Bah!

It’s been close to 2 years. I think of the blog often and never write in it. Passing beauty, small joys, adventures, cats, questions, all half written in my mind, never written. I waste time in other ways. I grow discontented, then contented, then more discontented. I have wondered if I am experiencing a “mid-life crisis”. Do women do that? Do spinster women with busy jobs and no children and no lovers ever do this?

My house falls into clutter, I want the clutter gone. Yet another good show cat on the circuit, or two, or three. Wonderful retired show cats placed. Not enough snow to make January the most beautiful of months. I miss the hush and glitter of snow.

I have, once again, fallen for someone. The someone, as always, has not fallen for me. He is a talented, interesting, intelligent, kind, and single, man (as almost all have been). I am not his type. I almost convinced myself otherwise. But I looked and thought and weighed and knew better. We are friends. I intend to remain friends. My idiot heart will get over it, eventually. It just always takes so damn long.

Remember Walter? I lived in the same shared apartment with him and one or two others for what? 9 years? In love with him (I should say at him to be accurate) almost the whole time. Before and after that, how many? A half a dozen? A dozen? Crushes, stupid adolescent crushes from real adolescence through being a grown woman… now closing in on being an old woman.

I am so used to it now that this time I could stand aside and watch the chemical switch flip. I was simply enjoying the conversation and company of a particular interesting and attractive man as I had a number of times before for dinner or drinks, and then a turn in the conversation, a look and there was the sudden fall off the cliff. Shit. Why now? Aren’t I too old for this yet? And “but maybe this time….” and watching and paying attention so carefully, some flirtation on my part, careful placing of me as “friend” on his. Nope. Same old same old. I don’t get it. What is this chemical switch? Why can’t one just summarily haul oneself right back up the cliff one fell off of and turn it off. It would make more sense. Particularly since at this point in my life, even if the feeling were reciprocated (ha!) I would not abandon my job and my life as it is to go off somewhere else with someone. No. Not conceivable to me at all.

The end result is hours of rationality punctuated by stupid schoolgirl heartache. I hate it. Maybe this time I will recover quickly and the pain will leave.

That is all love is for me. Pain. It is a physical pain, sort of like being punched in the stomach. It endangers otherwise good friendships. It wastes time. I want it to go away.

I think that I make no pheromones and so this is just my lot in life. Nothing else makes sense. Yet things could be much worse than to simply be single forever. I like to be alone and I rather enjoy my singleness. I also enjoy the company of friends here and there. So, I want to turn off this one part of my heart. It serves no purpose.

Surveys

Whenever I take an online survey I am always puzzled by the types of questions that they ask.

I participated in an online survey yesterday about cars. I am seriously considering buying a car, and probably will in the next 6 months. My Honda Civic hatchback is 12 years old and has almost 170K miles on it. It is making some noises that my mechanic can’t figure out.

The survey asked me about those things, and asked if I was considering specific cars (I am), and what they were. 1) Honda Fit, 2) Volkwagen Jetta Sportswagen TDI, then in no particular order Toyota Yaris, Prius, Honda Insight. In truth the Fit is currently way at the top of the list. It is a high mpg hatchback, that has been reviewed as “fun to driive” in every review I’ve looked at, plus has an amazingly large cargo area in the back, with back seats that fold flat. Perfect for the long hauls I do for my hobby.

The survey then asked me to name luxury car brands and models off the top of my head. I know brands but not models. It then named luxury brands and models and asked lots of questions about them.

The survey wanted to know if I thought individual brands or models were technologically advanced (I assume so), if owning a car from them says anything about the cars owner (yeah, probably, what, I’m not sure), and lots of questions about what I felt about the brands (don’t feel much about luxury car brands). The questions never asked if the cars drove well, or were comfortable, or even looked good.

After I finished the survey I thought about it for a bit. I bought MegaMillions lottery tickets on Thursday. I do on occasion. The prize is over 100 million right now. I like to daydream about what I might do if I won. I realized that an expensive car is never part of my daydreams, nor expensive clothes or an expensive watch.

I would probably move to the Seattle area, or maybe Vancouver area in BC. I like the Pacific Northwest. I like the weather (cool) and the mountains, and the sound/ocean. I would like to be closer to my parents. With lots of money I could buy a nice house with a view and a little land and a second house or second living quarters for my parents. I would have to be careful about local laws. I am not moving anywhere that has a pet limit (legislation that decreases available homes for dogs and cats... stupid), nor tells you whether you can have a fence or a short list of what you are allowed to grow or what color your house is.

I would give some money to my brother, my parents, my friends, to help them with assorted financial issues. I would give money to some charities. I would give money to my University. I would hire a housekeeper and an accountant. I would eat more lobster, more sushi, go out to good restaurants more often. I would travel more. I would entertain more. Much of this is wasteful consumerism, like most people would do.

But for some reason I have no interest in a fancy car. I might get that TDI instead of the Fit, but then again, maybe not. I guess that to me it is about what is actually Much Better, and worth the price.

