Category Archives: Friendship

The Negative Utility of Losses

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At present I’m privileged to be working with twenty-eight hard working people who just completed a year-long teaching internship. Beginning teachers typically fall into a common psychological trap. Hell, what am I saying, I still do it too and I’ve been at it for a quarter century. All but the most callused teachers fall into the trap of letting a few negative student encounters shade one’s thinking about an entire class or course.

For example, when I think about my sixteen writing students last semester, I know at least twelve learned a lot, improved, and had a positive experience. One to four, probably not so much. One of my current students is the mother of one of my first year spring semester writing students. She confided in me that her daughter said, “He doesn’t like the way I write.” Insert knife. Twist. I really work hard to help students develop more positive attitudes towards writing and to develop self confidence so that really bummed me out. Then my thought process becomes, “Nevermind loser that the majority of the class had a positive experience, a few didn’t.”

Why is it that you can have a neutral or positive working relationship with nine students, but the negative one with the tenth takes away from the entire teaching and learning experience?

I was wondering this while reading The Investor’s Manifesto by William Bernstein, page 108 specifically. He writes, “It makes little sense that we should care about a bad day or a bad year in the stock market if it provides us with good long-term returns. But because of the importance of our limbic systems, we care—very, very much—about short term losses. We cannot help it: That is the way we are hardwired. Behavioral studies show that, in emotional terms, a loss of $1 approximately offsets a gain of $2; in the unlovely language of economics, the negative utility of losses is twice that of the positive utility of gains.”

Or five or ten times that depending on how negative the teacher-student relationship.

Conceptual convergence. I love the phrase “the negative utility of losses” because it helps me better describe the abstract psychological (or actually biological) phenomenon that plagues most teachers.

My natural tendency would be to strategize on how to combat negative utility of loss thinking, but if it’s biological is it inevitable? Is resistance futile?

Why Exercise?

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I once had a colleague, a smart scientist, who said research showed exercise extends people’s lives the same amount of time spent exercising. If that’s close to correct, and if you excercise 5 hours a week, 48 weeks a year, for forty years, that’s an extra 13 months. If that seems paltry, he’d agree, which was why he chose to be sedentary.

I don’t exercise to extend the length of my life as much as I do to improve the quality of it. Most of the time I enjoy the activity itself, the swimming, running, and cycling, especially since I have great training partners. Long story short, exercise improves the quality of my life on lots of levels.

Last Sunday I was traveling all day and on Monday and Tuesday I wasn’t able to squeeze in a workout. Felt completely out of whack. Finally rebooted with a 5 mile run along the edge of Storm Lake Tuesday night. Travelled all day Wednesday, so four days, and one five mile run. Salvaged the week by hitting it hard Thursday-Sunday.

Sunday’s ride was especially nice. Longest ride of 2010 thus far. The numbers, 63.27 miles, 3:34:11, 17.7mph avg, max 42.5, 2,954′ of elevation, 4,057 calories. Morning resting heart rate, 48, 52 in the middle of church (so I drifted during the sermon, what else is new). Great riding with Lance except for the hills he added on. His front tire exploded mid-ride. Loudest flat ever. Embarrassing the lengths he goes to to force rest.

The pictures.

In the peloton, you are what you eat and drink

Ready to roll

Dropping in on 81st Street

Line of the day, "Don't throw that away, I'm going to patch it."

Lance's elaborate rest stop ruse

Self portrait mid-ride

Calorie replacement. . . stage one

Calorie replacement. . . stage two

Calorie replacement. . . stage three

Calorie replacement. . . finishing kick

Human First

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I disagree with most conventional wisdom about gender. Odds are I think about it differently than you. I acknowledge men and women are different, but I feel standard gender stereotypes about men are extremely limiting. More generally, I believe standard gender stereotypes about both men and women are unhelpful exaggerations. I question the usefulness of the classic masculine/feminine continuum. I’m human first, male second. I want to be a more caring, sensitive, selfless person, attributes typically associated with women. Instead of accepting exaggerated gender differences as the natural order of things, educators, parents, anyone involved with young people and I would be better off identifying attributes we want to help both young men and women develop.

April Miscellania

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• The wife got me with a pretty good April Fools, said the new car “wasn’t starting in the morning” and “we should have someone look at it.” I had to return serve. So a few hours later I told her “Good news, the NYT is reporting that young trendsetters are dying their hair gray.” She laughed heartily until I said “April Fools!” That fact that it wasn’t a joke, is now the joke. That’s just the multi-layered way I roll.

• Got some rare direct blog feedback at dinner last week. One of my sibs said indignantly, “Why should anyone care about the details of your fitness routine?!” I explained those posts are primarily for Lance. Consider them optional, not required reading. Lance NEEDS to know how hard to work to maintain his running and cycling superiority.

• So here’s my indignant sib-adjusted fitness report for March. Battled a micro-tear in one calf and then threw my back out lifting/twisting dumbbells to and from the rack without my legs. Lost about a week. Swam 23,900m; cycled, 340; ran 97. WOM (workout of the month) was a 33 mile ride and 2.25 mile run with my 22 year old uber-niece who is about to kick some serious butt at the College Nationals Triathlon in Texas.

