Stockings Hung with Care

Stockings Hung with Care, originally uploaded by a b franzen.

Merry Christmas everyone! Sara got home from baby-day-care a bit ago and is now taking a nap... Later today we are going to have some of the other Dr. kids over for dinner that had to work today as well, and so Sara wanted to get stockings for all of them. Should be a good dinner - complete with marinaded beef tri-tips and Absolute La La Land martinis, ha. Hope you all have a good Christmas!

[Untitled]

[Untitled], originally uploaded by a b franzen.

Yesterday it was 65 here.

It has been really nice being off of school so far. Sara and I have been able to do a lot of stuff together since being off and being home more (taking into account that she is not off, of course). Yesterday we went running around this little 'lake' nearby to enjoy the beautiful day out.

We also went to a new church to change things up a bit and to see if we can find some friends. It occurred to me that Christmas was actually this week, and it doesn't feel much like Christmas. Partly I thought of this because this church focused on Advent in their service and I hadn't realized until then that I don't think the other church had even mentioned the existence of Advent.

Sara has to work on Christmas day, but should get off relatively early in the day. As such, we are going to have any of the other residents that will be around over for Christmas dinner. Should be a good time. We have 3 takers so far. Maybe later this week it will feel like Christmas more.

Yesterday it was 65 here.

The Judge

The Judge, originally uploaded by a b franzen.

First semester is now finished (apart from giving a final in the morning)! Good times. That's all I've got for now.

Clara

Clara, originally uploaded by a b franzen.

Just as I was about to put this picture up I realized that I tend to have a fair amount of pictures with beer in them. Oh well. I am alright with that.

I just finished up 2 out of 3 big papers at the end of the semester here and thought that deserved a little bit of a break and a quick post.

One nice thing about working from home is that beer can keep me company. Besides the fact that drinking at a place of work is typically frowned upon, my place of 'work' is a Baptist institution and word on the street is that they don't even allow dancing on campus (in an officially sanctioned kind of a way, I assume).

I know that in general I can be a bit of a weird person, but one weird thing about me is how I write papers. Typically, by the time that I sit down at the computer to write a paper it is already essentially all written out in my mind and it only needs to be materialized with the help of my friend Word. But, it is getting to this point that is the most painful.

Sometimes I know what I want to write about and it is all fairly smooth and quick, other times this is not the case. It took me almost a solid month to think about the basic idea, direction, and argument for my theory paper. It took me almost two full days to chose the variables I would look at for the stats paper (how many hours a person works and how much welfare they receive). That is just to choose the variables to look at, too! For this last paper I have to write, it took me almost the entire semester, essentially, to think of what I would want to do.

The worst part in all of it is that it is typically the same each time. I get very frustrated that I don't know what I want to do, and this is made worse by the fact that in the past it has worked out just fine. I mean really. There is no reason to think that just because in the past I was able to finally come up with some idea that it will happen again this time. Hence in the midst of the angst there is also no exit.

Anyways, there is another beer picture for you, and a small piece of my weirdness for you. Thanks for celebrating finishing up #2 with me.

interactions and healthy lifestyles

Here is a quick post to follow sara's on health. Above is a figure that I made that may (I haven't totally decided yet) visually depict the basic theory of that paper she mentioned. The interaction between the patient and the physician is a very interesting one. Why do some patients listen and do what is best for their health, and why do some not? Why are some interactions with doctors pleasant and some not? All patients and all physicians go into their interactions with expectations built upon their past experiences (whether experiences they actually had, heard about, or are merely common to their social and economic status). Sometimes these experiences and expectations (one's 'habitus' in the figure) overlap significantly with that of the physician and other times not at all. In addition to this, there are varying levels of voluntary trust that one may have in the physician, or the health system in general. The third part is that of how responsive the physician is to the actual individual with whom they are speaking. If they have very set expectations about how all patients should be and do not change according to different people, then they are not reflexive at all (they poorly react to specific situations or individuals). All of this together will, in the end, go a long way in determining whether some patient/physician interaction is positive or not, makes an impact or not, healthy lifestyles are adopted or not, and so on.

So, if you are still with me, I think this helps to answer the question of what, if anything, fighting at school has to do with one's health and medical care. The more that we are able to instill healthy living practices in people, the more this will change and shift their overall 'habitus,' the cognitive perspective from which they live their life. The more that we can teach children that fighting is bad for them in general, the more that we can change how they interpret their world and make decisions accordingly. In the end, they may actually grow up with a more healthy lifestyle than they otherwise would have.