The Psychology Students Best Friend
Mel Does Grad School
Thoughts on Some Damn Good Football
- Cincy @ Pitt was an incredible INCREDIBLE game! Kind of makes up for the fact that I really don't feel like I've seen many good, memorable college football games this season.
- It's a bad sign when the most memorable college football games have been blown calls by SEC officials... and that's pretty much definitely what I'll be remembering in future years and I've watched an enormous amount of football.
- ESPN did a good job choosing to put Cincy on Thursday and Friday nights rather frequently. I don't think I would have been a fan of theirs or been excited to see how much they can do without those game times.
- ESPN (and ESPN on ABC) did a remarkably good job with human interest stories related to Cincy (throughout the season and today) and Pitt (I can only say today's was pretty good). I really began to like Cincy when they profiled Kelly and talked about what he was fighting for with contract negotiations - it's a ton of stuff for his coaches and his team. Cincy is one of two Division I schools that basically only practices outside on the main field and has no other alternative (no practice fields, and whatever inside facilities they need don't exist).
- They maybe went a bit far with some of the human interest stuff - talking about a player's mom who is recovering from drug addiction... it helped to explain why a certain player is a great story and why he was raised by his grandfather and why it's so sweet and incredible that he desperately wants to go to the NFL to buy things and improve his grandfather's quality of life.
- But they've gone a lot farther and with much less class, so at least they're improving (think Terry Bradshaw and the Sugar Bowl a few years ago when even his co-anchors/broadcasters were embarrassed).
- In the NFL, when it's really cold (or just a little cold and some overpaid whiners want a blankie), there are giant warm coats, little heaters, and people holding up shields from the wind... why couldn't they come up with coats for the Big East players? (Marcus Gilyard was shaking and teeth chattering and holding himself and jumping around trying to stay/keep warm.)
- Not okay to follow players into the tunnel in defeat... after they've lost and if they manage to get to the tunnel to show their emotions, leave them alone. Maybe it's different in the NFL when they're adults and being paid to play. But some of these guys are 18 years old and if they've done the right thing by going to a private area, you should not follow and broadcast it. Showing the coach - fine, he's a grown up and this is his job. But it's kind of like animals in a zoo that can go to a little area when they don't want to be looked at or have kids tapping glass or whatever. You don't then follow then into their little private areas and expect them to let you pet them and everything to be fine. You just don't...
Losing Myself
(Image from http://www.friendsacrossamerica.com/)
Sometimes - especially around the holidays - I pause to wonder whether I'm losing myself. While most people enjoy some family time (or at least most people my age), I mostly dread it and now, more than ever, I find myself pulled in every direction. I spend so much time trying to fix things and make things better for everyone in my family AND trying to finish up the semester and do everything for my boss(es) and for group projects that I sometimes wonder what I'm supposed to be doing or what I would really like to do - not just what everyone expects me to do.
Maybe the rest of the world doesn't experience this or lose themselves quite like I have a tendency to, and as I get older I suppose I'm more aware of this and more apt to remind myself that it's okay to think about myself. I guess I just thought about it a lot today as I realized I had a lot of work to do before Monday - including a final exam Monday night (but seriously, who does that?!) - and I'm exhausted, but haven't even gotten much of "my" work done. Instead of helped do house repairs and keep the parents updated while they've been in another hemisphere, I've shopped for presents and groceries, stocked the fridge and the pantry, loaned out my car and cleaned up a ton of stuff. It's tough and I have to drive back tomorrow and cram like nobody's business because I really don't know what's happening with that exam. But at least I'm going back to my own little sanctuary, with my dog and my own work and problems and issues to take care of... and if everything's not perfect here, well, I just have to let it go. Even if it feels a bit selfish.
Why I LOVE October
1. Baseball postseason - NLCS, ALCS, and the World Series
2. Start of the NBA season
3. NFL season in full swing...
- 3b. Fantasy football fun!
- 3c. Sundays no longer suck!
4. College Football season!
5. Fall colors and leaves and autumn gorgeousness
6. Cool enough to be comfortable outside [without serious risk of heatstroke (even in the deep south), but not so cold you risk frostbite]
7. Tailgating!
8. Apple cider and hot chocolate with marshmallows
9. Pumpkin everything - pumpkin patches and carving, roasted pumpkin seeds, pumpkin ale, pumpkin cheesecake, pumpkin bread, pumpkin pie... yummm!
