![[dr. bob]](/dr-bob-sm.gif)
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 25 of 29. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by alexandra_k on August 4, 2020, at 22:43:35
i guess that's how it is that new zealand doesn't work.
you have people in positions who do not do their job. who do not do their primary function. ombudsman. head of the vice chancellors committee. etc. you get the idea.
they may have 'imposter syndrome' because they know full well they are being paid to not do a job. paid to ensure the job is not done.
then you have people who make their money sueing it out of the various people refusing to do their primary function.
in that way the government ensures that the work is never done.
they just pay people off (after trying their best to arrange for their oxygen deprivation at birth or during ventillation) for violating and refusing all their rights.
a succession of pay-out.
no meaningful work.
Posted by alexandra_k on August 4, 2020, at 22:44:29
In reply to new zealand: it's not working, posted by alexandra_k on August 4, 2020, at 22:43:35
it just doesn't make any sense.
i don't suppose they put much thought into it. that's my mistake. thinking.
Posted by rjlockhart37 on August 5, 2020, at 18:08:16
In reply to new zealand: it's not working, posted by alexandra_k on August 4, 2020, at 22:43:35
alex, come over the USA for a while - its chaotic right now. Worse
Posted by alexandra_k on August 5, 2020, at 23:57:56
In reply to Re: new zealand: it's not working, posted by rjlockhart37 on August 5, 2020, at 18:08:16
I think it varies.
I think herd immunity is developed in certain places. That likely don't want to be destinations / targets for refuge.
But I need to look into it, yeah.
Once I get a court case through the courts here then I guess I don't need to be located here to get cases through anymore.
And I get my government pay-out in the form of a pay-off for all the officials who were paid vast sums by the government for not doing any of the things that they were supposed to do.
Universities who do not give Degrees to people who completed the requirements for them. Who falsify transcripts. Who refuse to get work to examiners. Who refuse to base outcomes on reports of examiners. Who refuse to allow their studnets to work to international standards. Who refuse to sign studnets off in a timely fashion.
Vice Chancellor COmmittees (Univerities New Zealand) who do not investigate serious wrong-doing under official disclosures. Who do not follow their process even when you cite the rule they are supposed to be following.
Nobody here does any of the things that they are supposed to do. They don't follow any of the rules or regulations that tell them what their function is in the job they are paid to do. They don't do any of the things.
I think I'd like to go to Rhode Island. But I don't know... I don't know... There were things about the US that I didn't like. Apparently it is hard seeing vast opulant exhorbitant wealth... And the realities of slums... Problems everywhere.
But I've never experienced officials not doing any of the things they are required to do...
I mean... If I get a pay-out so I can pay fees to study at Brown or wherever... I don't suppose they will start refusing to process my work. Falsifying my transcript. Sh*t like that. I don't suppose they would start pulling sh*t like that. But that's business as usual, here. AT least that's how New Zealand chooses to treat me.
So...
Posted by alexandra_k on August 6, 2020, at 0:04:47
In reply to Re: new zealand: it's not working, posted by alexandra_k on August 5, 2020, at 23:57:56
I mean you just can't function here. Nobody does any of the things they are supposed to do. And they won't let you do anything, either. They seem to be paid precisely to make sure nobody does anything. Nothign is done. No research is produced. Not on their watch!
No computer systems.
No sewerage systems.
No health systems.
The legal system...Haha f*ck*ng ha hahahahahahaha.
See...
What you do... Is you do a pro bono case. 60 - 80 hours they reckon. You do a pro bono case. Which you should be doing every year as professional duty.
You find a case that you think you can do. How do you find it? You volunteer at a community legal free clinic kind of a deal.
Then you win. What do you win? You win legal costs for the case.
Sh*t. You haven't done your pro bono work, yet. Best find a pro-bono case.
You don't complete your pro bono work until you don't get your legal costs back out of the courts.
That way you can make a good living doing good legal work.
Or you could if there was a well developed system. You know, that wanted to reward good legal work / that wanted to enable good legal work / that wanted it to make it possible for people to do good legal work.
We have this weird system of 'legal aid' which involves lots of awful paperwork and doesn't cover legal costs.
It seems only designed to prevent the development of a good legal system.
Like how ACC prevents the development of a good legal system and a good medical system both.
We don't want nice things.
Posted by alexandra_k on August 6, 2020, at 0:11:24
In reply to Re: new zealand: it's not working, posted by rjlockhart37 on August 5, 2020, at 18:08:16
It's just a matter of time before we do get community transmission.
