Yeah, sorry about not posting. My life has been the busiest, fullest, and hardest this semester that it ever has been in my entire academic career (don't discount it just because I'm only 22 years old-- I've still spent 18 years in school...and it is most certainly a career!!). And it's only going to get busier in the next few weeks. I decided to update as a reward for a job well done on the 401 debate today. I was so nervous that I read my 4-minute part in about 2 1/2 minutes, and my hands were shaking so badly I had a hard time reading the paper (it didn't help that I didn't have my glasses on either). But I think I spoke pretty clearly, and the other team only had one question about my part of the presentation, so I take that to mean that I did a pretty good job covering the material and backing it up with research. (Just in case you're wondering, the assignment was to come up with a proposal for a "new" SAT-type test for college admissions, or defend the SAT as it stands now. My team chose to combine the two and take parts of the SAT and add culturally and gender unbiased portions to level the playing field and a motivational measure.) Anyway, I'm glad that's over and done with.
I changed my mind about grad schools. I'm no longer going to apply to PsyD programs. Instead, I'm going to get a Masters in Social Work. I'll have to explain why some other time, because I should be getting back to work now.
Umm....I think that's about all that's been going on in my life recently. My internship is going amazingly-- I really could see myself working with early intervention programs in the future. I'm conducting research on imitation and intention in infants (18-36 months old) as part of one of my classes, and my participants will be coming from the kids I work with. Conducting my own original research is kind of a scary thing. It makes me feel old. I decided on a final paper topic for my Community Psychology class. I'll be researching Down's Syndrome and exploring how socioeconomic status (basically, wealth) mediates the outcomes of children with Down's Syndrome. I chose this topic because in my playgroup there are two children around the same age (I think around 18 months) with Down's Syndrome. One, a boy, comes from a middle-upper class family. He goes to Boston for medical treatments (Down's Syndrome kids usually have a bunch of heart and other problems as well as cognitive delays), and has had a very rigorous therapy schedule (5 days a week) since he was an infant. He can walk, grip things with his thumb and pointer finger, and communicate what he needs/wants fairly well, although he cannot talk yet. He's also the sweetest child I think I've ever met. The other child, a girl, comes from a poor family. She was adopted, and lives with adult "siblings", one of which is also mentally retarded. She just moved into the area, and is just now starting to get physical and cognitive therapy. She spends most of her time being carried around by her mentally challenged brother, who holds her much like a child carries a doll (grabbed with both arms around her stomach, with the girl's back against his stomach). She stays there passively until he decides to put her down (because she's a very heavy child). She just learned how to crawl, and has absolutely no vocalizations, other than to cry when she's upset. She can't grasp things, point to things, and has no interest in playing with either toys or people. The contrast between the two kids is so striking. So I'm going to research it. I'm actually kind of excited to start researching. (I feel so nerdy for admitting that!)
Okay, the bells just tolled 10PM, so I should go. I have to read a whole book for tomorrow's Middle Ages class (but it's bipaginated, so I only have to read half of it really....at least, that's what I'm telling myself). It has one page in the original medieval Spanish, and the opposite page is in English. If I had more time, I'd try to read the Spanish, but since I haven't had a good night's sleep in over 2 weeks, I'll save that struggle for Christmas break. After I finish all my applications and send them. And sleep. A lot.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Hey Look! I'm Updating!
I have a response paper due in an hour, so naturally I haven't started the reading yet. Instead, I found a quote in some reading due today for a different class that I really really like, so I thought I'd share it on here. The reading was for my Clinical and Community Psychology class, and it was a chapter taken from a book called "The View in Winter" by Ronald Blythe. It's a bunch of short stories written by people in their 80s and 90s, basically around the theme of "being old." The quote is this: "Children love the old. They love grandparents with special love because they are immoveable. Mother isn't. Father is always disappearing. But Grandpa is stationary. It is very satisfying when a child finds out that Grandpa is there and that he doesn't move."
