I was trying to come up with some kind of catchy or silly title for this post, but then I just went with this one. Yes folks, I visited a doctor for the first time yesterday and had my first shots ever. Two, which are not as painful as I had thought. Scott Brown was a brave man sitting in the examination chair with my shirt off during the procedure. I had visited a dermatologist to take care of something that causing a skin irritation. I won’t go any more detailed then that!

Of course I have no health insurance, who does these days? Oh there are people who do? Well, I didn’t but the procedure was well under $300 so that wasn’t too bad. That also included the initial examination. Over all, I was probably at the doctor’s office for about an hour and a half. The procedure itself took about five minutes and my pain went away by the end of the day. Wasn’t so much pain afterward as sore. Now the irritation is gone and I feel like my old self again.

What I did learn the most was that I am more likely to see a doctor in the future if I have a physical problem. Here’s hoping I need to go to one again for another twenty-eight years or so!

I thought it was time for a good old fashion silly post, or perhaps not so silly? In this world, there was a type of meat that was not quite meat. It kept well and was quite salty. This was called SPAM and is famous or infamous depending on who you talk to. Anyway, one day someone decided to use the word SPAM to mean unwanted e-mail. And then it basically became associated with anything that was either too much, overflowing, or possibly computer generated and sent right into your inbox. And then one day my website had a face lift and became a blog. Comments came and didn’t stop. So much that some were labeled SPAM and then deleted. To make things worse, I occasionally I have to decide what is SPAM and what isn’t! I’m not always confident in my ability to tell the difference.

So, for all of you who are real, exist, and are not computers or advertising something completely unrelated to my website, I do apologize if your comment has gotten deleted. And, yes I did use the word SPAM a lot in this post about SPAM. I guess I just like saying the world SPAM even though technically I’m typing the word SPAM and not actually saying it out loud. There, I think that’s enough about SPAM for one day.

It’s probably been quite a while since I did anything to further my writing career, but I got an e-mail from amazon.com that made me do something about it. Right now there is a contest for fiction authors to get a manuscript or self-published book marketed and sold by Penguin publishing. Not a bad deal if you can get it. So, i decided to go ahead and submit Fallen Raven into the fray. It’s my only somewhat finished manuscript and I didn’t want to chose my self-published work.

This is just for fun as I don’t expect to make it to the next phase. Still, it is nice to feel like I’m doing something other then writing term papers for a change!

It has come to my attention that I’m getting a lot of attention, lasting for about nine seconds. Why is this you may ask? Because a certain Republican has become a senator of Massachusetts. Now, I don’t get involved too much in politics, but it seems that he has caused quite a stir. People are doing Internet searches for him and are finding my website! I am the coolest Scott Brown in the world right? Ok, don’t answer that. Anyway, I like the attention but unfortunately once it is realized that I am not the senator people are leaving my site right away. I implore you all, do not be disappointed! I have fun stories and I am sometimes funny on occasion!

Really people, who wants to find out about some political dude anyway? Are not writers much more fun? Am I right?

Ok, well if you aren’t going to stay could you at least buy something? A mug or a t-shirt? Heck, my audio CD is wicked awesome, or I think it is. Hopefully.

Haha, well at least I can say I have a good name and even if it means I get a little bit more attention that is something I can be happy with. So, let’s hope Senator Brown stays in the news for a while. Hell, a good scandal would be great too! So, if the good Senator happens upon my site, give a Scott a break huh? You can wait for a while cuz really you kind of lucked out. I mean, the Dems have kept the seat you won for centuries. This may be your only term! So if you feel like it, do something stupid, I might get another nine seconds of fame!

Sorry Mark, this isn’t a post about Batman, but it is a post about rain! Namely, it was really rainy at my house today! Wowsers!

So here are a few pictures of just how wet it was outside:

There you have…wet and rainy. You can even click on the pictures for a closer look!

Yes, time for another website update!

First, to start of, I should say proudly that I have managed to up my blog posts a bit more frequently now. The holiday season is gone and I am glad to a point. It was nice, but I’m glad I don’t have to listen to any more Christmas music for a while! I love it but after a while it gets a bit overboard.

As most of you may have or have not noticed, there hasn’t been any news for a while with regards to my creative writing endeavors. That is because I have been preoccupied with school. Last summer I started attending Ashford University as many of you probably know. It has taken up a lot of my time, they are accelerated courses. However the only real sacrifice I have made thus far was giving up my creative writing for a while. So, I thought since my school work is taken center stage I’d go ahead and make some of my research papers available to download.  I have added two of my papers which I had the most fun in writing. They are, “Why Do We Dream?” and “The Sense Of Self.” These psychology papers delve into some interesting topics. I do plan on making more of my papers available in the future. I’m going to stick to my papers where I got to choose the topics as I had more fun with them. I could post all of them, but I’d rather not unless you can’t wait to learn about nuerons and the central nervous system!

Where can I download these papers and sink my teeth into them??  Where else but in my download section!

…Oh alright I’ll post the links here in this blog, you lazies!

The Sense Of Self

Why Do We Dream?

Alright then, that’s it for now kiddies!

Oh and I almost forgot, on a side not that is. The download section has been changed a bit. Now you have but to click on the title of one of my works to download it. Remember, links are in white!

