Life... Or Some Approximation Thereof

The Creative Process

noreply@blogger.com (Ashe) — Mon, 28 Oct 2013 19:53:00 +0000

Working on the novel

While trying to figure out whether I wanted to try my hand at freelance writing as a source of income, I realized that I was becoming gripped by the overwhelming urge to FINALLY finish the science fiction novel that I've been sitting on for the last 20 years. It dawned on me over the weekend that if I were to write a mere 3-4 pages each day, a very do-able target goal, I could complete the story by January 1. I started the year with only 70 pages, but thanks to a brief spurt of writing at the beginning of the year, and my recent spurt which I hope will become a more sustained effort, I am now at the halfway point to my goal of writing a 300-page novel. Assuming that I can complete this novel, it is my intention to one day write a complete series of ten novels based around this main character, with this current work being the third of the ten books in the series.

Every time I complete another page I feel a jolt of excitement course through my spine. I feel like I'm finally getting closer to finishing a goal which actually has meaning to me. It helps to add depth to my self-identity in a way that just working for a paycheck does not. Of course, having said that, I am still worried that I may starve or be kicked out on the streets soon. And, I am still diligently trying to find a paying job that will satisfy my financial/survival needs. However, one of the main reasons I began this blog years ago, and the main reason for returning to college, was to chart my progress as I attempted to transition from a lonely, scared, and depressed guy into a man who can successfully set and achieve realistic goals for himself, and live a better life. Admittedly, the current state of the economy and job market has made that more difficult. But, finally being able to complete a project that I had essentially put off for so long would be hugely gratifying.

One of the main regrets, among the long list of regrets that is my life, is that I wasted all of the downtime I had while working in radio. I could have easily completed my novel, or gone to college part time, or both, in the spare time I had while working overnights at the radio station. I regret that it took falling in love with Ex, and then losing her, to finally give me the momentum I needed to change my life and accomplish the goals I wanted, perhaps even needed, to complete.

While writing this weekend, I remembered how this whole novel began. The character was one that I created in high school. The character's origin story, which I wrote in my junior year, is a rough 20-page story that really doesn't do justice to the story I wanted to tell, and one which I hope to eventually get around to rewriting properly. However, one day I was sitting in a record store in Cameron Village, back when record stores still existed, and I sat down to listen to The Beatles' album Revolver. It was the first time I had ever really paid attention to the lyrics of any Beatles songs. When Eleanor Rigby came on for the first time, my mind took over and created an elaborate scene, a picture of disorder and chaos in a destroyed apartment. I recall feeling a rush of excitement similar to riding a roller coaster as the scene swept over me. I immediately played the song over and over again, trying desperately to burn the scene into my memory so that I could get home to commit it to paper, back when I was still writing by hand on paper.

I knew immediately that the scene that my mind had revealed to me was going to be the beginning, and, to some degree, the end of the story I wanted to craft. But, the problem was how to get from A to Z. Over the years, I have typically written a page or two here and there, establishing checkpoints for the story which I have used to guide the writing of the novel. It has always felt as though my brain crafted the entire story on that day at the record store, but I have been waiting all of these years for the story to be revealed to me. Now that I have half the story written, I feel like I am closer than ever to seeing the full story in all of its depth. I wonder if this is how people who claim to have been given visions from God experience them?

Of course, my greatest fear in all of this, and perhaps one of the reasons that I have never attempted to complete the story until now, is that once the story is finished others might not gain the same emotional impact from the story that I have had, as I have carried it with me for all of these years. There have been moments when I have been writing where I have literally broken into tears at the realization of the story that I was writing. Make no mistake, this will not be a feel-good novel. You won't be cheering for the hero at the end, and you won't walk away feeling like justice was served. This story is meant as part of a greater whole, wherein the reader will get to see a hero fall to a considerable low, so that he can eventually rise back to a considerable high. At the end of the day, I want readers to feel satisfied by this novel, even if it doesn't make them feel happy for having read it.

It is interesting that once you delve into the creative process, the ideas begin to flow like rain, so much so that I had difficulty sleeping last night because of all of the various scenes racing through my mind vying for attention. I don't think I've ever had a creative spark this intense in the past. I just hope that I can sustain it long enough to finally complete my goal. I have never wanted anything as much, or for as long, as I have wanted to complete this novel.

Although my longing for Ex does come a close second.

Still Alive...

noreply@blogger.com (Ashe) — Tue, 15 Oct 2013 20:33:00 +0000

Have Portal Gun Will Travel

Despite the long break since my last posting, I am still alive. I managed to have a brief reprieve from absolute destitution in the form of a job. I worked for four months as a car salesman for a local car dealership before the franchise was sold to a competitor and I was laid off, having been a recent hire with no established sales track record. It happens, although I wish that I had been able to keep the job a little bit longer, for no other reason than I was finally able to eat regularly. I even went out to eat at The Raleigh Times a few times. If you ever get the chance, I highly recommend their burgers, and the Blatherskite Scottish Ale from the Raleigh Brewing Company. It sort of tastes like the perfect blend of Red Stripe and Stella Artois, my two favorite beers. I would say that it has the clean taste of Stella without the astringent quality, and the deep flavor of Red Stripe without the bitter aftertaste.

Now that I'm back to being unemployed, I am largely in the same position as I was during the first five months of the year. I desperately search the online job postings every day in search of some job which would serve my needs, hoping that I get callbacks for the jobs I want, and feel vaguely qualified for, rather than the jobs which I would only accept based on pure desperation for a steady paycheck. And, as before, I don't seem to get called for the good paying office gigs I would like, nor the low paying grocery store/fast food/convenience store jobs which I would take to benefit my survival. With unemployment in the city still hovering around 6-7%, I don't have a lot of expectations that things will improve quickly. And, with the recent government shutdown adding pressure to social safety nets which were already in a precarious state thanks to the inconsistent moral values of our elected "leaders", I am stuck wondering when my hopes for a better future will ever be realized.

Since I still don't have Internet access at my home, during my downtime from connectivity I have been amusing myself with the single player games Portal 1 and 2. If you haven't played them, I highly recommend the games. Basically, the Portal series is a first person puzzle based game where you navigate elaborate test chambers trying to get to an exit using a gun that creates portals on surfaces that you can use to move from point to point. One of the things which strikes me is how well the developers were able to craft a story for the main character, Chell, and the test facility, Aperture Science, using such minimal gameplay and storytelling elements. It is one of the reasons that I've been getting back into the mood to write again, lately. As someone who has never been a big fan of long tedious novels spanning 500+ pages, I like that Valve Software was able to craft a story which elicits an emotional response with such minimalism, and which has gained such a large fan base withing the gaming community. It gives me hope that I could complete a novel with less than 400 pages that might resonate with people on some level. Perhaps my writing will never reach the worldwide popularity of Portal, but it would be nice to have more than a handful of people actually read something which I wrote. Currently, I have around 130 pages written on my most completed novel, with bits and pieces of a ten book series already mapped out.

I have also been considering doing some freelance writing for blogs or news sites. I have tried to contact a few websites, but without an already established portfolio of professional writing online, it has been difficult to break through. I believe I have the talent to succeed as a writer, as I have long read published work from others whom I felt were not as skilled as I; although being able to convince others of this doesn't seem so easy. The main catch, of course, is would I be able to succeed enough to actually eek out a living as a writer? Freelance gigs don't typically pay very well, usually only a hundred dollars at best per article, with typical bounties being more in the $20-50 range. And it could take a year or more for me to make money from a novel, considering time to complete the writing, editing, revising, and then deciding whether to contract with an agent or go the self-publishing route through Amazon. And since I need money now, that seems like more of a longer term pipe dream, even though I have been putting off completing a novel for twenty years. That's the problem with those pipe dreams... they are really easy to keep putting off until later.

I feel like I am grasping at air to figure out what I should do or how I should survive. What makes all of these possibilities even more stressful to choose among is the fact that it is once again Graduate School Application Season, I am still holding on to my dream of getting a PhD and becoming a professor. Unfortunately, without any current income, I cannot afford to pay for the hundreds of dollars I would need to apply to several programs in the hopes of gaining an acceptance. So, in a way, I suppose that realization should make things a bit easier for me. Graduate school is the one choice I cannot make right now. Once again, having a dream is a luxury which I cannot afford to have.

Keeping Up the Fight

noreply@blogger.com (Ashe) — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 18:48:00 +0000

Hopefully this won't be me soon

I’m starting to get genuinely scared about my short term future, and potentially my long term future, as well. I almost didn’t cover my rent for the month, as my family couldn’t manage to send me the full amount that is due. Unfortunately, my apartment complex won’t allow a partial payment, even one which is only $20 or $30 short of the total. That means that if things don’t turn around soon, I could conceivably miss my rent for the next month, and that would mean I would be on the street with nowhere to go by my birthday, which is in the middle of May. I spent most of last weekend in a deep depression as I struggled with that realization. I wish I could say that the thought of suicide didn’t appeal to me at some point. However, since I have lived with depression for the majority of my life, I suspect that suicide will never fully leave the list of possibilities that I consider whenever I am faced with adversity. At least, I can report that, since graduating college, I haven’t been fully overwhelmed with emotional anguish. The feelings of depression didn’t completely overcome me, and a walk around the lake on Sunday afternoon helped me to break free of the painful, obsessive thoughts about homelessness or suicide which had grounded me on the previous two days.

On the other hand, I suspect that my gas will get cut off soon. That means I won’t be able to cook food on the stove, and I will have to endure cold showers. Luckily, the temperatures have now warmed up, so I don’t have to worry about being too cold during the day or night. As an odd consequence of my tendency to ignore some things, such as money, I had built up a credit over the last year with the electric company, as I set up my bank account to just send a regular monthly payment which was apparently slightly more than what was owed each month. That means that my electricity is still up and running, and current, for now. It will probably be another couple of months before my electricity will be turned off, assuming I haven’t been kicked out my apartment before then. I do plan to talk to my property manager at the apartment complex, when she returns to her office this Tuesday, to see if there is any way that I can negotiate my apartment rent downward for a few months while I continue to look for work. I am hoping that since I have been living here steadily for nine years that they will be willing to give me a little slack. Living in Raleigh, the lowest rent these days, which isn’t in a slum, is $600, and those are student apartments not far from where I am currently living. My rent, right now, is $700. If I could get a couple hundred knocked off the price for a few months, it might make a world of difference for me, not to mention my family. Though, to be fair, that is probably more wishful thinking than anything based in fact. But, I don’t have much other choice than to try.

During my last semester at NC State, I took a graduate course in advanced developmental psychology in which a common thread was the study of resilience in individuals. This little economic calamity that I have been facing over the last few months, and which I hope desperately I will not be facing for much longer, has revealed a small, yet significant, emotional growth in my life which I had not really been aware of previously. Despite setbacks, I feel as though I have grown more emotionally resilient as a result of returning to college, and seeing myself achieve a long held goal. For so long at the radio station I had seen myself as nothing more than a slacker, a failure, someone who just had to take what was given to me with little argument to the contrary. While I still feel as though there are forces in my life which I have little control, for example when I will ever be given a job, I am no longer as burdened with despair and torment over my circumstances. I am now more easily taking matters in stride, working as best I can to change my situation for the better, but being more accepting of things as they are, rather than obsessing over how they are not as I would wish them to be, and allowing that obsession to take over my existence.

All in all, I am now more confident than ever that returning to college, and earning my B.A. in Psychology, was the right decision to make. While I do regret that a four-year college degree in a social science isn’t a blank check to a good job in the same way that a computer science, engineering, or applied science degree generally is, I am nonetheless proud of my accomplishment. I chose a path, and I successfully followed it through to its conclusion. I have not yet fully given up hope of one day returning to get a Ph.D., and becoming a professor. But, at least I know now that if I set an appropriate goal for myself, and try to find, or establish, clear markers for achieving that goal, I can have some positive control over my life in ways which I never fully realized before I graduated.

