Archive for September, 2009

The author gives her little brother a piggy back ride on the way home from the park.

I walk through the door, plop my backpack on the table. Slip off my shoes. Tell my mother about the triumphs and travails of the day. Make some jelly toast. Say Hi to Ang, my 6 year old brother. Get a glass of milk. Pet the dog.

The onions for minestrone soup are sauteing. There may be good food in the dining hall, but you can’t get the benefit of smelling it being cooked.

When my eldest little brother was little, he would say “some days little boys like to eat their vegetables, and some days they don’t.” (The days were unfailingly the latter) Some days I like living at home, and some days I don’t. Today, I do. At the end of my four hour Chemistry lab, coming at the end of a 7-hours-in-class day, I walked down the four flights of stairs in Sid Richardson, the science building. “Ah, I get to go home.” Not – “Back to the dorm!” or “I get to go back to my apartment.” Home.

My mom always said “when you’re hungry you know the worth of food” and “when the well is dry you know the worth of water.” Well, when you’re tired and it’s been a long day, you know the worth of home.

After I write this post we will walk to the park.

Time constraints of teaching kept me from doing the whole list, but here are the ones I did complete:

Cowtown Chronicles is writing again and has posted on the government healthcare bill.

The Carter Museum has an interesting blog post on staged war photography.

Job front / unemployment: Kevin at 5ksandcabernets has good news and bad news.

The Roper Files goes to Canada for a vacation, hangs out with a woman he met on line – according to my scansion, it went well – and finds out that Canadian Health is actually pretty okay – “DON’T BELIEVE THE LIES … “ he yells halfway through the post. But since it’s a mega-post, many won’t get this far. Roper, you should break that out into a separate entry …  still, excellent work.

The Business Image reports that TCU and SMU resist beer companies putting their school colors on beer cans.

And @vedo shares on PR aspects of the president’s speech to schoolchildren made two days ago.

I have been reading my psychology textbook for my Intro to Psych class this week, and I was captivated by the section on sleep. I’ll summarize the most interesting parts here.

When you sleep, you move through five distinct stages, in roughly 90 minute cycles. First dropping off, even though you don’t notice it, there is a distint moment in which you fall asleep – by watching a readout of brain waves there is a sudden shift from alpha waves  -  the brainwaves associated with a relaxed, awake state – to the quieter and more erratic Stage1 waves.

During this phase (which seems to be what we might call “half-asleep”) you may have hallucinations, or feel sensations that don’t exist – you may feel like you are falling, making your body jerk. These sensations are called hypnagogic sensations. Fun word.

At about 20 minutes, you move into a slightly deeper sleep, Satge2. You could be woken easily, but you are definitely asleep. At any point from here sleep-talking may occur.

Then, in the ensuing minutes, you enter stage3 and then stage4,  at which point the delta waves – large, slow brainwaves – start to emerge. You are now deep asleep. It is at the end of this phase that most sleepwalking happens in children.

Finally, an hour after you fall asleep, a very odd thing occurs. You move back through the previous two stages of sleep and you enter REM Sleep – characterized by Rapid Eye Movement. Lasting about ten minutes, your brain activity increases – and your heart rate rises, your breathing gets quicker, and so on.

During this phase, every 30 seconds or so, your eyes dart around quickly (this gives the sleep stage its name).

This is when you dream – and though according to a study 37% of people claim they never have dreams they can remember in the morning, 80% will say they were just dreaming if woken during REM.

You then move through the cycles, and as morning gets closer spend more and more time in REM and Stage2.

Some intersted factoids:

Though the part of your brain that sends signals to move your muscles is active during REM, your brainstem blocks those signals. This means you are basically paralyzed, as no motor signals can get down to your muscles.

