Interview with Ms. A

Q: What do you see as Lucas's strengths?
A: He is really good at adding numbers and he knows good basic strategies for how to solve a problem.  He is also very intuitive about other's feelings and is honest with me about his own which is helpful.  I always know how he is feeling.

Q: What are some things he struggles with?
A: He has difficulty listening to directions, taking any redirection, and trying something if he does not initially know how to do it.  He also struggles with his self-confidence and his ability to stay on task.

Q: What are some methods that you have found that help him concentrate and focus more in class?
A: I have yet to find anything extremely successful.  I have tried to give him a stress ball to relieve energy, I provide preferential seating and seat him in the front, I have tried isolating him and seating him with all higher students.  I have also tried the rewards system.  None of these have given me very consistent results; one day it works and the next it does not.  I am thinking, however, to next try motivating him with technology because he really loves playing games on his phone and IPad.  We'll see if that gives any better results.

Q: Has his father or grandma given any suggestions that have been of any help on how to handle Lucas in class?
A: Nope, all they have said is to try to remain as positive as I can because he has a hard home life that does not include very many positive role models.  His grandma, the main care giver, does not know what motivates him either.  He is really passionate about hockey and loves to play, however, even taking away hockey does not help.

Q: How did you go about learning about Lucas's oppositional behavior disorder? Did you do any research of your own or did he come with information?
A: He came with information, all of which was included in his IEP that I received from his case manager.  I usually take the information I am given with a grain of salt and I come to class having read the IEP but make my own assessment on the first day/ week to see what things students really do need to be accommodated on.

Q: How do you modify lesson plans to meet his strengths and weaknesses?
A: These students are all a part of my block class and our goal is to get them to grade level, so I do not really change the lesson itself but rather slow it down so that they have more time to understand the content.  I do, however, do more of environmental changes like turning off the lights, altering the seating arrangement, and incorporating intervention stations which work on strengthening basic skills.

Looking Back...

I feel like I have read probably more than I will ever need to know about love and relationships.  My future husband will be grateful for this project, though, because I will be an expert at love! :)  As I look back on my blogs, I know my research is not yet quite completed.  I still hope to interview an "expert".  I have emailed a pastor about how he views love and have yet to hear back.  If I never get a response, I will have to find someone else to take over that "expert" role for my research paper.  I do, however, have a fairly clear idea about how I am going to set up my paper.  I am going to cut my paper into different sections to make for a more organized final product.  I will have:
1. The Definition of Love
2. The Relationship Between Love and Sex
3. Love in the Eyes of Children
4. Love As We Age
These topics are still likely to be altered and manipulated, possibly even added to, but I do feel like this blog has helped me to create a concrete idea and support to begin writing my final research paper.  With my research paper, the plan is to also make a short video to show as part of my presentation.  My idea is to get as many different people as possible to complete one sentence, "Love is ______."  I feel that through this topic sentence I will be able to get answers from people that will be easily comparable to other's answers.  The movie will hopefully show, in short, what love is and how love evolves with age.  I look forward to the next chapters of this project.

Sexual Relationships

Utilizing the article "Romantic and Sexual Relationship Development During Adolescence," by Brent C. Miller and Brad Benson, I found some interesting statistics revolving around the age when sexual involvement first takes place.  The article talks about how there are differences between races regarding how early sexual interaction tends to first take place.  The article describes how Black teenagers tend to have more sex than White or Hispanic teens.  "More than half of Black males have had sex by age 15, but Hispanic and White males do not attain this level of sexual activity until they are 17."  For females, the statistics are relatively similar.  The authors also discuss the differences found between males and females; "more male than female teens report having had intercourse at every year of age."  Finally, the article delves into statistics regarding the age that people first have intercourse getting younger and younger.  People who have had sex by age fifteen has risen from 20% of people to 27%.  Males who have had sex by 18 has risen from 55% to 64%.  Females who have had sex by age 18 has also risen from 35% to 52%.

This article helps readers to understand that romantic and sexual involvement is influenced and effected greatly by social and cultural norms.  As a society, we judge ore harshly females who have had sex at a young age more so than we do males.  This is one of the reasons why at every age, more men than women have already had sex.  I found that statistics such as these were important for me to understand as I look at the development and evolution of love.  Love is often characterized by romance and passion that two people share.  From a past article, I remember reading that sex does not always include love but love always includes sex.  In order to understand why high school sweethearts and young love are so common, it is important to reflect on the data behind sexual involvement within our nation.

Furman, Wyndol, B. Bradford Brown, and Candice Feiring. "Romantic and Sexual Relationship Development During Adolescence." The Development of Romantic Relationships in Adolescence. New York: Cambridge UP, 1999. 99-109. Print.

