Well, I haven't had a chance to post for a while, finishing up the semester kept me very busy, plus I've worked full time at the store this last week to try and earn some extra green for Christmas.
Also, with class winding up, I didn't have that much to say. However, now I have some very important news to report:
Psychology of Sexual Behavior: A (3 Credits)
History and Systems of Psychology: A (3 Credits)
Quantitative Methods of Psychology: A (4 Credits)
Experimental Methods of Psychology: A (4 Credits)
For those of you who may not know, that is my first 4.o ever. Not only college, but high school too. I'm so relieved.
Monday, December 17, 2007
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Very, very sad
Recently I assigned as a homework assignment to all my Priests. I had them read the following conference talk and then return and report on it:
Today in my Human Sexuality class the topic was on rape. It is a touchy topic, but one that I was looking forward too since with a goal to be an adolescent therapist, I think that treating rape victims will be in my future.
At one point during the class our teacher talked about a very typical rape scenario, which is that a woman, on a date, has been flirty and permissive right up to insertion, then tells the man to stop. The teacher then asked the class two questions:
1) Does this constitute rape?
2) Was it the woman's fault?
To be very clear up front, the answers are: 1) YES 2) NO
The teacher then engaged the class into a discussion about the second question. He really wanted us to think about the situation, the definition of "fault," etc. Believe it or not a couple of guys said that the girl would be a bit at fault. Other people mentioned that at any time a woman should be able to say "no" and expect the situation to end.
I decided to say something and raised my hand. When the teacher called on me, I believe my exact response was "I want to make sure that I say this right. It is not the woman's fault, and no one should blame her. However, people in their lives occasionally make bad decisions that lead to unfortunate and unexpected consequences, that are not their fault. At the same time the decisions that led to those consequences can serve as an example to others to help them avoid similar circumstances."
It was the answer the teacher wanted, but a girl in the class could not have been angrier about what I said. She yelled out, "what, so girls aren't supposed to date?" I retorted that dating is one thing, but naked foreplay on the first date is usually a bad decision. At that point the class somewhat exploded and it took a few moments for the teacher to calm everybody down. He then moved on so that we could get through all the material for the day.
More happened then I can put into this whole post, but suffice to say this clearly illustrates the unfortunate state of womanhood in today's modern society described by Elder Scott. So many women nowadays only describe themselves in terms of their sexuality, and don't even know how to relate to men outside of that context.
Unfortunately, women will not be able to fix this problem themselves. It can only be done by men rising up to the higher standard set by modern prophets and then helping women reach their divine potential.
The Sanctity of Womanhood by Elder Richard G. Scott
If you haven't read it in awhile, I recommend you review it because what I'm about to share highlights his point very well.Today in my Human Sexuality class the topic was on rape. It is a touchy topic, but one that I was looking forward too since with a goal to be an adolescent therapist, I think that treating rape victims will be in my future.
At one point during the class our teacher talked about a very typical rape scenario, which is that a woman, on a date, has been flirty and permissive right up to insertion, then tells the man to stop. The teacher then asked the class two questions:
1) Does this constitute rape?
2) Was it the woman's fault?
To be very clear up front, the answers are: 1) YES 2) NO
The teacher then engaged the class into a discussion about the second question. He really wanted us to think about the situation, the definition of "fault," etc. Believe it or not a couple of guys said that the girl would be a bit at fault. Other people mentioned that at any time a woman should be able to say "no" and expect the situation to end.
I decided to say something and raised my hand. When the teacher called on me, I believe my exact response was "I want to make sure that I say this right. It is not the woman's fault, and no one should blame her. However, people in their lives occasionally make bad decisions that lead to unfortunate and unexpected consequences, that are not their fault. At the same time the decisions that led to those consequences can serve as an example to others to help them avoid similar circumstances."
It was the answer the teacher wanted, but a girl in the class could not have been angrier about what I said. She yelled out, "what, so girls aren't supposed to date?" I retorted that dating is one thing, but naked foreplay on the first date is usually a bad decision. At that point the class somewhat exploded and it took a few moments for the teacher to calm everybody down. He then moved on so that we could get through all the material for the day.
More happened then I can put into this whole post, but suffice to say this clearly illustrates the unfortunate state of womanhood in today's modern society described by Elder Scott. So many women nowadays only describe themselves in terms of their sexuality, and don't even know how to relate to men outside of that context.
Unfortunately, women will not be able to fix this problem themselves. It can only be done by men rising up to the higher standard set by modern prophets and then helping women reach their divine potential.
Friday, November 9, 2007
An interesting week and slightly new plans
I've had stuff that I've wanted to post about all week, but given that I had two tests this week, this is the first chance I've had to post anything.
The first thing to mention is that I've altered my approach to getting into graduate school slightly. In order to make sure that I've got a competitive background, I'm going to hang out at UNT a few extra months and get a second BA in psychology before applying to graduate school. This will give me a chance to explore which schools I want to go to during the next year, and give me the opportunity to work on some undergraduate research projects, which will increase my likelihood of being able to go to a school I want. It will also give me a bit more time to prepare for the GRE.
In more interesting news: One of my class instructors was FIRED this over last weekend!
Let me set the stage for this. The first day of class, this cocky graduate student announced that he would be teaching quantitative methods in psychology (statistics), and that we wouldn't have any homework, and that we'd have our grades based entirely on three tests. That would be fine, except that he was totally vague about what to study for the exams ("just know the materials in the chapters"). He thought that reviews were tantamount to cheating.