10. You get to finish it all up with Halloween - a holiday synonymous with candy, cute little kids that you only have to see before they get overly full of sugar, and dressing however the hell you want!
Thoughts on Brazen Careerist's Controversial Tweets
I'm not saying that I agree with Penelope Trunk or her actions - either wanting an abortion or tweeting about her miscarriage at work - I don't think it matters, but I think that's a copout, so I'll admit that honestly, I feel pretty uncomfortable with it, but I feel compelled to defend her right to say it. Reading some of the comments posted on her web site - presumably comments written to Penelope herself! - I was absolutely horrified, outraged, and disgusted by people who would say such things. The irony that these people want to clean up the internet yet spew such hatred and awfulness seems to be lost on most of them.
I think David at The Rest Is Still Unwritten did a great job writing about this whole situation and the importance of discussing taboo and difficult topics, even revealing a lot about himself in the process. I think it's important not to lose sight of the fact that this forces us to think about a number of different issues and confront some interesting ideas that might not mesh with our own beliefs, and some issues that are only now relevant given the advances of technology that would allow someone to tweet at work, while having a miscarriage, and reach millions.
I posted this on Tumblr a few days ago when I first saw comments from these hateful people, but I felt that it was worth posting about the whole situation here because it continues to blow my mind...
Nature, Nurture, & Gestalt Psych in Football
The Pouncey Twins of UF
For some reason today I was thinking about the advantages of having a sort of "sixth sense" for your teammates in football and just being aware of one another and how that can make such a huge difference - between mediocre and pretty darn good and between good and great. Then for some reason I connected this to the advantages that siblings have in tennis when they play as doubles partners. Siblings that grew up together, have known each other their entire lives, that have practiced together more than apart... they just seem to "get" each other and have a sense of chemistry that's nearly impossible to develop without the nature and nurture ties. I'm thinking of the Williams sisters and the Bryan brothers in tennis.
But then I started to think about how this might translate to football and if there were any examples in football and I thought of Pouncey twins at Florida and then the Williams brothers for the Minnesota Vikings (both defensive tackles). There aren't that many other prominent examples right now, and unfortunately, it's not that easy to narrow down searches to brothers who have played football together (at least not without letting myself spend five hours looking). It's funny how that doesn't seem to be something anyone's really considered, yet so many broadcasters talk about guys who have a sixth sense for teammates and the position of the ball and yet we've ignored the obvious advantage of these blood connections and how valuable they can... and perhaps more importantly (or at least fascinatingly), what happens if we split these pairings? I think you'd lose a tremendous amount... at least for the brothers in football. You'd lose the symbiotic relationship, the whole as more than the sum of its parts-phenomena. Not that the Pouncey twins or the Williams brothers wouldn't be good without each other, but I don't think they'd come up with some of the plays they do without the other one. Just look at the Horton brothers at USC (Southern Cal, the other USC) - one switched positions AND transferred to play with the other!
It's interesting to think about what will happen with the Pouncey twins, as it's difficult to imagine that they could be drafted together, that one would last an entire round and you would have to make a trade pretty early to get two picks together to get them (otherwise you'd have one twin and everyone else would know you have the other and be able to squeeze you for a lot to get the other one... well, "a lot" being relative to what draft round the twins go in).
Just something interesting to think about, a new thought on nature and nurture combined with some Gestalt psychology for this autumn Saturday full of college football!
Melissa's Page
Profile Information
- Are you a psychology student or teacher?
- Yes - college psychology student
Graduate Student
I'm actually pursuing my Masters & Ph.D. in Industrial-Organizational Psychology. I've served as a TA a number of times and talked to a lot of undergraduates about getting into graduate school in this field if you wanna chat...
My blog is about the ups and downs of being a graduate student in this field and what it means to be a twentysomething in the semi-real-world, or the PBS version of MTV's "The Real World."
My blog is about the ups and downs of being a graduate student in this field and what it means to be a twentysomething in the semi-real-world, or the PBS version of MTV's "The Real World."
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