new things

Sarah and I are still working on getting our new website/blog ready for the world. If you want to take a look at it while it's still under development, the address is www.readysetbutterfield.com

I think it will ready to go in the next few weeks or so. Sarah keeps procrastinating. She's going to deny it, but don't believe her. She's reading over my shoulder right now, so I think I... Now I'm in trouble. I think sharing a blog may present some unexpected challenges.

This week I'm going to be heading to San Diego for a conference. I got a small grant from school to help defray most of the costs, so it's nice to be able to go without too much guilt about spending all of Sarah's hard earned money. I'm presenting some research, but I'm mostly going so that I can stay current and hear what everyone else in the field is doing. This particular conference is held once a year, and many, many social psychologists from all over the world attend, present research, and listen to talks given by other researchers. In other words, it's a nerd convention.

all good things must come to and end

Sarah and I are working on a new project. And I don't just mean the one where she's incubating a human life in her uterus. I started this blog 6.5 years ago as a way to keep in touch with family when we moved from Michigan to California. In that time, there have been a lot of technological innovations that have made communication a lot easier. Namely, everyone has Facebook now. I've gone from writing almost every day on two blogs, to writing a few times a week on this blog, to writing once a week, to writing once every few weeks.

You all still know what I'm doing most of the time (read: I'm working or watching TV), but I haven't been updating like I could. Meanwhile, Sarah's been faithfully keeping up her Untenured blog for years now as well, but we're both slowing down. We just don't have enough things to write about every day in our mundane live. I'm guessing that might change when the baby comes. Unfortunately, we won't have enough time to blog about all that exciting stuff. See what happened there?

So now that the baby's coming, we want to reorganize and re-focus. We're going to start a new blog that we both contribute to a few times a week. Ultimately, you'll end up with more posts in a central location. Win-win. As things stand right now, the new blog will have some regular features from each of us where we write about our favorite topics (e.g., cooking, everyday encounters, funny things in the news, etc.), and then there'll be there normal day-to-day stuff with the added bonus of new family stuff. We'll also link up a Flickr account for photos and a YouTube account for videos.

In truth, I've been planning all this stuff for a while, but I just couldn't mention anything until the news about the pregnancy was public. I also didn't mention the idea to Sarah until just last week.

Our family isn't going to be just Max and Sarah anymore, so maxandsarah.blogspot.com is getting some updates too. More to come soon...

work in progress

I know I haven't written in quite a while. I haven't been super busy. I'm just on vacation!

good one

Yesterday I had to proctor another exam. I hate doing it. I just sit there (or pace the aisle) and watch 120 students to make sure they don't cheat. They usually don't, but sometimes I do catch people. That gets awkward very quickly.

Me: "Whatcha got there?"

Student: "NOTHING. WHAT? WHAT?!?!?!? THAT'S NOT MINE!!!!!!!!!"

Me: "Just give it to me."

Student: "Ok."

I digress. Yesterday it wasn't a very full room because the exam was optional. Students who chose to take it could use that grade to replace a lower one that they'd gotten earlier in the semester. Anyway, everyone was pretty spread out in the room, and I didn't think any cheating was going to happen, so I started grading some of the essay and short-answer questions that had already been turned in.

One of the questions was about Freud's "psychosexual stages of development." Most psychologists don't really use these anymore, but they're still considered an important piece of history to be learned by introductory students. Kind of like in math class how we learn about previous attempts to do math that are now known to be incorrect. Oh wait, we don't do that.

I digress. One of the stages is the "Anal" stage. Freud thought it was really important for kids (aged 18 - 36 months) to be focused on potty training because that's the most important part of their development at that time. Today, we know that other things are more important at that time, but you'd think it was important too if you were living in a society without access to modern diapers. Freud thought that people who didn't progress well through the Anal phase would get hung up on things like neatness and cleanliness. This is where the idea of an anal-retentive (or "anal") personality originated.

The question on the exam I was grading asked students to write the name of the stage (Anal) and to describe the key conflict (potty training). I was going along, grading and minding my own business, when I came across this answer.

Stage: Anal

Key Conflict: Not sticking stuff up ur butt

I, of course, immediately chuckled.The professor (who was sitting next to me, also grading) leaned over to see what I was laughing at. She started laughing. I laughed harder. She laughed harder. The whole time we were trying to be quiet because there were still about 20 students taking the exam and wondering why their professors had just gone INSANE at the front of the room. We just couldn't keep it together. After about 10 minutes of laughing, we finally gathered ourselves.

Here's to "not sticking stuff up ur butt."

rethinking my backup plan

The other day, I proctored an exam (babysat students to make sure they don't cheat) with a professor. As one of the students was leaving, the professor commented on the student's shirt. The shirt was advertising a luxury hotel in the French Quarter of New Orleans, and the professor said, "Cool shirt. I stayed at that hotel once. It was really nice!" The student proudly responded, "Yeah! It's my family's hotel."

I looked up the hotel later. It's not just a luxury hotel. It's a LUXURY hotel. Like they always say: As a psychology major, you won't make much money without going to graduate school or having some kind of backup plan. My plan was graduate school. Maybe old money and a trust fund would have been a better idea. Live and learn.