![[dr. bob]](/dr-bob-sm.gif)
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 10 of 10. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by alexandra_k on March 2, 2016, at 2:00:56
Are you around?
Are you okay?
I miss you sometimes. I miss Babble, sometimes. Not too bad... But I do miss it, yeah.Things are weird, here. Weird... Slightly creepy... More than slightly creepy... Fairly outright creepy. I can't tell whether I'm losing it, sometimes, or whether I'm right to feel creeped out.
I think this country is being taken over... Or that part of this country is being taken over... Or that my little part of this country (central Auckland) is being taken over...
It's been heavily invested in by overseas investors for a while now. Not just here... The rest of the country, too. Weird things... Live sheep being shipped to saudi arabia... Weird things...
Our immigration patterns are shifting... And the infrastructure... Frightens me. Incredably cheap tower block accommodation is going up mighty fast... I don't know that we have the laws or the expertise to legislate safety... I feel mighty afraid that the world is sending it's unruly youth here and that they might just... Decide to raze the city, or something... Something... Something... Sustainability...
The paper reads... Oddly. I feel frightened, Dr Bob. What happened to Fiji, Dr Bob? They tell us 'cyclones' or 'natural disaster'. I worry that it is more 'you failed to manage your population so we decided to manage it for you'. And the sun... The sun burns awful hot.
I'm frightened, Dr Bob. Sometimes... I feel frightened for my life. I can't tell what is going on with the infrastructure... But I feel frightened that my building... That the concrete core is designed so people can't hear us scream when the building goes down. I worry that vents are going to gas us...
I'm afraid, Dr Bob.
I hope I'm over stressed. The alternative... Would be worse.
I can't afford to get out of the city. Not without.... Being somebody's pet. Somebody else's pet. I'm afraid, Dr Bob.
Posted by ClearSkies on March 3, 2016, at 15:56:08
In reply to Dr Bob??, posted by alexandra_k on March 2, 2016, at 2:00:56
I am scared out of my wits.
Posted by alexandra_k on March 4, 2016, at 1:02:36
In reply to Re: Dr Bob?? » alexandra_k, posted by ClearSkies on March 3, 2016, at 15:56:08
hmm... i think i was losing it, a little.
i got this really weird thing... i felt afraid that we had been taken over. maybe by north korea... something... something like that. like how you make a city state a puppet to minimise unrest. like that was what had happened...
red dots everywhere. red circles. 'one'...
and then this idea of different colors... for different classes of people or something like that.
orange is for cleaners and groundskeepers... yellow... the next rung up... something like that... something going on...
there is this cycle way around the city... about wide enough to drive a tank along, i think. high lighting... i think it would be possible to erect a mighty great barbed wire fence overnight... to take out the bridges... to basically lock off the city...
the trains are weird... there is no route map in the station... i can navigate trains in sydney etc okay but not here... online... things seem variable... changing...
i have been feeling a bit better since class started this week... really was terrified before that... went to stay with a friend for a few days... kept thinking that drones were listening in... computer systems being taken over... one... one password for everything...
i still think something like this may be happening. i worry that these buildings have resonance keys... that one could pump the key over loudspeaker and the whole building... a bunch of buildings in the city would go down...
and some weird smells in the city... some people smell weird. we don't normally smell those people... they... don't make it. or they... are imprisoned because they really aren't quite right... the smell of evil... i was smelling that about the place... i think maybe we are taking prisoners and getting them working construction in orange... i think... something something something...
i'm feeling pretty stressed, i guess, because i feel like a lot is riding on my performance this semester.... and it is... and i'm scared...
my classes are all really interesting and i feel like the teachers want me to do well, which means a lot... i can only do the best i can do, i guess...