So you go: Where in the world would you rather be... When community transmission takes off?
?
?
If you got to the point of needing to be on a ventillator would you rather be in the US or in New Zealand?
If you were in a situation where a volcano exploded...
Any kind of position of vulnerability...
___________________
What I wanted for myself was to be here.
But I don't see a way to function, here.
Here, I seem to be forced only to go about playing whack-a-mole with respect to people being paid to do various things and not doing the various things they are paid to do. I'm talking all the way up. So from lecturers and graders. Upheld to Deans. Upheld to Vice Chancellors. Upheld to The Chief Excutive of the New Zealand Vice Chancellor's committee who doesn't see anything wrong with Universities refusing to give people Research qualificaions even when teh University has violated their own regulation by delivering an outcome of examination that was a bribe and went against what two external examiners wrote in their reports.
I mean...
That's not an education system.
That's not a university.
THere's nothing here.
Nobody home.
___________________
Posted by alexandra_k on August 6, 2020, at 0:17:26
In reply to Re: new zealand: it's not working, posted by alexandra_k on August 6, 2020, at 0:11:24
There's like 3 medical journals or some sh*t.
Because overseas medical journals are really highly productive.
Organised. Sh*t together. Reseaarch output. Best you can in the time you've got then moving on to the next thing. Progressing.Only the one that's supposed to be for studnets is filled mostly with non-medical academics. LIke... What the f*ck?
There's some kind of a focus or something that just doesn't seem to work here or compute to people who make the decisions or something.
Posted by alexandra_k on August 6, 2020, at 0:39:55
In reply to Re: new zealand: it's not working, posted by alexandra_k on August 6, 2020, at 0:17:26
but you need the system to be sufficiently developed such that the judges arrange for the pay-outs to happen such that the good lawyers get paid.
but of course that's assuming that the judges want there to be a good legal system.
rather than the legal training programmes with the teenager girls to be all exploited at those parties... it's their right now the made it to the top, yeah! why else would you be motivated to work so hard and yessir nossir anything you saysir for years and years and years... why else would you work so hard to get to the top of an essentially corrupt system?
we don't have a concept of freedom. of people having internal wisdom about how they are best to live their lives and about how they are best to know what their best contribution to humanity would be.
we still thnk it's about conning or tricking or forcing or exploiting otherwise essential things won't get done.
always with the bullying and so on being justified.
hahahhahaha they got me doing free legal work hahahahhaha.
Let's be completely and utterly honest, here. The only reason they are forcing me to do the legal work is because the people who want to do the legal work... The people who want that more than anything else, who have been askign for that, workng for htat, who have stated in terst in that... It's to prevent them from doing it.
It's just another case of bullying justified by made-up b*llsh*t. Just anothe rcase of might is right and forcing things just because you can.
And as always theres no excuse or no justified reason really, at all.
It' sjust another case of the fitness trap that is NZ an dhow nothing works, here.
Posted by alexandra_k on August 6, 2020, at 1:12:42
In reply to Re: new zealand: it's not working, posted by alexandra_k on August 6, 2020, at 0:39:55
My supervisor (when I was in Australia) said there was some work that you just couldn't force slaves to do.
He was thinking creative work.
Forced creative work always evokes feelings... That it was forced.
You won't get creative work that inspires joy or wonder or peace or happiness or anything good or light or uplifting or motiating or kind...
When you try and force people do to creative work becuase you know what's best for them and you know what they should contribute to the world etc etc etc.
Other kinds of work, too.
You won't get honest science when you don't know honest science when you see it and when you don't reward honest science. If you become very results focused and pressure for results focused then people will start being creative with results and you won't find real results and if you claim you've found real results it's only a matter time before you are exposed for fraud.
That's why people want to see the publications, these days. It isn't enough to have publications. Because people buy publications. I'm sure NZ had medical journals mostly so that the kids who got the bribery brought places have some way to bribe a publication so they look hireable or good or whatever to foreign training programes or hospitals or universities or whatever. I'm sure that's what it's about. With the glossy paper and so on.
But of course they read your publications, now, to see what you were up to. If you were involved in the manufacture and sale of LSD to vulernable teenagers or giving ketamine to help people feel better about communal sleeping on marae or quite what your deal was.
Which is the only sort of research that people seem allowed to publish, here.
Apparently it's all a bit too modern and controversial and nearly heresay chortle chortle snort to even suggest things like face masks in New Zealand.
