I generally feel pretty excited to be at work on Wednesday mornings. Especially this week, since Friday was a holiday, after the five-day weekend I was totally ready to walk in there and kick some butt.
And I did.
For a while.
I cancelled all my morning meetings and did a huge amount of work. I made decisions, I figured out some of the stuff that had been frustrating me awhile, I called my teammates and organized stuff. By the time I walked into my 1pm meeting, I’d already accomplished more than half the items on my to-do list and I felt good.
I was in the zone.
The 1pm meeting wasn’t even for me. My application is supposed to use this library that’s written by another team and they wanted me to explain some of my object model so they could be sure the library would function properly. As I sat there explaining my system and its parts, they started talking about how I should organize the information so it would work. And I sat there trying to decipher what exactly they meant. I’m not familiar with the library as much as I’d like to be and I kept getting more and more frustrated as they spoke.
By the time I left the meeting, I was kaput for the rest of the day. I sat in my chair, deflated and unwilling to do anything. After a few minutes of trying to listen to my thoughts, I realized that it was my lack of knowledge that made me mad. I hate the idea of being involved with something I don’t fully understand. I’m not just talking about the fear of starting a new project where you’ve never done such a thing and you feel clueless and don’t have any idea where to even begin. This was worse than that. I have to use this library. I have to really understand it or I’m screwed. And right now, I don’t have the time to sit and learn it. I have a million other things I’m supposed to do for this project.
I think this is why I take so many classes, I hate being in an environment where I’m clueless and I have this intense need to learn everything so the two put together make my life all about school.
I guess it could be worse, though I’m not really sure anymore.
Previously? Conditioning.
Tuesday is psychology day here at karenika. Since I have a Theories of Personality class on Tuesday mornings and spend most of the rest of my day pondering about my class, I inevitably write something to do with the class topic.
Today’s class was all about conditioning, so here’s a bit of what I learned (or what I think I learned):
A Russian physiologist named Pavlov did many experiments with his dog. He discovered classical conditioning while studying the digestive system of dogs. He would feed his dog and study how the dog digested the food. One day he walked into the dog’s room, without meat, and saw that his dog was salivating, which is the dog’s reflexive response to seeing meat. He couldn’t understand why the dog would salivate without the presence of meat and decided to do some tests. He showed the dog the image of a circle, which of course didn’t make the dog salivate. He then started to show the dog the image and then gave him meat immediately afterwards. After doing this several times, the dog started salivating to the image of the circle without even getting the meat. This is called classical conditioning and it’s only used for reflexive behavior, such as salivating.
One important thing to note is that if Pavlov kept showing the image without giving the meat, the dog would eventually stop salivating. Which is called extinction.
Now that you know all about conditioning, I want to talk about a study my teacher mentioned. One of B. F. Skinner’s students did an experiment with dogs. He took a room divided into two by a short fence. One side of the room’s floor was white and the other black. He let the dog in on the white side and wanted it to jump the fence, so a few seconds after the dog was let in, he electrocuted the white floor, which naturally made the dog jump to the black side. After a couple of times, the dog would automatically jump to the black side as soon as he was let in. This is called avoidance, as the dog is trying to avoid the electrocution.
The interesting thing about avoidance, however, is that it never extinguishes. So the dog will always want to jump away from the white floor even if it never has electricity ever again.
Here’s how you totally screw up the dog. If you then start electrocuting the black floor, the dog will come in on the white side, immediately jump to the black side, to avoid electrocution, and then jump back when he gets shocked on the black side and since he knows the white side to be bad, he will jump back to black and then jump back to white, so on and so forth. Even if you stop electrocuting both sides, the poor dog will now forever jump back and forth the two sides.
When you know its conditioning history, the dog’s actions make perfect sense. But imagine if you didn’t know it and walked into this room and saw the dog jumping back and forth. What would you think? That the dog is completely out of his mind, right? Well, that’s the point behaviorists try to make. Humans exhibiting neurotic behavior might really be doing it as an outcome of their earlier experiences with conditioning.
Another sad experiment also made me think. A bunch of students took some dogs and put them in a room where they had no escape and electrocuted them pretty badly. And then they took these dogs and put them in to the segmented room mentioned above. When the white floor started electrocuting them, they didn’t even attempt to jump. This phenomenon is called “learned helplessness.”
