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lucysweatslove · 4 years

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There is something to be said about starting over.

Truthfully, though, I’m not sure what it is. My story is not new or unique; I’m just a woman in her mid-20s trying to figure out how to be herself again, or what that ever would look like. Few paths are linear, or even with one definitive trend. We start, we stop, we remodel and backtrack or go in an entirely different direction. I came back to tumblr for two reasons: 1, I really believe blogs are helpful in my planning, recording, and motivation for any part of my life, and 2, I tried a few other types of blogs and didn’t like them. Tumblr was where I got my life in order when I went to college. I made connections with people who helped me, in various ways, connect the dots in my own life as I became an adult. And then, for some reason, it stopped being that space. I could blame this change on politics, and honestly, deep in my mind, I do. Even prior to Trump taking office, or his campaign, tumblr’s focus shifted heavily to politics and the state of the world’s affairs. Understandable, and I harbor no ill will to those using their platforms to speak about what they believe to be right, but that shift took over my feed. Instead of positivity, I felt anger and desperation. Facebook, school, or work were places for politics- tumblr was my place without it. Tumblr was my place to work on my own health, inside and out, ignoring the health of our society. I could not- and still can’t- focus on my health while being bombarded with reminders of the degradation of the world. I don’t remember when exactly I stopped being on Tumblr for good, but it wasn’t recently. In the years since then, I didn’t have a place to hold on to my health, and I’ve deteriorated. I hate it. I don’t hate myself, nor do I hate the workings of my body, but I see myself and I am discouraged and disgusted. I try to do basic things, like body weight squats, that used to be easy activities, and I struggle. Some of this is related to age, some of it is related to health issues, and some of it is related simply to poorly managed stress. I have made numerous attempts now to get myself back to the health I was in 4-5 years ago. A previous post from 2018 on this very blog shows that off. In early 2019, I attempted a keto diet- which, even though I was very consistent with, did not “work” for me. I’ve started other blogs (which obviously failed), personal journaling, linking up with different food tracking apps, going to the gym more regularly, intuitive eating, even a well designed rewards program based off of the psychology and neuroscience of behavior modification and rewards- they all failed in the end (although the rewards program was wildly successful for the two months I did it, but after it ended and I went on a trip, it became too difficult to keep up). The problem with all of these attempts has been a lack of integration. Any attempt at in-person or even online but direct social support has been futile, and my attempts and feigning the idea of support or accountability (eg, a blog as I feel the “support” whether or not it is actually read) haven’t integrated what actually works best for me: numbers. I need all pieces to come together, and so far, I haven’t been able to do that. It’s like working on a large puzzle where the pieces continually go missing. You have one piece in your hand, but can’t find the piece it connects to, and when you finally do, the first piece mysteriously vanished. I think big parts of my difficulties the last two years especially have been medication and health. Right before I started this blog, I was started on a new antidepressant and anti anxiety med. This first made me REALLY sleepy, so as I was adjusting, I slept so much that I didn’t eat regularly. When that resolved, I thought I was doing fine on the medication, but without changing anything else, I experienced many side effects, including a 20 pound weight gain and a whole host of weird, systemic/somatic concerns (I was even lactating a small amount). I stayed on it because my anxiety seemed better, even though I felt all my emotions were dull. When this medication stopped working for my depression, I finally decided to switch it- and that was a process that lasted, no lie, over six months. I tried medication that gave me horrible heart palpitations, dizziness, tachycardia, and erratic blood pressure readings. I tried genetic testing. My psych moved practices. It was a mess. During this process, I tried multiple times to start going to the gym. There was ALWAYS something wrong. I would go consistently for two weeks, and then I would develop muscle spasms in my back. I couldn’t do yoga anymore because I developed a soft tissue injury in my left hand and could no longer put weight-bearing pressure on that hand. In early November, I developed an upper respiratory infection that lasted two months, required two courses of antibiotics, and still hasn’t fully resolved. But now I need to be determined. My honeymoon to Cancun is in 13 weeks, and every day now counts. While I can’t solve all my problems in a mere 91 days, nor will I have my “best body ever,” I am determined to be able to enjoy the beach vacation with my husband without letting my body, my insecurity, or my complete lack of fitness stop me. When is started paying attention to my diet, I was technically obese (just barely, but still). This number hit me hard. I remember crossing the line from normal weight to overweight and sobbing, so angry that I had let myself down. I remembered how awful I was treated by my peers the last time I had such a high weight. Now, I would love if I could reach that weight before my honeymoon. My “goal,” which I have entered into MyFitnessPal, is to lose 30 pounds starting from last week at 176.2; this would place me at 146.2 and a BMI just barely overweight. Would I love it to be lower? Yes. I would be overjoyed if I could lose even more weight. However, I don’t want to attempt anything unrealistic; if it happens, great! If not, I won’t be (too) disappointed. I have been too scared to measure my waist recently, or my hips or thighs, but I have a few linen dresses that I really want to fit in to, and while the scale is a great way to measure weight loss, I am really looking for more fat loss, improvement in how I look and feel, and to fit into clothing again- so as long as inches are going down, I’ll be happy with the weight loss too. As a disclaimer, for anybody reading this. Yes, 30 pounds in 14 weeks IS over 2 pounds a week, and it IS over 1% of my body weight per week as well (both of those values are typical suggested maximum rates). I’m not suggesting this particular weight loss goal to anybody, and my general/systemic health is constantly monitored. This last week included, I am being VERY conscious about keeping myself in good health throughout this process, and if I cannot reach a goal while maintaining my health, then the goal (in some part) will change so I CAN meet it healthfully.

#Journal #day 6 #starting over #weight loss

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ill-be-istj-if-no-one-else-is · 5 years

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So this’ll probably be a multiple part submission, but again it’s the “ISTJ 4w5” anon here with more info about myself for better typing. Sorry it took so long to get back, I was out of town. So I read your post about what information is helpful when typing so I’ll do my best. Basically, I’ve gone back and forth with all different types, trying to find my best fit. A friend of mine who’s pretty knowledgeable about mbti was the one who suggested I may be ISTJ for a few reasons: I usually (1/?)

think everything through at least a little-as I’ve gotten older I’ve become a lot more spontaneous and adventurous about things, I love new experiences too-but even with these things I still think about how I’ll get it to work, what the possible repercussions will be, exactly what I need to do to accomplish things, etc., so Judging would make sense for my personality. I do actually do tons of research on most things beforehand, sometimes I’ll get lazy and “just do it” but I almost always (2/?)

go into something with at least a little foreknowledge. I also make decisions with my head, so for that reason it seemed like it made sense for me to have thinking as my dominant judging function, because I always choose the most logical option/what will yield the best result, sometimes based on what has worked in the past. But I’m not against new suggestions, because I look at what will work the best or yield the best result as I said before. But I will lean towards things that have worked(3/?)

before if they seem to be the best solution. I didn’t think I could be a Thinking dominant because for me there’s no way I could have inferior Feeling, which is why the stackup of a Perceiving function followed by Thinking and Feeling made sense-because I always check in with my values/feelings before making a decision but always rely on objective logic first-which I’ve heard is a staple of Te vs Ti subjective logic. But if I completely disagree with the morality of a choice I won’t do it.(4/?)

Basically, I’ll always find a way to make things work unless it’s absolutely impossible. Im pretty stubborn. I’m dependable and if I say I will do something I always do it. I have a good memory and I remember minor things my friends or people in my life tell me for a long time, just little details. I always need details when someone is telling me a story, or relaying something that happened, because I like to know specifics and analyze them. I strictly adhere to external logic when analyzing(5/?

(Im starting from where I think I left off bc tumblr wasn’t sending them) But if I completely disagree with the morality of a choice I won’t do it. Basically, I’ll always find a way to make things work unless it’s absolutely impossible. Im pretty stubborn. I’m dependable and if I say I will do something I always do it. I have a good memory and I remember minor things my friends or people in my life tell me for a long time, just little details. I always need details (6?/?)

and specifics and analyze them. I strictly adhere to external logic when analyzing things too, like my conclusions need to match up with the objective logic I use. I’m not much for rules or traditions like most ISTJ stereotypes go, but stereotypes are just that and aren’t what’s important to look at when typing. I have certain traditions that I appreciate but I’m almost always open to an adventure or new experience. I like the idea of making new memories as well, and I love learning new things.(7/?)

Idk how much of the last asks even sent, ugh. Anyway: I’m aware of my surroundings; I mean I can get lost in my own world or distracted like anybody else but my mood is heavily influenced by my environment. I get “vibes” from an environment and just kind of feel like they’re good or bad. Oftentimes a “good” vibe will be something that invokes a positive memory or experience, but it can also just be because it’s pleasant in some way. My comfort is important to me and I like to be in touch (8/?)

I can be spontaneous, but I’m not reckless because I always think things through at least preliminarily. I just believe in seizing the moment and making the most of an experience, so I love “adrenaline junkie” activities. Usually that’s an Se stereotype, it’s something I can relate to but I wouldn’t call myself impulsive because I analyze pretty much everything. I just have noticed that I can be more adventurous than my Se dom friend, which is interesting. But it’s all about how one thinks.(8/?)

For the zillionth time my tumblr was acting all wack and idk how many parts of my ask sent, so let’s hope they did... I’m aware of my surroundings; I mean I can get lost in my own world or distracted like anybody else but my mood is heavily influenced by my environment. I get “vibes” from an environment and just kind of feel like they’re good or bad. Oftentimes a “good” vibe will be something that invokes a positive memory or experience, but it can also just be because it’s pleasant somehow(8?/?

My comfort is important to me and I like to be in touch with my 5 senses, always. I often pick up on details other people miss but I can be as oblivious as anyone else on a bad day. I would consider myself a fairly intuitive person, but definitely not an abstract iNtuitive-type. Im just pretty perceptive about things, it’s something those close to me always tell me. I get senses or vibes from people when I meet them, and I’ve had plenty of experiences where I’ll get a certain vibe from (9/?)

mom sometimes, but that could be due to maturity. I used to think I was an iNtuitive, but I realized I am actually most likely a sensor who was mistyped thanks to bad descriptions due to intuitive bias. I know the only real difference is Sensing focuses on the here/now and the past, drawing on resources and memory, and using concrete, linear thinking, likes details and being in touch with surroundings, etc. I really dislike abstract thinking and I always need practical real life examples (10/?)

applications in order for me to care. I like the abstract symbolism in art, music, etc. And in that sense I like to determine what the real meaning is. So I don’t hate abstractions but they’re not my favorite, so an Ne weak spot in that department would make a lot of sense for me. I just hate abstract theories on things that have no real use or meaning to me. I also know that an “I” type doesn’t always mean one is a true introvert because it’s all about functions, but I’m almost positive I(11/?)

am one because I’m definitely an introvert and my primary thought process is always done internally. I’ve done so much research on mbti and enneagram, which my friend also thought could be due to wanting to discover my true identity, which I’ve heard is an enneagram 4 thing. Discovering my identity is very important to me. Obviously I’m not an expert, I’m just a person who wants to understand themself and has researched and read a lot to be able to do that (12/?)

There’s definitely parts of personality theory that I don’t know, but I definitely know more than anyone else I know personally in my life, it’s kind of become a hobby I guess. I just really want to know my type, not to flaunt it like some badge of honor for being a super “rare” or “cool” type; I want to know so I can grow as a person and understand myself and how I think and make decisions so I can see my reasoning and improve myself. Anyway I hope this info helps, I love your blog (13/14)

and thanks for taking the time to read all this horrific mess. (14/14)

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I wrote a much longer response but it was very piecemeal as these came through.

In short: my guess would be SFP, either ISFP or ESFP.

Reasoning: I think in your attempts to avoid intuitive stereotypes you fell into a whole lot of stereotypes about Se that led you not to type as using it even though you seem very clearly a high Se user to me. You don’t provide many specific examples, ironically enough (eg: a lot of people say they get vibes, but there is a difference between ‘I regularly guess information about people that they are shocked I could figure out’ and ‘I can tell when people are sad sometimes’ and people use ‘vibes’ for both), so Ti vs. Fi is more difficult as you don’t really provide examples of your logic and there’s a lot of tautology. That said your motivations for MBTI as true identity (which...it is not your true identity, please do not think of any personality theory as such, they’re all generic archetypes of your identity) seem more in line with Fi as do some other things. Some observations:

-most people think their actions through to some extent. Some more than others but even spontaneous Ne and Se users have like, a thought and don’t just leap blindly. You don’t really provide an example here of your planning or your adventurousness.

-”I make decisions with my head” and “I always choose the most logical option” are actually signs to me that you don’t have a great sense of self-awareness. No one always chooses the most logical option unless they’re a robot. We all do irrational things sometimes, and honestly, how do you even decide what’s more logical in a lot of decisions?

-while it is true that Te uses objective logic and Ti uses subjective logic, people are very bad at telling which they use - which isn’t a judgment on them or you, but it also means that if someone says “I use objective logic” it doesn’t really mean anything. You need to tell me what decisions you make that are objective.

-If you have moral stances but do things that completely contradict them...then you don’t have moral stances, you just say you do. So this is tautological.

-Lots of people can be stubborn; dependability is more stereotypically judgers but I’ve met some exceptionally reliable perceivers; it’s a learned skill that smart people learn to develop regardless of type.

-contrary to stereotype, while some Si-doms do have a great memory (I think mine is better than average) plenty don’t; the capacity to remember details is more sensing because of the detail-oriented nature.

-similar to the objective logic statement it would be helpful to understand what you mean by external logic.

-being always open to an adventure or new experience is not really likely in high Si users until they’re pretty old. I mean, I am as discussed in the midst of a bunch of new experiences and while I’ve moved and started new jobs/school a few times and am used to it I am still kind of constantly fighting the urge to just hide in my new apartment (not having wifi in it is ‘helping’). The fact that you also are an adrenaline junkie is really not typical of Si-doms at all.

-Finally: introversion. Your writing style strikes me as extroverted. You don’t provide examples. I would need to know more about what you mean by “your thought process is internal” because like, that is what thoughts are - internal. Extroverts still have a full inner monologue.

