My niece posted a question earlier asking why, if evolution is real, we don't see apes evolving into people all the time. Usually I keep quiet when these statements are made. But for whatever reason, I responded, very simply, that evolution doesn't work like that, and that anyone who argues that it does is obviously not aware of what evolution is. After another brief exchange (again, I'm being very noncommittal), someone posts the following response to the thread:
Creationist:
Sunny, Niecie (name changed), upon asking such a question one needs to understand two things. One; What is a "species". And Two; Do you understand the difference between the LAW of Adaptation and the THEORY of Evolution. A Law is indisputable, without argument and factual. Such as the Law of Gravity. A theory is simply that, a THEORY as in thought and an undertermined hypothesis of scientific thought. Like the Theory of Static Universe or the Expanding Earth or the Martian Canals. Niecie your statement is commical and it is used by many Creationists. Creationists think it is the end all be all of argument against evolution but educating ourselves on the issue tell us this statement is apples v/s oranges. Sunny, what evidence do you have sir. There is no evidence of evolution period. No species has ever "evolved" to be a different species. Example, tigers and household cats: both feline, same species. Canadian huskies and shit zu's: both canines. There is a reason why there is no missing link! Apes are not the same species as human beings. Similar yes, however koalas are similar to bear but are of a different species. Please do not argue with me about this. Wyndie? Really? Rattlesnakes sitll have rattles unless mutated.
Now, again, I fought with myself over whether I should respond to this. I mean, my niece is very firm in her beliefs, and I'm not interested in changing her, or even influencing her. However, this individual has essentially suggested that I'm an idiot, and he backs up his claims with falsehoods. So naturally, I decided to respond.I am posting this here because this topic has been bugging me for a while, and I've been thinking of writing something about it, but I've not gotten around to it. This situation simply presented itself, and I decided to roll with it. So if you ever want to know my views on the Creationism v. Evolution debate, this will pretty well sum it up. And bonus points, I didn't, not once, attack religion.
Mr. Creationist (name changed) -
First, allow me to state that where I come from, it is considered disrespectful to address someone with whom you are unfamiliar as though you were acquainted. I have, at this point, extended the courtesy of using your surname; I will politely request you return the courtesy.
Secondly, a creationist asking someone to provide evidence in support of evolution is akin to asking a sighted person to describe color to someone who was not only born blind, but who has a firm belief that sight does not exist. Such a sighted person could provide rich and vibrant descriptions, and yet the blind individual would still not understand, not for lack of clarity in description or lack of intelligence on the part of the blind person, but because the blind person has firmly disavowed that sight is possible. This is not an attack on your person, your intelligence, or your position; I will get to that in a minute. This is simply to say that the evidence for creationism is literally nonexistent, while the evidence for evolution has been gathered and replicated to the point where it is considered to be a fact. Could I provide references for you to read through? Sure, if I was so motivated and I believed you would actually read them. But the fact is, that would be a waste of my time.
This brings me to my next point. You may have thought that differentiating the word theory from the word law was some kind of trump-like play. However, you are obviously quite misguided in your understanding of theory as it applies to science. Evolution has been considered a scientific fact (i.e., a law in your vernacular) for quite some time, while different theories on the exact mechanisms that drive the adaptive changes over generations are postulated, researched, and either accepted or refuted. The same is true with the scientific fact of gravity, which you referred to; gravity was a fact for a long time before humans ever began to comprehend it scientifically, and in the time since it has been “discovered”, several models have been postulated, researched, and either accepted or refuted. It is only relatively recently that Einstein’s Theory of Relativity has supplanted the previous theories postulated by Sir Isaac Newton, and it is entirely possible that at some distant point in the future, someone will make discoveries that will force Einstein’s work to be considered irrelevant. But for now, Einstein’s theory allows us to understand physics in a much more complete way than the Newtonian system allowed.
Moving along, I noticed that you referred to tigers and household cats as belonging to the same species. This is incorrect. You seem to have forgotten that the taxonomy from which the term species is derived contains seven distinct categories: kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species. You are correct that tigers and household cats share the same kingdom, phylum, class, order, and family (Animalia, Chordata, Mammalia, Carnivora, and Felidae, respectively). However, the tiger is from the genus Panthera and the species tigris, while the household cat is from the genus Felus and the species catus (or domesticus, depending on the source). So, your carefully prepared statement about apes (the group consisting of Chimpanzees, Gorillas, and Orangutans) and humans being different species is absolutely correct: they all share the same kingdom, phylum, class, order, and family (Animalia, Chordata, Mammalia, Primates, and Hominidae, respectively), but here they diverge into their own genus and species (Gorilla berengei for gorillas, Pan troglodytes for chimpanzees, Pongo pygmaeus or Pongo abelii for orangutans, and Homo sapiens for humans). However, evolution does not claim that humans (Homo sapiens) evolved from any of the apes; it suggests, rather, that humans evolved from earlier versions of humans (Homo habilis, Homo rudolfensis, Homo ergaster, Homo georgicus, Homo antecessor, Homo cepranensis, Homo erectus, Homo heidelbergensis, Homo rhodesiensis, Homo neanderthalensis, Homo sapiens idaltu, Archaic Homo sapiens, and Homo floresiensis).
In closing, I would like to point out as a reminder that this began with my niece asking a statement that was based on false understanding. My response simply stated that she did not understand evolution, and that those who view evolution in such a way do not understand it; this is a fact. I followed this up with the statement that evolution has more evidence in its support than the alternative; this is also a fact. Finally, I warned my niece arguing this with me and told her to talk with her father about it, because I’m trying to refrain from imposing my perspective on her. Had this been left alone, it would have gone no further. But the thing about this massively expensive education I’m sporting is that it doesn’t allow me to sit back and take whatever someone is saying without questioning the statement. I’ve paid some incredibly impressive people a lot of money to lecture at me on a variety of topics, and I question every single one of them; I’m certainly not going to sit by while someone who happens to know my brother’s family verbally demeans myself, my sister, and my niece’s intellect. And although I am certain that the information contained in this post will likely be ignored or dismissed, I will not allow someone whose own understanding of the topic is tenuous (at best) to question my own.
Good day, sir.
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Politics
I have a lot of work to do. I mean A LOT of work. Structural Modeling midterm, Experimental Design midterm, Structural Modeling project proposal, APA proposal, research competency proposal…all within the next two or three weeks. So I’m going to work on that…right after I say a little something about politics.
This is not one of those posts where I’m going to rant and rave about how my side won or lost or got cheated or did the cheating or anything like that…I don’t think. Rather, I’m going to rant and rave about some other, higher order stuff that strikes me as odd and/or infuriating about politics.
“We” Won!
I saw several posts and articles in the days building up to the election about how We (Republicans) would trounce Them (Democrats). Now, after the election, those posts exclaim that “the people of these United States have spoken”, and how “the republicans will make changes, changes the people want. Wait ‘til 2012 when we finish off the libs for good!”[1]
It does not matter if you identify as Republican, Democrat, Independent, or Confused. It does not matter if you fancy yourself as a Conservative, Liberal, Moderate or Libertarian. Your political affiliation does not make you “correct” any more than your political opinion does. Political affiliation is simply aligning oneself with a bunch of other people who share similar political beliefs. It’s a declaration that you identify with Group A based on a grocery list of issues; it does not mean your grocery list is more accurate, important, relevant, or God-inspired than that of Group B’s list. So now, you can get together with your other Group A supporters and have something to talk about, something you all have in common. You can revel in how you all feel the same way…but it doesn’t make you right. It may make you Right, but that’s different.
There are, of course, similarities to be seen between this kind of fraternization and another. I’m getting images of gatherings of individuals on a holy day (Sunday), where everyone shares the same opinions and views, which are handed to them by a single point of reference, often interpreted by a single self-appointed individual for optimal comprehension and understanding. And who wouldn’t want to share in this congregation; after these gatherings, people feel so much more secure in their own Right-ness. Yes, yes, I’m talking about Game Day, and Chris Berman is the interpreter.
It is, I suppose, an interesting effect, this “Us” vs. “Them” conflict. It can be traced back through evolutionary psychology, where it was beneficial to have this divide because “We” need the resources, and “They” are trying to take the resources (resources being food, women, and beer). And we still cling to this line of thought; when “our team” wins (be it the Indianapolis Colts, the Republican Party, or the US Military), we rally around our team and feel joy-joy feelings about how cool “we” are, by association. By contrast, the opposing team is vilified, and their defeat is post hoc seen as a foregone conclusion. Of course the Patriots were going to lose. Of course the Democrats were going to lose. Of course the …targets of the US Military… were going to lose. They were Wrong. We are Right.
So what does it actually mean when your political party has…a good day…at the polls? Does it mean YOU are right? Is it validation of your personal belief system, or a cosmic thumbs-up to your moral agenda? Of course not. It just means that a whole bunch of people bothered to go vote for the same people you voted for, and fewer did so for the other guy.
Things Will Finally Be Fixed!
So the Republicans are in control of the House, and that makes a lot of people on that side of things happy. But why are they acting like the Second Coming has finally arrived? I mean, the posts I’m seeing are filled with statements about how things will finally be fixed. Seriously? Wait a second, I’m getting ramped up…
You mean to tell me that, by electing a group of people that aligned themselves with GW Bush (and his agenda) for 8 years, things are going to improve? This is a whole new brand of retarded, people. The poster child for morally bankrupt politics drove this country to new lows across the board. Scientific exploration – halted. Education – knocked back into the Stone Age (NCLB + Intelligent Design = WTF?). Economy – depressed and stagnant. Global reputation – shredded. All of this happened under the watchful eye of the Republican Party. The Republican Party, however, denies any responsibility for any of the country’s problems and lays the responsibility for all the world’s woes at the feet of President Obama. But wait.
The current state of the American economy hinges largely on housing values (I said largely, not solely). The mortgage industry collapse was in…2007-2008, with build-up years beginning in 2002. The government’s bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac happened in 2008. When did Obama take office again? Oh, that’s right. January, 2009. He wasn’t even elected until November of 2008, after most of this had already transpired.
One of the most important things Kennedy did in his brief stay in office was to start the race to the moon. This launched a flurry of interest in scientific exploration that carried the country through a period of great discovery and technological advancement. Reagan was also a keen supporter of international superiority through scientific advancement, and the beneficiaries of his reign include not only NASA but Bill Gates. Pushing the envelope of science and technology is one way in which this country has been able to truly shine on the international stage. However, when GW was in office, we (as a country led by the proxy voice of a Right-Wing Ultra-Christian) stopped striving for technological superiority, and settled, instead, for technological mediocrity. This could simply have been the country’s reflection of its leadership; if a C average is good enough for the President, why should the rest of us strive for anything more?
Speaking of education…which we are now going to do…What the Fuck? Although NCLB is really just a re-tooled version of previous legislation, the tidbits that GW implemented have essentially crippled the American public education system. Research and data show that schools with more money tend to do better on assessments of all kinds, and the converse is also true: schools with low funding have students who perform poorly on assessments of all kinds. However, under NCLB legislation, public schools that perform poorly have their funding cut. Yes, cut. Let me say that again. Poorly performing schools, who are likely under-funded, have their funding cut when they…can’t…perform…wait what?
