What I observe in many people I know is a trend towards accumulation of possessions that don't necessarily make them happy, but that they feel that they deserve because they work at unsatisfying and time-consuming jobs. They feel that they should have something to show for all of their effort, and so they buy themselves things. I myself have fallen into this trap, but have since returned to graduate school. I'm now much poorer and can afford much less, but on the whole, I feel that I need less because I enjoy the work itself and thus don't need to justify it through material means.
What I found most interesting was this comment you made:
The people who worry me the MOST are the ones who don't seem to have any clear "hobbies" or interests that involve ownership of property! I've had friends like this, who seem like they're wandering aimlessly through life - spending their money on "intangible entertainment" like movie tickets, amusement park passes or sporting events. Ultimately, they have little to show for the work they do.
Frankly, I can relate much better to your friends. I would far prefer to have interesting experiences and the resultant memories they bring tucked under my belt, such as travel or outings to concerts, amusement parks, etc. than to have a stockpile of possessions that may have resale value but rapidly depreciate and incur maintenance costs in many cases. Experiences are far more formative to me as a person than, say, car or personal entertainment system ownership.
This is something I've put a lot of mental effort towards understanding, as I used to feel the exact same as you. The issue, though, is much more complex online than it is in real life. For example, online someone has the capabilities of impersonating you and making, say, libelous claims about your person, which is not a luxury that your regular run-of-the-mill bully could accomplish. Think fake online Facebook profiles, MySpace ads, etc. that offer real pictures of you, information about your life, and more.
Cyberbullying, I believe, is a real issue. I've never been subjected to it, thankfully, but I can imagine that, to a teenager, it can be especially damaging, and even more so than real life bullying given how important the internet has grown to be for teenage social interaction.
Errrr... curse not previewing. That should read "one of the two ways in which I've eaten them". Of course, people have been inventive enough to find more than just two things to do with plantains *ooops*.
Then you've only had plantains one of the two ways in which they're eaten. I agree that green plantains aren't my cup of tea. In my opinion they're like overly firm and starchy potatoes with a hint of banana flavouring to them. After a week of traveling Panama, I never wanted to see them again.
However, if you let plantains ripen until they're black (at which point, they're still perfectly edible, unlike bananas) and then peel them, cut them into long slices, and cook them in butter, they're incredibly sweet and delicate.
More in line with the original post, there are several varieties of bananas that I find much more delicious than the Cavendish variety. I've had the pleasure of eating several other varieties while abroad that I really enjoyed; for example, apple bananas have got a firmer, more flavourful meat to them, and I strongly prefer them to Cavendish. Cavendish bananas, although I love them, can be a bit dull tasting and mushy.
I'm essentially in the same boat. I used to use Rogers cable internet as my provider here in Toronto. I found their customer service absolutely appalling, and they started to enforce caps on uploading and downloading, so I decided to jump ship and sign up with 3web instead. They essentially resell Rogers, but at a cheaper rate with higher speed and much more flexibility, e.g. no caps in place. The customer service is leagues better, and I'm very happy with them. I recommend them to everyone I know considering Rogers as an ISP.
...I can't think of any special hoops that you'll need to worry about jumping through.
Recently I decided to discontinue my PhD studies because my supervisor's no longer available and there is no one else in my field of research in my university. Additionally, I'm fed of up my academic institution. Hence, it's been job hunting time for me. I do have a Master's degree in computer science (although in an obscure field that's not particularly applicable to many companies, i.e. combinatorics and optimization), which may give me a slight edge over the competition, but between that and three years of PhD work (again, in obscure combinatorics), I have significantly less professional experience than someone else in my age range.
All I've been doing is sending out a polished one-page resume via e-mail that's succinct and only covers skills I feel pertain to the positions to which I'm applying, accompanied by a confident sounding cover letter that addresses why I feel I would be a suitable candidate for the position and how I meet the required qualifications (with some examples as to situations where I demonstrated the skills they request). I write with a professional tone but allow some leeway to sound excited about the posting, and end with thanking them for their time and telling them that I look forward to hearing from them.
In the first month, I sent out only about ten resumes (I wasn't in a rush to start working). I didn't bother to visit in person, demonstrate any samples of work, or provide any references. Within two weeks, I received eight interview offers. None of these were for entry level positions, either, nor, to my understanding, is there a shortage of people here in Toronto.
As my skills are nothing particularly special, I strongly believe that it's my combination resume and cover letter that get my foot in the door.
Heading east from Hawaii to go back home to Toronto (+6), I just took 6 mg of melatonin at 6 PM HT / 12 AM EDT when I got on the the flight. By 7 PM HT / 1 AM EDT, I was sound asleep, and I woke up around 2 AM HT / 8 AM EDT, fully back on my regular Toronto routine with no detriments.
I don't know if this would work well with more dramatic time shifts, like Asia - North America, but melatonin in general has been a sanity saver for me. There are days where I take a four hour nap and fear that I'll never sleep at night. Pop a melatonin an hour before I want to go to bed, and I sleep a completely normal night's sleep.
Rigorous physical excercise is that path back to mental well-being, the sooner the better and something fun and positive that helps self esteem and confidence.
Hear, hear. I suffered with moderate depression during my teenage years and early 20s. I finally received CBT and had wonderful experiences with it, and now only have depressive episodes with reasons firmly rooted in reality.
Unfortunately, when it comes to health, genetics have dealt me a rather nasty hand, and I have a very active case of Crohn's Disease and a number of other physical ailments that make my life quite difficult. After being ill for the majority of last year and largely unresponsive to the drugs that were tried to put me back into remission, I was severely depressed (justifiably so) and had decided on euthanasia as my desired medical treatment, both to terminate the suffering of my medical condition and the emotional impact it was having on me.
