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Disclaimer Warning: If you're under age or offended by the subject matter (i.e. hot sex fantasies) you should not be here reading this, so DO NOT read any further. This story, in part or in its entirety, shall not to be reproduced without the author's prior permission.
For this week you have a variety of things in stall for you. I believe there are some grandmaisms, and some book reviews
Grandmaisms
For those unacquainted with my Grandmaisms, my grandma (who is now living in Aus) moves between staying with my uncle and cousins and us. Having lived in a village most of her life, she is unused to a lot of things, and she also hassome very definite way about how the world works.
In the most recent episode she was telling me that she couldn't see as well and things looked a bit blurry, so I told her she should go see a doctor because a lot of eye problems accociated with getting older are easily fixed. As per usual she scoffed at the idea of going to the doctor and said that going to the doctor meant she was uncapable. I asked her why she thought this when our whole family went to the doctor about various things. She then said that doctors never fix you, they just make you worse. She seemed quite adamant that this was the case. I mean, I understand that she had a bad experience with my grandfather dying of cancer. But she has also faced lots of experiences with people getting better due to doctors. I mean, my grandfather was a nurse for a while, so she must know that there is some validity to medicine. I'm guessing she would just rather not know she was sick (and thus not be sick to her mind) than to know something was wrong (and potentially stop it).
Then she made some statement about eating more than everyone (so not true! She eats like a bird!) and explained that hence thats why she shouldn't need the doctor or be sick. I was a bit confused by this and confirmed with her that she thought that if you ate 3 meals a day you woudn't get sick. I told her people can eat lots and still get sick and her response was "What?! People have enough to eat and still get sick!?!" like it was the most absurd suggestion someone could raise.
I didn't bother going ahead with that particular argument =P
However it did make me wonder. I mean, obviously grandma was subject to a bunch of logical fallacies in the above situation. Now, she isn't stupid, but she is uneducated. This makes me think that it is possible to teach people to think a little bit clearer, that it isn't about being smarter or whatever than everyone else.
Book Reviews
The Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher
I'm just going to talk about this series as a whole, rather than a specific book because they are all written similarly
Likes: Dresden, the main character, is very easy to like and it is good to see things through his eyes (it is first person). I also quite like the plots and storylines.
Dislikes: Some things about the writing kinda annoy me a bit. He describes what people are wearing etc a lot. I don't know if this is a bad thing in general, or it is a personal gripe. I think it is more annoying in this particular series because every single book he describes how Murphy is all cute and blonde and nothing like a cop (amongst others). I mean, I'm a bit over it now =P I understand he feels he needs to re explain these things incase there are new readers there, but like, it is book 7 or something. I don't think there would be many people who would pick up book 7, without having read atleast some of the previous ones.
In conclusion: The sort of book that is a fun, relaxing read if you want some magic, fun characters, and lots and lots of action. But not super well written.
The Liar by Stephen Fry
I grabbed this book in a book sale because I amused by the fact that Stephen Fry wrote books.
Likes: The book has Stephen's sense of humour. It made me laugh out loud on the train. The main character... well, I'm not sure if he is likeable, but he is certainly entertaining. Relatively well written (except some confusing bits below). Also, too much talk about cricket =P
Dislikes: The plot sometimes got confusing (partly due to the fact that there are lies floating throughout the book).
In conclusion: A fun, light, and quite funny read. Good enough to make me look into Stephen Fry's other stuff.
I know, I know, I'm late for the Sat deadline of this week's blog entry. But, well, I've been too busy being social to sit down and do it! So that's my excuse =P
Friday night: drinks with work people because 2 of them were leaving the company (one temporarily, because she is having a baby).
Sat morning: shopping for cake ingredients, making cake, making awesome lasagna for lunch, eating awesome lasagna for lunch, getting read to go out
Sat afternoon/evening: Going out to meet Andy, inviting ourselves over to Marina's for some boardgaming, fooding and drinking. Side note: Tim, that stroganoff was AWESOME and I want the recipe. Also, those cocktails were very very yummy ^_^
Sunday morning: shower, breakfast, stealing tv/movies/comics from Andy
Sunday afternoon/early evening: Going to visit Jonathan and playing wii, eating pizza, walking Kiba and trying to convince Jonathan that his almost 50kg puppy is not "small"
Sunday evening: Grandma came over with cousins and uncle and aunty and hostessing was required.
And then it was now.... And to be honest, I just want to curl up with some fanfic, or QI (<3 Stephen Fry!) or something, and relax.
