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Friday, March 31, 2006

words of wisdom- words to live by

We begin from the recognition that all beings cherish happiness and do not want suffering. It then becomes both morally wrong and pragmatically unwise to pursue only one's own happiness oblivious to the feelings and aspirations of all others who surround us as members of the same human family. The wiser course is to think of others when pursuing our own happiness.
~Dalai Lama

How anyone can profess to find animal life interesting and yet take delight in reducing the wonder of any animal to a bloody mass of fur and feathers is beyond my comprehension. ~Joseph Wood Krutch


If he be really and seriously seeking to live a good life, the first thing from which he will abstain will always be the use of animals for food, because . . . its use is simply immoral, as it involves the performance of an act which is contrary to the moral feeling - killing. ~Tolstoy

Sunday, March 26, 2006

Seals pt 2



Did you know that the seal hunt started on Saturday? Over 300 000 baby seals will be killed this year. The Canadian government actually increased the number of killings allowed from last year. So why do I have a picture of Pam here? Well not only has she been a spokeswoman for PETA for years, but she is also taking a petition to give to Stephen Harper to end the seal hunt.

"So what." you think? Every year Japan has their annual whaling season. And every year our news programs show the graphic pictures of the sea turned red with the blood of whales. And it's news because it's horrible and we condem them for it. All over the world people see US in the same way. This isn't the image that Canada should have. So sign the petition. You'll feel good about yourself.

http://www.furisdead.com/feat-pampetition.asp?int=weekly_enews

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Okay, Somebody out there wanted to know about OCD. No one I know qualifies- but anyways you asked. This is the DSM-IV-TR diagnositc criteria:

The person has either obsessions or compulsions or can have both
obsessions are defined by 1, 2, 3 and 4

  1. recurrent and persisent thoughts, impulses or images that are intrusive and inappropriate and cause marked anxiety or distress.
  2. it isn't just excessive worry about real-life problems
  3. the person attempts to ignore or suppress such thoughts, impulses or images or tries to neutralize them with some other thought or action.
  4. the person recognizes that the obsessive thoughts, impulses or images are coming from within themselves- ie the thoughts aren't being places in their head by someone else.

Compulsions are defined by 1 AND 2
  1. Repetitive behaviours or mental acts that the person feels driven to perform in response to an obsession, or according to rules that must be applied rigidly.
  2. the behaviours or mental acts are aimed at preventing or reducing distress or preventing some dreaded event or situation. However the acts are not connected in any logical way with which they are designed to neutralize or prevent, or are clearly excessive.
AND At some point the person has recognized that the obsessions or complusions are excessive or unreasonable.

KEY- the compulsions are things they DO NOT want to do, but have to do. ex. not being able to go to sleep until a glass on the bedside table is in the EXACT place it NEEDS to be. It may take hours, and the person may need to look at it from many different angles and create rules for how they can be sure that the glass is in the right spot. The person does not want to do this, it is a way to reduce anxiety.

So is vacuming the carpet in a particular way so all the fibers are the same way OCD? No unless it interferes with their life (like missing work because the carpet isn't right.) Or there are bizarre rules attached to it -like you have to vacume it by taking three steps forward and then two back starting in one place and then working is couter-clockwise circles.

So no. None of you have OCD. But if you want to see if someone else has OCD, try messing with their routines. For most people it wouldn't bother them that much. A person with OCD would freak. ex I walked on the right side of a tree and my Riverview patient who ONLY goes around things on the left. The patient stopped and was unable to continue on until I had undone it by walking backwards around the tree.

Sunday, March 19, 2006

"I am a butterfly in the sun"

Well, to stop all the questions. No I didn't get the VPLibrary job. I didn't expect to anyways. But I think that's kind of a blessing in disguise. Being on call for all 20 of the branches would suck, and they require you to work 20 hours.
Besides I have a line on an even better job. Yes I have applied for it. And no I'm not saying what it is. I don't want to ginx myself twice. Oh but I will say what it's not -pole dancer, nude model, slaughter house worker, Conservative party spokeswoman or McDonald's slave worker. I turned them all down.
I think that if you put yourself in the right place, things will happen. Which is why I avoid silver poles, painters, slaughter houses, Mr. Harper and McDonald's.