• March Madness update. The WSJ computer and I are currently in sixth or seventh place out of eleven in the office pool. If Duke wins, I will probably end up on the podium, but no one remembers who came in second. The first five participants don’t even follow college bball. I’m actually glad computers apparently can’t quantify something as complex as a 64 team tournament. It won’t be the same when it goes to 96 teams. Classic case of less being more. Of course this year I wish it had been 196 because then UCLA might have qualified.

• This recent David Brooks essay is one of my favorites of his of all time. Brooks got killed by the most recommended commenters. I found some of their comments perceptive, but most of those were of the “Look at me, I caught you being inconsistent” variety. No one is always perfectly consistent. Many of the most recommended comments struck me as weakly argued, mean-spirited, knee-jerk liberalism. I’m a liberal, but not a fan of knee-jerkism of any variety. Very easy to criticize especially so indirectly. I give Brooks credit for courage. He knows he can’t win when it comes to most NYT readers.

• Personal record for blog readership in March 2010; however, no reason to get carried away, you’re still a member of a select group. For reasons I’m not entirely sure of, people never comment on my personal finance posts, so I think I’ll retire that thread. Even though readership is up, commenting is not. Maybe I’m not angry enough? Maybe I need to tap my inner-Glenn Beck. Also, for reasons I’m not entirely sure of, I can’t get many readers to follow the small number of links I sometimes include. Case in point, you didn’t even open the previous Brooks’ link did you? I know everyone is pressed for time and I appreciate the fact that more people are at least logging on and skimming posts.

• Turns out I was exaggerating when I wrote that I’d pay anything for an iPad. I have not ordered one yet not because I wanted to read the reviews that were just published and let the application/software dust settle a bit. I anticipate buying one sometime before the summer equinox, but as a card carrying late adaptor, if so moved, I reserve the right to postpone the purchase indefinitely. Not owning one won’t stop me from adding “Sent from my iPad” on the bottom of my emails. Faux tech cache. Sometimes I amaze myself.

• Speaking of email, publicly admitting that I suck at it in my last post proved cathartic. Oddly, it inspired me to turn over a new email/internet leaf captured in this sticky note. Three days later, I’m stickying to it. Now email is not the boss of me, I’m the boss of email!

The note doubles as a logo cover, sorry Apple

Alienation of Affection

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Try to keep up. North Carolina is one of seven states that allows a married person whose marriage has ended to sue another person for what’s referred to as “destroyed affection”. I learned this when a friend in NC informed me through a newspaper link that a woman I used to work with was recently sued for allegedly breaking up another woman’s marriage. Then I heard the story on the BBC via NPR.

The woman who brought the suit was separated from her attorney husband who apparently had an affair with my acquaintance. He was one of the college’s attorneys and was co-writing a book with my acquaintance who was the Dean of Student Life. Makes me wonder if Tiger has a bunch of books coming out shortly, but I digress. The victim of “destroyed affection” argued she had a “good long marriage” until younger co-author hussy “came along and maliciously destroyed it”.

An interesting twist, in bringing a suit like this, you don’t have to show that anyone had sex with anyone else, just that he or she (joke alert—I’m betting it’s almost always “she” because we know men are much more respectful of the marital covenant, I mean no one was hitting on Elin Woods) destroyed the affection in the marriage.

Apparently, people bring about 200 cases a year of “alienated affection” and the most anyone has won is something like $1.9m. The woman in this case won $9m, thus the media spotlight. I’m guessing my acquaintance, who is now Dean of Student Life at another college in another state, makes $80-90k/a year, so good luck collecting.

A couple of implications of this bizarre legal drama spring to mind. Penelope Cruz, if you’re reading this, you should know my wife isn’t a particularly litigious person, but hey you never know. Just to play it safe, maybe you should stop making movies for awhile. And to the older guy at church, yeah you know who you are buddy, who keeps bugging the gal pal to go on a “bike ride”, don’t think I don’t know what that’s code for. In fact, to the gaggle of guys at the “Y” who constantly tweak their swim schedules to overlap with the person I’ve enjoyed a “good long marriage” with, consider yourself forewarned. Alienate her affection and I WILL go legal shock and awe on all of yous.

Pre-Post Doodle

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Except for the occasional school carnival goldfish, a kitten that almost immediately bolted, and a lost dog that took awhile to be claimed, I didn’t grow up with pets; so as an adult, I was perplexed by the relationships some of my childless friends had with their pets. Watching them take pet care to levels I was unfamiliar with left me either scratching my head or somewhat sad given the devastating effects of poverty on human beings world-wide.

Then I stopped fighting the family push to get a dog, and now, after fours years of labradoodle goodness, I better understand animal crazies. I’m not ready to label myself one yet, but the guy brings me a lot more joy than I ever would have guessed possible. Part of the joy is vicarious, seeing how happy he makes the Girls’ Club. Another part is watching him fetch the morning paper, leap, leap, leap, contact, sliiiddde, shortcut back through the groundcover, victory lap through the kitchen, and finally when the adulation dies, the drop. When we get home from church on Sunday mornings, we sometimes play a game where we purposely stand at 12, 3, 6, and 9 o’clock. He runs to mom, then sis1, then dad, then sis2, over and over.

