school woes

On ageism and why you all can get off my fucking lawn.

~ Bon Steele ~ 3 Comments

I have a test in Personality Psychology in about 2 hours. I need to study a bit more to make sure that I have the vagaries of Freud’s cocaine-dipped, fame-chasing nonsense all straight in my head. Otherwise, this post’d be quite a bit longer.

As ‘tis, I will likely return to this topic because, WTH is wrong with some people?!

Ahem.

On Facebook this morning, I saw a post by a women’s sweat equity group (The Sweaty Betties, if you’re inclined to look them up) stating:

Pictured: Way more dedication to exercise than I have.

“No matter what your opinion of Madonna… she sure has taken damn good care of herself!”

With which I agree. She has – at least for the past decade, many more – worked very hard on her physical body.

However, the comments were more than a bit infuriating:

“Must be nice to be able to have all that money! Look, so plastic!”
“LOL, plastic surgery!”
“Ew, old thighs!”
Etcetera, etcetera.

All the money in the world can’t buy a healthy body. That is the result of setting a course for yourself and sticking to it. Also? The whole “ick, she’s old!” does not, in fact, erase said hard work or make her less than what she is. Additionally, she’s what?  50-something?

I run into this sort of thing at school, albeit not because I look like Madonna. It’s more, “Why’re you in college, sucking up all the learning in the room, you old person, you?”

*snarl, gibber, snarl*

Yes. Definitely coming back to this topic when I have some time.

Shit My Professor Said [Today]

~ Bon Steele ~ 3 Comments

Color Key 

–>> Bits of Notes I took before class via the textbook, so that today’s lecture would make sense.
–>> professor additions, things she was talking about, or notes I jotted while listening to her.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

*Society Changing views on Adolescence

–> Social redefinition [the process through which an individual’s position or status is redefined by society]

–AGE of MAJORITY -> designated age at which an individual is recognized by society as an adult.

**Adolescence as a Social invention: Started around Industrial Age

….says that the Juvenile Justice system was invented to deal with the poor kids who were huckstered off their farms in the early 19th century. ‘cause they were hungry and stealing and breaking into homes to sleep.

Describe the changes in status during adolescence and the inconsistency in where we draw the age boundaries:

INVENTIONIST ->  Theorists who argue that the period of adolescence is mainly a social invention.

Teenagers: popularized about 50 years ago to refer to young; connoted a more frivolous and lightheaded image than did “adolescent”

… she’s talking about her weekend.

How does the process of social redefinition progress?

How do adolescents transition into adulthood?

How might neighborhood conditions affect the behavior and development of adolescents?

 …still talking about her weekend. 

Identity

Attainment of adult status causes adolescents to feel more mature and to think more seriously about future work and family roles

Autonomy

Adult status leads to shifts in responsibility, independence, and freedom

…talking about her step son now.

Intimacy, dating and marriage 

Need for new decisions about sexual activity

Achievement:  Becoming a full-time employee; leave school of their own volition

  • Adolescence defined primarily by being distinct from childhood or adulthood, not by cognitive and biological changes
  • Inventionists stress that because we perceive adolescence as distinct, it exists as a distinct period of the lifespan
  • Relative to other cultures and historical periods
  • Problems experienced during adolescence may be due to society’s definition of adolescence, not cognitive or biological changes
  • Contradicts G. Stanley Hall’s views on adolescent development (driven by puberty)

The inventionist view is an entirely different view than that espoused by writers such as G. Stanley Hall, for example, who saw the psychological changes of adolescence as driven by puberty and, as a result, by biological destiny.

He believed in the ‘stress and storm’ (WRITE THIS DOWN) period of adolescence.

            Continuous culture -> very little stress
            Discontinuous culture -> American, very tumultuous adolescence.

Story about her step-son. Story about her student.
Holy shitsnacks, another story about one of her students. And – of course – how much she helped them.