I started the playgroup in Williamstown yesterday morning. There were 11 kids there ranging in age from 1-3. This is a group for community kids, not necessarily those who are being seen by the agency that runs the program, so there are kids with special needs and also non-special needs ones there. I say "non-special needs" only because I realized I'm lacking the term I want. I don't want to call them "normal" because that would imply that the other kids aren't normal. Hmm. "Non-special needs" it is then. Anyway, the kids were so cute! It made me miss playing with Charlotte. There's one little boy who has the most awesome name ever, but I'm not sure how much I'm allowed to talk about these kids, so I won't put it up until I find out on Monday. Let's just say it gave me a good laugh, and then I wondered what possessed this mother to call her child that. He's a really sweet kid though-- one of the few to start playing with me right away. Tomorrow morning I get to go on a home visit at 8AM in Adams. I think I'll have to leave here no later than 7:30. And then I'll be helping out with the cognitive swim group at the YMCA at 10! It's been 80 degrees here the past few days, but I shudder to think of getting in the water in November and December. Actually, getting in probably won't be the problem--I won't want to get back out in the cold!
Speaking of cold, the leaves on the trees are already turning red and gold and falling off. I keep meaning to take pictures because I love Fall, but so far I've forgotten to take my camera with me to class. I'm going to put it in my schoolbag tonight though. Williams looks so beautiful when all the leaves have turned colors!
I'm slowly starting to collect things for grad school applications. I've already gotten the "so...what are you doing after graduation?" question more times than I can count in the past two weeks, which is making me nervous. I don't like not having all my ducks lined in a row, and for the first time in a while, they look like a scatterplot with no correlation. (Oh boy that makes me sound nerdy.) I'm setting everything up as though I'm going to grad school next fall, but (a) I don't know where I'm applying yet, and (b) I'm still not sure I want to go right away. I'm also considering taking a year-long pre-doctoral internship or a research position somewhere to get more experience (and money) before committing to 5-7 years of grad school. At least I know what field I want to go into. I know people who are taking LSATs because they don't know what to do and a law degree can get you a wide range of good-paying jobs. The Career Counselling people told us the other day that 80% of Williams grads go to graduate school. I'm convinced (from looking at what kind of jobs are hiring here) that the rest of them work for JP Morgan or on Wall Street. Actually, JP Morgan has begun recruiting Williams seniors on Facebook. What is the world coming to?
Anyway, I definitely won't need to be worrying about jobs and grad schools if I don't pass this semester, so I should get back to my Cog Dev readings. Oh Williams. I had almost forgotten what not sleeping felt like. Almost.
I started the playgroup in Williamstown yesterday morning. There were 11 kids there ranging in age from 1-3. This is a group for community kids, not necessarily those who are being seen by the agency that runs the program, so there are kids with special needs and also non-special needs ones there. I say "non-special needs" only because I realized I'm lacking the term I want. I don't want to call them "normal" because that would imply that the other kids aren't normal. Hmm. "Non-special needs" it is then. Anyway, the kids were so cute! It made me miss playing with Charlotte. There's one little boy who has the most awesome name ever, but I'm not sure how much I'm allowed to talk about these kids, so I won't put it up until I find out on Monday. Let's just say it gave me a good laugh, and then I wondered what possessed this mother to call her child that. He's a really sweet kid though-- one of the few to start playing with me right away. Tomorrow morning I get to go on a home visit at 8AM in Adams. I think I'll have to leave here no later than 7:30. And then I'll be helping out with the cognitive swim group at the YMCA at 10! It's been 80 degrees here the past few days, but I shudder to think of getting in the water in November and December. Actually, getting in probably won't be the problem--I won't want to get back out in the cold!
Speaking of cold, the leaves on the trees are already turning red and gold and falling off. I keep meaning to take pictures because I love Fall, but so far I've forgotten to take my camera with me to class. I'm going to put it in my schoolbag tonight though. Williams looks so beautiful when all the leaves have turned colors!
