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Thursday, October 29th, 2009
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5:41 pm
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I've e-mailed some people, and I updated my status on facebook today, but I thought I'd put it here to be complete: I finished a complete, formatted draft of my thesis yesterday evening, had it printed and bound, and distributed the document to my committee today.
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| Wednesday, October 14th, 2009
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12:10 pm - Acknowledgments
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I have to write the acknowledgments section of my thesis in the next few days. I'm currently open to suggestions about what I might put it in, both people I should thank, and the language I should use to thank them.
That is to say, I'd like some advice on how to make this a little more creative or interesting than a typical acknowledgment section.
I promise that I will mention my advisor's electric car that he built himself.
EDIT: potentially most hilarious list so far suggested from twitter:
plumbob78 @hawkinstheclaw thank "my parents, Ayn Rand and God". DO NOT use a final serial comma. That's what makes it funny.
I don't think that's what makes it funny, but it is funny, and it would also be terrible to have that misinterpreted.
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| Sunday, October 4th, 2009
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9:52 am - notes from the 6-month Couples' Study I'm doing with my boyfriend
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In June, Tony and I agreed that it would be nice if we both received a random $100 in our checking accounts for participating in a 6-month Couples' Study that I saw advertised on our university's daily e-mail bulletin run out of this guy's lab. For the initial set of questions, we had to go answer questions in a computer lab for 2 hours (and will have to do the same for the final meeting in December), but for all the ones between, we answer a ~15 minute set of questions e-mailed to us individually, every two weeks. I thought I'd provide you all a sample of the questions. Given how positive the majority of my answers are, if this survey comprehensively measured all the important things about a relationship, I should marry my boyfriend, like yesterday. However, while I think all the things the survey touches are important, they are also pretty basic. Not that I know what kind of rubric I'd use to answer some of the other important issues in a relationship, but this is a blunt little tool we have here.
Here are a series of questions I copied and pasted directly into this entry from a survey:
Have any of these behaviors occurred since you completed the last survey?
My partner was sexually unfaithful.
My partner was emotionally unfaithful.
My partner was physically aggressive towards me (hit or pushed or slapped me, etc.).
My partner lied to me.
My partner flirted with someone else.
My partner was disrespectful to me.
My partner was rude to (or about) one of my family members or friends.
My partner kept a secret from me.
[how would I know?]
My partner was controlling of me.
My partner downplayed the importance of something I think is important.
My partner engaged in behavior I don’t respect.
My partner handled money poorly.
My partner did not support me when I needed it.
My partner communicated with me in a negative way (for example, spoke meanly or didn’t listen to me).
[I'm sure this happens sometimes - I know I do it occasionally, for example - but I can never remember the specifics because they aren't usually important for me to hold onto.]
My partner was emotionally distant from me (for example, acted coldly).
My partner forgot something that is important to me.
My partner was messy in a way that had a negative effect on me.
My partner did something that he/she knew I did not want him/her to do.
My partner acted excessively clingy with me.
Now we will ask you about the same set of behaviors, except this time we ask you to report whether YOU performed each behavior.
I answered no to all of the above things (not that I think I would particularly care about the flirting, I think some flirting is healthy), and then every time this question comes up, I answer yes:
My partner made fun of me.
After I answer yes, I get directed to a series of follow-up questions:
1. How many days ago did this hurtful behavior occur? (please type in the number of days) [1]
2. How hurtful do you feel this behavior was? [not at all hurtful]
3. To what extent did your partner try to MAKE UP FOR this hurtful behavior (for example, apologize)? [not at all]
4.Right now, how HAPPY do you feel about your partner's hurtful behavior? I feel... [intermediate between neutral/mixed and very happy]
5. Right now, how CALM do you feel about your partner's hurtful behavior? I feel...[very calm]
6. Right now, how ANGRY do you feel about your partner's hurtful behavior? I feel... [not at all angry]
7. Right now, how does your partner's hurtful behavior make you feel about your relationship? [intermediate between neutral/mixed and very satisfied]
The following questions are about your RESPONSE to your partner’s hurtful behavior.
8. Right now, to what extent have you forgiven your partner for this hurtful behavior? [strong forgiveness]
9. Right now, how HAPPY do you feel about your amount of forgiveness? I feel... [intermediate between neutral and very happy]
10. Right now, how CALM do you feel about your amount of forgiveness? I feel... [very calm]
11. Right now, how much SELF-RESPECT do you feel about your amount of forgiveness? I feel… [very much]
12. Right now, how does your amount of forgiveness make you feel about your relationship? I feel... [intermediate between neutral and very satisfied]
How has this changed the nature of our relationship? Overtly, not much, besides our occasionally joking "if you do X, I'm telling the survey."
