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tabular_rasaToday went decently.
I was slow and tired and daydream-y in Japanese, but, eh, to hell with it. I didn't totally die, and I'm just acclimated to my B/B+ by now . . .
I had milk, leftover rice given to me in pity/forced treatment of indecisive anorexia (thanks, Keith :-P), and a chocolate bagel for lunch.
There must be some Psychology professors' convention, today, because both my Abnormal Psychology and Cognitive Psychology classes were taught by the TAs and involved only videos. The first one was about an anorexia treatment clinic that was run by an untrained woman who managed to cure both of her daughters and wanted to expand her methods to others-- which actually worked pretty amazingly successfully (though I'm going to look it up, because apparently it was all "controversial" and got shut down-- so, erm . . . ). The second was a series of clips on various Cognitive Psychology-type topics, such as brain-task switching, lying, reading faces "intuitively" and the universal concept of beauty.
What appears to be a kind of magical, effortless intuition about faces, then, may not really be effortless and magical at all. This kind of intuition is a product of desire and effort . . . Face-reading, for those who have mastered it, becomes a kind of compulsion; it becomes hard to satisfy with the level and quality of information that most of us glean from social encounters . . . This is surely why the majority of us don't do well at reading faces; we feel no need to make that extra effort . . . We prefer that way of dealing with the world because it does not challenge the ordinary boundaries of human relationships. Ekman, in one of his essays, writes of what he learned from the legendary sociologist Erving Goffman. Goffman said that part of what it means to be civilized is not to "steal" information that is not freely given to us. When someone picks his nose or cleans his ears, out of unthinking habit, we look away. Ekman writes that for Goffman the spoken word is "the acknowledged information, the information for which the person who states it is willing to takes responsibility," and he goes on:
"When the secretary who is miserable about a fight with her husband the previous night answers, "Just fine," when her boss asks, "How are you this morning?"-- that false message may be the one relevant to the boss's interactins with her. It tells him that she is going to do her job. The true message-- that she is miserable-- he may not care to know about at all as long as she does not intend to let it impair her job performance."
What would the boss gain by reading the subtle and contradictory microexpressions on his secretary's face? It would be an invasion of her privacy and an act of disrespect. More than that, it would entail an obligation. He would be obliged to do something, or say something, or feel something that might otherwise be avoided entirely. To see what is intended to be hidden, or, at least, what is usually missed, opens up a world of uncomfortable possibilities. This is the hard part of being a face reader. People like that have more faith in their hunches than the rest of us do-- but faith is not certainty. Sometimes, on a routine traffic stop late at night, you end up finding out that your hunch was right-- but at other times you'll never know, and you can't even explain it properly, because what can you say? You did something the rest of us would never have done, based on something the rest of us would have never seen.
It's like the closest to mind-reading one can get-- reading the little subtle signals of our facial expressions that denote fear or distress or malevolent intent, lies or hidden thoughts.
The point about the secretary and boss, though, however, I find interestingly relevant to me. I'm not necessarily a "face-reader," as they speak of, but I do have intuitions-- probably in some sort of analytical way of dissecting evidence, as in the case of reading faces, but perhaps not that, specifically, itself. Yet I'm not taking advantage of this "social responsibility" I supposedly have. I really am not very good with "roles." I like being everybody's friend; I like telling everybody everything and knowing everything about everybody, whether propriety allows it or not. I pick up on things people don't want me to pick up on, and I bring them up against people's wills, it seems. I've never really thought of it as a breach of social conduct-- though it doesn't surprise me. I'm not very good at being genuinely typically in-line with these sorts of things. I've mentioned how I could tick off the things I'd "conquered" in terms of Social Psychology. (I don't turn away when people pick their noses; I'm frankly fascinated and find it oddly endearing). I don't want people as only what they present to me (whether they intend it or not). I like people as people; I don't like them as roles. I don't like whole people diminished to that, the one facet of them that actually faces me during interaction. It seems so selfish and self-absorbed; the world revolving around me and people's identities only perceived to me in terms of their direct effect on me.
Lisa poked me on the way back, and thenI made her she decided to slow down and ride-walk beside me. Then we arrive back at Shepley to find Keith still here, not on his plane for New York. Lambert Airport had a power outage. WTF??? I thought airports had, like, generators, or something . . . that's a pretty big deal, to just have shut down, particularly since it's a pretty substantial hub. Anyway, Keith must just be the luckiest guy ever, since he was really wanting to stay until Tuesday, instead (he scheduled his early flight before he realized the suckiness that would be his classes on Monday and Tuesday /-:), and, since he wasn't going to pay money to change it, well, Fate found a way to make that so, lol . . .
