As a Person of the Behavioral Sciences...

...I LOVE trying to better understand people by how and what they do in life. Why would someone choose to say one thing? Why would someone chose to act one way?

These have been fascinations of mine for many years -- it is percisely why I chose to go the route I did with my education. It's probably what's drove me to be the total over-thinker that I am in life -- I'm constantly thinking about things (and sometimes it causes me problems...HA!)

When considering the blog realm it's always interested me in what types of topics different people choose to write on on their blogs. Some people use their blogs mostly for sharing their life via photographs to their loved ones. Some people use their blog to give updates on what is going on in their life. Still others use their blog as a forum for topics of discussion. Whatever the case, I think you can learn a lot about a person through his/her blog. What they write about; how they write about it; as well as, how they setup their blog in order to write about it. I mean look at blogs designs -- one can create his/her blog layout that is personal for them. People choose who they want linked on their sidebar on their blog. They can also even choose who they want to be able to respond on their blog. So many ways to personalize one's blog.

For me, I can often find myself taking all of these sorts of things into consideration as I'm yearning to learn more about a person. Why would one choose to link an individual on their blog for a long time, then one day decide to not link them anymore? Is it that that person hasn't blogged in a while, so the person feels the link is a "dead-end" to send his/her readers, as the linked blog is no longer being updated? Or is it that the blog author feels the linked blog is not one they want associated with his/her blog anymore due to a disagreement in views or beliefs? So many possibilities.

What about comment moderation? Why would one choose to moderate who could comment on his/her blog? Does one not want cursing on their blog? Does one feel a need to have ultimate control? Does one fear if he/she does not "approve" each comment first, a comment might arise on his/her blog which one might disagree with? Does one find it hard to even listen to other views other than his/her own? Is one so set in his/her beliefs that anything that might stray from them is ultimately "wrong", thus it has no place among the "right"?

So much is left up to wonder when we look at people's actions in life. It's a sense of excitement for an individual like myself to question and wonder why we do what we do. I truly believe we all have some justification for all our actions, even if we are not consciously aware of it at the time of performance.

As for me...allow me to explain some parts of MY blog.

For instance, I offer a sidebar of links to individuals blogs on my blog. I've taken off different individuals' links to their blogs in the past. My justificiation for this action is that it's someone's blog that has become stagnant -- in that it is frequently, if ever updated. I referred to this earlier as the "dead-end" links.

As for comment moderation on my blog, you'll see I have none. What I've found interesting is that I've never had to use this function as I've always been open to accepting individual's comments on whatever topic I might happen to be addressing that day. Have I been careful to only post on topics I felt would not offer an array of opinions? Of course, not. I'm pretty sure if anyone was to venture out among my many posts on this blog, one would quickly learn that I've openly discussed many topics that bring out the most far right and left opinions on the matter. I've never been one to shy away from peoples' disagreements and differing opinions. Matter of fact, I love that sort of stuff. I enjoy a good debate.

Would I moderate my comments if someone started cussing? I don't believe so. I can't say I've had that, but I don't see how that would bother me, because if anything I would just see that as another opportunity to begin wondering why that person would choose to react in such a way. Why did that person feel the urge to use those words? I've definately had times in my life when I've cussed and I can look back on those times and understand what was going on with me at the time that lead me to use the words I did.

It's all just so intriguing to me.

Just Some Stuff...

• Today I finished reading a book I started a couple weeks ago. This sounds like a dumb thing to mention, but this is honestly like a big feat for me. I hardly EVER finish books I start reading. The book actually wasn't all that amazing of a book, but I chose it from my many of books on my small bookcase next to my computer desk (which sits there as a constant tease for me, because I sit at the computer and find myself looking over at the books on it and thinking, "Gosh, I really wanna read that book" but I'm fully aware of the likelihood of me actually reading...or if I start it actually finishing it). The book I read was Maria Shrivers "Ten Things I Wish I'd Known - Before I Went Out into the Real World". Don't get me wrong, it was a decent book, but I mainly chose it because it was one I had wanted to read and mostly because it is a small book and I wanted to remind myself that I could be dedicated enough and read a complete book. Today, I read the remaining 8 of the 125 pages and I feel good knowing I can start and finish a book!
• Something interesting about that book is how I think back on it now that I've read it all and it was the chapter on marriage that I recall enjoying the most and thinking how true so many points of it seemed to be...HA! Funny, since I'm not (and never have been) married. But maybe it seemed interesting because I was reading it during a time I was dating a guy, and working on a relationship by compromising brings about similar situations whether you're dating or married. The chapter is called "Marriage Is a Hell of a Lot of Work" and here is the opening paragraph to that chapter...