I could go on, but you might start scratching your head and wonder if I’ve lost it.

Au contraire, it’s been all gain.

Resting Up for March Madness

Or Tomorrow's Newspaper

E Pluribus Unum?

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I’m keenly interested in how people of different political, cultural, and religious points of view relate one to another.

I first became interested in how people deal with those whose politics are radically different than their own as a high school social studies teacher leading discussions about contemporary issues. I quickly learned to play the “devil’s advocate” since some of my students were right or left-wing ideologues whose positions were highly predictable.

Also, I’ve been fortunate to have two friends whose worldviews are very different than my own. In contrast to most people who tend to keep the peace by avoiding talking about subjects related to politics, religion, race, and sexual orientation, we tackle them head-on.

In the last few years the church my family attends have added two new pastors for two that left. They’ve taken a moderate, fairly apolitical church considerably to the left in a few ways including a gay and lesbian friendly “welcoming statement” and by embracing evolution.

Here’s an excerpt from the “Clergy Letter Project” that was read Sunday. “We believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests. To reject this truth or to treat it as ‘one theory’ among others’ is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and transmit such ignorance to our children. . . We ask school board members to preserve the integrity of science curriculum by affirming the teaching of the theory of evolution as a core component of human knowledge.”

I like the pastors and  strongly support the stands they’re taking, but I’m intrigued by how little effort they seem to be making to retain conservative members. Attendance is down a bit, so I assume some have left. My guess is there will be liberal replacements in the months ahead. In a year’s time I expect us to have the same size church, but we’ll be much more homogeneous.

Consequently, the church may lose some of it’s distinctiveness and potential to model the Kingdom of God on earth. Given the choice, people already tend to socialize with, live next to, work with, and recreate with like-minded people. If truly committed to following Christ’s example, it seems as if the church would be a counter-cultural institution, one where people’s faith trumps political differences.

And not one where political differences are swept under the rug, but where people commit to conversation and learn how to agree to disagree when necessary about things like gay rights, the causes of global warming, and the death penalty, all in the interest of modeling “another way”.

Am I too idealistic to think this is possible? The cynic in me can’t help but notice our church, like many, has two services, one formal with hymns and a traditional liturgy, and a hymn-free, informal “contemporary” one. The nucleus divides again.

In the end, will the small corner of the world that is Olympia, Washington end up more religiously, socially, culturally, and politically fragmented?

SuperBowl Edition

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Secular holiday Sunday. I’m down with it, but for the love of all things non-material, please kill the Pro Bowl and return to the original one week between conference finals and kickoff.

I was pleasantly surprised to see a Peyton Manning essay by Stefan Fatsis on Slate.com Friday. I’ve enjoyed listening to Fatsis, a sports business analyst/writer on National Public Radio over the last few years. He also writes for the Wall Street Journal. Smart, fast-talker, good insights. He lets his hair down a little in the Manning piece.

Fatsis’ piece brought to mind lots of things including what a curse perfectionism is for those encumbered by it. Perfectionists can’t help but project their unusually high and often unrealistic expectations onto others which subjects them to perpetual frustration. Others can’t measure up.

When I finished writing my lengthy self-assessment for promotion recently, I felt a real sense of accomplishment, but not in the way you might expect. Here’s the truth of the matter. I could be a better teacher, scholar, and university citizen (the shorthand term for service). And I could be a better husband, father, son, brother, and friend. And I could be a better triathlete and blogger. And I could read more fiction, keep the gutters cleaner, and manage my time better.

My sense of accomplishment comes from fulfilling a wide range of roles as well as possible. I’m never going to win an MVP (most valuable professor) award or the Hawaii Ironman and I don’t anticipate, fourteen, seventeen, and forty-nine (yikes, did I just out the gal pal as not young, more evidence I fall short as a husband) ever teaming up on a sculpture in honor of me (my birthday is fast approaching though).

I choose to live a more balanced life than Manning, that doesn’t make me better, just different. Would I like to play in the Super Bowl*, of course, but I would not have traded the breadth of life experience I’ve enjoyed for that type of single-minded success.

At times, I wonder if I use the “balance” argument as an excuse for not pursuing excellence in a particular area for a particular time. Do I opt for success out of fear of Success? I wonder, maybe I should dedicate myself to excellence in one role, whether to write a book, race an Ironman well, or become the man my dog thinks I am—for a period of time. It’s very hard for me to accept doing some things poorly in order to do one thing especially well.

I expect the Colts to win, but I’ll be pulling for the Saints. And if the Saints pull the upset, I’ll be watching for Peyton to blow.

* I realized my football career was pointless in eighth grade when I was a bad-ass (a legend in my own mind) cornerback for the Lexington Lions. Screen pass to the other team’s stud who looked like it was his third go-round in eighth grade. Someone missed their assignment and I was unblocked. Closed the eyes, wrapped, wrapped, uh, wiffed. Started playing more golf at that point!