#instead i completely changed my life and decided to graduate with a political science degree so i didn't have to take a certain class

[itstimeforstarwars]

I think it would be fun to make Uncle Throckmorton very knowledgeable about physics just as a nod to where Throckmorton the skateboarder came from. He doesn't use it for anything. He has a normal ass job. But he can be just like me!

[mandoalorian]

What the Pedro boys are like at college

This is my first time doing one of these so please be nice! Yep, TUWOMT isn’t out yet but I have read the script and I have written for Javi Gutierrez here. If you don’t want spoilers, maybe don’t read his scenario. I’ve made it so Javi’s is the last one so you can skip over it easily. I write for all the main Pedro characters! These include:

·         Din Djarin – The Mandalorian

·         Javier Pena – Narcos

·         Frankie Morales – Triple Frontier

·         Maxwell Lord – Wonder Woman 1984

·         Jack Daniels: Kingsman: The Golden Circle

·         Oberyn Martell: Game of Thrones

·         Dave York: The Equalizer 2

·         Pero Tovar – The Great Wall

·         Ezra Prospect – Prospect

·         Marcus Pike – The Mentalist

·         Max Phillips – Bloodsucking Bastards

·         Dio – NYPD Blue

·         Javi Gutierrez – The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent

·         I DO NOT WRITE FOR PEDRO PASCAL.

Please please request a ‘Pedro boy’ scenario HERE. You can also request for me to write a one shot HERE.

Masterlist

Enjoy!

 ***

Din Djarin: Does college exist in Star Wars? I’m not sure… but if we take a moment to imagine Din being schooled by the Mandalorian Creed. He learns the history of Mandalore, about the great leaders such as Satine Kryze. He learns the importance of ‘the way’ and studies the art of weaponary, learning how to use guns, detonators, vambrace, and whistling birds. He learns about the legacy of the darksaber and, as we already know, he trains with the Rising Phoenix. I imagine Din likes to keep himself to himself and has been a loner his whole life. He places his trust in his fellow Mandalorian’s but they are not his friends. They are simply just his allies. Being schooled in the Mandalorian Creed would be physically exhausting but it’s something Din can manage. After all, he doesn’t have a choice. This is the way.

Javier Pena: We know Javi always wanted to leave Texas, and I think college was the perfect time for him to venture out. He didn’t choose a school with a pristine academic reputation, but instead, he picked a school that had the best renowned night life so he could go out and enjoy drinking and partying. Javi wasn’t a complete wild card. He was the kid who seemed to be good at almost everything. He was able to graduate top of his class with honours in Criminal Law.

Frankie Morales: When Frankie was younger, he loved helping his dad work on the family car and he even scored a part-time job at a garage when he finished high school. At high school, he never really found interest in the core subjects like English, math, science, history… and so when it was time for college, he wanted to develop on his hobby. Frankie chose to major in engineering, with a minor in transportation and logistics. This was perfect for him. In his second year, he went from looking at cars and motorcycles, to different forms of aircraft. He remembers one morning, he sat in the pilot seat of a helicopter after the fuel compressor had went bust and he had never felt more at home. On a whim, he dropped out of college and was lucky enough to get a place in piloting school. Frankie stuck by Santiago throughout college, but while Santi went out and partied, Frankie would slump down in his chair, drink a few beers, and be ready to head back to his dorm at 9pm. He had a few flings in college but had no interest in pursuing an actual relationship. It was important to him that he used his time in college to discover what he really wanted to do with his life.

Maxwell Lord: He probably went to Cornell, or Harvard. Maxwell could’ve gotten in from his family name alone, and if he wasn’t the most academically bright, no doubt his mother would’ve paid him into college, but Maxwell had always been smart. He was home schooled his whole life and so college was a big change for him. He worked hard. He showed up to every class early, and handed in homework and dissertations early, and used his charm to schmooze with the teachers, doing all he could to make sure he got the best grades. Maxwell majored in Business and Economics, and minored in Marketing. He didn’t have much choice in what he studied in college because he had his life set out for him the moment he was born. Maxwell didn’t have friends, but that’s not to say he was a loner. Everyone on campus knew who Maxwell was, and everyone knew the kind of family he came from.

Jack Daniels: Despite Jack and his high school sweetheart going their separate ways for college, they couldn’t stay away from each other for long. He was a Political Science major but never really cared much for it. He had a lot of friends, was a care free spirit and attended parties. He is someone who has natural academic ability but his failure to attend class and do homework meant that he, inevitably, began to drag behind. Realising political science isn’t for him, he dropped out of college and moved in with his high school sweetheart. He much preferred it that way, and he was able to be with her all the time. Having his company meant that she was now distracted from her studies and when she fell pregnant with their first child, they decided to run away from college all together and start a family far away.

Oberyn Martell: Is there college in Game of Thrones? I’m not sure, but a modern! Oberyn would major in classical studies and minor in philosophy. He is a prince, after all. He excels in both subjects and picks up languages such as Latin and Greek easily. It comes natural to him. He passes with flying colours and never has to try too hard because the words of Aristotle and Plato were engrained into his brain ever since he was old enough to read a book. As prince, he knows it is important to graduate with honours and that it’s his priority but that doesn’t mean he can’t make time for fun. He doesn’t commit to any relationship during college but does embrace his sexuality. He’s kind, gentle, and respectful. He’s a really great lover, but an even better friend.

Dave York: Dave studied criminology and forensic science at college. He was able to learn the ins and outs of criminal psychology and the process that cops and forensic teams go through when trying to trace a murder. His knowledge in this subject sure helped him in later life. He passed with flying colours, but never wanted a career in crime – or at least, not a career you’d need a degree in. But his newly received qualification, Dave decided to join the CIA as an operative where he met Robert McCall. He played good guy for a long time, but his bad intentions linked to criminal activity traced all the way back to college. He met his wife in college, and truthfully, she was the only thing who kept him from spiralling into criminal activity at an earlier stage.

Pero Tovar: Again, I am almost certain college didn’t exist during this time period but if we make it a modern AU, I think Pero would have majored in geography and minored in cultural studies. He had a goal to travel the world and see all the magnificent places. Pero was a grumpy adolescent, and seemingly he never really grew out of it. He had a group of people he hung out with who were similar to him but he never really considered them friends. He didn’t partake in extracurricular activities and he would just focus on studying. But he did have a flare in art which was lost on him during later life. He used painting as an emotional outlet and a means to express his feelings.

Ezra Prospect: I guess this is a modern! Ezra then. He studies geology, and he’s really smart. He does a lot of reading, but he actually prefers non-fiction over fiction. His interest in geology goes past his degree, and he actually collects a variety of rocks and gemstones, going into deep research about them and believing that certain ones possess healing powers. Ezra has a partner throughout his time in college, and they spend a lot of time with each other. Ezra’s partner encourages Ezra’s love for geology and finds his passion endearing, even encouraging him to earn an income from his knowledge! You help Ezra use the rocks that he collects to create bath salts and make jewellery to sell on and earn profit.

Marcus Pike: Marcus was an art and design major, and all his teacher’s loved him. He was never the best at the practical side, but he excelled in art history and his knowledge on the subject was outstanding. Marcus had one long term relationship during college but his partner ended up breaking his heart. It took a long time for Marcus to recover, but he’d always been one for second chances. He’d hope that he’d never get his heart broken again.

Max Phillips: Max was a bit of a player in community college; a jock, who studied his undergraduate in Physical Education. When Evan had Max kicked out for sleeping with his girlfriend, Max went and studied Sales Management at a university just for Vampires. Filled with a feeling of wrath and hatred for Evan, Max made it his mission to ruin him. No more time could be spent partying in his fraternity, playing soccer for the college team and sleeping with the cheer leader’s – Max made it his goal to graduate from Vampire University with a top major and steal the job of leading Sales Manager from Evan. And that’s on holding grudges.

Dio: Yeah, Dio didn’t go to college. He dropped out of high school when he was fourteen. In his youth, his hobbies included making fire and stealing from the rich.

Javi Gutierrez: He’s a film major of course! He was born into a rich family, we know that, and comes from a very financially privileged background. His parents knew that he did not have to pursue a degree in something that would ensure him a job, because Javi would be well off no matter what, and so they were fine with Javi doing something he was truly interested in. Javi has loved literature, art and movies his whole life. He minors in screenplay writing and excels top of his class, constantly impressing those around him with his ability to memorise anything from one liner quotes to whole scenes from movies. He shares his extensive knowledge of trivia, and all his lecturer’s firmly believe that the film industry is something that Javi could one day potentially succeed in. However, Javi is awkward. He shy’s away from all the partying and spends Friday night’s in his dorm, munching on popcorn and watching classic movies. A relationship is never in question for Javi because of his family circumstances, so he just lays low and focuses on his studies. As soon as he graduates, he heads back home to Mexico and his dreams of being a famous Hollywood screenplay writer seem so distant.

[sunbvrst]

*  whats up , buttercup ! hi , i’m julia ( 21 , she / they , gmt+8 ) , and i’m so thrilled to be here !! so pls let me introduce my sunflower child ,  seoni  !!!  she’s an old muse of mine but haven’t really had the chance to fully develop her yet , so im excited for that part as well sdfdkjf ,,,, information under the cut are all the information i have for her , i apologize in advance if there are hiccups along the way i promise to fix that ;-;  !! nevertheless , i’m pretty excited to plot w y’all and meet everyone’s muses ♡

( PARK SOOYOUNG, SHE/HER ) ╱ oh looky, if it ain’t [ KIM SEONI ] from [ 304 ]! a busy bee little [ PILATES INSTRUCTOR ], aren’t they? still can’t believe they’re [ 25 ] this year. i heard they’re adored for being [ GREGARIOUS ] but their [ EVASIVE ] attitude can be a pain in the ass sometimes. have they not thought of moving out after [ ONE YEAR ]? oh well, as long as they like it here!

*   𝖕𝖗𝖔𝖑𝖔𝖌𝖚𝖊   ╱  STATISTICS .

name  :  kim seoni

nicknames  :   sun , sunny 

age  :   twenty  -  five

birthday  :  may twenty  -  seven

zodiac  :  gemini sun , pisces moon , sagittarius rising

place of birth  :  gwanju  ,  korea 

gender : cis woman

pronouns  :   she / her

orientation  :  pansexual , panromantic

nationality  :  korean

occupation  :  pilates instructor 

pinterest  :  found here 

*   𝖈𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 𝖔𝖓𝖊 ╱  BACKGROUND . 

looking back at seoni’s earlier life, there wasn’t anything particularly atypical to it. she lived in a quaint home in gwangju, where she was nurtured by a close-knitted family. her mother was a retired pianist who spent most of her time teaching little kids piano within the confines of their home. while seoni’s father was a local literature professor who was the sole reason for her early appreciation for art and literature. 

seoni’s parents were never the overbearing type. although they had been quite vocal about which direction they wanted their daughter to take, it was purely seoni’s decision to choose the options that would make them the proudest. high school went by in a breeze and academically, seoni did exceptionally well considering how determined she was to make her parents proud and graduate with honors. her parents knew for sure she was going to take the direction they dreamed for her to take— everyone was convinced she’s bound to make great things, put her wits to good use, and enter law school; therefore, she tried. 

however, college became a crisis. seoni agreed to study in seoul, as per parents’ wish, and it’s been a struggle. bearing in mind that seoni’s been cooped within her familial nest all her life: options laid out for her, plans designed for her, indebted to the people who raised her; seoni realized she didn’t know how to work for herself. 

many people her age would’ve had their life already planned out in their head, but seoni had gotten only even more inconclusive as time went by. she first took political science, hoping to prompt her well for law school, but ended up shifting to history, then economics, then even landing to communications, completely placing her mind in disarray. her parents were really supportive of whatever decision she chose, although there was no denying the hint of disappointment seoni sees in them when they meet during holidays. no one can blame them though, they had high hopes for seoni. the problem was, it was their hopes. 

in no way does seoni blame her family though, she’s done this to herself without fully figuring out what she truly wants and who she truly is. so, true to her person, she graduates with a communications degree and no direction in life. 

she continued to live in the city, told her parents that she’s working as an editorial assistant in some company, but excluded the part in which she quit because the work was a boring desk job hasn’t been her cup of tea. instead, she did 6 months of pilates training and is now working as a pilates instructor; which by far has been less cluttered and more affable. 

