We've Been Blessed With a Good Life
Good morning! Wow! I just followed an incredibly long pet with Missy and before that we’d done a very long one with Chief. I think they were a little frazzled because there is no heat in the apartment and it is about 43 degrees out there. Hmpf, you can imagine what we have to say on that score. Our friend said that like on the first of May or something the landlords have a right to discontinue the heating service until like September or October. That’s not a good deal at all, especially since we keep up with our rent payment … HMPF! We had figured out enough to be wearing our flannel pajamas and we had a thicker blanket on our lap, but our friend suggested we put on a sweatshirt over the pjs and put some nice wool socks on our feet. AHA! That plus two cuddly kitties equals warmth! We’re all good to go, though our body shut down once this morning before our friend happened by. SOOOO, it is a terribly late 9:30 now and we just got to the part of remembering our medicine. Better make do.
This is the warmed up vision now J We’re going through a reality check this morning too. Two things have happened. Our weight climbed back to 275.2 AND our friends weight has come down to 274.8 … You can imagine that caused quite a stir. Obviously only one of us is going to BK and having donuts. Shoot. Had the advantage of a lead for quite a while and now we’ve spoiled it. SOOOO, somehow we have to live without both of the above AND do some walking. To be fair though … he has to help us get the right lunch. AND, for now that means … we want grapefruits. Have to work on it with him. The cost of shipping it in for the good stuff costs too much. Hmm, wonder what would happen if we got some at Pete’s Market. It’s a Spanish store, especially known for fruit where a couple of our clients work. I guess though it be a bit much to ask someone to pick it up. *Sigh* We’ll just have to see what our friend can do. Whatever we do it has to be consistent … I’ll want it for lunch at least Mon through Fri. AHA! Our friend DID put a few fruit cups in the fridge J
Ok, we’re going to need getting serious here pretty fast. Don’t feel like we’re very alert yet, but we’re getting there. I think we’re like at early avoidance. Ok, let’s see there’s a system to this. First we got to clear our minds. Anything left of the week? I think we’re pretty covered with work, because we kept up with that through the week. We’re still working on getting things done more expeditiously. But, at least we were going forward. CARF just has to happen and that needs some more work. Not going there now with so much school to focus on.
We did ok with school the first part of the week up through Wednesday. But, then we had a Dr. M. appointment and our friend came over both Thursday and Friday night. So, we kind of let it go again. We still have one more journal entry from last week and we have do the regular 2 papers, 2 labs, and 1 more journal entry for this week, along with some kind of advancement on the final paper. Plus, we need to do this with a late Saturday morning start. Not going to be able to fool around too much. Why don’t we set something up now … Maybe complete the last journal entry before writing about Dr. M’s visit. That’s a good idea I think. Hold on … going to go over to school.
Ok, the journal assignment reads …
Write a short (two to three paragraphs) reflection on this unit. What is the one most important thing you have learned about knowledge representation? How has it impacted your educational, professional, and personal knowledge and practice? What areas within this unit did you find most interesting to pursue in future study?
Better get out the book. I did read the two chapters … just got to find the part I want to write about … I have an idea on that now. I think I want to write about parallel processing: The Connectionist Model, or more specifically parallel distributed processing (PDP).
Paper …
The part of this unit that excited me the most was on Parallel Distributed Processing (PDP). I was impressed by how incredibly fast the brain processes (3 milliseconds to fire), but more than anything it had changed my understanding of how the brain works. I had been thinking along the line of serial processing and I had been thinking that somehow knowledge was found at the end points of nodes more than the connections between nodes. I still need to do some work sorting out how neurons and nodes interface. My understanding so far is that the PDP model, utilizes neurology more closely than other models, but it is still just a means of explaining something that is happening that isn’t really clearly known yet, which might be some of our confusion. My mind has been opened by the concept of an innumerable number of connection patterns as representing knowledge and that it is building strengths and weaknesses in the knowledge network. The fact that there are so many connection potentials and at that, each have different levels of neurotransmitter releases - goes to add further complexity and as a result awe in the process.
