![[dr. bob]](/dr-bob-sm.gif)
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 24 to 48 of 79. Go back in thread:
Posted by alexandra_k on April 3, 2015, at 1:23:29
In reply to Re: realisation..., posted by ClearSkies on April 2, 2015, at 20:37:26
> No, they wouldn't.
oh... they might.
i don't suppose i mind, actually. i think... i'm starting to... trust them. or something. the year started... that sort of tech way... but it has progressed and the dynamic has shifted... there is an edge...
they do invest a lot of resources in training doctors. and they want to try and get the people who are the best suited to it. there has been some stuff... about doing what makes you happy... what you are good at... where you fit. about the different role of different players etc. and people do naturally resonate with different ones. hierarchy and money aside... different people resonate differently. i think they are trying to get people to do what they naturally fit with. whatever that is. because otherwise... people won't be happy / be as productive as they could potentially be.
i think i am going to be okay. but i have to work on remaining calm and thinking flexibly. taking what is important that i've learned - but being responsive to incoming. not getting distracted by things that don't matter for the task. not getting upset by typos etc.
> say, spring in Spokane, Washington is really pretty. There will be a lilac Festival soon.
Nice. You are still doing well? Happy?
It has been really warm here. I've been swimming... Really enjoying that, actually. And walking through the forest / bush part of the park. I'm going to bike along the harbour tomorrow, if it is fine. I think the weather will turn wintery here this weekend... Used to reliably get the first frost easter weekend from where I grew up (couple hours south). Weather will turn soon...
Posted by ClearSkies on April 3, 2015, at 12:53:28
In reply to Re: realisation..., posted by alexandra_k on April 3, 2015, at 1:23:29
I am doing well. The bumps are minor. Having a spot of trouble finding the right psychiatrist, but my therapist here is helping find the right fit. Went through a bad patch while moving my furniture cross country and ran out of a prescription due to my poor time management. I'd never experienced cold turkey benzo withdrawal, and was horrified and embarrassed at the same time. Back at my regular dosing schedule, but it took days for my body to readjust.
And unfortunately the divorce process is ending up in court before a judge, because a settlement couldn't be reached (he kept walking out of negotiations). The law is the law, though; even if it takes the cost of court time and lawyers, I wasn't about to be intimidated a minute longer.
I see quite a bit of my uncle, which is nice after so many years. His short term memory loss from a atroke last year frustrates him but he manages pretty well. He relies on others to take him to appointments, etc.
I am so very glad I am here.
Posted by alexandra_k on April 4, 2015, at 2:33:54
In reply to Re: realisation..., posted by ClearSkies on April 3, 2015, at 12:53:28
I'm glad you are here, too :-)
And I'm glad we are both in a better place.
Posted by alexandra_k on April 4, 2015, at 21:52:03
In reply to Re: realisation..., posted by alexandra_k on April 2, 2015, at 14:28:13
I don't actually know if any of the family history stuff is true. Could just be family legend. Who knows. I do remember being surprised to learn that he studied philosophy, though... Learned that at his funeral. When I was a couple years into my undergraduate degree. He definitely came up to this city to study... And back then this pretty much was the university... But I suppose there might have been some theology college or something...
Anyway... I don't suppose he was imprisoned for harbouring those people. I suspect there was a lot more to it than that. Something... Something... Probably something about there being a matter of principle involved. Same for my uncle, I guess. The message may have been good but the process left a lot to be desired. And who knows... He could have been persuading other people to be off breaking into peoples houses, too. I mean... There are ways of getting out of being drafted. I would suppose. A matter of... FInding a sympathetic doctor. Which might be easier said than done, for sure. Cutting off your thumb. Having flat feet. Something...
Anyway... Again... Realisation of why it is so very important to me to do this. So I don't become... Like them. LIke my mother... Who is plenty smart (when it suits her, it seems)... But who lacks focus, generally.
Part of it is about learning... Structured learning experiences. Targets just out of reach that are achievable...
Anyway... Focus... Two weeks to study for the next round of assessment (biosci and chem)... They really do seem to be encouraging us to be thinking around / about the stuff that we are learning rather than just memorising. Which is terrific. I am reading the text... All the lecturers were terrific. Even the guy I was cranky about... The plan thing turned out to be useful in the test for organising the data and figuring out what was relevant.
And I need to go take a picture of a tree...
I... Thought I was over the whole black and white thinking thing... Really.. Totally and completely over it lol. Past the whole bad and good thing of childhood... I realise that I'm used to thinking of managers as bad... And business people... Rich business people as being exploitative / profiteering... And Politicians as hypocrits who go about in a party bus until they are elected and then go about in limosenes...
But I think it is about complacency. People see what seems to be an opportunity. And so they do something with it. Whether it is seeing a lake or orbital altitude or south pacific trench to dump your rubbish into or cutting down a tree to make good furniture or whatever. And nobody stops them so... It must be alright. Because if it was bad... People would make you stop - right? Get an injunction, or something.
They aren't crowding us into buses so much as letting people crowd themselves into buses. There are possibly little (intentional?) manipulations that they do... LIke having a bus run really late which instills fear that if people don't jump on then they will be very late... But nobody is using a taser to get people on... Nobody is holding a gun to anybodies head. All they have to do is open the door. And people get on. And more people get on. And even when there isn't really any more room on the bus people will squash on at the front. And you don't leave until 5 minutes late just to see... Because there is a crowd outside who don't get on... But the odd person will arrive and squash themselves on. And people will sit in the bag carriers. Nobody needs to hold a gun to their head.
And you just stand outside and watch them... And think that public transport must be for the very poor indeed.... The poor slobs who don't even realise the effect that such crowding has on their nervous system.s And whatever you do you have to have to have to have to must make more money then them. So you can get yourself a nice big car and afford to pay for public parking at the building that incentivises people for contributing to the peak hour rush... The existence of which... Means there is more pressure for more buildings (where the buildings are shut up no entry allowed for more than half the hours) and more roads (where the roads are only overflowing during peak hours)...
But nobody notices... Nobody complains... Nobody does anything. So... Investing in buildings and carparks. Because... Well... One day the earth will be too toxic for us to be exposed to the elements at any rate.
It is called 'planning for the future' or... 'thinking forwards' or... Something.
The city makes everyone sick.
Posted by alexandra_k on April 6, 2015, at 21:49:50
In reply to Re: realisation..., posted by alexandra_k on April 4, 2015, at 21:52:03
I feel like my eyes are being peeled open. Slowly. I'm noticing things I didn't notice before. Or things that I kind of knew... Are taking on new significance.
I worried briefly whether I might be going crazy / getting paranoid... Moments of intense fear...
But I think things are going to be okay.
This country is the toilet of the world. We get shipped all the crap that the rest of the world don't want no more. Obviously. There is no earthly reason why they would ship it all the way the hell down here, otherwise.
There are things up everywhere about 'get out! get out! get away!'. It is like... The rest of the world doesn't want to poison and hurt the good people... The good people who have talents and skills... The people they identify with / resonate with as *human*. The beautiful dancers and athletes... The smart academics... The world is full of better offers for us to leave this sh*t hole of the world and go join them overseas...
But there are still people here. There are people still here. *Good* people. People who the rest of the world can identify with, as human. And other people here... The people who are so full of rocks (salt) and addicted to sugar... The malnourished people who can't stop eating rocks and sugar... But recognisably good people care about them. Recognisably good people are still here. Dammit. Trying to figure out how to help them.
Even when they won't take their medication because they don't like the yoghurt without sugar. Even when they would rather eat water injected, sugar injected, australian beef shipped here in refrigerated containers rather than pay more for locally grown nz beef... the people can't afford it... don't realise that they can afford it (portion sizes, yeah, people aren't used to food). And then the breaking the addiction part of that with the withdrawal...
I think... I think I'm going to be okay.
The main thing is to be able to control my attention. So that I can spend some time worrying about something / trying to fix something... Then spend some time doing something else.
I need to get back to study right now.
I'm having a hard time adjusting to the change in daylight savings...
I'm going to be okay.
I need friends who care about me. Yeah.
I am glad that I get the opportunity to do more law.
I think this country is on the brink of crisis... Or something... Some kind of revolution. We've had the last prime minister in for 2 goes... I think something happens... Arrogance? Nothing to lose? Something... Our lawyers / the judiciary doesn't have the power over here that it does in the US. Over here... The politicians have more power to rush bills through without due process...
A couple of aps have been launched that allow people to live stream from their cellphones.
You know, people carry cellphones around in public change rooms. In public hospital wards... Everywhere... Governments don't need to spy on people. The people spy on the people. The people name the faces to make it easy for them.
But really... It isn't about government... It is about business... The people who do whatever whatever (expoliting others - i mean rich people get their money from taking money from others, yeah... they don't just get it in violation of some principle of thermodynamics / money... or something... surely)... Anyway...
Our TV's are watching us.
You know, right.
To check how we respond to advertisement. To check how we respond to aspects of the news...
Big Brother is here.
There is a war on. Iran got 'free trade'. Uh... The US got more oil. Yeah.
Damn.
ANyway... One... Needs to be able to cope with all this... Without going crazy. Without giving in to sugar and alcohol and rocks and so on.. Without giving in to depression and despair...
It hurts. Of course it does. Because it is horrible.
But I need to be able to relax... Because I am surrounded by people who are... Still here. People who are here. They have the same interests as me because they are here. They don't want to be bombed or poisoned, either... But they might need a little help with the latter...
As for now... It is study time. Embryology... Yeah.
Cries.
Embroyology time. Time to shut out the rest of the world, for today.