Oh my God, is that true. And I had no inkling of this when I left college. Otherwise, I wouldn't have spent my twenties worrying that I wasn't married. In fact, if any of you is worried that you haven't run into anyone named Right, male or female, don't be in such a hurry. Chill, relax, and enjoy your freedom, because once you're married you don't have that kind of freedom anymore. After being in such a rush to meet their soul mates, so many people complain about being married to them. It's nuts.

• Instead of starting another book now, I think I'm going to give this audio book stuff a try, as I got a book on CD I've been interested in reading for sometime now for only $10 a couple weeks back. It's a book a good friend of mine read a while back and recommended it to me saying she thought I'd enjoy it. It's called "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell. I've gotten about halfway through the first CD today and it seems interesting. It's strange to listen to someone reading a book to me over my iPod, but we'll see. I hear this audio book stuff is cool. I will say though, as a non-fiction reader, I like to "read" stuff that makes me think, thus I find myself wanting to read slowly and understand everything and let stuff set in before moving on, and this might cause me issues with an audio book. There's been a couple points where I've paused my iPod so far to let a sentence he read set in...HA!
• Tonight, one of my best friends added a new entry to her blog that she hadn't written in for over 3 years. This makes me smile.
• I'm in LOVE with this new website one of my friends introduced me to via her blog. It is called GoodSearch and it's a search engine that gives money to charities everytime you surf it! How GREAT is that! Sure, it only gives like a penny with each search, but do you know what sort of potential this has!?!? I SOOOO recommend you become a GoodSearch-er and recommend it to your friends. I downloaded the GoodSearch toolbar because I used to always use my Google search toolbar, and then I changed my internet explorer homepage at work from Google.com to GoodSearch.com because I'm often having to look up stuff on the internet at work and I like to give back to GREAT causes when I'm doing my work! Go check the site out and pick a charity you like to donate too. I've chosen the National Domestic Violence Hotline. Oh, and if you're worried that it might not be a "good" search engine and that you think nothing compares to your Google, understand that GoodSearch is powered by Yahoo, thus it is a "good" search engine and will give you good results! =)
• Finally, I was recently introduced to this GREAT "waste of time internet game" that you and your friends can fall in love with too! HA! It's one of those games that is extremely simple (in a complexity sort of way, not in an easy-to-win sorta way) and highly addictive. The email forward that I got the website from claims that this "game" is actually a test used by the US Air Force. They say that those training to fly in the Air Force have to obtain a score of 2 minutes on this test, but I don't know if that's a bunch of bologna or not...HA! Anyways, the email also states that if you can go more than 18 seconds on it you're "phenomenal"...uhhh, my current high is 25.016 seconds and I've scored in the 20 seconds several times, so uh, I guess I'm "phenomenal"...but I'm not going to go writing home about that one. Or at least not until I am good enough to be an Air Force pilot! HA! ;) The website is this. There are instructions on how to play it at the bottom.

Bringing Life (and just one of its aspects) Into Perspective

Back when I first started blogging, I had MANY friends who were regular bloggers. Blogging was the fad of the time and many were dedicated to the challenge that the up-keep of a blog presented. Over the past year or so, many of those with whom's blogs I followed originally have deserting their blogs, or discontinued them all together. Still, some have continued, as well as some new bloggers have come along. For me, I have gone through spells. I still find myself often in thought during the day and thinking what a great blog entry I could make out of the thoughts in my head, but nowadays, more often then not, those thoughts never reach the keyboard. I've had times when I've thought about giving my blog up. I've had times when I've gone through posting droughts, but to this day I have continued to keep my blog going, even when I feel it is nothing like what I originally started it out being and some of the blogs I felt so happy with from "back in the day."

But something that keeps my blog going today is the connection I feel through it. It's funny because there really isn't any of my closest friends that read this blog, but what I do know is that there ARE people that read it. And honestly, if it weren't for my sitemeter that keeps track of how many people visit my blog, many of my readers I would probably never know about because most of my readers do not leave comments.

Now, while comments are great and all, I too know about the process of being a regular reader of a blog site, but never leaving comments. Sometimes we choose to not leave comments because we don't want others to know we are reading their blog and other times we are simply not inclined to leave any thoughts on the topic at hand; whatever the case, both are legitimate reasons in my opinion. But, on the author's end of things, I can say there's something special about just knowing people regularly stop into your blog. Now whether they actually read it or not, who knows....HA! But knowing that they make the effort to check for updates, gives a blog life. Not only that, but there's nothing quite like the feeling of seeing someone link your blog up to their own--that in itself is like getting the A+ grade hung up on the refridgerator! Not to mention when some of the people linking your blog on theirs are people you don't even know personally! HA! What a good feeling!

