Upheaval

Last semester went well. Surprisingly, I got straight “A’s” for the second semester in a row and have a current GPA at USU of 4.0. Anyone who knows me from childhood has either fainted or reported me to the FBI to find out exactly when I was replaced by an alien doppelganger. I can sympathize with them. While I’ve never been overly stupid, good grades and I never got along when I was younger. I think it was all the boredom and skipping classes in high school, but I’m not ruling anything out.

To put things in perspective, though, I’ve only been going part time. I’ve also been at an extension campus with rather small class sizes. This is all about to change. In about a month my wife and I will be moving to the main campus so both of us can finish our degrees. We’ve put our house up for sale, started getting rid of our excess stuff, and generally been making a mess. We’re moving with into an apartment about half the size of our current house. I’ve been telling everyone it’s like we’re losing our basement.

Miraculously, I’ve saved enough money to fix most of my teeth. I’ve been visiting the dentist every other week for a while, and it’s not quite over, but should be in a couple of weeks.

To make things more chaotic, and here’s the scary part, as you know, I had surgery on my hands:  bilateral carpal tunnel release. Not fun. Needless to say, that has slowed things down on the move, at least for my part. My hands are starting to feel better, though. That’s the good part.

The effects of such personal upheaval are an increase in personal and familial stress, increased orneriness, and general feelings of hate, fright, discontent and a fair amount of humility. It could be humiliation, though. I’m not sure.

 

Through the Carpel Tunnel

 Two days ago I had bilateral carpal tunnel surgery. Not very fun, you can imagine. I have splints on both wrists, I can't grab anything without pain, and I feel generally miserable. 

I decided to take a week off from work so that I can more fully recovered from surgery. Yes, the doctor said that it would only take a few days before I could get back to work, but I chose to take the week off. My boss isn't happy about that, but I can't make any mistakes with this surgery. Being a pianist and a small time guitar picker, I simply have no choice. The surgery has to work for me. I lost my ability to play the trumpet to Bell's palsy, I'll be damned if I'm going to give the rest up to carpal tunnel syndrome.

While lounging around and being waited on hand and foot for a week sounded like a good idea, the reality is far less appealing. The humiliation of needing help with the toilet, and just about everything else, coupled with sheer boredom, and was pretty much put it damper in any kind of fun I might be having.

To fight the boredom, I'm talking to my iPad in an attempt to do something productive, like update my blog. I'm using a dictation program to post this. Not being able to use my hands very well, I'm coming to appreciate both a touch screen and voice command. Dictation programs being what they are, I'm using the touchscreen to edit it as much as I am recording.

Fortunately for me, days of slicing your hand wide-open for this malady are far behind. For me, it was a very small incision by my wrist. I've only got a couple of stitches in each wrist. What I do have is a severe case of body odor. I really need a shower, but my wife seems reluctant to pursue the inevitable sponge bath. She acts like she's tired, but I really think it's avoidance. You know, the "Not tonight, dear. I have a headache." kind of avoidance. After a few more days of intense stink, she may give in. 

If my boss thinks about things from that perspective, maybe she won't feel so bad about me taking the week off.

Why I Hate Sociologists and Why We Need Them

I’m taking an Introduction to Sociology class this year. I actually took this class many years ago when I was working on my first Bachelors degree, but that was back under a “quarter” system, and I didn’t want to worry about translating those credits to a semester system. Besides, it was just more convenient for a required credit for my second degree.

My current text has driven home a fundamental issue for me, my love-hate relationship with sociologists, and sociology. Don’t get me wrong. I’m doing pretty darned well in the class. I’ve aced most of the assignments and exams I’ve had so far. I just have a problem with calling some of what sociologists do “science.”

Sociology is the only branch of science I’ve encountered that claims it’s okay to let your own feelings influence the research. That’s not science. It’s activism masquerading as science. To be fair, many do social research and pay attention to the data. Most of this is done through surveys or observation. Some is done by extrapolating data from other people’s research, like census data.

Allowing themselves to become political activists, sociologists weaken their credibility. Some of them, especially conflict theorists and feminists, come off as angry, arrogant psychopaths. I suspect some of them are. Some of the conflict theorists and feminists are also socialists or communists. Conflict theorists, in particular, idolize Karl Marx and his writings, even if they aren’t communists. These facts alone destroy their credibility with almost any conservative, most moderates and a few liberals as well. They openly want to change the way societies work.

