Letting Go

The universe continues to test me and this week was no exception. I honestly can't write about it yet because it's pretty raw and unfortunate, but I never went to sleep Tuesday night and I feel sort of like I'm floating through things and it can't all be real... which has all combined to reduce my self-regulatory resources/brain-mouth filter.

The new first years in grad school are here and I've been hanging out with them a lot because I've wanted to be social and not think about things and 2 of the 3 are in my tiny lab (and I genuinely like them a lot)! So they all come in to grad school with lofty goals and ideas and beliefs about how long things like a thesis (en route to a Ph.D. and dissertation) will take, unaware of the numerous other obligations and things that may not be "formal requirements," but that you have to do. But most importantly, they don't know about all the ways in which grad school - in a field of science where you have to conduct an experiment of some sort for your thesis and dissertation - is beyond your control, the things that can go wrong and don't conform to your timeline. And since I am the queen of things beyond my control going wrong, it's getting hard to bite my tongue. I almost said something tonight, but luckily, I think I kept it together and didn't make it too awkward. I've just sort of hinted that you can't always plan for everything, and if you realize that and stop trying to make it work, that can make your life lot more pleasant. I guess it's hard to tell people that those that try to go for it all tend to burnout, aren't the ones who make it at all, and aren't the ones who anyone wants to be friends with or help out in any way.

I think my frustration is also compounded by the fact that I'm part of the group of students - mostly those who came in older than 22 (though I didn't, and never thought I was all that old for my age, except here), that hasn't exactly had an easy path to and through grad school. It's the group of people that isn't still getting a full ride (or significant part of the ride) paid for by mommy and daddy. It's the group of people that have had experience trying to figure out how to make rent... or money to buy food... or have known what it's like to be the only one you can depend on, to be truly alone in the world (because mommy and daddy won't fix it and neither will the husband). And the new grad students are all young and have life going well and have these lofty goals and it's difficult to listen to them without getting defensive. Not that it's impossible, but what do you do? Do you just have to let them discover everything on their own?

Why I Love Football

I just watched part of this season's "Hard Knocks" which features the Cincinnati Bengals (or Bungles, as the case may be... felons doesn't quite fit as well or I'd use that nickname, for sure). It just reminded me why I absolutely freakin' love football. The intricacy and details, the number of variables that have to come together to create the perfect play - timing, athleticism, play calling, guessing, instinct, luck... it's truly incredible. Even miraculous that some of these plays can ever come together. To think about how many people are working to make these things come together blows my mind. And makes it like a sort of acrobatic display of athleticism. Like a giant spectacular show in Vegas where everything is choreographed and overwhelming and you only see the tip of the iceberg...

Tumbling into the New Semester

I really do apologize for neglecting this blog a bit, but school's starting back and the first big professional deadline of the year is rapidly approaching - in less than 20 days and that means I'm in quite the mess. But this is also because I've really gotten into Tumblr... the fact that you have tumblarity that tracks how popular you and your posts are and that you can influence and see where you rank in terms of that popularity is somehow addictive. At least for now. Plus, I don't have to log out of my professional Google account to post something quickly, so it's a time-saver (I'm looking at it that way rather than as yet another time vampire that force me to search the internet for cool things to post).

Good luck with classes and school for those of you still there (entering the 23rd grade and such)!

Popular

"I’ll help you be popular! You’ll hang with the right cohorts. You’ll be good at sports, know the slang you’ve got to know. So let’s start, ‘cause you’ve got an awfully long way to go..." -"Popular" from "Wicked" (the musical)

I know I should be grateful that so many people want to be my friend and that several of them are willing to go pretty far to make it seem like we are truly BFFs (keyword being "seem"), but for now, it's very frustrating. Seriously, more than two weeks before school started, three people had asked to co-host a party with me! And I'm not a planner and usually these guys aren't! If an invite hadn't gone out (with the first person to pressure me to make a decision), I think there would be more offers. Like one from the person who threw a party with me last year at the beginning of the school year. My favorite part is of course that these people like to invite others and act like hosts, except for the part where they do any work other than sending out invites and taking credit. To be fair, it's all been at my apartment, so it would be somewhat awkward to do all that much more, though I certainly wouldn't stop them!