I do get that the think they are teaching me some kind of lesson that I was supposed to grubby grubbity grub grub grub the PhD at the earliest available opportunity and even when it took them 10 years to sign me off from it back then that would still have been years ago. I do understand they think they are teaching me a lesson in how I should have grubbity grub grubbed for the top all the way back then. HOw they would have signed me off in only about 10 years if I was truly ignorant about things. If I hadn't have learned about how people actually grow and develop publications and genuinely productive research departments and so on and so forth. If only I stayed stupid enough for them to have signed me off!!
And then I could have joined them! Oh what bliss!! I could have gone on to ineptly do this that the other thing. All the things. Doesnt' matter what things just so long as you agree to not to any of the things the statutes or job descriptions say is actually teh reason you get paid. Just make sure those things are not done on your watch. That's the point of it, it seems. Just make sure your job description is never done. Not on your watch.
And there we go.
The secret as to how New Zealand has managed to avoid developing for so very long.
Posted by alexandra_k on August 6, 2020, at 1:36:22
In reply to Re: new zealand: it's not working, posted by alexandra_k on August 6, 2020, at 1:12:42
I don't know that leaving will help. If I do get a bunch of money then I'm sure people just want to steal it. If I do invest it in a Uni overseas why would I think they would be honest with the return on that? I don't think New Zealand is honest in the way they do business. I don't think New Zealand has been honest in our international business interactions / dealings. Why would people overseas be honest or good to me?
?
?
?
So I suppose I think NOrth Carolina. Insofar as they invested in me for one year. Not entirely sure why... To help foster good relations with the ANU because the ANU had money back then. Had post-doctoral fellowships and the economy in the US wasn't doing so well and they were having a hard time getting their graduates tenure-track positions in the US. So... Fund a few years for different PhD studnets to go for a year... And then it would be reasonable / fair to expect or hope that they might find a good graduate to hire for a post-doc. That seems fair. Reasonable. A good investment.
But ANU didn't hire any of them as post-docs. Even when some of them had funds to travel to Aussie and spend weeks in the Department so they were personally known.... They were not treated well. One was treated really badly actually (personal thing about her taking up with someone who someone else in teh department was keen on jealousy kind of a situation). She drunk far too much at a party and threw up a lot on carpet and was mocked and ridiculed. It was awful. It was part of why I didn't want to join them.
So I see why NOrth Carolina invested in me (in the capacity as an ANU student).
And my ANU debt wasn't paid.
But it's maybe a link or tie or something that means I feel I have a bit of a debt there or something to be paid. Or at least to pay things forwards in their particular direction.
I have no ties to Rhode Island. I just liked the ideology that I saw of what they provided for their studnets. So that as a student with a burning passion to study something you could really focus on your studies. Not worry about teh financial aspect or whatever. Just do the work.
And then thinking, though, about how it can become about a grade grubbity grub grub enterprise if there is an over-focus on competitive entry. So you don't have time to do the things you actually need to do to learn things (sometimes it feels like a large step back to take the time to learn for meaning rather than memorising for an exam or whatever).
Then seeing that they tried to stop that with saying that there were places where med school places were guaranteed. So you could just focus on learning. Without worrying about grades.
But then...
Or I should say now...
Now...
I worry about how maybe it's just like the system here where the kids of the officials or whatever get their way paved clear but it's actually a matter of screw everybody else.
I worry...
That it might be abotu that. And I worry that I would always be or feel an outsider to that kind of a system. ANd I worry that there is a tight group or whatever that are wealthy that might target me for exclusion. Like how they do, here. Because I'm not focused on sucking up to them and making their kids look and feel like they are the best.
So...
I don't know.
I don't know.
They do say 'better the devil you know' and I guess I know the particular variety of devil that we have, here.
And they aren't from generations of wealth. We can't comprehend that. It's a different kind of devil. One that was abused as a kid and who sort of lives out the fact they were forced to do this and that by forcing others to do this and that. It's a control freak kind of a thing.. It really is about that. They are throwing toddler tantrums that they don't get to decide who does what and that people aren't going into their harry potter sorting hat places or slots that they have ordained for them.
And things just aren't allowed to develop...
I wanted to study here and go overseas to do a specialist training program. I think... I actually think... It is a few years too late for me to want to do undergrad in the US. Perhaps even to do Med in the US... Not sure... There is no in to Med without other study in teh US first... I'm over study. Sign me off sign me off sign me off.
