The World Sucks

If you have not picked up in the past posts I am a solid atheist.  Thus it always comes as a surprise to me that when something happens to make me think the world sucks that I feel it should be fairer.

Being an atheist to me is the realization that there is no god(s) or greater purpose.  But it is also the belief that there is no such thing as good and evil.  There are no great forces in the world, there is just perception.  And that is why I get surprised that I always react with a that is not fair attitude to these things.

The thing that makes me happy is to know that I have such a capacity for caring for others.  I don't do it because some religion tells me to, I do it because I genuinely care about these people that bad stuff happens to.  

Just know, that if I had the money, I would be on a plane right now.  If you are scratching your head and wondering WTF is that idiot talking about? go to my major blog and all will be clearer.

Mark

The Other Blog...

I am getting a little disheartened recently with my main blog at www.thepathfinderchronicles.com.  Reason why is I am pouring everything I can into keeping it improving and nothing seems to be working.  I realise that I have some problems with the blog, if they can be called problems, and I am not sure what I can do about them.

The list of problems;

1. Name of the blog is a bit misleading as it is not just Pathfinder that I deal with, I have a broad focus
2. The posts that I think would be very popular (like my encounter series) are just not attracting any interest
3. Organisation of the blog needs to be cleaned up but to do that I will lose a massive amount of metrics.
4. There is nowhere near enough conversation coming in from readers

I really want my blog to be a go to resource.  I read a blog from another site talking about numbers and they were talking about posts reaching 2000 views in a month.  I get NOWHERE near that amount of views.  In fact my highest viewed post has just around 2000 views now and it has been out for around a year and a half to two years.

I just want the blog to show continuous improvement BUT it has really gone absolutely nowhere with numbers etc. since the start of the year.  In all honesty I was working far less hard on it at the end of the year last year as I am now and there seems to be no reward for the work.

Anyone out in internet land able to give me a few ideas to try?

My Way of Handling "Situations"

When conflict comes into my life I have a very reserved way of handling things and I am not sure that it is the best way of handling things.  If I am confronted by a situation that revolves around my ideals and another's beliefs then how do I handle it.

I am a person that wants 100% facts about circumstances.  If I am going to take something or someone to task for their actions I want an argument that is infallible and irrefutable.  If I can not have that type of argument then I do not have the argument.

For example, if someone says to me "Did you see what x wrote about you on the internet?" I ask what exactly did they write?  When they tell me and the writing does not have my name in the text at all and there is no other hard evidence that it was about me then I let it go.  All the circumstantial evidence may point a finger directly at the writing being about me but it does not offer the 100% proof and so I would let this situation go.

It would bother me.  I will dwell on this issue and it will annoy me but the offending party may well get away with this behaviour because I will not approach or reply in any way shape or form to the alleged insult.  It is not so much that I do not like conflict, I just like to be right.

If I approached the said person about the comments and they stated "Wasn't about you." Then where am I at.  I have no resolution and no recourse.  Sure, I could argue about it but as long as they kept saying "I never mentioned you and it was not about you" then the argument gets old and inert.  then I look like an ass for even bringing it up.

I do realise that I am probably in the minority in this regard.  I say that because people I know spend a lot of time accusing me for stuff that I have said or done with little to no proof whatsoever.  I do not say that to make myself appear like a complete nasty toad but it is true.  Most of the people around me tend to shoot their mouth off first without thinking about the situation.  These people probably like me as I am honest all the time unless;

• I am contractually obligated to say nothing such as privacy agreements and the like
• If someone has told me something in confidence then I keep it that way.

So what about it internet land?  Am I a dinosaur?  Should I just open my mouth and accuse without the 100% truth on my side?  What percentage of truth is OK to hit people up with?  There are people telling me I am encouraging such bad behaviour because I do not take the alleged offending parties to task about it.  Should I change my ways?

An Exercise in Futility

Apparently, as I have just applied for my own job (well half of my own job anyway) I am so inept that I do not even rate for short listing for an interview.

Perhaps it is time to leave the stress behind and no longer teach.  Change is as good as a holiday right?

When Life Hands You Lemons...

I find it a little funny the way that life has of teaching me lessons.  In realtiy I am a very easy person to get on with.  I tend not to get angry at other people when they mess up or do something that impinges on me and I find that the only time I get upset is when I let myself down.

On Tuesday I had an early morning meeting secret squirrel style meeting with a woman who handles the strategic direction of the educational material that I am involved in.  She talked to me about essentially a dream trip that the organisation wanted to send me and 5 others on depending on if we could get funding from a fellowship that focuses on providing educators the ability to research and expand their view.

