{Because I'm Bored}

hrm. The Answer to One of Life's most Interesting Questions. haha. check it. thanks (or no thanks?!) to tris for the link.


also, here's a rather interesting test taken off the BBC website-- i reckon its reasonably true of me. haha. my results? here you go--

Interpersonal Thinkers:

Like to think about other people, and try to understand them
Recognise differences between individuals and appreciate that different people have different perspectives
Make an effort to cultivate effective relationships with family, friends and colleagues

Other Interpersonal thinkers include:
Winston Churchill, Mother Teresa, William Shakespeare

Careers which suit Interpersonal thinkers include:
Politician (haha. indeed. indeed.), Psychologist (woohoo. tis a sign! a sign, i tell ye.), Nurse (hell no. i have no compassion for the sick and ill. eeks), Counsellor (heh. methinks i'm halfway there already), Teacher (HELLLLLLLLSSS NOOOOOOOOOOO BLOOODY WAY)

HUZZZAH
chem down
zoology and psych to go

WHEE.
these damned exams will be over in NO time.
-dances around-



and thanks you lot for the comments from that utterly depressing last post. its nice to know you lot care eh? -smile-

i was reading spence's lovely testimonial for me on friendster and one phrase that he used to describe yours truly really struck me-- "an idealist at heart (DON'T YOU DARE TURN CYNICAL, SIMMO, I'm cynical enough for both of us already)!"

golly spence. i'm sorry to disappoint, but my idealism has all but burnt itself out already
i don't know when it was that i started believing the glass was half empty, rather than half full
but in recent times i've started to think that idealism is for the ignorant, for those who'd rather live their lives perpetually on cloud 9
for 19 years now i've not lived up to all my 'idealistic' expectations
when i was little i wanted to be a doctor (OOOH yes there WAS a time i wanted to be one, haha)-- to heal people was the noblest thing! i'd didnt give a bleedin' fuck about the pay (and it doesnt pay as much as people believe it to, incidentally), nor the acclaim or the prestige of having a DR. in front of your name
but the older i got the more i realised that if i were to go into medicine, it wouldn't be about healing them patients but the other things that mattered more
and then how i constantly believed that if you were nice to someone, that someone would be nice to you too!
woah.
how wrong was i.
i've lost count, the number of times that i've been hurt, betrayed, disappointed and generally screwed around by people who i once thought i was close to
in a way i still believe that people are, at heart, good
but i know i'm really really really stupid for thinking that way
and then there are other things i FIRMLY believe in- things i thought i'd NEVER DO because it would go against the things that i strongly felt about
but a fat loada good my beliefs have done for me huh?
because i've done some things that i shouldn't have done
and there's nobody to blame but myself.
the knowledge that i've done something really foolish and rash like that just kills me
i've long lost faith in the world
lost faith in friendships (well not all of them) and relationships (we should all just start reproducing asexually, thereby eliminating the need for male-female relationships)
and now i've lost faith in myself

gawd its a lovely world isn't it

pbfft.
once again, maybe its my pmt acting up
but i've been doing quite a bit of self-reflection and thinking these few days
its not been good
the worst thing is i've still got to keep up the appearance of being happy and cheery and all that jazz
because i know if someone comes up to me and asks 'are you alright?' i know i'm probably going to break down and bawl my guts out
the serial bottler has finally hit breaking point!!!!
and yet there's no one for me to turn to
my problems will remain mine and mine alone, and i think its horrendously selfish to dump 'em on someone else and expect them to help you (tho i only seem to find that it applies to myself alone-- when it comes to my mates i'm always encouraging them to share their troubles when i can see that its getting them down. hrm. psychologist in training?! woohoo)

i desperately need God in my life (ha. its horrible how we turn to God only when we're going through low periods isn't it? even though ideally that's so not supposed to be the case. a sickening fact but its quite true. see another example of idealism gone to shite)
but i can't seem to find Him
i've been such a pathetic christian i think maybe i actually do deserve it if He decides to punish me like this. (oh i dunno how to phrase this-- it just sounds awfully self centered and shite like that but really i don't mean it that way)

but anyhow i feel slightly better now that i've gotten this off my chest, so to speak
the whole post might not even make any sense to anyone who might actually read it
but its cathartic for me so there.

i should get off my lazy arse and study now
but i think i'll go to ryan's room and watch the aussie idol results, then survivor with him
chem will have to wait
(see if i fail my exams i have no-bloody-one to blame but myself hahaha)

{post-party blues or pre-exam stress or pre-menstrual tension... take your pick}

tis the attack of PMT
fuckin' hell it has to strike just ONE bleedin' week before my exams innit?
every.single.teenytiny.thing.annoys.the.living.daylights.outta.me.
at tea i yelled 'fuck off' rather loudly to a very annoying american chap
in front of people i don't really know either
and i completely snubbed this chap at tea just now as well, unintentionally of course, because me being me, FROZE when he made eye contact and gave me a grin
so what did i do?
i bloody looked down and walked away
and thats after being extraordinarily friendly (alcohol-induced-friendliness tho) to him at last night's party
gawd. haaalp. meeeeee.
they probably think i'm the foulest, rudest international student at jane now
MILLEH I HAVE LET THE ASIAN STUDENT POPULATION DOWN!!!
wahahhahaa
what a low after last night's fandabidozi jane party
had a truckloada fun
(photos are in the usual place)
but apparently some dickhead flooded the asten hallways last night and massive amounts of water leaked into the dining hall ie: it was well and truly flooded
and boy did jack bowers give 'em hell this morning
breakfast was cancelled, even
unfrigginbelievable

omg a bird just CRASHED into my window
HAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
poor thing i hope its not dead!!!

