Hello, Do You Have Google?

Well then good news -- you too could likely pass this "take-home test." (You can see it bigger if you click.)

Just a reminder -- I get COLLEGE CREDIT for this. COLLEGE. The same stuff people spend 20 years paying off.

Also, someone was asking me what classes I had left and after I listed them I was convinced I was missing one, and that's when it hit me -- after next week, I am halfway done with my prereqs! I can apply this fall and start next damn May if I want.

That's really exciting, and also really scary. I might slow down a bit. I dunno. I'm terrified and confused. But, again, halfway done, so yay for that, you know?

Online College Contd.

Best post yet, in response to a question on ethnic identity.

"I have to say that I think this is funny. I am from upstate New York and I thought that everyone in the US did and said the same things we did and said... I take a vacation to Florida and I find out that soda is actually pop to them. It makes me laugh when ever we take a vacation to see the different little things that we do. By the way. Floridians think we are just as weird for calling Pepsi soda... soda to them is soda water.... :)"

Also the cut-and-paster continues to cut and paste, giving sources such as en.wikipedia.org, books.google.com, and highbeam.com. GOOD JOB, LOSER!

Guess Who Posted this in Internet College?

"Okay, honestly.. yes, it's that time of the month. I know this is personal, but I'm finding myself feeling a different emotion every 5 minutes. I went to the mall today.. oh boy. I felt happy, excited, then anxious and pressured. Most of the time, I felt them all at once. By the time I left I was pissed off over something rediculous, pleased with my purchases, anxious to get out of there, excited to be leaving, sad to be leaving. Hahah, I didn't know what to think. By the time I got home I wanted to cry.. over the smallest thing ever. Of course.. but It's crazy how we can feel so many different emotions in such a short time, it's almost overwhelming (which is also how I felt!)
-- Men don't make things any better!"

Give up? That's right! NOT ME!

Internet Classmates

So far most of the 'significant responses' in my developmental psychology class consist of one-line anecdotes about people's kids. Samples:

* "Babies are just the coolest people. I have learned so much from my kids and they keep teaching me every day.
* "Its amazing to think that children are so aware of there surroundings. The smallest situation can really have a huge impact on who they will become."

Too true, dudes.

But this response to a question about babies recognizing faces seemed surprisingly insightful: "Early face-specific processing is not automatic,but rather, like other objects, strongly depends on endogenous factors such as the allocation of spatial attention."

So I Googled it. And yeah. I shouldn't even be getting grade school credit for this stuff.

(Pic: bbaunach, Flickr)

What I Know About This Semester's Online Course

1. 87% of our grade is based on the two-a-week multiple choice, automatically-graded tests. I read the book this week but from the 15-minute exams I just took I think there's a good chance I can skip that part if I'm pressed for time.

The other 13% is how much we blather meaningfully on various topics in the discussion.

2. In the icebreaker post about why we're taking the class, one girl explained that it's to understand why her boyfriend died. So there's that.

This is how online learning was meant to be.

What Happens When You Are Old and Join Facebook

So this Cool Older Guy I had the MOST GINORMOUS CRUSH EVER on in junior high (which is to say, I heard he liked The Cure) friended me on Facebook. And I have not felt this validated in years.

By Commenter Request

Actual excerpt from the discussion from my online Intro to Psychology class:

Question:
Transportation workers(airline pilots, truck drivers, bus drivers)are not allowed to exceed a specific number of work hours per day. What argument might you make supporting the continuance(or discontinuance) of such laws?

Reply:
I remember one time my fiancé and I were driving on the highway and we were on the side of a tractor trailer. I noticed the vehicle swerving slightly and when I looked out the window I could see the man driving with his eyes closed. They were closed for only seconds, but that's all it takes.

Reply:
wow what a scary situation. I cant even imagine having that happen since I am afraid enough of passing tractor trailers on the highway without them swerving. You are completely correct though that all it takes is a few seconds unfortunately. And those few seconds can determine life and death when you are operating such a powerful machine. Scary stuff to think about.

I started keeping an ongoing list of but after about two days, it got too depressing to even make fun of. I still have a few saved though if you guys want to see more.

