Finding Positive in negative

With uni started, I thought that doing two core subjects with two "general education" courses would mean that I have more time to myself. Unfortunately this seems to be the complete opposite side of the fence; I seem to have picked a course which people choose to avoid because it is known to have a serious negative effect on your WAM, and my two general education courses state in the outline that they require up to 4 hours per week of reading, plus 3 extra hours for essay writing. Ouch.

.... Well, with that aside I'll make a rather belated post. Unfortunately I was unsuccessful with my endeavour to make USyd med this year, but I just think now would be adequate to write something on being able to find a positive experience stemming from a negative. I had the same sort of mindset when I finished high school, I was saying to myself there is no way that I won't make medicine after high school! Yet a poor UMAT score and an-excellent-but-not-quite-100-UAI later, I found myself in medical sciences at UNSW. Having thought about everything carefully, in retrospect, had I made medicine then, I don't think I would've achieved a sense of maturity that I feel many in undergraduate medicine lack, something which I think does nothing good for the medical system; and I may also have fallen into that big hole that, after studying the medical science, maybe it wasn't something that I wanted to do? To the science part - I have discovered that it is something I truly love. To be honest, my only belief in the study of medicine is that of a postgraduate degree, but to many of my friends that may read this that are performing undergraduate medicines, I feel bad generalising because you guys do such a great job (from what you've told me anyway ;) ).

But in seriousness, I think a larger degree of thought is required before one enters into the profession; a conversation with a good friend the other day let me realize that the pressure from ones' family is still enough to push them into studying medicine. Unfortunately, we are so tied up with the glory and tradition of medicine, and there is a common belief that it is an easy career with a high amount of achievement - and no doubt it is, but there is also a lot of work that we aren't informed of, and a lot of political games that we have to play once we make it in. I feel that the postgraduate courses give one a better chance to see what opportunities are out there, in life, before one is rushed into a career that requires up to 80 hours of work a week. This speaks especially true for the US courses, in which one must complete undergraduate studies before he/she is admitted into the medical school.

Anyway, this sounds like a rant from a jealous student that didn't quite make it in - but remembering, everything is a blessing in disguise; and I am not feeling let down by my failed application to USyd this year. The interview experience was a lot of fun, and I hope I will get an offer at a different school too. I just feel that in the meantime there is so much else for me to do, including expanding this very blog to get more people reading it, so that everyone can hear what I have to say :D

And finally, just try to find that bit of positive, in negative situations. Don't always look upon things as a complete failure; usually there is a lot more you'll be able to take away from a negative experience, and most of the best learning is done the hard way. Keep that in mind, have a look at the flip side of the coin and keep your motivation up :)!

Things on my mind

Haven't gotten all the info together to do that post on my health-related thing yet... mm.... Sensing procrastination... So it'll still be a bit of work in the making. But here are just a couple of things on my mind.

• It's raining. Hard. Rain seems to make everything go slower. I still find it impossible that it transformed a normally-twenty-minute journey-by-car into a two-hour-sit-and-wait-for-traffic-to-move-but-it-never-do... you get the point... 
• There are some really clever learning systems out there. Just had a look at a fellow from the US's blog who is studying medicine and was asking about different ways of learning. One of the guys that commented suggested something called the Leitner System. Check it out if you want a really interesting way to learn stuff (good for science students, not sure about the rest :3 )
• It really ticks me off when other people are just too lazy to care about things that are really dear to them, or if they can't be bothered to expend energy and effort to be considerate. Guys just keep it in mind that you gotta be considerate to everyone else; it reflects badly on you if you're a bit of a slob :P
• Appreciate what you have, whilst you have it. Yesterday, when I went to feed my dog for dinner (it's been pouring where I live), he was nowhere to be seen (shocking, because he always goes spastic when he sees us walk downstairs, let alone feed him). Started getting worried, looked around the house and then ran out in the rain for about 40 minutes looking for him. Needless to say, due to the crazy rain I expected the worst, and it was definitely the longest 40 minutes of my life (running around in the rain too didn't help) but it turns out that he was hiding underneath my brothers desk the whole time, and he was now whimpering and scratching at the door because (we think) he needed to pee. Chances are he just wanted to eat dinner; but the whole emotion of worrying cracked and I just cried uncontrollably. :( So those people who probably know me a little better think I treat my dog badly, but I love him very much nonetheless. 
• And finally, but very very importantly, the iTunes festival is running at the moment! Tomorrow morning at 6.15am (Sydney time), COLDPLAY will kick off their live section of the iTunes festival which should be really exciting :D I am totally waking up to watch this, check out the details here, and then watch it! It should be excellent (Really hoping to hear every teardrop is a waterfall LIVE). AMAZING-UUUUUuu.....

