It's not a dildo, it's a penis model

One look at my desk, and you'll realize how quickly I became comfortable talking about sex on a regular basis. Working in wellness, you never want to be out of arm's reach of a penis model and non-lubricated condom for an impromptu demonstration. And yes, I share an office.

Every so often, a visitor to my office will snicker at the penis model on my desk. At first, I forget that it's even there, and then quickly realize that it's probably not something they see every day.

You think that's bad? You wouldn't believe the type of ads that come up on Google after I search for things like:

• wooden penis model
• gonorrhea of the eye
• large image vaginal warts
• "silicone penis model" NOT dildo
• flavored condoms expiration time

You mean you don't search for those things at work? I find that hard to believe. The difference between me and you is that I have a better excuse!

What I learned: Sometimes a penis model and a dildo are the same thing. Sometimes having pictures of vaginas on your computer is allowed.

Students can fight to earn money and popularity in "Party In My Dorm" iPhone game

I came across this game when I was browsing the iTunes App Store. It's called "Party In My Dorm," and it's listed as a role playing game. Here is the description from the iTunes Store:

College is about to get more interesting. Get ready for the largest online party you've seen since moving out of your parents basement. Fill up the dorms with your crew while completing jobs and joining clubs to make your reputation soar. Every dance off and prank gets you one step closer to becoming the most popular student on campus!

While the game itself is obviously not targeted at grad students in college student personnel, or other student affairs professionals, it is interesting to see what 'kids these days' might be getting into. I played the game for a little while (I chose the Intellectual Hero avatar), until I read the on-screen caption after participating in a virtual fight.



"Fighting other students is the best way to earn money. Go forth and become the most popular student on campus!"

Really? When I saw this, I deleted the app. Am I the only one who is put off by the idea of college students fighting their way to popularity? That's not wellness!

What I learned: College-themed iPhone games shouldn't be taken too seriously, and probably include sexy cartoon characters.

Wait, is this Coke expired? Yes... yes it is.

It's time for a much needed Spring cleaning in the storage room (we're a little late on the 'spring' part). Tackling this racquetball court of crap was an all-morning job, but we finally sorted the boxes of condoms, lube, dental dams, and t-shirts into their appropriate piles. Although it still looks like piles of junk, at least now everything is nestled into little corners of organization.

Then again, a neat pile is still a pile.

Regrettably, 90% of our Coke stockpile is expired. Rather, it expired back in February around the same time as our late night event for which the product was originally intended. But we got the Coke through a request from Campus Activities, and they have a "deal" with Coke, right? Did they give us expired product?



In a word: Yes. Yes the Coke expired the same month we got it. Should I be so shocked? I don't work in event planning, but I hear this is a pretty typical move for getting rid of about-to-expire beverages. It's pretty harmless, unless you are planning to use the leftovers 6 months later and it's all gone to Flatsville.

Being the eco-friendly grad student that I am, I decided it would be best to personally open every can, pour the Coke down the sink in the janitor's closet, and recycle the cans. I didn't realize that opening cans of pop would turn out to be back-breaking labor, but it was! The janitor's sink was low to the ground, and I had 315 cans to go through in a confined space. I tried several strategies like the hunched-over-multi-pour, and the sit-on-the-floor-two-handed-pour. No matter how I tried to improve my efficiency, I always ended up in a position that strained my back and legs.

After an hour and ten minutes the task was complete, and I gave Mother Nature a big sarcastic "You're Welcome!"

What I learned: There's no such thing as free Coke, and when it's free it's probably expired. Also, wearing jeans to work makes manual labor totally worth it!

Identifying insects with simple internet searches

Nature walks are a great social activity, and our College Student Personnel organization (BGSDA) decided to add a photography contest to the hike. By taking the extra step to identify insects in the photos, you can use the internet to explore a personalized biology lesson.

As part of the Summer "Cruise" of pre-planned social events, the summer CSP grad students went to Wintergarden Park in Bowling Green, OH to snap some pics during a hike.

Here are a few more of my favorite shots (below). Basically, the micro-lense is my "thing" when it comes to nature photography. It's a lot of fun! The contest album is on Facebook where you can Like your favorites.

I thought it would be fun to try to identify the insects I spotted by using my favorite tool: the internet! In my experience, a lot of people don't realize just how powerful internet searches can be. They view Google as a portal for typing keywords to call up a specific site. I view it as more of a process, and if you want to find something, try being as blunt as possible.

