Obama

So we went to see Obama the day he was here. When we got to the site, stroller and all, there was a hujambous line that snaked all over campus and then south for about four or five blocks.  And it was in the 90s that day.  Ambulances were at the ready, and we saw people being loaded into them before they even got to the fenced-in area.  We decided to people-watch instead.  

Conveniently for us, as we were walking on the other side of the street, Obama's motorcade came sweeping in, so we saw him in his car. Unless it was a ringer, of course.  TheLimey joined the rush up to the fence when Obama began talking, but reported later that all he could see was people's backs.  Meanwhile I slinked sadly away with Limelet in the stroller, but then magically saw a spot near some campus buildings and trees where a couple of people were taking photographs.  Where there are photographers, there is a view.  So I was able after all to catch a glimpse of the white-shirted dot that was Obama behind the miniscule podium draped in patriotic bunting.  I left after al while because I really couldn't hear anything, and a toddler only has so much patience for that sort of thing.

On the way home, also magically, we saw Daddy, who had left his spot at the fence at about the same time we left.  And once we got home, we were just sitting around debriefing when I heard an odd kind of siren and went to the front window--there came the motorcade again, this time up our street and right in front of our house!  So we got to see him (or the ringer) again.  We ran out and waved our hands, but didn't have any flags or anything. Oh well.  It was still cool.

And Limelet was thrilled with seeing the la-la cars, anyway.

Moving Right Along

I almost forgot to mention this:

Yay!  My dissertation revision sign-off sheet was signed by the most unpredictable of my committee members.  (Remember intra-committee drama from my defense?) This is important because I am not officially Ph.D. until they all sign off on the blasted form, and then the dean of the grad school signs it.  The moment she signs it, I am officially Ph.D. and can do official doctor stuff, within licensure limits, of course.  And what is very important, is that the postdoc work I am currently doing does not count towards my licensure hours (I need a year's worth) until it is actually postdoc--until then, it's just basically more internship.  So I've been frothing at the brain about getting that dang paper signed, all the while needing to carefully manage Some People's moods and perceptions about it.  

Although, even when it's signed I still have to apply for graduation to get the actual pretty paper for my wall.  And I will probably not be "walking" until next spring.  I wasn't going to do it, but then TheLimey reminded me that it's not too often in a lifetime that a person graduates, let alone gets a Ph.D., and I should at least do it for the photos for posterity (Limelet).  (Then I will have a fancy robe and hat for festive occasions, such as convocation at my current place of  employment.)

What I didn't discuss much with TheLimey until recently is that in order to get my licensure, I have to not only have a year of supervised postdoc work, but I also have to pass a superduper exam , kinda like your GRE or your Microsoft certification exams and so forth.  A person only gets a couple of chances to pass the EPPP, and the minimum useful study time, as they say, is six weeks.  Most people begin studying months beforehand.  And did I mention it's expensive?

So you see why I didn't extensively discuss this aspect of my career with him yet, as this whole process has already just about killed him as it is.

On the sword side (which is supposedly the even-obscurer counterpart term to the obscure distaff side), TheLimey spent the first week after we moved at an intensive IT boot camp sort of thing, where he studied for and took not one but two Microsoft cert exams, both of which he passed.  Only half of the attendees passed both, so he did pretty well if you ask me.  He's had a lot of interest from recruiters and has several job interviews coming up, one of which is tomorrow.  It looks like a pretty cool place and is very close, though most of them do look pretty cool.

Having recently gone through the job apps process myself, I sympathize with his nerves.  It will be really great when we can all just settle in and get to this daily life that we've spent so much time--years really--setting up.  We are both frickin' tired of all-work weekends after three years solid of them.  I still haven't even unpacked my suitcases from moving, let alone all of our boxes.  I only just yesterday found my graphing calculator, for Pete's sake!

So, wish him luck, send vibes, whatever it is you do.  Hopefully I will be able to pass mine on to him.

Tiredness

I've been really tired the past couple of weeks, and I can't decide if I'm more tired than I was all of last year, or if it's just more noticeable by comparison because now my husband is less tired than last year.

Factors possibly influencing my tiredness:


1. Not a single night of uninterrupted sleep for two years straight
2. New tap water doesn't have iron in it
3. Transition, new job, moving stress kind of thing
4. No (or extremely little) time that I'm not "on duty" (either job or Limelet)
5. No self-care, including no exercise / yoga or similar
6. Hurried and thus often poor eating habits
7. Just getting over a cold
8. Drained by excessive heat lately (we didn't install the AC here)


I guess I should address each one of them.


(When I have the energy and time?)

Obama

We just found out that Obama will be appearing literally just down the block from our house tomorrow, so of course we plan to attend.  It's history in the making!  (Whether he ends up winning or not.)

Mac Mouse -- Bleh.

I never knew how often I used to right-click until now, when I have no right-click button.  The whole dang mouse is one big button. 

The internets say that I can simulate a right-click by using ctrl-click, but it doesn't seem to work with my mouse at all.  Which sucks, because apparently one of my great joys in life has been to right-click on images and put them on my desktop (even my own images from Flick'r, for example.)  Now I don't know how to get an image off the web at all.  I hate being ignorant!

Also, I can't close an open window with a simple right-click of the bottom of the screen.  Dammit.

We're Here

We got here; it's really beautiful. It is probably the most flippin' picturesque US city/town I've ever  seen.  

The train trip was 27 hours of hassle, but still not as bad as taking Limelet in the car would have been.  At least he slept and ate.  The really annoying part was that the first leg of the trip was changed from 4 hours of train to hours of bus--train--bus; this meant that I had to get off and on numerous conveyances wityh a toddler and all my luggage and drag it all around in the sweltering heat three times instead of just getting on a train and spreading out.  Still haven't had a chance to call Amtrak and ask for some kind of recompense as the conductor suggested we do.  We have so many different kinds of administrative crud to do--paperwork and phone calls and picking things up and dropping things off to take care of, it's insane.  Moving out of state means administrative crud, renting a new home means administrative crud, starting a new job means administrative crud, putting Limelet in two separate day care facilities means double administrative crud, and...gah.  Stuff that's impossible to do while looking after Limelet, I might add.

We love our new place a LOT, and the campus is also wonderful, historic, and treeful.  The squirrels, however, are not as friendly as I'm used to, and they are a different type, though small and cute.  TheLimey had to go out of town this week for a training thing immediately after we got here, so the place is still full of unpacked boxes and I'm on my own with Limelet.  I started my new job yesterday and therefore have internet access again there, but I don't want to overdo it right away.  The computers are Macs, so I'm a bit at sea with a lot of the hardware and basic commands, although they run virtual Windows.

Limelet is accepted into the college-run day care, but not until they move to their new location on September 1.  So he's in a chain day care place, and I don't feel very comfortable with it (day care in general and this one in particular).  Not as many workers per child as the last place, which means that when he's upset, they don't have time to comfort him.  And I hate making him have all these transitions.  He was crying his heart out when I came in to pick him up last night, and he immediately burst into tears this morning when I dropped him off.  He's had reduced appetite and digestive problems for the past two weeks from (presumably) the anxiety and stress of moving.  Home is gone, Daddy's gone (he doesn't really understand that he'll be back), day care (that he had just barely gotten used to anyway) has complete strangers in it, and he's spending longer days there.  I want to get him into the new place (which is nicer, and two blocks away from us instead of 5 miles), but it will mean yet another transition to strangers.  Poor little tyke.

Basically,  we love the place and I think it was a good move. However, we are having some culture shock and no time to even process it.

Offline For the Nonce

I may not have much internet access for the next few weeks.  In fact, I don't exactly know when I will have internet access again.  So call, don't email!

Nasty Chocolate

My advice for the day:

 

Don't eat cheap, nasty chocolate.  It will just make you desire real, lovely, buttery chocolate, which you will then have to get. 

