If anyone is interested in reading my autobiographical psych paper

[iesika]

 I just had to write and email in this paper for psych class, because I had completely forgotten that the assignment existed (to be fair, it was assigned first day of class and never mentioned again). My teacher was very cool, and called me to ask why I hadn't turned it in. He's very absent-minded professor (like me) so I think he understood.  Anyway, if you're interested in what I wrote:

About Me

 

My name is Jessica Shockey, but most people call me Jessie. I am twenty-four years old, in awful shape, and just slightly above average in height. I work in a bakery, but I hate it and probably won’t be working there much longer. I took your class because it is a requirement for admission to the Baton Rouge General nursing program. I actually find psychology very interesting - I took it in high school and had a really good teacher. Truthfully, I’m more interested in sociology, though; psychology often seems a bit of a wooly science to me, since each case is very individual and it’s hard to reliably repeat a study (this isn’t to say I don’t find it fascinating). 

            If I had to pick one sentence that would tell you the most about me, it would be this: I find everything (absolutely everything) terribly interesting. I’m a very curious person, particularly intellectually. I love learning new things. I’m constantly baffled by most of the people around me when they don’t find things terribly interesting. This is something else very important about me: I have a great deal of difficulty understanding and dealing with other people. Sometimes, I feel a bit like I’m trapped inside my own head with only myself for company. I don’t connect well with most people. I’ve finally learned that when I get extremely excited, learning something fascinating about, say, early Cambrian isopods, I should probably keep that to myself, because nobody else really is going to care. It might be easier if the only thing I found terribly interesting was early Cambrian isopods, because I’d just become a paleoentomologist and be surrounded by likeminded souls. I’m interested in everything, though, so I’d wind up boring all the other paleoentomologists to tears with some fascinating tidbit about Bantu mythology.

            Because of my wide ranging interests, I’ve had a really hard time trying to figure out what I want to do with my life. I’m studying nursing now because I had to pick something, and it pays well. My parents put a lot of pressure on me to find a career and find it now. Nursing is, at least, a job I can potentially do for a few days a week and spend the rest of the time on my own pursuits. What I think I would really like to do, though, is teach. I love sharing information, and I love explaining things and even, god willing, sparking a bit of curiosity about a topic in someone else. When I was in high school, I tutored English as a Second Language to several of my schoolmates, and I loved it. Unlike students of a lot of other subjects, ESL students really, really want to learn what is being taught. For a while, I thought I might do that for a living. I don’t know how well that would work out, though. I might get bored, eventually, teaching the same thing over and over. I get bored very easily. 

I think I’d like to teach science, particularly biology. It pains me every time I read a survey or study that tells me how poor our science education is in this country. Half of Americans believe God created humans in their present form, with no evolution at all from some previous form. How is that even possible? I think it was Douglas Adams who said, “We have the fossils. We win”. I think there is an interesting psychological question here – how can so many people completely ignore so much physical and logical evidence in order to maintain an erroneous belief? This is a pet peeve of mine. I’ll shut up about it now, though, as this is not meant to be a paper about that particular topic. 

I’m a vegetarian. I have been since I was ten or eleven years old. I’ve never been able to look at a steak and not think “There is a piece of dead cow on my plate.” I really don’t understand why it’s socually acceptable to eat some animals and not others, especially when it comes to dogs and pigs, which are of similar intellegence. The smell of cooking meat makes me nauseous. A lot of smells make me nauseous, actually, and I don’t know why. Cilantro and bell peppers can make me physically ill. I hate perfumes and other heavy scents, including a lot of food-smells. Working in a bakery is kind of an adventure. I really like to cook, though – And I like to eat even more, which is why I’m so overweight. 

            I spend a lot of time on the computer, either playing games or surfing the internet. I read a lot on the computer, both fiction and nonfiction. I read a lot of books, too, but computers make it so easy to find what you’re looking for. I like to listen to audio books while I play games. Usually, when I invest in a book or audio book, it is nonfiction. I’ll read about nearly any topic, because as I stated before, I find everything terribly interesting. 

            I’m extremely political, because I love my country. I’m also pretty liberal – again, because I love my country. I support both John Edwards and Mike Gravel in the upcoming presidential election. I worry about Gravel’s age an health, but I think he’s a great leader and he’s accomplished an awful lot. I don’t understand other people’s lack of interest in politics even more than I don’t understand how they aren’t interested in early Cambrian isopods, because politics affect everything. I believe very strongly that people who do not vote should not get to complain, because it is their own fault things aren’t better for them. I believe that I have a social responsibility to use my voice and my vote to benefit as many people as possible. I believe that we all have that responsibility. 

            I have problems with my memory. I remember information I learned when I was in elementary school, but not things that happened last Tuesday. I know that doesn’t sound very odd, since most people probably remember things from elementary school and occasionally forget recent events, but I remember nearly every book I read when I was 10 years old (and through the present day), but completely forget about things like buying milk and turning in papers for my psychology class. I never remember anyone’s name. If the same person told me something about ancient hominid fossils, I’d remember the information, but not who told me. I can’t remember the names of the people I worked with two years ago, or the phone number at work. It’s very frustrating. I’m going to save this paper on my hard drive and find it in a year and have no recollection of ever writing it. I probably won’t be able to remember the names of my teachers from this year, or of any of my classmates. I will have forgotten, for example, that I had a horrible fight with someone in biology over a group project and gave my presentation alone. I won’t remember any of that. I’ll remember everything I learned in class, though, which is something. And I will read this in a year and think “oh, early Cambrian isopods! Wonderful Life was such a good book! I should tell someone about it.”

Also, I have found this, by way of a link to a flash cartoon in caerfree's journal, and I am now in love. Listen to "Nerd Porn Auteur" and tell me you are not also in love.

Comments

[caerfree.livejournal.com]

Woohoo, you found more!

I am indeed in love.

[iesika.livejournal.com]

He was actually on npr the other day (they have a segment called "Forward This."

[iesika.livejournal.com]

Replying to my own post, to illustrate a point. I'm making up a list of books I'd like, for xmas-y reasons, and just got all excited about a book called Statistical Genetics: Gene Mapping Through Linkage and Association, and then was devestated to discover it costs $75.99 and won't be out for months.

[wood-rabbit.livejournal.com]

You remind me a lot of me. Thanks for sharing.

[faile-neume.livejournal.com]

Jessie does it make me creepy that I am going through your "rl" tag and reading your old entries? I hope it doesn't make me creepy.

This is really fascinating. I would love to be able to share my shiny new linguistics textbook with you, because it is so interesting and learning is good, but it was $100 and I kinda need it for a semester.

I wonder if I'll have to do anything like this for my psych course.