Regarding the stress quiz, it doesn't look good folks. I see heart disease in your futures. Perhaps you need an affirmation to repeat to yourselves? You're supposed to write these on a index card and put them where you will see it.
~ Success is to be enjoyed
~ My family will benefit from my relaxing more
And my personal favourite
~ There are beautiful things happening in my life daily
See now don't you feel better? No? Well open up your window, stick your head out and yell as loudly as you can. "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!!!" hahaha!

This checklist is for Micah:

Do people tell you that you need to calm down?
Do you feel tense much of the time?
In your community or job, do you find yourself not saying what is on your mind?
When you are upset do you try to block the world out (i.e.: watch TV, Listen to the radio, go to sleep)?
Do you have trouble falling asleep?
Do you feel misunderstood much of the time?
Do people comment on how much you yell or curse?
Do your friends not seek you out as often?
Do you find it difficult to stay on task?
Do you feel like your world is chaotic?

This isn't a check list that is used by the pro's, it isn't scientific at all. How many Yes's are okay? Well it depends, mostly because a lot of these question could be used to screen for ADD/ADHD as well. It is the combination that is important. Actually you could just about qualify for a Manic Episode depending on which questions you say Yes to. Hmm chew on that for a couple days, perhaps that's the problem.

Friday, March 17, 2006

I AM Irish


Happy St. Patrick's Day!
off to class, and then running downtown to meet up with Darren, Shannon and Whitney at the Irish Heather. Should be crazy. I've never gone to an irish pub on St. Patty's. At 6:50 am there were already lines forming for the bars. Apparently Guinness drinks like a meal.

Listening to House of Pain "Jump Around" and "Shamrocks and Shenanigans"

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

mental health

I'm starting a new series of mental health information on my blog. Unless I get overwhelming feedback that this sucks. Disclaimer- I am not a mental health professional- yet.

Stress! Ever wonder if you are a big ball of stress?

There are a few of you who definately should score off the charts. Answer honestly. It should be pretty clear to you how you are doing. But if you wish you can send me your results and I can score it for you.

Perceived Stress Scale- 10 Item
Instructions: The questions in this scale ask you about your feelings and thoughts during the last month. In each case, please indicate with a check how often you felt or thought a certain way.


1. In the last month, how often have you been upset because of something that happened unexpectedly?
___0=never ___1=almost never ___2=sometimes ___3=fairly often ___4=very often

2. In the last month, how often have you felt that you were unable to control the important things in your life?
___0=never ___1=almost never ___2=sometimes ___3=fairly often ___4=very often

3. In the last month, how often have you felt nervous and "stressed"?
___0=never ___1=almost never ___2=sometimes ___3=fairly often ___4=very often

4. In the last month, how often have you felt confident about your ability to handle your personal problems?
___0=never ___1=almost never ___2=sometimes ___3=fairly often ___4=very often

5. In the last month, how often have you felt that things were going your way?
___0=never ___1=almost never ___2=sometimes ___3=fairly often ___4=very often

6. In the last month, how often have you found that you could not cope with all the things that you had to do?
___0=never ___1=almost never ___2=sometimes ___3=fairly often ___4=very often

7. In the last month, how often have you been able to control irritations in your life?
___0=never ___1=almost never ___2=sometimes ___3=fairly often ___4=very often

8. In the last month, how often have you felt that you were on top of things?
___0=never ___1=almost never ___2=sometimes ___3=fairly often ___4=very often

9. In the last month, how often have you been angered because of things that were outside of your control?
___0=never ___1=almost never ___2=sometimes ___3=fairly often ___4=very often

10. In the last month, how often have you felt difficulties were piling up so high that you could not overcome them?
___0=never ___1=almost never ___2=sometimes ___3=fairly often ___4=very often

Disclosure. "Permission for use of the scale is not necessary when use is for academic reseach or educational purposes." My rationale for posting the scale is that I am a psyc student who is learning about this scale, and I am educating others. However, just in case-accessed from http://www.macses.ucsf.edu/Research/Psychosocial/notebook/PSS10.html
Laurie Nelson
Department of Psychology
Carnegie Mellon University
5000 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
or email your request with your complete address included:lanelson@andrew.cmu.edu
Please don't sue me, I'm worth nothing- I will however remove PSS if requested
watch for Pt 2: reducing stress or maybe the health problems associated with stress.