the homeless people are getting upset here. i guess because their homes are being bulldozed as the new high rises go up. it's all cheap accommodation. they market it as 'student accommodation' because that sounds nicer... but it is basically the cheapest and nastiest accommodation it is possible to construct. shared rooms, even. floors of people sharing bathrooms and kitchen facilities etc. horrible... or apartments that are clearly going to get people packing into them like that... we've became... the cheapest place... western society place... to send your kids... or whatever...
i don't know.. it is hard to tell..
i remember orientation always used to be about the non-students, really. i loved orientation when i was a high school kid. we would go party at the uni in the evenings. and people who aren't students... they go hang out at the events. contribute to the noise etc. dunedin... they are saying that the majority of noisy and unruly and criminal people... they aren't students. they are just attracted to the students. to the university.
part of the problme is the drinking age being 18. so university students can all drink. and so drink they mostly do...
anyway...
i guess the more i talk about stuff like this... the safter i feel... because people will look into things if things go wrong... if i go missing or my building falls down or whatever.
the building here is weird... i don't know if it is building management here or what... but there were posters of RA's (for example) and people... start pushing push pins through their eyes or gouging out their eyes or mouths or whatever... i find it really horrible. creepy. you can say 'kids being kids' as much as you like... there is something twisted and disturbed about it that... sickens me. that people would do that... who live in my building. i don't understand.
university students?
i don't think so... i don't think university students would do such a thing....
'equity'. and somehow... that's the kind of thing university students would do... i don't understand.
Posted by ClearSkies on March 4, 2016, at 21:30:09
In reply to Re: Dr Bob??, posted by alexandra_k on March 4, 2016, at 1:02:36
I could read your distress.
The pressure of performance would definitely heighten my problems with my surroundings. Having said that, I honestly do feel more threatened now than ever before.
Posted by alexandra_k on March 10, 2016, at 0:18:07
In reply to Re: Dr Bob??, posted by ClearSkies on March 4, 2016, at 21:30:09
Things seem a bit better now...
If things were just the same... Things seem less threatening, somehow. Even my bank seems to be toning down the red and moving into various hues of purple...
I still strongly suspect that this country has been taken over. That it is a puppet. I suppose that is the cold, hard, truth of the situation. What is frightening (to me) is that it is a puppet of asia rather than a puppet of the US or the UK or even Australia. It frightens me because... I don't even know that it is asia. It could be the middle east. For all I know. The language barrier... And the fact that so very many of them have gone to the trouble of developing a freaking good understanding of English and meanwhile... I have no comprehension... It feels frightening... In large part because it feels confusing and alien.
I feel a strong sense of sadness towards our chinese community. We keep going on (and on and on and on and freaking on) about the Treaty of Waitangi and our duties (or whatever) towards indigenous population... But there were a bunch of Pacific Islanders who came over here when we needed them to work industry etc... Only to have dawn raids (police seeking out illegal immigrants at dawn) when we didn't feel we needed them so much... So sometimes you hear about MPAS (Maaori and Pacific Islander) 'special status'. But then you look at how we also let a bunch of Chinese in when we felt we needed them and... We are still really f*ck*ng racist. Like seriously... And part of it is fear because of the language and culture... Difference... Barrier... But a heap have seriously invested in this country. By which I mean... They've freaking moved here. They are raising their children here. I mean, seriously, they are as Kiwi as I am...
But then there is something different, again... Those who invest in infrastructure here who don't live here. Or those who invest in city infrastructure who don't live in the city. That frightens me. Not just of foreign investors, also of local investors... No, that's not fair, it frightens me about foreign investors more because conditions are worse for the worst off across the majority of... The non-western world. Is that true? Do I have that right? I don't even know anymore...
There are aircraft at night... I don't suppose it is anything that I didn't see in North Carolina... Military craft. Not the sound (speed) of domestic flights. And domestic flights tend to not fly over land in so far as they can help it (and we are a freaking island)...
I think we have probably been occupied...