*   𝖈𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 𝖙𝖜𝖔 ╱  TEMPERAMENT .

as you might have noticed, sunny is quite the whimsical type. one minute she’s there, the other she’d forget the reason why she did something remotely close to the activity a minute ago. it can be frustrating, and it has led to multiple questionable choices and actions from her. 

seoni is so quick to let her emotions influence her, especially in decision making. she’d always consider what her loved ones feel about the situation first, everyone else second, and hers last which is why she’s very evasive when topics regarding her future surface. she’s a strong believer of living one day at a time because in that way, she feels in control. 

she’s a master at changing topics so quick when the conversation’s even an inch closer to unravelling her past. seoni’s very outgoing and has this ability to overshare, but not overshare at all ??? she talks a lot about the surface and decides that’s the most vulnerability she can offer. the past, college, is just a weird topic. yeet. 

on that note tho, seoni’s adventurous side comes from her escapism tendency. she likes to divert the attention to the fun and joys of life and just stays bright and bubbly that it seems like she’s got zero problems. so with that, ig people might not see seoni as the person to confide into which stems from her being clueless in situations that she needed to be empathetic. don’t get her wrong tho, she’s an empath but isn’t really aware on how to apply it. 

basically, just your regular sunshine daisy who never forgets to offer a smile when you pass by her in the hallways, very easy-going and really friendly, so there’s rarely any trouble in that department. on that note tho, she terribly needs to work on opening to people more and just be human for a teeny sec. 

*   𝖈𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 𝖙𝖍𝖗𝖊𝖊 ╱  PLOTS .

i suck at titles ,,,, yikes , and suckier at planning well thought out plots , bigger yikes BUT i do want a plot in which seoni is very much challenged to get out of her comfort zone. seoni values every relationship of any kind however it hasn’t usually reached to a point where she gets to be vulnerable so perhaps, a relationship that would bring the somber side of her would be fantastic. 

she’s been living at andante for a year now so she would absolutely have people she loves to bother lol, let it be dragging them to a midnight stroll, a tolkein film marathon, or mukbang + soju night; basically, her go to person. 

seoni loves to persuade people to try out pilates and to rid of sedentary lifestyle lmao. so perhaps people she teaches or goes to pilates with.

im running out of ideas so i’ll just throw in a bunch of words that might spark inspiration: fluffy best pals connection, sibling type connection, bad/good influences, angsty toxic relationships, frenemies, people she can drag to do reckless decisions with, angst again, the one who she’s attached to the hip to, and honestly im open to whatever :D 

[arcticdementor]

Oscar Wilde supposedly said George Bernard Shaw "has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends". Socialist blogger Freddie DeBoer is the opposite: few allies, but deeply respected by his enemies. I disagree with him about everything, so naturally I am a big fan of his work - which meant I was happy to read his latest book, The Cult Of Smart.

DeBoer starts with the standard narrative of The Failing State Of American Education. Students aren't learning. The country is falling behind. Only tough no-excuses policies, standardization, and innovative reforms like charter schools can save it, as shown by their stellar performance improving test scores and graduation rates.

He argues that every word of it is a lie. American education isn't getting worse by absolute standards: students match or outperform their peers from 20 or 50 years ago. It's not getting worse by international standards: America's PISA rankings are mediocre, but the country has always scored near the bottom of international rankings, even back in the 50s and 60s when we were kicking Soviet ass and landing men on the moon. Race and gender gaps are stable or decreasing. American education is doing much as it's always done - about as well as possible, given the crushing poverty, single parent-families, violence, and racism holding back the kids it's charged with shepherding to adulthood.

…

For decades, politicians of both parties have thought of education as "the great leveller" and the key to solving poverty. If people are stuck in boring McJobs, it's because they're not well-educated enough to be surgeons and rocket scientists. Give them the education they need, and they can join the knowledge economy and rise into the upper-middle class. For lack of any better politically-palatable way to solve poverty, this has kind of become a totem: get better schools, and all those unemployed Appalachian coal miners can move to Silicon Valley and start tech companies. But you can't do that. Not everyone is intellectually capable of doing a high-paying knowledge economy job. Schools can change your intellectual potential a limited amount. Ending child hunger, removing lead from the environment, and similar humanitarian programs can do a little more, but only a little. In the end, a lot of people aren't going to make it.

So what can you do? DeBoer doesn't think there's an answer within the existing system. Instead, we need to dismantle meritocracy.

DeBoer is skeptical of "equality of opportunity". Even if you solve racism, sexism, poverty, and many other things that DeBoer repeatedly reminds us have not been solved, you'll just get people succeeding or failing based on natural talent. DeBoer agrees conservatives can be satisfied with this, but thinks leftists shouldn't be. Natural talent is just as unearned as class, race, or any other unfair advantage.

One one level, the titular Cult Of Smart is just the belief that enough education can solve any problem. But more fundamentally it's also the troubling belief that after we jettison unfair theories of superiority based on skin color, sex, and whatever else, we're finally left with what really determines your value as a human being - how smart you are. DeBoer recalls hearing an immigrant mother proudly describe her older kid's achievements in math, science, etc, "and then her younger son ran by, and she said, offhand, 'This one, he is maybe not so smart.'" DeBoer was originally shocked to hear someone describe her own son that way, then realized that he wouldn't have thought twice if she'd dismissed him as unathletic, or bad at music. Intelligence is considered such a basic measure of human worth that to dismiss someone as unintelligent seems like consigning them into the outer darkness. So DeBoer describes how early readers of his book were scandalized by the insistence on genetic differences in intelligence - isn't this denying the equality of Man, declaring some people inherently superior to others? Only if you conflate intelligence with worth, which DeBoer argues our society does constantly. It starts with parents buying Baby Einstein tapes and trying to send their kids to the best preschool, continues through the "meat grinder" of the college admissions process when everyone knows that whoever gets into Harvard is better than whoever gets into State U, and continues when the meritocracy rewards the straight-A Harvard student with a high-paying powerful job and the high school dropout with drudgery or unemployment. Even the phrase "high school dropout" has an aura of personal failure about it, in a way totally absent from "kid who always lost at Little League".

DeBoer isn't convinced this is an honest mistake. He draws attention to a sort of meta-class-war - a war among class warriors over whether the true enemy is the top 1% (this is the majority position) or the top 20% (this is DeBoer's position; if you've read Staying Classy, you'll immediately recognize this disagreement as the same one that divided the Church and UR models of class). The 1% are the Buffetts and Bezoses of the world; the 20% are the "managerial" class of well-off urban professionals, bureaucrats, creative types, and other mandarins. Opposition to the 20% is usually right-coded; describe them as "woke coastal elites who dominate academia and the media", and the Trump campaign ad almost writes itself. But some Marxists flirt with it too; the book references Elizabeth Currid-Halkett's Theory Of The Aspirational Class, and you can hear echoes of this every time Twitter socialists criticize "Vox liberals" or something. Access to the 20% is gated by college degree, and their legitimizing myth is that their education makes them more qualified and humane than the rest of us. DeBoer thinks the deification of school-achievement-compatible intelligence as highest good serves their class interest; "equality of opportunity" means we should ignore all other human distinctions in favor of the one that our ruling class happens to excel at.

So maybe equality of opportunity is a stupid goal. DeBoer argues for equality of results. This is a pretty extreme demand, but he's a Marxist and he means what he says. He wants a world where smart people and dull people have equally comfortable lives, and where intelligence can take its rightful place as one of many virtues which are nice to have but not the sole measure of your worth.

…

I'm Freddie's ideological enemy, which means I have to respect him. And there's a lot to like about this book. I think its two major theses - that intelligence is mostly innate, and that this is incompatible with equating it to human value - are true, important, and poorly appreciated by the general population. I tried to make a somewhat similar argument in my Parable Of The Talents, which DeBoer graciously quotes in his introduction. Some of the book's peripheral theses - that a lot of education science is based on fraud, that US schools are not declining in quality, etc - are also true, fascinating, and worth spreading. Overall, I think this book does more good than harm.

It's also rambling, self-contradictory in places, and contains a lot of arguments I think are misguided or bizarre.

…

At the time, I noted that meritocracy has nothing to do with this. The intuition behind meritocracy is: if your life depends on a difficult surgery, would you prefer the hospital hire a surgeon who aced medical school, or a surgeon who had to complete remedial training to barely scrape by with a C-? If you prefer the former, you’re a meritocrat with respect to surgeons. Generalize a little, and you have the argument for being a meritocrat everywhere else.

The above does away with any notions of "desert", but I worry it's still accepting too many of DeBoer's assumptions. A better description might be: Your life depends on a difficult surgery. You can hire whatever surgeon you want to perform it. You are willing to pay more money for a surgeon who aced medical school than for a surgeon who failed it. So higher intelligence leads to more money.

This not only does away with "desert", but also with reified Society deciding who should prosper. More meritorious surgeons get richer not because "Society" has selected them to get rich as a reward for virtue, but because individuals pursuing their incentives prefer, all else equal, not to die of botched surgeries. Meritocracy isn't an -ocracy like democracy or autocracy, where people in wigs sit down to frame a constitution and decide how things should work. It's a dubious abstraction over the fact that people prefer to have jobs done well rather than poorly, and use their financial and social clout to make this happen.

…

I think DeBoer would argue he's not against improving schools. He just thinks all attempts to do it so far have been crooks and liars pillaging the commons, so much so that we need a moratorium on this kind of thing until we can figure out what's going on. But I'm worried that his arguments against existing school reform are in some cases kind of weak.

DeBoer does make things hard for himself by focusing on two of the most successful charter school experiments. If he'd been a little less honest, he could have passed over these and instead mentioned the many charter schools that fail, or just sort of plod onward doing about as well as public schools do. I think the closest thing to a consensus right now is that most charter schools do about the same as public schools for white/advantaged students, and slightly better than public schools for minority/disadvantaged students. But DeBoer very virtuously thinks it's important to confront his opponents' strongest cases, so these are the ones I'll focus on here.

…

These are good points, and I would accept them from anyone other than DeBoer, who will go on to say in a few chapters that the solution to our education issues is a Marxist revolution that overthrows capitalism and dispenses with the very concept of economic value. If he's willing to accept a massive overhaul of everything, that's failed every time it's tried, why not accept a much smaller overhaul-of-everything, that's succeeded at least once? There are plenty of billionaires willing to pour fortunes into reforming various cities - DeBoer will go on to criticize them as deluded do-gooders a few chapters later. If billions of dollars plus a serious commitment to ground-up reform are what we need, let's just spend billions of dollars and have a serious commitment to ground-up reform! If more hurricanes is what it takes to fix education, I'm willing to do my part by leaving my air conditioner on 'high' all the time.