Spamalot tonight!
Soundtrack of my Life
If your life were a movie, what would the soundtrack be?
so, here's how it works:
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that's playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don't lie.
1. Opening Credits:
"Paint It Black" by The Rolling Stones. (Well, my life looks to be happy and perky and wonderful . . . lol . . . ).
2. Waking Up:
"Dr. Crab's Prize" from Memoirs of a Geisha. (My life begins with the loss of virginity . . . ?).
3. First Day at School:
"Stille Nacht" by Mannheim Steamroller. (Random . . . ).
4. Prom:
"Dragostea Din Tei" by O-Zone. (Was that even out, then? Prom might have gone better, that way, lol . . . ).
5. Falling in Love:
"Daniel" by Elton John. (Wow-- this would be amazing, if it weren't for the fact that Danny is actually legally now just "Danny.").
6. Fight Song:
"Private Eye" by Alkaline Trio.
7. Breaking Up:
"Gypsy Rhasody" by Bond. (Intense, I guess-- but relatively graceful . . . ).
8. Wedding:
"His Name is Lancelot" from Spamalot. (Wow. I'm going to be a lesbian, guys . . . Though it is nice to hear this song before I go off to Spamalot ^_^ possibly my favorite song from the show ^_^).
9. Driving:
"I Dreamed A Dream" from Les Miserables. (Complete non-sequitur, here . . . ).
10. Life:
"Welcome to My Life" by Simple Plan. (Well, very literal. However-- dear God, let's please hope I'm not that Emo . . . ).
11. Birth of Child:
"Sadie Hawkins Dance" by Reliant K. (Also, very random . . . ).
12. Mental Breakdown:
"Dance in the Hall of the Mountain King" by Grieg. (Ooh, very good one, actually ^_^).
13. Flashback:
"Photograph" by Nickelback. (Excellent! Yes! Lol . . . ).
14. Final Battle:
"Wedding Chorale/Beggars At The Feast" from Les Miserables. (Couldn't this have fit in a more relevant spot? Lol . . . ).
15. Death Scene:
"Mr. Roboto" by Styx. (Lol . . . I guess I'll be Japan? Lol . . . ).
16. Funeral Song:
"I Should Tell You" from Rent. (So I die of AIDS?).
17. End Credits:
"Beautiful Day" by U2. (Yup, everyone would clearly be happier if I were dead. *Sigh* Fine, I'll be optimistic: Heaven is nice :-P).
I was slow and tired and daydream-y in Japanese, but, eh, to hell with it. I didn't totally die, and I'm just acclimated to my B/B+ by now . . .
I had milk, leftover rice given to me in pity/forced treatment of indecisive anorexia (thanks, Keith :-P), and a chocolate bagel for lunch.
There must be some Psychology professors' convention, today, because both my Abnormal Psychology and Cognitive Psychology classes were taught by the TAs and involved only videos. The first one was about an anorexia treatment clinic that was run by an untrained woman who managed to cure both of her daughters and wanted to expand her methods to others-- which actually worked pretty amazingly successfully (though I'm going to look it up, because apparently it was all "controversial" and got shut down-- so, erm . . . ). The second was a series of clips on various Cognitive Psychology-type topics, such as brain-task switching, lying, reading faces "intuitively" and the universal concept of beauty.
What appears to be a kind of magical, effortless intuition about faces, then, may not really be effortless and magical at all. This kind of intuition is a product of desire and effort . . . Face-reading, for those who have mastered it, becomes a kind of compulsion; it becomes hard to satisfy with the level and quality of information that most of us glean from social encounters . . . This is surely why the majority of us don't do well at reading faces; we feel no need to make that extra effort . . . We prefer that way of dealing with the world because it does not challenge the ordinary boundaries of human relationships. Ekman, in one of his essays, writes of what he learned from the legendary sociologist Erving Goffman. Goffman said that part of what it means to be civilized is not to "steal" information that is not freely given to us. When someone picks his nose or cleans his ears, out of unthinking habit, we look away. Ekman writes that for Goffman the spoken word is "the acknowledged information, the information for which the person who states it is willing to takes responsibility," and he goes on:
"When the secretary who is miserable about a fight with her husband the previous night answers, "Just fine," when her boss asks, "How are you this morning?"-- that false message may be the one relevant to the boss's interactins with her. It tells him that she is going to do her job. The true message-- that she is miserable-- he may not care to know about at all as long as she does not intend to let it impair her job performance."
