Birthday Types

Go me... go me... it's my birthday... :)

Yes today is my birthday. The 3rd anniversary of my 29th birthday. I have a theory when it comes to people's attitudes toward birthdays. I haven't conducted extensive psychological research on the subject, but from from my limited and unscientific research I have concluded that there are 3 different Birthday personality types.

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1) "I like presents"
People like to feel liked/loved, especially on special occasions. According to this book http://www.fivelovelanguages.com/learn.html people understand and interpret love in different ways. This book talks specifically about relationships, but I think these concepts apply to friendships too. [I think this type corresponds well with the "Receiving Gifts" section of the website above.] To summarize, the "I like presents" attitude isn't a bad thing, it doesn't mean they're greedy. I think it just means that those types "respond well to visual symbols of love" or friendship. They see gifts, big or small, as an expression of love (or friendship, like, caring, etc.), and on the flip side the lack of gifts can feel like a lack of that love (or friendship, like, caring, etc.) to that person.


2) "I just want to forget that it's my birthday"
This is the person who doesn't want any extra attention just because it's their birthday. It doesn't feel much like a special occasion to these types of people, it is just another day that just so happens to correspond with the date of their birth. Sometimes people might adopt this type if they feel "old." Sometimes people simply don't care for the hoopla.


3) "Pay attention to me, it's my birthday!"
This is the person who just wants to have fun and have lots of friends around to help celebrate their birthday. They like to have one day where they feel special, and like the extra attention that goes along with it. Even people who are not normally "attention hogs" sometimes love to be the center of attention on this one day.

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I fall in the 3rd category. I normally hate having attention drawn to me, except for this one day of the year. On this day I'm ok with being the center of attention, and I get to be special. I guess part of it is that by having lots of friends surrounding me on my birthday, I feel liked. On the other hand, not having people around on that one day sucks way more than usual. The more special the birthday, the more lonely it is when nobody is around. I can still recall my 16th birthday when I invited 10-15 friends over, and 2 came. Or my 18th birthday when I invited several friends and only 1 person came (and that was my boyfriend at the time, so kind of a no-brainer.) Of course my family was there, which was great, but it was easy for them because we lived in the same house :)

Once I left for college (and even since college) I usually celebrate with my family on a day that's not exactly my birthday, but close. No disappointing times there, my mom usually makes me a cake, yumm :) But I still remember my 21st birthday when nobody was available because everyone "had to study." Granted it was a Wednesday night, but it was college, people skip studying and class all the time right? Kinda. Well, instead I went around campus to visit friends one by one and hang out with each of them a little bit at a time, making them take a short break from their studies to hang out with me. One of these friends was learning to program in the programming language C. And while I had only taken classes in the Pascal language up to that point, I knew the basic concepts of what his assignment was about, and the language was similar enough that I could read his textbook and figure out the syntax enough to help him out. So, yes, I basically got my first self-lesson in C programming on my 21st birthday.

After that, I think I stopped caring for a few years and became a #2 birthday type for awhile. I figured, if you have no hopes or expectations, you can't be as disappointed. It worked. But, since moving to Columbus I think I've had some pretty good birthday parties with lots of caring friends around to help make it happy, so I've gone back to being a #3. And I think my 30th was the best. I recall a smaller low-key group of people at my house, playing games, listening to music, and it seemed like everyone was mixing well and everyone was having a good time. For me, that's a good birthday. 31 came close to that good. Hopefully this year will as well :)

So, what's your birthday type?

Melting Snow

After all the snow and ice we got a couple weeks ago, it's gotten warm enough that much of it is melting. It's easy to get depressed in the winter with the gray skies and the sun setting as early as it does. But it's nice to see the sun is out today! I've missed the sun. I could do without all that gray slush/sludge/snow buildup that happens on the sides of the streets, but what are ya gonna do? I'm just glad it's been a bit warmer and I'm so glad to see the sun again.

Now, I need some thoughts and opinions from people. I consistently have this one spot in my yard where the snow always melts first. In the Summer, grass dies in this same spot. But I can't figure out what might be causing it. So I took a picture and figured I'd throw it out there and see if anyone else has some thoughts. You'll see the big melted spot in the lower-left, while the rest of the yard still has a layer of snow.



I have considered gas line leak - that might explain the dying grass, but I don't think that accounts for melting snow. Besides I don't think the gas line runs exactly under that spot anyway. This picture was taken from the sidewalk, my back to the street, camera facing perpendicular to the street. I hope it's not too dark to see, but the red circle shows where the gas line enters the house.

I presume that the gas line would not run at a diagonal, but rather be a straight shot toward the street to allow for the shortest amount of gas line that would have to be laid. If that's so, then the center of the snow-melty-dead-grass spot is a couple of feet to the left of the gas line.

Heat would explain both melting snow and dead grass, but I can't think of anything that would be there that would generate heat. And I don't see such spots in any of my neighbors' yards.

So, anyone ever seen anything like this? Have any thoughts? Ideas? Speculations? Let me know!

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Update June 2007

So now that it's warm again, here's a photo of the dying grass in the same spot as the melty snow that I talked about last winter. Weird huh?

Go Bluejackets!

The Columbus Bluejackets had an amazing comeback against the Anaheim Ducks (the #1 team in the NHL) last night!

With a little over 10 minutes left in the game, Columbus was down 0-3; and I have to wonder how many people might have left, or at least turned off the TV at home by that point. Then Columbus scored with about 10 minutes left, at least eliminating a shutout and making it a 1-3 game.

3 and a half minutes left, and the score is still 1-3. But shortly after that, Columbus scored 3 unanswered goals in about 2 minutes, making it a 4-3 score! It was a nervous last minute and a half of the game, but Columbus managed to hold them off, securing a 4-3 Win!

Go Jackets!