Then you've eaten twice the refined sugar and stuff, for only one dose of chocolatey deliciousness. 

 

So go for the good stuff the first time.

Limnal Time!

I so rarely post, but I constantly have a mental thread of things I'd be posting if I happened to be online, but then when I get online I completely forget all of them. I don't know why. Sometimes I can capture it if I post from Gmail. Unlike just now.

We're moving pretty soon, and it's a little weird. I'm excited to go, but of course worrying about some of the arrangements. I noticed I've begun detaching from some things here, such as being trained on new things that will only be applicable for the next week. We are not sure when we will get internet at our new location, so we'll be looking up local information before we leave. Hopefully we will remember to look up all the important things, because I no longer know how to look anything up without the internets.

I will be taking the train overnight with Limelet, while TheLimey drives our car. Limelet is NOT a good car passenger, and is definitely not one of those babies who fall asleep in the car. No matter how sleepy he is, and whether I nurse him immediately prior to a trip, and it's exactly his naptime, and we play his sleepytime CD on the car stereo, he just can't fall asleep in the car. Even if it's several hours. And like many adults, he becomes really cranky and miserable when he's exhausted and can't sleep, so then we have three miserable people including one shrieking, strapped-in toddler. So that's probably the main reason we aren't taking him on a tri-state trip in the car. Also, I just wanted to take the train there.

Our possessions will be driving themselves, with the help of Upack. Our neigbors used it to move to Florida. It's kind of like PODS, but it's moving instead of storage, and also you only pay for the volume you move, so smaller amounts than a train carload are practical. One of my intern cohort will also be using it, it looks like.

A lot of our stuff is still in storage in the last town where we lived, and will stay there a while, waiting for us to send for it in a year or so. I wish that some of the stuff we brought with us was in storage instead of crammed into our current tiny smothering filthy hovel, and some of the stuff that's in storage was with us instead of alternately melting in the summer and cracking in the winter, but...oh well.

Must try to get some more wrapping-up work done here at work now.

Enigmas

Some clients are just hard to figure out. Some, I'm not even sure why they are attending sessions. Maybe just to talk some things out, or just to have human contact, or...I don't know.

When a person doesn't even have a particular thing they wish was different about their lives or themselves, theirs can be a difficult case to approach: "...a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma..." (Wrapped in buttered bacon, no doubt.)

A friend working in a multinational setting stated, "I thought my client was alexithymic. After a while I came to realize he's just Scottish." An anecdote with a very narrow target audience.

Some Explanation Required

Do kids even really know what a pimp is?  If not, why would a parent dress them like one?  If so, why would a parent allow them to dress like one?  Why does this even exist ? 

 

If my kid asked for this costume, there would be a big research project about prostitution in store for him.  Assuming, of course, that he at least already knew what sex was.  And if not, then it'd have to be couched in terms of human trafficking / slavery. 

 

Geez.

Stats Text

From an email I recently sent to my advisor--but I think others should know about it, too.  This is my desert-island stats book now.  (And I have bought a lot of stats texts.)

 

"...I highly recommend the Handbook of Univariate and Multivariate Data Analysis and Interpretation with SPSS (2006) by Robert Ho. 
 
I wish I had it when I started [my dissertation], or [was] even halfway through.  I will totally use it if I ever get to do any further research.  So if you have any students who are doing their theses or dissertations and are not stats experts, it's really clear and practical.  They can even look at pages of it online to see if they want to buy it, at http://books.google.com/books.  (Search for Robert Ho.  Within the book reader, the title page is unavailable but scroll down--lots of pages are available."

Glad Midsommar!

Glad Midsommar!
Originally uploaded by LellePelle

True, this photo(and caption) is Swedish, but It's pretty much the same as the Norwegian tradition.

If we were all there right now, we'd go out on a boat and loaf about under the midnight sun. Ah well.

Happy Solstice!

Red Humor

This is so me.

(Click for T-shirt.)

Internet Conferences

I've been looking into online conferences since seeing screen shots on a news piece about a green energy conference that was held entirely online.  It looked more or less like a Second Life sort of affair.

 

I haven't found anything comparable being done in psychology, though there are a number of other kinds of online conferences such as this, this, and this.  Have any of you participated in any online conferences that leaned more towards the "virtual conference" than the "list of papers and chat rooms"?

 

 

 

 

...Man, is this post going to attract spam.

Bus Post

[I've started using a PDA again to eke out a few posts while on the bus from time to time, as that's my "me" time.]

I've started walking to (and sometimes from) work in addition to busing it. It takes about 25 minutes if I walk really fast. The experience reminds me that a lot of the meat of my life has occurred while walking: the observation, the nature, the emotional processing. I've missed it more than I realized.

The first blooms here were the magnolias near the Counseling Center, and as they faded the cherry blossoms and then lilacs exploded all over campus. That explosion was at its height around Mother's Day. Except for a few late-blooming shaded lilacs, those are now gone, succeeded by the sweet trailing black locust blooms and cottonwood fluffs. The combination of blooms, scent and fluffs drifting on the breeze gives campus a "Legend" meets Maxwell Parrish feel.

It's weird thinking that this will be my last spring in this town. It's the first place I lived after leaving home. I've lived here (or within an hour or two's drive) for the past 21 years. I didn't even mean to do that: I wanted to actually seek out a place to live instead of "ending up" somewhere. Well, I've finally done it; finally planned a place to be. But I'm sentimental, and any "the last ever" is melancholy.

The familiar smells this spring bring back my early twenties. All the freedom, all the angst. All the cruddy jobs just to pay rent. All the skinniness! At this distance even the depression seems romantic in memory. But I sure am glad to be older.

Creepy

See, this is why I feel creeped out about having a background check. Even though I have never been fired from anywhere, never had any arrests--not even a speeding ticket that I can recall. But I don't have the best credit rating ever, though it's certainly improved a lot over the years. And they talk to your friends, family, and neighbors? How the heck do they know who my friends are?

And if they (manage to find and) talk to my family, they'll either get a good story or a bad story, depending whether they talk to certain malevolent persons [with whom I have no communication, and who have told all kinds of bizarre stories about me, such as that I left home a) because I had an abortion (?!) or b) because I was on drugs (?!), both of which are completely made up, presumably to hide the fact that I actually left home because I was 18 and didn't enjoy being abused]--or whether they talk to the people who are in my life today.

And I don't have that many "ex" friends, but I do have one or two. What would they say about me?

What would your family members and friends say about you? Would you want your new boss to hear them say it?

Be Vicariously Relieved

I got a job!

 

It's a postdoc at my #1 choice.  Partly it's #1 because of its location, which is a town in which we have both been really interested.

 

Now I can stop sending out apps, doing interviews, and so forth.  I can't believe the process has been going on for four months.
 

Wordage

From an application to join my Yahoo Freecycle group:

 

"I have lots of used items and love to recycle."

 

(Guess how I read that.)

Everything

We planned once again to have me do my dissertation revisions one day over the weekend, but what I forgot to take into account was the fact that my office building is locked on Sundays. Especially Sundays of holiday weekends. So instead TheLimey worked on his work stuff, as he is getting to the sending-out-resumes point now, too.

I took care of a ton of house stuff that has been driving me insane. Well, it wouldn't have been considered a ton in pre-baby days, but now a half-hour of housework is an improbable dream. I did some of it when Limelet was sleeping soundly, when I should also have been sleeping. But never fear, he only sleeps so long before he stirs and needs my presence to remain asleep, so it's self-limiting.

I cleaned the bathroom, and the kitchen floor, and washed Limelet's laundry and nappies, as well as my laundry. I made couscous and froze it in cubes (for Limelet's lunches), I made his pea-and-rice dish and ditto, and I bagged and tagged some previously frozen foods. I made lemon and yogurt ice pops for the grownups (dairy, y'know). I washed dishes, I threw out some things from the fridge.