Oncopeltus fasciatus

Here's the image search I used to identify this orange and black insect: "orange and black insect in Ohio" which produced a page full of images. I selected this image because it was a pretty good match to my own photo, however the pattern on the wing wasn't quite right. Turns out the image in the image search was a "false milkweed bug." Well if the false milkweed bug is pretty close, let's try searching for "milkweed bug." Bingo! The large milkweed bug (Oncopeltus fasciatus) is a perfect match.

Eristalis transversa

Let's try it again with the next insect. This one is a black and yellow fly, so let's search "black and yellow fly in Ohio" which brings up this photo. Looks good to me, this is a black and yellow hoverfly. Well, it turns out there are 6000 species of hoverfly covering over 200 genera. Thankfully, this gallery of North American Hoverflies was able to help me narrow the list to my best guess of Eristalis transversa.

Sigmoria sp.

Ok, I'll do one more. How about this photo of what is apparently a centipede. Based on an internet search for "black and yellow centipede in Ohio" I came upon this site with photos of what the author calls the cherry millipede. Looks pretty close, and the bugger is identified as a Sigmoria genus of millipede. It is, in fact, a millipede and not a centipede because millipedes have two pairs of legs per body segment.


Below are the rest of my nature walk photos. Looks like some wildflowers and yet another species of hoverfly. The hike itself was a fun way to socialize with my grad student peers, but taking the time to identify what I actually saw was an interesting self-taught lesson in insect species. By taking the next step and learning more about these buggers, I have a greater appreciation for my own photographs, and I learned something along the way!

What I learned: The Internet is a powerful learning tool, but it's not going to do all the work for you.

Beyond the Headlines: $315,000 NSF-funded FarmVille study

One of my friends posted a link to an article on FoxNews.com with the headline: Senate Report Finds Billions in Waste on Science Foundation Studies. One of the major criticisms in the story is that the National Science Foundation funded a $315,000 study of the FarmVille game on Facebook.

Wow, I agree that a study of FarmVille sounds like a waste of money. But that doesn't make sense, why would the NSF fund a study like that? Well let's see...

The Fox News article's main source is a watchdog report released by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma) titled "National Science Foundation: Under the Microscope" (PDF). This report attempts to blow the whistle on excessive government spending through funding unnecessary science projects. On the topic of FarmVille, the Senator reports:

A $315,000 NSF study suggests playing FarmVille on Facebook helps adults develop and maintain relationships. The NSF-funded study, “The ‘S’ in social network games: Initiating, maintaining, and enhancing relationships,” has determined that many adults “are playing games such as Facebook’s FarmVille to help initiate, develop, and maintain relationships.” (source)

The report correctly cites the source of their information regarding the amount of NSF funding, which can be found in the award abstract (HCC 0916019). The Senator is correct that the NSF award is for almost $315,000 (actually $314,863), however the award does not provide funding for a solitary study. The award is a continuing two-year grant addressing the role of social network sites in facilitating collaborative processes.

So while the Senator's report is correct that the publication "The S in Social Network Games: Initiating, Maintaining, and Enhancing Relationships" (PDF) was funded by the National Science Foundation, this was not the sole publication resulting from the grant.

In fact, the same grant (HCC 0916019) funded studies that led to no less than 5 published articles on the topic of the role of social network sites in facilitating collaborative processes:

1. Student use of Facebook for organizing
2. Reciprocity in social network games and generation of social capital
3. The S in Social Network Games: Initiating, Maintaining, and Enhancing Relationships
4. The Ties That Bond: Re-Examining the Relationship between Facebook Use and Bonding Social Capital
5. Coordinating the ordinary: social information uses of Facebook by adults

These are merely the studies that came up in a Google Scholar search, and acknowledge the NSF funding source in the text. Considering five publications resulting from the same two-year grant (and presumably two-year salary and research expenses), this research doesn't seem as wasteful as Senator Tom Coburn and Fox News would have you believe.

In fact, upon closer inspection, the study about FarmVille is the only publication funded by this grant that did not pay the subjects anything for their participation. The total amount paid to recruit participants for the other 4 studies totals $2,170. So of the studies funded by the grant, the study involving interviews of 18 unpaid subjects is surely the least wasteful in terms of recruiting participants. 

Finally, the study that involved FarmVille was by no means a study ABOUT FarmVille. In fact, according to the published article, the interview protocol originally "focused on general questions about Facebook use as well as specific questions about relationship management" (source). After participants brought up games in their discussion of Facebook use, the researchers later added standard questions to more thoroughly probe the phenomena. In other words, the researchers did not set out to study FarmVille.

What I learned: Nobody reads beyond the headlines anymore.