On the Elephant in the Room, How to Turn Our World Around from Self Destruction, It's a Learned Skill

Time to point out elephant in the room: empathy, sympathy, compassion, & love are learned skills that also need to be practiced. We like to think of them as common sense characteristics, but unfortunately, no. Malice, jealousy, anger, & hate are also learned skills. Depression, I will grant has an instinctual edge to it. In my belief, we need the presence and active connection with people. Without that connection, we will fall into depression.

People get ridiculed for saying things like "I didn't understand until I had my daughter. . .", "I didn't understand until I married my [ethnicity] wife. . .", "I didn't understand until I made a [LGBTQ+] friend. . .". It sounds dumb, sure, but we maybe we should work to encourage/push the exposure into new encounters (try to encourage a level of humble listening before bowling in) so that such phrases become tedious to the person saying them. The person eventually won't need the qualifier. They realize it's fact, it becomes a norm.

I apologize to marginalized folks that have to bear the burden of privileged people without humbleness. You don't deserve it. You shouldn't be obligated to be an ambassador.

That's why literature & art is awesome. Those from outside can get a glimpse without annoying people. Heck, it wouldn't hurt city-folk like me too read more narratives about rural-folk. It's a two-way street. I may not approve of some behavior on the Right lately, but I want to understand, even to just contribute to things for a better you or making your conditions better [frankly, I blame a propaganda machine than I blame you].

I feel the same for everyone. I want to help everyone become their better themselves at minimal cost to anyone else. In my belief system, your better self helps me become better, and we can help other people become better. We don't necessarily have to go out of our way, we just have to be our better selves and be open to new experiences. Frankly, I think it can be patronizing to try too hard to seek too hard for encounters. They can happen naturally just by leaving your locale.

Now a criticism of our aggregate social decisions, when it comes to education and schools: We focus so much on test scores and for preparing to get to the next stage (high school to college to career and/or to graduate school and/or to more school or career). We focus so much on sports and STEM. We focus so much on finance and the GDP. All those hard numbers and spectator entertainment, but we don't focus enough on our hearts, our souls, our connection to other people and the world around us, so we end up hurting others and destroying the world.

We need to invest in our schools, our teachers, our literature classes, our art classes, our music classes, our drama classes, and heck, we should look into having journaling and reflection classes. Instead, we've focused all our investment into the physical and the quick money, but at the cost of what? We're developing people who blame other people, who can't relate with other people, who can't see that other people are in pain and need assistance.

Maybe financial bros would pitch in more to help out people on extravagant student loans, a hungry person on the street, wouldn't mind paying taxes to fund welfare, social security, Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP, healthcare, and other government programs that help others. Maybe polo nationalists or Incels could see that they're not loving themselves enough, they're not valuing themselves enough, they're looking outside too much for validation, that they can find a much more enriching experience by building a actual relationships (which for some people in the Manosphere might require redemption to society -- don't you dare you try to apologize to someone you have hurt) and connecting with people.

We can't just rush into these experiences, though. We need to learn them. Hopefully we learn it from our families and schools and other role models, but we don't always have those resources available to us. Fiction, poetry, memoir, drama, even visual art, criticism, and other things that introduce an expression of self and community identity. These expressions and opennes to them can help bring people out and learn about the experiences and narratives not part of their own lives. Also try to reflect and journal about these things that we have done, observed, read, and however we might have experienced the expression of other people.

I guarantee you, investing in exposing children and people to art and exposing ourselves to it, taking it seriously, reflecting on it, etc. etc. will lead to richer life, an exposure to more trust and good faith, and even joy in ways that we can't imagine.

I also want to makes sure to stress that children and people need to be exposed to and reflect upon a variety of literature, art, history, and social sciences not just that of Judeo-Christian Greco-Roman Western European White literature and art, but a variety of perspectives. Additionally, children and people need exposure and reflection upon a multiple variety of viewpoints within different communities and populations. It's not about transmitting an "authentic" viewpoint or "authentic" experience. "Authenticity" often ends up being a white washed watered down version to sell to the privileged and make the privileged feel good about partaking. "Authenticity" doesn't contribute to creating empathy, sympathy, compassion, and love. It just maintains the status quo.

At the very least, exposing people to different communities without buying into "authentication" will lower tensions and help us interact with each other and maybe even understand where we're coming from. As it stands now, we're at each other's throats and will eventually destroy ourselves because we're all trying to get the one up on each other and trying to fulfill what we perceive as our interests, but probably aren't even our real interests, or our better selves.