That's it :D

Society: Putting things all together

So in this third part of my mini-discussion on just becoming more aware and bettering yourself, let's quickly recap what's been said so far: Try not to pigeonhole and just be a little bit more aware emotionally. So what's the point of having gone through all of this without actually applying it to society? 

Society, especially Australian society, is one where we participate in a multitude of daily activities; we are constantly interacting with people of different races, all of whom have a different set of values. At times it might be easy for us simply to avoid the types of people that we dislike associating ourselves with, but a lot of the time we choose not to associate ourselves with them because we don't fully understand them. Homophobia is a particularly worthwhile example to mention, because even though these people are much like us, there is a general "fear" of this particular group of people. If we actually bothered to take our time to get to know them, we'll find that they're a lot like us; they just have a few different preferences! (For the record, no I am not a homophobe). 

This is still pretty much in line with my first post; just being aware and a little bit more sensitive of particular issues in society helps us to become a little more educated, and therefore might let us reconsider our particular choice of words. Recently, in the major sporting leagues of America (NBA, NFL), there has been a few incidents where star players have used the word "fag" in a fit of anger; spurring a fit of anger amongst homosexual communities. Having said this, they weren't using the word out of conscious awareness that it had homosexual connotations, rather, having this word simply pop to mind when angry. 

But having applied this to one group of people in society, just be more aware that the area you live in probably has a multicultural diversity which means that words that we deem "harmless" are actually quite insulting to others. Think about it; how many groups of people are present in your local area, and are you aware of the full extent of the meaning of your words? Remember, the whole point of these short blogs are to familiarize you to issues that you probably experience in day-to-day life, and how you are going to act to change your world you live in. 

Finally, just to finish up, it's not just the actions that you perform that hold influence; it's also the way in which you choose to react to people and their particular choice of words. The next time a friend says something along the lines of a gay slur whilst in a fit of anger, maybe it would be best to bring their attention to it? Maybe they are actually unaware of the weight that their choice of words holds; so assist to enlighten them in such issues so as to improve society.

Next up this week, I'll start my first post on health, talking about a couple of issues that I think are prevalent at the moment. Stay tuned! :)

Awareness of Emotion? Pffft...

Hey guys,

Today we'll have a short look into the second part of my digression onto familiarization - moving onto the notion of being more aware of emotions; whether they be yours, or other peoples'. Using a really really bad analogy (did I mention, really bad?), we can say something along the lines that women understand emotions much better than men, just because (or i could go into some discussion as to how women have a larger corpus callosum and therefore one potential theory that I made up with a friend at uni was that there was so much cross-talk between the hemispheres of the brain that this would be one of the main reasons why women can't seem to make up their mind half the time. Just sayin'....). True enough, it seems like the female population is more aware of emotion in general and therefore have an easier job at identifying when there is an elephant standing in the room, whilst some a guy on the other hand might have just admitted that his best chick-friend is a whale. ouch.


On the bright side, once you're aware of it (guys), you'll be able to spot that potential elephant in the room, rather than remain completely oblivious that it was there.... Girls on the other hand; it's not so much being aware that there is the elephant in the room, just don't try to bash it until it's bleeding to death. What I mean by that is; show some tact in the way in which you actually deal with emotions... So far in my limited experience of life, some girls tend to really abuse the rut that you find yourself in, or they have a real eagle eye at being able to pick out faults. C'mon guys we're human too :(

But why bother with the awareness of emotion? It's not actually going to make sure that you succeed in life, is it? Well, for one you can have better interpersonal relationships, first of all. Chances are you're more likely to make strong bonds with new friends if you can actually manage to hide back that little snigger when they tell you something that they might feel deeply embarrassed about, or when you're absolutely fuming about something, you don't just crack and unload your pent-up frustration on the nearest living creature. Just be a little bit more tactful and mindful that other people have emotions too; and we should all probably keep them in check. If you want a really good example, think about the best athletes that you know; they are able to keep their emotions in check right until the end of the season, in which they can legitimately let it all out.