I'm slowly starting to collect things for grad school applications. I've already gotten the "so...what are you doing after graduation?" question more times than I can count in the past two weeks, which is making me nervous. I don't like not having all my ducks lined in a row, and for the first time in a while, they look like a scatterplot with no correlation. (Oh boy that makes me sound nerdy.) I'm setting everything up as though I'm going to grad school next fall, but (a) I don't know where I'm applying yet, and (b) I'm still not sure I want to go right away. I'm also considering taking a year-long pre-doctoral internship or a research position somewhere to get more experience (and money) before committing to 5-7 years of grad school. At least I know what field I want to go into. I know people who are taking LSATs because they don't know what to do and a law degree can get you a wide range of good-paying jobs. The Career Counselling people told us the other day that 80% of Williams grads go to graduate school. I'm convinced (from looking at what kind of jobs are hiring here) that the rest of them work for JP Morgan or on Wall Street. Actually, JP Morgan has begun recruiting Williams seniors on Facebook. What is the world coming to?
Anyway, I definitely won't need to be worrying about jobs and grad schools if I don't pass this semester, so I should get back to my Cog Dev readings. Oh Williams. I had almost forgotten what not sleeping felt like. Almost.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Senior Year has Officially Begun!
My first week of classes is almost over, and I feel as though I've been here for months already. Let me back up and let you all in on what's been going on so far. This semester's going to be craaaaaaaaazy.
Last Tuesday I had jury duty. Despite the judge being a Williams alum, he was completely unsympathetic to the fact that classes would start on Thursday. I was placed on the jury. Mind you, this was in Pittsfield, which is a good 45 minute drive south of Williamstown. The case was a sexual assault charge-- a 40-ish-year-old man supposedly went to an 18-year-old girl's window and said something lewd, and then punched the window in. He was charged with accosting and annoying a person of the opposite sex and also with breaking and entering with intent to commit a felony. Long story short, the trial went all week and the jury deliberated on Friday. On Friday morning I was told I was selected as an alternate juror, which meant I couldn't vote or even be in the deliberating room. He was found guilty of the comment charge but innocent of the breaking and entering. After the verdict was read (his sentence was 6 months), the judge told us he was already serving 6-8 years in a state prison for kidnapping and sexual assault, and he's also facing 6 other charges of sexual assault. Don't you just love our wonderful justice system?
So beyond my annoyance at watching a criminal get off easy because of stupid jurors ("you can't prove his intent, but I think he was definitely guilty of breaking in"), I missed the first two days of classes. At the risk of sounding nerdy, I felt a bit robbed of my last First Day of School. My classes this semester are: Psychology Senior Seminar (which will probably be referred to as 401 from now on), Clinical and Community Psychology ("my internship class"), Cognitive Development ("Cog Dev"), and The Middle Ages (which I may refer to as something having to do with Goldberg, who is the professor). I love my professors except for 401. The professor for that class, Professor Solomon, sounds like a hypnotist, except he's extremely intelligent and full of himself. That class will be the end of me, I swear it. I have to lead the discussions in two classes and debate in a third. I don't even like going around the room to say our names and majors on the first day of classes. My heart rate goes up, I stammer and forget things (yes, including my own name), my face gets red...it's just disastrous in every way. Besides the forced participation, the topics are Free Will, Intelligence, and Romantic Love (don't be fooled by the last one- it's at Williams, so of course Love = Sex). Can you picture me leading a discussion about sex? Yeah...but all in good time. I may not survive my debate, which is for the Intelligence section. I hope I get to argue against it, because I sure will be proving that I don't have any. We're discussing free will at the moment, and whether it exists or it's actually our minds unconsciously deciding actions for us and then letting us know that we'll be doing them right before the action is executed. If that doesn't make much sense to you, it doesn't to me either. This class so far seems like a philosophical debate, which I totally did not sign up for when I chose Psychology as my major. There's a reason I've never taken a philosophy class. Anyway, enough time wasted on that class. I just talked to the director of my internship today, which got me very excited. I'll be interning 6 hours a week at Early Intervention, which is a program for kids from 0-3 years old who come from at-risk families (either the parents are super-young, or on drugs, or very poor, etc). Tomorrow I get to go observe a play group through a one-way mirror and set up my weekly schedule, and then next week I get to participate in a play group! I have a feeling that young children are my calling. I love working with little kids. Speaking of little kids, I'm also meeting with the director of the Williams College Children's Center (AKA, the daycare program for professors' kids) tomorrow. Hopefully my schedule will allow me to work there this semester. I'm also awaiting a phone call from a mom in Professor Kavanaugh's longitudinal study (he's my prof for Cog Dev) who has a 4-year-old daughter. I'm thinking that this semester will definitely be busy, to say the least!
