Keeping the plans comin'

                    So the last couple days have been pretty successful! I am so..proud of my lil boy Jimmy, he's learning how to swim! Also, I like how I have had progress with making plans for going to the NICU soon and will be talking to Mr.Neely and speaking to him with Heather so we can get all of this work out. In the meantime, I have decided to dedicate next week to Cognitive Psychology. My goals for next week are to do some research on cognition, go to Sylvan Learning Center and speak with the director and a tutor about their programs and learning strategies, see my sister's/my previous speech therapist, Julie Knote, for an interview and interactive speech-therapy session, and do some testing, interviews, and questionares on my sister's learning strategies.

Weird week

I dont know why, but for some reason, this week I feel so..out of it! Its a good thing I'm using this week as a planning week, gives me some time to get myself back on track with everything so I could have a good week in WISE next week. Unfortunately, Jimmy's graduation had to be cancelled yesterday because his trainer had a family emergency come up,so it will be sometime within the next week. Also, I just came from the dentist; needed a filling. Ouch Novacaine! Anyways, today my goal is to schedule some more events for myself for my wise project,make some business cards for babysitting jobs, and start teaching my Jimmy boy how to swim!

Lots of Planning and Phone Calls

             This week, since it is only a four-day week due to president's day, I have decided to use this week of WISE as a planning week for further engagements and hands-on activities for my project in Psychology. So far, I have been in contact with Heather Green, from Joe Dimaggio Children's hospital NICU and we are in the process of scheduling me to come in for a tour and to see some of the newborns and preemies up close, along with talking to the parents and learning about the babies struggles for life and how they have developed since they were brought into the NICU after birth. In addition, I have been coming up with more places that I can interview and some of the ones I have thought of so far are Sylvan Learning Center, My sister's speech therapist, and staff from Dan Marino Center. In the meantime, I am trying to plan more hands- on activities. Also, I have a long day today; working on scheduling events for WISE, I have a camp counselor job interview, and tonight, Jimmy is graduating from beginner dog training class and moving onto intermediate!!

Observational Study on a friend

               For my last experiment, what better way to end the week than an observational study on one of my best friends,Steffani! An observational study is when an experimental psychologist does a study on a person or animal without he or she knowing that they are being observed. My purpose for observing my friend was to see how a person's mindframe and confidence changes when put into differrent situations. For example, when I watched Steffani participate in our statistics class, I noticed that she felt more confident about herself, knowing that math is her comfort zone. She felt more comfortable talking to other students in class and felt like she was helpful. On the other hand, when I went with her to her photography class where she is just beginning to learn the stages of developing film, she was getting more frustrated when her pictures wouldn't come out. I could see her body language go from being in a relaxed state to a more tense state of mind and she was more in a hurry. Based on my observations, I can conclude that a person's mental state of mind, body language, and behavior adjust according to situations that someone is either put in or chooses to partake in.

Putting a friend to the test

                 So yesterday, I was debating on what other type of psychological experiment I wanted to try out. Then I finally decided to go along with creating a questionnaire and having my friend,Steffani, fill it out and then I would analyze her results. The questions I asked her helped reveal parts of her personality; her thoughts on spending money, teenage pregnancy, and physical and emotional attachment to people and words. The portion I thought was the most interesting was when I had Steff read a series of words outloud and tell me how she felt afterwards. It is actually pretty neat to see how someone listing words in a row can cause he or she to feel a certain way. Aside from that, I attended a 2nd training session with my dog Jimmy last night and it went pretty well. At first he refused to listen to me, but after a while, he was on a role. We are excited because next week he is taking a training test and will graduate from Pet Smart's 8-week beginner training program and head to intermediate. I will def try to get some pics from the event :-).

Putting my stats honors class to good use!

This week's theme took a lot of debating because I wasnt sure if I was ready to experiment with this theme, but I decided I could do this. This week, my main focus is Experimental Psychology. By the end of this week, I am planning on finishing a survey with data results and conclusions, an observational study, and a physical test. So far, I have conducted a survey on Cypress Bay Students and Valentines Day. I randomly selected 50 cypress bay students and asked them for their gender,grade, whether or not they had a valentine this year and what they did on Vday. The results were incredible: 40% of the students I surveyed had a valentine and 60% did not. What makes the results incredible is that I ended up randomly selectiing exactly 25 boys and 25 girls and the results for each of the genders matched the average of the 50 people sample that I had surveyed! Some interesting conclusions I came upon were the facts that ony 18% of the students recorded went out for dinner on Vday, a staggering 44% did NOTHING on Vday, and about 38% did other things on Vday, whether it be hw, gym, or practice for a sport. So if you are one of those who felt alone on Vday, your really not! Because according to my survey, 60% of the people I surveyed were in the same boat!!