I am trying to develop in my mind a schema that will hold my thoughts on how the mind processes. The PDP model has come closest to giving me a general image of the cognitive system working together. It means that when I’m thinking … there are multitudes of other dynamics happening and that the thought represents just the end result of the connections being made in my mind. For example, if I am able to concentrate, it seems that the pathways happening in my mind can make connections of information that is more specific and unique to anything ever developed before … it assumes my entire life experience, the work that I focus on as most relevant, my emotions, my perceptions, memory … everything. The result is necessarily novel each time and due to the building of strengths and weaknesses. My end thought has gone through a new mode of “getting to that point” each time I think. Likewise, this same affect occurs to the clients that I work with. I’ve mentioned previously a group I lead at our center called, “The Thinking Group.” For the last three weeks, I’ve been working on developmental aspects of learning the material I write for the center called “a Performance Analysis Report.” It is an effort to document the processes of learning our clients experience while at the center and taking the sum total of many contributory efforts in explaining the program effect on each individual. Because of the reading in this course, I feel an additional amount of strength in the processes we are leading them through. This new information allows us to think of how we’re strengthening more effective patterns of thought. The significance of the report for them is to give them more understanding of their processes leading them to more ability to choose and communicate personal preferences. I have no set boundaries on what people with developmental disabilities can be enabled toward learning in the development of knowledge structures. We can help them with “fuzzy” problems.
I look forward to learning more from Sternberg in how each of these systems work together. I am fairly sure at this point that I will continue the work of teaching the essentials of the Performance Analysis to the clients and that it will be assisted by the development of schemas structured by the like of PDP. I am trying to delineate clear avenues such as having them integrate through the report format experientially the center’s five domains, which are achievement, social, personal, community, and living. Yesterday, the majority of them were able to pick up something new in positive and negative valences, which is the bulwark of the analysis. For example, if I give them a verbal image of Jack kicking a chair they can say that is negative and if I say Jack helped his staff set-up the job, they can say that is positive. The next level will be that they can tell me that kicking the chair is in a personal domain and setting-up the job is part of a community domain. At this point they want to be personally in control of themselves and they want to be out in the community, but they are just learning of the myriad of experiences the need to process successfully to get from point A to point B. It is critical that at this juncture the majority can categorize experiences, so that they clearly comprehend consistently how one unit or groups of thought affects another and how each can affect the whole of their choosing. As toward the future both educationally and professionally I feel that the work we’ve begun at this point will be the basis for my master’s paper further down the line.
End Paper
AHA! Finished that! Been over at school and finished a couple of comments too. Officially I am caught up to the right week. Unfortunately, I’m starting mid-day on a Saturday that which I would have preferred to have started last Saturday. I’m afraid there is not going to be too much time for our final paper. And, this is going to cost me some distress. This is what we have to go through BY THIS WEEKEND! I want to have next week’s work handed in on time, so we can get to the final paper.
Read: Sternberg, R.J. (2003). Cognitive psychology (3rd ed.). Belmont , CA : Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, pp. 284-357.
Part I: Thoroughly compare and contrast the speech-is-ordinary and speech-is-special views, particularly in reference to categorical perception and phonemic restoration. Be sure to clearly define and describe categorical perception and phonemic restoration in your answer.
Part II: Jennifer and Don are expecting a baby. They are eager to provide the best language stimulation for the baby. Drawing from research on language acquisition, what practical advice would you give this couple regarding appropriate language stimulation for infants? What advice would you give this couple regarding teaching children appropriate communication of emotions?
Compare and contrast linguistic relativity and linguistic universals, being sure to provide evidence that supports the existence of each. What has neuropsychological research taught us about the relationship between particular areas of the brain and particular linguistic functions? What other methods have shed additional light on this relationship?
Use your CogLab CD to participate in the Categorical Perception-Identification and Word Superiority experiments under the Speech and Language area. Then answer the following questions
On the categorical perception-identification demonstration, why were the endpoints of the vocal continuum, “ba” and “pa” easier to identify than the sounds in the middle? Where in the stimuli continuum between “ba” and “pa” were more errors or misidentifications made?
On the Word Superiority demonstration, do your results indicate a word superiority effect? Explain.
Write a short (two to three paragraphs) reflection on this unit. What is the one most important thing you have learned about language? How has it impacted your educational, professional, and personal knowledge and practice? What areas within this unit did you find most interesting to pursue in future study?