And of course, the scientific exploration and education issues have a common area of overlap when it comes to GW’s leadership. I’m speaking of the concept of intelligent design, of which GW’s Republicans were staunch supporters. Intelligent design is the infusion of the Christian God into science, the belief that regardless of what science leads us to believe, the Universe actually works according to the whims of the Invisible Man in the Sky. If they just left it at this, I’d be OK with it. If they were willing to accept Evolution as a scientific reality and just tack on the “because God set it up that way”, I’d be OK. Really. But they don’t. They fight, tooth and nail, against Darwin’s theory, to the embattled, bitter end. And why do they do this? Because in 1650 an Archbishop in the Catholic Church named Ussher said that the world was created on October 23rd in the year 4004 BC[2]. Because of this 6,000-year-old-Earth theory (commonly called Young Earth Creationism), Darwin’s theory of evolution cannot possibly hold water because the Earth would have to be billions of years old (current estimates have it at around 4.5 billion years old). All of the actual scientific (i.e., observed, tested, verified, and validated) evidence has to be wrong, wrong, wrong, because a celibate theologian who’s been dead for almost 400 years decided to do some primitive number-crunching on a Friday night.
These are the people who are going to “fix it”? Sarah Palin, Glen Beck, and their Tea-Party patriots are going to have a positive effect on this country? If positive means going back to the feeling of moral debauchery that the Bush administration left in my mouth, I’m sorry, I have to disagree. For some reason, the words Positive and Backwards have synonymous definitions to the Conservative folks, and I just can’t support that, and I welcome anyone who would like to attempt to convince me otherwise.
What Two Years Really Looks Like
Here’s something that irritates me. Obama was handed a country that was bashed, battered, sundered, and torn in a number of ways. People in the 2008 election were tired of Republican policy and ready for a change, or at least that’s what Obama’s platform was based on. Now here we sit, two years later, and the people in the middle of the spectrum who supported Obama in 2008 have swung the other direction, and Republicans are attempting to take credit for that, claiming that the American people are tired of Obama and Pelosi and the Democratic platform.
So you’re telling me that GW Bush gets 8 years to fuck the country up, but Obama only gets two years to try to fix it? After two years, we’re passing judgment on the kind of President Obama is? I would like to ask you to think about one thing for me in this next couple of minutes: your own life. Think about where you were two years ago, in 2008. Think of all the things you wanted to do, all the goals you had, and think about the kind of person you wanted to be. Do you have that image in mind?
So…have you accomplished those goals? Are you everything you wanted to be? Is your checkbook balanced, and you’re out of debt? You’re financially stable and you’re not living paycheck to paycheck? Have you gone back to school and got that degree? Have you left that job you hate and found something better? Have you met the person you love and made a solid attempt at a good relationship, or reinvented your existing relationship to be better than it was before? Have you quit drinking, smoking, and fucking around on your wife/husband? Have you been a better father/mother to your kids, a better friend, a better spouse, a better person? Well, you’ve had two years to make change happen, so what seems to be the problem?
Is this not the way we have treated President Obama? Are we so hypocritical, each and every one of us, that we are comfortable waving our finger at the White House, while we cannot in our own lives even balance our own budgets?
What? You mean you’re not perfect? You want to tell me change takes time, and that while you still have debt, at least you’re not bouncing checks anymore? You still drink, but you quit smoking? You got a divorce, but you’re happier for it?
Oh. Change takes time. Now I get it. I understand. And I applaud the attempt and wish you luck in your goals. If there’s anything I can do for you to aid in your attempts at being better, you let me know, and I will be there for you.
Not that the American people will ever be able to get over their own collective egos to do something like that, but I can hope. As an idealist, it’s what I do.
[1] http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39982780/ns/politics-decision_2010/?GT1=43001
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Earth_creationism
This is not one of those posts where I’m going to rant and rave about how my side won or lost or got cheated or did the cheating or anything like that…I don’t think. Rather, I’m going to rant and rave about some other, higher order stuff that strikes me as odd and/or infuriating about politics.
“We” Won!
I saw several posts and articles in the days building up to the election about how We (Republicans) would trounce Them (Democrats). Now, after the election, those posts exclaim that “the people of these United States have spoken”, and how “the republicans will make changes, changes the people want. Wait ‘til 2012 when we finish off the libs for good!”[1]
It does not matter if you identify as Republican, Democrat, Independent, or Confused. It does not matter if you fancy yourself as a Conservative, Liberal, Moderate or Libertarian. Your political affiliation does not make you “correct” any more than your political opinion does. Political affiliation is simply aligning oneself with a bunch of other people who share similar political beliefs. It’s a declaration that you identify with Group A based on a grocery list of issues; it does not mean your grocery list is more accurate, important, relevant, or God-inspired than that of Group B’s list. So now, you can get together with your other Group A supporters and have something to talk about, something you all have in common. You can revel in how you all feel the same way…but it doesn’t make you right. It may make you Right, but that’s different.
There are, of course, similarities to be seen between this kind of fraternization and another. I’m getting images of gatherings of individuals on a holy day (Sunday), where everyone shares the same opinions and views, which are handed to them by a single point of reference, often interpreted by a single self-appointed individual for optimal comprehension and understanding. And who wouldn’t want to share in this congregation; after these gatherings, people feel so much more secure in their own Right-ness. Yes, yes, I’m talking about Game Day, and Chris Berman is the interpreter.
It is, I suppose, an interesting effect, this “Us” vs. “Them” conflict. It can be traced back through evolutionary psychology, where it was beneficial to have this divide because “We” need the resources, and “They” are trying to take the resources (resources being food, women, and beer). And we still cling to this line of thought; when “our team” wins (be it the Indianapolis Colts, the Republican Party, or the US Military), we rally around our team and feel joy-joy feelings about how cool “we” are, by association. By contrast, the opposing team is vilified, and their defeat is post hoc seen as a foregone conclusion. Of course the Patriots were going to lose. Of course the Democrats were going to lose. Of course the …targets of the US Military… were going to lose. They were Wrong. We are Right.
So what does it actually mean when your political party has…a good day…at the polls? Does it mean YOU are right? Is it validation of your personal belief system, or a cosmic thumbs-up to your moral agenda? Of course not. It just means that a whole bunch of people bothered to go vote for the same people you voted for, and fewer did so for the other guy.
Things Will Finally Be Fixed!
So the Republicans are in control of the House, and that makes a lot of people on that side of things happy. But why are they acting like the Second Coming has finally arrived? I mean, the posts I’m seeing are filled with statements about how things will finally be fixed. Seriously? Wait a second, I’m getting ramped up…
You mean to tell me that, by electing a group of people that aligned themselves with GW Bush (and his agenda) for 8 years, things are going to improve? This is a whole new brand of retarded, people. The poster child for morally bankrupt politics drove this country to new lows across the board. Scientific exploration – halted. Education – knocked back into the Stone Age (NCLB + Intelligent Design = WTF?). Economy – depressed and stagnant. Global reputation – shredded. All of this happened under the watchful eye of the Republican Party. The Republican Party, however, denies any responsibility for any of the country’s problems and lays the responsibility for all the world’s woes at the feet of President Obama. But wait.
The current state of the American economy hinges largely on housing values (I said largely, not solely). The mortgage industry collapse was in…2007-2008, with build-up years beginning in 2002. The government’s bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac happened in 2008. When did Obama take office again? Oh, that’s right. January, 2009. He wasn’t even elected until November of 2008, after most of this had already transpired.
One of the most important things Kennedy did in his brief stay in office was to start the race to the moon. This launched a flurry of interest in scientific exploration that carried the country through a period of great discovery and technological advancement. Reagan was also a keen supporter of international superiority through scientific advancement, and the beneficiaries of his reign include not only NASA but Bill Gates. Pushing the envelope of science and technology is one way in which this country has been able to truly shine on the international stage. However, when GW was in office, we (as a country led by the proxy voice of a Right-Wing Ultra-Christian) stopped striving for technological superiority, and settled, instead, for technological mediocrity. This could simply have been the country’s reflection of its leadership; if a C average is good enough for the President, why should the rest of us strive for anything more?
Speaking of education…which we are now going to do…What the Fuck? Although NCLB is really just a re-tooled version of previous legislation, the tidbits that GW implemented have essentially crippled the American public education system. Research and data show that schools with more money tend to do better on assessments of all kinds, and the converse is also true: schools with low funding have students who perform poorly on assessments of all kinds. However, under NCLB legislation, public schools that perform poorly have their funding cut. Yes, cut. Let me say that again. Poorly performing schools, who are likely under-funded, have their funding cut when they…can’t…perform…wait what?
And of course, the scientific exploration and education issues have a common area of overlap when it comes to GW’s leadership. I’m speaking of the concept of intelligent design, of which GW’s Republicans were staunch supporters. Intelligent design is the infusion of the Christian God into science, the belief that regardless of what science leads us to believe, the Universe actually works according to the whims of the Invisible Man in the Sky. If they just left it at this, I’d be OK with it. If they were willing to accept Evolution as a scientific reality and just tack on the “because God set it up that way”, I’d be OK. Really. But they don’t. They fight, tooth and nail, against Darwin’s theory, to the embattled, bitter end. And why do they do this? Because in 1650 an Archbishop in the Catholic Church named Ussher said that the world was created on October 23rd in the year 4004 BC[2]. Because of this 6,000-year-old-Earth theory (commonly called Young Earth Creationism), Darwin’s theory of evolution cannot possibly hold water because the Earth would have to be billions of years old (current estimates have it at around 4.5 billion years old). All of the actual scientific (i.e., observed, tested, verified, and validated) evidence has to be wrong, wrong, wrong, because a celibate theologian who’s been dead for almost 400 years decided to do some primitive number-crunching on a Friday night.
These are the people who are going to “fix it”? Sarah Palin, Glen Beck, and their Tea-Party patriots are going to have a positive effect on this country? If positive means going back to the feeling of moral debauchery that the Bush administration left in my mouth, I’m sorry, I have to disagree. For some reason, the words Positive and Backwards have synonymous definitions to the Conservative folks, and I just can’t support that, and I welcome anyone who would like to attempt to convince me otherwise.
What Two Years Really Looks Like
Here’s something that irritates me. Obama was handed a country that was bashed, battered, sundered, and torn in a number of ways. People in the 2008 election were tired of Republican policy and ready for a change, or at least that’s what Obama’s platform was based on. Now here we sit, two years later, and the people in the middle of the spectrum who supported Obama in 2008 have swung the other direction, and Republicans are attempting to take credit for that, claiming that the American people are tired of Obama and Pelosi and the Democratic platform.
So you’re telling me that GW Bush gets 8 years to fuck the country up, but Obama only gets two years to try to fix it? After two years, we’re passing judgment on the kind of President Obama is? I would like to ask you to think about one thing for me in this next couple of minutes: your own life. Think about where you were two years ago, in 2008. Think of all the things you wanted to do, all the goals you had, and think about the kind of person you wanted to be. Do you have that image in mind?
