Psycho-Babble Social Thread 1100843

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Re: Partlycloudy

Posted by alexandra_k on September 25, 2018, at 4:43:12

In reply to Re: Partlycloudy, posted by alexandra_k on September 25, 2018, at 4:28:07

i think i'll focus on it reading better.

they want me to do the standard thing of trying to have a one sentance claim and an abstract that is a longer version of that. and then heaps of repetitive signposting so the reader is constantly reminded of where they are at in the argument.

but it's not like that.

it's not that kind of thesis. and i don't see why it has to be.

descartes sat in his oven-room and considered a piece of wax.

and kripke talked about words and objects and where names got their meaning.

and you follow along... or you don't.

i don't know.

maybe it's... illuminating. inspiring. hopeful. helpful. insightful. i'm going for those things, more.

but apparently that's not very academic, or something. academic rigour, or whatever.

i read a lot with academic rigeour that obviously hasn't done subject101. you think, if only grand professor of whatever had done philosophy of mind 101 he wouldn't say that. he would make 4 distinctions there and not run all of those together and so on. and you don't need to reference those 4 distinctions. you hear them and it's obvious they are good (useful) distinctions to make.

the best stuff isn't heavily referenced. it's *responsive*. to the times.

and i do have lots of references. but i'm not aiming for a freaking literature review. yawn. i'm not aiming to document the 10+ years of reading i've done over the last 10+ years. and it isn't the sort of project where i didn't know what I was doing so I sat down at the start of the year with a bunch of books and articles to summarise. it just isn't. and i don't see why it has to be like that. or why it should be like that.

so... i'll fix up the garble.

and try and make it read nice. and if it's actually enjoyable to read, too bad. they can fail me for that, then. only i don't expect they will.

worst case (and i'll be f*ck*ng ropable if this happens) but worst case would be they would tell me to go away and work on it for another 6 months. i don't think they will do that.

the deans thing of me working on it for another 2... she needed to do something becaue there was a breakdown between me and my supervisor over this. with me handing it in when i did (becaue the dean set the deadline) without me getting my supervisor to okay me doing that (when she got it into her head my deadline was a couple weeks later).

the solution is that my supervsior is right -- by delegated authority by the dean.

but i don't think my supervsior should have assumed she would be given that delegated authority. and... i don't think i should have assumed what i handed in would be good enough for me to feel... victorious... about meeting that deadline.

peace.

time to read / write. total immersion for a few days... i really need this to go through with as few a changes as possible... as quickly as possible... then i can start worrying about interview clothes (if i'm even selected for interview) whether my eyeball makes me look like i have cancer... how i'm going to afford flights...

(((pc / clearskies)))

 

Re: Partlycloudy

Posted by alexandra_k on September 25, 2018, at 4:54:18

In reply to Re: Partlycloudy, posted by alexandra_k on September 25, 2018, at 4:43:12

because the hours thing is hard.

i mean...

you got the research students who arrive at 10 in the morning. check their email until 10:30. go to morning tea and have a yak. get back. open their document. fiddle about with things... do some reading... go to lunch. get back from lunch. check their email. have a nap. check their email.

then you have senior professors who say '2 hours writing per day'. if you can get yourself into a space where you have 2 hours focused writing each and every day - that's how books get written. and the people who say that seem to be genuine. they aren't teasing or whatever. much of their life is teaching and reading and so on... but they are productive and that's how they say they do it. 2 hours focused writing each and every day. that's 14 hours of focused writing each week. less than 20 hours each week. you go: less than part time writing? But of course reading time is extra. and thinking time and so on.

and it's a creative process and it's hard to say.

i always did used to take however many days of... fairly much total withdrawl from the world. depression... moping around the house or whatever. to get myself into a state where i would write an essay. and writing an essay was something that would be done in... 2 days. a weekend day and an evening. polished properly.

and two weeks to make it better... of course i'll mope until i end up with a few days and then it will be a few days of literally nothing else. like running a marathon. running the final polish of it all.

because for it to be coherent i need to hold it all in working memory. and holding 50,000 words in working memory means i need to read it and hold it and revise it and hold it and i need sufficient distance from before... how it was before...

i hate philosophy for making me feel lazy...

but i did love it for it's ideas.

and i'm loathe to do the whole 'let me google that and find 5 references so it looks sufficiently academic'.

i want the... story... line... i want the line to make sense. the ideas to feel coherent.

 

Re: Partlycloudy

Posted by alexandra_k on September 25, 2018, at 4:59:03

In reply to Re: Partlycloudy, posted by alexandra_k on September 25, 2018, at 4:54:18

and then i want to not do it anymore.

because the people in charge of it all don't have the capacity to see, anyway.

or maybe they do. i don't know.

we had a guy visit and he mentined rawl's original position to a room full of economics / managaement health type people here. and i thought i saw a few startle at the obvious sense of it.

when you hear it it sounds right.

that whole you know it when you see it thing.

that's more what i'm going for. a development / extension of that.

it'll be okay.

 

Re: Partlycloudy

Posted by alexandra_k on September 25, 2018, at 5:09:54

In reply to Re: Partlycloudy, posted by alexandra_k on September 25, 2018, at 4:54:18

and then you have the professors with the houses in the rural places who shut themselves away for a couple / few months each and every summer...

and that's how all their seminars and articles and books get written for the year.

and that's more like me, yeah.

blocks that way.

not part of every day... the time taken to transition in and out of a task... that transition point is painful. physically. owie.

just get into the space... and run with it until you literally run out of gas. couple months. yeah. that sounds about right.

 

Re: Partlycloudy » alexandra_k

Posted by Clearskies on September 25, 2018, at 20:08:59

In reply to Re: Partlycloudy, posted by alexandra_k on September 25, 2018, at 5:09:54

> and then you have the professors with the houses in the rural places who shut themselves away for a couple / few months each and every summer...
>
> and that's how all their seminars and articles and books get written for the year.
>
> and that's more like me, yeah.
>
> blocks that way.
>
> not part of every day... the time taken to transition in and out of a task... that transition point is painful. physically. owie.
>
> just get into the space... and run with it until you literally run out of gas. couple months. yeah. that sounds about right.