Books

I've been doing some research. The book sales are going okay. All my inventory sources have been tapped. (Except for Shannon who is averaging 3 books a week now that she's the owner of the daycare.) So I need to find a way to get more books. I was reading what the pro's do, apparently you can buy books wholesale and they will be delivered to you. That sounds good to me since I don't drive. After spending several hours searching I found nothing. So the other suggestions from the pro's have been garage sales, thrift stores and digging through Barnes and Noble's dumpsters. There aren't any garage sales this time of year, thrift stores sounds okay. I think I'm going to checkout VV and Salvation Army. As for dumpster diving...well, I have FAR too much pride to do that.

If I was really sneaky I would dive into the huge "Books for Africa" bins that are all over campus. Students throw their textbooks into them if the bookstore isn't buying them back. Then the books are listed on Amazon and like 1 cent from every 100 textbooks sold goes to Africa. I'm sure that security would get me- but it is very very temtping. The money made on textbooks is crazy. I'd love to only sell textbooks. Maybe I should set up my own bin "Books for Hilary."

As I now have about 500 books for sale, I think I need a system. Currently they are boxed according to the date recieved. Alphabetical would make much more sense, oddly enough I only just thought of this. I'm thinking I should get a shelving unit. Sarah I remember you saying that there are shelves at Shannon M's house for me? would that work?

Saturday, March 11, 2006

Hawaii Pic's

I got my pictures developed a long time ago, but I didn't bother to pick them up.

Germain's Luau- Too good to miss. Alloooooo-HA!




Whitney and I went snorkeling here



And then we caught a crappy limo to the airport.

Thursday, March 09, 2006

God D@#$ snow

today it took over 2 hours to get to SFU- it usually takes about 35 minutes. I waited outside my house for 1 hour before I even saw a bus. I saw 2 of them going the other way. The buses run every 30 minutes, so I knew it wasn't good. I missed my exam by 45 minutes. I had to beg, finally I was allowed to write the test. finished in record time. back on the bus to get to work.
What total crap. I'm going to do my masters in hawaii.

ok holy crap. I just found this picture. it's a road, and that is a big truck in the distance. I don't know where this is- hell probably. actually it's Labrador, and this is a highway. Oddly enough I found it on a company's job opportunties website. I wonder what the pay is? It would take 6 figures before I'd move there!

Yes, yesterday sucked.



So I had a terrible commute to SFU in the snow. I got there sort of. The buses weren't going all the way-had to walk the rest of the way. I knew I had 6 hours of classes infront of me, and there was 5 inches of snow on the ground. So 20 minutes into my second class the school was closed. So in the snow and insane wind, the entire population of SFU was at the bus loop and there was one foot of snow on the ground. I actually got on the first bus and even got a seat- it was wet. Anyways I eventually got home-drenched. So it's still snowing. It snowed all through the night and the roads are snow covered (on the mountain.) And SFU is open! Normally this wouldn't piss me off, but I have a test today.

I found that pic looking for something else. There is a tunnel dug into the snow to get into the house. Total memories of that crazy snow storm in Elliston when we were snowed in for like a week.

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Movies

I forgot!
Tristan and Isolde. I watched the first half- very good. I don't have the second half, so who knows. I think it's definately worth watching. By the looks of things I may have to wait until April when the DVD comes out to see the rest of the movie.

Oh and it snowing. In march. In vancouver. I hate going to school on the top of a mountain- it's 10 degrees colder than in the city and there'll be a foot of snow up there!
I am looking for flying pigs, clearly hell has frozen over as well.

