A time to be thankful

As I'm sure you know, it's (for the next two hours or so) Thanksgiving Day. It's a time to be with your family and share what it is that you are thankful for. A really great time of year to say the least.

Of course...

Leave it to the Legion of Doom to ignore all of this and only want what they don't have. Here, have a look...



Yeah, I know. Pitiful, right?

Intelligence

We recently started covering Intelligence in my Psychology class. It's been really interesting so far. Intelligence is one of those things that, while we know it exists, there's really no way to directly study or properly test it.

One study in particular was done with orphaned inner city children that have to sell stuff on the streets to make a living. They were given a series of math questions appropriate for their age had they been in school. They failed miserably. But, once they were given math problems tailored to their profession, for example 'If you have X cases of soda and sell through X amount, what would your profit be after cover costs?', they answered them correctly and immediately.

So like I said, really interesting stuff. Somehow we segued into the intelligence tests given to children in elementary school. The instructor related his own story of the faculty trying to put him into the advanced class. Then I remembered back in second grade when I was put into the advanced class.

I'm sure my mom would be able to shed more light on this(and I'd be happy if she did), but all I remember is being told how special I was for being chosen for this class and how incredible it would be for me. LIEEES!!!

For the short time I attended, I hated every moment of it. Every day I'd spend the last hour or so of school in this poorly lit room, talking about a book I didn't read, and having all kinds of homework shoved into my lap. Seriously, is that all advanced class is? To inundate kids with too much work? Yes. Yes it is. I felt like I was being punished for being special.

I don't know how I got out of the class, but I probably either complained enough to be let out of it, or the fact that I wasn't doing any of the work so graciously given to me. My mom will have to answer that one.

Well now, what do we have here?

Remember a couple weeks ago when I made that post about rushing to get a paper done on time? Y'know, I had plenty of lead time but I wasted it all just because I'm lazy at my best under pressure? Well I guess I was right about the pressure thing.

I got my paper back today and I'm very satisfied with the B+ that I got on it. I had a couple mistakes on it that were really small, but as my instructor was a journalist for seven years he's going to catch them. Here are some of the notes he put on there:

Very good - the main points covered and you have an understanding of the message.

Good writing.

I would have liked to have seen your comments on the potential of "fission", but oh well.

29/33 = 88% = B+

Like I said, I'm happy with what I got considering the effort I put into it. Yes, I'm aware that if I had really tried I'd have gotten 100% and blown the instructor's mind but let's be realistic here; after a high school career of D's and sometimes C's, this is pretty damn good.

Besides, maybe the world isn't ready for my best effort :P

You are neurotic and depressed. It doesn't mean that you're sad.

Seasonal Affective Disorder.

Do you think they spent much time deciding which words to use for this? They must have. Because after looking at it for a while, each of the words fit perfectly. Well, you could make the case to change seasonal to solstice but you still have the 'S' in there. So yeah, SAD.

Fitting, right? If you know what it is. I'm sure you do, but for those who might not, here ya go: Seasonal affective disorder is a mood disorder where people who feel just fine throughout the year get all depressed when night time starts at 4PM. Also known as winter depression. So again, fitting.

Being depressed isn't the same as being sad though. At least when you're sad you're feeling something (is there a reason I'm italicizing 's' words?). When you're depressed you don't feel much of anything, save for the occasional surge of extreme emotion. For me at least.

I'm not looking forward to Thanksgiving, I don't want anything for Christmas, I'm having a harder time waking up and doing what I want to do. Kinda sucks.

It's been a few years since I've felt like this, so I doubt that it's SAD. Mostly because SAD is supposed to occur every year for those it affects, and this started before daylight savings was switched off. It doesn't help that there are outside sources screwing with my already altered system, but whatcha gonna do?

I've made it through worse and I've come out better. Just wish the better wasn't on the other side of winter.

I didn't write this for sympathy or kind words so please, no 'Kelly you'll get through this' or 'What's wrong, I'm here to help.' I wrote this to try and alleviate some of the inherent misery that comes with being a depressed person so close to the holidays.

Brownie points to whoever knows where the title of this jolly little post comes from. And a little gold star for whoever guesses how hard I'm going to kick myself for even posting this.

The gist of it

All in a day's rush

For the last few weeks I've barely been able to sleep or eat and I feel like I've been worn down to dust. Even so, there are some times that I amaze myself. No, not because of anything bad (at least not this time), but because I'm one of the few people that seems to work well under pressure. Possibly better. Case in point:

A couple weeks ago we were given an assignment in History 103. Only the second one we've had so far. We were to read the book, Children of the Sun by Alfred Crosby and write a paper on it (one page minimum, single space, no double spaced breaks). Being as poor as I am I put off buying the book until the last minute, which as it turned out was last Thursday at 1:48PM. Great, I thought, I've got a whole week to read the book and write my paper. Of course we both know (judging by my intro to this post), that this wasn't to be the case.

I had to enjoy my days off, I had to enjoy Halloween, and of course I had to work and eventually I had school again. So the days ticked off and I hadn't so much as opened the book I spent too much on (seriously, who really needs to sell books at the MSRP?). Then yesterday came, the day before the assignment was due. I had no choice but to really hunker down and get started on it. Luckily I didn't have to work and I have a decent sized break between my second and third classes. I was gonna do it!

I know, sounds great on paper and I did hunker down to a degree, but I have a hell of a time focusing on anything I consider vitally important. But knowing it was due tomorrow (today) really kept me going at it. I obviously didn't have time to read the entire book so I focused on specific parts of it so at least when I wrote about it, I'd know exactly what I was writing about. Before I knew it, I had my one page and I wasn't even done! A few skims here and there at the end of the book, a few summarizing sentences and that was it. I finished it... I finished it?!

Surely it must be riddled with errors and read like stereo instructions, but no! It was coherent and, dare I say, engaging! I was honestly surprised and amazed at what I had pulled off; I wrote a college level paper on a book I barely read in less than a day!

Who am I and what have I done with myself?

I'm Kelly, and I really don't know. But I'm proud of myself.