My guess is you’re a type 4 ESFP who is in the midst of tert-Te development and so you are currently identifying very strongly with logic and productivity. However, it’s also very possible you’re an organized ISFP; my ISFP sister is one of those. As mentioned a lot of people realize that being flaky isn’t really a good look; a lot of SFPs are also very practical (high Se) and place a high value on reliability as a moral trait or identity trait. I find the nature of Fi and Ti is such that it’s really hard for people who use them to always know which one they use because they’re so subjective by nature; high Fi users often see their moral decisions as logical and high Ti users often see their logical decisions as also moral (unless they are of the edgy, “I have no morals” sort).

#mbti #isfp #esfp #anon ask #answered ask

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incarnateirony · 6 years

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Let’s talk about subtext. Again.

This is a topic I've talked on before, but at that point, it was a fairly closed-in discussion about the (mis)use of the word "subtext" abroad, especially in regards to intentional undermining of discussion of canon. Lots of people use the word, but nobody really understands what the word means before they use it, even well-intended people, much less people arguing for the sake of argument.

So I'm going to start with this, then put it behind a cut.

I will warn due to the nature of examples, there’s some Megstiel-critical stuff included even if it’s not entirely the core-point of the post. Plenty of disclaimers about your right to fanfiction and your headcanons there but there’s a lot of stuff I’ve noticed Megstiel shippers just... don’t want to read, or something, so if you’re like super duper defensive of the ship, stop while you’re ahead. But for what it’s worth (though I absolutely SHOULD NOT have to disclaimer this, but it’s SPN fandom, so,) Rachel Miner is a doll and my reservation to her or her character does not reflect on her whatsoever. Actors are not their characters, and opinions of characters in no way represent opinions of actors.

But yeah. *points up* subtext.

(Edit: I’m gonna spare everybody a lot of time and say that if you’re a reactive Megstiel shipper that refuses to practice basic self-care or heed the warning, once you read this post in full, also read the notes in full, in order, to prevent any cyclic time wasting repeating yourselves, since you guys seem to have a very linear argument track that I’ve now watched across multiple people on multiple SM platforms. If you hit a redundant point, your only response will be *points at previous notes* or *points at post*, so let’s not waste kilobits. Somebody got there ahead of you and already ran full ouroboros in advance.)

Cool. Got it. So subtext is the underlying spirit of a story, especially if it is implicit and thematic to the piece; Canon I went into extensive detail in this previous post but the basic points to consider in fictional literary canon, since that was fairly single ship focused post; let’s just scrape out a few of the original sourced points on what fictional canon is:

Original works of a writer who created certain characters and/or setting

In fiction, canon is the material accepted as officially part of the story in the fictional universe of that story. The alternative terms mythology, timeline, universe and continuity are often used [...] to refer to a richly detailed fictional canon requiring a large degree of suspension of disbelief, while the latter two typically refer to a single arc where all events are directly connected chronologically.

Other times, the word can mean “to be acknowledged by the creator(s).

I think, in base premise, everyone agrees with the base line of this: Fanfiction is not canon; stuff made by the original creators is canon; elements like mythology, continuity, etc, especially elements directly acknowledged by the creators, are canon. I don't think anyone's going to argue this, and if you are, sit down, Carl.

Don't worry, this isn't going to be a "Destiel is/isn’t canon" post. I've beaten that literary field to death. It's just the continued misuse of the words that is pissing me off right now.

One thing you will notice, however, is that "subtext" is thematic and implicit; and at times, authors have commented on subtext and given approval, nods, or confirmation. In example, despite subtext, those areas are inherently canon, even if never-ever overtly textualized.

But we're gonna go deeper than this, because some people have wrapped and tied it up in their noggins that people have to literally continuously creator-nod at the canon, despite thematic and implicit elements of storytelling that are previously confirmed.

Schroedinger's Canon

If an idea is formerly established, but we don't take the explanation out of the box every time, is it really canon?

(Psst: The answer is actually yes, I’m just being a smartass.)

I'm going to give the simplest examples.

Demons have black eyes (unless of course, they're higher ranking.)

We are aware that this is an established premise.

Early on this was even textually explained.

However, it was never stated that only demons have black eyes.

There are many encounters where a creature flicks their eyes black and we recognize them as a threat. And what kind.

In some of these moments, they are not explicitly labeled as demons. They are just ambiguous bad things if we ignore the meaning to these thematics.

That said, if we don't have a "you're a demon!" or "I'm a demon!" revelation, is that character suddenly not, canonically, a demon?

The simple answer is no. They are still a demon.

The same goes for angels. We are aware of a variety of angelic reasonings and behaviors and elements that were established at some point.

However, there are cases that are not necessarily called out and explicitly labeled "I/they am/are an angel."

Let's take 9.03 "I'm No Angel."

We see a pharmacist attack Castiel. Castiel slays the pharmacist and the pharmacist collapses without any dialogue exchanged to clarify angel-ness, but a bright white flash of light.

In fact, despite only having seen the pharmacist prior jamming to music, the transcript goes so far as to include "He is obviously possessed by an angel."

Why though? Why do we consider this "obvious"? Because there are thematic, subtextual, enduring elements, that even when not spoken, they are implicit. This is the very meaning of canonical subtext.

Canonical subtext is not "A random line I can extrapolate into whatever the hell I want in a given moment removed entirely from scenario." That is just interpretation of a moment. If you're just pulling random lines out of your ass that don't have consistency, that is not subtext. The line is canon. The interpretation, if not built off of established thematic subtext, is just that: an interpretation.

A wild interpretation appears.

Logic is destroyed!

But the fact is, deep down, we all know this. There are thematic, subtextual, enduring elements to the show that we don't need ELI5'ed to us to understand. We may need them ELI5'ed to us to feel the need to win a digital argument with someone you feel is being thicker than Rocky's pectorals, but we don't need it to actually understand these events.

Previously established and enduring premises that are technically subtext to continue to adhere to include:

Demons are bad things, and generally possess people against their will. There have been a few exceptions to this rule, which canon made point to highlight vividly.

Vampires are monsters, and generally drink blood to survive. There have been a few exceptions to this, which canon made point to highlight vividly.

Despite these changes, we all understand the enduring subtextual mechanics involved. Just because Ruby got the medical certificate of her coma patient after Sam grilled her about eco-friendly recycled hosts doesn't mean all demons are choosing coma patients and walking around with their medical records now. Just because we've met a vampire clan that sucks on cows instead of people doesn't mean they all go vegan. Just because exceptional moments of these tennents exist do not mean we should assume this applies to every scenario moving forward, or pretty much the entire scenario of the show goes in the shitter.

Nobody disagrees with me here, right? Pretty sure we all agree here.

So the real point of where "subtext" arguments get obnoxious is when people choose to undermine thematics. It's one thing to not *notice* the thematics initially. Not everybody is a high-acuity meta viewer/reader/writer. Sometimes we don't consciously absorb them or we miss a detail. Sometimes a few years later the authors are bashing their heads off their desk because we're still arguing over a point they tried to make so they write it in neon letters on a character's forehead. But it's another thing entirely to willfully reject thematics.

Let me fall back to these previous examples. Angels, demons, empty vessels, etc.

Ruby recycled her body and made point to do so. In making a point, they evoked a coma patient who was considered braindead. This warranted a clean, empty vessel without a host.

In 5x21, Castiel wakes up in the hospital feeling a bunch of human elements after losing his grace, having been considered brain dead.

Now, we can banter headcanons on day on how exactly we went from (later quote of) exploded by an archangel (previous to this would be Raphael) to a season-gap and then clinically registering as braindead. Logic on my end would indicate Castiel hadn't been strapped up to machines to gauge his brain-dead-ness until then, ergo, nobody was there to gauge that he was brain dead. Unsurprisingly, doctors didn't fly out to test molecularly-recomposed Castiel immediately.

But that's a heck of a random element to include after them slapping it around as a unique item before. While subjecting him to itches, pain, hunger, and headaches suddenly and talking about his lack of mojo.

Well, that's because it's not random, and it's thematic, Carl. The same way it's thematic he acquires those as a human later (and technically previously-later in 5.4), and even Lucifer in season 13. That's because we understand these thematic elements of the story. This is subtext at this point, but this is canon.

(In this example, Castiel is confirmed an empty host in 5x21 in thematic fallback to Ruby's host braindeath, but also confirmed humanized/degraced in both forward and backward thematics.)

These things aren't not-canon simply because they didn't have Chuck step in to narrate it to you. They aren't not-canon. They're definite canon elements that quite definitely reached the screen.

So where is my issue with this?

Well, have an example: Recently, I've been having problems with possible-Megstiel shippers. (I say possible because there’s also been an insurgence of well-known-Castiel-haters brushing shoulders with the Megstiel crowd and rooting for her to come back to respark the ship FIVE YEARS LATER because, IDK, I guess they’re panicking about how gay it’s getting and realized spitting acid at TPTB for years isn’t working so I guess they figure they can try to side-write him off. And when they suddenly pop out being combative AF as below, I mark them as possible anti in Megskin.)

Now, you guys have followed my blog for a while, and you may notice I've never commented left or right about Megstiel, because generally, if people are leaving me and mine alone, I leave them alone. But the genuine fact is I fucking loathe it. It makes me furious to my core. And not "because Destiel shipper." I only went true dumpster season 13 and maybe started tipping towards it around S11. But I hated Megstiel since the concept of it.

So I want you to first imagine this set-up. Me, some friends, Destiel conversation thread. BOOM. Aggro Megstiel shipper kicks in mocking ship superiority. Gets shut down. They stop. Next day, repeat. BOOM, starts talking bullshit about more canon stuff to their ship. Gets mad when people counter. BOOM, kicks in another day, starts saying people only don't like Megstiel because it's a "threat" to Destiel (...I'm not sure how a ship that died 5 years ago is a threat to anything???) - so people start setting this person straight on the reasons they don't like it.

Now, if you're super-defensive of Megstiel, you may want to skip this section, but this boils down to:

Vividly painted consent issues

Lack of honesty in the character

Psychological abuse elements

Psychological is semi-relative but considering Cas' mental state over time, some of his stans aren't fans; Meg isn't the demon's name - it's the name of the girl she possessed, and we never learn more about this demon and who they actually were. But back to the girl she possessed: in 4.2 it was Meg - the real Meg - the human Meg that REALLY manifested the consent issues to light, almost in counter-highlight to Ruby expressly clearing herself of riding with a passenger. And yes, Meg* (asterisk because HONESTY, wtf is your name demon dude/chick/other?) acquired another vessel, but also talked about the girl's aspirations and suicidal attributes. The long and short of it is - some people have a legitimate visceral reaction to this because, especially and of all characters, Meg Masters (human) illustrated this as a problem and then people just sort of wandered off and acted like it was NBD, like, she probs did the same thing as Ruby, right?

Well... no. That's where things hit the line of headcanon. And you have the right to develop your own headcanon to build a little fanfiction corner to do what you want in it, but you don't just get to ram it down everyone's throats and act like "their interpretation of canon is wrong." Not if they’re the one following thematics.

Thematic elements are canon. Excuses around them are headcanon.

This bullshit of “all interpretations are equal regardless of who does or doesn’t have actual canon content and supporting quotes, references, or moments and it’s all just interpretation and nothing is true and there’s no true canon because it’s all an illusion and it’s all interpretation” needs to die.

Otherwise, just deadass admit that you think there is no spoon, there is no canon, and there is no consistency or theme to the writing going on whatsoever at any point.

Because entertainment is art. And yes, you can interpret things. But things do have genuine themes. Supernatural is not one big floating 3D image of floating cubes you squint at that is entirely relative to the viewer. There are in fact stories being told, elements had, and truths within the world setting.

Otherwise, we can randomly choose to extrapolate that Sam’s hair isn’t hair, because it’s never molecularly analyzed, and we can clearly and reasonably argue and be totes-equal-canon if we state it’s actually a bunch of Leviathan Scales stripped into hair shape. And yell that my opinion is as valid as everyone else’s and just as canon as the people who thinks Sam’s hair is hair on a molecular level. Except we can’t. Because there’s common sense and base rules to reading things in context.

Points raised were

"well Meg fell down after exiting so the host is empty." Okay, and an entire fresh-black-cloud-possessed town fell down after a mass exorcism before, so that means what, exactly? Nothing. There is no implication or even premise to that, which is thematic and sound, and in fact, thematic evidence to the contrary.

"Well when Meg exited she got stabbed and she left her so the host died. THEN she came back." Okay first of all, the knife was pulled and she was never actually stabbed, but even if we add the argument she secretly got stabbed off screen (not canon) for her to have died to try to make this an okay argument - Okay, but... if demons could just possess actual corpses, wouldn't that kind of undermine the entire point of The Everything here in picking braindead hosts? Why aren't entire legions possessing graveyards themselves instead of just raising zombies (like Samhain did?) To be dead like that but not dead-dead and only-mostly-dead is a level of devil's advocate that hits the realm of absurdity. Like, they waited until she braindied, but not organ diedededead? What's the odds of it even working like that? ????

THAT ISN’T EVEN HOW BIOLOGY WORKS. There is no implication or even premise to that, which is thematic and sound, and in fact, there is again thematic evidence to the contrary. And past even the thematic evidence to the contrary, you’re now basically going to, what, argue some bazillion to one order of operations where she experienced brain death BEFORE organ death somehow? Is it only interpretation that Sam and Dean probably have to use the bathroom every day cuz it’s only mentioned a few times and that’s the only time those body functions are canon? Common sense on basic body processes is just interpretation now?

And just to clarify for the argumentative shits out there:

It has been proven that demons can continue to occupy dead hosts, if the hosts died while they were in possession. Exorcism of the demon at that point double-deads the host (again, ironically, Meg 1), as they are no longer supernaturally animated. However, a demon has never possessed or repossessed a previously-dead host. (And as above, what would be the FUCKING point of Ruby then? Or ANY of these instances if we can just possess the dead? Of the entire show?)

