I'm in Love...

...with the MS in Statistics program at ASU Tempe. The Director of the Committee of Statistics whispered sweet nothing into my ear about linear progressions and I swooned. Like any new love, it's young and fragile, easily destroyed by silly things like getting a job and loans. But it's exciting and makes me hopeful for the future.

That Thing You Do

There's a lot of psychological theories about why we do what we do. In fact, it's really the entire field. Why do we do X? What motivates us? etc.

We can all point to things we do and say "I do this for that reason." There's the inevitable moment as a grownup when you realize that you're doing things a certain way because your parents did it that way, which always leads to a moment of "I'm becoming my mother/father!" and often a conversation with said (amused) parent. That's always fun. But you get over it and either accept it or change it, depending on where you are in your life and how appropriate that way of doing things is.

Other things are more subtle. The way someone interacts with the opposite sex is usually a combination of active social shaping (often by parents) and personal experience. If a guy has gotten poor responses for holding doors for women, he might be less likely to do so, though if his parents (and/or society) taught him it was the way men do things, it's related more to his identity than to his relationship with women and he's gonna hold that door.

Just like when we realize we're becoming our parents, there are moments when you make a connection between a part of your personality or behavior and something that influenced it. One of the therapy process for PTSD uses CBT - Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. It is a pretty standard cognitive/behavioral process that has to do with actively recognizing your actions, determining the reason for you actions, determining if that is an appropriate response, and making active, conscious decisions to change inappropriate responses. The more extreme the reaction, the harder it can be, but it's shown to be very effective. It's a list of questions that, after awhile, become second nature. "Why am I doing this? Is this an appropriate response? What is a better response?" I run through these questions all day, everyday. It's mentally exhausting, but it allows me to better function in society. I still jump a mile when someone drops a book on the floor in class, but I no longer assess them as a target and take an alert position. Better!

Once the major behavioral issues are dealt with and the patient has the tools to manage themselves, smaller, more subtle things come to light. Tonight, I had a moment in the shower (where a great deal of introspection seems to happen) where I realized that while a lot of my "hardness" - the enjoyment of guns, the casual nature of violent and aggressive speak - is simply residual from the Army and it's environment (and is not behavior that needs active correcting since I recognize socially acceptable situations and abide accordingly), a portion of it, maybe even a lot of it, is laying down warnings. It's "Do not mess with me or I will destroy you" behavior. In a physical situation, I am simply outgunned when facing someone bigger and stronger (which is less people than perhaps it should be for my size, but is still a significant portion of the population). I make up for it with a very clear attitude of "if I have to kill you, I will. Please stay over there, where I don't have to kill you." 

In my Psychology of Violence class, we discussed what it takes to kill someone in the context of the military and how it trains. My professor asked us if we could. And I knew, without a hesitation, that I could. With that knowledge comes no value judgement on myself. There were people in class who felt like they could if they were protecting someone (and every mother said she could to protect her children) but they didn't like it about themselves. It doesn't bother me. Could be desensitization to the concept. It could be that I have thought about it a lot more than others. But either way, the knowledge is very clear to me. I don't want to kill anyone (no murders in the making, promise). I don't want to hurt anyone. But I know that the situation could arise where I would. 

I Hope You Have One Just Like You

Truth - I am terrified of having a daughter. Specifically, I'm terrified she'll end up like me.

Not like me in personality. I'll take a few difficult teenage years in the name of producing a daughter who's strong and has her own personality. That's fine.

And not like me in looks. May she be so lucky (okay, the fair skin is a lot of work, but come on...)

No, I'm worried she'll inherit all the medical crap I deal with. She has a 50% chance, theoretically*. But the pain that I deal with - how is passing that along love? What gets me through this idea is this:

1. Medical science is awesome and while I have no faith in them making enough strides to help me out, she might benefit.

2. My sister is 100% healthy despite us coming from the same gene pool.

3. I have a lot of awesome girly knowledge and goddaughters, nieces*, and gay sons just won't do it all.

So hope (or embryonic gender selection, which is better than hope) for a daughter someday is a go. A very scared go.

* The medical community theorizes that endometriosis is genetic, and my mother having it indicates that might be the case. We also think her mother had it, but grandma didn't discuss such things. No one has a clue about the fibro since they can't even agree on what it is or if it exists.


* If my sister ever gets around to giving me a niece...with our luck (and history) it'll be all boys.

