Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in statlady's LiveJournal:

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Saturday, May 9th, 2009
3:50 pm	Continuing the trend I don't know if two posts in a row counts as a trend, but I'll take it. I am very glad that the rain seems to be done before I grill dinner tonight. I'm making steak and potatoes for my Mom and the Wonderful Aunt Suzy (her sister) tonight for Mother's day, then I get to go out for dinner tomorrow. I am currently taking a break from working on the last table I need to make for an iron paper going out Monday. This one reports on the impact of a 12 month weekly home intervention conducted on two infant cohorts (6 months at start and 12 months at start). The intervention focused on improving mother-child bonding and support, based on the theory that at least part of the negative impact of IDA in infancy is that iron deficient infants do not respond as much to external stimuli, including and importantly mother interaction. That basic brain impact then prompts one of two negative maternal responses - overfunctioning (prevents child from interacting with much stimuli) or more commonly underfunctioning (mother basically learns that the child will not respond and stops trying). The impact of the intervention was negligible on normal iron kids, but made a big impact on the mid and end-point development outcomes for IDA kids. In other news, two consecutive 4 hour drives over two days turns out to have very negative impact on one's hips. don't care, it was still worth it. Ok, enough of a break. Back to tables. Current Mood: fine (Comment on this)
Friday, May 8th, 2009
10:20 pm	Not an update, but an entry I haven't updated anything in a long time. My head has been empty. Or I haven't had any energy for writing. Or... I don't know. Probably ongoing depression symptoms. From which I am improving. So, an entry, with no promises that it contain positiveness, but at least it will have reality. I spent an entire 24 hours away from my family. Have not done this since the kid was born, although I have gone off with DH and left child with Neema. Oh, wait, I was gone when I was first diagnosed with diabetes, but I don't think the ICU counts as a break. Diversion, maybe. But going to Interlochen was good. I got to see each of my favorite teachers, all of whom looked older but unchanged in a very strange way. My old English teacher retired two years ago and has been taking classes at the University of Iowa. He is a good and wise man. I got to read a book by the lake, watch the sun set, and connect with my "self" a bit. My fearless leader in the Iron world has breast cancer, and is going under the knife Tuesday. Beyond my ongoing fears for her, and uncertainty about the work, it is also the first friend/colleague I have experienced with cancer. Damn, I'm self-involved. It is all part of learning to experience one's mortality. But she has been an anchor, a beacon of stability through all the strange turns of the past decade. i don't want her to be sick. So I have been on Facebook while not-blogging, and it keeps me vaguely connected with a number of people about whom I would not know they were having a 4th glass of wine after a trying day of screaming kids. Not clear if that makes me more connected, or just suffering from the delusion. But, I am also happy being deluded, so participation is likely to continue. I'm sure there is other stuff. Can't think of it, so I'm done. Let's see if I go another 3 months. Current Mood: okay (Comment on this)
Saturday, January 3rd, 2009
8:34 am	Stuff Today is the first day of the new year for me, in that I go back to work today. Granted, I spent most of yesterday working on an article, and have been editing chapters for the last two days, but this is "going" to work, which actually counts in the psychic mental state. My main job today will be running the "Dissertation Support Group" meeting, a group of doctoral students working on their dissertations. They support each other, and I work on solving problems. The problem of the morning will be GR, who did a "pre-proposal defense" in September that included a powerpoint presentation to his committee on what he planned to do his dissertation about, and how. That last part is important. Because no one on his committee raised any objections at the time to his plans (that he noted, there is some dispute here on the issue), he went ahead and started collecting data. Now he has all his data collected, and analyzed, and he still hasn't officially had his proposal approved by his committee. And predictably, one of the committee members now feels his data collection plan is insufficient and not functional to the scope of a dissertation. So, other than becoming my new poster child for why you don't do this, I am trying to mediate the dispute in some way that will allow the student to not lose what he has already done. Fun times. And this afternoon, I will again look at the timing article and see if I still hate it. Current Mood: cynical (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, December 31st, 2008
3:30 pm	Updates at random Today I... -- edited a results chapter of a dissertation. -- edited the conclusions chapter of a different dissertation. -- read 4 articles about the Child Health and Illness Profile. -- finished laundry (and lost 24 socks). -- prepped my stats class, am now three weeks to the good. -- started the set-up for 3 online courses. -- stared at my timing article, decided I hated it too much to try to work on it today. -- edited a different article that might actually go out today. -- revised a student's survey. -- revised a colleague's cover letter. -- petted cats. It was a reasonable way to end 2008. I would like 2009 to be better, though. Current Mood: accomplished (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, December 19th, 2008