…

DeBoer spends several impassioned sections explaining how opposed he is to scientific racism, and arguing that the belief that individual-level IQ differences are partly genetic doesn't imply a belief that group-level IQ differences are partly genetic. Some reviewers of this book are still suspicious, wondering if he might be hiding his real position. I can assure you he is not. Seriously, he talks about how much he hates belief in genetic group-level IQ differences about thirty times per page. Also, sometimes when I write posts about race, he sends me angry emails ranting about how much he hates that some people believe in genetic group-level IQ differences - totally private emails nobody else will ever see. I have no reason to doubt that his hatred of this is as deep as he claims.

But I understand why some reviewers aren't convinced. This book can't stop tripping over itself when it tries to discuss these topics. DeBoer grants X, he grants X -> Y, then goes on ten-page rants about how absolutely loathsome and abominable anyone who believes Y is.

Remember, one of the theses of this book is that individual differences in intelligence are mostly genetic. But DeBoer spends only a little time citing the studies that prove this is true. He (correctly) decides that most of his readers will object not on the scientific ground that they haven't seen enough studies, but on the moral ground that this seems to challenge the basic equality of humankind. He (correctly) points out that this is balderdash, that innate differences in intelligence don't imply differences in moral value, any more than innate differences in height or athletic ability or anything like that imply differences in moral value. His goal is not just to convince you about the science, but to convince you that you can believe the science and still be an okay person who respects everyone and wants them to be happy.

He could have written a chapter about race that reinforced this message. He could have reviewed studies about whether racial differences in intelligence are genetic or environmental, come to some conclusion or not, but emphasized that it doesn't matter, and even if it's 100% genetic it has no bearing at all on the need for racial equality and racial justice, that one race having a slightly higher IQ than another doesn't make them "superior" any more than Pygmies' genetic short stature makes them "inferior".

Instead he - well, I'm not really sure what he's doing. He starts by says racial differences must be environmental. Then he says that studies have shown that racial IQ gaps are not due to differences in income/poverty, because the gaps remain even after controlling for these. But, he says, there could be other environmental factors aside from poverty that cause racial IQ gaps. After tossing out some possibilities, he concludes that he doesn't really need to be able to identify a plausible mechanism, because "white supremacy touches on so many aspects of American life that it's irresponsible to believe we have adequately controlled for it", no matter how many studies we do or how many confounders we eliminate. His argument, as far as I can tell, is that it's always possible that racial IQ differences are environmental, therefore they must be environmental. Then he goes on to, at great length, denounce as loathsome and villainous anyone who might suspect these gaps of being genetic. Such people are "noxious", "bigoted", "ugly", "pseudoscientific" "bad people" who peddle "propaganda" to "advance their racist and sexist agenda". (But tell us what you really think!)

…

This is far enough from my field that I would usually defer to expert consensus, but all the studies I can find which try to assess expert consensus seem crazy. A while ago, I freaked out upon finding a study that seemed to show most expert scientists in the field agreed with Murray's thesis in 1987 - about three times as many said the gap was due to a combination of genetics and environment as said it was just environment. Then I freaked out again when I found another study (here is the most recent version, from 2020) showing basically the same thing (about four times as many say it’s a combination of genetics and environment compared to just environment). I can't find any expert surveys giving the expected result that they all agree this is dumb and definitely 100% environment and we can move on (I'd be very relieved if anybody could find those, or if they could explain why the ones I found were fake studies or fake experts or a biased sample, or explain how I'm misreading them or that they otherwise shouldn't be trusted. If you have thoughts on this, please send me an email). I've vacillated back and forth on how to think about this question so many times, and right now my personal probability estimate is "I am still freaking out about this, go away go away go away". And I understand I have at least two potentially irresolveable biases on this question: one, I'm a white person in a country with a long history of promoting white supremacy; and two, if I lean in favor then everyone will hate me, and use it as a bludgeon against anyone I have ever associated with, and I will die alone in a ditch and maybe deserve it. So the best I can do is try to route around this issue when considering important questions. This is sometimes hard, but the basic principle is that I'm far less sure of any of it than I am sure that all human beings are morally equal and deserve to have a good life and get treated with respect regardless of academic achievement.

…

That last sentence about the basic principle is the thesis of The Cult Of Smart, so it would have been a reasonable position for DeBoer to take too. DeBoer doesn't take it. He acknowledges the existence of expert scientists who believe the differences are genetic (he names Linda Gottfredson in particular), but only to condemn them as morally flawed for asserting this.

But this is exactly the worldview he is, at this very moment, trying to write a book arguing against! His thesis is that mainstream voices say there can't be genetic differences in intelligence among individuals, because that would make some people fundamentally inferior to others, which is morally repugnant - but those voices are wrong, because differences in intelligence don't affect moral equality. Then he adds that mainstream voices say there can't be genetic differences in intelligence among ethnic groups, because that would make some groups fundamentally inferior to others, which is morally repugnant - and those voices are right; we must deny the differences lest we accept the morally repugnant thing.

Normally I would cut DeBoer some slack and assume this was some kind of Straussian manuever he needed to do to get the book published, or to prevent giving ammunition to bad people. But no, he has definitely believed this for years, consistently, even while being willing to offend basically anybody about basically anything else at any time. So I'm convinced this is his true belief. I'm just not sure how he squares it with the rest of his book.

…

"Smart" equivocates over two concepts - high-IQ and successful-at-formal-education. These concepts are related; in general, high-IQ people get better grades, graduate from better colleges, etc. But they're not exactly the same.

There is a cult of successful-at-formal-education. Society obsesses over how important formal education is, how it can do anything, how it's going to save the world. If you get gold stars on your homework, become the teacher's pet, earn good grades in high school, and get into an Ivy League, the world will love you for it.

But the opposite is true of high-IQ. Society obsessively denies that IQ can possibly matter. Admit to being a member of Mensa, and you'll get a fusillade of "IQ is just a number!" and "people who care about their IQ are just overcompensating for never succeeding at anything real!" and "IQ doesn't matter, what about emotional IQ or grit or whatever else, huh? Bet you didn't think of that!" Science writers and Psychology Today columnists vomit out a steady stream of bizarre attempts to deny the statistical validity of IQ.

These are two sides of the same phenomenon. Some people are smarter than others as adults, and the more you deny innate ability, the more weight you have to put on education. Society wants to put a lot of weight on formal education, and compensates by denying innate ability a lot. DeBoer is aware of this and his book argues against it adeptly.

Still, I worry that the title - The Cult Of Smart - might lead people to think there is a cult surrounding intelligence, when exactly the opposite is true. But I guess The Cult Of Successful At Formal Education sounds less snappy, so whatever.

…

I try to review books in an unbiased way, without letting myself succumb to fits of emotion. So be warned: I'm going to fail with this one. I am going to get angry and write whole sentences in capital letters. This is one of the most enraging passages I've ever read.

School is child prison. It's forcing kids to spend their childhood - a happy time! a time of natural curiosity and exploration and wonder - sitting in un-air-conditioned blocky buildings, cramped into identical desks, listening to someone drone on about the difference between alliteration and assonance, desperate to even be able to fidget but knowing that if they do their teacher will yell at them, and maybe they'll get a detention that extends their sentence even longer without parole. The anti-psychiatric-abuse community has invented the "Burrito Test" - if a place won't let you microwave a burrito without asking permission, it's an institution. Doesn't matter if the name is "Center For Flourishing" or whatever and the aides are social workers in street clothes instead of nurses in scrubs - if it doesn't pass the Burrito Test, it's an institution. There is no way school will let you microwave a burrito without permission. THEY WILL NOT EVEN LET YOU GO TO THE BATHROOM WITHOUT PERMISSION. YOU HAVE TO RAISE YOUR HAND AND ASK YOUR TEACHER FOR SOMETHING CALLED "THE BATHROOM PASS" IN FRONT OF YOUR ENTIRE CLASS, AND IF SHE DOESN'T LIKE YOU, SHE CAN JUST SAY NO.

I don't like actual prisons, the ones for criminals, but I will say this for them - people keep them around because they honestly believe they prevent crime. If someone found proof-positive that prisons didn't prevent any crimes at all, but still suggested that we should keep sending people there, because it means we'd have "fewer middle-aged people on the streets" and "fewer adults forced to go home to empty apartments and houses", then MAYBE YOU WOULD START TO UNDERSTAND HOW I FEEL ABOUT SENDING PEOPLE TO SCHOOL FOR THE SAME REASON.

I sometimes sit in on child psychiatrists' case conferences, and I want to scream at them. There's the kid who locks herself in the bathroom every morning so her parents can't drag her to child prison, and her parents stand outside the bathroom door to yell at her for hours until she finally gives in and goes, and everyone is trying to medicate her or figure out how to remove the bathroom locks, and THEY ARE SOLVING THE WRONG PROBLEM. There are all the kids who had bedwetting or awful depression or constant panic attacks, and then as soon as the coronavirus caused the child prisons to shut down the kids mysteriously became instantly better. I have heard stories of kids bullied to the point where it would be unfair not to call it torture, and the child prisons respond according to Procedures which look very good on paper and hit all the right We-Are-Taking-This-Seriously buzzwords but somehow never result in the kids not being tortured every day, and if the kids' parents were to stop bringing them to child prison every day to get tortured anew the cops would haul those parents to jail, and sometimes the only solution is the parents to switch them to the charter schools THAT FREDDIE DEBOER WANTS TO SHUT DOWN.

I see people on Twitter and Reddit post their stories from child prison, all of which they treat like it's perfectly normal. The district that wanted to save money, so it banned teachers from turning the heat above 50 degrees in the depths of winter. The district that decided running was an unsafe activity, and so any child who ran or jumped or played other-than-sedately during recess would get sent to detention - yeah, that's fine, let's just make all our children spent the first 18 years of their life somewhere they're not allowed to run, that'll be totally normal child development. You might object that they can run at home, but of course teachers assign three hours of homework a day despite ample evidence that homework does not help learning. Preventing children from having any free time, or the ability to do any of the things they want to do seems to just be an end in itself. Every single doctor and psychologist in the world has pointed out that children and teens naturally follow a different sleep pattern than adults, probably closer to 12 PM to 9 AM than the average adult's 10 - 7. Child prisons usually start around 7 or 8 AM, meaning any child who shows up on time is necessarily sleep-deprived in ways that probably harm their health and development.

School forces children to be confined in an uninhabitable environment, restrained from moving, and psychologically tortured in a state of profound sleep deprivation, under pain of imprisoning their parents if they refuse. The only possible justification for this is that it achieves some kind of vital social benefit like eliminating poverty. If it doesn't, you might as well replace it with something less traumatizing, like child labor. The kid will still have to spend eight hours of their day toiling in a terrible environment, but at least they’ll get some pocket money! At least their boss can't tell them to keep working off the clock under the guise of "homework"! I have worked as a medical resident, widely considered one of the most horrifying and abusive jobs it is possible to take in a First World country. I can say with absolute confidence that I would gladly do another four years of residency if the only alternative was another four years of high school.

If I have children, I hope to be able to homeschool them. But if I can't homeschool them, I am incredibly grateful that the option exists to send them to a charter school that might not have all of these problems. I'm not as impressed with Montessori schools as some of my friends are, but at least as far as I can tell they let kids wander around free-range, and don't make them use bathroom passes. DeBoer not only wants to keep the whole prison-cum-meat-grinder alive and running, even after having proven it has no utility, he also wants to shut the only possible escape my future children will ever get unless I'm rich enough to quit work and care for them full time.

When I try to keep a cooler head about all of this, I understand that Freddie DeBoer doesn't want this. He is not a fan of freezing-cold classrooms or sleep deprivation or bullying or bathroom passes. In fact, he will probably blame all of these on the "neoliberal reformers" (although I went to school before most of the neoliberal reforms started, and I saw it all). He will say that his own utopian schooling system has none of this stuff. In fact, he does say that. He sketches what a future Marxist school system might look like, and it looks pretty much like a Montessori school looks now. That just makes it really weird that he wants to shut down all the schools that resemble his ideal today (or make them only available to the wealthy) in favor of forcing kids into schools about as different from it as it's possible for anything to be.

