wednesday's child
I'm looking at the man in front of me and memorizing what he's wearing (acid wash jeans, college t-shirt, tattoos, blond hair) because he has a ski mask in his hand-and who wears a ski mask if they aren't going to rob a bank or hold up a liquor store, right? I really don't care about the robbing, I've seen the liquor store across the street get held up on a nearly weekly basis. But, if i'd only see that man on t.v. tonight, it'd be enough validation to feel observant and savvy for once. (joking, but) I've been fucking up all day and I feel like I can barely function. It might be nice to be the hero.
In all those a.p. classes that i ended up taking by default in high school, everyone would be on the same wavelength, and there i was, lost, kinda stuck in an intellectual maze wondering how to come across that strand in my brain that would lead me to the right reasoning. I worked my ass off, and on some level it was really easy for me. I got into my dream college by writing an impressive essay (i sound like an asshole) and I got test scores that were equivelant to a retard's. I never received the credit for taking a.p. classes because my exam scores were so far below par. My whole family are the complete opposite. While I can write a semi-decent essay if I'm given a day, they can make completely well formulated arguments and observations in seconds. They all read obsessively and are ready at any moment to jump on a soap box and point fingers at the mention of nearly any subject. 2 of my sisters got perfect scores on the s.a.t., 2 were near perfect, and of course alej did much better than I did on the a.c.t. So someone has to hold this place, right? (Although, I did do better in school when I was separated from Alejandra. She always talked a lot in class, and I never did. When I got called on, I'd never have the right answer, anyway.It got to the point where I'd purposely miss the mark on assignments because i was so terrified that i'd have to face the comparison between my sister's expemplery work and my failure. Every time i gave a "wrong answer" or didn't do the assignment right, it was a testimony to my overall inferiority to my sister. I'd rather secretly know I didn't give it my all.)
On the colbert report, an author talked about a new study that is proving that the last child in a large family often has a smaller i.q. than the rest of it's siblings- and it's not a genetic predisposition resulting from a tired, faltering gene pool, haha it's a condition that fluctuates with environment ; because even when one child dies, the next oldest sibling's i.q. is subject to increase. Well, i have five sisters. So great.
Oh, well, you can always make up for it with flashy style, i guess. So, here's an article that, for the reasons I gave you just now- can better articulate what i was saying.
October 18, 2007, 6:19 pmHow Being an Older (or Younger) Sibling Affects Personality
Under a long-held stereotype, first-born children tend to be highly competent, while their younger siblings are more likely to wind up the family laggards. Increasingly, scientific studies are finding that there is truth behind the typecasting, reports Jeffrey Kluger in the new issue of Time.
The studies bring rigor to the notion that birth order affects fundamental personality traits. It’s an idea that many people take for granted, Mr. Kluger observes, noting that few people are surprised by the troubled lives led by Billy Carter, Roger Clinton and the alcoholic Elliott Roosevelt compared with their presidential elder brothers Jimmy, Bill and Theodore.
Birth order seems to influence behavior in several ways. Families bestow greater resources and attention on the first-born, and eldest children often adopt the role of caretaker toward younger siblings. A Philippine study found that later-born siblings weigh less than earlier-borns. According to a Norwegian study, the eldest child enjoys on average a three-point IQ advantage over the next eldest sibling, a gap attributed to the older kids’ roles as mentors to the younger children. These advantages might explain why eldest children are overrepresented among board directors, M.B.A.s and surgeons.
Within families, the youngest children tend to have to struggle for attention - and in doing so resort to subversive behavior. This isn’t always to their disadvantage. Some of the most famous satirists have been later-borns - Jonathan Swift, Mark Twain and Stephen Colbert.
Frank Sulloway, a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, who has studied the impact of birth order, says that later-borns also are more willing to take on risk. For instance, research by Ben Dattner, a professor of organizational psychology at New York University, shows that firstborn chief executives prefer to make incremental improvements, while later-born CEOs are more likely to make transformational changes.
While birth order’s effects are clearest for the youngest and elder children, the effect on middle children remains murky. And the larger a family is, the less of an impact birth order seems to have. - Robin Moroney
In all those a.p. classes that i ended up taking by default in high school, everyone would be on the same wavelength, and there i was, lost, kinda stuck in an intellectual maze wondering how to come across that strand in my brain that would lead me to the right reasoning. I worked my ass off, and on some level it was really easy for me. I got into my dream college by writing an impressive essay (i sound like an asshole) and I got test scores that were equivelant to a retard's. I never received the credit for taking a.p. classes because my exam scores were so far below par. My whole family are the complete opposite. While I can write a semi-decent essay if I'm given a day, they can make completely well formulated arguments and observations in seconds. They all read obsessively and are ready at any moment to jump on a soap box and point fingers at the mention of nearly any subject. 2 of my sisters got perfect scores on the s.a.t., 2 were near perfect, and of course alej did much better than I did on the a.c.t. So someone has to hold this place, right? (Although, I did do better in school when I was separated from Alejandra. She always talked a lot in class, and I never did. When I got called on, I'd never have the right answer, anyway.It got to the point where I'd purposely miss the mark on assignments because i was so terrified that i'd have to face the comparison between my sister's expemplery work and my failure. Every time i gave a "wrong answer" or didn't do the assignment right, it was a testimony to my overall inferiority to my sister. I'd rather secretly know I didn't give it my all.)
On the colbert report, an author talked about a new study that is proving that the last child in a large family often has a smaller i.q. than the rest of it's siblings- and it's not a genetic predisposition resulting from a tired, faltering gene pool, haha it's a condition that fluctuates with environment ; because even when one child dies, the next oldest sibling's i.q. is subject to increase. Well, i have five sisters. So great.
Oh, well, you can always make up for it with flashy style, i guess. So, here's an article that, for the reasons I gave you just now- can better articulate what i was saying.
October 18, 2007, 6:19 pmHow Being an Older (or Younger) Sibling Affects Personality
Under a long-held stereotype, first-born children tend to be highly competent, while their younger siblings are more likely to wind up the family laggards. Increasingly, scientific studies are finding that there is truth behind the typecasting, reports Jeffrey Kluger in the new issue of Time.
The studies bring rigor to the notion that birth order affects fundamental personality traits. It’s an idea that many people take for granted, Mr. Kluger observes, noting that few people are surprised by the troubled lives led by Billy Carter, Roger Clinton and the alcoholic Elliott Roosevelt compared with their presidential elder brothers Jimmy, Bill and Theodore.
Birth order seems to influence behavior in several ways. Families bestow greater resources and attention on the first-born, and eldest children often adopt the role of caretaker toward younger siblings. A Philippine study found that later-born siblings weigh less than earlier-borns. According to a Norwegian study, the eldest child enjoys on average a three-point IQ advantage over the next eldest sibling, a gap attributed to the older kids’ roles as mentors to the younger children. These advantages might explain why eldest children are overrepresented among board directors, M.B.A.s and surgeons.
Within families, the youngest children tend to have to struggle for attention - and in doing so resort to subversive behavior. This isn’t always to their disadvantage. Some of the most famous satirists have been later-borns - Jonathan Swift, Mark Twain and Stephen Colbert.
Frank Sulloway, a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, who has studied the impact of birth order, says that later-borns also are more willing to take on risk. For instance, research by Ben Dattner, a professor of organizational psychology at New York University, shows that firstborn chief executives prefer to make incremental improvements, while later-born CEOs are more likely to make transformational changes.
While birth order’s effects are clearest for the youngest and elder children, the effect on middle children remains murky. And the larger a family is, the less of an impact birth order seems to have. - Robin Moroney