On top of that, the only way he'd ever lecture was by going through the most poorly designed Powerpoints I have ever seen. He'd rarely try to engage the students to see if they comprehended the material, and if he did ask a question for someone in the class to answer it was a dumb rhetorical one that there was no point in answering if you were following along, and meant nothing to you if you were completely lost.
The first exam in September ended up with an average of 59 and a median of 54, in stats lingo that means more people did worse then the average then did better (I got a 91). A good portion of the class dropped at that point, but most decided to stick with it. Most of the students were hoping that the low grades who inspire him to change his methods since they clearly demonstrated that he wasn't properly presenting the material. He didn't.
After he stuck to his poor teaching method a group of students went to him complaining that he needed to change methods, show more examples and take more time to see that everyone was following along. He instead lectured them that they were just lazy kids who weren't applying themselves and were spending too much time in college parties then studying. In reality a few of the complainers were middle aged mothers who had returned to school.
When he didn't listen they went to the department, but thought all of their complaints were falling on deaf ears. Finally the department chair said he'd sit in on the class for a few minutes, which he finally did on Wednesday of last week, two days before our second test.
I took the test on Friday and figured I got another A, but I knew that it would be beyond the ability of most of the class. I was pretty sure that the instructor was going to be going to be skewered on Monday during class, until an email from the department chair went out to everyone in our class Monday morning. This email was offering everyone in our class a short window of opportunity to take an "I" in the class, and then be allowed to retake the class without having to pay tuition for it. I had never heard anything like that ever happening before anywhere.
During the hour I had between classes I went up to chair I read in near where my class is and saw a good number of students from my class discussing this email wondering if this meant our grades on this test had been even worse. While we were all discussing this another student showed up who announced that she had tried to meet with our instructor during his office hours that morning, but he had refused to discuss anything with her because he was no longer he instructor. When she inquired as to the details he asked her to leave.
About 5 minutes into the start time of the class a tenured professor finally showed up to tell us that he'd be in charge of the class from this point on, but had only known that for about 3 hours. He didn't have any details about anything, but he had been told that almost everyone failed the tests that they had already scored. He then told us to take the rest of the time off, to consider the "I" option and that he'd have a new syllabus for us on Wednesday along with our grades up to that point, and how scoring would work for the rest of the semester.
Well, Wednesday rolled around and he had the syllabuses as promised, but no grades. For some reason our former TA could not be reached, and all of our first test scores had only been recorded as letter grades instead of actual test scores. As of today we still don't have our grades, because apparently the TA had a death in the family. Man when it rains it pours.
With all this happening and the fact that the same people who run the undergraduate program run the graduate program, I think you can all see why I've decided not to get my PhD from UNT.
The first thing to mention is that I've altered my approach to getting into graduate school slightly. In order to make sure that I've got a competitive background, I'm going to hang out at UNT a few extra months and get a second BA in psychology before applying to graduate school. This will give me a chance to explore which schools I want to go to during the next year, and give me the opportunity to work on some undergraduate research projects, which will increase my likelihood of being able to go to a school I want. It will also give me a bit more time to prepare for the GRE.
In more interesting news: One of my class instructors was FIRED this over last weekend!
Let me set the stage for this. The first day of class, this cocky graduate student announced that he would be teaching quantitative methods in psychology (statistics), and that we wouldn't have any homework, and that we'd have our grades based entirely on three tests. That would be fine, except that he was totally vague about what to study for the exams ("just know the materials in the chapters"). He thought that reviews were tantamount to cheating.
On top of that, the only way he'd ever lecture was by going through the most poorly designed Powerpoints I have ever seen. He'd rarely try to engage the students to see if they comprehended the material, and if he did ask a question for someone in the class to answer it was a dumb rhetorical one that there was no point in answering if you were following along, and meant nothing to you if you were completely lost.
The first exam in September ended up with an average of 59 and a median of 54, in stats lingo that means more people did worse then the average then did better (I got a 91). A good portion of the class dropped at that point, but most decided to stick with it. Most of the students were hoping that the low grades who inspire him to change his methods since they clearly demonstrated that he wasn't properly presenting the material. He didn't.
After he stuck to his poor teaching method a group of students went to him complaining that he needed to change methods, show more examples and take more time to see that everyone was following along. He instead lectured them that they were just lazy kids who weren't applying themselves and were spending too much time in college parties then studying. In reality a few of the complainers were middle aged mothers who had returned to school.
When he didn't listen they went to the department, but thought all of their complaints were falling on deaf ears. Finally the department chair said he'd sit in on the class for a few minutes, which he finally did on Wednesday of last week, two days before our second test.
I took the test on Friday and figured I got another A, but I knew that it would be beyond the ability of most of the class. I was pretty sure that the instructor was going to be going to be skewered on Monday during class, until an email from the department chair went out to everyone in our class Monday morning. This email was offering everyone in our class a short window of opportunity to take an "I" in the class, and then be allowed to retake the class without having to pay tuition for it. I had never heard anything like that ever happening before anywhere.
During the hour I had between classes I went up to chair I read in near where my class is and saw a good number of students from my class discussing this email wondering if this meant our grades on this test had been even worse. While we were all discussing this another student showed up who announced that she had tried to meet with our instructor during his office hours that morning, but he had refused to discuss anything with her because he was no longer he instructor. When she inquired as to the details he asked her to leave.
About 5 minutes into the start time of the class a tenured professor finally showed up to tell us that he'd be in charge of the class from this point on, but had only known that for about 3 hours. He didn't have any details about anything, but he had been told that almost everyone failed the tests that they had already scored. He then told us to take the rest of the time off, to consider the "I" option and that he'd have a new syllabus for us on Wednesday along with our grades up to that point, and how scoring would work for the rest of the semester.