On a deeper level, it's made me aware that any of the issues I have with my relationship aren't very quantifiable or simple. They aren't well-covered in the above questions, for instance. I wonder how many long-standing issues in long-term relationships would be.
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| Sunday, March 8th, 2009
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1:05 pm - "You're a forgotten watch away from becoming a Doctor Manhattan."
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As I move through life and get shown art/movies/music by certain sets of boyfriends and friends, move on to other boyfriends and friends, I question - is this piece of art worth reliving so I can share it with someone else? So I can see their unique take on it? Did I enjoy it enough the first time that it would be interesting to go through it again? I often brush off that last question, and then re-living the material, I see how I've changed.
The first two times I saw American Beauty in 1999, I was completely blown away. Suburban dystopia! Teenagers talking about mortality! There is a scene in which the daughter is walking home from school with her next door neighbor/soon-to-be boyfriend, and they watch a hearse drive by, and talk about how neither of them had either been close to someone who died. When I re-watched the movie in 2005, seeing that particular scene felt like I was catching a glimpse of myself from the window of a passing car. That wasn't true about me anymore. The movie didn't feel very profound, and I didn't feel like crying at the end. I'm glad that movie still exists, and I wonder if there are 17 and 18 year old girls still watching it and connecting as tightly to the main character or the message as I did, transiently. Maybe not, maybe some of those same girls are too busy being disenchanted by the popularity of Twilight.
While watching Watchmen last night, I had a similar revelation. The first few times I read the trade paperback, my boyfriend at the time suggested that he thought I would most enjoy the Doctor Manhattan story, Watchmaker. He was right, but I think he may also have been pointing out that I might relate to emotions a little differently than non-scientists or engineers. I don't tend to think that, but he brought it up again when I saw him at a reunion weekend a few weeks ago, so it's possible that some people see me that way. I wondered a little about how Jon Osterman's character became so overstimulated by jarring human emotions and petty concerns that he removed himself to Mars to build himself a spectacular castle of crystal and glass, which was to be shattered later by his retreating love interest. That's not a very subtle metaphor. I wondered if my (although I'm thinking in the collective, 'our', as in, 'how are we as scientists/engineers perceived?') molecular biology publications come across to our retreating love interests? As glass castles that might not even have a purpose that anyone else can see?
As Jon Osterman the human physicist gets locked into an experimental chamber with some piece of equipment designed to manipulate the physical reality around it, I thought about how, since my first reading of Watchmen, I've been in lead-lined rooms with radioactive sources. I set them up to deliver lethal doses of irradiation to my experiments, and have been nervous about getting out of the room before the timer went off, listening to my Geiger counter click away. It's no comic book reality, but it never crossed my mind that I would be able to relate to the idea of being nervous about getting stuck on the other side of the glass.
I do share Dr. Manhattan's contradiction, and it's probably one that a lot of my coworkers get drawn into over time. I don't think that life inherently has meaning, and choice is largely if not completely an illusion brought to us by the molecules that evolved to run our minds, but we have to act as if we don't know about the strings, unless we're choosing whether or not to take our anti-depressants, our exercise, or put down the drink. And while thinking all of these things, I'm deeply curious about the minutiae of how those molecules work to influence our cellular reactions, our whole organism. What's the point of caring about the meaning of the minutiae if I'm not completely drawn to the Kantian meaning of every single human?
Most of the characters of Watchmen -- the Comedian, Adrian Veidt, Rorschach -- believe they have achieved a sort of unique insight into human existence, behavior, or character. Generally, it seems to take the form of how inconsistent we are, how we're all doomed to some kind of collective self-destruction, an idea that can be easily exported from mid-1980s fears about inner city crime and international nuclear war, to being quite resonant with most coverage I hear on Marketplace about the growing fears about how this recession is bigger than anyone will allow themselves to say. The strong characters of Watchmen all respond to their respective insights radically and differently. Veidt profits off of successful marketing of unending human desire and then uses the profits for a higher purpose, the Comedian doesn't make a great effort to keep his violent and sexual urges in check, Rorschach only sees the dirt and scum and wants to wipe every criminal offender away from the earth (presumably to primarily spare the innocence of children, since no one did him that favor). I never caught it if Dr. Manhattan came upon that sort of insight. He seems to just gain distance from the problem, and with his increasing insights into his research, his ability to relate or be concerned with human problems fades.