It's like spotting Tom Cruise for a psyc student

So I fired off an email off to the writter of one of my textbooks. I was given an assignment to define about 100 words from the text. However there isn't a glossary or an index. So the only way to find the terms was to flip through over 500 pages. Page by page, scanning each page. Everyone in my tutorial complained that it was a horrible textbook. I mean how can you write a textbook and not have an index??

So I googled the 1st author. Stanley Coren. I knew he is a prof at UBC. Surprise! I totally know him-well not personally. www.stanelycoren.com/bio.htm He is a very well known dog trainer. He's always on TV, he use to have his own show. He's even been on Oprah!

So I gave my suggestion on how he could improve the text on the next edition and then I quickly told him the story of Salem. You see at one point I was so frustrated with her I was seriously thinking of sending her back to the pound. I flipped through my psyc texts and did a little further research in some psyc journals. I applied Dr. Coren's (and Pavlov's) dog training techniques to Salem. She is very stubborn- her best trick is playing fetch and dropping the ball at my feet. But she has much better manners now- the training continues. One day I might be able to have curtains hang in my windows again.

So I got a reply from Dr. Coren telling me that his publishers thought that indexes and glossaries take up too many pages. He said that he is trying to get an index in the 7th edition and said to give Salem a pat on the head from him.

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Changes, Updates and Movies

So due to popular demand and lots of complaining I have changed my settings. You can now leave comments annonymously. But remember I have ESP and know who you are.
Alas, No I haven't heard anything from the library yet. They said they'd get back to me within 2 weeks, it's been 1 week today. So I have pretty much talked myself out of thinking that I might actually get it.
I am glad to hear that Micah is wickedly jealous about the whole library thing. Ah well, Theresa and I agreed that Malcom is amazing, so she's got us both beat. World traveller and a brilliant grad student? that's a tough one to top!!
Also Theresa admitted that she doesn't read my blog, but she reads my sisters!! I'm floored! Sarah is loving it! Things are going to have to change....
Oh and just watched Running Scared-Sarah you should not watch it. The actor guy is hot, but there is enough blood and violence that even I had to look away! I deleted it immediately after watching it (uh- not that I downloaded it....)

Next is Tristan and Isolde- looks really good. eye candy potential

That's the update for now kids. ~~Writting term papers, drinking tea and listening to Daft Punk

Sunday, March 05, 2006

And the Oscar goes to....

Well I can't believe that neither Brokeback Mountain nor Walk the Line won best picture. I haven't seen Crash, although now I guess I have to. It must be really really good. While listening to 36 Maffia perform "It's hard out here for a pimp," I thought well this song sucks, wonder why it got nominated. And then they won! Either I'm getting too old and am out of touch, or the Oscars were fixed. So fashion faux pas- I particularily liked the guy with the tux shirt, jacket and crooked tie paired with jeans. Honestly-did he think he was rock'n that? I love that Jennifer Garner almost fell- I don't like her, so I was a little disappointed when she caught her balance again. I didn't see any one that looked REALLY bad though. They must have edited the uglies out. I did think that Dolly Parton looked awesome. She has the freakiest body ever! She's 60! She doesn't look it

Oh and that movie I talked about in an earlier post with Dolly Parton was called Straight Talk.

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Seals


Well it's that time of year again.
Time to take your club and beat animals to death.
Did you know that in the next week or so the Federal Government is scheduled to decide if the seal hunt should be allowed to continue? Harper may be a Conservative freak, but I would actually maybe kinda respect him if the hunt was stopped. So what can you do to help you ask? Well you can start by emailing your local MP and email Harper at: pm@pm.gc.ca Tell him how you feel!

And this is why no one cares about my blog


yeah, so I'm sick...but not as sick as poor peter pumpkin head. Spent the whole day in my pj's surfing the web. wish I could do the same tomorrow. It seems that after midterms the last thing I want to do is pick up a textbook.

found out that ben harper and bedouin soundclash tickets are going on sale tomorrow. I was going to buy a few tickets. that was until I saw that the tickets were $45 plus service charges and the concert is the day before 2 termpapers are due. I think I would be far too stressed to handle a super chill concert.

I have nothing else to report.