Well, Wednesday rolled around and he had the syllabuses as promised, but no grades. For some reason our former TA could not be reached, and all of our first test scores had only been recorded as letter grades instead of actual test scores. As of today we still don't have our grades, because apparently the TA had a death in the family. Man when it rains it pours.
With all this happening and the fact that the same people who run the undergraduate program run the graduate program, I think you can all see why I've decided not to get my PhD from UNT.
Sunday, November 4, 2007
Dan Rather and I.Q.
Sorry it has been so long since I've done a post, I had a test in statistics on Friday and I was pretty stressed out about it all week. I think I did alright though, so now I can stress over the two other tests I have this week.
Anyway, I thought I'd write a bit about a video we watched in History of Psychology. It was a 60 Minutes report from 1975, featuring a young Dan Rather discussing I.Q. with the big psychologists of the day. It mentioned all the big questions that 30 years later we still don't have the answers to: why so much disparity between whites' and blacks' scores? is intelligence a single construct or comprised of several abilities? does a low score really indicate a low ability to perform? etc. Given that we still don't have the answers now, I won't be holding my breath for any breakthroughs.
The other interesting thing that was brought up, in classic Dan Rather form, was a class warfare argument. I believe one direct quote from the film was "the only purpose intelligence tests serve in our society is as a tool for the middle class to disenfranchise the working class, and to justify racism by using a 'scientific' measurement." I found that all very interesting since the middle vs. working class argument does not exist in today's class warfare vernacular, now it's the upper class vs. the middle class. Since there isn't an I.Q. discrepancy between those two groups I doubt we'll hear John Edwards citing I.Q. tests in his approach to class warfare.
Anyway, I thought I'd write a bit about a video we watched in History of Psychology. It was a 60 Minutes report from 1975, featuring a young Dan Rather discussing I.Q. with the big psychologists of the day. It mentioned all the big questions that 30 years later we still don't have the answers to: why so much disparity between whites' and blacks' scores? is intelligence a single construct or comprised of several abilities? does a low score really indicate a low ability to perform? etc. Given that we still don't have the answers now, I won't be holding my breath for any breakthroughs.
The other interesting thing that was brought up, in classic Dan Rather form, was a class warfare argument. I believe one direct quote from the film was "the only purpose intelligence tests serve in our society is as a tool for the middle class to disenfranchise the working class, and to justify racism by using a 'scientific' measurement." I found that all very interesting since the middle vs. working class argument does not exist in today's class warfare vernacular, now it's the upper class vs. the middle class. Since there isn't an I.Q. discrepancy between those two groups I doubt we'll hear John Edwards citing I.Q. tests in his approach to class warfare.
Friday, October 12, 2007
Why Al Gore doesn't deserve the Nobel Peace Price
Okay, I know that this is my "Psych" blog, but my first college love was Political Science, and it will always be important to me. This is why I have to vent on one of the worst choices for peace prize ever.
First off, let me state that I am not in Climate Change denial. I just think our time and money would be better spent preparing for natural disasters (caused by climate change or not) than hobbling our economies based on incomplete science.
The real tragedy in giving the Nobel to Al Gore is that his view of Global Warming is more likely to increase violence and anonymity in the world than reduce it. His view is based on a global Marxist perspective of "haves" (those causing the problem) and "have nots" (those on the receiving end of the disaster). This is the same ideology that Chavez of Venezuela, Ahmadinejad of Iran, and Castro of Cuba use to enslave their own populations. Sooner or later these renegades are going to start using Global Warming rhetoric to defy the world community.
Who thinks giving these guys more ammo against America will bring peace to the world?
First off, let me state that I am not in Climate Change denial. I just think our time and money would be better spent preparing for natural disasters (caused by climate change or not) than hobbling our economies based on incomplete science.
The real tragedy in giving the Nobel to Al Gore is that his view of Global Warming is more likely to increase violence and anonymity in the world than reduce it. His view is based on a global Marxist perspective of "haves" (those causing the problem) and "have nots" (those on the receiving end of the disaster). This is the same ideology that Chavez of Venezuela, Ahmadinejad of Iran, and Castro of Cuba use to enslave their own populations. Sooner or later these renegades are going to start using Global Warming rhetoric to defy the world community.
Who thinks giving these guys more ammo against America will bring peace to the world?
Monday, October 8, 2007
Another First
A couple of months ago I did a post commenting on how, for the first time in my life, I had read a textbook from cover to cover. Well, that might not have been the best thing to brag about at 29 years of age, but this sure is:
For the first time in my life I SET THE CURVE ON AN EXAM!
I just finished my History and Systems of Psychology class and we went over the test from last Friday. Now, when I finished that test I did not feel confident about my score at all, and it was the first time I finished a test this semester not feeling good about my performance. There had been 64 questions, 2 of which I didn't remember the material at all, and about 12 of which were familiar, but I didn't know for sure what the answer was. As we sat down in class today the professor states that as a class we did good, and that he had adjusted the scores so that our raw scores would be out of 52 questions instead of 64 to set an accurate distribution. So I sat there in agony as they handed out our tests (waiting for a graded test to be handed out is one of the areas of my life where I have no control whatsoever over my internal stress and anxiety). Low and behold, I got a 53.
It turned out that my own personal assessment following the test was pretty accurate, I mean I did get 11 wrong, but fortunately for me the test was hard enough that no one else did better than that.
For the first time in my life I SET THE CURVE ON AN EXAM!
