Banking on technology

Sometimes I really miss being a kid. Well, okay, I still think of myself as a kid in many ways, but being home reminds me of some really neat aspects of being young. In particular, yesterday I found myself really missing the method that my parents used to teach me how to handle money.

For as far back as I can remember, I've had three different piggy banks sitting on the shelf that runs along the entire length of a wall in my bedroom. Why three? Well, my parents wanted to teach me the 65-25-10 allocation plan for money that I earned/received. Basically, that plan meant that for any money I obtained, I got to use 65% of it for spending, 25% of it went towards a savings account, and 10% of it went to charity. So each of my three piggy banks symbolized a specific role or placement for my money.

Every time I got money for pet-sitting, from relatives, or as an allowance, the first thing I had to do was divide it up appropriately between the three banks. Mom even used to give me my dollar allowance in the form of change so that I could easily just pop a quarter into the savings bank and a dime into the charity bank. A few times a year, we'd deposit the money from my savings bank into a real bank account (my parents told me that I wasn't allowed access to this account until college). And a few times a year, we'd donate the money from my charity bank to a charity or charities of my choice. Meanwhile, I could use the money in my spending bank whenever I wanted, really. Back then I liked to save up for a new My Little Pony or for another Nancy Drew book. :)

I was thinking about all of this yesterday for a few reasons. First, I found my savings piggy bank in my closet yesterday. It's exactly how I remember it: a little ceramic blue building that says "bank" and has a chimney on top and a candy cane on the front (yes, very random). My charity piggy bank was, appropriately, a heart-shaped porcelain dish that said something about love on the front of it. My spending piggy bank varied throughout the years; once I used an actual pig piggy bank, and at some point I had a mini-safe (because I liked the idea of securing my spending money with a code, particularly once my brother was born. I'm so trusting). Second, I got $10 in a card for Christmas, and getting cash once again reminded me of the nice little piggy bank system. I've become so accustomed to allocating my money via computerized database programs and electronic transfers. I kind of miss the tangibility of actually dropping coins into different places.

But anyway, I guess sometimes I really like having some sort of real/physical/tangible representation of an idea. As a kid it worked just fine to have three piggy banks with three different purposes. It's not as feasible now -- and I'd probably need a lot more piggy banks. And while I really like the ease with which I can transfer money and pay bills now, the electronic nature of it all sort of takes away from the realization that I've decided to move money from place A to place B, or paid a bill, or allocated money according to some strategy.

Or maybe I just like symbolism too much. :)

Rejoice! Rejoice!

Sounds easy, right? But sometimes rejoicing is difficult, even during the Christmas season. Here's a nice reflection by Fr. Ron Rolheiser:

Faith Means That God is With Us

Merry Christmas, everyone!!

One or many?

So in the past 30 hours I've somehow gotten myself into 3 separate discussions about religion. That's what I get for having crazy friends at home. ;) Nah...just kidding...but it has been interesting for sure. At several points in the various conversations I'd start to get a little bit frustrated, but at the time I couldn't tell why. But I think I've figured out the main reason: I feel like a hypocrite. Bear with me as I try to explain...

So the discussions started yesterday when I went out to brunch with a wonderfully energetic and enthusiastic friend from high school. She began talking about things that she likes about her new (Baptist) church, and that launched us into a discussion about church atmosphere. Eventually, we started talking about the things that she didn't like about her old church, and I revealed some of the things that I don't really like about my church -- the Catholic church. For the record, I'm very used to having conversations in which I discuss things that I like and dislike about my religion.

At one point in the conversation, my friend nonchalantly suggested that I just switch to a different church. "Just try out a bunch of different Protestant services and see which you feel most comfortable with. Then you can become a member of the one which fits best with your beliefs."

It's there that I began to feel frustrated. It wasn't that she suggested I go church-shopping. It's that she could do it in such a nonchalant manner. And the notion is not only something that I don't have a desire to do right now; it's that even if I did want to do it I don't think that it could be such a simple, easy, or light matter. Why? Well, for one reason, here's a brief list of things that I dislike and like about Catholicism (when compared with Protestantism):

Dislikes: Purgatory, some Marian beliefs, 5 minute sermons, lack of community feeling, lack of theological and biblical discussions, emphasis on formal confession to a priest (though I like the idea, I don't stress its necessity)

Likes: Mass, symbolism and images in worship, transubstantiation, emphasis on how we should respect life at every stage of life, the universal nature of the Church (praying the same prayers and reading the same readings across the world every day), oral tradition, the formal acceptance of evolution, some aspects of the priesthood, and the message of love -- due to the hierarchy we have a mechanism in place by which we can and do reach out to other religions, to countries in need, to political leaders, etc.

