what a weird morning

Sarah is visiting her mom and sister in California this week while she's on Spring Break. I'm still stuck in school until next week, so I'm home holding down the fort. Sarah and I have some set routines that we always follow in the mornings, and Sarah's absence is really confusing Barney.

I woke up this morning and did the normal routine (turned off the alarm and let Barney outside to use the bathroom, etc.). When Barney and I came back into the room so I could put my contacts in, he burst though the door ahead of me (like usual) so he could go and say good morning to Sarah.

When she wasn't standing near the bed like she usually is, he looked in the bathroom. She weren't there. Hmm... He popped up on two legs to look for her on her side of the bed. He looked suspiciously at her stuffed dog and pillow, as if to say, "What you have done with the woman?". He looked at me, confused. An idea spread across his face. He went over to my side of the bed and popped up on two legs to look for her on my side of the bed. The stuffed dog and the pillow still weren't giving him any answers.

He wasn't pleased.

lots of updates

I've had quite a bit going on since I last wrote. We made an unexpected trip to Michigan because of an unexpected death in the family. It was nice to be home for a few days, but it was a very sad occasion.

We also found out that the baby is a boy. It's been nice to stop referring to him as "it." It's also nice to be able to start planning for when he comes. We've actually already gotten quite a bit for him. Rebekah won us an awesome stroller in an online giveaway. My advisor had a son about 2 years ago, and she gave us approximately 2 years worth of baby clothes and some gear (another stroller, a bouncy seat, a slide, a scooter, and a boppy--whatever that means). Now I just need to go and buy a basketball hoop, and I'll be all set.

I also got some really good news at school. I got an article accepted for publication in a really good journal. In the paper, I showed that you can change people's attitudes and behavior toward animals if you get them to think about the human-like qualities that many animals have. So, if you get people to think about how dogs are their friends, they're more willing to adopt dogs from animal shelters. And, more generally, they're less willing to do things like eat animals and use products made from animals' bodies. I also used fancy statistics to show that the change in attitudes fully explains (in a statistical sense) the change in planned behavior (i.e., adoption). This last part is what made the paper interesting to the reviewers because no one has ever shown this before. Publications are the name of the game for my career, so it's nice to actually get one. Now I just need 10 more. This year.

I also found out that I got a accepted to a special program to go to a conference in South Africa after the baby is born. The program is sponsored by the American Psychological Association and the National Science Foundation, so it's a real honor to have been accepted. I applied before I knew Sarah was pregnant, and I was hesitant to go after I found out that I go in. But Sarah insisted. The good news is that the APA and NSF are giving me about $2000 to cover expenses. The bad news is that this will only cover about half of my expenses (plane tickets alone are more than $2000--it's really far away). The better news is that I convinced the university to match the APA grant, so everything will be completely paid for. I wrote an email to the dean pleading for money, and he actually gave it to me. This is very unusual.

I emphasized that it would be a great marketing opportunity to promote my school to an international audience. Which is true. I'll be presenting my research on disease prevention and environmental conservation at the conference, which had 10,000 attendees the last time it was held (only a small fraction of these people will hear my talk--that's how conferences work; there are lots of small presentations going on simultaneously at any given time, and you choose the one that most interests you).

Anyway, I'm feeling especially blessed right now. Thanks be to God and to everyone who has been praying for me over the years!

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.

Thanksgiving

Sarah and I have had a great Thanksgiving break so far. Even though we haven't done much out of the ordinary, we've really enjoyed having a house full of guests. We've played games, watched movies, gone shopping (boo!), and eaten. We've eaten a lot. Our pets have especially enjoyed our guests. Lots of extra attention would make anyone happy, I guess.

Um... what?

I was proctoring an intro psychology exam the other day (watching students and answering questions) when I had an interesting interaction. A student raised her hand to get my attention, so I walked over to see if I could answer her question. I'd already answered a few of her questions that day, so I wasn't really expecting what happened next.

Student: Um...what? Points at question #36.
Me: I looked at her expectantly, waiting for her question.
Student: Alternates between looking blankly at me and blankly at the question.
Me: Um...could you maybe rephrase your question?
Student: Panicked look.
Me: I think this question is just asking you to explain what effect tranquilizing drugs have on your brain.
Student: But...I've never done drugs! How am I supposed to know?
Me: Um...I think this question is asking less about personal experience and more about what your book says...

Did you feel that?

Last night I watched the big LSU-Alabama football game. It was on late. Sarah was asleep. The house was quiet and still. I felt a weird sensation. Some shaking. It got a little stronger and persisted. My train of thought went like this:

1 second in: What is this, an earthquake?

3 seconds in: Interception! No!!

5 seconds in: Hey, that hanging light fixture is swaying. I think this is actually an earthquake!

7 seconds in: No!! No one is ever going to believe me!

It immediately brought me back to the only other earthquake I've experienced. I can see it vividly. I was three years old (almost four), and Mom and I were over at Grandma and Grandpa's house watering their plants because they were away. I was sitting on their stairway with my head between the rails, and I felt the stairs move underneath me.

