No, not Christmas. Rather, the end of the semester is upon us. Today began the last week of class sessions. So to recap: four more German classes, two more LitCrit (and one more scary paper due this week), and ONE more Anthrodullogy class. As for finals, I have a take home final for Anthro due the 18th, a chapter exam in German this Thursday, a piano jury on the 17th, and a very scary comprehensive final for LitCrit on the afternoon of the 17th.
I won't count any chickens, but finishing the semester looks like a distinctly doable possibility. Hang in there with me just a few more days, then we can all take a Christmas break.
2 comments:
"Positive psychology" is an actual theoretical branch of psychology. The founders (Seligman, Dean, Gilbert, others) are all big on data and research, so there's a lot of "science" that we don't often find in some of the other cosmic woo-woo branches of my field.
We know from positive psychology that people who are optimistic and predict success for themselves have generally better outcomes than people who say "I'm too stupid and too tired, and it's too hard, and I can't."
There was an opposing view promoted a few years ago (Norem) about the temperament differences between being a "strategic optimist" or a "defensive pessimist" which said that optimists predict success only for those things that they're likely to achieve, and pessimists are better off predicting failure and being pleasantly surprised by anything better.
"A strategic optimist's unconscious goal is not to become anxious. A defensive pessimist's unconscious goal is not to run away."
However, subsequent research seems to confirm the original premise that optimists show better outcomes over time than pessimists.
We have another *very* powerful statistical predictor in effect here, and that, of course, is "regression to the mean." Regression to the mean says that any extreme behavior or score is likely to be followed by a more ordinary or "normal" score. If you're betting on any single event, bet toward the middle.
In estimating Scott's likely GPA, regression to the mean suggests I should vote in a non-extreme way. In this case, maybe 3.8 or 3.9.
However, I'm nothing if not a strategic optimist, and I'm going with the 4.0.
Just taking another opportunity to Leave No Thought Unspoken On Scott's Blog.
Has anyone else noticed that the universe is intimating Blogger's soon-to-be-revealed GPA?
40 -----> 4.0
It's just downright spooky.
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