For the sake of my friends and family, I agreed to try one more treatment (Remicade) to which I was initially very opposed due to horrible and possibly fatal side effects, figuring at that point that even if they proved to be fatal, it didn't particularly matter.
It worked somewhat, although not as well as my doctors had hoped. At the very least, it gave me the strength to get out of bed and spend time with friends and family and get some exercise. As it can be incredibly difficult for me to leave the house ddue to the Crohn's, I purchased a Dance Dance Revolution game for the Wii, having never played it before but hoping that I would enjoy it and that it would be a good way to build up my cardiovascular strength. Indeed, I ended up absolutely loving it, and now I spend 3-4 hours perhaps three times a week playing. I find it a great source of exercise that's fun and thus easy to maintain, unlike, say, running on a treadmill in a gym, which most people probably find utterly boring. I've also noticed significant health improvements, both in my emotional state and with regards to my Crohn's Disease. I now no longer want to die, and I'm beginning to establish new goals for myself for the future.
Yes, but - at least in my opinion - treatment does not have to necessarily be medical. True, depression may well be caused by a neurotransmitter imbalance, but I'm of the opinion that behaviour affects the levels of neurotransmitters just as much as neurotransmitters affect behaviour. Correct the behaviour (which may indeed be challenging), and you'll see marked improvement.
Since early teenage years, I have struggled with moderate depression and severe Generalized Anxiety Disorder. I really dislike the idea of taking psychiatric meds, particularly after a nightmare experience with Paxil, so I pursued cognitive behavioural therapy instead. It was a lot of work, but I came to recognize underlying patterns in behaviour and thought that I'd developed over the years and was able to challenge them and break free of them, which gave me remarkable improvements in both conditions. I had reached the point of almost being housebound and having many panic attacks a week to now being able to essentially do whatever I want.
About eight years after CBT, I still get depression and anxiety, but typically only a fraction of what I used to, and now only in response to actual tangible problems that I can investigate and try to right; hence, now instead of being a victim to my depression and anxiety, I am able to effectively use them as motivators for change, which is probably their biological intention. (Of course, they're still not pleasant, and I will confess that sometimes I have a bad short period, but generally that's because I've become very lax with my CBT techniques.)
I think that there are a number of reasons to encourage children to enjoy both activities, but give a preference to reading. Firstly, heightened diversity comes with being able to have fun reading and playing video games. Secondly, the focus that comes with reading will likely be a very handy skill to have during formal education and later on in a career, and is sadly something which many people struggle with.
We're not all like that; it's just that the majority of us don't want to defend Apple in circumstances like this, so we don't say anything and let them take their well-deserved criticism.
With the advent of OS X, I became a huge Apple fanboy. That being said, I loathe QuickTime and think that it's the biggest steaming piece of garbage on the face of the earth. I detest it even more than Windows Media Player / formats, and that says a lot. This makes me despise it even more.
Maybe we should move this over e-mail since it's getting pretty off topic here. *grins* I see your address isn't available in your profile or I'd just go ahead and message you now, so e-mail me and I'll write back with answers to your questions: I'm on gmail as vorpal22.
I really hope that things do go well for you. Honestly, though, I don't think I'm an exceptional case. I know three other people IRL with Crohn's, and one of them was sick for two years, developed type II diabetes from prednisone, and almost died from complications from which he was barely saved by emergency surgery to remove gangrenous bowel. Another had a complete irreversible colestomy after being sick for over a year and not responding to any treatments, and now he's been doing fine for over 10 years, but he has to worry about his stoma. The third required so many resections that in his mid-30s, he's suffering from short bowel syndrome and doesn't absorb anything properly. I'd say that compared to them, I'm actually doing pretty well, and I'm thankful that my disease hasn't progressed to the point of ever coming close to dying, requiring resections, or a complete colostomy.
I know theoretically that Crohn's can go into remission for decades, but I don't think is common; at least I've rarely seen it, and I've exposed myself to many people with Crohn's to build up a support network. Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
As for diet, I don't believe that it actually triggers major flares, but it can serious exacerbate them and it can cause periods of unwellness even when you are in remission. Most of the people I know (myself included), when they claim to be in "remission", mean that they still have a few bad days a month, generally traceable to something that they ate.
You certainly don't have to give up martinis and spicy food if they don't affect you, and the impact of diet and what foods are no-nos are highly variable! I can drink vodka and gin like a pro and eat spicy food provided fresh chilies are used. On the other hand, dried chilies will do me in completely, as will oatmeal, caffeine, cabbage, beer, wine, champagne, and monosodium glutamate (the worst: fevers of 104.5 and screaming pain). If a food upsets your intestines on several occasions, avoid. One of the best indicators, I've found, is gurgling in the lower right quadrant of your abdomen, which is a sign that your terminal ileum is not happy with your food choices.
I think it's best to be careful early on: the more you challenge your delicate body, the worse things might get. I was reluctant to take drugs and watch diet because, like you, I largely felt okay after my initial bout and went into remission for two years (indeed, my flareups generally strike on a two year schedule). I regret fighting my gastroenterologists who wanted to put me on medications like Entocort as a preventative measure, because slowly, scar tissue built up from very light inflammation over time and now I'm probably worse off for it. My gastroenterologist has now told me that I will, at some point in the perhaps distant future, probably require two resections of the small intestine due to irreversible thickening, which might not have happened had I been more careful with food and been more willing to take anti-inflammatories.