However, I've recently been thinking about work (probably because I went straight from uni/thesis to full time work, and haven't had a proper, relaxing break in over a year, and am getting a bit tired). I've come to the conclusion that although I don't mind market research, and at times find it interesting, I'm not that passionate about it. And I think the thing that's missing is the helping someone in a more direct way. Yes, market research helps companies, and companies employe people, and thus it helps those that are employed, but that's just way too long a stretch for me to find actual contentment and passion in the job.
So I've been trying to think about what is important to me or what I would enjoy, where I can actually help people in a more direct sense. Some things I've considered are:
Counselling: Not like a clinical psyc. I don't really want to deal with people with severe depression or bipolar disorder or other mental disorders. But sometimes, people need someone to talk to, to help them on whatever journey they are on. I think maybe counselling could be one of those areas. I think you probably need to do like a short counselling course though, to be able to call yourself a counsellor.
In my work placement at CRAS (Career Research and Assessment Service) at uni, we did career counselling and I really enjoyed talking to people about their career and helping them come to an understanding of what they might be missing or need from work to make them happier. In some cases it was a fairly rewarding experience. The report writing was boring as anything though =P But talking to people and going through the journey with them was awesome ^_^
Teaching: I would actually love to teach psych to highschool kids. I think there is huge potential for psyc to help out society. But I don't think it is really a teachable option at most highschools in NSW. Anyone know if highschools in other states offer it?
In any case, I'm not so concerned with teaching kids about shakespeare or whatnot, I'm interested in helping them develop the ability to think about things in a more broader way. Like, I see how my little bro (who is in yr 11) thinks about things, and it is a fairly narrow way of doing stuff, and it is actually fairly inefficient and it prevents him from reaching his potential. Like, you know, just doing lots of examples for maths and knowing how to do the examples but not really understanding what is happening in a more broad sense, so when the question is framed differently, being unable to apply his knowledge to answer it. Like, I'm the first person that will say I'm not that smart (cause I know lots of people that are much smarter than me), and so it seems to me if I have somehow taught myself to be able to think about things in that bigger picture way, then surely it is something that can be taught to most children. So I would like to help kids develop their brains and critical thinking abilities.
I've been told this is impossible in the school system, cause it tries to eliminate this sort of a thing, but I'm not entirely convinced. What do you guys think?
What sort of stuff do you guys think I might be interested in?
So I thought that today, I might share some of the stuff I learnt during my 6 years of uni.
1) If you are going to be mugged/stabbed/suffer a heart attack, make sure there are not too many people around.
Why? Because when there are lots of people around, everyone feels that they don’t have to do anything to help because someone else will help. And then no-one does. However, if there is only one person around, then they are solely responsible for helping and so are much more motivated to help. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_e
What do we learn from this? If you see someone in need of help, help them out cause it’s likely that other people won’t.
2) Conformity is a very strong human urge. Be aware of when it is negatively affecting you, so that you can combat it.
A very well replicated social psychology experiment is Asch’s conformity experiment. Basically, they got a person to come and do an eye test, with a bunch of other people in the room (also doing the eye test). Of course, in typical social psyc stuff done in the 50’s it wasn’t really an eye test, it was a conformity test! The other people in the room were part of the experiment. Everyone got shown a vertical line and then had to choose which one it most closely matched (in length) out of a set of 3 other lines. The correct answer was very obvious . However, when in a group where everybody gave the wrong answer, the experimentee ALSO gave the wrong answer (even though it was obvious that it was wrong). This study has been replicated in many contexts and there is still pretty good evidence for it.
What does it tell us? It tells us that even if we know something is wrong/right, the majority of people are strongly inclined to not go against the group consensus. I’m sure there are lots of contexts where this occurs, you can probably think of a work situation where you have gone along and pretended to agree with everyone else, even though you didn’t. In some ways it makes sense, because humans are very social animals, and one way to get along with people is to be similar to them. But just be aware of this effect. Remember how teachers told you not to be afraid to ask a question cause it is likely someone else had the same question, but was too afraid to ask. Well, same advice for this. If you are in a work situation where everyone appears to agree and you have a different view that is important to you, try not to be afraid to raise it. Someone else probably feels the same way (but was just agreeing with the group because of conformity!).