I am so, so tired of socialists who admit that the current system is a helltopian torturescape, then argue that we must prevent anyone from ever being able to escape it. Who promise that once the last alternative is closed off, once the last nice green place where a few people manage to hold off the miseries of the world is crushed, why then the helltopian torturescape will become a lovely utopia full of rainbows and unicorns. If you can make your system less miserable, make your system less miserable! Do it before forcing everyone else to participate in it under pain of imprisonment if they refuse! Forcing everyone to participate in your system and then making your system something other than a meat-grinder that takes in happy children and spits out dead-eyed traumatized eighteen-year-olds who have written 10,000 pages on symbolism in To Kill A Mockingbird and had zero normal happy experiences - is doing things super, super backwards!

[dailyaudiobible]

12/22/2020 DAB Transcript

Zechariah 2:1-3:10, Revelation 13:1-18, Psalms 141:1-10, Proverbs 30:18-20

Today is the 22nd day of December welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I'm Brian it is awesome to be here with you today it’s awesome to be here with you Christmas week. And, yeah, a couple days and we’ll be at Christmas day. So, we’re pressing into it, pressing into the season. I'm sure you are as well. And I pray that you are experiencing moments of Christmas joy, something that's been in a little short supply, maybe a lot short supply this year. But anyway, we have come to center ourselves in the Scriptures, to exhale all that's going on around us and just warm ourselves at the Global Campfire as we take the next step forward in the Scriptures. And we began the book of Zechariah yesterday and I mentioned then that Zechariah will take us all the way until a couple of days before the end of the year. Zechariah is the second to the last book in the Old Testament. And yesterday when we began Zechariah, we just gave some context and one of the pieces of context was that Zechariah contains eight different night visions and we will begin with the third one today. Zechariah chapters 2 and 2. And we’re reading from the New English Translation this week.

Commentary:

Okay, we were talking about this being Christmas week at the beginning today before we read the Scriptures. And, yeah, this is Christmas week. The day after tomorrow is Christmas eve if you can believe it. And, so, we’re in it and we’re trying to finalize and get everything together and figure out how we’re gonna do everything and…and we’re also likely to be around family, whether that is immediate family or we have extended family, whether we’re getting in a car and traveling, whether we’re gonna get on a plane and travel or whether that's gonna happen where people are traveling toward us. Likely, whether we’re having a very very large family gathering or whether it’s going to be really intimate we’re going to be together with…with our family and when that happens all kinds of really really wonderful, joyous things can happen. Hearts can be united…just the love for our family and the people that we grew up with or the people that we've known our whole lives, it just emerges and we…we feel that warm cozy spirit of Christmas but, you know, in that situation, it…it’s just warm and cozy and dry and one match thrown into the middle of that can just…it can just blow the whole thing up. Like one person who decides that they need to vent about their political views in the middle of all that or one person bringing up some kind of scorn or something from earlier years, any little thing can make a volatile situation explode. And it wasn't that long ago that we read the book of James or the letter of James, in which he talked about how we can bless people and curse people out of the same mouth and surely that's not right. And, so, right now is a good time to kind of put some of this that we've learned about our mouths and how powerful they are into our pocket and carry it around because usually when the volatile things happen they just…they happen randomly. I mean we know…we may know who’s the likely one to start something. Maybe we’re the likely one to start something. And maybe this year it should be a break for everybody. Maybe we should bite down on our tongue instead of waggin’ it. I mean because we can be the giver of joy. I mean, when we think about Christmas spirit and Christmas joy and we think about how it's affecting us, like are we feeling it? But the thing is, we can give it, we can build each other up instead of tearing each other down. And, so, we turn to the Psalms then today and we read these words, “O Lord place a guard on my mouth. Protect the opening of my lips. Do not let me have evil desires or participate in the sinful activities with men who behave wickedly.” We should put that in our pocket too as we go into these next few days and determine in advance, if somebody lights the match and throws it into the middle of everything that doesn't mean that it's compulsory that we participate. It can be a situation where our…our unwillingness to participate and amp things up is saying a lot without saying anything. If we find that our words that we have determined that we will only build up and not tear down, well that would be quite a Christmas gift to give and it would change the atmosphere. And we may not be able to stop the kinds of things that happened from happening, but we do have control over ourselves. And, so, let's just remember, yeah, it’s family, yeah, it's presents and gifts and festivities and Christmas music and lights and it's just wonderful but what we are honoring is the arrival of the presence of peace. And, so, if we’re not going to actively participate in peace on earth, especially at Christmas…well…there's a disconnect somewhere. Let’s put our faith into action in these coming days because these are days of great joy.

Prayer:

Father, we invite You into that. Joy…joy flows from You. And when we experience joy, we are becoming aware of Your presence. And this is a joyful time in the midst of a very trying season. And, so, may we experience Your joy and then in turn give Your joy, build one another up, not tear one another down. We pray the Psalm, “Lord place a guard on our mouths. Protect the opening of our lips. Don't let us have evil desires or participate in sinful activities.” Come Holy Spirit we pray. In the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base, it's the website, its where you find out what's going on around here. You can find out what's going on around here using the Daily Audio Bible app just as well by pressing the Drawer icon in the upper left-hand corner.

Of course, we’re days away from Christmas. So, that's what's going on around here. So, check out the Christmas resources that are available, especially the musical ones. The Family Christmas album, which is an instrumental…just a beautifully contemplative album for the Christmas season, the kind of…it’s the kind of one that you want when you…when you're trying to wind down. You gotta a cup of cocoa or whatever, you got the lights on, maybe the Christmas lights and nothing else, maybe a fire in the fireplace. It's that kind of record. So, check that out. You can stream it on Spotify or Apple music or YouTube music or Google play, whatever, You can buy it there at the iTunes Store or wherever you get your music.

And the other…the other Christmas thing is “O Holy Night” that Jill and I put together a couple weeks ago in preparation…she's gonna sing virtually at a Christmas eve service this year. And, so, we’ll put links up to that on Christmas eve on our social media channels in case you don't have a candlelight service that you can attend. But she sang it with such heart and passion, and we were just…we were like wow, we should release this. And, so, we did, and you can stream that on Spotify or Apple music or wherever or buy that as well. Just look for Jill Parr and O Holy Night and you will find it. So, check those…check those out.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible here in the waning days of the year, thank you humbly and truly from our hearts. Thank you for your partnership. I’ve said it…feels like I’ve said it like 360 times or whatever this year. We wouldn't be here if we weren’t in this together. That's a fact. And, so, we are profoundly grateful that we are moving through another year. And thank you for your partnership. So, there is a link on the homepage. If you’re using the app you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner, or the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And as always if you have a prayer request or encouragement, you can hit the Hotline button in the app, which is the little red button at the top or you can dial 877-942-4253.

And that's it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Good morning Daily Audio Bible family this is June in Maryland I am calling to give a praise report. I am just praising God for bringing me through this year. This year started off really rough with some heart palpitations that had me out of work for almost 2 months and then I went back to be a Covid nurse and once I returned to my psych unit, I got Covid. All the while I was still trying to finish school which I did. I graduated with my Bachelor of Science in nursing on December 5th. So, I’m very thankful to be alive, to be able to breathe, and to have been able to complete this degree despite all of the obstacles and frustrations. So, yea God. Thank you, God. Nothing is possible without God but with God all things are possible. That’s all I have for today. I’ll call back another time. Love you all. Have a blessed day.

Hi this is Sarah from South of England this is my first prayer request and I really need prayer. How to make it brief? I have __. I’ve had a recent relapse after 20 years of…of pretty severely…being pretty severely affected and I just feel devastated because I…I’ve lost so much of what I could do, particularly…mainly with my arms and needing a lot more help. And it’s…it’s just complicated with social services and carers and things. And apart from that I…I can’t do the greater things that…that I most love, that I’ve always felt, you know, that what God made me for really. And I’m…I just really need companionship. It’s just not because of the Covid, but obviously that hasn’t helped. I’m single and I’m 52 and…and wondering if, you know, I’ll ever be able to…to find someone to share my life with. And even if I could socialize and…and have lots of friends, that would…that would…would be okay but I can’t do that. And…but I know that ultimately, I need God to be my everything…to not…to not demand that recovery is the only answer for me. But he can heal me as well. I know that. But just to find peace in him, to find my joy in him because I know he can bring joy no matter what’s happening to us and I need that, I need that desperately. I need to…to get back to that place of…of being at peace with him and trusting him no matter what my circumstances are. So, thank you.

Hi, my name is Jay I’m from Georgia from Rome Georgia. It happens that I lost my job this past Monday and I there’s an appeal process an appeal’s process that I’m undergoing and a few other things that might help but most of all I just want to come to the throne of grace, and I want to ask if all of you can help me pray that I get my job back. It’s hard. It’s a hard time because my…my husband is going to school right now and I was the one who supplied. But God supplies all my needs according to his riches in glory. And I would ask if you would stand with me in faith and ask that God would lead me and guide me. God bless you all.

Good morning DAB family this is Sally in Massachusetts. We’re in the midst of a beautiful snowstorm today. I had to chuckle Little Cherry when I heard you describe getting ready to go to the sunrise. It reminded me of the eight years I lived in Saskatchewan. Mighty cold but I loved it. I love the sunshine. And…and thankful. Lord I’m so thankful for our brothers and sisters scattered all over this world. It’s wonderful to hear from all the different states from…from places like New Zealand and Australia and Singapore and South Sudan and Germany and India and Eastern Canada and all the states that we hear from. Lord, we are so blessed to have You bring us into the family of God scattered over the world. We thank You so much for the DAB that brings us together. Lord I lift up Margo and her husband as they prepare to go back to Liberia. Please strengthen and guide them. Please provide their needs physically Lord, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, financially. Lord we just pray for the wisdom that he needs as he prepares information to be a better pilot and to care for his plane and pray for Margo Lord. Just guide her as she gains insights into being a better nurse. Oh God and we just thank You for the love for the lost, their desire Lord to make You known. We pray Jesus that You would just bless them and guide them. Thank You, once again great and holy God for all You’ve done and all You’re doing as You bless Your church around…

Hi DABbers, this is Alina Jesus Worshiper from Delray Beach. I’m actually calling with a praise report and I wanted to thank you so much for praying for me and my husband. More than a year ago my husband told me that he doesn’t want to be with me anymore and it was a mistake that we got married after like almost 10 years of marriage and it was really painful for me. All of this time we’re separated but together under one roof and I was praying for his salvation. And I’m not sure, I don’t think that salvation happened yet, but God is changing my husband’s heart. And recently my husband came back to me. He came back to be my husband and now he would like to have family and he would like to have kids and he talks about God all the time and I know that God is…God is calling him. And I’m just so excited to share this with you…this journey. God is so faithful to everybody who is struggling in their marriage. I’ve waited for one year to every relationship with my husband. It was so painful and with all this other things that people were talking and 2020 nothing was as hard as just being in the same house with somebody who says every day that he doesn’t love you anymore. But, you know, God is so faithful. God is so faithful. When I was struggling, and I was without my faith he was putting me up and Daily Audio Bible family helped me out so much being connected to the word every day. I want it or I don’t want it. It became my habit after like two years or so. So, I wanted to thank everybody for praying and I pray for you today in Jesus’ name to experience this, the same thing as I did. Amen.

[crownuponherhead]

1/15 || reputation precedes me  

“You hate camping.”

“I hated camping, there’s a difference.”