So, do you want to destroy the world, or do you want to join me and learn how to make a better one?

Edited 6/28/2018 8:24 AM: Added themes of "authenticity" (theme brought back to my immediate thought while reading Hugo nominated Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience^TM by Rebecca Roanhorse at Apex Magazine

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Authentic Empathy vs Cynical Empathy

I can't seem to manage my time well since coming back from vacation. Maybe, on the flipside, I've taken to managing my time better since coming back. It really comes down to figuring out what I'm valuing at any time, mapping it out in time, then figuring out what's most important to do now verse doing down the road.

I'm sad that I've prioritized doing some things over political activism or even just other things that could lead to a more organized life that will lead to better control. My gauge for this feels especially triggered because the anniversary of Charlottesville and the murder of Heather Heyer caused by a protesting bigot emboldened by the election of [45] comes around in about two months. I had engaged politically for a few months after that. It didn't come to much, but I tried to do something.

Now I feel mostly battered down by the news I hear or when I'm scanning through Facebook (ironically, Twitter has provided more upbeatness. . .but I think that mostly comes from Twitter people have more battle scars from politics and social/cultural battles, though it can still get depressing). I've posted things about the need for self care, but have I become too indulgent in my self care. I don't feel like it, but I don't feel as if I have the energy to do much else, and feel some shame/guilt about it since I have some privilege that a lot of it doesn't affect me materially, but it definitely cuts away at my soul.

Admittedly, much of the "productive procrastinating" I've done has largely been about getting political and social things straight and defined in my head, much of it occurring through discussion on social media. Something about the vehicle of social media really pulls me into getting me to understand and be clear about the issues.

With the above in mind and to some advice I meant to publish in my essay series called "Increasing Creativity: Compounding...." ("Increasing Creativity Part 1: Compound Interest, An Applicable Financial Concept" and Increasing Creativity Part 2: Compounding Sources). I really need to get to completing "Increasing Creativity Part 3: Compounding Projects". . .. The advice boils down to: sometimes you don't have to do that huge project all at once, especially if it contains a bunch of building blocks. Doing it all at once will

1. Take you awhile to complete
2. Won't yield as much return

If you can write multiple articles/essays or books that build up to the larger argument, you can

1. Publish more
2. Get more exposure
3. Possibly get paid maore

In addition, if it works out well, you can "re-invest" the monetary, social, and information resource yields back into the project, which can make future work on it easier and possibly even help to get other aspects of life out of the way.

My last entry mentioned a large essay I had started working on before going on vacation a couple weeks ago. Since then I have remembered a term that I wanted to include in the essay, but I don't think has happened yet. I have also thought up a contrasting term that I think will have its use in the essay and in my future works, whether blog entries or hopefully someday published essays. So instead of defining these two terms in the future essay (though I might have to in an official off-blog published work if I ever do such a thing), I define them below:

• Authentic Empathy: A sense and/or appreciation that welcoming, supporting, and contribution to the flourishing of other living beings and natural living systems will lead to a reproducible sense of purpose, meaning, possibly joy and happiness, and can very likely assist in developing one's own identity. Authentic empathy will bring emotional attunement.
  
  
• Cynical Empathy: Manipulating or violating other living beings and natural living systems, the understanding of their feelings, motives, states of being, and thoughts, for personal gain, pleasure, compulsion for cruelty, or even for national security or emboldening group or identity solidarity rather than the purposes of authentic empathy, which will lead to endless toil, conflict, and/or if the manipulated or violated are ever obliterated or fully dominated, self destruction since the hatred of cynical empathy will look for fuel somewhere. Cynical empathy creates social discord.

As authentic empathy can provide reproducible sense of meaning and development, cyncial empathy will provide endless destruction and despair, constantly looking for new targets and, if it hasn't already, will turn on the source if it has no where else to go. Cynical empathy is not an identity, a purpose, or meaning. It is a strategy, one of maladaption.

As such, many bets are off with those who practice cynical empathy. For those who practice authentic empathy, they have the right to avoid those who practice cynical empathy. If someone can bear it who wants to take heroic means to practice authentic empathy and interact with those using cynical empathy, the authentic empaths should feel free to do what they can to help cynical empaths to see the benefits of authentic empathy and learn how to practice it.