See examples: Meg 1 was alive when possessed; Meg fell out the building and broke; but Meg was possessed and got back up; Meg died immediately on exorcism because she was no longer supernaturally animated. New vessel was found. Similarly, the boys will kill demons in existing-dead vessels from fatal wounds which they identify, meaning demons continue to animate a host.

There is no instance TO DATE of a demon going into a previously-fully-dead-body, or otherwise, you know, the entire premise goes to shit. Yeah sure Ruby would take care to leave her braindead body on the floor instead of, I don’t know, just swinging through and picking up the first 100% dead chick available. Or she wouldn’t have just done that to begin with and shown Sam the grave or death certificate. Because it’s totally easier to find completely braindead patients than dead people, right? Because again. Thematics guys. Brains. Use the cells in them.

BUT AGAIN, SHE NEVER ACTUALLY GOT STABBED, SHE LEFT CUZ SHE WAS ABOUT TO.

So it’s almost like there is zero reason to even believe canon is trying to make a she-dieded-here excuse because she didn’t get stabbed, and almost like that is all completely arbitrary fanon.

I just felt the need to address how there is no universe that excuse even works in canonically.

Now, if you want to use these headcanons in fanfiction land to write a fanfic where it isn't noncon, that's great. You do that.

But canon has been very, very vivid about clarifying these issues; sometimes bluntly (Ruby's exposition), sometimes subtly (Cas' braindeath post-Ruby's braindeath), sometimes recurring until everyone gets the goddamn point (No, dude, he's alone, and human, he doesn't have other voices; no, dude- that's his heartbeat- no, dude- okay, fine, we'll have Cas explain EXACTLY the period Jimmy died [available in the same bracket] AND show him in heaven to make SURE everybody knows Cas isn't lying because for SOME GOD AWFUL REASON THEY ARE STILL ARGUING WHY.); sometimes they paint it as a story for an episode (cow-vegan vampires), sometimes they paint it almost like someone's changing and have them regress (Benny.) But they paint these elements if they are meant to be painted within canon.

And no, choosing not to ELI-5 these things every single time isn't bad writing. It's them trying to put faith in an audience. At best, it's bad understanding of the volatility of their audience. Much of the art of writing is through subtlety and persuasion. There is nothing more annoying than a villain that monologues his every decision and nothing more condescending than bashing your viewers with kindergarten explanations EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.

But apparently some people in this fandom need that, because otherwise they'll run circles yelling it's just subtext, but that it isn't canon, despite it being subtextual canon, and that maybe the bad thing with black eyes that came from a black cloud wasn't a demon because they never called it a demon maybe it was an ebonyoompaloompa and you can't tell me otherwise because they never said it's a demon and THATS JUST SUBTEXT.

...THAT ISNT HOW THIS WORKS. I don't care if it's about races, about powers, about story elements, or about ships. Thematic, implicit, enduring subtext is canon. I honestly don't give a shit if you like the canon implications, and if you don't like the canon implications, that's what fanfiction is *for*, but this is not some ambiguous void in which the universe doesn't have any true rules whatsoever just because they don't stop to explain literally every single event happening on screen at any given moment.

This fandom is one of THE. MOST. FRUSTRATING. PLACES. to even TRY to hold literary discussions in. Because people don't just move the canon goalpost, they just flail it around wildly while telling people nobody can hit or declare what a goalpost is and that everything is irrelevant and there is no goalpost, and there is no canon, only Zuul, and again, THAT ISNT HOW THIS WORKS.

But while we’re at it, why the HELL is the ship called Megstiel? We are fully aware that is the name of the human girl that was screaming about consent. Why aren’t more people bothered by the continued use of her name? Nonamestiel? Anonstiel? What even is this? She’s not only walking around with a (generously, at-best) questionable consent host, she’s freely using the name of her last dead, terrified, used and abused host and Megstiel fans seem to not understand why people have HUGE squick issues with this.

Regressively, they tried to take a potshot at Destiel and Jimmy with season 4-5. At which point they claimed, blindly, I was moving the goalpost with the following points:

Destiel launched 4.1, Meg addressed this 4.2.

Not everyone is a meta author deeply considering these things *IMMEDIATELY*

This is different from aggressively resisting the ideas years after the idea was entered into central fandom narrative

Generally speaking the Destiel fandom of that era adapted by writing fanfiction to alleviate the shared vessel issue, or OT3 fics that involved his consent, or ironically actually wrote fics premised exactly on what happened (Jimmy died at a splodey advent and was released) and was confirmed even hammer-on-head-blatantly in canon.

Trying to yell at or about people who literally didn’t know better because it wasn’t even a spark in the common mind at the time, versus aggressively refusing to accept it years after it became an accepted thematic canon establishment, are two wildly different things Carl.

Blameshifting, gaslighting, goalpost moving; it’s all ridiculous. But we can cull goalpost moving. Again, about *any* part of narrative discussion. Because most importantly and essentially, subtext is actually a very important part of our everyday viewing experience and understanding of entire universes, as long as it is true, implicit, thematic subtext.

I’ve also heard the comment “I’ve wished they clarified that more for Meg.” Well... no? Has it come to mind they never wanted to clarify it? They clarified Ruby at the same time (Human) Meg screamed about consent. They clarified Castiel. But Meg just jumped vessels and kept using the name of the girl that was screaming about consent. Talked about her host’s mental state. Did not redeem for years after the fact. Had no real compulsion to do so. Her redemption WAS her highlight of learning at least a *few* of her mistakes (though it failed to address many of them, respectively), and being different than Just Another Demon. *points at the various demon subtext above* If they wanted to clarify that... well... they would have. They did with the others. Unsurprisingly, they didn’t with her.

And people can say that’s just an interpretation, but son, that’s the canon. That is literally what is there, through and through, in the canon. Top down left and right from origin to sunset. Demons Are Bad Smoky Things That Turn People’s Eyes Black And Have Little Moral Compass And Possess People Without Consent Unless Given Active Resistance To Make Them Act To The Contrary is canon. “But passing out implies empty” is not canon; new hosts have done that too; “But she got stabbed so could be dead” is not canon, because if she died, well, how the hell was she possessed again beyond Magical Fairies Preventing Her From Organ Death In Spite Of Braindeath While She Bled Out? - these things are not remotely canon. They are not even subtext. They are not thematic. They are headcanon. And again, you are free to have a headcanon in your fic land, but you don’t get to act like the canon of other stuff isn’t there and just tell everyone else they’re being mean/wrong/whatever for... reading... the content... both textual... and thematic... that is there.

And this is tumblr. I fully expect one of the Megstiel fans to come crawling buttchapped out of the woodwork, but I do defer you to

Your friend crawling our asses for days and seeking us out just to argue

The lead in that wasn’t just purely about Megstiel, as much as inspired by a Megstiel conversation, and still addresses broader fandom narratives

Why you so mad, bro.

If you want to have a problem, send me an ask and we can make a new thread about it. This thread is for literary discussion only. You *will* be blocked if you try to start a troll-off over it in hyper-super-inflated-defensive-psycho-shipper-mindset running off of emotion rather than logic, especially after as many disclaimers and “enjoy your fanfiction” labels as are present.

But the bullshit claim I encountered today that these reservations are “just shipwar wank” rather than upset survivors and/or people with disassociative or similar episodes being terrified and horrified by the presented concept is so fucking trivializing I could vomit glass.

Or that it’s “most” people just using it for shipwar wank. You don’t get to decide who has abuse survivor history, or MHI history, that could be deeply and fundamentally bothered by this. Whether or not you have a survivor card of your own, you don’t get to decide that. If it doesn’t bother you, great. Yet again: Enjoy your fanfiction. And if reading these repeated drilldowns about the canon problematic nature of it bothers you when everything else is rando excuses, then consider why it bothers you to be given those excuses in fanon but not canon spaces, and consider how those of us who take issue with it for these issues feel every time you drop it into conversation like a nuke.

And the thing is, it’s not just Megstiel. Not by a long shot. Like I said, I’ve stayed quiet on Megstiel through the course of my time in digital fandom. Most of the time, I’m laughing out bullshit from bronlies that are completely revisionist. Sometimes, I butt heads with other Destiel shippers (generally wherein they read my “subtext can be valid canon” and think I’m saying “queer people should settle for subtext”, of which these statements are not connected nor implied. Not even in thematic subtext.)

And again, like in the previously mentioned, previous post about subtext, canon and literary discussion: Even applying any Death of the Author excuses is wildly abused. There’s a goddamn spoon, Neo, and I’m going to smack you with it. Because when they’ve managed to collaboratively manifest these details into fruition and they have in fact aired, you can’t just run around yelling NOOOOO at everything. You can’t just pitch random excuses like spitwads into conversation hoping they stick to the wall. Content needs to be reviewed in full context. Otherwise you are literally spit-balling.

Even the most generous styles of literary analysis will tell you that, unless your interpretation is literally that it is a completely abstract piece with no intent, continuity, objective, moral, thematics or anything like a Wassily Kandinsky painting, and even then he had SOME sort of premise to his stuff. But hey, if you want to write a fully, top to bottom, consistent and thematic analysis where literally the entire show is made in an arbitrary and random nonlinear hodgepodge of non-events, by all means. It’ll be pretty hard to convince people, but go for it. You’ll probably be up against far more solid readings, though.

If we want to get into “full context analysis” while trying to diminish actual content in the series, then the time comes to argue if any content can be removed from the series, due to seeming non-canonical; getting everyone to adhere to this revised canon is its own feat, of course, and is instead a side branch of alternate canon which may or may not be widely accepted (just as in literary canon, there’s multiple canons for different genres, etc.)

An example of a premise for this would be:

I genuinely believe Megstiel only exists because all related episodes of initiation (notwithstanding her flirting with Cas like Demons Do in previous seasons, where he complied only long enough to THROW HER AS A BRIDGE TO WALK OVER FIRE, but instead to season six where it started tilting) were penned by rookie authors during a season that has been proven to have poor executive story editing and many plotholes. Initiating episodes were written by new authors on their first and second episodes, while the one writing the teleplay was simultaneously among the story editors that were failing in other areas, making double-checking their work even more dangerous. Failures to address issues like seeing her true face and more, which were previously established, can easily be considered as part of this.

(Before 6.10 Caged Heat Jenny Klein only wrote 5.07; she co-wrote with Brett Matthews, who previously only wrote 6.05 Live Free or Twihard. Brett Matthews was also credited exec story editor on this episode. So two newbies cowrote an episode and then story edited it themselves. In a season full of plot holes big enough to fly a Boeing 747 through so nobody upstairs was doing tighten-up work either.)

This would be an argument to try to strike it from canon considering standard elements of even non-direct non-Megstiel-ick, just why-didn’t-he-see-her-face wumbo sized oversights.

However, despite however logical this may seem to a large swathe of people, I am not snorting enough crack to think I can convince the entire fandom to consider this and revise the fandom wide canon acceptance. Ergo, I will not premise an authentic argument from it.

But that’s about what your other options are if you want to, say, try to scrub out thematics of demonic possession/exorcism effects or whatever else.

Ironically, the antis that yell a bunch of long-disproven points about Destiel, who are grudgeshipping Megstiel, are stepping foot in the same things they falsely yell are problematic. Even if we argued huge devil’s advocates on Meg’s life state as... dead and her reanimating her post-full-death after exiting at some point... then that’s necro? Like they try to claim Destiel is necro, despite Cas being explicitly divine-revived and having his own heart beat on multiple occasions afterwards since then, thus not being dead? Or that it’s noncon, despite canon aggressively clarifying time and again since as far back as season 5 that it isn’t? Or the above-mentioned pulled survivor card trying to speak for all people with that survivor card; is it because they tried to pull the “angels trigger me because of church abuse” card and got told to watch another show? Because... like. SPN is literally about magical creatures and angels, that’s part of what you sign on for. We don’t sign on for central themes of rape, incest, pedophilia or any other wild shit. There’s other TV shows for that. That isn’t this show. If angels bother you, practice basic self care. Just like my self care involves avoiding Megstiel episodes, or any episodes with T.A.W. in them.

Do they think they’re gonna pull an “ah hah, gotcha” if they make someone argue it? Because... these... these things aren’t parallel. Not even close. And at the risk of sounding like “my ship is better than your ship,” they’ve made a point of removing these problems for one character, and with the other character, repeatedly narratively highlighted these issues directly as enduring issues. So whatup with the super ironic grudge shipping?

Oh, lemme guess. “Subtext.”

...*looks up at the wall of everything above*

Myeah, no, that’s not gonna work.

#supernatural #canon #subtext #literary discussion #megstiel critical

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goodvibesatpeace · 5 years

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Spirituality: Synchronicity: The Universe's Software Programs

Considered to be an a-causal connection of two or more psycho-social phenomena, modern interpretations of synchronicity could be seen as the person who checks their phone for a call, only to receive the call immediately upon checking, a Deja-vu including but not limited to information from dreams occurring in waking life, or a seemingly random string of events leading the subject to a specific goal that could not have been achieved had their original plans gone accordingly—and of course any number of other events.

In order to understand these events, it is imperative to understand the postulates of precognitive ability, telepathy, and other forms of extra-sensory perception, as scientists have realistically been trying to make the Mainstream Media aware of ESP’s existence since the early 20th century with minimal success.

Unfortunately the only attention that any scientific studies receive from the press in the fields of parapsychology are the ones that get a good laugh, and the serious scientific analysis is engulfed in the tidal wave of sensory data that creates today’s age of social technology.

However, once people begin to understand the collective unconsciousness as the earth’s magnetic field, and the archetypes as specific primordial frequencies that the mechanics of everyone’s brains are apt to tune into, et cetera, it will be clear to see that ESP is not a matter of “having special powers” but simply more a matter of two human brains communicating with each other in the same way two neurons communicate through synapses.

Moving forward (or backwards), it is important to point out, as always, that humans’ ancient ancestors were well aware of all of these concepts well before Modern Man; which is not very coincidental since Jung was inspired largely in part by eastern mysticism with his psychotherapy.