Monday we were going to play, and maybe have a playdate with a colleague's toddler, but TheLimey became horribly, horribly ill (did I mention the degree of horribleness?) with some kind of GI thing. It seemed likely not food poisoning this time for various reasons, but he was completely out of commission.

Luckily he is feeling more human today, because I have a video-conferencing interview at 10:30. I don't know what we would have done had he been that sick today. We just don't have any back-up or wiggle room. There's no way he could have taken care of Limelet. All he could do all day was to hold still and try not to throw up more.

So, it's a good thing he's somewhat better today.

I'm feeling pretty optimistic about this interview this morning, but I don't want to jinx it. Or become prematurely attached to a successful outcome and thus reduce my motivation to succeed, which is the same thing. I am trying to project an image of "Deanna Troi meets Ivy League professor" for this particular site. except my hair's not that curly.

My new snack find: Larabars. It's hard for a bar food to wow me, but these do. Especially the lemon.

*** Update:

Did I mention that Skype rocks? The site with which I interviewed was going to use AOL, but my computer here at work couldn't use it. Plus, I mean, it's AOL. I suggested we try Skype video chat, and it worked great. So hear that, HR people? You can Skype a job interview for free instead of spending $1000 to fly your candidate all over the country, flagrantly spewing emissions and whatnot.

The tele-interview went great. I am pressing my thumbs, crossing them, and all such. It sounds like they are interested and view me as compatible with their goals. At any rate they will make a decision in the next couple of days, which is good, because I grow impatient of the application process, and stressed out, too.

Zoiks!

Given my coulrophobia*, this is my nightmare!


*Yes, I know how to treat phobias. This one's really not that high on my to-do list. I'd say it's pretty ego-syntonic.

Both Dumb and Geeky...

...in exactly the pie-chart proportions that appeal to my sense of humor: Graphjam is my new obsession.

Oops...

Note to self: to-do list has a different email address than blog entries.  Don't mix them up!

Evaluation for Dr. G.

 

write up DBT presentation

 

Schedule DBT presentation

 

Write up case presentation

 

Schedule time for case presentation

And Now, for Something Completely Different

If you didn't know about the World Beard Championships, you should.

Back

Not much computer time, so I haven't posted and this will be short.  The interview went well, as far as I know, though since then I have been second-guessing myself a lot.  But either they like me or they don't, at this point.  I liked the town a lot, and the are in general. so I think that we will like being in that state (regardless of town).  Three of my four planes were prop planes. A little swoopy, but I kind of like that.  It's like a roller coaster. It was hard being away from Limelet--also TheLimey but in a different way--for that long and I was really glad to get back.

I'm Off

I'm flying out out to my on-site interview in a couple of hours. I'm discovering that job search out-of-state is kind of a hassle, but I am glad to have an on-site interview. The hassle will be worth it if I get it. Of course, the other candidates are probably all thinking the same thing. It will also be my first time away from Limelet overnight, which will be weird for all of us. Wish me luck on the prop-plane leg of my journey. Oh yeah, and the interview itself.

Okay...We Are Officially in The Future Now.

I can't wait to regrow my own body parts, but I'm not looking forward to the part where something gets cut off.

But the thing I really want to do is grow some new teeth.*

*But not like this.

The Mean One

I have a proper on-site interview coming up, with the site paying for my trip and all.  Exactly which day is not certain yet, but it's narrowed down to two.  So that's good.  I considered the train as a way to bring Limelet and his Daddy too, but because the US has starved its train lines into skeletons that would be completely impractical. 

 

According to Google maps, the drive to the site would be 10 hours (straight through, which I wouldn't do, but anyway).  Meanwhile, taking the train would mean driving to a near-ish town in our state, taking a train to a major city in the opposite direction from my actual trip, having a layover of several hours, then taking an overnight train to a large city in the other state, then having another layover of six hours, then another train to a sort of near-ish town, then a drive to the town where the site is.  The train trip would take nearly two days. 

 

I am trying to imagine four days (round-trip) on and off a train with a toddler, with my job interview sandwiched in between.  Right.

 

We had our last supervision sessions with our supervisees recently.  My supervisee told me that when she found she had been assigned to me, she thought, "Oh, great, I got the mean one!"  Apparently the organized way I presented their training seminar, complete with handouts and other kind of OC things, led them to believe I'd be really strict.  Well, that's good.  It's better to start out mean and get nice than vice versa.

 

Anyway, I thought it was pretty funny, since I sometimes feel like I'm kind of a pushover.

Political Prediction Time

I'm going to take a little leap here.  Well, actually, it doesn't seem like a leap to me.  It seems depressingly obvious.  Here's my prediction for next prez.

 

The Man has played the social system again.  Women vs. Blacks.  Sexism vs. racism.  Hierarchy of oppression, bell hooks be damned.

 

So regardless of who wins the Democratic nomination, people are going to vote "personality not party", and McCain is going to win because many who typically vote Democrat will be buying into the racism and sexism and thinking their feeling really is about the candidates.

 

Yeah, people are sick of Republican government at this point, but they think McCain is different, so this will be a different Republican administration.  Forgetting that McCain the individual comes with a whole bunch of other Republicans who will be advancing the usual Republican ideals and goals.

 

Depressing.

If This Syndrome Didn't Exist

Someone would have had to have invented it. Someone with an exploding head.

Darn.

Got a rejection email from a site that I'd begun to not only think of as "mine" but had started to look forward to.  At least I was one of their four finalists (for two positions), but that still doesn't get me a job.  So far that's three out of the eight sites I applied to that have rejected me (or listed the position as filled).  One of those eight was...sort of last-ditch for me, and one is, shall we say, penultimate-ditch. 

 

So that means that I had six earnest applications out there, so three out of six---bust. 

 

Oh yeah, another site gave me a phone interview, but I dithered for a long time about whether to even apply to that one. Therefore my application got in right before the deadline, and they had already gotten onto site interviews with some applicants so I'm basically second-tier with them already.  I'm not holding out much hope for that one.  

 

So maybe two out of six left.

 

And one of those two sites lost two of my three reference letters (or, okay, so I suspect, since I mailed them at the same time and where the heck would they go?), and then they sent me letters telling me that applications that were complete by the deadline would be given "full consideration" and mine was not complete--meaning, "you didn't get all your stuff to us, so you're second-tier."  Poo. 

 

Turns out one of my colleagues here applied there too, and she did get an interview with them.  I guess they didn't lose her letters, and she's at least as competent as me.  I guess a lesson here is that each site to which I send apps, I should actually call them to make sure they got everything.  (And that they still have it.)

Good

Just had my first interview, it was by phone but was good nonetheless.  Now that I have half a dozen apps out there and some others are showing interest, I am already worried about how to navigate accepting versus doign more interviews.  Who knew I'd be so popular?!

Heh. Foolio.

I wish this existed.
Actually, I wish it existed for my VHS tapes at a non-exorbitant price.

Speaking of April Fool, don't forget to get your dose of ludicrosity.

Okay, wait---this one's better!

UPDATE: Well, having not known about the homophobic history of the Rickroll, I can say I am disappointed. I love things that are a) about '80s music and b) silly and have no apparent reason at all. I thought that the surprising aspect of the video was that Rick was visually a skinny White guy who was singing in a voice and style that people usually associated with medium-sized Black guys.

So here's the replacement.

However, I think the poster missed the most important viral aspect of the Rickroll, which had to do with how insanely catchy that song is, which makes you need to infect others with it. So it should actually be this song or this song instead.

Was Your Day Better Than This?

Last night Limelet was awake from 3:30 to 4:30, which all things considered is really not the worst night ever, but still I had a really hard time getting myself up in the morning for work and an even harder time getting out of the house.  He's really cranky and clingy when he's tired (got it from me, most likely.)

