Reading Correctly

Don't ask me where this thought even came from, but I was just thinking about how easy school has always been for me and how everything seemed to come naturally from the start (arguably, this could be re-written as "never really challenged in my primary education" ha). I think I stumbled on this because I was thinking of how ready I am to get back into the classroom and start learning more, and how much I cannot wait to be a doctor. Then my mind drifted onto an theory I firmly believe: irrespective of the field, reading is essential to success. I firmly believe that most successful people in most areas like to read. Now, they might not like to read any- and everything, but at least in regards to their areas of expertise, they read in their spare time, and they don't mind doing the hours of research (read: reading) necessary to take lead in their fields, to discover new things, or to simply learn from those who came before them.

But then it hit me - back in 2nd grade I had a terrible battle with one subject in particular: reading! You see, I had attended a very small private school (I mean, there were 7 kids in my first grade class...shout out to Lane Robbins!!!) and they had their own little philosophy on learning. One area they really emphasized was getting students interested in reading very early on (apparently, they too thought reading was key to success). So, in essence, they focused on getting us to read and to like participating in the activity, and didn't want to deter us from it, so they opted not to correct us when we messed up. They emphasized encouragement of actively trying to get ourselves through books, rather than getting through correctly. While I do think this helped us enjoy activity, you can imagine what types of bad habits were picked up, never broken, and possibly positively reinforced... So yes, as a little tyke, I loved reading, but Lord only knows what illogical phrases were coming out of my mouth during those early years.

As I said, the school was tiny, and as such, only went up to 1st grade. Therefore, I transferred to a local Christian school (clearly, mom was not a fan of the local public school system...it did have a bad rep). When I got there, I was on-pace or ahead of my classmates in all areas except for reading/reading comprehension. I had to spend extra time unlearning the false things instilled in me at my former school and learning how to do the basics correctly. Now, clearly I don't remember any of this, but my mom has told me about it on more than one occasion. I spent a lot of time and energy that year getting caught up with my peers and learning how to read correctly. Funny thing is I arguably became the best reader in my class, always volunteering to read aloud and focusing extra hard on my spelling and vocabulary words (even placed in the division spelling bee a few times). I'm all about the "that which does not kill us only makes us stronger."

This reminds me of something my friend wrote the other day as a fb status: everyone is weak and everyone is strong. we're strong because we're weak.At first look, I immediately dismissed it. I said, "Pssh. That makes no sense. I hate weakness," and I preceded to close my mind. Then, feeling slightly guilty, I decided to think it through a bit and thought, "I hate weakness, but I guess that hate for my own weakness pushes me to be better...making weakness a strength." My friend swiftly kicked me in the rear with reality and stated, "You probably didnt see what I meant BECAUSE you hate weakness and maybe you didnt want to see it that way...that's just a human thing." Ouch! Isn't that the truth though? We see what we want to see and turn aside contradictory interpretations or information that would cause us to rethink our position. In psychology, it's called the confirmation bias, and is one of the most basic heuristics (read: cognitive shortcuts) employed by humans to make better sense of their world when resources are limited (i.e. time, energy). Heuristics are good and necessary for, as I mentioned, conditions where we are pressed for time and need to make quick decision, but what happens when we start to rely on them aside from these circumstances? When we carry them over into everyday life?

Clearly no answer I give holds true across all situations, but I will still venture my personal philosophy. When we use these cognitive shortcuts intended for scenarios where it's impossible for most appropriate cues to be taken into consideration, we run the risk of misreading situations. Cognitive shortcuts work because, subconsciously, they take the most salient cues that have proven successful in predicting outcomes over time and use them to draw a quick conclusion. Works fairly well when you just can't pay enough attention to everything you should be using to arrive at an answer. However, when you unnecessarily ignore these other cues and rely on shortcuts to draw conclusions under normal circumstance, you are in fact misreading the situation. You are not taking into account all you should and are therefore doing yourself a disservice. You are hastily and unnecessarily drawing conclusions. In short, if left unchecked, you succumb to living life based on stereotypes and prejudices.

