what is it?

There is a simple truth to the universe, people are fascinated by what they don't understand.  One of the first schema that we learn to identify is gender, and babies under 1 year in age will stare longer at an androgynous person than they will at someone who's gender is easily identified.  Therefore it is important to be able to make any sort of production we have intricate enough to keep attention, but straightforward enough to convey our point.

Time to get real 10/25/10

To day has been an interesting day.  I sat down and forced myself to own up to my actions for the past week and take responsibility for what has gone on. 

      Preface, I have had Severe chronic depression with moderate suicide risk since fall break of my junior year of high school back in 2003.  It took me many years, countless therapy sessions, countless medications over the years, a hospitalization and the support of all my friends and family to get to where I am now.  This summer I was able to go without any medication for roughly a month while maintaining fairly effective control of my emotions.  As the school year approached again I decided to start back on a medication I had been on several years ago instead of the most recent one since I was starting to get additional side effects from the dosage I was at.  I had to withdraw my freshman fall semester because of depression and refuse to let it happen again.  I have learned that one of the best ways to do this is by taking ownership for all of my actions and not using my diagnosis as a crutch or an excuse.  I started back on a very low dosage that I am still at, and am starting to consider getting it increased because of the following.

     About two weeks ago or so I had the onset of a depressive spell start. I didn't catch it till roughly last night and have been doing emergency triage trying to get everything back on track.  I started skipping a couple of my classes even through I enjoy them for various piss poor reasons.   I always had an excuse or two ready to go whenever it was time to go to them.  My sleeping patterns started shifting around and I started oversleeping quite often, unable to convince myself to get out of bed or do any work.  The only thing that I did manage to focus on was an almost fervent obsession with putting together a Halloween costume that I would enjoy.  So on a positive note, I could say that I was slightly creative in that aspect.  I ended up failing to follow through several times at work and slept through two to three alarms going off at a time.  I lost a promotion I had and now have to re-earn it it, as well as getting back on track for school.  I am disappointed with myself, and accept all penalties laid against me.  I am my harshest critic and am trying to use that anger directed at myself to motivate me instead of holding me back. 

     So in conclusion, it's time for me to fix the mess I've made to the best of my ability, forgive myself and accept that I'm human(one of the hardest things for me to do), and try to use the knowledge that I've gained from this to try and avoid it again in the future.   Thought for the day: Never compromise with yourself, if you are coasting through life it means you aren't growing.

sacred follow up

I really enjoyed class today.  There was a lot of open discussion without any screaming or blowing things out of proportion.  I had to refrain from playing devil's advocate several times.  I guess it's just in my nature to try and see what people are made of and try and peel back the outer layers they show to learn what they are really about.

Sacred

I had to think long and hard for this project.  My view of the world has changed many times in my life.  I looked back on my experiences and thought about what common thread pulled them all together.  The most important thing in my life is the relationships I have with people.  On that same note, one of the things that i hold most dear is not betraying my friends.  I believe that Dante got it right when he said that the betrayers are the worst inhabitants of hell.  As far as religion goes, I consider myself a Christian inclusive monotheist with a mix of deism as well.  When it comes to what I hold deepest in my core... I don't feel comfortable sharing all of them on the vastness of the internet.  I fell that it is a topic more suited to one on one conversations. One of those points is that I refuse to let myself be in the same abusive patterns that I have experienced previously.  I try to learn from my mistakes and not be a victim anymore.  I may have been betrayed more times than I care to recount here, but I refuse to ever back-stab a friend like that.

oct 4

Yesterday I showed up to class as normal and sat around talking with everyone.  After 15 minutes i decided that I could spend my time a little better at work rather than waiting around.  I do enjoy the class but just got a promotion at work and wanted to beat rush hour traffic to the office soIi could help out earlier rather than later. 

At the office I learned how to check and verify qualified presentation reports and do kit returns.  I also caught up with the head temp manager as all of the higher ups are currently partying in Cabo San Lucus Mexico on a company pay off. 

As for questions 7-10 on our fear assignment, I really enjoyed Kathy's project of claustrophobia.  I think it could have been slightly more interesting if we had someone who truly was claustrophobic get put in the box.  I really liked it because it allowed the entire class to get involved trying to make the experience truly terrifying for him since he wasn't claustrophobic and not freaking out.  Had the experience been slightly more terrifying for him it would have been very evil.  It made me think of ways that I could have included more people in my project or let the time run longer to see if anyone had gotten more worried and anxious.

Fear

Fear is a natural response that our bodies have to keep us alive.  Unfortunately with the decline of saber-tooth tigers, fear can sometimes become more of a burden than a blessing.  Fear can prevent some people from experiencing a fulfilling life because it becomes generalized to non life threatening stimuli and thus become a phobia.

One emotion that is very similar to fear is anxiety, being worried and fearful about the future.  Anxiety prevents many people from enjoying life to their fullest because they are terrified about what could happen. I decided to test people's response to the unknown with my experiment.  I originally designed my experiment to occur in a pitch black room, but sadly that didn't pan out.  step one was getting all the participants off balance by dividing them up into groups.  Then stare into a bright light so that the effects of darkness are more pronounced.  After staring into the lights for thirty seconds, the turns are turned off and the participants put in ear plugs.  I then started walking around the class so that people would be expecting me to be doing something, but all i did was get close to some people.  If anyone opened their eyes or talked, I used a squirt bottle to spray them with water.  This sensory deprivation period lasted roughly 5 minutes.  

     I expect that my classmates will feel anxious, nervous, or worried during the experiment.  I performed my experiment in class with some success.  Several people got sprayed for not following directions of staying quiet or eyes closed.  After the experiment was over I asked how everyone felt and the majority of the class responded with nervous or bored.  The response I received was roughly on par with what I had hoped for with a few exceptions. Some of the changes I would have if doing the experiment again would include, having blindfolds, white noise generators, and scary looking medical instruments laying around.

As for the discussion of who's project affected me the most, we'll see after class today.