It's just that it seems really obvious that several people want to make statements to everyone else in the program, letting everyone know that I'm their closest friend, that we have a solid bond that cannot be broken by any future events. My parties aren't that much more fun than anything else, other people live in my apartment complex and could use the pool here... and this behavior happens with more than just activities and parties. There was the game that existed my first year of grad school where I always lost as people tried to prove they knew me the best - essentially sharing more and more of my secrets to prove they knew me better. That was a great time...

I know that they don't mean anything negative and I should feel flattered, but I just think that it's much more about the alignment or group of personality types in this program. Most of them are very, very dominant, sort of alpha-females. And I am not. I'm fine with someone else taking the lead, or even getting credit for my work (as long as it's not a paper I slaved over or something big). To me, it's almost never worth fighting about and I don't want to be the leader just to be the leader. I don't like decisions. And so it's sort of that all of these people are competing to get the one sort of "follower" on their teams, thus making them the dominating force. Maybe I'm overly cynical and maybe multiple people just feel close to me because I tend to hang out with anyone and everyone, rather than sticking to one group (and so multiple people legitimately feel like my best friend and closest ally), or maybe they all just want to get into this eclectic group and get to know everyone as well as I do. Or maybe I'm just fun to host parties with.

It's just that it's surprisingly lonely being this "popular" (if I can even call it that... I swear, it's just for lack of a better word, I'm not trying to sound like a spoiled brat and the idea that this could sound like that bothers me immensely, but I want to write more than I want to be frustrated with that). Ultimately, despite the number of people calling and emailing and texting and messaging me, when bad stuff happens and I need some real emotional support, I don't really feel all that comfortable calling any of them. I'll tell them later, when the emotion passes, but I just can't confide in any of them. At least not now and I don't even really know why....

Tumblr!

After a ridiculous week of friends, fun, and sun, I'm recovering a bit (finally) and made another exciting discovery (a term I'm using quite loosely here as I think everyone in the world has already discovered it, but just in case)... Tumblr! I just got there, so add me, check it all out, and help me learn the ropes! (And subscribe!)

Fabulous New Site to Increase Your Vocab!

I just discovered this incredibly fun and awesomely informative new web site - WordSpy - which covers all kinds of fun new pop-culture words. This isn't just Word of the Day meets SAT prep. Entries include new words used in the New York Times, the beginning of the phrase "Quarterlife Crisis," as well as things like "Idaho Stop" (when you don't come to a complete stop at a stop sign) or "intexticated" (when you are preoccupied by texting, particularly when driving).

I LOVE new words and throwing them around in conversation and I never dreamed there was a site like this - more reliable, academic, clean and organized than Urban Dictionary, yet extensive and helpful. I'm such a nerd that I'm actually excited to start working these into conversations and my lexicon!

Self-Regulation Versus Gossip?!

Earlier this summer I sort of decided that it took too much effort to self-regulate around friends and fellow grad students (mostly because I have to do that enough around professors, at work, with the family) and so I've just been saying what's on my mind for the most part. I like it. It's easier to breathe and function and deal with things, though I know I need to not say absolutely everything... but now I feel like I'm gossiping at times. Expressing dissatisfaction with others and how they might have treated me recently or weird news around the department. I think this problem may be exacerbated by the fact that I'm hanging out with lots of different people and so it's not just confiding in one person.

The problem isn't just that I bring up topics I know might be troublesome, but how do you answer point-blank questions about them? Where is the line between gossip and catharsis? When are you talking about your feelings to think through them and when are you just spreading the word? Is it okay if I don't take pleasure in it? And most importantly, how do I stop? (Because I feel like I only know afterwards when I get a feeling of regret or realize I shouldn't hvae said something AFTER I already said it, so I just want to stop rather than completely understand the line.)

New Theory on Blink, Psychics, and Dream Interpretation

"Intuition strikes me as a concept we use to describe emotional reactions, gut feelings--thoughts and impressions that don't seem entirely rational. But I think that what goes on in that first two seconds is perfectly rational. It's thinking--its just thinking that moves a little faster and operates a little more mysteriously than the kind of deliberate, conscious decision-making that we usually associate with thinking.'" -Malcolm Gladwell, about Blink

I feel the need to disclose that I've never really been much for psychics and the supernatural and anything related to it - somehow after Miss Cleo went to prison, it all lost its luster for me. However, throughout my life various people have claimed to have psychic connections to me or that I had a powerful aura or some other penchant towards the supernatural. I've always dismissed it despite being exposed to far more people with some sort of psychic claim than most people (most of these people having been my mom's friends or general family friends and connections). I'm an academic, I went to a school heavily dominated by those going to med school or concentrating in engineering... the typical background for a cynic/non-believer/empiricist.