Anyway, this is just food for thought.. Let me know what you think; if you think everything I've said is worthless, then let me know; or if you have thoughts yourself, share!

Familiarization: Pigeonholing; Part 1

Well I suppose in these first few days of actually having a blog, I haven't really gotten to any main points of what I was wishing to talk about on it, so here we go. Maybe there are a few habits here and there that you readers might be able to take away, and apply to your lives, just so that your'e a little bit more aware of what's going on in your surroundings. Remember, the first step is to familiarize yourself with a potential... problem doesn't seem like the right word here, but I'm sure as we go along we'll find a better word to use.

In this initial little ramble, you may be thinking "What the hell is he on about? What's all this business with familiarization and trying to find potential problems? I'm fine!", but the whole point of this process isn't to try to cut yourself down and be degrading; it's more to note things that you could become aware of, and then improve yourself from there. I'm talking about things like:
1. Trying to eliminate as much prejudice from your life as possible
2. Being aware of emotions and how you display them
3. Being a little bit more educated in matters of society.

In today's blog we'll go through the first point; over the next few days I'll post up the second and third parts to this :) But try to take these lessons to heart, and see if you can apply them in your daily lives. Unfortunately a lot of the time, it is quite difficult to erase negativity associated with certain areas, but try it out and see if it makes a difference in your life.

Eliminating prejudice (pigeonholing)
One of the most important things I feel in life is an ability to understand the flip side of the coin; throughout life we're constantly meeting new faces and being exposed to new people, and even if it is a fleeting encounter, we tend to form a judgement based upon face value rather quickly. We can tend to pigeonhole groups, and associate emotion with them (hence the second point); whether these emotions are positive or negative remains.

Think about the groups that you've associated negatively with the pigeon-holing. Are all of the people in that group necessarily that way because they choose to be so? Let's use the rather sensitive issue of obese people; admittedly, some of them over-eat, but when are we actually educated at a young age to not eat that much? When I was young, I was told to eat as much as possible because I was a growing boy! Only as I grew up did I strongly supplement this with a rather brutal exercise regime; had I not, I would have probably joined the population of slightly larger people out there. But that doesn't justify being particularly rude to people; as was noted in a particularly disturbing article the other day, and a lot of prejudice, including overt racism, manages to creep its way into our society. Generally I feel that Australian society is doing a pretty good job at educating and keeping this to a minimum; but just a little bit more sensitivity please!

But why try to eliminate the prejudice completely? Doesn't it help to pigeonhole the nerds, the jocks, and the musos? By pigeonholing, we turn down one of the central tenets of life; that each person is born an individual and raised to remain an individual. Not saying that it completely eliminates it, but by pigeonholing (especially in negative circumstances), we prevent ourselves from meeting people who break the norm and help us to realize why we should be a little more understanding. Eventually, with more sensitivity to these encounters in life, you'll appreciate a more diverse world and become more tolerant of others. Just something to keep in mind... until part 2!

Try not to pigeonhole fellas! ... 

Last season -->The NBA lockout? Where's basketball at right now?

So you guys may or may not be aware of it, but last year's NBA season was by far one of the best seasons of basketball that I've watched in a really long time. Like, a really long time. It started as a season in which my favourite team, the Lakers, jumped out to a 8-0 start, and I thought that they would run away with the season. The Miami Heat (my most hated team) did shockingly well for their first season together, even though I thought that they would be exposed against teams with a small, nifty point guard or a dominant center. But it wasn't the case, they managed to find ways to win with a single true superstar, a Judas, and a dinosaur. Plus a really average bench. In fact, I'm still shocked at how miami made it so far with such an average bench.. I watched as the lakers were swept by the Mavs in the second round, something which I had never even considered possible before. My prediction of "Lakers 4-2" went horrible wrong, instead switching up to "Mavs 4-0 sweep", and all my dreams of the three-peat were over. I insisted that IF it came to the point where it was Mavs-Heat, I would stop watching NBA for the next year.

