Homework for 2/25

Link 1: To Get Good Grades, Get Good Sleep

1. What were 3 things you found interesting?
a. People suffering from sleep-deprivation are at an increased risk for obesity, diabetes, psychological problems and car crashes
b. Students who don’t get enough sleep have poorer attendance and lower grades.
c. You’re probably better off sleeping than cramming for a test.

2. What are 2 things that makes you want to learn more about?
a. I would like to learn how to study other than cramming, so I am prepared enough for a test, and can get enough sleep.
b. I would like to question why high schools don't start later in the day, since sleep is so important for attendance and good grades.

3. Skills as a critical thinker: Well, we learned that sleep is necessary to "fuel" the body. We have more energy and a better attention span when we recharge at night, and if one goes long enough without sleep, they can die. So I really wonder why American Psychologists don't pressure the national schools to take these facts into consideration when planning the school day. American test scores and graduation rates may be higher if something as minor as the starting time was altered.

Link 2: Brain Sacks Out in Stages

1. Something interesting: I just find it interesting that our body is smart enough to know that it is not a good idea to just suddenly shut down. But shutting down in stages, the brain gives the body time to react, which avoids dangerous, and potentially lethal, situations. For example, if it weren't for the stages of shut-down, people would be constantly falling asleep at the wheel, causing accidents.

3. Critical thinking: So, it is generally considered a good thing that the brain shuts down in stages, and I fully agree. But what if the brain just shut down when it needed to? Then the body would know when it is time to go to sleep, and we are guarenteed to get the amount of sleep we need to act to our full potential. Right now even, I am struggling to stay awake at this computer. Probably a mix of staring at the screen, talking about sleep, and the fact that its the middle of Senior Week. But if the body shut down when it needed to, I wouldn't be able to fight the urge to close my eyes like I am now, and I would be guarenteed the rest I need. Just something to think about.

Link 3: Sleep position gives personality clue

1. "What's interesting is that the profile behind the posture is often very different from what we would expect." : I sleep in the Foetus position! Way to be the norm.
And this is what it means: The Foetus: Those who curl up in the foetus position are described as tough on the outside but sensitive at heart. They may be shy when they first meet somebody, but soon relax.
This is the most common sleeping position, adopted by 41% of the 1,000 people who took part in the survey. More than twice as many women as men tend to adopt this position.

2. More learning: I would like to learn more about the health effects of your sleeping position. I always have stomach discomfort in the morning, and no medicine my doctor gives me seems to work. I have had it for at least 3 years now, so I'm basically used to it. But according to this article: "Professor Idzikowski said: "Lying down flat means that stomach contents can more readily be worked back up into the mouth, while those who lie on their back may end up snoring and breathing less well during the night.'" Hmm.

Link 4: Snorting a Brain Chemical Could Replace Sleep (Woah.)

1. Interesting? Yes: Siegel said that orexin A is unique in that it only had an impact on sleepy monkeys, not alert ones, and that it is "specific in reversing the effects of sleepiness" without other impacts on the brain." So, it won't have an effect on already awake people. That is definitely an added bonus, for safety and function reasons.

Dream Journal!

I've been writing everything in my notebook. Its time to put my journal in blog format.
So.

2/13
Time Asleep: 12am-11am, 11 hours. Dreams: None. A solid, uneventful sleep.
2/14
Time Asleep: 12:30am-11am, 10 and 1/2 hours. Dreams: I had a weird dream that me and my mom were vintage prom dress shopping, but I couldn't find anything in my size. But I did find a bunch of Star Wars t-shirts that I was strangely excited about...
2/15
Time asleep: 12am-8:30am, 8 and 1/2 hours. Dreams: I drempt that I wasn't accepted to college anywhere. Oops.
Nap- Time asleep: 10am-12:30pm, 2 and 1/2 hours, off and on. Typical half-sleeping in the car.
2/16
Time asleep: 12am-10am, 10 hours. Dreams: None. I was never asleep long enough to have any memorable dreams. I was sharing a bed with my sister, who kept moving around and hitting me. I barely slept at all.
2/17
Time asleep: 11pm-9am, 10 hours. Dreams: The first was caused by a text I got at 1:07 from Kyle about senior week, so I had a dream that my parents wouldn't let me participate in anything. Then I had another dream that I could barely remember when I woke up, all I remember was that Kenny was in it.
2/18
Time asleep: 12:30am-10:30am, 10 hours. Dreams: I had a really strange and vivid dream. I was driving to Kenny's indoor track meet, which somehow turned into a Cross Country race. I got there and sat down with Leah Kohler and Cassie Bowen (who I haven't talked to since middle school). They invited me to lunch to catch up, and then we went to Coldstone for ice-cream. I got this really weird colored one with rainbow sprinkles. And at the cash register I realized that I missed Kenny's race and he would be upset, so I ran back to the field and looked all over for him. I found him and he had won the race and was really happy, and apparently didn't know I missed it. Then we somehow ended up at his house and watched Titanic. Very strange.
2/19
Time asleep: 12:30am-11am, 10 and 1/2 hours. Dreams: I saw Sweeny Todd with the Millers that night, so I had a dream that me and Kenny lived on Fleet Street. It was pretty uneventful, we were making dinner (probably because we had made dinner together that night), and that was pretty much it.
2/20
Time asleep: 3:30am-9:30am, 6 hours. I had to write a paper that was due 2/12, and then deliver it to my teacher's house early in the morning. Dreams: None that I could remember.
Nap- Time asleep: 10:30pm-11:15pm, 45 minutes. Me and Kenny fell asleep on the couch for a bit.
2/21
Time asleep: 12:15am-8:45am- 8 hours 15 minutes. Dreams: None.
Nap- 9:00am-9:30am, 30 minutes. I wasn't quite ready to start the day yet, so I rested for a bit after my shower.
2/22
2/23