So a dedicated academic would be your ideal position.

 

Re: Partlycloudy

Posted by alexandra_k on September 26, 2018, at 1:12:50

In reply to Re: Partlycloudy » alexandra_k, posted by Clearskies on September 25, 2018, at 20:08:59

> So a dedicated academic would be your ideal position.

oh, no, god, no!!!

I just mean that if I was required to write as part of things (and I wouldn't rule that out) then I would want a quiet place to retreat to so I can reinvent the wheel. You know, independently discover the conclusions of Rawls so as to disprove it being an artifact of cultural hegemony.

Haha.

I've been reading wikipedia - can you tell?

No, really, I want to do surgery. Actually do surgery. Not talk about doing surgery. Do surgery. Not apply for funding to do surgery. Do surgery. Not write to / for the journals about surgery. Do surgery. Teach surgery? Maybe one day. I figure before you teach surgery you should probably learn surgery. And practice it for a long while. Write about surgery? Probably not. I would jolly well hope they would be a bit picky about who gets to learn what out of concern that they will go and... Well... There's no shortage of sadists in the world, I've learned.

Insofar as that gets boring... Well, I don't see that it would. If you were doing trauma surgery or cancer surgery then each operation would keep you on your toes, pretty sure. Enough... Variation. Potentially unexpected things...

Yeah.

I expect that would keep me too busy to write about all this woffly crap. Everyone else needs to reinvent it for themselves, anyway. I'm not really reinventing... Documenting. I don't know.

I found this:

'Kant writes in his essay ''What is enlightenment?' that enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immarturity is the inability to use one's understanding without guidance from another. This immaturity is self-imposed when its cause lies not in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without guideance from another.'

That's nice, that. Of course there's also no shortage of people who will refuse to allow you to grow up, if at all possible. Mostly because they need a little help growing up, themselves. They're just doing what they need to do to survive...

Sigh.

I know I'm supposed to say I want to go to Harvard. That's what you are supposed to say. I think some people do get to go, from here, for a time. Maaori people. To do stuff in public health. They don't come back talking about human rights and distributing the burden of development of herd immunity and so on, however.

So, either they're sending the wrong people (I would imagine there is something to that because Maaori have sort of culturally adopted this view of elite royalty Maaori...) and / or they aren't teaching them basic most principles of social justice and the like...

I know each state kind of is like a different country. And I know of my experinece in North Carolina that there is some kind of public health system... Or healthcare for people who don't have health insurance.

I am curious about the UK, though. The NHS... How that works (better than our public health system). I have also recently learned a bit more about Scotland. I didn't realise the Edinburugh model of medicine or whatever... Colonial... I didn't realise that Scotland was such a big country and was quite distinct from England and so on... It's got me a lot more curious about the UK, now. And Scotland, more in particular. Which is one of the points of here. Sigh. The red cross... Yeah...

 

Re: Partlycloudy

Posted by alexandra_k on September 26, 2018, at 1:24:43

In reply to Re: Partlycloudy, posted by alexandra_k on September 25, 2018, at 5:09:54

Because of course I keep talking about Australia -- but that's only because I know rather more about it. Because we are a (impoverished and much abused) problematic state of it, really. I mean... we are treated like second class Australian citizens. We cannot apply for HECS funding (so take out Australian Government Student Loans for undergraduate courses - including Medicine) but Australians can take out New Zealand Government Student Loans for undergraduate courses - including Medicine. So... Their students can apply for and take places here - but not the other way around. Which makes us... Second class citizens of Australia.

Of course it is up to our Government to rescind that. That was the appropriate response when the Australian Government rescinded it for our kids. But our Government did not. Primarily because... They have no self-respect? I guess. It makes no f*ck*ng sense, at all.

But of course I need to look into things further abroad, especially the UK. I say UK because of the whole English Speaking thing. I guess people also do look into India and so on. I think it is about getting clear on requirements for various things. Registration to practice in whatever country you want to be based in long term. Or... If there is an a-symmetry then registration to practice so you have more options open to you rather than less. Then being mindful of.... Tick tock... And making sure you do what you need to do to meet the copious requirements...

I am fairly sure that doors are fairly much closed to people getting to practice in the US if they have'nt trained in the US. There is an a-symmetry on training. In other words... US if you can get it... But you probably can't. You mgiht get to go for a while and learn teh odd thing which you can take away with you. But then I guess it is about being mindful of what you are learning and whether you are wasting your time. I mean... I know there are really complicated operations that can be done. Hand transplants and so on. If you have several workable teams who are capable of doing their jobs such that you can substitute players and not f*ck things up irrevokably. It would be great to experience such a thing. But that... Infrastructure... We are still back at the point of 'and did you put that other half of the medication back in the fridge - or did you leave it out on the bench?' Which is why we have'nt quite managed to get access to a bunch of medications that need to be kept refrigerated yet. In hospital settings.

Which is why, of course, smaller private hospitals. Because you just can't get anything done in public...

There used to be competent people - didn't there? And then they went away? What happened? Or was it always an illusion... It's just that I'm growing up?

?

Probably the latter. Sigh.

 

Re: Partlycloudy

Posted by alexandra_k on September 26, 2018, at 1:30:27

In reply to Re: Partlycloudy, posted by alexandra_k on September 26, 2018, at 1:24:43

No... I think there is an intentional undermining of the public sector in this country.

But the thing is: That's what's happening. And: What you gonna do about it? And the answer to that is: I got nothing. I can't do anything about it.

So... What you gonna do?

Why... I'm gonna do the only thing that seems to be left: Work to get the hell out.

That is what I have been doing...