I just finished my History and Systems of Psychology class and we went over the test from last Friday. Now, when I finished that test I did not feel confident about my score at all, and it was the first time I finished a test this semester not feeling good about my performance. There had been 64 questions, 2 of which I didn't remember the material at all, and about 12 of which were familiar, but I didn't know for sure what the answer was. As we sat down in class today the professor states that as a class we did good, and that he had adjusted the scores so that our raw scores would be out of 52 questions instead of 64 to set an accurate distribution. So I sat there in agony as they handed out our tests (waiting for a graded test to be handed out is one of the areas of my life where I have no control whatsoever over my internal stress and anxiety). Low and behold, I got a 53.
It turned out that my own personal assessment following the test was pretty accurate, I mean I did get 11 wrong, but fortunately for me the test was hard enough that no one else did better than that.
Saturday, October 6, 2007
An Argument For Monogamy
This last week in my Human Sexuality class we were discussing difference in sexual behaviors and preferences between men and women. We already discussed gender differences in general a couple of weeks ago, so this time we were only talking about sexual behaviors specifically.
During the course of our discussion our professor brought up a theory that argues women are biologically driven to cheat during their most fertile days of the month. Some of you may have heard of this study before where you have women rank the attractiveness of various pictures of men during different points of their cycle. An alternative method is to have them take pictures of men on a computer that can be manipulated to adjust basic features (jaw line, brow, nose, etc.). What they've found is when women are menstruating or during normal days they prefer men's faces that are slightly feminine; however, when women ovulate they prefer faces that are more strongly masculine.
The researchers who did this study then argued that women must have a biological drive in them to find spouses who can take care of them, but when it comes to getting pregnant, may secretly look elsewhere for better genes. (A sad fact of DNA genealogy projects is that there is about a 10% paternity discrepancy, meaning about one in ten people are not biologically related to the man they think is their father).
I was not about to let this theory go unchallenged though so I asked the teacher about a specific study I had read about once that presented a biological argument for monogamy. He had never heard of it before but told me if I found it he would like to read it. Well, find it I did, and since I can't link to it because I found it on one of those proprietary campus search engines, I'll summarize it for you all here:
The study was done at the University of Adelaide in Australia to try and figure out why some women with perfectly healthy reproductive organs had repeated miscarriages. What they discovered was that their partners didn't produce a specific protein in their semen (only about 1% of semen is sperm). When trying to figure out what this protein is they realized it had implications beyond simply miscarriages. You see a pregnancy is a lot like an organ transplant, it is a body of foreign material growing inside of a human, and human immune systems do not like foreign material. What they discovered is that this protein tells a women's body that the DNA from her husband is permissible and not a hazard to her system. The thing is though, is that it doesn't work perfectly until there has been a critical mass. One thing that I think a lot of us know is that for a good number of people, that a first pregnancy is a bit tricky in terms of conception. In addition, if a women becomes pregnant within 4 months of her first sexual encounter with a specific man, the incidence of preeclampsia is 40%, while those who waited 12 months or more only had an incidence of 5%. Preeclampsia is in terms of symptoms very similar to organ transplant failure.
Well, I hope you all found that interesting. My professor did, I got 2 extra credit points for my effort. Of course, it would mean a whole lot more to me if this information became a part of his regular lecture.
During the course of our discussion our professor brought up a theory that argues women are biologically driven to cheat during their most fertile days of the month. Some of you may have heard of this study before where you have women rank the attractiveness of various pictures of men during different points of their cycle. An alternative method is to have them take pictures of men on a computer that can be manipulated to adjust basic features (jaw line, brow, nose, etc.). What they've found is when women are menstruating or during normal days they prefer men's faces that are slightly feminine; however, when women ovulate they prefer faces that are more strongly masculine.
The researchers who did this study then argued that women must have a biological drive in them to find spouses who can take care of them, but when it comes to getting pregnant, may secretly look elsewhere for better genes. (A sad fact of DNA genealogy projects is that there is about a 10% paternity discrepancy, meaning about one in ten people are not biologically related to the man they think is their father).
I was not about to let this theory go unchallenged though so I asked the teacher about a specific study I had read about once that presented a biological argument for monogamy. He had never heard of it before but told me if I found it he would like to read it. Well, find it I did, and since I can't link to it because I found it on one of those proprietary campus search engines, I'll summarize it for you all here:
The study was done at the University of Adelaide in Australia to try and figure out why some women with perfectly healthy reproductive organs had repeated miscarriages. What they discovered was that their partners didn't produce a specific protein in their semen (only about 1% of semen is sperm). When trying to figure out what this protein is they realized it had implications beyond simply miscarriages. You see a pregnancy is a lot like an organ transplant, it is a body of foreign material growing inside of a human, and human immune systems do not like foreign material. What they discovered is that this protein tells a women's body that the DNA from her husband is permissible and not a hazard to her system. The thing is though, is that it doesn't work perfectly until there has been a critical mass. One thing that I think a lot of us know is that for a good number of people, that a first pregnancy is a bit tricky in terms of conception. In addition, if a women becomes pregnant within 4 months of her first sexual encounter with a specific man, the incidence of preeclampsia is 40%, while those who waited 12 months or more only had an incidence of 5%. Preeclampsia is in terms of symptoms very similar to organ transplant failure.
Well, I hope you all found that interesting. My professor did, I got 2 extra credit points for my effort. Of course, it would mean a whole lot more to me if this information became a part of his regular lecture.
Monday, October 1, 2007
Another Interesting Excerpt from one of my textbooks
This is from my Abnormal Psych book for you ladies:
(Hint: read it slow, and read the whole quote, this one is pretty technical)
Please do me a favor, the next time your husband calls you "hysterical," and you throw this information back in his face, don't tell him you learned it from me.
