Monday 23 April 2007

Meditation and right-brain thinking...

I went to a meditation workshop this evening led by Vessantara, one of the FWBO's more senior teachers. Interestingly the meditation itself was fairly simple, but several of the comments he made in response to questions were very interesting.

He discussed how we have a tendency to label things rather than experiencing them - what he called a 'labour-saving habit', because it leaves us more time to think about whatever terribly important thing is currently on our mind. That's nothing novel in itself, but when he pointed out that it partly explains why time seems to go by faster as we get older, I found that much more interesting.

He also described the value of boredom - something he says he invariably feels at the beginning of a solitary retreat. He said one can see boredom as an obstacle, or one can see it as an indication that one isn't paying attention properly. If you really engage with your experience, you rapidly find things about it that are interesting. That point caught my attention sharply, because it's something I'd begun to notice during my recent attempts to revise the less interesting parts of my course. Having it put into words will I think help to remind me that the material isn't really boring - but choosing to be bored with it certainly won't make it memorable.

On a more directly meditation-related front, he mentioned that one can go a step beyond a 'kind and gentle chiding' attitude to discursive thoughts during meditation; one can actively celebrate the moment of awareness when you realise you were distracted. It's as if a spark of self-awareness reignited amongst the smouldering daydreams. (That purple prose, by the way, is my own, and not in any way Vessantara's fault)

All in all, quite a fun evening. I'd attend the second workshop this Thursday, but I've been offered free Wagamama's with Laura and some friends, and I can't honestly pass that up... :)

In other news, I quit smoking (again). Last time I let myself have 'just one' after a few months without and it led to starting all over. This time, stubbornness will prevail.

Sunday 22 April 2007

Eat Pes

This is one of the more interesting artists I've seen recently. Predictably, my first reaction is 'I want to try doing that!'... but not until after the exams. I am behaving. Sort of...

Saturday 21 April 2007

More poetry

Study, study, study (and the occasional game of kdice)... not much to report except that.

I am increasingly wishing I had made notes proportional to the readability of the handouts rather than my level of interest. I seem to have little more than Powerpoint slides for some of the less exciting ones, which are of course just the ones I don't want to have to go and read reviews about... 20/20 hindsight. At least there's still more than a month to go.

I found a couple more bits of my bad poetry in the margin of one of the handouts - so I shall subject you to them in lieu of a real post. :)

heavy sky, streaming cobbles
windows blinded.
shoes collide, woman topples
baby wide-eyed.

and

the glaciers!
there have been too many Cokes.
there will be salt in your glass, soon.

Tuesday 10 April 2007

Visas and so forth

We're in the middle of completing the final form involved in Laura's permanent residency application. The main requirement this time is to demonstrate that we've been cohabiting as a married couple for the past two years - something which I wish I'd known sooner would be required, since we don't get much correspondence addressed to us jointly. (This is student accommodation in my name, hence all the bills are sent to me only.) We've had to resort to requesting letters from organisations we've interacted with, confirming that they know us to be living together here... quite a lot of palava, but hopefully it will all be over soon.

L is so clearly happy with her new job (she's got an apprenticeship as a piercer with a shop in Cambridge). It's really great to see her so positive and upbeat. I think the opportunity to socialise (with someone other than me) is doing wonders for her. Between that and our ongoing courses at the Buddhist Centre, we're both feeling a lot more content with ourselves. We're starting the full-year Buddhism course next week - something I'm still vaguely astonished with myself to be devoting time to. Nonetheless, I can't deny that meditating regularly has been having positive effects on me, and Buddhist philosophy - once you get past the popular misconceptions about it - is really pretty interesting.

Revision is ongoing, still not as much as perhaps I would like, but definitely better than none at all. I'm running another modafinil experiment which, if it turns out well, should give me a few extra days' effective study time over the next few weeks. It seems to be going alright so far.

I have been playing with StyleXP - unfortunately I have thus far to find a style I like more than the default one. Perhaps I'll just design one of my own - my tastes don't tend to overlap much with those of others. I've also finally got around to learning the keyboard shortcuts for Firefox, and haven't really touched IE for a few days now, which I feel absurdly pleased with.

New game idea is brewing, but I recognise the danger of this while I'm supposed to be studying, so I'm just going to write down what has come to me so far and ignore it until post exams. ;)

Saturday 7 April 2007

All quiet

Not much to report, really, but I feel like making a post, if only to share the following piece of gratuitous overwriting (from the 29th March issue of Science CiteTrack):

"Investigations of the ecology of planktonic marine organisms run into the problem of reconciling the anonymity of morphological uniformity with the potential for ubiquitous distribution in the continuity of the oceans and the observed genetic diversity."
I have no problem with the use of jargon words where necessary, but it's very important - especially in a general-interest publication like CiteTrack - to be clear and straightforward to avoid putting people off. For example, the above can be rewritten as:
"Investigations into plankton ecology are difficult because different species are similar in shape but genetically diverse, and may be widespread throughout the oceans."
While I'm here I'll also point you in the direction of the remarkably talented Alex Ries, whose xenobiological creativity has earned him a place on my first terraforming expedition...