Ok, ok … not too much problem … YEEKS! What ever did I get myself into … and to beat all … I pay them to do this to me and for them to tell me did I do it good, or did I do it bad. HMPF!
Not so sure I’m happy about the language part, which is ALL of it this week. I’ve never been real excited about this area, but I have to think positively and maybe just maybe how we do language is going to show me more about how we learn. And, we’re all for that. First things first. It’s about 1:30 and we’ve got about 75 pages to read. YAYYY light week! Hehehehe. Ohhh she’s a glutton for punishment! YAYYYYYY! Treats! Hmm, ok, treats … when we finish reading the 75 pages, we cannnnnnnnnn hmm… don’t want to leave the house and donuts are out! It’s too cold to get a slushy treat. Let’s say … we get through the reading, we I know … how bout we reserve some time to write Dr. M?? YAYYYYYY, that’s a real good idea! We’ll write to him about ANYTHING we want! Very good. So, we’re all set? Let’s see how we again do at the comfy couch. It’s supposed to be cold and rain all weekend. So, we have got to improvise. Let’s shoot for reading until 5 pm. I know you can do it, your primed! Hehehe ok,
Ok, ok …. BREAK (seeing Barney slide down the dinosaurs neck here). 5 pm. Man that was gruelly. The couple of pages the questions for the paper centered on were ridiculously hard! It seems though overall I’m reading at about one pager per 5.25 minutes. YEEKS!!!! SLOW That means to finish … it’s going to take at least another 2 ½ to 3 hours of reading. Man oh live being eaten alive here. I think we’re going to give ourselves a half hour break … that means we’ll be done reading about about 8 … man … there goes a whole day! Wait better put dinner in the microwave … times going to go fast here. Ok, so we’re Gestalt here … we feel the need to state that we are reading at slightly better than 11 pages per hour. That’s just for you that didn’t want to figure out the math. I seem to remember once upon a time reading fiction at about 50 pages per hour, but then you know my memory. This number most likely is off. But, it sounds great!
We’re working an impossible situation here. I obviously shouldn’t start a paper at 8 o’clock at night. Hmm, better stop drinking coffee then. Hhehehe … Every time I started to doze, I took another sip. Fortunately, it wasn’t that often. AND, it turns out our heat does work, just had to be turned on … I had thrown it up to 73-74, and I’m now roasting. Door’s been opened and sweatshirt/socks removed. Kitty didn’t even get up when I moved. He was pressed warmly against my leg. Sheeeesh. The first part of what we read this afternoon was pretty yucky stuff. Had to do with lexicons and syntax and grammar and silly putty. Terrible! Now things are starting to heat up a little. Sternberg is starting to talk about how language affects knowledge. Because, you know, I’m not to terribly keen on sentence structure. Like I have no idea what a possessive pronoun is but can bet you he’s masculine! I want to write, but in our day and time they were going with content instead of context.
Hmm, I wonder if V went over to his sons? I forgot to ask. Usually, he would be gone by now. He’s been off-line since 1 pm. Hmpf!
Whoops, ‘scuse me … you weren’t supposed to see that. Ahem on the camera person!!!
I’m like that lady who lives in a box. Don’t worry someone sends in food. Now when I imagine other people, they are usually either getting in their car, or slow dancing. Ok, we’re fixated … that’s not the real problem!
No problems … I think we mentioned we seen Sweetie pie two nights in a row. They were all good. Please shake me if I ever mislead you into thinking that we are anything less than pampered. It goes though two ways. That makes the whole thing pretty cool. Hmm, we’re dawdling off in that direction for a few minutes, until I started to over-heat. Whoa … that’s interesting … I did a little more work with the numbers. Do you now, we are most likely coming up to having made love with our special friend about 1000 times?? True, we just figured it out … More like 988, but that’s pretty darn close! And, oh what a lover he is J J J. Ok, ok ok … I’m stopping, but it was kind of a fer instance that seemed relevant to the moment!
This is our contented smile. I think I’ve been conditioned to feel this way right after eating so it’s really not our fault.
We’re not real great at writing more than a paper a day, but we’ve done it before. We’ll have to skip trying to get a lab in though and get to bed early. Ok, definitively, enough coffee then. Better go get some ice water, BRB. Hmm, we’re stretching things a little bit … we’re now up to a 45 minute break … cuz we’re stealing an extra 15 minutes. YoohOOOOO!