My latest bout was probably caused (it is speculated by my doctors) by some vaccinations I received (Hep and Dukoral). I began to get sick the next day. I was doing perfectly fine the day before them. It's yet another indicator as to how fickle this condition can be and how much care Crohn's patients need to exercise.
I'm sorry... I'm not saying this to scare you. I'm telling this in the hopes that you'll take care of yourself early and hopefully avoid many of the things that I and others have gone through. I really believe that had I been more diligent, I would be much better off today.
(As for Botox, my pain is doubtfully caused by muscular spasms; it's rather unhealed fistulae that continue to get infected, and scar tissue in the large intestine. I could have surgery to heal these, but every time I've had surgery in the past, the problem has gotten significantly worse. I don't recover well from it, which could potentially be very bad as a Crohn's patient.)
I'm not going to lie to you: Crohn's will affect your life, and it will do so significantly. This is a serious disease. The degree to which it will impact you can't be predicted, but there are some steps that you can take to significantly reduce the chances that it will cause problems for you. We're definitely not talking the runs from eating at Taco Bell too often, which is just some digestive upset. This is an inflammatory disease, and the inflammation can cause a number of health problems that extend beyond the digestive system to the rest of the body.
I recommend you really read up on it in depth. Wikipedia doesn't have enough information. Get a recently published good book on the subject and educate yourself, so that you know what to expect, how to deal with it, and what your options are.
That's the bad news, and I'm sorry if that scared you. The good news is that there are newer and much more effective medications coming out all the time. After being incredibly ill for seven months last year (moderate fever, constant pain in my lower abdomen and rectum, 30 bowel movements a day, huge weight loss, malnutrition) and not responding well to many medications, I finally decided to face my fears and go on the TNF-alpha inhibitor, Remicade (which I was hesitant to take as it has some incredibly rare but possibly fatal side effects). It has made a vast difference in my life. Given the breadth of options these days, when you flare up, with some time and experimentation, you are very likely to find a course of treatment that works well for you, although it may take some time to do so.
Because of this, if you're an American, make absolutely sure that you have good health coverage. Treatments can be very expensive: Remicade costs approximately $25k - $100k / year, for example, although most Crohn's drugs, while still expensive, are significantly less. Also, take a very active role in your health care: you need to know what your options are and make decisions for yourself. Listening blindly to a doctor is definitely not a good idea. Prepare yourself for the possibility of taking a lot of daily medication, too: most of the Crohn's and Ulcerative Colitis people I know have, at some point, been on at least three or four daily medications and have required supplements and vitamins due to malabsorption.
As for me, I'm 30 now, and I've had perhaps five major flareups of the disease altogether, beginning when I was 22 or so. I've needed three somewhat minor surgeries for complications (i.e. abscesses and fistulae), and I have definitely found that with each flare, which lasts longer than the previous one, my symptoms become worse. The good news is that I do quite well when I'm in remission, and I feel that now with my current medication regime (Cipro, Pentasa, and Remicade), I'm going to stay there for awhile.
It is absolutely crucial that you figure out what foods your body can't tolerate. There is a lot of debate as to whether or not diet affects Crohn's significantly. The medical community is out on that one, but I've never met a Crohn's sufferer who doesn't believe that food doesn't play a role. Your mood also makes a huge difference: take time to do relaxing things daily and minimize your stress. Exercise is highly beneficial, too.
Become part of online or in-person communities of other Crohn's people. It is invaluable to have a support network and a repository of information for when things go awry.
I'm sorry if that painted a truly dreary picture, but Crohn's can be quite challenging to contend with. However, with the right attitude, knowledge, and some effort, you can probably expect, for the most part, to have a reasonably good quality of life. And with all the research into Crohn's going on, new medications are being discovered regularly, and it's even possible that a cure might be found within the next decade or two.
It isn't really surprising that one of them killed himself due to chronic pain. I myself suffer from it due to complications of Crohn's Disease, and after several months of this, I was pursuing euthanasia as a serious option, much to the horrible upset of the very few loved ones that I told. Note that this wasn't an emotional response to the problem, in my opinion: I had considered my options coolly and calmly and it felt like the best course of action and the most effective solution to the problem.
Having to live your life in constant pain is worse than you can imagine if you've never had to go through it: you wake up in the morning (provided you could sleep), and you spend the entire day cranky and miserable because you feel horrid. All you do is look forward to the night because again - if you're able to fall asleep - you'll have several hours of some respite from the pain. You rarely feel social or productive because you can't focus your attention or get over your irritability. You're wracked with guilt because you're unable to treat your loved ones with the kindness that they deserve, particularly for putting up with you, and you feel alienated from everyone because few people know what you're going through and you frequently cannot tell them the thoughts that go through your head as they probably often do involve suicide or euthanasia, and psychiatric institutionalization - which is what you worry might be forced upon you - simply isn't going to help, since it won't fix the core issue and the problem isn't psychological.
Now extend this to months or years with no end in sight and see how you feel.
Fortunately for me, I was finally able to find a doctor who was willing to prescribe me opioid pain medication and help me get involved with a pain management clinic that teaches mindfulness based meditation, and now I'm doing much better: I'm able to function, I'm looking for a job, I want to see my family and friends on a regular basis, I'm much more pleasant to be around, I can exercise daily, and I'm no longer interested in euthanasia. However, most pain sufferers are *not* as lucky as I am, because doctors are not willing to prescribe long-term use of opioids due to the horrible rules and regulations surrounding these drugs that have been introduced due to their addictive nature. The difficulty in obtaining them is why some people become addicted to heroin; Kurt Cobain is a good example of such a person, who suffered from severe abdominal pain until he found some respite when he took it.