Posted by alexandra_k on April 8, 2015, at 19:19:41
In reply to Re: realisation..., posted by alexandra_k on April 6, 2015, at 21:49:50
The university signed away our tenancy rights. Usually tenents have rights... Landlords aren't allowed to enter the properly without 48 hours notice - unless there is an emergency. The university signed away our tenancy rights. People can enter the building whenever they want on maintenence grounds. They don't even have to let us know they have done so. I mean... It doesn't say that, explicitly... But that it is technically allowed.
I found these trees... The side of the park... Between the road and the railway lines... There is native bush. Old trees. Canopy trees. There are orange tags about possums (who eat all the vegetation off and just leave the tree)... Then there are orange spray painted trees with all their limbs chopped off. Then there are orange spray painted trees and... There is nothing wrong with them. Nice wood. Expensive wood. Then there are woodpiles.
Apartment blocks are going up. Medium density. Between One of the nicest village parts of the city and the railway lines. In the valley... This is across the railway line from that. I expect they are half heartedly trying to make it look like the possums are turning the pretty bush into a wasteland. Less resistence then when the nicer apartments (by the park) go up.
I learned... If you discover something that you think shouldn't be happening... Chemical waste being dumped somewhere or... Whatever... Then the first thing you should do is to check. Because they probably have a permit. Of course... When you have permits to do such things you probably want to do it under the cover of darkness (when the world is asleep)... But still... The worst things that are done... Are typically allowed.
I have become fearful about my privacy in this building. I have become scared that the owner of this apartment (someone who probably lives overseas somewhere) is live streaming me for their own entertainment... Or maybe entertaining others... There could be a whole show made up of people who live in this building... And I look around... And buildings... So many buildings... A nice loft... And then some nicer apartments... And then lower level apartments... All foreign owned... I wonder who owns this building.
And all these new university buildings. The university name tag on the side. But they are foreign ownership built (where the security system is installed) or managed... Close to foreign owned business. Right across from it, sometimes. I mean... People could be sitting behind their one way glass business offices with binoculars or cameras trained on the people living in the building...
We don't have laws preventing people from live streaming. There are a couple aps that just got launched. Apparently they will take down content they deem inappropriate... But by then the damage is done. People have their surveillance devices / phones... Filming... Camera... Televisions. Something about one that could respond to voice. Or... Store voice. Stream your voice. Nice new LG's got installed in this building. They got a great deal on them. I've put a little piece of blu tac on the eye that's winking at me on their logo... Just in case.
I feel like i'm living in a 1984 novel... My cellphone is probably streaming / recording my voice...
Of course all of this technology... None of it matters so long as you keep your head down. Huddle in with the herd. When I came up the lift before the poster of the business guy... This advertisement thing to hear him talk... Someone stuck pinboard pins through his eyes...
I feel very stressed. I feel like I need to get out of the city. I feel like... This building isn't my home anymore. I should be relaxing / studying. Not worrying about property developers killing the trees... Property developers living in lofts spying on their pets... Property developers living overseas spying on their pets... All of it... Perfectly legal.
The philosophy department here is getting squashed... It is all about business... Big business... We are being taken over. We have been taken over. We are foreign owned.
The news has... Gone back to rainbows puppy dogs and... However that song goes...
Dr Bob... Please can you tell me it is going to be okay?
What is happening? Are things... Shifting... Or am I just starting to see stuff that have been happening for the longest time? Or... This faint worry in the back of my mind... Do I need to be thinking about meds? Is this self-stabotage because class has been going so well?
I need to work for a couple hours. Then go supermarket shopping... I won't use my card today... The tracking card... They are tracking my purchases... To see whether I'm playing by the rules in buying up all the sugar and alcohol...
Not just me, of course. All of us.
I suppose they could be using the knowledge for good... A bunch of people out there may have learned that I'm a decent person, actually. i'm not getting up to anything illegal in my room. I eat pretty well and try and avoid the cheap crap that will kill me (but I do have lapses sometimes). I am a sucker for their 2 for 1 advertising at times... But otherwise I resist it. Their knowledge... Could partly be why things have been going so well for me lately. And the University signing the rights away that they did... We got nice new flatscreens on the walls. We got nice studio apartments on a ridge right in the city.
And maybe something odd is happening with the building rubbish or... Who knows what... But isn't it a small price to pay? What is the alternative? Another building in the city that is every bit as bad... If not... Actually... Worse.
This is why people end up working in very abstract areas in philosophy... Why people withdraw... Why I... Why I almost wish I were blinded to all of this... I would feel happier...
I need to get out of the city for a bit... i see why people say that, now. I don't know what to do.
Posted by alexandra_k on April 11, 2015, at 23:02:35
In reply to Re: fear, posted by alexandra_k on April 8, 2015, at 19:19:41
i talked to my doc. i have a good gp... and i talked to the uni guy who sort of manages some of uni accom... and i talked to the health worker i see every couple weeks... and i told them that if anything happened to me, they knew the kinds of questions i was asking about my building, and so on...
which helped me feel a bit better.
the main response seems to be... that, well, yes. all of these things might be happening. that it isn't paranoid. i even mentioned about setting up a camera in my room and was told that people do set up cameras on their car... setting up a camera to watch a camera to watch a camera might be being paranoid, but i didn't seem paranoid, no.
i guess... realistically... i am part of a target population. cheaper to advertise to us... to take us as predictive of the likely market in australia and the uk and canada and the us... that has been happening with us for a while now... they are upfront about our supermaket cards (you need for discounted prices - 'realistic' prices) being used to help them figure how to stock supermarkets in sydney and the like...
i brought a bunch of bananas... and gave them to various homeless people... it helped me feel a bit better. i've started reading labels on food a bit more. going to pay more for better food. i can check the particular flock that produced the eggs i brought, apparently. i will do that. i'm going to stop buying chemicals (cleaners and toiletries and the like) that have been imported from overseas... or even made here. i bet they are by-products of something more lucrative. chemical waste. how to get rid of it. create a market for it. the people will eat it or smear it all over themselves...
i just need to remain focused on doing well in my studies. it means... everything to me. i want to do med so bad. the stuff is really interesting even though it feels overwhelming to learn so much content at times... i feel so very privaledged to have the opportunity to learn it. and to have a pleasant space where i can chat away to myself to help learn it. even if i am on livestream for the folks in china or whatever...
i am getting moments of intense fear. like a night terror. moments of intense fear like that. what am i afraid of? what do i think is the worst thing that can happen to me? i'm not sure... i've never heard of anyone falling 13 floors in an elevator... lots of buildings don't have a 13th floor because of something... superstition...
i don't know where the fear is coming from. perhaps it is fear that i won't get into med. the people... some people you don't quite know / aren't quite sure about... but there are lots of people about who... revel in their ignorance. delight in their dumbness. complain that things are too hard and they need to be easier. groan when new content comes out. etc. really want to (need to must) get the hell away from those people. from people like that.
embryology is just fascinating... the cell differentiation... we are supposed to be learning about mechanisms too... the assessment thus far has been... thematically arranged on the content but more of an intelligence test than anything else. ability to reason about things... see connections... or to just use reason, generally. they are preparing us for the UMAT. to focus on things they deem important. next round soon... i suspect it is going to be the same. knowing the content is a precondition but we are expected to think / reason about the content. i hope i do well enough. more than anything in the world.
maybe the fear is just coming from being afraid i'm going to miss out on that.
___
I got ACC approval. it is like... a sort of private health insurance that the government purchases on our behalf or something (employers pay a levy into it etc) and... anyway... it sort of gives me the equivalent of private health insurance for my injuries. it used to be that things like that were 'intentional' and not 'accidental'. but they have retro... retroactively? retrospectively? changed it. so i quality now. apparently part of it could have been that they were trying to keep the injury related costs down in the first year (when they are typically highest). whatever... point is...
i saw a surgeon. we are talking about doing something to my right foot at least. because it isn't set straight. and it is deteriorating. the joint will give up if nothing is done. i had suspected that despite my best efforts to strengthen it good... it was getting worse. need to talk about that, though... i think he is looking for easy / quick and i'm not sure that it what is best... he got me to stand on a corner of a book so the outside part of the ball of my foot was raised... and that made me bear weight down centrally on the joint. he said he could do something that would do that in effect... but he also said something about how he could do something to the midfoot... sort of query... anyway... i need to check about that. i'd rather he set the midfoot bones straight rather than leaving them dislocated as they are... if he just raises / fixes the forefoot then i'll lose what little dorsiflexion i have... i really want to be able to push weight through the ball of my foot with that pushing the weight through the center of the ankle joint... even if it is a more major operation to do the midfoot...
and i have some persuading to do to get him to lengthen the tendons on my other foot so i can launch from the ball of my feet / fix up my clawed toes. he did say he could remove the bone spur and separate the fusion of tibia / fibula so they can splay a bit when i bear weight down on the heel / maybe get a little eversion / inversion... athroscopically...
i guess... lengthening the tendons might be time consuming / new for him... i would imagine he is expected to get an operation done under strict time limits... anyway... getting a CT and weight bearing x-ray.. getting orthotics, too, and maybe shoes... and maybe some foot physio from someone he particularly thought was good. so... we will see...
healthcare... really is the most important thing in the world. without your health you have... nothing. nothing at all.
_____
homeless people... the homeless people about... it is a choice. and i'm starting to see more of why... people don't want to live in these foreign owned buildings where they are probably on tv. they are probably under less surveillance on the streets. people don't want the supermarket tracking the money they are granted by welfare... they don't want welfare people tracking the money they are spending.. they'd rather put up a sign 'food or money please' and sit themselves down outside the austrailian owned supermarket...
freedom...
these people aren't mindless... dumb... they are smart... smart, sensitive people. human. recognisably so.