They all knew she came back from university with only 6 credit hours to go until she’d graduate completely changed, hurt really. Long gone was the girl who left wide eyed in her pretty pastels and florals. This was the weirdest part to everyone though. Her sudden closeness with Jon Snow, sure he’d always been Robb’s best friend and basically a member of the family but they weren’t close. Not like he was with everything else. She’d done a lot of new things since coming back, each having their own surprises with it. Robb’s when she shot gunned a beer on a dare from Theon, Arya’s was when Sansa asked if she’d teach her some self defense, Bran’s when she drove him two whole hours away as a surprise because she knew there was a play adaptation of one of his favorite books, and Rickon’s was when she’d offered to play football with him and been at every single game since she got back. However they were all in shock at this, watching their sister who hadn’t even climbed the trees in their backyard the morning she agreed to go camping with Jon. It left them all in shock.

“Stop staring like that, it was my idea.” Her words didn’t stop the staring, if anything it made it worst. With a roll of her eyes she grabbed the last of her things and went to throw them in the back of Jon’s truck. “Anyway, I’ll be back tomorrow evening. Don’t wait up.” She didn’t even let Jon get a word out before pushing him out the door and towards his truck.

“They’re getting suspicious.” He finally says when they’re on the bridge to Bear Island. They’ve avoided the conversation the whole ride instead falling into their normal pace, their hands twined together and resting on her thigh.

“I know,” She starts with a sigh, leaning a bit closer to him. “I’m afraid they won’t get it. They’ll think I’m jumping into something too soon. If we’re honest though this is the one thing I’ve been the most certain about in my whole life.”

“Do you want to tell them?” Tell them what is the bigger question that lingers. ‘Tell them we’re dating?’ ‘Tell them we slept together drunk?’ ‘Tell them I love you?’ He knows she’ll decide to tell what she feels safe with sharing.

“Not yet, give us this weekend without thinking about that.”

“Alright, balls in your court. Just you and me and an island breeze.” The windows are down, letting the breeze blow his unruly hair about as they drive. In comparison, a few of her strands blow about but her hair stays secure in the braid she’d done. She rolls her eyes and laughs at him but they both know it’s the most sincere notion from her. They’re both relaxed, it’s the only time they both get to relax. When they’re together she’s her most relaxed, she isn’t pretending to be okay. Sure she knows she doesn’t have to do that around her family, but it’d be more exhausting to be treated like she was a fragile porcelain doll.

x. 

It’s not the warmest summer day, but it’s not chilly enough for her to not change into her swimsuit and wade in the water near where they set up camp.

“Do you like the view?” She teased when she caught him watching.

“Absolutely.” When he’s in the water with her he holds her close, absent-mindedly tracing the scars on her torso. He’s the only one who has seen them, she wouldn’t show them to her Mom or Arya and definitely not to her Dad or Robb or Bran or Rickon. He traces each one and in her mind she tries to push away the thoughts. ‘You got that from Joffrey when…’ ‘You got that from Ramsey when….’. She knows it isn’t healthy so she focuses on the moment.

“Do you think I should go back to school?” She doesn’t talk about it at all it’s not something anyone’s brought up, everyone just happy she was back home and safe.

“Do you want to?” It’s one of the reasons why she loves him, he’s always asking if she wants something. It’s what she wants, she feels, and not anyone else.

“I’m so close to graduating with a degree in Political Science but I don’t want that anymore. I have a few fashion courses and courses from my Journalism minor I finished but that’s it.”

“Decide what you want to do first.”

“Oh I know that already.” In all seriousness she doesn’t, she has no clue. She’s thought of a few things, open her own store, getting her teaching certificate, writing for a newspaper or her own book, at one point she even thought she should become a counselor but then she realized she can’t even counsel herself in her own decisions. So she goes with what else she wants.

“Yeah?”

“You.”

“I can make that happen.” Her heart starts to melt at the way his eyes darken and his grin moves into a smirk pulling her closer to him ever so gently.

“Good.”

x.

Their trip is over before it began. As he teases her, it’s because she kept dragging him to the tent every time he got a free breath. It makes her realizes how much she hates the sneaking around. It was nice even on the little island and at the small dinners they’d stopped at to be open about things. She makes the decision when he’s getting gas. It’s one thing she know he won’t be mad about if she just decides to do it. Sansa doesn’t want the two of them to be hiding anymore. As he gets in the car from pumping gas she leans across the seat and kisses him. It’s gentle but passionate and when she pulls away it takes her breathe away.

“What was that for?” He’s looking at her a little bewildered but the smile is one she can’t miss. She shrugs with a smirk and twines their fingers together before he can.

“Because I could.”

When they pull into the Stark driveway she doesn’t let go of his hand like usual, instead she looks at him with the grin that makes him go weak in the knees and light blush crossing her cheeks.

“I hope you don’t mind, I texted to let Mum know you were staying for dinner. I figured we should stop keeping secrets. Are you ready for it?”

He kisses her.

[mangokiwitropicalswirl]

Paging Dr. Scully, chp 4

(Note: I’ve decided to title the chapters according to roughly where they fall in season 1)

Paging Dr. Scully 1: Squeeze / 2: Jersey Devil / 3: Shadows

Paging Dr. Scully 4: Ghost in the Machine

It takes less than 30 minutes to wander through the Liberty Bell exhibit hall and eat their cheesesteaks on a park bench.

“Do you want to grab some coffee?”

“I guess that depends,” says Scully.

“Depends on what?” He stretches his legs out and leans back against the bench, wiping the last of the cheesesteak grease off his face with a tissue-thin napkin.

“On whether I’m going to have to keep myself awake for another three hours on my drive back home tonight.”

She’s not sure what she’s asking. She’s not suggesting they shack up in his hotel room, but it’s midnight and she’s dangerously close to nodding off right here on the bench.

“I could keep you awake, drive back with you,” Mulder offers an arm to her as he stands.

“What about your car?”

“It’s a fleet sedan. Left it at the Philly offices.”

“How’d you get here?”

“Taxi,” he shrugs again.

“So you could drive back with me tonight? To D.C.?”

“If you don’t mind swinging by the offices to grab my bag, then, yeah. Sure.”

Scully wipes her hands against her pant legs and smiles up at him. “Okay, but coffee first.”

They find an all-night diner and slide across from one another in a vinyl booth. The coffee tastes like pitch and diesel, but Scully hardly cares. The combination of this sudden bout of spontaneity and the gleam in Mulder’s eye has her buzzing already, and no amount of bitter coffee is going to dampen it.

“So, what was it that possessed you to call me up tonight?” She asks him pointedly as she shakes a pack of sugar in her cup.

“What an interesting choice of phrase, dear doctor,” Mulder teases. “What possessed me indeed? That’s exactly what the victim in my case here thought she was experiencing. Seems everyone around her kept coming to a tragic end. She thought that maybe she was possessed by the restless spirit of her dead boss.” He unspools the story like a ghost tale, pausing dramatically, leaning toward her.

Scully pauses, holding the coffee cup halfway to her mouth, her eyes wide. He’s serious. He’s presenting it as if he’s joking, but she can see he’s serious.

“Was she?” Scully asks him honestly.

Mulder shrugs. “I think so, but the supervising agents on this case weren’t so sure. They didn’t take too kindly to my theories. More interested in pinning the deaths on a local terrorist cell than actually uncovering the truth.” He takes a long swig of his black coffee and glances out the window.

“Do you usually uncover all this... I don’t know,” she pauses, “weird stuff?”

“That’s my deal,” he nods. “They put me on cases where the usual avenues of investigation turn up empty.”

“So that explains your Jersey Devil thing. And the questions in the hospital about whether I believe in aliens.”

“I guess so,” he smiles. “And it’s not every day I meet a girl who can quote me Fermi’s Paradox.”

“That was my undergrad degree talking,” she takes another swallow of coffee. “I majored in physics before med school.”

Mulder’s eyes widen in approval.

She continues. “Not the most typical route, I know, but I liked all the big questions physics asks. And the mathematical theories made O-Chem seem pretty easy in comparison.”

Sometimes Scully feels like she shouldn’t talk too much about her education. More than one girlfriend has reminded her how guys can feel threatened by smart girls. Sometimes even her own mother had suggested that she downplay the fact she graduated early, or that she finished with high honors.

So even though she’s mostly unapologetic for her intellect -- and has the long dating dry spells to prove it -- it’s still not like her to spout off to potential suitors about things like finding O-Chem easy. But there’s something about Mulder that tells her he not only isn’t threatened, but he is finding it compelling. She meets his eyes, a bit embarrassed, and remembers it’s polite to turn the tables.

“How about you? What’d you do in school?”

“Psychology.” He half-mumbles. “At Oxford. Seems the FBI thought I had a knack for getting in the heads of criminals.” He grins.

“So you’re a criminal profiler with a penchant for the paranormal. I think I’ve got it figured out now.”

“Penchant, nice word. Especially at this hour. Remind me not to underestimate you when we play Scrabble.” He glances at his watch. “Should we get going? It’s going to be a late night as it is.”

Scully nods, pretending she didn’t notice he said “when” instead of “if’ in that last sentence, and tips the last drops from her cup. “You want to drive first shift?” She says, holding out her keys.

They’re an hour and a half into the drive, Scully back at the wheel, when the conversation turns. She had asked him about his family, where his parents lived now, where he grew up, all the usual chit chat that gets brought up when you’re just starting to connect.

“You said you had a sister, where does she live?” Scully asks nonchalantly as she checks over her back shoulder for a lane change. She maneuvers the car in line and glances back at Mulder, surprised to find him gone quiet, a solemn look across his face.

“What is it?” Scully pauses.

“My sister disappeared when I was 12.” He stops and takes a breath. “We… um… we never found her.”

Scully doesn’t know what to say so she waits to see if he wants to tell her more.

“She’s the reason I got into all these cases,” he goes on. “Her disappearance was dismissed as unexplained. We never got a satisfactory answer.”

“I'm so sorry,” Scully feels like she should pull over and intently listen, but there’s a sense in which the moving car is propelling him. This way, he doesn’t have to look at her. She senses that it’s easier if he can just stare ahead and talk.

“It’s okay.” He swallows. “I’ve done a lot of work to understand it. And I’ve come to believe that I can find her. These cases are a way to get some answers. If not for myself, then at least for people like me, when science can’t explain their losses.”

“That's a beautiful way to look at it.” Scully looks across the console at the stark relief of his profile in the streetlights. “To give a larger purpose to what you do.”

“I’m glad you see it that way,” he smiles weakly toward her. “The Bureau doesn’t always. They think I’m caught up in some harebrained pet project.”

“Well, screw what they think,” Scully blurts out emphatically, surprising herself a little. All these revelations make her like him. A lot. He’s wounded, and noble, and it’s making her want to defend his every move.

“I should get you to come and work for me,” he teases. “It’d be nice to have an ally.”

“I’ll keep that in mind in case this doctor thing doesn’t work out,” she teases back, smiling, resisting the urge she’s feeling to reach across and take his hand.

It is almost 5 am when they pull, bleary-eyed, in to Mulder’s parking lot. Sleep is drifting over them both so thickly, it is all Scully can do to push the button, pop the trunk and wave goodbye as Mulder stumbles up his stoop.

“Get some sleep,” she calls out weakly.

“I’ll call you soon, okay?” He calls back, waving.

She sleeps away her Saturday completely.

Her Sunday shift bleeds into Monday, and then they ask her to stay on because they’re suddenly short staffed. A scheduling supervisor approved too many people for too many vacation days at once. Even during normal stretches, it’s not that unusual for work to swallow weeks whole without her noticing. She keeps clothes in a locker at the hospital, and naps in empty rooms between rotations.

