One question I have for the past is how great were you.... really? I have allways wondered how great the past really was. For example, one can think to the Native Americans and see that it was calculated that they only had to work 4 hours a day. (Given our current culture - I know, big sociological no no - this seems like a good start to approach happiness.) But, somehow I feel as though other stressors could outway many of these benifits. For example every time someone got the cold it would be like someone getting cancer or having a heart attack. This stress must have had an influence on their live; given our recent understanding on the effects of stress. Furthermore, since the life span was almost, and in many cases exceeding, half of now did this stress and other factors play more of a role than we let on in the quality of life? Do we idealize that past, or were those short moments powerfully in tune with the earth more meaningful than a thousand lifetimes of our 9-5's no matter how many meals,  laughing with family, one has?

The greatest imaginary world I created is the one I wake up to every day. I am in continually, abet with gaps, awe that this world is as it is; a world so different than what I see in the stresses of the day. In moments of love every sight to graze the eye is of beauty and wonder. As a kid I could pretend this was all the world all the time, and now I work for that to be true. 

 

Yet another tribute is to a land of inspiration and not a specific world itself. There was a creek behind my best friends house. It was a perfect creek with year round water streaming through and high cliffs about its edges. In the summer, a land of new land. Possibilities that ranged just beyond a curve yet visited. In the winter, a land of fierce storms and current begging for the gift of little boys lives. Lives that were time and time again saved amidst the gallants of friendship, forever binding friendship through natural dept of life within a Celtic knot of saviors. (Well... mostly just my friend and I, but I do like the imagery of a Celtic knot.) This was a source of many worlds and I wish and equal upon every child.

It is amazing how a few weeks can pick up like a tornado and wind one through life taking advantage of every second in the day. I am taking 25 units this quarter for the first time in order to get the most out of my tuition and experience as UCSC (University of California Santa Cruz). It has been so wonderful; however, my days have been long. 12 to 16 hour days have taken my schedule by force and delivered me into a sphere of blissful learning. I realize that one may be confused by the tone of this small colloquial exasperation, but it is within this dialectical reasoning that I currently harbor. Enthused by the grandiosity yet tired. This weekend I am taking a little break while I study for midterms and sit back and read. Over all, I enjoy the pace. It keeps my mind thinking and puts procrastination far out of the way. I am trying to put together my next quarter and believe that it will look very similar. Here is a little of my adventures that may ketch an interest.

The greatest current adventure is doing social psychological research in an impoverished neighborhood to create neighborhood identity and then utilize the principles of contentization and empowerment to help them get the resources they need to improve their neighborhoods. It is a lot of work with empowerment and identity formation. Furthermore, our team is starting to integrate the current programs and create a medium by which they can work together. Often there are so many different organizations that all try to fill in this or that gap; however, they rarely have the ability to do the reach out work and come together. By combining the resources of all of these programs (i.e. family resources, boys and girls club.. ) we hopefully will be able to see some major developments in the course of the next few years.

Next, I am working on putting together a class on the sociology of pets. Although social justice is more useful to the world creating this class has been the most theoretically provocative. It is amazing how such a simple subject can quickly turn into a turbine of knowledge ready to take off. Putting together course materials and sifting through articles upon articles has given me a beautiful look at the perspectives of sociology and the work of a professor.

In a health psychology class I have started to approach an understanding of postpartum depression. Depression is so often linked to being some type of disease. I do not believe that this is so. When some one get depressed after having a baby they should not fall into the clinical model of depression by which their is something wrong with them that they must fix. Perhaps there is another explanation. I believe that I have formulated that alternative explanation looking into the evolutionarily advantageous probability of postpartum depression. It is becoming a long path to formulate my ideas and back up my premises, but I hope that it will become fruitful. I am considering caring this archival research further for a senior thesis.

Mathematics has been fun and challenging. Truly I, as with most, am only taking calculus to go on and take other things. Calc based statistics and physics are of great interest to me.

Finally there is my human computer interaction class. Here psychology and technology meet head on to create many beautiful things. For example, look around. This web site utilizes many of the principles that we are discussing. For this class my team is recreating our computers web interface. There are a lot of problems with the part of the website where students look up information, register for classes and check school mail. In order to address this issue my team is redesigning and reorganizing the face of the website without inhibiting the structural aspects of the website so the school can still use the same underlying programs.

Wow! It feels good just to get it all out. Well not it all but a little. It is so much fun and I can't wait to take all that I am learning to larger communities, like in the research project.

May the constellations bless you all,
Carlen

The wind not only breaks away the leaves of my youth,

But shapes the branches of my future.

It is to the wind I owe the children and their tire swing;

The laughing and the love.

It is to the wind I grant the reclamation of passing storms into bountiful springs.

Yet, it pounds and pushes,

Scrapes and howls;

It chills though the night.

As a true master of both worlds,

It strings along the night.

What is the greatest lesson you have learned in life?