• People usually don’t snore during REM.
• Horses have to lie down to experience REM sleep. (they can sleep standing and do often)

• The “hypnagogic” sensations experienced when you are falling asleep also occur when you are waking up – specifically, if you go back to sleep in the morning and hang out in the half-awake phase
• Some people really do need more – or less sleep. Adult’s need for sleep varies between less than 6 and 9 hours. (I’m a 9 person, no doubt about it)
• The early morning light, picked up by your eyes, causes your eyes to send signals to a special part of your brain that adjusts your sleep cycle to the changing dawn and sunset times through the year
• The week after moving the clocks forward in the spring for Daylight Savings – and everyone losing an hour of sleep – accidents increase.
• Your brain cements memory and knowledge at night while you sleep.
• People who reported getting too little sleep generally reported lower satisfaction with their personal life than those who regularly get enough
• Your brain *does* have a sleep memory: your sleep debt racks up for two weeks before your body “forgets” it.
• If you are severly jet-lagged, spending the first day in your new location outside in the sunlight will help your body readjust quickly.

I was riveted. I hope you find it interesting too!

Kalypso says Hi

As you may have noticed from a few pictures posted here on FW Renaissance, we have a set of somewhat distinctive-looking dogs. Three of them, in fact. We are fairly humble people here at the house of FWR, we make our own pizza and drive cars that side of ten years old. But, we do have purebred dogs. One of them, in our defense, was a rescue, from a man who was going back to work and couldn’t take as careful care of BT, who is now the resident senior “jackal” in the house.

Before we obtained the three we have now, we had a different pair of them, the first a christmas present for myself when I was nine years old. We were attracted to the breed because my stepfather had hyperacusis – extremely sensitive ears – and we discovered the Basenji doesn’t bark (if only we had known all the other sounds they make). Nor did they shed, they were very pretty, and, as we would learn, have personalities – in fact, they are characters. So, we got Achilles, a small red and white puppy with a curly tail, soft fur, and, we would learn, a penchant for biting (he never bit me…just everyone else in the house). We very quickly learned some things about Basenjis:

BT made himself a bed.

• “Difficult to train” is an understatement. In fact, it’s a misstatement. The Basenji is a very intelligent dog (too intelligent for their own good, often: for example, they are little Houdinis, who often get out into the street). But, like cats, they decide if and when they are going to obey. You can tell them “come.” They will understand. But they will only obey if it fits in with their plans.
• The Basenji puppy likes to chew. No, wait. He likes to destroy. In Achilles’ career as a pup, he destroyed a set of knives, several handmade pillows, a variety of blankets, every Playmobil guy we had – you get the idea. Circe, the female we got for my older sister three years after Achilles, came with a worse penchant she never outgrew: underwear.
• The Basenji cannot bark. But, lock them in a crate and they will howl. Scream. Cry. Whine. Crow. The sounds that come out of those voiceboxes will amaze – in fact, once the police got called to our house because the neighbor thought a woman had been screaming. Nope, just the dog.
• The Basenji, as mentioned, is an escape artist. Coming from a long line of hunters in the jungle, they don’t take well to confinement. They will chew, dig, bite, and scratch their way out – or, my favorite: climb. Many Basenjis are experts at climbing chain link fences – climbing over, in fact.
• The Basenji is very keen on his food. This, combined with the tendency against formal training and correction, turns him into a kind of conniving vulture, ready to strike at any moment when you aren’t looking. The victim? The butter dish. A tuna sandwich you were about to eat. Anything within reach they think they can get before you get to them.
• Thankfully, the Basenji is like a garbage disposal. I will not make any claims as to the health of them eating these things, or recommend it at all, I still think it’s dangerous, but for the sake of entertainment, the dogs have eaten:

A half pound of chocolate fudge

Two whole semi-frozen chicken carcasses (among other chicken related items)

three pairs of ladies underwear (one sitting)

a half a pound of chocolate truffles

significant portions of couch stuffing

half of a handmade pillow

also, they will steal and then fight over:

salad

carrots

various bits of fruit

Briseis gets a scratch

So, you ask, why on earth do we keep these hellions around? They aren’t trained, they steal, escape…well, for one thing, we are a little attracted to chaos, and having a Basenji is guaranteed to raise the chaos factor. But, the best reason is what characters they are. They have very strong personalities. They are very loyal. They yodel happily when you come home in the evening. They have the curliest tails around. They look like egyptian pharoh dogs. They are hypoallergenic. They are the cleanest inside dogs ever. They have expressive eyebrows. Their quirks will keep you laughing all day. And, they are  the most beautiful dogs on the block.