12:09 pm	Snow Day There was no email warning, but calling the superintendent's office always works - no school (there is a switchboard message there when school is closed - if not it just says "Welcome to Saline Area Schools."). Got to sleep until 9:30, which is good since was still awake at 1:30. Blarg. Child has made a snow fort, engaged the new neighbors in a snow fight, and now they are all down the street sledding. She just poked her nose in to appraise me of the location change, and she is a snow child. Very cool. I got my invoice turned in (I don't know why it is hard for me to do that, but it is) for work done for a college contemplating setting up a graduate program in teacher education. I am still trying to figure out timing for driving to Chelsea. Plisskin is of the opinion that the computer is invading her space, and must fix the situation by occupying both arms. Gotta find something for lunch. Current Mood: hungry (Comment on this)
Thursday, December 18th, 2008
10:46 pm	And stuff... Today was a non-functional day. Napped, made dinner, took child to do her Xmas shopping, developed parent scales for the Child Health and Illness Profile, puzzled over some missing child id's in the parent file. And that's it. So, I'm using the rest of my blog to post something making the rounds... {quoted with permission from Blogging Barbie, don't know where she got it, but it made me laugh} Hell Explained By A Chemistry Student The following is an actual question given on an University of Washington chemistry mid term. The answer by one student was so “profound” that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well: Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat), or endothermic (absorbs heat)? Most students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle’s Law (gas cools when it expands, and heats when it is compressed) or some variant. One student, however, wrote the following: First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell, and the rate at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let’s look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions, and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we an expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of volume in Hell because Boyle’s Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionally as the souls are added. This gives two possibilities: 1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate that the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose. 2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster that the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over. So which is it? If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, “It will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you,” and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number two must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over. The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting anymore souls and is therefore, extinct…. leaving only Heaven, thereby proving the existence of a divine being, which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting, “Oh my God.” THIS STUDENT RECEIVED AN A+. Current Mood: amused (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, December 17th, 2008
11:26 am	Updates Yesterday I... made peppermint puff cookies, my favorite from Aunt Jean (she finally released the recipe from super-secret lockdown). They turned out well. constructed scales from the Child Illness and Health Profile (CHIP) and hunted down other research that has used this survey. And resolved the mis-coded surveys. helped the child with homework (which mostly amounted to listening to and then walking away from whining about how she couldn't ever do it). woke up ill at 1am, was actively ill through 4am, am trying to feel better. Current Mood: sick (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, December 11th, 2008
7:09 pm	More updating Today was an odds and ends day, filled in with working on the Child Health Profile, which at 10 years may show differences between children who did and did not have IDA in infancy. But the getting of everything into scales part of the project is ongoing. Need to clean. Just finished watching the brotherly one play at the Kennedy Center via the web. He be here: http://www.kennedy-center.org/programs/millennium/artist_detail.cfm?artist_id=BLTWYBRASS# I'se so proud! Esp. since he did the heat/cold miser song. Ok, need to clean. Current Mood: busy (Comment on this)
Wednesday, December 10th, 2008
4:49 pm	Preliminary findings on the Feminization of Higher Ed. In 1980, there was no gender difference in dropping out. In 2006, there was - boys are significantly more likely to drop out of high school, significantly more likely to get a GED rather than a HS diploma, and significantly more likely to have at least one period of dropping out of school prior to completing high school. In 2006, girls are significantly more likely to have enrolled in higher education out of high school, even after taking the drop-outs out of the equation. It isn't just older women coming back to higher ed. shifting the stats. Fewer traditional students are male than was the case 20 years ago. To put it in numbers, from a nationally representative sample of 10th graders in 2002, 52% of the girls and 44% of the boys enrolled in college after high school. Hmmmmmmm..... Current Mood: contemplative (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, December 9th, 2008