Romantic Love and Adolescence

The article entitled "Measuring Passionate Love in Intimate Relationships" discusses passionate love, mostly as it relates to teenagers/ adolescents.  The paper goes in to great detail about the definition of passion and how a person can measure passion within a relationship.  However, one of the most interesting parts, as it relates closest to my research project, discusses the development of love in teenagers and when a person is most capable of falling in love emotionally or becoming sexually active.  One quote from the article reads, "Adolescence is also that period when we generally fall in love with a willing partner for the first time.  Kephart, for example, found that "infatuation" generally occurred for the first time at age thirteen and "love" at age seventeen."  This quote shows a general prediction for when a relationship or emotions for a person become more "real" and genuine.  I also found it interesting in the article how the author continued to, almost with out notice, switch the words romantic love and adolescence within the paper.  He mentions several times how the two words are defined extremely similarly: "intense, overwhelming, passionate, consuming, exciting, and confusing."  I find this view point to be very unique and interesting.  It makes love out to be this invigorating time in a person's life full of youth, many changes, and some confusion.  It, honestly, makes quite perfect sense.  I also find that this point of view makes the relationships people have in high school seem more serious.  If love can be had at seventeen and adolescence and love mirror each other, love becomes more for the young than the old.  This article answers many of my questions on the development of love, especially in the teen years.  This article proved to me that love at a young age is not only very possible, but seemingly more likely.

Hatfield, E., and S. Sprecher. "Measuring Passionate Love in Intimate Relationships." Journal of Adolescence 9.4 (1986): 383.ProQuest. Web. 26 Mar. 2015

May I Ask You a Few Questions About Love?

The Saturday Evening Post has an article written by Sandford Brown entitled "May I Ask You a Few Questions About Love?" which I found to be extremely interesting and relevant to my topic.  Elmo Roper's interviewers asked a sampling of Americans seventy-five questions to collect data on how our nation views love.  The article discusses lots of data that was found after analyzing the questionnaire, but one piece of data I found to be especially interesting was when husbands and wives were asked if their love has grown, faded, or stayed the same over the years.  38% of women and 34% of men stated that their love had stayed the same, 36% of women and 32% of men stated their love grew, and only 14% of men and women stated their love had faded.  

This piece of data I find to be extremely hopeful for our nation.  As I look at the relationships in my life, it seems really hard to find a married couple that is genuinely happy.  I have three best friends, and out of the four of us, my parents are the only two who are still married.  Divorce seems so common in my world that to hear that in America, there are still over two-thirds of the people that feel that their happiness since getting married has at least stayed the same, revives a sense of optimism towards love.  Not all marriage ends in divorce.  In connecting this article to my research paper, it is easy to see how it will fit in.  I have read another article about the effects of age on a marriage which was rather negative, stating that there is a period, especially when a couple has kids, where their love and passion falls considerably.  However, this article gives an alternative view point and shows the pros of getting married and living with your best friend forever.  

Brown, Sandford. "'May I Ask You A Few Questions About Love?'." Saturday Evening Post 239.27 (1966): 24. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 25 Mar. 2015.

Review Thus Far...

Review of my Position Statement:
As I am a little over a quarter of the way through this process, I think back to my original position statement.  My purpose has been to decipher if a person's definition of love evolves with age.  As I am writing this post, I feel that I can completely declare that the definition of love is a lot more complex than a person would think.  If I had to say right now either way, yes it evolves or no it does not, I would say no.  There are changes that are made along the way.  As you grow up and mature, love becomes less about the material objects and more about words and actions.  I would not consider this a change in definition though.  The meaning of love is still consistent while how love is shown changes and becomes more sophisticated.
Review of my Notes:
Some of my main topics are the connection between love and sex, how experience defines future relationships, the effects being together a long time has on a couple, and the characteristics of a happy, "master" couple.  I find that my past blogs are helpful to me as I am making my argument on love.  I have several blogs that support my position that the definition of love does not change but rather how we show our love does and several that would probably more easily support the other side.  I do also have several blog posts that go outside of my main focus and bring in information that helps to define love in itself.  Although they do not all explicitly support my argument, I find that having a well-rounded grouping of resources will help my research paper to be more impartial.
Considering my Purpose and Role:
I find that neither my purpose for writing about this topic or my role to solve a problem has changed since I began writing this paper.  I feel that I started out interested in the topic of love because of the very diverse examples of love I have had all around me as I have grown up.  I still hope to find some sort of an answer for why a couple who once thought they were soul mates has come to hate each other, while another couple is still going just as strong as when they were married.  I also find that my paper is still heading in the direction of answering and solving the question of whether love evolves with age.
Reflecting on my Readers:
I would hope that anyone would be interested in reading my paper.  Love is a universal feeling and an emotion that every single person on this planet has felt or will feel.  Knowing what love is and how love changes as you do, is a topic that effects people across the board.  Who will actually read my paper?  I would assume that my audience is more female dominated with women who are seeking some sort of answers for why their love has failed and how they should adapt and change their views to fit some sort of ideal image.  I do not know that my paper will be able to answer every question on love, but I think it will work to answer questions on the correlation between love and sex, what the definition of love actually is, and, most importantly, the evolution of love with age.