Authentic empaths also have the right to defend themselves against cynical empaths but are not advised to do so in ways that compromises their authenticity. Self care is imperative. If they need to leave to maintain their authenticity, that's fine. Some cynical empaths may, in the end, never want to shed their cynicism and became authentic. The final decision is their's. All that can be done with authentic empathy is to try helping others to reach their full authentic potential.

Also, keep in mind that authentic empathy does not give someone the right to define others or to impose definitions onto others. That can be hostile and a form of violation. If another asks for assistance to help find definition, help but do not force. You're role is to welcome, support, and contribute, not to define.

Feel free to accept or decline my definitions for your life. You may need them to read my future works, however, so please familiarize yourself with them if you intend on continuing to read my work and have discussions with me.

I may discarding, edit, or refine this terminology in the future. For now, though, I think these terms will provide much assistance in my discussion and future works. Any chance it helps you?

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Gratitude & Consideration: Improving Self Esteem & Society

A couple months ago at a college alumni function I learned a lesson that has improved my quality of life. It involved accepting responsibility for being a cool and good person. Someone else who went to school after me said that people told them that I was someone worth knowing. Always trying to come off as humble, I said something about not understanding how I developed a reputation that survived me, I'm not anyone special that has done anything significant.

An old friend didn't let me finish my sentence. They scolded me that I am worth knowing and that I should accept those types of compliments. The function ended soon after, but my friend's advice has stuck with me.

Maybe accepting compliments wouldn't hurt. After all, we give ourselves the worst criticism. Psychologically healthier people out there generate an illusion of inflated abilities, skills, experience and state of being. A lot of psychological studies make this argument.

I, on the other hand, have always had more of a negative or sober assessment of myself and situation. Having this old friend tell me I should accept compliments got me thinking that maybe I had an overly negative view of myself rather than realistic. What would it hurt to accept compliments indiscriminately for a bit?

A couple weeks later, I accompanied the wife to Lakes of a Fire (a local Burning Man-style event or more descriptively, an art, radical expression, trade/bartering and fire dancing event).

I went with her last year to Lakes of Fire for the first time. I had an OK time, something new but nothing that got me super excited or anything. It had nothing to do with the people or the event. I just had other things on my mind and hadn't gotten into the right mindset.

Accepting compliments elevated my experience this year. I said thank you and you’re welcome whenever I received and gave compliments or favors. Even once when someone complimented me on being awesome, I simply said “I know.” Yeah, kind of conceited, but we had a good laugh. Switching things up has its place.

I have more or less maintained this trait of gratitude and consideration, depending on the social milieu that I find myself in. I’ve also continued feeling a high subjective state of well being and having great interactions with people.

My theory goes along the lines that gratitude and consideration serves us more than just good manners and etiquette. For the subjective self, accepting compliments gets you to start believing them and even to engage in positive self talk that bolsters your elevated self esteem.

Self affirmations sound lame and even insincere, but having a stable self esteem goes a long way to improving quality of life for you and those around you. Fake it until you make it (or start believing it), they say. Just don’t let it go to your head so much that you start hurting other people.

I think the next part of my hypothesis touches on not hurting people. Both too much conceit and too much self abnegation in reaction to a compliment casts doubt on the complimentor. Showing too much conceit tells the complimentor they’ve misjudged someone’s sense of reality. Too much self abnegation tells the complimentor they’ve misjudged their own sense of reality.

People like to share concepts of reality and narratives, as long as their own reality checking facility doesn’t cast too much doubt. That kind of doubt causes a lot of cognitive dissonance and requires work to reconcile.

Someone else inducing that kind of dissonance and doubt with their own self appraisal makes it even worse. They’re supposed to know themselves better than an outside complimentor would know them. They have just distanced themselves from the complimentor.

More knowledge and familiarity means higher levels intimacy and comfort. Impractically negating established intimacy or advances of intimacy (lack of time, other commitments being practical reasons) becomes a slap in the face. It rejects the worth of knowing and getting to know the complimentor. As accepting compliments adds to positive self talk, rejection can contribute to negative self talk.

Accepting a compliment provides a compliment, both of judgment and the ability to build intimacy or camaraderie. Rejecting a compliment, however, can give insult. It casts doubt on a person’s judgment and their ability to build intimacy and camaraderie.

The original complimentor than accepts an unsaid compliment by saying “You’re welcome” and accepting gratitude. They have acknowledged being told they have a good sense of reality and judge of character. Their narrative has received affirmation and have made connection with another human, two of the most joyful experiences we can have.