Yeah. Finding a Protestant church that doesn't have my "dislikes" is easy. Finding one that has my "likes" is...um, impossible. :)

I'm amazed when I look around at my Protestant friends and realize that they'll switch denominations without much trouble, guilt, or serious hang-ups about the choices they are making. In the past few years, I have seen friends switch from Assembly of God to Baptist, Episcopalian to Baptist, Baptist type A to Baptist type B, Methodist to Congregationalist, Calvinist to Presbyterian, and Presbyterian to Lutheran. Most of these people even take religion very seriously -- I know that they put thought behind their decisions, but it still didn't take much teeth-pulling, convincing, or sleepless nights to decide to convert. This amazes me. To me, converting to another church is a huge leap. And yes, I realize that going from Catholic to any other denomination is kind of a "bigger" leap than from denomination-hopping within Protestantism. But still...those Protestant denominations are separate for some reasons, and I don't know how people can so easily justify their choices.

And here's where I begin to feel like a hypocrite. Because if you ask me about the differences between denominations within Christianity, I will say that they are relatively small and unimportant. I believe strongly that all Christians agree on the "big" things, and that's ultimately what is important.

So how can I feel in one context like denominations within Christianity are superflous and silly and in another context that denominations are important and not to be taken lightly? Why do I like to visit and accept the churches of my Protestant friends and yet feel like I would never join?

I've been asking myself these questions today, and I don't really have answers. Sometimes I feel like if I truly believed that all Christian churches agree on the important things, then I wouldn't have any problem converting. Other times I become judgmental and feel like church respect should be symmetrical: if another church preaches that Catholicism is horrid, then I should stay as far away from that place as possible. And other times I feel like my "equal but different" feeling about Christian churches is good: it is loving and accepting and is maybe what God would want me to feel. And sometimes I feel like we're all just pretending to have answers to unanswerable (on earth) questions.

Homeward Bound

PA, here I come!! I leave tomorrow morning, so in about 25 hours I will be at home watching Leno with my family. I'm excited to see family, friends, and mountains in Pennsylvania. :)

I hope that you all have safe travels during the Christmas season! And make sure to eat lots of cookies. :)

Scary

So my advisor and I talked today about...gulp...my dissertation defense date. Actually, I'm really glad that we talked about it because it's good to keep an open communication about these things. I've heard too many horror stories of grad students who disagree with their advisor about when they should finish their degree and leave.

So, the tentative plan is for me to finish in August of 2007. That's only 20 months from now!! My fellowship support runs out that September, so it might be good to plan on being done around then anyway. I think that the department would give me support for a teaching position that fall (and even spring) if I have to postpone my defense, which is nice to know. So the tentative plan from now until the defense goes something like this:

Spring 2006: labwork, data analysis, writing, committee meeting, and planning for the summer
Summer 2006: fieldwork for my dissertation, conference(s)
Fall 2006: data analysis, writing, service for the department, and some modelling hopefully
Spring 2007: writing, writing, service, modelling, and contacting people about postdocs and maybe jobs
Summer 2007: many options! I'd love to attend the Santa Fe Institute complex systems summer school. However, I might decide to do more fieldwork (either out of necessity for my dissertation or to gather more data to write up later). I might also decide to try to get a position teaching a summer course for my department. Yay for teaching...I miss it greatly.

Now, this schedule might be optimistic, but at least my advisor and I are on the same page right now. He also told me today that he wasn't going to "push me out the door" -- I can decide to leave on my own time. I really appreciate that, and I'll just see how things go. I think the most scary part of all of this is that I'll probably need to start searching for postdoc positions and/or academic jobs in just a little over one year from now. Yikes!

Oh yes, part of my reasoning for writing all of this in my blog is to encourage you all to occasionally (and I mean rarely but more often than never) pester me about how well I'm keeping up with my own goals/schedule. :) I'll probably regret saying that, but oh well. :)

Titles are important

I have to say that animal behavior can be a pretty interesting field. Check out two of the articles I picked to read for our lab meeting today:

1. Virgin doves and mated hawks: contest behavior in a spider.
When I was browsing the literature for a new paper (that didn't involve social insects), this one immediately popped out -- what a cool title!! First of all, it evokes an image of fighting spiders, which is totally cool. Second, it hints at the game theoretic underpinnings of the pape. Yay game theory! And the paper is fairly interesting - at least, the parts that map behavior onto a game theory framework are interesting. My favorite sentence: "However, the situation in (this species) is made more complex by the fact that females often consume some of their mate's legs during copulation." Hehe.