One of the possible positions that could come from this research for my final paper is love and how a person's definition of love does not change with age, the only aspect that does change is how these feelings are shown to the loved people and things.

What do four year olds think about love?

Today I went to Traylor Academy and talked with 12 four year olds about love.  Their answers to my questions were so sweet, made me giggle, and perhaps some of the most straight forward answers I have received throughout this entire process.

What does love mean to you?
"love your kids"
"a boy gives flowers, ring, and necklace to a girl and then she will say "Oh that's lovely," that's love"
"when you give something for Valentine's Day"
"when your mom says, "I love you kid, you're the best!""
"hug someone when they're sad"
"kiss someone on their cheek"
"when they buy you a pretty thing"
"you give love to other people"

What do you love?
"mom and dad"
"sister and brother"
"unicorns"
"cat"
"flowers
"grandma"
"chocolate sweets"
"dog"
"all of my toys"
"watching cartoons"

How do you show the above things that you love them/ it?
"give them hugs"
"give them kisses"
"give them a tissue"
"pet and feed your cow"
"you give a heart print"
"give them flowers"
"give someone a wing"
"buying them jewelry"
"telling them you love them with all of your heart"

Many of the above quotes were said by multiple students.  For example, loving their moms and dads was said in each of the four groups that I talked with, however, I just wrote it down once to save space and show the variety of answers I got from the kids.  After interviewing the students, one of the main things I noticed was how they attached showing the people and things they love to giving them something, usually something material.  In each of the four groups, the main discussion on how to show their love revolved around giving hugs and kisses or giving something material.  This is one of the main differences between young kids' definition of love and a person's definition of love when you get older.  With age, material objects tend to become less meaningful and it is the actions and words that are the true indications to someone that you love them.  I really enjoying talking with all of these students.  As I was there, I got to thinking about the final presentation I will be making and I got to thinking, a video with some of these students, and older candidates as well, would really help people visualize what love is.

Predicting Divorce

Dr. Gottman is considered an "expert" when it comes to relationships.  He has studied over 3,000 couples, worked with 4,000 more in "intervention and research treatment", and worked with about 8,000 in workshops and therapy sessions.  He has come to determine that there are four indicators of divorce and with these four signs, he is able to predict, with about 94% accuracy, whether a couple will get divorced.  The four indicators are criticism, contempt, stonewalling, and defensiveness.  He does believe, however, that being able to predict the outcome of a marriage is not nearly as important as being able to devise a method of intervention to help strengthen a relationship.  Dr. Gottman and his wife have come up with seven principles to make marriage work.  These include, building a love map, building fondness and admiration systems, turning toward each other, letting your partner influence you, solving your solvable problems, overcoming gridlock, and creating a shared sense of purpose and meaning.

A lot of what sociology is is the study of human interactions and behavior, which is not always very predictable.  Dr. Gottman, however, has made human behavior predictable.  He has defined the difference between masters and disasters of relationships.  He has made it possible for almost any relationship to have the ability to succeed if you work hard enough at it and want it enough.  This system makes love seem rather "manageable" and almost controllable.  It puts you in the driver's seat and forces love that used to conquer all to take the passenger's seat.

Here is a link to a speech that Dr. Gottman made about his findings and the research that he has done.  I found it very interesting, maybe you will too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLXX8wzvT7c&noredirect=1

"Research FAQs - The Gottman Institute." The Gottman Institute. N.p., 2015. Web. 25 Mar. 2015.

The Brief Report, "How Adolescent Personality Moderates the Effect of Love History on the Young Adulthood Romantic Relationship Quality," seeks to prove/ disprove the correlation between the amount of relationships you are in as a teenager and the quality of relationships you are in as a young adult.  This article proved that there really is no correlation between love history and current quality of love.  I found this to be extremely interesting.  If I were to guess, I would have thought that there was a correlation between the two.  The more you have been heartbroken, the less willing you are to trust yourself with another person.  The author did, however, explain that there was a correlation for "under-controllers."  "Under-controllers" who were in many relationships as a teenager tended to have poor commitment and exploration within their relationships as a young adult.

I found this article extremely helpful because one of the ideas I was supporting this research project on was the idea that with experience, a person's definition of love changes.  If this is true, a love history has no affect on current love quality, this idea is rather false.  Although your idea of love may change momentarily, love conquers all and will eventually break down the barriers you tried to set up to protect yourself.  Love will find you, kind of creepy really.

Yu, Ronggin, et al. "Brief Report: How Adolescent Personality Moderates The Effect of Love History on the Young Adulthood Romantic Relationship Quality?." Journal of Adolescence 37.5 (2014): 749-752. Academic Search Premier. Web. 23 Mar. 2015.