On the other hand, conservatives love functionalist sociologists. To a conservative, the functionalist perspective seems the most scientific and, I admit, it does seem that they keep the most emotional distance from the topic. At times, this seems like a façade, though. Functionalists are interested in the roles that different groups play in the larger society, how they contribute to the culture at large. That includes how the poor support the rich and vice versa. The subtext is that they are interested in keeping the status quo, even if it means some people get screwed by the system.

There’s a fourth approach, interactionists, that’s interested in the way each group relates to and influence each other. That may seem a little touchy feely, but they don’t have nearly as dramatic political agendas as the others do.

I hate all of these approaches. They each have an agenda that colors their research and destroys the notion of what I think science means, the detached search for knowledge. The data should take precedence over personal interest. To me, that makes sociology inherently flawed as a science.

In spite of my own disgust with this approach, they aren’t always wrong. Functionalists have been very good at explaining how different social elements work, and how each social class contributes to the society as a whole. Interactionists have done very well in showing how members of one group can be assimilated and/or otherwise influenced by another, and how they recruit new members. Conflict theorists have shown the inherent battle between social classes over resources, and liberties and feminists have shed light on the difficulties and unequal treatment of women and the poor. In spite of their particular, often conflicting, agendas, taken together, they paint a more comprehensive picture of how society works. When we step away from the rhetoric of extremism, the data paints an interesting picture and, depending on your politics, not a very pretty one. But that’s a matter for later posts.

Of course, you’d expect to read something like this from a moderate, wouldn’t you?

Freudian Commando! Go!

For a few months, now, I’ve been taking the bus to work. I’ve not become King of the Bus People, but I have been adapting to bus culture pretty well. I’m not sure I want to become King of the Bus of the People, though. I don’t want that kind of responsibility. I’m just happy to read books or play with my iPad while the bus drivers do their thing.

The bus has actually been quite a boon for me. The drive times are about double what it would take in a car, but it’s saving me quite a bit in gas money. My work gave me the bus pass, so I’m not even paying for that.

The long drive time has been good for school, too. During the drive, I can study, so it’s really not wasted time. Only one of my textbooks is of the super-heavy think hardback variety. The rest are light paperbacks or ebooks so, I don’t often have to weigh my backpack down very often.

Riding the bus in winter has some unforeseen downsides, though. The cold is the most obvious. I’ve adapted by wearing heavy clothing, a heavy coat with hood, and gloves. Not so obvious is a side affect of wearing heavy clothing. Like everything else, they are subject to the laws of gravity and try to find the lowest point possible. Having greater mass than lighter clothing, they have an easier time of it. My coat, shirt and gloves have no problem, though. They rest on my shoulders and hands quite nicely, thank you. My boots are secure around my feet and ankles. My pants and underwear? Not so much.

Having a good belt helps with my pants, but the waistband in some of my undies has seen better days. They’re feeling their age as much as I am. After the long bus ride, they decided they were tired of hanging around my sorry butt and started to migrate towards my feet. My Id, sensing this betrayal on the part of my underclothes, started raising all kinds of alarms. “Ahhhgghh! Your pants are falling down! You’re going commando! Someone will see your butt!”

My Ego, trying to calm the Id, said, “No, no, the pants are still on. It’s just your underpants that are going south. Your butt is not visible.”

I tried recovering my underpants by grabbing them through my jeans, but they were having none of it. They just kept up the steady southward migration.

My Id went into full panic mode. “Ahhhh! Naked butt! Naked butt!” After thinking about it for a moment, my Id, being what it is, started thinking, “Maybe it would be fun to flash these people. They might want to have sex with me. I’ll pull my pants down, too!”

Thankfully, my Superego intervened. “No, no. That would cause great embarrassment and result in jail time. You must not pull your pants down.”

“You’re such a killjoy.” Id complained. My Ego was not quite relieved.

Eventually, my underwear cleared the bottom of my butt cheeks. My pants, ever defending my honor, caught them at crotch level and stopped them from having a conversation with my knees and ankles. I’d hate to think what would have happened if I was wearing a dress. Not that I’ve done that. My Id has a mind of its own, though, so I still think of things like that.

As I entered the building, my underwear at half-mast and my backside getting acquainted with backside of my jeans, I struggled to control my brain and act like nothing was wrong. I just needed to get to the bathroom near my desk without raising suspicions that I had become and accidental commando. The fact that my desk is on the opposite side of the building wasn’t helping.

In the end, I got my end covered back up without further mishap. Praise goes to my denim jeans for not joining my undies in their southern migratory pattern. As I sat back at my desk I could only think of one thing: I really need to buy new underwear.