However, “synchronicity” philosophy can be found in both eastern and western schools of spirituality.

Generally speaking, the eastern synchronicity was considered Taoism, which is a metaphysical school of philosophy that involves asceticism and meditation in order to further understand and perceive the Tao, which is the “universal flowing one-ness” of everything.

In modern terminology, the idea of the Tao can very much be considered a software engine, computing an existence through pre-existing algorithms that can be diligently studied and eventually interpreted.

The interpretation part was much more emphasized in the west, as eastern mysticism tends to shun “conceptualizing”, “assuming”, or “expecting”, but even Taoists attempted to interpret the language of physical phenomena, the definitive collection of their work titled the I Ching in the West, one of the things that Jung was quite fond of in his psychotherapy.

Divination was the ideology of synchronicity in the ancient west, and was not so much secular like a religion or Taoism, but rather was an umbrella category of crude “ancient-science”, like numerology, astrology and other traditional occult practices.

Specifically, divination’s primary postulation was that every personal interaction with the exterior physical world (each physical “effect”, basically) could be considered something similar to a “word” or “phrase” that had latent information within it, whether the subject interpreted it or not.

This same general process is also used in numerology, when the numerical value of alphabetical digits is determined and reduced down to its core value through specific calculation.

In this sense, it could be considered that divination is the acknowledgement of the synonymous nature of waking life and dreaming; meaning that both are perceived as linear experience of the self, and in both, the “outside” world can be considered an effect of a person’s unconscious projection.

In dreams this is obviously a bit more evident, but even in reality a person creates not the physical phenomena itself, but the entire categorical basis of it within their brain, which is clearly unique as a fingerprint compared to anyone else’s interpretation of the phenomena, and thus completely different and unique to the person’s own unconscious.

The Dalai Lama was quoted on the subject saying, “I am open to the guidance of synchronicity, and do not let expectations hinder my path,” and Terence McKenna referred to the quantum frequency spectrum in which synchronicities occur as the “Cosmic Giggle”.

Researcher David Wilcock wrote a book on the subject titled, The Synchronicity Key, and David Icke, Michael Talbot, and Graham Hancock have discussed the subject, among others.

Dr. Michael Persinger and his colleague Todd Murphy have, although not using the term “synchronicity” or any spiritual terminology, released an incredible amount of scientific data revealing the mechanisms that could quite literally describe the realities of Synchronicity and other Jungian concepts.

Even the Police released their album Synchronicity in 1983, which was openly inspired by the Jungian concept, and John Constantine of Vertigo Comics is often seen riding the metaphysical “Synchronicity Highway” (McKenna’s Cosmic Giggle) in order to get a leg up on many of his adventures.

In general the pervasive and unavoidable presence of synchronicity becomes reportedly much more evident under the influence of natural psychedelic drugs, which goes hand in hand with the ancient shamanic traditions surrounding the philosophy.

Setting aside all the esoteric philosophy and ancient tradition, synchronicity is indeed dealing with a frequency spectrum just like everything else, and the main broadcasters into this spectrum within the human body are the brain and the heart.

Ultimately the real tool to this spectrum can be considered a “self-aware consciousness” in general. This however can be quite difficult due to the multiplicity of layers within the brain acknowledged by just about every psychiatrist and psychologist in history, although the definitions vary substantially at times.

The reason for this is the reality that the different sections of the brain can be considered different organs in terms of goals and use, and because of this, humans are bombarded with a woven web of information that is basically a bunch of simple organs communicating biological responses to each other.

This is not to say that human consciousness is just the projection of a bunch of organs—but more to illustrate that the brain is not the pinnacle of intelligence that most people think it to be, and is instead just another organ looking to perform functions.

However, underneath all these functions is an intangible but undeniable core self; whether it be considered a “soul” an “intuition, a “higher self” or simply “enlightenment.”

There are four universal layers of the brain’s projection: We have the Self, the Anima/Animus, the Persona, and the Shadow.

When a person is born, they are physically one sex, so conceptually their consciousness becomes inverted at its root so as to allow the person a piece of the full spectrum; meaning that a woman has the male aspect of the Animus embodying her reason and spirit, and a man has the female aspect of the Anima embodying his sensuality and intimacy.

Some even spiritually characterizing this as a man’s link to his beloved throughout time. The persona is the literal cognitive mask a person paints of themselves for the rest of the world, the Self is the full fractal collection of all within the brain (often represented by a mandala).

The self is also often considered to be the positive spectrum of the whole—the yin, so to speak—which brings us to the fourth layer: the counter-mimicry of the self, the inversion, the Shadow—the yang.

The synthesis of these layers of perception, thoroughly described by Jung in his work and expanded upon by many others, is what a Taoist would call honing his mind to the flow of the Tao, or even what Thoreau emphasized when he spoke of sucking the raw marrow from the bones of life—it is learning to navigate the waves of one’s own mind, because only then will one truly be able to accurately navigate the waves of the world around them.

Of course, the simple definition to all this would be following one’s “intuition”, but unfortunately this is easier said than done.

Most people believe in themselves to such a little extent that making personal decisions is difficult enough, let alone making decisions on the present environment in order to accurately gauge the conditions of the future—in the present.

The only conclusions that can and should be drawn from this are that synchronicity events are a recurring and intimate piece of the human experience. The modern era is so unbelievably chaotic that it’s difficult to tune into anything these days, let alone the programming of the universe.

The translation of the programs of the universe is one’s own intuition; everyone experiences these synchronicities whether they are aware of it or not, similarly to the way that everyone dreams whether they recall or not; and finally, that the existence of synchronicity events further demonstrates the very fine line between waking life and dreaming.

No-Nonsense Naysayers will be inclined like always to chalk these things up to impractical reasoning and gullibility, but those who have experienced these intimate moments with the world around them cannot be swayed, especially since once a synchronicity has been experienced, they usually continue and often even the frequency increases.

Those who have not yet experienced this should take note to study the work of Carl Jung, and the ancient metaphysic philosophy of Taoism—and to a lesser extent the ideology of divination as well.

Although it should again be noted that this was not a brotherhood of diligent thinkers, but rather a definition of something that was emerging in the culture in general, and as a result is a bit more convoluted.

If a person wishes to unveil the programming of the universe, it is not particularly difficult, nor is it unnatural, but it requires a mindset without mental friction.

Although still largely misunderstood/unknown by modern science, Synchronicity Events cannot be denied their existence or their pertinence, and those who continue to remain blind to the universal coding will simply be left behind by the others, as they continue to ride the wave and explore their own nature through the interactive and multi-layered existence around them.

#spirituality #synchronicity #dejavu #carl jung #universe #universal #esp #numerology

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shylax · 6 years

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1 Year Weight Loss Retrospective: 420+ lbs. to 293 lbs.

This is going to be a long read, so I’m going to insert a read more here:

I think the last time I was truly a normal weight was when I was 4 or 5. My parents were very lax about food and exercise. I liked to stay in and play video games more than play outside. I was never good athletically, so that made me less inclined to exercise. I always thought you had to eat foods you didn’t like in order to lose weight. I thought you had to eat perfectly right. I didn’t know about CICO until much later, or I would’ve done something about it sooner, most likely. I was just very hedonistic about food. My family went got fast food at least once a week, and I loved my chips and popcorn.

Last year, a friend invited me to go to an orchestral concert, and since they were playing songs from Pokemon, I was definitely in. Unfortunately, I didn’t take into account the walking we’d have to do. I was so easily exhausted after climbing one flight of stairs. We somehow made it, but I felt so embarrassed because I kept having to stop, sit down when a bench was available, and generally felt awful. I knew I had to do something, and I decided to lose weight. After looking at the loseit subreddit, I decided to put a plan into action on July 27 last year. That was the first day I started losing weight.

That day, I weighed 420.4 pounds, although it may have been even higher since that scale weighed about 10 pounds light compared to the scale I currently use. I hadn’t gone to the grocery yet, so I was using the food I still had on hand, but I made it work. I also started a walking progression, walking 5 minutes 3 times a week, and adding a couple of minutes every week.

I gradually made improvements on my diet, and I got to a point where I could walk so much more. I wanted to try something a bit more explosive, so I started Couch to 5K. My ankle kept getting sore, so I had to start it four different times, and one time I stopped and did DDP Yoga. But I stopped that because even though I liked the exercise, I didn’t feel like I was very good at the dynamic resistance thing. I’m still working my way through Couch to 5K.

My eating plan was pure calorie counting, and so far I’ve been eating TDEE - 1000, with adjusting my goal every 10 pounds so I don’t unwittingly stick myself on a plateau. I track everything with significant calories, I lazily track my diet drinks, and I don’t log my sugarless gum at all. (I’ve picked up a chewing gum habit, 2-4 pieces a day, at 3 calories a piece that’s only 6-12 more calories a day, and I burn some, if not all of it back chewing it.) I focus on getting as much protein as possible, but since I’m not much of a cook and also a picky eater, it can be hard to get optimal levels, but I am doing a lot better than I was before.

I also have a few rules for myself to help with weight loss. First is no liquid calories, largely meaning juice or full-calorie soda. Shakes are fine, since they do keep me full and provide me with nutrition. I don’t eat out of any container I haven’t already budgeted the full calorie amount for. I just can’t stop. If I wanted some chips, I would put it in a bowl so I know when to stop. (I rarely eat chips anymore.). Also, I log my food a couple of days in advance. It’s not practical for everyone, but I’m a creature of routine and like eating the same things every day. I also try to not go more than 6 hours without eating anything while awake, because extreme hunger can lead to binges. (Again, not to discredit intermittent fasting/OMAD - different strategies work for different people!)

When I started, I was the new guy on MyFitnessPal once again, slowly building my streak. I took it one day at a time. Days turned into weeks, weeks into months, and months into a year. I went from admiring people with longer streaks than me (and I still do!) to people starting to look up to me. I want to set a good example for other people. I want to not disappoint the people who have been following my journey.

I can do so much more now, 1 year later. Taking showers used to be a chore for me, now they’re no problem. My back hurt when I stood up for a long time, making going to the store a problem. Now going to the store is no problem, and I can make multiple trips up and down the stairs without being gassed if I have to. I ran for 25 minutes this morning! Running wasn’t even an option for me when I started, but now when I need it I have a little burst available.

If there’s one thing I want you to take from this post, is that everyone has the capability to lose, maintain, or gain to get to the weight they need to be. It’s just numbers and will. It’s not as easy as it sounds though, or everyone would be doing it already. But everyone can. They have that power within them.

Addenda:

Here’s my weight loss graph for the year:

The reason my weight went up a bit isn’t because I actually gained weight, but I switched scales, and this scale was more accurate, and it wouldn’t be worth it to adjust my previous weights. It does have a linear trend, but it’s very jagged. You will gain sometimes before you lose, even if you’re doing everything right.

Progress pictures:

Sadly I don’t have a proper 1 year ago picture, but this is the closest. I can’t believe I let myself go like that! It wasn’t as apparent to me when I didn’t see a picture like this. My arms and legs are thinner now, my belly is still big, but not as big, and I can feel my collarbones now! Obviously, I still have a long way to go, but look how far I’ve come!

How my diet has changed over the course of 1 year:

July 27, 2017:

El Monterey - Beef and Bean, Red Chili Burrito, 2 burrito (620)

Kroger - Shoestring Fries, 9 oz (45 pieces) (420)

Kroger - Ketchup, 2 tbsp (40)

Kroger - Penne Rigate Whole Wheat-whole Grain, 2.0025 cup dry (561)

Kroger - High Fiber Oats & Chocolate Chewy Bars, 2 bar (320)

Kroger Fundaze Sundaes - Vanilla Cone, 1 cone (320)

Total: 2,281

July 27, 2018:

Kroger Peanut, Almond, and Dark Choc - Protein Bar, 1 bar (180)

Equate - Vanilla Shake, 1 can (180)

Hawaiian Punch - Single Water Mix In- Any Flavor- Sugar Free, 1 packet (10)

Powerade, 1 bottle (130) [Yeah, I accidentally got this instead of Powerade Zero. I’ll have to remember to get Zero next time.]

Kroger - Roasted Pumpkin Seeds, 0.33 cup (160)

kroger - reduced calorie penne rigate, 6 oz (450)

I Can't Believe It's Not Butter - Original Spray, 5 sprays (0)

El Monterey - Chicken,Rice and Beans, 2 burritos (460)

Kroger - Vanilla Nonfat Greek Yogurt, 150 g (100)

Total: 1,670

So yeah, you don’t have to start out perfect when you start losing weight. I’m still not perfect with my choices now, but I’m doing a lot better, and that’s the main thing.

#shylax original #text #weight loss #personal

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chatting-leaves · 6 years

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Thursday September 20th: Part 1 of 2

Genre: Personal. Very thinly veiled fiction.

The last time September 20th was on a Thursday, I woke up feeling very optimistic. That morning was to be the first morning of a new job assignment I had taken from a small staffing agency, my first work in nearly three months. Eight months earlier, my wife and I had moved to the northern suburbs of Boston, her home, after she had complained of feelings of homesickness and ennui and she felt she had nothing to lose by going back home. While in theory neither she - or even myself, who had been out of work prior - had nothing to lose, in practice we had everything to lose.