Posted by alexandra_k on April 11, 2015, at 23:18:29
In reply to Re: fear, posted by alexandra_k on April 11, 2015, at 23:02:35
things have been going better for me...
perhaps because people know what i'm up to. government people. so i get disability... so they let me alone, basically.
but i do worry about other people, some...
e.g., i saw this job being advertised in work and income. it was a job at the airport. horrible (night) hours... but the real point was that the amount of money it would cost you to park at the airport or to bus yourself out to the airport most probably would have exceeded the amount you were paid per hour.
yet legally, work and income can cut your benefit if you don't apply for jobs they tell you to apply for. so... a worker takes a dislike to you... and says you have to apply for that job.
they can do that.
and so... some people... prefer to live on the streets. rather than to get the unemployment welfare benefits that we say people are 'entitled' to (in virtue of being human).
there are people who just want to loaf about all day... but there's something wrong with these people. they need help and compassion not... bullying. not to be treated worse than i would want any animal to be treated. they are full of salt and sugar and chemicals... i get more money for food than most students do... most studnets are full of salt and sugar and chemicals... no wonder they can't focus on their work... no wonder they don't have a love of learning or curiosity...
they need help and compassion... not to be treated like pests...
even though you sort of have to help them when they are dragging and screaming... the attitudes that people have to things that are healthy / good for them... especially when it comes to things like sugar... the addictive chemicals... malnourished people... in the supposedly developed world... it is sad...
i am very lucky.
i never really thought about how freaking fragile 'our' way of life was... with respect to... what cost. to the rest of the world... no... to this world. one only need to open ones eyes.
it does hurt. stuffing yourself with carbs... alcohol... chemicals... helps numb things somehow...
the compression gear i got... it has helped habituate me to people, somehow. the crowds of first year... i'm habituating to people somehow. i'm becoming hypersensitive to... technology. the noise of cars and trucks and construction and the phones (not even really pretending to be phones anymore) the surveillance devices... the televisions...
how fragile things are... if one day out of the blue your logins don't work anymore and you are forced offline... you can't function in society without a phone... can you still buy non-smart phones? how long would it take for your friends smart-phones to identify you thus you can get blocked out again...
how fragile personhood is in the developed 'free' world.
night terrors... damn.
Posted by alexandra_k on April 12, 2015, at 21:37:48
In reply to Re: fear, posted by alexandra_k on April 11, 2015, at 23:18:29
please tell me it is going to be okay.
please.
Posted by alexandra_k on April 13, 2015, at 22:36:20
In reply to Re: dr bob?, posted by alexandra_k on April 12, 2015, at 21:37:48
So, my last test I got disability accommodations. 10 extra minutes, per hour and a testing room with less than 10 people in it.
But I finished the test within the standard time (just!).
I realise... I need to be able to work at the pace they need me to be able to work at. 30 seconds per bit of information... Fairly standard.
I'm not sure whether or not they would hold it against me, or whatever. With respect to entry... But I really don't want to take that risk. And I... Don't think I need to. I kind of think that the most important thing, really, is (just in case they are paying attention) to not play the disability card. If that makes sense.
I have compression gear. And it helps. A lot. It really really really really does. I think it has made it possible for me to habituate to people, some.
And I have a studio apartment. And it helps. A lot. Again...
I don't think I need to ask for anything else. I'm okay.
The chemistry test is going to be tight, though. I need to practice my strategies for doing things quickly... Things like counting the number of carbons... If you lose your place then you have to start over.. And so many freaking rings... I think the thing to do might be to count the Sp3 and then the Sp2 and then the Sp... Because it is easier to eyeball that way... Anyway... I gotta practice little dinky things like that.
It is helping me to try and keep perspective... 100 marks... But the test is worth 15% or (bio) 33%. So.. It isn't the end of the world if I can't get some of them. Things will come out in the rounding (a little bit) and there is a little bit of a buffer...
Also... I don't need to do as well as most who get in will need to. Because of the whole mature thing... If I can get an A- for Organic I'll be stoked.
I'm just scared because I really want this so very much. More than I've ever wanted anything, I think. I really really really really really really do. And the thought of missing out.. Is really hard.
I've stopped drinking coffee... Onto camomile tea of all things. relax... relax... relax...
It is going to be okay.
Posted by jane d on April 14, 2015, at 17:17:48
In reply to Re: fear, posted by alexandra_k on April 11, 2015, at 23:18:29
"The main thing is to be able to control my attention. So that I can spend some time worrying about something / trying to fix something... Then spend some time doing something else."
You said this several posts up and I think it's important. It's very easy to get totally caught up in what's wrong with the world - especially if you are in the habit of noticing and analyzing everything and that doesn't leave enough time for you.
A couple of thoughts. I grew up riding crowded buses and subways so I usually can shrug that off but I've had periods in my life, corresponding to my mental state, where I found it nearly unbearable. What I did to cope then was to try and pretend to be someplace else that I liked - for me it was a specific mountain top - for you it might be looking out the window of your room -and I'd try to fix as many details in my mind as I could remember. This let me partially tune out the fact that I was jammed up against people like a sardine.
I also wonder if you are making time to get to the gym or do any other kind of exercise. I remember your posts about how much you enjoyed that. I know it's very hard to do when you have a heavy course load - in fact it's one of the things I always let go first when I got busy and in retrospect I think it's one reason I always ended up falling apart (Yes - this is a do as I say, not as I did kind of message - sorry about that).
Wishing you good luck.
Jane
Posted by alexandra_k on April 15, 2015, at 1:08:26
In reply to Re: fear » alexandra_k, posted by jane d on April 14, 2015, at 17:17:48
Hey. Thanks for your post :-) I appreciate it, a lot.
I think I was losing it, a little bit, with the stress.
The weather has turned cooler now, finally. That means I can sleep with the windows shut. That really cuts down on the road noise. That helps a lot. We get some heavy traffic at night from the harbour. And there is building construction just a little bit down the road, too. My curtains don't really get things dark inside, either. So I've turned my bed around to sleep at night so my head is in the quieter and darker centre of my room and it really seems to help.
I've also shifted my focus from global to local. I brought a LED lightbulb for my desklamp. Got an organic chicken, rather than just the cheapest one. I've started reading labels better, and figured out a particular brand of cleaning stuff / bathroom product that is safe for septic tanks etc... Because when the sewerage system is overloaded (as it often is) then they dump things into the harbour... I never really thought properly about where the water pipes (and sewerage pipes) go before...
And keeping up the gym, yeah. I don't have a lot of time to spend... But it is important to spend some. I try and play... Take the gym ball into the squash court and kick / punch it about... Battling ropes... Working on my cartwheels... Having fun with it. Keeping it light (careful of my ankle, now).
Classes start back next week and it will be really full on... I think I've got into the swing of how I best learn biology and I'll have a better time of keeping up from now on, I think. I got a bit far behind, I think. Nothing irrevokable, but I need to do better from now on, for sure. Chemistry is... Damn... It is a hard one for me because it is still really very different from anything I've done before. Can spend hours trying to follow through the freaking 9 step equations they want us to be using for labs, or whatever.
On the upside, I have a wonderful packet of rainbow colored highlighters, now. And embryology lady taught me a good one about the arbitrariness of color (by changing up the colors in our lab manual for the model embryo we were supposed to build so I messed up the wiring / forgot the allantois). Anyway... Focusing on what is important, again. Don't have a tantrum that the temporal lobe ain't green. Sigh.
Onward ho...
Posted by alexandra_k on April 16, 2015, at 3:47:16
In reply to Re: fear » jane d, posted by alexandra_k on April 15, 2015, at 1:08:26
I think it will be okay... A couple of past tests later and things are looking brighter... A few questions that recur every year and a more... Circumscribed body of knowledge / skills to be developed. Only 3 days till classes start back. Eep.
I need to get into the habit of rewriting my biology notes every night after lecture. Get it done then. The time consuming nearly mindless thing of getting them into a learnable format. All the bits that I don't remember... Till that piece of paper gets smaller and smaller. I'm actually quite good at the cram / quite enjoy it. Especially this content. Cell / Devo / Organ systems bio is so fun!!!
I did really crap on my health systems essay. They said I was 'editorialising'. They didn't want me to make a case / defend an idea. They just wanted me to... Regurgitate theirs. I think. I think that is how it is supposed to go. Everything wrong with the world... Increasing the volume of information without any advance in the content. I don't want to read one article and then 9 others that are people rephrasing that one article in their own words. I mean.. What is the point, really. Sigh.
Not good to piss management people off. Sigh.
Anyway... Ortho, meta, para directing here I come. Reagents. Sigh. Reaction schemas...
Posted by alexandra_k on April 16, 2015, at 20:21:28
In reply to Re: fear, posted by alexandra_k on April 16, 2015, at 3:47:16
I wish I had another week. Dammit. Needed to take a few days off over easter. For sanity. Nearly lost it, there, I did.
Remembering... That it was about this time last year that I had the bugs incident in my room... I really did have bugs (the bites were visible). But... With things like that... It is partly to do with immune stuff / how much they irritate you so you scratch at them...
I will be glad to get back, though. The people contact, yeah. The new stimulus. I just feel a little sad that I don't think I'll have squeezed all this into me the way I could have if I had another... Few days, at least. Just feel like I'm a few days short...
Anyway... I have learned a lesson about getting behind. It is hard because with classes at 8am... Then if you try and keep a bit of a routine with things like grocery shopping and the gym... And then you have fiddly administration tasks to do... The day just goes. People are honestly about 'when do you have time to study' and it really does feel like that... Especially with 3 hour labs (that take at least that to prep for)...
Anyway... I guess the thing to do is to get into the routine of spending at least 1 hour per night on chem and 1 hour per night on bio... In a semi-mindless state, even. Just to get the content into a learnable format... That first work through.
