If you reach into someone's mind, you can feel emotions.

I had a pretty nice debate with you today, Mrs. Wollersheim. You're a good person to bounce ideas off of and to talk to about interesting little nuggets I find lying around.
For all of you that have no idea what I'm talking about, we talked about motivation today in AP Psych. There are two (main) types of motivation - intrinsic and extrinsic. Basically, they break down into "doing it just for doing it" and "doing it to receive a tangible reward".
My argument was that the line between intrinsic and extrinsic is not clear-cut and defined. There's a lot of blur. My main point is while you can't exactly touch emotions, they are tangible, because they manifest themselves in physical ways - after all, aren't they just mostly mechanisms and chemicals?.
If a murder takes pleasure in killing someone, they may do it because they extrinsically get to witness their victim dying by their own hands, but I think they also do it because seeing that makes them feel good. But the "good feelings" are tangible - they feel the happiness inside of them, the "happiness" maybe even ... makes itself noticeable physically (you know exactly where this is headed, right?).
If you reach into someone's body and grab a fistfull of something and yank it out, you'll most likely get guts (or blood vessels, etc). Physical physical things. If you reach into their brain, you'll get neurons and gray matter and gunk. But if you reach into their mind (which in itself isn't strictly a tangible thing, now is it?), you'll pull out thoughts and feelings and emotions and maybe even personality traits.
As far as we know, emotions and thoughts don't exist on a physical plane the same way, say, we do (excluding the biological processes that make them, which means they're tangible, I'd say!), but I don't think that they don't serve as a source for motivation. Double negatives, baby!
What I'm trying to say, I guess, is that feelings can absolutely be extrinsic motivation. Maybe I like reading because I get benefits, rewards for doing it - an increased vocabulary, a growing ability to understand what I am made to read. I don't think we necessarily have to be aware of our motivation, however.
(Three.)

Strangedreams Numeros 1-3

I've decided to record my dreams again, but this time, they'll be on my blog. I have lazy hands and don't want to write, but my fingers are always rarin' to type out blog posts that are much too long.
3/16 I dreamed a series of related, connected dreams. Or maybe it was all part of one, I don't know. Maybe they were truly three parts of one giant, meaty tentacle; or maybe they were three tentacles on a huge, throbbing octopuuuuusssssssssssssssthhhhhhh. Anyway, they all had some friends in them. One of which is John (HIIII JOHN!), and another is Kelsey.

#1 I was in school, but in a room I've never seen before. I think it was probably made up. There was a gigantic circular table in the middle of the room, with a few desks scattered around it. I picked one of these desks, and I looked around to see if there was anyone I knew. Suddenly, I noticed Kelsey was sitting right next to me, already talking. We idly chatted until I noticed the teacher (an obese old man with a terrifying face) was staring at us with a snarl displayed on his face, much like a television displays a crowd of rabid babies. We quickly shut up and he handed out a test and told us, without words, to DO IT. I remember looking at the sheet and seeing mostly essay questions (but I don't remember what they actually said, of course). I read them and felt that there was no way I could do them. Then the rest of the class, including Kelsey, suddenly left, and the teacher told me I had five minutes to complete the test. My dream ended.

#2 I got a phone call from John to come to the mall. I felt really excited. I went into the connected ShopKo and by the bathrooms, where I found John with a pretty large circle of people. The few that I actually recognized were Ashley G. and Lindsey S. (I'm not entirely sure either of them are in John's immediate hanging-out group), and some girl was hanging all over John, who was acting with slight indifference to her. She removed her death grip from his waist and sauntered up to me and presented me with a box, and said, "If you're a good boy, you'll get a reward." John was frowning sadly. I took hold of the box and fumbled it, crashing into Lindsey and saying, "Sorry, Lindsey!", but she turned into Ashley and complained about being called Lindsey. I tried to tell her that she was Lindsey a second ago, but it fell upon un-hearing ears. Suddenly, everyone was at a really long table (still in ShopKo, mind you), and I opened the box. In it were strangely shaped glass goblets (their bases/"stems" were curved like a dragon's horn). I instantaneously knew it was my job to pass them out to everyone. The girl lead me to believe that I was only there because there was an extra goblet, and because they couldn't think of anyone else to be their servant. Everyone except John (who seemed to be rather subdued and sad or angry at the treatment I was getting, but not saying anything) echoed this sentiment as I laid the goblets on their plates. I took my seat (not even at the table) and frowned because I didn't want any wine - I felt so isolated.

