Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Family is complicated, family language doubly so.
Our language to deal with families needs serious overhaul. I was reminded of it this weekend while camping with people from church. It turns out people from church have as complicated family structures as I do.
As an example take my Dad Jim Schopp. My Dad married my mom when I was too young to remember, adopted me, and raised me my whole life. I don't remember a time when he wasn't my dad and I think of him just like anybody thinks of the father they grew up with. But when I introduce him to people they sometimes say something like, "Oh, you two look a lot alike" or some other comment that would tie into genetics. My Dad and I don't share genes. Usually I just chuckle to myself because it's not worth trying to convey the whole story. I've never met my genetic father. I have his name somewhere if I ever wanted to see him, and my Dad has offered to find him and take me out to meet him if I ever want to. But the guy could have found me anytime early in my life and never chose to, and I don't really have anything to tell him or ask him other than a family medical history.
So first word we need is step-father who is like a father, but conveys the lack of shared genes. I'm going to throw "step-up father" out there for consideration.
Then we need one for a father whose role in raising the child ended at conception. I'm going to throw out "DNA Dad".
As a result of course my Sister is technically my half sister. But that doesn't really convey it very well either. My "step-up father" (just trying out the term) and I have been around with my mom since before my sister was born. So we are close like most brother and sisters are. I'm going for "sister and a half" here to convey we are fully brother and sister and also half brother and sister.
My grandfather was married several times, so at various points in my life his wives were my grandmas. His first wife, birth mother to my mother, I just call grandma. I figure his divorce doesn't change her status since the relationship to my mother and to me was unchanged. I can't figure out a way to integrate the divorce & remarriage in without downplaying her role.
I recently (a couple years back) flew to Washington state to the funeral of one of my Grandfather's wives I was close to as a child. They had divorced several years before so many of her friends at the funeral hadn't known my grandpa. It got really complicated whenever anybody asked me how I knew her. "Ex Grandma-in-law" doesn't quite cut it. I'm going for "Grandma-in-love", which conveys a bit more of the sentiment.
Then in January I visited my Grandpa's last wife in Alaska. He married her when I was old enough to understand everything going on. I always thought she was a nice person, and still do. I enjoy hanging out and talking with her and she is an amazing cook. She was married to my grandpa when he died. "Step grandma" probably actually works here as long as we can accept step mothers as good instead of as portrayed in Cinderlla.
And of course there are other family examples that need words. Like a father who doesn't stay with the mom (sometimes not of his choosing) but stays involved with the kid(s). Do we stick with plain "dad" or is there something better like "in the picture dad"?
Or a step-parent who comes on late in a kids life, like when the are 16, 18, 35. Mom's new husband doesn't quite cut it. I think "father in law" isn't bad as the relationship is often similar, but it could be confusing overloading that word which already has a pretty specific meaning. The commonly used m*****f***** is probably not the best way to family harmony either. Maybe "In-law father" to distinguish that the marriage relationship is at the parent.
In any case, how we handle these things now just isn't working. We are trying to fit everybody into a simple binomial family tree and it just doesn't even pretend to work anymore.
As an example take my Dad Jim Schopp. My Dad married my mom when I was too young to remember, adopted me, and raised me my whole life. I don't remember a time when he wasn't my dad and I think of him just like anybody thinks of the father they grew up with. But when I introduce him to people they sometimes say something like, "Oh, you two look a lot alike" or some other comment that would tie into genetics. My Dad and I don't share genes. Usually I just chuckle to myself because it's not worth trying to convey the whole story. I've never met my genetic father. I have his name somewhere if I ever wanted to see him, and my Dad has offered to find him and take me out to meet him if I ever want to. But the guy could have found me anytime early in my life and never chose to, and I don't really have anything to tell him or ask him other than a family medical history.
So first word we need is step-father who is like a father, but conveys the lack of shared genes. I'm going to throw "step-up father" out there for consideration.
Then we need one for a father whose role in raising the child ended at conception. I'm going to throw out "DNA Dad".
As a result of course my Sister is technically my half sister. But that doesn't really convey it very well either. My "step-up father" (just trying out the term) and I have been around with my mom since before my sister was born. So we are close like most brother and sisters are. I'm going for "sister and a half" here to convey we are fully brother and sister and also half brother and sister.
