![[dr. bob]](/dr-bob-sm.gif)
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 31 to 55 of 64. Go back in thread:
Posted by alexandra_k on November 6, 2017, at 23:43:21
In reply to Re: politics, posted by alexandra_k on November 6, 2017, at 23:39:07
and of course it wasn't really about the talk, today, it was about me being exhausted just after exams, and me feeling scared about whether or not I have a future in this country (whether medicine will invest in me, or whether I'm only wanted if I'm prepared to hang about begging for scraps).
And seeing it that way...
Yeah, well, I've been rather too trusting of people, in my life. The things I've tried, here, because people thought they might turn out to be suitable for me / good for me. I'm just not prepared to fall for that, anymore. If it makes me percieved as domineering and / or intolerant or, whatever, well... Maybe that's for the best. Something something about how people rather like to fall (grumbling incessantly, of course, always peck peck pecking) behind a strong leader.
Maybe that's just the way you have to be.
___
Which is why housing is so hard. There is an element of holding out rather than settling for sh*t. I usually cave too early and then wonder why I spend so much of my life suffering... Suffering... Suffering... From all the toxic sh*t.
No more.
Posted by alexandra_k on November 7, 2017, at 0:07:50
In reply to Re: politics, posted by alexandra_k on November 6, 2017, at 23:43:21
And something really rather ironic, indeed...
There is / are beautiful beaches, here. Maybe not so beautiful by international standards. Not, exactly, tourist destinations.
But quiet. Rugged. Quiet because they are rugged. Choppy ocean on sandy beach in arctic breeze...
Site of former sewerage outflow pipe. In fact, site of present sewerage outflow pipe, I think. They just make it longer... Pipes it 1.5km offshore...
All the sh*t.
It's really quite beautiful, out there.
Signs still up about not swiming in the water or eating the shellfish.
It might be quite nice to be living out there. Literally amongst the sh*t.
Things are not always what they seem, here.
I think it mostly might be about keeping things hidden away...
It's unfortunate that this hierarchy idea has become embraced as part of Maaori culture... Instead of this idea of... Well... Everyone being a leader. A meeting of minds.
We're just not there, yet.
And yes, I will stop.
Time for a blocking?
Pay attention to me.
Wah.
I am not like them. Not. Not. Not.
Posted by alexandra_k on November 9, 2017, at 12:55:27
In reply to Re: politics, posted by alexandra_k on November 7, 2017, at 0:07:50
And just one more...
I have been thinking a lot about frequency dependence. About this idea that certain things (or behavioural strategies) might only be viable (or profitable) in a frequency dependent way. So then it becomes about staying ahead of the curve, rather.
I think perhaps that is a major lesson for me. Has to do with tragedy of commons, and so on.
I mean, say you see an opportunity... An empty commons. And then you think to yourself 'hey, I could buy a sheep or a cow, or whatever' and graze in on the commons. And so you do that. But then somebody sees you and they decide to do it to... And maybe to start out it's great that there are other people out there on the commons. You can take turns babysitting the herd, or whatever. You can pool for a sheep dog, or something. But then the population grows and the returns diminish (e.g., less tasty tips so the animals aren't fattening up the way they used to) and then, once every freaking person has jumped in, the grass is obliterated from overgrazing to the ruin of them all.
The ruin of them all...
I guess there is a point where it is best to get out.
I saw the housing thing coming, here. When my Mother told me that my sisters kids had been advised by the law firm she works for (as an administrator) to get their money out of trust and into property... I knew it was time to get out of property.
I wonder where the people who... First invested in property... The ones who are out of property already... I wonder what they have invested in, now... Not the ones who got lucky, I mean, the ones who saw it coming... I wonder where it's at, now...
Hmm.
Might have transitioned into health property... Who knows... Am I all independently discovering finance, or something??
Anyway... This frequency dependence thing... I guess sometimes it really is best to get your damned mouth shut when you are on to a good thing. Or... To be a little quid pro quo about who you share helpful things with. Co-operativity for mutual benefit... I feel like I have missed something... But I suppose I'm also learning that it is about the hardest thing in the world... I hope I'm not... Broken. In some kind of Autistic way... About this. Such that... I'll never be in the position to have financial independence. I mean.
I am a bit scared...
I remmber hearing that some of the med students were scared that they would be required to commit atrocities in rural communities in their government bonded jobs after graduation... Now I'm starting to think that raising the possibility (putting the fear amongst them) might have been a way of teaching them ethics... Little bit of scaremongering... Make it seem real... See what people are made of. Was what I used to think about that. But I'm starting to see all these various positions along a spectrum.. I'm starting to see that things are so very much more complicated than I had thought. It really is too easy to make false dichotomies and arbitrary stipulations on the terms of the debate so as to make the solution easy... Or easier... To really lay out the slippery slope of the extremes... And the scope of diversity of tenable positions between them...
To not be corrupted.
But to understand that you can't always get what you want.
Quid pro quo Clarisse...
Or similar.
Hmm.
Posted by alexandra_k on November 9, 2017, at 23:42:56
In reply to Re: politics, posted by alexandra_k on November 9, 2017, at 12:55:27
and... (the very last one)...
I guess that's why you just have to trust, someone. Perhaps... The people who decided to trust you? Probably those guys. And I guess that's why there are social norms as well as rules... For some guidance on what to do. And a long socialisation / indoctrination process... And you just have to trust the values of the field. Because... What is the alternative?
I've been thinking about the road rules as I learn to drive...
To start with I was really upset when I saw people breaking the rules. Speeding. Crossing double yellow lines. But then it got me thinking about how the social norms are a different thing... The ticket system is about ticketing the top however many percentage of speeders... So... That makes it okay to follow the flow of traffic from a ticketing point of view (mostly / probably). And if you have great visibility and there really isn't anyone coming then really what is the harm in crossing the double yellow line?
Not that I'm condoning running a red at an intersection...
But I'm starting to... Grow up? Perhaps.
I was never into applied ethics... I... I don't know.
I miss you Dr Bob. Even if it is the *idea* of you. What I most miss about you is how you used to interact with us more. I know that used to upset some of the posters, but I really liked it when you posted about articles you had been reading and when you interacted more over on admin and stuff. I just say that because...