I know they're trying to knock med here out of me. But med here is just a matter of sign me off. Sign me off. Sign me off.
Whack a mole at the people who won't let people with competence or ability or whatever through...
The people who have to control all the competent and capable people out.
The people who grubbity grub grubbed their way through by sucking up to the people who were paid to help them through....
ffs.
At least let the people work towards foreign examinations?
No?
There's really nothing here...
_______________
I suppose more Americans are coming here. We see a few in the papers.
I was sh*tty about them getting expediated entry to the country while New Zealanders with citizenship are told they can't come back because no more quarantine places because they are full of foreign doctors families.But It is a good thing. Possibly. Insofar as the people coming are competent? I hope so... Maybe people with ties back in the US who are here out of a desire to help. Since they are more likely immune. ANd since once community transmission takes off here we will need someone to pile up the dead, at the very least.
And maybe she can train a few. WRite a few nice references in a timely fashion. And in this way things progress.
Maybe.
I don't want to move to the great unknown.
Moving to a highly structured 3 or 5 or 7 year programme with... Structure. Yeah. That's different. There's a point. A purpose. A progression.
But not pre-med. And so not med in the US. The Step exam from books... The study materials for IMG students that's the way to go.
________________
I wish we could get with the programme and work towards the US accreditations for our studnets.
So they (the good ones) could get training places. Then go train. Go do the training.
Then come back.
Then we'd have competent specialists.
I don't see why it's so damned hard.
Posted by alexandra_k on August 6, 2020, at 1:49:39
In reply to Re: new zealand: it's not working, posted by alexandra_k on August 6, 2020, at 1:36:22
oh, it's because of something in the paper.
apparently it was about an australian surgery consultant and a student.
the consultant told her to suck his dick and she refused.
so he didn't sign her off on her placement.
so she had to do the 'whackamole' thing.
so he had to say 'sorry' and her sign off was delayed by however many years.and the senior people are very very invested in keeping things that way.
very very invested in having the vulnerable teenagers that they hand select for the universities and so on beliving that the only way they get to do what they want to do is quid pro quo on keeping the supervisors happy doing what the supervisors want them to do, whatever that may be.
and when the courts say 'say you are 'sorry' and you are granted name supression to protect your future career'
...
well.
they also say that they are a discredit to their profession.
i suppose really it is important to distinguish the justice that comes through teh courts (teh justice delivered from judges to individuals) from the justice that is supposed to come from professional standards regulatory authorties. i mean, it is up to the medical councils or the specialist councils or whatever to say 'we don't want you bring our profession into disrepute so we will name you and shame you and not register you anymore'.
but the point is that they don't.
they look out for their own -- at everyone else's expense.
which is why i have no plans to seek registration or higher training in new zealand or australia.
because that's all i see, here.
...
and i want to be knowledgeable and competent and good.
and i don't see that in them...
so...
yeah...
there's that.
Posted by alexandra_k on August 6, 2020, at 1:51:41
In reply to Re: new zealand: it's not working, posted by alexandra_k on August 6, 2020, at 1:49:39
because to the best of my knowledge usa training is recognised globally.
or at least in english speaking countries.
i don't think that that is the case the other way around. for obviosu reasons.
Posted by alexandra_k on August 6, 2020, at 2:03:43
In reply to Re: new zealand: it's not working, posted by alexandra_k on August 6, 2020, at 1:51:41
because the exams require a higher level of knowledge than any others that i've seen.
the UMAT was a better exam than the UCAT.
it just was. i could get a sense of what cognitive capacities they were testing for. don't get me wrong i could go 'yeah, i don't got that one' but i could get a sense that some people would do the task differently to me and that's how they'd get it done... i think i got the hang of the scanning they wanted for the verbal task one. it was about scanning for a key word and then a bit of a context search and then finding a target. it was about meaning encoding to identify a synonym. but it was a computational verbal task, yeah... yeahh... yeah... i don't know what is going on with the pattern recognition. is that really a thing? really? i would like to talk to someone who does well at that. to know if i could get a sense of what is going on... i don't see anything.
i learned so much from studying for STEP1. and there's still a lot mroe to learn. but i learned so much. so much more than any of the uni work i've done. well, maybe that's not fair. but i learned so much. it's maybe not fair to first year. it's hard to compare. partly it works for my learning style. books. i'm a fan of books. verbal. yeah. and working at my own pace. it seems weird... but it's like sometimes you need to spend a (distributed) 8 or 9 hours just to get the hang of a word. learning the language. yeah.