There was this horrible horrible horrible horrible horrible thing that happened... Fonterra. It is a big dairy company in NZ. Milk powder. They marketed milk powder to china. Cleaner. More hygenic. Etc etc etc. It was poisoned. We freaking poisoned a bunch of kids. I don't know more about what happened with that... But I know if I was Chinese... If I didn't live in the city here but was investing in the infrastructure of the city here... It was a horrible horrible horrible horrible thing...
And many of the people who are arriving here and used to the whole 'one child' thing... Only to find families with 12 or 14 or more children.. The whole 'throw your spores to the wind and see what survives to nurse you in your old age' childrearing strategy... And they all get to go to university (in the name of equity). Even when the culture doesn't support their reading or writing or learning any math or anything (because you have to look and smile and look and smile and look and smile and squawk with happiness on demand constantly always forever)...
But I don't feel the terror that I was feeling before about imminant danger. I was panicked about imminant danger. That they were going to raise the city... That they were going to erect the barbed wire fence overnight and man the entry / exit bridges with snipers... That they were going to raise buildings full of 'vermin' people... That there were 'bug' (flying insect) recording / transmitting drones... That level of 'paranoia' is gone from me... The newspaper... Is back to reading... Horrible horrible things going on in the world... But I don't fear that there has been a total take-over with horrible English translation... Or that the 'real writers' are screaming out for help in code... Colors don't seem to have 'special significance' anymore... And the new computer system with the whole 'one' theme... Turns out to be not as good as I'd feared (is that makes sense). Just another in what will obviously be a long succession...
Back to relative normal, in other words.
I'm afraid... That is university here is fairly corrupt, actually. I suppose part of that is simply what they had to do in order to be a top 100 university, at all. But then just a whole heap of corruption layered on top... I am afraid that I won't get to do med. Or that I'll be set up to fail... Whatever... Whatever... Along the way.
I am enjoying all my classes, though. And... If I do get to do med after this year and next year... I will be glad that I got the opportunity to do the science I've done (am doing) beforehand. Really very.
We did this induction thing to the human anatomy lab... I was so very afraid... Because of how I'd said 'I really want to be a surgeon' or whatever for a while... But I've never seen a dead body. It was... Wonderful. Atmosphere was really respectful.... It wasn't freaky at all. Apparently people are freaked out by hands... I was freaked out by plastinated disembodied hand... But actual, attached hand... It just felt like saying 'hey'.
There is this pathology / sort of a museum aspect... With a bunch of real skeletons etc etc that I can access... That is kinda cool... No actual anatomy (dissections etc) unless med school, though. And then... 10 people to a cadaver. I guess I think... One sort of has a duty to learn as much as one can from books (and animals, even) before really taking the time (spending the hours) on doing such a thing... Properly. Really eeking as much learning out of the experience as possible. Because there is nothing more intimate than donating your body to science like that... And having the opportunity to do that... You don't want to not be making the most of the hours you could be spending in the lab because you don't know how to calculate freaking concentrations or whatever...
Anyway... Have a bit to be doing, yeah.
And feeling much happier for being kept busy.
Posted by alexandra_k on March 10, 2016, at 0:35:13
In reply to Re: Dr Bob??, posted by alexandra_k on March 10, 2016, at 0:18:07
So... The medical school here is accredited with the australasian whatever until 2022. Or something like that. I guess that is one of the things that frightens me...
I have come to realise that NZ basically is a 'southernmost territory' of Australia. NZ'ers joke about how they offered and we didn't accept and so on... But the fact is that we are lucky if they see things that way (if they feel duty of care towards us). Without that...
I fear that we have in fact been sold to the highest bidder.
That our politicians have in fact sold us out to the highest bidder. I honestly do think... That that is what has happened.
They have been... Totally intimidated on the world stage... And... The western world... Doesn't feel duty of care towards us. I suspect that is the truth of it. The whole England thing... They sort of tell us that it is about England interfering with things over here... But the reality of the situation is that England has had this sort of duty to look after colonies for a while now... And I think they would be fairly stoked if we would look after ourselves (e.g., not try things through their courts at their expense)... But we have simply lacked the expertise...