I just thought today about Harry Harlow and his monkeys. And that standard photo of the little monkey who had never been hugged... And I think now about all these 10 year olds and 11 year olds and 18 year olds and so on... With their mobile devices. And the wire cage with a furry coat. And the avatar that is supposed to provide motivational support through DBT mindfulness stratigies (or similar) for CBT brief online therapy (or whatever). And... It just seems worlds away from what you have given us, here. Or from what I got from it. Or whatever. And that's anecdote and there hasn't been a RCT and so on...
I'm so very... Tired. Afraid. Of being put in the wrong group of people. Of (it feels to me) being punished for their sins. Of needing to take the hit so they can take the profit. I don't know. I feel like I"m always an outlier. Like my take / perspective / whatever... Is never acknowledged or supported or understood or helped...
Tissue samples and the development of... Patentable medical devices. For the advancement of medicine. Of course.
But you were human... You were distinguishable from a computer program. At times. Not at all times (clearly, that has been questioned). People did complain that you seemed... Robotic... At times... But then you would respond in a human way. A *humane* way. At times it was clear that there was a person who cared. Who took time. And so on.
I... Really don't think that is just my imagination.
The hand-over... I really don't think it would have been possible... That degree of co-ordination of care?? I'm not convinced...
Posted by alexandra_k on November 11, 2017, at 0:02:37
In reply to Re: politics, posted by alexandra_k on November 9, 2017, at 23:42:56
and you've got all these people... all these people crying for / fighting over pieces of the pie. we want to help this group or that group or whatever. we think a piece of the pie should get to go to them... and they bicker amongst themselves and so on...
and then it turns out that something they can all agree on... is that they should just split up the pie amongst themselves. they can spend the pie on air fares to the capitol. on decent hotels. on dinners. on conferences. on drinks. on free friday cocktails for everyone working in the department of whatever and all their friends and family, too. they can spend the money on their own salaries. on cars to get around. they can spend the money on an intern or two (whatever we call those) to write whatever report or inquiry.
and nothing is left for the actual people they were talking about in the first place.
you have to meet with people and have a 4 day all expenses paid hui, alex. that's just the way things are done here.
yeah. that's the way things are done here.
thats the way you get to play with the people who get things done. just look at the things they get done. do you want to play with the people who get things done?
i think you just want to stay the hell away.
to be honest.
sigh.
i think it might be a waiting game.
before... there was something i could be doing. i could be studying. there was something i could do to have control over things. work harder.
now... its about waiting. waiting to hear about my grades... but waiting to hear about whether or not i have a place...
about waiting to see if a suitable place to live comes up...
while they try and starve me out...
beat me down...
see if they can persuade me to live with the drug dealers and the prostitutes. see if they can guilt me into it:
you think you are better than them?
you think you are so special?
here is this lovely place and you are all livnig by yourself, oh yes, you are (with shared bathroom and kitchen and people rummaging through your stuff every day to check you don't have knives or needles or guns or methamphetamine)they put families in motels. the government defended it recently... at least it was habitable. they put offenders in there, too, because communities get upset about having violent offenders in them etc (no idea why - maybe because we are supposed to help each other instead of asking for professional help)...
i don't know why things feel ilke... such a farce. such a f*ck*ng farce down here.
anyway...
yeah... that is where the money goes. it's the social norms. corruption. that is what it is. complicit...
it's funny, isn't it... how all these people kill themselves... but then all these other people... you wonder how they can live with themselves... i... i really just don't understand that, at all.
i don't really know what to say.
i think it is about patience, now. the patience to... wait and see. to not feel pressured into doing something (anything) something... to not make the situation worse. just sit tight. if i have to eat sh*t for a few weeks... so be it.
it feels like... psychological torture. thats the thing. the inner city in auckland... felt like vibrations / frequencies were being emitted... intentionally. the kind of thing that defence knows all about but most people are too stupid to understand / give credit to / know what /h ow its effecting them. like how people don't understand about advertising and about eating poision labelled food. people don't understand about the vibrations / frequencies.
mass control...
of course there would be a f*ck ton of money in that...
i feel sad life is so awful for so many. i feel sad that there is so many, so very much awful.
there aren't even all that many people down here. or up there. everything is empty nearly all of the time. just certain times of the year and day when everything is intentionally clustered / concentrated.
all the empty houses...
sitting there, empty...
but gotta keep the homeless people together...
and pity would be no more... if we did not make somebody poor...
Posted by alexandra_k on November 11, 2017, at 0:11:44
In reply to Re: politics, posted by alexandra_k on November 11, 2017, at 0:02:37
and it's just... stuff... shuffling stuff around.
money is just a proxy for the stuff...
see, it's just not the case that the money that was spent on flights for these people could have gone as a cash injection into whatever community project.
fact is, there were empty seats on this or that flight and that's how we fill up the flights so there are flights to fill up and how are you supposed to have a national airline that runs frequent flights without getting people to fill up the flights???
and the hotels... the nice hotels that the out of town advisors and so on stay in... those hotels would be partly empty, too.
what are you supposed to do to have people in the hotels?? who is supposed to be in the hotels? you can't put your seedy clientele drug dealers and prostitutes and people just out of prison and people who live out of town but have no drivers lisence but who need to report to their parole officer... in those hotels... those are nicer hotels... for the tourists.
the tourists on the cruise ships. which are not the boatloads of refugees that got turned out of Australia. they are tourists - like on the Love Boat. people like that. people who will spend thousands of dollars on a painting by a local artist and not people who will go into the church charity shops when they arrive and look to buy second hand clothing... not people who will rent or by a RV to go 'freedom camping' because they can't afford to park it in a trailer park...
and the alcohol... i know... it's a taser to the frontal lobes and i don't suppose i begrudge it. i mourn for the fact that so many (including myself at times) feel drawn to it because of how f*ck*ng miserable they are.
i just don't understand... why everything is so f*ck*ng miserable for so many. i just don't understand.