If anything, people need to fight for their right for quality of life. Yes, opioid abuse can be a serious problem in society, but the people who need these drugs often do not have the strength to put up the huge fight to get them and they must have regular access to them. Perhaps if Singh had been prescribed some relief to his problem, he might still be with us today.
I agree with many of the suggestions here (drug legalization, end the war on terrorism, etc), but one thing that I would *really* like to see is for highly increased liability for corporations. The entire notion of a "corporation" abused existing law to remove liability from the members of the company and instead have the company treated as an individual under the eyes of the law. This isn't happening, IMO. When a pharmaceutical corporation screws up (think Vioxx), what happens? They get a financial slap on the wrist. If I accidentally killed some people, what would happen? I would certainly go to jail for manslaughter, and it's very unlikely I'd be able to buy my way out without serving some time first. How are we, then, in the eyes of the law, considered equivalent as individuals? If companies want to be corporations, treat them as such: if they commit a crime, give them "jail" time and cease their operations to make them incur severe financial loss, just as I would be unable to work in prison. Maybe then we can abolish this absolutely stupid concept by making it entirely unappealing and go back to the way things used to be before this nonsense started.
I worked for a company that was bought out a few years back. The new CEO came to visit us to "pep talk" us, telling us that we were currently number two in the marketplace and that we wouldn't settle for number two: we had to be number one.
No one was enthusiastic in the slightest, and it wasn't because we were in a new company. No, we weren't pepped by his speech because it was clear to us that there was no advantage to us other than perhaps some prestige to being number one. All we would be doing is earning him and the stockholders more money.
We're told that we have to earn our place in society, but from many of our perspectives, there really isn't anything *worth* earning. What is the very best that most of us can hope for? A middle class position in an ever poverty-increasing society due to the tremendous shift of wealth towards a small number of businessmen? A marriage where we both work long hours in order to fatten a tiny number of people's pockets, coming home so exhausted that we're barely able to tend to the children's needs and much less to each other's, so we compensate ourselves by the accumulation of possessions? Some world we've been offered. I'm not sure that it will be worse off if we're a bunch of WOW playing crybaby slackers.
I'm frustrated that despite all of human innovation and technological advancements, I have to kowtow to an alarm clock that rings at 6:30 AM. Where are the promises that technology was supposed to reduce working hours and make our lives more pleasant? No, we're forced to work harder to compete with other organizations who also suffer the same fate as our own. I think many of us have realized just how much society *has* lied to us, about college, technology, etc. and we've grown apathetic and tired of the empty promises. I'd rather be a relatively poor slacker with time to myself to do what I want and to enjoy my family than a successful developer whose time is consumed with largely meaningless pursuits and whose life is filled with possessions.
Faith can be tempered by logic, and logical explanations can often be translated back into faith frameworks without loss.
It's like what happened at the turn of the 20th century where society began to discover psychopharmacology. There was an initial crisis that it would reduce the human experience to nothing more than a set of chemical interactions, which brought religion entirely into question. Similarly, again, was the discovery that "religious experiences" can be reliably induced by stimulating certain areas of the brain. Now, I don't see why the theory that consciousness and the soul are nothing more than functions of chemical reactions invalidates them from having a higher meaning, at least in a subjective sense; it simply requires a slight adjustment in thinking.
It's one thing to decide to adhere strictly to a faith-based approach or a science-based approach, but in my opinion, only a narrow mind sees the impossibility in rationalizing the two. I'm a philosophical Taoist mathematician with a good interest in science and I've never had any problems. My dad is a fairly devout protestant from a moderately conservative denomination (by Canadian standards), and holds a PhD in physics; he also doesn't find that there needs to be any clash between his scientific knowledge and his religious beliefs.
While I think that your point has some merit, at least amongst the people I know, when they bought new computers, they didn't actively seek to avoid Win XP. They accepted the new OS that came with their system and moved on.
With Vista, on the other hand, virtually everyone I know who has bought computers in the last year has purposefully gone out of their way to remain with XP, and we're talking a lot of non-tech-savvy types here. My dad, for example, who knows only the basics of computers, called me up to tell me he was buying a new system, and he wondered if what he had heard was true and he should find one with XP instead of Vista. If my dad's thinking things like this, it's a safe bet to say the majority of people probably are, too.
Agreed. Anyone remember M.U.L.E., which was essentially a simulation of economics? It was, IMO, quite possibly the best game of all time, and the one that my friends and I played the most when we were kids. I bought a C64 emulator just to relive the memories.
Not a single puzzle or monster in it (well, the wampus, but chasing a black dot through mountains hardly qualifies as a real monster:D).
While perhaps you might also be able to identify non-desirable traits that are more likely to be passed on to offspring
This, IMO, could be incredibly valuable alone. For example, I have Crohn's Disease, and knowing that it's very likely that there's a genetic component to my condition, I would never even consider having biological children; even if the chance that they'd inherit it from me is fairly small, IMO, given the effects of this disease, it's completely irresponsible for me to consider having a child of my own.
If my parents could have known that there was a significant chance that a child of theirs would develop Crohn's Disease and with this knowledge, they instead opted to go the route of adoption, their existence and my lack thereof would have placed all parties in a much better situation.
Of course, that's not to say that they wouldn't have taken the risk all the same. I know several people with Crohn's Disease that do decide to have children (some of which have developed Crohn's themselves), but I find it very difficult to muster up any respect for these parents.
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What I observe in many people I know is a trend towards accumulation of possessions that don't necessarily make them happy, but that they feel that they deserve because they work at unsatisfying and time-consuming jobs. They feel that they should have something to show for all of their effort, and so they buy themselves things. I myself have fallen into this trap, but have since returned to graduate school. I'm now much poorer and can afford much less, but on the whole, I feel that I need less because I enjoy the work itself and thus don't need to justify it through material means.