The organisation I work for had identified me as a potential future leader that would use the trip to push technology to the forefront of not only my own classes but help it become synonymous with other fields as well.  They were right in thinking that this interests me because I have already attempted to do some material in this way so it was an honour to be thought of in this manner.

The trip looked much like this;

Week 1

·         Fly to Los Angeles.

·         Visit STEM schools in the southern California region

Week 2

·         Join the ACCE tour to Silicon Valley and San Francisco visiting key high tech industries/corporations (e.g. Google, Facebook, Apple, Oracle etc)

·      Week 3

·         Travel to New York

·         Attend and/ or present at the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) Conference in Philadelphia PA, one of the largest education conferences in the USA: 

Weeks 4 to 6

·      Attend between 1 to 3 weeks of personal professional development (your choice). Part of the study must be university based or receive university credit. Relevant institutions/programs include:
o   Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) including Fab Lab visit: 
o    Museum of Science (MOS), Boston:
o   Smithsonian Institute, Washington: 
o   Exploratorium, San Francisco:
o   Project Lead the Way (PLTW):
select from summer school programs around the country;
o   NASA Field Centers:
o   Meet with Massachusetts officials e.g. governor’s STEM advisory council, Department of Education etc.

So from my perspective this was/is the opportunity of a lifetime.  I mean MIT!  MIT! Wow!  Not to mention all of the other stuff.  This was an exciting opportunity.

But by the end of the day the person had to ring me and tell me that I was not eligible as she was not aware that I was not yet permanent in the organisation (I work from contract until I can finish my study).  I told her that it was fine, and I meant it.  I know that this sort of stuff can happen and I was OK with it.  In fact, I was more than fine.  I was happy that I had been recognised as one of the first choice offers because of my work!  She apologised many times and I find this sort of thing funny.

I am sure that there are people out there that get very upset if they were in the same circumstance but that is just not me.  It was something that was just not clear to me until now that I may be different in this regard.  I realised that in fact the only time that I get upset is when I have a chance to do something that matters and I back down because I become doubtful of my own ability.  I have been doing that for around ten years now and I can see this clearly now.  I am capable in all sorts of ways, all I need to do is try.

Let the small stuff slide.  Sometimes stuff happens that is beyond anyone's ken.  Don't blame them for it and move on.  That is the view from my window today.

Shell Shocked

I have had a bad week.

This week is the first week of my practical placement at another school for three weeks.  That is not a bad thing in itself but it is when you consider the entire three weeks is unpaid and I need to support my family and I on our meager savings (read credit card) and it will affect us for at least 6 - 8 weeks.

Then, on Tuesday (game day for my in person game) I get a call telling me that my best mate  had "taken a turn" and been delivered to hospital.  Yesterday, two days after the event we find out his turn was actually a stroke and in a more serious turn of events he gets air lifted to Hobart (around 350 Km's away) so he can be looked after by specialists.  He is only just above 40 and it has come as a massive shock.

Been a little shell shocked since then.  Worried for him, wondering what it is all about.  Have also had no time really to blog in any form this week so the readership on the main blog is down which is annoying.

Life can be a pain in the ass.  Just saying.  That is the view from my window today.

Zeiken Black, Hypnotism and Me

Last night my wife and I went out to the Civic Centre in Burnie with some friends to see a stage hypnotist called Zeiken Black perform his "adult" (thus this post contains adult content) rated show.  It is the first time that I have ever been to see a hypnotist and I saw it as a fun night out.  We went to a "night spot (read fancy pub) beforehand that was pretty cool and was in high spirits when we arrived.

One of the guys I was with was very adamant that he wanted to be hypnotised prior to the event.  I was thinking that I was not a good candidate as I over think stuff a lot and my mind is always active, so not a great choice for a technique that requires a deep relaxation.

We get in, get seated and the hypnotist arrives.  He tells the audience that he is going to run some tests to see who might be a great addition to the 15 people he was going to hypnotise.  The first test is really a test of do you do what you hear or do you do what you see.  Now I did what I heard, as did my wife but as we looked around there were many, many people more that did what they saw and not what they heard.

Last nights promo poster

The second test was a visualisation test where you closed your eyes and visualised holding a heavy bucket in one hand and having your arm tied to a helium balloon for the other.  If you opened your eyes at the end and found your hands far apart then he said you were a good candidate.  Mine were pretty much the furthest apart of my group there.  He then called for volunteers from the audience.  My friend got up and I thought "What the hell" and went with him.

In short, I was on stage for the entire evening.  My friend that wanted to be hypnotised dipped out in the first comedy routine of playing imaginary instruments and that left me as the only male on stage.  I made a decision at that point to stay, and I became the focus of all the jokes set up for male participants, but that was all a part of the fun wasn't it?

So, here is what I was asked to do.