Posted by alexandra_k on November 11, 2017, at 0:13:37
In reply to Re: politics, posted by alexandra_k on November 11, 2017, at 0:11:44
i wonder if we are poorer than kansas.
i suppose we are.
i hope that wasn't uncivil to kansas. sigh.
Posted by beckett2 on November 15, 2017, at 22:28:45
In reply to Re: politics, posted by alexandra_k on November 11, 2017, at 0:13:37
Were you quoting Hannibal Lecter earlier?
I read the NZ has the highest youth suicide rate out of the developed countries-- I had no idea.
There is amazing disparity in the US. In every state to some extent. California is beyond the pale. When a wildfire burned almost 6,000 houses this year in a single region, rents and housing prices are so high, many are not sure if they need to leave state.
We had a modest killing spree to the north of us just yesterday. At a school for part of it, then random drivers.
Posted by alexandra_k on November 17, 2017, at 21:57:48
In reply to Re: politics » alexandra_k, posted by beckett2 on November 15, 2017, at 22:28:45
> Were you quoting Hannibal Lecter earlier?
Yeah. I'm not sure I remember the context of the quote. I was thinking of it in terms of 'you tell me / do for me something I want; then I tell you / do for you something you want'. In a fair bargain there is mutual benefit of roughly equal value. Hannibal was an evil genius, though. I guess I was thinking that he had greater insight into payoff structures - but perhaps that wasn't it. I don't remember what agent Starling was bargaining for...
> I read the NZ has the highest youth suicide rate out of the developed countries-- I had no idea.
Yeah. A whole heap of reasons why, to be fair. The rate for guys is higher - but that's probably just because guys are more mechanically minded and tend to select methods that are more likely to be successful. Women are used to being pooh poohed at such delicate little flowers that they don't understand how hard the body will be to kill. Pills and so on. Body has natural defences...
It's hard to know what life is supposed to be about for a lot of youth.
> There is amazing disparity in the US. In every state to some extent. California is beyond the pale. When a wildfire burned almost 6,000 houses this year in a single region, rents and housing prices are so high, many are not sure if they need to leave state.
Yeah. I knew someone who lived in another State who was always applying for jobs in California - and then turning them down. He said he needed a significant pay increase, really, in order to have a comperable sort of house / lifestyle and they couldn't really afford to offer him that.
> We had a modest killing spree to the north of us just yesterday. At a school for part of it, then random drivers.
I'm sorry.
I feel like saying 'we don't have so much of that' - but I think that that is partly we are just so small... And partly it manifests differently.
When I was 16 I used to board with this lady and her two kids (8 and 6). She was genuinely lovely. separated from an open bretharen marriage (was raised closed bretharen). At the time, I think she was 27. She was a pretty good Mother to those kids, but she was also living some of the things she never got to do in her youth, I guess. Liked to go out to the nightclubs... Anyway, she ended up hooking up with this guy... And then he got pretty controlling not wanting her to go out dancing and so on (she was not slutty / sleezy - but he just didn't trust her). Anyway... I left and he moved in... Then she booted him out. Then he booted the door down, shot her, and shot himself. The kids came home from school one day, and there they were.
We actually get quite a lot of incidents like that.
It's not the people you don't know... It's the people you do know, the people whom you don't have the power to get the hell away from.
______________________Work and Income here would quite like me to move in with the prostitutes and drug dealers. I guess the Work and Income Workers are rather a lot like the hospital managers. Their goal is to not spend any money... If they can convince me that I'm useless and rubbish, that I'm asking too much, that I'm being unreasonable, that I'm being too sensitive and so on... Then money is saved.
There is this whole thing of how people need to harden up and people need to be more resilient. That's what's wrong with the people who kill themselves, they aren't resilient enough.
You have to be fairly resilient to be a prostitute in order to make a (slightly) better living than solely getting by on welfare, I guess that's true.
Drugs would probably help. Yeah.
I wonder if the Work and Income Workers get kickbacks. You know, on making sure that people who want to get out of those kinds of lifestyles... Are abused at the door on their way in... And then sent back to wherever the hell they came from quick smart in order to save a little money.
It's about the tourists, really, I suppose.
Love Boat etc.
Where is the love?
Well well well, just stay home, and at least we all have equitable access to the internet! And what lovley leaky homes they are, too, where people can simply kick the door down and murder you in the night time or the day time... Any time they want...
Getting away from the awful.
I don't know that housing will come through for me, until next year.
They ask you for financial information, you see. Your Work and Income number and so on and so forth. There aren't laws to stop them. Funny how we bitch moan and complain about how it's illegal to ask a person this, that, and the other, when we are considering them for a job. What about when we are considering them for a house? Or a home loan, I guess.. Employers have your home address... Before they decide whether you make it to interview.
I do get that people are just doing what people feel they need to do in order to protect them and their own... From the nasty.
And I suppose I also get that there are a bunch of people... The dealers and the pimps and the like... Who seem to like their lives, just fine. They are the boss of their tribe of prostitites or addicts (the ones who use more than they sell). They are thriving... Flourishing, in fact. I mean if we let the underlings who wanted to get out get out... The best ones... Of course, it's typically the best ones who want to get out... If those ones got out then perhaps life wouldn't feel worth living by the dealers and the pimps who currently keep them. Then they might start out on different targets... There needs to be vulnerable people to target... F or the people who only feel like if worth living when they get to target vulnerable people. Of course.
______________________________
There are an awful lot of seedy places... I think I need to go with my gut. And just sit tight. And wait. Not sign up for anything that isn't suitable. 2 places have come up that would have been okay but they let them to someone else. Maybe they will let them to me after they get to know me in time. See that I won't sign up to seedy places. See that I notice. That I'm not prepared to live in that / live like that. No amounts of words work because the language has been ruined by all the resilent people who have taught there own that what you do to succeed in the world / in life is to spout whatever rubbish you think the other person wants to hear (and act on precisely none of it).
Even applications for things... There is nothing you can say...
Until you've been identified as a person who means what they says, says what they means, and a person who is only really interested in mutually beneficial deals (and not interested in doing business with people who are looking to take what they can at the others expense for as long as they can get away with it before moving on to the next vulnerable target).
