Two days ... both short posts
Good morning, what’s left of it. It’s about 11 am on Tuesday. We seem to be doing mostly music … no school. No nothing. We talked to someone cuz we had to move the wagon so the drive could be plowed. That was it. We were going to work … at least was dressed and all, but the weatherman said 8-12 inches and we called the center. She was saying to people come in only if you want … well my idea of want doesn’t include being stuck in Chicago snow all day. We’re like that. It’s been coming down steady all day in a windy misty blowing way. I haven’t listened any more carefully than that.Ok, back again. We turned on the video and spoke into that for a few moments. We’ve got some Enya in the background … might have to turn off the mail it’s too distracting. We just took our medicine … We forgot to take it when we were told we didn’t have to go into work cuz of the snow. Ok, not getting real far on that note either. We did talk to our friend and Dr. Marvin last night. That made us feel better … Dr. Marvin said it was ok to go to bed. So that is what we did. BUT, I know that we got to tough it out and get some school done. So, we need to wipe off the face that looks scrunchy and crying like. We knew what we were up against when we started the program. We’re not always normal so can’t look at it as the block, or we’ll never get anything done. We need to be progressing, k?
Ok, think here. What has to be done first? I think we should work on the Annotated bibliography and outline. K? Better to get the one full project done rather than one of the two smalls. Let’s put ourselves into it team. Let’s see what we need to take a look at.
Ok, good morning … it’s now about 7:15 am on Wednesday. We had started to work yesterday as stated and went through all the way until Deb stopped in about 8 or 8:30 pm. That was good work. We talked a little and then sent some mushies to sweetie pie before going to bed. I think there was a little more trouble than that, but not worth remembering. This morning the kitties and us were up early – think about 3:30 or so. We started working right away on the annotated stuff until we met up with our sweetie pie … he say’s he’ coming over with Chinese about 3 or 4 pm. I had the option of going out with him to get it, but since its still blustery out there, we said we’d stay in. We went back to studying, but are now taking a break to give the medicine a chance to take. So far we are doing great, but it’s a long project … we are completed with 13 out of 22, so that obviously means there’s 9 left, or we are at about 60% through. Did I mention it’s a LONG paper?
Right now we’re trying not to whimper … It seems there is plenty of information to write about, just we don’t have everything we’d found. AND, the way it worked was that we received the older information first (back in 1990) and am just up to 2002. My most current data is from 2004. Don’t know what happens in the field after that. Some of the articles we’re reading now want to summarize like 50 years of work in the field and I’m like noooo that’s like scraping fingers over a blackboard. It’s times like that we think we need a smoke, but REALLY DON’T need THAT! Probably best to keep focus. Anything else we need to tell you?
Yeeks we just went over to school and the professor is giving guidelines to the final paper draft due week 8 … We’re in week 6 now, but I don’t have the papers written for week 5. At least for week 5, we got in the comments and reading – at least text and 6 pages supporting documents. We will need a few more for back-up of our work. The goal would be then to complete this work by the time our buddy gets here at 3-4 pm, and then hit the sack after he leaves and get up tomorrow morning early and take a crack at one of those little papers. I really hate being behind and it takes like the dickens to catch up. I swear though so far this is the best paper I’ve put together – it feels so supported and we’re working ahead of final deadline. The professor said that we should try even if it took a few extra days to put together a good draft, and if it were good enough, we could almost submit back for the final 25 points, with little revision. That sure is a goal to work with. BUT, I know if I need time to hand in the paper late, I have to first be finished with the minor papers. It aggravates me each weekend that goes by and we’re not caught up. It takes then time during the week to finish the work.
Ok, that was enough of being at school … it’s always a little scary, because I think the professor is going to write to me and say catch-up or else. Terrible feelings of pressure. Maybe before I could get back to work, I could tell you a little about the paper? So far this is where it is at … well obviously we’re not going to tell you everything, because the supporting data is 14 pages long! SINGLE-SPACED!
Yeeks. AND, 9 more references to go … that’s approximately 9 more pages to write. My poor fingers. Ohhh shhhh, stop complaining! You were saying?? Hmpf! I know, I know …
Well basically the paper starts off with a summary of what social comparison is … everyone starts off with the premise that Festinger is responsible for the original theory in 1954. Through time people have fine tuned the theory adding contributions to its direction. We jump into the fray of discussing the relevance of making social comparisons upward or downward … that means do you look toward people who are doing well, or do you look toward people who are worse off than you. There is some minor discussion on making comparisons within and between groups, receiving feedback from others, and then we get back into the big stuff. There are several types of discrimination-distressed relationships primarily those where the person is stigmatized and the other where the person is feeling threatened. Actually there are a few more situations from which the individual is either devaluating himself or handing in a poor performance. All these conditions affect the social comparisons made. A couple more notations are made one on being a big fish in a little pond in comparison to a little fish in a big pond and in the role of cognitive clarity.
Then the chore is to introduce a fairly new theory and finally discuss the affect of social comparison on learning. I remember one late resource as having that new theory … I sure hope it measures out by the time we find it again. Hope that person was leaning toward that which decades of psychologists do. I’m so taken with the work. I didn’t know there was a methodology that would assist me in putting it together like this … I always thought that research was about the highest function a person could ever do. At least this person … since I’m not interested in saving direct lives or entering burning buildings, or flying to the moon. Yup, yup research WOOHOOO!!!
Ok, what does that mean? Not sure yet … not finished with the paper. Right now the process is to gather information from our 22 references concerning all of the above. I’ll show you the outline and annotated bibliography in a separate word document when we’re done. It’s quite a beaut by now. I have a very good general sense of what it is all saying, but I don’t have the minute comment to comment that is going to follow from reading sentences and paragraphs next to each other. Those are considered I think to be insightful deliberations. Everything is going to take time though and we need to think about moving on. BUT, we don’t want to get there just yet.
Well, besides we sent our hunny bun another valentines and am feeling alittle happy!
Time check … let’s see 8:30 am now … about 7 hours before he gets here and about 9 more resources … that means about 45 minutes per resource to get the project done.
Ok, let’s give that a go. We set the timer for the next 45 minutes. So, where did we leave off. AHA! Corning (2002). We’re coming dear!
It’s us again the time is now 12:41 pm. We’ve been working pretty much straight at it, but we took breaks to talk briefly to people and have something to eat … though most of our eating is on the run. We are down to 4 more references … WOOOHOOO, but my mind was just swimming. We needed a break. We’ll start up again in 15 minutes.
Maybe a chance for head to clear though. We’ve been doing pretty good on keeping track of all the 45 minutes. I knew I was in trouble with that last article though, because I really didn’t care about it. I would skip out now – pretty sure I have enough, but I’d be breaking up the set … AND the last ones are the newest and most relevant. My fingers are pretty sloppy over the keyboard. I didn’t know what I was typing. I started copying and pasting and then I wasn’t thinking as clearly although the work was going more quickly. Maybe some music?
Hmm Billy Holiday to down … Turned it onto a special Valentine’s Day one. Few more notes to our sweetie. It’s his day … I think he is going to be proud of me if I just don’t spend anything. Would be nice if I could pick up a little before he gets here. Maybe we’ll call him in an hour or so and see how close to schedule he is.
Eh just called him … he was working … knew not to disturb him long just asked how close he was to schedule. He said pretty close. That’s a good sign. I think he’s working from home today too. Hmm, looking around the place getting into the music … better show some diligence it’s already 1:26 pm. Ok, you … you know what to do!
posted by Ann Marie @ 2/15/2007 05:01:00 AM
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