Trying to get to go to school. That would be great, eh? After all the years of work I've done they might see fit to let me go to school and learn what I want to learn and one day... Maybe before I turn 50 they might consider I've done enough work to get to go to college!

Yeah.

I think they call it.... Development. Or something.

 

Re: Partlycloudy

Posted by alexandra_k on September 26, 2018, at 2:03:33

In reply to Re: Partlycloudy, posted by alexandra_k on September 26, 2018, at 1:30:27

I think it is because we are trying to give it back.

New Zealand.

We are trying to give it back to Maaori.

I think it is a sort of massive social experiment. That works because we are an Island nation and because investment from the UK, the US etc has been relatively low. Perhaps in part becuase there didn't turn out to be high-value natural resources here.

There is a genuine interest in seeing Maaori develop as a people. In seeing them take increasing levels of control over various aspects of infrastructure.

Universities.
Degree Programs.
Schools.

Increasing political representation.
Increasing amounts of money (with treaty settlements) and the like.
Giving shares in mostly-foreign-now companies. Like fishery companies. Becuase the foreign companies brought huge freaking trawling ships and access to foreign markets.

But the process of giving it back can't preceed teh... Cognitive development. And skills. And so on. So that they can run / manage things in humane ways.

So... The guy saying 'we thought it was culturally appropriate'. The issue is that: Somebody managed to sell him (somebody managed to sell elite Maaori) the idea that it was culturally appropriate.

There is still... There is still this element of beat-down-ness that doesn't enable them to stand up for their interests, appropriately.

There is no understanding of human rights. That Maaori are people. That that is why they should have health and houses and so no. Becuase they are human beings. Becuase they are of equal moral value.

I did say that I wanted to help here develop. And I do. But I also need to be able to function. And up unti now I have had a really hard time functioning, here. The only way I could see how to function was, at times, begging pleading ... At times... What felt to me like outright lying --- which is so very... Repugnant... To me... But I simply didn't see any other way for me to get my most basic of needs met in this country.

People go because they can't function here. People... Won't let them.

There is this surgery simulator thing they have up North. I've gone on about it before. But the idea is that it is supposed to 'teach surgeons a lesson' about how they can't operate without buy-in from their team.

And it is supposed to effect teh result that teh surgeons go 'oooooh!' in a moment of cognitive realisation. They now understand that they need to spend several days making sure each and every person in their surgical team is happy and feels heard and so on before they can hope to proceed...

Only the effect is for people to work harder to get out of this hell-hole because they realise they will never be allowed to get anything done, here.

And I'm not sure who is behind all this. I suppose con-munications... Leads me to believe it profits mostly the Americans and English and so on... The foreign nations that benefit from our people working hard to get to go there... At which point those nations get to treat us like cheap foreign labour for all the jobs their locals don't want...

I guess at the end of the day... You gotta keep motivated enough to seek opportunity. Instead of wasting time with alcohol or whatever spend time looking into what options there might be out there. Learn what you can... And at some point you find some kind of a fit where you feel at home / comfortable and you feel happy to nest there. I suppose it might be hand transplant where you go 'I wanna be surgeon number 6 who gets to do the bit where you tie off x!' (over and over and over and over and over and over for very best outcomes for that op in the world!!!). Or you might want to do your own cleaning somewhere closer to the front line. Who knows. I don't know. I don't see how one could know in advance.

It's the story everyone has known for a while, though. You get a team who works well together, and there you go. Things work well.

I don't know why we have so many brain-damaged Maaori in such prominant positions... Everywhere... All around. I don't know why we have so many brain-damaged people. Front lines of hospitals and the like. I don't know why we give these people any kind of power at all when they need help and need not to be in the position of powerful helping. I try and figure out why things are the way they are here and best I can figure is it really is just the way things naturally tend to be when there is the lack of skilled people and the lack of infrastructure.

Of course an alternative to the whole 'they fired the skilled people' is that the skilled people just left. Maybe I am noticing the infrastructure because teh infrastructure is going in. Maybe that is the preconditdion for the skilled people to come and be able to function here.

Maybe the public hospital here has been not up to standard for quite some time and the people in charge genuinely are very genuinely inept.

IN that case there is no alternative but to allow smaller hospitals (OR's really) to develop where the surgeon (or f*ck knows who) hires the whole f*ck*ng team from start to finish (including right to fire if it just doesn't work out). So the whole thing isn't held to ransom by nurse who can't put thing back in fridge or cleaner who doesn't understand spray and wipe isn't sufficient for cleaning surgical equipment.

 

Re: Partlycloudy

Posted by alexandra_k on September 26, 2018, at 7:10:23

In reply to Re: Partlycloudy, posted by alexandra_k on September 26, 2018, at 2:03:33

when i was interviewed for here i met up with someone who i met on a internet board forum. our interviews were around the same time. I was happy to walk but she wanted a taxi - she ended up in the back and I was in the front. I ended up paying (she didn't jump in to split the bill). In the coffee shop she didn't offer to buy me a coffee to split the bill that way.

Of course I could have said 'you get me a coffee because I got you the cab'. But that's not really the way I am. I just make a mental note of how she's not a reciprocater. She's someone who is happy to take more than her fair share - if she thinks she can get away with it. If I get to choose who to work with in future, it won't be with her.

Maybe that's not fair. I would give her other chances / observe how she acts with others.

Anyway... She ended up being offered a place.

That surprised me. She was Australian and had no ties to NZ.

That means the NZers they pick to do Med have no ties here.

I don't see how else to view that.