Me: "Mom! The stairs are moving!!"

Mom: No, silly.

It turned out that I was feeling a 5.0 earthquake centered about 225 miles away in Cleveland, OH. The one I felt last night was the same distance away, and it was of a similar magnitude (5.6). But, Sarah, the light fixture WAS moving. It was!!

busyness as I see it

Here's the view of my academic to-do list from my corner of the world.

1. Thesis journal submission
2. Quals
3. Diss. proposal
4. False signaling project
5. Ovulation paper
6. Behavior change project
7. Anthro & trees project
8. Anthro & disease project
9. Self deprecation project
10. Romanian orphans project
11. Consulting
12. EP write-up for Monitor

This stuff is all due yesterday.

8 years of practice makes perf...average at best

I've been learning to play guitar for something like 8 years. I don't remember exactly when I started, but I know my first guitar was a gift from Grandma and Grandpa during the first year or two that Sarah and I were married. I always still say that I'm learning to play because I'm just ok at it, and it's been a long process. Even if it's slow, at least I keep improving.

The whole time I've been learning to play, I've also been working on my singing voice. When I started, my singing was bad. Really bad. Comically bad. Sarah's mom and sister used to poke each other and snicker at me during church. True story.

I don't really mind being bad at things. That being said, I absolutely hate being bad at something that I devote time to practicing. Like singing. Or playing the guitar. So, I toiled away for years without much improvement in the singing department and only a little improvement in the guitar department. It was very frustrating. I told you, I don't do well when I devote time to something and don't get better at it. It makes me so mad!

I don't know when it happened, but I think the musical area in my brain started to change at some point in the last year or two. I saw very modest, slow improvement. Then about a month ago, I was trying to sing "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown." I say, "trying," because I can never sing this song. Can't hit most of the notes. But I kept going anyway. And I started hitting the notes. All of them. I kept singing but moved on to other songs that I'd never been able to get quite right. And I could sing those too. Totally weird. It was like my brain and my throat finally figured out how to sing a full range of notes. Actually, I think that might be what happened.

Fast forward to last week at church. I was singing along, like usual, and trying not to annoy the people in front of me. During greeting time, the woman in front of me quickly wheeled around, took my hand, told me what a nice voice I had, and said she loves worshiping when good singers sit near her.

I told her she might want to get her hearing checked. Even so the compliment was so nice to hear. Like music to my ears. Get it? Music? Singing? Then, this week a guy next to me patted me on the shoulder as we were leaving and said, "Nice job singing!"

Eight years of practice for two compliments? Totally worth it.

I'm a confusion barometer

Yesterday I was sitting in my Structural Equation Modeling class, and I was having trouble understanding the concept the professor was teaching. It wasn't just me, either. Everyone was having trouble following along. The professor is a really smart, higher-level math kind of person, and all of us students are just regular-level math kind of people.

So anyway, he kept going and going and everybody was totally lost. Occasionally, he would pause briefly and say things like, "Does that make sense?" Or, "Is everybody following me here?" Of course the answer is, "No, not at all." But hardly anyone is ever willing to say something like that. When he asks these questions, he almost always looks directly at me. I usually ask a lot of questions in class, and I don't mind speaking up when I don't understand something, so I think he sees me as the class's confusion barometer.

That being said, I don't always immediately chime in when I don't understand something, because I like to wait and see if things get a little clearer as class goes forward and the lecture develops. Yesterday, class got about 2/3s of the way through, and it was clear at that point that I wasn't going to get it at all. Just as I was thinking this, the professor again stopped, looked directly at me, and said, "Does everyone understand what I'm saying?" He shielded his eyes from the light of the projector as he stared at me.

Me: If I was going to be totally honest...

Him: Yes...

Me: Do you remember earlier when you said "good morning"?

Him: Yes...

Me: That was the last thing I understood.

The class erupted in laughter. And not just a little bit, it took a few moments for things to calm down again. When they did, the professor (who also thought it was funny) tried to reframe things. But I think I threw him off his game, and even though he tried to simplify things further, class kind of deteriorated from there.

I saw him in the hall later and he told me he was glad that I'd spoken up. I think that means he's going to try and re-format the lecture for us dummies, which means that we get to spend another 50 minutes on Monday talking about the algorithms and matrix algebra that underlie the fit indices procedures used for testing structural equation models. Oh good.

the ALDS is killing me

The major league baseball playoffs are well underway, and the Tigers managed to make it in this year. In (my) recent memory, this has only happened once: in 2006. I feel compelled to watch. I love baseball, and who knows when the Tigers will next make the post-season. This most recent post-season drought was only 5 years, but the one before that was almost 20 years. What I'm saying is that if I don't watch them now, there's no guarantee I'll ever see them in the playoffs again.