Interview Questions

For my project, I want to interview two people/ groups of people.  First, I am going to interview a pastor.  Prior to marrying a couple, a pastor has "couple's talks" with the new duo.  He/she talks to them about their intentions in marriage and what they love about each other.  They do this to both aid in the process of marriage and to gain knowledge about the couple to say during the wedding ceremony. I will be considering a pastor as a sort of "love expert."  Some of the questions I will be asking him are:
1. What types of questions do you ask couples?
2. Why do you hold couples sessions before a couple gets married?
3. How long have you been doing this for couples?
4. What are some things that you see in a couple that make you think it will be a successful marriage?
5. What are some indicators that make you think a marriage might be more likely to fail?
6. What is the first word you think of when you hear "love"?
7. How would you define love?
I will also be talking with three groups of preschoolers.  One group will consist of all boys, one of all girls, and one of a mixture of boys and girls.  Some of the questions I will be asking all of the kids are:
1. What do you love?
2. How do you show your love to it or him/her?
3. Close your eyes and everybody at once say the first word you think of when you hear "love".
4. What does love mean?
I am not sure how well each of these questions will go over or with which questions I will get the best results, but I think these questions are a good starting point.  During the interviews, if I am not getting very good results, I will alter the questions and use additional questions to improve discussions.

Romantic Comedies

On the EBSCOhost database I searched with the key words "love at first site" which brought up many articles that included content about love.  Most of the articles used the love at first site theme to relate love to something else.  One article that I found particularly interesting was the article entitled "From Love at First Sight to Soul Mate: The Influence of Romantic Ideals in Popular Films on Young People’s Beliefs about Relationships" by Veronica Hefner and Barbara J. Wilson.

The reason I found thought this article related to my research project is that I am looking at the evolution of love as people age.  One of the socializing factors of love as people age is movies.  Romantic comedies, like the ones these two authors discuss, influence their audience's definition of love.  According the article, people who watch romantic comedies tend to have a more idealized definition of love.  I agree with this article because I think that I myself have a more idealized view of love because of movies.  When I think of love, I think of Crazy, Stupid, Love or Fifty First Dates.  Movies like these make love seem easy and as though love is bound to happen.  It makes love out to be something that starts out as funny tension that spirals in to love that can maybe not be admitted and eventually love conquers in a big romantic scene.  Although this would be really nice, not all people get to wake up to a movie with your soul mate explaining their love to you every morning or a big musical number where you fly off in a car like Grease.  Love can be difficult, confusing, and a lot more aggravating than the movies make it out to be.

I now understand people more, especially people from places where romantic comedies are popular and available.  These people have an idealized definition of love and when this idea is not met the first time, the idea of love goes sour faster because they were expecting something bigger and better.  I wonder though if romantic comedies tend to affect a certain ethnicity more than another?  Boys or girls?  If so, why?

Hefner, Veronica, and Barbara Wilson. "From Love at First Sight to Soul Mate: The Influence of Romantic Ideals in Popular Films on Young People’s Beliefs about Relationships." Communication Monographs 80.2 (2013): 150-175. Web. 17 Mar. 2015.

Celibacy Cons

On the Library of Congress research database, I searched using the words "marriage"and "celibacy."  I had a hard time using this website because it tended to give me a lot of books that were way too long and mostly unavailable and posters that you were unable to zoom in enough on.  When I finally found an article that was shorter than a couple hundred page book and related to love, I found that it gives a widely different viewpoint on remaining abstinent and celibate taken from the 1920's.

In this article, "Is Race Suicide Possible?," Alexander Graham Bell gives a very convincing argument why people, especially those who are smart and of high class, should not lead a life of celibacy.  Not only does each race in general need to maintain high numbers in order to not commit "race suicide," but the people who are ensuring these numbers are kept high need to be good people because, if good people have babies, the offspring, too, will be good.

This is an entirely different perspective than what I have always thought that I have known about leading a celibate lifestyle.  I always thought that celibacy, although probably lonely, is something that takes a lot of courage, determination, and commitment.  This article, on the other hand, almost seems to make people who do remain celibate out to be selfish people who do not care about the well-being of their race beyond their life time.  In the 1920's in Europe, it makes sense why these ideals of remaining unmarried and not having any sexual interactions with a partner would be strongly believed and carried out by many people.  During this time, monasteries and nunneries were entering Europe in full swing and force.  However, I wonder if celibacy is often, or even at all, practiced here in the United States.  And if it is, what makes a person decide to vow themselves to a life of celibacy?  Also, is there generally a religious tie/ reason for people who do decide to remain celibate?  Finally, is the only reason a couple should have sex because of a desire to reproduce and maintain a healthy population?  Why did Bell not include love in his argument at all?

Bell, Alexander Graham. "Is Race Suicide Possible?" 1926. MS. Lib. of Cong., Washington, D.C. Lib of Cong. Web. 17 Mar. 2015. <http://www.loc.gov/resource/magbell.37600201/?sp=1>

Love and Sex

Using the Google Scholar research database, I was able to find an article entitled "Love is a Dangerous Thing" by Katharine Wood and Rachel Jewkes.  To find this article, I searched using the words "love" and "sexual relationships".  Many of the articles that this site found for me were books that you had to purchase or have special permission in order to see, however, I was lucky enough to come upon this article.