Really makes your mouth water for the Oct. 27 kickoff of my next semester, no!?

Academia

Fact: This study about nurses in the movies is interesting. I wrote away for the full text and will update you with specifics when/if I get it.

Guess What I Just Changed?

The template of this page, so not EVERYTHING has to be in green bold right on top of everything else.

Guess how I did that?
HTML, people.

Let me know what you think. It's not perfect, but it's better.

And look, I know I've been terrible about posting. But, like my boss, I don't see that -- or ANYTHING -- as a negative. I see it as an opportunity to grow. Specifically, it's a great opportunity for you to slow down and grow some patience. Here's a picture from the esteemed internet as an apology.

Plus, school starts up again in a week -- another internet psychology class. So that's sure to provide plenty of new things for me to rage about that I can't talk about at work.

Grounded

So last week I wasn't allowed to watch TV (except for what I'd DVRd, okay) or do work and I suddenly found myself with a lot more time.

So I immediately devoted all that anxiety and obsessive behavior to researching and re-researching nursing programs and reading nurse blogs. These are my two favorites:

Musings of a Highly Trained Monkey
and
Adventures of GuitarGirl RN
(she used to be an editor and fact-checker and now is a nurse)

Of course, those two are ER/acute-care nurses and reading them raises my blood pressure.

I also found two hospice nurse blogs that didn't exist in January:

DNR/DNI
and
Dethmama Chronicles

eGay

Recently I decided to get rid of some crap in my house, so I turned to eBay. I wasn’t out to make money, I just wanted stuff to go to someone who’d want it (or would put more effort into reselling it than I would). I happily sold a factory-sealed DVD box set I’d gotten free at work for $3. Good deal for them, right? I suppose there were early warning signs that my buyer was a micromanager:

8/10
Hi, Just wanted to let you know that I paid through pay pal and would you please mark the package three times with fragile on it. Have a great day. look forward to getting my law and order season 2 bye for now.

I sent the discs, then went on vacation. That’s when the COMPLETE AND UTTER PANIC started.

8/17
Hi I am realy said that I have to write to you. I got the Law and order second year a couple of days ago and last night we watched it for the first time. It arrived in great shape your shipping and packaging was first class. Episode one was great and then on the second show. the DVD player just jammed. and I cleaned teh dvd and tried again and the show jamed at the same spot. My player works great I watched dvds before and after i tried the law and order. so I am sorry but I think I need to get a full refund. I would like your address so I can send this back to you. I know you are just starting out in Ebay and I am sorry to bring you this problem. Have a great day.

Annoying, sure, but I’m on vacation and don’t care if someone feels they deserve a refund for their THREE DOLLARS. So I push the button to refund the money with a note to throw the discs away. (FYI, somehow the most appalling part of this to me is the implication that I'm "starting out" on eBay as some sort of income thing. I mean, three dollars people.)

8/19
Dear Seller<>

I mean. Just resell the discs already this is too much work to go through, especially since the tale reeks of either BS or OCD. Regardless, I send an email to the address listed saying it’s fine to throw the “defective disc” away.

8/21
dear seller this is my third email to you. once again thank you for the refund. I want to know waht you want me to do I can either mail law and order second season back to you or trash it. If you want me to mail it back i need your address if you want me to trash it I will. If i do not hear from you in the next two day I will just throw it away. have a great day.

8/22
Dear Seller: I just got off the phone with paypal and I can not just throw the dvd away I need a olay form you through the EMail or you can send me your address. Either way I can do I just want to resolve this. It is starting to be a problem. I just want to do right by you. So please an email saying throw season two law and order away or please give your address so I can send it back. Please respond to me. I was just going to throw the dvd away but I call paypl to make sure i could and they said I need writen instruction from you since it is your dvds. by for now.

This time I respond with “I have written you two times to say it’s fine to throw the discs away.” But don’t worry! My penpalship isn’t over yet! (Sidenote: Really? You called paypal to ask if you could throw away a DVD some stranger sent you?)

8/23
Thanks you that was so cool. I just got to see the email on Yahoo mail. It is all my bad and thank you again for the refund and the understanding . No more email from me I promise and thanks again.