My grandfather was married several times, so at various points in my life his wives were my grandmas. His first wife, birth mother to my mother, I just call grandma. I figure his divorce doesn't change her status since the relationship to my mother and to me was unchanged. I can't figure out a way to integrate the divorce & remarriage in without downplaying her role.
I recently (a couple years back) flew to Washington state to the funeral of one of my Grandfather's wives I was close to as a child. They had divorced several years before so many of her friends at the funeral hadn't known my grandpa. It got really complicated whenever anybody asked me how I knew her. "Ex Grandma-in-law" doesn't quite cut it. I'm going for "Grandma-in-love", which conveys a bit more of the sentiment.
Then in January I visited my Grandpa's last wife in Alaska. He married her when I was old enough to understand everything going on. I always thought she was a nice person, and still do. I enjoy hanging out and talking with her and she is an amazing cook. She was married to my grandpa when he died. "Step grandma" probably actually works here as long as we can accept step mothers as good instead of as portrayed in Cinderlla.
And of course there are other family examples that need words. Like a father who doesn't stay with the mom (sometimes not of his choosing) but stays involved with the kid(s). Do we stick with plain "dad" or is there something better like "in the picture dad"?
Or a step-parent who comes on late in a kids life, like when the are 16, 18, 35. Mom's new husband doesn't quite cut it. I think "father in law" isn't bad as the relationship is often similar, but it could be confusing overloading that word which already has a pretty specific meaning. The commonly used m*****f***** is probably not the best way to family harmony either. Maybe "In-law father" to distinguish that the marriage relationship is at the parent.
In any case, how we handle these things now just isn't working. We are trying to fit everybody into a simple binomial family tree and it just doesn't even pretend to work anymore.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Why I can't sleep
I regularly can't get to sleep. I'm writing this post at 3:32 AM for instance. So I figured it would be appropriate to educate people who know me about why I can't get to sleep. I have a condition known as Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome, which you can read a good summary of in this wikipedia article
Here are a few choice quotes:
Some features of DSPS which distinguish it from other sleep disorders are:
* People with DSPS have at least a normal - and often much greater than normal - ability to sleep during the morning, and sometimes in the afternoon as well. In contrast, those with chronic insomnia do not find it much easier to sleep during the morning than at night.
* People with DSPS fall asleep at more or less the same time every night, and sleep comes quite rapidly if the person goes to bed near the time he or she usually falls asleep. Young children with DSPS resist going to bed before they are sleepy, but the bedtime struggles disappear if they are allowed to stay up until the time they usually fall asleep.
* DSPS patients can sleep well and regularly when they can follow their own sleep schedule, e.g. on weekends and during vacations.
* DSPS is a chronic condition. Symptoms must have been present for at least one month before a diagnosis of DSPS can be made.
That is me in a nutshell.
Long-term success rates of treatment have seldom been evaluated. However, experienced clinicians acknowledge that DSPS is extremely difficult to treat. One study of 61 DSPS patients with mean sleep onset and waking times of about 3 a.m. and 11: 30 a.m., respectively, showed, a year after a 6-week treatment, that over 90% had relapsed to pretreatment sleeping patterns within a year, 28.8% reporting that the relapse occurred within one week.
Not a large sample, but based on personal experience I'd fit in to that study pretty well.
Here are a few choice quotes:
Some features of DSPS which distinguish it from other sleep disorders are:
* People with DSPS have at least a normal - and often much greater than normal - ability to sleep during the morning, and sometimes in the afternoon as well. In contrast, those with chronic insomnia do not find it much easier to sleep during the morning than at night.
* People with DSPS fall asleep at more or less the same time every night, and sleep comes quite rapidly if the person goes to bed near the time he or she usually falls asleep. Young children with DSPS resist going to bed before they are sleepy, but the bedtime struggles disappear if they are allowed to stay up until the time they usually fall asleep.
* DSPS patients can sleep well and regularly when they can follow their own sleep schedule, e.g. on weekends and during vacations.
* DSPS is a chronic condition. Symptoms must have been present for at least one month before a diagnosis of DSPS can be made.
That is me in a nutshell.