On that morning, I awoke in the guest bedroom of her grandparents house, our residence since we had moved as a means of having some place to stay at the outset. Instead, our lives had become what I would refer to as a “sadistic game of Wack-a-Mole” in which our employment statuses varied - first I had a contract position, then she finally got a relevant job four months after our arrival, then my position expired - and kept us from getting a place of our own. When this job arrived, I was told that it was a “sure thing” by the woman at the hiring agency; that while it was at the outset for only one month, there was “a very, very good chance” that it would become a permanent position and that my new employer, a semiconductor startup, was “a very strong operation that liked [my] background.” Over the ensuing eight months, we had become a bit more cynical, a little more than a bit chubbier, and a lot more worn down from having had little privacy for most of our first year of marriage and we were wanting to get a place of our own. After a shower and breakfast, I packed some snacks and a lunch and made my way out the door, walking down our residential street with signs for the upcoming elections littering our street, a byproduct of sorts of toxic political culture. Amidst the signs before reaching the main road came another form of litter echoing an alarming trend, discarded syringes and needle covers left by those abusing injectable drugs such as heroin. At the main road, I waited for a bus into Boston and upon boarding then weaved through an assortment of working class areas that could be seen by some more exclusionary types as the epitome of the stereotype of the “Townie”: rarely traveled, insular, working class, yet also a bit elitist in terms of town status and their defence of local sports teams. This commute is something I had done too many times to count when I had previously worked and on other days when I had taken a day off to ward off cabin fever and to try to have some semblance of the life we had left prior in a compact, accessible neighborhood of Washington, DC where everything I needed was either within walking distance or accessible by copious amounts of transit. We worked out way into Boston, eventually reaching the notorious highway of Route 1, through the twists of the post-industrial Chelsea before what some called Boston’s “other Green Monster”, the Tobin Bridge. At that time, it was a hunk of vaguely green metal pockmarked with copious amounts of rust where we sat stopped as the morning rush meandered its way through the toll booths to be waved through en route to our eventual arrival. After that point, I went through a similarly meandering journey via subway - Green Line to the historical Park Street, then Red Line to the bustling South Station, then a transfer to a confused mode known as the Silver Line, a mode often derided as a “bus that acts like a train” which would bring me to the front door of the building where I was to work. In my two weeks of waiting for this job, a period which my start date had been postponed twice as I was originally to have started the Thursday prior, I had never made the decision to do a dry run to see how this commute would have worked out and once the bus dropped me off I was a bit in shock at the scale of where I was working. I had known that it was in a relatively isolated of the South Boston Waterfront - or the “Seaport District” in modern marketing lingo - but the mass of the buildings once used as warehouses seemed a bit stunning as I tried to find exactly where to go in the linear maze I had fallen upon.

Having a few minutes to kill before my shift, I made my way to a restroom to give a final check of how I looked to make sure I made an excellent first impression. While the email I had received stated that business casual was the code, I decided to side with a pair of suit pants and a nice sweater I owned with a green and red argyle pattern. This choice was giving deference to the weather that morning, unseasonably cool and a harbinger of the coming autumn set to start officially the next day. I then made it upstairs to find an office full of people mainly in t-shirts and jeans, typical for a technology startup but I always liked being one better as to set a good example. After asking for the woman who was to be my boss, Kathryn, I was given the terse word that she was in a meeting and that I should wait a few minutes. Once she returned, someone spoke with her and then brought her my way. Without given any sort of greeting or salutations, Kathryn went immediately to business.

“Can you put together those three chairs?,” Kathryn said gesturing to three unopened boxes. “I’ll give you 30 minutes to an hour to do so. The sooner you finish these, the better because we need these chairs.” I responded affirmatively but withheld the truth - that I had never put office furniture together in my life and that the job description furnished to me had mentioned nothing of the sort. I will gladly say that I am a team player and will go above and beyond the call of duty, the description had been given had a lot of phone calls, emails, editing correspondence such as press releases, nothing of the sort about light furniture assembly. Not wanting to show weakness or failure, I spent the better part of the next hour trying to put together said chairs and succeeded in doing so. After finishing, Kathryn barked another order at me.

“Can you make some construction paper footballs for the football watch party on Sunday?” I had been told at the outset that the entire office had a Fantasy Football league and that they often had day-long watch parties during the NFL season. This Sunday made things convenient as the Patriots were playing in the night game, viewed nationwide and one of a handful of games each week seen all around the world. As with furniture assembly, arts and crafts was never one of my strong points yet once again I did what I needed to do even if it was well outside my job description. While doing my best to get these assembled, both via creation and by writing the names of employees and other guests on them, I started to feel some doubts about the job as twice they had given me duties well beyond what I had prepared myself for; in fact, in assembling the furniture I had started to sweat as I obviously had not dressed for such a task. When done, Kathryn directed me to a computer and left a copy of their corporate compliance handbook with some notes attached.

“We’ve had to update our policy on bringing dogs into the office. Can you edit this in? Here’s your login,” she said while also giving me a piece of paper with a username - my name, last name heavily mangled - and temporary password. After helping myself to some complimentary pretzels and a soda, a hallmark of a startup leaving free food and drink for their employees, I tried to log in only to find the username the had created for me did not work and after multiple tries brought the matter to Kathryn who claimed that she would have it sorted out during my lunch later that day. Logging me into a guest account, I made all the edits that I had been given as well as doing some general copy editing as there were some typographical and grammatical errors lingering in the bowels of that handbook. At around 12:30, two-and-a-half hours into a six-and-a-half hour shift, I was given a request.

“Can you go to lunch?,” Kathryn asked.

“It’s a little early to take my lunch, I was going to hold off until I was completely done working on this,” I responded, knowing that I liked to take my lunch closer to the mid-point of my shift to break up the day easier.

“I really want you to take it now,” Kathryn fired back.

“Okay. I brought a lunch in with me which I put in the fridge. Let me just go get it since I don’t need anything else,” I continued.

“I really need you to leave for lunch. There’s an Au Bon Pain two buildings over. I’m sure you can get there, eat, and get back in a half hour. Your work can wait,” Kathryn insisted.

Under protest, I relented and took the walk over to Au Bon Pain, a bakery cafe with the typical assortment of salads, sandwiches, baked goods, and the like. While walking, I realized that “two buildings over” was a good five minute walk given the massive scale of each building and upon arriving I discovered that this literally was the only viable lunch spot for a pretty large community of workers as there were no other establishments open at that time. Not being a fan of salad and not wanting to hold up the line, I ended up deciding on a container of lobster macaroni and cheese from a small self-serve bar and a baguette as it was the easiest option to get, eat, and run back. This lunch set me back about $10, not much to the established people there but for someone who had not worked in three months was a relatively large sum as by that point I was not even getting unemployment due to a conflict that surfaced right before taking this job. As I ate, I wondered if my being forced out of the office had a ulterior motive to it such as ending the assignment; a prior non-temporary job I had did this to set up a meeting to let me go due to having less resources to support my position than originally thought. “Surely a job would not let someone go after only two hours,” I thought as I finished my lunch and made a mad dash back to to the office. Upon returning, I found a slip of paper with my fixed username and a temporary password. Once again, it did not work and once again Kathryn put me back on a guest account to finish editing the handbook then to add some more names to a mailing list they maintained. By 2:30 that afternoon, I had exhausted all of the work I was given only to find that she was in a meeting and the only advice given to me was to “wait for her”. For the next half hour, I sat and waited while trying to not play with my charging phone, my fear being that had I done so it would be used as just cause to end the assignment. Upon Kathryn’s return, she came with news.

“I think they fixed your username,” she said. Once again, I tried only to find that the username in the system still did not exist. After a couple of minutes, she ended up relenting.

“You can go home now if you want,” she offered. “We really don’t have anything else left here and we can just start fresh on Monday.” Going into this, both she and the agency knew that I had a standing commitment that required I not work on the 21st - we had plans to go to Vermont for our first anniversary.

“Are you sure I’ll be here on Monday,” I asked.

“Yes. As much as today seemed rocky we really will need the help starting next week,” Kathryn concluded. I went to get most of my stuff but I felt confident to leave my lunch - a package of frozen pizza bites - in the freezer for the weekend. After that, I went to catch a bus home, about an hour later reaching my front door before the afternoon rush intensified. As optimistic as my departure that day was, I couldn’t seem to shake the feeling that something might be slightly awry given what had transpired. While packing my clothes for the imminent vacation, I wondered what would happen when the agency inevitably called to see how my first day was and mulled giving them a preemptive all to get it over and done with.

Little did I know what was set to transpire.

#writing #personal #temporary job #lies #boston #thinly veiled fiction

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megacatstudios · 3 years

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THE HARDEST RETRO GAMES WE'VE GROWN TO LOVE

Glide on the Pain Train The hardest retro games we’ve grown to love there is plenty of nostalgia to be had when it comes to retro games. Some of it might come from the times of your life when things were simpler due to how young you were when you played them. Or maybe some of it was because these retro games were some of your earliest forays in terms of video gaming experiences. After all, the reasons for nostalgia vary from person to person. However, this also means that someone out there will have nostalgia for games because of how insanely hard they were. Video games have had leaps and strides when it comes to handling difficulty, with more accessibility options than before. But during the retro gaming era, developers were limited by both hardware and development experience. Since there was limited space to do things, games tended to be hard so that there would be more replayability, even though this was artificial in a sense. And since plenty of game development back then usually stemmed from arcade experiences, developers came with the mindset to make games harder to increase penny munching. Despite these limitations, however, players have increasingly grown fond of these absolutely difficult games, accepting their difficulties as gauntlets were thrown at the face of their gaming expertise. So join me today as we walk through some of the hardest retro games that have been thrown at us by the video game developers of yore.

GRADIUS 📷Not quite bullet hell, but hellish nonetheless Let’s start with one of the few games on this list that I have actually finished without using save states or cheat codes. Usually cited as one of the most important shooter games due to popularizing the horizontally-scrolling shooter genre, players are seated into the cockpit of Vic Viper, blasting their way through levels filled with enemies trying to ram you and plenty more that shoot bullets at you. At the end of each level, you will be confronted with a boss, and you’d have to shoot their weak points to defeat them. However, a lot of these points are actually protected by an additional layer that you have to destroy before being able to shoot at the weak point. The creativity of these boss battles is a highlight of the original game, as is the difficulty of each one. My favourite part of Gradius has to be the power-up system, though. Unlike most other shooters, Gradius only has one kind of power-up, and when you pick it up, it will advance a power meter at the bottom of the screen, and if you reach a point in the meter that you would want to obtain, you can do so anytime by pressing the power-up button, but doing so would reset your power meter to zero, creating a mini push your luck game of trying to survive as long as possible with a weak weapon to reach as far as you can on your power meter.

GHOSTS ‘N GOBLINS 📷Jumping in your boxers debut game of one of the most underrated franchises from Capcom, Ghosts ‘n Goblins sees a knight named Sir Arthur try to rescue Princess Prin-Prin from Astaroth, the king of the Demon World. While that plot is pretty thin, it is often referred to as one of the most difficult video games of all time. Unfortunately, much of that difficulty is either a love it or hate it kind. Sir Arthur can only withstand one hit before losing one life, and each life is also timed. What’s more, once Sir Arthur jumps, he can’t change directions until after he lands, which is maddening if you’ve played literally any other side-scroller. What’s worse is that each level only has one checkpoint, and that checkpoint is always smack dab in the middle of the level. If you die before reaching that point, you’ll be thrown back at the start of the level! Sure, there’s plenty of additional weapons that you can pick up along the way, and the game is still pretty much beatable, but right when you thought you’ve gotten the hang of it, a very nasty surprise will meet you at the end of your playthrough because now you need to do everything all over again with a higher difficulty to reach the true ending of the game! Sure, it’s nasty, but it wouldn’t be notorious for its difficulty if it was any much easier than this.

CONTRA: HARD CORPS 📷The bad news that the title is not just a silly pun. This entry to the popular Contra franchise is actually very hardcore. If you thought the original Contra for the NES was hard, the first and only Contra game released for a Sega console is even harder. Despite the prettier graphics, it has more things to master with its multiple characters, each with its own different sets of weapons. The Hard Corps also features multiple branching paths, with each providing a different ending. While that may all seem like an enticing ride, at the end of the day, multiple endings will only have players trying to finish the game multiple times. That wouldn’t be much of a problem if it’s not a Contra game that we’re talking about, especially one that is already considered one of the hardest entries in the franchise.

CASTLEVANIA 📷Don’t let go of your holy water! While not the most difficult game on this list, the original Castlevania will still take you by surprise, especially if you were able to play future entries into the series. Unlike the newer games, Castlevania doesn’t take an entire map and let you explore it to your whims. This was way before the series popularized the Metroidvania genre, and is instead a classic linear side-scrolling platformer. Like Ghosts ‘n Goblins, part of why this game was hard was because of how it handles jumps. You can’t change your trajectory in the middle of your jumps, and while that is absolutely realistic, none of the other aspects of the game is chasing for realism, so this seems like a design choice that is made to make your play sessions harder. However, this game has one neat trick that you can keep to heart to make things easier. When you acquire the holy water, hold on to it like your life depends on it. It will make quick work of most enemies within the game. All that’s left for you to do is to practice your jumps. You’ll be beating Dracula in no time.

SUPER MARIO BROS.: THE LOST LEVELS 📷When both launch and landing are problems only game in this list that was both difficult to finish and difficult to acquire, this Japan-only release is the actual sequel to the original Super Mario Bros. The reason why Nintendo never gave this game an international release was because of how absurdly hard it was, to the point that one of Nintendo’s consultants in the west back then called the game an undeserved punishment. However, this spike in difficulty was by choice, as the game was sold with a label that said it was a game “For Super Players” and plenty of tricks for infinite lives were included in the opening levels to provide additional room for players to breathe in the latter levels with insane difficulty spikes. Obviously, none of that helped in easing the game’s difficulty, and up to this day, The Lost Levels remains one of the few blotches of the Super Mario franchise. Still, there are people who regard the game as fun and clever and view it with fondness. While there’s no denying Nintendo’s excellent level design is at work here, there’s also no doubt that this is one of the hardest games in their entire catalogue.

MIKE TYSON'S PUNCH-OUT!! 📷He’s the least of your problems while not as notoriously difficult as The Lost Levels, Nintendo also had you reeling in terms of recovering from its punches with this game, later changing its name to “Punch-Out!!”. This is the easiest game on this list, with the different opponents that you face having distinct patterns that you need to figure out in order to beat them. However, people still remember it as one of the hardest Nintendo has ever released due to how you would need to restart the entire game from the beginning if you get knocked out in the middle of a fight against any of the fighters. Besides, if you experienced this game at a younger age, would you even think that boxing is a cerebral experience? You probably wouldn’t even think to see if your opponents are fighting with a pattern. You’d just mash the punch button in hopes of getting a hit in. That would most likely be the reason why people remember Punch-Out!! as one of the harder games to have ever existed. Still, I wouldn’t count out the times when one was able to identify Mike Tyson’s pattern and still be hit with one of his uppercuts that will instantly knock you out. That kind of experience is infuriating, and even so when it brings you right back at the beginning of the game.