While I’m sure humans and their problems are not as simple as behaviorists wanted to make them, these studies made me rethink my life and some of my learned behavior. And why sometimes I can’t stop worrying even if I know I should. This is assuming, of course, that you believe there is no difference between humans and animals, which Skinner did.
No matter what your personal beliefs, conditioning has a lot to do with our daily life, with the jobs we choose (or don’t choose), the people we surround ourselves with, and many other life decisions. I spent most of today trying to figure out which one of my actions was related to what past conditioning.
Can you think of a few of yours?
Previously? Interdiciplinary.
One of the biggest drawbacks of my architecture teacher, and believe me she has many, is her lack of knowledge in any areas besides her own.
She spends the entire class reading to us about the lives and works of architects whom she considers most influential in the evolution of modern architecture. She does seem to be knowledgeable in that specific area, but if you dare ask anything about Eastern architecture she’s clueless. Same goes for programs relating to architecture. Not to discredit her completely, she does read and bring to class stories relating to architecture from papers or magazines. But overall, she seems to be totally focused on her own little world.
My Florence teacher, on the other hand, is the total opposite. He teaches us literature, history, arts, music, religion and everything else relating to the subject of the course. You can tell he’s so fascinated by his subject matter that he explores all facets of the field. He knows the symbols in Dante’s work, the inside stories between Dante and some of the mentioned characters, the works of art relating to Dante’s stories, the mythological stories mentioned in the poem, the operas based on those stories and the music people played at the time. Talk about well rounded. He doesn’t just tell you the stories. He tells you the different conflicting stories and gives us his opinion on which one might be true.
Compare that to my architecture teacher who has never heard of some of the most famous Eastern architects. Can you truly say that she’s interested in her subject?
I have the same pleasure with my Human Brain teacher. He is almost equally well versed in physics as he is in biology and psychology and paleontology. His anecdotes add color and dimension to the lectures, making the subject matter so much more fascinating. He also is aware of all recently published information on any of his topics, which for a class on the human brain is crucial.
One of the biggest disadvantages to getting a doctorate is that is makes you concentrate on one teeny tiny issue for several years. It’s about depth, about specializing. I think the future of the world is in interdisciplinary connections.
Learning one field without having any knowledge of the other gives us such a limited and skewed opinion. The world is an amalgamation of all these topics. Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Math, Politics, Law, Literature, Languages, Geography, History, and many others all exist in the world simultaneously. What’s the point of knowing one in a secluded way?
Especially since they’re merged in nature and in society.
Previously? Humility.
Humility is learned.
None of us are born knowing that we’re supposed to hate Milli Vanilli, New Kids on the Block, Britney or Christina. It’s something we pick up from snide comments people utter when we mention them in the list of our favorite singers. (Not to be interpreted literally, as these are not my favorite singers, not that there’s anything wrong with them.)
A friend once told me that she snuck in to Walmart when no one was looking. She said normally she wouldn’t be caught dead in there. I stare at her but spare my words. She’s just the type of person who’d bring a Tiffany’s baby spoon to a baby shower. So Walmart’s not cool, Target’s not cool. K-Mart is definitely out.
Jake and I spent one of our most fun days in a Walmart down in Florida. We walked up and down the aisles, playing with the toys, buying legos, silly putty, soap bubbles and many more fun stuff. God forbid, my friend had seen us there.
Another pattern I see often is people bragging about not reading Bestsellers. I never read anything on the bestseller list, I’m so cool. There’s a long list of unacceptable writers any literary person would be glad to inform you of. (ending your sentences with a preposition? Way uncool.) Same goes for the movies, of course. Good God, I’d never watch a major motion picture, only small artsy movies are good enough for me.
Just like mass audience approval doesn’t make a movie or book amazing, it also doesn’t make it awful.
For me, it’s gotten to a point that saying you wouldn’t be caught dead reading a Grisham novel makes me think less of you than if you claimed you adore Grisham. I hate that people think they are allowed to judge others and saying you wouldn’t be caught dead doing something is totally judging others, even if it’s not explicit.
I wish we lived in a world where others wouldn’t tell you what to do. From the time we go to school we’re taught which writers to read. We’re taught which painters to like. Critics decide which movies we should see and what Broadway shows are the best of the year. And these are just the obvious set. There’s peer pressure, which is the worst. So is parental influence. And the list goes on and on.