I have no way to guarantee that things in my life won’t get worse before they get better. But, I have the strength to keep going, to push ahead, and continue doing what I must do, until I can find my way to the other side of this dilemma. Though, honestly, I won’t be upset if I am given a new job in the next few days so that I can leave this exercise in character building in the past.

Keep living life…

P.S. If you are able and willing to do so, you can always make donations to my PayPal account by clicking the Donate button at the top left hand corner of my page. I will greatly appreciate anything you can offer, and if you leave a comment on this post, or otherwise message me, I will be happy to make arrangements to compensate you in some reasonable way for your donation.

Fallen Through the Cracks

noreply@blogger.com (Ashe) — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 18:34:00 +0000

The last of my food supply

Right now, I’m debating whether or not to eat a box of macaroni and cheese.

I’m not debating whether I should eat it versus something else which would be decidedly more nutritious. I’m debating whether or not I should eat it, or go hungry another day. You see, I only have three boxes of macaroni and cheese left to my name. I have no other food in my apartment, and I currently have $9 left in my bank account. My Internet and mobile phone were turned off at the beginning of January, and my gas will probably be turned off in the next month. My electricity will eventually follow suit. The only reason I still have an apartment is because of the charity of family, however their finances are stretched too thin with almost half a million dollars in medical debt, and the costs associated with caring for an elderly matriarch in the last months of her life. The only way I am able to receive calls from potential employers is through an old flip phone loaned to me by a family member while I look for work. I’ve been living off macaroni and cheese since January, eating a box every second day in order to stretch what meager funds I had as far as they would last.

You may be asking, “But, Ashe, weren’t you in college? Did you ever graduate?” The answer is, yes. I graduated from NC State University in December 2012. I earned a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, and had a 3.44/4.00 Cumulative GPA, as well as a 3.75/4.00 Major GPA. It says so, right on my resume. I spent two years doing research for the Good Doctor, although, to be fair, that last semester I really slacked off since I had a small bout of depression, later followed by fear and anxiety associated with not having a job waiting for me when I graduated. My slacking showed, as the Good Doctor only gave me a B for the last semester in his lab, where previously I had made A’s. I really feel bad about that, and I feel that I left things off with him on a sour note, as a result.

While I did attempt to apply to graduate school, finances dictated that I could only afford to apply to one school, NC State. As anyone who has applied to graduate schools can tell you, it is not a good idea to place all of your hopes into one university. Unfortunately, I was a little too vague on my application when explaining what I wanted my research focus to be, and was rejected despite what one of the professors reviewing my application said were very good GPA and GRE scores.

The problem, as I see it, is that I am a bit afraid to tell any professor about my true goals for research. Ever since returning to college, I have had a dream of doing research which would lead to the creation of an artificial intelligence, which would reside on any mobile device, computer, or perhaps even a web-enabled television, that would be used mainly for the treatment of depression, anxiety, and some mild addiction disorders. Several problems get in the way of this research. One, I have no engineering or computer programming background, so I would not be creating the actual programming code, myself. Two, there is very little research in the psychological journals pertaining to the use of artificial intelligence, as it seems that psychologists have mostly ceded control over this area to the engineering field. And, three, since there aren’t any psychologists currently doing research into the use of artificial intelligence as a treatment for depression, there aren’t any researchers whose labs I can apply to work in as a graduate student. At NC State, we have an engineering department with faculty and students who would be of great use in the actual construction of the AI, but the closest thing to a psychologist who fits my needs focuses his research on studying the cognitive effects of playing video games in adults and the elderly. For my purposes, as one who has played video games since I was four years old, I see parallels between using AI for improving the cognitive and emotional well-being of adults with depression, and using video games, which are little more than graphical AIs which respond to player input, as a way of improving the cognitive functioning of older adults.

But, back to the original topic, since I had to postpone my dreams of attending graduate school by at least another year, I have been struggling to find work to support myself. Without Internet access at home, I take my laptop back and forth to the campus library so that I can use the WiFi for a few hours each day to look through job postings on numerous websites, hoping for the few jobs that I am vaguely qualified for, so that I can submit my resume and cover letter for jobs which probably have several hundred other people applying, as well. In the months since I have been looking for work, I have only received a half dozen or so phone calls about my resume, most from staffing agencies, and none which ever progressed to a face-to-face interview. With 7.7% unemployment in the Triangle area, and around 9.5% statewide, I estimate that around 80,000 people are without work right now in my hometown, so it is in the companies’ favor to be as picky as they desire. It isn’t uncommon for employers to demand 5+ years of experience for jobs that they even admit only require a high school or Associates degree level of education. And, since I was making $21,000 when I left the radio station, I don’t feel that I am out of my mind to request a base salary of $30,000 now that I have spent the last five years earning a Bachelor’s degree. That isn’t to say that I haven’t attempted to apply for grunt work jobs. I have applied to three grocery stores, two fast food sandwich shops, and a convenience store. None of them were offering more than $9 an hour, and none of them ever called me back. I am guessing that I fall somewhere in the middle of employment preferences, now. I’m too well-educated for grunt work, and not well-educated enough, or at least lacking some excessively specific knowledge, for good jobs.

NC State gives its students a free bus pass so that students can ride city buses without having to pay. Unfortunately, that was revoked in early March, since I am no longer attending the school as a student. So, with only $9 in the bank, and $10 in cash on me, I can’t afford to ride a city bus any more than is absolutely necessary, meaning that I can only go back and forth to campus during the week, when the college buses, which anyone can ride for free, are running by my apartment. Since I don’t have a car, and certainly cannot afford one at the moment, I am trying to save the $10 in cash so that I might be able to ride back and forth to some job interviews, should I actually make it that far. I haven’t quite figured out how I will afford to ride the bus back and forth to an actual job, if I’m so lucky as to get one, but I do still own a bicycle, and I suppose I could struggle with it for a few weeks until my first payday, assuming the job isn’t in Durham or RTP.

As to more immediate needs, however, I attempted to apply for food assistance from the state on March 1st. The Health and Human Services website says that if you are in need of emergency food assistance, meaning you currently have less than $100 to your name, you have a right to receive benefits from the food assistance program within seven days. Unfortunately, as history in the US has told us, just because you have a right to vote doesn’t mean you can; just because you have a right to receive equal pay for equal work doesn’t mean you can; and just because you have a right to receive emergency food assistance within seven days doesn’t mean you can. I waited for two weeks to hear from a case worker about my application, but eventually called the office, only to get a run around through an automated phone system. After some persistence, I was able to get a direct line for my case worker, but after numerous attempts to call her, all I got was an answering system, and a message not to leave more than one message in any 24-hour period. Presumably, if my application isn’t processed and approved within 30 days it is voided. I have no idea what to do beyond that, other than attempt to re-apply, and hope for the best during the next 30 days. I found data on the Health and Human Services website showing that well over 1000 people applied for food assistance in Wake County in February. I can only hope that most of them didn’t have as much difficulty as I have had in receiving food aid.

I would apply for unemployment benefits; however, the state requires that you had to have worked at some time during the last twelve calendar months in order to receive benefits. Since I didn’t work, and was in college full time during all of 2012, I do not qualify for unemployment benefits. They also have other restrictions, such as you cannot have been fired, and I don’t think you are allowed to quit of your own choosing, either. So, really, I can’t imagine what sort of limited circumstances one is allowed to collect unemployment for beyond company layoffs. And, since unemployment rolls are used to determine employment figures in the state, and nationally, I suspect that the 9.5% unemployment rate statewide is a gross under-representation of the real unemployment problem in the state. Couple this knowledge with newly-minted Governor Pat McCrory’s plan which reduces monthly unemployment benefits for recipients, as well as reduce the length of benefit enrollment, and it is clear that things are going to continue to be painful for a great number of people just like me.

I have no idea what I am going to do, or how I will be able to survive beyond the next month or two. I suppose I’ll save that box of macaroni and cheese for one more day.

This Shit's Got to Stop Right the Fuck Now!

noreply@blogger.com (Ashe) — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 02:22:00 +0000

Birth control is a GOOD thing!

Over the last couple of weeks, Republicans have been driving me, and anyone else with a functioning vagina or penis, batshit fucking insane! I was content to mostly ignore this sudden rampage against women's access to birth control until someone I follow on Twitter referenced this article about New Hanover, NC county commissioners rejecting funds for local family planning services. Once this crap starts happening in my home state, I have to speak up.

Now, understand that I'm about to make my case in a perhaps inappropriate way, with details which you probably don't want to read, but I have to get this out into the open. I'm not sure exactly who Republicans think they are controlling, punishing, or otherwise dictating, but you would think that people who have fucked as many individuals who AREN'T their wives while still espousing "family values" would understand that women are made for more than just birthing babies! In fact, these despicable Randian Conservatives who "don't want to have to take care of" other people should love giving out free birth control on every street corner, as there would then be fewer people around to need taking care of.

Now, depending on the type of birth control, and to what amount a woman's insurance may or may not cover the birth control, a year's worth of birth control can cost as much as $1000 a year, not including the medical consultations required by the doctors who must act as gatekeepers for the birth control. If a woman is living on the edge, financially, this cost can be too much to bear. Even for a woman who is living a relatively comfortable middle-class life this expense can put a stress on her financial situation. The Conservative argument is that if they think they can't afford it then these women should keep their legs closed, as one of these brilliant luminaries recently suggested that women should use a Bayer aspirin as birth control by holding it between their knees!

I'm not sure where this hate of the poor and middle class began, but these shitheads (and I do not think there is a better term for anyone who would seek to control the sexuality and take away the freedom to fuck from other people, on the one hand, while claiming that higher taxes infringe on freedom and are equivalent to a Hitler or Stalin-esque dictatorship on the other) have already demonstrated their hatred of the poor by requiring drug testing, in states such as Florida, before a person can receive welfare or employment benefits, as though all the poor and middle class do is sit at home injecting heroin instead of being mindless cogs in the grinding wheels of Capitalism like good little American zombies. Now, apparently, the poor and middle class don't deserve to have the basic, some would say God-given, luxury of sexual pleasure, either!

Now to the inappropriate argument, and why this issue pisses me off, personally. I've referenced some of my sexual issues in the past, and among my boot fetish, my occasional interest in S&M-style rape fantasies, and my mommy/daddy issues, I sometimes enjoy fantasizing about getting a woman pregnant. I don't actually WANT to get a woman pregnant. I just like the FANTASY of getting her pregnant. During sex, I want a woman to beg me to impregnate her. I want to think of her as little more than a womb in need of being conquered. In reality, I can't imagine a woman actually wanting to birth my hell spawn, and since I can't financially take care of myself, I have no business trying to support a child. But, during sex, I like the fantasy that I own that woman's pussy, and that I am going to plant my seed inside of her like Neil Armstrong planted the American flag into the moon in order to claim it for the USA!

In order for this fantasy to remain a fantasy, and not become a nightmare for me, the woman, and the potential demon offspring, I have to fuck the woman bareback while also NOT getting her pregnant. In fact, I have rarely used condoms during my life for a variety of reasons including my impregnation fantasy. However, this leaves the responsibility of birth control solely in the hands of the woman. I WANT every woman who has the momentary lapse of judgement which causes her to allow me to touch her naughty bits to have access to cheap, possibly even free, birth control at her convenience.

My right to FEEL like a powerful, woman-impregnating rapist, without actually having to BECOME a powerful, woman-impregnating rapist demands that all women have cheap or free access to reliable, safe birth control.

So, when you tell a woman that she needs to keep her legs closed if she can't afford to pay for birth control, you aren't just telling women what they can and can't do, you're also telling men what they can and can't do. And, considering that I haven't had sex in six years, I'm of the mindset that society should be promoting more sex, not less.

I'd say that Conservatives can go fuck themselves, but they'd probably try to outlaw that, if they could!

Have fun and keep living life... and try to have an interesting sex life.