but yes
i digress
PMT.
it has struck.
gawdawful.
emotions that have been kept well and firmly in check are now resurfacing at an exponential rate
WHY!
now its getting distracting and my mind keeps wandering when i know i'm supposed to be studying
Verity was just reminding me yesternight that the best way not to get hurt is to NOT let yourself get emotionally attached to anything
and GAWD only knows thats the last thing i need now
my heart can't bloody bloody take it anymore
one more time and i SWEAR i'll turn to ali g's definition of feminism
haw haw!

and other things like how i can't hang out with a certain friend anymore is really gettin' to me
yes yes i know boy + girl need their time together
i respect that and i try not to intrude on them as much as possible
but after girl blows up at boy for spending too much time with me
its like treading on bloody bloody thin ice now, simply put
and to think when i used to hang out w them both and when i try and leave, so they can spend some time with each other they used to go "NO NO NO ITS ALRIGHT, STAAAY!"
gawd.
please.
brutal honesty is a-okay with me, y'know
i abhor that type of insincerity, especially in friends
and it hurts that its gotta come down to this
when a friend has to choose between the friend or the luvva-girl
guess who loses out?
i feel like some second choice idiot who he hangs out with only when he's bored/has no luvva-girl around/doesn't want to disturb luvva-girl etc
and yet i know i shouldn't be feelin like this because it makes me a petty little bitch
ah i'll attribute it to PMT i guess, because i know i'm not usually like this
or maybe i'm just despairing in a pre-exam funk
my heart is much, much bigger than this (i think?! haha)


hokay.
jean-francois just called
he is a nice nice nice nice nice chap
because he is going to bring me to see Kill Bill later on and that should take my mind off things
i really should be studying because my 1st bloody paper is in about a week's time
but ah who gives a *bleeepin* *bleep* eh?

The Red Queen Principle

for an evolutionary system, continuing development is needed just in order to maintain its fitness relative to the systems it is co-evolving with

---------------------------------------------------------------

This principle was proposed by the evolutionary biologist L. van Valen (1973), and is based on the observation to Alice by the Red Queen in Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass" that "in this place it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place."
Since every improvement in one species will lead to a selective advantage for that species, variation will normally continuously lead to increases in fitness in one species or another. However, since in general different species are coevolving, improvement in one species implies that it will get a competitive advantage on the other species, and thus be able to capture a larger share of the resources available to all. This means that fitness increase in one evolutionary system will tend to lead to fitness decrease in another system. The only way that a species involved in a competition can maintain its fitness relative to the others is by in turn improving its design.

The most obvious example of this effect are the "arms races" between predators and prey, where the only way predators can compensate for a better defense by the prey (e.g. rabbits running faster) is by developing a better offense (e.g. foxes running faster). In this case we might consider the relative improvements (running faster) to be also absolute improvements in fitness.

However, the example of trees shows that in some cases the net effect of an "arms race" may also be an absolute decrease in fitness. Trees in a forest are normally competing for access to sunlight. If one tree grows a little bit taller than its neighbours it can capture part of their sunlight. This forces the other trees in turn to grow taller, in order not to be overshadowed. The net effect is that all trees tend to become taller and taller, yet still gather on average just the same amount of sunlight, while spending much more resources in order to sustain their increased height. This is an example of the problem of suboptimization: optimizing access to sunlight for each individual tree does not lead to optimal performance for the forest as a whole.

In sum, in a competitive world, relative progress ("running") is necessary just for maintenance ("staying put").


>>>

fascinating stuff.
i'm definitely not regretting doing a science degree instead of an arts one right now

on a side note
my room is turning into one of those horrifically messy, war-zone-esque type of rooms
i have 4 bags on the floor
my clean laundry is scattered all over the hangings, the chair, in the laundry bin
my dirty laundry is... no where to be seen (eeeeeeep)
i have 6 plastic bottles semi-filled with water lying all over the place
i keep kicking the rubbish bin over whenever i sit at my table
i dont have enough space on the table to write, much less study, properly
and i'm really not arsed enough to go neaten my room
because i know it'll only stay neat for about 2-3 hours at max

ahhhh bloody bloody.
i need a bigger room, so all my nonsense can be stuffed in a corner thus giving the appearance of a tidier room
i remember how morified i was when bridget tom p luke and tom c came into my room without warning the other day

and swot vac starts next week
has one semester whizzed by just like that already?
golly its been quick
now all i need to do is not to screw the bloody exam up

i can't wait to go home.
and i can't wait to go to england again too.
all of which i will be doing in the very, very, very near future.
huzzah!

k immy's found a new spot for her blog
so i'm back
haw.

cant find my old template so i'll have fiddle around and get it set up again some other time
righty.
broken linkolas, or wrong links, or lack of links (oops sorry to those who were recently linked-- this old template of mine doesnt have your https) will be fixed in due time, fret not.

spring is a gorgeous season
i love the flowers that blossom
the scent in the air is GLORIOUS!

however
what sucketh muchos muchos is the impending exams
i have like what, less than 3 weeks before my first paper
which happens to be CHEM
my worst subject
f**kit
so studying is in order

-panics-

so arnie's now a governor
how interesting
can he be a good one?
i'm certain he can
will people ever take him seriously?!
that one, i ain't so certain of
but i cant help but feel rather amused at the whole thing