Thanks to CarbonNYC at Flikr Creative Commons

So, last night I was sitting in Panera looking at a guy walking by. “Hmm…pretty tall, looks good-natured…then again he has kinda skinny arms.” Then I cut myself off, in my head of course. “Who cares if he has skinny arms?”

The question isn’t really “is he muscular enough” or even “is she curvy enough” – it’s: “is this person capable of commitment and attachment, to me, specifically?” Let’s admit, people, that’s the question we’d really like answered when looking for a partner. Unfortunately, they don’t wear shirts that express that, nor is there some visible attribute that would lead to an answer. We are stuck, at first at least, with just looks, and we all know how little that tells. Maybe sometime back in the day having a guy built like Chuck Norris was a good thing, but these days it seems to pale in importance to other attributes, like ability to hold down a job.

It’s a problem with the way we are wired for this whole courtship thing similar to the issue of likes. For example, there is a tendency on the part of females, in general, to be attracted to guys who are very aloof, detached, and have a debonair air to them. We can’t help it. Similarly, to many females a guy engaging in some dangerous activity – like riding a motorcycle – is attractive. We feel a pull. Even though riding a motorcycle won’t do us good in the long run (after all, in the end a father to our children is a goal, and one who puts himself in danger of getting his life insurance cashed out isn’t a great option.)

I suppose I could look deeply and see how these apparently couterproductive attractions are good. But…it all seems to chalk up to the same thing: meeting a lot of people. Finding out which ones are taken or gay. Then finding ones who like you (somewhat important). Making sure they don’t have any serious defects. Then, crossing your fingers you like them and it can stay that way, and finally keep them around. Sounds incredibly daunting. Thankfully, you can remember, oh single person, all the poor souls who accompany you in your misery of looking at this sheer wall of impossibility, feeling like William Thacker in Notting Hill when, addressing his (married) friends, he sums it up: “I think you have forgotten what an unusual situation you have here – to find someone you actually love. Who’ll love you! The chances are always…minuscule!”

Then again, he finally finds her. And we too shall prevail. Statistically, in the end, it’ll work. It’ll just take about fifteen times longer than we’d like. So, despair not, my fellows.

I’m sure you have all had this experience: you are dreaming, and it’s not a good dream. Perhaps you are being chased by a vicious creature. Perhaps floodwaters are rising into your home. Or, perhaps, you are reliving some relationship that turned bad and was over long ago – or so you thought, because the person is back, and it’s awful.

But. at some point, the idea comes from the back of your head that “wait a minutes, this is a dream, I don’t have to put up with this crap!”

Then, or in the next few moments, you emerge back into reality, and suddenly it’s all gone, and instead of worrying about vicious creatures, be they of the flesh-eating monster type or the ex-boyfriend type (small difference), you are looking at the ceiling, and thinking about breakfast or how you are going to fit everything in to the day.

However, I find that often with dreams that are based more rather than less in reality, the shadows remain. I am still half asleep, and agitated over what was “happening.” The feelings, whatever they were, anger, fear, rejection – they linger. I wander around trying to transcend this quasi-reality. Eventually, I do.

Thanks to brunosan at Flikr Creative Commons

But, man, how can your brain do that?! Simultaneously dream and realize it’s dreaming – that’s pretty danged self-referential. If I had that kind of introspection during the day…well, if my brain could exercise that kind of restraint, imagine the possibilities!

