Good students also fail and make themselves socially unavailable.
Thursday, 05/04/06 - 10:05 pm.

Heh, I've failed today. Twice. I'm not too embarrassed about either, they aren't that bad. It's just those things that yo go and say "could've been better, though".

Number one, my group and I had to design ways to prevent depression, starting from the risk factors we reviewed in class. Some relate to genetics and biology, some to the social context. Victor and I did most of the work, although it wasn't that much. We sat one day and wrote it in 10 minutes. The rest of the gang...well, they seem to always tag along and agree with what they're presented.

We were the first ones to go in front and do the exposition this evening. I couldn't, because I don't have voice right now (I have a cold, etc.). Victor, Irene and Victoria spoke. It was quick. Then other three groups came in front, and their prevention plan was much more elaborated than ours. I felt very small. But see, we didn't put much effort, and we didn't know it required all those things they were saying, taking vitamins and being exposed to the sunlight. Maybe it didn't...Victor and I were talking on our way home (I always give him a ride) about how we may not even get THAT bad of a grade, but in comparison to the rest of the groups, we looked bad.

Sometimes we're called "the parrots" (haha, I just said that out loud. Sounds silly), because we -my group- all come from the school, and the mascot is a parrot. So Mr. Miscellaneous asks today who'll be the first group to present the exposition. Just to get it out of the way, Victor raised his hand. The parrots will, this funny lady (she's quite a character) said. Who are they, the professor asked. She pointed at us. Ah, yes...they're good students. I was shrinking in my desk, because that was SUCH a compliment coming from him, but also...I don't know, it may upset some people. We've always had the label of being intellectuals and stuff (not even nerds), but we're far from it. I'm pretty stupid, if you ask me, and the rest of the gang have also their flaws.

I think Mr. Miscellaneous wanted to take back what he said when we finished our exposition. I don't think it was bad per se, but the ones that came after ours were much more complete.

That's one failure of the day. The second one was realizing I couldn't accomplish my goal of building a Likert scale about sexual harrassment. For Social Psychology, and the subject of attitudes, Mr. Basket wants the kids to apply this scale, do their research, and then he wants me to help him write an article about their findings, in an effort to make public their work.

Well, I thought I'd LOVE to see what people thought of sexual harrassment in public spaces. Mr. Basket gave me an excellent book on the subject. It's written by lesbian feminists, but it isn't as extreme as one could imagine. I enjoyed it, and since I read it, I've been sexually harrassed twice and it didn't get to me as much as it would normally do. No, I'm not kidding about the being harrassed twice. Which is why I was interested in the subject.

I couldn't build the scale, because all the literature on the subject related to harrassing in a workplace, and not on the street, where my experience has taken place. There are standards when you build a scale, and your very - own - particular - personal experience doesn't count. So, without any real theoretical basis, the scale wouldn't be very valid, thus it wouldn't measure what I wanted to measure, the attitude toward sexual harrassment in public spaces.

There is no theory because...well, what are you going to write about a woman who walks by a couple of workers and they start throwing loud kisses and yelling things at her? It's not as systematic as being cornered and threatened by a coworker or a boss. It's occasional, in any given place, by strangers, and hard to document. One of the items I'd written was "the woman should feel flattered" (this is where you rate your answer from 1 to 5), and another one was "it's up to the woman to decide if it was sexual harrassment". I did a few, but I couldn't make many others, with the little amount of theory I had.

I was dissappointed, and I ran to Mr. Basket to tell him my problem. He did a little research, and indeed, everything relates to the workplace. I told him that if we were running out of time, we should just stick to another scale we already had, attitude towards people with HIV. Interesting subject, but I was fond of the other one.

Speaking of, remember a couple of weeks I was harrassed by a few workers that were building a garage? They're still working on it, but the book I read said that a woman that is alone -without a man- is considered "socially available" -public- to be approached and start talking to her. So now when I take Frog for a walk, I get any of my reading at the moment (right now it's the child abuse project document, 80 pages). I haven't been harrassed, as I've made myself "not available", diving into intellectual tasks, but it could also be that it's only one guy lately. I could kick his nuts.

*Changes subject* Damn, Joe came to my cubicle this afternoon to chat for a while. He was wearing a "Let It Be" t-shirt, I need to point that out, just for kicks. Sometimes I'm on the edge of getting flirty and playful, because I seriously like him, but somehow I refrain. A little fuck-up in this and I may end up destroying three hearts, one being my own. I tell myself that everytime I see him.

Funny, right now I have nothing to do. My assignments have dissapeared, apparently. The inmediate ones, at least. Oi.

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