(Hint: read it slow, and read the whole quote, this one is pretty technical)
- Hippocrates (Greek Physician from about 400 BC) also coined the word "hysteria" to describe a concept he learned about from the Egyptians, who had identired what we now call "somatoform disorders." In these disorders, the physical symptoms appear to be the result of an organic pathology for which no organic cause can be found, such as paralysis and some kinds of blindness. Because these disorders occurred primarily in women, the Egyptians (and Hippocrates) mistakenly assumed that they were restricted to women. They also presumed the cause: The empty uterus wandered to various parts of the body in search of conception (the Greek term for Uterus is "hysteron"). Numerous physical symptoms reflected the location of the wandering uterus. The prescribed cure might be marriage, or occasionally, fumigation of the vagina to lure the uterus back to its natural location. Knowledge of physiology eventually disproved the wandering uterus theory; however, the tendency to stigmatize dramatic women as "hysterical" continued unabated well into the 1970s, when mental health professionals became sensitive to the prejudicial stereotype the term implied. Somataform disorders (and the traits associated with them) are not limited to one sex or the other.
Please do me a favor, the next time your husband calls you "hysterical," and you throw this information back in his face, don't tell him you learned it from me.
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Never Again
I saw this post on my Jenni and Brad's blog and it got me thinking.
Since going back to school I haven't made it to the gym as frequently as I was before. So I went through some old photos to remind myself why I need to go to the gym.
This is me maxed out at 210 in March 2005:
Currently I vary between 175-180, but I was below 170 earlier this year.
I guess I need to start being careful again and get some gym time back in my schedule. Thanks for the reminder Brad.
Since going back to school I haven't made it to the gym as frequently as I was before. So I went through some old photos to remind myself why I need to go to the gym.
This is me maxed out at 210 in March 2005:
Currently I vary between 175-180, but I was below 170 earlier this year.I guess I need to start being careful again and get some gym time back in my schedule. Thanks for the reminder Brad.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Sunday, September 9, 2007
PSYC 4470
I've been sitting on this blog post for a while now, but finally got around to writing down my thoughts on my PSYC 4470 class, aka Psychology of Sexual Behavior.
Now, first of all, let me state that I wanted to take Psychology of Marital Adjustment. Unfortunately that class was only offered at 6:00 pm on Tuesdays, and being a one-day-a-week class, it goes until 8:50 pm. That would have been acceptable except for the fact that my Tuesday morning class gets out at 9:45 am. So in order to avoid being stuck in Denton for 10 hours between classes, I opted for the Sex class, which starts at 2:00.
For those of you wondering, this class would definitely be rated "R" if anyone ever made such a scale. In fact, the teacher warned us that one class will be "NC-17" since he will show a sex instruction video that leaves nothing to the imagination. Fortunately, that is the only lecture in the course that is optional, and will not be in the tests. Also, I've read ahead through the textbook, and it is to say the least from a "liberal" mindset.
Now, let me tell you about some of the students in the class. In our first class as everyone was sitting down I saw a guy walk in who was wearing socks with his Birkenstocks. This caught my attention because I always got annoyed by the Californians at BYU who would say that socks and sandals was a fashion faux pas only preformed in Provo. Then I looked over the rest of this guy: his hair hadn't been washed in days and he wore it in a pony tail, I think he was trying to grow a mustache but couldn't, and was wearing a white t-shirt that had stains all over it. As the teacher [totally unrelated: Laura just turned on Christmas music, feel free to mock her] was asking what professions we students are interested in he asked if anyone was planing on becoming a sex therapist (think Barbara Streisand in Meet the Fockers) this guy's hand shot up so fast, he looked like a preschooler being asked "who wants candy!?!" During the class he kept on interrupting the professor asking about theories no one in the class seemed to have ever heard of. The professor professor handled himself quite professionally, and kept on replying that these theories went beyond what we'd discuss in this class, and kept on asking him to save such question until after the lecture. Fortunately this individual did not attend our second class, so I'm hoping he dropped the course.
During the second class though, despite the weirdo being gone, several other students in the class surprised me with their attitudes. The lecture was on the specific techniques used to study sex, which is by far one of the hardest areas in both psychology and medicine to study properly. We had just finished discussing interview and survey techniques, so the teacher asked the class who would be willing to participate in a detailed interview with a researcher. In our class of about 100 all but about two raised their hands (myself included, I'm willing to sit through an embarrassing interview in order to make sure that our conservative viewpoints aren't overly underrepresented). Then the teacher asked who would be willing to participate in a laboratory experiment . . . seven people raised their hands, including the guy I was sitting next to. The professor was even surprised by that, and he said that in previous classes he rarely had more then two people raise their hands.
Given all that information, some of you may be wondering why I'm sticking to this class. I actually have several reasons. First of all, it is very relevant to what I want to do as a professional. My end goal is marriage and adolescent therapy, and no doubt sex tends to cause a lot of problems in both of those areas of life. We'd all love to assume that things are fine, but sometimes big problems do occur. Whether it is something as dramatic as a teenage being raped, or something that may seem innocuous, such as using sex as bribery in marriage, I need to be educated in what the problems can be, what to look for, and how to help clients find solutions. The second reason is more general, the scriptures teach that we need to seek for light and truth. Unfortunately, too many in our church subscribe to the old Victorian notions of sex, which are extremely unhealthy, while at the other extreme we are surrounded by a world that is as dark and stupid as it could be regarding sex. Somewhere in the middle is truth, and I think we need to find it.