Now, the truth is that we do that. We have “multi-track” minds. But still…I think this specific example is pretty insane. I was reading the chapter on consciousness in my Psychology text yesterday. It skipped over dreams as saying they are the final frontier in neuroscience or something, dangummit, but it did talk about how the two hemispheres (halves, basically) of your brain operate differently and, in some cases, independently, even though they constantly communicate through a piece of tissue called the corpeus luteum. In people with healthy brains, this means little “split-brain” activity: your right hand always knows, very soon at least, what the left is doing. Not so in people with split brains – who do survive quite well, with some interesting effects I won’t go into at this time).

However, maybe this morning the right side of my brain was projecting and perceiving (what it does best) until my left brain, thanks be to goodness, halted this backwards deal by saying “This isn’t rational. Wake up!”

However, that leads to the emotion side of things – you don’t usually wake from any old dream. In fact, I will toss out the un-verified fact that I voluntarily wake from bad dreams far more than good ones. So, the emotion I had somehow triggered the rational side of my being?

Whoa.

Furthermore, somehow those emotions and concerns lingered, like smoke dissipating slowly. Perhaps they were related to a hormone release, like adrenaline, that would linger before it is reabsorbed by your body(adrenaline, or epinephrine, prepares you the fight or flight reponse, by opening airways, speeding up the heart rate, etc. Released into the bloodstream, it’s effects take a minute to take effect – and they linger even longer). Maybe the lingering adrenaline triggered my mind to come up with a reason – “I feel stressed because… of this stressor! And I’m going to think about it and it’s stressing!” It seems somewhat circular, but it’s good food for thought.

So,  the brain? Craziest thing ever. Like just now, I was able to switch from thinking about this all deep and all, to saying good morning to Kalypso and cutesy voicing and thinking how soft her fur is, and back, in the space of about four seconds.

Whoa.

Hello my wonderful, and apparently according to site stats, plentiful readers. I have a small complaint to lodge and I’d appreciate your ears.

How is it that last night a hundred and twenty seven unique visitors came to this site, many doubtlessly personal acquaintances of mine, and yet the only person who commented on the post being read was my grandmother?! Come on! A writer needs feedback! Now, if the reason you didn’t post was something along the lines of “man this is crap” well, instead of leaving and never returning a nice little comment with a friendly reason would be great. And if you do like it, but have nothing to add, just say so! How can I be expected to perform without reactions or critique? Does an athelete practice without comment? A student without feedback? If even two percent of you posted every time it’d be great.

Well, signing off – albeit disgruntledly. Hopefully you will be so irate at me pointing the finger at you – who, after all, shows up at this blog without being made or told  – that you will be compelled to say so.

A teacher setting up the classroom

I have now completed two weeks of school, and it has been a busy time. I met my students and wrote my first lesson plans. The scariest was probably worrying about meet-the-teacher night.

Why would meet-the-teacher night be so scary? Perhaps because it was my first real confrontation with the “responsibility” aspect of teaching. As one of my colleagues put it, “if the classroom instruction and administrative work doesn’t exhaust you, there’s always the weight of having a kid’s life in your hands.”  Meet-the-teacher night made me ask: was I qualified to take these children and teach them?

What if — God forbid — I didn’t do it quite right?

Our teacher training program has emphasized that beginning teachers need to develop effectiveness over several years before they reach their real potential. Were my students perhaps getting a less-high-quality experience because they have me, a new teacher, rather than someone who’s done this before? Oh, the anxiety! But the new teacher does have several tools to use, including:

1. Beginner’s enthusiasm and energy ,

2. Extra-effort,

3. Self-reflection and self-correction, and

4. Support and encouragement of other teachers, both old and new.

So: I talked to my colleagues in the teacher training program, I got my room as well-decorated as possible before meet-the-teacher night. I prepared a short talk to give the parents, and told them about the school’s attendance policy, the dress policy, and a of couple of general ideas on how to help their kids improve school acheivement (go on family “field trips,” such as to the park, the zoo, or longer journeys, and give them books.) I offered to meet after school with anyone who was concerned about their child’s performance . The parents seemed to accept the message. No one jumped up and questioned whether a new teacher would be okay for their child.

