Nothing... Just got "Leid"

As a daughter i will always see my dad as nothing more than a teddy bear, however being the dad of two girls he attempts to put off more of a grizzly bear vibe to any guys that hang around the house. One example I will never forget was my sisters 21st birthday party.

My sister Kaylee, her boyfriend Jack, and I were all setting up at the house for her Hawaiian themed party. Kaylee had bought a bunch of plastic leis for everyone to wear and her boyfriend had one on. After setting up for a while my dad came home from a hunting trip 3 guns in hand when he saw Jack he said "Hey Jack what are you doing here?" Jack with out missing a beat said "Nothing, just got leid" he was referring to the lei around his neck but my dad failed to notice and see the humor in this ( unlike me i was rolling on the floor laughing). My dad unloaded his guns and had a few not so nice words with Jack and then left the house with Kaylee.

My dad was using a strategic self-presentation strategy, intimidation. Self-presentation is acting in a certain way to ensure others inform a particular impression(Schlenker, 2003) He was hoping to scare the living shit out of Jack to prove that he was powerful and to get Jack to fear him. Maybe the only time I've believed the grizzly bear persona.

Schlenker, B. R.(2003) Self-presentations. In M. R. Leary & J. P. Tangney (Eds.), Handbook of self and identity (pp. 492-518). New York: Guilford

Baby Boom

This Summer someone I was close to found out she was pregnant and made the hard decision to get an abortion. It killed her to give up the baby but she believed it was the best decision for her, the father and the baby.

It seemed like every time we hung out after that she pointed out that there were babies everywhere which was really hard for her to deal with. Because she was close to me and we were together so much I also began to notice babies everywhere we went. It was almost like there was a baby boom in progress. In addition, it also seemed as though anti-abortion advertising had becoming increasingly popular, on t.v and on billboards etc.

Although there is a possibility that anti-abortion advertising had increased and that we were in the middle of a baby boom it is more likely that we were just primed to notice these things. Priming is an increased awareness for something because of a past experience. As my friend was dealing with the hardest decision she had ever had to make it is very likely that it was on our minds and we were more sensitive to anti-abortion advertising and more aware of all of the babies around which previously were not as important.