So much writing...

I have the following writing that has to be completed by graduation:

Honors Thesis
Field Report
Senior Seminar Data Presentation

All together it's probably about 50 pages. I am not excited...and knowing me, I'll wait until it's due. But once it's done, I'll graduate and be able to take a break from all this writing. I can indulge myself in the glorious work of Calculus for awhile and pretend the written word is a hobby only.

You know...until I have to write a Masters Thesis...but three years is a good break!

Easter

So it's Easter. The most important and holy of the Christian holidays. Christmas is the one kids like the most, but Easter is the one that is most revered, for that is the day when Jesus rose from the death that cleaned away the sins of man and allowed for a personal relationship with God the Father. I might go into the pagan ties and the symbolism of secular Easter another time, but today, instead, I am looking at the Christian community.

We begin with one of my favorite Bible verses:

Above all, hold unfailing your love for one another, since love covers a multitude of sins. Practice hospitality ungrudgingly to one another. - 1 Peter 4:8-9.

Most of the chapter is in this vein. The First Epistle of Peter (as it is formally known) is one of the letters to the young church in areas suffering from religious persecution, and so the message focuses repeatedly on the value of bearing that persecution with a heart of love and quiet strength, as many of the Epistles do. They're actually some of my favorite parts of the New Testament, since they give us a glimpse at the early church and can often be lined up with other historical records to give us an idea of when and where they were written from.

Anyway, back to the verse. I have serious issue with the Christian community as it currently exists on a wide scale and have distanced myself from it. I find my community elsewhere and my spiritual health is a private thing that involves very few other people. But I wonder, if the community focused more on verses like these in Peter (and elsewhere) rather than the litany of potential sins that crop up throughout the Bible, how much better of a world could have made and could they still make?

In fact, if we expand this to all religious texts, I am certain there are verses like this, that demand love and kindness to everyone. If followers of those texts focused on applying those verses to the world around them, and saved the expectations for what they see as "Godly" behavior (however it is defined for them) to themselves, perhaps we would find the world of love, charity, and kindness that would exemplify the kind of God I could get behind. And if I could find a community of believers that used this as their center, rather than that which damns them or makes them different from others, I might be able to find a community to be part of.

Review: The Captains (2011)

I love Star Trek. Expansive universes are enthralling to me, so Roddenberry's work is perfect. I do not engage in the Star Trek vs Star Wars debate because they are different and I love then both. That said...

Tonight I watched the documentary The Captains, which is narrated by William Shatner and is his conversations with each of the Star Trek captains: Sir Patrick Stewart, Avery Brooks, Kate Mulgrew, Scott Bakula, and Chris Pine. He talks about their backgrounds, how they came into Star Trek, what their experience was like, and what it's been like since. A couple of highlights:

The conversation with Stewart happens at his country home and the gardens are so beautiful I couldn't believe it. Should Sir Patrick ever decide he needs someone to house sit, that is a sword I will fall on.

It was interesting seeing Shatner walk around some of these conventions and his interactions with the fans. There is one fan "Captain Dave" who appears to have ALS and is chair bound. He struggles to communicate and his mother speaks for him. He meets Shatner and Captain Dave begins to cry he's so happy to see him. Shatner's interactions with him are so touching and genuine (not a word I often associate with Shatner) that it brought tears to my eyes.

Avery Brooks is, apparently, a mad genius. He's a jazz musician and seems to communicate primarily through the piano. His segments are like a brief glimpse into the mind of a mad man. A really, really talented one.

Stewart is my favorite of the Star Trek captains. When Shatner talks to him about his own embarrassment and his dismissiveness of fans who claim that Star Trek changed their lives, Shatner appears rather vulnerable. He talks about how he feels the captains who came after were so much better and his realization, when he was boarding the flight to meet with Stewart and met the owner of the company that provides the plane who says he decided to become a pilot because of Captain Kirk, that he might have actually changed some lives. Stewart reminds him that each of the Captains who followed were building on what he created and that, if he died tonight, he knows he would be remembered by most as Captain Picard rather than Macbeth or others...and he's proud of that. Shatner mentioned that he's finally proud of it too.

The documentary is great if you are a Star Trek fan, but even if you're not, the examination of this sort of unique place in television and film history that Star Trek (and it's captains) hold is really worth the 90 minutes or so it runs.