I'm interested in conducting a little experiment.
Recently, I've been juggling a lot. Well, not anymore recently than for the past 6 years or so of my life... I'm fairly decent at juggling. It's survival of the fittest, right? One of the things I've been thinking about in particular, though, is juggling goals within myself.
Sure, there's the goals of being a great mom, being a great wife, being a great teacher, being a great writer, perhaps, one day...but that's not the goals I'm referring to right now. I'm thinking about the Really Important Stuff. I'm talking about being a Beautiful Babe, a Healthy Her, and Queen of the World.
What? What on Earth am I talking about? Why would you ask that? Isn't it completely obvious? Here's your tutorial.
Beautiful Babe
We've all had bad hair days, right? And, the reality is, a bad hair day isn't always your hair. Sometimes it's really more of a bad skin day, a bad outfit day, a bad make-up day, or a just-plain, "I'm hideous!" day. If you have never had an "I'm hideous!" day -- I hate you. And you're lying.
The other side of the coin is the days when you look at yourself in the mirror and think, "Wow. I did pretty good today!" The days when you think, "Why can't I look like this everyday?" The days when you say to your husband (or wife), "How can you stand to live with someone as GORGEOUS as me???" (heh heh) THOSE are "Beautiful Babe Days".
Healthy Her (or Him, for my male readers)
We all know what is good for us and what is bad for us, right? So, I'll spare you the lecture on the dangers of drinking excessively, smoking, sitting on your duff all day long without exercising, eating junk food, drinking too much caffeine, etc.
We all also know what our own personal weaknesses and struggles are in this category. No one is perfect - quit lying to yourself. My own personal weaknesses vary from drinking too much caffeine, eating too many sweets and fast food (I'm a Mommy-On-The-Go. Don't judge me.), falling in and out of good exercise routines, dieting off and on (Though, to my credit, I support Weight Watchers, which is a very well balanced option.), and occasionally diving into a bottle of wine at home in the evening.
Now that we've silently admitted our own struggles, we can also celebrate our efforts to improve ourselves and shed the monkey(s) from our backs. I wake up, more days than not, thinking about my goals and how I need to take better of myself. Some days, I go to bed proud of myself for all my good choices, will power, and dedication throughout my day. THOSE days are Healthy Her Days.
Queen of the World (Alright, alright...You fellows can be Kings. Man, you guys are high maintenance.)
I hope this title has envoked in you memories of Leonardo DiCaprio on the bow of the Titanic, screaming at the top of his lungs as the wind blows in his hair and a glorious sun sets on the horizon. Good. Now that we're all done reminiscing...moving on.
Other than being, quite possibly, the cheesiest scene in cinematic history, Leonardo did capture a certain feeling in that scene. The feeling that the world is going your way and everyone loves you. (I've alluded to this feeling before.) The feeling that adds that extra spring to your step and puts music in your mind. You find yourself smiling for no reason. You are successful. You are smart. You have lots of friends. People want to be with you and care what you think. You are GOING SOMEWHERE, babe! The sky is the limit!!
THOSE days are Queen of the World Days.
My Purpose
Now that you've learned the jargon, let's talk statistics.
If you'll recall, I began this post speaking of juggling. Think, for a moment, about the nature of juggling. While one ball is up, another is down, and some are in the route up or down. This is not unlike life (at least for me). I'm wondering, though, if there is a correlation between the elements described above. Is there a pattern? And, if there is, can I identify it? And, if I can, can I subsequently find a way to capture these elements SIMULTANEOUSLY??? Because that is, in my reality, a rare occurence.
Procedures
So, my experiment goes a little like this...
Participants will track their days on a scale of 1-3 (No need to get complicated. A simple "high, medium, low" rating is sufficient.) in each of the three categories: Beautiful Babe, Healthy Her, and Queen of the World. As much as it pains me to say this, it will need to be done daily to be worth a flip. Ugh. Just the sight of the word daily makes me cringe. I SOOOO don't do "daily" stuff well. A system as simple as markings on a calendar for a month or so to collect the data, then we can pool the data, chart it, graph it, calculate important figures like mean, median and mode, analyze it for patterns...and all kinds of Very Smart Stuff. Maybe we can find the secret to life!
Conclusion...
Hmmmm. Sounds like a lot of work. Scratch that. Would anyone else be interested in conducting an experiment and emailing me the results? I've got a blog to update...
I love those queen of the world days. However, they're usually followed by crap days. Sigh...I can never win!
ReplyDeleteThat's what I'm talking about!! There's got to be a pattern we can intercept and intervene!! :)
ReplyDeleteI am waiting for a good hair day or a good babe day. It has been awhile for me!
ReplyDeleteHonestly, as fun and sassy and sick as your posts here tend to be, this one actually connected to work for me. Stick with me, it's not that big of a stretch...
ReplyDelete1. Until I finish grad school in May... with two babes and a new-ish mission at school... I have been struggling to have a couple of days in a week's time that qualify as a "1".
2. As a male, I am a bit disturbed by how much I identify with the gist of this post. ;-)
3. Your somewhat silly idea of collecting this kind of data and then torque-ing it all around in fun ways statistically is golden. Really. When trying to make general scientific (or statistical) methods palpable for kids with nary a hint of background knowledge on the subject really is a challenge.
I have always considered this to be far easier than many folks I talk to. To me, it is easy to generate a set of meaningful numbers to analyze for the betterment of scientific & mathematical literacy.
However, this supergirly post reminds me about the need for engaging even those kids who turn up their noses at science. I am having fun thinking of a ton of goofy little endeavors along these lines... for even my dual-credit bio students. These are a set of supersmart kids who are not all going onto a science field.
In fact, several are going to be music majors, business majors, etc- who trusted me enough as a teacher, to get their science requirement out of the way before heading off to college. That leaves me with what I see as an awesome responsibility... being the leader of their last formal exploration of scientific thinking.
With that in mind, I have tried wherever possible to motivate them with fun, silly, -yet serious explorations into the fascinating things that can be found in everyday life.
Anyway..... blah. I'd love to say your post made me laugh, and it did. Sorry if it made me think of things beyond neuroticism and class. I'd hate to steer you too far off mission. Heh.
;-)
@Sean - You have my permission to use my blog post to inspire any girly-girls in your classes as necessary. I keep it clean. :) If you had been my teacher in HS and allowed me to introduce scientific thinking into my world in a way like this, you would have had a New Fan Club President on your hands. It's about meeting the needs of your audience, which is all I try to do...in many, many ways. :) By the way, what do you mean saying my posts are SICK??? You're just a crusty old man, what do you know?
ReplyDeleteI'll participate. I think I could use a project right now. I've been logging into my blog recently on a daily basis in hopes of clacking away at some profound pregnant/motherhood/super-wife account of my life these days, but all I can only seem to lift ONE finger. You know the one. Sometimes the cursor blinking back at me seems to share the same sentiment.
ReplyDeleteToday I'm a medium, low, medium. Pie chart me, babe. I'm on board.
It's been such a long time since I've felt any of the three, LOL. Is it too late to shout "not it"? :)
ReplyDeleteHi there, I want to create some online web blogs and profiles where I can put my company products. Please do share some platform from where no one can steal my designs.
ReplyDelete