And I see that. Reading government documents... Reports on various things. Reports that have been commissioned on looking into various social problems... Genuinely... There is a social problem (which nobody would deny) and who are the parties that have a legitimate stake in the issue and what are their interests and what should we do given constraints and competing interests and so on... And some of those Australian reports read pretty f*ck*ng well. By researchers who have genuine intellectual curiosity and who are trying to portray things (and people) as honestly and fairly as they can...
And ours just read like someone shoved the question into the post-modernist essay generator. And the thing is that people here don't seem able to tell the difference. That is what is so f*ck*ng scary to me. That people can't f*ck*ng tell the difference.
What do you do? What can you do? When those in power can't tell the f*ck*ng difference?
Anyway...
Posted by alexandra_k on March 10, 2016, at 0:58:38
In reply to Re: Dr Bob??, posted by alexandra_k on March 10, 2016, at 0:35:13
Anyway... So a bunch of medical school places go to international students. Who pay a lot of fees. But who don't get guarantee of work placement where work placement is part of the accreditation process. And so the idea is that they might want to train here... If they can go home for the placement and accreditation (if they will accept our training for their own accreditation system).
Otherwise... For locals... I'm starting to get the sense that... There is a local interest in selecting local candidates who will scrape through the Australasian accreditation process such that they will take the bottom of the food chain positions here in NZ. The best positions in NZ will (of course) go to Australian graduates (who don't quite make positions in Sydney or Melbourne or wherever). Basically... Out of reach of the NZ grads. Pretty sure...
I feel this sense of ambivalence...
Science is a weird thing. Let it be official. My official opinion (fwiw ahahahaha f*ck*ng ha) is that y'all are a bunch of weirdos... The whole accreditation thing is about jumping through hoops. A succession of hoops. Such that you learn the most important lesson of all: To go 'aaaaaaaaaaw feel better' in the face of palliative care. Because: We don't have a health system. We can go 'we have a government funded equitable health system' by which we mean 'everybody gets exactly the same: nothing'. So... Nods and smiles... And so on... And the system is answerable to: Lowest cost and highest customer satisfaction. The reason nobody cares about actually educating people is for the obvious reason that customer satisfaction would go down. We educate people about the dangers of 'unnecessary tests' and 'unnecessary treatments' and 'dangers of antibiotics' (nevermind heart valve issues from your rheumatic fever) and so on...
But Fred Hollows did this awesome thing of going on tour... Across the Australian outback... Doing eye cateract surgery... Saving heaps of poor people from blindness...
And I have a vision.. About f*ck*ng grommits. And about the world being quieter...
haha.
Anyways....
$150,000 it will cost you. To get your brain tumor removed* (*ymmv). And.. Depending on the person... The amount they earn.. How many working years ahead of them... It could well be worth the government funding that surgery.. For, uh, some population or other... (Macquarie, Sydney).
Anyways...
Lemmie play. No fair.
I'm afraid I"m getting older. But then, that's a myth we tell so the young'uns go off to fight (die) so that most of the rest of us can live in happy democracy (without too many kids). Unfortunately... NZ hasn't seen fit to send it's (many many many many many) unruly youth for glory or else... For a while now... I see that's why we should respect those who died 'so the rest of us may live'... In the conditions we have been accostomed to... I Mean... Imagine if they ALL had felt entitled to a university education...
I feel afraid...
All I can do is work as hard as I can and hope I do okay...
LIfe is very different at a university... With high stakes. That's the thing. Where I studied before... The arts... Flourished. Actually. Here... Oppression. There are high stakesk things in the vicinity... Engineering (think what you could potentially do for infrastructure / the impact you could have in undermining a thriving exploitative business)... Law (well respected school... Medicine.. Etc... Higher stakes here... But also: The city. Attracting the unsavory elements that are attracted to... Cities.