Taking a Break From All Your Worries

noreply@blogger.com (Ashe) — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 23:51:00 +0000

I'm trying to consume healthier sweets

Now that it's Spring Break, I have some time to catch up on things.

A couple weeks ago, I went to Student Health Services to have my blood glucose checked. After the whole Dunkin' Donuts fiasco I was worried about my health. The doctor there recommended that I lose at least 20 pounds, and try to eat healthier, of course. My test results were emailed to me a few days later and reported that, while I wasn't officially diabetic, my blood glucose level was high enough to be considered "pre-diabetic", a term which means I'm basically screwed if I don't do something about my health soon. I guess it is better to know than be in the dark. Since I got the results, I've been trying to cut back on sweets, and eat more vegetables. I still eat sweets 2-3 days a week, but that's better than the 5-6 days a week I was doing prior to going to the doctor. Since the blood test is able to detect glucose levels for a three month period, I'll try to go back for another glucose test in the fall to see if things have improved.

During the two weeks prior to Spring Break, all of my courses held their mid-term exams. I managed to make a 100 (A+) in Behavioral Research, and B- in Philosophy of Science. I don't know, yet, what I made in Modern American History or Western Lit, but I feel pretty confident that I made at least a B+ on each of the exams.

Speaking of Western Lit, the Sexy Scot implied during class a few weeks ago that she is a lesbian. I don't have any problems with gays or lesbians, but I still felt sad when I heard the implication. Why did I feel sad? Well, because my professor clearly won't be having sex with me since she is in a relationship with another woman. It has nothing to do with me being fat, old, broke, or one of her students! No, potential lesbianism is apparently too strong a piece of evidence for even my incredibly strong power of self-delusion to set aside!

Actually, I think the whole thing with the professor ties in with another larger narrative concept for me this semester, namely alienation. While I wouldn't go so far as to say I've been depressed this semester, I have certainly felt more alone than I have in a while. Several of my friendships currently seem to be based in a sort of mutual annoyance, where they annoy me, I annoy them, we get tired of each other for awhile, then go back to annoying each other for awhile longer. As luck would have it, all of my friends are taking a break from me at the same time. I have tried to reach out to other acquaintances through social networks like Facebook. I even started a Twitter account so that I could follow along with the lives of other people online, as though watching other people's conversations would somehow be as satisfying socially as watching porn is satisfying sexually. From my experience, porn seems the more satisfying of the two.

As a result of the communication study that I am running for the Good Doctor, I even started up a Skype account in the hopes that someone would actually want to video chat with me. However, all of this reaching out through technology has shown me that A) I know very few people, B) most of those people don't use Twitter or Skype, and C) the few who do apparently have nothing to say to me. Of course, there are also those people who are mere acquaintances whom I really don't want to talk to about anything beyond just keeping tabs on their lives.

I guess what I'm getting at is that having shallow connections with large numbers of people isn't particularly useful to me as much as having deeper connections with a small number of people. This scenario only breaks down when that small number of people have more interesting things to do than keep me company. Hence, why I spend so much time keeping up with politics, science, and technology.

Oh well... I suppose I should chalk it up to so-called "first-world problems" and be thankful I'm not starving or homeless at the moment.

Have fun and keep living life... Or Some Approximation Thereof.

Meeting Challenges

noreply@blogger.com (Ashe) — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 04:22:00 +0000

I could only eat six of them.

This was an eventful week with an abundance of meetings. Tuesday, I met with Johnnie at the Dunkin' Donuts to attempt to eat a dozen doughnuts in under 40 minutes, the time it took him to eat a dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts during the Krispy Kreme Challenge. I was able to eat six of the doughnuts in 17 minutes, so I was well on my way to beating his time. However, I started to feel lightheaded and stuffed. The problem is that Dunkin' Donuts are 1) slightly larger than Krispy Kreme doughnuts, and 2) denser than Krispy Kreme doughnuts. So, eating six Dunkin' Donuts is like the equivalent of eating nine Krispy Kreme doughnuts. At any rate, I lost the challenge miserably, and had to apologize personally, and publicly (on Facebook), to Johnnie for calling him a pussy for initially complaining about having to eat the doughnuts during the race. And, I felt really lightheaded and sluggish for the remainder of the afternoon. I really hate having to tuck my tail between my legs on things like this.

On Wednesday morning, I attended the weekly lab meeting with The Good Doctor. The meeting was largely uneventful, as usual. However, a considerable focus of the meeting surrounded a side discussion about applying to graduate schools. A friend from the lab is currently in the application process, and was lamenting her chances to get accepted. She was concerned because her GRE scores, while good, weren't as good as she was hoping. However, her GPA is considerably higher than mine, and she has the benefit of being multilingual, and has experience from a study abroad program in which she took part. The discussion actually aroused anxiety in me, since, if she is having worries about getting accepted, I REALLY should worry. I did considerably better on the GRE, apparently, but my GPA isn't all that close to hers, and I don't have any sort of extracurricular experience to promote on a CV for grad school. Further, she applied to about ten schools around the country. Since it costs $100 for every grad school application, not including the cost of having the GRE scores sent to multiple universities, I simply do not have the sort of money to send out more than a couple of applications. And, I've been wanting to keep myself in North Carolina, which further limits my options for getting into a program where I would fit. I've been hoping to somehow stay at NC State, and get into one of the professors' labs here, if not even stay with The Good Doctor; but this week's set of meetings has thrown the fear of God into me about getting accepted into a program. And, as I've mentioned in the past, I don't have a backup plan in the event that I am not accepted.

Another part of the problem arose during my meeting with The Good Doctor on Thursday. One of the research projects that I have worked on in his lab deals with analyzing the last 30 years of published social psychology articles to see if the sample groups used in the experiments are representative of the greater human population. My (extremely) preliminary analysis has indicated that almost 80% of all sample groups used in the last 30 years were college undergraduates. In other words, the results may be highly skewed, and not representative of the human population in some fundamental ways. The Good Doctor wanted us to go over the data in preparation for a meeting on Friday with a fellow researcher on the project from England. After reviewing the data, we had some extra time to spare, and The Good Doctor wanted to chat further about my preparations for grad school. I feel like I disappointed him during the conversation, although I was quite candid, and didn't see any reason to try and mislead him, even if I had wanted.

I explained that because of my age, and monetary situation, I wasn't going to apply to dozens of schools, and hoped to stay in the state, if at all possible. I also discussed the fact that the sorts of things which I wanted to research weren't really being researched by professors at the major public universities in North Carolina. I listed off the four areas I was mainly interested in researching, and demonstrated that I had looked into schools doing those sorts of work: 1) using artificial intelligence in clinical settings to aid in diagnosis/treatment of depression, addiction, and anxiety disorders (some work is being done in this area at MIT and Stanford), 2) re-examining common pedophilia paradigms (a researcher at McGill University in Canada is doing this), 3) exploring methods for moderating hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance (a few universities around the US are doing this, one of which is in Arizona), and 4) examining changes in the perception of time relative to aging (a small project that The Good Doctor happens to be working on, but is not a major focus of his work, and an area which currently has only a very small body of research).

The Good Doctor seemed frustrated that I couldn't just pick one of these areas, and that none of them were really similar to the others, such that I would almost have to write unique personal statements for each individual research topic if I attempted to apply to different labs doing any of that work. Perhaps more frustrating to him was my acknowledgment that I couldn't commit to only one of them because 1) I genuinely want to research all of them at some point, and 2) research is not what I want to focus my life on. As I've mentioned here before, I want to lecture in classrooms. I want to have everyone focused on me while I prove that I'm the smartest motherfucker in the room. I have actually gotten to a point where I enjoy doing research, but, as I told The Good Doctor, I consider research like a hobby. Although, I acknowledged his contention that professors are hired by universities to do research on specific areas of investigation, I admitted that I was willing to do research as a trade-off for being able to lecture. I told him that this was a common experience for me, as I disliked high school, but loved being editor of the school paper, being in student government, and the school plays. And, at the radio station, I hated all the behind-the-scenes bullshit, but loved that I could be on-air, broadcasting, and that I was willing to put up with the trade-off in order to do the thing I loved. I mentioned that being a professor was a step in a positive direction because, at least, I also enjoyed the research that I would have to use as that trade-off to be able to lecture.

For his part, The Good Doctor recommended that I do some more reading of psych journals and try to find one area of research that I really loved more than others, and try to focus on that before sending out my applications. I told him I would try, but I didn't expect that it would help. I've probably read 300 or more research articles at this point, and every single one fascinated me and made my mind wander with ideas for how I would create experiments to test the topics in those articles. I do the same thing to research articles that I do to books, movies, and TV shows, namely, I try to figure out ways that I would have done it better. That is one of the parts of research that actually excites me: being able to prove that I could have done it better.

On Friday, I met again with The Good Doctor, and also with one of his graduate students, and his fellow researcher from England. The researcher is a petite German woman who is the same age as The Good Doctor. I inferred that they may have originally been friends in university, as she seemed very convivial with The Good Doctor. I was surprised to note that she also wore a nose ring, something I wouldn't have expected of someone in her position as a psychology professor in England. The meeting was a pleasurable one, as we all continued to analyze the data of our study, and tried to coordinate some of the procedures that we used in our lab for organizing the data collection with the procedures that she is currently employing in hers.

After that meeting, I met with a doctor at student health services to get tested for diabetes. It is probably nothing, but I have always had a paranoia about becoming diabetic. No one in my family has diabetes, but instead high blood pressure is common. I have never been afraid of high blood pressure, since I figure a heart attack, while perhaps painful, is a quick way to die. Diabetes, on the other hand, terrifies me because it takes years to die from the disease, and can involve the loss of functioning of hands and feet, and potential amputations. If I'm going to die, I'd like to keep my body parts intact. And, because of my fear of the disease, I seem to get scared that I am coming down with symptoms every three or four years. My attempt at eating the doughnuts earlier in the week sparked this sudden paranoia, so I decided it was better to be safe than sorry. Presumably, I'll get an email with the results of my blood test next week, although a preliminary test wasn't enough to concern the doctor. However, she did try to impress upon me the necessity of losing at least 20 pounds, and trying to eat healthier.

It would seem I still have a ways to go in trying to sort out all of the issues in my life. I just hope I can meet the challenge.

Have fun, and keep living life... Or some approximation thereof.

Kreme of Consciousness

noreply@blogger.com (Ashe) — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 23:46:00 +0000

The Fourth Floor of Poe

I just finished the fourth week of the semester, which means I'm now one fourth the way through this one. I suspect that this post will be mostly an annoyed tirade, so I wanted to warn you if you aren't into that sort of thing. It does get more upbeat after the break.

Things have been relatively light, despite all the reading that I've complained about in the past. Western Literature is enjoyable, although I dislike the Sexy Scot's habit of always making the class get into small groups to discuss the daily readings. I much prefer discussing the readings within the larger class group. I'm not sure why, but I just find the smaller groups tedious and unnecessary.

And while I'm in the mood to complain about little things, my Philosophy of Science course is really bugging the hell out of me, too. I should be loving this course. Philosophy, science, and religion are some of my favorite topics. We are, of course, talking about the controversy surrounding creation science, or intelligent design. Actually, it would be more to the point to say that the professor is the one talking about the controversy. We are just supposed to keep up with readings, listen to him lecture, and respond to quizzes and tests online. One problem is that the course is a 200-person auditorium class, which greatly interferes with the potential for the students to get into classroom debates. Personally, I don't think any philosophy course should ever be more than 40 students to a class. But, with all the financial cutbacks the university system has endured the last decade, what could we expect.