People do everyone a favor by accepting compliments. They contribute to everyone’s self esteem and subjective well being by encouraging positive self talk all around.

Without a good practical reason to decline a compliment, accept them to better yourself and to improve the state of society. I guarantee that you’ll grab more joy from life. Just try it. You’ll see. I did.


LINKS OF NOTE: A lot of psychological studies argue positive illusions leads to better mental health, Lakes of a Fire, Burning Man

Ruminations on Sociability in Animals While at the Aquarium

I felt like a human this past Monday at the aquarium watching beluga whales. They had trainers interacting with them and all, but I still felt touched. So touched, in fact, that I came close to tears.

I tend to feel that way when characters in fiction or on TV and movies let their guard down with each other or by themselves. Maybe it comes from some voyeuristic tendency, as I don’t have this reaction interacting with other people in the moment. Maybe it has something to with the privacy created by people focusing totally on something other than me.

The whales and trainers got me going when the explanation of how the trainers win trust of the whales. Giving them fish and scratching their tongues, that’s all I remember from the list of things that the belugas like humans doing for them.

Trust built through bribery, trainers move onto teaching the belugas tricks and simple communication. I jest about bribery. The trainers and belugas reminded me a bit of building a relationship with a cat. More like I remembered someone telling me that cats have strong social tendencies, even though I often thought of cats as loners. Feral cats form colonies, though.

Not to sound like a crazy cat lady, but the wife and I have a great relationship with our cats. It has improved a lot since we had to chase the girl cat around a basement to stuff her in a crate and take her home. Now she sits next to me on a chair when I’m using the computer at the kitchen table. Now, seven or so years later, we have a family of four that loves spending lots of time together.

Per Wikipedia, belugas have strong social tendencies, too. Doesn’t come as a surprise considering their show. I didn’t know it at the time, though.

The trainers and belugas showed their great relationship. Trainers showed tons of warmth, generosity and sincerity. Belugas displayed tons of energy doing tricks and swimming around, only overtaken by their desire for food and affection. Their connection felt authentic, sincere, reciprocal, enthusiastic and warm.

Their interaction brought heart to the idea of a contract. We generally think of contracts as cold, boring pieces of paper that suck life out of people relating to each other. People and non-human entities make contracts to protect themselves from possible abuses or to make sure that one party does what the other wants them to do. Contracts focus on taking from the relationship what each party can get.

The belugas and trainers focused more on giving than taking. Maybe the whales didn’t so much. They REALLY liked getting fish and having their tongues rubbed, but they looked grateful and humbled by all the attention. Even as they looked impatient doing tricks, their irritation seemed not so much about getting food or a tickle. They wanted to engage the trainer and connect.

At the same time, the trainers looked a little bored when the belugas went off to do their tricks. They must have felt proud by the whales wowing the audience, but they looked bored and impatient to get back to connecting and interacting with the belugas.

The show returned life to contracts by focusing more on connecting through giving and taking rather than taking benefit from one or the other. Being social is fundamental for many animals, from humans to whales to cats, even to plenty of fish that come together to form schools.

Social instincts play such a central role, at least for me, that seeing it in action chokes me up a wee little bit. But I could just be sensitive.


LINKS OF INTEREST: beluga whales, Feral cats

Storylab Chicago: Keeping Us Human through Storytelling

Last week at the prompting of a performer-of-many-trades friend, I had the delight of attending Storylab Chicago. The Black Rock Pub & Kitchen hosted the event and apparently welcomes Storylab every third Wednesday of the month.

Six storytellers provided fuel for laughs, reflections to ponder and even some sighs of sadness. The night provided a great opportunity for them to get up in front of the crowd to either have fun performing or challenging themselves with something new. At least one of the story tellers got up there because she challenged herself to do something new everyday in the year before her thirtieth birthday. Another story teller got up there as yet another avenue for creative expression.

I have the feeling my friend did it for a variety of reasons. She wanted to challenge herself. She wanted to share in the experience after spending time in the audience. She wanted to share with friends and strangers. She wanted to practice what she had learned in a class.

They have an egalitarian and populist method to get people signed up for performance at future Storylab events. I would have thought someone would have to take the Storylab Chicago's Storytelling for Everyone class, know someone who organizes Storylab or have some kind of reputation as a storyteller to get up there. After all, the place was packed and there is only so much time.