Handout 14-2 11a and 11b

Grandma Ester - age 69

1. Did you attend high school? Did you want to? Yes and Yes
What kinds of subjects did you study? Arithmatic, English, History, Writing, Science, with homework in each.
Did most adolescents in your neighborhood go to high school? Yes

2. How many hours per week did you work/How much did you contribute to the family income? I did not work, so I did not contribute
Did you want to go to work? Not really, no

3. What were your clothes like? Beautiful flowered dresses and skirts.
Were you concerned about fashion? Yes! And my hair.

4. Did you date in high school? No
At what age were you allowed to date? 18
What did you typically do on a date? Drive-in, dinner, or soda

5. How did you and your friends spend your free time? Playing with dolls or going to get food

6. What was your most nagging problem as a teenager? That I wasn't allowed to date!

7. What do you see as the main difference between teenagers today and yourself as a teenager? Sexual freedom, drugs and alcohol, respect for elders and the value of grades for some
What do you think of today's teenagers? They are able to express themselves more freely, which is either a good thing or a bad thing, depending on the person.


Kyle Krawiec - age 18

1. What makes a friend different from an acquaintance? Sex (?)

2. What happens when you and your friend have a fight? Is that person still your friend? How do you try to resolve the conflict? It depends. If I'm fighting with a girl, she gets angry and it takes awhile to resolve. She'll be my friend eventually, it just takes time. If it's with a guy, it's generally not a big deal. I generally ignore all friend problems and let them resolve themselves over time.

3. List the names of people in your group of friends. Basically, my whole Senior Week team.
Whom do you typically hang out with after school? Various people from my senior week team.
Whom do you typically hang out with on weekends? The Improv Team.
Whom do you typically invite to your parties? Both

4. Who is the most popular person in your group? Me, duh.
What is that person like, and why do you think they are the most popular? I am arrogant and self-centered, yet intelligently funny.

Interview with Mom

I was above average.
A leader, very much always wanting to be in charge.
I definitely enjoyed the art aspect, which there was a lot of.
I was very smart, social, and on the bossy side.
I was always doing something make-believe in nature (newscasts, interpretive dance), or bossing my sisters around. My mom always knew I was going to be a teacher.

(Mom took 10 minutes thinking of a story, and she never came up with one.)

"I know I wrote stuff down a lot...somewhere, I have bits and pieces on information." -Mom

FINALLY THOUGHT OF ONE: When I was 2, I got up and turned the TV on and was watching TV by myself. Then, my aunt called and I told her my parents were at the "hopital," even though they were home. (They had just gotten home the day before with my new baby sister, so I was used to telling people they weren't home).

This is a story I wrote :
"I gust woke up erely in the morning and I got a big sporise...I saw a big birthday sporise! A room full of birthday deckorasans. Bullons, rebens, and lots lots more! Oh thank you mom, thank you dad, I said, I hope all of my friends can come to my birthday. Well Andrea can't come dad said why? I asct. She is out of town dad said. Oh, I said. The first to arive was Kirnin then Brian than all of my friends came. Insapt Mary. Oh mom said, Mary is going to be late! Why? I don't no, mom said."

3 Articles

So, last night my computer was being really dumb and would log off of the Internet whenever it felt like it. It was obnoxious. So I read 3 articles, but I couldn't do this blog last night.

Number One: I read an article last night, and then my computer logged out of it, and now I can't find it.

But the whole article was about the psychological effects of rape on the victim and the rapist.
Rape victims typically blame themselves for the event that occurred. They say it was completely their fault and that they deserve what they got. I don't think the research that was done for this article was thorough enough. The "facts" were very generalized. What about the victim that knows they were raped and it was not their fault? I would be interested to learn the psychological facts about them.
And also, according to this article, the rapist gains a feeling of power from the rape and feels invincible. But what about the rapist who later regrets the decision to take advantage of someone sexually?

