I am thrilled to hear of your interest. In response to your questions I’d like to add the following regarding my work philosophy:I was primarily trained in the school of “useless exercises created to crush your soul, numb your brain and send you into a bout of depression induced binge eating and napping”. My training, as such, includes the ability to cry while typing, justify a “30 minute nap” after thinking very hard about my desperate desire to quit, use alcohol, tobacco and savory treats as motivation to write 3 to 4 sentences at a time (including sentences such as “Moreover, this paper is bullshit and I resent having to write it”). I have gained the ability to write up to 25 pages of words that make little sense, are soley superficial, with which I do not agree or even understand, and turn it in with little regard to judgment by others (though I promote tearful self loathing after). This philisophical underpinning to my work points to my belief that truth, intellectual capacity and innovation, preparation, and mutual respect are in fact the downfall of academic success and should have no influence on output.

My facilitates are quite high tech. Should you hire me you would have access to such motivational materials as: the use of 30 rock quotes to remind us that all gods children are evil, the frequent singing of “soft kitty” (both solo and in a round), the use of a full database of quotes, youtube videos, and cartoons to indicate the level of desperation you are suffering, and most importantly a helper tortoise who will provide you with pictures of ennui, will poo on demand, and attempt to eat a shoe for your amusement.

My work ethic is strong. I will frequently take breaks without informing you that include falling asleep for 30-60 minutes even though its night, Frequent exclamations of poo emergencies, and the more than occasional whining about my own pathetic life in a box. I will willingly describe the smell of coffee coming off my dirty skirt that should have been washed anyway but now has a coffee stain that I dried with a hair dryer a few minutes ago. I will express my jealousy over your access to cake and openly discuss the snot balls I’m collecting. I will consistently be here to provide you with the distraction your ADD requires and am so devoted to the project that should the need arise I will allow you to discuss my boobs and ass.

I hope you find these responses sufficient.
thank you for your lack of attention
Just_me

Thank you for your consideration,
person wondering if she should have sucked the coffee off her skirt before blow drying it in order to preserve the caffeine.

I’ve got no money so I can’t really leave the campus. So this has lead to my many fantastic attempts at making my own fun.

one thing I’ve noticed when wandering around campus every day is that I live very close to the medical school. The school looks very much like the titanic. I can see it out my window at night, lights on at all hours, sorta looming over my dorm.

So lately I’ve taken to going on walks after dark to spy on the med students. Why is that you ask? Well, I noticed one day that the students practice on mannequins.

I realize that these are all high tech and provide actual responses to the procedures of the students. Thing is, when you’re bored and broke and too old to yell anus out the window, watching someone stand in a well lit room and talk to a mannequin with fake compassion in their eyes is really really entertaining. I think I even saw one girl offer the mannequin a glass of water. hahahaha. Ah yes, I’m probably as mature as those kids that were yelling Anus out the window but in my defense I was an only child. We’re supposed to do weird things like this.

1. doing dishes and brushing my teeth at the same time.
2. drying my dishes in the shower.
3. Leaving milk and OJ on the window sill with it slightly cracked so that it acts like a refrigerator.
4. housing my food next to my school books next to my pots and pans next to my bottle of liquor next to the french press I got so I can make coffee in my room (yay british stand alone kettles!) next to my sweaters.
5. keeping my fork, knife, and spoon in one of the 2 cups I own next to the dish soap under the bathroom mirror… along with my tooth brush, toothpaste, deodorant and other bathroom products.
6. sticking with cup o noodle like products because they are cheap but more importantly can be stored in my room since there is no space on the half shelf I get in the communal refrigerator.
7. spilling boiling water on my phone and computer and bed all at the same time while trying to pour the kettle water into the cup-o-noodle like product.
8. using boxes as makeshift drawers to store my undergarments, tank tops, and T-shirts.
9. counting the springs in the cot style mattress on my bed while trying to fall asleep.
10. using my comforter as an egg crate like product and my coat as a comforter.

In reality I have very little to complain about. Got the internet to work, have a place to sleep, generally have access to a kitchen, and am in a perfect location for accessing the campus and the town… not to mention the train to London. It is sorta funny though.. but I guess I’ve always lived a reasonably “student” like lifestyle. So as I sit here listening to the drunken undergrads across the street yell obscenities out their window and contemplate getting my dirty clothes to the launderette in the middle of campus without allowing my underwear to fall all over the giant hill I have to climb tomorrow, I’m still thinking I’m pretty happy to be here.

Introducing: Slydial!

“What’s Slydial” you say? Well I first discovered it as an iphone app later to find out it has its own website for those without the obnoxious need to be online all the time.  This little site of gold allows users to dial directly to someones voice mail without their phone ringing! Thats right! You can call your mother’s voice mail and act as though she never answered the phone. This way you can avoid a conversation while maintaining a straight face hen you later say ” No! really I called!”. What more could you want?!