I do miss Canberra. The whole: There is nothing to do in Canberra but: Work. And talk to people who are enthusiastic about their work. Researcher's heaven... And not many undergraduates... And a civil service full of former PhD students... Why do they want to sent the NZ PhD students back home????? How are we supposed to function here, nevermind flourish?????? And suppose we want to do what a bunch of Aussie students do: Go do med school. No graduate studnet pathway for us. Will y'all even let us do that before we retire???
C'mon.
Let someone do poplhlth in a way that isn't following the whole extermination strategy. Lets pick the working parts of culture and work those parts forward for the benefit of the whole fukcing world. Puh lease.
Posted by alexandra_k on March 10, 2016, at 1:32:05
In reply to Re: Dr Bob??, posted by alexandra_k on March 10, 2016, at 0:58:38
> Otherwise... For locals... I'm starting to get the sense that... There is a local interest in selecting local candidates who will scrape through the Australasian accreditation process such that they will take the bottom of the food chain positions here in NZ. The best positions in NZ will (of course) go to Australian graduates (who don't quite make positions in Sydney or Melbourne or wherever). Basically... Out of reach of the NZ grads. Pretty sure...
Okay. And so one response you might have to that is: F*ck you! We don't want to be part of your accreditation system anymore! We want autonomy and independence!
And... As in the law case: If you were capable of passing laws / making medical decisions that actually benefited your local populations (across time) then: that would be true..
But unfortunately...
And how much duty of care do we feel to save y'all from yourselves, again????
It starts to wear thin... I get that... But little more help is needed so people *can tell the difference* in which case you can trust their selection process...
I mean if I (as an example) can be selected for top 3 program in the world for Philosophy of mind / biology / cognitive science can't even get more than 30% for first year population health papers... Something is wrong (and probably not for me)...
Part of the problem is that people are selecting for / putting forwards the WRONG CANDIDATES. Because they don't understand what skills are valuable later. partly because they never managed to get those skills themselves... But the real problem is when they are incapable of identifying those kids / skills when they see them.
I suspect the Maaori kids who are most likely to flourish in modern western society... Are lost to 'cot death'. Aka: They are either shaken or ignored because they failed to respond 'appropriately' to Maaori culture. Aka: They are kids who delighted in being left alone; kids who got upset in response to 'over-stimulation' / constant stimulation by other people. Like those locusts... The 'solitary locusts' who didn't have their hind legs stimulated by overcrowring / paintbushed grad students vs the 'gregarious locusts' who were constantly stimulated by others... Who have a tendancy to be 'pro-social' in constantly seeking the company of others (aka: antisocial swarming behaviour....)
If we are 'cut loose' from the Australian medical system... We have been cut loose, indeed...
That will make me very sad...
It seems to me that we are only willing to put forward candiates we are fairly sure the Australian system will reject... Because we think those they will accept won't stay here voluntarily. We say they leave 'for the money'. But the fact is: It isn't about the money. The fact is: It is about everything other than the money (though the money required such that one doesn't have to listen to people squealing and yelling and whooping and demanding attention 24/7 on demand) is considerable... If one wants a location to live in the world such that one doesn't have to listen to the late night antics of drug dealers and party goers and students who are going to blow off their classes and dole bludgers who don't have any committments at all.... If one wants a location where one can get a good nights sleep so as to be functional and alert the next day (and not hung-over or under the effects of mj or other readily prescribed sedatives...) then one needs...
More than one is earning now...
Just enough to feel sociopathic towards all of those people who prevent...
Such that one needs to be rich enough to be...
Unaffected by them.
By their decision to (noisily) climb fences they shouldn't at 12 or at 1 or at 2 or at3 or at 4...
Or just to have their own kids screaming at 11 or 12 or 1 or 2 or 3 because they are too drunk or high to attend to them...I hate this country the more I'm in it.
Central Auckland.