No amount of words...
Posted by alexandra_k on November 18, 2017, at 22:18:18
In reply to Re: politics » beckett2, posted by alexandra_k on November 17, 2017, at 21:57:48
I think I need to get a new case manager. Only, he isn't even a case manager. They don't seem to do case manager's anymore. Which makes it hard for me to apply for a new one / make sure I don't have to interact with him, anymore.
I don't trust him.
When I moved down from Auckland I did everything I could to keep moving costs down, since I was applying for government assistance. Instead of going with a proper moving company (which would have been more expensive) I got rid of a lot of stuff and sent it by this... Well... More of a courier / postal company, really. I really looked around and got a bunch of quotes, and everything. The lady from there (independently owned / operated franchise) really did me a solid in last minute there being a bit more stuff, and collecting it from my home (1 block over) and so on...
On the understanding that she would be paid (by Work and Income - who had okayed everything from the Auckland end).
Then I arrive here... And he tries to get her to arrange for the stuff to be delivered to me / released to me without the payment going through. He starts trying to haggle over the amount of money. He makes her go all the way in to a Work and Income office in Auckland to pick up a form, to fill out the form, to be an authorised payee for payment... Then makes her wait 3 weeks for payment (without accepting that typically there would be a storage fee on late payments). He basically... Bullied her into accepting something because she felt she had no option.
NOt a person I want doing business with. Not a person I want doing business on my behalf.
Here... The only way I could afford to move into my current accommodation was to sum a bunch of catered weeks together with a bunch of non-catered weeks then divide it by 52 for a weekly rent rate that was (only just) within my ability to pay. It was understood that I would have problems with food once the catering ran out at at the end of the year - but decided to worry about that later.
Anyway... Now we are at the end of the year and the people here have done me a solid in sayign I don't have to pay for longer than I stay and I can leave early - that is okay with them. So I'm free to move and able to be flexible with moving into a new place. It's also less money from me than they planned on (they usually consider yearly amounts they get from contracts for the academic year...)
He keeps on about wanting to talk to the head of here to see why I have to leave and why I can't stay and why my rent can't be cheaper.
Whenever I express an interest in a place he says it's too expensive and he wants to ring and haggle about a cheaper rate.
Nobody (respectable) will do business with me if he has anything to do with it.
Why so much awful?
Posted by alexandra_k on November 18, 2017, at 22:24:43
In reply to Re: politics, posted by alexandra_k on November 18, 2017, at 22:18:18
It's because he suggested this place that is.... Notorious for where the prostitutes and drug dealers and the like go when there isn't anywhere else. You know the sort of place, there are regular stabbings and the like as the delusional people who were released too early because there weren't any beds in the psych ward go and stab the person in the room next door...
And then he sent me to this 'purple' rental place right next to this 'extreme sport' place... seedy... seedy... seedy... alarm bells going off... But my Work and Income Case Manager sent me there to talk to the property lady - so it must be a good and safe place - or they wouldn't suggest it for people - right?
Is somebody trying to teach me some kind of a lesson or...
?
What the f*ck.
I mean, seriously.
I see why you need to pay Doctors (and so on) so much. It's not really that they have a bunch of extra money in the hand to do what they want with. It's about how much money they need to spend in order to get themselves away from the awful people.
I don't understand why so many people like to live in such awful, down here. I don't understand why there are so many people who like to control others... Where they sort of control they want to exert over them isn't a sort of control that will have them happy and flourishing and thriving... It's a sort of...
Desire for a blow up doll or a wooden doll or something.
I just don't f*ck*ng get it.
Posted by alexandra_k on November 18, 2017, at 22:25:07
In reply to Re: politics, posted by alexandra_k on November 18, 2017, at 22:24:43
Thanks Beckett.
Posted by alexandra_k on November 18, 2017, at 22:52:31
In reply to Re: politics, posted by alexandra_k on November 18, 2017, at 22:25:07
And of course the fun isn't so much in actually having, or controlling a blow up doll / wooden doll. It's in how you take a person... And convert them into that. The process of eliminating their person and replacing it with yourself... Your will, your desires, you urges. Until there isn't any lifeforce left. Just a cardboard cutout sort of a thing with holes in the right places, depending on your proclivities.
Extreme hobbies. I think that was it. Not extreme sport. Maybe they were thinking Warhammer? Yeah, right.
Whatever.
Anyway...
I guess they probably are testing me, to see what I will do, and to see what my reaction will be.
I don't know why they do things this way... It was fairly f*ck*ng obvious to the people at Auckland City Mission that I was not like the drug dealers and prostitutes and pimps and the like... I was not like the political stagement homeless or the untreated mentally ill...
That's how come they actually helped me to relocate... To get assistance with that...
Whereas other people would come 'asking for assistance' where they were on a journey where they just... Wanted to interact with someone who didn't beat them for 5 minutes. Or, whatever. They were known. I think there was help there, in Auckland, here...
I don't know what they are thinking they are doing with me...
Testing...
Testing...
Peck peck pecking.
I know, Dr Bob, you are fond of 'what doesn't kill us makes us stronger'. I think there is a place for 'what peck peck peck peck pecks at us us like a drop of water on the stone... It will wear through granite... Tick tock.'
Why?
There aren't enough wooden dolls?
It's the conquest... Granite...
F*ck*ng cowboys down here, Dr Bob. Not in the good sense. Fronter... The rules don't apply... It's where the world sends it's unruly kids. That's partly why. It's because there isn't anything here - except from the University.
If I could tell the rental people that I actually was a Medical Student would that likely help me or harm me? Granite... Peck peck peck...
Who wants to live - like that?
FOr f*ck*ng real.
Posted by alexandra_k on November 22, 2017, at 14:58:27
In reply to Re: politics, posted by alexandra_k on November 18, 2017, at 22:52:31
Provisional B for epidemiology - Which is enough - so long as I get B+ or higher for biochemistry - which is the better paper for me. Going into the exam with an A-/A for that - but I think lots were so concerned about how the 70% exam might function to redistribute a number downwards for bell curve distribution...
