Of Bert, Ernie and Pornography

It seems that I've piqued everybody's curiosity by mentioning my honours research project. Since I've already made all possible attempts to reassure everybody that nothing unethical will be occurring I won't be able to use my extremely lame and also quite tasteless 'we're replicating and extending the Japanese whaler's research on humans' joke. Which is probably a good thing. My research topic is theory of mind in preschool aged children. Which tells anybody who hasn't sat through a million (maybe a slight exaggeration, but it was at least three) lectures on child development almost absolutely nothing. Basically theory of mind refers to the ability to take the view point of another person, which develops between 3 and 5 years of age. The way this is tested in children usually involves acting out little stories with dolls like... well, Ernie and Bert, in which Ernie might put something away in one box before he goes off to do something else. While Ernie is gone, Bert (that terrible terrible Bert) takes Ernie's something and puts it in another box, before he too, wanders off to do something else. Ernie then comes back looking for his something. The kids are then asked where Ernie thinks his something or other is. In order to pass the test the kids have to realise that Ernie doesn't know that Bert moved his whatever and thus will say that it's in the box that Ernie put it in, not where Bert put it. I hope that makes some sort of sense. In case it didn't, here's something that definitely doesn't make sense...

This bracelet is called 'Quadrate', which dictionary.com tells me means square. It's listed here.

It started out a lot smaller, then got a bit bigger, then I got really carried away and it turned out huge. It is, in fact, so long that it falls straight off my hand which meant that I had to invent somewhere else to wear it, and thus the upper arm bracelet was born. Well, it was either that or turn it into the ultimate hippie headband.

Yes, that's my arm. Apparently this photo is pornographic, or at any rate the fine people of the flickr group Bead Porn thought it was good enough to invite me to add to their pool.

And just in case anybody wanted to know, I've been typing this with the new Cure single on continuous repeat. Given that it's only two songs long, that's about 12 listens so far.

And one final 'by the way' - if my supplies ever arrive, I do plan to endeavour to make a partner for that single earring. One day.