So it’s Wednesday before she realizes that if he’s left a message at her home number, he probably thinks she’s blowing him off. She’s never been good at what they call the “work-life balance” and she knows it has driven more than a few potential dates away. But she just doesn’t know how to give her work anything less than everything she has.

Thursday afternoon she’s writing orders and reviewing charts, hopeful she might get a chance to rush home and take a real bath after several days of hospital quickie showers, when she glances up and sees Mulder pacing in the hall of the ER. He doesn't see her.

Scully smoothes her scrubs and tucks a couple greasy flyaway hairs behind her ears. At first she’s annoyed she never bothers to tuck a tube of lipgloss in her pocket, but as she watches him, it’s evident he’s far too worried about something to take stock of how she looks.

“Mulder,” she calls out, walking toward him where he’s pacing. “What’s going on? Are you okay?”

“Doc.” He looks up, startled and pale-faced. “Oh that’s right, this is your hospital. I didn’t even think….”. He trails off, wiping a bead of sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand.

“Seriously, are you okay? You look like you need to sit down.” Scully gestures toward the waiting room.

“I'm fine. It’s…”. He swallows, his eyes darting aimlessly around the room. “A friend of mine. My partner, my former partner…”.

Scully nods, assuming this has something to do with a girlfriend or an ex, determined to look unfazed by whatever he might reveal. “Do you need me to find out if she’s okay?” Scully offers hesitantly.

“No, it’s not,” Mulder stutters, “she’s not, I mean, he’s not… He was my partner at the FBI. Several years ago. He was in an accident in an elevator today. They told me they rushed him here.”

Scully reddens just a little, embarrassed at the tiny flare of jealousy that had sparked inside her gut, and even more embarrassed to have been feeling that amidst what is obviously a difficult and tragic situation.

“I’ll see what I can do.” She angles her head toward the waiting room. “Why don’t you go sit down? What’s his name?”

“Jerry Lamana,” Mulder answers, reluctantly stumbling back down the hall.

It doesn’t take more than a couple minutes for her to find the intake records. DOA. Dead on arrival.

She’s going to have to tell Mulder that his friend is dead. They have chaplains and comfortable bereavement rooms for this kind of thing, but it seems wrong that anybody else give him the news. She smooths a hand over her hair and takes a swig of stale, lukewarm coffee from her old stained mug.

At the door of the waiting room, she meets his worried gaze and her own eyes widen. She opens her mouth to ask him to step into a private room, but closes it again when she sees that he already knows what she’s about to say. He’s read her expression effortlessly. She sees his hazel eyes fill up with tears as he stands up to go. She wants to get him out of this public space. She wants to pull him by the arm into a room where he can cry.

Instead, Mulder gives her a long look as a single tear spills over down his cheek. He nods and mouths, “thank you,” before he turns and goes.

She sees death so regularly, it feels like a blow to the stomach to remember that every death she sees as part of her day in day out business is someone's friend, someone’s partner, somebody’s lover or parent or child. It’s a difficult but essential thing to remember, or she risks becoming cold. A few tears brim in her own eyes as she realizes just how detached she has started to become. And then she feels terrible for the fact she’s also wondering if he’d called her back this week. It’s not the kind of petty thing she should be wondering about when somebody just died. But she’s wondering it anyway, and whether she’ll ever see him again.

[dorcasrempel]

Zeroing in on decarbonization

To avoid the most destructive consequences of climate change, the world’s electric energy systems must stop producing carbon by 2050. It seems like an overwhelming technological, political, and economic challenge — but not to Nestor Sepulveda.

“My work has shown me that we do have the means to tackle the problem, and we can start now,” he says. “I am optimistic.”

Sepulveda’s research, first as a master’s student and now as a doctoral candidate in the MIT Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering (NSE), involves complex simulations that describe potential pathways to decarbonization. In work published last year in the journal Joule, Sepulveda and his co-authors made a powerful case for using a mix of renewable and “firm” electricity sources, such as nuclear energy, as the least costly, and most likely, route to a low- or no-carbon grid.

These insights, which flow from a unique computational framework blending optimization and data science, operations research, and policy methodologies, have attracted interest from The New York Times and The Economist, as well as from such notable players in the energy arena as Bill Gates. For Sepulveda, the attention could not come at a more vital moment.

“Right now, people are at extremes: on the one hand worrying that steps to address climate change might weaken the economy, and on the other advocating a Green New Deal to transform the economy that depends solely on solar, wind, and battery storage,” he says. “I think my data-based work can help bridge the gap and enable people to find a middle point where they can have a conversation.”

An optimization tool

The computational model Sepulveda is developing to generate this data, the centerpiece of his dissertation research, was sparked by classroom experiences at the start of his NSE master’s degree.

“In courses like Nuclear Technology and Society [22.16], which covered the benefits and risks of nuclear energy, I saw that some people believed the solution for climate change was definitely nuclear, while others said it was wind or solar,” he says. “I began wondering how to determine the value of different technologies.”

Recognizing that “absolutes exist in people’s minds, but not in reality,” Sepulveda sought to develop a tool that might yield an optimal solution to the decarbonization question. His inaugural effort in modeling focused on weighing the advantages of utilizing advanced nuclear reactor designs against exclusive use of existing light-water reactor technology in the decarbonization effort.

“I showed that in spite of their increased costs, advanced reactors proved more valuable to achieving the low-carbon transition than conventional reactor technology alone,” he says. This research formed the basis of Sepulveda’s master’s thesis in 2016, for a degree spanning NSE and the Technology and Policy Program. It also informed the MIT Energy Initiative’s report, “The Future of Nuclear Energy in a Carbon-Constrained World.”

The right stuff

Sepulveda comes to the climate challenge armed with a lifelong commitment to service, an appetite for problem-solving, and grit. Born in Santiago, he enlisted in the Chilean navy, completing his high school and college education at the national naval academy.

“Chile has natural disasters every year, and the defense forces are the ones that jump in to help people, which I found really attractive,” he says. He opted for the most difficult academic specialty, electrical engineering, over combat and weaponry. Early in his career, the climate change issue struck him, he says, and for his senior project, he designed a ship powered by hydrogen fuel cells.

After he graduated, the Chilean navy rewarded his performance with major responsibilities in the fleet, including outfitting a $100 million amphibious ship intended for moving marines and for providing emergency relief services. But Sepulveda was anxious to focus fully on sustainable energy, and petitioned the navy to allow him to pursue a master’s at MIT in 2014.

It was while conducting research for this degree that Sepulveda confronted a life-altering health crisis: a heart defect that led to open-heart surgery. “People told me to take time off and wait another year to finish my degree,” he recalls. Instead, he decided to press on: “I was deep into ideas about decarbonization, which I found really fulfilling.”

After graduating in 2016, he returned to naval life in Chile, but “couldn’t stop thinking about the potential of informing energy policy around the world and making a long-lasting impact,” he says. “Every day, looking in the mirror, I saw the big scar on my chest that reminded me to do something bigger with my life, or at least try.”

Convinced that he could play a significant role in addressing the critical carbon problem if he continued his MIT education, Sepulveda successfully petitioned naval superiors to sanction his return to Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Simulating the energy transition

Since resuming studies here in 2018, Sepulveda has wasted little time. He is focused on refining his modeling tool to play out the potential impacts and costs of increasingly complex energy technology scenarios on achieving deep decarbonization. This has meant rapidly acquiring knowledge in fields such as economics, math, and law.

“The navy gave me discipline, and MIT gave me flexibility of mind — how to look at problems from different angles,” he says.

With mentors and collaborators such as Associate Provost and Japan Steel Industry Professor Richard Lester and MIT Sloan School of Management professors Juan Pablo Vielma and Christopher Knittel, Sepulveda has been tweaking his models. His simulations, which can involve more than 1,000 scenarios, factor in existing and emerging technologies, uncertainties such as the possible emergence of fusion energy, and different regional constraints, to identify optimal investment strategies for low-carbon systems and to determine what pathways generate the most cost-effective solutions.

“The idea isn’t to say we need this many solar farms or nuclear plants, but to look at the trends and value the future impact of technologies for climate change, so we can focus money on those with the highest impact, and generate policies that push harder on those,” he says.

Sepulveda hopes his models won’t just lead the way to decarbonization, but do so in a way that minimizes social costs. “I come from a developing nation, where there are other problems like health care and education, so my goal is to achieve a pathway that leaves resources to address these other issues.”

As he refines his computations with the help of MIT’s massive computing clusters, Sepulveda has been building a life in the United States. He has found a vibrant Chilean community at MIT and discovered local opportunities for venturing out on the water, such as summer sailing on the Charles.

After graduation, he plans to leverage his modeling tool for the public benefit, through direct interactions with policy makers (U.S. congressional staffers have already begun to reach out to him), and with businesses looking to bend their strategies toward a zero-carbon future.

It is a future that weighs even more heavily on him these days: Sepulveda is expecting his first child. “Right now, we’re buying stuff for the baby, but my mind keeps going into algorithmic mode,” he says. “I’m so immersed in decarbonization that I sometimes dream about it.”

Zeroing in on decarbonization syndicated from https://osmowaterfilters.blogspot.com/

[stacicori]

Faculty Spotlight: Christopher Wheat Program Director of Health Information Management

Christopher Wheat had originally planned on becoming a physician when he entered the University of Chicago as an undergraduate. Fortunately for Northwestern College, he changed his plans. The multi-degreed, multi-awarded Wheat is now Program Director of the college’s new Health Information Management program. How he went from there to here is a fascinating story.

When life pulls you in an unexpected direction

Wheat received his bachelor’s in biological sciences with a specialization in neuroscience from U of C. “At one point, I considered becoming a psychiatrist,” Wheat reflects. “Life, of course, pulled me in a different direction, and in my last year of college I was performing research at the U of C children’s hospital, Wyler’s [now known as Comer Children’s], working in the developmental neurobiology laboratory.” He liked research, so decided to stick with it for another year after graduation. He transferred to UIC’s (University of Illinois at Chicago) Department of Physiology and Biophysics, where he performed research on genetic knockout mice, studying different myosin isoform physiological traits. His contract expired about the time of the shaky political climate in 2004-2006, when many of the sciences were defunded.

How making a necessary change affected plans

“The positions that I normally had and was qualified for with a bachelor’s from the University of Chicago were no longer within my reach,” he says. Research positions seemed to be open only to those who had PhDs. Wheat thought he might need to shift his career goals. “At that point, I wasn’t really interested in medicine per se, but I still loved science,” he says. While searching the Internet for jobs and career alternatives, he saw something intriguing, yet unfamiliar to him: health information technology (HIT). As he learned more about HIT, he followed the path to Northwestern College in 2008.

When starting from scratch is a good thing

Although Wheat was armed with a degree from a prestigious university, he knew it wasn’t enough. “I wanted a firm foundation, a firm footing in a profession instead of just getting a post-graduate certificate,” he says. He signed up for Northwestern College’s associate’s program in HIT. He completed the program, received his RHIT (Registered Health Information Technician) certification and began looking for work. Wheat’s predecessor at NC received a copy of his exam results and was so impressed that he asked him to start teaching new graduates the exam review class. He worked part-time for six months as an adjunct faculty member. “After getting rave reviews,” he says, “I was extended an offer of full-time faculty, full-time instructor.” He decided that if he planned to teach, he should continue his own education.

How adding more credentials improves chances

In the fall of 2014, Wheat began a master’s program in HIM (Health Information Management) at the College of St. Scholastica. During the next two years, he certified in CCS-P (Certified Coding Specialist – Physician-based), CCS (Certified Coding Specialist) and RHIA (Registered Health Information Administrator). “I officially elevated my RHIT certificate, which is the two-year certification to the four-year administrator.” Wheat completed his first master’s last August in Health Information Management, but that wasn’t enough for him. He started a second master’s in Health Informatics that he will complete in August of this year.