My Metro Zoo Experience

Yesterday was so..much fun! My friend Steffani and I ventured out to Miami's Metro Zoo for a picnic and nice trip to the zoo to study animal behavior and human-interaction with animals. Didn't even need to speak with a zookeeper;saw plenty on my own just walking around the zoo. As far as animal behavior, I saw lions roaring, sea otters trying to build a resting place, gorillas who wanted to duke it out with a fight, donkeys giving eachother a hicky, lol, rhino moms and babies, a gorilla trying to put a t-shirt on itself and making cover with a plastic blanket to protect itself from the rain, and an elephant eating with its trunk. All very cool to watch and I did get video footage which I will be posting soon. Also, my friend and I got to feed a Giraffe and it was so..cool, the tongue was purple and like a foot long! Concerning human-interaction, I saw kids who were afraid to go near animals, children immitating animal behavior, and children mesmorized by seeing certain animals. Overall, it was my favorite Psychology experience so far and it was fun to be able to spend the day with one of my best friends at the zoo just the two of us and have some lunch. Right now, I am still trying to decide on my subfield choice for this week, considering my animal theme this week was awesome!

Me and My Jimmy

Yes!! Jimmy and I survived beginning dog training class last night! Man, o man... he was the smallest lil guy there;everyone else was ninety pounds or above! He did an awesome job and just from attending a one-hour dog training session, I learned so..much about dog psychology. First off, for dogs, actions speak much louder than words. When getting a dog to behave, one of the biggest mistakes people make is telling a dog to "sit,stay,or lay down." However, dogs are more willing to follow hand signals and gestures to follow commands. Another important thing I realized too is that dogs have very, very short memory and constantly need repetition in order to learn tricks or obedience training. Teaching a dog how to sit one time and giving them a treat will not teach them to follow the command; they need to see the gesture or signal at least 10-20 times to even some-what pick up anything. Lastly, Jimmy's trainer from Petsmart, Holly, told the class that her main secret to the training is positivism and postive-reinforcement. Using treats and tummy rubs as rewards accompanied by "good boy/girl" and avoiding words such as "don't,stop, and no" are the key to getting a dog to pay attention and follow commands. I think that was such an awesome experience yesterday, getting a hands-on experience with dog-training and I am so..proud of my lil boy, Jimmy for doing such an awesome job in class yesterday! <3

Time to become an animal expert!

                  I've decided to dedicate this week to Comparative Psychology, the study of animals! I am very excited because this week is my first chance to have more of a hands-on experience with Psychology! As far as right now, my beginning plans for this week consist of researching the famous animal-psychologists such as Cesar Millan, Jane Goodall, and the legendary "Crocodile Hunter", Steve Irwin. Then, I am planning on attending a beginning dog training session with my terrier mix named Jimmie and learning from his trainer how she gets the dogs to cooperate and how she uses positive-reinforcement in her training. Lastly, I am pretty excited because this weekend, I am planning on venturing out to Miami's Metro Zoo with one of my best friends and we are going to have an awesome time! It's been about 4-5 years since I have been there and it has always been one of my favorite places growing up, especially since I love.. animals! I look forward to having some interaction with the animals and capturing moments on film of them in their natural habitats. Be sure to check out my favorite links on my home site, gwise201011.webs.com for some interesting and entertaining links
:-D

Campus visit day at FAU

Just from reading the title of this journal, you may be thinking "how does campus visit day at FAU have anything to do with Psychology?" Believe me, it ties into the day. Friday, I had my campus visit day at Florida Atlantic University where I got to learn more about the college of science that I will be attending, learn more about student organizations/clubs, dining plans, and all the ropes of living on campus in college. While attending the information session about Student Life on campus I had met and spoken to one of the  guest speakers, Megan. She happens to be a full-time junior at FAU and is a volunteer for the student life programs at FAU.  She and I come from similar backgrounds; having Generalized Anxiety Disorder. I myself, have had generalized anxiety disorder growing up and one of my biggest fears has been sleeping away from home, which in the last year, I have decided to give living on campus a try, but have been apprehensive about the whole idea. I personally, have never met another peer with the same fears I have and who has been successful in overcome his or her fear, until I met Megan. Before she began as a freshman at FAU, she had zero confidence, wouldnt public speak, and was afraid to sleepover others' places. With the help of her new "FAU family", she has progressed so..much and it is the most relieving feeling to know that it is possible to have success in going to college, even with an anxiety disorder. I now know that I can go to her for anything when I live on campus, and hearing her journey has really helped me calm my nerves down and was extremely reassuring in giving me self-esteem and confidence to know that I can do this! So basically, this journal is about helping the general psychology of ME. :-)

fau.edu  FAU's official webite

Whats it like to be a psychotherapist?

Yesterday, I decided to take a visit with my very own Psychotherapist, Mrs.Debra Rode, and in between my own therapy session, I chose to ask her some questions about her job and what her goals are when she is working with patients. One of the things that she feels is very important, especially when helping clients with self-esteem issues is the ability to reframe thoughts in the mind from negative to positive outlooks on life. She feels that in order for someone to be successful as a psychotherapist, he or she needs to have pacience, be calm, open minded, non-judgemental, and have forward thinking. I have to admit that at first I felt weird interupting our session with asking her these questions, but it actually ended up tying into our conversations and discussions and helped me understand certain things that she wants me to work on, like reframing thoughts and arguments to have some different meanings and feelings than I have right now. I appreciate having her as a therapist because I feel she is someone I can confide in, go to for help when I have issues in my life that occur, and get asssistance in reframing negative thoughts about myself in my head. Thank You Debra so..much!!