the exams, yeah. studying for them. to be able to do them. to do a 15 minute dx focused history and physical exam and write notes for likely dx and tests. studying to be able to do that. clearly that's worthwhile. even if it is a bit overly simplistic...
in studying for it lots of high quality case notes. short, succinct, to the point, relevant, case notes. so you learn to write them yourself. just like that. so and so of sex and age and race with presenting symptoms this and that... so you learn to write them yourself. so you learn what's relevant.
it might please the supervisors in new zealand for you to have a 30 minute chat about the 9 dogs and 3 kids and the horrible slip when they were 4 and their 9 page dispute with the neighbours... but it's not helping people learn to write focused relevant history for dx and tests and medications and procedures. it's just not. i imagine. it's just not.
sigh.
i cam be surprisingly tolerant if i think people are *trying*. I suck at many things. i am not good at expressing admiration and i am not good at praising people and expressing kindness and stuff like that. i know it helps people relax and that helps bring out the best in people when i smile more and that. i need to learn to get better at that. some other people are really good at stuff like that. i can learn from them. i would if given the chance. learn to be more diplomatic. learn to keep my head down better. but it's hard for me because i don't do well to grit my teeth and turn a blind eye to bullying and autocratic nonsense of people expecting the kids to suck it up and put up with whatever b*llsh*t they throw at them.
hrm.
Posted by alexandra_k on August 6, 2020, at 2:04:14
In reply to Re: new zealand: it's not working, posted by alexandra_k on August 6, 2020, at 2:03:43
other way. ucat was better than umat. step is better again.
Posted by alexandra_k on August 6, 2020, at 2:11:08
In reply to Re: new zealand: it's not working, posted by alexandra_k on August 6, 2020, at 2:03:43
there was a f*ck*ng weird question about castro.
i am not undermining the integrity of the test in saying that, i really really really really really don't think.
who the f*ck is castro?
the name... it gets me thinking about cuba... and about cuban cigars.. and about how i have no freaking idea about politics in the region or about US and cuban interactions or about any of it.
and it was a reading comprehension sort of a task so none of that matters.
but the whole thing just seemed garbled. and i couldn't parse any of it.
and it was superweird. and it was the only one i was like wtf. no compute.
no compute.
no compute.
and the others felt prrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrp computed. there we go.
irrespective of the content. but dependent on the meaning...
but that one everything felt garbeled.
and i was trying to tell myself 'don't worry about the content or about what is' saying or about the tone of the passage don't worry about what it's saying about politics or whether it's saying anything about politics. don't worry abotu the intent of the author or about whether it's true or whatever. just do a synonym search to find the synonym fo rthe answer to the freaking question.... but i couldn't. and i ws thinking there was interference. like when people don't reason about a particular topic when tehy reason it okay with the topic removed. e.g., some people can see a fallacious argument unless it's an argument about abortion or something. i kept trying to remove interference because i thought that was happening because castro freaks me out, i don't know why...
but it didn't compute.
i wonder if it was teh time waster.
if they were curious about how much time you spent staring at that one once you finished the section. because some people might have gotten stuck on it indefinately like with trying to shove a breathing tube down and it won't go while a nurse stands there with a tracheotomy tray...
Posted by alexandra_k on August 6, 2020, at 2:40:04
In reply to Re: new zealand: it's not working, posted by alexandra_k on August 6, 2020, at 2:11:08
you know what it reminds me of?
nicolas cage -- good or bad?
f*ck*ng castro
Posted by alexandra_k on August 6, 2020, at 10:48:06
In reply to Re: new zealand: it's not working, posted by alexandra_k on August 6, 2020, at 2:40:04
i was looking at a few things online... one of them got me thinking too good to be true. i don't mean in a false advertising mis-representation kind of a way. i mean... in a... i would spend my time pinching myself to wake up. fretting about things being too good to be true, somehow... feeling like i was un-deserving. bawling my eyes out that in parts of the world people are dying of malnutrition and living in horrible slums while things around me were...
i remember for a bit in aussie i felt a bit like that. things felt plastic-y in Canberra. shiny. artificial, somehow...
like the Trueman show. something weird like that...
and i didn't want to stay with it and be part of it because of that... well... if i could have studied medicine there, then i would have. but it would have been because i wanted to feel like i was doing something worthwhile, somehow. because what i was doing (writing things around in circles) didn't seem worthwhile to anybody, actually. so what was the point actually? there were things i wanted to know, to sort out. but then i learn them and sort things out and eventually i felt like philosophically things were sorted to my satisfaction, really. i had an informed opinion enough for me to feel like i... hit the limits on the methodology. that was the issue, really.
there needs to be some friction. yeah. to keep the momentum. i don't know.