"Love is a Dangerous Thing" discusses the findings of a study that took place in Umtata, Eastern Cape.  The study interviewed 45 people: 30 people between the ages of 16 and 26, 12 mothers, and 3 policemen.  The study was researching the nature of violence in youth relationships in that city.  The findings were very unreal, with the majority of the young women admitting to being violently beaten by past boyfriends and many of the young men admitting to committing such violence.  Mothers also admitted that they had known what was going one, however, did not intervene in their daughter's relationships or their son's acts because "boys will be boys."  The violent acts committed ranged from being shot, stabbed, beaten, killed, and attempting suicide.  One of the sections that the paper goes in to is called "Constructions of Love and Sex Among Youth."  In this part of the paper, the authors talk about how these young adults referred to love and seemed to define it.  They seemed to come to the conclusion that "love was perceived to necessarily involve sex but not sex to involve love."  For these young people, love seemed negative and daunting as it was referred to as a disease, dangerous, a source of pain, something that gets in the way of a successful future, and a cause of sickness.  The article states that even though romantic relationships were not completely absent, they were extremely rare.

The views of love and perceived notions of love in this article by many young people is extremely negative and haunting in comparison to a lot of the previous articles I have read.  My question is, are these young people's view on love in the Eastern Cape similar to the perception of love for young people in all countries?  Do all young people feel so negative and afraid, frankly, of love?  Or is this definition of love unique to the young people of the Eastern Cape; has their culture socialized them differently to define and view love differently than people of other cultures and in other places?

Wood, Kate, and Rachel Jewkes. 'Love is a Dangerous Thing': Micro-dynamics of Violence in Sexual Relationships of Young People in Umtata. CERSA (Women's Health). Medical Research Council, 1998.

Don't Be a Paper Plate

I found the article "Preteen Girls Hear Abstinence Message" by Cathy Spaulding using the News Bank research database.  I searched with the words "abstinence" and "relationships" and found this article fairly low on the list.  Many of the articles that came up were only remotely related to abstinence and relationships and a few only had one of the words mentioned in the article one time with no real content on either subject.

This article, however, speaks about Carol Sallee, a speaker at the Pregnancy Resource Center's annual Spring Tea Party for young girls.  Each year she speaks to these girls about waiting until they are treated like a "fine piece of china" rather than a paper plate to have a sexual relationship with a boy.  She talks about how all young girls need to have the willpower and "internal pressure" to withstand the "external pressures."  Through demonstrations she shows girls how it is much better to wait until marriage to have the "whole candy bar" rather than have part of it now.  Sallee inspires girls to have more self-respect, dress more professionally, and think about each decision before its made.

On one hand, I like the message she is telling.  Waiting until you are treated right to have your first intimate relationship will make it all the more special.  However, I do have a problem with her metaphor of the paper plate.  Obviously it is better for women to be treated like a fine piece of china rather than a paper plate that just gets used and thrown away, but I do not like how she continually refers to women as objects.  She uses pop cans, candy bars, and plates throughout her speech to symbolize a woman's body in some way, but why does she need to use an object at all.  A better message would have been to simply say, wait until you find someone you love and you can not live without.  Who also can not live without you.  Also, I feel boys should have also been included in this event.  Men need to hear the message to remain abstinent until they are in love just as much, if not even more, than women.  My question is why did she not mention love in her speech and is she the only one who feels no need to include being in love as a highly suggested requirement before being intimate?  Is love something that requires first being intimate, or does being intimate first require being in love?  What is the real correlation between the two, if any?

Spaulding, Cathy. "Preteen Girls Hear Abstinence Message." Muskogee Daily Phoenix and Times-Democrat (OK). Community Newspaper Holdings Inc., Feb. 1888. Web. 15 Mar. 2015.

Marriage and The Elderly

I found an article titled "Marriage and the Elderly" by Pamela Yarrow, Lotte Marcus, and Michael J. MacLean which gave me information on the disintegration and revitalization of marriage as a couple ages.  

Into the database I searched for "marriage" and "the elderly".  As you can imagine, this article was the first article found by the database.  Other articles the search engine found varied on their stronger link to the topic of marriage or the topic of the elderly.  Several of the other top articles found were focused on the elderly and their family life in general.  Still others were more focused on the aging and changes in an elderly person individually that a family is likely to see.  I chose to read this article because it focused on the development of a loving relationship between two spouses as life after children begins.  