I had a client right at 8, and made it to the Center just at 8 myself, minus makeup as usual.  So there I was in my somewhat dark office, trying eat some string cheese (breakfast) and add a dash of makeup before the client arrived.

 

"Your client has arrived.  Your client has arrived," announced my desktop computer, as I hastily applied lipstick and darkened my eyebrows.  As I stood up to go to the lobby to get her, I checked my application in my powder mirror by the light of my coffee table lamp. 

 

It was then that I realized that instead of my usual subtle brown eyebrow pencil, I had grabbed a blue eyeliner pencil.  My eyebrows were a lovely bright blue.

 

Just as I assumed a horror-stricken expression, a colleague knocked on my door asking questions about some project we're working on.  I shielded my eyebrows with my hands while impressing on her that I was in a hurry.  This probably looked really odd, which you can tell if you try doing it yourself.

 

I think I managed to get most of it off before seeing the client, but who knows.  Maybe she just thought it was a new therapy trend, or (more likely) that it was a weird "old people" trend for the over-40 set.

Happy St. Pat's

Happy St. Pat's
Originally uploaded by doctorlizardo

You know it wasn't really snakes that were driven out of Ireland, but indigenous religions, right?

Slate pretty much explains it all here.

Just FYI: I'm not a big fan of human sacrifice, whatever the denomination.

Savings, Schmavings

I'm a little late for my yearly rant about Stupid Daylight Savings. It's much worse now having a kid. So, anyway, consider it ranted upon.

Now, for my alternative (I finally have one): we set the clocks back one hour 24 times each year, giving us all an extra hour to sleep in every few weeks or so, and coming 'round to the original time once per year. I realize it means that we'll be getting up when it's getting dark (or is dark) out for part of the year. But I think that the gain in restedness we'll all have will make up for it.

No more of this getting up an hour earlier during the springtime. This year it was just when we were all feeling vastly relieved because it was finally getting light when we got up. Then, BLAM! Now we have to get up in the dark again while still feeling tired.

Which more or less blows my alternative suggestion out of the water, but I don't care.

In A Circuitous Way

Pi Pie
Originally uploaded by megpi

Happy Pi Day.

glazed pi
Originally uploaded by VROG in Bristol

There are a lot of these. Why don't we have one?!

Public Figure (?)

I'm realizing that people see me and recognize me in public, so I better make sure I walk my talk.

 

A young woman came into my office today with a big hunk of fabric today asking me how to wrap her baby in it.  She'd previously been to one of my babywearing talks, but I guess the thing that led her to try it out for herself was seeing me at the grocery store wearing a contented Limelet in one of my wraps.  (Her baby had been teething and doesn't want to be put down, which in my experience makes it hard to even go to the bathroom.)

 

And TheLimey told me that a woman from the library playgroup recognized--well, not me, but Limelet, and assumed (correctly) who I was.  Again at the grocery store.

 

So if those two people saw me, then I'm sure others have as well: I just heard about those two. 

 

Gosh, does this mean that I have to try to look good, or at least less bad, before going to the grocery store?  'Cause it's not likely to happen.

My Theme Song

The original song is pretty catchy already, but these lyrics speak to me.
I think my favorite part is the Seth Green segment.

Retired English Psychologist Apparently Quite Clever

48-year-old London psychologist developing movie-recommending algorithm for Netflix contest on his elderly home Dell computer has been edging out tech teams at high-caliber schools and so forth.
I'm rooting for him to win the million dollars!

Austen

I don't know. She seems to0 charming and sweet to be me.

Take the Quiz here!

Fantasy Cheese Tea

TheLimey and I actually had a conversation the other night...was it last week?  No, maybe the week before.  I mean a normal, honest-to-goodness conversation that included laughter and...content and...stuff.  We even had a glass of wine while conversing!  Limelet went to sleep relatively early and even stayed asleep with no intervention long enough (half an hour) for this to take place.

 

One thing we talked about was how fantasy changes as one gets older.  We used to fantasize (and I won't say whose was which) about winning the lottery, being able to fly, being incredibly attractive, having a really cool car, or dating celebrities (--no, wait a minute...I don't think that either of us has ever been terribly into celebrities.  Scratch that.  Unless you count my primary-school crush on James T. Kirk...anyway--).

 

TheLimey revealed his innermost fantasy life, and yes--it was something nearly impossible to achieve.  He fantasizes about having the chance to sit on the sofa and have a cheese sandwich and a cup of tea.

 

Me? Well, I've discovered that I am almost always too exhausted to even fantasize about cheese anymore.  Kind of like when you're too sick to watch TV, if you've ever experienced that.  I guess I fantasize about getting to sleep in until 7:00 or even 7:30. 

 

Or getting to bed earlier, so here goes.

Where's My Overthruster?

Wow, it's the IRL Buckaroo Banzai!

Okay, so he's not a surgeon....yet.

Also from the really cool TED conference: Zimbardo talks about Abu Ghraib. (Events that--I'm sorry to say--I predicted, as most psychologists could have. Or at least most feminist psychologists or social psychologists.)

I Got the Winter Tail-End Blues

I'm not really that blue right now (though ask me last thing at night and I might tell you a different story). I am feeling tired a lot this week, which could be a lotta stuff.

Anyway, today would have been my mother's 60th birthday. Happy Birthday, Mama: I wish you could have met your first grandson. He's a pip.


* * * * * * * * *


I've been sending out job applications, initially to my chagrin. I wanted some time off after that whole dissertation thing. Like, maybe a month to get my land legs again. However, the internship year is just not set up that way. At least the job apps are not--generally speaking--as much of a PITA as internship apps. Until I get interview offers and have to start flying to another state; then that will definitely be somewhat of a PITA. I'm actually beginning to feel some excitement about some of them, which is better than the pure mental exhaustion I have been feeling.

I got one great reference letter that stated that I was NOT the best person he'd ever worked with*.

Next week is spring break here at the U. I'm so busy that I barely have the time to notice that something is happening the following week, but I couldn't help notice that while all my regular client spaces are filled, there are no new intakes at all (usually they are totally full.) So perhaps I can start to catch up on some things that have gone fallow since, say, November due to the Great Dissertation Crunch.

Hopefully this means that the actual "spring" itself is around the corner--in a few weeks, it'll be rainy and mushy and melty. This year I think we are all desperate for winter to be over --last year it was just me. It's funny to think that for Limelet it will sort of be like the whole world is new again, since he was just barely beginning to walk when it became too cold to hang out outside.

I heard a cardinal singing his spring song yesterday morning, despite the newly fallen four inches of snow. It was such an optimistic sound.

Likely this means that the phototherapy program I instituted here will soon go belly-up until next winter, when I will have been several months gone. But now that they have the lights and the lights are mounted on the wall and a protocol is nearly written (thank you, colleague), at least next year they will be available for SAD clients.

I constantly think of things I'd like to blog, but when I have computer time it's always at work. Most of us are...shall we say, a bit overextended, so I don't do much leisure writing. Right now I should be doing about five something elses, but I just want to do one blog entry! Just one, darnit!

In the brief few minutes when Limelet is falling asleep but is not asleep enough for me to leave the room yet, I do all my leisure reading. So a few pages a night. I just finished re-reading George MacDonald's books Lilith and Phantastes. I read them as a child, I think more than once. It was strange, because I couldn't remember the content until I started reading them, and then it was as familiar as your old street at your childhood home. (Not mine, because there are too many of them.)

Now I am reading something completely on the other end of the scale--a book that someone left on the "free stuff" shelf at our laundry facility: A suspense-thriller set in Montana called Dark Paradise (Hoag). The former owner left it there for a reason: I hate to say this because I like everything--and I mean, everything--but it is actually bad!