BATTLETOADS 📷Prepare to crash over and over again And finally, we come to the one game on this list that is definitely considered by many to be the hardest game to have ever existed. Battletoads’ main problem is not in its controls or how friendly fire is enabled throughout the game, but in how it was designed. If you have noticed, most other games will give you an idea of what’s coming before it happens. For example, enemies would appear at a significant distance from your character, which gives you an ample amount of time to react appropriately before they do some damage to you. The problem with Battletoads is that it skips all of that. Enemies and obstacles inadvertently appear at a near-instant speed, which turns the game less of an exercise in hand-eye coordination and more of an exercise in memorization.If you’re absolutely convinced that you can finish Battletoads, though, you’re in luck. The game itself is fairly short, so memorizing the patterns of each level is easier than, say, memorizing all the names of stars within Capricornus. You just need to prepare yourself to lose some hair in the process.

HOLY ROLLER While people play games for different reasons, there are a certain magic too difficult games, especially when you are able to overcome the seemingly insurmountable odds associated with them. There is a reason why difficult games have been on the rise recently, with games like Cuphead or Celeste taking centre stage. These modern games are now unhindered by the technical limitations of the olden times. So with plenty of ways to adjust these games’ accessibility while also keeping true to their word for the gluttons for punishment, these games have truly transcended the barriers between being a game only the hardcore can muster and a game for everyone. However, despite the inherent difficulty that comes so often with older games, the design practices have evolved along with them, paving the way for all of the newer games in terms of designing for a larger audience in mind, and in turn, growing the industry. Which of these games have you finished? Or maybe we missed out on something harder to finish than any of these games? How about you let us know via our Twitter Page or head on over to our Youtube Channel to see more retro gaming goodness.

#blog #article #blogging #retrogames #hardgames #original photography blog #megacatstudios #mega cringe #gamingculture

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razieltwelve · 6 years

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On Psychometrics and Individual Differences

Psychometrics and individual differences are the parts of psychology that are devoted to measuring people. This measurement is most commonly concerned with gauging either intelligence or personality through some form of test, but it can also be applied to a host of other attributes (e.g., social skills, emotional intelligence, clinical practice, etc.). However, this measurement should not be carried out recklessly.

Before a test can be used, there are three conditions that must be satisfied:

Be certain that what you want to measure is actually measurable

Be certain that you can measure it accurately and consistently

Be certain that measuring it is useful

If you cannot meet all three of these conditions, then you may end up doing more harm than good when using a particular test.

These three conditions are related to three very important concepts in psychology:

Measurability

Reliability

Validity

The order in which they are given here is not a coincidence. For a test to be valid, it must first be reliable. And for a test to be reliable, what it is testing must first be measurable. Of course, at the moment, I’m writing mostly in jargon. Let’s simplify things.

Measurability

It is not uncommon for people to assume that everything can be measured. Certainly, that assumption fits well with our everyday experiences. If we look around us, we see many attributes like height or weight that are obviously measurable. It is also clear from our everyday experience that people vary in terms of their intelligence and personality in much the same way that they vary in terms of their height and weight. But does that mean we can measure intelligence and personality like we measure height and weight?

Not necessarily.

Consider a simple statement: John weighs twice as much as Jill. The meaning of this statement is clear. If John weighs 100 kilograms, then we know that Jill must weight 50 kilograms. Likewise, if we have John and Jill sit on opposite sides of a seesaw, we know that Jill will have to sit twice as far from the centre as John to balance the seesaw.

But what about intelligence? If John has an IQ of 100 does that mean he is twice as smart as someone with an IQ of 50? Well, not exactly. An IQ of 100 is considered average but someone with an IQ of 50 would be considered severely intellectual impaired. Certainly, many courts would be reluctant to hold a person with an IQ of 50 responsible for their own actions since such a person would be in the bottom 0.15% or so of the population.

Clearly then, two people with an IQ of 50 are not going to be able to do the same amount of intellectual work as one person with an IQ of 100. Contrast this with the weight example. Two Jills (each 50 kilograms) really do equal Jim’s weight (100 kg). Weight is additive but intelligence may not be, at least, not in the same linear fashion.

We can make a similar case for personality. If someone receives a score of 100 on a test of extroversion, are they really twice as extroverted as someone who receives a score of 50? Even a cursory examination of most modern tests of extroversion will show that such a belief is simply not tenable. It doesn’t make sense.

So what does this mean? Tests are instruments that assign numbers to people. However, that does not mean we can treat these numbers like we treat other numbers. Weight assigns a number. Weight is also quantitative (a very special property), which means we can make a range of very important statements, like :

5 kg + 10 kg = 15 kg

10 kg divided by 2 = 5 kg

10 kg multiplied by 2 = 20 kg

0 kg means that something has no (zero) weight

Those statements might seem obvious, but let’s try to apply them to IQ:

50 IQ + 100 IQ = 150 IQ

100 IQ divided by 2 = 50 IQ

100 IQ multiplied by 2 = 200 IQ

0 IQ means someone has no (zero) intelligence

Do these statements make sense?

If you take someone who is severely intellectually impaired and have them work with an average person, is their intellectual output similar to a genius? No.

If you take two severely intellectual impaired people and have them work together, is their intellectual output similar to a normal person? No.

If you take two average people and have them work together, is their intellectual output comparable to a genius amongst geniuses? No.

If you take someone with a score of zero, do they have absolutely no intelligence? No. Well, in fairness, they’re likely not very bright, but they would still possess some level of intelligence. Just being able to attempt the questions (even if they get them wrong) is a sign of intelligence.

Clearly, then, weight and intelligence are not the same, or at least, scores on them do not have the same meaning. Weight is clearly measurable. Intelligence may well be measurable too, but not to the same extent. This is where scales of measurement become important:

Nominal

Ordinal

Interval

Rational

When we measure things in a nominal way, all we can do is tell them apart. Think of names. We know that Tom, Sam, and Bill are different people. How are they different? We don’t know. We just know that they are different.

An ordinal scale can rank things. So, for example, if Tom came first in a race, Sam came second, and Bill came third, then we can have an ordinal measure of their speed. Not only do we know they have different speeds from each other, but we also know how they rank. What we do not know is how big the differences are (e.g., Tom might have only just beaten Sam while both of them were way ahead of Bill). If you are measuring things in an ordinal way, all you can do is rank them. You cannot comment on the size of the differences between them.

An interval scale is more advanced. It can accurately reflect the differences between things. The best example is the Celsius scale for temperature. The difference in temperature between 5 degrees celsius and 10 degrees celsius is the same as the difference between 10 degrees celsius and 15 degrees celsius. What is missing, however, is a meaningful zero. 0 degrees celsius does not reflect an absence of temperature. It is simply the freezing point of water. Without a meaningful zero, we cannot multiply and divide meaningfully. For instance, 10 degrees celsius is not twice as hot as 5 degrees celsius.

A ratio scale has all the properties of an interval scale but with a meaningful zero. The Kelvin temperature scale is a ratio scale since its zero point does represent an absence of heat. Weight and length are also ratio scales since 0 kg means an absence of mass and 0 metres means an absence of length.

It should be clear by now that when we say that we are measuring something, we like to imagine that we are measuring it on a ratio scale. That lets us do all of the fancy maths and statistics that we like, and even more importantly, it means that all of those maths and statistics actually mean something. But if we don’t have a ratio scale, what then? Well, we can still do the math and statistics… they just won’t mean anything.

And this is where things can get ugly. On what scale do you think we can measure intelligence, personality, and other psychological attributes? I think we can be confident in measuring them to at least an ordinal scale, but are we measuring them on an interval or ratio scale?

More worrying is another question: is it even possible to measure intelligence, personality, and other psychological attributes on an interval or ratio scale? If it isn’t, then tests of intelligence and personality are built upon foundations of sand.

Reliability

The question of measurability is highly theoretical and conceptual in nature. In contrast, the question of reliability is much more straightforward. For a test to be reliable, it must measure something consistently and accurately.

Consistently and accurately means that if the attribute being measured has not changed, then a test should give the same result when used on multiple occasions. Consider weight. If my scale is reliable, then if I weigh myself ten times in a row, I should get the same result each time. Likewise, if someone’s personality or intelligence has not changed, then a test of those attributes should give the same result each time.

Unfortunately, this is easier said than done since psychological tests are generally vulnerable to practice and demand effects. If I gave you the same intelligence test five times in a row, one after the other, you would undoubtedly get better at it because you have seen the questions before. Similarly, if you are applying for a job, and I give you the same personality test five times in a row, you might start to figure out what sort of personality is desirable for the job and change your answers accordingly.

This is why measures of test-retest reliability are seldom used in personality and intelligence. People learn when they are asked to do a test multiple times, and this in turn changes their scores. So how can this problem be solved? The simplest method is to design alternate versions of the test that are matched in difficulty and overall content (e.g., you might have two versions of a maths test that have the same problems, just with different numbers involved). You could then look at how closely scores on the two version corresponded. This is called alternate forms reliability.

Finally, there is something called internal consistency. If your test has multiple questions that are each attempting to measure the same thing (e.g., multiple questions about someone’s extroversion or multiple questions about problem solving), then someone’s performance across all of these questions should be fairly similar.

The reliability of a test can thus be measured in several ways:

Test-retest reliability

Alternate forms reliability

Internal consistency

A test that does well in these categories is consistently and accurately measuring something. Now, that doesn’t mean it’s measuring the right thing (that’s what we’re about to get to), but it is measuring something.

Validity

In simple terms, validity is all about whether a test measures what it is supposed to. More practically, a valid test is also a useful test since it can either predict some important outcome or corresponds to something important. In other words, if you want to know if a test is valid, the question you should be asking is: does this test measure what it is supposed to measure.

The simplest way to check validity is also the one that is most prized in human resources and organisational psychology: predictive validity. A test has predictive validity if scores on it can predict some important outcome (e.g., an intelligence test predicting job performance or a personality test predicting managerial ability).

If a test of something is good, then the scores it gives an individual should be similar to the scores given by other good tests of that same thing. For example, if you design a new intelligence test, then the scores it gives people should correspond to the scores given by pre-existing good tests of intelligence. Another way of thinking about it is to imagine that you’ve made a new ruler to measure length. If you already have a good ruler, then the two rulers should produce similar results when you measure the lengths of different objects. If they don’t, then one of them is wrong. This form of validity is called concurrent validity.

Content validity is about whether or not a test samples adequately and representatively from the domain of interest. For instance, if you are constructing a test of mathematical ability, including only questions about addition while neglecting subtraction and other operations would not be a good idea. Likewise, if you were designing a test to measure reasoning ability, having only problems of one type is unlikely to give you a valid measure of reasoning.

Perhaps the most complex form of validity is construct validity. In simple (but complex) terms, construct validity is whether or not your test measures what it claims to measure. The two mains ways of determining this are to see whether it relates to the things it is supposed to be related to (e.g., virtually all measures of intelligence are correlated with each other) and whether it does not relate to things it shouldn’t (e.g., measures of intelligence generally do not show strong correlations with measures of personality).

Conclusions

Before we use a psychological test (or any kind of test), we need to be certain that we are doing the right thing. This is particularly important when we move away from research into areas where the test serves as the basis for an important decision, such as in human resources or organisational psychology. But how do we know we’re doing the right thing?

A good test must be able to satisfy three criteria:

Measurability

Reliability

Validity

These criteria are not independent. A reliable test is one that measures something consistently and accurately. A valid test is one that measures what it is supposed to measure. Therefore a test must be reliable before it can be valid. Yet the issue of measurability is even more important. An attribute (e.g., intelligence) must be measurable before we can measure it with a test. Moreover, it must be measurable in certain ways, such as being quantifiable and measurable on a rational scale, if we are to apply many of the advanced statistical techniques that are so popular. It is not uncommon for people to simply assume that something is measurable, yet measurability, much like reliability and validity, is something that must be demonstrated, not simply assumed.

Tests and assessment instruments can have a powerful impact on people. It is the responsibility of the people using those tests and assessment instruments to make sure that they are using the right tests in the right ways.

If you want to read more about my thoughts on writing, education, and other subjects, you can find those here.

I also write original fiction, which you can find here.

#psychology #psychometrics #individual differences #measurability #reliability #validity #test theory #intelligence #personality

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housebeleren · 5 years

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Guilds of Ravnica Draft Format Review

Even though it’s now War of the Spark time, I wanted to officially tie up my thoughts on the previous two Ravnica sets, as we leave the guilds behind. My draft format evaluations are comprised of the following dimensions:

Speed - Consisting of its Tempo, Aggression, and Explosiveness

Variety - Consisting of its balance between the Colors/Archetypes, Threats to Removal, & Deck Strategies

Depth - Consisting of the depth within individual cards, within archetypes, and within the metagame as the whole

Fun - Consisting of the Flavor & Theme, the Gameplay itself, and the amorphous “X-Factor”

I’ll also go through my thoughts on the themes & mechanics, any noteworthy decks, notes on draft strategy, and give it a final grade.

Art: Milivoj Chen

Seriously. What card better exemplifies this format than the hawk?

Speed

Tempo - Fast. The presence of Boros in this format means that aggressive decks with lots of low drops can snowball out of control pretty quickly. So even if you aren’t playing a fast deck yourself, you need to have a plan for how to deal with early threats. I’d consider this a start by turn 2.5 format. You don’t want to have nothing to do until turn 4 for risk of getting run over.

Aggression - The format is pretty average on aggression. The Mentor mechanic skews very aggressive, but it’s somewhat balanced out by the presence of several good blockers and the fact that mechanics like Jump Start & Surveil reward a slower, more deliberate game plan. Also, the Auras, Equipment, & combat tricks in Guilds are generally weaker than in other recent sets, so the aggressor isn’t always as advantaged.