I think I've learned a lot about how to learn this stuff... With respect to needing to keep up. Really. For reals. They really do minimise the amount of time we have to cram. E.g., by giving us very early exams with not much time between... Chemistry first. Then only a day before bio in the afternoon. Followed by population health (UMAT prep style intelligence test, really) the following morning. Then a couple days before I get my *ss kicked for editorialising, again. Sigh.
Anyway.... Get used to long days. Huh.
God dammit... I wanna be a surgeon. For really. For really reals. Oh please let this turn out okay...
Posted by alexandra_k on June 13, 2015, at 19:03:37
In reply to Re: fear, posted by alexandra_k on April 16, 2015, at 20:21:28
chemistry exam: done.
feels funny. chemistry has been this worry in the back of my mind for the last couple years... done now. i hope i did enough. that's about all i can say, really. the exam felt a lot better than the last test. but i don't know. i felt pretty good about the first test and then was really disappointed in how much i managed to mess up, so will just have to wait and see. i... really don't know.
biology tomorrow. labs turned badly, again. basically lose one grade because of that. labs are... mostly about your ability to extract the appropriate answers from the laboratory demonstrators, feels like. certain things you can do to make that more likely... show them you have done some work before-hand etc etc. but if they decide it is fun for them to steer you wrong, or whatever, then, well, that's the way those go. Make sure we test / reward what it is that we value, oh yes, for sure.
i like the content okay but... mostly about studying for the exam, really. you can know the content but the questions be... odd. oddly phrased. tangential relationship between the questions and the lecture content. i see why people think the textbooks are a waste of time... study for the exam, indeed... Hunt down the answer to those questions as best you can... Go in prepared.
i don't need to do as well as the kids who've been trained up in doing this over the years... but... i still don't know that i can do well enough. you need people to back you, i see. people need to give you permission to try / to succeed / to have any hope in getting out. guess they will only back the people who they think are like them / are one of them etc. makes it more likely they will go back, i guess. means... they might be more likely to back the wrong ones in the first place (the ones who do better in their environment rather than the new one they are supposedly being selected for). I guess that is the point, really, from their perspective.
I've always felt... People were like 'she'll be right' even when I was very specific that I wasn't alright. And then 'oops tee hee' when it turns out that they were wrong - she'll not be alright, indeed. Turns out... The truth of it is... That they simply couldn't care less. Instead of them going 'what a bad fit, indeed, lets try and send her on with our blessings (since she's the child / the one without power / the one we've been charged with looking after / protecting / helping'... Instead of that... I think they'd have been happiest if I'd just have curled up and died, honestly. I wonder where all the Autistic Spectrum Maaori kids are. One doesn't have to look further than cot death, I suppose. If you cringed when people tried to cuddle you... You'd probably have been smothered.
Sigh.
Ugh. Not quite out of there yet...
Things are good. Except for the street kids who've moved into the low cost long term accommodation next door. There is an empty lot with a fence / billboards that keeps the empty lot hidden from the road. There is a side exit out of the accommodation with outdoor stairways up on to the roof etc. Recycle bins out the side etc. So... They party out there... Whooping and squealing and carrying on into the small hours of the morning. Throwing their glass around loudly and living in their... Trash, basically. The ground is all littered with trash for them to sit amongst. You can take them out / get them out. But if you take / get a whole bunch of them all together at the same time them they just sort of bring their sh*t with them.
Like how you defeat the purpose of total immersion overseas experience if you go with a bunch of other people who speak English / are from similar places.
Anyway... I think the culture here is fairly much that exam takes all. Got a C+ for that first law test, I remember, then did really much better in the exam so... Isn't quite this situation now since labs and tests do contribute towards our overall grade... But exams are worth around 50% so... Anyway... Just do the best I can is all I can do. Done Saturday evening next week. Will take a few weeks for things to go through boards of examiners and the like.
No more chemistry. And possibly... After this exam... Just possibly no more biology, too. I like the content... Shame about... Well... I guess you don't know whether things get better in later years without actually doing later years to see... I think... Most of the serious students mostly hate labs... Because they dont' actually teach you how to do anything properly... I think... I think... Because they don't know. Truth be told. So we're left playing the socially gregarious playing lab game...
I see why some of the great scientists did badly at academic science. Dropped out of school, even. I see why people don't care particularly about your grades... Why they don't mind / sort of expect uneven results. Or maybe I'm thinking of arts people who basically left science in disgust (or something)... Who got sick of the uneven grades. Who got sick of playing the 'lets study multi-guess questions over the last few years in order to deduce the correct fairly arbitrary answer' instead of... Maybe... Focusing on learning / understanding the content of the book...
I see why.... The kids think it is work. They've basically... Been trained to work, over the years. Sort of... Dilligently do this and then do that and then do the next thing. Carefully... Without errors. And of course sometimes they do get the opportunity to be creative (likely be berated for how they can only diligently do this and then do that and then do the next thing rather than be creative)...
I see why... The pre-med kids are all like 'do you expect us to learn that?' Because lecturers will throw up seriously detailed diagrams.. Far too many for you to learn... And so you need to know what it is exactly that they expect you to reporoduce / draw from memory for the exam for 10 marks... Or, at least narrow it down to a list of 3 or 4 that are up for grabs so the content is manageable. Or maybe that was just their long winded speel that was only there in a half-hearted attempt to help you narrow down multi-guess question 5 for one mark. And then the lecturers complain that students don't care about the content they only care about their grades. And the students who actually listen to what the lecturers say (focusing on content rather than studying for the exam) are the ones who either don't do well enough in science to continue... Or who don't get into med because they didn't do well enough... Just another case of how the people whose job it is to help you learn... Seem to delight in tricking students. In making them play 'find the content / answer that we have to learn' instead of giving them answers / content and seeing which ones of them can actually learn the most of them... It is just... Sigh.
Sigh.
It is just... The way it's been done. For a number of years. And people do think it is silly, sometimes. But they don't seem to think there is any alternative...
It feels faintly ridiculous. Lottery? That would be unfair. These sort of... random.. arbitrary assessments... I guess they are training us in useful skills? I don't know... Time for a holiday, soon, soon.. I suppose it is about doing your work. Doing the job. WOrking through the exams... Takes time. They are trying to reward the kids who have put in the most time. Not in the big cram before the exam but dilligently over the course of the semester (which is why they cram all our exams all together in the first week of the exam period so you'd likely run out of endurance during the actual exam if you weren't careful to pace yourself).
I suppose it is useful skills that they value. Sigh. Do I really think that clinical assessment skills are so very different from lab skills? Damned people. I just wanna... I dunno... Grow bone in a petrie dish, or something. You'd need to exercise it. I keep thinking about that. How you would exercise bone in a petrie dish... Whether you could get the matrix to form properly... Whether I might need bone plugs in my feet once the screws / the rest of the metal comes out. Heh. I'll build me better feet one day. I swears :-)
I hope I get into med. I think that physiology with the rest of them might be... Insufferable. For me.
Fingers crossed. I guess.
Posted by alexandra_k on June 13, 2015, at 21:02:07
In reply to 1 down, 3 to go, posted by alexandra_k on June 13, 2015, at 19:03:37
> If you cringed when people tried to cuddle you... You'd probably have been smothered.
Because you are supposed to squeal and writhe with pleasure. Or at least be happy baby to soothe soothe soothe mothers anxiety into something more pleasant.
One can only suppose that that's what the neighbours are up to into the small hours of every morning.
Babies would have evolved to evoke care-taking response from caregivers. Or they would have been left to die.
What does the mother need, though? Baby to hush / entertain itself unless baby actually needs something from mother because mother is busy... or baby to spend all the time trying to entertain / soothe / look after mother? Which is most likely to result in survival of baby?
I guess adaptive is best... Though... A certain amount could come through in hard-wiring, I suppose. Hard wired in a suitably matched environment would probably be optimal. Hard wired in an unsuitably matched environment would probably be suicidal / homicidal. Adaptive... Good old 'good enough'...
I think we have to do these broad competency things because... We don't actually have many doctors per head of population and so we sort of do expect doctors to do everything. The whole 'GP for rural community' thing basically seems to be about a doctor working all by themselves without the support of other doctors in an environment where hospital back-up isn't likely and where one is on call 24/7. I mean... That's so very much cheaper than having people seen in hospital environments. All the 'unnecessary' tests. All the 'unnecessary' specialists.
We complain 'we can't afford them'. Yeah. If you pay me 1 million I can write you a report showing how I've improved efficiency (access or equity) by 3.9% and saved 2.6 million to boot. I bet. I bet that is where the money goes. Salaries for members of boards of directors and salaries for people working for multi-million or billion dollar 'not for profit' (aka: we no pay taxes) 'charity' organisations. This country is so corrupt we don't even seem to think we have a problem with corruption. It's... Ridiculous.
I do keep thinking back to one of my supervisors books... Aspects of it... Making sense of things... You do need to demonstrate commitment. Like having the gang tattoos so you demonstrate that your fate is tied to the fate of the group. Demonstrating that it is far too costly (for your own interests) for you to opt out of working to better the fate of the group. What do you have to do in order to succeed??? Sell your soul? Kinda sorta feels like... I don't know. Time will tell, I guess. I feel... I do lack some kind of social skill that is needed to play the game. The game that will give me things like... I would like to own my own house / apartment in a nice enough part of the city so I don't have to listen to neighbours who prefer to live in their own trash and coo coo coo to each other till the small hours of every morning.
A lot of people want that.
A lot of people *say* they want that... But they don't work for it. They are too busy coo coo cooing their way through each and every day... Maybe if they coo coo coo to the right person then the person will have them move someplace prettier and they can coo coo coo to them. Or their baby or their dog or whatever... I don't know...