I'm still reading it, because sometimes I just want some fluff, you know? But I think I know how it will end already, and I'm only 50 pages in. (I think the ending was actually given away in the intro.)

So far, my favorite signs of book badness have been a sentence that discussed how a character had "forgotten how delicate women's underwear could be", and a recently introduced stock-Englishman character. I have to say, he's not the usual "evil-Englishman" character that you might think. No, he's the just slightly less-frequent "gay Englishman" character, and says things like "I say, you look positively knackered, Luv."

So, Cheerio! I'm off to get some work sorted before I'm positively knackered, Guv'ner.



*No, it really was a great letter. The referrer said I was the second best intern in the 30 years he's been here. Which actually sounds a lot more believable than saying someone is the best, doesn't it?

Match Day

Having gone through Match Day three times myself (one year before our new PhD program was accredited, one year in which I turned up "in a family way" and had to withdraw, and then the final year in which everything worked out) I heartily sympathize with the subjects of this article.

 

You'd think that "in the wake of" (which always means the word "shooting" is about to occur) various incidents, we as a country would be more interested in funding mental health care (as described in article). 

 

But--what am I thinking?  We don't appear to place much of a value on other health care, so of course mental health care would be viewed as even more fluffy and incidental.

Electoral Compass

electoral compass
Originally uploaded by doctorlizardo

It's a sad commentary on my life that doing this quiz was my break for the day.

Inspired by geistweg.

eclipse 928pm

eclipse 928pm
Originally uploaded by doctorlizardo

As detailed below.

Limelet is distracted with an unused phone I found in a box, so I was able to take this (terrible) picture.

Eclipse

Between bouts of trying to get Limelet to sleep (he's sick again as well as teething like crazy, which means a lot less sleep for all three of us, and a lot more crankiness for all three of us) I have had a great view of the lunar eclipse tonight. The moon is about half covered right now. I always prefer having east-facing bedroom windows because I can see the moon rising. (Oh yeah, and the sun, I guess!)

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!
Originally uploaded by ButterflySha

I love weird, old-fashioned candy, including conversation hearts (and Necco wafers).

Limelet got a floaty silver balloon from me, and TheLimey got a box of chocolates. (That's an upside of being the stay-at-home parent, right?) Review on the balloon: "Best. Toy. Ever." No word yet on the chocolates.

Wow!

It is superblizzardy out there today.  And the heavy snow is predicted to begin at 6pm.  I do love precipitation when I don't have to drive in it, and today I took the bus.

 

Stay home if you can, unless you're somewhere there isn't a blizzard or other insane weather occurring at you.

 

I better put some peanuts out for sure.

Keep Birdfeedin'

Turns out it's good for 'em.  I mean really, who knew?!

More-athon

Limelet sick for several days; now Dad's sick too.  Hope I can stay un-sick, at least until the weekend.  I already missed one day to stay home and tend the listless nursling.

 

Had a discussion with my fellow intern mother about how strange it is that we really do seem to be able to avoid illnesses since becoming mothers.  Our perception, of course, is that we do it because we have to. 

 

Somebody ought to do a study...

I Never Thought About Chaff This Way Before

...but doesn't "Separating the shaft from the wheat" make this review way more Freudian than it needs to be?

It turns out that a lot more people than I would have imagined make this error. It's all over the internets.

Chaff, people. Chaff.

Got Twins?

Maybe it's because of the milk you drink!

 

 

Hi

I want to blog, I really do.  But I have no time at work now since I used so much time working on my dissertation defense.  On weekends I watch Limelet while TheLimey works, and there's no way to so anything on computer when Limelet is around.

 

So don't feel abandoned. 

 

You're only neglected.

I'm In

Goodbye Mistress of Science, hello Doctor of Philosophy!

No one could hear the sound.

Upcoming Research Presentation

If you want the link to my dissertation defense that will most likely be broadcast live online Friday 1/11, please let me know as I don't necessarily have everyone's current email address (as it turns out).

Concientizacion

Concientizacion
Originally uploaded by Juan Jose (Wally)

I don't know: those bikes look like they're taking up a whole lot of room!

(Go to the image and click "view all" or something like that, to see the larger version.)

Are You Gonna Throw That, or What?

Baby versus Squirrel 1
Originally uploaded by doctorlizardo

I used to blog about just squirrels, and I have a blog that's just about the baby. But this photo combines my two favorite blog subjects! (Can you see where they are both looking?)

Happy New Year

'HAVING FUN' - 'HAPPY NEW YEAR' - Best viewed large !
Originally uploaded by Mundilfari

Now, these people know what winter really means.

(There weren't any Michigan photos, for some reason.)

What We Did Over Christmas Vacation

starbucks_2
Originally uploaded by doctorlizardo

This pretty much sums it up.

That's chocolate on his lip, not coffee.

You Can't Win

20070909-06
Originally uploaded by Wrappy

I still sometimes get mad at people who find breastfeeding photos porn@graphic. (Whether they like them or whether they are offended by them.) But I realize I'm more annoyed by those who are offended by them.

I guess there are a few individuals who are breastfeeding for purely exhibitionistic purposes. However, for the other 99.99% of us, we are doing it to feed our children, not to turn on some dumbass in the street. It seems about as sexy to me as a plate and spoon do. Literally!

Nevertheless, there are people who believe that uncovered always = lewd, and covered always = modest. I imagine they don't understand fetish from a sociological-psychological viewpoint. People can sexualize ANYthing. Breasts, back of neck, ankle, face, amputated limb, braces, whatever you have.

So even if you completely cover yourself from head to toe, there is somebody out there who is going to think you are doing THAT to be sexy just for him, because there are people who are turned on by that, too (see photo at left.)

What I'm trying to say is, it doesn't matter if women breastfeed or not, from a moralistic standpoint regarding being provocative. Someone is guaranteed to be in the wings fetishizing them regardless. So they might as well do what they want.

Winter Solstice

Winter Solstice
Originally uploaded by David G Kelly

Happy return of the light!

After tonight, of course, when there will be more darkness than ever.

Stay warm.

Come Back Baby...

Blog democracy never forgets.

Those of you--and there are a lot--who've been using that word verification on your blog comments forms, you can give it up now.

Really.

I've hardly had a robot spam in...I don't know how long. At least weeks, if not months. Years maybe. And when I have had the odd one or two, I just deleted it right away. Really no biggie.

Adding word verification to your comments form means that I am way less likely to comment on your blog, because a) the extra squinting, interpreting, and typing-in means less spontaneity (no condom jokes here, please) and b) now that Blogger and Google are linked, I have to re-sign in to Blogger every single time I want to comment. I don't know why I can't stay signed in, but there it is, on different computers, too. It never has worked to use the sign-in on the comments page.

So if you have word verification and I commented on your post, it means that I took the trouble to leave your page entirely and go sign in to Google/Blogger (Glogger?) and then return to your page, and then after commenting I did the WV-PITA-thing.

Truly spontaneity-sucking.

Non-sequitur:

Finally, if you hate every ape from chimpan-A to chimpan-Z: http://www.flickr.com/groups/26588725@N00/pool/

Curses!

We haven't been planning a big Christmas by any means.  We have limited means and limited space this year.  But I did want a few things for the holiday, which I ordered last weekend from Amazon (for example, a fireplace viedo and some pine incense in lieu of a fireplace, and a couple small items for hubby and baby).  I placed the order while watching Limelet and rushing back and forth between the office and the living room, in a hurry, of course.

 

A lot of the items were used, so the order was comprised of perhaps half a dozen items from half a dozen sellers.  Many of them were due to arrive today or tomorrow.  Last night right before bed I thought I'd entertain myself briefly by looking at the tracking status of some of them and anticipating their arrival today.  At which point I noticed what I had managed to overlook before: I had somehow had the entire order sent to our old address! 