So last week when I had a weird feeling about my parents dog and then had a couple of dreams about her, I wasn't necessarily all that worried. I started to have insomnia again, but figured that was more a result of the unpleasant content than because I actually believed it was all true... but nonetheless, last week I told my mom I'd had these worries and at one point even texted my mom to ask if Wilma was okay, figuring that if I got a text back from her at 3am (when I texted), that she was awake and something was wrong... and if there was radio silence, I was golden. No response and I figured I was in the clear. But I had this bad feeling/bad dream a time or two more and various meetings were canceled and timing happened to work out that last week was one of the least busy I've had in awhile, so I figured I'd take a road trip to Atlanta and see Wilma nad my parents. Turns out, Wilma got sick right after I freaked the first time, but the vet thought it was just a sinus infection made worse by her existing cancer and radiation... my parents more or less told me about this and I relaxed, but then when timing worked out and I was just feeling weird about everything anyways, I told my parents I'd be home that day and my mom confessed that Wilma was in emergency surgery... so, long story short (or shorter, because trust me, these weird feelings and such could be discussed for much longer), I had feelings about an event and they turned out to be scary accurate, despite a lack of knowledge of the events.

I'm most definitely NOT claiming to have any psychic powers or anything along those lines, and in fact, think that I've come up with a new idea/theory about how existing research and ideas can explain this phenomena in a fairly rational, empirical way. I was thinking about affective forecasting and general "gut instinct" research - namely that from Malcolm Gladwell's Blink - and how humans can make very good decisions with gut instinct and without conscious thought in split seconds (you can read more about it here, in an interview with the author, among other places - it's a pretty popular pop psychology book). However, the caveat is that we make good decisions when we have enough experience and background knowledge that we can subconsciously evaluate those experiences and combine them to make predictions and assess potential outcomes. Thus, we are good at gut feelings and split-second decisions when we are "experts" in the situation or field of the decision - such as the CEO of a company who has been in his position for ten years and he has a feeling about a particular business decision. But, we are not good when we don't have the experiences and knowledge to evaluate the situation - even if we don't know we could have this knowledge or that we have this knowledge in the "expert" situation. For example, a new CEO with little experience in the field/company might not be able to make good decisions using a "gut instinct" because he cannot think back to similar situations he has experienced or knowledge he has about the people and situation and use those to subconsciously evaluate alternatives.

So what does this have to do with being psychic? Well, I think that it's this sort of subconscious decision-making and evaluating that happened to me/for me/within me. I knew Wilma was sick and that things had been happening and my parents were being evasive about everything and so my subconsious was simply telling me to go home and visit Wilma because she was sick and is terminal, not necessarily because anything specific was happening to her. The fact that these feelings and additional bad events overlapped is coincidence. And odds are that bad things have and will continue to happen to poor Wilma because she has terrible luck and because she has had a terrible reaction to the radiation. And the fact that any of this was connected to dreams is just more evidence that the subconscious is involved. After all, one theory of dreams and states of consciousness is that we simply explore various ideas and thoughts from the unconscious/subconscious mind while we sleep... sometimes playing with ideas in a sort of working of the Rubik's cube. And that's what happened here...

Maybe I'm just freaked out about this because my mom is so convinced that I have some sort of psychic vision or connection to Wilma and that clashes with both my personal beliefs about the universe and what is real and tangible as well as my very self-concept (as an empiricist, rational person... mostly devoid of and inept with feelings). But nonetheless, am I making a big leap so I can sleep at night? Is this theory even remotely plausible or legitimate?

Every new beginning...

...comes from some other beginning's end. (I'm feeling the Semisonic today, apparently.)

