Synaxis TV

So, I had another dream about Laura. I remember reading somewhere that journaling doesn’t necessarily help people deal with whatever issues they are suffering from, namely because writing about it forces them to fixate on the issue more than they might otherwise. Maybe, then, writing about the other dreams is making my brain repeat these stuck thoughts. I don’t really even remember the dream now other than thinking, “Dear lord, another?”

I guess the only thing to do is to write about my other dream with the saucy red head who exuded prostitute and secret agent. In my dream I spent some time with her then forgot her name and tried to find her again unsuccessfully. Hopefully I’ll be able to find her again tonight.

Easter, fueled by the Passion I think, has fueled some religious displays on campus recently. First there were a bunch of crosses to “raise awareness” about abortion.

But the best was a crucifiction scene, done every hour, in the middle of campus. I talked with a guy out there for about an hour or so, but he was just a freshman getting into the thick of things, so all he really had to say was, “Gee, you’ve thought a lot about this stuff.” Standing out there in the rain with my jacket and gloves I was very cold. I can’t imagine how the guy playing Jesus felt.

I tell everyone that this stuff reminds me of home. I can’t explain why it draws me in the way it does. I just find it fascinating. The guy did say that this is the first year they’ve done this here. At first I thought it might be a sign of increasing religiousity, but, like I said at the beginning, I think it’s just due to the Passion.

I don’t know why I didn’t make the connection before. Attribution theory is probably my favorite part of social psychology. It basically relates to the various causes that people attribute events to. One of the main divisions is whether the cause is something that is internal or external.

The most typical example that is used to demonstrate the different attribution results is performance on a test. If a person does well, an internal attribution would be that they are smart, while an external attribution would be that they got lucky. If a person does poorly, an internal attribution might be that they didn’t study enough, while an external attribution would be that the teacher made a hard test.

The importance of all of this is that there are general divisions with respect to how people attribute the cause of an event in correlation with their political stance. For instance, those who are conservative or Republican tend to attribute events to internal causes, while those who are liberal or Democrat attribute them to external causes. Thus, to a conservative, someone who is rich or poor has come to be in that position because of things that they did as a person. This can also be looked at as shifting focus on agency. On the other hand, someone who is liberal will place more of an emphasis on situational or contextual factors when considering why someone is rich or poor. This can also be looked at as shifting focus to structure.

All of this is old news, though. The reason I am writing about this, however, is that there is another connection to make. I was reading for linguistics and found that there are differences between male and female use of verbal irony. One suggested reason for this feature is the understanding that males tend to focus on internal causes when interpreting events, while women look at external ones. Do you see why this is important?

In the F-Word Rowe-Finkbeiner mentions that the majority of women are Democrat while the majority of men are Republican. I had known that collectivist cultures tend to utilize external explanations while individualist ones focus on internal explanations, but I had never thought to expand this to gender. However, while collectivist and individualist differences can be explained in terms of culture, what happens when we look at gender? The most obvious question this inspires, for me at least, is whether or not there is a power component to attribution. If this were found to be the case then maybe this understanding could be mapped onto gender and thus explain differences in attribution.

Technorati tag: feminism

I had a short dream about my dead uncle Jesse. He had landed in Japan and I was supposed to drive him to Saga, north of. Well, I can’t remember now, but I remember looking at it on a map, and it was north of a larger town with a similar name. Somehow, the dream changed and we were in Hawaii, and the last I remember he was driving us down the road and I was giving him directions. Similar to the recent Laura dream, I remembered thinking that this would be a great moment to remember when he was gone.

I had another couple of dreams about Laura. In the first one, I was helping her carry a bucket of water with what I think was some type of Grecian imprint on the outside. I had to use the bathroom so I ran off and she ended up carrying the bucket of water down some steps by herself. In my dream though I remembered thinking that I didn’t want to help her carry the bucket because it was too perfect of a moment and it would make me sad to think about after she was gone.

In the other dream I was at her parents house, though it wasn’t the house that I have been to. Her family was there and I was avoiding her. At some point she told me that she had figured some things out and hinted at the possibility of us getting together. In the dream I cried and wondered if this would really be the best thing to do.

I recently learned that the song “Turning Japanese” by the Vapors is about masturbation.

I don’t remember much of this dream. I remember Feministe hopping on my bicycle and carting her around. Then I was with this girl I knew a long time ago, Christina, and we were in what I now think was my grandmother’s house. Except, for some reason, in the dream they were talking about someone famous, and Christina was her daughter, but that was only dream truth. She fell asleep laying on me with her back to me then woke up and slowly moved further and further away, as if she were ashamed. I don’t blame her.

I struggle a bit from time to time trying to figure out what I should put on here. Part of that is trying to figure out who my audience is. I like being able to share my life with others without barriers. But there are interesting things that happen in my life that are sensitive in nature. At this point I’ve already lost a friend somewhat over things that I have posted here, but I should have known better. I’ve already avoided posting about work in the past. But the cost/benefit ratio becomes a bit more hazy when I consider the impact of things I’ve written here on my career. Or, if things go correctly, my students. Maybe I should make this private…

(Inspired by a post on Feministe’s site and some of the responses she received, specifically from Watermelon Punch.)

I’m posting from my sister’s new computer at my parents’ house in Texas. It was so very weird coming back to Texas. There’s lots of new stuff here in Bryan/College Station from the short time that I have been gone, but I guess it has been half a year or so. It is weird to think about my sister living her life here right now. I suppose what was so weird about being back in Texas was that it wasn’t home anymore so I experienced it as an outsider, a visitor, and a tourist, looking at people and thinking, “I’m not from around here.”

In other news, I’m a bit down inside. I cried on the way to Bloomington on Friday thinking about this line from John Calvin about Christians being exiles on earth and then Augustine writing about citizens of the City of God being pilgrims on earth. I don’t think I’ll ever find my tribe and those thoughts found an odd resonation with me. I have happy moments but I always experience them as explicit moments of respite. Short holidays that I know I’ll have to return from. And I know now that I could never be normal, so that is not an option.

I don’t remember much of this dream. I remember being in a car with Dawn driving over small hills in a dark forest. Then we went back to her house and I said goodbye to her and her husband. My sister had showed up at that point. There was more going on but I can’t really remember it. Was weird to have a dream with Dawn though.