Reading Lists

As a student I realise that there is a lot of reading to be done, but my eyes can only take so much! It's all read this and that, some of which I've started and some of which is just so mind numbingly boring that I might just use those text books to start a bonfire. Furthermore, I find that at this particular moment my drive is lacking... it must have something to do with all of the rain, the full on week I had last week and a few too many headaches. Still, why do there have to be so many stupid books this term? Last term I was given a huge reading list, bought all the books and read a couple of chapters from about, lets see... two of them! I mean really, were students who are already being hit up for £9,000, the least our lectures could do is tell us which books we have to read and which books we can read if we want too or have a deep passion for that area of study. Thats not to say some lectures don't be helpful, but I did waste £50 or so, on three books for one course that I AM NEVER GOING TO READ!!!

Super

Have you ever wanted to be a superhero? I have, and I would guess that everyone who has ever read a comic or seen a superhero movie would too. Having powers would be, well, awesome! We all wish that we could fly and be super strong and of course, not be defeated by a stupid rock, I'm talking to you Superman. However, isn't part of the fun of imagining ourselves as these heroes is that we are the only one, or part of a select few, who can do these incredible things?


Sadly, as far as we know, it is not possible to have super powers like Superman or the Flash as I would figure that if it were possible then nearly everybody who could afford to buy powers would have already. I have to admit that it would kind of take the fun out of it if it was only the rich people who got all the cool stuff yet again. However, if we applied comic book superheroes to the world nothing would work out the way it does it comics, would it?


I don't think it would. For starters, if somebody or a group of people developed powers they would be tested on till the cows came home to see if they carried the cure for cancer or if we could create an army of superheroes. Secondly, if it became applicable to everybody else our fun, the fantasy, is ruined. Finally,  we all screw up our planet and screw each other over enough that it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume our planet would be even more buggered than it already is, with us being given all new ways to destroy everything. 


It's not fair. I want to be a superhero, it would be awesome if life were a comic book, but it's not. Nevertheless, I can keep on dreaming, can't I?





Oh, and I totally forgot to mention that if we could be superheroes, we would have totally kick ass friends like these. Awesome! 

Peace...

Is world peace achievable? If we all want it then it must be right? 


Call me a pessimist, but no, I don't think so. Don't get me wrong world peace as a concept is great; we would all be happy and be able to get along with one another in perfect harmony. However, there are always (sadly), horrible, nasty, vicious and selfish people who can hinder us, even become malicious dictators. As long as we have these people in the world, peace is impossible.


However, if we did get rid of these people, would it mean that were any closer to world peace? No. Every human being has good and bad qualities. We can all try to live are lives as best as we can, but every now and again even the best of us are going to be selfish, or are going to be bad tempered.



There are so many things wrong with the world and humans, in pretty much every case I can think of, are the cause for it. We pollute the planet, we endanger species and we chop down forests to create our own concrete jungle. If we continue down the path that we are on then what chance does our planet stand? Will our great grandchildren even be able to call this planet home?

Earth is the only home we have, so lets take care of it. If we can get that right then maybe we may just get one step closer to a form of peace we can achieve.

Fear

We are all scared of something or the other. In fact, most of us probably share the same basic fundamental fears that are biologically predetermined. These are fears such as a fear of snakes or spiders. However, many of us develop these fears to an extreme and some of us even develop irrational fears such as a fear of clowns. When these fears become irrationally extreme they become phobias. The question is, however, why do some of us develop these fears?

For some people, developing a phobia of water maybe the result of an accident where you almost drowned. Some psychologists may suggest that phobias maybe the a response to a trauma we may have repressed since childhood. Nevertheless, people can have other conditions associated with fear. For example, a person who is suffering from General Anxiety Disorder (GAD) or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) can actually completely change the way they behave and the way they live their lives, through their anxieties and fears, to an extreme in some server cases. Moreover, a mental illness which is often associated with conditions such as OCD is Depression, and, well could you blame them?

Even so, our fears can be useful if they are those which tell us to run away from the great big bear that looks very hungry. If we didn't evolve some of our most basic and fundamental shared fears then we could all have been killed off very easily long ago.

However, if you are somebody who has an irrational fear (e.g. mine is spiders. It maybe rational if I lived in Australia, but I live in the UK and house spiders cannot kill us) you just need to remember that it is all in your head. Our minds distort reality in so many different ways from time to time, but fear is one of the major distortions. So, (unless you have a phobia or other condition diagnosed by a mental health professional) next time you see your fear, man up (as long as its not anything that can kill you (LION) or harm you) and face you fear or you could run away, like I most probably will, but you should most definitely man up because it is just in your head.

 

First They Came

First they came for the Communists

And I did not speak out 

Because I was not a Communist

Then they came for the Socialists

And I did not speak out 

Because I was not a Socialist

Then they came for the trade unionists

And I did not speak out 

Because I was not a trade unionist

Then they came for the Jews

And I did not speak out 

Because I was not a Jew

Then they came for me

And there was no one left

To speak out for me

First They Came by Pastor Martin Niemoller

Do I look bovvered?

Yes, I know, we all have those days when we just cannot be bothered, Catherine Tate may take that to the extreme, but it's true. For all of you who do not generally give a damn today........

Go away I can't be bothered either.

£300 and still no bloody remote...

I recently had the pleasure of staying in a 4 star hotel with some family members. We all agreed that the food was great, the setting was picturesque and the rooms were tastefully decorated. Well, for a bit over £300 I would expect this to be so, and as it was a hotel with a spa as well, it should be relaxing too.

It wasn't, for an hour, at least. First off the spa was fully booked up, which kind of defeated the purpose of going to a spa hotel, but I could live with that. However, for the several hours I and my relatives were apart I was utterly bored. You see, when you walk into a hotel room and see a TV, somewhere around the 30inch region, you think TV will save you from your hysterical boredom. Unfortunately, when you spend over an hour looking for the bloody TV remote, boredom, stress and anger seep through. I got so bored I gave up and spent half an hour contemplating why the controls on the TV itself cannot perform the necessary commands to actually be able to view any of the programmes, and why the TV remote apparently holds all of this voodoo magic that can actually make the TV do something other than make you want to do the whole rock 'n' roll thing of thrown the bloody thing out of the window and into the swimming pool below. I, however, did actually consider doing this until I realized that the pool was not outside my window, or in fact, outside at all.



Apparently, it turns out to be easier to throw a giraffe in a pool, or at least to find an image of.