Back to working past years tests, hey.
One task then the next task then the next task... And so on. The more science I do the more I do appreciate the arts. Pretty things. Aesthetic. Something about it that makes us distinctively human. Emotional trips in a way that is... Manageable. Somehow.
Sometimes I think there are people looking out for me. Othertimes I think it is one of those Maher's 'feelings of significance' thing that I need to be a bit careful of. Truth is probably somewhere in the middle...
Immunology ho..
Posted by alexandra_k on June 25, 2015, at 23:30:52
In reply to Re: 1 down, 3 to go, posted by alexandra_k on June 13, 2015, at 21:02:07
1 semester down, 1 to go.
I don't really know how I went. Even when I find out my grades... I expect the only thing that can be taken from it, really, is 'need to keep on and do better if at all possible'.
I know I get.... Sort of transiently psychotic. Not sure psychotic is the thing, exactly. People... Tell me that I'm probably right (the stuff I'm 'psychotic' about is probably true). So... I can't tell how much they are just sort of humoring me in an effort to help me recover back to more normal faster, or how much they genuinely do think what I'm saying is probably true. My keyworker person said I was scaring her, at one point. Because it is stuff people don't want to think about... In that way... So... Maybe it is more about that. The issue is more that I get intently focused on it and kind of wound up. Some sort of feeling of significance about it which has me focused... Anyway... A couple days and it passes... So...
Anyway...
BIOSCI... I think I got the hang of things better as the course progressed. Learned a lot about how to study for the assessment. Which involved learning the content, yeah, but in a differently focused way to what I was used to. I really enjoyed the class. It is meant to be a lead in to MEDSCI next semester... Sort of feeling cautiously hopefully slightly optimistic about how the exam went. Fingers crossed... I do hope I'm starting to get the hang of it.
CHEM... Done now. Yeah. Fingers crossed I get no less than a B-... Hopefully B... Fingers crossed for a B+. A B+ would make me so very happy, yeah. I dunno... I felt the exam went a lot better than the previous assessments - but the previous assessments went very poorly indeed and I don't know that I did well enough in the exam to recover particularly.
Population health... Sucks. Really. I mean, aspects of the subject matter are genuinely interesting to me... But I really didn't like the courses at all. The core one was better... The other one was horrible. Really horrible. And I did poorly. 35% first essay. 30% second essay. only just scraped a pass on the 10% in tutorial group multi-guess. All of this is... Surprising. I've never failed an essay in my life. I mean, I've recently had problems passing things with equations / algebra / calculus in them, but that's not surprising given my educational background. Failing a first year essay?
I applied to have someone independently re-mark it. That was a process... Population health is... Taught out of this satellite campus. It's basically on a chunk of land that was (is?) Maaori land. It is a 'health science' campus. Because the main health problems are with Maaori and there are equity issues and so on and so forth... And because lots of kids want to be doctors (because they watch soap operas on TV and so on) and while they don't get high enough grades to do the bio-med pathway to medicine they let them into the health science pathway (the one that I'm doing). Only... I'm not part of their equity group, am I. They don't want me to do well... Their kids... They've picked them out already. The socially gregarious bullies, of course. They won't show us the best examples of essays they got... So we can see what they are looking for... THey won't give us more detailed feedback on the multi-guess quiz (so we can ensure they graded them properly instead of pulling our marks out of their butts).
It is traumatising for me... Because much of my life... It isn't a Maaori thing, exactly. It isn't a culture thing, exactly. Only.... It sorta kinda is... But lots of non Maaori people have it and it isn't essential to Maaori culture at all... Its an attitude... I had all the way through primary school and High school. An attitude I found with my Maaori carers when I was placed in foster care. An attitude I found at tech. At the uni across the bridge. At my accommodation out there (in association with a supposedly elite Maaori secondary school / the university out there) and I find it now, here, too.
Imagination???
Very first day was an orientation thing. So they get us all in a lecture theatre. Activities. Stand back to back with the person next to you and when they yell out the emotion word turn and face each other and pull that emotion.
Get into tutorial groups and throw the ball to someone and say your name. And then after some time of that throw the ball to the person whose name you call.
Lets play with the autistic girl?
?
Yeah.
Then multiple choice test. Instead of doing it normally (printing off the questions and we mark our answers on the page) and we get 5 minutes... All the curtains must be closed. All the flourescent lights must be turned on. The questions must be overhead projected onto the wall. The tutor must stand right next to the questions (so the questions can't be viewed without her bobbing smily face in the same frame). The tutor must give time cues '30 seconds, 10 seconds' and move onto the next question after 60 seconds (only one question displayed at a time). And all the rest of it must be group work.
I feel like they have intentionally tried to wind me up / trigger me from day one. INforming them of my disability meant that they intentionally targeted me negatively. How is that not bullying? If you want to interact with someone and they make it clear to you that they are busy (working) and you feel that it is acceptable for you to disrupt their work (punish them for not paying attention to you on demand) by kicking at the back of their seat and so on... How is that not bullying?
Beam me up, scotty.
The upshot is that I don't know whether I'm even going to pass their paper. The exam was worth 50% but I was doing pretty f*ck*ng badly indeed before going into the exam. I need to trust that the academic board will put the brakes on things if they try and fail me (if I fail then there is no way my GPA can recover from that). Even if they C- or C+ me there is basically no way that my GPA can recover from that. they know i can't function in their environment (there is no f*ck*ng way i'm going to go live with them / help them). i can't function in their environment. they certainly aren't interested in giving me any power (so i could actually help them) they're more interested in the people who can smile giggle flirt make them think they will stay... only to genuinely screw them over at a later date. it's a sort of... attraction to being f*ck*d over. anyway... there is nothing that i can do about any of that because they simply will not let me function. so...
I have to hope the academic board will step in. i tried to write a nice exam... because i guess if there is a sticking point they will ask to see it. i guess they also have the power to view OTHER exams. that will be the thing, really. i know full well they have a lot of basically illiterate people in the class... so... it shouldn't be too hard to put the brakes on their failing me. i don't know that i can trust the process... especially given my more recent (bad) performance in physics... need for someone to see that algebra / calculus for me is a very different bag from health science out at the campus where they've realised they can make money off of people by offering them a pathway into medicine that seems mostly designed to f*ck people over / waste their time / set them up to fail. except for the few maaori students they select to A+ so they can help them cross the application criteria threshold then TAS them a place...
they're tarteging me because i'm eligable for TAS admission, too. and (autistic stereotypes they'd be most knowledgeable in given their performance thus far) they probably think i'd do well enough in chem / bio for failing me to be their only way of obstructing my getting a place.
anyway...
round 2 next semester. sequal paper. have to do it.
also MEDSCI. which should be great. everyone says it is wonderful. more like med school than anything we've done thus far. huge chunk of it is multiguess because the major med school exams are so.... simply have to learn to do well at that. and the other LAW paper which is.. the equivalent paper for law school, really. statute interpretation and the like. i'm thinking that will be fun for me and i'll be reasonably good at it. i mean... in reading the textbooks i can ancitipate their next point and so on.. it is just very logical and straightfowards, i think...
i think the UMAT will be important. because the people who write that are (I think) the people who write the medical school multi-guess. Our equivalent of the STEP exams. So... We need to do well at their way of thinking / their multi-guess. If I do well at that... I really don't think they will give a f*ck about how sh*t I do at Tamaki.
I don't know. Lets see how badly they manage to f*ck me over this time. I mean... Story of my life, hey. Only trouble was they didn't get to me early enough. Cot death and all that. I mean a kid whose natural / automatic response is to cringe away when we shriek and giggle and squeal and squawk at it?
I suppose I might be transiently psychotic about this / them... I do think that a number of things they have done are straight out of the 'how to upset someone with autism' sort of stereotype from 20 years ago literature that they are probably familiar with...
i suppose they probably have the best intentions in the world. that is typically the problem... the whole 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions' thing. i saw this poster up out there on that campus. they wanted volunteers to play with this autistic boy. that's what got me thinking about how they were tormenting me with the same things. but of course... honestly... they probably dind't know that it is tormenting. they have no comprehension that being raped... anything... any knid of physical contact against someones will can be tormenting. there is no comprehension that someone might have a will that involves less person contact. how can that be? A will for another person to back off. i don't think that makes sense to them. or... it is like teaching a dog to stay... you need to start out with 3 seconds and then reward. and then 30 seconds and then reward. and it is a huge f*ck*ng path to things like just being able to do your own f*ck*ng thing without praising people for not crowing you all the f*ck*ng time...
anyway...
their thing is that the more time you spend with them the more you will learn how well intentioned they are and the more empathy you will develop for them.
but i know that is not true at all in my case. the less time i spend with them the more i'm able to focus on the relatively removed things like the history of injustice they have suffered and current inequities in policy and so on... these things make me feel more empathetic towards them. i am able to feel empathy and understanding for their communication style (and so on) when my whole body isn't screaming out to me from being physically tormented which is what inevitably happens when i spend much time with them.
or my mother. huh.
or, anyone, really.
jeez.
i think i might skip lectures next semester. listen to them online. the multiguess quizes are immediately after (no time to study after attending - you wouldn't want to reward people for studying because that would mean punishing their own kids who are too busy socialising to study)... no time to listen to the lecture recordings before the test. again... can't reward people for doing work when we are about rewarding the people who value socialising above work.
it's hard to find kids who are acceptable to their people who are capable of passing the australian medical councils multiguess. for sure.
my worry is... there are probably more than a few who would do great. if only it wasn't for things like cot death. huh.
i feel sad. i'm not racist. really. genuinely. i do have a lot of empathy. i have lived with them a lot. i have tried to help... what limited power i had... when i couldn't function in their environment at all. i tried to help them understand what i needed.. i tried to help them understand how aspects of that might help them do better in things they might want (e.g., having a quiet study space might help them focus on the work)... and they didn't want to know. they were just hating on me that i wasn't expressing sadness / remorse / regret that i couldn't just hang about with them socialising all day. if that isn't what you most want in the world...
alien. yeah.