The article focused on three key topics: the effects of retirement, the disintegration of marriage, and the revitalization of marriage.  The authors first begin with a discussion on the repercussions, both good and bad, of retirement on a couple.  They found that retirement is harder for a man, as something that has been so central to their life is no longer there.  For women, the transition tends to be easier as most women's priority job in life is raising her children who still are usually around.  With retirement, the authors found that loneliness, humiliation, and a switching of roles were often side effects, especially for men.  The men no longer are performing their "manly" duties by being the bread-winner but are instead found to take on more of the duties previously belonging to women, forcing their way into the dominion of the woman.  The authors talk about how this can cause strain on a relationship and result in bickering.  Retirement often finds men to become more sensitive and women to become more dominant in their roles.  Relationships where these results were prevented were found to have women and men who kept open-minds about the roles they play and who continue to value the work, of any type, that they each do.  Positive effects of retirement are an increase in time available to spend together.  Yarrow, Marcus, and MacLean continue the article with a discussion on the disintegration and revitalization of marriage.  Many of the previous findings of marriage of elderly couples have been contradictory; some say that marriage gets better with age, others say that marriage does the opposite.  These authors seem to think that one key factor is how the marriage began.  If they started their relationship feeling unsatisfied and bored, there is no coming back from that, and vice versa.  The authors also make note that child rearing puts the most strain on a relationship, however, just because there are no longer children in the picture, does not mean the relationship will automatically bounce back to being wonderful.  The authors mention a U-shaped graph when comparing satisfaction in marriage with time.  The start of the marriage and when the couple is elderly often find the most satisfaction in couples, while, in the middle, when children are often being raised, the satisfaction is at its lowest point.  The key to a healthy relationship according to these authors is communication and the ability/willingness to change and alter what you do for the needs of your spouse.  

I really liked this article and found that it gave me some great insight to how relationships age.  As people grow older, the passion is often lost and what you hope you are left with is commitment and companionship.  If you and your spouse both put in the effort to make your relationship work and find ways to communicate, help each other, and compromise, there is a very good possibility that you will have a friend for life.  I think that this article also proves that having someone to live for, that you care about, and that cares about you is one of the best ingredients for a long life.  This article has helped me to think of the types of questions I would like to ask older couples that I interview.  For example, is there a point when you felt your relationship was at its strongest?  What things in life challenged your relationship?

Citation:

Yarrow, Pamela, Lotte Marcus and Michael J. MacLean. "Marriage and the Elderly: A Literature Review." Canadian Journal of Social Work Education 7.2 (1981): 65-79. Web. 11 Mar. 2015.

Proposal

I am going to research the topic of love and how a person’s definition of love adapts and evolves with age.  Is young love merely infatuation?  Is there a finite age when love becomes “achievable”?  Does the perception of love become more positive or negative as a person grows?  My first goal will be to form a baseline definition of love and understand the context of love, including what happens biologically when a person is in love.  Then I will complete multiple interviews with young children, teenagers, and adults.  Through this process I hope to also determine whether true love exists and what the relationship is between sex and love.  I have never been in love myself.  I have, however, had the privilege to grow up with many examples of loving relationships all around me.  For example, both sets of grandparents are about at fifty years of marriage, my parents just celebrated twenty-five years, and my aunts and uncles are still married as well.  I have also been exposed to the hardships and confusion that love can produce.  The majority of my close friends all have divorced parents and a few of my friends have experienced some extreme heartache themselves.  Even though love within my families’ lives have been so inspiring, seeing the negative side of love has made me question what love is.  At some point, those people too believed they had married their soul mates.  So what was different in the relationships, or was anything different?  I think being exposed to both sides of love will help me to maintain a more unbiased and unprejudiced view about love and will give me reliable sources that depict multiple views and interpretations of this immense emotion.  

First Love

In the article "First Love" by Lena Dunham the story of Dunham's first love is told.  She describes this man as being her "best friend" and being the only man she's every truly loved.  During their adventure, she explains how he liked her more than she liked him but then she was all of a sudden in love with him.  She explains how she started wearing clogs and cooking him gluten free meals.  She gradually stopped hanging out with her friends.  She states how relationships change people.  I agree with this statement that relationships change people, which can be a good thing.  However, when you are changing to the point where you no longer know who you are on your own or you are no longer hanging out with your friends, something is not right.  The person who you are in love with should want you to be yourself and have fun with your friends as well as them.

Near the end of the article, Noah left her.  The article did not say that they had a fight but rather he abruptly left her, leaving her broken-hearted.  He simply had a change of heart.  He came back later, hoping to rekindle their relationship but she denied him.  After he had left, she befriended her old friends and accepted their relationship being over.  She realized he was not as great as she had thought.  Relationships, especially when you are in love, can blind a person and do not allow you to see or think as clearly.  At the very end of the article, it comes out that Noah was "involved with a man," Dunham threw-up when she heard of this.  Both of these people were pretending in their relationship.  However, once they were true to themselves, they were able to realize that their love was not real either.

Their relationship and the experiences they had with each other helped them to decipher what it was they truly wanted out of a relationship.  This article seems to support the idea that knowing what love is comes from experience; you have to fail at love several times first.  This seems awfully depressing to have to break your heart before you can find what you really want.  Is this the only case?  Is there another story out there that gives hope for finding love the first time around?