So…have you accomplished those goals? Are you everything you wanted to be? Is your checkbook balanced, and you’re out of debt? You’re financially stable and you’re not living paycheck to paycheck? Have you gone back to school and got that degree? Have you left that job you hate and found something better? Have you met the person you love and made a solid attempt at a good relationship, or reinvented your existing relationship to be better than it was before? Have you quit drinking, smoking, and fucking around on your wife/husband? Have you been a better father/mother to your kids, a better friend, a better spouse, a better person? Well, you’ve had two years to make change happen, so what seems to be the problem?
Is this not the way we have treated President Obama? Are we so hypocritical, each and every one of us, that we are comfortable waving our finger at the White House, while we cannot in our own lives even balance our own budgets?
What? You mean you’re not perfect? You want to tell me change takes time, and that while you still have debt, at least you’re not bouncing checks anymore? You still drink, but you quit smoking? You got a divorce, but you’re happier for it?
Oh. Change takes time. Now I get it. I understand. And I applaud the attempt and wish you luck in your goals. If there’s anything I can do for you to aid in your attempts at being better, you let me know, and I will be there for you.
Not that the American people will ever be able to get over their own collective egos to do something like that, but I can hope. As an idealist, it’s what I do.
[1] http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39982780/ns/politics-decision_2010/?GT1=43001
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Earth_creationism
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Dear Rhode Island, Please Learn To Drive
You know those posts where the author has a single incident that causes them to go off on a flash-fire rant without putting much thought into it? This is not one of those posts. No, dear reader, this is the kind of post that has been building and brewing since, say, early June. I thought about writing it shortly after arriving in the state, because it was obvious to me even then that the average motorist in the state of Rhode Island has the common sense of an ADHD hamster on PCP. But no, I didn’t write this post at that time; I told myself I needed to give it time, that I was overreacting. After four months, I can contain myself no longer. Let the virtual tongue lashing begin.
A couple of days ago I was driving to school. URI’s campus is less than 10 mile from our house, but it takes anywhere from 20 to 30 minutes to get there, depending on whether or not the majority of my commuting comrades have finished their coffee. The trip takes me through the town of Wakefield. From the point where I enter the main road until about halfway through Wakefield, it’s a four-lane (two lanes each direction) street with a speed limit of 25 miles per hour. Just after the final stop light in this leg of my journey I like to make sure I’m in the left lane, because I know that the right lane ends ahead. So I, the conscientious driver from out of state, turn on my blinker, look in the mirrors, check my blind spot, and change lanes into the left lane. I have executed this maneuver an uncountable number of times in the 20 years I’ve been driving, and I like to think that I have it down to an art. In fact, I’m pretty sure I understood the fundamentals and mechanics of that particular move when I was ten years old, and my then-eight-year-old brother and I would fight over who got to drive the truck home from the field when dad was driving the tractor. I guess I take it for granted that I understand it, because I expect other drivers on the roads to understand it as well. Somehow, that’s just not the case.
At any rate, I had completed my lane change, which placed me behind someone who was driving just at the speed limit (again, 25 MPH, because the State of Rhode Island is SLOW). The left lane, which I just left, had someone in it driving the same speed. So now, instead of being behind Slow-Rhode-Islander #1 in the right lane, I’m behind Slow-Rhode-Islander #2 in the left lane. However, because I know that the right lane is going to end and merge with the left up ahead, my situation has slightly improved. I continue down the road at 25 miles per hour, approximately 3 car lengths between me and the person ahead of me. I check my mirrors, see what traffic is like behind me, and that’s when I notice her.
“She” is a URI student, judging by her age, the car she’s driving, and the post-hoc knowledge that she parked in one of the student parking lots. “She” has swerved out from the left lane, three or four cars behind me and hit the gas, accelerating to probably 40 MPH by the time she pulls even with my Blazer. However, as she pulls alongside my car, “She” finally notices that the right lane has, in fact, ended. One last burst of speed from her 2010 Toyota Corolla and…nope, can’t make it. “She” has to hit her brakes to keep herself from rear-ending a parked two-ton pickup, and she swerves into the left lane behind me, only because the person who was previously behind me was apparently aware of the pending disaster unfolding in front of them and decided it would be prudent to provide “She” with someplace to swerve to; otherwise, “She” would have ended up sucking her dinners through a straw for the rest of her life, if the rapid response crew had managed to peel her away from the wreckage in time to save her stupid ass.
And here is the part that gets me fired up. After “She” manages to get herself situated in the left lane behind me, instead of counting her blessings and thanking the Fates for preserving her life, she honks and flips me off.
Seriously?
Are you fucking kidding me?
Your too-dumb-for-words ass was 1) swerving in and out of traffic, 2) attempting to pass on the right with no adequate cause, 3) speeding at least 15 miles per hour over the speed limit, and 4) basically driving recklessly, and yet I am to blame for that? Was it also my fault that you were running so late this morning that you had to drive like Evil Knievel to make up time?
So this post is a public service to drivers in the state of Rhode Island. Here are the five things you do that are simultaneously so incredibly prevalent and yet so cosmically stupid I have to consider taking the bus wherever I go because I don’t want to be on the roads with your collectively idiotic asses.
1: Failing to merge. As per the example above, merging into the left lane, even though massive yellow signs have instructed you to do so for the last two miles, completely escapes the Rhode Island consciousness. This is particularly irritating when the signs aren’t yellow, but orange, and indicate road construction. For whatever reason, in Rhode Island this apparently means “stand on the gas and get to the front of the line, and then hope that someone in the left lane lets you in”.
2: Speeding. People in Colorado drive fast. At least, I thought that people in Colorado drove fast, until I moved here. In Colorado, the speed limit is 75 on the interstates, and people drive 85. On other highways, the speed limit is 65, and people drive 75. In town, a speed limit of 40 has people driving 45. In Rhode Island, motorists treat speed limits like they’re little more than a suggestion, and that there is no consequence to breaking them. Interestingly, the people are still driving 85 on the interstates; the problem is that the speed limit is 55. They drive 75 on the highways, which have a speed limit of 45, and they drive 45 through town, where the speed limits are universally 25. So I guess it’s not that the people are driving any faster here than they were in Colorado, it’s just that the government has set the speed limits to a significantly lower rate. Of course if literally everyone were speeding, this wouldn’t be much of a problem. However, Rhode Island, like Colorado, has quite a few people that are probably a bit too old to be behind the wheel of anything more dangerous than a riding lawn mower, because they drive their cars like they were riding a lawn mower. The result is the speed-demons being forced to dodge the codgers, which is pretty much perilous to everyone on the road.
3: Courtesy. Now, what the Hell could I possibly mean by courtesy? This is actually kind of odd, but still problematic and so prevalent it causes problems. Several times per day I will come to an intersection, whether it’s a 2-way stop or a 4-way light, but I will come to some kind of intersection where someone else has the right of way, and they will literally stop their car (and all the traffic behind them) to let me go. Now, I understand that this person is being courteous. I really get it. There needs to be more of this kind of behavior in Colorado…and less of it in Rhode Island. You see, with so many people on the roads, that single act of what you perceive as kindness has actually inconvenienced dozens of other people. And the real problem with it is that you could actually cause an accident several cars behind you as you stop traffic for what people behind you will perceive as no reason at all. To them, traffic is moving along at a decent clip and all of a sudden, BRAKE! If I’m approaching a round-about, I have a yield sign…you don’t. You need to keep driving, and I need to let you through. Don’t stop and wave at me, telling me to go. When I’m trying to turn left at a stop light with no turn arrow, don’t wave me through the light while you hold up traffic. Obey the damned right of way.
4: Courtesy. Wait. Didn’t I just do this? Yes, but this is the other side of the story. People in Rhode Island apparently have all kinds of patience when it comes to in-town driving, but out on the interstate, it’s like chum in shark-infested waters. You need to merge left so you don’t have to exit? Fuck you. You need to merge right so that you can take the next exit? Fuck you. You need to merge because you see the big orange construction signs that say “Lane Ends, Merge Left”? Well, fuck you. I hope you’re comfortable in that lane from Massachusetts to Connecticut, because your ass is stuck there.
5: Tailgating. Ok, yeah, so this is universal. But here in Rhode Island, it’s compounded by the issues discussed in 1), 2), and 4) above. Driving along the interstate at 85 miles per hour is not the best idea, particularly when you have to worry about Grandma June entering at a busty 45 miles per hour, but it’s significantly more harrowing when Larry and his brothers Darryl and Darryl are riding a foot and a half off your tailpipe in their 18” lifted Dodge Ram. It’s even worse when Larry, Darryl, and Darryl are in a Rhode Island public transportation bus…and they follow you when you change lanes to get out of their fucking way. One of these days, Larry, Darryl, and Darryl are going to end up plowing through the back seat of Grandma June’s Caddy, and all I can do is hope that I’m not in the middle of that mess when it goes down.
A couple of days ago I was driving to school. URI’s campus is less than 10 mile from our house, but it takes anywhere from 20 to 30 minutes to get there, depending on whether or not the majority of my commuting comrades have finished their coffee. The trip takes me through the town of Wakefield. From the point where I enter the main road until about halfway through Wakefield, it’s a four-lane (two lanes each direction) street with a speed limit of 25 miles per hour. Just after the final stop light in this leg of my journey I like to make sure I’m in the left lane, because I know that the right lane ends ahead. So I, the conscientious driver from out of state, turn on my blinker, look in the mirrors, check my blind spot, and change lanes into the left lane. I have executed this maneuver an uncountable number of times in the 20 years I’ve been driving, and I like to think that I have it down to an art. In fact, I’m pretty sure I understood the fundamentals and mechanics of that particular move when I was ten years old, and my then-eight-year-old brother and I would fight over who got to drive the truck home from the field when dad was driving the tractor. I guess I take it for granted that I understand it, because I expect other drivers on the roads to understand it as well. Somehow, that’s just not the case.
At any rate, I had completed my lane change, which placed me behind someone who was driving just at the speed limit (again, 25 MPH, because the State of Rhode Island is SLOW). The left lane, which I just left, had someone in it driving the same speed. So now, instead of being behind Slow-Rhode-Islander #1 in the right lane, I’m behind Slow-Rhode-Islander #2 in the left lane. However, because I know that the right lane is going to end and merge with the left up ahead, my situation has slightly improved. I continue down the road at 25 miles per hour, approximately 3 car lengths between me and the person ahead of me. I check my mirrors, see what traffic is like behind me, and that’s when I notice her.
“She” is a URI student, judging by her age, the car she’s driving, and the post-hoc knowledge that she parked in one of the student parking lots. “She” has swerved out from the left lane, three or four cars behind me and hit the gas, accelerating to probably 40 MPH by the time she pulls even with my Blazer. However, as she pulls alongside my car, “She” finally notices that the right lane has, in fact, ended. One last burst of speed from her 2010 Toyota Corolla and…nope, can’t make it. “She” has to hit her brakes to keep herself from rear-ending a parked two-ton pickup, and she swerves into the left lane behind me, only because the person who was previously behind me was apparently aware of the pending disaster unfolding in front of them and decided it would be prudent to provide “She” with someplace to swerve to; otherwise, “She” would have ended up sucking her dinners through a straw for the rest of her life, if the rapid response crew had managed to peel her away from the wreckage in time to save her stupid ass.