Overall, however, I've really been enjoying my American history course. It is taught in the same lecture hall as my philosophy course, but the professor, another attractive woman in her early 40s, is quite a bit more dynamic in her presentations. On Monday, she presented us with an incredibly powerful discussion on the history of lynchings in America, complete with a slideshow of photographs of lynchings through the decades. It was interesting, and tragic, to note that, for a while, lynchings of African-Americans were so commonplace that people would actually take their children to see them. Tickets were sold by the major train companies for people to go see lynchings, and newspapers announced them in advance as though they were some grand opening night of a play. Even more gruesome was the explanation that some even bought souvenirs of the events in the form of plucked teeth or severed fingers. I felt sick to my stomach after that lecture, and I wished that we could have recorded it for every Conservative to watch whenever they wonder why us Liberals choose not to see America as some great gift from God to the rest of the world. And, what makes it worse is the knowledge that Tea Partiers want to literally whitewash American history by having slavery removed from history textbooks in Tennessee and elsewhere. For my money, they are as despicable as the men and women who engaged in the lynchings.

On a lighter note, also while in history class, I heard a few people talking about the Krispy Kreme Challege, an annual race from NC State's Belltower to the local Krispy Kreme and back, where runners must also eat a dozen glazed doughnuts in the middle of the run. Everyone that I have heard talk about the challenge (at least the ones who planned to run in the thing) were complaining about having to eat the dozen doughnuts! Even my friend Johnnie, who actually ran the race this morning, complained about the doughnuts. I've eaten nine Krispy Kreme doughnuts in one sitting on several occasions. The only reason I didn't eat the whole dozen at once was because I felt guilty about being a total fat-ass who can eat a dozen doughnuts in one sitting! But, in a competition that involves a five-mile race and eating a dozen doughnuts, EVERYONE should be complaining about the FIVE-MILE RUN, not the doughnuts!

For this reason, I want to propose the start of The Dunkin' Donuts Challenge. The challenge will be an annual leisurely walk from the NCSU Belltower to the Dunkin' Donuts across the street from campus, where participants will have to eat a dozen donuts, drink a cup of coffee, then walk casually back to the Belltower where they will receive a t-shirt with the Dunkin' Donuts Challenge slogan emblazoned on it: Fuck Running! Just Give Me Some Doughnuts! Naturally, all proceeds from the event will go to fight hunger in North Carolina.

Of course, I don't have the actual planning abilities to see this idea through to its conclusion, so the Dunkin' Donuts Challenge will probably only consist of me being a lonely old man, eating doughnuts, drinking coffee, and giving a small donation to the Food Bank of NC.

Oh well... A man can dream.

Have fun and keep living life... Or Some Approximation Thereof.

Scottish Fiction

noreply@blogger.com (Ashe) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 23:13:00 +0000

Shirley Manson makes me want to visit Scotland

I should probably be reading right now, instead of writing this post. However, this is ME we're talking about, and when in the history of ever have I actually done the things that I'm SUPPOSED to do in a timely fashion?

Thankfully, I received my financial aid money this morning. The timing couldn't have been better, as my bank account only had about $2.80 as of last night. Before heading to school this morning, I went online and got my bills caught up, which consumed around $700 of my money in a few minutes. By now, though, I'm rather accustomed to this twice yearly routine, as I always end up letting my bills fall by the wayside for a few months as I survive on a steady diet of macaroni and cheese until my next hit of economic prosperity arrives such that I might eat like a normal person until the end of the next semester.

Today's class load wasn't too bad, as I only had to deal with Great Works of Western Literature and my Behavioral Psych Lab. I also got to have lunch with my friend Johnnie, which was nice. We had the opportunity to trade stories about our hot professors. Apparently, we both got lucky this semester. My literature professor is hot in that academic sense I mentioned previously. She is likely in her early 40s, with long brown hair, and a slim physique. Usually, I don't prefer skinny women, as I've always liked boobs and butts. Unless a woman is literally "tits on a stick", as they say, thin ladies just don't have an abundance of things for my hands to play with. That said, Ex was thin, as a dancer, and I found things about her body that I enjoyed.

The reason I added a photo of Shirley Manson, lead singer of my favorite rock band, Garbage, to this post is because both she and my professor are thin, beautiful, and Scottish. While my professor's brogue (can the Scottish accent be called a "brogue", or is that only for the Irish accent?) isn't as deep as Shirley Manson's, it definitely helps propel her sex appeal up a few notches. I should mention, though, that for all my arousal, I can't see myself attempting to cross that student-professor divide. For one thing, I always want to have more money than the women that I'm courting, which I obviously do not. And, for another thing, I'm so bad at sex that I can actually envision my grades dropping as a result of sleeping with a professor! Either way, it seems horribly ill-advised to pursue this line of thought further.

As to the actual content of the course, MANY trees died to give their lives to the books I'm going to be required to read during the semester. Hopefully, their lives will not have been lost in vain!

What the hell was I thinking taking all of these courses at once?

Have fun, and keep living life... but try to keep your pants on!

About to Drown

noreply@blogger.com (Ashe) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 02:33:00 +0000

What $180 buys you. I'm so gangsta.

My first day back for the new semester was cold and wet. Come to think of it, most of my first days of the semester since coming back to college have been rainy (and cold for the Spring semesters). My Behavioral Research lecture doesn't start meeting again until next week, so for today I merely had Modern American History and Philosophy of Science to deal with. And, even though first days are typically non-eventful, I still found myself feeling a bit in-over-my-head by day's end.

As luck would have it, both courses are taught in the same lecture hall in Withers, so I get to sit in the same seat in the same room for two hours every Monday and Wednesday this semester. My history professor is a middle aged woman who seems pretty nice overall. She assured us that we weren't going to focus so much on names and dates, but rather on historical trends of consistency, continuity, and change. That said, there is a great deal of reading that will need to be done for the course, and our grades consist almost entirely on a short paper, a mid-term exam, and a final exam. On Fridays, we will have discussion groups led by the professor's TAs, one of whom I found particularly attractive in a sort of bookish, sexy, academic way. It doesn't hurt that the TA in question was wearing some really nice black leather boots, as I discovered early last year that I apparently have a previously unknown boot fetish! Although, with my luck, she probably won't be the TA for my particular discussion group.

The entirety of my Philosophy of Science course sort of bothers me, however. I don't think the material will be challenging in and of itself, since I do enjoy reading philosophy and science, already. The problems for this course come out of the fact that the professor seems rather pedantic. He is a nice, older man, but he spent an hour today explaining to us about how he did an in-depth statistical analysis of his prior courses to determine what sort of studying behaviors led to good grades in his courses, showing us the results of that analysis, and trying to instill upon us the necessity of regular, consistent studying versus cram-style studying. As both an old man, myself, and a psychology major who has taken Cognitive Psychology, I was already well aware that cramming isn't an effective way to study. Unfortunately, that doesn't stop me from doing it every so often, as I did at the end of the last semester! Another problem with the course is that all the quizzes and tests are online, something I have always detested because I tend to forget to do them when they aren't placed right in my face during a class period.

I guess that is why I feel so overwhelmed already. I am going to have SO MUCH READING to do this semester, and I haven't even gotten to my Western Literature course, yet, as it doesn't begin until tomorrow morning! Most of the books in the stack in the photo above are texts for the literature course, although from what one of my friends who has previously taken the course tells me, I won't have to read every word from every one of those books, but rather selected readings from each book. While that helps, I suppose, it certainly doesn't alter the fact that I am A) a slow reader, and B) needing to make an A in each of these courses this semester. I can't make an excuse like I could with math last semester. I can't sit here and say, "Oh, I'm just not good at English," or "I've always been bad at History," because all of that is totally untrue.

There is, of course, the academic stereotype of the bookish intellectual who spends the majority of his/her time stuck in a library reading tome after tome of obscure reference material for some dissertation or manuscript to be published at a later date. And, to a certain degree, I enjoy that stereotype myself. However, it always comes down to a question of motivation. The bookish academic is doing it because of the intrinsic motivation of becoming a little bit more demonstrably intelligent than everyone else. The frazzled undergraduate/graduate, on the other hand, does it out of the extrinsic motivation of needing to score a good grade. And, research has shown us that intrinsic motivators are always better for producing effective and durable work. Extrinsic motivators cause the participant to focus more on the reward than the task, which is problematic since the completion of the task is ultimately the true goal.

At any rate, I should find all of the subject matter enjoyable, so long as I can keep my head above the water, so to speak.

Have fun, and keep living life... Or some approximation thereof.

An End is Just a New Beginning

noreply@blogger.com (Ashe) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 21:03:00 +0000


I now have a 3.239 GPA overall and 3.597 in my major

The fall semester ended a little more smoothly than I anticipated. After camping out at DH Hill for most of finals week, I was able to somehow manage all A's and B's for the semester, although I honestly didn't deserve the A I was given in French 201. I shouldn't have gotten more than a B+, at best.

The Saturday after exams ended, I took the GRE in order to apply to Graduate School. While I know people who bought all sorts of study manuals, flash cards, and practice tests, I can't imagine how anyone would truly study for the GRE. It was, without a doubt, the most obtuse exam I've ever taken in my life! Rather than the analogies that I recall having to sort through during the SAT I took back in the early 1990s, the Verbal sections of the GRE required me to read a bunch of essays and analyze which of five paragraph long answers seemed to best respond to whatever deep thinking question was posed. And, usually, the paragraph answers I could choose from were incredibly subtle in their distinction, which only succeeded in making the test unnecessarily dense and incomprehensible.

Regarding the Quantitative sections of the GRE, maybe I would have done better if I had been fresh out of high school and college before taking this, though the main focus seemed not on actual problem solving, but rather on understanding the relationship of variables to one another. Most of the questions didn't even involve numbers, at all! The few questions which did have numbers that could be solved couldn't possibly be solved in the short amount of time given for each section. So, I was left to only half solve each of these questions, and then make some leap of logic to guess from among the given answers. At any rate, I was able to score in the 84th Percentile for Verbal, and in the 61st Percentile for Quantitative, which is enough to qualify me for the Graduate Psychology program at many US universities, including NC State. Presumably, I could apply to other universities, as well. However, as I've said to friends, I don't really want to pack up and move unless I have a job to go to which is paying for the move.

The upcoming semester is likely to be a challenge in its own right, as all my courses will entail a great deal of reading. I will be taking Great Works of Western Literature, Modern American History, Philosophy of Science, and the second half of the PSY 240 series which will require me to learn how to run statistics using SPSS, administer my experiment, analyze the data, and complete the writing of my research article. Besides all of that, I will be continuing to do research for the Good Doctor, gathering recommendation letters for my Grad School application, and completing the application process. The good news, at least, is that I won't have to take another math course or another French course. Although, I would like to continue studying French, as I've always regretted not being fluent in a second language.

During the interim, I've been spending the month of December surfing the net and trying to not spend any money, as though I have a choice in the matter. I think I currently have $30 to my name, and I won't receive any financial aid money from school until probably January 11th. So, as I've done all too often in my life, I find myself alternating days between macaroni and cheese and microwave dinners. The bright side, of course, is that I've lost a little weight over the break.

I do wonder what 2012 will bring. I finally graduate with a Bachelors next December. The only question is what will I be doing beyond that? As I've said before, I don't have a backup plan if Graduate School doesn't pan out. Still, it will feel like a real accomplishment to have achieved my goal of earning a college degree. That's worth something, right?

Have fun and keep living life... Or some approximation thereof.

Off My Game

noreply@blogger.com (Ashe) — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 03:16:00 +0000

I'm still waiting for the release of The Secret World

This week has not been one of my better experiences. And, as I've mentioned previously, this semester isn't exactly shaping up to be one of my more crowning achievements, either!

Aside from being low on sleep for most of the week, I got grades back on two tests which were not very good, at all. To be fair, the 80 (B-) I got on the Finite Math test wasn't as horrible as it could have been. I wasn't as confident in my math skills as I perhaps should have been. I made a minor stupid error that cost me 5 points right off the bat when I got confused and thought that the slope of a line is the negative of the slope of its corresponding perpendicular line, when it is actually the negative inverse of the slope of its corresponding perpendicular line! Oh well... I've never claimed that math was a strong point of mine.

