Behaviorally Speaking

Happy New Year, everyone! I know it's been a while since I last posted. The end of the year got pretty crazy for me and I've been busy enough that I hadn't even realized how far into the new month I'd gotten without a blog post. I hope 2012 is treating you well.

It has been determined that a student’s pounding on his desk with his fist serves the function of frustration.
Gah. I wish I could hand out demerits (response-cost procedures, yay!) in-vivo sometimes.

Made a slight change to the blog layout. Changed the text color. You're welcome, Mom.

It's interesting how much we learn from stepping into another person's shoes. I had a moment like that rather recently, and wow, did it ever feel like my life as a student had come around full circle. If you haven't figured it out already, I love school. I enjoy lectures and I look forward to tests. I listen to professors say, "This is a hard class and if you're worried about your GPA, drop this class now," and this is my reaction:

So it really isn't a surprise that I've decided to dedicate a whopping twenty-four years of my life to academia (that's with my future doctoral program included) and the pursuit of higher education. On the other hand, I never expected to end up anywhere near the educational field. As much as I like lectures I don't really care for giving them. And yet here I am, working in special education. Life's funny like that.

 I mentioned in my last post that one of my newer roles is being a supervisor. As part of my work for practicum I have a small group of undergraduate students that I supervise. We have weekly meetings and discuss topics and cover material in seminar-like setting. I absolutely love it and I love them. They're wonderful. As I told them, they are my baby cubs and I am their oh-so-proud Mama Bear.

 And then I had to grade their papers.

 Let's back track a little. Back in high school I had this fantastic English teacher, Mrs. B. Mrs. B was theatrical and eccentric, kept a gigantic mug full of tea on her desk and dubbed it her "one cup of tea per day," and kept a mosquito buzzer in her desk for when the classroom got too noisy (she couldn't hear the buzzing, but oh goodness, we could). The way she handled her class, upfront and no-nonsense but still playful and captivating, left a very big impression on me and inevitably influenced the way I handle my meetings with my supervisees.

I am lucky that I still talk to Mrs. B occasionally (thank you, social networking sites!). Last week, I mentioned that instead of having a final, I get to grade a small pile of reflection papers. Mrs. B said that was much, much worse. I was pretty skeptical about that. Recall that the members of Team Melissa are my baby cubs and that I love them and have lots of faith in them. I told Mrs. B that they're college seniors and it's just a two-page reflection on the semester as a whole. Hell, most of them are older than me (why I'm younger than everyone in my classes is a story for another time), so I was sure they'd have enough experience to write a two-page paper. That couldn't be so bad, right?

Mrs. B laughed at me. I should have seen that coming.

Of course, I did tell my mentees what I was expecting. I told them to double-check their work. I told them that spelling and grammatical errors might give me an aneurysm. I thought I made it pretty clear. The papers' due date finally came around and I got the chance to look at the papers. Spelling and punctuation were pretty good. The papers' could have used a little more structure, but hey, they're reflection papers. What can you do?

And then one of them spelled my name wrong. And oh, how I despaired. Mrs. B was right.

 In that moment, I finally understood why professors will nag at students over trivial things. I understood why teachers are so dang under-appreciated. I remembered all the times I stayed up until four in the morning spewing some sort of crap onto a word document and calling it a paper, and then I thought about the professors who had to read it.And I remembered why I don't want to be a teacher.

 Moral of the story, folks: proof-read your papers. You just might save some brain cells for whoever ends up having to read them.

I promise I'm not just updating this blog because I'm avoiding homework at 2 in the morning. I promise. I am a horrible liar.

Oh, this poor blog. I had such high hopes for it. I was gonna keep track of data and post about it and it would've a fun exercise in self-reporting. And then...well, I finished my project. (I got an A on it, so you know. My hand-drawn graph had pink data points and it was insane.) And maintenance had basically flushed itself down the drain by the time I'd gotten to my poster presentation. Note to self: plan for maintenance from now on!

And life kept going, picking up speed like a very round rock rolling down a very steep hill. I graduated from college with a BA in Psychology in May.

I still have yet to learn how to make picture-appropriate faces when there is a camera present. Some things never change.

I applied to grad school. I went through through the mad frenzy that is submitting applications and asking for letters of recommendation. I somehow survived and made it into CSUN's very first MA in Behavioral Clinical Psychology/BCBA program. And then class started in August and now it's December and I honestly have no idea where the months went, just that I suddenly have a lot of information crammed into my head. And it is crazy fun.

I went a little crazy for a bit. Habituation (you see that?! I'm using vocab terms!) was rough for a while, so I dyed my hair pink. I called it my quarter-life crisis. Things are better now. My hair is sadly no longer pink.

I wear a lot of hats now. I'm still working with children with autism, though I recently switched companies. We'll call my new company Company Blue (because I like the color blue), in case I ever need to mention my company or something like that. I'm enrolled in an assessment and treatment evaluation practicum under the supervision of the director of my program (how freaking cool is that?!) which not only allows me to go in field and talk to families, but I also get a group of undergrad supervisees! I like to call them Team Melissa. I'm also doing research on campus. With robots. My life is really freaking cool.