Meanwhile, I wonder why surveys always ask you how you “feel” about things and particularly how you “feel” about brands, rather than if you think they work well, make a good product, etc.

After I finished this, uploaded it and checked the site. I looked to the left and saw the Metarasa chart. Well duh, I am all about thinking, very low on the feeling-extrovert. Why would I "feel" about a brand? But, I STILL buy things, so Marketers howabout giving me something solid to think about?

Happy Birthday to Me!

Today is my birthday. Happy birthday to me!

I left home at 17. My birthday always falls late in fall term. I have been an academic all of my adult life. I have been single the vast majority of my adult life. I only truly celebrate my birthday once in a blue moon. Sometimes I take myself out for dinner. Sometimes I indulge myself in some way that I rarely do on other days, but not in general.

My parents always send me a gift and a card. This year the gift was a wonderful cookbook… 200 curries? It looks fabulous.

In truth birthdays are only special for people with families that they live with I think.

I threw myself a good party on my 30th, and a good party on my 50th.

Sometimes people say, “What are your plans for your birthday?” or “Have a wonderful time on your birthday!”

In truth it is just another day.

I had a beer and a piece of cheesecake. Last Friday I had a better beer and a piece of cheesecake. I have been thinking about Sushi for weeks. I got paid today. I could go get sushi. If I take grading with me, I can perhaps get something done, and have something to do, while eating.

I was talking to Noelle this afternoon. She was musing on who takes care of the childless when they are old, as we have mutual friends who are childless couples. My answer: friends or strangers. If you have children it may well be friends or strangers too, but with feelings of guilt and abandonment added. In addition in a childless couple one may get taken care of by the other, and that other then has to shoulder that as well as often being alone afterwards. Then there was that study, reported in the New York Times, on how over 20% of married women who get brain cancer or MS are divorced by their husbands within a year of diagnosis. The reciprocal rate for men who were diagnosed and then divorced? 3%

There are distinct advantages to being single and unencumbered. If I were to develop a serious illness I will not need to worry about being abandoned on top of it.

Meanwhile, I am free to celebrate my birthday, or not, as I so choose.

I am going out with friends tomorrow, two of my fellow faculty (the gray haired ladies of the department) and their husbands. Tomorrow is one of my colleagues birthdays.

My only caveat to all of this is when people expect me to DO something for my birthday, and then express… sympathy? Or insist that I MUST do something If I don’t have plans. It rather makes me wish that I were the only one who knew when my birthday was (aside from my parents of course). It makes me feel like they think that I am deficient or sort of pathetic.

My colleague just called to tell me when and where we are meeting tomorrow. Her husband is a picky eater, so we have settled on a close but not very inspiring bar/pizza place before the play. My colleague sighed and said “you have an advantage being single”.

Yes, I get to do what I want, eat what I prefer, and celebrate or not depending on what I need to do.

Today is my birthday! Happy Birthday to me!

Reproduction

I was reading an article in the NYT about the well over a million dollar cost of a pair of IVF twins with complications, and how this is not terribly uncommon with IVF babies. This often ends up as cost to our health care system that we all end up subsidizing directly or indirectly. Now I happen to like children, and when I was young I always assumed that I would have some. Such is not the case. If I had been married and unable to have kids I MIGHT have adopted, but then again maybe not. As a single woman, nurturing kittens and my garden sometimes seems like too much work. I cannot imagine the extra stresses of a child under these conditions, no matter what the joys. Several studies have indicated that people without children are happier than those with. On top of that, there are waaay too many humans on this planet.

So, in a curmudgeonly fit I wrote this comment in to the NYT:

"I am a childless woman, and not childless by choice, who truly does not understand why my fellow women think that having a child is so critically important. So I am going to be a curmudgeon here. We are not short of people, or even babies, in this world. I don't think that extraordinary ways to produce a child should ever be subsidized. The ability to reproduce links us with cockroaches not the things that make humans unique. If you cannot have a child with any biological ease and you MUST nurture something because you are hardwired or socially ingrained that way, adopt, get a puppy, or learn how to transcend your animal desire to have a child. Being childless is not the end of the world. There are plenty of people who CAN have a child who will do so and raise their kids well. They will do the job nicely for those of us that can't or simply don't due to life's vagaries.

If you can't feel self worth if you can't be a mother you need help."



I wonder how many incensed replies I will get.

The meaning of Life

I should not be writing this down now as I am writing exams, but Diana jogged my memory. So here it is.

I grew up largely ignorant of popular music. It was pretty much in college that I discovered the rock and roll standards. I bought Pink Floyd, Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin and The Rolling Stones, soaking it all up my freshman year. I borrowed a tape of a late Beatles collection from a friend and listened to it late at night and I dreamed....