What I found most interesting was this comment you made:
The people who worry me the MOST are the ones who don't seem to have any clear "hobbies" or interests that involve ownership of property! I've had friends like this, who seem like they're wandering aimlessly through life - spending their money on "intangible entertainment" like movie tickets, amusement park passes or sporting events. Ultimately, they have little to show for the work they do.
Frankly, I can relate much better to your friends. I would far prefer to have interesting experiences and the resultant memories they bring tucked under my belt, such as travel or outings to concerts, amusement parks, etc. than to have a stockpile of possessions that may have resale value but rapidly depreciate and incur maintenance costs in many cases. Experiences are far more formative to me as a person than, say, car or personal entertainment system ownership.
This is something I've put a lot of mental effort towards understanding, as I used to feel the exact same as you. The issue, though, is much more complex online than it is in real life. For example, online someone has the capabilities of impersonating you and making, say, libelous claims about your person, which is not a luxury that your regular run-of-the-mill bully could accomplish. Think fake online Facebook profiles, MySpace ads, etc. that offer real pictures of you, information about your life, and more.
Cyberbullying, I believe, is a real issue. I've never been subjected to it, thankfully, but I can imagine that, to a teenager, it can be especially damaging, and even more so than real life bullying given how important the internet has grown to be for teenage social interaction.
Errrr... curse not previewing. That should read "one of the two ways in which I've eaten them". Of course, people have been inventive enough to find more than just two things to do with plantains *ooops*.
Then you've only had plantains one of the two ways in which they're eaten. I agree that green plantains aren't my cup of tea. In my opinion they're like overly firm and starchy potatoes with a hint of banana flavouring to them. After a week of traveling Panama, I never wanted to see them again.
However, if you let plantains ripen until they're black (at which point, they're still perfectly edible, unlike bananas) and then peel them, cut them into long slices, and cook them in butter, they're incredibly sweet and delicate.
More in line with the original post, there are several varieties of bananas that I find much more delicious than the Cavendish variety. I've had the pleasure of eating several other varieties while abroad that I really enjoyed; for example, apple bananas have got a firmer, more flavourful meat to them, and I strongly prefer them to Cavendish. Cavendish bananas, although I love them, can be a bit dull tasting and mushy.
I'm essentially in the same boat. I used to use Rogers cable internet as my provider here in Toronto. I found their customer service absolutely appalling, and they started to enforce caps on uploading and downloading, so I decided to jump ship and sign up with 3web instead. They essentially resell Rogers, but at a cheaper rate with higher speed and much more flexibility, e.g. no caps in place. The customer service is leagues better, and I'm very happy with them. I recommend them to everyone I know considering Rogers as an ISP.
...I can't think of any special hoops that you'll need to worry about jumping through.
Recently I decided to discontinue my PhD studies because my supervisor's no longer available and there is no one else in my field of research in my university. Additionally, I'm fed of up my academic institution. Hence, it's been job hunting time for me. I do have a Master's degree in computer science (although in an obscure field that's not particularly applicable to many companies, i.e. combinatorics and optimization), which may give me a slight edge over the competition, but between that and three years of PhD work (again, in obscure combinatorics), I have significantly less professional experience than someone else in my age range.
All I've been doing is sending out a polished one-page resume via e-mail that's succinct and only covers skills I feel pertain to the positions to which I'm applying, accompanied by a confident sounding cover letter that addresses why I feel I would be a suitable candidate for the position and how I meet the required qualifications (with some examples as to situations where I demonstrated the skills they request). I write with a professional tone but allow some leeway to sound excited about the posting, and end with thanking them for their time and telling them that I look forward to hearing from them.
In the first month, I sent out only about ten resumes (I wasn't in a rush to start working). I didn't bother to visit in person, demonstrate any samples of work, or provide any references. Within two weeks, I received eight interview offers. None of these were for entry level positions, either, nor, to my understanding, is there a shortage of people here in Toronto.
As my skills are nothing particularly special, I strongly believe that it's my combination resume and cover letter that get my foot in the door.
Heading east from Hawaii to go back home to Toronto (+6), I just took 6 mg of melatonin at 6 PM HT / 12 AM EDT when I got on the the flight. By 7 PM HT / 1 AM EDT, I was sound asleep, and I woke up around 2 AM HT / 8 AM EDT, fully back on my regular Toronto routine with no detriments.
I don't know if this would work well with more dramatic time shifts, like Asia - North America, but melatonin in general has been a sanity saver for me. There are days where I take a four hour nap and fear that I'll never sleep at night. Pop a melatonin an hour before I want to go to bed, and I sleep a completely normal night's sleep.
No uncomfortable fasting required.
Rigorous physical excercise is that path back to mental well-being, the sooner the better and something fun and positive that helps self esteem and confidence.
Hear, hear. I suffered with moderate depression during my teenage years and early 20s. I finally received CBT and had wonderful experiences with it, and now only have depressive episodes with reasons firmly rooted in reality.
Unfortunately, when it comes to health, genetics have dealt me a rather nasty hand, and I have a very active case of Crohn's Disease and a number of other physical ailments that make my life quite difficult. After being ill for the majority of last year and largely unresponsive to the drugs that were tried to put me back into remission, I was severely depressed (justifiably so) and had decided on euthanasia as my desired medical treatment, both to terminate the suffering of my medical condition and the emotional impact it was having on me.