Now the site seems to be selling it as some sort of alternative to text messaging.. but lets be realistic…. thats not what its used for. You know this was created by someone who is either a hermit or hates the phone. Don’t want to get into a long conversation with your brother but feel obligated to wish him a happy birthday? Slydial! Your boss ask you about a meeting that afternoon and don’t feel like attending.. Just slydial and say you couldn’t understand the message… by the time its received you’ll be busy with other projects! AMAZING! You’ll come out looking like you don’t have those anti-social tendencies your therapist and teachers told your parents you had. Thats right. SLYDIAL! better than Prozac and Xanax combined!

some people thought the slap chop was the best invention in the world, others the sham wow, and others the snuggie.. but I say this trumps any informercial creation and/or avoidance tactic you might have developed growing up. SLYDIAL RULES!

Try it here! You can even download the app.

Study Reveals Graduate Students Prone to Depression

Reality blues

Depression and Graduate School: A Slide Show

Grad School Fosters Depression; How to Fight It

I hesitate to say that we all have a psychopathology of some sort, diagnosed or not. The same psychopathology that makes us successful researchers and academics, draws us further into a narrow world that most can’t understand and exist in. This manifests itself in several ways. There’s the drinker, the player, the power monger, the hermit, the cynic and the comedian. We’re not all of the same crazy you see. All in all, however, these different manifestations make for extra interesting conferences.

Don’t get me wrong. I can’t imagine myself anywhere but the world of academia. Its insanity but its the mental ward I know.  I wonder at the same time if these are simply compounded psychopathologies developed throughout our life. Those that provide us with the perspective through which academia is a necessary means to communicate our thoughts. We focus on it as an idea, an outlet, and upon arrival find ourselves left with not much more than work and potentially a large case of impostors syndrome to add to the mix. Impostors syndrome is one that deserves its own entry so I’ll leave it at that.

I think I was almost lucky to have been forced to embrace my own psychopathology early. Extenuating circumstances made it so. At the same time, moving into the world of academia held a likeness to the movie ‘running with scissors’ that I thought only my childhood could. Perhaps it was my University, not a big name school and not much funding. Or perhaps it was the Program, unorganized and confused as to the definition of interdisciplinary. Or maybe it was the faculty, with their inferiority complexes and overcompensation in ways that have little to do with publishing. Or maybe it is just a graduate school universal, I can’t be sure (though its likely the later).

One isn’t capable or willing to be so focused and isolated for no reason.  Its socially acceptable self destructive behavior that leads to a combination of symptoms that is simply seen as a normal response to pressure. I equate it with high functioning alcoholism. Friends and family watch us self destruct, go broke, socially isolate, alienate loved ones, and horde papers, but figure we find it worth it for the status or what not that comes with a  post graduate degree. I suppose I am wondering if thats actually the case. Are we all really just in need of an intervention?

and for the friend that prompted this post: The Grad Student Crisis Line

So did you hear the news? your baby can understand your dog. Clearly they’re conspiring against you. I’m pretty sure they’re discussing who will pee on the floor and who will pee right on mommy…

Check out this latest installment of FUN! with research!

Six-month-old babies can match the sounds of happy and angry barks to pictures of happy and angry dogs. (Credit: Image courtesy of Brigham Young University)

ScienceDaily (July 20, 2009) — New research shows babies have a handle on the meaning of different dog barks – despite little or no previous exposure to dogs.

Infants just 6 months old can match the sounds of an angry snarl and a friendly yap to photos of dogs displaying threatening and welcoming body language.

The new findings come on the heels of a study from the same Brigham Young University lab showing that infants can detect mood swings in Beethoven’s music.

Though the mix of dogs and babies sounds silly, experiments of this kind help us understand how babies learn so rapidly. Long before they master speech, babies recognize and respond to the tone of what’s going on around them.

“Emotion is one of the first things babies pick up on in their social world,” said BYU psychology professor Ross Flom, lead author of the study.

Flom and two BYU students report their latest “amazing baby” findings in the journal Developmental Psychology.

“We chose dogs because they are highly communicative creatures both in their posture and the nature of their bark,” Flom said.

In the experiment, the babies first saw two different pictures of the same dog, one in an aggressive posture and the other in a friendly stance. Then the researchers played – in random order – sound clips of a friendly and an aggressive dog bark.

“They only had one trial because we didn’t want them to learn it on the fly and figure it out,” Flom said.

While the recordings played, the 6-month-old babies spent most of their time staring at the appropriate picture. Older babies usually made the connection instantly with their very first glance.

Study co-authors Dan Hyde and Heather Whipple Stephenson conducted the experiments as undergrads and don’t recall any babies getting upset.

“Many of them enjoyed it,” said Hyde. “Others just looked.”

“Infants are pretty cooperative subjects,” Stephenson added.

The mentored research experience helped Hyde and Stephenson secure spots at prestigious grad schools. Hyde is currently at Harvard working toward a Ph.D. in developmental psychology. Fellow co-author Heather Whipple Stephenson recently completed a master’s degree in educational psychology at the University of Minnesota.

“With this study, my favorite part was watching a somewhat zany idea grow into a legitimate research project,” Stephenson said.

Brigham Young University (2009, July 20). Babies Understand Dogs. ScienceDaily. Retrieved July 20, 2009, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2009/07/090720163559.htm