I keep kicking myself for really silly errors that I made on these mini-essay things - really not sure how many marks I've lost. And then how many I've lost because they had something a bit different in mind, and so on. I did some doozy's, though. Went on about hydrogen bonding helping longer chain fatty acids pack tighter (of course I meant hydrophobic interactions and I should have talked about symmetry rather than the number of hydrogen atoms - so I really did the whole conceptual fail, there). And then I think I explained the Hb dissociation curve really rather well (if I do say so, myself) and I drew a nice graph showing how allosteric regulators pull the hyperbolic Mb curve into a sigmoid... But then I drew this other one (that we didn't even study for this class) and put the pH, CO2, temperature stuff on the *wrong freaking side of the graph*, *in direct conflict to everything I just said*. Sigh. I don't know how many marks I'll lose for such things... And then there are the things I think I got right - but they want something different. And so on. No idea.
_______________________________Looking for housing... I guess I'm going okay. The hardest thing is food... Lack of food, more to the point. Hunger does bad things to the brain. I think I'm in some sort of shock, too, from the change in diet, honestly. And there are people around, here, and the people around here are lonely. And so I get to doing the thing that I do where I avoid communal areas... I mean, I'll still do my laundry, but I can't bear to use the communal kitchen... And so it's hard to eat healthy food that doesn't need to be cooked / kept in the fridge or freezer. And I've been relying on dribs and drabs of food grants... I think I'll have to go back to eating potato chips and 2 minute noodles... Peanut butter sandwiches... I'm just feeling kicked and demoralised about it all... Get paid today and have $20. That's $10 for gas and... Need to go and ask for food grant again... After having gone in and asked for one yesterday... Horrible horrible guilt feeling... How is this my fault? wtf.
___________________________I went to this professorial talk by someone who I didn't know existed... I mean, I knew he existed because the talk has been advertised for a while, and I was like 'who is this person who never comes to departmental seminars' and so on... He's been doing something admin-y. To do with Medical Selection / the Health Science First Year program-y sort of stuff... Apparently they will be making changes to the program... One of the changes (next year is the first year) is that you can have a by on one of the papers (I elected bio-physics because of the math). He's really a physiology person - anatomy is this nominal department, mostly, just so the university can say they have the only anatomy major / program in the country... Then they bait and switch you for cell biology mostly - but other things besides... Anyway... I didn't realise they are actually getting some (or at least one) promising result from implanted electrodes and stimulation of basal ganglia neurones in people with Parkonsins...
I had come to shy away from neuro because of all the dodgey stuff with brain magnets and the new phrenology of fMRI and so on... And then people always looking for a quick and easy fix instead of (it seemed to me) coming to terms with some kind of reality principle with respect to effort and hard work paying off... And then 10 hours just to get inside the skull (I heard)... But there really are a group of people, here, working on such things, huh.
_____________________________He said I didn't come from an academic family, or they would have said 'come to xx and we can teach you everything you need to know about that [chemistry] in 2 years'. Which didn't actually make much sense of his life... But it made sense of my life... They decided they were not my family... They didn't see that... They didn't say that...
One of them was there. The pastor one. I felt (in the interview) that I didn't connect with him. He asked about ethics... Around euthenasia. I didn't realise there was a real church influence, here, around that, and a real 'no no no no no under no circumstances' thing... And I guess I thought he wanted me to talk about the role of chaplins to help people come to peace with his God, or whatever... I don't know...
Maybe I pissed him off more than I thought.
Maybe it was that I was reluctant to connect with him (I was). I felt like there was some agenda view there of some party line that I was expected to spout. I didn't know what it was. I resented that.
And all of that could really very genuinely have been my issue. I don't know. All I knew was that he was a church person and I was fairly dubious about the church - ethics connection that there is here...
I guess I've come to learn that... That's right. Bioethics here is more an exercise in... Ethics communication. Helping people who don't think through things very well... Helping them think things through. A form of therapy, yeah. I always shied away from applied ethics... They used to say applied ethics is to metaethics (or 'real philosophy') as applied statistics is to mathematicians. Just that... There are genuine philosophical or mathematical problems lurking... But most people working on the applied aspect... Seem to lack the capacity to apprehend the problems even less work towards a coherant solution... The applied stuff is typically... Just a hodge podge of a justification of what people want to say / think is right.
The only statistics I believe in are the ones I've doctored myself. Ahahahahahaha. Funniest thing I've heard in a while... Different talk... Apparently our pathology samples can't fly around the country via the national airlines because It's too full of politicians or political advisors or somesuch...
Anyway...
The food thing is getting to me. As it would anyone, I suppose. Most people do eat sh*t, so I'm supposed to do that... They do keep offering food (I suppose) and conversation after some of these seminars... It's just hard for me to bear because I don't have a coherant story / context typically. People just trying to place people... And then in having conversations with people... Most people can't tell / assess things or people on their merits...
C'mon Biochemistry. I'm really hoping for an A... That might be too much... An A-... Pretty pretty please??
______________________________________
The food thing is... Foundational. A centre point. Food. Sleep. Exercise. Healthy home. The food thing wears me down... So I come to be in a place where I'm not fit to ask for help. Not when the people I need to ask for help are mostly carefully selected to be borderline incompetent / waste your time / distract you with other things and then send you away with nothing without your realising it...
I suppose I can get food packages from churches... From students union... But, again, it's all the wood-chips and salt and sugar and chemicals rubbish that will kill you... Nutritoinal deficiency. Or bioavailability deficiency, failing that...
Thanks so very much for your help!
And pity would be no more...
Slightly postal feeling.
I could always move in with the drug dealers - hey!
Posted by alexandra_k on November 22, 2017, at 15:06:58
In reply to Re: politics, posted by alexandra_k on November 22, 2017, at 14:58:27
and one of the work and income people would have me not pay my rent. because there are limits on how many food grants they can give you, you see.
so instead of saying 'alright - we want to see a list of items you want to purchase before approving a $200 food grant that should get you through the next few weeks' (so i can get things like rice and a rice cooker i can use in my room)...
they give me one for $60, then one for $20 (after failing to tell me they expire in 3 days).
i don't know what to do to get actual proper help.
they won't even tell me 'if you rent is x amount then you will have y amount to spend on food', 'if your rent is x+n amount then you will have y-o to spend on food'.
how am i supposed to know how much rent i can afford to pay?
i'm just supposed to move in with the drug dealers...