Number Two: http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-20081103-000001.html

This article is about abortion and the mental effects it has on the potential mother. I don't think this article is very accurate or thorough.
Of course your reaction depends on your temperament and the circumstances. Even I could have told you that. Because abortion is such a debated issue, more situations need to be evaluated.
What about the psychological effects of religion? If your religion is against abortion, then feelings of guilt are going to arise. But what if your not want of a baby seems to outweigh the effect of your religion on your life? Classic cognitive dissonance.
This author gives the illusion that her article has all the answers, but that is simply not true.

Number Three: http://psychology.about.com/od/loveandattraction/a/compassionate.htm

Love cannot be divided into the categories of compassionate and passionate. I know I'm only 17 and the man who wrote this article is a grown man with a PhD in Psychology, but how can you really research this and come to that conclusion? I have experienced love, and though I am young and probably considered inexperienced to most adults, I know this: love is so different for every person, and its different with the different partners that that person experiences. Of course there are such things as compassionate and passionate love, but those are not the only types. Love is so hard to define, and it frustrates me when someone thinks they have all the answers. Who is he to say that he knows so much more about it, just because he has the means to do research?
Hatfield defined passionate love as: "A state of intense longing for union with another. Passionate love is a complex functional whole including appraisals or appreciations, subjective feelings, expressions, patterned physiological processes, action tendencies, and instrumental behaviors. Reciprocated love (union with the other) is associated with fulfillment and ecstasy. Unrequited love (separation) with emptiness, anxiety, or despair" (Hatfield & Rapson, 1993, p. 5).
Can't compassionate love be defined as the state of intense longing for union with another, too?

VORB

The Unspeakable Odyssey of the Motionless Boy

Erik had a stroke at the juncture where his body meets his brain. What is that place called? I'm not exactly sure. Maybe the brain stem?
Anyway, the car accident that caused the stroke caused him to have "Locked-in Syndrome." Erik had no ways of communicating with anyone because his muscles and his brain were no longer connected. The only muscles he was still capable of using were the once that allowed him to look up or down.
A man named Kennedy devised a way to turn Erik's thoughts into speech. When he asked Erik to form vowel sounds, such as "O," a pattern of neurons fired when he thought about moving. But there wasn't any motion, it was like "a light switch with a dead bulb."
I couldn't imagine anything like this happening to anyone I know or love or care about in any way.
And the fact that he had such liveliness and such a strong personality when he was alive makes the story all the more sad. While watching 60 minutes with his mother (and he has no choice because its not like he can leave the room), he asked her "Why do you watch such crappy shows?"
37 minutes

Learning From Mistakes Only Works After Age 12, Study Suggests

I found this article extremely interesting, I read it several times to make sure I fully understand it, and I'm still a bit confused.
So, up until age 8, humans only respond to positive feedback. Negative comments like scolding rarely make an impact on the brain for them. So when they do something wrong, scolding doesn't really do anything and is essentially pointless? That's where I'm confused.
According to the article, "learning from mistakes is complicated." And according to the research, "young children respond better to reward than punishment." Which makes sense, I suppose. I think I still respond better to reward sometimes.
But I just can't seem to agree with the statement that the young children don't respond to negative feedback as well. I remember specific times when I got in trouble in elementary school, because I was mortified that I did something wrong. Like when I didn't do my homework? That was the worst thing in the world, I was so terrified of what would happen to me. Now, if I don't do my homework, I just kind of say oh well and move on. Maybe its because I have SO many other things occupying my time, whereas when I was 6 or 7 all there was left to do other than homework was play.
I found this section of the article in particular to be most interesting:

"Is it experience?
Is that difference between eight- and twelve-year-olds the result of experience, or does it have to do with the way the brain develops? As yet, nobody has the answer. 'This kind of brain research has only been possible for the last ten years or so,' says Crone, 'and there are a lot more questions which have to be answered. But it is probably a combination of the brain maturing and experience.''

So no wonder I'm confused, no one else knows the answer to my questions.
32 minutes

Attraction

Both of my parents had been in serious relationships before they met each other.
My mom had a steady highschool boyfriend named Fred. She didn't go to college, and instead, she followed him to where he went to college.
My dad had a steady girlfriend in highschool named Linda, and they were engaged for a period of time before he broke it off.
Then, one fateful night, both of my parents happened to be getting drinks at the California Brew Haus. My mom claims that she thought my dad was an idiot, and my dad claims it was love at first sight.
Either way, they developed some sort of attraction to each other and are now happily married with 3 kids.