Posted by rjlockhart37 on August 13, 2020, at 21:31:03
In reply to Re: new zealand: it's not working, posted by alexandra_k on August 6, 2020, at 0:11:24
hey alex, im reading through your responses, ill post back really soon
r
Posted by rjlockhart37 on August 13, 2020, at 21:56:53
In reply to Re: new zealand: it's not working, posted by alexandra_k on August 6, 2020, at 2:03:43
i've read through, embarrasing of me, the only way ... how it is in the US, its bad right now, ventillators are scarce, the virus has spead into hospitsals, everything right now is kinda scarce, i know you, the legal system compared to the US and New Zealand, i wish i could explain, not sure how, but what im trying to say is in the US, this virus has spread so much, it affected nearly everything, we all have and are required by government regulation to wear masks everywhere, all public place, or your aasked to leave. We have to comply with goverment regulations due to this virus. All college campus's, they were shut down, and now, well....alot of online classes are being done. I really don't know about whats going on with colleges, so i don't be an oblivious dumbo, but its affected all campuses, and public school systems. It's spreading, and its changing everything about the US, the great awakening, google the term. Things are never be same here, after all this contagion, we're never going to be the same again [back to regular society] The news, there are so many bad events happening right now, i don't know in new zeland if you know, but it's absolute chaos in US right now. Other countries don't know whats going on internally here in the US. Colleges, public school systems, online classes, changes in wearing masks everywhere, and social distancing. I read through all your responses, i hate to say, i didnt know how to respond with articles, and college stuff. You in new zealand, you have to understand how much things are diffrent there, than here in the US due to the virus contagion. It's .... society will never be same again after this. Alot of other countries, who don't, there having the mandatory goverment regulations, in wearing masks, the news on everyday, there is bad events happening systematically at increasing rate. Like what your wrote comparing things to US, alex this virus contagion hss completly changed, everything. Sovcy here in the US will never be same again. I don't know....how else to write a better response. That's all i can say, people in other countries outside US don't know what's happening right now, internally.
Posted by alexandra_k on August 16, 2020, at 20:48:41
In reply to Re: new zealand: it's not working, posted by rjlockhart37 on August 13, 2020, at 21:56:53
I am in Auckland (around 1 million people) and we are just starting to get community transmission. A handful or two of cases per day. We are in level 3 lockdown which means most businesses (except pharmacy / chemist / drugstore and supermarket and corner-store / dairy / mini-mart) are closed. There are police on the roads and 'non-essential' travel in and out of Auckland is not allowed. What is essential and what is non-essential is a bit up in the air... They are letting most people through.
We are asked to wear masks in public -- but they aren't mandatory yet. They likely will be soon.
For all we go on about 'first in the world' the reality is that we are last in the world. This isn't a 'second wave' for us. This is just the very tip of the start of the first wave. We haven't experienced a first wave, yet. We are only just starting to have community transmission, now.
I think about how when a loved one dies people say 'things will never be the same'. And things aren't the same, ever again. But that doesn't mean that things won't be good ever again. It doesn't mean there can't be good experiences going into the future.
I hear you on the cultural thing about face covering, though. How alien it is to have ones face covered in public. And for that to be a requirement by law in the USA. It is the last place on earth you would expect that to happen. And also remembering the media footage of the bodies being lined up in public spaces in NY because there were too many bodies to be processed... And the riots in the US that looked like the riots of HOng Kong with civilians wearing gas masks and the police firing at civilians and releasing tear gas... Civilians toppling statues and other monuments... That's not life in the USA... Only it is. Momentarilty. It feels like things can't ever be the same, again.
'New normal' is a phrase that has a bit of traction. How we need to learn to find a new normal. Partly it's about sustainability. What we need to do as a species to be sustainable. If we don't want nature to do a mass culling for us then there are things we need to learn to do. It is about carrying capacity. Over-crowding. Inequalities of distribution...
The college thing...
It's a tough one. College means different things to different people and different people want different things from their college experience.
College has largely been overtaken by people wanting social advantage of meeting a who's who of people. Nepotism. Bribery.