Posted by alexandra_k on November 22, 2017, at 15:13:54
In reply to Re: politics, posted by alexandra_k on November 22, 2017, at 15:06:58
thinking...
hungry brain is thinking...
hungry brain is resentful and angry that she is placed in this position.
people feel entitled to obstruct people who are not suitably grateful.
_______
there was a urology clinic.
I don't quite understand it.
They are marketing it as... What I was going on about before. A situation where a bunch of doctors and nurses and other support staff come together and get sh*t done. The stuff that can be done that doesn't cost a lot (the stuff that doesn't rely on expensive medications or devices). Routine operations.
Only...
Apparently they were paid (though they don't do it for the money).
So...
Who paid them? How much did it cost? Where did the money come from?
That was not clear.
________
I wish cancer guy told us more about his research... But I guess it was a public lecture... Still... I'm interested in the evolution of cancer... This idea that it does evolve...
I have a bunch of confusions about what we are sequencing when we sequence... Given the prevalence of microbes that also have DNA, and the like... How do we get a human signal and not a microbe one? And so on... This idea of... Different cells in the human body not all being the same... From this other talk...
I shouldn't be hungry... I just had a bunch of fruit.
It's hard to eat cereal without any f*ck*ng milk that must be kept in the fridge.
F*CK
Posted by alexandra_k on November 23, 2017, at 3:47:58
In reply to Re: politics, posted by alexandra_k on November 22, 2017, at 15:13:54
B+ for BioChem!
(provisionally)
That means I (provisionally) got the required total from HSFY (and equivalent credits) for entry to Med II! F*ck yeah!
The numbers are around the middle of the grade divisions - so really shouldn't change much. Finalised tomorrow.
So... Now it's up to the academic board who meets sometime in December.
I can't believe I only got a B+ for BioChem... I really did work hard... And I think I'll probably only end up with a B for Pathology :-(
I'm officially a 'B' sort of a student. Sniff.
'Good enough'. That's all you need to be. Pass / fail and all that... Sniff.
Posted by alexandra_k on November 29, 2017, at 20:34:09
In reply to Re: politics, posted by alexandra_k on November 23, 2017, at 3:47:58
and how am i supposed to exercise my right to independent housing?
i do, still, think that the only reason people want to do a needs assessment, is so they can figure out what you need, right before they enforce the opposite.
why else would people want to have a job where they get to target vulnerable people
?
Posted by alexandra_k on November 29, 2017, at 20:36:39
In reply to Re: politics, posted by alexandra_k on November 29, 2017, at 20:34:09
only the people who want to live independently are forced to stay in institutions. only the people who want to live independently are forced to stay out in institutions. only the people who want their own cage are forced to be pecked to death free range style only the people who want to live free range are forced to live in cages. only the ones who medication would help are denied medication while these others who don't want to be medicated are 'treated' against hteir will. its just a bunch of awful people inflicting their awful because they love the awful and want to spread the awful.
bang bang bang bang bang go the f*ck*ng awful people in my neighbourhood. squeal squeek whip cough f*rt wahoo
Posted by alexandra_k on November 29, 2017, at 21:04:27
In reply to Re: politics, posted by alexandra_k on November 29, 2017, at 20:36:39
i don't know what it is. if it's a disability issue or a women's rights issue... it isn't about the money, at all, there's plenty of money / resources, it's only about distribution.
but i've never been allowed to live independently. people have just always said 'no, you can't, that's not for you'
and the usual 'you're asking too much, you're being unreasonable, you're being selfish' and so on...
all the manipulations and lies and b*llsh*t that people to put emotional pressure on someone... so that things don't have to escalate to overt violence...
apparently it is about exercising your rights. figuring how to do that.
i haven't found that i have access to justice...
privacy...
informed consent...
all of the preconditions of persons...bang
bang
bang
go the people. bang bang bang bang bang...
at what point do things become an emergency?
i feel like i'm getting more moments...
i don't know what i'm supposed to do.
i don't understand.
Posted by alexandra_k on November 30, 2017, at 18:12:02
In reply to Re: politics, posted by alexandra_k on November 29, 2017, at 21:04:27
There really is no help. All these agencies... I think it is that they learn how to make a case to the government that the government is supposed to provide this, that, and the other, to the people. But a lot of people aren't getting this, that, and the other. They say that they can 'co-ordinate services' so that more people can get what they need, or whatever. They get a bunch of money to do 'service co-ordination'. Then you end up with all these service co-ordinators but no actual services.
All these 'helpful people' want to help me in my lonliness by helping me join a club. Because somehow my lonliness must have meant that I missed out on seeing that the Students Union has over a hundred clubs. Somehow my lonliness must have meant that I missed out on seeing how the public libraries and art galleries and museums and gardens and beaches and streets and parks are full of lonely people who are only too happy to interact with you (whenever they demand it to be so).
We hear there aren't enough state owned houses to meet demand for them - but I'm hearing that they simply will not put me down as requiring what it is in fact that I actually do require. So... They don't even have an acurate picture of what it is that the people are wanting.
All we hear is people with large families. They are constantly marketing that people should produce large families. We are constantly told that they must do this because it is their cultural right and so on.
I think we are the worlds experiment in too many children.
Apparently our plunket program reduced our infant mortality to the lowest in the world.
Then we withdrew social services. I mean... What are teachers to do in classroom sizes of over 30 kids? But school isn't about reading, writing and arithmetic. It is about producing people who can live in their communities. And the communities obviously don't want things like clean drinking water and sanitation (engineers), access to healthcare (doctors), access to legal representation (lawyers) because the communities won't let the kids learn reading writing and arithmetic even when the kids are both willing and able to learn these things. All you need is 1 or 2 or 3 who are either unwilling or unable to learn these things and nobody is allowed to learn these things in the public system.
Either your parents teach you or they privately employ someone to teach you. Nobody is learning anything in the public schools.
