More subtle appreciations.

Things I Appreciate:

• The way your hands tingle slightly after washing them in really cold water.
• The way knowing something, after you've learned it just for the sake of learning it, makes you feel.
• The sound of the pick hitting a string in a song that you listen to often, especially if you just noticed it after your five thousandth time playing it.
• How when you take a really deep, slow, diaphragmatic breath, sometimes you get a really sudden shiver.
• The way fiber-optic bushes look as they change colors after you relax your eyes slightly so that your vision blurs.
  

Not-so-subtle appreciations.

Things I Appreciate:

• The sound of cloth tearing.
• The sound of a fire crackling.
• The smell of a cold, crisp winter night.
• The patterns of clouds and light in the sky, any time, every time.
• Properly pronounced Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit.

Weekend Post

Sorry for the delay. I'm getting ready to go out of town to take care of some things, so I was busy. Also, expect subsequent posts to be after midweek, when I get back.

Things I Appreciate:

• The sound of a glass bottle shattering in an empty parking lot, and how the sound reverberates through the air afterwards.
• The feel of relaxing and defocusing your eyes while reading, after a long day of visual stimulation.
• The feel, and sound, of cracking a joint that just doesn't feel right. It's nice with knuckles, but really satisfying when it's in your elbow or lower back.
• The crispness of a really cold glass of ice water.
• That clicking sound that occurs, when you use a remote to lock your car. Not the one that results from the locks turning, but the one that's due to the turning signals going on and off.

That's about it for this weekend. Enjoy your upcoming week!

Weekend posts on things I appreciate.

I'm going to start a new habit of making a post on the weekends.

When I was in college (and it's so awkward for me to say that, since I've just graduated from Rutgers this past May), I took a psychology course called "Adult Development and Aging." It was taught by Dr. Deirdre Kramer, an amazing professor, who highlighted a lot of interesting points change that occur when we age. It was a really inspiring class, despite the fact that I only managed a C. Psychology's just one of those subjects wherein I don't test well.

One of the points she had brought up is that adults, in many ways, take their surrounding for granted. They don't take in much in the way of sensory experiences, at least not in the same way children do. As an example, she told us how many children walk down the hallway with their fingers up against the wall, feeling its texture. I remember doing that, and all of a sudden a felt a rush! She explained that children experience with their senses directly, and that if "older" people did that more often, they may feel more lighthearted, less burdened by stress, or just feel younger.

I started doing that from then on. In addition to taking in the usual sights and sounds, I started to experience things like texture, temperature, consistency, and taste/smell in a much more childlike manner.

I will post a short list every weekend on things I experienced that give me an intriguing satisfaction from said sensory experiences. Here's my list:

Things I Appreciate

• You know those little plastic creamer cups you get at diners with your coffee? Take one of them, and roll it between your thumb and forefinger, causing the little plastic vanes to bend inwards and click. That click, along with the minute snapping of the vanes, is really satisfying.
• The feeling (and sound, now that I think about it) of running your finger back and forth really quickly over something like canvas, or more preferably, those little cards you find that are semi-holographic, and have the plastic ridges. Mmm, yeah..
• The flavor of whole milk. For you skim milk drinkers (blech), it does not taste like cream. Have you ever had cream? Cream's much sweeter.
• The very satisfying crunch of a hard/crispy taco, before it breaks in half at the bottom.
• The feeling in your forehead resulting from humming at low pitches. Or, better yet, the feeling in your neck from fricating your alveolar sibilant (saying "zzzzz").

Thank you. This has been, "Things I appreciate." I hope you try these yourself!