So now we're halfway through December and I'm almost done with my first semester of grad school! And in realizing that I am now a quarter of the way done with my master's program, I figured I should chronicle this somehow. And then I remembered this blog. I figure I have it, you know, so I should actually use it.

And that brings me to why I'm posting today. Well, tonight. In the midst of my unfortunate, procrastination-caused, 2AM-the-night-before-it's-due homework spree, I realized I need a place to jot down my thoughts when grad school starts eating my life. I think it'll be useful, too, not just to me, but to other people. Maybe to other people that want to get into grad school, or to people who like ABA or Psychology in general, or maybe just people that like to read about me rambling.

I think it'll be fun, either way. I hope you're up for the ride, 'cause I'm back, blogging skills ready to be dusted off and stretched out again. Here we go!

I finished all of my exercises for the week, and this is what I found waiting for me on Yay Day:

It's really nice having Mummford back home, and with Tangled to boot! Cameron gets brownie points for simultaneously positively and negatively reinforcing me! Talk about a motivator!

Since last week, I've started a new diet! I've been portioning adequately and throwing tons of fruit and veggies into my meal plan. It's worked pretty well so far! I haven't touched any coffee (and as a recovering Starbucks addict, this is incredibly hard!), and I've even managed to look at the ice cream in the fridge and turn it down!

I also got to use the pool yesterday! It was really hot outside and I thought I would get to splash around and just relax, but Cameron led me through a grueling workout instead! We worked on basic diving stuff and overall getting me to be a stronger swimmer (I'm not a very good swimmer at all...), and then he made me do all sorts of laps around the pool. I am so sore today!

All the soreness and dieting have definitely been worth it! I took measurements today and since the last time I took measurements (which was probably a couple of weeks ago), I've lost about 2-3 inches in my bust (I can't tell you how much of a relief that is--my bust was getting out of hand!), an inch in my waist, and I gained an inch in my butt. I'm rather lacking in the rear department, so this is really exciting! I've also lost the five pounds I gained in Vegas as well as one or two more on top of that, but I'm sure I've got more to lose in the upcoming weeks! Looks like I'll be keeping up the dieting and Cameron and I have already agreed to turn our water workouts into a weekly thing.

And on to this week. So, about a year ago, Cameron let me borrow a giant exercise book. I'm a little ashamed to say that I didn't bother reading it until Friday. But it's a wonderful book! It's put in a very people-friendly manner (which is great for exercise-unintelligent people like me!) and it cleared up a lot of the things I always wondered about, like how many reps to do, how much weight to use, etc.

But anyway, this isn't a review of the book! After I started poking through the book, I found some nifty pages on both long-term and short-term exercise plans, as well as different work outs to target specific parts of the body. I mixed and matched exercises from what I wanted to work out and figured out what I can do with my little home gym, and I came up with this:


This is my new exercise routine! I'll be doing this three times a week (Monday, Wednesday, Friday), and I get a bonus Saturday water workout. After reading the book I found out that exercising a little bit but more often during the week (as I've been doing) isn't as effective as working out a bunch but less frequently. It also doesn't give me enough time to rest, which is something I really need!

I also figured out how to modify my Yay Chart so I can keep using it, even with this new routine.


As you can see, I now have days on the horizontal axis and exercises on the vertical axis. I get a token for completing each target area set (which means I need to find more immediate reinforcers for every single set I complete), and I still need 15 tokens for whatever reward I might get on Yay Day. I actually don't know what I'm working for this week yet! Better get on that!

Hopefully, with my new routine, the weekly water workouts, and my diet plan, I'll have my bikini body ready (or well, closer to it) by the end of May! I did promise myself that if I kept it up until graduation, I'd get a new bikini. Who knows, I might even get two!

I have bad news, guys.

That's Mummford. That bed isn't mine. It's Cameron's.

That's right, the worst has happened.


It's a horrible atrocity! I weep just thinking about it.

Alright, enough of the melodrama, how about I recap what's been going on for the past couple of weeks?

After I finished the initial four weeks of my intervention, I took a break. I was still getting over being sick, and I went to Vegas to celebrate. Three days and lots of food and alcohol later, I'd gone up another five pounds and I still hadn't done any exercising. I also came back from Vegas even sicker. A trip to the doctor told me I had a sinus infection and a case of bronchitis.

Sicky land is quite fun, wouldn't you say?

It's been hard to keep up with exercising. I've been tired and...I've been lazy. Yep. Quite lazy. I've been in dire need of finding something to motivate me. And well..because of that, I gave up Mummford willingly. I know! It's horrible! But well, I did agree to a contract and I had punishment coming, and working to bring Mummford back home is really good negative reinforcement.

I'm still recovering from bronchitis, so I'm making a few changes to my workout. Instead of cardio I've opted to do squats, and I plan on trying to do at least 25 per foot position (either feet close together, shoulder width apart, or further). Also, I'm nixing the ab coaster. I don't like how little it seems to be affecting me, and the last time I tried to do sit ups, it hurt so bad I could hardly move the rest of the week. Call me masochistic, but I'd much rather take the pain than none at all, you know?

