While I believe that, in most cases, simply posting about the most obvious relations to what we've learned in the week is somewhat lame, I am forced to do it. At least for now. Therefore, I am a part-time lame-o. Silly blog assignments! Trix are for children!
(Neither my pants, my shirt, nor the chair I am leaning upon have zig-zag patterns... why is that pattern stamped all across my knuckles?)
We're learning about learning this week. (I can't wait until we get to memory, finally...) Which is kind of funny, in retrospect, but in a completely unfunny way.
When I was NUMBER (I don't remember what age I was, but I was fairly young; therefore, NUMBER), I walked across the street to our mailbox, not to do anything crazy, but to get our mail. After I grab the mail and start to turn around to walk back, this HUGE dog, a giant golden retreiver, runs towards me, snarling and barking and scaring the bajesus (bejesus? bejeesus?) out of me. Naturally, I book it for our house, screaming my little head off, and the dog chases me. Conveniently, my dad was in the van at the time, and I ran onto the porch while he chased that stupid canine away.
Naturally, the k-9 belonged to the adjective man that lived on the corner of the street (I can't think of an adjective that was mean enough to describe him and his family.) I distinctly remember many encounters with him and his what-load of animals - he had a chicken, I think, and a bulldog (I accidentally typed "bulldozer") that always liked to dump in our front yard. I also remember his children being absolutely nuts - his little girl was running around on our half of the block in her skivvies and screaming like a loon. My dad and our cool-neighbor-to-the-left, Jerry, called the cops on him multiple times for his general shenanigans. I think he moved because no one liked him (and because my dad and Jerry weren't going to take disrespect sitting down), or because he got kicked out by the sasquatches or something.
Anyway, me getting the mail would definitely count as the neutral stimulus, which ended up becoming the conditioned stimulus. The dog galloping after me was absolutely the unconditioned stimulus, and my natural, unconditioned reaction was to be scared out of my skin (not my hair though, because my hair was nowhere near as impressive as it is today). My conditioned response was fear. This "incident" also most likely maybe a little bit hardened my fear of dogs.
Therefore, every time I go get the mail, I look around nervously or am acutely aware of my surroundings, just waiting for a dog to materialize outta nuthin' and try to moiduh me. I've generalized about being vaguely nervous about street-crossing in general. And dogs.
The street-crossing part has become partially extinct. I don't usually think about it anymore. BUT THE DOGS ARE ALWAYS THERE. If I'm walking down the street and I hear a dog barking, my heart starts to race and my fight-or-flight response kicks in. I've been known to scoot to the other side of the street or to start running away as fast as I can, even if it's a poodle, even if it's obviously chained up securely.
My friend Sig's mother, Peggy, has a little chihuahua. How do you think I feel anout the damned thing?
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