The harder hit for me came just today when I received my grade on my first test in Cognitive Psychology. I knew I wasn't going to make an A, since some of the test focused on brain anatomy, which has always been a difficult concept for me in regard to psychological study. I try to memorize the parts of the brain and their primary functions in cognitive processing, but every time that I do I get this dizzy feeling upon realizing that my brain is reading about my brain and how it actually functions. It sort of reminds me of the movie Inception, in that some mysteries are just better left unanswered. At any rate, after making a fool of myself on several questions that, again, I should have known the answers to, I ended up with an agonizingly painful 76 (C) on the test! My only refuge is that we still have two more tests, a final exam, and a paper due in that class. Since I usually do well on papers, I am hoping that I will be able to pull out at least a B+ in Cognitive Psych.

The hardest part about being off my game is that I get caught in this deer-in-the-headlights type feeling where I can't decide if I should jump out of the road to avoid getting hit, or if I should just stand there and hope the car will swerve around me. Of course, with my future riding on every decision I make, I can't easily abort the course and jump ship. Even though I fear that I may be on a sinking boat, I have to stay on board and continuing playing like the orchestra on the Titanic. That isn't an easy thing for me to do, either, since my instinct is always to run.

I have often had a recurring nightmare over the years in which it is almost sundown, and I'm in the middle of downtown Raleigh. The geography of the city is all wrong in the dream, but I know it is Raleigh, and I know where everything is, even though nothing is where it should be in reality. There is almost no one to be seen on the streets, and there are no cars except for a sparse few parked along the streets. I feel an intense fear radiate out from my spine and I know I must run! I never look back, I never see what is following me, but I know that I cannot stop running! Even though I'm not in the best of shape, in the dream I never give out of breath. My heart pounds, my blood races through my head so that I can hear my own pulse as I keep running. I will see a random person and I will order them to run, but they do not. Instead, they look at me as though I were speaking in an unknown language. Maybe this thing behind me isn't after them, but I can't stop to help them further if I'm wrong.

I run into a building where I see more people gathered. I try desperately to warn them of the danger that is right at my heels, but again they ignore me. I beg and plead, as much for my own safety as theirs. But I have to move on! Out the building, and on down the streets. There MUST be a place to hide. There's always a place to hide, if I can just get there before it sees me! I try to snake my way between buildings, hoping to get a little distance between me and it before running into another building.

Maybe it is a school, perhaps a restaurant. The hiding place is always different, but there is often one lone person inside. I don't even try to help them, anymore. If it comes for them, it will give me a few seconds longer to hide. A darkened bathroom, a walk-in freezer, a utility closet will, in one way or another, become the final location of this escape from terror. Suddenly, I can now hear my own breathing! My heart feels like it is going to explode, and I know that this monster, this demon, this hunter will surely find me if I don't stop gasping for air! All I can do is silently beg for the dark menace not to stop, but continue on its path without me.

After a time, exhausted by all that I have gone through, I realize that I am safe, and I get up and walk back out of the darkness to continue my life.

Keep living life... Or some approximation thereof.

Time Management

noreply@blogger.com (Ashe) — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 19:06:00 +0000

Taking time for lunch outside

This semester is really testing me in ways I haven't been before.

I've posted in the past about my habit of procrastination. Often I find that I work better under the pressure that procrastinating provides. Over the last few weeks, however, that has not been the case, at all. With the homework needed to stay on top of my Intermediate French and Finite Math courses, the 10+ hours of research work for The Doctor each week, as well as the reading for Cognitive Psychology and Behavioral Research, I am really being asked to accomplish more in a limited amount of time that I am accustomed. For ten years at the radio station, I essentially had 10 hours of work to get done in 40 hours a week, with the remainder of my time spent being on alert in case something went horribly wrong.

The thing is, I really enjoy my downtime. I like being able to have time to read Internet forums, watch The Young Turks on YouTube, read political blogs, watch the occasional documentary on Netflix. While I find that keeping up with politics is stressful, it is stressful in a way that I find fun. Having to constantly do work to maintain my grades is stressful, but not in a way that I find especially fun. The problem is that there is a specific goal in mind with regard to the school work. I HAVE TO make good grades. I don't have to know that President Obama's ridiculous "jobs" plan consists of 56% tax cuts for corporations.

Of course, procrastinating wouldn't be as big of a problem for me if I would actually do all the things I need to do. As I put things off, the stack of things I need to do constantly gets bigger, increasing the pressure until I worry that I might explode. And the work for The Doctor is a particular beast for me, because I hate the feeling that I am letting someone else down. If I make a C in French it doesn't hurt me, emotionally, as much as knowing that I'm slowing someone else down or preventing them from accomplishing their tasks in an efficient manner. That's why I was never meant for customer service. I despise slowing other people down.

I also know that I sound like a whiny little bitch to complain about my workload. I've spoken with women and/or read Facebook posts recently from female friends from high school about how they either did, or currently are, attending college with a full workload WHILE managing to raise young children as single mothers. I feel overwhelmed with what I already have, and I can barely imagine what pressure would feel like if I had even one child depending on me for their care and survival. All of these women have my full respect because I clearly couldn't accomplish what they have, or are, accomplishing. One friend is managing to care for two daughters AND maintain a 4.0 GPA! I'm honestly humbled.

I suppose time management comes down to priorities. I was talking to a friend about that issue just the other day. We brought up the questions of, "What is important to you? What fights are the ones you choose to fight, and which do you walk away from?" Those mothers achieve what they do because they have, rightfully so, put their children first. Caring for their kids is their primary priority, and getting a good education is merely an extension of that priority. Sure, they choose to attend college for their own improvement. But, that improvement will help them care for their children with increased salaries, knowledge, and potential health benefits.

If I believe that becoming a college professor is a main priority of my life, I can't allow my pursuit of that priority to be merely incidental to my existence, as I apparently have up to this point. My strategy of just ambling through life and going where it takes me isn't sufficient to the task of actually achieving long-term goals. But, change is difficult, and scary. I am afraid of so many things associated with changing myself: Fear of failure, fear of becoming something I don't like, fear of being committed to goals I can't easily back away from, and, of course, the fear of letting other people down. Though, obviously, I am not alone in these fears.

If I could only figure out how to balance social interaction into the mix a little better, maybe I'd be all set.

Have fun and keep living life... Or some approximation thereof.

One More First Day is Done

noreply@blogger.com (Ashe) — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 21:59:00 +0000

This is what $718 looks like

After an incredibly uneventful summer spent toiling away doing little more than data entry for the good Doctor's social psychology review project (without pay, of course), and eating a mostly steady diet of macaroni and cheese and cheap microwave dinners, I am finally back to the grind of classes. A couple of weeks ago, I bought my books for the semester and have since decided that, because they were so expensive and heavy, if I can consolidate my book load by selling back at least half of the books to the bookstore and getting the ebook versions from Amazon, I will probably try to invest in an iPad to use as an ereader. I have already calculated that I can save at least $150 this semester, if I can sell back all my psych books and replace them with ebooks. And, assuming I keep the iPad through at least the next three semesters (and hopefully beyond if I can get into grad school), it will have paid for itself by the time I graduate with my Bachelors.

Regarding my classes, I was actually pretty anxious last night and couldn't get to sleep. I ended up falling asleep around 3 AM, and had to wake up at 7 AM to get ready for school. I was most afraid of Intermediate French and Finite Math. After attending the first day of class, I am less afraid of Intermediate French, but I am still nervous about Finite Math. We aren't allowed to use graphing calculators in the class, only scientific calculators, so at least I won't have to struggle with the old nemesis, my TI-84 Plus. I suppose I can quit carrying it around and save myself some weight in my bag! The main problem with the math class is the instructor, of course. I don't know if he is a full professor or just a grad student, but he goes way too quickly through his notes in class, and speaks very quietly in an auditorium of 200+ people! We are supposed to get assigned seats next week, so I'm sure I will be near the back, which will only make things worse! If I am going to have any hope of getting through this class with a B or higher I'm going to have to do all the homework as diligently as possible.

My Cognitive Psych class seems like it may be interesting. It is taught by a grad student who seems pretty laid back. We will have a 10-15 page research paper due at the end of the semester, but I'm reasonably confident in my research and writing abilities, so the dominant factor in my success will be time management. It is no secret that this has always been a challenge for me!

Tomorrow, I get to learn about my next round of Psych Research Methods courses. This is the infamous 240 Series, where we spend a year in classes with the same professor learning about behavioral research. Since I already took basic research methods last semester, this should be no problem, but it will hopefully reinforce some concepts which I had difficulty with last semester. I also get to attend the first day of my final PE class, Fitness Walking. I took it because it seemed like the easiest PE I could take, although in retrospect I probably should have tried to sign up for Social Dance. My previous experience in swing dancing would have helped me get through it. And, I have a feeling that Fitness Walking is going to be more like "walk as fast as is humanly possible before you actually start running". Fortunately, the PE class is only half a semester long, so I will be done by the middle of October.

Beyond that, we'll have to see how this semester pans out. I will still be doing PSY 499 with the good Doctor. And one of my friends from Psych Research Methods is supposed to be joining the Doctor's team this semester, so it will be good to see a friendly face. On the horizon, I still need to get on the ball about registering and scheduling to take my GRE for grad school. And, I will be in the Doctor's second round of grad school resume and personal statement prep sessions, the first having occurred over the summer. As I have mentioned before, I really don't have a backup plan in case I don't get in to graduate school. So, I have alot riding on my success this semester and on the GRE. And, you know, I never did get around to studying for the GRE.

This may be a bumpy ride.

Have fun and keep living life... Or Some Approximation Thereof.

Waiting...

noreply@blogger.com (Ashe) — Sat, 21 May 2011 01:29:00 +0000

I'm pretty sure that never happened

The last week or so has been filled with a vast expanse of nothing as I've stayed at home and watched online videos and read articles about how much the world, or at least the US, sucks right now. While I have absolutely no expectation that the Rapture will occur this weekend, despite the assertions of some right wing lunatics to the contrary, with all of the reports of Conservatives taking away people's collective bargaining rights, voting rights, and rights to entitlements around the country I can sort of see why some might be waiting in anticipation for such an event. I'm guessing Jesus offers a better universal healthcare plan than the US!

On the plus side, I finally received some emails from the good Doctor about starting research. His group of around ten research undergraduates, including myself, will meet up with him next Monday, assuming the world hasn't ended, to discuss our various work assignments. Because he has so many students working with him, the Doctor is dividing us among several different research projects. We will have a weekly meeting for all the groups to talk and update one another on the work being done by everyone. I am part of a group that will be doing some literature review work about geriatrics and social psychology. Right now, things are sort of vague, but the meetings on Monday should clarify what we are supposed to research. My group is working under the Doctor's graduate student in cooperation with a research group in Surrey, England.

It will be interesting to finally start doing research. Doing literature reviews is right down my alley, as I've mentioned that I'm really more interested in learning about what others have done than actually performing my own research and communicating my findings. An online discussion I had earlier in the week on a video game forum helped me realize that I am very much a voyeur when it comes to life. I rarely enjoy doing things as much as I enjoy watching other people do those same things. On the one hand, this seems depressing that I don't get much pleasure out of my own experiences. However, on the other hand, it seems like the sort of personality trait which would make me a very good psychologist. Rather than engage in risky behaviors myself, which I probably wouldn't enjoy anyway, I can sit back and observe other people do bizarre things and then question them or conduct studies about why they chose the activities and what rewards they received from their actions.

There still has been no communication from the Doctor about whether or not I will be getting any payment for doing research over the summer, and if so, how much. He did suggest, when I initially interviewed with him, that I would get some money to work in his lab during the summer since I am not taking any summer classes. However, I feel like it would be tacky to bring it up with him again, especially through email. Unfortunately, my financial aid money from last semester is starting to dry up, and I could really use any extra money that I could get. I won't be receiving more financial aid money until at least the last full week of August, and it will be a long wait until then if I can't scrounge up some income.

Have fun, and keep living life... Or Some Approximation Thereof.

