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.

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.

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:

TEST CAFE

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.

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?

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.

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.