 

Dammit, dammit, DAMMIT!

 

Nearly all of the various packages are shipping via USPS, so they will be forwarded after all (according to the Post Office), but we'll get them probably mid-January, if my past forwarding experiences are any guide.

 

The one package shipping via UPS, however, I managed to have changed this morning even though it was already out for delivery, and UPS said we will probably get it tomorrow.  Around here they don't deliver on weekends, so if it's later, it'll be Monday.  Luckily, this is the one gift for Limelet that I really wanted to see him play with on Christmas (one of those little spiral ramps for toy cars), so that experience, at least, was salvaged. 

 

But I slept really tensely last night (uselessly) worrying about all this, and being furious at myself.

Interns

Interns
Originally uploaded by doctorlizardo

This photo was actually taken as a ruse to use our images in that thing that makes you into dancing elves.

Nevertheless, here we all are.

I look about as tired as I felt (which is constant), but it was very nice of the others to get me a birthday cake to distract from how much younger and less tired they look than me. I have great co-interns.

Hoover (California), Little Miss Sunshine (South Korea), NoFun (South Korea) , Capitalist Peeg or CP (Michigan, more or less).

Well, *I* Had Back Pain, Anyway.

Interesting research finds that men's and women's vertebrae and hips differ in a way that allows women to have other people growing in their abdomens, without falling over. (At least not all the time.)

I have to admit that they speculate correctly that being on all fours was a lot easier on my back. Just harder on the knees, and I couldn't go a lot of places in that posture.

Argotnaut Made Me Do It.

I know, it's a loathsome and vile thing to do, like eating whipped cream from the can--another activity I can't resist.




moar funny pictures

Link.

Forty and Mossy

Originally uploaded by Lemon2

That's me! Guess I'm not rolling much these days.

After looking through all the Flick'r images entitled "40", I chose this one, and only then discovered that it's an image from my husband's hometown. How odd.

I may post some others too, just 'cause I can.





I was glad to discover that the poet Rainer Maria Rilke shares my birthday, although he's some 91 years older than me, of course. (Wow, is that all?) I loved Letters to a Young Poet.

Perhaps unrelatedly, when I was small I thought I would be a poet, an artist, or a "ballet dancer" when I grew up. My mother heard me saying this to a friend and was worried because she thought I said "belly dancer".

Forty and Nautical

40
Originally uploaded by piggley

Not me, but I like the colors.

Forty: Route Cool

Route Cool
Originally uploaded by elkit

Where is route cool anyway?!

Food Network Ahoy

After watching some kind of Christmas cake competition (part of it, anyway), we have come up with the components sure to make a really well-received cake contest / reality show.

1. Theme: Star Wars
2. Obstacle course carrying the cake to the display table
3. Random paintballing of cake-carriers
4. On ice!

So get those Star Wars cake designs ready. I'm especially looking forward to those super-teetery ones.

On a related note, we received for our nearly-mutual birthday from Argot and Frinky the great present of a DVD of Ratatouille. Presumably because of the rats (for me), and probably also the cookery theme. We watched it several times over the weekend, and TheLimey has declared it his favorite animated film. (Frankly I think he covets the kitchen in the restaurant.) It inspired me to make cheesy spinach sauce over steamed barley, when we thought we had nothing in the place to eat.

So, thanks guys!

Scintillating!

I guess that I do, after all, get migraines sometimes, as my mother did and at least one sister does.

I always thought they were just plain ol' headaches because I have never been as debilitated as my mother was by them. Certainly hasn't been what I picture as "one of the world's most debilitating conditions". Also my headaches have historically been easily treated with aspirin (or aspirin + caffeine), and rest and/or yoga. Or massage.

As long as I manage my stress, then I just don't get them. However, sometimes I still will get a headache with nausea if I'm stressed, and also if I have been carrying something (or someone) in a way that tenses my shoulder/ neck muscles too long.

But the real clincher was this. I have always wondered what the heck those were. Sometimes I have gotten them with no headache, especially with lack of sleep. Huh.

But don't forget: as they say, all headaches are at some level stress headaches. I'm guessing that wouldn't include, like, brain tumors. (Or would it?...)

Yikes

I'm having the classic naked-without-your-homework dreams about my dissertation defense.

 

I dreamed that I was supposed to give my defense at (apparently) some kind of military installation, but my committee members were all late.  Which was okay, because I realized I had made absolutely no preparations at all.  I thought I'd try to at least read up on it before they got there, but I discovered that I didn't have any materials and had left my laptop at home.  In another town.  Then, the power went out.

 

I must be more anxious about it than I thought.

Yay, Curry!

TheLimey has arranged for a neighbor lady to watch Limelet for a few hours one evening so that we can actually go out together and have dinner. 

 

We have not gone out together since he was born, so this is a big deal.  We have been wanting to visit the Indian restaurant downtown, so that's our first choice. Then if there's time maybe we can visit the used book store, or get an ice cream, or have a drink, or or or...everything!

 

It won't be this weekend--the actual weekend of our birthdays--but the following one.  So I have time to figure out when I can manage to wax my eyebrows.  Maybe at work?

When Traveling Abroad, Don't Forget

boomp3.com

"She Liked Her Mother..."

Well geez, I guess that's about all a person's feelings of guilt might allow him to say about the harm he'd done his daughter if he had done something like this.

What seems odd is that some coverage completely omits that statement as well as the discussion about the wife leaving him, which in domestic violence circles is pretty well-known as the most potentially dangerous time in a relationship.

Turkey

Turkey Dinner
Originally uploaded by veganmichele

A good "longweekend" to all.

Stuff yourself silly.

Prejudice Dissertation Excerpts

Just in case you care to see some of it.

Background:

I operate from the Helms model of oppression and prejudice, which identifies individuals as having many different aspects of social identity (groups we belong to). A person can experience discrimination / prejudice for any identity aspect in which they are a member of the non-dominant group in that aspect. Also, a person can be prejudiced against members of any non-dominant group, including their own.

The most common identity aspects that I examine in my teaching and research are those in Helms's ADDRESSING format. You can look at these aspects (below) and identify for yourself in which aspects you are a member of a dominant group or a subordinate group. Most people are surprised to see in how many aspects they are in a dominant group, because it's easier to notice when we are in a subordinate group.

___Age

___Developmental or acquired Disability

___Religion/spiritual orientation

___Ethnicity

___SES

___Sexual orientation

___Indigenous heritage

___National origin

___Gender

Okay. So, it turns out that prejudice seems to be somewhat of a unified construct. That is, if you are prejudiced against people who are in the subordinate group in one identity aspect, you are likely to be prejudiced against other subordinate groups as well. Altemeyer referred to people with high authoritarianism (another construct that is related to prejudice but not the same thing) as being "equal-opportunity bigots." I think this gets the point across.

So there's your background. Now here are some excerpts from my as-yet-undefended dissertation.

ABSTRACT

Prejudice-reduction measures during the college years have been examined particularly closely by prejudice researchers. Many researchers have found that exposure to diversity experiences (learning about other cultural groups, interactions with individuals from different social groups, etc.) appears to help reduce scores on various measures of prejudice. However, most studies failed to discern between voluntary diversity experiences and "structural" diversity experiences: those that are obligatory for academic or workplace situational reasons. For this reason, it was often unclear whether the kinds of diversity experiences encountered by students during college actually led to useful outcomes of prejudice reduction, or whether they simply showed who would in any case be further developing their pre-existing open-mindedness.

The present study investigated how obligatory, structural, diversity experiences during college might be related to aspects of prejudice-reduction in college students. It was implemented in hopes of finding that structural diversity experiences might help to reduce prejudice levels in individuals.