 

Re: Partlycloudy

Posted by alexandra_k on September 26, 2018, at 18:46:44

In reply to Re: Partlycloudy, posted by alexandra_k on September 26, 2018, at 7:10:23

anyway... i will look into school. i will look into it. i don't want to look into it before i even get into med school, though. because it is too hard if it doesn't happen, you see. last time... nearly f*ck*ng broke me. for real. i don't have anything i want to live for, if this doesn't happen for me. if it does happen i know already it will be complete sh*t more likely than not. becuase whatever people are determined to make this country sh*t and make it a second class version of australia is operating at the level of universities and degree programs, too. and if australia wants to incentivise people to aim for australian universities and pay australian fees to go to them then i guess we are stuck offering cheaper degrees that are obviously inferior. whether australia sees it this way or not - people here seem to, so that is that.

from what i know the us system is hard because of the requirements that are made of people for entry to med in the first place. you have to do degree first and there are breadth (option) and depth (compulsory) components on that. the compulsory components take you across a standard curriculum. we only have 1 year of standard curriculum before med. and even if (and i don't actually know this) the standard curriculum in the US takes you accross only 7 papers - they are spread out across 4 years with 'lighter' breadth papers as well to help you distribute your workload. we just cram them all into one year - which only advantages the students who have had really thorough teaching at secondardy school. and most of our kids in public schools are herded into overcrowded classrooms with kids who come to school without breakfast and without shoes and... you have no idea how bad things are here for most of us.

we are moving to try and get people in as graduates - so they will be better prepared. the idea is they will come to med after having done a whole degree in physiology or biochemistry or whatever. and if the physiology or biochemistry or whatever degrees involved taking people across the standard f*ck*ng curriculum that would be the case. but typically we only get segments of things that are standard curriculum and that are well taught. often lecturers teach... idiosyncratic curriculum. for want of a better term. whatever they like. because they don't know the standard curriculum either.

for example: there is a standard textbook for pathology. it is one that you are supposed to work through or whatever for teh STEP exams or whatever... we use it here, too. there is a big whopper of a textbook. there is also a big whopper of a multi-guess test book to accompany it. so... you might think that reading the book, trying to learn the stuff, learning the answer to the multi-guess would be the way of approaching learning that content - right? and you might hope that the lecturers will do what they can to walk us through the content. to make the complicated and confusing bits (that would take many hours to sort out) clearer for us and more simple to learn. But, no. Instead... They'll introduce all this other stuff that isn't in there. They won't teach the 'standard' stuff that is in tehre. They will insist on making up their own multiple choice questions where they ask us questions that they did not teach us the answer to. I mean... It is like they use the multiple choice to ask us all the things that they don't know. Genuinely. And then when they are choosing for themselves what they are going to mark off as the 'right answer' they just go with the kids who have previously been identified as 'smartest' because of their grades previous years: what res hall they were offered place in: what secondardy school they went to. there is simply deference to that cohort.

i expect there is an element of this everywhere and this is just a... caricature sort of version. like the politician who shows us what a sham things are... i'm sure there is a element of this in the ivy system... to ensure... hereditary advantage... to try and reward people for investing thousands and thousands and thousands into private schools...

on the other hand... shouldn't good teachers be rewarded for being good teachers? wouldn't we wnat to support and reward them for that and support and reward a system that acknowledeges and encourages and allows that?

and the answer is: yes. it's just that i've been rendered null and void and my voice has been considered illigitimate since... forever in this country.

which gets me feeling resentful and locked out. yeah.

and it is hard, i know, becuase sometimes i have dropped the ball because i didn't know. and then people go 'sorry but we simply don't have the resources to help you'. i didn't file my tax return when i was in the US. that was very (very very very very) bad of me, indeed. i went to a whole day seminar on how to do that... but i never did the paperwork. i will have to do that, at some point. to make it right.

anyway...

i will look into the us. instead of thinking i am necessarily locked out. i suppose when it comes to med, here, i was supposed to shotgun apply over differnet years. i just couldn't believe it after that awful aussie girl... then, the next time, i couldn't apply because... local maaori got veto and they vetoed me out. you had to pass all papers and they failed me for... having an opinion. it was public health and you were supposed to (treat it the way they do chemistry or whateve) wrote learn the garble and spout it back). only... i employed prior knowledge and answered their f*ck*ng question and they did not appreciate that. no speaking rights, you see. low levels are when they get to employ incompetents to lord and master over you... just to train you to get the hell out. i guess. i don't know. i can't function there / in that. maaori always have targeted me for worst treatment because they are aware i make their elite idiots look bad. there are plenty of plenty bright maaori. that's the thing. there are plenty of them... it's just that noody is allowed to see that / them. they are the ones who are most abused to stick around and look after...

i wasn't kidding about how maaori are doign so very much better overseas than they are doing here. in this country. it's sad. it's like the maaori leaders have decided on an extinction strategy for their own people, sometimes.

i'm not maaori. no speaking rights. nothing i can do.

just get the hell out.

i've done my time.

i'll look into colleges. i was thinking i can't afford to go to college in teh us. but i will need to pay to go to college anywhehre so... why not pay to go to college in the us -- if you can. why not? i guess it is just... rumour.. or whatever... thinking it is out of my reach. maybe it isn't. other people do. us is filled with immigrants. i will look into it. and... the registration thing... what's the differnece between practicing unregistered in the us and practicing unregistered here? well then, practice unregistered then. i think that's all there is until you get into a college. so... anyway... 1) get into med. otherwise... all bets are off.

 

Re: Partlycloudy

Posted by alexandra_k on September 26, 2018, at 19:42:45

In reply to Re: Partlycloudy, posted by alexandra_k on September 26, 2018, at 18:46:44

The answer is: probably not. But you gotta be in to win and so you basically save to buy lotto tickets. Each application has an associated fee, you see. I think I looked into that and it was AUD$5,000 to apply for orthopedics specialist training in Australia. That gives you some idea. Then you have the fees involved in sitting various examinations. Surgical Sciences examinations etc. The purchase of preparation material and so on.

On the other hand... They know how much you earn. And they also know who goes into the whole thing with trust funds and the like (and would expect a corrspondingly greater contribution given that).

I guess you can hope that the people behind the system / process have an eye to fair-minded. but in any individual case it is a lottery, yeah.

I mean... What's teh alternative to the system / process not being fair-minded?