Lucky for me, at that point I managed to wake up to how incredible Dirk is as a player, and how the rest of the playoffs this season stemmed into something truly beautiful. Two of the youngest teams in the NBA, the thunder and grizzles, emerged as some wonderful teams to watch. The grizzles showed gritty determination and a dogged effort (ZEEE-BOOOOO). Let's be honest, didn't you write them off after Rudy Gay got injured? I didn't even think they'd squeeze into the last spot of the west, yet they ended up taking the thunder to seven games, amongst which was the 3OT MARATHON. I remember thinking that I would miss the end of the game due to my lecture, yet when I finished I was still watching the game for at least another 40 minutes! But eventually, the thunder would prevail, the Mavs would move on, and finally the Mavs would face the Heat in the finals.

What a finals! Really! To be honest, one of the greatest reasons why I didn't want the Mavs to reach the finals was more for the fact that I didn't think they were able to win against the heat; they didn't (and still don't) seem particularly athletic, I didn't think they played particularly good defence, and they abused the pick-and-roll offence, making them predictable on offence. And the fact that they seemed to live or die by the 3-point line... But then I saw a few things I liked in them - Deshawn Stevenson, who has been trash talking LeBron since his days in cleveland, when he called him "overrated"; Jason Terry (who admittedly I didn't like earlier because I knew he could score); The absolutely stupid ability for the bench to score points; and dirk. There's not much more that needs to be said about Dirk, because he literally did everything, and you can search him up anywhere, but he is incredible. (I refuse to use re-dirk-culous!). 

So having said all of this, how is it that we've entered a period of uncertainty and instability, in which the players and associations can't seem to get the figures right? Putting it in perspective, the worst-paid players in the NBA still have a salary that approaches seven digits. Easily. The superstars are payed ludicrous figures; we saw something along the lines that Kobe received 25.4 mil this season, whilst the entire Denver payroll post-'Melo had figures along the lines of 28 mil. For the entire roster. So how can players be complaining that they aren't receiving enough? As for the owners losing money, I'm sure that they're not really losing that much money which is jeopardizing their day-to-day lives.. So how can we move from the greatest basketball season to a waiting game in which we're not even sure there will be a next season, until next year? 

All I know is that when Basketball New Year rolls around on the 26th October this year, there probably won't be basketball. And that's really weird. You can't change the date of the new year. So why change this one? Stupid association owners... *mutters*....

A belated congrats to the Mavs, 2010 champions! 

Welcome to the world!

Hey world!


This is new business to me, blogging, and so I feel that I am obliged to explain the nature of this blog, and why I want to write it! :)


Familiarization
A lot of us live every day in fairly routine fashion, going through the motions, without giving a moment to think about many issues that are affecting the world around us. For some, this ignorance is bliss; for most, we are unaware of the issues and remain oblivious our entire lifetime, until we intersect in the path of another that helps us to raise our awareness about certain issues. To become familiar with issues allows us to be a little more understanding in the way we approach others, and makes us better people.


Challenge
To me, the time that we have here on the earth is pretty short, but that doesn't stop me from being after the pursuit of knowledge. It sounds lame and corny, I know, we are obliged to learn as much as we can about everything on the earth before our time is up. So, one of the first reasons that this has been created is to inform you of things that I feel are of genuine interest to me, and which I wish to share with you. I hope it motivates you to challenge yourself and apply yourself more thoroughly in every aspect of life. 


Enlighten
Whilst you may be completely unaware of it, in your day-to-day life, you are able to perform incredible movements with the simple intention of movement. Some of these movements are so well embedded into your brain that they are performed subconsciously; such as driving a car, or walking. This is all possible because of the complex network of nerves in your body - the central nervous system. Now, imagine that you have 11 billion nerve cells in your body, and each one of those nerve cells makes seven thousand connections. (It's a ludicrous number :D!) BUT - take this away, with the information that you are armed with, use it to enlighten others and continue the chain of familiarising, challenging and then enlightening. Hence the name!


Anyway I know it sounds so far that I'm a pretty serious guy, but in this blog I want to talk about some serious stuff; and some other stuff that's not so serious. Throughout the lifetime of this blog (however long it lasts), you'll eventually learn about some of the issues I think are affecting society, you'll see something amusing here and there, and you'll come to learn that I am a big NBA fan and a tennis follower. 


But finally, I hope you take some things away with you and share them. 


And one last thing! Comment as much as you want, about anything that you find interesting. It can be as mundane as homework or as complex as the motion of celestial bodies around the sun, and how this varies with time (okay maybe not THAT complex). The more people that know about this the better, it gives me more to talk about, and more feedback from you readers means posts on things you want to hear about. Let me know!