However, while there appeared to be somewhat of an effect on levels of ethnocentrism/racism, other subscales and overall prejudice did not seem to be affected by structural diversity experiences. Voluntary diversity experiences predicted both prejudice scores and authoritarianism scores, while structural diversity scores did not predict either. Rather, overall prejudice level appeared to influence the amount of voluntary contact individuals had with those in social groups other than their own.

The study also investigated whether psychological reactance appeared to play any part in modifying the relationship between diversity experiences and levels of prejudice and authoritarianism. The study furthermore investigated whether a number of other factors might also be related to prejudice and authoritarianism, such as general psychological pathology, time spent in college, level of education, and demographic characteristics. Certain demographic features predicted prejudice and authoritarianism scores, and psychological reactance was a predictor for authoritarianism scores, but it was not found to moderate the relationships between other variables.

Finally, participants' answers to open-ended questions about their experiences, attitudes, and behaviors were also examined. Themes present in handwritten short answers suggested that many participants were oblivious to their own prejudices and to their participation in a prejudiced social system.

Summary and Conclusion

The present study was implemented in hopes of finding that structural diversity experiences might help to reduce prejudice levels in individuals. However, while there appeared to be somewhat of an effect on levels of ethnocentrism/racism, other subscales and overall prejudice did not seem to be affected. Rather, overall prejudice level seemed to influence the amount of contact individuals had with those in social groups other than their own. Furthermore, themes present in handwritten short answers suggested that many participants were oblivious to their own prejudices and to their participation in a prejudiced social system. One conclusion is clear: prejudice against many groups is still quite in evidence among college students. This is clearly harmful for those occupying oppressed group status among their peers, as well as for those holding prejudices themselves, who appear to be largely ignorant of their complicity. If structural diversity experiences contribute to reduction of racial prejudice, then perhaps they can be examined and adapted for broader application in helping to reduce overall prejudice during this all-important window of developmental opportunity.



Here, additionally, is figure 1 from page 75, which graphically describes some of my findings from the qualitative portion of the study. I'm especially proud of this part.

Dissertation Advice For Those Just Starting Out

Someone--a shill, you're thinking, but no! a real reader--asked what advice I have for someone just starting out on the potantially long, hard road of dissertation.

So I have some, though I can't promise it's good. Caveat emptor.

1. Read Bertram Karon's inspiring article entitled Becoming a First-Rate Professional Psychologist Despite Graduate Education. (Psycarticles link; you may have to find it elsewhere if you can't get into Psycarticles.) Note the information on page 213 regarding choosing a research topic that you like. Also, while there is obviously a great deal of information specific to graduate psychology, there is a lot of useful information regarding graduate school generally.

2. For more and ongoing inspiration, read the classic Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day. Keep it with your data sheet collection, your laptop, or wherever your "currently using this stuff" pile is so that when you're feeling unmotivated and your mind is wandering, you can pick it up and leaf randomly through it (that's how I used it, anyway.)

3. Man. Choose your dissertation chair, advisor, etc. ever so carefully. Do they have the same values about work style that you do? Will they nudge you, but without lecturing you or condescending? Will they inspire you? Do they have kids, so they know what the heck that's about, if you have kids?

4. Choose a topic you like. I know, some people think that you will then beat it to death and dislike it by the time you are done, but that may be the sign of a bad dissertation experience that would have made a topic of lukewarm interest completely unbearable anyway. Take the idealist's route and ask a question you really want to know the answer to. Also, I hope that you at least like stats and figuring things out with them, even if you aren't a professional statistician.

5. Be prepared to sacrifice free time for a long time if you have to. Meaning a couple of years perhaps. Your partner really has to get this, too, because it's also his or her free time. (If you have kids, then be prepared to simply never have any free time between child care and dissertation.)

People always emphasize self-care, taking time out, etc. etc. Well, theoretically that's true and as a therapist I should also emphasize that myself. BUT. Self-care has degrees. Recognize that sometimes self-care means that you got to shower that day, eat nutritious food, and take several breaks to nurse and care for a baby. It doesn't always have to mean that you get to take the day off and go to the beach. Some days it might, but remember that every friend you have will want to be the one person you take that much deserved study break with, and then you will be socially booked every weekend and unable to work.

It probably depends what life stage you're at, too. For my life stage, not a lot of beach, but I did get the diss done in...what, I guess three years? Wow, I guess I was writing the proposal in December of 2004. (I did that in three weeks, includes lit review and all, pats former self on back.) But during that three years I also took time off to have a baby, in addition to the usual grad school activities.

6. Choose an easy way to do your study. Choose the easiest way possible, in fact. The best dissertation is a done dissertation. When you have those letters after your name, you can do more and better studies in exactly the painstaking way you were thinking of. They are not for now.

Testing Toondoo

The Best Defense

...is a good presentation about your dissertation research project.  Hopefully mine will be at least acceptable when I present on January 11th, which looks likely to be the date.  Pending some double-checking of teaching schedules.  I am so looking forward to hearing the traditional "Congratulations, Doctor."

That's It

Finished the contents and the appendices and so forth.

 

 

I'm scared to send it out!

Spell-Hecker

The reason I usually turn Spellchecker off: it doesn't know any research words like "interitem" or "kurtotic" or "univariate" and thinks that "multiple regression" should be "multiple regressions."

** ** **

Worse: it doesn't know "pathologize" or "dogmatism" or "anomia" or "Likert" or....cheez, anything important!

THIS Close to Not Being ABD...

Yesterday I finally completed my dissertation. 

 

I did the tables, appendices, and even a nice figure that I didn't know if I'd be able to do, as well as fixing the formatting of my reference section and checking the verb tenses in the results section.  So the document is done!  I just have to finish the title and contents pages now, and then check everything to make sure that my formatting is not only APA-compatible but also compatible with grad school requirements, which supercede APA requirements if there is a conflict.

 

I feel like it turned out quite well and I was able to include things I wanted to, and that things are basically in the order I want them.  Of course I don't think it's perfect, but I don't have that unpleasant "I wish I could have done this or that differently..." that so often accompanies a huge years-long research project.  I was even able to incorporate some new research that came out while I was working on it, most notably a journal article on microaggressions that had a lot of very salient and corresponding material to my study.

 

Wow, two years ago, I wrote up my diss lit review and proposal in about three weeks, because I had to.  So those of you who only have to do a lit review, um....I don't know what I want to say. Something.  Anyway, my thing was way harder than yours, and I'm glad it's done.

 

So, title and contents pages, check formatting, then review conventions for sending out the reading copies, then make copies and send them out all over the country, or wherever my dissertation committee are right now.  And schedule a defense, probably with some teleconferencing.  Maybe we can do webcam for my committee member who's in Colorado!

 

Now, if only I can get the financial aid office to stop harrassing me because they think I graduated or dropped out, darn them.

Hatt-Baby

Gosh, I love silly and even dumb humor.

After seeing this video, I have to wonder why on earth Hatten Er Din is not also on YouTube. (That I can find.) *

Someone, please upload it!

And are there English-language videos anywhere that include silly translations into some other language?

I guess I could make one with Norwegian silly subtitles. Maybe I could get my Korean friends to do one in Korean. Not that any of us have the time or the technology to add text to video, even if we had a video in mind.

Of course, then they'd have to translate it to English so I could understand it.



*And how could I forget this one? Classic, though the subtitles don't start for a while. Princess Leia is the yodel of life.

Shoulds and Anxiety

This year I'm working with a guy who is way-CBT (he trained under Ellis) and I have been learning a lot of really useful stuff about anxiety and anxiety treatment. One of the big things that I am learning to emphasize to clients with anxiety (and myself, of course) is this whole business of "shoulds".

What it really boils down to is that when we believe that there is some kind of universal law about how we (and others) "should" be, any time there is a deviation from that "should", we feel anxiety. A lot of times we are so used to "shoulding" ourselves that the thought has become very automatic and quick, such that we may not even recognize it as a thought. But it is.