Explosiveness - Izzet in particular has the potential for wins that come out of nowhere, with a few cheap Jump Start spells and some good payoffs like Wee Dragonauts. And, as noted, Boros can snowball very quickly, though it’s a little easier to see coming. Both Boros & Izzet share Cosmotronic Wave at Common, which is a crucial spell for aggro versions of both guilds to push through damage once slower decks have stabilized. There are definitely some cards that can run away with the game if left unchecked, most notably at Common with Healer’s Hawk, though most of the truly disgusting cards are at high rarities.

In general, this is a format that leans fast. Games tend to go quickly, even the control mirrors. Lots of good evasion prevented board stalls from being all too common, and the pace was kept pretty brisk.

Variety

Balanced Colors/Archetypes - At first, Guilds felt really unbalanced, with Izzet & Dimir the clear popular choices. But then people figured out how to build Boros and it became one of the top picks. Eventually Golgari caught up as the sleeper guild and the format mostly balanced out. Selesnya still feels slightly underpowered, but overall the format ended up feeling much closer to balanced than it seemed at first.

Balanced Threats to Removal - Guilds of Ravnica has amazing removal. There’s plenty of cheap conditional removal for the early threats, and pure unconditional removal for the late game. Every color combination has access to solid answers, and it allows for decks of all types to flourish

Balanced Deck Types - More so than many recent formats, the types of deck builds are all viable. Boros can be brutal pure aggro, while midrange builds of Selesnya & Golgari work. You can build tempo or control versions of both Izzet & Dimir. There is a Gates-matter deck that’s technically viable, but it’s pretty rare to get all the pieces necessary to make it work. I’d like for one or two more really solid offbeat decks to round out the format, but overall it feels pretty balanced.

Overall, Guilds of Ravnica succeeded in being a fairly evenly balanced format. While the guilds tended to be fairly linear, there wasn’t any one guild or strategy that completely dominated.

Depth

Individual Card Depth - Most of the cards are fairly straightforward, but most of them slot nicely into multiple decks without too much issue. There are a few completely dead cards, which can make it difficult to get as many playables as you want if others are in your colors. But overall, this feels about average for a normal expansion.

Depth Within Archetypes - This is where the Guilds draft truly shines. There are a number of viable options for each archetype. Even seemingly straightforward guilds like Boros can be drafted in a few different directions. Selesnya is probably the most narrow build, but Dimir & Izzet can be quite deep. There are a lot of subtle deckbuilding decisions that make the format stay fresh for longer, and reward players who continue honing through practice.

Metagame Depth - The metagame shook out pretty quickly, so it’s pretty easy to figure out how to adjust your strategy accordingly.

Guilds succeeded in achieving a pretty average amount of depth for a format. There were some twists and turns as new strategies unfolded, but it ended up pretty straightforward and approachable. I’d say it’s a pretty decent set for newer players to jump into, while still keeping fresh enough for established players to enjoy, at least for a while.

Fun

Flavor & Theme - This was probably the most successful trip to Ravnica so far from a flavor perspective. The guilds are the most thought out they’ve ever been, and everything clicks, from the art to the flavor text to the mechanics. What’s especially well done is how the mechanics really evoke the feelings of the guilds in the gameplay. One of the best marriages of flavor & mechanics I’ve ever seen.

Gameplay - The gameplay is strong, with a lot of fun interactions. Most games feel competitive, with a lot of opportunity to catch up from early setbacks. The games don’t seem to stall out all that often, due to the high quality of fliers and evasion in the set. It definitely could feel frustrating going against one Boros aggro deck after another, but that’s par for the course sometimes.

The X-Factor - This set is definitely fun. There are a few balance issues, and it can be disappointing when too many people try to draft the same colors, but in general, it’s a really fun set.

All told, I think Guilds of Ravnica stands up pretty well. It’s biggest weakness is that the guilds figure themselves out pretty quickly, so the replay value factor diminishes more quickly than I’d like. It’s a good set for beginners and veterans alike, and it’s a huge amount of fun diving into the mechanics and flavor of the world.

Themes & Mechanics

Mentor - This was a surprise, but Mentor may have been the best Limited mechanic in the set. It played really well, and had a great snowball effect where cards would mentor each other one right after the other. It gave Boros decks a lot of fun decisions while still staying true to their aggressive strategy.

Jump-Start - My other favorite mechanic was Jump-Start. It led to deep & complex gameplay with a lot of interesting decisions. Things were never boring playing against an Izzet deck, because cards could come out of nowhere to change the tides.

Surveil - Surveil isn’t splashy, but it’s a workhorse. It gave Dimir decks a great way to smooth out their draws, helping them draw into gas and even keep subpar hands more often than usual. The few Surveil Matters cards were all great inclusions to keep it interesting.

Undergrowth - This one was somewhat hit or miss. While the premise was good, and there were several great designs, there were a number that just didn’t do enough without having at least 3-4 creatures in the yard, and there weren’t enough good enablers to self-mill cards there. It seems like a hard mechanic to balance, since too many enablers would make some of the better cards too good.

Convoke - The true tragedy of the set is that the one returning mechanic had probably its worst showing since it was first introduced. There weren’t enough cheap playable creatures or token makers to really enable it. If there had been more cards that rewarded you for convoking, it might have been a better use of the mechanic.

Gates Matter - This was mostly a tiny sub-theme, but there were a few cards that rewarded you for going deep on gates. That said, some of the cards that cared about gates weren’t really that great of payoffs, or were in strange colors for it. (Boros, really?) I would have loved one more good Uncommon payoff in Green for this to be a truly viable theme. As it was, it pretty much never paid off.

The good news is, I would love to see all of the themes & mechanics explored again at some point in the future. While Undergrowth & Convoke could have been executed better, I think they have potential with better enablers. I would very much like to see Mentor, Jump Start, & Surveil again.

Noteworthy Decks

Grixis Explosion Control - A base Dimir control deck that seeked to stall out the game with lots of removal, eventually culminating in a huge casting of Expansion/Explosion to win the game.

Dimir Devious Control - A Dimir deck with tons of removal, seeking to win the game by naturally milling out the opponent, using multiple copies of Devious Cover Up to prevent yourself from decking.

Boros Gonna Boros - The most aggressive form of Boros decks, featuring low aggressive curves that snowball out of control with Mentor. Healers’s Hawk is your ideal starting card, while Boros Challenger and Sunhome Stalwart are linchpins of the deck to ensure explosive starts. All the 1 & 2 drops ever.

Strategy Notes

When starting a Guilds of Ravnica draft, it’s critical to figure out which guilds are open than try to force a guild that multiple other people are drafting in the pod. If only one player is drafting Golgari, they’ll get their pick of the packs while everyone else is fighting over the one Luminous Bonds that gets opened at the table. Look for signals early and often, and consider adjusting your strategy based on them. Obviously, this is less important in Arena draft than in person, so you can force guild choices a little easier in Arena.

Generally speaking, you’re going to end up in a 2 color guild deck, with the occasional deck splashing for additional removal or bombs. Despite all the fixing with Guildgates in every pack, very few true 3 color decks exist in the format. The Gates deck is a trap. The tempo of the format is set by the presence of Boros, which is hyper aggressive. That doesn’t mean all decks need to be aggressive, but all decks need to have a plan for how to deal with a fast start. If you have literally nothing to play until turn 4, you’ll be real sorry with your life choices real quick. It’s also important to have early plays against control strategies, so you can get under their counterspells and force them to trade down on mana against your early drops. That said, control is real in this format, so try to have a plan to address both ends of the spectrum, and pay attention to your sideboard options. The games are often decided by fliers & creatures with evasion (don’t underestimate Passwall Adept), so make sure you have a strategy for the air, since the ground game gets gummed up often.

Overall Grade & Final Thoughts

Well, I think I’ve pretty much said it all. Guilds of Ravnica is a good, above average draft format. It’s a nice, gentle step up from a Core Set experience for newer players, but with enough interest to keep enfranchised players happy. The set is a slam dunk on flavor & the worldbuilding, so even just opening the packs is a joy. The only place it falls short is on the long-term replay value, but all and all, a solid format.

Overall Grade: B

#mtg #guilds of ravnica #format review

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angeltriestoblog · 7 years

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Your Comprehensive Guide to Surviving Grade 11

WARNING: The longest post I’ve ever made in the history of my blogging “career” is up ahead. Nevertheless, please read it so my efforts won’t be wasted.

In a nutshell, last school year was me trying to secure the Guinness World Record for the number of breakdowns on a bedroom floor. The amount of workload was unforgiving, the pressure to perform was crippling, the competition was inadvertently fierce and the standards set were higher than fun.'s friends in the Empire State. (Please get this reference.) Surprisingly, I survived and lived not only to tell the tale but to also help incoming Grade 11 students prepare for the year that is to come so they won't have to deal with the many risks of premature stress like I did! This is where this guide (with some unnecessary blabber on the side because will it really be an Angel Martinez post without it) comes in. Though it's a given that not everything that happened to me won't apply to you, I still hope you use these to better your experiences and emerge as a stronger and more productive person! Like me, I guess. In a way.

To kick this off, let me just say that I know this notice might be coming in a little late, since enrollment for most schools (in the metro, at least) have already come to a close. Thus, by the time you've read this, you may have already chosen a strand of your own! The selection of some schools may be limited to the basics: Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM), Accountancy, Business and Management (ABM) and Humanities and Social Sciences (HUMSS) which are all pretty self-explanatory in terms of the topics of focus. But from what I know, others also offer Arts and Design and Sports for those who wish to devote their full attention to the talents they wish to hone and even a general academic strand for the benefit of those who remain undecided. I, for one, chose ABM: I didn’t feel like committing to a certain career yet and wanted to opt for the safest option among the choices.

The process of choosing which way to go is pretty intimidating at first especially once you figure out that the rest of your life may very well be at stake. But, it isn't that much of a pain once you reflect on your interests enough and see if those align with what you want to do and where you want to be in the future, if that’s not too forward looking for you! I know a couple of people who’ve had to compromise their true passions for the sake of pleasing their families. Whether it’s to continue a legacy that’s been passed down for several generations or fulfill a dream that belonged to someone else, some parents believe they have every reason in the world to demand their children’s future, even if it’s obviously against their will. Yes, I believe that it’s their responsibility to guide their kids through the process of figuring out what they want to be in such a fast-paced and ever-changing world where anyone can influence and be influenced for better or for worse. They must be able to provide the insight that only they possess after all the years they’ve spent collecting wisdom. They should help us plan out what’s gonna be on the blueprint of our lives, not finish it by themselves, present it and expect us to follow without any questions.

But as per usual, I digress. TL:DR choose the track you want, you don’t owe anything to anyone.

Generally, Grade 11 will be the hardest year on you. It doesn’t care if you came terribly unprepared, if you haven’t slept a wink in eons or if the people you live with barely even know who you are anymore. It’s unforgiving and relentless in the pursuit of giving you the biggest ordeal of your life. Based on my personal experience, I reckon it’s due to the fact that our teachers stand by their decision to treat us as young adults, seeing as we’d be in first year college anyway if the K-to-12 program wasn’t a thing. When we were children, everything we needed to know about a certain topic would be put on a silver platter and handed over to us, usually in the form of photocopied sheets of old handouts. All we’d have to do is memorize whatever was on them and eventually ace the tests that usually came in multiple choice or matching type form.

But now, we’re in charge of making our own notes, deciphering cryptic explanations for a certain lesson and most of all, making our own creative output based on what we could be often inaccurate interpretations. Grade 11 gave big importance to the performance task, much to the dismay of everybody. Whether individual or by group, it was always half our grade and due way before any of us were ready to face the task at hand. It also required coming up with original ideas, or solutions to the most common problems and it’s either bland when working alone or chaotic when with classmates, because everyone wants to be heard when we’re actually fighting for metaphorical spots.

I didn’t feel it much during the first semester though, because I had the best schedule on campus. Classes ended at 2:30PM for me so I had plenty of time at my disposal. I could hang out with friends, have a chat with my mom and procrastinate (responsibly) before proceeding with my work and still be able to go to sleep before the clock struck ten. My subjects weren’t terrible as well. Yeah, not all of them were anchored in the very foundation of my track but I was able to get grades far better than I would have expected, so it’s all good. Here’s a briefer on each:

General Math

A solid 8/10, which is a big deal considering the fact that Math has never been my strong suit. First quarter covers topics I barely understood when they were discussed to me in Grades 9 and 10, namely functions (linear, quadratic, polynomial, The Problematic Trio aka rational, exponential and piecewise) and equalities and inequalities. Second quarter focuses on business math, weirdly enough when there’s an entirely different subject for that, but the lessons don’t overlap. Annuities, stocks and bonds, and loans were explained plus a little bit of logic towards the end.

The key to Math is a heck lot of practice. Practice, practice, practice. Even when you know the answers, or more preferably when there’s no key given. Answer every problem in the book on a separate sheet of paper, make up your own, explain the procedure of solving to yourself, help a friend out and refresh your memory simultaneously. Do it when you get home, or when you have a free period at school or you have no idea what else to do seeing as that’s the only way you’ll develop the skills needed to become a human calculator.

Business Math

A more practical Math subject: every single topic discussed was something that could be applied in real life and useful to us when we have careers. The first few weeks consisted of our reviewing our favorites: fractions, decimal and percentage, and ratio and proportion, so it evidently started on a good note. It later on proceeds to buying and selling, computation for salaries and wages then the presentation and analysis of business data in table and graph form.

Though the lessons here are undeniably easier than our previous Math subject, it still wouldn’t hurt to practice, especially if everything isn’t clear to you from the get go. If your teacher is anything like mine and thrives on class participation, recite as often as you can whether it’s to give a recap of yesterday’s lesson or show the solution on the board. Her personal favorites in our class were those who made it a point to raise their hands as often as possible.