Posted by alexandra_k on June 25, 2015, at 23:51:37
In reply to Re: 1 down, 3 to go, posted by alexandra_k on June 25, 2015, at 23:30:52
I think it is partly a climate thing. Our climate is very forgiving. South Pacific Islands. The North of New Zealand. The climate is very temperate. There isn't much need to get up off your *ss and do various things... Food is relatively easy to find. To pick. To pluck from the ocean. It isn't like you need to be out there all day fishing in order to find enough to feed your family. It isn't like you need to work hard all day to make a house so you and your family don't die of exposure. So... Play all day. Just hang about and play all day. And that is what people do.
They call out to each other. I guess because there are trees and stuff on islands. Insofar as people go off to do their own thing they constantly make bird call sort of noises. Expressing that they are okay. I think that is what it is. So you stay in auditory contact. People do that all about the city. Constantly. Through the night. I guess if you don't hear someone for a while you go see if they are okay or if they need help.
I think there is a way of doing your own thing. But it starts with your needing to express remorse or regret that there is a competing SOCIAL demand that requires you to go away. So... People will be understanding if you can't hang out with them because you are hanging out with OTHER PEOPLE. Or if you have to do some kind of a chore for another person.
There was this wonderful essay thing that I read from this girl who is at uni on scholarship. It was about how they were doing maths... And about how one of the problems was hard... And the kids were having a hard time working individually to get the answer. So their teacher started humming / singing to help them feel happy and calm and relaxed... And that got her humming along with the tune..
And her story was pure description. But reading between the lines: It is freaking hard to do maths when people about you freak out about the emotional state that is appropriate to working on a hard problem and when they need to regulate your emotion to a happy not a care in the world state... Where (of course) one is no longer doing maths.
Insert any kind of work... Insert anything that doesn't have a fairly immediate payoff... So hard... To get permission to do it.
Hence 'tall poppy syndrome'. This thing of 'thinks they're better than us' if someone wants to work at something... No understanding that someone might enjoy things like doing puzzles... No comprehension of that at all. Which, of course, makes it fairly impossible that they can identify out the kids who do enjoy such things / who are amenable to learning to enjoy such things. No understanding at all that the LESS socially focused might be ideally placed to focus on other things... Just this desperate thing of 'don't leave me'. I guess. I guess that's it. Convincing them that you would stay with them forever if you could (but competing social demands over here and there...)
Could it be a more alien world for someone like me?
I really don't think so.
Posted by alexandra_k on June 30, 2015, at 22:30:12
In reply to Re: 1 down, 3 to go, posted by alexandra_k on June 25, 2015, at 23:30:52
That's the thing, really. I can have empathy from a sufficiently removed place but I lose my capacity to be empathetic when I'm not in a sufficiently removed place.
I found this ex-pat website... A lot of comments that help me put things in perspective...
Nearly half the teachers in the region I grew up have convictions. Drunk driving (of course) but also surprisingly high rates of violence. Their defence is that a number of their students have done worse. Looking at the rates of sexual activity in 9-14 year old girls. The numbers of abortions carried out on these children each year. The rates of infant death due to abuse. Most primary school teachers say they feel unable to teach math. Cases of people attempting to bring charges against gangs youths who violently gang rape (with knives and broken bottles), to teachers who have history of sexually abusing their students, to university students who drunkenly abuse each other and police, and these cases are all smoothed over and no convictions are given or only a mild tap on the wrist. 'Boys will be boys'. Because it is all an accepted part of our culture.
And yet we say that this is a wonderful country for people to raise their kids. We say 'we have a family-friendly laid back lifestyle' (high achievers will be relentlessly persecuted and gang connections are for life).
I remember there were two stabbings at my High School over the period of about a year. That was a couple years after there was a sequence of three at a neighbouring one. I remember I was part of a group who spent the better part of three years going back to one of the girls houses to drunkenly party every lunch time. I ended up in hospital three times for having drunk too much. Collapsed at school. I most certainly wasn't the only one. And then having a sexual relationship with one of my teachers... Who ended up having to leave that school once it became public. She had to commute out further away, but ended up with a new job with a promotion. She got made head of department.
And all of this was normal...
But I really did just want to curl up and die for much of my life. And I did always feel like there was something very deeply wrong with me. That there was something different. That I didn't fit.
Most people get into the spirit of the dramatics. The appeal of the 'he drunkenly abused that bloke who called me a ho - aaaaaaaw he must really love me' and 'he drunkenly abused me for being molested by his best friend - aaaaaw he loves me' dynamic. Thrive on the drama, somehow. Why do I say that? Because the majority won't leave despite opportunity. Only... That's not quite fair... I don't know how many get the opportunity to go.
When I was doing psychology however many years ago I got to be friends with this adult student who had a non-profit working with street-kids. Basically, they needed to be in school until 16, by law, but they'd been expelled from all their local schools for their glue sniffing, molesting, fighting etc etc... So he put in a paper-work heavy proposal to educate them. Ages 9-15. He represented this country at kick-boxing at some point. A huge guy (very tall and very big boned and also very heavy). Long dreadlocks. Street cred kinda guy. Anyway... He had this one girl who was very sweet... She stood out as not having a chance, really. He (and his wife) basically took her in and offered her a proper fresh start. A proper one. For reals. She repeatedly ran away back to the drunken garage party that was her life up north (until social services did some kind of a raid and took her 9 year old self out of there). Anyway...
Anyway...
Point was that there are people who don't want to leave. Who don't know any different and who have somehow swallowed the whole 'we don't know how lucky we are' propaganda and our 'clean green' propaganda ( with our heavy reliance on agricultural exports and all the dirty pollution alongside). There is some new performance indicator b*llsh*t that we somehow manage to top for some kind of social progressiveness...
People get ahead because they see an opportunity and they take it. I think that often that opportunity is fairly clearly something about exploiting something or someone. The sort of thing that people with a moral compass would think is perhaps not very moral. And then you find out that really there are no laws preventing your doing it. And so... If you make a move surreptitiously and keep your mouth shut (to protect your interests) then you can 'get ahead'. And I see very clearly why people think that there is a hierarchy. Because it is about power relations. About having more than others. I never saw the world that way. I'm not used to thinking of finite resources and infinite desires. I'm used to thinking of things like 'achieving your potential' where that doesn't involve your screwing over anybody else and the world can only be a better place if more people do that... Things like... This country would be better for everyone if everyone lived in a world health organisation approved 'healthy home' instead of the mouldy and leaky damp wooden huts that most people are stuck with.
I've been dealing a bit with ACC... I'm trying to get the metal removed from my legs / my feet. I can feel that my range of motion is limited by the metal and I'm keen to get it removed and see about recovering the range of motion as much as possible. I've had good success at fixing my hips that used to be creaky and clicky and sort of arthritic. By gentle exercise / movement over a period of years. I'm hoping that my feet might similarly improve. Anyway... The dynamics of trying to get this done...
Need to keep track of everything. Every time you speak with someone keep track of who you spoke to and what was said. Their job is to post-pone things as much as possible in the hopes that you give up and go away and thereby money is saved. So they do sneaky little things. They'll claim that the computer somehow mysteriously altered your address so you didn't get that letter they sent. Or they will deny a claim and nobody will let you know that it was denied so that you can get back to them because there is no grounds for their having denied it.
The thing is to realise that that is just the process. That is their job. They get performance bonuses for being the person in their office who authorised the least things, or whatever. It isn't personal. You just have to be persistent and keep a record and be clear and take 30 minutes once a week or whatever to chase things up and keep things moving along. Because that's the way it is done. You can't trust that anything will happen if you don't do that. Because it won't. And this whole thing pisses me off. That the world is like this. That people who are too sick to chase things up... Those are the people who suffer the most from the way things are.
There was this WHO thing... A surprisingly tiny amount of the health system is actually devoted to health outcomes / clinical competence. A surpringly lot is devoted to things like 'service quality' where an appropriate indicator is 'they did everything for me'. So... If you can convince a person that you did everything you could for them... That is what it is about. If you can convince a person that you went out of your way to help them. In getting them an appointment (only just) within a sort of 'acceptable' (in some sense) time frame you really went out of your way for them, you totally went above and beyond, you shuffled other things back and you worked over hours and... You get the idea. Having a wonderful receptionist really is the keystone to any successful practice.
Only...
It is dishonest. I think.
I don't know that I have the ability to negotiate 'mutually beneficial collaborative partnerships' with others. Because I have a 'different' moral compass... I don't like it when people tell me fibs about how they are going out of their way for me - when they are just doing their job - and when they are most likely colluding on the whole delay delay delay thing in order to achieve THEIR bonus. I think it is lying. It is dishonest.
Most people don't care, I think. They want to feel special. Like an exception is being made for them. Like they are in one something. The people who are able to make people feel like that... That's the most valuable skill of all, really, isn't it. The one that is most financially renumberable. You can do anything... Politics... Business... Anything. Hells, you can get other people to throw money your way so long as when they are around you they get to feel special. That is basically your job. There is a tone to it... And an edge. There is an edge that has to go with... A vague threat of 'you want me on your team because I'm capable of being mean to my enemies' and then very clear signals of how they really like you and really want to help you and really want to be on your team...