The reason that a deviation from "should" provokes anxiety is that at some level we are telling ourselves that, basically, "I will die if things are not the way they 'should' be." This may sound like an overstatement, but time after time when I ask a client to dig down through their fearful beliefs--without censoring themselves, no matter how unrealistic the fear--the bottom thought they are always shocked to discover is "I will die".

For example, "If I don't ace this exam, I will do poorly in this class. If I don't do great in this class, my academic career will be completely ruined. If my academic career is completely ruined, then my parents will stop supporting me. If my parents stop supporting me, I will not be able to support myself adequately. If I am unable to support myself adequately, then I will end up homeless. If I end up homeless, I will freeze to death in an alley, alone." This is a lot more common than you think. I bet you have some thoughts like this that you haven't examined, either--I know I did.

If you will notice, the example person has unconsciously gone from "I should ace this exam" to "...or else I will freeze to death in an alley, alone." I would feel anxious about the exam, too, if I thought my life depended on it! If you lay out the path of the thoughts like that, the person can see what a ridiculous message they are giving themselves. But that's the problem with automatic thoughts--they go immediately from A to C with little recognition of that whole chain in between. Just recognize that we almost exclusively use "should" to beat ourselves up pointlessly.

A way to subvert this is to take the "should" and frame it as a desire or preference, rather than an imperative. In the example above, the person could reframe the "I should ace this exam" into "I want to ace this exam, because I want the consequence of doing well in this class." Reframing a "should" as a preference or want helps to reduce the fear for two reasons: 1) it subverts the whole "...or I will die" message and turns it into "...but I will still be okay if it doesn't happen", and 2) framing anything as a want leads directly to a goal-oriented train of thought such as "I will get the text and study the material" instead of to paralyzed agonizing or procrastination.

So, with apologies to a whole lot of people (we compiled this list from a lot of sources that I don't even know any more), here is a big honkin' list of common "shoulds" for you to look over to see if you recognize some of your own. (Actually, it's easier to start by noticing the "shoulding" that others are doing to themselves.) Oh, we "should" others, too, which leads to anxiety for us as well, but that's another day's work.

Shoulds:

I should be the epitome of generosity, consideration, dignity, courage, unselfishness
I should be the perfect lover, friend, parent, teacher, student, spouse
I should be able to endure any hardship with equanimity
I should be able to find a quick solution to every problem
I should never feel hurt; I should always be happy and serene
I should know, understand, and foresee everything
I should always be spontaneous and at the same time I should always control my feelings
I should never feel certain emotions, such as anger or jealousy
I should never make mistakes
My emotions should be constant -- once I feel love I should always feel love
I should be totally self-reliant
I should assert myself and at the same time I should never hurt anybody else
I should never be tired or get sick
I should always be at peak efficiency
I should be liked and approved of by everyone
I should always be successful in the things that I do
I should be further ahead than I am in life
I should always do things perfectly
I should be thin/muscular/sexy
I should have a boyfriend/girlfriend
I should be the same as everyone else (I shouldn't be different)
I should feel confident in every situation
I should be clear about my future and know where I am heading
I should always say the right things at the right time
I should always be able to meet other people's expectations
I should always do what people want
I should always feel calm and in control
I should always be happy
I should never make mistakes
I should put other people's needs before my own
I should never say anything that might make other people feel uncomfortable
I should always make the right decisions
I should be attractive
I should be popular
I should always make the right decisions
I should always look calm and in control
I should be a good student
I should have lots of friends
I should try to please my teacher
I should drive a particular car
I should wear certain brand labels
I should be in with the popular crowd
I should have a cool Ipod and mobile phone
I should be seen at cool venues
I should have lots of friends
I should be competent in everything that I do
I should never make mistakes
I should have lots of money
I should be successful
I should have a cool guy / chick to go out with
I should always be able to say something funny or clever
I should be able to impress the people that I like
I should always try to please my friend
I should feel confident in every situation
I should never need anything
I should always be patient and empathetic
I should never be scared
I should always put my children's needs ahead of my own
I should never be upset about anything anyone says
I should never experience time or energy limitations, or tiredness
With my great intelligence I should have no relationship difficulties
I have forgiven my parents so I should not have any unpleasant feelings towards them

Blasted Sports Fetishists

I had set aside time during this week to try to finish my dissertation as I am so close to done, and it's really sucking up my life and even the lives of my family (and friends).  I thought I might even get a lot of it done before the weekend, when I could work on it all Saturday as last week. But a lot of things conspired to make getting to the diss this week hard--Limelet had "troubles" on the night I was going to stay an extra hour or so, so I had to come home; there was a client crisis yesterday that sucked up a huge amount of time in the afternoon that was supposed to go to getting my clinic paperwork done and also the time that I had blocked out to get to my diss. 

 

So yesterday instead of finishing my clinic work, working for a couple hours on my diss, and still getting home for 6pm, I was at work until 7 anyway and didn't even get all my clinic work done, let alone even touching my diss.  Though I stopped myself on the way out, I went ahead and left my laptop and my huge sack of reference materials in the office, as I was going to come back early this morning to get to it, anyway.  However, when I went in today, first I couldn't even get close to the building in the car because of the stupid traffic for the stupid meatball game today.  So I angrily parked off campus in town on the street, in a spot marked "1-hour parking" as that was all that was left.  I figured that if I could make some real progress, it would be worth the price of a ticket.  I wished I had left my car in the lot last night and taken the bus, as long as that might take.

 

So I walked to the building.  There were shouting louts all over the lawn under tents and with barbecue equipment (9am mind you).  I walked up the steps and tried to walk into the building, but the DOORS WERE LOCKED.  Knowing it was futile, I nevertheless went all round the building, furiously trying all side doors and back doors and what not, even considering windows.  God blessit, if I had just brought my laptop and materials home, I could have just gone to the city library. 

 

So, anyway, I probably won't be checking my email much, as I have to pry TheLimey away from his also-important work and reset all his logins just to do that, which is a pain.  My furious trembling is beginning to subside, but barely.  I can't believe I can't even get to my computer until Monday.  Next week I have a jam-packed schedule with absolutely no time to set aside for diss, so I won't get to it until NEXT weekend.  I am so frustrated and disheartened.

orangeskies_4

orangeskies_4
Originally uploaded by doctorlizardo

Hope everyone had a happy Halloween. My husband took this one, for once.

The Dark at the End of the Open Space

(Post begun last weekend)

After spending today (a Saturday) at the office, I can say that I'm finally feeling excited about the completion of my dissertation. It's been a huge, endless* plain of information upon which I've wandered for lo, these past coupla years, but now the narrow gully that is the end of my journey is in clear sight.

What we'd been doing is having TheLimey watch Limelet on weekends while I worked on my diss. This worked like a charm. That is to say, most of the time it didn't work at all, and when it did, it may well have been coincidence.

I was doing maybe only an hour or two's worth of work and taking eight hours to do it, because of the constant distraction and interruption. Limelet can't stand having me at home but inaccessible. TheLimey can maybe take him outside for a little while, but that's limited, and also often requires my help to get him ready to go or to get him settled and fed and so on when they return.

So we finally hit upon the obvious solution, which is that I should just take my laptop and materials and head in to my office. After all, it's just across campus. That has worked great! Just a few hours of work actually yields results. It turned out that the building is locked on Sundays, though, so I had to go to the Union then. Still worked well, though less comfortable than my own office with all the amenities 'n' stuff.

Now I've completed 8 of the 16 tables/charts/appendices that are necessary to finish my dissertation. I think that means I'm officially within spittin' distance. After that, I just need to fix some formatting in my references section (easy) and then fix the verb tenses throughout my results/discussion section.

So all you edit-y types, any volunteers to read those sections and help me with the verb tense part?!

*seemingly