This weekend I'm planning on going to Six Flags with a group of kids from Williams Christian Fellowship (WCF). There's two bands that I love performing there on Saturday, so we're trying to get a group of people together to get discounted tickets. I'm also hoping that we'll get enough to get a college van (and someone with a van license...) so that I don't have to drive. I must say, my car gets very good gas mileage-- I've filled it up twice so far, and put 600 miles on it. It sure has made life easy, fun, relaxing, sane...you get the picture. It'll also help next month when I have to go to Albany to take the GREs. Talk about scary! I'm working on the general GRE, but I have to take both the general and the psychology one sometime in October. Oh, and I have to figure out what schools I'm applying to, get recommendation letters, fill out applications (much more involved than the undergraduate process, let me tell you!)...I'm going crazy just thinking of all the stuff I've got to get done before December! I hate having a long list of things to do. Actually I think the most enjoyable feeling in the world is having a list of things to do and being able to cross things out. The actual action of crossing an item off the list makes me smile. Does that make me weird? Possibly.
Speaking of weird, I still haven't even seen the two guys I share a bathroom with! We had house snacks, and they were both missing. The few times I've stopped by their room to introduce myself they weren't there. I don't know about you, but I think it's odd to share a bathroom with people you haven't met. Granted, it's a single-person bathroom, but still. There's only three of us using it. At least they wake up much later than I do so we don't have bathroom-wars. And I must say, for guys, they're very...not-dirty. The bathroom is okay as long as the window's open to air out the moldy smell. There are two towel racks, and I put a hook in for my towel while I'm actually in the shower (otherwise I keep it in my room), and yet these guys insist on balling up their wet towels on the same rack. But at least they keep the seat down and don't track in too much dirt.
Alright, I believe that is just about everything that's been going on in my life for the past two weeks. I have a meeting in North Adams tomorrow morning at 10:15, which means I've got to leave here super-early to get my car from Vermont (I swear this parking lot is half-way to Canada), and I have readings to do about infants' perceptions of addition and subtraction for class tomorrow (quite interesting-- at 2 and a half months, infants can "count" up to three), so I'd better get started. I'm determined to get some real-time GRE practice in tonight too. Tomorrow's going to be a crazy, hyped-up day. I'll try to update this at least once a week, and I'll probably include some exerpts from my internship journal, just in case you're interested in what I'm doing. Okay, procrastinating time is officially over!
Last Tuesday I had jury duty. Despite the judge being a Williams alum, he was completely unsympathetic to the fact that classes would start on Thursday. I was placed on the jury. Mind you, this was in Pittsfield, which is a good 45 minute drive south of Williamstown. The case was a sexual assault charge-- a 40-ish-year-old man supposedly went to an 18-year-old girl's window and said something lewd, and then punched the window in. He was charged with accosting and annoying a person of the opposite sex and also with breaking and entering with intent to commit a felony. Long story short, the trial went all week and the jury deliberated on Friday. On Friday morning I was told I was selected as an alternate juror, which meant I couldn't vote or even be in the deliberating room. He was found guilty of the comment charge but innocent of the breaking and entering. After the verdict was read (his sentence was 6 months), the judge told us he was already serving 6-8 years in a state prison for kidnapping and sexual assault, and he's also facing 6 other charges of sexual assault. Don't you just love our wonderful justice system?