I wish we’d never be taught to be embarrassed of who we are. Of having our own taste, whether it be Grisham or Joyce.
I read bestsellers and see blockbuster movies, just the same way I read books that are considered literary works and movies that are artsy. And I’m proud of it!
And I love Walmart.
Previously? Six Degrees.
Three years ago, I walked into my then-boss’ office and we started chit chatting and she showed me pictures from her wedding. As I stared at picture number three, I was blown away? “What’s this girl’s name?” I asked, knowing the answer full well. My boss confirmed my suspicions. The girl who stared at me from the picture was none other than the ex of my ex. Funny enough, she was now dating my boss’s ex.
To make matters even more creepy, we ran into the two of them at a flight to Missouri. They were seated along the aisle from us.
Heh.
When I was in college, the mother of one of the admission counselors had just come back from Turkey. She showed me a photo she’d taken with a guy who shared the same bus with her when she traveled south. The guy was my best friend from home. My first boyfriend.
Heh.
Today I was chatting with someone whose weblog I stumbled upon by chance and I find out that his best friend went to the same school as Jake and me. To add to the absurdity, he and Jake were in the same dormitory for several years. I may have even seen this guy many times.
Heh.
I think Disney might be right; it’s a small world after all.
Previously? Immobile.
I can’t ride a bike.
And I can’t drive.
Well, that’s not entirely true. I have a driving license. Ahem, a Turkish driver’s license. Not to undermine the license itself, a Turkish license is considered international which means I could use it to rent or drive a car in the States. So having the license is a good thing and I don’t undermine its power.
Getting the license, however, was a total joke. After I passed the written exam, which is way more complicated than the American one, I met an exam official, I have no idea what they are called, at the driving-exam site. Two other driver wannabes get in the car with a traffic cop. I get in the driver’s seat and the exam official in the passenger seat. Since it’s their car, you are forced to know how to drive a stick shift. So I get in the car and the official tells me to start the car and go straight. I start moving, switch from one to two and go for a while. He then tells me to make a u-turn, which I execute successfully, and then he says ‘pull aside’, which I also do. I’m then told to get out of the car and one of the other wannabes takes the driver’s seat.
I just passed the test.
So I can go straight quite well and I make one hell of a u-turn. But I’m not exactly sure that constitutes as driving. So I say I can’t. Also, driving has a lot to do with experience and by the time I qualified to get a license in Turkey, I already lived in Pittsburgh without a car, after which I moved to New York City. So I’ve had a license for eight years and I’ve driven all of four days in that time.
As for the bike, that story is even more pathetic. My sister can ride a bike beautifully. By the time it got to me, my parents were thoroughly unmotivated and never even bothered to teach me. While it’s impossible to ride a bike in Istanbul, people ride it often in Burgaz, the island we live on during the summer, so I would have had the change to practice. But nope, they never bothered. They must have known my lack of ability way back then.
During my senior year in college, Jake tried to teach me how to ride a bike, but all I can say is that when you’re twenty-one the ground is much farther away than when you’re six. Let’s just say the experiment wasn’t all that successful and leave it at that.
So here I am, almost 27, and still unable to ride a bike or drive.
All the more reason to move to California.
Previously? Perfection.
I’m not a perfectionist. Doing the number of things I do each week, it’d be impossible for me to be anything less than miserable if I were.
For the longest time, I’d feel shitty about not being able to speak more than two languages fluently. It might sound stupid to someone who doesn’t speak any foreign languages, but I grew up bilingual, mostly. My parents have always spoken French and Turkish to me. I’ve studied many languages. By the time I came to the United States, I had studied German, English and Italian in some form or another. I’ve never officially studied French, though, and after I came here, each time I brought up the subject of taking Italian, my dad would say that I should first learn French. He figured if I couldn’t speak it perfectly, it doesn’t count. For the longest time, I agreed with him. Even though I’d already started learning sign language, I felt frustrated and didn’t know which language to concentrate on first.
And then I went to Japan. I started learning Japanese and I loved it. I also decided it was better to speak seven languages half-assed than to speak three perfectly. So now, I study a language for as long as it’s fun and I don’t worry about how well or, not well, I speak it. I’ll take more French classes when I’m good and ready, dammit!