When closing one door opens others

As luck would have it, in 2015 Wheat’s predecessor at Northwestern College decided he wanted to get back into the field, and he tendered his resignation. Wheat assumed the role of program director and department chair at that time. In addition management of the certificate and degree programs, he continues to teach and this quarter is teaching Coding I and the 120-hour practical course for associate’s-degree students; which is the culmination of their two-year academic career. Aside from his Northwestern College commitment, Wheat is active in area professional associations, including CAHIMA (Chicago Area Health Information Management Association) and ILHIMA (Illinois Health Information Management Association). “In 2015, I was awarded the Outstanding New Professional Award by ILHIMA and decided to run for a board seat.,” he says. “I’m currently serving my second year as Director of Education on the board of ILHIMA. I’m finishing up the term this year, and am currently running for President of ILHIMA.”

What he sees as his personal goals

Wheat wants to make the Northwestern College HIM program the premier HIM program of the Midwest. “I put my blood, sweat and tears into constantly improving the curriculum with the help of amazing faculty,” he says. “I really love the students.” With his open-door policy, Wheat encourages students to come to him any time they have issues or questions. “I hate for a student to struggle in silence,” he continues. “I remember when I first went to college at the U of C where our motto literally was ‘where fun comes to die.’ I never want a student to feel that way.” He’s well on his way to achieving his goal, partially due to NC’s many benefits – especially the small class size. “With Northwestern College being a relatively small college, students can get that one-on-one interaction and help that they need.” In addition to the personal approach that is part of classroom instruction, Wheat believes the school’s tutoring options from peers, professionals and instructors; structure of coursework; easily accessible location; and online options are all benefits of the educational programs offered at Northwestern College.

Getting into Health Information Management was a wise decision for Christopher Wheat. If you think Northwestern College’s new bachelor’s program in Health Information Management is right for you, apply now.

The post Faculty Spotlight: Christopher Wheat, Program Director of Health Information Management appeared first on Northwestern College.

from https://nc.edu/faculty-spotlight-christopher-wheat-program-director-of-health-information-management/

from Northwestern College - Blog http://northwesterncollege1.weebly.com/blog/faculty-spotlight-christopher-wheat-program-director-of-health-information-management

[bettymya3]

Faculty Spotlight: Christopher Wheat, Program Director of Health Information Management

Christopher Wheat had originally planned on becoming a physician when he entered the University of Chicago as an undergraduate. Fortunately for Northwestern College, he changed his plans. The multi-degreed, multi-awarded Wheat is now Program Director of the college’s new Health Information Management program. How he went from there to here is a fascinating story.

When life pulls you in an unexpected direction

Wheat received his bachelor’s in biological sciences with a specialization in neuroscience from U of C. “At one point, I considered becoming a psychiatrist,” Wheat reflects. “Life, of course, pulled me in a different direction, and in my last year of college I was performing research at the U of C children’s hospital, Wyler’s [now known as Comer Children’s], working in the developmental neurobiology laboratory.” He liked research, so decided to stick with it for another year after graduation. He transferred to UIC’s (University of Illinois at Chicago) Department of Physiology and Biophysics, where he performed research on genetic knockout mice, studying different myosin isoform physiological traits. His contract expired about the time of the shaky political climate in 2004-2006, when many of the sciences were defunded.

How making a necessary change affected plans

“The positions that I normally had and was qualified for with a bachelor’s from the University of Chicago were no longer within my reach,” he says. Research positions seemed to be open only to those who had PhDs. Wheat thought he might need to shift his career goals. “At that point, I wasn’t really interested in medicine per se, but I still loved science,” he says. While searching the Internet for jobs and career alternatives, he saw something intriguing, yet unfamiliar to him: health information technology (HIT). As he learned more about HIT, he followed the path to Northwestern College in 2008.

When starting from scratch is a good thing

Although Wheat was armed with a degree from a prestigious university, he knew it wasn’t enough. “I wanted a firm foundation, a firm footing in a profession instead of just getting a post-graduate certificate,” he says. He signed up for Northwestern College’s associate’s program in HIT. He completed the program, received his RHIT (Registered Health Information Technician) certification and began looking for work. Wheat’s predecessor at NC received a copy of his exam results and was so impressed that he asked him to start teaching new graduates the exam review class. He worked part-time for six months as an adjunct faculty member. “After getting rave reviews,” he says, “I was extended an offer of full-time faculty, full-time instructor.” He decided that if he planned to teach, he should continue his own education.

How adding more credentials improves chances

In the fall of 2014, Wheat began a master’s program in HIM (Health Information Management) at the College of St. Scholastica. During the next two years, he certified in CCS-P (Certified Coding Specialist – Physician-based), CCS (Certified Coding Specialist) and RHIA (Registered Health Information Administrator). “I officially elevated my RHIT certificate, which is the two-year certification to the four-year administrator.” Wheat completed his first master’s last August in Health Information Management, but that wasn’t enough for him. He started a second master’s in Health Informatics that he will complete in August of this year.

When closing one door opens others

As luck would have it, in 2015 Wheat’s predecessor at Northwestern College decided he wanted to get back into the field, and he tendered his resignation. Wheat assumed the role of program director and department chair at that time. In addition management of the certificate and degree programs, he continues to teach and this quarter is teaching Coding I and the 120-hour practical course for associate’s-degree students; which is the culmination of their two-year academic career. Aside from his Northwestern College commitment, Wheat is active in area professional associations, including CAHIMA (Chicago Area Health Information Management Association) and ILHIMA (Illinois Health Information Management Association). “In 2015, I was awarded the Outstanding New Professional Award by ILHIMA and decided to run for a board seat.,” he says. “I’m currently serving my second year as Director of Education on the board of ILHIMA. I’m finishing up the term this year, and am currently running for President of ILHIMA.”

What he sees as his personal goals

Wheat wants to make the Northwestern College HIM program the premier HIM program of the Midwest. “I put my blood, sweat and tears into constantly improving the curriculum with the help of amazing faculty,” he says. “I really love the students.” With his open-door policy, Wheat encourages students to come to him any time they have issues or questions. “I hate for a student to struggle in silence,” he continues. “I remember when I first went to college at the U of C where our motto literally was ‘where fun comes to die.’ I never want a student to feel that way.” He’s well on his way to achieving his goal, partially due to NC’s many benefits – especially the small class size. “With Northwestern College being a relatively small college, students can get that one-on-one interaction and help that they need.” In addition to the personal approach that is part of classroom instruction, Wheat believes the school’s tutoring options from peers, professionals and instructors; structure of coursework; easily accessible location; and online options are all benefits of the educational programs offered at Northwestern College.

Getting into Health Information Management was a wise decision for Christopher Wheat. If you think Northwestern College’s new bachelor’s program in Health Information Management is right for you, apply now.

The post Faculty Spotlight: Christopher Wheat, Program Director of Health Information Management appeared first on Northwestern College.

from Northwestern College https://nc.edu/faculty-spotlight-christopher-wheat-program-director-of-health-information-management/ from Northwestern College https://northwesterncollege1.tumblr.com/post/172563265981

[northwesterncollege1]

Faculty Spotlight: Christopher Wheat, Program Director of Health Information Management

Christopher Wheat had originally planned on becoming a physician when he entered the University of Chicago as an undergraduate. Fortunately for Northwestern College, he changed his plans. The multi-degreed, multi-awarded Wheat is now Program Director of the college’s new Health Information Management program. How he went from there to here is a fascinating story.

When life pulls you in an unexpected direction

Wheat received his bachelor’s in biological sciences with a specialization in neuroscience from U of C. “At one point, I considered becoming a psychiatrist,” Wheat reflects. “Life, of course, pulled me in a different direction, and in my last year of college I was performing research at the U of C children’s hospital, Wyler’s [now known as Comer Children’s], working in the developmental neurobiology laboratory.” He liked research, so decided to stick with it for another year after graduation. He transferred to UIC’s (University of Illinois at Chicago) Department of Physiology and Biophysics, where he performed research on genetic knockout mice, studying different myosin isoform physiological traits. His contract expired about the time of the shaky political climate in 2004-2006, when many of the sciences were defunded.

How making a necessary change affected plans

“The positions that I normally had and was qualified for with a bachelor’s from the University of Chicago were no longer within my reach,” he says. Research positions seemed to be open only to those who had PhDs. Wheat thought he might need to shift his career goals. “At that point, I wasn’t really interested in medicine per se, but I still loved science,” he says. While searching the Internet for jobs and career alternatives, he saw something intriguing, yet unfamiliar to him: health information technology (HIT). As he learned more about HIT, he followed the path to Northwestern College in 2008.

When starting from scratch is a good thing

Although Wheat was armed with a degree from a prestigious university, he knew it wasn’t enough. “I wanted a firm foundation, a firm footing in a profession instead of just getting a post-graduate certificate,” he says. He signed up for Northwestern College’s associate’s program in HIT. He completed the program, received his RHIT (Registered Health Information Technician) certification and began looking for work. Wheat’s predecessor at NC received a copy of his exam results and was so impressed that he asked him to start teaching new graduates the exam review class. He worked part-time for six months as an adjunct faculty member. “After getting rave reviews,” he says, “I was extended an offer of full-time faculty, full-time instructor.” He decided that if he planned to teach, he should continue his own education.

How adding more credentials improves chances

In the fall of 2014, Wheat began a master’s program in HIM (Health Information Management) at the College of St. Scholastica. During the next two years, he certified in CCS-P (Certified Coding Specialist – Physician-based), CCS (Certified Coding Specialist) and RHIA (Registered Health Information Administrator). “I officially elevated my RHIT certificate, which is the two-year certification to the four-year administrator.” Wheat completed his first master’s last August in Health Information Management, but that wasn’t enough for him. He started a second master’s in Health Informatics that he will complete in August of this year.

When closing one door opens others

As luck would have it, in 2015 Wheat’s predecessor at Northwestern College decided he wanted to get back into the field, and he tendered his resignation. Wheat assumed the role of program director and department chair at that time. In addition management of the certificate and degree programs, he continues to teach and this quarter is teaching Coding I and the 120-hour practical course for associate’s-degree students; which is the culmination of their two-year academic career. Aside from his Northwestern College commitment, Wheat is active in area professional associations, including CAHIMA (Chicago Area Health Information Management Association) and ILHIMA (Illinois Health Information Management Association). “In 2015, I was awarded the Outstanding New Professional Award by ILHIMA and decided to run for a board seat.,” he says. “I’m currently serving my second year as Director of Education on the board of ILHIMA. I’m finishing up the term this year, and am currently running for President of ILHIMA.”

What he sees as his personal goals

Wheat wants to make the Northwestern College HIM program the premier HIM program of the Midwest. “I put my blood, sweat and tears into constantly improving the curriculum with the help of amazing faculty,” he says. “I really love the students.” With his open-door policy, Wheat encourages students to come to him any time they have issues or questions. “I hate for a student to struggle in silence,” he continues. “I remember when I first went to college at the U of C where our motto literally was ‘where fun comes to die.’ I never want a student to feel that way.” He’s well on his way to achieving his goal, partially due to NC’s many benefits – especially the small class size. “With Northwestern College being a relatively small college, students can get that one-on-one interaction and help that they need.” In addition to the personal approach that is part of classroom instruction, Wheat believes the school’s tutoring options from peers, professionals and instructors; structure of coursework; easily accessible location; and online options are all benefits of the educational programs offered at Northwestern College.