I'll leave it at that, I'm interested in any thoughts you may all have. Let me just say for any of you who read this, and find yourselves wanting more information, I recommend The Act of Marriage. It was written by a minister and his wife and provides good information balanced against Christian beliefs.
Now, first of all, let me state that I wanted to take Psychology of Marital Adjustment. Unfortunately that class was only offered at 6:00 pm on Tuesdays, and being a one-day-a-week class, it goes until 8:50 pm. That would have been acceptable except for the fact that my Tuesday morning class gets out at 9:45 am. So in order to avoid being stuck in Denton for 10 hours between classes, I opted for the Sex class, which starts at 2:00.
For those of you wondering, this class would definitely be rated "R" if anyone ever made such a scale. In fact, the teacher warned us that one class will be "NC-17" since he will show a sex instruction video that leaves nothing to the imagination. Fortunately, that is the only lecture in the course that is optional, and will not be in the tests. Also, I've read ahead through the textbook, and it is to say the least from a "liberal" mindset.
Now, let me tell you about some of the students in the class. In our first class as everyone was sitting down I saw a guy walk in who was wearing socks with his Birkenstocks. This caught my attention because I always got annoyed by the Californians at BYU who would say that socks and sandals was a fashion faux pas only preformed in Provo. Then I looked over the rest of this guy: his hair hadn't been washed in days and he wore it in a pony tail, I think he was trying to grow a mustache but couldn't, and was wearing a white t-shirt that had stains all over it. As the teacher [totally unrelated: Laura just turned on Christmas music, feel free to mock her] was asking what professions we students are interested in he asked if anyone was planing on becoming a sex therapist (think Barbara Streisand in Meet the Fockers) this guy's hand shot up so fast, he looked like a preschooler being asked "who wants candy!?!" During the class he kept on interrupting the professor asking about theories no one in the class seemed to have ever heard of. The professor professor handled himself quite professionally, and kept on replying that these theories went beyond what we'd discuss in this class, and kept on asking him to save such question until after the lecture. Fortunately this individual did not attend our second class, so I'm hoping he dropped the course.
During the second class though, despite the weirdo being gone, several other students in the class surprised me with their attitudes. The lecture was on the specific techniques used to study sex, which is by far one of the hardest areas in both psychology and medicine to study properly. We had just finished discussing interview and survey techniques, so the teacher asked the class who would be willing to participate in a detailed interview with a researcher. In our class of about 100 all but about two raised their hands (myself included, I'm willing to sit through an embarrassing interview in order to make sure that our conservative viewpoints aren't overly underrepresented). Then the teacher asked who would be willing to participate in a laboratory experiment . . . seven people raised their hands, including the guy I was sitting next to. The professor was even surprised by that, and he said that in previous classes he rarely had more then two people raise their hands.
Given all that information, some of you may be wondering why I'm sticking to this class. I actually have several reasons. First of all, it is very relevant to what I want to do as a professional. My end goal is marriage and adolescent therapy, and no doubt sex tends to cause a lot of problems in both of those areas of life. We'd all love to assume that things are fine, but sometimes big problems do occur. Whether it is something as dramatic as a teenage being raped, or something that may seem innocuous, such as using sex as bribery in marriage, I need to be educated in what the problems can be, what to look for, and how to help clients find solutions. The second reason is more general, the scriptures teach that we need to seek for light and truth. Unfortunately, too many in our church subscribe to the old Victorian notions of sex, which are extremely unhealthy, while at the other extreme we are surrounded by a world that is as dark and stupid as it could be regarding sex. Somewhere in the middle is truth, and I think we need to find it.
I'll leave it at that, I'm interested in any thoughts you may all have. Let me just say for any of you who read this, and find yourselves wanting more information, I recommend The Act of Marriage. It was written by a minister and his wife and provides good information balanced against Christian beliefs.
Friday, August 31, 2007
My First Day
I got this idea from Jeff and Emily's Blog, so I'll give props to them upfront.
I thought I'd do a recap of my first day of school at UNT. It didn't go perfectly well, but everything that needed to get done got done. It just took quite a bit more work then I intended.
I'll start with the fact that we got home from vacation at about 6:00 Saturday night meaning that I missed any chance of getting some pre-school errands finished ahead of time. So on Monday, I was planning to leave about 7:30. That way even with the hour long drive would I should have had plenty of time to get the parking figured out, find my classrooms, and hopefully even buy my books before going to class at 10:00.
I knew that I'd have to get started early though because right from the start one of my cars tires was flat. I'd been told by Laura's Aunt Terry while we were back in Utah that I had a flat and I knew that I had a slow leak in my drivers side front tire, so the information really hadn't registered while I was on vacation. Besides, my inspection was going to run out at the end of August and all 4 of my tires were going to fail, so I knew I'd be needed to buy tires this week. Also, I had a small pump which does a great job filling it up, so I wasn't worried.
Well, do to a lack of foresight on my part I never took the time to checkout the tire all day Sunday, so on Monday morning I was surprised to discover that it was my rear passenger side tire that was flat. Not only was it flat, the top of the stem had been completely destroyed. That meant having to put the mini-spare in order to go anywhere, and driving a maximum 50 mph all the way to Denton. I finally go out the door about 8:55 am.
My problems became even more fun as soon as I got to Denton. For help, please refer to the map. Remember, I'm trying to get to a 10:00 class.
1 - 9:59 arrive on campus hoping that they would have free parking today since it was the first day of class and not all of us could come get our passes last week. Drive past sign that says all lots being enforced.