And here is the part that gets me fired up. After “She” manages to get herself situated in the left lane behind me, instead of counting her blessings and thanking the Fates for preserving her life, she honks and flips me off.
Seriously?
Are you fucking kidding me?
Your too-dumb-for-words ass was 1) swerving in and out of traffic, 2) attempting to pass on the right with no adequate cause, 3) speeding at least 15 miles per hour over the speed limit, and 4) basically driving recklessly, and yet I am to blame for that? Was it also my fault that you were running so late this morning that you had to drive like Evil Knievel to make up time?
So this post is a public service to drivers in the state of Rhode Island. Here are the five things you do that are simultaneously so incredibly prevalent and yet so cosmically stupid I have to consider taking the bus wherever I go because I don’t want to be on the roads with your collectively idiotic asses.
1: Failing to merge. As per the example above, merging into the left lane, even though massive yellow signs have instructed you to do so for the last two miles, completely escapes the Rhode Island consciousness. This is particularly irritating when the signs aren’t yellow, but orange, and indicate road construction. For whatever reason, in Rhode Island this apparently means “stand on the gas and get to the front of the line, and then hope that someone in the left lane lets you in”.
2: Speeding. People in Colorado drive fast. At least, I thought that people in Colorado drove fast, until I moved here. In Colorado, the speed limit is 75 on the interstates, and people drive 85. On other highways, the speed limit is 65, and people drive 75. In town, a speed limit of 40 has people driving 45. In Rhode Island, motorists treat speed limits like they’re little more than a suggestion, and that there is no consequence to breaking them. Interestingly, the people are still driving 85 on the interstates; the problem is that the speed limit is 55. They drive 75 on the highways, which have a speed limit of 45, and they drive 45 through town, where the speed limits are universally 25. So I guess it’s not that the people are driving any faster here than they were in Colorado, it’s just that the government has set the speed limits to a significantly lower rate. Of course if literally everyone were speeding, this wouldn’t be much of a problem. However, Rhode Island, like Colorado, has quite a few people that are probably a bit too old to be behind the wheel of anything more dangerous than a riding lawn mower, because they drive their cars like they were riding a lawn mower. The result is the speed-demons being forced to dodge the codgers, which is pretty much perilous to everyone on the road.
3: Courtesy. Now, what the Hell could I possibly mean by courtesy? This is actually kind of odd, but still problematic and so prevalent it causes problems. Several times per day I will come to an intersection, whether it’s a 2-way stop or a 4-way light, but I will come to some kind of intersection where someone else has the right of way, and they will literally stop their car (and all the traffic behind them) to let me go. Now, I understand that this person is being courteous. I really get it. There needs to be more of this kind of behavior in Colorado…and less of it in Rhode Island. You see, with so many people on the roads, that single act of what you perceive as kindness has actually inconvenienced dozens of other people. And the real problem with it is that you could actually cause an accident several cars behind you as you stop traffic for what people behind you will perceive as no reason at all. To them, traffic is moving along at a decent clip and all of a sudden, BRAKE! If I’m approaching a round-about, I have a yield sign…you don’t. You need to keep driving, and I need to let you through. Don’t stop and wave at me, telling me to go. When I’m trying to turn left at a stop light with no turn arrow, don’t wave me through the light while you hold up traffic. Obey the damned right of way.
4: Courtesy. Wait. Didn’t I just do this? Yes, but this is the other side of the story. People in Rhode Island apparently have all kinds of patience when it comes to in-town driving, but out on the interstate, it’s like chum in shark-infested waters. You need to merge left so you don’t have to exit? Fuck you. You need to merge right so that you can take the next exit? Fuck you. You need to merge because you see the big orange construction signs that say “Lane Ends, Merge Left”? Well, fuck you. I hope you’re comfortable in that lane from Massachusetts to Connecticut, because your ass is stuck there.
5: Tailgating. Ok, yeah, so this is universal. But here in Rhode Island, it’s compounded by the issues discussed in 1), 2), and 4) above. Driving along the interstate at 85 miles per hour is not the best idea, particularly when you have to worry about Grandma June entering at a busty 45 miles per hour, but it’s significantly more harrowing when Larry and his brothers Darryl and Darryl are riding a foot and a half off your tailpipe in their 18” lifted Dodge Ram. It’s even worse when Larry, Darryl, and Darryl are in a Rhode Island public transportation bus…and they follow you when you change lanes to get out of their fucking way. One of these days, Larry, Darryl, and Darryl are going to end up plowing through the back seat of Grandma June’s Caddy, and all I can do is hope that I’m not in the middle of that mess when it goes down.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Time Flies
Time flies. Period. It doesn’t matter if you’re having fun or not, I don’t think. Rather, time couldn’t really care less about your emotional state. It just keeps on marching along, oblivious to its myriad effects on us mortals.
Take as an example the fact that I have not posted on this blog for an entire semester. Oh sure, I’ve had a number of topics spring to mind, but by the time I got in front of a computer, I just wasn’t as geared up about writing them down. I remember that I was going to rant about drivers in this state at one point. That one would have been good. I, at least, would have gotten a chuckle out of it. But by the time I got home it was time to cook chicken tacos, and the desire to vent about the Californication (and Texification, and Illinoisification) of our streets and highways had passed.
But alas, this semester has been entirely too busy for such things. I thought I was busy before, but let me tell you, adding a wife and a 5-year old will reduce what was once considered “free time” to something more akin to “that 20-minute break you take in the bathroom to get some time with your book”. I’ve finished four books this semester using this tactic.
So as everyone reading this is already aware (both of you), Jen and I were married on December 31st. The ceremony was perfect, and we have it on video. One of these days, when I have some spare time, I will burn DVD’s and send them to anyone requesting one. The burn takes about an hour per disk, so I need to find about 5 free hours to figure out how to do it, then an hour for every disk I need to burn. Essentially, I need about a month of free time, not including sleep, food, and 20-minute breaks with my book.
An interesting aside: I keep getting asked the same question: “So, how’s married life treatin’ ya?” It’s like people expect that the tilt of the Earth’s axis changes when you get married, and they want to know if you can detect the change. I think the first time I was asked this question was on January 2nd. My response at that time was (I believe), “Well, in the 36 hours or so that I’ve been married I’ve been shot at twice, run over by a VW beetle, and chased by the CIA…so not much has changed so far. We’ll see what happens next week, though; I hear the second week is always harder than the first.”
See, Jen and I were already living together when we got married. The one-hour ceremony didn’t (and in my mind, shouldn’t) actually have any effect on the relationship other than making it part of the public, legal record. If you want to know how different things in my life are, you should be asking, “So, what’s it like living with someone?” That was a hell of a change. The wedding? That was a fun way to announce to the world at large that the living arrangement was successful and we were both willing to continue with it for the rest of our lives.
And just because I am apparently some kind of masochistic, self-loathing idiot, I decided to take my comprehensive exams on January 5th. Well, actually, the university decided on the day, I was just along for the ride. And what a fun, exciting ride it was! There were clowns, and a pony, and…no, it kind of sucked, really. But I passed with relative ease, and could officially consider myself a PhD student in the program.
It’s funny. When you graduate with a Doctorate, they call you Doctor. So when you finish a Master’s… Never mind.
So I’m sitting here in the apartment, looking around at all of the unpacked stuff we have yet to prepare for our exodus to Rhode Island. We just got back from dinner at mom and dad’s. Mom grilled some steak fillets, pork chops, and chicken breasts, and we had some mashed potatoes and some salad. The weather was perfect, and as the temperature dropped and a slight breeze picked up, the entire night smelled like Lilac. The girls, Ellie and my niece Emma, were down on the lawn, playing with my sister’s Boxer puppy (and apparently, rolling around in some of Tucker’s fresh poo), and their giggles gently rolled up onto the massive deck my dad built a couple of summers ago. I was overcome by this feeling of comfort that can only be described as family.
And that’s when it hit me. People have been asking me for a couple of weeks whether I’m relieved at being done with my Master’s, or if I’m ready to make the trip to Rhode Island, or some other well-intentioned but idiotic sentiment. Nobody is ever ready for that kind of thing. Regardless of how excited you are about it, how much you’re looking forward to it, how good it’s going to be…you’re never really ready to leave something you’ve invested years into. And that’s what I’ve done for the past several years; invest myself in my relationships. And no, I’m not ready to leave them. If I had my way, I’d pack every one of them up and take them with me…or maybe ship them next day air or something, since our U-Haul is going to be pretty full as it stands.
I visited Mike’s grave today. I was driving back from making another delivery to our storage unit in Ft. Collins, and the thought occurred to me that I may not have another chance to stop by and pay my respects, at least not any time in the near future. Unlike every other time I’ve been out there, I found the marker immediately. I usually have to wander around for about half an hour before I stumble onto it, but today, I walked right up to it.
Michael J. Wilkinson
May 24, 1974 - March 5, 2000
Typically when I visit Mikey’s grave, I talk to him, tell him how things are going. I always end up bawling. Today was odd. I stood there and stared at the marker. I stared at it for probably ten minutes, not really thinking anything. And then my cell rang. A friend of mine from school was on the other end, and her opening line, after we exchange pleasantries, is always the same and was no different today: “So, I have a stats question for you.” So here I am, standing in the cemetery over the grave of my friend who’s been dead for ten years now, having a conversation about the statistical assumptions for ANOVA and multiple linear regression. We chatted for about 20 minutes; it was a beautiful day and I wasn’t in any hurry to get anywhere, so I didn’t speed things along. When I hung up, I looked down at Mikey’s grave and said, “So, yeah…that’s my life.” I told him I’d be back after I got my Ph.D., gave him a fist-bump, and walked to my car. Ok, so my fist bump was against that funky symbol in the middle of his marker, but I made due with what I had. And after ten years, I finally managed to walk away from there without tearing up.
It took me ten years to “get over” Mikey’s death. How the Hell can I be ready to leave all of these people I’ve been blessed by knowing? The answer, naturally, is that I can’t. Fortunately, none of them are dead, so we should be able to keep in contact with each other at the very least. But I’m not ready, regardless of that.
Here’s a moderately amusing tale that is only marginally related to the last five minutes of material. I’ve been accepted to the URI behavioral science Ph.D. program. I’ve been talking back and forth with the advisor they assigned me and the department chair, trying to line up courses for the fall and so on. So after perusing what’s available, I respond that I’m interested in taking PSY 532, PSY 612, PSY 603, and the directed study credits for the Master’s thesis research project I have to complete. They give me a code that is supposed to allow me to register, and I head back to try it out, but for some reason it gives me this big, red warning about not meeting the pre-requisites for PSY 612.
So by now, everyone is wondering, “WTF are all those letters and numbers, and more importantly, why should I care?” Well, PSY 532 is the introduction to statistics course that is mandatory for my program, and PSY 612 is a structural modeling class. Funny thing is that they both have a certain pre-requisite, an undergraduate statistics course. So I write back to my advisor and the chair, explaining the dilemma. My advisor gives me another code and says that it’s rare for a student to take PSY 612 without PSY 532; she asks how strong my statistics background is.
