Today is kind of sad. This is Dan’s last day in town before he leaves for his new job, a very sharp reminder that soon all three of them will be gone to a place far far away. I should know better and not be sad, because real friends are always real friends no matter how far they are. Still, I miss them very, very much already! Dan has been one of the most supportive and understanding people around here and has helped me get through a lot, personally and in school. Serena and Rory have made my days brighter with their awesome smiles. I just wanted to share with all of you how much I love them and wish them good luck on their journey!

This is nice.

Today I did some research on my ambidexterity. I use my left hand for things like cutting, holding drinks and flipping coins (what self-respecting stats geek does not flip coins, after all?), but I write with my right hand. No one had ever noticed this in casual social situations until yesterday. During my seminar, one colleague asked me of the blue: “Why do you wear your watch on your right arm if you are not left-handed?” Good question. I guess I have always been more left-handed than right-handed, but my elementary school teacher did not believe in left-handedness, and neither did my parents.

And as much as I would like to believe the opposite, I am actually not uniqie, since according to Wikipedia:

Writing is not as good an indicator of handedness as it might seem, because many people who write with their right hand use their left for everything else.

and

In modern times, it is more common to find people considered ambidextrous who were originally left handed, and learned to be ambidextrous either deliberately or during childhood in institutions such as schools where right-handed habits are often emphasized
.

Still, this does not make it quite normal; there seems to be a disturbing link between mixed handedness and psychotic disorders. On the bright side, the Greeks used to encourage the skill, because it was helpful during combat. Famous people like Michaelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and Benjamin Franklin used both their hands equally well. Apparantly, genius wanna-be’s should strive to become ambidextrous, and there are special exercises and products to help you grow a larger corpus callosa. Also known as the bundle of nerve fibers joining the right and left sides of the brain, it has been found to be 11% larger in left-handed and ambidextrous people. Some have actually put real effort into developing their ambidextrity.

And, as is always the case, any bizzare research question that one may come up with has already been answered by at least one experiment. Note the “Help Received” section!

Bottom line (© Pooch Cafe by Paul Gilligan):

I really miss this place a lot.
And the hockey games.

I just woke up, it’s 10.49 pm and I have been sleeping for the past 5 hours. I have lapsed into a total reveral of day and night and it’s not good. Now I gotta do some math. Which reminds me:

THE TOP TEN REASONS TO BECOME A STATISTICIAN

1. Deviation is considered normal.
2. We feel complete and sufficient.
3. We are mean lovers.
4. Statisticians do it discretely and continuously.
5. We are right 95% of the time.
6. We can legally comment on someone’s posterior distribution.
7. We may not be normal but we are transformable.
8. We never have to say we are certain.
9. We are honestly significantly different.
10. No one wants our jobs.

So, I know the many readers of this blog are dying with worry about my state of total silence. Haha. Well, at least someone must have noticed that I have been gone for a while.

I am back in State College and in the loop. I have gotten even dorkier lately. Now I am thinking of starting a real stats blog, really, not just something that is called “Standard Deviation”

Drop me a line, okay?