I suppose that in the cosmic scale of things, new teachers must be part of the mix. And they say humility is to know your place, and take it. So — every morning, I get up, I worry a little bit, and I go down to the school. I keep adjusting course whenever I see myself make mistakes. I ask for help. I congratulate myself if I do something right. And I sail onward into the school year, day by day.

Photo vis Flickr Creative Commons, by Editor B

Reporting from a very quiet house on a Friday afternoon. A molecule of tridecane has been caught raiding the authors desk.

Hey! Stop! It’s heading for the door! I need those flashcards for my next Organic Quiz!

Don’t worry. The treacherous molecule was captured, cracked into some smaller pieces (two C4H10s and a C3H8) , and readily combusted back into its box.

On the other side of the house, jackals sleep on the deck, unaware of my presence…

Ah, the author is not as inconspicuous as she thought…

Anyways, if you are wondering where I’ve been, and are waiting ready with an al dente noodle ready to whack me for not posting in too long….well, I deserve it. But, I’ve been busy as all high heck. Some recent happenings:

• “Learned” how to drive a stick shift and made it to TCU and back without creating any major havoc.
• Started learning guitar, developed tiny callus on my left index finger.
• Made about fifty million flashcards
• Helped Angelo make an “All About Me” poster for school; featuring the jackals, him opening the fridge, and his plan for being a steam engine driver man when he gets older
• New neighbors moved in after the house across the street was shown to everyone in Fort Worth and their grandmother; the jury is still out.
• Watched Brise for two hours to make sure she didn’t collapse of chicken-bone-eating complications. This was between the hours of ten and midnight, of course.
• Realized taking 17 hours is ridiculous. Dropped Chinese. Felt a little sad.
• Made it through the second week of classes: still on target. Success.

One has to wonder if they are serious about proposing this now, since they just said they are closing a number of libraries and pools because the City is supposedly broke. However, “Dallas, Austin, and El Paso are doing it,” so apparently we need to act immediately.

Of course, maybe it wouldn’t cost as much as the pools and libraries.  But couldn’t we know what the fiscal impact would be before agreeing to adopt it, City Council?

But wait, maybe the real reason they’re doing this now is PR/mop-up because of the Rainbow Room incident of Friday June 26th. Now it makes sense.

From the City’s Press Release:

The City Manager’s Diversity Task Force voted unanimously at its Aug. 27 meeting to recommend that Fort Worth begin providing domestic partners of city employees with the same benefits that it now provides to employees’ spouses.

In response to the Task Force’s recommendation, City Manager Dale Fisseler has asked the City Attorney for advice on the legal basis upon which Texas municipalities may provide domestic partner benefits. He also will refer the issue to the city’s two benefits committees that will make recommendations regarding healthcare and retirement. According to the Task Force’s research, the cities o fDallas, Austin, and El Paso currently provide such benefits.

The Diversity Task Force also voted to endorse a recent Human Relations Commission proposal to amend the city’s existing anti-discrimination ordinance to prohibit discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodation based on gender identity and gender expression. The proposed amendment would extend that protection to transgender citizens.

Fort Worth was one of the first cities in the state to adopt an anti-discrimination ordinance and currently prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, national origin, sex, disability, age, and sexual orientation.

The Diversity Task Force, comprised of 14 community leaders and 12 city employees, was appointed by the City Manager in mid-July to provide advice on issues affecting Fort Worth’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) citizens. It was charged with providing input on three tasks:

• providing city employees with appropriate customer service training for LGBT citizens
• increasing community awareness of the city’s anti-discrimination ordinance and inclusiveness policies; and
• improving communication between the city and LGBT citizens.

The Task Force also has established three subcommittees to study the issues of human resources, community relations and economic development. The full Task Force is scheduled to meet again at 4:30 p.m. Sept. 24, at City Hall in Room 380. The City Manager has asked the Task Force to complete its work and provide a final report by the end of November.