a is for awesome. like a hot dog.

I started out my evening on the computer by trying to read this paper on the effect of submitting photos with resumes to job listings, which was circling to the women's affinity group email list at work. My interest was piqued because one person on the thread pulled out a comment from the paper that indicated that women who are considered "attractive" were actually penalized for submitting a photo with their resume over women who did not submit a photo or who were deemed "plain". I've read books about the psychological effect of beauty, and while I have never reviewed a resume with a photo attached to it, I've actually submitted a job application where a photo was required, and I didn't even think about it twice at the time. (I was offered that job, but in the end chose another.)

Needless to say, I got about 15 pages into that research paper and couldn't read any more. I'm not sure I even got to the comment that piqued my interest, I was just done with reading it. Interesting, sure, but not particularly fun to read.

Then, I went on to read some of my RSS feeds, like cat versus human. If you're a cat person, you should read her blog. It's pretty uncanny. It's also really easy to read. (I usually start my RSS feeds with the comics and silly cat photos, because while they can definitely be endearing and thought provoking, they're also usually short. And sometimes short is all I have patience for.)

After exhausting my comics, I moved on to some more substantial feeds like The Happiness Project. I've read Gretchen Rubin's book and enjoyed it, and I occasionally read her blog. I've noticed that she posts a video a week, and I decided to watch this week's (about holding yourself accountable for the resolutions you've set), which I'll admit, is a good idea, and I made it most of the way through the video before losing interest (or before I needed to change sitting positions because the arm propping me up was falling asleep).

Either way, the great thing about reading blogs is that even if you have the attention span of a squirrel like I do, you often get directed to really awesome things that you may not have found otherwise. Today, while reading a post on The Happiness Project, I found out about the 1000 Awesome Things blog. Even better, I watched the author of 1000 Awesome Things: Neil Pasricha's TED talk about the Three A's of Awesome.

When I got home from work today (prior to reading/watching all these things online), I got fed up with something and then needed to remind myself of happy things. I came up with a couple, some with the help of a friend.

It seems sort of fortuitous that I should learn about 1000 Awesome Things today.

And here, I'll make it really easy for you to watch Neil Pasricha's TED talk. It's a good use of 17 minutes and 33 seconds, even if he does start rhyming toward the end: