Why I'm a Dog Person

Okay Joben, here's your new post.

I know I've been slaking in my blogging lately, but it's just not been a top priority. Now I'm in the middle of getting ready to head back to Covenant, and have started reading ahead in my classes. That and our new HDTV have given me plenty to do lately. :)

So, for this post I thought I would discuss something that Sarah and I have been talking a little bit about this summer. It's the ever popular "Dogs vs Cats" debate! I don't know why this seems to pop up in our conversations, it just does. If you haven't figured it out from the title, I'm a dog person and take the side of the dogs. Sarah is a cat person and takes the side of the cats. Now, I own both dogs and cats, and Sarah owns cats but has a lot of experience with dogs. We both like cats and dogs, but we differ on which we like more.

So, why do I prefer dogs over cats? Well, I believe that dogs make better pets than cats do, especially with children (Sarah agrees that dogs are better when children are thrown in the mix). I could use all the typical dog traits here (they're loyal, friendly, playful, obedient, etc.), but I want to delve a little deeper than that. Dogs are social creatures, while cats are antisocial creatures. It is in a dog's nature to be friendly and playful. Dogs look upon their owners as their pack. They usually single out one individual within the family as the leader of the pack (usually a parent) and as a result they will tend to follow that person around more than the others. This is a reason why dogs are much easier to train than cats. A dog will obey it's master because it sees it's master as the leader of it's pack. It has an innate desire to follow the leader and obey it's leader's orders. This is also a reason why dogs, when their master(s) are in danger, are willing to endanger themselves to save their master(s). They want to protect the leader of their pack. Cats have no such desire because they have no natural social structure. They are very individualistic and follow their own desires above anyone else's. This is the primary reason why dogs are characterized by being loyal, friendly, playful, and obedient, and why cats are characterized as being difficult to train, selfish, loners, and uncaring for their masters.

Now let's look at the moral thought processes of dogs and cats. But, do dogs and cats have moral thought processes? Well, they have the ability to know the difference between a right and a wrong action, so they must have some degree of moral thinking. I will be using Kohlberg's Stages of Moral Development to talk about the moral thought processes of dogs and cats. Realize that these stages were made to apply to people, not animals, so they may not match up exactly with the behavior of dogs and cats. Cats best fit in with stage one of moral development. Kohlberg describes this stage as this: "Physical consequences of an action determine its goodness or badness regardless of the human meaning or value of these consequences. Avoidance of punishment and unquestioning deference to power are valued in their own right, not in terms of respect for an underlying moral order supported by punishment and authority." In much simpler language, whatever causes pain is wrong. A cat, being very individualistic, looks out for itself above anyone else. It believes that it is okay to do anything it wants as long as the action does not result in pain. However, you cannot teach a cat right vs. wrong by hitting it every time it does something wrong. Why is this? Because a cat will look at your action of punishing it as the immoral action. It sees itself as innocent, and you are the one guilty of wrongful action. Doing this will only cause the cat to resent and fear you. So how do people train cats? Not easily, but it can be done through positive reinforcement (a much better method, anyways). You can teach a cat to do the right thing as opposed to the wrong thing through rewards. Now to dogs. Dogs best fit in with the fourth stage of moral development, which Kohlberg describes as this: "Right behavior consists in doing one's duty, showing respect for authority and maintaining the given social order for its own sake." This reflects a dog's natural social behavior. Dogs will be loyal to their "pack", in the case of domesticated dogs, their owners. They want to obey their masters because they are very obedient to authority. They will also realize that if they are physically punished for something, then they were the ones to do something wrong. They may not understand what it was that they did, but over time they can pick up on what they should and shouldn't do. I'm not saying everyone should beat their dogs to teach them right from wrong, but that a dog can learn the difference between right vs wrong quicker by a mix of punishment and reward. They can learn what is improper behavior from punishment while learning what is proper behavior from reward. But wait... this sounds like stage one in moral development, not stage four! Well, like I said earlier, these stages don't fit perfectly for dogs and cats, and the difference is that a dog will do something you have tried to teach it not to do if it believes that what it is doing is right for the "pack". For example, it is difficult to teach a dog to stop barking at strangers. This is because the dog sees the stranger as a threat to its pack, and protecting the pack is a higher priority for a dog than its own safety. Another example: a dog who has been taught to never bite people will bite someone who is harming it's owner. This brings me to my next point.

Dogs will willingly put themselves in harm's way to save their masters. There are numerous stories of this. This selfless act is unheard of in cats. Of course, due to the typical house cat's size it is very unlikely that a cat could save anyone, but they don't even attempt to save their owners when they are in danger. Even a small dog will try to save it's owner.

Now I want to talk about the argument for cats. I have never heard a very convincing argument for cats. The three typical responses to the question "Why are you a cat person?" are:
1.) They're cute/pretty
2.) They're fuzzy/soft
3.) They're easier to take care of
Now, the first two can be true of any mammal, whether it be a dog, a cat, a rodent, etc. These are not very good reasons. The third holds a bit more water. Cats are independent creatures (as I have said) and therefore require less care. But that also makes them less interactive. I believe that a dog's neediness is actually a strength, not a weakness. Especially with children, a dog's need to be taken care of requires greater responsibility, and therefore dogs are better at fostering responsible behavior. It also requires that you spend more time with the dog, which helps to develop a stronger bond with it and encourages stronger social behaviors. If anyone has a better argument for cats, I'd like to hear it.

Now, at the end of this post I want to remind you that I like cats and even own one. I am not trying to persuade all the cat people in the world to go out and get dogs, I just want to give some reasons why I (and the majority of the population) prefer dogs over cats.

Wow, I think that's the longest post I've ever written! I've had too much time to think about this...

Wow... this has been way overdue.

OK, I've taken way too long to give you guys a new post. I'm sorry. Unfortunately, this post will not be a long one and will definitely not make up for the absence of posts for the past several months. In fact, I don't know when I will make up for that...
I leave for the Pacific coast on Wednesday (June 4th), and I doubt I will be able to get anything new posted on here while I am there. I'm not even sure what my internet access will look like once I get there. I have ideas for topics that I have been thinking about for a long time, the trick is finding the time and motivation to post them. It will most likely not happen until mid-July now...
I began the first part of packing today, which means I went out and bought things I will need and haven't actually started packing them yet. Getting them packed will be interesting... I mean frustrating. Try getting a bunch of camping gear, school supplies, toiletries, and enough clothes to last a month packed into one suitcase and two carry-on bags. It's going to be tough. I doubt I will enjoy the trip to this place, though I expect that I will enjoy it once I finally arrive. Getting home will be even harder...
I don't even have a plane ticket home yet, and the prices keep going farther and farther out of my price range for plane tickets. Driving is out of the question as it would take longer and in the end I'd spend more money on gas than if I had bought a really expensive plane ticket. Not to mention I won't have a car in Washington... My parents could drive to get me, but again, gas money would be double what it would take for just me to drive that distance, and I know my parents wouldn't want to drive all that way just to turn around and go back. Oh well, a solution will present itself. Patience is a virtue.

Wii Woes

Alright, I know I said I would have two posts last month and only ended up having one. All I can say is that I'm sorry. I just didn't have much to write about, but now I do. This post is partially to make up for that, partially to vent some anger, and partially to praise the Lord (It'll make more sense as you read).

So, every Christmas in my family the parents and particularly the grandparents demand that we make lists of the things we want so they know what to buy. This Christmas my list contained a Wii. I gave that list to the parents, since it was the most expensive item I was asking for this year, and proceeded to fill the lists to the grandparents with games for the Wii that I would like. I thought, "The Wii came out a year ago, so it shouldn't be too hard to find now". I thought wrong.

My parents thought the same thing I did, and began looking around November. Unfortunately, wherever they went they couldn't find any Wii's. Sure, there were plenty on e-bay and websites like that, except that everyone was taking advantage of the law of supply and demand and more than tripling the prices. As Christmas drew closer I began to hear my parents say things like, "You may be getting an IOU for Christmas" followed by "We're not joking". I began to worry that I was going to get a bunch of video games from my grandparents that I wasn't going to be able to play.

Luckily, my parents (with help from my sister) found a Wii a few days before Christmas! So yes, I am now the proud owner of a Wii. But the story doesn't end there...

I enjoyed playing my Wii for the next few weeks without any problems. There was a slight problem with transferring data from one of my Gamecube memory cards onto the Wii, but with a little effort I got it working (every time I tried the system froze up and made an awful noise). Everything seemed fine until I decided that I wanted to use one of my gift cards I got for Christmas to buy a second remote so my friends at Covenant could play the multiplayer games. I went out to buy the remote after church today, only to be disappointed store after store. I looked at every electronics and game store I could think of, only to find that no one had the remotes. Apparently, everyone who got a Wii for Christmas had the same idea I did. I finally went to a store a good distance from my house (not sure exactly how far), and was relieved to find that they had a few remotes. When I got home, I figured I should try it out to make sure it wasn't broken before heading off to Covenant tomorrow.

Unfortunately, I couldn't seem to make the new remote sync to the system. I tried everything I knew, but nothing worked. I came to the conclusion that the remote must have been broken, so I took it back and exchanged it with a new one. When I tried syncing this one, I not only had the same issue, but it somehow knocked my original remote off. I now had two remotes that didn't seem to work and a system that was useless. Needless to say, I was a little frustrated at this point, but instead of getting angry and beating the game senseless I got on Nintendo's troubleshooting guide and tried their solutions. I worked my way down the list with no success, and was worried that I would have to send it in to be repaired when the final solution on the list worked! All I have to say is: "Thank you Lord!"

Would anyone like to play?

A long overdue post

Alright, I'd just like to start this post off by apologizing to all of my readers. I kinda missed last month's post, and I'm sorry. I had a topic all planned out to write about, the problem was when I had the time I didn't have the motivation, and when I had the motivation I didn't have the time. Don't you hate it when that happens? So, to make up for that little error I will try to get two posts up this month, which shouldn't be hard considering it's Christmas break and I don't have any big time commitments.

Before I get to the post I was going to put up a month ago, I'll give ya'll a little recap of what's been going on. Of course, as I have already mentioned, it is now Christmas break, meaning my third semester of college has come to a close. All of my grades have turned out quite well, and I am now officially considered a Junior, which seems rather awkward. That means that I'm now halfway through my college career, and it seems like it just started! Other than that, I recently got a girlfriend, and I went sign-smashing at the bottom of the mountain, which I was promised a blog entry about from a fellow blogger and hasn't shown up yet! Someone's falling down on his job... ^_^

Well, now for the post that is definitely out of place with our current holiday season, but that I want to post anyways. This is an article that I found way back at the beginning of November, right after Halloween (and it really does fit in better with Halloween than with Christmas). The article is titled "5 Scientific Reasons a Zombie Apocalypse Could Actually Happen". Realize that this article is meant for amusement, not to be scientific, so take what they say with a (big) grain of salt. They basically take five popular explanations for zombies from various movies and video games and show how they could "theoretically" come true. Also, a side note for the squeamish, they do have some screenshots from these movies in the article, and they do have a bad habit of cussing throughout it, so if you choose not to read it I won't hold it against you.

If you can look past the crude language and somewhat gory pictures, it is a pretty interesting article. I know that at least some of what they are basing their theories on is true. For example, in biology class Dr. Morris described a virus that did something very similar to the parasite they describe in the first part of the article, except that this virus infected grasshoppers instead of rats. This doesn't mean that I believe that there will ever be a zombie apocalypse, but in some strange way it's kinda fun to think about. Why else would there be so many movies and video games about zombies, and so many quizzes to determine if you would be a survivor of a zombie apocalypse? And let's not forget all the zombie survivor Facebook groups out there (over 500, if you do a search on "zombie" and click on groups).

Well, it's late and I need to get some sleep. Good night, don't let the zombies bite!

Of Rocks and Waterfalls

Well, it's been a month and like I said I'm back with a new post! Sorry for those of you who took my "I'll be back in a month" to mean exactly one month and were disappointed to find no new post. I guess for future reference I should be more specific and say "about a month". So for my next post expect it around this time next month, but not exactly in a month. If you're wondering what I could possibly have been doing instead of posting, continue reading!
So, it is currently fall break and like many other Covenant students I returned home for a few days of peace and relaxation. This was my first time home since school started, and little did I know what awaited me when I returned...
My dad got the bright idea of recreating the waterfall in our small little pond, and recruited me to help out. When I first heard about this I was a little excited because I thought that it wouldn't be too difficult and it would look much better when it was done. Unfortunately it wasn't as easy as I thought it would be, though now that it's all done it does look much better! In order to create this waterfall we first needed some good sized rocks, so Saturday was spent going down to the now dried up creek bed and digging up sand and rocks to use for the waterfall. Luckily my dad had already spent a long time gathering rocks, so we didn't need many more. Then we had to stack the rocks in the order we wanted them to be in, and make sure the water would flow off of them the right way. This was the hard part. Our plan didn't work right the first time, or the second, or the third, etc. I think before it was all said and done we had completely run out of letters in the English alphabet to name our plans, and we had to move on to the Greek alphabet (we finally got it right around Plan Gamma, I think). Of course, once we finally got the right idea, we encountered a problem that I had foreseen from the beginning and had proposed a solution for then, but my dad had brushed off as unimportant. Apparently it was very important, and my dad not taking my advice then resulted in us having to dismantle the whole thing and start over. I think this is more evidence that if everyone would just listen to my advice and do as I say, then the world would be a much better place (I know it's hard to tell in writing sometimes, but yes, that's sarcasm). :)
So my fall break consisted mostly of digging up rocks, carrying rocks, stacking rocks, unstacking rocks, breaking rocks, gluing rocks to other rocks, and of course dropping rocks on my toes and smashing my fingers between rocks multiple times. Oh, and there were the leeches in the pond that we had to kill in order to get to the pump. It wasn't as exciting as it sounds. Here are some pictures of my amazing work: first is the waterfall mid-construction, second the waterfall post-construction, and third aerial shot!

I also did other things during my fall break, such as watching a ton of anime, eating good, non-Chartwells food, and getting all of my car's electrical problems fixed (hopefully)! After finishing the waterfall, my mom noticed my lack of wearable jeans and the sad state of my shoes (I have recently developed the habit of picking at the melted rubber soles when bored...), and so we made a trip to the mall to buy new pants and shoes earlier tonight. Other than that, nothing much to report. I should be back on campus around 4:00 or 4:30 tomorrow, and by this time tomorrow night I'll be trying to prepare myself to get back in the swing of going to classes. A break is good every now and then, even if it is filled with hard work!

Sad News and a College Update

Dear readers,
I'm afraid I have some bad news. Don't worry, it's nothing serious, I just don't think that keeping up a blog at the moment is going to work for me. I'm already not spending enough time on schoolwork and I don't really post on here often enough as it is. I was afraid this would happen when I first created this blog, but I think it's for the best. I won't be gone for good; the blog will remain up mainly so I can comment on other people's blogs. I will also try to post something at least once a month, so check back every now and then to see if anything is new. I may miss a month every now and then, so please forgive me when I do. Also, I've noticed a severe lack of comments on my blog. It made me wonder whether there were any readers, but after getting back to Covenant people told me of how they have been reading my blog. I guess no one had any comments for my posts. Just to let you know, comments are appreciated, and to encourage people to comment I have decided to allow anonymous comments. If you have something to say, or advice on how to make my blog better, please don't keep it to yourself.

Alright, now to let ya'll know how my second year of college is going. Well, at first things were a little depressing because several good friends of mine who I expected to come back were unable to for various reasons. But life goes on, and I did get to see one of them this weekend, which was nice. Hopefully others will visit, and several are planning on being back next semester, which I am looking forward to.
Macstock was last Wednesday, and it was a lot of fun. The theme this year was Disney, and my hall did Sleeping Beauty. But of course we had to spice it up a bit! So we decided to make it a cross between Sleeping Beauty and Rainbow Six, where terrorists kidnapped Sleeping Beauty and the people going through the hall had to rescue her. My role was as one of the soldiers escorting the people down the hall. The original plan was that Wes Simmonds, another one of the soldiers, would be leading the people down the hall and then he would get shot by a terrorist. I would then run in and shoot the terrorist who shot him and I would take his place leading the people down the hall, but as the people began arriving we realized our plan wasn't going to work so we just improvised. The night was chaotic and very hot, but a lot of fun. We didn't win (Rowan did), but I never expected us to. We did have the most fun, though. I cut my finger pretty bad preparing for Macstock, but it had stopped bleeding by the time people began arriving. The cut was re-opened earlier today while fixing the door on my car, but it's better now.
Classes are going well. I had my first test last Friday, and I think it went pretty well. It was in Doctrine 1 and I know I aced the memorization part, which is good considering it was almost half the test! No other quizzes or tests yet, but that'll change pretty soon. My classes are very interesting this semester and I am enjoying them a lot.

Well, that's pretty much my semester so far. I'll be back in a month!

Quizzes, Quizzes, and more Quizzes! And a new cell phone!

Hey guys! Well, my blog has been severely neglected this summer, but I'm finally getting to post something. I first started this blog to give me something to do this summer, but when summer actually started up I found that I had plenty to keep me busy. Now summer is just about over and I'm only on my third post. Forgive me, readers, but I'm afraid it won't get any better once school starts up again. I'll be taking 18 hours next semester (compared to 12 last semester), with two of those classes involving labs. So, I'll have a full plate with classes, and I'll actually have to do practical service next semester. I've been able to get out of it the past two semesters, but I doubt they'll let me get by a third time. Another reason my blog has been neglected is because I haven't been able to decide what to post. I've had several ideas, but by the time I get the opportunity to post it I've found that I forgot it! So now I'm posting before I forget...

But before I do, I need to say that I've had a recent change in cell phones. My family is severely cell phone challenged, and as a result we were left with only one working cell phone between the four of us. First my sister decided to wade across a river with her cell phone in her pocket, then my dad went swimming in our pool with his. Finally, a few weeks ago we went to the beach and I forgot I had my cell phone in my pocket. I walked into the ocean with it in my pocket and would never have realized I had done so until I felt it vibrating after a wave washed over me. Right now it's only use is as a back massager (it still vibrates endlessly if you put the battery in). At least I remembered to take the camera out of my pocket before going in the water! So once we got back home from Orlando we desperately needed some new cell phones. My parents did their research for a new phone plan, since we decided to switch cell phone companies, and a little while later we had ordered our new cell phones. Now for the reason why I'm telling you all this. We ordered our phones over the internet, taking advantage of various special deals only available over the internet, and AT&T, in their infinite wisdom, lost the order. We also found out that the phones that my mom, dad, and sister had chosen were sold out, and they had been discontinued so they wouldn't be making any more. Several other problems resulted in me having to get a new cell phone number, so if you've got my old one it's no good any more. Don't worry, if you're important then you've already got my new one... just kidding, actually I haven't given it out to anyone yet, but if you'd like it then just ask. Now for the quizzes! You can take them if you want, but some of them are a bit long so wait until you have some time to kill.

The first quiz is titled Are You A Freak? It rates your desire to be unique rather than conform to rules. I scored a 41% overall, which means that I have a higher desire to be unique than 40% of the people who take the test and get the result of being a freak. Yes, it did say that I was a freak. It also breaks your overall score down into three categories; mine were Need to be Unique, Need to NOT Conform, and Willingness to Express Dissent.

The second quiz I found was The Morality Test which, of course, measures your morality on a scale of "very conservative" to "very liberal". I got 65% conservative, but I skipped all of the optional sections, and I took another quiz like this a while ago that was on a scale of 0 to 40, 0 being very liberal and 40 being very conservative; I got a 30 on that one.

The third I took was titled Are You A Blirter or A Brooder? which also deals with romantic relationships a little bit. I wasn't very interested in the relationships part, but all it really said (summed up into one phrase) was like attracts like. My result for this quiz was "Brooder", and I am moderately critical of myself. Not really surprised with those results...

The fourth quiz I took was Find Your Star Wars Twin. It asks questions about your personality and matches you in five categories to a different Star Wars character. So, there is no single character that you are most like (you'll understand when you take it). For the Openness category I got Astro Mech Droids (kinda like R2D2, my percentage was 47%), in Conscientiousness I got Admiral Ozzel (30%), in Extraversion I got Wampas (5%), in Agreeableness I got Darth Vader (57%), and in Neuroticism I got Princess Leia (11%). I'm not really sure if I trust these results, because some of them seem a little off. I expected my conscientiousness to be a bit higher (because I don't see myself as being particularly haphazard), and I knew I was quiet and introverted, but only 5% extroverted? That doesn't follow the results of other tests I've taken in the past. And I definitely hope I'm more agreeable than Darth Vader! Maybe it's just because I'm tired and was rushing through that one...

The last quiz I took was titled Twins, and lets you compare your personality to your friends and family to determine how similar you are. For this quiz you have to create a username and password, and the other person has to create a username and password as well. You can then share your username with your friends and they can see how similar you are to them, and if they give you their username, you can see too. I'd like for some of you to take this quiz and let me know your username, because I'm curious. My username is mmart99. Again, it's late and I'm pretty tired, but I tried to not rush through this one like the last one. I'm not entirely sure how accurate it is, but it seemed at least a little more like previous quizzes I've taken than the Star Wars one was.

Well, I think that's enough for tonight. I'm sure there are plenty of other quizzes I could take and tell you all about, but right now I need to get to bed. Good night everybody.