• Play imaginary instruments to music
• Watch different genre movies and react to them
• Whenever I heard the music for Johnny Cash's Burning Ring of Fire drag my butt around on the floor as if it were burning like a dog does
• Whenever I heard the hypnotist say my name I was to react as if I had an embarrassing erection and try to cover it up
• Pretend I was a karate expert and perform moves that were similar to another person being a karate expert
• Imagine I was driving my fantasy car
• Come up with a porn name ("The Hammer" if you were wondering) and audition for the role with a chair
• Shake hands with the hypnotists assistant and experience the most intense orgasm I have ever had.

I believe in hypnotism wholeheartedly.  I have investigated it when I was younger and watched people like Derren Brown and come to believe that this is a true state.  Do I think last night that I was hypnotised?  No.

I think back on it now and what Zeiken (who ran a good fun show by the way) did was offer us a social contract from the word go.  The first test, do what you hear, not what you see was a test to see if he could get people that would listen to instruction.  Simple and important.  The second test of the bucket and the balloons was a test to see who would best act out what they were told to visualise.  Again, important and simple.

Once we were all on stage he took us into the "hypnotic" state!  There was a lot of soothing music and showmanship, although he claimed that it was all about us, but it was aimed to get us relaxed.  During this time though he furthered his social contract with us.  He told us that if we at any time felt like we were not hypnotised or "under" that we could sit and wait for him to release us from the stage.  This is the out clause and pretty much he is saying "if you think this is going to be too ridiculous you can leave."  He also told us that once we left that we would no longer be under the effect.  Important if you are a believer.  He also gave us some benefits to look forward to or our reward that being hypnotised allowed you to feel like you had a deep sleep and you would feel better.  The relaxation technique he took us through was bound to help with that.  He also told us that we would not believe that we were hypnotised and if asked we would say no.  A good technique to say that there is some control even though you don't feel it.

I was out on the town and I was there to have a bit of fun.  When my friend left (he later stated "I just did not feel hypnotised") I knew I was the last man standing and really nothing the hypnotist asked was having a go at me at my expense, it was just entertainment for a full house that had shown up.  I was fine with it.  Do I believe others there were hypnotised, yes.  There were some people completely out of it.  Some were disoriented afterward and cold not understand the laughter and the applause when we left.

I followed cues and played roles.  Never did I believe for a second that I had an embarrassing erection, and nor did I experience the most intense orgasm of my life whilst shaking his assistants hand.  I was very calm and relaxed though and he did a good job at maintaining that.  The whole sleep routine that he did (and all hypnotists do) is to keep us in that relaxed state.  I never believed for an instant that I was under control doing any of the things that he asked me and I still maintain that I was in full control and just decided to go along for the ride and have a good night.

There were distinct moments of panic in it too.  When asked to come up with a porn name I was so very glad he started at the opposite end of the line as all I could think of was Dirk Diggler who I thought was an actual porn star (turns out it is a character of a porn star in Boogie Nights, apparently I don't know porn).  So when he was nearing me and I was listening to some of the other responses, "The Hammer" came to me.  It was short, powerful and funny but it was my invention.

At the end of the show Zeiken told us all that we would feel energised and he wished us to be happy and confident after coming out of it.  I thought that was a great way to finish it and for the rest of the night as I tried to convince all of my friends that I was not actually hypnotised I felt just that.  Happy, energised and confident.

We went back to the bar for a couple of after show drinks and it was funny to see a few people from the show call out to me about "The Hammer" and one guy even offered to buy me a drink because I had made them laugh so hard.  Perhaps that is where the confidence and happiness comes from.

This morning I had to get up and go to my 12 hour shift at the service station.  I only got around 4 and a half hours sleep but I do still feel energised, happy and confident.  Every Saturday on my way to work I get a coffee from the local bakery and the girl that served me was amazed at how happy I seemed.  I mentioned the show and talked to them a bit.  

I have a sore bottom (from scooting around on the ground all night) and sore legs from the same.  But I am happy and in a better head-space than I have been for a long time.  So was I hypnotised and am I reacting to his suggestion to be happy, confident and energised?  Or is it a case that I am still just on a high from having a great night out with a lot of fun and friends.  I choose the latter.

But, there are other things to consider.  I am firmly in the mind-space that I was not hypnotised and did everything out of choice.  The fact remains though that although everything that was going on around me was good fun and funny, I did not need to laugh until I was told to respond in that manner.  The crowd was something that I did not react to because of this calmness.  Also, when entering the "hypnotic state" he asked us to test the weight of our eyelids and not open them.  I firmly believe that I could not have opened them if I tried at that point.  So I will always have a little doubt (perhaps 5%) that I actually was hypnotised.  Who knows!?

Anyhow, that is the view from my window this morning.  Thanks for reading.