Just things like... How to carry your individual surveillance device with you at all times. Stuff like that is what we need for people to know, in their communities.
I didn't realise just how fragile civilisation was. Just little pockets of it here, and there. Mostly not. Most people don't have High School Graduation level skills of reading, writing, arithmetic. We tell them it's culturally inappropriate for them to have such skills and so on.
I didn't realise just how hard housing was going to be.
I didn't realise just how next ot impossible it was to be a person in a so called developed country. To be fair, I suppose it is similarly impossible to be a person in other so called developed countries. Is it? I don't know... I keep thinking that it would be more likely I would have been identified and taken out / educated properly if I had have been raised in a similar(ish) sort of community anyplace else...
I remember.. The school inspectors etc etc did come. When I was very young. They just decided... They decided that it would be better for my community to keep me in it.
My life has never been allowed to be about what is best for me. It has never been allowed to be about what is best for me may be what enables me to contribute my best to the development of the community where I am best fitted / suited.
Other people seem determined to live in sh*t...
I don't want to live, like this.
It really is a rational position.
I do understand that people have this fear that all the people for whom their lives are actually unacceptable... All teh people for whom there is only false hope.. If they all upped and killed themselves then a bunch of people who are happy about their misery today would be unahppy about their lack of misery tomorrow. These people... It's about them, of course. It's always about them.
I'm back in that place again where I can't ask for help, appropriately. That's basically the 'helping' services, here. They waste your time and so on and so forth and watch the situation (predictably) escalate. So then they get to go that you weren't deserving or whatever of help, anyway, because you weren't appropriately supplicant, or whatever.
Their job is basically to delay delay delay until the people go away or die. Death is actually the better solution... Since I'm not going to be allowed to contribute to this country... I'm expected to live my life as though it was a drain on it while people... Profiteer from my misery... From my inability to get away from them...
This is freedom? A free country? Free range... You are free to range freely in the public spaces where you are free to make friends and never be lonely...
We will pretend your biggest problem is lonliness always always...
The solution is for other people to freely hit you and punch you and push you... To mock you and guilt you and cajole you...
That's whats best for your community, alex. Of course.
It takes a village to raise a child, they say. But you don't have to ask your villages permission to have a child that the village is expected to raise.
People insist on having their children... It is their right.
And then they insist that I must interact with them on demand / look after them. Because I have the right to community and I must never be lonely.
Beam me up.
Tick tock.
Posted by alexandra_k on November 30, 2017, at 18:28:12
In reply to Re: politics, posted by alexandra_k on November 30, 2017, at 18:12:02
And I think... What is the point in this?
Is it to 'teach us a lesson'? I kind of think that it is.
To give you exposure to how people don't want to live differently, they like to live like this, they like to revel in their rubbish and they like to live like brutes.
So then when kids do get beamed up to be doctors or lawyers or engineers... They won't feel bad about f*ck*ng up people's lives due to their own ineptitude while they are learning...
They will be able to live with their mistakes...
When you see people have healthy (and delicious) alongside unhealthy options in meal buffets... And you see kids voluntarily heap up their plates with rubbish... You start to think that it doesn't matter that they don't have access to nutritious food. Even if they did have access to cheap nutritious food they would voluntarily choose to eat rubbish. That is what they are doing. There is no point fighting for their access to healthy food because you can't exactly force it down their throats. Feed them sawdust. They actually seem to prefer it.
Of course what is needed really is for one or two or three of these kids to be given scholarships to live amongst a majority who know how to look after themselves. So they learn by total immersion. It's frequency depnedence. It's about the majority culture. It's about getting more and more and more people to adopt the healthy things... The productive things... Rather than f*ck*ng it up by swamping the working minority by the unruly masses.
Little pockets of sustainability / viability.
I don't understand why we are so quick to throw away so very many people who are willing / able to contribute.
It just doesn't make any sense at all.
That's the real tragedy.
Maybe I will be just another statistic.
I don't know that I'll be allowed to function here. We just seem to keep preferring the unruly masses over and over and over and over... And the psychopaths who manage to persuade them that they want nothing more than to be just like them (and who manage to get the f*ck away as soon as they possibly can). The psychopaths who will lead them directly to hell with their 'good intentions'
Posted by alexandra_k on November 30, 2017, at 22:00:00
In reply to Re: politics, posted by alexandra_k on November 30, 2017, at 18:28:12
I'm okay. I'm sorry if it sounds like I'm not. That's why I bury things, here, where people don't read them...
I have this person who is able to come with me to my next social housing appointment. I think she sounds okay... Similar responses to me to various things. That's what you need, basically.
I was thinking... I don't know anyone who only owns one house. Well, my sister's kids own one house. They own apartments that they rent to people. They don't live in their investment apartments, though. Everyone else I know who owns one house, owns another house. That is a problem, really, you have all these people with... People pets.
One of my friends who owns rental property... Likes to talk about the people who are renting in it. She manages it herself... Means she gets to do property inspections, and the like. There is something... Dehumanising. About it all.
Apparently this government is about buying properties for more state houses. Ones that are responsive to need (since apparently the problem before was that the houses didn't match need and / or they were substandard in terms of heating and so on).
Perhaps the thing to do is to... Fill in the application form myself. Fill it in properly. Look at the policy criterion and make a case for what I need. Maybe they will buy me a house. Maybe they will enable me to rent to own it. That is supposed to be the idea of it...
Why not me?
Why must it always be about providing a 6 bedroom house to the people who decided to have 13 kids?
We will see...
I'm not about to lose it now, when I'm so close...
My supervisor is coming to town for conference. A bunch of people are. I'm... Trepidation... There are so many things I want to ask him... I wonder if I'll get to... I really want to know what he thinks about so many things... I feel like the prodigal child...
I'm scared I'll be forced into a boarding house where I feel physically unsafe.
I didn't realise that banks yay or nay mortgages for... F*ck knows why reasons. To keep black people in black neighbourhoods (in the US). To... F*ck knows what, over here.
I like to think it is about ensuring that people who need quiet in order to function highly in important jobs have the quiet they need in order to function.