There is money to be made from 'education'. From universities. We don't have jobs here. Not entirely sure why or how, but there it is. Something about how we don't have the usual sorts of employment laws that other countries have... Then we have a bunch of migrants who are less complain-y... I have a friend who used to work hospitality in Australia (not much of a tipping culture, so not a great job, but okay-ish). When she was here places were very reluctant to hire her... She ended up applying for much more junior positions than she was capable of... Eventually... She'd get a phone call and they would offer her one night of work as a trial to see what she could do. Unpaid. Because (actually) a worker had rung in sick. Nothing came of it. They were basically calling people off the roster list for the free labor.
And if this isn't explicitly unlawful... Then why wouldn't you? If you don't do this and the next business does then they will get further ahead than you because they have seen an opportunity (and taken advantage of it) to be more efficient / to keep costs down. Of course it is probably wise to be quiet about this so that nobody takes steps to prevent you. But this is how we get ahead...
And I'm not capable of doing things like that. I don't have it in me. I would feel wracked with guilt.
What will become of me? I don't know...
Back to the universities... You want the students to believe that the teachers 'did everything for them'. The course evaluations... If students are happier or just as happy if teachers show them youtube videos or walk them through their textbook then minimum wage lecturer showing youtube videos it is. If students evaluations don't reveal they can tell the difference between people who actually know / are passionate about their subject and people who are basically employed to babysit them and have them believe that everything was done for them then why the hell wouldn't you take up the opportunity to really work that latter line?
People didn't think that it was fair that some people got x and they didn't. So... If you can make money off them thinking they now have x (even though they don't) then... Well... That's good business sense.
I really don't think I'm going to get to do med. It is not for me. I can't cope with the people who have been employed to waste our time to persuade us that they are doing everything they can to help us (screw us over). The whole equity thing is basically about appointing a PR person to go hui (talk / meet with and talk) with people all day... So they feel that everything is being done for them... I'm not really capable of that. And I haven't had the parental investment to have a protective herd of people who are looked out for by powerful / litigious parents. This is why some of the people have this... Fear in their eyes... When it comes to some students. And why they laugh in my face 'what makes YOU think YOU can do this' or adopt the alternative strategy of 'of course dear, we are doing EVERYTHING we can to help YOU'.
The fear of strangers / foreigners thing is about fear of whether people will slot into playing the appropriate game and be happy with the financial / perceived status incentives they get for playing the appropriate game. Like my aussie friend... She had the skills (and experience) of being senior in a hospitality role -- but what they really needed to know about her in order to employ her at all was whether she would slot into playing the phone the people on the job list to get free unpaid workers strategy... Because without that... Even if she was the very best waitress in the world... The very best at organising other people to do their jobs 'most efficiently' (in what sense?)... Without her willingness / ability to do their job as they set it to her either in stupid ignorance of what was going on or her agreeing to play the game in full knowledge... Without her willingness to do that... She was precisely worthless to them. Inefficient, indeed.
And that... Is the way things are done here.
And probably... Everywhere.
What will become of me?
Posted by alexandra_k on June 30, 2015, at 22:42:16
In reply to Re: 1 down, 3 to go, posted by alexandra_k on June 30, 2015, at 22:30:12
Oh, my school was a mid-range school, apparently. There is a DECILE rating of schools... Socio-economic based... Comes up middle range. Not most deprived, at all. So the stats... Would be conservative (leaving out private schools) but probably about right. About half my teachers would have had criminal convictions. And given how many taps on the wrist / no convictions there are...
There would likely be even more taps on the wrist / no convictions issued to private school teachers. Perhaps. I'm not entirely clear on whether our courts are more dismissive of people because of damage to their reputation / social standing or whether our courts are more dismissive of people because of 'equity concerns'. So very hard to say...
You can... Basically do what you like. So long as you have a herd. That's the thing... The herd...
What is wrong with me?
Where are my people?
I think the problem came with the whole quit smoking thing... After my 6 month review when I got ripped into... When no constructive criticism was given. I needed someone to take me aside and explain to me that I needed to work on areas that my supervisers group was interested in / and / or apply the work being done by him and his group to a different area that they might not be initially interested in. It seems obvious to me now that I know. But it wasn't obvious to me before. I couldn't see it. Nobody explained it. Why didn't anybody explain it? Perhaps they saw an opportunity to get ahead in a competitive field... I expect that is it.
What will become of me?
Posted by alexandra_k on June 30, 2015, at 22:53:27
In reply to Re: 1 down, 3 to go, posted by alexandra_k on June 30, 2015, at 22:42:16
The reason why 'equity' is starting to upset me is because people are all about 'its not fair! i got screwed over and its not fair!' but if they were in the position to screw over other people... they would do what was done to them in a flash. So their crying about how it isn't fair... I feel almost completely unsympathetic about it when I think that they would do the same thing (take up that same 'opportunity') if things were reversed.
I wouldn't. And I trusted that somehow... That would matter to the 'right' people (the people who matter to me). That there would be people like me in the sense that they would have an internal moral compass... That they might not take up these 'opportunities' to f*ck over other people for the reason that... They don't feel that f*ck*ng over other people is the right thing to do.
I know a lot of people who 'take up opportunities' think that the above way of thinking is seriously misguided etc etc etc. At the end of the day, how bad do you want out? Enough to play the game?
I... Can't play the game. I think that part of me is broken. I'm not able to successfully mask my emotional state. I'm not able to convince anybody that I'm happy to see them when I'm not or that I'm totally going out of my way to do everything for them when that's simply not true.
There are people like me, yeah? Where are they? I suspect they are the ones who left here... I feel so very sad.
This year is a horrible year. I found out I didn't do any better in the biology final than I did in the first test. Which surprises me a lot... Apparently they are objectively graded and not scaled. I know I missed a bunch of content in the first test because I studied to the content not to the test. I got a lot of multi-guess wrong... Then in my prep for the exam in taking time to work through past years questions I found that my initial judgements were out because I wasn't getting some of the appropriate contrast classes / the style of the questions... So... I expected my performance to come up significantly. But it didn't... Which surprises me a great deal.
I have been targeted negatively... In asking for special accommodations it is like they have researched what is known about autistic spectrum from 20 years ago and they purposefully tried to introduce aspects of that into the learning environment to... Try and trigger me. One can only suppose that that is the intention. I suspect it is about trying to teach me a lesson that it is not appropriate to ask for help. It is coming back to me... About how we say that it is their fault for not asking for help. How can we help if they don't ask? But if they ask for help then we have to be very quick to punish / stomp on that because why would we spend resources to help them? Getting ahead... For anybody to voluntarily offer information on their weakness / need for help... There's an opportunity for the person with the knowledge of that to get ahead... For sure.
Posted by alexandra_k on July 3, 2015, at 19:55:59
In reply to Re: 1 down, 3 to go, posted by alexandra_k on June 30, 2015, at 22:53:27
I went to visit my Mother the other day. It wasn't so bad. Except that the house was so cold that it physically hurt. We are taught to pretend that it isn't cold. Yeah. So very much cheaper that way. Anyway, I brought back some stuff that I had stored there.
I read my old file notes. Not all of them. The first couple weeks of my first admission are missing. There are other chunks, too, but most of them are there. It was weird reading them. I remember there were points at which I did read them along the way. At the time I remember feeling all indignant about this and that. That they had interpreted things in this or that way or that they had written things that weren't true. But I didn't feel that way about any of it. I guess the memories have faded. Into the second year... It was like I was reading file reports for someone else.
I have my school reports, too. Most of my High School ones are missing, but I have the ones from Primary school. And I have my Plunket book (pre-school).
I see why I was diagnosed with BPD. Looking pretty borderline, even to me. There was definate staff splitting going on there, too, with respect to clinicians who had empathy for me and clinicians who saw me as being manipulative / working the system and who wanted me to be terminated because contact with the service only made me worse.
Now... I see their point. The point of the 'evil bastards', heh. I wasn't intentionally being manipulative, but... Well... Linehan did a pretty good job, indeed. I really did do the best I could to cope and I really didn't know any better.
Reading my psychology notes... My first psychologist really went in to bat for me. Amazingly so. But she was... Kinda OCD in her CBTness. She couldn't sit with me in silence and... Just listen. To anything. She had to get to work in reframing it or whatever. She meant well, really, she did, but I couldn't handle anything. I'd forgotten just how fragile and helpless and... Passive and dependent I was back then. I felt safest (happiest in some peverse way) when I was sectioned in seclusion. I figured strategies for staying in hospital like kicking at the doors or attempting (in a way that I knew would likely fail, yes) in order to get sectioned again instead of discharged...
And 'the voices are screaming at me' was a language clinicians seemed to understand (admit and observe) but 'i feel horrible' wasn't... And then I got all confused in myself about whether I was telling the truth about hearing voices or whether I was making up stories. Whether I was a lying manipulative person or what... And I felt like a horrible bad person, yes. And I didn't know whether I was making up stories or not. Whether I heard voices or not. I just knew that I was hurting so bad and I really and truly didn't know what the hell else to do in order to have any hope in gettin gthe only thing that seemed to help me. A seclusion cell. I guess. And the limitied inter-personal contact of a single person (1:1 staff time) of a walk around the yard and a cigarette...
A calming environment.
Anyway...
I wonder if I would have liked a straight jacket. I bet I would...
I guess the point is that I feel at peace with it, now. Some of the clinicians were helpful, some not so much. Some of them were helpful in their intent, some of them not so much. I did do best in DBT. Mostly because of the security of the 1 year contract and the structured session content (so I didn't have to provide that) and the education stuff on emotions was helpful because I thought you were supposed to label them by introspection and I couldnt' really do that before all I had was 'alright' or 'not so alright' or 'f*ck*ng horrid'.