5:16 pm	Insert informative title here... So after reviewing several dozen methods descriptions from ed. specialist and doctoral students, I have decided I need to develop an exercise that will train students in how to differentiate when they are writing about participants, when they are writing about instrument description, when they are writing about data collection procedures, and when they are writing about design. Because invariably, these are all in there in no particular order, regardless of the section they happen to be in. As a start, I could give students some of the ones I've just had to sort out, and have them sort out what is what. I keep thinking "this can't be that hard - why is it not clear that they started out describing who was in the study when the section claims to be describing what data collection instruments were used?" And my conclusion is that they are not actually reading what they are writing. So, maybe some training in how to differentiate the content... Current Mood: frustrated (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, December 8th, 2008
1:51 pm	Random stuff I am drowning in grading. One class has a final assignment I have to go through (17) and the other has part three of their action research project to comment (18). This later one is critical because it describes what they are planning to do to collect their data, so if it is messed up the entire project is in trouble. Then, I have three comp questions to read and 4 different dissertation chapters to line-edit. Blarg. On a brighter note, after all the scrutiny of cleaning, I know that I do in fact have the data I need to find out if there has been a gender shift in traditional students' attending college out of high school. The data I've been working on was collected in 2002, nationally representative of 10th graders in the US. I have the first and second followup files (12th grade and 2 years out of HS), and it is this last file I need. See, I am anecdotally observing more and more and more women graduates (and fewer and fewer men), but I cannot tell from my observations if this shift is coming from fewer guys going to college at all or from more women coming BACK to college after other life experiences. So, I can at least find out the first part. (for the second, I have another data base, gathered in 2004, that is nationally representative of all students in post-secondary institutions - grad and undergrad and community college and tech schools, etc). I know that the overall gender distribution in higher ed has in fact shifted over the 50-50 mark, but that is just the start of the conversation... Current Mood: contemplative (Comment on this)
Friday, December 5th, 2008
11:35 am	Data munching One of the joys of having a restricted site license is that I get data sets from the feds that are thorough, amazingly thorough. And I deeply appreciate the work they all do to gather all this information on all these nationally representative people. That said, cleaning them is a pain in the ass. First I go through and pull all the variables I am remotely interested in - for this set it is about 1,290. Well, ok, it is exactly 1,290. There's about 5000 more variables I want, but I'm sticking to the base year for now (they followed these people every two years for six years - I love this function of the federal government). For some reason, between when I used to pull stuff off a tape mounted on MTS and using their "helpful" data program (ok, I don't have to count columns any more, but I can't just grab all the variables either), they took OUT the function that counts missing data codes as missing. I can do the syntax, but every variable has a different code - some are -9. some are -8, some are -99, etc. So I have to go through them essentially one by one (doing it in blocks works up to a point, but it has to be carefully done so you don't recode legitimate negative values as missing). I'm about 1/10 through that process. THEN, I have to go through all the survey items and recode each bloody one of them, because the feds think that it is clever to have likert scales go from 1=strongly agree to 5=strongly disagree. Which tells me that no one coding the surveys analyzes data. Whenever you have a situation where MORE means more DISagreement, everything is bad. Happily, the blocks of recodes on this process tend to be easier to find. Now, the good thing about this process is that once I'm done, I know what is in that data set. I am looking forward to that point. And why am I telling you all this? Just because I decided to update more regularly, and this is obviously what is on my mind. Sorry - I'll find something more amusing to think about soon. I hope. Current Mood: aggravated (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, December 4th, 2008
12:32 pm	Updates let's see... family got through the holiday. Kitty survived what ended up being a complicated spay-ing, as one of her ovaries was not developed (she was on the table almost an hour). Both kitties adjusting to each other again. Grading is two-thirds done. Wrote a white paper on developing a masters in teacher ed. for a local college. Got some thoughts on a new project related to the old project - looking at the implications of increasing feminization of higher education. Now I must work on my new data base (glee!) Current Mood: okay (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, November 20th, 2008
10:44 pm	For earthshine content eventually. In the meantime, Joe, I did think of you for this one... more animals Current Mood: amused (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, November 14th, 2008
9:17 pm	In lieu of content I suspected it. Current Mood: okay (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, October 31st, 2008