The Numbers Are In...

noreply@blogger.com (Ashe) — Fri, 13 May 2011 22:11:00 +0000

I was really expecting a B in French

Well, that wasn't at all like having teeth pulled!

Now that I've completed my first semester at NC State, I have to say that in some ways it was harder and in some ways easier than I had originally expected. As you can no doubt tell by the semester grades, the two biggest struggles for me were French and Psych Research. I was really disappointed with my French grade. While I can only really blame myself, I did explain in detail during my course evaluation a couple of weeks ago that I don't think the course should have required as much homework as was expected of us. That was my major downfall, as I usually made 85-96 on the tests. The course is on one hand sold as a refresher or review of French, and students are required to take a placement test to stay in the class. But, on the other hand, the course crams all of the material from French I and II into the span of one semester. As I commented in my course evaluation, the main reason students take this course is because they don't feel confident in their speaking abilities and want extra prep time before entering the 200-level French course which is taught almost exclusively in French. Students, such as myself, want French 110 to give us greater confidence with our speaking and oral comprehension, which I don't feel like the course actually provided. Granted, my French writing and reading has improved slightly, but I feel as though my speaking and conversational skills actually regressed a bit over the semester because so little time was focused on actual conversation skill. And, after all of that, I have a C on my transcript!

The exams themselves were all relatively easy undertakings, however. Despite having three hours allotted for each exam, I found that none of mine took longer than two hours, and my Biology final exam only took about an hour at most! One would hope that my exams in the future will be similarly short and simple. Even though I don't know the actual grades for any of my exams, I didn't find any of them to be more challenging than prior tests, and I honestly thought that the final in Psych Research was less challenging than prior tests, simply because it relied more on short answer/essay questions than the previous tests. While I do prefer multiple choice questions to essays, due to their fairly rapid fire execution, I always found the questions put forth by the Grad to be less than satisfactory. Many of his multiple choice questions were designed to be nit picky and/or trick questions to make sure that you were fully paying attention and had a complete understanding of the material. With the essay questions, I could elaborate a bit more on topics without being limited to the confines of his atrociously precise questions.

To be fair, I am still worried about my prospects for getting into grad school. The C and the B on this semester's transcript certainly don't help me feel more secure. My plan for the Summer involves investigating and studying for the GREs in the Fall, as well as watching some French films and reading some French novels to better prepare for the Intermediate French. Also, as soon as the good Doctor contacts me and lets me know when to begin working in his lab I will feel like I am moving alot closer to my goal of graduate school. From what I have been told, getting as much research experience as possible can go a long way to smoothing over a few poor grades on one's transcript, especially if I can get a good letter of recommendation from the Doctor.

Time keeps moving steadily forward. And, tomorrow, I turn 37.

Have fun and keep living life... Or Some Approximation Thereof.

Preconceived Notions

noreply@blogger.com (Ashe) — Fri, 06 May 2011 22:34:00 +0000

Number Crunching in SPSS

Hopefully, as you get older, you start to learn that first impressions, while important, aren't the best gauge of a person's worth.

I've been doing a final project in Psych Research Methods involving self-segregation in college lecture halls based on race and gender. Because we weren't allowed to choose our group members, I happen to be in a group with a young woman whose initial impressions early in the semester left me feeling less than enthusiastic about working with her. We had a few minor conflicts in the first few weeks of class which showed her to be a self-centered snob with a very low opinion of me. For my part, I was probably a bit petulant, and unwilling to let her off-hand comments go unchallenged. To be fair, out of the four of us in the team, she and I are probably the most dominant personalities of the group, as evidenced by our performance during our in-class presentation. But, after getting a chance to work with her and have a few normal conversations, I've come to appreciate her contribution to the group. Of course, she now comes off as another one of those overachievers that I've encountered here at NC State who wants to have her entire future mapped out in detail. However, getting a chance to learn that she and I have both been frustrated with our grades in Psych Research Methods, and that we both have issues with how the grad student instructor of the class has taught the course, has allowed me to see her a little more three-dimensionally than before. She still has a little bit of an air of haughtiness about her, but I get the sense that it, probably, is more a guard against her minor insecurities than an actual excoriation of people as being less important than her.

And, since I mentioned that both she and I had issues with the grad student teaching our course, I should explain that my notions of him also took a turn this week. Because we have been under the gun to complete our final project before the final exam, which is next Monday morning at 8 AM, I have been engaging in a marathon of emails with the Grad over how to work the statistics software, SPSS, and how to interpret the results of our data from the program. The Grad is a very tall, lanky fellow in his mid-twenties who is ludicrously intelligent. If he weren't my instructor, I would love to have the Grad as a friend, because he comes off as a really charming guy. The main issue that my team mate and I have had with the Grad is that, because of his insanely high intellect, he often makes mental connections which are difficult for outsiders to follow. And, as a result, he doesn't communicate effectively in class during lectures. What makes this worse is that when we don't understand material, the Grad doesn't seem to comprehend why we don't understand the material as easily as he does.

Almost in defiance of my preconceived notion, the Grad has been incredibly helpful over email. Perhaps it helps that, in writing, I have the chance to read his words at my own pace and really pay attention to what he is saying. Since I don't get that luxury in class, following his lectures has always been a challenge. His explanations for how to operate the software and interpret the results have been simple, to the point, and, above all, really useful. I almost wish he could have taught the course via email! I had given him a fairly harsh evaluation when filling out the online course evaluation survey for the class. After getting his help these last few days, I wish I could go back and amend some of my comments. Naturally, I still stand by my criticisms of his teaching style, but I would include that he does have the capacity for good communication and explanation of concepts, even if it is limited to textual conversation.

There is one more preconceived notion that was dispelled this week, as well, though it doesn't involve an individual. As part of our research project, my team and I took photographs of lecture halls, then categorized everyone in each class by their sex (Male or Female) and race (White, Black, Asian, or Hispanic), and entered that data into SPSS to evaluate whether groups self-segregate. We basically determined that there is more segregation based on sex than race, but that Whites tend to self-segregate from other racial groups quite a bit here at NC State. Now, my original notion about college, having come from Wake Tech, which was very racially diverse, was that college was naturally a culturally diverse environment where young people get the opportunity to interact with people of different backgrounds and expand their social horizons. At least at NC State, that doesn't seem to be the case.

Even looking at the photos alone reveals an extremely homogeneous campus. Out of 595 participants (the students we photographed in the lecture halls), only 51 were black, 53 were Asian (although for simplicity we broadened the Asian category to also include Asian Indians and those of Middle Eastern descent), and a startlingly low 8 were Hispanic. Granted, we didn't get photos of any engineering courses, but just based on stereotypes I suspect our Asian numbers would grow more than those for Blacks or Hispanics if we had included some engineering courses in our sample.

We had originally hoped to get a sample size of closer to 2000 students, which would have been more representative of the university. Unfortunately, due to the Grad not giving us more time for data collection, we had to scale back our data gathering considerably. But, even considering this, I'm still shocked by how few Blacks and Hispanics are on campus. According to the US Census, those groups are the number two and three most populous racial groups in the nation, with Asians and Middle Easterners coming in a distant fourth and fifth, respectively. Don't misunderstand me... I had no visions that colleges were some bastion of racial equality. However, I expected the racial diversity to be broader than what has been represented in our admittedly haphazard observational study.

Clearly, we have a longer road to travel before reality meets up with personal expectations.

Have fun, and keep living life... Or Some Approximation Thereof.

Limping Toward the Finish

noreply@blogger.com (Ashe) — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 22:58:00 +0000

Honesty is so refreshing these days

This was the last week of the semester, and I gave oral to women on three different occasions this week, which made things seem incredibly hectic. Now that I have your attention, settle down. My life isn't that interesting!

On Monday I had my final French oral exam. It went well, at least in the beginning, as my female partner and I were reasonably prepared for our skit and art conversation. Things started going downhill once we were required to ask each other questions from a predetermined list of questions in various tenses. The professor started dropping our generally high scores on the grade sheet. At least, we got through it with at least a C.

On Thursday, I had to rent a campus Zipcar for a trip to Wake Tech's Health Education facility for an oral exam that I had promised to do for an old acquaintance from high school that friended me on Facebook. It was okay, although I got there early and ended up sitting in the wrong building for half an hour before anyone came out and asked me why I was there. I was told that I needed to walk to the opposite side of a parking deck from where I was to get to the dental facility. I had some x-rays of my horribly crooked teeth made, but otherwise my teeth were apparently in too good a condition for actual cleaning work to be done. Since it is a teaching facility for dental hygienists, they wanted someone whose teeth were worse off than mine, I guess. At any rate, it was nice to see an old classmate who somehow managed to have a daughter in the intervening years and somehow didn't gain much weight, as so many of my other high school comrades and I have.

Today was the last day of classes, and I had to give an oral presentation, with the girls in my group, in Psych Research Methods about the observational study that my team and I are performing. The study is to determine the extent to which students self-segregate, based on race or gender, in college lecture halls. Fortunately, I had already scoped out some classrooms before we were given permission to collect data, so I was able to get photographs for three lecture halls on Wednesday. While we haven't done the actual analysis, yet, we are seeing a trend in the photos that indicates that men and women are segregating from one another. We will have to do a statistical analysis to fully determine if people are segregating along racial lines. Hopefully, my team can all get together next week to analyze the photos, as we still have a paper to write about our study.

Despite the fact that I still have exams to take over the next two weeks, I have mixed feelings about the end of the semester. This has been a semester full of adjustment for me, from adjusting culturally to the students, to adjusting to the norms of giant lectures and the course requirements of NC State's classes, to adjusting physically to all the walking I have had to do now that I have no car. It would be nice to have a little more time for adjustment. But, I do have expectations for the future. I have tentative plans for doing research with the Doctor over the summer, and definitely in the fall. And, I will need to investigate what I need to do to take my GREs in the fall, as well. I also have a full class load for next semester including the PSY 240 series (more research methods courses), Cognitive Processes, Intro to Finite Math, Intermediate French, and Fitness Walking (the last PE class I will have to take, but which will no doubt be more of a challenge than I am expecting).

I feel like I've taken a lot of bruises to my ego this term, and I'm still worried about what my final grades will be once my exams are complete. But the battle is only getting started. To quote the film Predator, "I ain't got time to bleed!" Hopefully, I'll get a little bit of a rest over the summer before the real battles begin.

If I didn't know better, I'd think that almost sounded like optimism.

Have fun and keep living life... Or Some Approximation Thereof.

Sometimes We Make Sausage, Other Times... Progress

noreply@blogger.com (Ashe) — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 22:26:00 +0000

Poe Hall From the Court of the Carolinas

If you happened to friend me on Facebook, you probably already learned that I had a meeting on Monday with a Doctor about PSY 499 work. The good Doctor is a young man, perhaps younger than myself, with a very quiet demeanor. His German accent only adds to his charm, and I described him to a couple of people as "adorable". In fact, even though we have had very little contact with one another thus far, I'd be willing to say I have a little bit of a crush on him. This is hardly a new phenomenon for me, as I have had exactly four crushes on men in my life. Of course the good Doctor is married, and his wife is quite attractive in her own right, if the photo on his desk is an accurate depiction. To be honest, I'm not sure where I was going with that!

At any rate, we only spoke for about fifteen minutes, but it was enough time for me to feel like an idiot, albeit a well-spoken idiot. The Doctor is very intelligent, as are most Europeans when compared with us lowly Americans. He attended the prestigious Max Planck Institute and is currently studying emotion and cognition in adults and the elderly. He asked me simple questions for which I felt like I had no good answer, though I flapped my lips and came up with something to fill the silence. Honestly, how do I get caught up on a question like, "What are your goals for the future?" or "What sorts of things would you like to research?" After giving it some thought, I think it has something to do with motivation.

