Code Monkey

Guess who's learning how to do coding in her class this semester????

True story.

Gonna have some fun around here...

Are You Online?

Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks make online dating look waaaaaay more fun and adorable than it is in reality.

As chagrined as I am to admit this, I am now an active participant in online dating. I've "been online" for a while, but other than that one really awkward/awful date back in November (you know, the one where he audibly mouthed EVERY WORD to EVERY SONG in the concert we were attending? *shudder*), I haven't met up with any of the fellas I've e-met via dating sites.

Until now.

Suddenly I have a date with a 45-year-old attorney this afternoon (to get sodas and talk politics/history) and another date with a 41-year-old pathologist on Saturday, plus I'm communicating with a handful of guys via eHarmony's "free communication" weekend.

And I'm still not sure how I feel about this whole interwebs dating thingamajigger.

On the one hand, the internet is the modern-day watering hole. Mormons don't really do the whole bar scene, so if you're looking to meet people beyond your daily routine, it's kind of a natural way to boost your network. Seeing as I'm on the older end of my ward, there are only a handful of guys in my dating range there. And work? Well... I can count the number of single guys I know at our company on two hands. Not to say there's not quality there, because there are some total winners - but there's not quantity. And I do have friends or hear about friends of friends who met reputable, upstanding, awesome spouses via the interwebs, so I know it caaaan be done. In theory.

On the other hand... online dating just is not natural. Online profiles and emailed "flirts" are no replacement for standing face to face with a cute guy and conversing (both verbally and nonverbally). You really can't get a feel for someone from online interaction, nor can you make judgment calls on whether someone's a stud or dud based on any objective standard like age, height, career, etc. Those decisions require meeting up... which requires spending valuable time going through the hoops of emailing and meeting up. Which sometimes sounds less appealing than shoving bamboo under my fingernails. Or doing accounting.

Have any of you had successes or horror stories with the world of online dating?

{PS: So... I bailed on today's date. I know. Awful. Legitimately, I'm not feeling up to "discussing politics and the Constitution" (something I do love, but not for today). But, really, I also don't have any business dating a man who's closer in age to my father than to me. Any way you slice it, that's creepy, and I'd rather not waste anyone's time from the get-go.}

In Which I Ponder a Ph.D.

"You really should consider comms studies," Dr. Pratte insisted.

All communications majors at BYU were required to take Comms 300: History of Communications, which involved a major research project. For what it was worth, my study of the changing perception of the American family as captured on the cover of TV Guide from the 1950s to the present (2001) caught the soon-to-retire professor's eye. I chalked it up to my being an American Studies major, trained to think outside the box and draw cultural connections. Dr. Pratte saw it as proof of a communications scholar - and from then on, he spent the rest of the semester trying to convince me to follow a research track that would take me into deeper levels of academia. He even had me present my paper at a conference - the only undergrad in the lineup, and a mere sophomore at that.

But there was no practical application for the communications studies emphasis. The only door you had after graduating was more school - and I had noooooo desire to get a master's degree! I just wanted my bachelor's. And my Mrs. Mostly the Mrs., really, but the pragmatist in me was also wise enough to know that whatever I graduated in needed the potential to pay the bills.

The only potential result of comms studies was more bills - so I stuck with print journalism. Which is ironic, really, considering its paltry ability to pay the bills... but that's a discussion for another day. 

Here I sit, a decade later, mulling over that conversation. Maybe Dr. Pratte was onto something. Maybe he saw something in my 19-year-old self that I couldn't see. 

Because now my 29-year-old self, in her first semester of grad school, has a Ph.D.-worthy research project idea that simply won't leave this overextended, already-all-over-the-place brain.

Lately I can't stop thinking about connection - particularly, as one song in the musical Rent puts it, "connection in an isolating age." These days we are more connected than ever before through digital means - and yet, we're more isolated and disconnected from one another. And we, as human beings, are wired for connection. We crave it. We need it to function. And too few of us are getting the quality and quantity needed to nurture our souls.

While the blame could be placed on those electronic means, I argue that the means are amoral tools - they exist not as agents but to be acted upon. They're tools, capable of good and evil. Their morality depends wholly upon their employment - and so, therefore, the burden of responsibility is on the user as well as on the designer of the methods.

I would looooooove nothing more than to delve into the psychology of interpersonal connection, the psychology of the brain's engagement with various electronic platforms, and then look at how those platforms could be altered in a way that fosters true interpersonal connection while mitigating the negative effects inherent in the electronic engagement.

Yes, this is the stuff that keeps me up at night.

But where can I find the time to get into it? And with what application or access? While researching a paper for my Utah State class that's due this week, I ended up downloading well over a dozen journal articles that look at psychology and social media. I want to study and analyze them - but with what time? My plate is so filled to the brim, I basically can only focus on whatever the next burning fire is, whatever deadline's slapping me in the face.

My research will have to wait. I can only juggle so much, and right now my focus is nurturing and building my career. Well, that, and finally attaining my Mrs. - in which case that would become my focus. I don't really see where a Ph.D. fits into the picture. All I can handle for now is slogging through my MS, one class at a time.

But that doesn't mean the idea is going to stop haunting me.

As I've learned (with help from Elizabeth Gilbert's TED presentation), when the Muse strikes, I have little choice but to listen - or to be haunted by knowing that I let a good idea pass by unrealized. That's why I end up blogging not one but two posts in one night when I really need to be writing a paper due the next day - it's like I have to clear those ideas out of the queue in order to move on with my life.

This one, though? There'll be no clearing it out for years, and I'm not quite sure what to do about it presently. But one thing is for certain:

I want a Ph.D.,

which thing I never had supposed.