For the sake of my friends and family, I agreed to try one more treatment (Remicade) to which I was initially very opposed due to horrible and possibly fatal side effects, figuring at that point that even if they proved to be fatal, it didn't particularly matter.
It worked somewhat, although not as well as my doctors had hoped. At the very least, it gave me the strength to get out of bed and spend time with friends and family and get some exercise. As it can be incredibly difficult for me to leave the house ddue to the Crohn's, I purchased a Dance Dance Revolution game for the Wii, having never played it before but hoping that I would enjoy it and that it would be a good way to build up my cardiovascular strength. Indeed, I ended up absolutely loving it, and now I spend 3-4 hours perhaps three times a week playing. I find it a great source of exercise that's fun and thus easy to maintain, unlike, say, running on a treadmill in a gym, which most people probably find utterly boring. I've also noticed significant health improvements, both in my emotional state and with regards to my Crohn's Disease. I now no longer want to die, and I'm beginning to establish new goals for myself for the future.
Yes, but - at least in my opinion - treatment does not have to necessarily be medical. True, depression may well be caused by a neurotransmitter imbalance, but I'm of the opinion that behaviour affects the levels of neurotransmitters just as much as neurotransmitters affect behaviour. Correct the behaviour (which may indeed be challenging), and you'll see marked improvement.
Since early teenage years, I have struggled with moderate depression and severe Generalized Anxiety Disorder. I really dislike the idea of taking psychiatric meds, particularly after a nightmare experience with Paxil, so I pursued cognitive behavioural therapy instead. It was a lot of work, but I came to recognize underlying patterns in behaviour and thought that I'd developed over the years and was able to challenge them and break free of them, which gave me remarkable improvements in both conditions. I had reached the point of almost being housebound and having many panic attacks a week to now being able to essentially do whatever I want.
About eight years after CBT, I still get depression and anxiety, but typically only a fraction of what I used to, and now only in response to actual tangible problems that I can investigate and try to right; hence, now instead of being a victim to my depression and anxiety, I am able to effectively use them as motivators for change, which is probably their biological intention. (Of course, they're still not pleasant, and I will confess that sometimes I have a bad short period, but generally that's because I've become very lax with my CBT techniques.)
I think that there are a number of reasons to encourage children to enjoy both activities, but give a preference to reading. Firstly, heightened diversity comes with being able to have fun reading and playing video games. Secondly, the focus that comes with reading will likely be a very handy skill to have during formal education and later on in a career, and is sadly something which many people struggle with.
We're not all like that; it's just that the majority of us don't want to defend Apple in circumstances like this, so we don't say anything and let them take their well-deserved criticism.
With the advent of OS X, I became a huge Apple fanboy. That being said, I loathe QuickTime and think that it's the biggest steaming piece of garbage on the face of the earth. I detest it even more than Windows Media Player / formats, and that says a lot. This makes me despise it even more.
Maybe we should move this over e-mail since it's getting pretty off topic here. *grins*
I see your address isn't available in your profile or I'd just go ahead and message you now, so e-mail me and I'll write back with answers to your questions: I'm on gmail as vorpal22.
I really hope that things do go well for you. Honestly, though, I don't think I'm an exceptional case. I know three other people IRL with Crohn's, and one of them was sick for two years, developed type II diabetes from prednisone, and almost died from complications from which he was barely saved by emergency surgery to remove gangrenous bowel. Another had a complete irreversible colestomy after being sick for over a year and not responding to any treatments, and now he's been doing fine for over 10 years, but he has to worry about his stoma. The third required so many resections that in his mid-30s, he's suffering from short bowel syndrome and doesn't absorb anything properly. I'd say that compared to them, I'm actually doing pretty well, and I'm thankful that my disease hasn't progressed to the point of ever coming close to dying, requiring resections, or a complete colostomy.
I know theoretically that Crohn's can go into remission for decades, but I don't think is common; at least I've rarely seen it, and I've exposed myself to many people with Crohn's to build up a support network. Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
As for diet, I don't believe that it actually triggers major flares, but it can serious exacerbate them and it can cause periods of unwellness even when you are in remission. Most of the people I know (myself included), when they claim to be in "remission", mean that they still have a few bad days a month, generally traceable to something that they ate.
You certainly don't have to give up martinis and spicy food if they don't affect you, and the impact of diet and what foods are no-nos are highly variable! I can drink vodka and gin like a pro and eat spicy food provided fresh chilies are used. On the other hand, dried chilies will do me in completely, as will oatmeal, caffeine, cabbage, beer, wine, champagne, and monosodium glutamate (the worst: fevers of 104.5 and screaming pain). If a food upsets your intestines on several occasions, avoid. One of the best indicators, I've found, is gurgling in the lower right quadrant of your abdomen, which is a sign that your terminal ileum is not happy with your food choices.
I think it's best to be careful early on: the more you challenge your delicate body, the worse things might get. I was reluctant to take drugs and watch diet because, like you, I largely felt okay after my initial bout and went into remission for two years (indeed, my flareups generally strike on a two year schedule). I regret fighting my gastroenterologists who wanted to put me on medications like Entocort as a preventative measure, because slowly, scar tissue built up from very light inflammation over time and now I'm probably worse off for it. My gastroenterologist has now told me that I will, at some point in the perhaps distant future, probably require two resections of the small intestine due to irreversible thickening, which might not have happened had I been more careful with food and been more willing to take anti-inflammatories.
My latest bout was probably caused (it is speculated by my doctors) by some vaccinations I received (Hep and Dukoral). I began to get sick the next day. I was doing perfectly fine the day before them. It's yet another indicator as to how fickle this condition can be and how much care Crohn's patients need to exercise.