3) A part of me feels a bit like I’m being bad and tricky with this one, but cognitive dissonance can be a really powerful effect and it might be useful to know how it could be working in your favour/against you. Cognitive dissonance is basically when there an inconsistency between your thoughts/beliefs and actions. E.g. (on a scale of 1-10) if you put in a 9 of effort into doing something, but the fun you get from it is a 5, you might end up thinking that the fun you got from it was closer to an 8 or 9 to try and address the inconsistency between your action (effort) and thoughts (fun). To illustrate this using a study, when students had to undergo a really difficult initiation into a group, they found the group and discussion much more interesting than students who underwent a mild or no initiation. So basically, when there is an inconsistency between your action and your brain, your brain will trick you into thinking there is actually a consistency!
What does this mean in reality? Think about the whole “playing hard to get” thing with dating/relationships. Essentially that is cognitive dissonance at play! If a guy goes to a lot of effort for a girl, then he is going to think he likes her a lot (whereas his true feelings might be different if there was less effort). So when you are going on a date with someone, try to make them work a little bit (not hugely otherwise you will be too difficult and they will give up =P). I wonder if it one of the reasons the “nice guys” can sometimes be left behind for someone more mysterious and dangerous? Nice guys everywhere, you need to add some mystery to yourself and make girls put in a bit more effort!
I might do another blog post about psyc related stuff later. Feel free to discuss your ideas on the above though. Do you agree with the studies? Has that ever happened to you?
As mentioned in the previous mini entry, the reason this entry is being posted today (instead of by the deadline last night) is because I was "running" a mini RPG with Andy today (as motivation for him to be a good boy and do his uni work =P).
I kinda had no idea how to approach this . I mean, Andy and others had given me some hints on how to run a RPG but it didn't really help with the sort of game I had in mind. Given that I'm a complete newbie at this, I decided to go for the no rules option, where success was basically decided by a dice throw. Given that it was set in the modern day world, with some supernatural influences, the lack of stats and stuff didn't really negatively affect the game (in my opinion). I also had Andy create a rough character before hand so that I had an idea of what I was playing with.
The hardest part was trying to think of a plot and work through it on the spot. I know I've read lots of fantasy novels and stuff and thus should have access to all these ideas, but I'm also quite forgetful, and so things were just not working for me! I eventually came up with the vague beginning of his character's sister being threatened by a demon and him killing the demon with some sort of supernatural force, which was meant to be like an entrance point to the supernatural layer of the story. But beyond that I had no idea =P Andy later told me it would have been good if I had come up with a few more points of plot after the beginning so that I had a better idea of where the story was going to head (potentially), but it was pretty hard to come up with stuff in a pre planned way!
I think that I definitely should have drawn up like a vague plot guide so I had a better idea of what was meant to happen next and the linky bits between the big plot ideas. I also think that one of the things that prevented me from developing a decent idea was this sense that it had to be all consistent and have a deeper meaning. I think that for next time I might ignore some of the back story, and focus more on the main plot. I mean, back story can kinda make itself up as the story happens, right?
The next thing that made me totally crap at this was my hesitancy and lack of confidence in the story. I kept umming and ahhing and just didn't seem confident in my decisions regarding what was happening. Also, the lack of strength of my npcs (stemming from my lack of confidence and shyness). Even though I'm obviously comfortable with Andy, I wasn't confident and comfortable with running a game and so everything was kinda half arsed in the end. (Sorry Andy!). Another point for newbie gamers. Make it believeable because if you don't create a strong world then theplayer isn't going to like it and go along with it.
In the end, we didn't get very far into the story because it wasn't working so great, but it was an interesting experience. I think that I prefer to be the player, just like I prefer to be the reader of a book. Of course this could just be lack of experience talking =P Or laziness =P
I think if you are a good DM, it can have benefits. It can be interesting to see character growth and interaction with others. Also, you can be annoying if you like =P As a player it is fun to just do what you like in this world... kinda like stepping through the wardrobe door.
If you guys have any hints for how to run a super simple game (with a single player) or Andy, if you have any feedback, please feel free to comment ^_^
Just letting you know I've been given permission to post my journal entry tomorrow. I'm going to be "running" a RPG for Andy so I'm allowed to wait till tomorrow to write about it =P
Wish me luck! (And lots of imagination!)
Dear LJ,
I’m warning you all up front that this blog entry is going to be exceptionally girly and superficial. There. You have it. I can be girly and superficial at times. And I don’t particularly care. Right, now with that disclaimer out of the way, let the blogging begin…
Note: The following dont include salads. I find salads a pain in the arse to prepare. And all the ingredients etc. I like eating them, as long as someone else is making them, but in my opinion they often require too much effort for my levels of laziness.
