Tremendous

Ann Coulter shouldn't be allowed to be paid for the horrible shit she spews.

Here's a tremendous response to her crap that should be read:

http://specialolympicsblog.wordpress.com/2012/10/23/an-open-letter-to-ann-coulter/

Cruising at 120

One of my favorite professors in the School Psychology program made two comparisons in my first year: first, that being a professor is like being a full-time graduate student (which made me shudder at the time, and still…), and second, that the transition to graduate school in your first year is like going from 0 – 60 mph, especially for those that have taken time off.

After the completion of my first year, and in the midst of my relatively horrendous Fall term of my second year, I went back to him and brought up that comparison. Naturally, he made the comparison that if the first year of grad school is 60 mph, then going from first to second year is like going from 60 to 100 mph. Fortunately, he had the foresight to not tell me this during my first year. But it was a welcome acknowledgement of how things were going at the time (e.g., fucking ridiculous). Research assistantship for 18-20 hours a week, practicum for 12 hours per week, contributing to a separate research team, and that fall term required taking three hard classes. My preferred advisor had passed away, a former COOTer of mine had passed away, and other stuff that I likely don’t need to talk to you guys about explicitly online. It made for a bad combination. Not my favorite term in grad school and probably the second most I’ve questioned my self or place at UO.  

This year, I’d like to think that I’m going at about 120 mph. And I don’t want to overdramatize this or have a woe-is-me discussion, because that’s not what this is. It’s more of a reflection of one month into year 3. An update if you will: I’m happy with my choice to be at UO and I’m happy to be where I’m at. I like the people here, I’m more involved with Frisbee than I’ve been since leaving Colbs… I guess what I’m trying to say is that the jump in speed between 1^st and 2^nd years felt like a lot and pushed me to different levels of productivity, stress, frustration, and I guess, accomplishment. This third year involves more responsibility: working for our student governing board and ensuring first years make a successful transition to Eugene, co-leading a project on Tier II implementations of a behavior intervention (that will hopefully be a two part national survey and local survey with observations), and doing a practicum that is just different from what we’ve been trained to do with (technically) more hours than the 12 hour per week practicum.

Also, I’m trying to finish up my comprehensive exams (conditional passes on both, while still needing to submit my revisions). That’s like a speedbump that you don’t see while revving up to 120, sending your car a little bit sideways and definitely airborne.

The jump between second and third year does not feel like that much of a difference. But taking a step back and looking at the situation from the road (if you will), there’s a huge difference between 60, 100, and 120. It’s just that I’ve already put in the effort to accelerate to 100 mph, so what’s a little bit more acceleration when you’re going that fast already?

(For the record, once I get through comps and get a handle on what practicum will be like—we’re still in the midst of being trained—I think it will come down to 110. But, as Isaac knows, my jinxing powers have been out of control this postseason. If only these powers weren’t constrained to October playoff games concerning the Giants, I could try to do even more good in this world).

It’s been two years since we’ve started our senior years at Colby. Did you think you would be in the position you find yourself now? Did things differ?

More thoughts on the way—that’s just my mindset/place right now. 

Warriors vs. Worriers

From a LinkedIn blog article (real life):
http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20121014020732-108843352-warriors-vs-worriers


Warriors vs Worriers
October, 14, 2012
By Martin Varsavsky

So you are worried about something. You are frequently worried about something.  But whatever worries you changes from day to day. Well, here is a post about worrying, worrying as an activity, about what's good and bad about worrying. 

As negative as it sounds worrying itself is not negative.  Being worried can make us better off.  When we are worried our intellect sharpens, worries make us focus on problems, confront issues, win battles and move on with life. As an entrepreneur who over 25 years founded 4 start ups worth over half a billion and blew up one, I was never worry free.  Indeed my start ups always felt to me as a string of endless worries, of failures, that somehow miraculously one day, were highly valuable.  In all of them I had near death experiences.  In all of them thanks to worrying I found ways out of them. Because worrying as in "I have identified a problem" is a positive trait.  Worrying as in "I am deciding on the best strategy to cope with adversity" is a positive trait. But many times we worry about issues in life that truly don't deserve our focus, that are not real problems we should worry about.  That are not true challenges. That are bogus.

That is why some people are more "worriers" than "warriors". And indeed there is medical evidence for this, genetic evidence.   Research shows that some genes code for worrying behaviors (worriers) while others for learning from adversity (warriors). Warriors see challenges as learning opportunities.  Worriers instead, don't fight true problems, they lie in the battlefield of their mind, waiting for an enemy who doesn't show up.  And instead of rejoicing when real evidence shows them that they are trouble free, on they go, to find something else to worry about. They are the hypochondriacs of life.  And they exist.  On a good day they become lawyers and turn their handicap into income, billing others by the hour for their worries. But most are not that lucky, and worry in vain. And we understand them because even the most optimistics among us have something in common with those "worriers". We have all worried about issues that just did not deserve our attention. The key question is how frequently does this happen to us.

So how can we distinguish the worrier in us from the warrior in us? Here's an idea.  Start a diary of your worries.  Every day write a note to self in some type of social media, about "the worry of the day".  Write it in a circle with only one member, yourself. Tell yourself what upsets you that day. Something like,  today I am worried about....blank.  And build a collection of worries. A timeline of worries.

And then, at some point in the future, go back to these worries.  And see what you were worried about last month, or last year.  By then you will be able to judge if worrying made sense. If it helped you.  If you worried about something worthy of your angst. If you had a fear or a phobia.  If you were a warrior, or a worrier. And if you were a worrier, using this diary learn to fine tune your worries to their likelihood of true damage to your life in the future. Learn to pick opponents who deserve your anxiety.  

I know, I fight ghosts sometimes, we all do. And we will go on worrying about some harmless issues. Still, it would be good to have a "worries tag cloud" after a year.  To be able to study what made us lose sleep, and use that cloud to avoid sleepless nights in the future.