I'm sorry... I'm not saying this to scare you. I'm telling this in the hopes that you'll take care of yourself early and hopefully avoid many of the things that I and others have gone through. I really believe that had I been more diligent, I would be much better off today.
(As for Botox, my pain is doubtfully caused by muscular spasms; it's rather unhealed fistulae that continue to get infected, and scar tissue in the large intestine. I could have surgery to heal these, but every time I've had surgery in the past, the problem has gotten significantly worse. I don't recover well from it, which could potentially be very bad as a Crohn's patient.)
I'm not going to lie to you: Crohn's will affect your life, and it will do so significantly. This is a serious disease. The degree to which it will impact you can't be predicted, but there are some steps that you can take to significantly reduce the chances that it will cause problems for you. We're definitely not talking the runs from eating at Taco Bell too often, which is just some digestive upset. This is an inflammatory disease, and the inflammation can cause a number of health problems that extend beyond the digestive system to the rest of the body.
I recommend you really read up on it in depth. Wikipedia doesn't have enough information. Get a recently published good book on the subject and educate yourself, so that you know what to expect, how to deal with it, and what your options are.
That's the bad news, and I'm sorry if that scared you. The good news is that there are newer and much more effective medications coming out all the time. After being incredibly ill for seven months last year (moderate fever, constant pain in my lower abdomen and rectum, 30 bowel movements a day, huge weight loss, malnutrition) and not responding well to many medications, I finally decided to face my fears and go on the TNF-alpha inhibitor, Remicade (which I was hesitant to take as it has some incredibly rare but possibly fatal side effects). It has made a vast difference in my life. Given the breadth of options these days, when you flare up, with some time and experimentation, you are very likely to find a course of treatment that works well for you, although it may take some time to do so.
Because of this, if you're an American, make absolutely sure that you have good health coverage. Treatments can be very expensive: Remicade costs approximately $25k - $100k / year, for example, although most Crohn's drugs, while still expensive, are significantly less. Also, take a very active role in your health care: you need to know what your options are and make decisions for yourself. Listening blindly to a doctor is definitely not a good idea. Prepare yourself for the possibility of taking a lot of daily medication, too: most of the Crohn's and Ulcerative Colitis people I know have, at some point, been on at least three or four daily medications and have required supplements and vitamins due to malabsorption.
As for me, I'm 30 now, and I've had perhaps five major flareups of the disease altogether, beginning when I was 22 or so. I've needed three somewhat minor surgeries for complications (i.e. abscesses and fistulae), and I have definitely found that with each flare, which lasts longer than the previous one, my symptoms become worse. The good news is that I do quite well when I'm in remission, and I feel that now with my current medication regime (Cipro, Pentasa, and Remicade), I'm going to stay there for awhile.
It is absolutely crucial that you figure out what foods your body can't tolerate. There is a lot of debate as to whether or not diet affects Crohn's significantly. The medical community is out on that one, but I've never met a Crohn's sufferer who doesn't believe that food doesn't play a role. Your mood also makes a huge difference: take time to do relaxing things daily and minimize your stress. Exercise is highly beneficial, too.
Become part of online or in-person communities of other Crohn's people. It is invaluable to have a support network and a repository of information for when things go awry.
I'm sorry if that painted a truly dreary picture, but Crohn's can be quite challenging to contend with. However, with the right attitude, knowledge, and some effort, you can probably expect, for the most part, to have a reasonably good quality of life. And with all the research into Crohn's going on, new medications are being discovered regularly, and it's even possible that a cure might be found within the next decade or two.
Best of luck to you, and take care.
It isn't really surprising that one of them killed himself due to chronic pain. I myself suffer from it due to complications of Crohn's Disease, and after several months of this, I was pursuing euthanasia as a serious option, much to the horrible upset of the very few loved ones that I told. Note that this wasn't an emotional response to the problem, in my opinion: I had considered my options coolly and calmly and it felt like the best course of action and the most effective solution to the problem.
Having to live your life in constant pain is worse than you can imagine if you've never had to go through it: you wake up in the morning (provided you could sleep), and you spend the entire day cranky and miserable because you feel horrid. All you do is look forward to the night because again - if you're able to fall asleep - you'll have several hours of some respite from the pain. You rarely feel social or productive because you can't focus your attention or get over your irritability. You're wracked with guilt because you're unable to treat your loved ones with the kindness that they deserve, particularly for putting up with you, and you feel alienated from everyone because few people know what you're going through and you frequently cannot tell them the thoughts that go through your head as they probably often do involve suicide or euthanasia, and psychiatric institutionalization - which is what you worry might be forced upon you - simply isn't going to help, since it won't fix the core issue and the problem isn't psychological.
Now extend this to months or years with no end in sight and see how you feel.
Fortunately for me, I was finally able to find a doctor who was willing to prescribe me opioid pain medication and help me get involved with a pain management clinic that teaches mindfulness based meditation, and now I'm doing much better: I'm able to function, I'm looking for a job, I want to see my family and friends on a regular basis, I'm much more pleasant to be around, I can exercise daily, and I'm no longer interested in euthanasia. However, most pain sufferers are *not* as lucky as I am, because doctors are not willing to prescribe long-term use of opioids due to the horrible rules and regulations surrounding these drugs that have been introduced due to their addictive nature. The difficulty in obtaining them is why some people become addicted to heroin; Kurt Cobain is a good example of such a person, who suffered from severe abdominal pain until he found some respite when he took it.
If anything, people need to fight for their right for quality of life. Yes, opioid abuse can be a serious problem in society, but the people who need these drugs often do not have the strength to put up the huge fight to get them and they must have regular access to them. Perhaps if Singh had been prescribed some relief to his problem, he might still be with us today.