IDEA 1 (especially good for work lunches)
Canned Soup. The kind with lots of veggies. I know there is this whole stigma that comes along with canned soup, but most I've tried isn't too bad. It is also cheap, easy to carry (won't spill), easy to "cook", and you can find kinds that are about 50% veggies. 50% of a 500g can ain't doing too badly! At work, I usually have it with some toasted soy and linseed bread (or some other low GI stuff) for lasting fullness and energy. If you want to get creative, try throwing a can of tuna in as well. I've never tried it, but how bad can it be, right? Now, this does have the disadvantages of not being fresh, and being relatively processed and stuff so it should probably be paired with a nice cooked dinner. Still, a decently healthy, decently tasty, super easy meal for under $3 it is a winner for me.
IDEA 2
This one is more of a recent recipe/invention rather than an idea. It is like a vegetarian curry kind of thing. I especially like it because I can just have it in addition to whatever mum has made for dinner.
Fry half an onion (diced) in some oil till sort. Add some curry paste/whatever paste of choice (I love vindaloo so I use that) and fry a bit on low/med heat. Add half a bag of frozen veggies and stir fry for a few mins till they thaw (or start to thaw). Add a can of diced tomatoes, I cup of hot water (with a stock cube dissolved in it), 1/2 can lentils, and I like to add some squirts of that maggie seasoning stuff (for some saltiness). Let is simmer for 30 min, stirring occasionally. It takes about 5 min to prepare and the rest of the time is just spent leaving it to cook with some occasional stirring. This makes enough for 2-4 meals (depending on if you are having other stuff as well) and costs under $5, so again cheap and easy. Yes, you are using canned stuff and frozen veggies but useful for lazy people. Also, some people say frozen veggies are just as nutritious as fresh ones so... maybe not so bad in the nutritious stakes.
IDEA 3
Stir fries. Enough said =P Lazy version is to use frozen veggies and canned veggies. But it doesn't take too long to wash and chop up most veggies as long as you aren't too fussy about it. Besides, you need to do something while the wok heats!
I have more ideas, but alas it is my bed time so I should head off. In any case, I think I've written enough to satisfy the blog requirement. I would love to hear from people about what sort of ideas/recipes they have. The requirement being that it can't take longer than 10-15 min to prepare and uses either ingredients commonly found in the kitchen or canned/frozen stuff. Ease and minimising waste people! Oh, also cheap =P
Today I challenged my dear friend Andy to a blog-off of sorts. We both have to provide at least one blog entry per week (due by sat). I'll have to think of some suitable prize/punishment if either of us fails. I don't think there are any particular rules. Clearly, a sentence isn't enough, but an essay isn't required either. I suppose for the sake of tidiness, several shorter blogs on different topics can take the place of one long one. The point is to provide some sort of exercise in writing and brain using etc. And so... let the blogging begin!
New okcupid dating persona for me.
I've now gone from this: http://www.okcupid.com/personality?t
to this: http://www.okcupid.com/personality?t
I think that's somewhat accurate ;)
Anyway, I supressed the laziness for a while on sun to go to the Sydney Writer's Festival. Was sooo awesome! I met up with the other ober-netters a bit past 12 and we hung out, waiting for Isobelle's panel (Garth Nix was on it too). Eventually, 1:30 arrived and we went in. It was so exciting to see Isobelle in person! She looks much prettier in person than on her book covers!
Anyway, her and Garth Nix discussed young adult fantasy as a genre. It was quite interesting actually. Isobelle is so passionate about her craft! It was really lovely to see how much she cares about writing and how much fun she has with it. I found it really inspirational. Isobelle was talking about how her stories always have a basis in trying to get at some big philosphical question. Also, she was talking about how one of the things about fantasy is that it allows the reader to imagine they are special. And that they can save the world or find the door in the back of the cupboard or whatever. Things we want to do. But, like behind this is the same sort of personal and moral growth that even us regular people go through =) It made me reflect back on the role that obernewtyn and other stories played in my early life.
As I'm sure I've mentioned elsewhere, I was bullied on and off pretty much since I started school. I'm sure most kids feel it every now and again, some worse than others. Obviously the fact that I was overweight, smart and shy didn't help me out =P And one of the reasons why it didn't bother me as much as it could was because I genuinely felt that they kinda below me on a moral level. And after listening to Isobelle talk about the 'philosphy' in her work, I realise that a lot of my response to those people and what they did was a result of a deeper understanding of 'rightness', which likely came from various experiences in my life- especially the books I read.
So, I just wanted to say thankyou to books! For helping me become the person I am ^_^
Also... I met Isobelle Carmody!!! ^_^
- Mood:
cheerful
sad