The worst would be to believe it wasn't (and to give up) when it turned out that it was.

 

Re: Partlycloudy

Posted by alexandra_k on September 28, 2018, at 15:37:50

In reply to Re: Partlycloudy, posted by alexandra_k on September 26, 2018, at 19:42:45

what is tiresome is being required to re-invent the wheel over and over and over and over and over.

It is tiresome because we know it's there. It isn't like it took all that much of a leap to see it's there and work towards figuring out the details.

It is also tiresome because other people have done it already and could teach it which would save so very much time. Then that time could be put to use learning other things which also take time.

And in this way things could progress.

I didn't come back here to re-discover the state of philosophy in the developed world 50 years ago.

And yet, here I am. More fool me.

 

Re: Partlycloudy

Posted by alexandra_k on September 28, 2018, at 15:49:51

In reply to Re: Partlycloudy, posted by alexandra_k on September 28, 2018, at 15:37:50

The lack of teaching thing wouldn't be so very bad if there was sufficient time for people to learn things in their own time. I mean, if they aren't going to teach you the standard stuff (stuff that would enable you to prepare well for foreign examinations) then at least they could go light on the curriculum so the kids have the opportunity to straggle themselves up / teach themselves. Only, they don't. They seem determined to pack things out either so you are forced into group work (preventing individual study / thought e.g., by way of reading) or so you are kept busy learning something along the lines of arbitrary lists.

The stuff they teach you can even actually interfere with the stuff that you should be learning. That's a really great way of branding people to you, make it so the answers you consider right are precisely those same answers that are considered wrong by others. I mean... Talking about answers when it comes to things about the make-up of the lipid bi-layer and the like. When you have multiple choice answers like 'none of the above' vs an answer that nearly fits - but not quite. Which of those is 'best'? No marks for wrong answer or... Why not actively take marks off for wrong answer? You can even give out those sorts of questions (if you have enough of them) well in advance... Then people will 'work through' the answers (collude on the answers) in their residential hall tutorials. The answers will then clearly mark out to an examination algorithm which are the kids of the elite. Objectively. Like how 'I read the newspaper every day' contributes to your liar score (whether or not it is true for the individual is irrelevant).

The trouble with it is that it undermines meaningful activity. I mean... If you can spend literally hours looking into the nature of the lipid bi-layer... Reading Boron's Physiology and Guyton and Hall. Reading whatever dumbed down international version of Anatomy and Physiology they give you this year... And it fairly much always comes down to a choice between 2 options... That is a 'high end distinguisher' question... Because the 'right answer' is determined by collusion from people who are previously determined to be the ones who determine the 'high end distinguisher' questions...

So... What then of all those hours reading Boron's Physiology and Guyton and Hall...

More fool. That's what happens.

And people buy into this system...

And discover their own kids don't do so well because their own kids didn't get to go to Melbourne (or wherever it is that ensures their own kids are the high end distinguishers on the exams they make).

Why would you bother to work when it's random and the amount of work you do (and how intelligently you work) counts for nothing. When it's all just about sucking up to the 'right people' and writing down whatever they say because they say it.

What a horrible way to live.

 

Re: Partlycloudy

Posted by alexandra_k on September 28, 2018, at 16:01:27

In reply to Re: Partlycloudy, posted by alexandra_k on September 28, 2018, at 15:49:51

Only it is not for some people I guess.

You got these awful people who *like* to sit on Medical Selection Interview Panels. I mean, those old school ones like the panel I got. These people who liked to feel like they had some special magical power to distinguish those who are worthy from those who are not and to rank their candidates according to their preferences and judgements and opinions.

These awful people who... Lack the cognitive capacity to read about the sorts of biases that result from these sorts of interviews. These awful people who... Lack the cognitive capacity to see just how in-bred the panel looks / is... To see how they will culturally misunderstand everyone who doesn't look like them who doesn't display a willingness to people-please to them at all costs. Someone who expresses an opinion without seeking approval that the opinion is being well received (someone who will say anything anything anything anything that seems to be gaining their approval). Someone who speaks hesitantly and in response to a subtle frown frantically back-pedals...

Someone who isn't like that... Clearly doesn't want to do it! Is clearly stabotaging themselves! Whatever whatever whatever stories they tell to produce a new inbred generation just like them.

The sort who will look them in the eyes and smile 'pooh pooh pooh rubbish rubbish dear' while giving them a lethal injection (for their own good) because they lack the cognitive capacity to apprehend the inevitable forseeable byproduct of their action is... Death to the individual they are helping. For their own good. Helping take the pain away. Pooh pooh rubbish rubbish dear.

Euthanasia is always wrong always and forever!

It's black and white totally simple.

Palliative care.

Ugh.

I guess that's what it's like dealing with some of the wealthy benefactors. That's why you need to place limits on how much wealth can be inherited. Of course the little old lady I was worrying about... Well... It's pretty likely she's no fool if she's still got wealth and if she was a fool with it it surely won't last her long. She can probably mind herself. There's probably rather more to be gained by controlling money-grubs by projecting the air of foolish and wealthy little old lady...

People do seem to like panderers and sychophants.

I... Don't much. It's tiresome needing to do the mental calculus to stay one step ahead to make sure they aren't screwing you the way they are determined to in the end (they wouldn't stick around if they believed otherwise). I mean... It's a way to live, I guess. If you really don't have the capacity to seek out... Other things and work for them...

I guess that's why those people are determined to have an industry undermining the pursuit of knowledge and... Anything that's not all up in their business, really.

 

Re: Partlycloudy

Posted by alexandra_k on September 28, 2018, at 16:10:48

In reply to Re: Partlycloudy, posted by alexandra_k on September 28, 2018, at 16:01:27

I guess at the end of the day what they are trying to get at is.... Someone who will serve them and pander to them. Someone who will only tell them what they want to hear, and so on.