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/08/13/first-love-3

Quotes on Love

I love reading quotes because reading what other people say about something, helps you realize you are not alone in how you feel.  If there is an established and published quote describing exactly what you think about a subject, you and the author, most likely, are not the only two people who feel that way.  Quotes help to bring comfort, motivation, and wisdom to any situation.  Love quotes should also be able to help in my research.

"Friends can help each other. A true friend is someone who lets you have total freedom to be yourself- especially to feel.  Or, not to feel.  Whatever you happen to be feeling at the moment is find with them.  That's what real love amounts to- letting a person be what he really is." - Jim Morrison
I completely agree with this quote, which actually relates to the definitions from my last blog post.  Love is when you completely trust a person to allow them to know all of you, not just the parts you think they may like.  It is about being vulnerable and showing all aspects, even if you are not necessarily proud of them.  However, this trust is not just given in a loving relationship but received.  Both parties need to be willing to let their guard down and express their true feelings, otherwise the relationship will never work.

"A flower cannot blossom without sunshine, and man cannot live without love." -Max Muller
I also agree with this quote.  I believe love to be one of the facts of life, much like water or shelter.  This love can be found in parents, spouses, children, friends, even a pet.  However, when a person does not feel love, they can make some extreme and rash decisions putting their lives in danger.  Love, although not shown in the same way for everybody, is necessary for everybody.

"Love is a force more formidable than any other.  It is invisible- it cannot be seen or measured, yet it is powerful enough to transform you in a moment, and offer you more joy than any material possession could." -Barbara de Angelis
This quote shows one of the metaphors of love.  Love is sneaky, surprising, and inevitable.

The second quote makes me curious.  I would like to research the relationship between the absence of love and drug usage or the absence of love and suicide.  Is there a factual correlation between the two?

The Definition of Love

I have officially decided to dedicate this research blog to love and the ideas surrounding love.  I want to not only figure out what it actually means, but I want to see how perceptions of love change based on a person's experiences.  For example, young vs. old, married vs. divorced, woman vs. man.  I first want to gain a foundation with some general definitions of love.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary considered love as
a feeling of strong, constant affection for a person, including sexual desire.  The strong desire felt by people who have a romantic relationship.

Wikipedia describes love as
a variety of different feelings, states, and attitudes which range from impersonal affection, to pleasure.

The Urban Dictionary got a bit more satirical with their definition, stating love is
nature's way of tricking people into reproducing.
Lust is the desire for their body, love is the desire for their soul.
Love is giving someone the power to destroy and trusting them not to.
We think about it, sing about it, dream about it, lose sleep worrying about it.  When we don't have it, we search for it; when we discover it, we don't know what to do with it; when we have it, we fear losing it.  It is the constant source of pleasure and pain.  Be we can't predict which it will be from one moment to the next.  It is a short word, easy to spell, difficult to define, impossible to live without.

Dictionary.com defines love as
a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person; a feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection, as for a parent, child, or friend.

The Oxford dictionary explains love as
an intense feeling of deep affection, a deep romantic or sexual attachment to someone, and a great interest and pleasure in something.

From these definitions, I have determined that there are three fairly different types of love.  First, is the most obvious, the romantic form of love.  This love is between two people who have a strong desire for one another, an intense feeling of affection, and a desire for their soul.  Then, there is the love that is shared between parents and children, friends, and family members.  You have a warm personal attachment to these people.  Finally, there is love for things that bring a person pleasure.  For example, the love a person may have for a sport.  In this form of love, you have great interest in something and you receive pleasure from it.

I almost find, though, that the urban dictionary's definitions are more telling of this generation's view on love.  Love is more than just the sexual aspect; it is trusting a person with your true self, it is a feeling you should have with the person you have children with, it is confusing, and it is something you can not live without.  I wonder if when I ask other people my age, in their late teens, early twenties, if these won't be some of the definitions they bring up.

Most of these definitions, though, contradict the point stressed heavily by Levine, the author who wrote the article I discussed in my second blog post.  All of these definitions talk about love as a feeling rather than love made up of multiple feelings creating an emotion.   Which of these is true?  Is love a feeling or an emotion?

What is love anyway?

I found the article "What is Love Anyway" by Stephen B. Levine by searching for articles about what love is utilizing Auraria campus library's research database that is available straight from the library's homepage.

