Tag: Notices

Angela’s Theme

What a week. I’m finally no longer a menial worker and a good friend has fled the country for pastures turning brown.

I used to do some part-time work in the library at the University of Auckland, but no more. With the Med School paper starting in a fortnight I’ve decided that in the combination of library work, thesis work and teaching one of those three had to go. I did think about giving them all up and becoming a South Seas pirate, but the loss of limbs thing is disturbing and who has a sloop nowadays anyway? So ditching Lending Services really was the only way to go. Presumably this will up my thesis work quotian, but who knows…

And now I am further alone. My good friend Mel, a Canadian of some lewdness, has gone to Sydney to start her PhD (in Dreams; no, I mean that literally. She’s working in the Philosophy of Mind and looking at dreaming states). The Department here won’t be the same without her, although with the new intake this semester… And the move to a new building… But I jest. Happy travails, Mel. Hope those sexist bastards across the ditch don’t get you down.

(This is really just filler, this post…)

In other news, this Sunday (as shall be becoming as per usual my bFM slot will be at about half eleven rather than eleven. Synchronise those Swatches.

Message Ends.

Critical Thinking

(Taught through the Centre for Continuing Education at the University of Auckland)

Class Number: 57782

When: 6 sessions, Wednesday 12 March – 16 April, 6.30 – 8.30pm

Where: Room 13, Commerce A Bldg No. 114, 3A Symonds Street

Fee (GST incl): $121.50 [International Fee (GST incl): $200.20]

Class Limit: 25

Course Description: Critical thinking is a skill we all like to think we have, but how often have you found yourself wondering just how critical your reasoning is? In this course we will uncover many of the basic skills a good thinker requires and then put them to use in analysing arguments you might come across in newspapers, on television and in everyday conversation.

Contains Traces of Nuts – A Link

In lieu of an actual post I link you to ‘The Fundy Post’ for apt commentary on the attempt to legislate alternative medicines in New Zealand. If I had been going to post on the subject I would have written something like Mr. Litterick’s entry, just not as pointedly funny.(I have a sneaking suspicion that my meagre readership already reads ‘The Fundy Post’ and that this post is somewhat redundant.)Coming up soon – a summary of views on Testimonial Knowledge. I bet you can’t wait.

Subway

Just a note to say that if I ate at Subway I’d be more than happy to boycott them over the Jackie Lang incident. I’m all for punishing management for their stupidity (otherwise, how will they learn?). However, I have only eaten at Subway twice and neither time did I find the food enjoyable. I can’t really join a boycott when it makes no changes whatsoever to my actions so I offer all those bloggers who are boycotting them my sympathy. I do have to ask the question, though; why on earth are you eating fast food that is, in essence, a sandwich you could make at home? I mean, really. Are your lives so busy you don’t have time to cut your own cheese?Yes, I meant to say that.

So it goes.

Kurt Vonnegut is dead.I’ll just let that seep in for a few seconds.Dead. So it goes.Vonnegut was my favourite American author; he probably was my favourite author overall but I’m compartmentalising at the moment so I won’t get too mired in the realisation that it’s going to take a while to find a new writer to savour and enjoy in the way I did Kurt. Of all the books he wrote ‘Mother Night’ is the one that resonates the most with me. It deals with personal responsibility and the notion that it really does matter that you say what you mean. It was also made into a beautiful film starring Nick Nolte (with a cameo by Vonnegut towards the end) and I may well sit myself down tonight and rewatch it.’Mother Night’ is about an American, Howard W. Campbell, Jr. (who makes a cameo in ‘Slaughterhouse Five’) who, somewhat by design, becomes the spokesperson for Nazi racism, despite the fact that he doesn’t hold to those tenets. I originally write a plot summary here, but, frankly, you should just go read the book. It’s short, easy to read and should stay with you for the rest of your life. A friend of mine would recommend ‘Bluebeard.’ This is also good, but ‘Mother Night’ wins through, on this blog at least, because it’s vaguely related to Conspiracy Theories.Vaguely. I just wanted to join in the chorus of people who can’t believe Kurt Vonnegut is dead.Dead.So it goes.

Friendly Warning

Late last year a member of my Department asked if anyone had seen ‘What the Bleep Do We Know?!,’ the New Age Quantum Consciousness documentary that was so popular with the plebs. No one had; we had heard that it was terrible and we somehow knew it was awful but none of us had actually experienced its nature. Thus last week, when a copy came to hand, I decided that I would watch it.This was a mistake. ‘What the Bleep Do We Know?!’ is not just errant nonsense, but dangerous errant nonsense. I am not usually one to advocate the destruction of books et al, but this is a DVD that I sincerely think should be broken in twain, burnt and subsequently sent into the heart of the Sun. If it weren’t someone else’s property…To discuss the film would be to give it more credence than it is worth. Essentially the film claims that as the description of the world under quantum mechanics is so odd that reality must be a construction of the mind and that the only way to make this sense of consistent reality we have coherent is to postulate that our observations come from a common sourse. Which turns out to be God. Who happens to be all of us.Keep away from this film. Keep your family and friends away from this film. If someone you know has watched it, keep an eye on them. If they have expressed a postive opinion of the film, kill them. It is the only way to ensure the safety of our species.