So beyond my annoyance at watching a criminal get off easy because of stupid jurors ("you can't prove his intent, but I think he was definitely guilty of breaking in"), I missed the first two days of classes. At the risk of sounding nerdy, I felt a bit robbed of my last First Day of School. My classes this semester are: Psychology Senior Seminar (which will probably be referred to as 401 from now on), Clinical and Community Psychology ("my internship class"), Cognitive Development ("Cog Dev"), and The Middle Ages (which I may refer to as something having to do with Goldberg, who is the professor). I love my professors except for 401. The professor for that class, Professor Solomon, sounds like a hypnotist, except he's extremely intelligent and full of himself. That class will be the end of me, I swear it. I have to lead the discussions in two classes and debate in a third. I don't even like going around the room to say our names and majors on the first day of classes. My heart rate goes up, I stammer and forget things (yes, including my own name), my face gets red...it's just disastrous in every way. Besides the forced participation, the topics are Free Will, Intelligence, and Romantic Love (don't be fooled by the last one- it's at Williams, so of course Love = Sex). Can you picture me leading a discussion about sex? Yeah...but all in good time. I may not survive my debate, which is for the Intelligence section. I hope I get to argue against it, because I sure will be proving that I don't have any. We're discussing free will at the moment, and whether it exists or it's actually our minds unconsciously deciding actions for us and then letting us know that we'll be doing them right before the action is executed. If that doesn't make much sense to you, it doesn't to me either. This class so far seems like a philosophical debate, which I totally did not sign up for when I chose Psychology as my major. There's a reason I've never taken a philosophy class. Anyway, enough time wasted on that class. I just talked to the director of my internship today, which got me very excited. I'll be interning 6 hours a week at Early Intervention, which is a program for kids from 0-3 years old who come from at-risk families (either the parents are super-young, or on drugs, or very poor, etc). Tomorrow I get to go observe a play group through a one-way mirror and set up my weekly schedule, and then next week I get to participate in a play group! I have a feeling that young children are my calling. I love working with little kids. Speaking of little kids, I'm also meeting with the director of the Williams College Children's Center (AKA, the daycare program for professors' kids) tomorrow. Hopefully my schedule will allow me to work there this semester. I'm also awaiting a phone call from a mom in Professor Kavanaugh's longitudinal study (he's my prof for Cog Dev) who has a 4-year-old daughter. I'm thinking that this semester will definitely be busy, to say the least!
This weekend I'm planning on going to Six Flags with a group of kids from Williams Christian Fellowship (WCF). There's two bands that I love performing there on Saturday, so we're trying to get a group of people together to get discounted tickets. I'm also hoping that we'll get enough to get a college van (and someone with a van license...) so that I don't have to drive. I must say, my car gets very good gas mileage-- I've filled it up twice so far, and put 600 miles on it. It sure has made life easy, fun, relaxing, sane...you get the picture. It'll also help next month when I have to go to Albany to take the GREs. Talk about scary! I'm working on the general GRE, but I have to take both the general and the psychology one sometime in October. Oh, and I have to figure out what schools I'm applying to, get recommendation letters, fill out applications (much more involved than the undergraduate process, let me tell you!)...I'm going crazy just thinking of all the stuff I've got to get done before December! I hate having a long list of things to do. Actually I think the most enjoyable feeling in the world is having a list of things to do and being able to cross things out. The actual action of crossing an item off the list makes me smile. Does that make me weird? Possibly.
Speaking of weird, I still haven't even seen the two guys I share a bathroom with! We had house snacks, and they were both missing. The few times I've stopped by their room to introduce myself they weren't there. I don't know about you, but I think it's odd to share a bathroom with people you haven't met. Granted, it's a single-person bathroom, but still. There's only three of us using it. At least they wake up much later than I do so we don't have bathroom-wars. And I must say, for guys, they're very...not-dirty. The bathroom is okay as long as the window's open to air out the moldy smell. There are two towel racks, and I put a hook in for my towel while I'm actually in the shower (otherwise I keep it in my room), and yet these guys insist on balling up their wet towels on the same rack. But at least they keep the seat down and don't track in too much dirt.
Alright, I believe that is just about everything that's been going on in my life for the past two weeks. I have a meeting in North Adams tomorrow morning at 10:15, which means I've got to leave here super-early to get my car from Vermont (I swear this parking lot is half-way to Canada), and I have readings to do about infants' perceptions of addition and subtraction for class tomorrow (quite interesting-- at 2 and a half months, infants can "count" up to three), so I'd better get started. I'm determined to get some real-time GRE practice in tonight too. Tomorrow's going to be a crazy, hyped-up day. I'll try to update this at least once a week, and I'll probably include some exerpts from my internship journal, just in case you're interested in what I'm doing. Okay, procrastinating time is officially over!
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