I'm starting to see why I uncharacteristically liked the sci-fi book my brother sent me. People like this buyer and my boss make being eaten by zombies sound like sweet, sweet relief.

UPDATE
8/25
Imagine my delight to get an email with the subject line: "Please connect with me :)" with (what I pray is) a Reunion.com form letter that says:

I looked for you on Reunion.com, but you weren't there.

Please connect with me so we can keep in touch.

Meet the Future Mr. And Mr. Imaginary Nurse

So this weekend I was doing what everyone does from time to time, shopping for kids online. (Since I'm now too fat to ever be marketable dating-wise, I decided I should skip to the next phase of my adult development.)

ANYWAY that's how I met these wonderful boys and I really wish I were a grown-up and/or a nurse who could find work in Alaska and/or a squillionaire. Because then I could adopt them and we could all live in a cone-shaped house with a fake polar bear rug in the middle of the floor and sleep in single beds shaped like sleighs (each one relative to our height) and have Easter egg hunts and oh my god.

I am thinking of asking my mom, the Actual Nurse, to adopt them and then I'll just come get them in a couple of years when I can support them. I'm her favorite, so it just might work. And she wants grandkids so this is perfect, she can just get them started for me.

Two New Lows

Last week I turned off Intervention before the first commercial. A whiny bulimic boozer dude? Snore.

Then tonight I started walking to the gym and then was so tired I turned around before I was halfway down the block. But don't worry, I ate two dinners to make up for it.

I bet if I died I'd look like the Montauk Monster.

So Last Week I'm On The Phone

And some guy who wants to do partner content (with my real job, not this amazing piece of bloggery) says that we share a lot of the same ideaspace. So in the future, when you hear that I've died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the ideaspace, you will know where I got the term.

Photo Library Findings

Do you like this? Can you do a better caption? Then go vote for it here so it can be on icanhascheezburger please.


moar funny pictures

Internet Rage

So I haven't written that much about my internet psychology class. That's not because I'm not taking it, but because it's so painful as to not even be funny. Here's what we do each week:

* Read four chapters of a textbook
* Post four answers on ONE narrow topic plucked at random from one of those four chapters
* Write a chapter summary. (Italics indicate disbelief.) Minimum word count is 600. I got a C on one I did that was 1800 words because it needed "more detail."
* Write a 600-word minimum essay on a topic from one of the chapters. So far the only feedback I've gotten is "longer and more detail would improve score."

Here's the actual question posed by the professor this week, and a sample answer--from him, so you know it's supposed to make sense.

QUESTION: 535 members of the U.S. Congress pass laws which sometimes affect small parts of the population and in some instatnces the entire population of 300 million. What factors discussed in chapter 15 might help explain how a mere .00018 % of the population can dictate the rules for the other 99.99982 % of the population?

ANSWER: There are many factors that determine why so few can dictate to so many. Suggestibility shows that people are willing to conform to what others say they should or should not do. It is a subtle type of conformity-pg 546. Being part of a group may allow us access to valuable information. "When influence supports our opinion we approve, we applaud those who are sensitive enough to be responsive".--pg 547. "Obedience was highest when---the person giving the orders was perceived to be a legitimate authority figure.-pg548. Social loafing might be seen when a group of people work together to obtain a common goal. In some instances these individuals will show less effort as there is a lack of individual accountability relative to the outcome of their efforts.-pg550.

If you think that makes no sense, I really can't even get into my "classmates'" answers. It's too mind-bottling, you guys.

Important Announcements

1. I am seven tans in and seriously getting INCREDIBLY golden brown. On the downside, my brain sort of started melting during my first nine-minute session. How do people do this for like 12 minutes? Your tips welcome. Also it's a stand-up booth and my arms get tired because I feel like I have to hold them up or my armpits might not get tan. Confusing stuff.

2. As both of my readers now know, I may be changing my job. This is very scary, but alas, it's hard to argue that your job is wonderful and satisfying when you have been voluntarily attending a remedial CHEMISTRY CLASS two nights a week. That is like saying your kidneys are totes fine and that you simply get dialysis "just in case." The good news is I'll be constantly stealing corporate secrets and insights about how to drive ever more traffic to the amazing Second Degree website. Seriously I think I can top 10 unique visitors a month, and then it's just a matter of hours before Google acquires me.