......I dreamed that The Beatles, or some of them at least, played a concert. Perhaps John wasn’t there, was he already dead? After the concert, when the audience was gone, I went backstage, and there was George, waiting for me. He took me out a back way to a sunny terraced garden, full of flowers, and he looked hard at me and told me the things I would need to know in life, the ways and secrets. I suddenly realized I was dreaming and I was horrified. What he was telling me was so very profound and important! I would forget it as soon as I woke up! I scrabbled around for a something to write with and scribbled down the meaning of life and the secrets to living it well with a stub of a pencil on a fragment of paper. George patiently repeated and waited while I wrote. When we were done I clutched the paper tightly in my hand, and awoke fingers gripped in a tight fist around nothing.

The secrets were lost.

Critical Thinking

I have seen all 400 some students twice through so far... 370 some of them again tomorrow, then drive off to Edison New Jersey.

I'm tired.

I have some interested and interesting students. The campus is crowded. Enrollment is up. I have already had students in my office hours, and have already have a handful just walk in outside of my office hours. I have put up a sign asking students to please respect office hours, or to set up an appointment. If they continue to wander in randomly I'm going to be in trouble. How will I manage my lab, make sure my lectures are prepped, my homework assignments, quizzes, and tests written and graded if some percent of my 400+ students wander in to "just ask a question" randomly throughout the day? Something tells me that this is going to be a hard term.

I have been talking about science and the scientific method to all my freshmen (around 330) and assorted other people, students and not. I am tired right now, so this will probably be less than coherent. I may edit it later. I am one of those people who goes back and edits posts.

I was reading somewhere that we scientists are doing people a disservice by being too politically correct and not promoting evidence-based information and critical thinking for fear of offending people's belief systems.

The public is largely uninformed about the scientific method and how to sort the good (well-founded and researched) information from the bad (opinions without evidential support).

If you don't know the difference than all become equal and distinguished only by emotion and belief. Emotion and belief can be powerful forces for good, yes, but also for ill.

We used to have a good non-majors class at my Unversity that I helped design and teach. We abandoned it just this year due to lack of personel to teach it, organize it and financial support. It was a science course for non-majors and thousands of students took it every year. We would teach over 30 sectios of it every term. In any case in the part I designed I had a section on science vs pseudoscience.

Science is based on trying to understand and explain natural phenomena. Pseudoscience is anything that tries to pass itself off as science but does not meet all the criteria that science meets.

A scientific statement is testable. It always has the possibility of being wrong. To be accepted by the majority of scientists it needs to be repeatedly tested. It should be tested in many ways with as many alternative explanations as possible accounted for. Many scientific tests involve controls. Control groups are the same as the tested group with the exception of the variable tested. In medicine, double-blind testing is typically employed so that neither the patient nor the scientist making observation has any idea whther the patient is in the test (placebo) group or control. There have been some very interesting studies of dramatic effects caused by things other than what you think you are testing. Red pills may work better than blue pills, pills that are thought to be expensive work better than pills that are thought to be cheap. Pills work better than no pills. All of this involving pills with no active ingredients.

So, how do you tell good science from pseudoscience?

Real Science:
Has logical explanations that are based on what we know about the real world.
Is testable, and can be shown to be wrong or can be supported.
Has been tested, using substantial different trials, and well controlled studies, which possibilities of bias removed as much as is possible.
Rarely makes large claims (for example, a good new cholesterol drug may lower cholesterol 10%)
Is verifiable through studies published in good scientific peer reviewed journals.
If it is about something ingested, it has been approved by the FDA.
It is easy to look up the scientists and research institutions that have studied it.

Pseudoscience:
Does not admit to the possibility of being wrong.
Relies on testimonials instead of scientific studies.
Is not easy to find data about (numbers, study results).
Makes wild claims (Always works! 100%, miraclulous!)
Appeals to emotion, not reason
Does not have approval from FDA or other independent testing agency.
Often claims “leading scientists” or “Space age technology” or “ancient Chinese wisdom” or some such, but sources are not identifiable or clear.
Often wants money up front.

Fall term 2009

Tomorrow the new term starts. This term I have over 400 students in 4 lecture classes. My University has recently been reclassified as an Urban Research University, and we are under pressure to do more research and publish more. I have 3 undergrad researchers and 2 or three grad students in my lab, and my Dean did not even know that I have a research program. I have the heaviest teaching load in my department, I think it is even more than the full time temp we have who only teaches. The PTBs in my department have little or no respect for me in spite of the fact that I have probably the best research training in my department. Indeed my research goes very, very slowly. It is hard to keep the lab and it’s members functional when I am tied up in classes like I am.

Nonetheless, I am looking forward to the start of the term. Our enrollment is substantially up, we have students who have transferred in from excellent private schools all over the country. State schools are benefiting from this economic downturn on the student front. The State is cutting our funds of course. Oh well. No silver lining lacks a cloud.

I hope that this year my students will want to learn. Maybe this year the majority will study. Perhaps this year they won’t be angry that I cannot somehow inject them with the information and problem solving skills that they seem to expect simply from paying tuition.

I look forward to the bright, motivated students that I will meet this year!