My response: I’ve had some. I sent her my unofficial transcript.
Her response: Hm. You may want to think about getting a Master’s in statistics while you work on your Ph.D.
I’m just going to wait to get out there and continue that conversation in person.
But this is the kind of thing I’m talking about. Here, the faculty knows who I am, they know what to expect from me, that kind of thing. In a few months, I have to start building all of those relationships again, convincing my new faculty that I am going to set the bar regardless of how high their expectations may be. It’s exhausting just thinking about it.
But my saving grace will be Jen. For every painful tear I shed for my losses here, she will be there to remind me that in reality, those people are only a few hundred dollars away. Since giving blood makes me queasy to think about, I’m going to have to start selling semen or something.
So in eight days, I will be putting on my sunglasses as I stare at my last Colorado sunrise, holding my Schweetie around the waist, doing my best to look like Kurt Russel in Big Trouble in Little China. Thank God the sunglasses will be there to mask the tears, at least until I can get into the U-Haul.
I should be done crying by the time I hit Nebraska.
Take as an example the fact that I have not posted on this blog for an entire semester. Oh sure, I’ve had a number of topics spring to mind, but by the time I got in front of a computer, I just wasn’t as geared up about writing them down. I remember that I was going to rant about drivers in this state at one point. That one would have been good. I, at least, would have gotten a chuckle out of it. But by the time I got home it was time to cook chicken tacos, and the desire to vent about the Californication (and Texification, and Illinoisification) of our streets and highways had passed.
But alas, this semester has been entirely too busy for such things. I thought I was busy before, but let me tell you, adding a wife and a 5-year old will reduce what was once considered “free time” to something more akin to “that 20-minute break you take in the bathroom to get some time with your book”. I’ve finished four books this semester using this tactic.
So as everyone reading this is already aware (both of you), Jen and I were married on December 31st. The ceremony was perfect, and we have it on video. One of these days, when I have some spare time, I will burn DVD’s and send them to anyone requesting one. The burn takes about an hour per disk, so I need to find about 5 free hours to figure out how to do it, then an hour for every disk I need to burn. Essentially, I need about a month of free time, not including sleep, food, and 20-minute breaks with my book.
An interesting aside: I keep getting asked the same question: “So, how’s married life treatin’ ya?” It’s like people expect that the tilt of the Earth’s axis changes when you get married, and they want to know if you can detect the change. I think the first time I was asked this question was on January 2nd. My response at that time was (I believe), “Well, in the 36 hours or so that I’ve been married I’ve been shot at twice, run over by a VW beetle, and chased by the CIA…so not much has changed so far. We’ll see what happens next week, though; I hear the second week is always harder than the first.”
See, Jen and I were already living together when we got married. The one-hour ceremony didn’t (and in my mind, shouldn’t) actually have any effect on the relationship other than making it part of the public, legal record. If you want to know how different things in my life are, you should be asking, “So, what’s it like living with someone?” That was a hell of a change. The wedding? That was a fun way to announce to the world at large that the living arrangement was successful and we were both willing to continue with it for the rest of our lives.
And just because I am apparently some kind of masochistic, self-loathing idiot, I decided to take my comprehensive exams on January 5th. Well, actually, the university decided on the day, I was just along for the ride. And what a fun, exciting ride it was! There were clowns, and a pony, and…no, it kind of sucked, really. But I passed with relative ease, and could officially consider myself a PhD student in the program.
It’s funny. When you graduate with a Doctorate, they call you Doctor. So when you finish a Master’s… Never mind.
So I’m sitting here in the apartment, looking around at all of the unpacked stuff we have yet to prepare for our exodus to Rhode Island. We just got back from dinner at mom and dad’s. Mom grilled some steak fillets, pork chops, and chicken breasts, and we had some mashed potatoes and some salad. The weather was perfect, and as the temperature dropped and a slight breeze picked up, the entire night smelled like Lilac. The girls, Ellie and my niece Emma, were down on the lawn, playing with my sister’s Boxer puppy (and apparently, rolling around in some of Tucker’s fresh poo), and their giggles gently rolled up onto the massive deck my dad built a couple of summers ago. I was overcome by this feeling of comfort that can only be described as family.
And that’s when it hit me. People have been asking me for a couple of weeks whether I’m relieved at being done with my Master’s, or if I’m ready to make the trip to Rhode Island, or some other well-intentioned but idiotic sentiment. Nobody is ever ready for that kind of thing. Regardless of how excited you are about it, how much you’re looking forward to it, how good it’s going to be…you’re never really ready to leave something you’ve invested years into. And that’s what I’ve done for the past several years; invest myself in my relationships. And no, I’m not ready to leave them. If I had my way, I’d pack every one of them up and take them with me…or maybe ship them next day air or something, since our U-Haul is going to be pretty full as it stands.
I visited Mike’s grave today. I was driving back from making another delivery to our storage unit in Ft. Collins, and the thought occurred to me that I may not have another chance to stop by and pay my respects, at least not any time in the near future. Unlike every other time I’ve been out there, I found the marker immediately. I usually have to wander around for about half an hour before I stumble onto it, but today, I walked right up to it.
Michael J. Wilkinson
May 24, 1974 - March 5, 2000
Typically when I visit Mikey’s grave, I talk to him, tell him how things are going. I always end up bawling. Today was odd. I stood there and stared at the marker. I stared at it for probably ten minutes, not really thinking anything. And then my cell rang. A friend of mine from school was on the other end, and her opening line, after we exchange pleasantries, is always the same and was no different today: “So, I have a stats question for you.” So here I am, standing in the cemetery over the grave of my friend who’s been dead for ten years now, having a conversation about the statistical assumptions for ANOVA and multiple linear regression. We chatted for about 20 minutes; it was a beautiful day and I wasn’t in any hurry to get anywhere, so I didn’t speed things along. When I hung up, I looked down at Mikey’s grave and said, “So, yeah…that’s my life.” I told him I’d be back after I got my Ph.D., gave him a fist-bump, and walked to my car. Ok, so my fist bump was against that funky symbol in the middle of his marker, but I made due with what I had. And after ten years, I finally managed to walk away from there without tearing up.
It took me ten years to “get over” Mikey’s death. How the Hell can I be ready to leave all of these people I’ve been blessed by knowing? The answer, naturally, is that I can’t. Fortunately, none of them are dead, so we should be able to keep in contact with each other at the very least. But I’m not ready, regardless of that.
Here’s a moderately amusing tale that is only marginally related to the last five minutes of material. I’ve been accepted to the URI behavioral science Ph.D. program. I’ve been talking back and forth with the advisor they assigned me and the department chair, trying to line up courses for the fall and so on. So after perusing what’s available, I respond that I’m interested in taking PSY 532, PSY 612, PSY 603, and the directed study credits for the Master’s thesis research project I have to complete. They give me a code that is supposed to allow me to register, and I head back to try it out, but for some reason it gives me this big, red warning about not meeting the pre-requisites for PSY 612.
So by now, everyone is wondering, “WTF are all those letters and numbers, and more importantly, why should I care?” Well, PSY 532 is the introduction to statistics course that is mandatory for my program, and PSY 612 is a structural modeling class. Funny thing is that they both have a certain pre-requisite, an undergraduate statistics course. So I write back to my advisor and the chair, explaining the dilemma. My advisor gives me another code and says that it’s rare for a student to take PSY 612 without PSY 532; she asks how strong my statistics background is.
My response: I’ve had some. I sent her my unofficial transcript.
Her response: Hm. You may want to think about getting a Master’s in statistics while you work on your Ph.D.
I’m just going to wait to get out there and continue that conversation in person.
But this is the kind of thing I’m talking about. Here, the faculty knows who I am, they know what to expect from me, that kind of thing. In a few months, I have to start building all of those relationships again, convincing my new faculty that I am going to set the bar regardless of how high their expectations may be. It’s exhausting just thinking about it.
But my saving grace will be Jen. For every painful tear I shed for my losses here, she will be there to remind me that in reality, those people are only a few hundred dollars away. Since giving blood makes me queasy to think about, I’m going to have to start selling semen or something.
So in eight days, I will be putting on my sunglasses as I stare at my last Colorado sunrise, holding my Schweetie around the waist, doing my best to look like Kurt Russel in Big Trouble in Little China. Thank God the sunglasses will be there to mask the tears, at least until I can get into the U-Haul.
I should be done crying by the time I hit Nebraska.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
End of Semester Update
Where to start?
The semester is over, and there is much rejoicing. Classes finished up well, and again, I think I got a lot out of the semester. It's amazing how much better one learns when one isn't working full-time and taking classes.
The group of students who took my intro stats class are certainly relieved that the final is over...those who bothered to study for it. It's personally disturbing to me when I work with certain students individually and they show remarkable improvement between the first and second exam, and again between the second and third exam, and then put in some form of half-assed attempt on the final that completely invalidates the work we've done. But all in all, it was a great experience and I'm glad to have had the opportunity.
So now that the semester is over, it's time to plan the wedding...which happens in three weeks. There's something about last-minute pressure that is very...motivating. We've got the ceremony outlined and it looks great. Well, it looks great to us. :) After the wedding we will be going to the Harmony Grille in Ft. Collins to celebrate and to bring in the New Year, so anyone looking for a reason to go out should consider heading there. We'll be arriving between 10:30 and 11:00 or so. :)
Four days after the wedding I will be taking my comprehensive exams for my Master's degree. Woohoo for following a wedding with two days of three and a half hour tests covering two years worth of coursework. We like to party, we like to get down.
Oh, and in the middle of all this, there's Christmas in Julesburg. Jen, Ellie and I will be down there on Christmas Eve, staying until some time on Christmas Day. We interacted with Dad's side of the family on Thanksgiving, so now it's time to meet most of Mom's side of the family. It should be a hoot. :)
The week after comps, I start my PhD coursework in earnest. With luck, I will have the required coursework done in about a year, then it's electives and independent studies as I flesh out a dissertation. But there are a lot of unknowns out there, so I'm trying not to get ahead of myself.
Jen and I went to the KFD Christmas party last night, thanks to some very generous invitations from Joel and John. It was a great time, and I was very glad to see so many of my old comerades. One of the most amusing parts of the evening was the realization that most of the executives, who recognized me and could even remember my name, were unaware that I haven't worked for them in over a year. All in all it was a great night, and Jen and I are very thankful for the opportunity to attend.
There was a minorly discouraging story about a certain individual's reaction to the news of my pending attendance, but he couldn't even be bothered to show up to the party, so there was no need for any kind of verbal altercation...much to the dismay of the majority of the common-folk that work for the company, who would certainly have liked to have seen that particular tongue-lashing. Alas, it was not meant to be, and much fun was had by all as a result.
Alright...today is Whitley's birthday, so Jen, Ellie, and I are heading down to Berthoud. I heard something about ice-skating, and images of my elbow shattering ran through my head...so I think this is going to be a spectator outing for me. :)
The semester is over, and there is much rejoicing. Classes finished up well, and again, I think I got a lot out of the semester. It's amazing how much better one learns when one isn't working full-time and taking classes.