Getting into Health Information Management was a wise decision for Christopher Wheat. If you think Northwestern College’s new bachelor’s program in Health Information Management is right for you, apply now.

The post Faculty Spotlight: Christopher Wheat, Program Director of Health Information Management appeared first on Northwestern College.

from Northwestern College https://nc.edu/faculty-spotlight-christopher-wheat-program-director-of-health-information-management/

[ellielara]

Faculty Spotlight: Christopher Wheat, Program Director of Health Information Management

Christopher Wheat had originally planned on becoming a physician when he entered the University of Chicago as an undergraduate. Fortunately for Northwestern College, he changed his plans. The multi-degreed, multi-awarded Wheat is now Program Director of the college’s new Health Information Management program. How he went from there to here is a fascinating story.

When life pulls you in an unexpected direction

Wheat received his bachelor’s in biological sciences with a specialization in neuroscience from U of C. “At one point, I considered becoming a psychiatrist,” Wheat reflects. “Life, of course, pulled me in a different direction, and in my last year of college I was performing research at the U of C children’s hospital, Wyler’s [now known as Comer Children’s], working in the developmental neurobiology laboratory.” He liked research, so decided to stick with it for another year after graduation. He transferred to UIC’s (University of Illinois at Chicago) Department of Physiology and Biophysics, where he performed research on genetic knockout mice, studying different myosin isoform physiological traits. His contract expired about the time of the shaky political climate in 2004-2006, when many of the sciences were defunded.

How making a necessary change affected plans

“The positions that I normally had and was qualified for with a bachelor’s from the University of Chicago were no longer within my reach,” he says. Research positions seemed to be open only to those who had PhDs. Wheat thought he might need to shift his career goals. “At that point, I wasn’t really interested in medicine per se, but I still loved science,” he says. While searching the Internet for jobs and career alternatives, he saw something intriguing, yet unfamiliar to him: health information technology (HIT). As he learned more about HIT, he followed the path to Northwestern College in 2008.

When starting from scratch is a good thing

Although Wheat was armed with a degree from a prestigious university, he knew it wasn’t enough. “I wanted a firm foundation, a firm footing in a profession instead of just getting a post-graduate certificate,” he says. He signed up for Northwestern College’s associate’s program in HIT. He completed the program, received his RHIT (Registered Health Information Technician) certification and began looking for work. Wheat’s predecessor at NC received a copy of his exam results and was so impressed that he asked him to start teaching new graduates the exam review class. He worked part-time for six months as an adjunct faculty member. “After getting rave reviews,” he says, “I was extended an offer of full-time faculty, full-time instructor.” He decided that if he planned to teach, he should continue his own education.

How adding more credentials improves chances

In the fall of 2014, Wheat began a master’s program in HIM (Health Information Management) at the College of St. Scholastica. During the next two years, he certified in CCS-P (Certified Coding Specialist – Physician-based), CCS (Certified Coding Specialist) and RHIA (Registered Health Information Administrator). “I officially elevated my RHIT certificate, which is the two-year certification to the four-year administrator.” Wheat completed his first master’s last August in Health Information Management, but that wasn’t enough for him. He started a second master’s in Health Informatics that he will complete in August of this year.

When closing one door opens others

As luck would have it, in 2015 Wheat’s predecessor at Northwestern College decided he wanted to get back into the field, and he tendered his resignation. Wheat assumed the role of program director and department chair at that time. In addition management of the certificate and degree programs, he continues to teach and this quarter is teaching Coding I and the 120-hour practical course for associate’s-degree students; which is the culmination of their two-year academic career. Aside from his Northwestern College commitment, Wheat is active in area professional associations, including CAHIMA (Chicago Area Health Information Management Association) and ILHIMA (Illinois Health Information Management Association). “In 2015, I was awarded the Outstanding New Professional Award by ILHIMA and decided to run for a board seat.,” he says. “I’m currently serving my second year as Director of Education on the board of ILHIMA. I’m finishing up the term this year, and am currently running for President of ILHIMA.”

What he sees as his personal goals

Wheat wants to make the Northwestern College HIM program the premier HIM program of the Midwest. “I put my blood, sweat and tears into constantly improving the curriculum with the help of amazing faculty,” he says. “I really love the students.” With his open-door policy, Wheat encourages students to come to him any time they have issues or questions. “I hate for a student to struggle in silence,” he continues. “I remember when I first went to college at the U of C where our motto literally was ‘where fun comes to die.’ I never want a student to feel that way.” He’s well on his way to achieving his goal, partially due to NC’s many benefits – especially the small class size. “With Northwestern College being a relatively small college, students can get that one-on-one interaction and help that they need.” In addition to the personal approach that is part of classroom instruction, Wheat believes the school’s tutoring options from peers, professionals and instructors; structure of coursework; easily accessible location; and online options are all benefits of the educational programs offered at Northwestern College.

Getting into Health Information Management was a wise decision for Christopher Wheat. If you think Northwestern College’s new bachelor’s program in Health Information Management is right for you, apply now.

The post Faculty Spotlight: Christopher Wheat, Program Director of Health Information Management appeared first on Northwestern College.

from https://nc.edu/faculty-spotlight-christopher-wheat-program-director-of-health-information-management/ from Northwestern College https://northwesterncollege1.blogspot.com/2018/04/faculty-spotlight-christopher-wheat.html

[therachelperspective]

BOOK ⎟ Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert

Does anyone else agree that self-help books are a touchy subject? No one ever dares admit they read them because then it’s the admittance that we need help with something... and heaven forbid we do that. Yet there they are, in their own little section of the bookstore/library, a plethora of books on topics ranging from divorce to business tactics, all waiting to aid in you with whatever you need. 

Among them you will find a book by Elizabeth Gilbert. Yes, that same Ms. Gilbert who trekked through Italy, India, and Bali (gawwd, still so jealous) on a mission to rediscover herself. But despite its contents and use as such by millions, Eat Pray Love is not categorized under the help category. No, my friends, today we talk about Big Magic – Gilbert’s foray into purposefully inspiring others and teaching them how to live creative lives... by once again talking about herself. 

Published in 2015, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear delves into Liz’s personal fascination with the concept of creativity and the process with which she and others have come to utilize it in their lives. First a TEDtalk, which directly addresses fans who have approached her with their own creative frustrations, then a podcast (“Magic Lessons”), Big Magic is another measure in her creatively-focused feats. But she doesn’t just call creativity as it is; rather she says that an idea is a “strange jewel” that is hidden within us, something the Universe put there for us to find, and the process with which we find it is creative living or “big magic.” I often made note of the fact that the language Gilbert uses to discuss creativity and its processes was entirely cheesy... but I equally noted its brilliance. It may not be everyone’s cup of tea in how she personified ideas and creativity, and it’s enough to make you roll your eyes, but the concepts are there and are absolutely fantastic. 

The book itself is divided into five sections: Courage, Enchantment, Permission, Persistence, and Trust (there’s also Divinity, but don’t worry, it is incredibly short). These are the things, as per Elizabeth Gilbert, that are required for living a creative life. In each, she shares stories of her personal experiences, those of her friends and the assortment of people she’s met in her life, those of people throughout history, and much more intertwined with words expressing the necessity of each trait within the world of creativity. In response to those who claim Gilbert to be narcissistic in Big Magic (just as they did with Eat Pray Love too), here I call it illustrating a point. She best knows her own experiences, just as you best know yours; how else would you expect her to demonstrate a concept’s use and integration into real life? Anyway... Moving on... 

Although I completely understand the difficulty involved when writing a book like this – especially when trying to really invoke something in the reader – the “chapters” within each unit were very short for my taste, some furthermore incredibly repetitive. There��s such a thing as reminding a reader of an idea throughout a book, and then there is repeating it over and over, right after you had just said it in the previous chapters. One thing I recall very predominantly is that Big Magic read like a college paper that someone had b.s.-ed their way through to achieve proper page amount or word count. I still maintain that this book is full of good ideas and information... but there is so much reiteration. Combined with the choppiness of the chapters, some hardly even over a page, I often wondered how much shorter this book could have been without the fluff she used to over-emphasize a point or if she had condensed a few passages together.

But don’t misunderstand me. I may have some qualms about the way Big Magic was produced and assembled, yet this is one of the very few books I have ever read in my life (and I’ve read a lot) that has actually encouraged and motivated me to act on something. 

Let me repeat that a little louder –  

I actually pursued something new and fantastic in my life because of this book.

And that offsets anything I have to say about the seemingly-ridiculous jargon and sporadic demeanor of this novel. 

The pages upon pages of quotes I wrote down from Big Magic, alongside my personal testimony of action, make it a book that I would recommend to anyone looking to inspire change in their life. Naturally, it is a book geared more specifically towards writers like Liz and other artists whom typically fall under the title of “creatives,” but there is no lie in saying that anyone who is anyone can use this book in some way, shape, or form in regards to some aspect in their lives (no matter how minuscule). Like for example, the idea that life should be “driven more by curiosity than fear” is pretty straightforward. Or something like “you don’t need anybody’s permission to live a creative life,” can simply be interpreted as you don’t need anyone’s permission to live the life you want. Better yet, “open your eyes wide and let the world educate you to the fullest extent[.] There are many ways to learn that do not necessarily involve schoolrooms.” 

Or “Be the weirdo who dares to enjoy”...

Or “You can start whenever you decide to start”... 

All these, and so much more, are about any life, not just a creative one. 

While some ideas of Gilbert’s may seem questionable – i.e. art being useless and meaningless (while also paradoxically being useful and meaningful), or that you don’t need to be collegiately trained to do the thing you want to do (referring more specifically to artistic majors) – I learned early to take her words with a grain of salt, something I don’t think many of her harshest critics did. Elizabeth Gilbert earned her fame by writing a memoir about a period of time in her life, but she herself does not have a writing degree. In fact, she graduated from NYU with a Bachelors degree in Political Science. Oftentimes, she is living proof of the seemingly-odd statements she makes, so she is not saying them solely because she is liberal-minded. By understanding where she’s coming from in some of those statements (for example, she describes how attending college, especially when you don’t necessarily have the means to do so, does rack up a ton of financial debt that can in turn squander your ambitions), it becomes clear that Elizabeth Gilbert is not just a crazy woman trying to ruin the dreams of artists. Instead, it is that she is trying to help you pursue it more wisely and with a greater comprehension of what you’re in for. 

I am one of those creative people that can take Gilbert’s words at more of a face value because they directly relate to what I do in life, but as you can see, so much of what she says is relevant to the everyday lives of creatives and non-creatives alike. It is as much a letter to the artists of the world as it is to the corporate businessperson looking for a new edge or the discouraged kid needing words of wisdom and motivation to pursue what he or she loves doing. Once again I say (as I often mention like a broken record in so many of my reviews) if you possess the ability to read in between the lines, the theories and encouragement pouring out of Big Magic can not only apply to your everyday life but can also actually help you creatively in amazing ways, just as it did for me.

Elizabeth Gilbert is the #1 New York Times  bestselling author of Eat Pray Love and several other internationally bestselling books. She has been a finalist for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the PEN/Hemingway Award. Her latest novel, The Signature of All Things, was named a best book of 2013 by The New York Times, O: The Oprah Magazine, The Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, and The New Yorker. [from the book inside flap]. 

Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert Riverhead Books | September 2015 | 288 pages MY RATING: ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩  I will admit that part of my rating has to do with the fact that this book helped me pursue a new path in life, but I will say that it also was just a really good book. Sometimes preachy, sometimes cheesy as hell, but it communicated a lot of important information. 

I didn’t read Big Magic with the intention of really applying it to my life, it just happened that I was able to receive such great inspiration from it. As a tool for others, I definitely believe the right ideas are there.