Talking to my friend, Cheryl, tonight, I realized that I categorize the things I do into two categories: ones where I am a perfectionist and ones where I’m not.
I’m a perfectionist at my job. I try to give it one thousand percent. I figure since it’s my main field, I should be the best at it that I can be.
I’m a perfectionist with my relationships. With my family and Jake and even my friends, I try really hard and beat myself up when things go wrong.
I’m a perfectionist with school. I work hard and attend all my classes. I spend umpteen hours studying to get a good grade. But mostly to learn.
But there’s a long list of things where I don’t feel the need to be a perfectionist. I feel it’s okay for me not to be flawless with the saxophone, even though my teacher would claim otherwise. Actually, I don’t feel the need to be perfect at most arts, like design, drawing, and architecture.
Okay, maybe not that long.
About two years ago, I decided to take up writing. And I’ve struggled since day one. I continuously thought that I sucked and the act gave me about equal amounts of grief and pleasure. I kept agonizing. I kept stopping and restarting.
Tonight I realized why.
Being an okay writer isn’t fine with me. I want perfection.
And, unfortunately, there’s no shortcut to perfection.
Previously? Introvert.
I hate the Meyers-Briggs test.
Each time I’ve tried to take it, and I’ve taken several versions, several times, the results came out completely differently. More importantly, my answers were continuously preceded with “it depends.” The questions have no solid context. When they ask you how you would act at a party, they don’t tell who’s throwing the party, how many people are at it, where it is, etc. My behavior often depends on my surroundings and my mood. I don’t think a test so vague such as this one can determine one’s personality well.
The result set often shows that I am perfectly aligned between extroverted and introverted. According to Carl Jung, every person has extroverted and introverted attitude types in them but they’re born with one more developed than the other. And they must learn to develop the other throughout their lives.
As a child, I was extremely introverted. Attached to my mother’s skirt, I used to cry almost non-stop. I wouldn’t talk to anyone. I wrote diaries daily and wouldn’t divulge personal information to anyone. Everyone marked me introverted, and that was that.
During high school, I must have opened up cause I had many parties and was often the center of attention. Most of my classmates knew me. The same phenomenon continued in college. Half the school knew me, and most people took me to be very extroverted.
I’ve often wondered about the dichotomy and assumed that somewhere between childhood and adulthood, I must have changed.
Well, as my teacher explained Jung’s theories, I realized I hadn’t changed after all. Most people associate introverted ness with shyness, so as I became less shy, I assumed I must have become extroverted. Jung, however, defines the two as such: an extrovert is someone who finds meaning in life outside of himself such as friends, etc. Outside things hold more meaning to an extrovert. Introverts, on the other hand, find meaning in internal and subjective phenomenon. They’re interested in what’s inside them. Jung also said that introverts have a harder time during the initial phases of their life and extroverts have more trouble later on.
Well, looking at it in that context, I am most definitely an introvert. A book and some hot chocolate will always be more appealing than a night in town. A chat with a single close friend is so much better than a party. I might not be shy but I still believe what’s inside is much more interesting.
I’m glad I finally cleared that up.
But I still hate the Meyers-Briggs.
Previously? Risks.
One of the biggest disadvantages of being successful, or having a smooth life is the strong fear of failure that plants its seed in one’s mind.
It might sound cocky to say that I’ve had an easy life, but I’ve been blessed and I’ve tried hard not to take it for granted. I’ve always been a good student, worked hard to make sure my parents’ money wasn’t being wasted on me. I rarely skipped class, and tried to apply myself well. After graduation, I took the right job and have been working in the same firm for almost five years, now. About eight months ago, I decided to work part time so I can volunteer more and take some classes. Even now, I don’t spend a moment being lazy. I am taking eight classes and volunteer five hours a week. I consider my life wonderful and I try hard to appreciate my luck.
One of the things I noticed lately, though, is that I’m scared to take a risk. Even though the idea of dropping it all and living in Italy for a year excites me to no end, I fear I have too much to lose. The voices in my head ask what would happen if I can’t find a job upon my return. I want to try to work from home, or for myself, but I worry about not being able to make it. I spend hours constructing scenarios of what can go wrong. And I’m so busy worrying that I don’t even try.