The group of students who took my intro stats class are certainly relieved that the final is over...those who bothered to study for it. It's personally disturbing to me when I work with certain students individually and they show remarkable improvement between the first and second exam, and again between the second and third exam, and then put in some form of half-assed attempt on the final that completely invalidates the work we've done. But all in all, it was a great experience and I'm glad to have had the opportunity.
So now that the semester is over, it's time to plan the wedding...which happens in three weeks. There's something about last-minute pressure that is very...motivating. We've got the ceremony outlined and it looks great. Well, it looks great to us. :) After the wedding we will be going to the Harmony Grille in Ft. Collins to celebrate and to bring in the New Year, so anyone looking for a reason to go out should consider heading there. We'll be arriving between 10:30 and 11:00 or so. :)
Four days after the wedding I will be taking my comprehensive exams for my Master's degree. Woohoo for following a wedding with two days of three and a half hour tests covering two years worth of coursework. We like to party, we like to get down.
Oh, and in the middle of all this, there's Christmas in Julesburg. Jen, Ellie and I will be down there on Christmas Eve, staying until some time on Christmas Day. We interacted with Dad's side of the family on Thanksgiving, so now it's time to meet most of Mom's side of the family. It should be a hoot. :)
The week after comps, I start my PhD coursework in earnest. With luck, I will have the required coursework done in about a year, then it's electives and independent studies as I flesh out a dissertation. But there are a lot of unknowns out there, so I'm trying not to get ahead of myself.
Jen and I went to the KFD Christmas party last night, thanks to some very generous invitations from Joel and John. It was a great time, and I was very glad to see so many of my old comerades. One of the most amusing parts of the evening was the realization that most of the executives, who recognized me and could even remember my name, were unaware that I haven't worked for them in over a year. All in all it was a great night, and Jen and I are very thankful for the opportunity to attend.
There was a minorly discouraging story about a certain individual's reaction to the news of my pending attendance, but he couldn't even be bothered to show up to the party, so there was no need for any kind of verbal altercation...much to the dismay of the majority of the common-folk that work for the company, who would certainly have liked to have seen that particular tongue-lashing. Alas, it was not meant to be, and much fun was had by all as a result.
Alright...today is Whitley's birthday, so Jen, Ellie, and I are heading down to Berthoud. I heard something about ice-skating, and images of my elbow shattering ran through my head...so I think this is going to be a spectator outing for me. :)
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
The Dissertation Proposal Defense
I wanted to take a moment to explain something about Jen's successful dissertation proposal defense this Monday, largely because people who are not involved in this level of academia or who have never experienced it may not understand the significance of what has happened.
A doctoral program is comprised of several components, and they are more or less linear. First, there is a ton of coursework (anywhere from 45 to 90 credit hours), during which the student is not only taught specific information about their chosen field, but they are also taught how to think critically; this can often lead to some pretty deep self reflection and personal change. This process, depending on the program, can take anywhere from two to four years.
After the completion of the coursework, the student takes comprehensive exams over all of the coursework that has been completed. Think of this as the Mother of all Finals. Those of you who remember final exams in your undergraduate programs may recall the frenzied state of hyper-paranoia that goes along with a comprehensive final - now think about a comprehensive final that covers six or seven core courses, some of which you may have taken as much as two years prior to the comp.
Assuming the student passes the comprehensive exam, they are given the go-ahead to design a study for their dissertation. Once a topic has been selected (a gargantuan task in its own right), they conduct an exhaustive literature review - that is to say, they read hundreds (not an exaggeration) of articles on not only their topic, but on their chosen methodology for the topic and their research philosophy for how they're going to approach the study. All of this information is then collected, organized, and synthesized into a new paper called the dissertation proposal.
The proposal is a labor that can last months, as the student's advisor corrects and changes and alters and suggests over and over and over and over, until finally, it's "right". Once the proposal has been approved by the advisor, the student prepares a copy of the final draft for each member of his or her dissertation committee (comprised of a minimum of 4 PhD holding individuals). The student then has two weeks to prepare a presentation for the official defense of the dissertation proposal.
The proposal defense is a half-hour presentation of the entire study, followed by up to an hour and a half of on-the-spot questions posed by the aforementioned dissertation committee. After the Q&A session, the committee kicks the student out of the room and discusses whether or not the student's proposal is worthy of a doctoral level work. If the proposal is accepted, the student gets the green light to conduct the study, which will then be turned into the final dissertation (which gets to be defended as well).
So when I (and others) express my deepest admiration and pride over Jen's monumental accomplishment, it is from the perspective of understanding that she has taken a great step toward completing a journey she started over two years ago (and has arguably been a lifetime in the making). In a day and age where individual accomplishments are often measured in terms of days or even hours, this should stand out to everyone as something to be particularly admirable.
So again, congratulations, Jen. You have worked very hard to get this far, and I am very proud of you!
A doctoral program is comprised of several components, and they are more or less linear. First, there is a ton of coursework (anywhere from 45 to 90 credit hours), during which the student is not only taught specific information about their chosen field, but they are also taught how to think critically; this can often lead to some pretty deep self reflection and personal change. This process, depending on the program, can take anywhere from two to four years.
After the completion of the coursework, the student takes comprehensive exams over all of the coursework that has been completed. Think of this as the Mother of all Finals. Those of you who remember final exams in your undergraduate programs may recall the frenzied state of hyper-paranoia that goes along with a comprehensive final - now think about a comprehensive final that covers six or seven core courses, some of which you may have taken as much as two years prior to the comp.
Assuming the student passes the comprehensive exam, they are given the go-ahead to design a study for their dissertation. Once a topic has been selected (a gargantuan task in its own right), they conduct an exhaustive literature review - that is to say, they read hundreds (not an exaggeration) of articles on not only their topic, but on their chosen methodology for the topic and their research philosophy for how they're going to approach the study. All of this information is then collected, organized, and synthesized into a new paper called the dissertation proposal.
The proposal is a labor that can last months, as the student's advisor corrects and changes and alters and suggests over and over and over and over, until finally, it's "right". Once the proposal has been approved by the advisor, the student prepares a copy of the final draft for each member of his or her dissertation committee (comprised of a minimum of 4 PhD holding individuals). The student then has two weeks to prepare a presentation for the official defense of the dissertation proposal.
The proposal defense is a half-hour presentation of the entire study, followed by up to an hour and a half of on-the-spot questions posed by the aforementioned dissertation committee. After the Q&A session, the committee kicks the student out of the room and discusses whether or not the student's proposal is worthy of a doctoral level work. If the proposal is accepted, the student gets the green light to conduct the study, which will then be turned into the final dissertation (which gets to be defended as well).
So when I (and others) express my deepest admiration and pride over Jen's monumental accomplishment, it is from the perspective of understanding that she has taken a great step toward completing a journey she started over two years ago (and has arguably been a lifetime in the making). In a day and age where individual accomplishments are often measured in terms of days or even hours, this should stand out to everyone as something to be particularly admirable.
So again, congratulations, Jen. You have worked very hard to get this far, and I am very proud of you!
Monday, June 8, 2009
Engaged
So, as many of you may have noticed on my Facebook page, my relationship status went from Single to It’s Complicated a couple of months ago. Early this morning it went to Engaged, and this post is here to provide the details that many of you have asked for.
It’s important that I take a minute and give a bit of background on where I was when this semester started, for the sake of context. I had been laid off from Kroll Factual Data in December, and with 16 credits remaining for the completion of my Master’s degree, I decided not to look for another job and instead focus on knocking out those credits. So this semester was a true overload for me – full time grad school courseload is 9 credits, so I was nearly doubling that. Going into the semester I was pretty unhappy with my program overall and had no idea what I was going to do once the Master’s was complete; continue to a PhD or just enter the workforce with the Master’s. This semester allowed me to see what my academic potential truly was – without the distraction and time investment of a job, I was able to throw myself entirely at my studies for the first time ever, and the results were amazing. So as the semester was coming to a close, I was really beginning to believe in my ability in this field for the first time.
Who Is She?
If I were to have made a list of attributes I desired in the “perfect-for-me” woman and put that list into the computer from Weird Science, instead of getting Kelly LeBrock out of the machine, it would have given me Jen Davis. This woman has wit, attitude, character, ambition, accomplishment, beauty, and the kind of intellect that can only be described as Fucking Brilliant. Jen’s mind is as hyperactive as mine, but she’s put it to greater use than I have; while I was busy rocking the video game scene, Jen was working on a career as an elementary special education teacher, and after 9 years in that capacity, she began pursuing graduate studies at UNC.
In the two years she’s been in the PhD program she has not only excelled in her coursework, Jen has been an inspiration to many of her fellow students; her drive, dedication, and critical mind have propelled her to the lofty (unofficial) position of The Standard – Jen is the person that other graduate students want to be. She’s just completed her written comprehensive exams, and will be undergoing the oral defense of those answers on June 18th, after which she will be ABD – All But Dissertation. She’s got a rock solid idea for her dissertation study and she’s already piloting the instrument for that, and her timeline for being finished with the dissertation and defending it is next spring, April if I recall correctly.
If this were not enough to garner my interest in Jen, she also has character strength the likes of which I’ve never known before. She has gone through a number of difficult trials in her life; she battled cancer in her early 20’s, which left her sans-thyroid. She struggled with obesity for the majority of her life until two years ago, when she walked into the Slim 4 Life location in Loveland; nine months later she had shed 140 lbs and had made the changes in her life that would contribute to keeping that weight off long-term. I will leave the telling of these stories to Jen, because I would never be able to do them justice. I will say that the strength it takes to overcome these difficult challenges is something that shows through in the way Jen talks, laughs, and lives her life.
It’s not a lighthearted comment I make when I say that Jen Davis is perfect for me. She possesses every character trait I could have hoped to find in a woman, and some that I didn’t even know I wanted.
The “How We Met” Story
I remember the minutes leading up to the first day of SRM 641: Mixed Methods very clearly. I had arrived in the classroom early because the class I had right before that had been released significantly early. I found my customary position – very front of the class along the right wall. This room was interesting because it didn’t have those God-awful desks that leave a cramp in my back after a 3-hour class. Instead, this room was four rows of tables with six or eight chairs per row. There were only 12 people in the class – pretty typical for SRM classes. I was watching as people came filing into the room, taking mental notes of who I’d be sharing the class with over the semester. I recognized a couple of folks: Randy Larkins, a man I’ve come to have a great deal of respect and admiration for, and Eric Teman, someone I had two other classes with earlier in the week.
That’s when Jen walked in. One of the last people to arrive for the class, she had a wide, genuine smile on her face, carried herself with such confidence that my ears, if they were a bit longer and more pointed, would have stood at attention. I was immediately interested in her based on the combination of her confident gait, that broad smile, and her honest-to-God classical beauty – she looked like Audrey Hepburn. She took a seat directly behind me, which was both a blessing and a curse – for one, I couldn’t really look at her without being completely obvious about it, but that position meant that she’d be in close proximity for the entirety of the semester, affording opportunities for conversation in the future.
