Against All Odds

I never thought I would be the kind of person to come home at night, after a long day of work and stress, and pour myself a pinch of liqueur to ease my nerves. In fact, the first night I felt absolutely scandalous! Me?  Drink alone?  I mean, I could justify a glass of red wine (it's good for your heart right?!), but liqueur... that's a different bag altogether.  Well, friends, let me tell you, Chamomile liqueur is a godsend! The relaxing properties of the chamomile, mixed with the mulled-spice taste of Christmas... it's like a glass full (not full... barely full) of comfort.

Now, don't get me wrong. This term has been wonderful so far! I am working on a variety of highly educational, community interactive, experience-laden projects.  Case in point:

• I am working on a two-person research team that is responsible for coding 400 participant responses to the same complex math problem, in order to assess participants' levels of confirmation bias (people deciding what they think the answer should be, and then skewing their work to back-up that answer) and patterns of information "clumping" based on both their answers and their provided mathematical evidence.  
• I am also working as part of a consulting team for the Oregon Sexual Assault Resource Center (SARC). We are conducting research on the links between pornography and sexual aggression with the purpose of providing effective recommendations for an anti-pornography curriculum installment, which will potentially be implemented in high schools in the Portland Metro area next school year. 
• I am a member of a small consulting group (me and 2 ex-marines) that is working with the Vikings basketball team to assess current player motivation levels and coaching strategies, with the goal of making effective recommendations to the head coaches to improve players' motivation levels during practices and games next season. 
• And, last but not least, I am researching my passion: psychological studies on the effects of social support and dietary restrictions on the quality of life of people living with Celiac Disease. I have actually been researching this topic for months now, but, conveniently, the final project for my Health Psychology course is an annotated bibliography on a medically-relevant psychology topic of our choosing.  It is a nice excuse to gather information and create writing samples for my potential graduate school applications.

So, in a nutshell, all of this work on top of my normal class reading assignments has me sort of frazzled.  I am fortunate to have such a loving, supportive, understanding husband right now.  I don't think that either of us were expecting me to work this hard until grad school.  However, my resume has quickly transitioned from retail to consultation/psychology, and I have met many new and interesting people outside of PSU during this process. And, honestly, just writing all of it out in this blog makes me feel better and instantly more organized.  After a while all of these groups and research projects meld into one big glob of mush in my brain. 

So, I deserve some liqueur every now and then, right?  Yeah, I thought so!