Veg*n Cooking and Other Random Musings: Who Says Homework Has To Be Lame?

Monday, November 2, 2009

Who Says Homework Has To Be Lame?

First off I am not going to bother to make excuses for my absence. Laziness is, of course, part of it, but I've also been writing (135 pages!), reading, cooking, and as you will see, creating invaluable works of art.

Those of you out there who are astute might be wondering why I am talking about homework - I graduated two years ago and have a full-time job, I have moved "beyond" homework. BUT...(of course there is a but or there would be no point in this post), Brett is still in school, having followed along in my footsteps (copy-cat!) in pursuing a degree in psychology even though he doesn't want to actually do anything related to psychology. In both of our defense, the courses are so fascinating and it gives you quite and interesting perspective. I tended to prefer sociology to psychology in all honesty, but at least a degree in psychology is fairly useful in the job market (well, when there was one).

Anyway, he is currently taking Research Design, a core psychology course. I may be giving away the extent of my nerdom here but Research Design was one of my very favorite classes. I recall a fascinating paper I wrote about sampling procedures...you all will have to trust me, it was really an interesting thing to explore in depth but I won't bore you with the details.

MOVING ON.

(I get off on tangents easily.)

One of B's assignments was to watch an hour of television and write down all the commercials aired within a one hour program (there is obviously more that went into it, lest you think upper level psychology courses involve you doing random observations, I just don't want to bore you with the details). B and I, being super nerds, already make comments about the commercials and their content, so I decided I would help him out because, well, I like learning and with B taking it, it is like getting to take the class a second time without having had to fail to do so. Yes, I am that lame.

However, we rarely watch TV besides NFL football and only have one of those digital coverter box things because B's mom got one for us. Our pair of rabbit ears is old and antiquated and because of that, the digital "transition" has been a wee bit on the irritating side. It is incredibly hard to pick up the stations and it requires a lot of jostling around to get reception between the channels. B says there is some boosting thing we can get that would fix that, I've told him he could get one, but we both hate going out places and have just dealt with it.

So, it was 9:00 - what we both thought was a good time to watch TV. Oh - and by the way NBC, I am quite bitter that there was a stupid NICK CAGE movie on last night instead of football. NICK CAGE OR FOOTBALL? C'mon! Anyway, what we ended up finding to watch was something on CBS called Cold Case which has to be one of the worst television shows I have ever seen. I was bored, irritated, confused, and I actually looked forward to the commercials because they were more entertaining. But I am a devoted wife and I said I would write down all the commercials as we watched the show, so I stuck it out (it was tough and tentative at times). I survived by doing some doodling - bad bubble letters, the return of Stickman, bad spelling errors and missing words, it really was what made the time bearable.

I present you - alongside the commercials aired during our 60 minutes of torture they call "entertainment" - my doodles, we thought you might enjoy...















































You may need to look at the full screen image to see what they say.

Well, have a good one. I hope to be back soon with some tasty recipes!

'Til next time.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I guess I'm a bit of a nerd too - this stuff is facinating! I think I'll have to copy that assignment (well, the stuff you described, not the full assignment). An eye-opener I'm sure, and I love to give running commentaries and dissect information.

Anonymous said...

Hahahaha...as soon as you said research design, I thought of how much I hated and loathed my research design/methods classes...both in undergrad AND graduate school! And then I kept reading only to find that you love yours :-) I am so glad that there are people out there who DO love that sort of thing, so that I don't have to do it, lol!

Good luck with the writing!

Courtney

J said...

Mango Child - It really is. B and I watch NFL football every Sunday and just marvel at the commercials. It seems to me that sometimes there is more effort put into commercials than actual television programming.

I think you and I would enjoy watching television together. I am always pointing out ironies and strange things.

Courtney - Well somebody's gotta do this side!

I just think it is fascinating how experiments and survey instruments are designed and tested. Just the way the information is presented to the subjects can affect the outcome. I really do think it is incredibly interesting.

I work in data analysis for a living and respond to a lot of data requests from other educational institutions as well as various survey and ranking intruments from organizations and the media. I am constantly critiquing their methodology and the questions asked to rank certain criteria. I have often thought it would be fun to design survey instruments or experimental questionnaires.

Thank you, the writing is going wonderfully. I think I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel (or the culmination of the story rather).