And I see how people live in Remuera. And even more 'humble' (mansions) in ponsonby...
And I just f*ck*ng hate this country.
I hate it.
I do.
Posted by alexandra_k on March 10, 2016, at 1:40:06
In reply to Re: Dr Bob??, posted by alexandra_k on March 10, 2016, at 1:32:05
Because I find myself yearning for a sniper rifle to take out the noisiest of the next building over (and their progeny)
Who simply will not shut the f*ck up
Partly because... They have no reason to. They probabably have no job.
Of if they have a job they don't need to be particularly functioning for it
or if they need to be functioning for it they can't live with it (in good conscience)so they think it is a good idea to create noise such that they disturb the sleep of people who live in the 5 or more buildings around them...
so disturb their sleep they do...
so you have people... who live in teh city who work in the city... who get next to no sleep. with the traffic coming from the harbor (hey at least our harbor didn't blow up - yet - harbor in china blew up and took out many houses and buildinga all around harbour)...
including studnets... in student accommodation for university...
problem being: find 5 of y'all and someone with dr parents to fork out for nice house for you and all y'all friends (pets! loverly pets!) to live without pests of the city...
why don't pests of the city realise that they are only undermining those who might speak out on their behalf?
not that smart...
?
f*ck knows.
all i know is: the way this country is going: being rich enough to escape the 'vermin' is only viable option.
we so corrupt we don't even think there is such a thing.
lowest of the low will undermine anybody smart enough to seriously question inheritance of our own dumb as posts but exceptionally lovable progeny.
f*ck yeah.
love this country.. gotta. otherwise... just bomb the f*ck out of it and enjoy the summer... y'all have been telling me for a while now... iget it... i really do... f*ck*ng *ssh*l* of the world... no kidding... and simply WON"T LET YOU do anything to hel pit move forwards...
Posted by alexandra_k on March 10, 2016, at 2:24:13
In reply to Re: Dr Bob??, posted by alexandra_k on March 10, 2016, at 1:40:06
and now lets suppose for 5 minutes that one is the kid of doctor parents...
and those doctor parents forked out the private school tuition fees such that you got to experience a private school education (along with their and / or private tutors tutelage)suppose that...
and now suppose that some public school kid beats you in the first year university exams (for medical school selection).
well, now, that's just unthinkable - right?
I mean... why would you spend so very much money on private school education for your kid - if you weren't (effectively) buying them a place????
i mean... sad (but true) fact is how intelligence and motivation just doesn't seem to obey hereditory lines. and you take a bunch of people who are too hung up on heredity to properly acknowledge the power of succession of (such things as) Good Ideas.... and.... you have selection for some of the more stupid elements of society (imho).
NZ seems to me to be a case study in how long idiocy can succeed in the face of the world... For how long will the world tolerate such idiocy before simply deciding to bomb the f*ck out of it (because they can or because they want the rest of the world to see they can) because... What is there of value there? I mean... They can't seem to tell the difference between post-modern essay generator and actual cognitive engagement. They can't seem to tell the difference between health care and customer satisfaction. They can't seem to tell the difference between quality materials and branding. They can't seem to tell the difference between education and advertising. They cant' seem to tell the difference...
So what loss is there in the world without them?
What loss to humanity?
I start to ask myself.
And... I think it isn't doing me any good for me to be living here. And I don't see what good it is doing to NZ when they can't seem to tell the difference, either. AkA: australia : Is there really no place for me? I see why you want me to go home... To help things here... But I have no power here and people here can't tell the difference (won't listen to my opinion in any respect)... So...
Am I really that disposable?
Surely... YOu have invested in me as well...
?
This is the end of the thread.
Psycho-Babble Social | Extras | FAQ
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.org
Script revised: February 4, 2008
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/cgi-bin/pb/mget.pl
Copyright 2006-17 Robert Hsiung.
Owned and operated by Dr. Bob LLC and not the University of Chicago.