Anyone can get up there and tell their story. Well, there is a process to get up there, but essentially anyone can. You just sign up for the mailing list and put a star by your name. They probably won't let you get up there right away or at the next storytelling event. As I said, the place was packed and there's only so much time. Indicate you want to get up there and tell a story, though, and the organizers will get you scheduled to get up there at one of the future events. Bunch of people I was with wanted to try reserving a night just for their stories.

I like seeing the organizers of Storylab keeping up an oral tradition that we could see fall by the wayside otherwise. We all spend a lot of time on the Internet, doing the whole social networking thing. Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Four Square, name your poison. We can easily spend hour on top of hours on these social network sites, sharing our stories, quips and opinions. A lot of our storytelling has transferred onto the Internet.

Suffice to say, Social Networking and the Internet provides an opportunity for people who don't have access to other people. It even provides an avenue of expression for people who may not care for verbal communication. We have seen great advances in society, science, the arts and a number of things because of the Internet and Social Networking. It has helped the human race evolve faster and more robustly than before. A lot of good has come out of the Internet and Social Networking.

But we can become dependent on these tools and maybe even addicted to them. Just look at people who REALLY get into World of Warcraft and other MMORPGs. Others love to spend tons of time on Facebook and other social networking sites. I can easily spend my time doing research, reading the news, following the stock market.

Heck, I'll admit it, I'd rather communicate through e-mail or chat than talk on the phone. I have no idea why other than I spend too much time on the phone at work already. For many of us, we find a lot of enjoyment while using the Internet and sometimes just plain prefer it over the material world.

I have no grand argument as to why keeping up this kind of oral tradition strikes me as so important. Maybe I will one day. I just think keeping up this type of tradition, even if it has to be done intentionally rather than organically, helps us to hold onto an aspect of what makes us human on a live basis. We share in real time, sometimes without as much of a conscious thought, we're present and we come closer to feeling like there's some sense in the world, even if just for a few hours or even a couple minutes. It's an important feeling and activity.

It's something that makes us, I believe, more human.

QUOTES OF NOTE: Storylab Chicago, The Black Rock Pub & Kitchen, Storytelling for Everyone, storytelling, oral tradition, World of Warcraft

Working on the Bachelor's Project, Charlie Jade Premieres Soon and Other Miscellany

CHARLIE JADE NEWS

First off, for fans of Charlie Jade, those who have heard me babble about the show or anyone interested in good TV, a little news: Charlie Jade premieres on the SCi-Fi Channel in the United States on Friday, June 6 at 8 PM EST/7 PM CST. Watch, help them get ratings (especially you people with Nielsen boxes) and hopefully a second season will get produced.

BACHELOR'S PROJECT: RESEARCH AND PAPER WRITING

I've been out of active Internet circulation. At least, that's the best way to put it. I occasionally check out some blogs I regularly visit and reply to e-mails of current events in my life, emotionally tense situations or to someone who has provided some interesting stuff to think about or has provided me with amusement. Keeping in touch with friends has become an important aspect to me, too.

I've also recently taken a slight hiatus from the bachelors project. In large part, trying to nail down one aspect of it had me on the computer just about all waking hours and trying to find reading material in regards to an aspect of the project, at least, an aspect of the current paper that I outlined 22 or so pages and am looking to tighten it and make it more concise. Without this aspect, there's plenty of room for the paper to meander on, ramble and ruminate on plenty of topics without really going anywhere.

The topic of the aspect is prosocial behavior. More specifically, I like to believe that prosocial behavior and/or prosocial thinking leads to a more organized conscious or thought, to more meaning in one's life and a more fulfilling existence than one of anti-socialness or individualism. I once read an article in the Wall Street Journal that pretty much said that Tibetan monks that meditated on compassion for people and the world generally had more developed and healthier brains. I've also read plenty about how social connectedness leads to better health for people. In my experience, these points hold true, since the more prosocial I think and the more I'm connected to other people in a social manner, the better I feel. The same goes for when I engage in prosocial behavior that goes beyond my daily experience.

I just get irritated whenever I think about not having the phrase "prosocial behavior" in my vocabulary until a week or so ago. Even worse, it only entered into my vocabulary through the process of elimination from the ontological set of knowledge available to humanity. Thankfully, searching through the near infinite knowledge of humanity gets helped that I have some parameters to cut that ontology down (I can only read English, the overall topic is the social sciences, psychology to be even more exact, then hopefully even more by the subcategory social psychology or possibly developmental or cognitive psychology. . .but it expands a little when philosophy and religion can provide some insight into the topics I'm looking at. . .then it helps that I've narrowed my search down to compassion, sympathy, empathy and things like that).