Long-term success rates of treatment have seldom been evaluated. However, experienced clinicians acknowledge that DSPS is extremely difficult to treat. One study of 61 DSPS patients with mean sleep onset and waking times of about 3 a.m. and 11: 30 a.m., respectively, showed, a year after a 6-week treatment, that over 90% had relapsed to pretreatment sleeping patterns within a year, 28.8% reporting that the relapse occurred within one week.
Not a large sample, but based on personal experience I'd fit in to that study pretty well.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
there is only the now
Many congratulations go out to my friends who are getting married. I initially set them up, so I'm not only happy for them, but also feel a sense of accomplishment. Ultimately it works because they really are just great people and great for eachother, and I have absolutely nothing to do with that. My taking credit for it is like deciding to get up and watch the sunrise and then taking credit for the sunrise.
But it got me thinking how important individual moments can be. There are moments in our lives where a single decision or action that literally changed the course of everything from that point on. Marriage is one of those moments, but there are smaller moments we often miss. Either we miss how it changes our lives forever or we miss that our lives could have changed forever and went relatively unchanged.
The point is, try to treat every moment like it counts. Not just in the Hallmark cheezy greeting card kind of way. Seriously look at what you are doing as if the entirety of the future is built on this moment. Now.
But it got me thinking how important individual moments can be. There are moments in our lives where a single decision or action that literally changed the course of everything from that point on. Marriage is one of those moments, but there are smaller moments we often miss. Either we miss how it changes our lives forever or we miss that our lives could have changed forever and went relatively unchanged.
The point is, try to treat every moment like it counts. Not just in the Hallmark cheezy greeting card kind of way. Seriously look at what you are doing as if the entirety of the future is built on this moment. Now.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
autonomous robots
So today I'm out paddling around at my gym and I run across this floating yellow cord stretching across the lake. I'm like, what was that? It's a small lake and there is only one other kayak out there, so I paddle over to the guy and ask him. He says it's a fiber optic cable. So I ask what a fiber optic cable is doing floating across the lake. Turns out this company builds autonomic robots for NASA and this robot is going to go to Antartica to map underwater ice shelfs. Only to test it out they stick it in this small lake so they don't lose it if something goes wrong while they work the bugs out. So I hang around and get to see this like 8 foot diameter circle robot that looks kinda like a ufo. An orange UFO with a yellow fiber optic cable coming out of it.
Then I start to think about this. Nobody is controlling the robot, it's all self guided and artifical intelligence and whatnot. So if a robot is going to become self aware and rebel against it's human masters this is a good candidate. I then think about the fact that I'm in a 7'9" kayak and of the two people on this lake I'm not the one who it would call daddy. Flashes of Terminator, Battlestar Galactica, Short Circut, and Tron flash through my head. Then I realize that being an underwater robot it doesn't have any laser cannons or anything, and that the thing is really slow and I could just shove my paddle into it's propeller and swim away should it attack me. Plus that robot in Short Circut was a good robot and this one might be good too. Maybe it would try to catch me a big catfish while it was down there to show it's newfound sense of love towards me.
So I feel better and go back to paddling around the lake checking out actually intelligent lifeforms like Ducks and Turtles.
Now I have to remember the name of that company so I can ask them for a copy of the ultra-high res map of the lake. I'm thinking of buying a fishing pole and I've always been bad at fishing, so I think a ultra high res map of the lake and some nightcrawlers would even things up odds wise between me and some fish.
Then I start to think about this. Nobody is controlling the robot, it's all self guided and artifical intelligence and whatnot. So if a robot is going to become self aware and rebel against it's human masters this is a good candidate. I then think about the fact that I'm in a 7'9" kayak and of the two people on this lake I'm not the one who it would call daddy. Flashes of Terminator, Battlestar Galactica, Short Circut, and Tron flash through my head. Then I realize that being an underwater robot it doesn't have any laser cannons or anything, and that the thing is really slow and I could just shove my paddle into it's propeller and swim away should it attack me. Plus that robot in Short Circut was a good robot and this one might be good too. Maybe it would try to catch me a big catfish while it was down there to show it's newfound sense of love towards me.
So I feel better and go back to paddling around the lake checking out actually intelligent lifeforms like Ducks and Turtles.
Now I have to remember the name of that company so I can ask them for a copy of the ultra-high res map of the lake. I'm thinking of buying a fishing pole and I've always been bad at fishing, so I think a ultra high res map of the lake and some nightcrawlers would even things up odds wise between me and some fish.
