Demetria and I rode the bus down to The Bluebird to eat dinner. She's auditioning for a role in "My Fair Lady", and the restaurant was around the corner from the theater. Service was a tad slow and the fries in the Aggie Marketplace are much better, but the grilled cheese I got was really good. I passed on the ice cream, figuring I could have some at home.
I dropped Demetria off at her audition and joked that while I was here, I could audition to. I knew she'd had to fill out paperwork in advance and I'd also thought you had to be in one of the music or dance programs, so I'd assumed it wasn't an option. They had paperwork there that I could have filled if I'd wanted to, but I didn't have a printed picture of myself on hand and I hadn't dressed up nicely or prepared at all, so I passed on that too. Another time, perhaps. I don't know why I didn't even think of auditioning.
The auditions were supposed to last until about 10:00 or 10:30, since there were some for singing and some for dancing. Demetria had already secured a ride back with Caterina. After leaving her to it, I walked back to the bus stop and settled on a bench with my phone to wait.
Of course, the 12, 13, and 14 buses that were supposed to stop in front of Bluebird never showed. I started waiting for them at 7:20, and it took me until 7:40 to open my bus-tracking app and see the alert that says those three buses weren't on route anymore for the night. So much for them running later on the weekdays. Sometimes the best laid plans...
I was able to call Alison and hitch a ride back to Blue Square with her and her roommate, though (since her own car is in the shop). Her roommate had just walked in the door, so that was good timing. Alison's been a saint about picking me up when I end up out in the dark and cold. Next time I head into town, I should make sure I have a solid way to get back.
For my final project in my behavior class this semester, I have to pull together some sort of project explaining anything that we’ve talked about this term and how these things are relevant to my life.
Coincidentally, “Fairly OddParents” is relevant to my life. It's handy to have that card up your sleeve, since I can say that watching and thinking about all the things I appreciate about this show is a step in my journey to become a published contemporary fantasy author.”
So I've been getting really excited since our teacher went over what he wants for this project. We've been encouraged to be creative. I bet I could make a video explaining various instances of psychology seen in FOP and cite clips from the show as references. There's so much one could say about intrinsic motivations vs. extrinsic motivations, the Pixies enacting their plans for world domination on a fixed-ratio schedule with their reinforcer more likely than not being attention and not necessarily success due to the fact that they’re so extremely open about trying to take over the world every thirty-seven years, Flappy Bob being sprayed in the face with a seltzer bottle his entire life every time he did something the Head Pixie disapproved of would be a form of positive punishment, there's H.P. turning off Cosmo and Wanda’s shock collars throughout "Wish Fixers" as negative reinforcement for unwishing Timmy’s “bad” wishes (which doubles as differential reinforcement of incompatible behaviors), Timmy’s parents deciding in “Nega-Timmy” that instead of being permissive they should be more authoritarian (and especially Timmy’s resulting rebellion), Foop’s dissociative identity disorder gained as a result of the poor prison conditions he was forced into during the critical period of his development, his learned helplessness in “Scary Godcouple”, the principle of deprivation (specifically the satiation part of it) seen in “Just Desserts”, blue magical beams appearing when one is irritated and green for misery and pink for knee-jerk reactions and so on and on, Chloe’s ultra-perfectionist attitude and tendency to deny everything that doesn't go the way she wants it to, Timmy’s extinction-induced resurgence in episodes like “Pixies’ Inc.”, the dark powers of the dark suit essentially shaping Timmy's behavior towards evil in “The End of the Universe-ity”, Timmy’s extreme wish extinction burst in “Jerk of All Trades” and Wanda’s resulting extinguishing of this behavior, possibly Timmy’s discrimination training in “Gland Plan” between Wanda and Anti-Wanda, Juandissimo being intrinsically motivated to pursue Wanda for the thrill of it and instantly backing off when she came onto him in “Stupid Cupid”, escape and avoidance scenarios, Timmy’s dad’s outcome recording of whether Timmy washed the dishes in “Father Time”, Jorgen’s time-sample recording in “Meet the OddParents” when trying to catch Timmy revealing his godparents, dozens of different establishing operations and discriminative stimuli and s-deltas, the freaking reification abstractions of all the Fairies as relates to Anti-Fairies being bad people…
And that's just skimming the surface of things I remember off the top of my head. Heck, if I need more to pad it out then I could even make a viable case for Sanderson’s separation anxiety (Why else would the Head Pixie treat the lowly complaints department worker like his number one lieutenant?) or talk about certain cues being stimuli to prompt Cosmo and Wanda to poof out of sight. I really have no end of things to choose from.
I probably haven’t been this excited about a school project since my veterinary science teacher let me get away with that PowerPoint about my theory of pixies reproducing parthenogenetically due to H.P. contracting the Wolbachia pipientis bacteria millennia ago. Male magical beings giving birth in canon was an excellent card to have on hand for that, too. That was fun.
I love this show.
