Oops! I spoke too soon...

There's been a kink in the research process. I found out today that one of the professors who teaches undergrad research methods failed to request to use the psych 120 pool for her students (who need to conduct an experiment for their class). So now my request has been bumped and the pool has been more than exhausted. My group and I will have to go through the university IRB to use students from other classes. We'll have to ask professors if they will offer extra credit for us to test their students. I think it will be okay, though. The person who's in charge of the psych 120 pool offered to allow us to use the students in his classes if we get approval. (that's 100 students already)

I just wish I had acted on my gut feelings to apply for the university IRB to supplement what I thought we would have. Now, we are going to be pushing the limits of our available time in order to get this project done before the semester ends. (IRB approval takes two or three weeks).

I also think I experienced immediate retribution for expressing anger about this. When I found out this morning, I immediately drove in to school. I met a different grad student in the parking lot and we chatted for awhile. I made references to how angry I was about losing the psych 120 pool and said I was going to talk to the prof in charge to see what's going on. Then I made references to having my claws drawn and put my left hand in the form of a claw. Then I tried to enter the building. As I did, my left hand got stuck in the handle as I yanked the door open. Suffice it to say, the exact hand I had used just minutes before to express my anger was now bruised and in extreme pain. I think I'm going to be a lot more careful about my actions from now on. This is not the first time that God hasn't allowed me to get away with something that appears so minor. I must maintain a soft heart.

On the plus side, I got ahold of a teacher who might work with us for the other project I'm working on. So things are moving on that end. Plus, we might have another school that might work with us. We shall see..

Things seem to be coming together nicely

I just heard that the house I bought in the town I used to live might be rented soon. I'm really very excited because this will be a definite release of some of my financial pressure. Although it certainly won't cover the whole mortgage, at least I won't have two sets of utilities to pay anymore. I just cannot begin to express how relieved I feel. Thank you, God.

I'm also starting to get research moving forward in school. I thought one project would be ready to start a couple weeks ago. But, everything took so much longer than I expected. Since I'm working with two other grad students on the project (we don't need faculty advisors!!) I needed to do everything in conjunction with others, no working on my own. I used to think it would drive me nuts to do it that way, but actually it seems to be a life-saver. It turns out that if I'm working with the right people, I actually do better work in a group of two or three than by myself. I'm also more motivated.

My other project with a different grad student (once again, no need for advisors, we can do our own projects!!) is starting to gel as well. Our project is considerably harder because we are trying to work with kids, not the easily available college population. But, my colleague and I think exactly alike, and we both have a very specific desire to equally contribute to the project. It's nice. For the other project, I'm kind of taking the lead because both of the other grad students have less experience than myself. But, that certainly doesn't mean they don't bring very important contributions to the project. They always catch something that I miss! So it's great to feel that sense that we are all working together for a common goal, and everyone can bring something to the project that other's can't.

I'm starting to feel that collaboration and dialog are the key to success. Shared discourse is the main way that I learn. So I really begin to appreciate the flow of ideas and the connection with others that has been fostering my learning far above what I expected or could accomplish alone. Once again, thank you God for bringing me to the place where the environment is just right for me.

I'm putting together a discussion group on the Holy Spirit, and I'm putting together the research colloquium at school that will be centered on discussion of educationally relevant topics. Discussion is really truly the way to go. I wish I had discovered this sooner. But, I'm so excited that now I know that I learn best through discussion.

Long live the three D's: Discussion, Dialog, Discourse!

Incoherent mumblings

Today, as the sum melted the snow, I could not help but wish to be outside. Cooped up in my house due to the freezing snow, I glorified in the new sun. I shopped, but bought nothing of consequence. It was a mere desire to be outside. As I walked outside each storefront, my steps light, my stride jaunty, I meandered here and there. Alas, the shadows lengthened, and I returned to these four walls. The intensity faded, correspindingly my joy subsided. To be replaced with a reminder of my duties. Ahh, procrasnination, my friend, ever-present. But, I must bid you goodbye, for I see the dishes drying in the rack. I hear the laundy has spun still. I see the carpet calling me to vacuum. Must I heed the call? Must I pry myself from my computer. Oh, computer, truly you warp time into an accordion. Scrunched in, I feel the constant pull of the computer screen. Stetched out, I discover how much time has truly passed. But, no, not this time.....

I am vision impaired

Can you imagine what it is like to have your vision unexpectedly decide to take a break from its day-to-day duty as your personal visual information processor? Well, that is exactly what happened to me last weekend. Now, some would say that I simply strained my eyes from reading too much, but I must point out that this interpretation does not begin to capture the horror of my experience.

Let me recount that experience…I was home all day, alternating between reading the miniscule print that is typical of journal articles, and reading articles or webpages on my computer screen. As day turned to night, and the night stretched further into the morning, I continued to read text on my computer. My eyes began to water and I casually rubbed them. I was typing when an unusual phenomenon occurred. Bright metallic images flashed and faded toward the right side of my visual field. My two eyes decided to start seeing two different things and refused to line up. I discovered that once I looked at the screen, I could no longer see my hands. I tried blinking rapidly, but to no avail. The bright metallic images remained, and I could not focus as I gazed across the room.