Just got back from a graduation party for the girl who I would probably call my best friend here in grad school. She's decided to stop at her Masters rather than staying on for the Ph.D., so that's a whole other interesting decision that I have weird and conflicting feelings about (because it is weird when you don't make that same decision and experience a mix of jealousy and some terror for her because her future is so uncertain in these economic times), but she's been gone this summer for an internship and moved out a the beginning of the summer, so she really has been gone. But still, somehow it's more final now. She might take a job only 4 hours away from us, but she might end up about 20 hours away.

It's hard to say good-bye with so much uncertainty and sadly, a lot unsaid on my part. I'm not sure she knows that I would really consider her my closest friend here. Another girl would probably tell everyone/has told everyone that we're best friends and done her best to create that impression, but the reality is that my friend currently leaving is the one I trusted more, spent more time with, was more consistent and there for me when I needed her (as opposed to when it was convenient or just when she thought she'd get to learn information about me that I kept private, thus helping her convince all others that the two of us were BFFs). I feel some weirdness that I haven't told her that or done a better job of that and I know that in large part I've just been distracted by my family stuff and so I haven't held myself to the same standards of living/etiquette/relationships that I have previously, but sometimes I wonder if I just the family as an excuse for my failures or "almost good enough" attempts at various pursuits.

And it's not that I can't tell her this information, but it's still just sad for me... and all of these realizations are hitting me hard. I'm not sure even I knew that she was really my closest friend here because it doesn't occur to me to think like that, to rank order people or compare them like that. But I did this afternoon when I was around both of them and lots of others in the program and it just sucks. It hurts. I'm annoyed with myself for not realizing this sooner, but again, know that I just need to move forward, do better from this point and that the two of us are going to start research-based blog or column that bridges the practitioner/academic gap and makes us world famous... thus earning me the money to get to the "more money than sense" level and allowing me to build a mansion complete with outdoor pool where you can swim and float and drink AND watch a TV with sports on (so now I could be out in the pool with a daiquiri watching the Yankees-Sox game right now.

RIP John Hughes

As you've no doubt heard, John Hughes died today at the age of 59. In some ways this is more bizarre and strange to me than MJ's death. I guess it's just that MJ always seemed older while John Hughes wrote for such a young audience when I was young that I feel like should be closer to my age. Or maybe it's just that his movies helped me understand myself and my world in ways that MJ's music, in all its glory and as much as I loved a lot of it, never could.

And so, in honor of John Hughes, the slideshow of movies he brought us that I particularly loved, and a really interesting take on a way that Hughes has affected cultural ideas: a story on bellaSugar about "How John Hughes Made Quirky Girls the Most Beautiful."

Think Good Thoughts

"Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear." -Ambrose Redmoon

For my dog/my parents' dog, Wilma. I say my dog because she was always mine, we got her in 5th grade from the pound and I've loved her ever since. She was technically mine and I took care of her forever, but my dad claimed I abandoned her by going to college and so I couldn't have her back when I got done with college and had room for her. But now I'm making emergency trips to Atlanta, the first one because my parents thought they were going to have to put her to sleep and again now because I had a bad feeling something had happened to her and my parents were extremely evasive about it...

She has nasal cancer (her snout is all cancerous tumors) and an abscess on her snout ruptured, which was good because it relieved pressure, but bad because it blew up everywhere... so Wilma had emergency surgery and apparently cancer has eaten away a lot of her skull and it's all grown back even though they just removed it a few weeks ago. So now Wilma is home, but continuing to struggling to breathe and continuing to have issues eating and walking and everything else. It's obvious she's in a lot of pain and it's awful to watch, but I can't bear to think about what's happening slowly and when anything might happen and what the future holds. I hate that this has happened to my family because this whole thing is more complicated than it seems and basically now my parents are questioning their own decisions in treating Wilma and doing radiation on the cancer (because Wilma is part of the 10% with a bad reaction to it) and we are all just dealing with so much. I can't believe this and how awful it all is...

I feel like I should write more and I sort of want to, but I'm not letting myself think about anything too much. Why dread what hasn't happened is my sort of motto for now. That and the need to keep it together because Wilma needs a lot of care right now... and I just wanted you all to be thinking good thoughts for her (me and Wilma and Bella would be very grateful as Bella has been very worried about Wilma).

Cool Stuff for the Blog...

(If only she could figure out how to blog without getting out of the blankets, Bella would have a MUCH more active blog than I ever could...)

