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
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
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.
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