If there is to be an aspect focused on education and meritocracy then you need to limit the time spent... Work from home... Stay away from the bullies and sexual abusers...
Limiting the time the people get to spend with the students. So they can better focus on grading their work on it's merits.
Make college too boring for the people who are presently ruining it for everyone.
Sigh.
We don't have freedom of speech or anything, here.
Apparently the lecturer of 'critical reasoning' told students not to talk about the Tiannamen Square massacre if they didn't want to get into trouble with the Chinese authorities.
What is this? A New Zealand lecturer employed by a New Zealand University threatening studnets enrolled in a New Zealand University not to talk about something (in a class for 'critical reasoning, no less) or... Threatening them that they would be in trouble with the Chinese Government.
I mean... Best comply with what a Critical Thinking lecturer in New Zealand tells you the Chinese Government wants you to do (or not do) -- right?
Posted by alexandra_k on August 17, 2020, at 1:40:19
In reply to Re: new zealand: it's not working » rjlockhart37, posted by alexandra_k on August 16, 2020, at 20:48:41
They needed to close our Universities down because our Universities aren't processing students work properly, anymore.
They aren't processing applications to enrol properly, anymore.
They aren't grading students work properly, anymore.
They aren't conferring degrees once (and only once) requirements for them have been met.
It's all become a race to sit on boards collecting up all money.
That seems to be the aim of it all.
Medical doctors or doctors of other things... It's about becoming chief executive or its' about sitting on 2 or 3 boards of directors...
Collecting up all the money in exhorbitant salaries for yourself...
While the people who do the work (the frontline workers) are treated as chumps, really.
The groundwork is all done by studnets who are led to believe that if the work for long enough eventually they'll get paid (yeah right). Eventually they'll have their Degrees signed off (yeah right).
The corruption has increased exponentially over time.
CE salaries get larger and larger and larger as they know themselves they will get booted swiftly. So they decide to take it for everything they can get in the short term.
I remember Cathy someone from Southern District Health Board trying to justify her exhorbitant salary by saying she was sent down there in the short term (6 months or a year) to expose the corruption.
She got paid so much because she would never work again after 'turning' on her peers.
I'ts now... Is it 10 years later??
And she's still there.
They all got pay rises, I believe.
Nobody can actually function in this envirnoment.
NZ: It's not working.
Posted by alexandra_k on August 17, 2020, at 1:51:27
In reply to Re: new zealand: it's not working, posted by alexandra_k on August 17, 2020, at 1:40:19
It's just a big scummy scam.
The New Zealand Qualifications Authority who is supposed to come up with requirements on New Zealand Qualifications (from NCEA or school credits all the way up to MPhil and PhD)... What the Universities are required to do to be allowed to be called 'University' and to be allowed to grant 'Degrees'.
What has to happen to student theses that are submitted for examination?
Examination?
Studnets have work externally examined by people who have never met them. Their work is examined on it's merits -- right?
Uh... No. Uh... No. That doesn't seem to be a requirement in New Zealand. People just pick which kids they like and some of them they like so much they repeat the year with the same teacher. And so on...
It's just a big scummy scam.
The Tertiary Education Commission. Setting limits on how much the Universities are allowed to invoice for fees - right? Wrong. Setting limits on how much a Degree in NZ is allowed to cost -- right? Wrong. Saying a 3 year Degree needs to be complete-able in 3 years -- right? You can't say a class is compulsory and then refuse to offer the class so tha tstudnets cannot meet requirements for the Degree -- right? Wrong. The University of Waikato invoiced around $15,000 for my MA Degree in 2005 where it should have been only around $5,000 and where the scholarship I was awarded was supposed to cover my fees. I shouldn't have been invoiced anything at all. AUT Invoiced $10,000 for one year of physiotherapy -- that I never started. I withdrew from the course before the start date.
Our government is very very corrupt. These are government departments / organisations.
Teh Chief Executives of the Departments earn how much?
They have stated functions in the Education Act.
They refuse to do their job. They refuse to process complaints.
The Vice Chancellors Committee of NZ Univerities. Refuses to follow whistleblower allegations on NZ Universiteis refusing to process enrolments. Refusing to process completion. Double billing.
Things are very corrupt here.
The Election has been delayed...
The present minister of education...
Is also the present minister of health...
Is also the present minister of the state services commission...
The state services commission sets the salaries of the chief executives. The chief executives refuse to do their statutory functions.
The legal filings... Are to have firm letterhead as a running footer so the judge can....
What?