Physical Science

A mix of the deadliest sciences mixed in one subject. Physics and chemistry, folks. Just as appealing as it sounds. If you like both of them, you’ll breeze past this, no sweat. But if you’re like me and you stopped paying attention in science class after the teacher was done discussing the body system, you’ll have a lot of catching up to do. Subject matter included motion, energy, chemical reactions, force and energy. Don’t be too excited that there are only five, because these took two semesters to properly shove in our craniums.

There’s no downtime in this subject, you have to hustle every single day or else you’ll fall behind while the work just keeps piling up. Read up on everything and do not leave out even a single detail: know which causes what, and why well enough to the point that you can recite it in your sleep. Memorize the formulas and most importantly, invest in a double liner calculator! It’s a bit pricey but spending the amount required is far better than having to enter multiple parentheses to work your way around an equation.

Earth and Life Science

Personally the superior science for me, considering that the topics were genuinely interesting and made me gain a better understanding of how the world works. We studied the origin and structure of the earth and beyond, earth processes, natural hazards, bioenergetics, perpetuation of life, evolution, organ systems and interaction and interdependence.

The only downside for some is that many terms will be introduced throughout the course of this subject, and you’ll obviously be required to memorize them all and at the very least, identify their definitions. Making flash cards for each lesson would definitely come in handy, even if takes a while and could very well cramp your hand but there’s this app called Quizlet which basically serves the same purpose and is easily accessible in any device you download it on.

Oral Communication

I think I was the only one in class who actually enjoyed what was going on for the most part of Oral Com, since I enjoy talking to a crowd and writing. If the mere mention of that phrase alone gives you shivers down to your spine, I guess you’ll have a lot of mental and emotional preparation to do. Normally, this subject would heavily rely on application of learnings through exercises and presentations but there was still a bit of (unnecessary) discussion here and there on topics like public communication skills and communicative strategies.

Expect a lot of speaking in front of the classroom! Tasks will range from impromptu (no time to think beforehand), extemporaneous (short preparation time upon receiving the question) and prepared speaking. Groupwork is also high in number: the teacher will give you a situation (e.g. you’ll be selling a product, your house is on fire and you need to call the fire department, ya know… the usual [?]) and you’ll need to propose your solution in the most eloquent and spontaneous way possible. Which means no reading aloud of lines scribbled on your hand with a G-Tec.

Organization and Management

Basically an introduction to the world of business and thus an essential subject for my strand. Points discussed were the nature of management, the firm and its environment, environmental scanning (PEST and SWOT analysis) and the functions of a manager in detail (planning, organizing, staffing, leading and controlling).

This subject was very detail-heavy so as much as I was willing to learn, I couldn’t avoid being overwhelmed by the number of things we were trying to run through in around sixteen weeks. It also didn’t help that we didn’t have a book to refer to and had literal stacks of photocopied handouts to lug around instead. But I guess by now, your school has a textbook to provide you with and if not, there are some published by Rex Bookstore available in big branches of National Bookstore like in Quezon Avenue. The best thing to do to survive this subject is to read so you can understand all the concepts. Everything discussed is important and the quizzes and quarterly tests you’ll take will require not only what you think it means, but also how you’ll use it IRL

Understanding Culture, Society and Politics

Potentially one of your favorite subjects, if you’re given the right teacher, since it focuses on the intricacies of our lives as human beings. From the study of humans past and present and the complexity of our cultures (anthropology), we head on to the analysis of government systems and activity (political science) and the nitty-gritty of our development and functions in human society (sociology).

I didn’t have a problem with this step the lessons were comprehensible enough to grasp my attention but just make sure that you exert effort to understand everything! Because even though a chunk of the activities also include matching type, true or false or fill in the blanks, essays are a mainstay. Usually, they’re not based on facts too but on your own personal opinion and the teacher will be able to tell if you don’t have a particular stand or you do yet you fail to back it up with actual evidence, so be sure to find a basis for everything you say.

Unfortunately, all fun and games were over when the second semester rolled in. Our privileges were taken back and our schedule was reverted back to the usual 4:20PM. Thanks to the fact that my busmates never went straight to the bus upon dismissal and liked roaming around the campus, leaving our conductor to search for them like she was in some sort of treasure hunt, I went home at 6:00PM every day. To make matters worse, this just so happened to be the season when the research papers started rolling in, one by one, all poised and ready to kill us ever so slowly. Let me give you another quick recap:

Pagbasa at Pagsuri

Definitely not the kind of “Pagbasa” I was expecting, if I’m being frank. I thought we were going to be reading and analyzing contemporary Filipino literature, which excited me since my knowledge in that genre was close to non-existent. Turns out, we would be looking at different kinds of texts (informative, persuasive, analytical, etc) then finding out how to write them afterwards. There’s a chance you might not experience this unless we go to the same school, but our teacher invented the ADIDS method in order to help us learn this more effectively through application. I forgot what it stands for, but basically all you do is discuss each facet of a very broad topic thoroughly in the form of a well thought out class presentation.

Meanwhile, the research paper takes up one whole semester. Not to sound boastful, but I had thought that I would be able to do this with ease because all I ever do with my life is write I mean I practically came out of my mother’s womb with a pen and paper in hand and I speak more Filipino than English these days seeing as I spend a bigger portion of my day in school. But, the finished product is often bland and makes use of the same words over and over in a failed attempt to accurately describe what I want to put on paper. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, the topic also had to be narrowed down repeatedly to suit a particular audience, from a specific place within a specific time frame so we ended up doing a research on the effects of Jason Derulo’s songs on the opinions of Grade 11 students from our school in the academic year 2016-2017. Please don’t laugh at us.

You also don’t just write the entire paper, but also be briefed on its parts, their functions and determine what sets them apart from each other, and the specifications in making each of them. Which includes stuff as minuscule as the measurement of the margins, font sizes and types to use et cetera. It’s not that hard though because as you’re working on the paper, you familiarize yourself even more.

Komunikasyon at Pananaliksik

The easiest one I took the entire semester, and for obvious reasons, my favorite. Our teacher was brilliant in the sense that he was well-versed in the subject matter and got work done yet let us watch Train to Busan or Seklusyon on the TV if the schedule permitted. The topics weren’t mind-boggling either: we just covered the history of the Filipino language and communicative skills (which further cemented my belief that this was basically the counterpart of Oral Com). They may be confusing at first but the key is to notice sentence patterns! The number of activities given to us was reasonable and not particularly stress-inducing: just quizzes that were few and far-between, a groupwork and reaction paper for a performance task.

Fundamentals of Accounting

A lot of people are intimidated by the idea of studying Accounting, and I’m not surprised. It��s always described as something that relies on analysis and numbers, two things that we normally don’t excel in at school. But it’s actually nothing to fuss about as long as you do your reading, understand the basic guidelines, practice at home and have a qualified teacher who has the proper training and skill set. The first few chapters don’t even involve computation of any kind yet. You’ll just be acquainted with the very foundation of the subject: the branches of accounting, the users of accounting information, the forms of business organizations and types of businesses. Maybe the most important lessons that you could pick up are the accounting equation (assets = liabilities + equity), types of major accounts and the generally accepted principles because they serve as the rules to follow for making your accounting-related decisions.

Eventually, you’ll make it to business transactions and their analysis, where you’ll be taking a trip around the whole accounting cycle. You’ll have to fill out a journal, ledger and unadjusted trial balance then adjust that trial balance using the adjusting entries normally provided to create your income statement, balance sheet, closing entries and the end goal, the post-closing trial balance. Sounds like a lot of work, but it’s seriously not that difficult if you do your homework! It’s also best to invest in an actual journal and worksheet, instead of solving on sheets of yellow pad that can easily be misplaced.

Statistics and Probability

Stat was weird for me in the sense that our lessons were generally ambiguous unlike what their names insinuated and I seemed to understand everything while it was being discussed but the minute I got home to work on assignments, I found myself staring at a wall until a friend who actually knows what to do goes online on Messenger. Later on, I found out it was because I needed to practice on my own to be familiar with the procedure instead of trying to memorize all the steps when it depends on the type of problem. We covered random variables, probability distributions, normal distributions, sampling, estimation of parameters and hypothesis testing (which was actually quite fun).

If you’re not keeping up to speed with everyone else, please do work on it as early as possible. The lessons here are somewhat connected to each other so if you failed to catch the drift on one of them, it’ll create a chain reaction and by the last topic, you’ll have zero knowledge of how to solve anything. Ask help, preferably from your teacher because not only do they explain it most accurately but it helps them see your initiative to do better, which they take into consideration when computing for your final grade. Do not settle for the exercises found on the book. Make your own, if you’re in the mood to cramp your hand, or turn to websites like The Oxford Math Center for useful worksheets with answer keys.

Contemporary Art

The very bane of my existence. The perfect way to sum up this subject in six words. Art was never my strength, anyone who knows me is aware that I can’t draw to save my life, but it didn’t really have much of a dent on my report card since it happened to be a minor subject. But thanks to the implementation of the new curriculum, it is given a new sense of purpose as a core subject with a weight of O N E. We had dealt with the different periods of Philippine art extensively, the National Artists of the country and different contemporary art forms such as film and the oddly interesting performance art. (Trigger warning for some graphic content though, so do be careful when searching these up!)

Activities ranged from making presentations similar in format to those in Pagbasa at Pagsuri, creating manifestos for the Philippine youth in relation to their role in the art world, holding a class exhibit to display the work you’ve made and my favorite: going on a fieldwork to hunt for contemporary art in the city. All this will lead to the culminating activity: the creation of your very own output, where anything is possible and depends solely on the one calling the shots.

This art class is no longer focusing solely on the physical aspects of a certain work, but also on what it actually means and what its relevance to society actually is. So, a good tip would be to always look at the bigger picture when given something to analyze! It’s hard at first, I admit I didn’t have much to say during the first few meetings but as the floor is opened to more interpretation and intellectual discussion, you’ll get the hang of it and instinctively feel the need to join in.

** We are about to dive in a zone that is fittingly named The Deadly Trio. ** Actually, if these were stand-alone subjects, I’d be fine but the fact that there are three of them in one semester when they’re basically discussing the same things and giving the same ridiculous amount of take home work was enough to drive me up the wall.

Practical Research

As implied by the very name of this subject, the main focus would be the creation of a qualitative practical research paper throughout the entirety of the semester. Discussions here were very minimal, as the teacher thankfully wanted us to focus on getting as much work done in the classroom as possible. I slacked off moderately during her period instead of lessening what I’d have to do at home, and in the end I ultimately suffered. But anyway, topics discussed include the importance of qualitative research, finding a good topic and sources to build it up, reviewing different types of literature, understanding and collecting data and further analyzing it to later on be able to report our findings.

One another thing to look forward to (not in a good way) is the dreaded thesis defense, where your paper will be dissected and closely examined for any possible shortcomings and held against you in front of a panel. It doesn’t always have to be the bane of your existence: as long as you contributed to the making of the project, you’ll know enough that you won’t be humiliated the minute you open your mouth.

A tip to take into consideration is to choose the right groupmates. Unless teachers pre-determine who you end up working with for two straight quarters (in that case, you’ll just have to learn how to accept your fate, whether it is for better or for worse), as much as possible, go for those who are responsible and actually care about their grades. It’s never fun to work with people who send you a montage of copy-pasted statements from Wikipedia pages and pass it off as their “contribution”, go offline Messenger the minute you even think about asking for help and think that printing the paper is a valuable addition to the team.

Reading and Writing

Contrary to what I initially thought, this was not the counterpart of Pagbasa at Pagsuri in the English language and I was thankful in a way because God knows the pain that inflicted upon me. The first quarter starts off quite easy, with critical thinking, fundamental reading skills, selecting and organizing information and critical reading skills. It may sound like a mouthful, but most of these are stuff you’ve picked up long before, without the assistance of a teacher! Some people may find patterns of development a hard topic, but if you read books, I guess identifying them just comes natural to you.

The latter part of this subject is where the ugly stuff goes in. I personally felt deceived into thinking that it would be as simple as our first lessons: identifying and writing the thesis statement and topic statement then it suddenly escalates and turns into SO MUCH ACADEMIC WRITING. When I saw that we were going to be making book reports and article critiques, I shelled out some of my favorite fictional reads and Man Repeller stories of the month only to find out that we’d be reviewing serious, educational material with very specific and strict guidelines to follow to make it as formal and cohesive (and basically not fun) as possible. Research reports, project proposals and position papers will also be in the works at some point: they are very structured and usually have to revolve around topics that are related to your strand, so there is a chance you may find it boring.

English for Academic and Professional Purposes

When I saw I had this for a subject, I was actually glad at first since English has always been my forte. So I was anticipating a repeat tutorial on all parts of speech and the basics of the subject-verb agreement when in reality, all I got was a dupe of Reading and Writing. Which is why, I had no idea why we had to take up both of them during the same semester.

Besides all subjects that required the submission of a research paper as some sort of culmination, this was the most demanding in terms of written output. During the first quarter, it’s still permissible to chill as you’re only going through reading and writing different types of academic texts (does this sound familiar to any of you?) but as the next one rolls along, BOOM. Reaction paper. Reflection paper. (Yes, there is a difference.) Concept paper. ANOTHER position paper. Report.

Now, if you’re already thinking about how you’re going to make it through when your writing is as lifeless and flat as can be (e.g. It is a sunny day, I ate an apple, I need to pee), don’t sweat it. That is exactly what your EAPP teacher will be looking for anyway. Academic texts do not require flowery writing that went through EDSA traffic before getting to the point (which was obviously an inconvenience for me): nobody cares about your opinion unless they say so and even if they do, they’ll probably require a sentence limit.

Well, that’s a wrap! I spent approximately twelve hours working on this post: one of which was spent on the Kitkat bench in Landmark trying to find a catchy way to start it off, and my eyes hurt and I may be suffering from carpal tunnel but all of that means nothing as long as I’ve been able to guide one hopeless soul out of the dark. I’ll be back with much lighter content very soon if I can factory reset my head and get it to work properly again.

Stay in school, kids!

Angel

#advice #grade 11 #senior high school #k to 12 curriculum #philippines #angeltriestoblog #pagod na ako #recs #life dump

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