Posted by alexandra_k on May 20, 2018, at 1:42:14
In reply to Re: don't know what's wrong » alexandra_k, posted by sigismund on May 19, 2018, at 23:56:59
> >It appears less militarised because there aren't really any people, here.
> That's all to the good.I suppose you are right. I do agree that we have exceeded carrying capacity and so less people is good. We are more likely to make headway of learnign to look after the people we've got if we have less people. I think...
I do remember conferences in Melbourne where some Philosophers got into an altercation with some street-kids and I was actually really upset with the way that went down... The cops were called and they treated the street kids like crap, really. Even though the philosophers (a few of them) had (in my view) unnecessarily provoked the street-kids because they were a bit drunk... And hierarchically inclined...
I also remember seeing a couple police kicking at a guy who was sleeping on the sidewalk. Just kicking him to check he was alive, or just because they could... I wasn't sure. It freaked me out how quick Australian police were to have their hands on their guns in their holsters...
I need to remember it was only different for me because I was part of some elite world...
I need to remember that civilisation comes in small pockets of interaction that are dispersed... And that there is plenty that is just as bad and worse as what I am describing in Australia and Scotland and Ireland and England and the USA and Canada...
And I'm sure there is plenty that is civilised and genuinely cooperative in Palestine and Iran and Iraq and Afganastan and China and India and so on... It's more... Local.
The weather in Dunedin is odd. I expected it to be a lot colder / worse than it is. Especially if you get yourself into habitable housing, it really ain't that bad. I mean we have wonderfully warm days in the middle of winter. But then we have some horribly windy and chilly days in January or February. It is really very varied, indeed.
> I dunno about Auckland. I have spent many hours at the airport.
Auckland is very dispersed. Like how Sydney is very dispersed, I guess, so lower density. And smaller scale, for sure.
The city centre is largely unoccupied. Maybe it mirrors the death of city centre in other places... The city centre is mostly very (very very) cheap high rise for a pretty city skyline... Plywood partitioned 'apartments' like 13 sq meters with no balcony... Where building managers think cockroaches are endemic... Just all kinds of nasty...
Heavy harbour traffic... They want to move the stuff that's oversized overnight and in the small hours of the morning. So you have the stuff that causes the ground to vibrate and shake being moved from 12-5am. Then you have rubbish trucks and the sound of glass recycling... It's varmin country...
I haven't seen comparable parts of Sydney Central but I suppose there would be some, to be fair.... Melbourne, too...
I have been to Hobart for conference. I only saw that other world, though. We got a nice motel and a rental car and commuted to the university around the water. We got fresh seafood from the harbour boats. Like fish and chip shops but on water. And you could get muscles and paua and so on... And it tasted wonderful. So fresh.
But probably really expensive to the majority of locals, yeah...
We went to a museum to see... I don't remember... And I think I saw some aspect of local poverty that upset me, rather. Tugged the heartstrings.
> Ah well. Thank God for private health insurance. My anaesthetist said 'When you wake up you will be on a drip and after that on tablets. What would you like?' I said Morphine then oxycodone and he said 'We find morphine does not work quite quickly enough and prefer to use hydromorphone. What about that?' I was very pleased indeed.I think anesthetists win the day for the favorite doctor award. I was very impressed by the sleight of hand of my last anethetist. He sort of pinched the back of one of my hands which drew my attention to it in a surprised / startled kind of way... Such that I didn't notice him insert the line in my other hand at the same time. I all but clapped. ACC. So, our version of private, sort of.
> People don't read as they used to. And in fact not many teachers can teach it.That is true, not many teachers can teach it. I do think that there is an element of only promoting those that can't, however.
I think that everyone who doesn't learn to read in these parts is dx'd with dyslexia (or similar) then told they can't read by standard techniquies because they are learning disabled and they need private one on one tuition. And then they don't get that because we don't have the resources to provide one on one tuition for all these students...
But it's largely about us getting serious about genuinely wanting more kids to learn to read -- instead of being happy for them to be diverted and constantly kicked back. You have these awful teachers who think that blue text on a yellow background or something like that will be the thing... But, really, it's just the implementation of stuff we've known for ages and ages... That which the rich people do with their own kids...
It is hard to teach reading in Maaori culture because the kids have learned to attend to the bully / one who is most likely to hurt them. Or... There's a constant stream of noise from some person-source who needs / wants / is the constant attentional focus. Kids aren't taught to attend to things within themselves... To communicate (inform) others... You can't really teach reading when you can't get the kids to attentionally focus to the words on the page.
> You did go to what I think of as one of the best universities here. I like Canberra. Nice climate and buildings, not too many people.It was meant to be the best research university. Not a destination for undergraduates and I think 1/3 of the student body was PhD students. There was also (thought this has been restructured now) a distinction between 'Schools' who taught the undergraduates and 'Research Schools' who focused on PhD level research and funded Researchers whose only teaching duties was PhD level supervision.
The best researchers bailed to better offers in the US. Australia started to wonder why it should get so good at things only for that to happen... The researchers who were supposed to support the PhD students into becoming the next generation of superstar researchers for Australia didn't really support hteir students. Lots of students quit the field entirely. Australia decided NZers couldn't get government jobs in Australia anymore (our Arts / Social Science people should return back to NZ and help things develop over here, instead... Only... People return here only to find that they are 'overqualified' to work in NZ... Not welcomed back, at all... People determined to teach them a lesson or two, knock them down a peg or two... No matter... They will have to make some way or other in NZ society, because Aussie is sick and tired of carrying us...
I think if I went to Sydney or Melbourne as an undergrad... If I studied the pre-med first year courses... I would find more of an approximation of what I have found here at Auckland and Otago. There is some awful bully awful rite of passage... Or something. I don't quite know what it is...
But my experience in Canberra and my experience with quality research conducted by quality researchers across various fields... With Medicine being the last field to develop, there...
That's the thing, really. Whether Medicine is central wlith all the psychopaths and vultures hovering around... Or whether other things are developed and Medicine comes in as an... Afterthought. An Interloper.
I just didn't see reason to finish when I didn't want to be a Philosophy academic. The Medicine I saw in Canberra was Medicine for persons. Medicare... The fact that practiioners had public and private aspects to their practice and they could choose to offer a partial subsidy to match a medicare subsidy to make genuien healthcare genuinely affordable.
I'm scared that not even money can buy, here. I've been trying to see a GP who will be a consultant for me (and not an ambassador for dhb or government or foreign interest)... And... It seems that some things not even money can buy. No amount of money will buy me a consultation.
I guess because if I don't see it... I won't know what I'm missing.
Only... I've seen it already. And seeing it was what drew me to medicine. Wanting to provide precisely that to a greater proportion of people.
Those who want it. And plenty don't.
Here, we are only interested (often) in treating the involuntary.
Simply because... We can.
Culture of bullies. For sure.
poster:alexandra_k
thread:1098754
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/poli/20140225/msgs/1098779.html