#3 I was back at the school, but in some strange, grandiose hallway with a very high ceiling. I was standing absently by the middle of a wall, looking upset (which, of course, no one noticed). John walked by and started talking to me and asked what was wrong. I told him that it was nothing and he told me that he was terribly sorry, but that the girl wouldn't let him speak out (for reasons he didn't get in to), We walked to my class, idly chatting, and sat down in a few desks. We kept on talking until I noticed the teacher (the same setting and person as dream #1) was staring at us, seemingly waiting for us to talk. John was saying something, so I didn't want to cut him off. Suddenly, it cut to a scene at the back of the room... some guy was strangling a sad-looking teddy bear, which was bleeding profusely out of the mouth. The teacher ran back to the guy to ask him how he managed to do that (he seemed VERY excited!) and it was SUDDENLY REVEALED that the teddy bear was actually the teacher.
And that's where it ended and I woke up. Trust me, I was pretty confused.

World of Warconditioning

I found an article that talked about how conditioning is used to keep users subscribing to MMO (Massive Multiplayer Online) video games, such as World of Warcraft.

Perro es muy, muy ... muerde?

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?

Colorize me to the moon, baby.

I was thinking this week about colors. Especially the ones our cones detect - red, blue, and green. There's nothing inherently interesting about them if you look at them only as three colors (out of millions, billions, trillions, quadrillions?), but combined, they have interesting properties.
It's pretty obvious that the light spectrum doesn't necessarily match up with the color wheel of art. According to the color wheel, blue and orange are opposing colors (while the book says that yellow and blue are, in fact, the complimentary color set). There are other obvious discrepancies between the systems.
Red and green makes yellow, at least, according to our sight/when mixing light. When you mix them physically, with any medium (color pencils, watercolors, pastels, paints), you get an icky, brownish color that results from mixing two opposing colors. But how does this work?
To the right is a depiction of the RGB color model. As you can see, colors
like oranges and purples are results of different primary color balances (orange has a higher red concentration, while purple is more blue).
This has a biological basis - this is how our eyes perceive color.
But the art-y RYB color model, pictured to the left, seems to be how most physical media works. If you mix equal amounts of red and green... you don't get yellow! SURPRISE! Did that startle you!? I hope it did! I understand how this theory came to be, though - it was "invented" long, lonnnng, lonnnnnnnnng before the structure of the eye and color sight were adequately understood.
But the big picture, the big point to this wad of colorful text, is this question:
Are these two color models related? That is, while physical media may mix according to RYB, do we see it thanks to RGB? * **

*The answer, I think, is "probably". But, at the same time, there are many other different types of color models and they're all probably somewhat correct.
** THIS POST IS SECRETLY THE SECOND EDITION OF "Weekly Blogging Assignment". Don't take off its mask, or the festering bodies will get'cha!

PSA

http://www.youtube.com/user/appsychology1023

"Kelsey, Meghan, Allen PSA - Ashwaubenon"

http://www.youtube.com/user/appsychology1023#p/a/u/2/6I1L6LT_0NE

"Jared, Alicia, and Katie PSA"

http://www.youtube.com/user/appsychology1023#p/u/5/j0qoY_5ymOo

"Mariah, Katie, Patrick PSA"

The last one, by Mariah, Katie, and Patrick is by far my favorite PSA. The information is well put-together, incluing shots of the actual places they're talking about. The humor aspect is great, too - it keeps it really entertaining (and Mariah was probably really cold). The little song is amazing, too. They actually made it seem like a public service announcement! I really liked how they connected school to learning how to employ abstract thought.

This is where the title goes.

I'm feeling really interested in becoming a psychologist. I don't know what... kind, though.
Being an art therapist might be neat. Or a clinical psychologist.
But I don't know if I have enough self-confidence in order to do either of these things. Nor do I have money - I'd almost have to go to grad school to be able to actually work in my profession, wouldn't I?
I'd ask what you think, but I don't know if anyone really pays attention to my quaint, little blog. Hahaha...