They aren't looking for the whole informed consent thing. They aren't looking to consult with someone who knows more than they do (which is why they want to ask them).

In an interview setting they ask you what you think about x and y and z. But they don't want you to inform them what you think about x and y and z, at all. They seem to want you to 'cheat' the interview by offering 'socially acceptable responses' where the 'socially acceptable responses' are to be determined by micro-feedback from the interviewer so you get little nods or smiles or eye twinkles when you are on the right track and you packpeddal when you find yourself met with a frown.

That's an assessment of social skills.

Huh.

People really want this in their doctor?

I guess that is why they say the people don't need doctors. They need friends to work for free. Well well well just stay home, people.

 

Re: Partlycloudy

Posted by alexandra_k on September 28, 2018, at 16:25:30

In reply to Re: Partlycloudy, posted by alexandra_k on September 28, 2018, at 16:10:48

but then they want people to work in the public health system and talk to people about their obesity and their smoking.

nooo.. they want people to work in the public health system and talk to *other people* about their obesity and their smoking.

they don't want people to work in the private health system talking to their servants about their mental health issues resulting from their servitude. they don't want people to work in the private health system talking to them about their drinking or... about anything that they don't want to hear.

or, maybe the idea is that if you pander to them for long enough then eventually they might be able to take a slight and very very very subtle suggestion that something along the lines of alterations in their behavior might result in better health for them.

honestly. i expect not all that much thought goes into it.

i imagine you got a bunch of people who like to say they are on medical selection to their friends and more importantly their acquaintances. you got people who like to meet with the other selectors (hence the appeal of the move to having more interviewers and doing what we can to introduce algorithms that make things random rather than discriminatory as they were previously). it's a whole social thing of getting together and having a yak about the field and about what it means to be part of the field. it's a whole group cohesion thing for the people who are part of it. so they get to feel part of determining the future of the field.

and you do see the worst of them... the ones who lack the cognitive capacity to see the harms that could be done and to say they don't want to be part of that process because of it.

random...

there's still veto power, though. to say 'definite no' and apparently to say 'definite yes'. or maybe they just say that to make the candidates sweat appropriately?

it feels like something from Camus... The Stranger... you need to show sweat appropriately...

Otherwise you self select out.

Really?

What kind of awful person would do that to another person?

What kind of awful person would want to present a group they are a part of in this way?

I guess the idea is to want to do it despite of them not because of them. To be 100 per cent clear in ones mind that one would do a better job of it than they would.

I guess that's it.

Can always say. Just say, clearly and honestly. I don't really know what this is about or what I'm supposed to say or act like but I really want to do this. If they are going to do a whole upside down and back to front thing then... Well...

Maybe everyone from the elite hall shall tie a ribbon in their hair...

What you gonna do?

 

Re: Partlycloudy » alexandra_k

Posted by Clearskies on September 28, 2018, at 16:37:11

In reply to Re: Partlycloudy, posted by alexandra_k on September 28, 2018, at 16:25:30

Youre in a tough place.

 

Re: Partlycloudy

Posted by alexandra_k on September 28, 2018, at 16:53:54

In reply to Re: Partlycloudy, posted by alexandra_k on September 28, 2018, at 16:25:30

and of course i think i know better than them because i would have picked me (who could only apply to 2 institutions) and not the australian (who could have applied to all of the australian + 2 institutions). and i would have identified and selected out the person who was willing to be an unfair recipient of an unequal bargain when it was well in their power (and cognitive capacity presumably) to equalise the situation.

i guess everyone just wants the power to do things their way, especially when it comes to them and to their health.

i understand she would likely have been thinking i was a chump and didn't appreciate the value of money or whatever that i didn't call her on the cab thing. i suppose if you are forced to work with people then you do call them on such things or you would be a bystander and they would continually exploit you.

at the time i was actually thinking about Frank and the evolution of co-operation and the issue around why some people will tip a waitress when they are travelling but others won't . and i was thinking that she was like the person who doesn't tip a waitress because they think they won't see them again so it doesn't matter.

only that wasn't it... she was conveying to me that... she was willing to take advantage of another person - if she could get away with it?

that's an odd thing to do prior to medical selection interview. that's an odd... attitude... to work ones way into prior to interview.

i was genuinely suprised to hear she was offered a place whereas i was not.

there was an element of... 'must do this at all costs' that they liked? wtf???

who knows.

just jump through the hoops like a trained poodle so you are less likely to be put in a situation where you are at the mercy of a person who has been trained to jump through the hoops.

because that's the best we've got.

getting away from the awful as much as possible.

i've been thinking a lot about Rawls and i don't understand the stuff on peoples yet. Pogge and others have tried applying the bits everyone likes about fair contracts to international settings but Rawls didn't think it applied. They put it down to post-stroke. But...

Well... I need to think more on it. This idea that people are central or fundamental for morality in some way.

Previously I was interested in this notion of a company or corporation as a person in law. No problem with MPD / DID then there is precedent. But of course in law the whole idea is to remove responsibility from individuals and have the system... Absorb?? Absolve?? Annihilate?? Moral responsibility for individuals. So... Maybe the idea of a company or a corporation as a person is metaphoric rather than real... Maybe it isn't the solution to MPD / DID that I thought. Maybe.. Integrity of a person is required. And I do appreciate that it is something that actually is fairly rare.. The Kantian person... The will...

Anyway... There was something about Rawls... Decent hierarchical people... But something also about responsible countries not continually subsidising irresponsible countries. Something about not treating representatives of countries / countries (e.g., in a UN type setting) as persons.

Persons are primary..

It is important to realise that most countries (systems in most countries) are... Barely tolerant... Of persons. Seem mostly devoted to (serving the interests of) some small miniority with illigitimate 'interests' (e.g., in subjugation and servitude of the majority of their people).

Anyway...

The idea of duty to ones country... No... I think that might be what Rawls' was getting at. Persons is primary. National identity...