Two problems: (1) They're playing the Yankees, a team you either love or hate. Because they're too good. Every year. Including this year. And there's a good chance the Tigers will lose. (2) ALL THE GAMES START DURING THE TIME I AM NORMALLY BRUSHING MY TEETH AND GOING TO BED.

In short, I haven't been sleeping enough. For instance, the third game of the series was very exciting. Two great pitchers were pitching for each team, and the game was neck and neck throughout. The Tigers pulled out a heartpounding victory around 11 PM, at which time I've normally been sleeping for 2 - 3 hours. Meanwhile, I'm all geeked up like I'm hooked up to a coffee IV drip, and I still have to get up at 5:15 AM. Compound this with the fact that they played games four days in a row, and I'M NOT GETTING ENOUGH SLEEP.

For better or for worse, the series will end tonight. I hope to have to lose a lot more sleep over the next few weeks. Go Tigers!

I might buy a safe

Yesterday I played basketball during lunch, as I usually do on Mondays. I ended up on a really good team, and we won a bunch of games in a row. One of the guys I was playing with was new. He was a really good athlete but not really a basketball player in the traditional sense. After the game we ran into each other in the locker room and started talking. It turned out he was a former football player (wide receiver) at my school, and he was back now to work as a staff member and to finish his degree. After some more talking, it turned out that he left just a few credits shy of his degree because he got drafted into the NFL by the Minnesota Vikings. He bounced around the league a bit and had to come back from injury a few times. He finished his career with the New England Patriots. As I was leaving, he said, "Hey, since you're a sports fan, I'm going to show you something."

He reaches into his gym bag, pulls out a Superbowl ring, and hands it to me! (I think he'd been wearing it and took it off to play basketball). It turned out that he was with the Pats in 2005, when they won the Superbowl in 2005. It was, far and away, the most impressive piece of jewelry I've ever seen. In size, it seemed like it was almost as big as a tennis ball. Heaviest ring I have ever held. White gold (or maybe platinum) encrusted with diamonds, rubies, and sapphires (the Patriots colors are red, white, and blue). The centerpiece was three giant diamonds shaped like footballs. Totally amazing. I looked it up later: It's worth about as much as my house.

Anyway, he was a really nice guy, and that was probably the most unexpected encounter I have ever had in my life. But if I were him, I don't think I'd keep that thing in my gym bag...

nothing new

I went to let the cat outside, and when I came back I caught Barney at the computer. I think he's a little sad because he didn't have any new emails.

experimental psychology speak

The new school year is almost in full swing, and I've been working on typical things. I've been learning to use a new statistics software called R. Unfortunately, it means I've had to start learning a special programming language called S that was developed just for statistics. It's really boring. I'll stop talking about it now.

Next week I'm starting a new study that's going to help figure out why modesty and false modesty are successful strategies for relating to other people. On one level, the answer is obvious. Say you're really good at tennis. If you're playing tennis with a friend and killing them, everyone knows you shouldn't say, "I'm awesome at tennis." If you want them to like you, you should say, "I got lucky today," or "You almost got me this time," or "Do you want to go get some ice cream? My treat!"

Most people intuit that this way of relating to people is successful because it makes you seem nice, or because it makes people like you. But I'm trying to get at the "why" on a deeper level. In experimental psychology speak, I'm trying to figure out the "cognitive processes that underlie this phenomenon."

I'll let you know if I ever get it figured out.

I knew it felt warm

I've been complaining about the heat down here a lot this summer. As it turns out, I had good reason. The national weather service just announced that our summer here in Texas was the hottest on record. FOR THE ENTIRE UNITED STATES. That is, no one has ever had a hotter summer. Anywhere. Ever. Not since they've been keeping records, anyway. Oh, unless you count other countries.

I'm hoping it'll be something in between

In honor of Labor Day, I'm not planning on doing any labor. Not if I can help it. Sarah and I both seem to be getting sick. I suspect she brought something home with her from school, but I can't prove it. Yet. Since I've last written, I haven't had a whole lot going on. I'm just getting back to the swing of things at school, a task that's going to be made difficult because typhoid Sarah keeps bringing back microbes that will eventually kill us both. Best case scenario my headache and sore throat turn into the plague and we both have to be euthanized. Worst case scenario we start a zombie apocalypse. I'm hoping it will be something in between.

back again

This week is the first week 'back' to school for the new school year. I say 'back' because I never really left for a long summer break. That said, I do work from home for the majority of the time in the summer, so my summer schedule is different from my typical schedule, and it's already been an adjustment being away from home 12 hours a day instead of 0.

Other than that, I'm doing lots of the same things. This semester I'm taking another statistics course (Structural Equation Modeling--I don't know what it is either). I'm working on writing up the results of some of the research I did last year, and I'm coming up with new research ideas.

One nice thing about being back on campus is that I get to play basketball twice a week. As usual, I took the summer of from competitive basketball (but still shot around in the gym a few times a week). I played on Monday. On Tuesday I realized, given the many protestations from my body, that I'm old. But that won't stop me from playing tomorrow...