Slightly edited meme.

[rivka]

The problem with LJ: we have such bad memories that we don't necessarily remember what we've learned about each other. Or there never seems to be an opportune time to ask.

If you'd like, ask me something you think you should know about me. Something that might be obvious, but you have no idea about.

Ask away. Then post this in your LJ and find out what people don't know about you.

Comments

[eeyorerin]

What made you decide to become a psychologist? I'm always curious about how people end up doing whatever it is that they do.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I started college thinking I probably wanted to be a teacher. I wanted to teach gifted kids at the elementary or high school level. But the more I learned about the educational system, the less appealing it sounded - and it was also clear by the early 90s that gifted education was being phased out in favor of integration.

I had been interested in psychology, even in high school. I read some of my sister's college textbooks - I think she took two psych classes to fill a distribution requirement, or something. And gradually it started seeming to me that psychologists were the ones asking all the really interesting questions about the world - what makes people the way they are, how people behave in groups, what causes social problems, how infants become adults. Psychological research into things like prejudice and gender roles were particularly attractive to the young and idealistic rivka that I was.

In college, I was drawn to courses in social, clinical, and developmental psychology. I never actually had a college class in health psychology/behavioral medicine, which is now my specialty. The first year I applied to graduate schools, I applied to programs in community psychology, which is the application of psychology to social problems. (I didn't get in anywhere, despite high GRE scores, for reasons that are still unclear to me.)

Late in my senior year, a classmate gave a presentation on the field of health psychology. I was fascinated. I started thinking about how I could interpret my personal experiences as a child with disabilities, a person with a chronic pain disorder, and a frequent hospital patient, in light of this academic discipline I'd never known existed. The second time I applied to grad schools, I applied to health psych programs. I was awarded a fellowship to the University of Iowa, and thus started on the inexorable career path that has led me to where I am today: unfit to be anything but a psychologist.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

For you, my dear, a question:

When and how did you figure out that polyamory was for you?

[rivka.livejournal.com]

In the fall of 1992, I met my girlfriend Lane. She was married, they were poly - although they didn't use that word. She and her husband both identified as primarily queer and saw each other as a relatively uncommon exception. I was very, very startled when she started coming on to me, and we had a big discussion among the three of us. But then her relationship with her husband fell apart quickly after she and I got together - among other things, he decided that he wanted to be involved with me too, and they fought about it. They broke up, messily. With all the intervening drama, I didn't get a particularly good impression of poly.

In the winter of 1993, Lane and I had a close, emotionally intimate connection with our mutual best friend, Hilary. That relationship, um, came to fruition at the annual women-only dance sponsored by the college Women's Center, which was called Girlz Night. (Yeah, I know, but we were young and it was the early 90s. Everybody talked that way.)

The dance was notoriously a hotbed of girl-on-girl flirting and experimentation. We covered the windows of the hall with paper. Women showed up wearing their best lingerie under their clothes, because quite a few layers were shed as the evening went on. So, in this alcohol-and-estrogen-fueled atmosphere, somehow Hilary ended up on Lane's lap, kissing us alternately as I stood beside them. We took her home that night, and in the morning the three of us decided that it wasn't a bad idea at all.

We had no positive poly role models. We had never heard of the term "polyamory." We knew of no poly resources. We were afraid to come out. But we had a very happy and sweet little secret triad until, as you probably remember, Hilary died.

[starstraf.livejournal.com]

I'm asking much the same question of pregnant / trying people. I'm assuming your kid was planned, did you have a plan if you were unable to conceive? Where would your "woudl try up to here and after that would adopt" point be? (I have a friend trying to find that point and I find it an interesteing question)

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I... don't know.

It took us a while to get me pregnant, so the possibility of infertility was certainly on my mind. We were just a month or two shy of scheduling an appointment with a reproductive endocrinologist when I got knocked up.

We certainly would've gone through a diagnostic workup. Beyond that, well, it would've depended on what the problem was and how intensive treatment would've been. I mean, something like hormone supplementation would be an easy choice for me, but something like IVF would be a much more complicated decision.

My insurance would've covered us for 3 IUI (intrauterine insemination) attempts and 3 IVF attempts. My gut feeling is that we would not have gone on to pay for additional attempts out of pocket, should it have been necessary. I mean, an adoption costs as much as an IVF attempt, but at the end you definitely have a baby, as opposed to a 30% chance of a baby. It would be hard for me to argue with that.

But in the end, it's hard for me to predict how I would react in that situation, because I haven't been there.

[beckyzoole.livejournal.com]

Since you have a Hebrew name, I was surprised to discover that you are a Christian. How did you get the nomme de LJ of Rivka? Is it your real name (or a variation of it), and, if so, how did you come to be named this way?

[rivka.livejournal.com]

My given name is "Rebecca," which is "Rivka" in Hebrew. I was occasionally called Rivka as a kid - I don't know where my parents picked it up - and I remember learning how to write it in Hebrew letters when kcobweb was learning Hebrew.

I really dislike (for myself) the standard nicknames for Rebecca - I just don't feel like a "Becky" or a "Becca," and the less said about my high school friends' tendency to call me "Reba," the better. I've always loved the sound of the name "Rivka." So when I was looking for a nickname to use on the 'net and elsewhere, Rivka seemed like the natural choice.

Lots of people now call me Rivka IRL. Many of them mistakenly assume that I'm Jewish, but that doesn't really bother me.