Emerging Adulthood

Jeffrey Arnett’s term for ages 18-25 caught between adolescence and adulthood, characterized by:

  • The exploration of possible identities before making enduring choices
  • Unstable work, romantic relationships, and living situations
  • A focus on oneself and independent functioning
  • Subjective feeling of being caught between adolescence and adulthood
  • Subjective feeling that life holds many possibilities

Now we’re talking about relationships and why they don’t…is she really, really talking about her two marriages as examples?

Yes, yes she is.

…Now she is talking about her politics.  Wait. Did she just announce that she is voting Ron Paul? 

Fuck this. I will just take notes from the book until she gets back on track.

Cohort: group of individuals born during the same general historical era.

Extrusion: practice of separating children from their parents and requiring them to sleep in other households; part of the process of social redefinition of adolescent in many societies.

Process of Social Redefinition

  • real/symbolic separation from parents
  • emphasis on differences between the sexes
  • passing on of information from the older generation

Adolescents as Criminal Defendants

You cannot teach morality. 

Now she’s talking about how pedophiles are inhuman monsters with no real morals. They cannot be …

Did she really say that all people who are abused ..oh, no. She didn’t
Not all of them. Just 97% of all people who are abused sexually as children become pedophiles. Because they’re imprinted to become so.

 

THANK GOD THAT’S THE BELL. I AM OUT OF HERE.

 

Buckshot Delivery

~ Bon Steele ~ 3 Comments

∴ Tomorrow is the day: Dental Mayhem. Halcion + two root canals in my lower canines (1 each) = a very, very nervous me.

Thank goodness for amnesiac drugs.1

 

∴  So, this weekend – particularly Saturday – sucked gangrenous donkey sack. I wish I could say that it someone else’s fault.

Saturday was the day that I have my Philosophy class. This Saturday past, I was in class taking a “quiz” that should have taken me all of thirty minutes to complete.

I, in fact, spent two hours with it and STILL did not get it done. Not even close. I was the only one left in the room, struggling with it. Finally, I just gave up and turned it in. Near tears and pretty much hating myself thoroughly, I went home. I spent the better part of the afternoon sobbing. I had not felt so completely and utterly useless/stupid/worthless in a very long while.

What, you might ask, was this Philosophy quiz over? What was so damn difficult for you? Isn’t there ‘no wrong answer’ in Philosophy?

I have no idea. We hadn’t gotten to the Philosophy portion of the course, yet. Instead, we were covering logic and formal language.

Something like this

These? These are notes taken directly from the board along with an example problem. When this was being explained, I could almost get what was being said. I asked questions, they got answered. And while I was parsing the information that had been told to me – the professor had moved onto another problem, another logic rule.

Don’t get me wrong. I liked my professor. He’s smart, funny, and dedicated to his craft.
I just didn’t grok his teaching style.

 

*SIGH*

I think it’s safe to say that I totally bombed that quiz.

Again – not felt that idiotic in a long while.

 

∴  Sunday was a far superior day. Sunday was game day. I am playing in a DnD 3.5 game. It is light-hearted, silly fun. Totally what I needed after Saturday’s fiasco.
My GM had written to say that we should come to game in costume. I took him at his word. Although, as I said to Mister Man, “He didn’t specify what sort of costume he wanted us to wear.”

You can't see it but I'm wearing a sort of gothy Tank Girl getup.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I felt pretty, the group had a blast and I got home in a fabulous mood. I finished up an essay for Critical Thinking and turned it in. Watched “Heart of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse” for class. Checked on some other grades (5/5 and 5/5 – woot!)

I feel ever so much better, today.

 

∴ — Today is more school and more buses (STANK!) and no eating after midnight and and and.

Today Agenda: Crush my enemies. See them driven before me. And to hear the lamentation of the bibliography. 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

∴  — Yep, I know.
1 – Which is just a horrible thing to say on Valentine’s day. :/
2 – Paraphrasing.  🙂