Recently I've had some down time between getting manuscripts and drafts and papers and research out... so I've been exploring various blog-related tools and am desperately hoping you guys have some thoughts and opinions about your favorites and some suggestions. Here's what I've tried AND liked (complete with links)-

• Link Within - those little boxes at the end of each entry with thumbnails and titles; basically it's a widget that helps readers find old posts they might like after reading the current post (so your old entries get some love AND your blog looks prettier). Super-easy to do, takes less than a minute and no account necessary!
• Blog Catalog - a sort of directory for blogs. While I wasn't sure where to put my blog and I may not have my full privileges in the community yet, it's already helped me discover new and interesting blogs AND I've found lots of 2osbs on there!
• JS Kit Comments - required when you get the listing on the Blog Catalog, this is sort of like Google Analytics or StatCounter for your comments.
• Kaboodle - lets you make lots of wishlists and shopping lists that can be divided up by section. You can connect to friends, make collages of items, and store items with prices and information about them so you can find them later...
• Playlist - lets you make lots and lots of playlists and post them to your blog without forcing you to find the song and upload it and deal with lots of legal things.
• Young Professionals Blog Aggregator (or YP Blogs) - like Blog Catalog and 20sb, a directory of young professionals and their blogs.
• Be Funky - sort of like the special effects used in PhotoBooth on recent Macs, it lets you Warholize, Cartoonize, Inkify, Charcoalize your photos and more... very easy and totally free!

So what are your favorite networks, directories, aggregators, comment services, list making tools, utilities, photo art and storage sites, group blogs...?

Swing Vote (Spoiler Alert - sort of...)

Finally watched "Swing Vote" tonight - the movie with Kevin Costner, where he somehow gets to cast the only vote necessary to decide the next American president. MUCH more of a tearjerker than I thought it would be or was prepared for... but it reminded me of some things:

• That sometimes it's important to cut off the happy ending entirely and end the story where the important point is rather than where the audience expects.
• That underdog stories can truly touch your heart... even if they leave you wondering whether you want to see a forced, contrived happy ending or if you can handle not being given a real sense of hope that life gets better and justice is served.
• That everyone makes mistakes, even the polished professionals, and you just have to do your best to try to make it best.

Particularly emotional night after an ESPN story about a high school wrestler who walked at his high school graduation with the help of his blind best friend and prosthetic legs. Throw in Calvin Borel winning another race and I'm a sniveling mess... though this is most definitely NOT this year's cry.

(It only counts if I cry about my life and NOT at a sad movie or TV show, though I obviously try to avoid those too - don't want the tear ducts to suddenly remember how things work....)

Commonalities in Hardship

I've had multiple conversations about this recently and I think I've been particularly interest because of my scholarly interest in resilience (and related constructs such as hardiness, psychological capital, etc.) as well as in finding benefits from having experienced stressful and/or traumatic experiences, so I figured I'd write about it here and see what you guys thought...

Basically, I was talking to a fellow grad student that I like a lot and we were talking about how we both tend to really like and be friends with other people who have had something terrible happen to them or have had to overcome something. Those are the types of people we feel most comfortable relating to and sharing problems with and those that just "get" us. It was then easy for us to generate examples of people that we didn't like - some of them mutually disliked grad students - who have everything handed to them. Those most despised frequently try to explain that they do have problems, like when they spent their monthly allowance too quickly or didn't get to go to both South Africa and Ireland (just one). They oftentimes tell this to people like me and my friend who struggle to pay for everything on our own and have for the better part of a decade.

So my question is this: Are we (some of us) attracted to others who have overcome something because they are simply similar to us (like is attracted to like, birds of a feather flock together), which is a well-established psychology principle? Or is it that the experience of overcoming something fundamentally alters your personality and viewpoint in some way? As in, suddenly getting a C on a test seems like no big deal because you're trying to make rent this month OR you feel like you can confide and trust someone who knows what it is to struggle, to be less than perfect... And to that point, does the size of the obstacle we overcome matter? Because the truth is that we are all individuals and we do experience situations differently (all of us don't react the same way to the same situation) and thus, might it take different size obstacles to yield the same results? Is there a basic threshold or minimum level of difficulty needed to get to the point where you are more laidback and accepting of others or just reap the benefit of hardship?

So what do you think?