Because... Communities... Much as they might go on about wanting to live in happy social friendly places... Want things like clean drinking water and bridges and houses that won't fall over, really. Engineers. And they don't want to go blind when that might have been prevented by a relatively simple operation. They don't want to need a heart transplant because they didn't get given antibiotics. They don't want bullies taking their stuff. Beating them up on the streets. Etc.
Anyway...
Thinking about what to do...
I think people are afraid that I'm sent out as bait.
Like how when I was younger the Maaori fulla's used to send me out to stick out my thumb to hitch a ride. Then, when some (usually dodgey guy) pulled over to give me a ride they would jump out of the bushes and jump in the car, too.
When I look for a rental property for myself people think there will be people lurking in the bushes, like that. Ready to jump out of the bushes and move in. That they will be the problem people, really.
If this support lady is presentable etc... Then if she comes along with me *as my support person* and we are on the same page about my having a quiet place in which to work and prepare meals etc...
Someone might decide I'd make a nice people-pet after all.
Is life really like this for... Everyone? Most everyone?
Posted by alexandra_k on November 30, 2017, at 22:33:02
In reply to Re: politics, posted by alexandra_k on November 30, 2017, at 22:00:00
It's supposed to be about people fixating on a local optima and not realising that they are stuck in a local fitness trap. They fight to climb the top of some localised hierarchy not seeing that there are peakier peaks in every single other developed nation in the world.
I think people are still trying to force me into something that they think is best for me... People would like me to be a lawyer. Really people would like me to go back to being a philosopher. Really really people would like me to just go on being ignored by everyone around me in some local community. Really really really people would prefer me to be some kind of blow up doll for them...
People say they want people to be 'more resilient'. By which they mean... That they are insensitive / insensible. They don't understand the sensitivities. They are incapable of making those discriminations. To the best of their ability to see... There are far far far more capable people than there are places for them and so people are nothing more than replacable parts.
But we keep picking such a mixed bag. Really... We lack the ability to tell. TO distinguish. To discriminate. But then so many instances of even current systems being overturned by nepotistic interests. Local optima, again.
People think that a better world is a world where they have a bird in a cage. They think that world is better than a world in which the bird is free. There is no conception of 'if you love something - set it free'. They will never experience another being with them voluntarily. They would rather be surrounded by slaves.
Why are these, awful, people, allowed to be?
Posted by alexandra_k on December 1, 2017, at 17:39:21
In reply to Re: politics, posted by alexandra_k on November 30, 2017, at 22:33:02
It's about the decile rating of the school. I always thought that didn't matter, because I wasn't planning to have a kid and send it to the school. But the village is supposed to raise the kid and the kids are going to be walking about the village.
My school wanted to keep me because they got money for having me and I was easy to manage. I just got put in the corner with a book. That meant the teacher could spend the time they would have spent on me (if everyone got equal time) on a kid who couldn't read yet.
They didn't get me learning maths (were delighted I didn't just pick that up myself / my Mother didn't teach me) because they could make a case that I only had a tiny little pocket of competence. Mostly I fit right on on.
I remember they did have this take-out thing that happened after the inspectors came. We did really innane sh*t like drawing the first letter of our name in block capital and filling it with pictures and talking about what it represented to us. Me and 4 of the 'smartest kids' they could find. None of us were streamed into the highest ability class at High School, even. Only one of those was streamed into the second highest ability class at Secondary (and he didn't even go on to University, I don't think). The others were average or even below.
The highest stream was for the teachers kids.
It isn't just that I live beside a school, it's that I live beside one of the worst decile schools in the country. It isn't the sound of happy kids. It's the sound of hungry and / or beaten kids. Angry kids. Awful kids.
This country has always expected me to live in the sh*t with the shittest people there are. Because... It could. Because people could guilt me and cajole me into believing that this was the right place for me and this is what I deserve.
It isn't about governmnt bonded places... About following orders to commit atrocities... It's about seeing that committing atrocities is likely the solution to the problem... It's about the psychosis (or something) the... Dehumanisation... That occurs to you (in you) as you are forced to live in such an environment.
But there are people who enjoy being the boss of it. Largely... Insensible. Insensitive. People who realise their time is limited and... Their only option in life is to take what they can get for as long as they can get it because... Their capacity is limited.
Maybe their lives could have been different if people were kinder to them and if they were raised as a miniority in a moral majority.. That isn't likely to happen for them...
I am a great person. I have the capacity to be. Not being arrogant... Being... Realising...
And then this idea that there isn't any such thing as great people... It's about the environment that supports / enables them.
How about the environment that simply refrains from preventing them? The environment that lets them work on their schedule (that trusts they know best what is best for them) instead of them having to suffer constant micro-mismanagement by incompetents?
So many of our people leave...
That's why I get to thinking that it's just a place to raise (early years) the worlds rubbish... Take out the odd few...
Are great people... In part... Are they rare? I mean.. Do you need to have a high birth rate in order to produce them? Thinking... In civilisation great people are enabled by the society having certain things... Choosing to invest in certain things... But population size...
Why does NZ want to produce so many gamma babies (extremely liberal alcohol laws and saving oxygen deprived babies so fetal alcohol is around 4 percent and intellectual handicap so high)
Why do we want so many gamma babies for?Is it replaceable parts? Bodies to experiment on?
We don't have informed consent.
Here's informed consent (to share information I provide in applying for state housing).
'The social housing outcomes worth study is a university of xxx study that looks at the effects of housing on health and wellbeing. Some of the information you give to the ministry of social decelopment and housing new zealand will also be used in the social housing outcomes worth study. However, the infromation given to researchers, and the final published research, will not identify you or your family by name'
This isn't informed consent.
If this isn't being bullied into participation (in order to apply for a state housing house you need to participate in research) then I don't know what is.
I don't know that this country wants my person.
which is very sad, really.
I grieve for it's stupidity.
At one point in time I said 'I don't believe I'd have accomplished half of what I have today if I'd have been raised in any other country'. Or similar.
Of course the truth is...
I'd likely have accomplished... 2x... 4x... 6x...
Go forward in thread:
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