Decide whether to process the filings??
I filed judicial review and was requested to keep working on the filing and submit again at a later date. To be fair I did not state the legal basis and I did need to redo it... Well... Insofar as justice is not something tha tis supposed to be accessible to the 'common man'. It should be now. I enumerated the judicial review and asked for remedy that falls within that. I asked for financial compensation from tort violation. Negligence. Breach of statutory duty.
Nobody does the things they are paid to do in this couuntry.
Nobody is paid to do the essential work.Corrupt government paying people exhorbitant salaries for no good reason.
Cronyism.
Posted by alexandra_k on August 17, 2020, at 1:58:15
In reply to Re: new zealand: it's not working, posted by alexandra_k on August 17, 2020, at 1:51:27
The head of Auckland watercare just resigned.
His pay increase for 2019 was around $120,000.
That's on top of his few hundreds of thousands of dollars salary.
That was his *increase* in *one year*.
While nurses strike over offers of five per cent.
While NZ has only just (in the last week) come around to 'recommending' people wear face masks.
(If people wear face masks they will expect District Health Board employees to wear face masks. That means the Distric Health Board needs to purchase face masks to supply to it's workers. That means the District Health Board members can't have half a million dollar salaries anymore since the money will need to be spent on things like basic medical supplies.)
Posted by alexandra_k on August 17, 2020, at 2:27:17
In reply to Re: new zealand: it's not working, posted by alexandra_k on August 17, 2020, at 1:58:15
The CE of watercare...
The salary...
That's why there's a water shortage. That's why there's sewerage troubles. Because instead of investing in the infrastructure (doing his job) he decided to take as much money as he could for as long as he could get away with it.
It's the Kiwi way.
So it needed to be shut down.
Good people need to know not to try doing business with us. Good people need to know that the cost of trying to do business with us is too high. We don't do the most basic of things that we promised to do. We don't process enrolments. We don't process work. We don't process completions. We don't hire quality academics. We don't work together for quality publications. We take what we can for as long as we can and we have this elite group of cronies who all think they're very very clever for ruining or undermining social services and profiting themselves at everyone else's expense...
And people can't function with them on the lose, really.
So. There we go.
The psychopaths.
It's just detention facility island in these parts.
The lock-down basically just exposes the fact that the majority of people 'workign from home'. uh... New Zealand. It's not working. The vast majority of people don't do what it is that they are paid to do. They just collect up all the money and hide themselves away.
The public spaces... Tragedy of the commons. The people hiding themselves away in private... they gutted the public services / sector.
It's strange... These government employees. The worst offenders. They're too stupid to have even collected up all the tax money that the government should be collecting.
None of it makes any sense.
I can't seem to find a single person with the most basic level of reading comprehension in this country anymore. It's like someone put the IHC in charge of everything. Promoted them to CE.
But worse.... People who are intellectually handicapped have a sort of a circumscribed cognitive deficit and often (but always) empathy and morality is actually relatively well intact. This is a different sort of cognitive defect. One where reading comprehension falls out when they don't read what they want to hear. It's a self centerdness with a complete intolerance for anything other than themselves. Everyone is expected to mirror them only and they can only bear to see their reflection. And they rule with iron fist and do... Uh... NOthing. They genuinely seem to do nothhing . Just pomp about to the sound of their own voice.
(tehy go see see! see see! you are just like me! all you do is talk incessantly and accomplish nothing!)
(no. they get paid how much? they have speaking rights. and they use their money and their use their voices to say what? to do what? i am nothing like them. they have a moral blindness. a meaning-hole. they don't have curiosity or playfulness and they don't work to develop or further or better...)
they say: i cut and i choose and might is right and i win.
and there's not a lot else to do but walk away...
so they closed the borders. because someone has to deal with them.
or...
or not.
because there aren't enough ventillators.
but it's not actually about the number of ventillators, rj. what's the point being on a ventillator if nobody will feed you or change your diaper?
Posted by alexandra_k on August 17, 2020, at 7:17:22
In reply to Re: new zealand: it's not working, posted by alexandra_k on August 17, 2020, at 2:27:17
Studnets upset about their A levels.
Idiot says 'either we use an external algorithm where what grade you get depends on what school you came from (so elite schools get the uni places and public schools get nothing) or... Your teachers pick the kids they like the best.
Will not do merit.
Will not do it.
Must advance only the incompent! Must micromanage to ensure the idiots all rise to their proper places at the top to make sure that only the incompetent!
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