What strikes me as funny is how I read now. I am an avid skimmer of non-leisurely texts. This includes, but is not limited to, AIM, fb, twitter, instructions, emails...basically everything I don't innately find interesting or chose to read on my own. What I find myself doing many times is rushing through the texts, not taking things in fully, and misreading and/or misinterpretting them. In short, I read through a heuristically-coated lens. And you see where that gets me, right? Looking a fool from time to time when I respond according to what I assumed was written as opposed to what was there in reality. Lesson of the Day, kiddies: Heuristics of out context = BAD! Hmmm, part of me wonders if subconsciously my skimmings are biased by my initial reading mishaps back in primary school. Are these initial errors ingrained in my subconscious? Perchance...Whatever the case, one must read correctly, both literally and cognitively, in order to succeed. You can't get it right if you don't comprehend correctly.

Twitter Inspirations

Twitter. I don’t know how, but in the past few months, it’s become so intertwined with my life that I can’t begin to imagine Internet life pre-Twitter...sad, I know. Still, the whole idea of twitter is semi-repulsing, and yet something about it is so addicting. It’s repulsing because it’s essentially saying “Hey, look at me! I believe my life is so important that you need to ‘follow me,’ because you know you care about everything I do and think.” Sounds just like an egocentric American point of view to me (I’m assuming an American created Twitter). Way to appeal to our already inflated egos, developers. Yet, it’s addicting because apparently we do care (or, we come to care through repetitive use). It really is a large chat room for you and your followers to spit random information out. Eh, for all it’s good and all it’s bad, I love it! Yes, I’m a dumb sheep blindly following this crowd with my fellow tweeters. Bleat!! Bleat!!

Personally, I’m not really one to follow celebrities (to each their own, it’s just not my thing…I don’t really care about what most of them think or have to say), however, some of them catch me by surprise every now and again. I recently started following Lil’ Wayne. Someone was trying to hate and say that he needs to not be high all the time so he can tweet logical stuff, so I went to his page to see what all the fuss was about. I have no idea the level of sobriety of the man when he tweets, but I will say that they are actually deep, and quietly, might serve as a basis for some of my future posts. Dare I say, I’d encourage you to join Twitter if only to follow Weezy F. Baby and push yourself to think a little deeper and a little differently. Doubt me? Look at the #lilwaynedeeptweets TT. (sometimes, I can’t believe how integrated Twitter jargon is into my daily communication)

However, as much of a fan of Lil’ Wayne as I am, this post is actually driven by a post by Tyra Banks, whom I don’t even follow. “woke up before my alarm this morning. early bird gets the worm! Wats w/ that saying anyway? Do u think getting up early gets u more in life?” As someone who has her fair share of troubles with sleep, I often find myself waking up obscenely early for no particular reason – no work to rush off to, no class to go to or cram for, i.e. no real responsibility. When I find myself up and semi-alert with nothing to do, I usually wind up quoting this very same thing to myself for inspiration to do something - “The early bird catches the worm.” I say it for inspiration, but am I lying to myself just to feel a little less worthless for wasting time by being up unnecessarily? Hmmm…

Without thinking twice, I’d say it’s probably not the truth. Let’s analyze. From a purely literal analysis of the quote, two easy arguments could be made to dispel this notion. 1) The early bird probably only catches the early worm. What happens if the bird is earlier than the worms? Could he, in fact, starve from wasting energy waiting around for the worms to crawl out of their holes? Perhaps. Plus, he’s still got to be stronger, smarter, and faster than the other early birds that are likely to pop up and fight for those early worms - it’s never just you! 2) I’m sure that as long as you’re not the last of the birds to get up, you’ll still catch a worm. Might not be the first worm, might not be the fattest, juiciest worm imaginable, and it might not be your preferred worm, but you’ll probably still scrounge enough to survive to see another day.

Moving outside the context of literality and into real world application, do I really think getting up earlier gets me more in life? In short, probably not. Not unless I am fully functioning when I wake up, which 90% of the time couldn’t be further from reality. Regardless, there is something to be said about waking up early and getting thing accomplished by noon, that most people couldn’t squeeze into a 24-hour day. So, I suppose that if I wake up with enough time to shake off my grogginess and still have a significant amount of time left before others arise, then yes, I think I will get more out of life than the average person. I think I definitively will get more accomplished each day and still have “me time,” with the additive effect of accomplishing more over the course of my life than most people will by the time they hit mid-life…or at least that’s my goal.
I’m not really sure about the applicability of the bird analogy to my life, but I’ve found this old African proverb a bit more appealing.

Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. 
 It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. 
Every morning a lion wakes up. 
It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. 
 It doesn’t matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle. 
When the sun comes up, you better start running.

Nothing like the prospect of death to light a fire under your behind! Let’s go!!!

FAIL.