Disturbed and alarmed, I decided it was time to go to bed. Perhaps my eyes would be fine in the morning. As I tried to wash my face, my alarm rose to panic. Staring at my face in the mirror, I was fully confronted with the abnormalcy of my vision. The experimental psychologist in me took over and I began a series of experiments to determine the cause of my vision problems. I placed one hand over my right eye and determined that my left eye was seeing normally. I placed my hand over my left eye and came to the swift conclusion that the right eye was the cause of this nightmare. With my left eye blackened out, it could not attempt to compensate for the partial loss of my vision in my right eye. I looked down at my hands and realized that although I could see my right hand, I could not see my right wrist down to my elbow. As I shifted my gaze, my arm came in and out of view. I looked up at my face again to determine just how much of my peripheral vision was gone. With my left eye covered, I scanned the mirror from my face to the left side of the mirror. As my gaze shifted a few inches to the left of my face, I completely lost all trace of my face. My vision registered nothing.

So I decided I better not panic. Just finish getting ready to go to bed and sleep it off. The problem confronted my again as I tried to take my contacts out. Some contact wearers like to look up and to the side as they tug their contact loose. Not me, I stare straight into my eye and pull the contact directly out with my thumb and forefinger on either side of the iris. Well, as I attempted to do this with my right eye, I stared straight at my eye, but could only see half of the operation. I saw my finger against my nose, but my thumb was invisible. I could only hope that I wasn’t about to jab my eye out (which may have been a relief at this point).

In bed, with my eyes closed and shrouded in darkness, once again I saw ghostly images fading in and out, yet so metallic and shiny. Soon my head began to throb and a massive headache developed. With my eyes half closed, I stumbled down the stairs and took some aspirin. Back upstairs, I started to feel nauseous and stumbled over to the toilet and sat in front of it, just in case. Luckily, nothing. So I crawled back into bed and began to feel the strange sensation that I was floating, further exacerbating my nausea (I swear it was just an aspirin). Eventually, the feeling subsided, and I fell asleep around 4am.

The next morning, my vision was back to normal, thank God! But, my eyes felt really sore. So after I finished my paper that was due that evening, I refrained from reading anything. All weekend long, I refused to turn on the computer or watch TV or read articles. Let me tell you, for a graduate student, it felt like punishment. I couldn’t prepare for school the following week. I couldn’t do anything! So I stared out my window at the mountains. I sat and gazed at the ceiling. Finally, I decided to clean my house and unpack a few more boxes.

Unfortunately, for me, I have a large amount of reading to do this weekend and my eyes are starting to give out on me again. What am I going to do?!?! Eat carrots?!?! How can I make it through my program without the proper functioning of what I have discovered to be an essential part of my body?

Oh, my eyes, I beg of you, please stop requesting special treatment. Please do your job like you are supposed to, and do not hinder me from completing my work. Please?!

Maven of the Measurement Lab

That's my new title. I'm excited because one of my profs asked me to be in charge of the measurement lab. Currently the lab is closed off, unused, and collecting dust. But, this prof wants to get the lab up and running again. So I'm going to be invovled in cleaning it up, checking on the computers, getting rid of unnecessary stuff, logging things, keeping track of things, and installing measurement packages, and serving as on-duty consultant (I think I'm correct in assuming that last one will happen, seems to me more like a paid position or credit-fulfilling position). But, anyways, I'm excited that he asked me (and included his advisee). I don't think he realized I don't know anything about IT stuff, and I'm just learning about measurement stuff. But, I'll get up to speed and I get a nice title (see above) and something to put on my curriculum vitae (or resume if you prefer).

Frustrating day

I'm really frustrated. I felt like I should go to the library today and get articles that aren't online. So I copied two articles and brought them home to read. For some reason, I was hoping they'd have some fantastic piece of information to clarify a direction for research. But, one of the articles made the unusual suggestion that language development is related to the development of personality (or temperament). Huh? And I couldn't understand the other article about latent class modeling of a reading comprehension test. It seemed to suggest that only inference-type questions fit a model of mastery/nonmastery. Uggh! Back to the drawing board.

My worst fears...realized in a dream

Yesterday, I read about a blogger who had his post plagiarized by a different blogger. He linked to her and a few of his devoted followers posted nasty comments on her blog. She basically changed a couple words and passed it off as her own. Now, plagiarism is one of my pet peeves. I'm so anal about it that I copyrighted my thesis and nobody copyrights their thesis. And as a teacher, I encountered plagiarism constantly. It was only for extra credit and students were plagiarizing like mad. Now I structure my classes to exclude any writing requirements because I can't stand having to deal with student plagiarism. But, having your blog plagiarized?!?! Now that's just way too personal.

So I woke up this morning from a horrible dream that stemmed completely from yesterday's plagiarizing events. I dreamed that I was younger and back in college, just meeting my roommate in a tiny dorm room. For some reason, now that we were roommates, I had to share my blog with her (willful suspension of reality). So I check out my blog to write something and discover that she changed the template, took down my picture, replaced it with her picture on the left, and slathered a whole bunch of pictures of herself across the top. Then she wrote this asinine post and signed it with my name. ::shudder:: I tried to reason with her, but it was futile. (Which is what happened with this girl in real life. She passes other people's posts off as her own almost every other post. Other bloggers have called her on it and requested she cite them or delete the post. She does neither, just leaves the comment there and continues posting other people's writing. There's even a blogger who monitors her and consistently leaves a comment with the URL of the person she just plagiarized. Yet she still keeps doing it!!)

I hope I never end up reading about blog plagiarism again. I just can't live through another dream like this...mirroring my intense reaction to reality.