipper has ever been stuck before.

I was trapped in my boot. At 2 in the morning on new year's day. After a good 15 minutes of trying, we gave up; that zipper wasn't going anywhere. I was left with no choice but to ask Arun to bring me the scissors and cut myself out of my boot. I cut right along the zipper so there is a small chance that a good shoe repair place may be able to salvage them (the zipper needs replacing, anyway) but I'm not going to get my hopes up.

I just hope this isn't an omen for the kind of year that's in store for me.

I was sad to leave Paris until I got to Madrid. Seriously, it's gorgeous here. I might not understand anything anyone is saying, but that's ok. Our hotel is rather swank and designed all "Arun and Kerri style," as Glenn would say. Our room has a big terrace that I am rather fond of. We've taken these few days to chill a bit, recovering from all that running around in Paris and getting ready for more craziness in Barcelona. Still, we managed to see a fair bit of the city, enough to know we'd like to come back again one day. We're off to Barcelona by train tomorrow, with lots already lined up: bands/dj's to see on Friday and Saturday and a soccer game on Sunday. Stay tuned...

Welcome to Abstract Random! I guess you're wondering what Abstract Random means. Well, it's based on a personality test by Dr. Anthony F. Gregorc that I took in high school. To quote from Professor Jane H. Leuthold, the Mind Styles (TM) model "is a cognitive model designed to reveal two types of abilities, perception and ordering. Perceptual abilities, the means through which information is grasped, translate into two qualities: abstractness and concreteness. Ordering abilities are the ways the learner organizes information, either sequentially (linearly) or randomly (non-linearly). Gregorc couples these qualities to form four learning categories: concrete/sequential (CS), abstract/sequential (AS), abstract/random (AR), and concrete/random (CR)." You can find more info on abstract/random/concrete/sequential here.

So there I was in my high school gifted class, surrounded by math and science geeks who were all concrete sequential, and I turned out to be the only person who was abstract random, thus confirming my status as the weird girl.

So when I had to come up with a name for my blog I figured abstract random was a good a name as any.

Anyway, I hope you'll come back and visit (and post comments!) often.

kerri.