Shortly after this grand entrance we were going through the introduction phase of all graduate level college classes – “Hello, my name is Sunny, I’m in the Master’s program for Applied Statistics and Research Methods, and my interests are butterflies, puppies, rainbows, and doing large calculations by hand.” This exercise was the first opportunity I had to hear Jen’s voice, and I have to admit, I was absolutely entranced. I turned around in my chair and looked directly at her while she was telling her story, and every word that came out of her mouth was like another drop of honey-mead.
It was also during this introduction that I noticed the ring on her finger – a crushing blow if ever I’d encountered one. Upon noticing this tiny little problem (tiny like a black hole, that is), I immediately placed Jen, mentally, in my “Do Not Disturb” file. The last thing I wanted to do was come between this amazing woman and her husband – who by my reckoning must be a combination of the best parts from Arnold Schwarzenegger, Albert Einstein, Erik Erickson, Sean Connery, Sting, and Antonio Banderas. I mean, this amazing creature could not possibly have a relationship with anyone less than the “perfect” man, in my eyes.
So for the next few weeks I approached my interactions with Jen through this lens. I got to hear more about her, discovered that she was extremely accomplished – three publications already and a book in the works, and she’s still in her PhD coursework. I heard her tell her story about battling obesity, which I found to be incredibly moving and gave her an added level of strength in my mind. I got to hear about her perspective on a number of topics, and every time she spoke, she did so with passion and conviction. I grew to really admire and respect this woman, and as the semester was coming to a close I knew that I wanted to approach her about getting her contact information in the hopes that we would be able to build a healthy friendship based on academic interests. I envisioned the kind of relationship where we would share research ideas, maybe edit rough drafts for each other, that kind of thing.
Three weeks before the end of the semester the class was doing a dry-run of a project proposal, essentially the culmination of our semester’s worth of work. The next week we would be presenting our proposals in front of a mock dissertation committee consisting of Dr. Susan Hutchinson, the department chair for the ASRM department, Dr. Maria Lehman, the ASRM department’s resident qualitative research expert, and Veronica Richard, an ABD doctoral student in the ASRM department. Dr. Geist – Monica – wanted us to have a chance to run through our presentations before hand, so we took the majority of this class period doing exactly that. I remember Jen coming into class that day – she seemed distraught, something wasn’t right. As she took her seat behind me, I lip-synched “are you OK?” to her, and her non-verbal response was completely unconvincing. However, in true Jen style, she shelved her personal issues and focused on the task at hand. My classmates got up and gave their presentations, with time for comments on how to improve the layout or design being offered by the rest of us throughout the evening.
Jen’s presentation was great. Rock solid performance fueled by a complete understanding of the background material and understanding of what she wanted to accomplish, and how to get there. Her materials, however, could use some work – she had cut out shapes that, when used in conjunction with the overhead projector, went together like a jigsaw puzzle as she moved through the presentation. It was truly original in concept, but in practice I thought it was a bit messy because the little pieces kept moving when she added another, and it made keeping the entire map on the document camera a trying experience for her.
After the class was over I turned around in my chair and leaned over her table and said that I could help her with that problem. I explained that if she emailed me the Word document the original was based on, I could import it into a Powerpoint presentation, and even make it so that each of the puzzle pieces added sequentially, just like her paper version, but without the stress of keeping the pieces straight. Jen asked if I could just show her how to do it; I would find out later this was because she’s not the kind of person who likes to ask for help – she wants to do it herself. I loaded her Word file onto my laptop and quickly ran through the concept I had in mind, showing her how she could do what we were talking about. She was very excited about it and thanked me for the help. I was concerned that she may not be able to get it to work properly without some coaching, so I gave her my email, in case she wanted to send it to me so I could work on it, and I gave her my phone number, in case she wanted to call me to let me know she was sending the email. It is interesting to note that even Monica urged Jen to just let me do it, because Jen was under so much stress from so many other angles just then, and I assured them both that it would really only take me a matter of 20 minutes or so to take care of it.
Sure enough, in the 40 minutes it took me to drive home from campus, Jen had emailed me her files and asked if I wouldn’t mind putting the presentation together for her. She asked me to let her know if it was going to take too long – 30 minutes later, I emailed her the finished product along with my assurance that it had been very simple to do, and that I was happy to have relieved some of her stress.
The next night, at approximately 9:00 pm, I got a text message – “Whatcha doin?” I have to admit that I grinned from ear to ear when I read that text. In the interest of sparing my readers the details of the next 4 hours of text messages and online conversation via Facebook’s chat feature, I will simply say that this initial text message was like holding a match over an exposed propane tank – and then using a butane lighter to light the match. In the week between that night and our presentations the following Wednesday, I think we averaged 4 hours of sleep per night, and again, in the interest of sparing the reader, I will simply say that we did what all aspiring couples did – shared our hopes, dreams, fears, and thoughts – often in intimate detail. One thing became increasingly clear to me – I had, at last, found The One.
The One
I asked my mom, not long ago, about how she met my dad. For clarification, I’m talking about my step-father, Terry, who adopted me at the age of 8 and who has been the ideal father to me throughout my life – I don’t refer to the other guy at all, unless the topic is specifically brought up. Anyhow, my mother told me that from the time that she and dad started dating until they were married, 7 months had passed. This news was, frankly, shocking. My mother has always cautioned me on going slow in a relationship, taking my time, all of that kind of thing. To hear her say that her own courtship lasted less than one academic year was pretty surprising. She went on to explain that even before that, dad had agreed to do some farm work for my Grandpa Donnelly, and that he had walked up to the front door to the house to ask for clarification on which plot of land was to be worked on. Mom answered the door and she told me that she said to herself, as she watched him turn around and walk back down the steps, that she was “going to marry that man.”
As many of you know, I’m an avid movie watcher, and unlike most men, I’m comfortable enough with my sexuality to admit that I like romantic movies, or Chick Flicks as they’re called. I’ve seen dozens of them, and own more than 20. The one thing that most romantic movies have in common is that the love portrayed in them is that quick-fire, intense, passionate love that makes you reflect on your own relationships and come to the conclusion that the stories told in those movies are bullshit – nobody ever feels like that, nobody ever experiences that, that’s not how it works. As a society, we shun the notions of love-at-first-sight or soul mates destined to be together. In these movies, the two lead characters have found their version of The One, but of course, this only happens in Hollywood…right?
Ladies and gentlemen, I’m here to tell you, I’m a believer. Line up the most corny lines from any chick flick and I’m going to be inclined to agree with them – from Jerry McGuire’s “You complete me” to “Is it too late to say I love you” from Playing By Heart, every tear-inducing, sap filled statement from these movies is a little more believable now.
My friend Bobby and I were having a conversation a few weeks ago. He had asked me if I thought I’d end up marrying Jen. I gave it a little bit of thought – the hesitation being more because I was trying to decide what to tell him, more than any doubt in my mind about the answer here – and finally said yes, that I was going to marry her. He told me that he could see that, and that when you know something like that, there’s no real reason to wait. This is something that Jen herself had actually mentioned – she said that she felt like we were inevitable, and when something is inevitable, what’s the point in putting it off?
The truth is, I’ve never known anyone like Jen. She is a truly rare and unique woman, and that she feels the way she does about me is both moving and inspiring. I held her in the highest regard well before I talked to her on a personal level, and that foundation of respect has been an excellent one for the somewhat rapid construction we’ve placed upon it. I can honestly say that Jen understands me in ways that very few people have been able to understand me – Trish Wakeford, Mike Wilkinson, and my mother pretty much conclude that list. Jen inspires me as an academic and challenges me intellectually, and she makes me want to do more than simply see my own potential – she makes me want to achieve it.
Many people would have warning signals – flashing red lights and loud, ringing klaxons – sending an alert about the speed with which this relationship has progressed. I have to admit, both Jen and I have discussed that if one of our friends were to tell us this story, we’d be supportive, but very cautionary. I mean, it’s supposed to take time, right? So for those of you who are questioning that very thing, allow me to assure you that we are both completely certain that what we’re doing is not only right for us, but it is inevitable.
The Wedding
When we initially started talking about a wedding (in a hypothetical manner), Jen insisted that because she’d already had her wedding, she would prefer that my desires be paramount for a wedding, when the time came. After some thought and reflection, and a bit of information on what her first wedding had been, I pointed out that it didn’t really seem like it had been “her” wedding at all – the theme was not her idea, and it wasn’t really anything she was overly interested in. She thought about that for a moment and conceded the point. As such, I pointed out, our wedding should be everything that she missed the first time around – and paramount among those things that are most important to her is that we get married by water. Not a little bit of water, either – lots and lots of water.
Jen grew up on the east coast, most of her family is there, and for that reason, we’ve decided to have the wedding ceremony on the east coast. Because of timing (Jen’s career plans, my continued studies, and so on), the earliest we can see having something the way we really want it would be over the summer break of 2011. We’re both set on having a ceremony on the east coast somewhere in that time frame, but we’re also of the opinion that we’re not for waiting that long, and so we’re going to have a very small, very private ceremony here in Colorado in December of this year (we’re thinking New Year’s Eve, actually). The guest list is going to be extremely limited, so I have to ask forgiveness of those not invited to the ceremony – if it were possible, I’d invite every single one of you. However, rest assured that the invitation to the ceremony on the east coast will be forthcoming.
It’s important that I take a minute and give a bit of background on where I was when this semester started, for the sake of context. I had been laid off from Kroll Factual Data in December, and with 16 credits remaining for the completion of my Master’s degree, I decided not to look for another job and instead focus on knocking out those credits. So this semester was a true overload for me – full time grad school courseload is 9 credits, so I was nearly doubling that. Going into the semester I was pretty unhappy with my program overall and had no idea what I was going to do once the Master’s was complete; continue to a PhD or just enter the workforce with the Master’s. This semester allowed me to see what my academic potential truly was – without the distraction and time investment of a job, I was able to throw myself entirely at my studies for the first time ever, and the results were amazing. So as the semester was coming to a close, I was really beginning to believe in my ability in this field for the first time.
Who Is She?
If I were to have made a list of attributes I desired in the “perfect-for-me” woman and put that list into the computer from Weird Science, instead of getting Kelly LeBrock out of the machine, it would have given me Jen Davis. This woman has wit, attitude, character, ambition, accomplishment, beauty, and the kind of intellect that can only be described as Fucking Brilliant. Jen’s mind is as hyperactive as mine, but she’s put it to greater use than I have; while I was busy rocking the video game scene, Jen was working on a career as an elementary special education teacher, and after 9 years in that capacity, she began pursuing graduate studies at UNC.
In the two years she’s been in the PhD program she has not only excelled in her coursework, Jen has been an inspiration to many of her fellow students; her drive, dedication, and critical mind have propelled her to the lofty (unofficial) position of The Standard – Jen is the person that other graduate students want to be. She’s just completed her written comprehensive exams, and will be undergoing the oral defense of those answers on June 18th, after which she will be ABD – All But Dissertation. She’s got a rock solid idea for her dissertation study and she’s already piloting the instrument for that, and her timeline for being finished with the dissertation and defending it is next spring, April if I recall correctly.