Sometimes one has to fail to learn that failure is not to be feared. Sometimes the best way to understand that losing your job is not the end of the world is by being fired. Going through hard times and bouncing back shows you that you’re strong and that you will find a way to survive. Humans are much stronger than they appear.
The only way I’m going to know that dropping everything and moving to Rome is a good idea is if I do it. It might even turn out to be a bad idea, but just about anything is a good life experience. True, some lessons aren’t worth their consequences but those are few and far between compared to the ones that are. Each new job, each new risk makes you stronger and shows you your capacity.
Therefore, staying at a job cause I’m scared I might not be able to find another is a bad idea. Just like staying with a boyfriend cause I’m too scared I might never meet a new person is a stupid idea.
So, I’ve decided to make some changes. Some drastic ones and some not so drastic ones. The best time to take risks is when there are fewer people being affected by my decisions. When I have a family, it’ll be harder to pick up and move to another country. I have a few more years before then and I plan to make the most of that time.
Life is about to get exciting.
Previously? Games.
A man had left a Czech village to seek his fortune. Twenty-five years later, and now rich, he had returned with a wife and a child. His mother was running a hotel with his sister in the village where he’d been born. In order to surprise them, he had left his wife and child at another hotel and gone to see his mother, who didn’t recognize him when he walked in. As a joke he’d had the idea of taking a room. He had shown off his money. During the night his mother and his sister had beaten him to death with a hammer in order to rob him and had thrown his body in the river. The next morning the wife had come to the hotel and, without knowing it, gave away the traveler’s identity. The mother hanged herself. The sister threw herself down a well. I must have read that story a thousand times. on the one hand it wasn’t very likely. On the other, it was perfectly natural. Anyway, I thought the traveler pretty much deserved what he got and that you should never play games. – excerpt from Camus’s L’etranger.
Playing games is always dangerous.
At the beginning of my relationship with one of my boyfriends, I thought to surprise him for Valentine’s day. I ordered a rose through the college charity program, with the attached card reading, ‘happy valentines from a secret admirer.’ That evening I walked over to his place, quite proud of my sweet idea. He greeted me happily and we chatted for a while, but he never mentioned the rose. I finally broke down and asked him about it and he turned crimson.
He had thought it was someone else, and to not hurt me (or maybe to pursue the other person as well) he had decided in favor of not telling me about it. I, of course, got really upset and told him that he should never lie to me. He got mad thinking the entire idea had been a test to see if he’d be forthcoming or not. Which it wasn’t. I had merely tried to be exciting and sweet. Needless to say, I had failed miserably.
Since that day, I’ve been extra careful not to play games. I feel that honesty is the best policy in a relationship of any kind. If I don’t like someone what’s the point in my working so hard to make her feel otherwise? If my boyfriend is interested in seeing other women, why should we continue to date? If I feel the need to lie or make up truths to keep up a relationship, I’m afraid what we have is not a relationship.
So, with me, brutal facts are all you get. I won’t act like I like you if I don’t. When dating, I never did the ‘oh I should wait till he calls me first’ thing. If I like him, I’ll call him. If he likes me back, great, if not, oh well. I don’t have the time to waste on misunderstandings. I can’t keep track of how many days I need to wait till it’s appropriate for me to call. I can’t be bothered with thinking of good lies. I won’t act nice if you make me feel bad and I won’t act demure when I feel happy.
Life is too short to play games.
Previously? Fame and Fortune.
I remember a Brown alumnus, in Turkey, who asked me the following question in an interview. “Would you rather have fame or fortune?” I seem to recall the original question having three options, but for the life of me, I can’t remember the third, which is real weird since that’s the option I’d chosen. (The even weirder fact is that I never applied to Brown University so obviously it must have been a different school’s alumnus, but my memory insists it was Brown.)
If I were asked the same question today, I think I’d answer differently. At the time both fame and fortune seemed beside the point. I told her that I’d just like to be really good at my job. I would want to be respected in my field. Her question implied an excess and I don’t need too much of either.
Not to say there aren’t benefits to being famous. People give you things (mostly so you’d promote it for them) for free and they’ll do anything to be associated with you. That’s one of the reasons most charities try to have a celebrity talk about their cause. But there are too many downsides to being famous. Too many people think they know you. You never have a personal life. Not that I would really know, but that’s what my imagination assumes, at least.