What would the boss gain by reading the subtle and contradictory microexpressions on his secretary's face? It would be an invasion of her privacy and an act of disrespect. More than that, it would entail an obligation. He would be obliged to do something, or say something, or feel something that might otherwise be avoided entirely. To see what is intended to be hidden, or, at least, what is usually missed, opens up a world of uncomfortable possibilities. This is the hard part of being a face reader. People like that have more faith in their hunches than the rest of us do-- but faith is not certainty. Sometimes, on a routine traffic stop late at night, you end up finding out that your hunch was right-- but at other times you'll never know, and you can't even explain it properly, because what can you say? You did something the rest of us would never have done, based on something the rest of us would have never seen.
It's like the closest to mind-reading one can get-- reading the little subtle signals of our facial expressions that denote fear or distress or malevolent intent, lies or hidden thoughts.
The point about the secretary and boss, though, however, I find interestingly relevant to me. I'm not necessarily a "face-reader," as they speak of, but I do have intuitions-- probably in some sort of analytical way of dissecting evidence, as in the case of reading faces, but perhaps not that, specifically, itself. Yet I'm not taking advantage of this "social responsibility" I supposedly have. I really am not very good with "roles." I like being everybody's friend; I like telling everybody everything and knowing everything about everybody, whether propriety allows it or not. I pick up on things people don't want me to pick up on, and I bring them up against people's wills, it seems. I've never really thought of it as a breach of social conduct-- though it doesn't surprise me. I'm not very good at being genuinely typically in-line with these sorts of things. I've mentioned how I could tick off the things I'd "conquered" in terms of Social Psychology. (I don't turn away when people pick their noses; I'm frankly fascinated and find it oddly endearing). I don't want people as only what they present to me (whether they intend it or not). I like people as people; I don't like them as roles. I don't like whole people diminished to that, the one facet of them that actually faces me during interaction. It seems so selfish and self-absorbed; the world revolving around me and people's identities only perceived to me in terms of their direct effect on me.
Lisa poked me on the way back, and then
Spamalot tonight!
Soundtrack of my Life
If your life were a movie, what would the soundtrack be?
so, here's how it works:
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that's playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don't lie.
1. Opening Credits:
"Paint It Black" by The Rolling Stones. (Well, my life looks to be happy and perky and wonderful . . . lol . . . ).
2. Waking Up:
"Dr. Crab's Prize" from Memoirs of a Geisha. (My life begins with the loss of virginity . . . ?).
3. First Day at School:
"Stille Nacht" by Mannheim Steamroller. (Random . . . ).
4. Prom:
"Dragostea Din Tei" by O-Zone. (Was that even out, then? Prom might have gone better, that way, lol . . . ).
5. Falling in Love:
"Daniel" by Elton John. (Wow-- this would be amazing, if it weren't for the fact that Danny is actually legally now just "Danny.").
6. Fight Song:
"Private Eye" by Alkaline Trio.
7. Breaking Up:
"Gypsy Rhasody" by Bond. (Intense, I guess-- but relatively graceful . . . ).
8. Wedding:
"His Name is Lancelot" from Spamalot. (Wow. I'm going to be a lesbian, guys . . . Though it is nice to hear this song before I go off to Spamalot ^_^ possibly my favorite song from the show ^_^).
9. Driving:
"I Dreamed A Dream" from Les Miserables. (Complete non-sequitur, here . . . ).
10. Life:
"Welcome to My Life" by Simple Plan. (Well, very literal. However-- dear God, let's please hope I'm not that Emo . . . ).
11. Birth of Child:
"Sadie Hawkins Dance" by Reliant K. (Also, very random . . . ).
12. Mental Breakdown:
"Dance in the Hall of the Mountain King" by Grieg. (Ooh, very good one, actually ^_^).
13. Flashback:
"Photograph" by Nickelback. (Excellent! Yes! Lol . . . ).
14. Final Battle:
"Wedding Chorale/Beggars At The Feast" from Les Miserables. (Couldn't this have fit in a more relevant spot? Lol . . . ).
15. Death Scene:
"Mr. Roboto" by Styx. (Lol . . . I guess I'll be Japan? Lol . . . ).
16. Funeral Song:
"I Should Tell You" from Rent. (So I die of AIDS?).
17. End Credits:
"Beautiful Day" by U2. (Yup, everyone would clearly be happier if I were dead. *Sigh* Fine, I'll be optimistic: Heaven is nice :-P).
