Si demain n'arrivait jamais...

I am a person that can't wait. When I wanna do something, I would accomplish it in a shortest time. For instance, I wanted invite friends for dinner, I made it the nearest weekend and decided all dishes right away; I said I hoped to travel to Caribbean, I went there the coming vacation. Recently, my friends ask me what shaped me such a person. I think of a story.

It was in my first year in senior high school. A sudden cerebral hemorrhage happened to a girl who was in  the third year just about 2 months before their college entrance examination(CEE). She stayed in the hospital for almost 4 months and finally has gone. I was 15 at that time, and it was the first time making me think about our life. CCE meant a lot to we small city students. We struggled for the whole first 17 or 18 years of our life for this; and after the success, we could step into a famous university, a wonderful huge city, live a broader life we've expected for long. The girl was very friendly and ranked first 5 among all students in our school; she was so outstanding that I strongly believed she could realize all these after the exam. However, she was lost when the brightness was approaching. I was so sad. It appeared that all her effort and preparation has gone; a lot of things on her to-do-list after the exam can never be done. Life was so cruel and unfair!

After that, I became a girl discounting future heavily. Basically, I knew accidents seldom occur. But what if it really comes? If tomorrow never comes, how will you decide your life today?

To be continued...

A Member of an Unmarried Couple

Using data from the BRFSS, an interesting fact appeared to me that there was a category "a member of un married couple" in the marital status in demographic questions. This was never seen in Chinese questionnaires before. Well, I knew there were a lot of people in US choosing not to marry but cohabit; however, should their psychological cognition and economic behavior more like the married couple or single individuals? Who knows!

I need to categorize the marriage variable for my study; whether to combine this with married or single group became a question. To start with, I did a simple sample statistics. The more interesting finding was that the unmarried couple had some similar behavior as the married people while others liked the single. Generally, since living together, they had almost identical social activities as the married; but they also had extreme behavior as much as the single -- I would infer this was due to the uncertain relationship.

I am not focusing on sociology. But the unmarried couple could be a desirable group to be explore further more. 

Spouse and Suicide

Well, I just think of an interesting new topic to be explored: the relationship between the spouse's education and employment status, and one's suicide behavior.

I don't know if it is the case in US, but when you read China's newspaper, you can often find that some white-collar workers, graduate students or professors suicide, leaving their young children, old parents, and spouses having no jobs. It is possible that the public media emphasizes these to call for sympathy, but it shows the trend that people whose spouse doesn't work are more likely to suicide. 

We cannot deny the important role a wife or a husband is taking to the other in a family. Overviewing the tragedies, a common point is that a man married a girl who has a big gap with him on education - probably that is why she didn't work. I can infer that such a wife can be a satisfied homemaker, but she could not understand the pressures of her spouse coming from his competitive industry. And the economic stress is entirely on the husband's shoulder, too.

What I hope to demonstrate is that a wonderful spouse is the one who can not only help support the family economy, but also hear your heart - be your soul mate. If she can see you and help smooth your anxiety, it seems that one would be less likely to cut off his life. 

It might be an interesting social and gender issue. But I am not sure how long it will take to finish my ongoing project and then move to the next one. I am also worried about the data availability. 

Thanks.