ADRENALINE

[melluransa]

I had a very interesting drive home today.



I'm so lucky to be home right now! A wave of winter weather hit the Midwestern U.S. It caused two of my three clients to cancel. It was nice because I had time to catch up on homework and stuff. That was unexpected and nice. The snow started at 2:00, falling heavily and steadily.

Class let out an hour early at 6:00! My teacher taught stuff I use in therapy every day so it was a great class, and she's nice to let us out. She always says the funniest sentences. Tonight she was talking about inventing novel utterances and how Skinner and Pavlov's reinforcement, punishment, and reward doesn't fully explain language acquisition and use. She could come up with a random utterance like, "The sparkly unicorns ate play-doh." Such an utterance was never produced before by her before, much less rewarded or punished or whatever -- and Skinner says that all behavior has a stimulus, behavior, and consequence or else it doesn't exist. Not discrediting Skinner, but he doesn't explain language acquisition completely. ANYWAY.

The walk back to the parking lot is downhill, which was difficult to walk down. I was wearing my slipper-sneakers that are flat-soled and open on the top.

Then, I couldn't find my car. I remembered too late that I'd parked in another lot. This happens to me at least three times a semester (See how I play if off like I'm a victim of unfortunate circumstance and that it's not my fault)

So off I go, padding along to the other lot. There was snow piling on my shoulders and in my purse and in my hood. I got quite wet, which was sad because my ipod Tom got wet and wouldn't turn on. (Right now he be chillin in a ziploc with some rice and prayers)

I finally got to my car with wet pant, socks, and shoes. I wiped my car off three times because by the time I made my way around the car, snow piled up on what I'd already wiped off. -_- But the heater finally warmed up the glass in the windows enough that snowflakes melted upon landing~

THEN the drive home, holy shit. I said "fuck" more times than I say "fuck" in an entire year. I passed two wrecks and five people in the ditch/off the road. The highway's speed limit is 65 mph... it was only safe at 35-45 mph tonight. Visibility was poor too, with such heavy snowfall. I considered taking an early exit to go sleep in a hotel, but I really wanted to get home. Semi trucks hurtled past on the highway and terrified me, passing me in my tiny Ford Focus.

Then lols, I get around home. I live in the country with cornfields and soybean fields. The roads were just snow, virgin snow undriven upon. I finally felt ok enough to turn on the radio, that my concentration could handle it and I was close enough to home anyway. Hubris is the downfall of all man. Anyway, it was Usher ("More," the remix) was blasting out of the radio as I turned onto the road that's one road away from the road my house is on. (the last time I crashed my car, "Geisterfahrer" was playing btw)

I took the curve too fast at a three way intersection. My rationale was that I didn't want to go too slow because I'd get stuck (like I did at an earlier intersection). I went too fast though! Wheee I went into the ditch, ramping up and over the other side and into a plowed cornfield. The car kept moving and so I drove and it worked. I was in a snowy and plowed cornfield. I made a wide circle back to the road and spotted a place where the ditch wasn't as deep, and through there I got back on the road.

I can't believe I made it almost all the way home to go in a ditch/cornfield down the street from my house, and managed to get out. I could have walked home if I had gotten stuck.

Then I got home and got hyper and wheeeeee. I hope classes are canceled tomorrow. I never want to drive again. :D

Comments

[melluransa.livejournal.com]

I'm ok now! Driving home was VERY scary indeed.

[th-tinie.livejournal.com]

I can only imagine. Glad to hear you feel better. <3

"The sparkly unicorns ate play-doh."
I loved to read that section, about reinforcement and the language.

[melluransa.livejournal.com]

*nod nod* Makes sense. Sure, we've been reinforced to talk in certain situations, but not in every single situation. And also, we're not reinforced for every single thing we say. And what if there is no reinforcement? That's why we have to incorporate Piaget and Banderas' cognitive theories, and Vygotsky's sociocultural theory. Language is super complicated, and one theory can't explain it all!

[th-tinie.livejournal.com]

I do believe talking alone is very reinforcing on a neurobiological level, since we're programmed for grammar and language, and the body likes to do what it's programmed for. But surely reinforcement can't explain it all. Did you also study RFT (Relational Frame Theory)? It's da shit for me at the moment.

[melluransa.livejournal.com]

It is! Babies babble and play with their mouths only for the self-stimulation alone. Which is good! They need to learn how that all works and feels! When they miss that opportunity, it's difficult to teach but not impossible.

We did! That language is to influence behavior and behavior in others. It's called something else when we looked at it... It was called cognitive learning. It emphasizes the importance of knowing you can speak a language, why it's important, and what you can do to manipulate your own language. From look at wikipedia (thanks for linking!) it shares some ideas. Like being aware of your intentions and language, and to use that within a context to achieve some end.

:D You are neat! I don't talk about this to anybody except my school people! :D :D

[th-tinie.livejournal.com]

Language behavior is really, really interesting. To me, RFT made me see so clearly how we can actually travel in time with the help of language, how that made humans a superior race, but is also in a way a curse.

With the help of language, we could draw the conclusion "I have a fireplace in my cave, and prey on the other side of the forest where it's too cold to stay longer stretches of time... If I can carry fire with me to the part of the forest where the prey roams, then I can stay there longer and catch more prey = get more food." Flip!

But it's also possible to use this mechanism and become fearful or depressed since language can create scenarios that haven't yet happened, and perhaps aren't even likely to happen; "Each time I try to make new friends they let me down..." (travel back in time to get information, often distorted) "...thus, it's no use ever trying to make new friends, they too will let me down." (travel to the future and apply old, perhaps distorted information on events that haven't even happened, resulting in reclusiveness and sadness). Flop!

That's really some basics of RFT but I love it, it's so powerful.

[melluransa.livejournal.com]

Language is temporal in so many ways! We use it to talk about the past, present, and future, we use phrases we've used before -- that our parents used even, and language and phrases trigger memories and create memories... Language helps us remember the present when we recite a phone number to dial it, and they help us relive the past through an old song lyric, and they help us plan for the future when we make to-do lists!

Animals live only in the present time, but humans are aware of the past and future, and language helps us conceptualize that. We have past and future tense verbs, for example. Language is what makes us essentially human. We even use it to give voice to our inner thought processes. I think in English. I asked my dad and he says he thinks in Spanish. I am so intrigued by the idea of thinking in a language.

And yeah, self talk. Just the way you phrase something affects how it will go. If you talk to a crowd of listeners about putting stray shelter animals to sleep, for example. You can say "put to sleep" or "killing" or "murder." It depends on how you feel and how you want the listener to feel... SO NEAT, OMG. Or like how you talk to your spouse. "I hate when you ____" versus "I feel ___ when bla bla bla." Both phrases communicate the same idea but take different approaches. It's so complicated!

You're pointing out a lot of cognitive things and internal intentions and processes~ I feel like you'd be good friends with Piaget.