Wish me luck, guys! The Mummford Rescue Project must succeed!

So, Phase 4, I kicked yo butt.

Phase 4 was tough. Really tough. If you take a look at the chart, you'll see I had to exercise on a Sunday for once! The picture's also missing my giant Yay Sticker because I forgot to bring my chart to Cameron's yesterday.

So at the end of Phase 4, I am two pounds lighter, my stamina's increased substantially, I'm far more limber, my boobs have gotten smaller, and I have way less back fat. (When it comes to my paper, I'm going to have to figure out how to write that in more paper-appropriate language...drat.) It took me forever to figure out why I hadn't dropped in weight; I didn't start cardio until later, so I didn't really start losing weight until then. I can walk up flights of stairs on campus much more easily now. My shoulders have always been weak and problematic for me, and now that I've been working them out, they hurt less (though they're sore from exercising them), and the decrease in my chest has definitely helped. My stomach, albeit not really showing a decrease in the numbers (or maybe it is--I've been doing my measurements myself so I can't really say), is tighter.

Overall, I feel better. I feel smaller, even if the numbers don't show it. I'm off to a really good start.

Phase four is the end of my project intervention, but definitely not the end of the intervention itself. During intervention I've been thinking of what to do at the end to tailor my results to what I want them to be, but now that I'm actually here I'm a little baffled! For a while I've been wanting to move away from the ab coaster to actual sit ups. The ab coaster is nice, but because it's low impact I don't always get the burn I used to from sit ups. However, I'm not sure my back is strong enough for sit ups yet; the past few times I've attempted sit ups I've thrown out my lower back. My back exercises have done wonders. My back has started straightening out and it feels stronger, but it's not quite strong enough yet. Cardio is fantastic, though now that I have to run for longer periods of time, I've been trying to find a way to keep my interest the whole time.

So here's what I've decided to do. I'm going to keep up my intervention, as it's going at a pace fast enough for me, but I'm making a few changes. Abs are getting bumped up to a 20% increase over mean. Hopefully this will give me that wonderful ache I should get from really working my abs. Back and cardio exercises are getting changed to a 15% increase over mean instead of the plus five over mean. Doing an extra five reps or five minutes of my back and cardio exercises respectively is hard. 15% is a little less, so it's still challenging and not as rough on my back and lungs.

This weekend I'm going out to Vegas for my dad's birthday, and as a family my parents and I are gonna celebrate exercising for a month straight! We've really been pushing each other and it feels good to know we're getting stuff done. As for other reinforcers, I intend to keep using my Yay Chart, and right now I have a goal two months from now: look awesome for graduation. :) If I can do that, I promised myself I'd buy a new bikini! I like making two-months ahead; anything longer and they get a bit intimidating for me.

Anyway, I'm pretty proud of myself for sticking with this for a whole month! My track record usually had me quitting about three weeks in, or getting sick and not getting back into it. It's good to know I can do it!

Phase 3 was a success! And yet again, I forgot to take a picture of my Yay Chart. Drat. Either way, I got all of my tokens for the week and it was great to see my Yay Chart with all fifteen tokens! My goals for this week are 120 ab reps, 29 back reps, and 24 minutes on the elliptical. It's the last week of my intervention, too, so I'm gonna finish this off with a bang!

Phase 4 starts tomorrow, and it happens to be the last phase of my intervention for my project. Academically my project looks awesome; all of my intervention procedures worked and I've got lovely data to chart. Physically, however, my results haven't been that great, except for a little increase in stamina and my abs and back being kinda sore. This prompted a conversation between Cameron and I about what I can do to speed up my results. If you didn't know, Cameron may as well be my personal trainer! It's nice having a boyfriend who's so knowledgeable about exercise and physical fitness!.

A method he used in the past was to spend a day flat out exercising, followed by a stretch and recovery period, and then repeating. I'd start off slow, exercising one day like crazy and then probably taking the rest of the week to recovery, with the end goal being exercising and only needing a couple of days or less to rest in between exercise days. The idea sounded kinda iffy for me 'cause I know how easily I lose interest in things and I'd lose momentum really easily if I had to take that long of a break between exercise days--that was one of the reasons I like the plan I'm using now; I get to increase my activity but slowly and gradually, and I've managed to keep my momentum pretty well. But again, the problem is that regardless of how well I've kept up with my exercising, I haven't really had any results.

My behavioral brain kicked in at this point! After Phase 4 I would love to put this exercise routine (which I've dubbed the Crazy Exercise Method) into play, but I'm going to need to figure out how to keep myself exercising! That's when I realized that the Crazy Exercise Method (CEM) uses a changing criterion design with the dependent variable being how long my recovery periods are! Now that I can look at this from a behavioral perspective, CEM doesn't seem so daunting anymore. I think I can continue using my Yay Chart for it too; I'll keep targeting those areas, but instead of staggering when I introduce new exercises, I'll work towards being able to exercise more days out of the week.

I've got lots of planning to do this week! It should be fun!