2 - 10:03 pull up to traffic and safety building. Read big sign that says "COMMUTER PARKING PASSES ONLY AVAILABLE IN BOOKSTORE" hung over front door.
3 - 10:06 pull up to information booth and ask where I'm supposed to park if all the lots are being enforced and access to the location that sells parking passes requires parking on campus. I'm directed to the metered lots and parking garage, or returning to the traffic office for a single day pass.
4 - 10:10 - 10:30 circle around the two metered lots and the parking garage praying that a spot will open up. Finally giving up. Figure by this time I've missed class and my goal is simply to get a syllabus.
5 - 10:33 pull back up to traffic office and buy a single day pass.
6 - 10:42 finally find a parking spot on the far side of the football field. Start running in the direction of class. (Blue Line)
7 - 10:45 see a shuttle passing me, realized that it was impossible to making it to class on foot, I decided to bet on the shuttle and hop on.
8 - 10:50 (the minute class officially ends) Not knowing the route of the shuttle and if there is a better stop I jump off and start running for class.
9 - 10:55 Find the classroom and hoping the professor is still hanging around answering questions I look inside only to see some guy setting up for an American Government class. Look around lobby for professor (whom I'd met in July, so I knew what he looked like), but he's long gone.
10 - 11:00 find my 12:00 class to make sure I don't miss that one.
11 - 11:10 go the my 10:00 professor's office to see if I can get a syllabus there. His door's locked so I ask the department secretary if she has any. She didn't but told me the professor would be back at 1:00.
12 - 11:20 get to the bookstore to buy books and a parking pass. I get all my books, but the parking pass line is too long.
13 - 11:55 make it to my 12:00 class. All we do is talk about the syllabus.
14 - 1:05 return to 11:00 professor's office to finds a line of people. It turns out he's an adviser, so I have to wait in line even though what I need takes 15 seconds and everyone in front of me is taking about 10 minutes.
15 - 2:00 return the to bookstore to buy a parking pass.
16 - 2:40 finds a shuttle stop with route maps. Figure out how to get back to my car and use the shuttles in the future.
17 - 3:10 finally get back to my car. Begin my slow drive back to McKinney. Stop by Discount Tire on the way home to make sure that my Tuesday goes better then Monday did.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
University of North Texas
Some first thoughts on starting school yesterday. I've now been to all of my classes all I've got to say is why didn't I do this earlier. No offense to UNT, but my first thought of your classes is that they are going to be CAKE.
I'm taking four classes: Quantitative Methods, Experimental Methods, History of Psychology, and Human Sexuality.
Each of these classes have 3 exams and they are all multiple choice or true/false except for Quantitative methods which does require hand written answers. In my Human Sexuality class I can drop my lowest test score or skip the final if I already have an A. Not one of my classes require a research paper or project, although I can earn up to one extra credit point per page of research paper I submit for History of Psychology (max 10 points).
I know what you are all thinking though, "well sure the assignment load is light so they must be pounding you with reading assignments." NOT AT ALL. Most of my reading assignments are 15-40 pages a week per class. Back at BYU my Political Science classes tried to average 100 pages per week, and never did I have a class that didn't require a 12-15 page research paper. On top of that, they'd usually require either 1-2 short papers (5-6 pages), a short one page essay due about every week, or daily quizzes on the reading assignment or last lecture.
For any of you who may know a UNT Professor, please don't pass my assessment on to them. I've had enough bad history with education systems, and I honestly think I've earned this kind of a break.
Woo Hoo! 4.0 here I come. knock on wood.
I'm taking four classes: Quantitative Methods, Experimental Methods, History of Psychology, and Human Sexuality.
Each of these classes have 3 exams and they are all multiple choice or true/false except for Quantitative methods which does require hand written answers. In my Human Sexuality class I can drop my lowest test score or skip the final if I already have an A. Not one of my classes require a research paper or project, although I can earn up to one extra credit point per page of research paper I submit for History of Psychology (max 10 points).
I know what you are all thinking though, "well sure the assignment load is light so they must be pounding you with reading assignments." NOT AT ALL. Most of my reading assignments are 15-40 pages a week per class. Back at BYU my Political Science classes tried to average 100 pages per week, and never did I have a class that didn't require a 12-15 page research paper. On top of that, they'd usually require either 1-2 short papers (5-6 pages), a short one page essay due about every week, or daily quizzes on the reading assignment or last lecture.
For any of you who may know a UNT Professor, please don't pass my assessment on to them. I've had enough bad history with education systems, and I honestly think I've earned this kind of a break.
Woo Hoo! 4.0 here I come. knock on wood.
Monday, July 30, 2007
Do you know your I.Q.?
Well, one thing that I learned very quickly when I started reading my psych books is that psychology uses I.Q. tests A LOT. I mean they test people like crazy to try and learn stuff. The funny thing is though, that know one knows what we're testing when we do I.Q. tests. Seriously, there is no sticking definition for "intelligence." In fact if you were to say that someone can do smart things because they have a high I.Q. is like saying Jeff Hornecek could hit 3 pointers because his stats for hitting 3 pointers are good. (Please forgive the 1990's Utah Jazz reference, but it is the last time I really followed basketball).
So anyway, after learning a whole bunch of interesting things about I.Q.'s I finally gave in to temptation and had an I.Q test done. So, for the first time in my life I actually know what my I.Q. is, and I'm not quite sure how I feel about that. Before any of you start to wonder, let me just say that it is nothing to be disappointed in, also I'm definitely not over 150 (which is the top 1% of 1% and the official point when someone is considered a genius).