I agree with many of the suggestions here (drug legalization, end the war on terrorism, etc), but one thing that I would *really* like to see is for highly increased liability for corporations. The entire notion of a "corporation" abused existing law to remove liability from the members of the company and instead have the company treated as an individual under the eyes of the law. This isn't happening, IMO. When a pharmaceutical corporation screws up (think Vioxx), what happens? They get a financial slap on the wrist. If I accidentally killed some people, what would happen? I would certainly go to jail for manslaughter, and it's very unlikely I'd be able to buy my way out without serving some time first. How are we, then, in the eyes of the law, considered equivalent as individuals? If companies want to be corporations, treat them as such: if they commit a crime, give them "jail" time and cease their operations to make them incur severe financial loss, just as I would be unable to work in prison. Maybe then we can abolish this absolutely stupid concept by making it entirely unappealing and go back to the way things used to be before this nonsense started.
Maybe because when you get home at 6:30 and have kids and a working spouse, going to bed at 9:00 may not even be an option.
I worked for a company that was bought out a few years back. The new CEO came to visit us to "pep talk" us, telling us that we were currently number two in the marketplace and that we wouldn't settle for number two: we had to be number one.
No one was enthusiastic in the slightest, and it wasn't because we were in a new company. No, we weren't pepped by his speech because it was clear to us that there was no advantage to us other than perhaps some prestige to being number one. All we would be doing is earning him and the stockholders more money.
We're told that we have to earn our place in society, but from many of our perspectives, there really isn't anything *worth* earning. What is the very best that most of us can hope for? A middle class position in an ever poverty-increasing society due to the tremendous shift of wealth towards a small number of businessmen? A marriage where we both work long hours in order to fatten a tiny number of people's pockets, coming home so exhausted that we're barely able to tend to the children's needs and much less to each other's, so we compensate ourselves by the accumulation of possessions? Some world we've been offered. I'm not sure that it will be worse off if we're a bunch of WOW playing crybaby slackers.
I'm frustrated that despite all of human innovation and technological advancements, I have to kowtow to an alarm clock that rings at 6:30 AM. Where are the promises that technology was supposed to reduce working hours and make our lives more pleasant? No, we're forced to work harder to compete with other organizations who also suffer the same fate as our own. I think many of us have realized just how much society *has* lied to us, about college, technology, etc. and we've grown apathetic and tired of the empty promises. I'd rather be a relatively poor slacker with time to myself to do what I want and to enjoy my family than a successful developer whose time is consumed with largely meaningless pursuits and whose life is filled with possessions.
Please stop using Diebold machines. We're tired of reading what essentially amounts to the same story every single election.
Love,
The Rest of the World
Faith can be tempered by logic, and logical explanations can often be translated back into faith frameworks without loss.
It's like what happened at the turn of the 20th century where society began to discover psychopharmacology. There was an initial crisis that it would reduce the human experience to nothing more than a set of chemical interactions, which brought religion entirely into question. Similarly, again, was the discovery that "religious experiences" can be reliably induced by stimulating certain areas of the brain. Now, I don't see why the theory that consciousness and the soul are nothing more than functions of chemical reactions invalidates them from having a higher meaning, at least in a subjective sense; it simply requires a slight adjustment in thinking.
It's one thing to decide to adhere strictly to a faith-based approach or a science-based approach, but in my opinion, only a narrow mind sees the impossibility in rationalizing the two. I'm a philosophical Taoist mathematician with a good interest in science and I've never had any problems. My dad is a fairly devout protestant from a moderately conservative denomination (by Canadian standards), and holds a PhD in physics; he also doesn't find that there needs to be any clash between his scientific knowledge and his religious beliefs.
Since they generally have a complete inability to produce anything that runs on any other platforms, the if condition is probably redundant.
While I think that your point has some merit, at least amongst the people I know, when they bought new computers, they didn't actively seek to avoid Win XP. They accepted the new OS that came with their system and moved on.
With Vista, on the other hand, virtually everyone I know who has bought computers in the last year has purposefully gone out of their way to remain with XP, and we're talking a lot of non-tech-savvy types here. My dad, for example, who knows only the basics of computers, called me up to tell me he was buying a new system, and he wondered if what he had heard was true and he should find one with XP instead of Vista. If my dad's thinking things like this, it's a safe bet to say the majority of people probably are, too.
Agreed. Anyone remember M.U.L.E., which was essentially a simulation of economics? It was, IMO, quite possibly the best game of all time, and the one that my friends and I played the most when we were kids. I bought a C64 emulator just to relive the memories.
:D).
Not a single puzzle or monster in it (well, the wampus, but chasing a black dot through mountains hardly qualifies as a real monster
While perhaps you might also be able to identify non-desirable traits that are more likely to be passed on to offspring
This, IMO, could be incredibly valuable alone. For example, I have Crohn's Disease, and knowing that it's very likely that there's a genetic component to my condition, I would never even consider having biological children; even if the chance that they'd inherit it from me is fairly small, IMO, given the effects of this disease, it's completely irresponsible for me to consider having a child of my own.
If my parents could have known that there was a significant chance that a child of theirs would develop Crohn's Disease and with this knowledge, they instead opted to go the route of adoption, their existence and my lack thereof would have placed all parties in a much better situation.
Of course, that's not to say that they wouldn't have taken the risk all the same. I know several people with Crohn's Disease that do decide to have children (some of which have developed Crohn's themselves), but I find it very difficult to muster up any respect for these parents.
If LANCOR wins, I suggest awarding them a percentage of the Nigerian OLPC "profits".