9:19 pm	Marriage Meme Copy this sentence into your livejournal if you're in a heterosexual marriage/relationship (or if you think you might be someday), and you don't want it "protected" by the bigots who think that gay marriage hurts it somehow. Current Mood: sheep-like (Comment on this)
Monday, October 27th, 2008
10:22 pm	Things my Father taught me Dad was a professsor of education at UM for 37 years. I have been a professor of education, in various places, for 16 years. So, I'm in the family business. I've been thinking this week about different things I learned, either from specific instruction or by osmosis watching Dad deal. Here's a few: THE DEAN IS NOT YOUR FRIEND. This is a tricky one, because people who become dean are very good at acting like they are your friend - they are politically savy and oriented towards other people's opinions, more than most profs. This advice doesn't mean that the dean is your enemy or working against you, only that whatever it is that the dean wants, you DON'T know what it is. If your best interests are not aligned with what the dean wants, the dean will not even blink before selling you down the river. You don't trust the dean, you don't count on the dean, you try to just say positive things and stay out of the dean's way. Because the dean is not your friend. DON'T TRY TO GO PAST SAYING ONE SMART THING IN A MEETING. It is better to say one smart thing than it is to say five. Pick your spot, pick your battle, say what you need to say, and don't say much else. I've worked at 3 universities so far, and each one had at least one person at department meetings who went onnnnn and onnnnn. I'm happy I'm not that person. TELL PEOPLE THE GOOD STUFF. This one is hard for me, but I do it. Dad said that no one knows the brilliant things you do unless you tell them. At any given time, what my colleagues know about me is what I got published recently, what I am working on getting published, and how well my doc. students are doing. ONE BOOK COUNTS THE SAME AS ABOUT 3 ARTICLES. The point of this piece of advice is to note that promotion committees tend not to count books very highly - they are best saved until after tenure. SERVICE DOESN'T COUNT. Also for tenure. No one ever got tenure on the basis of their service. No one who had good research ever got denied tenure because of lack of service. Service doesn't count. NEVER VOLUNTEER. He got this one from the army, but it applies very well to university life, especially given the previous point. START EVERY EDIT WITH WHAT IS RIGHT ABOUT THE WRITING. This one is hard for me to remember, so I have it written a couple of different places. Students don't know if they have done a good job at anything. When all you tell them is what is wrong, it messes them up to the point that they stop writing. Hell, everyone needs to hear good stuff. I *know* I'm a good writer, and it still gives me energy to hear it. READ/EDIT FOR WHAT IS RIGHT, OR AT LEAST WHAT THE STUDENT WAS TRYING TO SAY. This one is related to the one above, but is more about your mind-set when reading student papers. I learned it when I was tutoring football players. I had a paper I was reviewing for a guy, and it was a MESS. I had a ton of pencil marks on the first couple of pages, gave up, and gave it to my Dad to help me with. He started reading it through and explained as he was reading what the student was trying to say, where he had jumped around, what points he had wanted to make. I realized I had NOT EVEN TRIED to figure out what the student was trying to say. I was just looking for what was wrong. And that was the wrong way to do it. That's a long enough entry. There is a lot more, but I have to think more about it. Current Mood: contemplative (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, October 13th, 2008
12:35 pm	Just to say Been so sad lately, it seemed worth noting that I have a purring kitten head on my lap and things are ok. Current Mood: okay (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, October 12th, 2008
4:47 pm	Pix via DH since i cannot figure out how to make my phone/camera work, I'm just linking to DH's photos, which are good ones. http://mrgeddylee.livejournal.com/283285.html?style=mine#cutid1 The two are almost friends. They are accomplished at chase, and will share space, even to the point that I had Cleo in the crook of my arm and Plisskin on my knees this afternoon. They still snarl at each other when face-to-face, but all in all, I couldn't ask for a better co-existence. Current Mood: amused (Comment on this)
Friday, October 10th, 2008
4:37 pm	VQKU = Very quick kitty update. Kitten 1, Cleo, is all black, 3 months old, and has her first round of vaccines. She is too little for the vet to fix yet. But, the vet had a kitten to offer as companion to Cleo, all vaccinated, for free. So, we also have... Kitten 2, Plisskin (can't remember how Jason spelled the name, is named after Escape from New York character), is tiger-stripe with a white belly, about 4 months old, and so far will have nothing to do with Cleo. I am hoping that the time they spend together in the basement every night, combined with her increasing loneliness, combined with her small kitty brain, will overcome the stand-offishness and allow them to learn to play together. Because Cleo is in constant need of something to play with. She was delighted with the toy J. bought, and also is happy to tear around the house at about 500 miles an hour. Every time she sees Plisskin, she charges, gets hissed at, and comes back to see if there is someone nicer to pet her (me, generally, also L.). I'm not making any decisions about how it is going for 3 weeks, which is when Cleo gets her 2nd round of shots. If things haven't warmed up noticeably by then, the vet said he will take her back. And now I have to go grade papers and get ready to teach tomorrow. Current Mood: hopeful (7 Comments |Comment on this)