So why do I bring this all up today? Am I soliciting for comments? No. Am I soliciting for readers to make their selves known? No. Am I wanting my blog to be linked to more people's blogs? No.

I bring this up today, because of a connection I believe my blog has brought to me. It is a connection that has impacted my life for some time, but more heavily over the past week, and especially the past three days.

One of my readers happens to be someone that I went to undergraduate school with. This young lady (who actually is older than me, but we are both still young ladies) was a couple years ahead of me in school, but we got to know one another through our social club. I think it's fair to say that we never really got very close while in school together, even through our many social club activities together, and even though she was the mentoring officer over my pledge class the year I joined. After she graduated (and then I eventually did a couple years later), we really didn't see one another or keep in contact as time moved on.

Then sometime back (and honestly, I'm not sure when it was), I came to find out she had come across my blogsite from someone elses--or something like that, as we all know how we stumble across acquaintances websites accidently--and she had begun following my blog. At somepoint she ended up leaving a comment, which led me to knowing she was a reader, and I was able to get to her blogsite from there and since that time I think we've both been rather regular readers of one another's sites.

Now what always seems to amaze me about blogs is how though someone might not know someone personally (or even if you have met that author before, but maybe never really had been very close to the individual), you can seem to find a closeness to someone through his/her writings. There is a bond that can form when someone writes personal accounts or shares his/her thought processes with another via a written prose. It really does just make me smile thinking about it! It amuses me too because more often than not, I find myself thinking to myself, "why didn't I enrich my life with this individual before now?!" People are just so amazing and worth investing our time with!

So there I was, forming what seemed to be a new bond with this social club sister of mine. Via her blogsite, I seemed to follow her job processes; she talked about her dog; I learned about her recent marriage and her joy with her husband. It was as if I knew more about her now, without having even seen her or heard her voice, than I did those many months we had spent in the same rooms together in college.

So when her mother fell ill about a month ago and she began sharing with her blog readers about this stage of her life, I continued to read...

As the blog posts kept coming, her mother's status got more and more unpredictable. It started as she was going into the hospital on Oct. 15th with what was believed to be a complicated case of pneumonia (as she had been struggling with it for several weeks at that point). Rather quickly, in efforts to find out the placement of the fluid in her lungs in order to drain them, the doctors discovered she did not have fluid in the lungs after all (1). So then the docs decided it must have been that she had been exposed to some toxins for some period of time, so they needed to do a biopsy of a piece of the lung to try to figure out the toxicology status (2). Then a matter of a week later her mother gets diagnosed with "free air" in her abdomen, which resulted in having to have a portion of her colon removed (3), still no diagnosis for the lung situation at this time...

The morning of Saturday, Oct. 27th, a matter of 12 days after being admitted to the hospital with what was believed to be pneumonia, my friend's mother was given a diagnosis of pulmonary fibrosis and told she wouldn't have much longer to live. As the hours began to pass, her mother continued to go downhill, and by the evening hours of that same day the family was told she was not expected to make it through the night. Later that night she passed away (4).

Despite the length of this blog, I am ultimately speechless concerning this situation. I'm dumbfounded to think what it must be like to be in my friend's situation. There hasn't been a day pass since I got news of her situation Saturday morning that I haven't had the thought of my friend and the situation cross my mind several times throughout the day. It all just seems too unbelievable to me....

How does one go into the hospital with what is believed to be pneumonia and then pass away less than two weeks later from something else?! Sure, pneumonia can be deadly, but that's typically in elderly individuals who are not getting medical treatment for it [or maybe this is just my ignorant understandings of pneumonia]. So with this thought processing of mine, it just seems to "routine" in a way to think of someone going into the hospital with a pneumonia diagnosis. In no way would I have expected such a turn of events.

It's just so hard to think of what it must be like to be the family in a situation like this. My heart just aches for my friend and her husband, her brother, and her father. Of course, I can't imagine what all they are going through and dealing with based on this situation--as none of us can.

I guess this has really put this whole life thing into perspective. It truly is a state of being that can be taken from any of us in the most unexpectant of ways at anytime.

With a lack of words for what to say next, or even how to try to begin to bring comfort, I want to simply leave you with my friend's blogsite, and ask that you keep her and her family in your thoughts and prayers.