Years ago, in therapy, it became apparent that one of my greatest weaknesses is that I have a strong sense of entitlement. I am, by most accounts, an intelligent person who hasn't come close to living up to his full potential. Where others might see that as a motivation to work harder, I see it as a failing of society not to reward me for my obvious superiority. And, yes, I am totally aware that this makes me seem like a total ass! But, I don't just believe that I should be rewarded. I think society should reward ALOT of people for their untapped brilliance. And, I'm not ashamed to say that this is partially what informs my Socialism. The world has dealt alot of people a shitty hand. And, as a result, alot of very valuable people have gone to waste in our society because they had to work harder simply to be on an even footing with people who weren't as brilliant as they were. Matters of poor parenting and economics, issues which a child has absolutely no control over, shouldn't be what stands between the Ph.D.'s and the plebeians.

Having admitted that, I do have a tendency to just show up to life and expect it to take me somewhere. I have this very vague, almost gauzy, vision of being a professor and what that entails and what I need to do to get there; but the specifics just haven't been thought out fully. And, I acknowledge that is probably not a good thing. I regularly hear students chatting away about how they are studying this, researching that, how they did on the GRE, what schools they are applying to, etc. My response is always, "Hmm, people do that? Seriously?" I've just naturally gone about my life expecting A to lead to B and B to lead to C, ad infinitum. As a result, my life has often seemed like a messy endeavor in sausage making. You really don't want to see what goes into it, but hopefully you'll like the result.

The Doctor agreed to let me join his lab, and I may start as early as this summer. And, while I'm not counting on it, there is the possibility that I may get paid over the summer before getting course credit in the fall. I'm really hoping that I'll learn more by working in his lab than simply the minutiae of how the elderly think and feel. I'm hoping that the Doctor will teach me how to get from C to D, and from D to Ph.D. One might even consider that progress.

Have fun, and keep living life... Or Some Approximation Thereof.

The Fortunes of Futures Passed

noreply@blogger.com (Ashe) — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 21:57:00 +0000

Fortune Cookies Are Getting Morose

I'm not one for backup plans. Generally, I make my mind up, I go in a direction, and I see where it takes me. If I end up someplace good, then I'm happy. If I end up someplace not so good, then I'm not so happy, but I deal with it and accept my fate... at least for awhile. However, I'm starting to wonder if I shouldn't start trying to create a backup plan, in the event this whole going to Graduate School and becoming a professor thing doesn't work out.

The thing is, I don't see myself as becoming anything other than a college professor. Well, at least not realistically. I've had a fantasy for years now about creating a company with my friends for the sole purpose of saving the world from itself. That whole God complex of mine enjoys reveling in that fantasy. But, the job of college professor is uniquely suited to what I consider my strengths, while still allowing me to indulge in some of my weaknesses. For instance, I love giving presentations in front of groups of people. I enjoy reading up on some obscure bit of knowledge, breaking that knowledge down into a set of presentation slides, and teaching it to people who didn't take the time to learn what I just discovered. Also, I enjoy being a little judgmental (that would be classified as one of my weaknesses). Asking people to write a literature review paper, or other such assignment, would allow me an outlet for looking down my nose at students who seemingly can't find their ass with a roll of toilet paper.

Most people who graduate with a BA in Psychology end up working in sales, marketing, or advertising. Those are all fine professions, but, as I've mentioned before, I'm a Socialist. I don't want to be a slave to the Capitalist system anymore. I'm tired of working hard for less pay than I deserve while I watch the CEO of the company that hands me my wage buy a multi-million dollar summer home in Hawaii with money that came from MY sweat, MY stress, and MY hunger. To all those Libertarians who are afraid of the government taking "their property" in the form of taxes to care for the poor and the sick, I have to say you have FAR MORE to worry about from the Capitalists. And the Capitalists aren't even going to give the money they take from your production to the poor or the sick. Unless, of course, you count their Hispanic pool boy Juan as one of the poor! But, I digress!

The thing is, since coming to NC State, it has been harder to make A's than I anticipated. And every time that I make a B it doesn't inspire me to work harder to get the A. Instead, a B makes me wonder if my dream of going to Grad School is one which dwells not in reality but futility. Should I continue to push forward even though I may end up hitting a brick wall? Or should I slam on the brakes or turn the wheel in a new direction? And if I choose the new direction, where do I go, and what do I do when I get there?

I once mentioned that one of the things which kept me from committing suicide all those years ago was this fantasy that there were infinite versions of me living out their lives in the infinite universes of Einstein's equations. It was somehow comforting to imagine that somewhere out there were versions of me living up to my fullest potential and achieving the things that I could only dream about. Now, I sit here wondering if the Old Doctor that I've dreamt of becoming ever lived in this universe, waiting for me to catch up to him in the time line. Is he still there, or has that time line passed me by with each successive B on each successive test that I've ever had this semester? Could there be a way to put the time line back on track so that I can catch up with the Old Doctor?

I'm supposed to talk to a Doctor about PSY 499 work next week.

Have fun and keep living life... Or Some Approximation Thereof.

That Thing I Said... Yeah, Screw That!

noreply@blogger.com (Ashe) — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 22:33:00 +0000

Poe Hall Sign

So, I've been trying to come up with themes to reflect the overall trends of each week. While I'm sure that by now I'm exhibiting a clear vacillation in my attitude, if I had to come up with a theme for this week it would be "Let's shit all over Ashe's hopes and dreams!" In psychological research, there is a term called "regression toward the mean" which basically means that even though participants in a study may occasionally exhibit unusually high or low scores on a given examination, during repeated re-tests the participants will typically regress in performance toward their natural average. This week I got grades back on several tests, and I wasn't happy with the results. I made an 86 (B) on the Ergonomics test (a drop from 94 on the first test), a 73 (C) on the Biology test (a drastic drop from 94 on the first test), and an 80 (B) on the Psych Research test (a slight uptick from the 78 of the first test).

I honestly don't see why my grades dropped so much this time. I can't say that I did anything drastically different from the first tests. I take notes, I read the textbooks, I do whatever homework is assigned to me. Admittedly, both my Ergonomics and Biology professors gave smaller curves on these tests than on the first ones, but that wasn't enough to account for a 10-20 point drop in test grades! Some of the material on genetics really threw me for a loop on the Biology test, so that certainly didn't help. I'm just terrified that these test grades may fall into the category of regression toward the mean! And, on top of all that, we had speakers in my Orientation to Psych seminar today talking about graduate school who repeatedly emphasized the importance of a good GPA and standardized test scores in order to gain acceptance. Apparently, it's almost not worth it to even apply if you don't have at least a 3.5 GPA in addition to high test scores.

I hate this bullshit. This semester at NC State has gone back and forth between feeling like the best thing that has ever happened to me and making me feel like an abused wife who keeps going back for another beating. Even today, the presenters in Orientation said that if you choose a major that you love it won't feel like work to do well. Let me tell you first hand, THAT IS BULLSHIT! I love my major and yet I STILL feel like I'm going to have to tear my hair out in order to get the grades I need to get into grad school. And the part that makes all of this so exasperating is that I know I'm not stupid, and I feel like I am understanding the material, for the most part. I just don't grasp why I'm not getting better grades! I honestly thought I made 10 points higher on each of those tests than what I actually made! I am usually a pretty good judge of my own abilities, so I don't typically get blind-sided like this.

I am so angry right now!

No, that isn't true. As I learned back in therapy, most of the time when I get angry it's because I'm actually scared and I'm trying to defend myself from an attack that isn't actually real. It's easier to get angry and lash out than it is to focus on the fear, and try to remedy the problem at the heart of the fear. I think my biggest fear is that I just can't take care of myself. I have never been able to pay my own rent, instead relying on the good grace of my grandmother. And she isn't getting any younger. It will probably be all she can do to live long enough to see me get my Bachelor's. For me, graduate school isn't just a goal. It is the only way that I can see myself surviving once my grandmother dies. Grad school will pay for itself and give me money to live on, assuming I'm able to become a Teaching or Research Assistant. And, assuming I can earn a Ph.D., becoming a professor will earn me a good, steady source of income which would more than provide for my living expenses.

I wish I were more certain of my ability to live by other means. As it stands, every grade isn't simply an assessment of my knowledge of course material; grades are judgements on whether or not I will have a future beyond December 2012. And when I can't accurately gauge my own success in a given subject, I feel as though I have no real control over my own fate. But, then, that's not exactly a new experience for me, so I should be getting used to it by now...

Have fun and keep living life... Or Some Approximation Thereof.

The Home Stretch

noreply@blogger.com (Ashe) — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 23:48:00 +0000

The Wolf Ears in Spring

With only a month left in the semester I feel like things are starting to come together, slowly but surely. Of course, I don't really have anything to base that on, considering that I am still waiting to find out what I made on my most recent tests in Biology, Psych Research Methods, and Ergonomics, and I am behind in my work in Accelerated French (bien sur!). And the fact that I am hoping to skirt by on the generous province of my professors' grade curves probably shouldn't be seen as positive evidence of personal progress! Nonetheless, I have made a few small steps in the forward direction. I was finally able to register for classes for Fall 2011, and I made first contact with one of the psych professors regarding PSY 499 work. I still have to fill out an application, so there is no guarantee that I will get accepted to the professor's lab, but my optimism (unfounded though it may be) is giving me a little bit of an emotional boost for the time being. At least getting a response back from a professor is better than the last month of silence I've had to endure!

The one letdown of the week, however, was learning that I will not be able to work in the tutorial center for the university. Apparently, they don't hire tutors for humanities, though nowhere on their website do they mention that fact! As a result, I went to a 30-minute information session only to learn that if I want to tutor I have to be proficient in math, physics, or chemistry! Maybe it is for the best, since they apparently do not give their tutors very many hours each week, and you have to actually pay to take the training course for tutoring. In other words, by the time you actually tutor you would probably only break even financially! The woman who ran the information session even indirectly admitted that fact when pressed about whether one has to pay for the training course. That is fucking brilliant! A part-time job that only manages to pay for itself! Wait until the Conservatives and Corporate Tycoons hear about this one! Fuck you Capitalism! Fuck you right in the face!

You know, despite all of its quirks and odd misdirections, I do feel like I've found my place in life, to an extent. Sure, I'm not God, or the President, or the head of a vast corporate entity with the financial leverage to bring down the US economy and force the nation to bow to my will, but I think I'm where I belong. All those years that I sat wasting away in that dungeon of a radio station production office wishing that my life had taken a different turn are starting to pay off in a twisted sort of way. My life has, for the most part, been a long quest to fix myself; to repair the years of damage done to me by a parent who only had me in order to satisfy her own needs. While I don't claim to be fixed yet, I think I'm in the home stretch.

The first few years of my adulthood were about realizing I had problems and deciding how to deal with them. Getting kicked out of a religious college was the wake up call. At first I ran. I went to therapy, but didn't put my heart and soul into it, instead wishing for a "quick" fix that never came. I hoped to find a woman who could solve my problems, but of course that didn't work. I ended up in radio because of a random comment by a beautiful young woman whom I desperately wanted to be proud of me, though I knew, even then, that I didn't stand a chance of having her love me. I was still putting my needs to the side and trying to satisfy a woman, the very thing which caused my problems in the first place!

In retrospect, radio was sort of a penalty box for me. It took me out of the game long enough to give me a real chance to think about what I was doing wrong and what I needed to do if I ever got back to life. Radio put me in the place and the mindset to meet Ex, and I needed Ex to bring me to NC State. I had been hovering at rock bottom for far too long. And losing Ex was that necessary step too far, the one which, as any recovering addict will tell you, is the point where you have known that you need to change for awhile but now you have absolutely no choice but to act. You either change, or you put the gun to your head and pull the trigger. As a couple of good friends can attest, for a little while I was extremely close to making the wrong decision.

So, what does this have to do with NC State? Well, even though the initial decision to go back to college and try again was a horribly misguided effort to try and earn back Ex's respect and love, the choice of major and the direction that I am putting my life in now is totally and completely mine. For the first time in my life I am making decisions based on my own desires, and I am actually being rewarded for those decisions. In other words, I am developing a positive feedback loop. And even though I am surrounded by beautiful young women every day at school, I can't impress or satisfy them in anyway. I'm old enough to be their father, so they won't give me the time of day. And because I can't satisfy any of them, I don't even bother trying! I can actually be completely and unabashedly me!