I was playing The Sims 3 the other day and my sim is a novelist. His first book was a non-fiction book, just so I could get him started writing, and I named it: “Psychology: The Mind is Crazy.” I thought it was a funny name. It got me thinking about the human mind and how people think about themselves. Confidence is probably one of the most important qualities to have. So often people think that it’s something you either have or don’t but the truth is that confidence is learned behavior. You are not born with confidence, you learn to be confident as you grow up. Babies learn this depending on how responsive parents are when a baby needs something.

I was watching an episode of Dr. Phil that was about a husband and wife. The husband was cheating on his wife even before they were married. Dr. Phil had made the point that he was a cheater before, cheated on her during their dating relationship, and after they were married. The husband confirmed this. Yet the wife had blamed herself for her husband cheating.

I myself can’t stand someone who cheats on their spouse. It’s really important to know that you don’t solve relationship issues outside the relationship. You would think this would be obvious! However, I think sometimes temptation is too strong. That being said, anyone can learn to not cheat, no matter how attractive a person is or how much attention they are giving you.

Women tend to blame themselves when their man cheats. I wonder if men also do the same? I’d guess not as much. Theoretically speaking, anyone with a low sense of self or lack of self-confidence would likely blame themselves for things that they can not control. And the truth is, there is nothing that a man or woman does that excuses their spouse to cheat. I mean that it’s never ok to cheat no matter what the relationship issue is.

Now I’m not saying that women have low self-esteem or a poor sense of self. I think it’s safe to say that a lot of Americans are like that regardless of sex. Heck I had what Karen Horney (her last name is pronounced, Horneye) talked about what she called the Real and Idealized self. The Real Self is what we truly are. It is our true identity, a clear image of ourselves. The Idealised Self is a false sense of self which a person perceives to be. Hopefully most of us have an authentic sense of who we are, because an idealised self is not healthy.

So, what exactly is my point? If someone cheats on you, it was their choice not yours. You didn’t do anything to deserve that no matter what you have done in the relationship. If someone doesn’t want to go out with you, it’s not your fault either. Or if your parents failed to be there for you it’s not because you were a bad kid. You can not control people, you can only control yourself. Stand up for yourself and demand what you deserve to have! Wow, I’m getting a bit preachy.

Anyway, the lesson is that anyone can have confidence. You just have to work at it. If you don’t have it, then it’s time to take a good long look at yourself. You may be saying some bad things about yourself. It’s about accepting your true self and loving you. If you can’t do that,  you probably have a false sense of self.

So by now I’m sure many of you have heard of the scandal invovling Tiger Woods. It certianly is a shock but at the same time this seems to happen a lot with celebrities. With Tiger, it can seem especially odd for him to cheat on his wife given that well to be blunt she’s very attractive.

People tend to assume that men cheat because they see greener pastures or that they feel neglected sexually. However, this isn’t always the case. Sometimes it’s a power trip. Some men get unexpected female attention, those small signs that a woman is interested, and that reminds the men what it was like during the days of the “hunt.” From an evolutionary standpoint, our ancestors were hunter and gatherers. The men tended to be the hunters and the women gatherers. It still is the case to this day, though most of us in industrial nations don’t have to go out and find deer or bufflo to kill for the evening’s meal.

The “hunt” term is applied to teh dating world and it is implied that men are the ones to hunt out potential female mates. While women do their best to attract men. The hunter/gather concept can be applied to other aspects of life such as the man being the breadwinner and the woman taking care of the home. But, man(as in human) evolves and I believe we see a switch in those traditional roles. As women discover that they can fight for their equality and as the world discovers that women in fact can be as strong or successful as a man our lives change.

Anyway, back to the topic. So, why would Tiger Woods cheat on his wife? For a real answer you would have to ask him. But I can say that the preasures of being a celebrity can take their toll. Sure, you may think he has an easy life, perhaps the perfect life. Don’t forget what they say, “Money doesn’t buy happiness.” Tiger is constantly bombarded with responsiblities, stress, preasure, and compitition. That is not an excuse for what he did, just perhaps a little insight into why.

Still, I think we all thought Tiger was above giving in to temptation. Instinct and biology is a force not easily supressed. That being said, human beings have the ability to be above animals in thought and action. We can be something more then petty desires or instinct. I feel it is important to have a balanced nature, that one does everything in moderation. Being centered or having a clear concept of the true self (one’s true identity) helps one to make better decitions.

The point being, that everyone makes mistakes, and that celeberties are not bionical. That are human just like you and me. It just reminds me of one of my most important life philosophys: “We cannot control when bad things happen, but we can control how we react to them.”

For my class called “Theories of Personality” I was required to take the Maslow Assessment Test. It’s a personality test to determine how close one is to self-actualization, meaning feeling fulfilled and at one’s ultimate potential. Aberham Maslow was a psychologist who believed that basically most human beings were born good and desired to become the best they could be. In order to reach self-actualization, several basic needs must be satisfied. Once these basic needs, such as food, shelter, and safety, then one could focus on higher needs. I find this concept interesting and I would like to share with you all my results.

Here we have episode 2, so far it’s my personal favorite!