self-reflection

"Iain thinks in facebook statuses."

This thought came to me today, after two "Iain is..." statements flashed through my head in a bizarre form of dialogue. I realised then that facebook is actually quite effective at making one think about how they are at any point in time, if that one frequently changes their status. I think this effect is heightened when that one tries to use creativity in their status formulation, since they look around them and into their deeper-than-surface thoughts for material. I'm fascinated by this... it seems relatively innocuous, but over time it has changed how I think. For better or worse, creating a single line of text in the third person at various times in the day has changed how I perceive the world. I don't know whether to be amused or scared... probably both!

In other news, my room echoes when I sniff.

I really enjoyed my time out of the city... I was so relaxed. I was relatively calm [no tired fingers, not clam, calm], happy, and pensive. I even bought myself a little holiday project - an instrument cluster for my car that has a tachometer! Woo! (it's really the automotive equivalent of an oscilloscope on a stereo - it tells you stuff you like to know but don't need to know - meh). I'm going to fit it sometime later this week, once I've figured out how to make the odometer reading match the one in my car so it's all legal and stuff. But yes, calm. I was able to think; this has escaped me over the last few weeks. I don't mean process, I mean think - the kind of thinking one does when one is washing the dishes and just feels like letting their mind frolick for a while. My mind has done some frolicking these last two days, and it's been great.

Also, there is nothing like the bush. I love it. I love that I could sit atop a mountain that sits above a freeway, seeing that freeway dwarfed and insignificant when compared to the vast forested hills and valleys beyond it. Green to grey to black of night... all beautiful.

I was also struck, walking back down the mountain in the dark, with the thought that I am technically a predator. Only in definition, I decided - though we sit atop the food chain, the majority of us have never even had to grow or kill our own food. Food could look me in the face and I'd pat it's head, unless it tried to eat me and then I'd probably run away. Some predator I am.

EDIT: I'm going to Club Veg!!! :oD

slow learners

I found myself wondering today why, after over 200 years of European presence here, we're still using so many European methods. We seem to forget that this country gets very, very hot. We use so many dark colours, we use so much water and recover so little, we don't make use of natural air flow, we dress in suits and ties, and we don't seem to expect the fires that the bush needs. We're pretty much living in a desert, using methods developed in one of the soggiest corners of the earth. I just don't think we've adapted to it very well!

P.S. For some reason I really enjoyed the south-west Sydney heat today. It's dry heat, not sticky. Nice.

P.P.S. I totally smurfed my MR knowledge test today, praise God! Next step: Induction!

second guessing

Something else I aways do is to second-guess the diagnoses of medical professionals.

As an example. I once went to an after-hours GP and was diagnosed with an outer ear infection. I looked it up and disagreed, seeing that my symptoms more closely matched a middle ear infection. My regular GP agreed and I got fixed up good.

Right now, I'm seriously doubting my need for glasses at all. I'm sitting in front of my computer with a bandana (spelling?) tied around my head covering my left eye, giving my right eye a bit of a chance to work. Apart from all the garbage my half-closed left eye is giving my visual cortex right now (funky patters... kinda looks like swarming bacteria), I can actually see letters on my computer's screen clearly. Much better than a few days ago, and no glasses.

Think I'm gonna have a word with my optometrist. First, though, I have to finish this darned essay.

outcomes

I always hypothesise the outcomes of hypothetical conversations.

These conversations aren't very far removed from possibility. Most of them are, in fact, fairly plausible, though I think that over the course of my life (and I have noticed myself doing this for many years), there might have been one time when something I'd hypothesised actually happened. For the most part, they depend on one particular event, or one particular turn in conversation, which is often quite contrived and dependent upon the clear expression of what is going on in my deepest thoughts... a rare occurrence. So at best, these hypotheticals show either what I would like to happen, or what I expect to happen.

When I hypothesise the outcome, it's equally telling. It shows what I want, or what I expect, and generally how much I want or expect it. Often there isn't even a set outcome, but just a sense of it. Whatever the case, it sets forth my feelings before my psyche with false tangibility. This sense of tangibility of the outcome of a conversation actually affects me. It can make me unreasonably angry, or it can make me unjustifiably hopeful. Either way gets me into trouble.

Hypothesised outcomes are hell to deal with when you're working with a limited emotional overhead.

To what extent is the "I'm not here, this isn't happening" approach a rational one? I know it's exceptionally hard to justify, but it's also somewhat instinctive. While the nature of a thing doesn't justify it, I still feel compelled to ask this question as I try to distinguish between healthy emotion and destructive self-pity.

More questions playing heavily on my mind: When did I get so short a fuse? How long is this foul temper going to last? And what can I do about it? What on earth can I possibly do about it? Is there any way I can avoid the hypothetically-concocted outcome?

cello

I saw my cello for the first time in a very long time tonight. It normally sits in the corner of the room in its case, but I opened the case to show my housemate. It only made me want to play it again even more. I'll have to give it a play these holidays, and see if I learn to play it functionally or something.

There are a lot of things I want to do over these holidays - I'm expecting it to be quite an exhausting time. If you notice me spending all my available time watching TV or playing computer games, please reprimand me. I don't want my life to be dominated by these things.

I'd really like to make some music.

Oh, and I'm about to become a fully-fledged academic - I'm getting reading glasses.

And in completely unrelated news, I'm still getting used to the fact that most of the people I hang out with are younger than my little sister! It's basically an unexpected and yet not entirely unpleasant redefinition of the word "peer". Man, it's going to feel weird when I finally find my feet in the world.

nationalism

Australia: "We are one, but we are many..."

America: "Though we are many, we are one..."