Stephen B. Levine defines love in seven ways.  Love is not a single feeling, love is an ambition, love is a moral commitment, love is a mental struggle, love is a force of nature, love is a deal, and love is a stop sign.  Levine is a clinician who works with men and women struggling in their relationships.  He is a therapist of sorts.  Through his work, he has developed these seven ideas as the different ways that his patients have come to define love.  He explains that once he can figure out what kind of love each patient is referencing, he can better help them to find a resolution in their relationship.
-One of the most emphasized points that he makes is that love is not a single feeling.  He states that one of the mistakes most people think is that love is the same for everyone, rather it is much more difficult than that.  It has two basic ingredients of pleasure and interest, however, attitudes layer and combine within pleasure and interest, diluting this feeling into an emotion.  Which is further complicated by the motive of each person for saying "I love you."
-Every person dreams of one day being in love and hopes to find the kind of love that movies and older generations speak of.  When a person states that they love you, it shows that they have yet to give up on their ambition of love.
-Love being a moral commitment is when people remain committed to each other out of a feeling of obligation to either a family or the promise they made at their wedding ceremony.
-Levine says that when people say they love him/her but are no longer in love, they are referring to love as a mental struggle.  This is when people are no longer able to idealize their partner, however do not want give up on their relationship based off of disappointment.  Perhaps they have a family, have an ambition for love, or just keep trying to tell themselves that their partners are good enough.
-Love is a force of nature is when the identity of you and your loved one have become some intertwined that you can no longer imagine life without them.
-Love as a deal is often times love that is only found when people fall in love again after a break-up or divorce.  Their vision is no longer clouded by the fantasy idea of love they first had but rather they think of the ways their life could be enhance socially, economically, and etc. by accepting a new person in to their life.
-The "darker side of love" as Levine puts it, is introduced with love as a stop sign.  This type of love is when people use love as a way of covering up true motives and when people use love as an excuse for not further discussing relationship issues.
One of the final key points that Levine makes is that there is an evolution of love:
1. infatuation
2. romantic love
3. consummate love
4. companionate love
As a relationship develops, this is the process in which love between two people often travels.  First, there is passion, usually without commitment.  Then there is passion and friendship.  Third, the stage at which most people get married, there is passion, friendship and commitment.  Finally, the ideal image of an elderly couple, there is friendship and commitment (Levine 148).

As I read this article, I was intrigued by two arguments.  First, that love is not a singular feeling.  I would like to continue research on this statement and see if I can find any article that perhaps contradicts this notion.  Is there anybody that thinks love is less complicated and diluted than Levine believes?  Is there an exact definition of love or is it really based on individual experience and attitude?  Also, his theory on the evolution of love is interesting.  Love is love, can it really change and develop into different stages of love?  I would like to further research this theory as well.

Link to article: http://0-www.tandfonline.com.skyline.ucdenver.edu/doi/full/10.1080/00926230590478005#abstract

Idea Generation

1. The biggest problem facing this country is the fight we are currently having against authority and police officers.  Within my local community, the biggest problem is homelessness.  People in my generation have a large problem with their inability to communicate and socialize without technology.  The next generation has a problem with being too reliant on technology and phones.  On a daily basis, I have a problem with terrible traffic on my commute to and from school.  The biggest problem facing my grandparents is their inability to hear.

2. Something I am generally curious about is kids' view on the world.  I think it would be so cool to talk with little kids of ages from about three to six and ask them open-ended questions, like commercials do.  I think that not only would it be entertaining and funny to hear what they have to say, but I also think it would be a learning experience for me.  Kids are so care-free and happy; thinking like them sometimes would be enjoyable and refreshing.

3. If I could only have two TV channels, they would be ABC family, because I watch The Fosters, and channel seven, because I watch Grey's Anatomy and need to watch the news somehow.  The smartest show on television is Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader.  This show asks fifth graders and adults questions that most educated people should know, such as the average height of males in the United States and what year the US declared its independence from Great Britain.  This show is teaching its audience trivia and facts that every US citizen should know and helping adults realize that maybe they should spend more time challenging and maintaining their brain so they can actually be smarter than a fifth grader.

4. When I watch the news, lately, the stories that have been drawing me in are the stories about police officers, both for and against.  My dad is a police officer so the stories that are told effect my father as well, its like hearing gossip from his work place.  I stop and turn up the radio when there is a really good song on and when they are discussing funny stories, like random stories about when people stole things as children or "secrets" of the world (handshakes to get free meals).

5.  If I got to pick a topic to bring into the national conversation, I would maybe bring up an environmental problem in the world today?  I am in an Environmental Science class this semester and although it can be excruciatingly boring, the issues that our professor brings up about how humans are diminishing our environment and the atmosphere, while they may be depressing, they are real.  They are issues that our generation is going to have to deal with and find a way to solve.

6.  One law I would write is no homework for students.  Homework can be helpful in solidifying what is being talked about in class, however, when teachers start assigning busy work, it just is no longer fair.  Students are already in school for about eight hours, they do not need four more hours of school once they go home.  One existing law I would change is regarding gay marriage.  All people, no matter their preference, should have the right to get married in all states.

7.  Over the years, leggings have become increasing trendy and popular.  My friends all think that leggings are great, as do others.  But I'm not sure that they really are a good thing because a lot of them are a bit see-through.  Although they are extremely comfortable, you need to be sure they are not sheer.  No one wants to see that.
When I was young, I really wanted to be a teacher when I grew up.  Although I have changed from an elementary to a high school teacher, I'm still interested in the education profession.  What drew me away from little kids is realizing that its at the high school age where students make life altering decisions, which makes me ask: how can the education program set students up for a better life of success?