Les Bonnes Choses

I'm teaching an intro to stats and research methods class this year, the former Psychology 282. A significant chunk of the marks for the course come from carrying out a little research project. Nothing ground-breaking, mind you. Just a little something to give the kids a chance to think about how to turn questions into experiments and run some numbers. I've TA'd the course in the past, so when it came time to write up the syllabus, I was tempted to include a requirement that the research topics cannot, in any way, have anything to do with self-esteem. When I first TA'd the course, I found every third research project I had to mark was titled something along the lines of blah blah blah and its effect on self esteem.

I was doing pretty well this year too. I had seen 7 of 9 proposals, and the only problem I had come across was one of my students was proposing to panhandle in North Toronto while wearing one of three different outfits. He said his dependent variable was going to be the amount of money he was able to collect in a day, though perhaps a more interesting thing to record would be whether he would be able to go the day without being curb stomped by a gang of thugs. Unfortunately for me, the streak ended at proposal number eight, which was indeed a self-esteem experiment. Even worse, she proposed testing whether viewing photographs of attractive models and actresses would lower women's self-esteem scores. Hmmm, do you think?

While I was waiting to hear back from the Department of Obvious Research on what they thought of the matter, I decided to find out how many times this particular experiment had been done. It seems there are several authors out there who really should have had someone like me to tell them that conducting trite research with foregone conclusions will only get you mocked in somebody's blog. However, because I am currently applying for academic jobs, I will refrain from naming any names, just in case somebody knows somebody who happens to do a google search.

My advice to the student was to throw in another factor that might interact with the body-image/self-esteem effect, just to make it even the least bit more interesting. She of course is free to do the experiment she proposed, but I suggested to her that, because there is no shortage of articles detailing the exact experiment she proposed, I would be holding her to very high standards. Even now, I'm considering just requiring her to come up with a more interesting idea.

I just read the following signature line, which I thought was funny enough to remark on:

Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes.

Anyways, my worst suspicions about Jude were confirmed this evening. I made a fruit smoothie for him because he didn't want to eat the pancakes I made for dinner (don't judge, we got home late. Besides, who the hell ever heard of a kid who won't eat pancakes for dinner?) Jude didn't want any smoothie either. So I told Jude I was giving the smoothie to Kesswick (his teddy bear). Jude then gets up, takes the glass and drinks the smoothie. When he was finished, he was sure to go up to Kesswick and tell him that he had drunk all of it.

I like the om nom nom eating meme. It makes me happy. I also apologize in advance for the paucity of humour in this entry, and for the use of the word 'paucity'.

Right now, I'm in the final four weeks of my PhD, basically just waiting for my defense date to come around, and I'm busier now than I have been at any time in the last 6 years. I'm just about to start up an fMRI experiment (for the second time), and am trying to figure out some software that psychology researchers use to model how the brain works. That's two pretty hefty projects that I am sort of obliged to follow through on because I have been making reference to them in my job applications, the process of which is almost a job in itself.

In addition to the above academia-related obligations, I also have obligations to Jude's preschool. This evening I was there scrubbing down toys because children are notorious harborers of plagues. I might add, however, that I actually enjoyed my time cleaning toys with a few other parents, which makes me wonder if perhaps I need to get out a bit more. On top of that, I have taken on the challenge of building the website for the preschool because they had let their previous and shoddy one lapse. I will create a new, less shoddy website.

And finally, this past weekend, I passed my M1 exit road test, so I am now a licensed M2 motorcycle driver, just in time for today's snow squall warning. It was a really good class, I learned alot, and would recommend it to anyone. Actually, if it weren't so expensive, I'd recommend it to any driver because it really hammers home the importance of paying attention while driving, which I'm afraid most of us don't do enough of most of the time. There'd be a lot fewer accidents if everyone drive as if their lives depended on it.

One funny side effect of all this learning I've been doing lately: today on the bus, some guy got on carrying a UWO course book for some senior level philosophy course. For some bizarre reason, I felt anxiety because it occurred to me that I knew nothing about whatever that book was about. I think I have some issues to work through.