I am reminded of the lyrics of the song "Home" by Depeche Mode:

And I thank you for bringing me here,
for showing me home,
for singing these tears.
Finally, I've found that I belong here.

Have fun and keep living life... and go home.

A False Alarm?

noreply@blogger.com (Ashe) — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 23:07:00 +0000

Jeans and Chucks

Monday and Friday were eventful bookends to a decidedly mundane week. On Monday, I managed to get a 94 on a French test, which is always nice, and on Friday I had tests in Psych Research Methods and Biology. I'm not confident about my grades on those tests, but I'll find out about them next week.

The more concerning event happened Monday afternoon during Biology. As I was sitting in the auditorium taking notes and listening to the professor, I realized that my left leg had become numb. Since the auditorium seats are always cramped, I thought my leg had just fallen asleep from being in a bad position. Unfortunately, I couldn't move my leg at all. It felt heavy, as though it suddenly weighed 500 pounds! After a moment, I discovered that my left arm was also numb and heavy and that I couldn't move it, either. Thinking that this was not a good thing, I made sure to test my right leg and arm, both of which seemed to move normally. Considering that my seat is in the middle of the row, I couldn't exactly get up and leave in the middle of lecture, assuming that I could have even walked with a dead weight for a left leg. So I just sat there and continued trying to observe what was happening to my body. I struggled to move my left side, but couldn't make any progress. Eventually, I began to lose focus on the room, and I couldn't hear anything that was being said. My head fell down and I went unconscious for about five seconds before snapping back to reality.

After returning to consciousness, I felt groggy and still couldn't focus on the room or the sound of the professor's voice, but that seemed to return within a few seconds. By another minute, I was able to regain control of my arm and my leg, though they still felt slightly weak, almost like what they should have felt like had they actually been asleep. The whole event took perhaps a minute or two from beginning to end, and after class was done I walked to the library and did some reading for classes. I wondered why I had experienced such a bizarre thing in the middle of class, but I supposed it might have been poor circulation or a response to lack of sleep during the previous weekend. I did Google my symptoms a couple of times during the week, and even though the results of my search weren't good (one search came up with a mild heart attack, another with a mini-stroke), I didn't really think about going to a doctor. It wasn't until I mentioned what happened to Matt and Aimee from my Research Methods class, and had them laugh at me and tell me that I was crazy for NOT having gone to a doctor immediately after it happened, that I decided to at least stop by NCSU's Student Health Services building and talk to someone about my symptoms.

I went to Health Services after class today and was checked out by a physician who interviewed me and kindly poked and prodded me with a light scope, listened to my internal organs with a stethoscope, tapped my joints with a hammer to check for reflexes, and made me perform some minor physical resistance tests to check for weakness in limbs. My blood pressure and temperature had already been checked by a nurse. Everything seemed within normal parameters. The physician confirmed that my symptoms were indicative of a mini stroke, except that my rebound time of a few minutes wasn't consistent with that diagnosis, since even a mini stroke typically requires a few hours for full recovery. She didn't seem to be concerned with the possibility that I had experienced a mild heart attack, either, since I didn't express any sense of physical pain during the event. She concluded that perhaps I had gone through something similar to partial sleep paralysis, since I had gone without adequate sleep over the weekend. Essentially, she told me what I had already suspected to begin with.

Granted, I suppose it is nice to have some confirmation that I'm not dying, or in need of long term monitoring or changes to my lifestyle. Still, I'm not generally one for going to the doctor unless it is a life threatening emergency, although I admit that the older I become the harder it will likely be for me to easily distinguish between what is or isn't life threatening. And little things like this can, and sometimes do, put some fear into me to change my ways, at least for a little while. I guess I'll probably start trying to eat a little better or exercise more for a few months. They determined my current weight to be around 220, and I'd rather this false alarm not turn into some harbinger of things to come.

Have fun and keep living life... with an emphasis on the "keep living"!

Maintaining Position, Going Nowhere, Situation Normal

noreply@blogger.com (Ashe) — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 23:53:00 +0000

Cubicles in the Learning Commons at DH Hill

Next week is Spring Break for NC State, though I can't say that I will be going to any sort of exotic locale for fun and excitement. Instead, I will be at home presumably trying to get caught up on my reading for classes. For now it seems that the focus of my life revolves around simply maintaining the status quo. Very little of interest or consequence occurred outside of the brief excitement of preparing for, and engaging in, my Midterm Oral Exam in Accelerated French. It went well since it largely involved me having to memorize things which I needed to say. Ever since I was a child it has been easy for me to memorize speeches and songs with little effort. I even find it enjoyable. Memorizing speeches is among the talents I apply to public speaking, generally.

The few highlights of the week, such that they were, happened on Wednesday when I went bowling with my psychology friends, and then later helped another friend in the Social Work program with a paper at DH Hill. However, despite having other enjoyable interactions with friends throughout the week, I find myself suddenly experiencing loneliness. I liken it to that feeling of being alone in a crowded room -- you know you should be feeling more pleasure than you actually are in the situation. That isn't meant as a dig on any of my friends. Rather, it is an unfortunate consequence of trying to conform to societal norms.

After my last blog post, one of my friends and I got into an argument about whether or not it was appropriate for me to share so much information about myself on the Internet. Honestly, I wish that I could share MORE information about myself -- not just on the Internet, but also in real life. Despite my contention that I am absolutely honest, even to my own detriment, there are unfortunately still one or two secrets which I keep from the world, not for the benefit of others, but for the benefit of myself. From what I have gathered, this is what passes for "normal"; almost everyone has secrets which they keep closed inside for one reason or another. But, wouldn't the world be happier (or at least better off) if we had NO secrets? Hell, the website PostSecret is devoted to nothing BUT displaying the hidden secrets of others! Of course, the recent controversy surrounding the organization WikiLeaks suggests that revealing other people's secrets without their permission can have detrimental legal consequences. Clearly, secrets (personal or otherwise) want to get out, if only we as a society could agree that it is safe to release them.

For me, secrets are impenetrable walls which prevent true intimacy and honesty. Secrets, like lies and hypocrisies, are maintained by cowards who cannot bear the consequences of their actions. We are all afraid that if our secrets were released we would lose our friends, or our families, or our careers, or our freedom. And I say "we" because those are certainly some of the reasons why I keep my secrets. What are your reasons? Is honesty THAT disruptive to society? Are we all that scared, all that fragile, that something as simple as PURE honesty can terrify us and cause us to freeze like the proverbial deer in the headlights? We are all human. We all make mistakes. We are all complex people with complicated emotions and personal histories. When it comes to human experience, there is nothing new under the sun. No matter how bad you think your secret is, someone in the world has the exact same secret as you. And, right now, all of you are hiding behind your secret walls like frightened children waiting for their mommies and daddies to come home and tell them that everything is safe. Perhaps that's why I'm so skeptical, since, for me, it wasn't even safe then!

If all of society chose to become more open, more honest, and more willing to accept the once held secrets of others, then true social intimacy would become the norm. We would all be able to treat each other as fully three dimensional human beings, as opposed to these two dimensional facades we present to one another today. We would no longer have to waste so much emotional energy putting on one act for our boss, another act for our lover, and another act for our siblings. I'm tired of being "the old man" to one group, "the loudmouth" to others, "the wise man" to a couple, "the smartass" to yet others, "the genius" to some, "a gentleman" to one or two, or "the lovable douchebag" to a few others! I want to be ALL of those things at once. I want to be ASHE! If we could shed our secrets, and the walls we construct to hide them, everyone would learn to accept us for who we TRULY are because we would have to offer them the same respect. And that IS what being honest with someone is, after all... showing them respect.

In the interest of getting you to start sharing your secrets with the world, I'll share one of mine: Whenever I'm having a conversation with a friend or acquaintance (and sometimes strangers), I have to fight an urge that makes me want to step over to them and kiss them on the mouth, regardless of their race, gender, orientation, or age.

I wonder if that's normal...

Have fun, and keep living life... And go share more of yourself with the world.

The Social Cost of Free Expression

noreply@blogger.com (Ashe) — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 23:05:00 +0000


Free Expression Tunnel at NCSU

(NOTE: The following post includes a graphic depiction of a violent fantasy which I had this week. It should be understood that I have absolutely no intention of acting on this fantasy, or any like it. If you are bothered by descriptions of violence, do not read this post. I hope that anyone that I care about who may read this won't think negatively of me after reading this, should they choose to do so. However, I'm fairly sure that the people I care about already understand my intentions.)

I've railed against hypocrisy in the past. My reasoning is that if you believe in, or otherwise espouse, a principle you should be willing to live with the consequences of that principle because in doing so you will either learn that the principle is worth defending or that it is a stupid principle that no one in their right mind should have supported to begin with. I've even gone so far as to say that, as an extension of this anti-hypocrisy attitude, I have never done or said anything for which I am ashamed. While I still assert that position, I will say that sometimes I do things which, while not causing me shame, do cause me a small amount of regret.

On Wednesday, my friends and I were hanging out in the lounge in Poe Hall as usual before our Psych Research Methods class. In case you haven't already figured it out by now, I can be something of a loud mouth. Most of the time this isn't a problem, and I've even discovered that some people find it to be rather amusing. Those who don't usually are not very happy to be around me, and that typically suits me just fine. Well, on this day some guy who was sitting behind us in the lounge yelled at us (me, in particular, since I was speaking at the time) to be quiet. To our credit, we did become silent while the guy remained in the lounge. However, I was seething with anger. When the guy finally got up to leave, I just couldn't hold in my hate any longer and I flippantly insulted him as he walked away. Needless to say, he wasn't pleased with that and responded in kind. I could have escalated the matter but chose not to out of fear that what I wanted to do would get me kicked out of school.

I should probably point out that, as a response to being abused as a child, I don't appreciate taking orders or being told what to do by others in any way. You may wonder how, then, I can possibly enjoy academia where I am constantly told to read this, write that, etc. I suppose it is more to the point that I don't like taking orders from people I perceive as being "less" than me. I consider professors as being my superiors in a way that I never considered members of my family, strangers, or prior bosses to be. I have always respected them and it is the reason that I want to one day join their ranks. Obviously, I held no such respect for the guy in the lounge.

This is where the regret comes in. I didn't want to just yell at him, cuss at him, or even throw a punch at him like some people may have wanted to if put in a similar situation. No, unlike "normal" (ie., non-abused) people, I seem to go from 0-Serial Killer when someone keeps me from behaving the way I want. I wanted to attack him like a wild animal. I wanted to grab him and bash his head against one of the brick walls until I crushed his skull. I wanted to bite his throat and rip out his flesh like a tiger attacking a gazelle. I wanted to grab him and throw him down the stairs from the lounge then jump down onto his prone body so that I could crush his rib cage before I took his laptop out of his backpack and used it to knock out all of his teeth. And all the while that I would do these things, I would laugh and laugh and laugh. In fact, the most civilized thing I wanted to do was hold him over the balcony from the lounge by his feet while I yelled at the top of my lungs, "I AM THE ALPHA MALE HERE! YOU DON'T FUCK WITH ME!" before making him beg for his life; though, to be fair it is only a one story drop from the balcony so the most he would be is paralyzed from that fall.

So, what do I regret exactly? I don't regret being a loudmouth. I don't regret pissing off that guy. But, I regret that I have to be vigilant not to release this animal that lives inside of me for reasons which aren't even my fault. I regret that I can't always respond to people around me as a fully rational human being, and instead must step through this dance of impassioned expression and repression. I regret that, for me anyway, the cost of free expression is that I will always have as many enemies (possibly more) as I have friends, and that no one will ever be on the fence about how they perceive me. And I regret that it has to be this way simply because it is probably safer for all involved.

Have fun and keep living life... And guard against your inner demons.