I really have come a long way.
The funniest thing... Plunket was fine. No delay in any milestones or problems with any motor skills. Reading words and saying alphabet around 3... Handwriting was remarked on as messy... Lots of careless errors and too much haste more generally. I did quite well in math - but I distinctly remember cheating on my times tables test so they would quit harrassing me when I was about 7 so maybe I learned to cheat? I don't know...
Then about lack of organisation... Messy...
I have this thing where I find it hard to get started / hard to get motivated to get started. Then once I'm started it is equally hard for me to find whatever it is so I can stop. I started going on walks because keyworkers initially made me... Then I really got into it... I didn't want to cook so they made me make spaghetti... Then I wanted to make a chocolate cake... One of them almost got me playing badminton (but I didn't want to - of course)... More vigorous exercise would have helped me, for sure.
Anyway... I really am able to feel objective about myself... Which is good. And... I don't feel burning hatred or whatever for doctors x and y and z anymore. Doctor x... Was right. Only... HIs solution was to... Leave me to die. I guess. Abandon me. Take away the only place I knew of to go to for help. I guess... Without that place (the hospital) I may have made better progress on making the other ones work out better for me. University. In particular. But I do need support when times get stressful... Typically... The holidays. Those are hard times for me. After the first week... All the unstructured time then... That's when I disintegrate. Because I don't have anything to hold it together for. Yeah.
My Biology grade got changed from a B to a B+. I requested all my exam scripts (which I always do) and then it got changed from a B to a B+. Odd. If the board of examinors altered it... If it were somehow disability adjusted that would have happened before I was given notification of my final grade... I... Don't trust things here. This country... Very corrupt... I don't think I'm being especially delusional or paranoid or whatever. Anyway... I suppose a B+ is acceptable in the sense of being a neutral contributor to my required average. Looking back through test 1... Quite a few things... I trust they graded it properly but some of those things... Are they really wrong? I guess without a herd I'm easy pickings...
FFS.
Isn't the world a wonderful place?
Posted by alexandra_k on July 3, 2015, at 20:03:58
In reply to Moving, posted by alexandra_k on July 3, 2015, at 19:55:59
Oh, and of course once I get my exam I'll be able to do the calculations myself and see what message they are giving me as to whether I 'really' earned a B or a B+. Wait and see... Even though I probably can't view my multi-guess answers against model answers... I can see how the numbers add up at the very least.
I'm getting the screw removed from my right ankle. When I talked to the surgeon about getting the metal out I was feeling very bold about it all. When the papers arrived from the hospital and I needed to sign consent forms for anasthetic and realised I was having an overnight stay (good way of doing it, actually, arrive early afternoon, have operations into the evening, admit and discharge after breakfast the next day). Anyway... I didn't feel quite so bold, anymore. Had a vivid dream about it, too. The whole thing. Odd...
I guess that's me all over... I wrote about DID because I thought that was me... And I needed to understand. I wrote about delusions because that was a possibility too... Then the way things went... Which of course led me right into the consumer movement where Autistic Spectrum is basically the best home for that right now... And of course going through the court system a little bit last year when I was studying that... And so of course I'm going to have an operation sometime this year. Ha. At least I haven't had an accident, or something. Hrm... Anyway... Things are meant to be. Or be+. Or something...
Posted by alexandra_k on July 4, 2015, at 2:18:24
In reply to Re: Moving, posted by alexandra_k on July 3, 2015, at 20:03:58
I am really really happy about how it felt to read my file. It didn't feel retraumatising at all. I felt more empathy for my clinicians than for the old me. I mean, I did feel empathy for the old me. I think I have learned a lot... I think there are lots of things I could do from my position now to help the young me. In reading through... I was like... Oh, yeah. I can't do the emotion labelling thing (which is frustrating the hell out of that therapist) because I think you are supposed to cast your attention inwards and squint at it right and then an emotion word is supposed to sort of pop out of you.. Only... I tried and I tried but one wouldn't. And I didn't know how to get it to work... 'I don't know'... And 'I don't know' just drove her nuts. But I can read that now and sort of laugh at it. And have empathy for both, I guess.
And for doctor x who I really did think was the devil. He was the first to come out with the borderline label. He thought I was was just working the system to get in when I wanted and to get out when my attention was captured by fun things over there... And reading now... And even thinking back now... He was right. That was what I was doing. I wasn't trying to be a bad person or anything... But that kind of was what was going on. And talking about voices... Was because that seemed to get people feeling empathetic for me... It got people responding to me more in the way I needed them to... It felt like I'd found the 'magic words'. I didn't know what else to do. I started out with the truth (as best I could) and it didn't seem to work anymore...
But he was right. What the mental health system was... Didn't really have room for me. Didn't have the resources (and at times the knowledge of what was needed) to help me. I wasn't psychotic as often as I was in hospital. Most of my admissions... I probably shouldn't have been there. Others... Weren't so wedded to the letter of what the system was supposed to be... They felt more empathetically about (for example) offering temporary respite while accommodation came through. In some sense they didn't do the right thing in doing that stuff for me, though. I see that now. His perspective.
Which is good... Because some of these people might still be there. Probably not... But possibly yes. And some of the nurses... More likely to still be there. And I think... That is okay. I think... I'm finally at peace about it all.
Thank you autistic spectrum. That... Works.
Developmental. Yeah. There always was something about me... I knew it. Yeah.
Posted by alexandra_k on July 9, 2015, at 19:04:12
In reply to Re: Moving, posted by alexandra_k on July 4, 2015, at 2:18:24
Well, the Maaoris did indeed decide to completely f*ck me over / fail me.
I need to remember that most of the Maaori I know are really rather skeptical indeed about the ones that come up here. All about equity this and equity that gimmie gimmie gimmie and when they are given (in the name of equity) they then proceed to think that it is their right to f*ck their own people over just about as badly as their people were f*ck*d over by the white people however many years ago.
That seems to be what they mean by equity.
A bunch of money was given in the name of Maaori health. Where did the money go? It flew people about the country so they could have meetings all day... Where the meetings about them feeling like they have some genuine standing on some hierarchy. Then they can return to their houses in the richer parts of Auckland. Maybe throw a bit of money at this grandson over here and this niece over there. You know, the socially gregarious bully ones that their hearts have taken a special liking to... Because social gregariousness is what we value most. Big warrior eyes and who cares whether there's anybody home on the inside. Fearlessness is most prized most especially when the psychopathic heart is behind it... Tragedy of the commons... They seem determined...
I didn't use to be racist... But it is developing, oh yes, indeed, it is. Here... With the Maaori who aren't Maaori at all... Just have their hands out waiting for their opportunity to f*ck their people over.
I get f*ck*d over because I won't pay what they believe to be sufficient homage to them. Because I take exception to barely literate people being employed to teach us literacy in the name of equity.
It isn't doing them any favors, either. It is only resulting in more people coming through with racist tendencies. They have to MAKE the medical students attend the Maaori days (threaten to fail them their degrees if they don't attend). They can pull ranks like that for them through medical school - but what is going to happen when they get to be doctors out the other end? You can't make them give adequate medical treatment. Wonder why your people don't get more time / attention from doctors? Maybe if you bullied them less through medical school they might develop a more genuine sense of empathy. If you want to make sure your people are avoided... You couldn't be doing a better job of it than what you are.
But I'm the bad guy for pointing this sh*t out. They actually don't care. Not the ones I'm talking to. THey get their sense of power and control. Over their own people. Over medicine...
MMmm hmm.
I'm remembering now that they did use to say that NZ didn't have any noxious pests.. No snakes. No poisonious spiders. But we had truly noxious natives. Nowdays we call it 'mischeviousness' and 'curiosity' and even things like 'friendliness'. The idea of.... Instead of being in meetings all day... One might decide to build a fence / make a farm. THey will see that... Your being busiliy occupied with something that is not them. They will not stand for it. They'll rip down the fences when your not looking. They'll ruin everything you do. Toddler rage taht you are occupied with something not them.
It isn't because it is on their land, or whatever. It is because they saw you. They saw that you would rather spend time on something not them and they saw fit to ruin it out of toddler rage. That is the Maaori way. And that is what happened. And it led to the land wars and so on...
And now they cry with their hands out for the profits of the land... When they have land... And dont' seem able to organise into doing anything profitable with it... Not least because if any of them tries the others will rise up 'you think you're better than us!' and see fit to destroy it.
The 'tall poppy' thing. It's a comment on Maaori culture. Insofar as it is a comment on NZ society more generally it's a comment on how this aspect of Maaori culture has pervaded it.
This country really is mostly run by bullies. Those with power... F*ck knows how they got it...
There was this thing with the university... Hiring certain people short term... Mostly to look after the early years kids that nobody else much wanted to look after (since they shouldn't really be at uni in the first place since they seem more interested in delighting in their ignorance, bullying others for wanting to study / work, interfering with the efforts of others to work). Then soemthing happened and somehow they managed to turn those temporary posts into permanent positions. Because they had been temporary recurring for so long... Something something about employee rights. So now there are a bunch of people employed in academic posts who think that their job is to cater to the bully children. To show them youtube videos and to give them library workshops on how they can't quote their friends off facebook in academic essays.
And these people... Take extra special delight in failing me... Because they can. Because they can. I see why people are horrified at the thoguht of starting over. Because you put yourself at the mercy of seriously incompetent bully people. Who take delight in saying that you are illiterate etc etc etc. Because pulling other people down is how they get to take special delight at somehow being further ahead on the hierarchy...
I'm f*ck*d off that they are going to make me do another degree to get away from them (they don't give the bully people control over higher level courses).
I hate this stupid f*ck*ng country.
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