I’ve never been famous. Not even for fifteen minutes. But I have been put on a pedestal by different people in my life. And I don’t like it. When someone thinks you’re so wonderful and amazing, all you can do is disappoint that person. We’re all human. We make mistakes. We hurt people. We have faults. Most of us have disgusting habits. Many of us suffer from self-doubt. We don’t always say the right thing. We don’t always do the right thing.
So when we’re placed on a mantle, we’re bound to fall down. As we never belonged there initially.
That’s not to say that some people don’t have amazing talents. There are many people on and off the web that I admire madly. I respect their talent, especially of the humble ones. When someone’s really cocky, it’s harder to look up to that person. There are many areas where I wish I were as good as these people. When I read an amazing book, see a great design, an awe-inspiring piece of art, and a really clear and intelligent piece of code. All of these inspire me. I feel thankful that such people live and make our world a better place. I strive to learn from them. But I don’t forget that they, too, are human.
The problem with the pedestal is that it distorts reality. So when the person makes a mistake, as humans are bound to, his or her admirer starts hating him. How dare the great designer make an ordinary-looking page? How dare he not respond to my email? Who does he think he is? All this anger coming from the fact that you set the person up to a set of standards that he was bound to not meet.
I often see the same thing in relationships. One partner totally blinded by the other one. He can do no wrong. Until he does, of course, mess up and the entire relationship is destroyed. If you start up so high, there’s nowhere to go but down.
So I’d still prefer not to have fame. Fortune, however, is welcome at my house anytime.
Previously? Opera.
My friends, Natalia and Akshat, and I went to the opera tonight.
Natalia goes to the opera pretty much every other week and this was Akshat’s first time. While I’m nowhere near Natalia’s extreme, I’ve seen quite a few operas. As we sat in at the Metropolitan, Akshat asked about the average age of operagoers.
In my experience, the average age of opera viewers is in the forties. We tried to delve into the reasons of the lack of interest in younger people and we came up with some theories. The first issue that sprang to my mind is the cost. Good seats at the Met can go upwards of 150dollars. Natalia, rightfully, noted that our seats were a mere 25 dollars. Which might not sound high compared to the 150dollar Orchestra tickets, but 25 bucks is still quite a lot of money for some people.
Even if the opera were free, I still don’t think it would be popular among teenagers. I’m not exactly sure why. I can think of a few possibilities, but nothing that I can put eloquently enough to say (as opposed to my regular level of eloquence here). If we were to start stereotyping enough to say teenagers don’t like opera, we could also say the same thing about men. Most shots of men at the opera imagine the wife crying and the husband trying not to snore too loudly.
Obviously those are just stereotypes. But even stereotypes exist for a reason.
Almost every single opera has a ridiculously tragic and predictable plot. Here’s a run down of tonight’s plot: Gypsy puts a spell on man who has her killed because of it. Gypsy’s daughter wants revenge and grabs one of the sons of the man to burn him at the fire the gypsy was burned at. The daughter makes a mistake and burns her own son and so she keeps the other one and brings him up as if he were her own. The man has another son who grows up thinking his brother is dead. The other son is in love with this woman who, of course, falls in love with the brother. The man finds out about the woman loving the brother and after a lot of hoopla, the woman they were in love with drinks poison to sacrifice herself. So the son kills the brother and then the gypsy’s daughter tells him that the man he just killed was his brother. Tragedies galore. (the met’s synopsis in case mine left you extremely confused.)
So I can’t imagine anyone watches an opera for the enticing story, and from the seats we had the set is almost invisible. People look no bigger than ants. The only thing left is the music.
I’m not sure why others love or hate the opera, all I know is that I love it. I always have. The music pierces through my soul. I apologize if it sounds cheesy, but it really does. I feel totally engulfed and overwhelmed by it.
To me, opera is magic.
Previously? Motivations.
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projects for twenty twenty-six
projects for twenty twenty-five
projects for twenty twenty-four
projects for twenty twenty-three
projects for twenty twenty-two
projects for twenty twenty-one
projects for twenty nineteen
projects for twenty eighteen
projects from twenty seventeen
monthly projects from previous years
some of my previous projects
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