I see now that US National Identity (the whole patriotism thing) is because the US is so diverse as a nation. Diversity is destabilising and hard for people to deal with. It requires more cognitive resources to deal with difference and to process it in mature ways. it is... easier to revert to in-group out-group mentality and to exclude difference or do what one can to shut it down. But going on (and on and on) about shared ideology... Brings out the similarity / samness. So you can go on about a land of immigrants and freedom equality and justice for all.

What's the alternative?

I guess the real thing is: When given the option... Where would most people prefer to live? Most people would choose the US when it came down to choosing (with some kind of a comperable standard of living / way of life). Immigration (and visa applications) tell you so...

I have come to see a lot of the self-critique as coming from a place of... Security and stability to allow that. Here.. Much is shut down. I have felt in recent years people have been more interested in silencing me than in listening to anything I have had to say. I mean... Question time in seminars, even. Nobody is speaking up about our lack of building legislation and so on... Everyone just keeps their mouths shut and believes that is required for them to have their jobs and.... Democracy is so fragile here.

I am looking forwards (fingers crossed) to back to Auckland. More international. More immigrants. Less... Inbred elite. Here has changed a lot in the last 2 years since I've been here. Didn't really see any Maaori down here until last year. Apparently there are Maaori here, you just never hear about them. Around 5,000 signed the Treaty in these parts... I don't know how many consider themselves local, today.

I always thought there weren't really Maaori down here. But maybe I am wrong on that. If there are Maaori down here they have been well and truly hidden away...

 

Re: Partlycloudy

Posted by alexandra_k on September 28, 2018, at 17:04:28

In reply to Re: Partlycloudy » alexandra_k, posted by Clearskies on September 28, 2018, at 16:37:11

because genuinely there is a concern about hegemony. a concern about dominant ideology vs genuine progress. there is a tension between us... learning more about triangles and making progress in politics... vs a kind of in-breeding of thought in a way that is untimately self-defeating or undermining.

and so you need to allow.... different things to develop...

because it might be that there are differnet ideal theories of rationality. or different ethical systems or whatever. genuinely different endpoints. pretty sure i went to a talk once that purported to offer a proof of precisely that.

so maybe some of the hierarchical peoples will develop their own... alternative... to the rawlsian (for want of a better term) hegemony...

but it is hard becuase there does seem to be something obviously right...

 

Re: Partlycloudy

Posted by alexandra_k on September 28, 2018, at 17:08:56

In reply to Re: Partlycloudy » alexandra_k, posted by Clearskies on September 28, 2018, at 16:37:11

> Youre in a tough place.

sigh.

yeah. gotta get this draft handed in tonight. then my supervisor writes her reccommendation and it goes to 2 externals. then all that goes to the dean and she decides whether i've done enough or whether they are going to torment me for longer... any longer will mean another year of my life will have been wasted.

delay delay delay...

so tired of the idle

remind me of that when things are going as well as they can hope to in this country when they ensure i have no time to idle - because it is so very clear to all the good use to which that idle could be put.


 

Re: Partlycloudy

Posted by alexandra_k on September 28, 2018, at 17:39:06

In reply to Re: Partlycloudy, posted by alexandra_k on September 28, 2018, at 17:08:56

it freaks me out because of how arbitrary it is. or, how not-fair it is, more to the point.

becuase i have come to fear / believe that it is decided more on the basis of things that shouldn't be relevant. but it is decided on the basis of those things. and we end up with this whole... pandering thing.

that's why people's work is just repeating what their supervisor told them to do. becuase that is all their supervisor would acknowledge. because their supervisor makes them revise things into the way their supervisor wants things to be.

which is fine if you want a replicate of the supervisor, i guess.

only, is that what the supervsior did during their early years? or did their supervisor 'strike it lucky' in finding a way through that didn't involve such pandering? is that how come the supervisor goes on to contribute something differnet to the field? gee, i wonder.

there isn't any accountability, really, when it comes to people finishing. if you have something lined up then you have something to finish for. if you have a job someplace that depends on your being finished there is incentive for the people you are working for to let you go. but that is rare. they expect you to finsih before you get a job. but why would the supervisors let you do that when they can just keep saying 'you aren't ready yet' and make you keep working on their stuff. why would they turn down free labour? why would they free their slave?

lots of people have been writing about it.

auckland said i needed to be finished in 9 months. and you look at an undergraduate workload and one years worth of work is done (in these parts) in 2x13 weeks. that is one years worth of work that they have apparently condensed into that space of time. so... one year of thesis should be able to be done in a shorter space of time than 12 months calender year.

but will they let me when they can (by delaying for 10 weeks even) make it such that i have nothing else to be getting on with next year.

i guess that's teh problem, really, you need some excuse of why you can't just hang abotu being their slave. my mistake was to tell them that if they delayed me then they would effectively be making it such that i was idle for most of next year.

at which point they go 'hey! we could have her work on this for most of next year!'

at which point Auckland goes: It took you 2 years do to 1 years worth of work? We refuse to acknowledge your qualification.

sorry... please start again.

At which point... Somethign something abuot shoot the face off. Can't say I didn't do everything in my power to become a person in this country.

they've managed to delay me and waste my time considerably over the last 10 years...

they just keep refusing to progress me.

But if I moved overseas... Well, I don't think I can do that. I will look into it but I have managed to get myself thousands upon thousands of dollars into debt for here while learning precisely nothing that they will acknoweldge.

But other people do really really really really well living here. All the rental properties they own and so on. Really great life for them.

And their kids who get to go on skiing holidays with their residential hall (and have tutors to tell them the answers to tohe multi-guess).... People have an interest in not letting people like me (people capable of reading textbooks) through... Becuae it's nicer for them to have skiing holidays than to study...

Or becaue the illusion of skiing holidays is supposed to motivate people from lesser halls to work harder?

I don't speak whatever language...

But I do go to seminars and hear them talking about the vermin who use the public health system and see that the fact that I have been identified as a service user means that in tehir perspective I cannot have an academic voice.

