From where I left off two days ago, further uncommon customs include holding doors for an unneeded extended period of time, cleaning my ears with q-tips exorbitantly, staring at other people and avoiding cracks in the ground when walking. I'm not sure what the appropriate distance or time to hold a door is, but I would surmise if it is more then three seconds or the person hurries forward, it's too long. My current trend of ear cleaning does not approach what I once did, but I still do it needlessly. The cause may have been when my mom cleaned my ears as a child I indicated areas to be cleaned that felt good and not the areas covered in wax. Staring may be the result of several factors: staring back at those I believe who are already staring at me; a hesitation to speak to someone I had or have briefly known; finding something of interest about the person; and a desire to make conversation with someone, but unable to determine how to approach them. It is not a usual practice to refrain from stepping on cracks and I am in no regards superstitious; that would be silly. Walking can be rather uninteresting so I sometimes take it upon myself to without striking others as walking queerly.
With that out of the way, pulling it back two Fridays ago, while picking up pizzas on my way home from school my mom had ordered, she text messaged me that from her last visit at the restaurant she judged that the girl at the cash register was attractive and that I should hit on her. I was bewildered because for one thing she is my mother and it was unexpected she would say such a thing. Hitting on girls has never been my style; I would rather get to know them gradually. Sadly, a hypothesis I came across said that after first impressions girls make a decision if a male is a potential boyfriend or just a friend. Once that is done it is difficult to move from the friend zone into the other. This would explain why very few girls have ever appeared remotely interested in me. Furthermore, I haven't had a girlfriend in five years and have not indicated a strong desire to change that. My medical conditions hinder much of my functioning, including starting a relationship. When or if I become less afflicted I may casually date but I am not bound and determined to ever marry. I take a dim view of a woman ever wanting to be with me.
Last Tuesday the outcome of the previous Abnormal exam were handed back; I was throughly disappointed with the grade I earned. Even with additional effort the score was nearly identical to the the preceding test. The secret of how to succeed in that class has not been revealed for me. I speculate my predicament is the difference what expectations have taught me is important and what is on the test. I'm not going to beat around the bush; I have a passionate loathing of my Abnormal Behavior professor. There are numerous reasons why. For starters, he is considerably condescending. In one class we watched a video of a patient in a mental hospital. He remarked beforehand that every year students attest the patient is not mentally ill. When one student gave a fairly convincing argument, he responded with simple amusement, not directly acknowledging her assertion. I find particular actions he does to be demeaning and irritating. The class before an exam he hands out phony money for “luck”. He says his message is to not rely on luck to perform well. On the first day of class he wore a pin with a beaver on it and indicated that around exam time he would be wearing it to show he was an “eager beaver” to help us. Comments such as “You're all ignoring all the tricks intelligent people do” is insulting. His approach to the class is very narrow minded; his direction is almost entirely on the case study book assigned for the class. What I find wrong with the case study book is that the vast majority of the cases have no medication used; this does not reflect the current trend in treatment for these disorders. I inquired him concerning this and his support for the implementation of the book into the curriculum was that the studies were well researched and respected. Despite this, as with science classes it is important to utilize the most update to date material to prevent students from getting the wrong idea about the subject at hand. If it were me, I would at minimum use a modern case study alongside it. I suspect he brings little attention to medication because of his clear objection to it. Every article he has assigned or given involved a scandal in the pharmaceutical industry. His feelings toward hospitalization are apparent also; every reading is clearly against it and like the case study book are far from recent. His expertise is the history of psychology, not abnormal behavior, which explains his preference toward older information. To be fair, we all have biases, but deliberately failing to give a balanced argument in a classroom setting is askew. His test questions can often be obscure and frankly hardly at all related to the purpose of the class. The author's writing style in the novel mentioned beforehand has nothing to do with abnormal behavior. In a book full of accusations and word salad he will pick one in particular that holds no significance over any other and expects you to remember trivial details related to it. Finally, he ridicules the patients in the case studies book, laughing at them and characterizing them as “crazy”. I find this to be completely unprofessional and distasteful. To not be completely negative, his reading assignments are customarily interesting as are the videos he presents in class.
This semester I took an independent study on perception which entailed being a research assistant for a senior student's honors thesis; in actuality I was solely a participant. By any means, we finished the experiment some weeks ago and the student has been working on finishing her thesis. I mentioned two weeks prior that I had discovered from a test and experience that I was yellow-green colorblind. In my psychology class in high school I had taken a test where you look at a picture that has a number in it. Tests such as these are used to assess sensitive to areas of light. The only number I could not see was in the yellow/green picture, as did others in the class. As I was playing a puzzle game a few months later I found it difficult to distinguish the yellow and green blocks, yet the people around me were able to distinguish the two without a problem. Seeing that the experiment involved perception, it was necessary to include such information in her thesis. To check this, the professor in charge had me complete the Fransworth-Munsell 100-Hue Test for Color Vision. The test consists of dividing the color spectrum into four and in each section putting the colors in an order that shows the gradual change from each end of the section. For example, for one section at one end had yellow and at the other end had green. The colors in between would gradual go to either end. Each color was placed on top of a glass object with a number written on the back that signified the actual order. I was astonished to find that the only section I completed perfectly was the yellow/green section. This may have been because I expected to do poorly so I was compelled to be more cautious then on the other sections. Furthermore, my perception of color is nearly perfect. The section I did the poorest on was the blue/pink section, but keeping in mind that it was the last section I completed, that may have been from fatigue. Amusingly enough, while I was driving home that day after a rain shower ended a rainbow appeared in the distance.
No comments:
Post a Comment