2. Independence, not conflict, characterizes dart-shooting and sperm exchange in a hermaphroditic snail.
Okay, the only reason this titled popped out at me was because it used the word "conflict." The "dart-shooting" and "hermaphroditic snail" are thrown into the title as sort of afterthoughts. Apparently this species of snail pierces its partner with a spike-like object during mating (each snail acts as both a male and a female during mating), and while the spike somehow promotes sperm survival for the donor snail, the costs to the recipient snail are not known. The study didn't find any costs (and thus any evidence for conflict), so it wasn't as cool as I was expecting, but I have to say that they at least could have made the title a lot more interesting. Well, at least the paper had a cool picture. :)

Integrating by parts

Here are a bunch of quick and random thoughts from my life:

1. I greatly enjoy talking with people who I haven’t talked with for at least several (6-7) months. This happened to me four times this weekend.

2. Ear plugs are a wonderful invention. They are especially useful when: a) you are playing bells in a space where the sound bounces back and forth right by your head and b) your director asks you to play fortissimo at all times.

3. I want a robotic vacuum. A compsci friend (a.k.a. geek) in my program has convinced me that these are really cool. I actually believe him.

4. Sunday nights are always agonizing. There’s nothing bad about Mondays, but switching back into the work week must require some major change of mindset for me, because ever since midway through college I spend hours almost every Sunday night just thinking (obsessing) about stuff. It may be necessary for some odd reason, but I think it’s fundamentally unhealthy.

5. Writing a letter of both recommendation and gratitude for a Bucknell math professor I had is extremely difficult. It’s difficult because I have a hard time imagining how college would have gone without his advice, guidance, and friendship. The 1100-word letter I turned in last night seems like such a feeble attempt, but it’s the best I can do.

6. I will never truly decide what I’m looking for in life until I find it. If that happens.

7. Hearing guys gush about falling in love is incredibly cute. It’s even cuter when they are nerds who have recently proposed/gotten married to other nerds. This gives me hope.

8. Many people like to embarrass me. I just hope that I can get revenge someday. :)

9. Three guys from my freshman hall are married now. All I can say is…wow. My main memories of them involve them playing networked Quake games and making up weird rules of punishment for each other (I closed the door to my dorm room and hid during such events).

10. I am excited to go home for Christmas. Is it December 25th yet?

Out of control

Sometimes I feel completely out of control of my life. Well, I guess that's not true. I have some control, but it definitely feels constrained and limited. Sometimes this is a nice feeling - it is comforting. Sometimes this is not a nice feeling - it is stifling.

I suppose I can use the analogy of being in a music ensemble during a concert (surprising, right?). The concert starts. I know what I'm supposed to do. I read the music and I follow notes on the page -- I follow both the musical notes and the reminder notes I've written on the page. I watch the director, who gives an aspect of interpretation that may or may not depend on the environment (while the dynamics she gives may depend on the space in which we're playing or her mood on a particular day, the downbeats are unchanging). Between following the written music and following the director, I usually know what I should be doing. And...that's how I play. Because I follow the music and the director, I play as if I am not in control. And the concert goes well as a result.

But sometimes it strikes me that I can be in control. During any performance, I can purposely choose to play a wrong note. I can play forte when the dynamic level is pianissimo. Heck, I can set down my instrument and walk off the stage! It's an odd feeling -- I can do these things if I choose to, but I never have in a concert (well, at least not purposely). If I did that, the concert would fall apart.

But sometimes I really want to take control, just to remind myself that I can. For example, in our last handbell rehearsal, my stand partner and I were feeling silly and a bit bored with one of the pieces, and we decided to take matters into our own hands. The tempo of the piece is...well, slower than it should be, and so during an eighth note run, we glanced at each other and started rushing our notes. The effect was startling -- the entire choir sped up, and as a result we couldn't stop giggling for the rest of the piece. It was sortof amazing to find out how much control we actually had, but that's why groups like this have a director. She's keeping the tempo fairly slow for some good reasons. And though the slow tempo can be annoying, it's clearly not in the best interest of the group to let everyone take control whenever they want. So we resort to a scheme where we have control, but we choose to not use it. It's a constrained sort of control. And while I do want certain pieces to go faster, ultimately my good self knows that it is best to have the concert go well.

But anyway, sometimes life feels like this. I feel like I have some control, but I feel an obligation to respect that this control should be constrained and limited. In essence, I feel a responsibility to act as if I don't have any control. I've decided that this causes annoying consequences. Annoying consequences include: what I want is somehow a function of what God/the rest of the world wants, I have to police myself so that I don't decide to take control (like I did in the bell rehearsal), and I have to convince myself that sometimes my immediate reactions to life have to placed on the back burner.

Having the concert go well is most important.