Driven up the wall

Having read most of Pastor Patrick's emails on the Purpose Driven Life book, i must say they are quite adequate summaries of the day's reading. However, i thought i give it a try with a distinctive flavour of irrelevance. Please do not equate irrelevance to irreverence. One aids memory, one defines blasphemy. I do apologise to those who feel perturbed at reading my take on PDL but i do welcome restrained comments. All this after 20 days of non-posting.

A Drilling Conversation

I went to a psychology lecture recently on 'Broader Ethical Issues'. If what the lecturer was covering wasnt "broad" and vast enough, there was the issue of the drilling going on in the background. I believe it was definitely a violation of my ethical rights. Its rather hard to describe a drill sound in words, but i thought i would just use some form of onomatopoeia. In the same way 'drrrr,drrrr' doesnt resemble a sound from a drill, onomatopoeia does not really resemble an English word. The number of letter 'o's in there could very well rival a breakfast cereal. Having justified that, we can move on from the minor details to my major irritations during lecture with an illustration.
" Particular groups drrrrrrr.... of children... drrr drrrr... are psychologically safe...." Great, i think many would agree i do not qualify. Looking at the powerpoint slides reveals that research into certain groups of people like children must consider their physical, emotional and psychological safety.
"Parents ddrrrrr.... usually have.... drrr.... challenging behaviour..."(Preferable for parents to be present when testing kids with ADD, autism). I was getting a real kick from not looking at slides and just listening to comic remarks now.
I must say the drilling was kind of strategic, as if the construction worker had a strong dislike for my psychology class. "Tendency drrr... for minority groups... ddrr..to have drrrr.... other deficits..." Which actually was a point about not to confound deficits of minority groups, like those with physical disabilities. For instance the extent a hearing deficit affects memory on a certain test. All this while, my lecturer strained to speak louder during the drilling intervals, which of course worked as well as the Middle East peace talks.
Almost unbelievably, i am going to link this with a relationship with God. In the Purpose Driven Life by pastor Rick Warren, page 87 , it states 'Friendship with God is built by sharing all your life experiences with him" (Yes, its in italics in the book itself). The truth is that if we do not include him in 'every activity, every conversation and every thought', our relationship with God is like a lecture with 'drill bits'. Inviting God to be part of everything in our lives helps us stay aware of his presence. Telling Him parts will only sound untruthful and farcical to our God that reads the slides of our lives.

"The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth." Psalm 145:18.

You got to love group work. 

Profound Silliness

Here is a rather funny excerpt from my lectures in Psych 204. Its about how the measurement of intelligence was too subjective and how the IQ test was developed as a more reliable method of measurement.

Intelligence before Binet

“It is a hackneyed remark that the definitions..for the different states of subnormal intelligence, lack precision. These inferior states are indefinite in number, being composed of a series of degrees which mount from the lowest depths of idiocy, a condition easily confounded with normal intelligence..

…there has been an agreement to accept idiot as applied to the lowest state, imbecile to the intermediate and moron to the state nearest normality. The distinction between idiot, imbecile and moron is not understood in the same way by all practitioners…Dr. Blin, physician of the Vaucluse Asylum, states.. “One child called imbecile in the first certificate, is marked idiot in the second, feeble-minded in the third, and degenerate in the fourth”.

“We are assured that imbecility differs from idiocy in this: in idiocy “there is a gleam of intelligence”, in imbecility “the intellectual faculties exist in a very incomplete degree”. We should like to know what difference must be established between a “gleam” of intelligence and “very incomplete degree of the intellectual faculties”. We are again informed that in profound idiocy “the attention is fugitive” while in imbecility, “the attention is fleeting”. We are unable to grasp the distinctive shade of meaning.”
Binet, A. and Simon, T (1905). L’annee Psychologique, 11, 163-191

Puts a whole new perspective on the word 'stupid' doesnt it?

Binet advocates the psychological method

“The fundamental idea of this method is the establishment of what we shall call a measuring scale of intelligence. This scale is composed of a series of tests of increasing difficulty, starting from the lowest intellectual level that can be observed, and ending with that of average normal intelligence. Understanding the normal progress of intellectual development among normals, we shall be able to determine how many years such an individual is advanced or retarded. In a word, we shall be able to determine to what degree of the scale idiocy, imbecility and moronity correspond.”

Well done, but where does 'nincompoop' come in?

Grasping the wind 

Feelings, nothing more than eels.

If one day you wake up having an overwhelming feeling that something good is going to happen, you are most certainly always wrong. Nobody is going to walk that old lady across the street, and the only natural beauty forming after the storm is mud puddles. Having said that, you might just have a piano fall on your head, after which your judgement may be sufficiently impaired to perceive an overwhelming sense of goodness floating around you.

As a total aside : What is Taragon?
A) The son of Lord of the Rings' heros Aragon and Arwen.
B) One of the many stupid vehicle pseudo-stylish names like Getz and Elantra.
C) A shopping mall
D) A herb.
E) None of the above. This is one of those silly trick questions that Abel likes so much.

The answer: %#^&E*@&$. T!A@*R#(0R58A60-G%^O!@N&* is a #H*(E%)_R@*B instead. haha. Got ya. Its in the dictionary if you feeling picky.