The trouble with Australia is my supervisor had spent too mjuch of his life living in New Zealand. That was the problem. Everyoen had a hard time working for him. But he did pick me out as someone who he could... Fail to acknowledge. And basically... Intimidate me into not getting done on time. And if yo udon't get done on time there is no point doing the thing.

That's the thing. If they don't accept it then I'm done.

That's teh requirement on completing a qualifcation in NZ in teh last 5 years. Our qualifications have come to this, now. It's all about the whims and vagaries of...

This country surely seems to be trying to teach me some kind of a lesson.

It isn't about how many hours of focused work you can do (what you can do in a compressed space of time). Nobody cares how fast you can swim a 50 meter. Everyones focused on swimming the channel or whatever and if you don't take regular breaks with your support crew they will get cranky and you will not be allowed to swim the channel at all!

 

Re: Partlycloudy

Posted by alexandra_k on September 28, 2018, at 17:49:37

In reply to Re: Partlycloudy, posted by alexandra_k on September 28, 2018, at 17:39:06

and when i submitted my softcopy i emailed the dean and my supervisior to say that i'd done it and my supervisor starts YELLING AT ME BY EMAIL that it is NOT READY and HOW DARE I DO THAT and i will be FAILED OUT and so on.

because i am not going to stay in teh field and so she has nothign to lose?

i don't really understand.

and then she starts up about how she has to write this thing and so on...

and I'm like: just do the f*ck*ng thing, already. it asks you for your opinion just state your opinion, already.

I guess she wanted a tea party where I pander to her for however long to try and ply her into a warm and fuzzy mood so that she no longer wishes to murder me in my sleep.

I'm not the kind of person who can put on a false smile in the pandering kind of a sense. I have no game like that. I just don't. I don't appreciate it when people treat me like that and I don't treat others like that. Maybe it is a deficit that I am unable to play this game when this is the game that people want me to play. I think about how much of my life has been wasted by people who have lied to my face because they thought they could get away with it and they tell themselves that it was kinder that way that they were just socially smoothing or whatever... It's disingenuous. It lacks integrity. This whole mode of social interaction...

But people mostly seem to want to kill / destroy / exclude me because of it, yeah. Especially when they see that I'm capable of doing things...

It's these awful people in charge of those at the lowest levels who will not allow the people in their vicinty to get started. And I'm not young enough to be able to huddle in with a school leaver herd and there arent' mature students...

Everyone really has just left this country.

 

Re: Partlycloudy » alexandra_k

Posted by Clearskies on September 28, 2018, at 17:58:40

In reply to Re: Partlycloudy, posted by alexandra_k on September 28, 2018, at 17:49:37

:0

 

Re: Partlycloudy

Posted by alexandra_k on September 28, 2018, at 18:02:10

In reply to Re: Partlycloudy, posted by alexandra_k on September 28, 2018, at 17:49:37

the grading thing...

i thought that she was fair minded and stuff but now i guess i see that she just didn't care. just pass them all and they will come back next year and we will get more money. that seemed to be the idea. so they hand in work late, great. i guess that's how they build a solid graduate school of people doing all the crappy jobs nobody else wants for low pay.

i don't trust her ability to be professional and that is sad because I (wanted to believe) that she was professional, before. i don't trust her to be able to sit down somewhere quiet and focused and actually read what i have to say with an open mind trying to understand it. I think it more likely that she'll be multi-tasking and skimming and will jump to a conclusion that i haven't explained well enough if she's missed something.

i think that her skimming largely absent mind will mean she will overly focus on things that are most easy to attend to. that means she won't be focussed on the ideas or on understanding but she will be focused on the superficial aspects like whether there seems to be an appropriate number of references on the page or whether i hvae full stops in the references in teh appropriate place.

i think now about how much time i spent grading. about how i often had the suspicion that i spent more time grading (and writing comments) than my NZ students spent writing their essays. but i alwasy thought: But I'm the one being paid, here, and what are the costs of my being wrong? I was always really very concerned about not crediting a student appropirately for work they had done (e.g., because they had brought in ideas from another course that were hazy to me because I hadn't studied it). I tried to give them the benefit of the doubt.

I guess all this means I do feel that I have deserved or earned things that other people have not.

I know some other people don't have work spaces where they can engage in focussed work.

I know some people lack teh cognitive capacity for focussed work.

Some people don't have ideas really, at all. Does that mean I should be failed because it's not fair that I do?

This whole thing is awful.

The Dean was professional. I don't know that I trust examiners / the examination process, though. We learned that my supervsor thought that she basically had the final say and if she thought it should fail then she'd simply tell the externals that and they would collude. Or if it was passed to them they would assume that it should be passed because the supervsior thought it was okay. It turned out that she was... Just passing the things that came to her, in other words. I told her that I passed her undergrads without penalty when they submitted late like she said. Because I was working for her. But it burned, rather, becuase I worked my *ss off as an undergrad to get my work in - on time.

And now I think she's... Experimenting? With this new-found 'professionalism' to... Use her power to... Try and undermine my completing / being done.

I don't know.

I have manged to conduct myself well. Mostly because I've had here to dump on. (((pc)))

I do not think it is a good idea to process stuff with people IRL. I just don't. I think it makes boundaries /professionalism muddy and unclear. I know people here don't trust me because I don't engage in gossip / dumping with them... I thnk their gossiping / dumping with each other IRL means they have more trouble with professinalism IRL, however.

It is the separation....

The veil of ignorance when it comes to getting on with the f*ck*ng gjob and grading things on their merits and so on.

Anyway...

It is hard because I need to hand in something I know is not perfect. The hard thing is wehther the Dean will sign off on whether I have done enough or not. So far I have been impressed by her professionalism. Also her... She's got that other thing where after having talked to her people behave more professionally. My supervisor. Me. I think she's a good one. Yeah. It's just a... Scary time. Yeah.


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