So, apparently I suck at blogging. Or maybe I just suck at juggling two blogs...yeah, that's probably it. In any event, my bad yall. Quick recap of life. I work a lot, I quit the whole vegetarian thing (actually wasn't hard to do, I just wasn't getting enough protein...might try again in the future), and other than that I'm just trying to enjoy my last few months of freedom before I get reigned back into being a hermit in the library.

I will say that I'm rooting hard for the Saints to take the Superbowl. I'm ~95% sure I'm going to chose Tulane, so I figured why not join in the NOLA mentality from Jersey. So, #geauxSaints! (And yes, I incorporate twitter into my other daily communications...#dontjudgeme)

In other random news, I think my job is desensitizing my hands. I just spilled a hot venti tea on my hands and it didn't even hurt :/ Something tells me that's not a good sign though...

Ok, I'm really going to make an effort to write at least a little something a few times a week, starting now!

Going Vegetarian :)

You all know how impulsive I can get... So, today, I decided that I am going to make a somewhat drastic life change and go vegetarian!!! I can hardly believe it. As I sit and read story after story and article upon article on sites like GoVeg.com, I grow more convinced that this will in fact be a great decision.

Oddly enough, this all started after a period of fasting. I've been toying with fasting lately (well, perhaps I shouldn't use the word toy, as it implies playing games, and I don't play games with spiritual matters) and after my last one, I have no desire to reintroduce meat into my body. I don't even know why. I read about Daniel and his fast of fruits and vegetables, and something about his story resonated deeply with my soul. I'm not sure what, but I know this must be deep because I reached this conclusion as the aroma of mom's Jamaican curry chicken (my favorite meal) cooking in the crock pot flooded the house. For me to make a 30-day vow swearing off meat amidst that glorious smell means that this is serious. And yes, I said 30-days. I'm going to start with a trial period. I spent hours tonight on GoVeg.com and stumbled upon an online pledge from PETA vowing to play vegetarian for 30-days to live a "healthier, more compassionate life."

Now, I don't know about being more compassionate, but I do plan on being healthier. Just think of all the increased nutrients you take in by substituting veggies for meats. And think of how many days it takes for your body to fully process and digest meats versus the hours it takes to do so for fruits and veggies. Wave good-bye to any digestive issues and sluggishness after meals. That's right, I've said Good-bye! to The Itis!!! lol. I love it already! And unlike someone else I know who went "vegetarian," I will NOT be turning into a carbotarian. That's right, I said carbotarian (can't take credit for that hilarious term). This one girl I know refers to herself as a "vegetarian," but I swear the only vegetable I've seen her eat are potatoes in the form of french fries :/ Yikes. That's an excellent way to carbo-load and gain weight...I'll pass. As far as thinking of good recipes, I've already started. Tonight for dinner, I made a Portobello and Pineapple Black Bean with Corn Quesadilla (whole weat, of course) - can we say oralgasmic? It was delicious. I love how my mom stood in the corner of the kitchen staring at me in amazement at 1) how good the food looked and smelled and 2) how natural and efficient I was in the kitchen (she's never home when I cook). I was so good I nearly licked the plate. Perhaps I'll take a picture next time...maybe even chronologize this process. I hear that your taste buds even heighten and a lot of different ethnic food varieties are explored as one ventures into the world of vegetarianism. I'm pumped!

As for being more compassionate...I refuse to watch the videos they have posted on the website of the inhumanity animals face to feed us. First off, I don't want to watch it because I'm sure it's repulsive (the freeze-frame of one has this huge human hand wrapped around the throat of a chicken. Gee, I wonder how that ends...I don't know, blood quirting everywhere?!?). Secondly, I believe animals were put on this earth for human use - God gave us dominion over animals. Therefore, (and I believe I've written about this before) I don't really care how bad it looks to rear and kill this animals to promote human health. Call it inhumane if you want, but guess what? Animals are not human, so treating them inhumane makes sense to me.

Quietly, I'm curious to see a snapshot of my life in 10-15 years. I could picture myself a sold-out, Go Green! vegetarian (maybe even vegan) with locks and a locked-up hubby and a few lil' rugrats running around the house in all-natural fibers - Yeah, I said it. lol I'm curious to see how this all turns out slash how long this will last...

Newsflash: I have no life. Between these jobs, one of which (the one paying the bills) is flippant about paying us, and all the med school interviews, I have no free time. I actually have so many thoughts running thru my mind that I want to blog about, yet...no time. Keep me in your prayers!!!