If this were not enough to garner my interest in Jen, she also has character strength the likes of which I’ve never known before. She has gone through a number of difficult trials in her life; she battled cancer in her early 20’s, which left her sans-thyroid. She struggled with obesity for the majority of her life until two years ago, when she walked into the Slim 4 Life location in Loveland; nine months later she had shed 140 lbs and had made the changes in her life that would contribute to keeping that weight off long-term. I will leave the telling of these stories to Jen, because I would never be able to do them justice. I will say that the strength it takes to overcome these difficult challenges is something that shows through in the way Jen talks, laughs, and lives her life.
It’s not a lighthearted comment I make when I say that Jen Davis is perfect for me. She possesses every character trait I could have hoped to find in a woman, and some that I didn’t even know I wanted.
The “How We Met” Story
I remember the minutes leading up to the first day of SRM 641: Mixed Methods very clearly. I had arrived in the classroom early because the class I had right before that had been released significantly early. I found my customary position – very front of the class along the right wall. This room was interesting because it didn’t have those God-awful desks that leave a cramp in my back after a 3-hour class. Instead, this room was four rows of tables with six or eight chairs per row. There were only 12 people in the class – pretty typical for SRM classes. I was watching as people came filing into the room, taking mental notes of who I’d be sharing the class with over the semester. I recognized a couple of folks: Randy Larkins, a man I’ve come to have a great deal of respect and admiration for, and Eric Teman, someone I had two other classes with earlier in the week.
That’s when Jen walked in. One of the last people to arrive for the class, she had a wide, genuine smile on her face, carried herself with such confidence that my ears, if they were a bit longer and more pointed, would have stood at attention. I was immediately interested in her based on the combination of her confident gait, that broad smile, and her honest-to-God classical beauty – she looked like Audrey Hepburn. She took a seat directly behind me, which was both a blessing and a curse – for one, I couldn’t really look at her without being completely obvious about it, but that position meant that she’d be in close proximity for the entirety of the semester, affording opportunities for conversation in the future.
Shortly after this grand entrance we were going through the introduction phase of all graduate level college classes – “Hello, my name is Sunny, I’m in the Master’s program for Applied Statistics and Research Methods, and my interests are butterflies, puppies, rainbows, and doing large calculations by hand.” This exercise was the first opportunity I had to hear Jen’s voice, and I have to admit, I was absolutely entranced. I turned around in my chair and looked directly at her while she was telling her story, and every word that came out of her mouth was like another drop of honey-mead.
It was also during this introduction that I noticed the ring on her finger – a crushing blow if ever I’d encountered one. Upon noticing this tiny little problem (tiny like a black hole, that is), I immediately placed Jen, mentally, in my “Do Not Disturb” file. The last thing I wanted to do was come between this amazing woman and her husband – who by my reckoning must be a combination of the best parts from Arnold Schwarzenegger, Albert Einstein, Erik Erickson, Sean Connery, Sting, and Antonio Banderas. I mean, this amazing creature could not possibly have a relationship with anyone less than the “perfect” man, in my eyes.
So for the next few weeks I approached my interactions with Jen through this lens. I got to hear more about her, discovered that she was extremely accomplished – three publications already and a book in the works, and she’s still in her PhD coursework. I heard her tell her story about battling obesity, which I found to be incredibly moving and gave her an added level of strength in my mind. I got to hear about her perspective on a number of topics, and every time she spoke, she did so with passion and conviction. I grew to really admire and respect this woman, and as the semester was coming to a close I knew that I wanted to approach her about getting her contact information in the hopes that we would be able to build a healthy friendship based on academic interests. I envisioned the kind of relationship where we would share research ideas, maybe edit rough drafts for each other, that kind of thing.
Three weeks before the end of the semester the class was doing a dry-run of a project proposal, essentially the culmination of our semester’s worth of work. The next week we would be presenting our proposals in front of a mock dissertation committee consisting of Dr. Susan Hutchinson, the department chair for the ASRM department, Dr. Maria Lehman, the ASRM department’s resident qualitative research expert, and Veronica Richard, an ABD doctoral student in the ASRM department. Dr. Geist – Monica – wanted us to have a chance to run through our presentations before hand, so we took the majority of this class period doing exactly that. I remember Jen coming into class that day – she seemed distraught, something wasn’t right. As she took her seat behind me, I lip-synched “are you OK?” to her, and her non-verbal response was completely unconvincing. However, in true Jen style, she shelved her personal issues and focused on the task at hand. My classmates got up and gave their presentations, with time for comments on how to improve the layout or design being offered by the rest of us throughout the evening.
Jen’s presentation was great. Rock solid performance fueled by a complete understanding of the background material and understanding of what she wanted to accomplish, and how to get there. Her materials, however, could use some work – she had cut out shapes that, when used in conjunction with the overhead projector, went together like a jigsaw puzzle as she moved through the presentation. It was truly original in concept, but in practice I thought it was a bit messy because the little pieces kept moving when she added another, and it made keeping the entire map on the document camera a trying experience for her.
After the class was over I turned around in my chair and leaned over her table and said that I could help her with that problem. I explained that if she emailed me the Word document the original was based on, I could import it into a Powerpoint presentation, and even make it so that each of the puzzle pieces added sequentially, just like her paper version, but without the stress of keeping the pieces straight. Jen asked if I could just show her how to do it; I would find out later this was because she’s not the kind of person who likes to ask for help – she wants to do it herself. I loaded her Word file onto my laptop and quickly ran through the concept I had in mind, showing her how she could do what we were talking about. She was very excited about it and thanked me for the help. I was concerned that she may not be able to get it to work properly without some coaching, so I gave her my email, in case she wanted to send it to me so I could work on it, and I gave her my phone number, in case she wanted to call me to let me know she was sending the email. It is interesting to note that even Monica urged Jen to just let me do it, because Jen was under so much stress from so many other angles just then, and I assured them both that it would really only take me a matter of 20 minutes or so to take care of it.
Sure enough, in the 40 minutes it took me to drive home from campus, Jen had emailed me her files and asked if I wouldn’t mind putting the presentation together for her. She asked me to let her know if it was going to take too long – 30 minutes later, I emailed her the finished product along with my assurance that it had been very simple to do, and that I was happy to have relieved some of her stress.
The next night, at approximately 9:00 pm, I got a text message – “Whatcha doin?” I have to admit that I grinned from ear to ear when I read that text. In the interest of sparing my readers the details of the next 4 hours of text messages and online conversation via Facebook’s chat feature, I will simply say that this initial text message was like holding a match over an exposed propane tank – and then using a butane lighter to light the match. In the week between that night and our presentations the following Wednesday, I think we averaged 4 hours of sleep per night, and again, in the interest of sparing the reader, I will simply say that we did what all aspiring couples did – shared our hopes, dreams, fears, and thoughts – often in intimate detail. One thing became increasingly clear to me – I had, at last, found The One.
The One
I asked my mom, not long ago, about how she met my dad. For clarification, I’m talking about my step-father, Terry, who adopted me at the age of 8 and who has been the ideal father to me throughout my life – I don’t refer to the other guy at all, unless the topic is specifically brought up. Anyhow, my mother told me that from the time that she and dad started dating until they were married, 7 months had passed. This news was, frankly, shocking. My mother has always cautioned me on going slow in a relationship, taking my time, all of that kind of thing. To hear her say that her own courtship lasted less than one academic year was pretty surprising. She went on to explain that even before that, dad had agreed to do some farm work for my Grandpa Donnelly, and that he had walked up to the front door to the house to ask for clarification on which plot of land was to be worked on. Mom answered the door and she told me that she said to herself, as she watched him turn around and walk back down the steps, that she was “going to marry that man.”
As many of you know, I’m an avid movie watcher, and unlike most men, I’m comfortable enough with my sexuality to admit that I like romantic movies, or Chick Flicks as they’re called. I’ve seen dozens of them, and own more than 20. The one thing that most romantic movies have in common is that the love portrayed in them is that quick-fire, intense, passionate love that makes you reflect on your own relationships and come to the conclusion that the stories told in those movies are bullshit – nobody ever feels like that, nobody ever experiences that, that’s not how it works. As a society, we shun the notions of love-at-first-sight or soul mates destined to be together. In these movies, the two lead characters have found their version of The One, but of course, this only happens in Hollywood…right?
Ladies and gentlemen, I’m here to tell you, I’m a believer. Line up the most corny lines from any chick flick and I’m going to be inclined to agree with them – from Jerry McGuire’s “You complete me” to “Is it too late to say I love you” from Playing By Heart, every tear-inducing, sap filled statement from these movies is a little more believable now.
My friend Bobby and I were having a conversation a few weeks ago. He had asked me if I thought I’d end up marrying Jen. I gave it a little bit of thought – the hesitation being more because I was trying to decide what to tell him, more than any doubt in my mind about the answer here – and finally said yes, that I was going to marry her. He told me that he could see that, and that when you know something like that, there’s no real reason to wait. This is something that Jen herself had actually mentioned – she said that she felt like we were inevitable, and when something is inevitable, what’s the point in putting it off?
The truth is, I’ve never known anyone like Jen. She is a truly rare and unique woman, and that she feels the way she does about me is both moving and inspiring. I held her in the highest regard well before I talked to her on a personal level, and that foundation of respect has been an excellent one for the somewhat rapid construction we’ve placed upon it. I can honestly say that Jen understands me in ways that very few people have been able to understand me – Trish Wakeford, Mike Wilkinson, and my mother pretty much conclude that list. Jen inspires me as an academic and challenges me intellectually, and she makes me want to do more than simply see my own potential – she makes me want to achieve it.
Many people would have warning signals – flashing red lights and loud, ringing klaxons – sending an alert about the speed with which this relationship has progressed. I have to admit, both Jen and I have discussed that if one of our friends were to tell us this story, we’d be supportive, but very cautionary. I mean, it’s supposed to take time, right? So for those of you who are questioning that very thing, allow me to assure you that we are both completely certain that what we’re doing is not only right for us, but it is inevitable.
The Wedding
When we initially started talking about a wedding (in a hypothetical manner), Jen insisted that because she’d already had her wedding, she would prefer that my desires be paramount for a wedding, when the time came. After some thought and reflection, and a bit of information on what her first wedding had been, I pointed out that it didn’t really seem like it had been “her” wedding at all – the theme was not her idea, and it wasn’t really anything she was overly interested in. She thought about that for a moment and conceded the point. As such, I pointed out, our wedding should be everything that she missed the first time around – and paramount among those things that are most important to her is that we get married by water. Not a little bit of water, either – lots and lots of water.
Jen grew up on the east coast, most of her family is there, and for that reason, we’ve decided to have the wedding ceremony on the east coast. Because of timing (Jen’s career plans, my continued studies, and so on), the earliest we can see having something the way we really want it would be over the summer break of 2011. We’re both set on having a ceremony on the east coast somewhere in that time frame, but we’re also of the opinion that we’re not for waiting that long, and so we’re going to have a very small, very private ceremony here in Colorado in December of this year (we’re thinking New Year’s Eve, actually). The guest list is going to be extremely limited, so I have to ask forgiveness of those not invited to the ceremony – if it were possible, I’d invite every single one of you. However, rest assured that the invitation to the ceremony on the east coast will be forthcoming.
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