Nonetheless, despite having some guidelines that cut down the overall set of human knowledge by a fair amount, there's still plenty of detritus to sift through to find anything useful. And just as annoying, when I find something that I think can really help then it doesn't. . .but it's just as annoying finding information that helps a lot then generates more questions or points me in more directions to get more specific information.

I'm under the impression that having a small case of ADHD doesn't help, either.

Overall, research feels like this to me, and it can get massively frustrating. I hopefully figure out some better tricks once I graduate from college and possibly get into freelance writing. Another option is to take on less ambitious tasks and building up smaller research projects and writing projects into a larger project, one that I've been building up to for months and years and probably planning for a good amount of time. I figure that's a good approach when I do this kind of thing as a living rather than as something on the side that acts as an unpaying vocation for the purpose of education and credentials.

For the last week or so, though, I've taken a hiatus from the project somewhat. On the Internet, I found what I hope will be a good source for prosocial behavior: The Social Psychology of Social Behavior. I found it last week or just a little more than a week ago through frustrating and semi-random Google searches. The Chicago Public Library tragically doesn't have a copy. The wife found it through interlibrary loan at her school, though, so she requested it for me. She can get it tomorrow, so I might be charging into the fray again starting tomorrow night.

I'm pretty excited, but I'm also kind of scared. I fear the possibility of disappointment and having to the random process of elimination with the ontological set of human knowledge again. . ..

BACHELOR'S PROJECT: THE NOVEL

So while doing all the in depth research into my latest paper and outlining it, I had been neglecting writing the novel. In the first month after all the holiday crap had been dealt with, I had written a whole chapter for the novel. Until a couple days ago and today, I hadn't written anything in it. Just so busy with the research and the other crap in life.

Something a friend that I commonly get into arguments with (some might call them flame wars) kind of hit home with me, even if the friend doesn't have a full idea of what goes on in my head, cognition and such. He pretty much said that if I had spent the time writing that I was spending complaining about my writing and researching, I would be done with my project. He didn't hit the nail on the head, but he did have a good point. If I worked on the aspect of the project that I wasn't stuck on (the novel), then I could probably get a lot done.

Today, I sat myself down and wrote, four pages to be exact. My productivity surprised me a little. The part I wrote today is the beginning of a section that has freaked me out over the last couple months. It's the section that very much explains the history of the setting, provides plenty of criticism of the setting and basically drives home the rational aspect of the novel. I had put so much weight behind the section that I feared that I wouldn't get it down very well or would have trouble with it. And today, I practically wrote four pages, bang, bang, bang, bang with some good breaks between each page to let my brain have some rest for the next one-page session.

I don't know the next time I will get back to writing in the novel. Hopefully I can do a little research at the beginning of the night and write a good amount in the novel for the second part of the night. When I first started working on this thing seriously after leaving college, I was able to pull that kind of routine off. Sure, didn't have a girlfriend/wife and tons of other responsibilities at the time. . .but I also was able to accomplish the same routine a little more than a year and a half ago when I still had tons of crap to do.

MISCELLANY STUFF HAPPENING IN LIFE

At least I finished writing thank you cards for the wedding and sent them all out (and just a couple weeks before first class mail goes up by one cent, too!).

Unfortunately, I think I'm going to have some major insurance studying to do because I have to get 29 more continuing ed credits before January 2009 to keep my license and not have to be fired, by Illinois law because I let my license expire. Plus, I don't want to have to study and take the initial licensing test again! Those things are horrendous.

Kaplan Financial, however, looks to have some good and interesting classes, though, for a good amount of continuing ed credits. I just wish I knew about more classes that I would just have to sit through and could get a good amount of credits. Nice thing about the Kaplan Financial courses, though, is that the courses range from something like 6 to 15 credits each. If I plan well, I can probably just take two or three online classes to fulfill my education requirement for getting my license renewed. Fun fun. . ..

So yeah, I guess that's the update on my life and some thoughts on things. Don't know when the next entry will happen, with the new research source arriving tomorrow, people visiting from out of town for the weekends, trying to get more involved in social groups and some traveling home for Mother's Day.