I don't know why I feel so weird about this, but considering we don't really know what an I.Q. is, it feels weird to have a new label put on me that society considers to be so valid turn out to be something arbitrary.
For those of you who are not as conflicted about this issue as I am, here is the link to I.Q. test my class referred me too:
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Another post titled: FINISHED!!
12:21 am Monday July 23, 2007
48 hours and 4 minutes after purchasing it
and
6 years, 11 months, and 5 days after reading the first one
I have finished it.
Now I can move on with my life and on to more important things.
48 hours and 4 minutes after purchasing it
and
6 years, 11 months, and 5 days after reading the first one
I have finished it.
Now I can move on with my life and on to more important things.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
FINISHED!
This is a rather sad this to admit, but yesterday for the first time in my life I finished reading a textbook cover to cover. However, I would like to point out that before I get labeled a slacker, most college courses never assign an entire textbook. They'll usually lessen the reading load a bit and cover some of the material in lectures, or supplement journal articles. No such luck in Independent Study--all reading, all the time.The funny thing is though, that I actually enjoyed this book quite a bit. I guess that means I've picked a good discipline to devote the rest of my life to. At the same time this particular author has a weird sense of humor that occasionally popped up in the book. For example, from the chapter on schizophrenia: (not to be confused with dissociative identity disorder, schizophrenia is characterized by a disconnect between emotions and intellect)
However, it is hazardous to diagnose someone with schizophrenia if the only symptoms are delusions. For example, suppose someone constantly sees evidence of government conspiracies in everyday events. Is that belief a delusion of persecution, or merely an unusual opinion? Might it even be correct?
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Schachter and Singer's Theory of Emotions
NOTE: if you haven't read my welcome yet, you might want to read that before reading this post.
When studying emotion recently I found an item of evidence for this theory to be rather amusing. The theory is the one stated in the title, and the official definition is that the intensity of the physiological state--that is, the degree of sympathetic nervous system arousal--determines the intensity of the emotion, but a cognitive appraisal of the situation identifies the type of the emotion. In other words, since how the body responds (sweating, heart-rate, etc.) to two very different emotions (i.e. fear & euphoria) it requires a mental analysis of the situation to decide which emotion you are experiencing. Then once your brain has decided which emotion it is experiencing, the degree to which heart is beating or you are sweating tells your brain how intense the emotion is. The main idea behind this is that emotions are fairly automatic.
Psychologists have actually done quite a few laboratory studies to show that this seems to be true to a degree.
Here is where the funny part comes in. This section in my reading ended with this review question: "you are going on a first date with someone you hope will find you exciting. According to Schachter and Singer's theory, should you plan a date walking through an art gallery or riding on roller coasters?"
(If you read the whole section out of my text, I'm sure you'd know the answer, but in case I didn't do a good job explaining it here is the answer: "according to Schachter and Singer's theory, you should plan a date riding roller coasters. If your date gets emotionally excited, he or she may attribute the arousal to you.")
So, my question to all of you is whether or not your early dates as a couple match the theory.
When studying emotion recently I found an item of evidence for this theory to be rather amusing. The theory is the one stated in the title, and the official definition is that the intensity of the physiological state--that is, the degree of sympathetic nervous system arousal--determines the intensity of the emotion, but a cognitive appraisal of the situation identifies the type of the emotion. In other words, since how the body responds (sweating, heart-rate, etc.) to two very different emotions (i.e. fear & euphoria) it requires a mental analysis of the situation to decide which emotion you are experiencing. Then once your brain has decided which emotion it is experiencing, the degree to which heart is beating or you are sweating tells your brain how intense the emotion is. The main idea behind this is that emotions are fairly automatic.
Psychologists have actually done quite a few laboratory studies to show that this seems to be true to a degree.
Here is where the funny part comes in. This section in my reading ended with this review question: "you are going on a first date with someone you hope will find you exciting. According to Schachter and Singer's theory, should you plan a date walking through an art gallery or riding on roller coasters?"
(If you read the whole section out of my text, I'm sure you'd know the answer, but in case I didn't do a good job explaining it here is the answer: "according to Schachter and Singer's theory, you should plan a date riding roller coasters. If your date gets emotionally excited, he or she may attribute the arousal to you.")
So, my question to all of you is whether or not your early dates as a couple match the theory.
Welcome
I mentioned to Laura that I ran across something in my psychology book that I found amusing and that I thought I'd post on our blog to see what all of you thought of it. She mentioned that perhaps it would be better if I had my own blog specifically dedicated to my studies where I could post ideas like that any time I wanted to. As I thought about it I realized that having my own blog was a really good idea for several reasons.
First, by occasionally blogging my thoughts I am better utilizing the mind's natural methods of long-term memory storage and effective retrieval.
Second, I can survey my friends easily to see whether or not a psychological explanation for a specific phenomenon coincides with how people outside the discipline view that phenomenon.
And third, in a few years when I start trying to establish a private practice, I'll have an entire journal of thoughts to read through with comments and feedback from others that can help me develop approaches to helping clients.
With that in mind, I hope that you all enjoy my occasional thoughts and ramblings, and I look forward to any feedback you all may have.
First, by occasionally blogging my thoughts I am better utilizing the mind's natural methods of long-term memory storage and effective retrieval.
Second, I can survey my friends easily to see whether or not a psychological explanation for a specific phenomenon coincides with how people outside the discipline view that phenomenon.
And third, in a few years when I start trying to establish a private practice, I'll have an entire journal of thoughts to read through with comments and feedback from others that can help me develop approaches to helping clients.
With that in mind, I hope that you all enjoy my occasional thoughts and ramblings, and I look forward to any feedback you all may have.
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