In grappling with existential problems, I have to even ask myself why I'm strongly interested in the human species perpetuating itself. Is it just to make my own existence potentially matter more? Probably so. If I think about what seems more intrinsically valuable, 100 related humans existing in one time, or 100 related humans existing over a time span 3 or 4 times the original, I always go for the second. To me, it matters that humans exist over time. A thing (art, information, data, technological advances -- the stuff created by humans) is not only valuable for its original intended purpose, a thing can be made even more valuable by re-interpretation. It seems to be, that the longer we exist over time, the more valuable our human stuff will become, because we as a collective culture will have perspective to mix with our invented stuff.
These are not incredibly sophisticated thoughts. Still, it's nice when a piece of art pushes me out of my usual thought-boxes.
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| Sunday, January 11th, 2009
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7:30 am - bon iver, on for emma and blood bank
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NPR: You sing, "I know it well, that secret that you know, that you don't know how to tell." Justin Vernon, what are you singing about here?"
Justin Vernon: "I don't know. I think this is a fictional kind of love story, I guess. And I think that when people are falling in love or when people are experiencing magical things in their life, I think that that secret is the answer to all those questions - Why is this sacred? - and - Why does this feel larger than myself and larger than what I can even put into words, this experience, here on Earth, if I can say that? - I think that that's the secret, it's the connection we have to each other."
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| Wednesday, October 15th, 2008
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6:37 pm
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Why invest in glowlights for your rave when you could make a statement under the black lights as the Chiquita Banana Lady? Cheaper than a glowlight, with the additional bonus of a tasty and nutritious post-rave snack that will help prevent leg cramps.
Florescent proteins. So hot right now.
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| Monday, October 6th, 2008
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11:00 am - economics query
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American banks are failing, I hear a lot of reporting on that. European banks are failing, I've heard a little bit of reporting about that, too. I occasionally hear the phrase "Asian markets" on the Marketplace Morning report describing the conditions of overnight trading, but I haven't heard anything yet about Asian banks failing. Is that because it's underreported, it hasn't happened, or it has been happening and the press isn't free enough to report it where it's been happening?
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| Friday, September 5th, 2008
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10:33 am
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Meta-link: John Hodgman linking to Dr. Laura's blog about Sarah Palin. Though IT MAKES HIS fingerpads burn a little bit to do so.
I like this comment on it:
Dr. Laura's opinion seems to be something that I'm hearing more and more from women on the right. Cindy McCain, Rudy Guliani, and the rest are calling it sexism.
I hate to agree with Cindy and Rudy but, of course, it is sexism. In my opinion, however, I think it's sexism in a way that is far more interesting than what they are suggesting. I think it's an embarrassing exposure of a truth that has been, up until now, hidden behind our society's gender role bias. That often times our politicians, with all the demands of office, are bad spouses and parents. And this is acceptable in our male politicians but unacceptable for the women.
So what Cindy and Rudy are really saying is that Sarah has as much a right to be a neglectful spouse and parent as a man.
Let's be honest. My heart bleeds just as much as the next liberal but with 5 children (and one having Down syndrome) there is no way that Palin will be able to keep up with the 24 hour demands of vice presidency (let alone potentially being president) without being a pretty crappy spouse and parent. And if she were a he that would still be true but we are much more tolerant with neglectful Husbands/Fathers than we are neglectful Wives/Mothers.
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| Saturday, August 30th, 2008
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1:38 pm - self-interest
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I've read the typical internet opinions on Sarah Palin, but on reading her profile, the scenario that tickles my imagination into wanting to write about her is imagining how a discussion about the election would go with my grandmother. I remember she asked if me though Obama would make it; she liked him, and she liked Bill Clinton. She was a Catholic Democrat, but voted Republican for most of the national elections, motivated by the abortion issue. I bet she would feel a personal connection to Sarah Palin, who has a five-month old boy, Trig, who has Down Syndrome.