I don't know if I've written about this story before now -- I may well have, but I can't be bothered to go back and check, and in any case, it's just a preamble to the follow-up:

Shortly after we moved into this house 5 years ago, we had our immediate families over for our first New Year's day lunch. An hour into our lunch, our doorbell rang. It was my next door neighbour, and, as I had never met him, my introduction to him was by way of his complaining that he did "not want the street in front of [his] house to be a parking lot for my friends". Now, bear in mind that we live in the circular part of a court that has no island. That means that everyone in the court, for all intents and purposes, has a parking lot in front of their house. I suppose I could pace it off and do some math to figure out how much parking space we have available, but it should suffice to say that it is quite ample, and that he should have no concern for the ability of any of his house guests to find parking. An aside: in the last 5 years, I have observed that he seldom has guests. I should also point out that we also seldom have people over, let alone regularly parking in front of his house. The take away message here is that, from the moment I met my neighbour, I could only conclude that he is an ass with a bizarre territoriality that extends to the public roadway in front of his house.

This past fall, he had his driveway sealed. As one often does, he parked his van on the street in front of his house while the sealant was curing. It's been well over a month. He still parks his van in front of his house. Now, I don't want to give OCD a bad name, but this guy gets up in the morning, moves his van from his garage on to the street in front of his house, where it sits all day long like a sentry. Then, before he goes to bed, he moves his car back into his garage for the night.

I guess all this is to say that I live next to an idiot.

I'm on pace with my buddy Karen, as we both have our dissertations in on time for an end-of-term senate defense. My date is tentatively set for Wednesday, November 26. If you're free in the afternoon, and want to hear what the hell I've been doing with myself for the last couple of years, stop by the Social Science Building for my public lecture at 1:00. Three hours after that, I should hopefully receive the "well done, now get the hell out of here" handshake from Ken, at which point, everyone retires to the Grad Club for beverages.

By this time, the people at NSERC should have my postdoctoral fellowship application. I think it's much better this year than it was last year, which is good because this is my last shot at getting it. No sooner had I mailed off my NSERC application than I began revising my various statements of interest that I will be using for upcoming job applications. I think those are much better as well. I've learned that I have to be more than a little sophisticated when it comes to applying for academic positions. I'm not sure if I really appreciated that last year when I was applying, or if I was really that naive.

Anyways, everyone here is on notice: I wear a size 42 jacket. Brown with beige suede elbow patches will be fine. For my pipe, I think I would like cherry tobacco. I don't really know. I don't smoke, so when I take up pipe-smoking as an affectation, it should be interesting. My side project next year will be to see if I can get any cool swag from those anti-smoking groups who offer prizes for quitting.

Every time I hear talk about the $700 Billion "Rescue Package" recently passed by the US government, I think about this regular feature from this popular children's cartoon. If you're familiar with the cartoon, I hope this happens to you now, too, because it's really funny to imagine the song interjected everytime they talk about the financial bailout on the evening news.

I received in my UWO mailbox a birthday card for Pokey from Amy. Because the card crossed the border, it was subject to search by Canadian customs agents. I gather this, because it was already partly opened. Unfortunately, the technique used to open the envelope also damaged the card. They suck. But thanks for the card, Amy! And keep on working on that sweater. It's bad luck to fail to finish a project once you've begun.

I couldn't help it. I had to use my photoshop skills for the greater good. So without further ado, I present my contribution to the US presidential race.



I hereby give permission to freely distribute it.

I'm currently on hold with Rogers, as I attempt to find out exactly what will happen to the 15% discount I am enjoying should I choose not to commit to a 2 year contract with them for the services they provide...

...sorry. Got interrupted by a Rogers service agent. As it turns out, if you have 4 services with them (we have phone, cable, wireless and internet) and you tell them that it would be stupid to sign on to a 2-year contract because you expect to move, thereby breaking the contract, you will be in (and I quote), "a unique situation", and an exception can be made. This is good because I would have taken little pleasure in alerting the Philipina-sounding woman on the other end of the line to the reality that some idiot business grad working for Rogers, making probably 20 times her salary was responsible for a decision that was the ultimate cause of me ceasing to be a Rogers customer, and she was going to have to deal with it. Believe me, it is demoralizing to work for people whose judgment you find lacking.

In other news, I tossed out the bridesmaid's bouquet of callow lillies that Rebecca brought home from Heather's wedding (which I realize I have not blogged about yet). It was sitting in water on the table, but the petals were starting to drop off as the flowers died, and I learned that dying callow lillies start to smell like dead fish. I hope Heather's bouquet is doing well. It was saved especially for my aunt Kathy, who was unable to attend, but holds a special fondness for bridal bouquets, as does one of Heather's bridesmaids, Lila, who went to an adjacent reception hall during the evening (The Old Mill having been converted from a flour mill to a wedding mill during its restoration) and caught the bouquet there.