3. I got the first issue in my subscription to Positive Thinking magazine today. If you don't believe me, eff you. I love it! Read it if you want.

4. I'm really scared about a new job. I haven't had a regular commute since 2005.
4a. Fortunately I located an accelerated nursing program within driving distance of my parents' house. With an absolute worst case scenario backup plan in place, I think I can make the move.

I Can't Even Believe This Was a CNN Headline

This was on cnn.com last night, true story. The one about the Air Force, see? (Since I know you're busy, just FYI it says "In-suit device solves Air Force's No. 1 problem," or click to enlarge for proof.) Anyway the article is about a new device that allows pilots to go pee while they're flying. So how is that the Air Force's top priority? Because they're going number one. GET IT?!?

If you're wondering why I clicked on a story about the Air Force, the truth is that I mistakenly read "In-suit device" as "Insult device" so obviously I had to look.

Happy Handsome Birthday

Dear Dwayne The Rock Johnson,

Happy birthday today! I know we haven't really been in touch ever since you un-friended me on MySpace. Maybe it's because Disney closed the account when they got done promoting The Game Plan. Is that it, The Rock? Maybe.

But I also realize that maybe it's because you were afraid of how close we'd gotten. It's true that we have an unbelievable amount in common—you're scared of spiders, I'm scared of roaches; you are tall, I am tall; we both regularly eat entire cheese pizzas. we both have tattoos. It's fate, really. And I suppose with your separation so fresh in your past, you may be wary of the idea that you could love again so quickly.

Anyway, I want you to know that I wish you the best. Maybe for this birthday I'll go stand by myself and stare creepily at the wax figurine of you in front of Madame Tussauds in Times Square. And I have a very special gift for you, so I guess I'll just hang on to it until we meet. (Hint: It's my virginity!)

Your friend,
Love,
The Imaginary Nurse

Almost. Over.

Only 4 more classes and a final in stupid stupid chemistry. For most of the programs I'll be applying for, I have to take the following classes.
* Stupid, stupid chemistry
* Anatomy & Physiology (2 semesters)
* Microbiology
* Psych/Developmental Psych
* Nutrition
* Stats

I decided to take chemistry first because, not in spite of, my utter disinterest in it. (Well, that and because it's a prerequisite for the other required science courses.) But mostly I wanted to weed myself out and quit as soon as possible if it turned out I wasn't really gonna do this. So this was my warm-up semester—stupid chemistry two nights a week. Certainly if anything would make me quit, it's that.

I chose my "school" because it's the only place in the city I could find that offers evening classes after 7 pm—most others are 5:30 or 6 or still require a mid-day lecture that I could never make. But even they don't offer A&P in the late nights, which means that in the fall I'll be spending 7 hours on either Saturday or Sunday learning. Oh yeah, and I hate this stuff, so I refuse to spend $1000 a credit for it at a good school.

I'd certainly far rather do online classes, but you need a lab component for the science courses and online labs seem sketchy at best. But this summer I'm doing the psychology courses online, and in the winter or next summer I'll do nutrition. Maybe even stats, depending on how self-reliant I'm feeling.

If you are wondering about online classes, here's a discovery I made a few months into my research. University of Phoenix is the one you see advertised, but it's a for-profit (note: somebody please fact-check that) org and classes are $500 a credit—so like $1500 or 2 grand a class. Boo! But there are a couple of what I guess you call "learning networks" that show you all the online classes you can take in a certain family of two-year schools. It compiles all the distance education options into one catalog and it's super-cheap, like $120 a credit. So if you ever need or want to take a class in something, the range of options is pretty super:
SUNY classes
Kansas classes
Since these exist, I have to assume that others do in other areas. If you know of another, let me know and I'll add it.

I think that's all the boring educational exposition I have for today, so I'll leave you with this factoid: I have a weird rash. I hope I'm not dying, but if I do, look at the bright side: No more chemistry!