I wonder what Trig's child care plan is, and how Palin's plans for his care started to differ from that of her other four children, after she learned about his diagnosis four months into her pregnancy. When my grandmother was at the end of her life, her worry about her adult child with Down Syndrome was the last thing she could coherently vocalize. Being his most concerned advocate was one of her most primary functions. I wonder if Sarah Palin will actually empathize with the particular issues of being a parent with a special needs child, and the limited resources that go along with being an average citizen. These are not trite issues: molecular biologists have shown that having a child with special needs prematurely ages even your telomeres by about ten years. What seems more likely to me is that it will appear as if Palin identifies with the situation, given the bare facts - a fifth child late in life, with Down Syndrome - but seeing as how she returned to work three days after her child's birth (as ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.2) meghatronn noted that her wiki page reports) then I doubt she has very much in common with the lifestyle of the average special needs parent. If this is the case, then it would be a pity. Our country's most ignored citizens could always use more realistic compassion, media attention about how their lifestyles work beyond the smiling, flatter faces shown from Special Olympics press coverage.
I believe that the last time a mentally disabled person was so near the presidential spotlight, it was Rosemary Kennedy, sister to JFK. When I was eleven or twelve years old, I was first exposed to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest from the lending video section in the Loudoun County public library sytem. I watched it with my mother, and she connected a piece of that movie - the misuse of lobotomies as treatment* - to my limited personal experience at the time by telling me about one of the Kennedys who was mildly retarded, like my uncle, and then given a lobotomy. It retrospect, it seems more likely that Rosemary was encouraged to get the lobotomy because of her mood swings and possible depression, rather than her physicians expecting a lobotomy to positively affect any diminished mental capacity she may have had, even in 1941. Like the main character of the movie, Rosemary's mind was completely ruined for the rest of her life as a direct result of the surgery. Given the description of Rosemary's mental capacity pre-lobotomy, I can't read an account of her life without asking Was she done an incredible disservice by her family seeking a solution to what was perceived as embarassing behavior? Certainly: we only need to read a description of what she was like before and after the lobotomy to know that's true. However, was her treatment within the context of its time? Lobotomy was certainly a popular psychosurgical treatment in the 1940s, but its popularity may be attributed to the atmosphere of seeking solutions to the larger social crisis of overcrowding in mental instituions, rather than for individual successes. Rosemary wasn't institutionalized until after her complete mental incapacitation, caused by the lobotomy. At the time, there was at least one other treatment option for affective disorders, electric convulsive therapy, that had been introduced in 1938 for depression. My question changes to Would the Kennedys have sought such a dramatic way to attempt to control Rosemary's social outbursts if they had not been held in such high esteem in the public eye, or had not been as driven? I can't answer that question, but I do think it's a worthwhile question; it's difficult to dissect social trends in medicine from the individual culture of the Kennedy family.
Would it be good for an infant with Down Syndrome to be the child of a vice president? If this comes to pass, Trig could suffer a comparable fate to that of Rosemary Kennedy: the facts on his aptitude and care might be hidden or blurred to meet the expectations of social accountability for a presidential child; a generation of children with special needs may benefit from social policies that garner attention generated by increased media coverage of special needs children due to particular interest in Trig. In Rosemary's case, her influence is said to have inspired her sister, Eunice Shriver, to support the founding of the Special Olympics in 1968, which has had long-lasting benefits and media exposure for the disabled. I would hope that public attitudes about shame and disability have evolved enough such that Trig is not kept under wraps more than any other presidential child, that his care and development becomes and remains an issue of public interest, and that media coverage of his life doesn't shape him into something he isn't.
I believe that the children of our politicians probably deserve at least as much privacy as we can allow them. However, as someone who is considering how I might parent while being a professional, I'm interested in understanding how my elected officials choose to parent. Last year was the first time Michelle Obama stopped working since she began her career, and I would enjoy hearing her answer questions on "work/life balance," the almost meaningless phrase I've heard parroted in my "Preparing Future Faculty" course. What kind of daycare do you choose for your children while you're being an effective vice president of community and external affairs at the University of Chicago Hospitals, or governor of Alaska? Did your position have paid maternity leave? Did you take it? Do you think paid maternity leave should be available to all full-time working women in the United States, as it is in Britain? Do you think pregnant women should have their jobs held for them for a year after they give birth, as they do in Britain? Those policies make our country's Family and Medical Leave Act provisions look paltry and almost meaningless. Do you think that maternity leave policies such as those currently in place in Britain would assist in reducing the number of children who live in absolute poverty in our country?
* for which António Egas Moniz won the Nobel Prize in medicine in 1949
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| Tuesday, August 7th, 2007
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11:48 am
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In the interests of my own privacy and professionalism, I've decided to try switching my journal over to a completely "friends only" status. I know some of my friends who read my journal don't have a livejournal account; if you were to start one, it's more likely than not that I would add you to my list. If you'd like to be added, please leave a comment.
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