So, how are we going to do this. Best we could do is two papers tomorrow and that’s stretching, maybe an experiment the next morning and the journal done on Tuesday. Hmm, thinking Tuesday our friend is coming back, because he’s going to be gone the back half of the week on another fishing trip. Ok, then lets plan two nights to get the reading done Wed & Thursday Saturday 2 more papers Man … this is hard … when am I ever going to have time to do the final??? Better … try not to worry … Just keep working at it. Think though we better get back to reading … Be over on the comfy couch. It’s now about 5:50 pm. Should be back around anytime from 8:30-9 … I don’t think this chapter is as hard as the last. Wish us luck!
OH MAN! 9 pm on the dot! Took slightly over … Oh Yeeks … it got worse! 7.6 minutes per page. I lost 31% of my original ability … think we’ll call this the “tired effect.” Hehehe Maybe too because the second 1/3 of the reading, we were more engrossed in it, which instead of speeding us up slowed us down because we were putting more of our own thought into the process. Eh, live and learn. We could become an expert at this Hehehe. Just need to pay attention. Although, I can recall, we’ve left some great markers as to how we process, particularly in putting thoughts together. It was a “D” word, but again don’t recall. Shoot, sure hope they were right and it’s all in there somewhere having an affect on my brain. Silly us! Well. As promised we get to put something together to Dr. M. Remember condense! Need to keep it short, which will give us a better chance of being read more thoroughly. We’re learning Dr.’s are too busy and important to think diffusely. We’re trying … Ok, let’s concentrate … What’s our agenda with him?
Friend [9:29 P.M.]: Hi in middle of game just saw you
Aynetal3 [9:29 P.M.]: Hey sweetie pie ... that's ok just play
Friend [9:30 P.M.]: :-*
Friend [9:30 P.M.]: O:-)
Aynetal3 [9:30 P.M.]: nitey nite
Yup, yup … pretty sure we’re in love … Thinking of that comic with the couple who are naked and they say, “Love is …” I’m pretty sure it is when you allow him to play cards guilt free on a Saturday night. Heheheh For the record, we have to think about this effort though … it’s not something that comes naturally. We just processed something in our reading. Guys like to maintain their independence. Sorta like with our reading a few weeks back where we decided to work toward being a place that was inviting. And especially, we know that if we’re nice and non-threatening … chances are they will be the same. NICE!
So, back to our Dr. M. note … yah yah … you’ll probably get to see that too, but for now … Out you go … we need to spend a little time with Dr. M. thoughts J
Hehehe cheated here … Us talking to Deb~!
Whose talking about hubby’s BBQ!!!
Dear Dr. M.,
We're doing pretty good ... though haven't processed you being gone for such a long time. I think you are leaving this Tuesday. And not being here the rest of the week and pretty much all of next week too. Then we'll have to wait most of the next week before we can see you.
Maybe we better do a little planning in that regard, keeping in mind our intent to be brief.
We like you being at our blog all the time ... at least the image we now have of you. We have had more difficulty though staying away from blog writing. Not that you are up on our screen all the time, but that this week even at work, we worked around our writing as per blog. We are at work talking about work, but still blogging. We're at a comfort level where we realize that most of our thinking and writing are happening at the same time. Unless, of course we're talking with someone, or are reading. We did good today and read 75 pages, but got a late start so no papers were written. Yeeks that's a divergence.
Think brief.
We're thinking you're actually not at your office, but you've left a poster of yourself in front of the camera. We're remembering better that you are a nice person. Being able to write to you has been good for us and we're finding we don't need to do it everyday, but that if we do, it is still ok. We'll have to work harder at being ok knowing that most likely while your in London, you won't be able to write back. Last time you left, you put your email on auto-response and that was pretty formal. I didn't know the people person we could talk to if we needed to.
We're still going over aspects of the Performance Analysis with the Thinking Group. One of the clients drew himself at 6'3" in relationship to the other Q who is about 5'3" In the picture he's not the big one.
It's how we feel with you. Your giant in our book.
Nitey nite
posted by Ann Marie @ 5/14/2006 03:36:00 AM
Comments: 1
