Nathan's Blog

Problems Commenting?

2005-01-06T20:43:00.000+13:00

Got problems commenting on the new blog? Comment here.

New Blog

2004-10-26T11:01:00.000+13:00

The new blog is at: nato.revise.org Who wants the first comment? Update: nato.revise.org died. The blog is at bevear.org

Anti-Choice

2004-10-25T22:17:00.000+13:00

I've had enough of the Pro-Choice, Pro-Life perspectives on abortion. I've decided an Anti-Choice position is far superior to either of those. Yeah. Out of interest, does anyone know anyone holding an Anti-Life position? _{...Tongue and Cheek is a wonderful thing.} In other news, I might be shifting my blog (again). I won a raffle for a blog-hosting thing for a year. Woho!

God is Raising up a Generation...

2004-10-24T23:11:00.000+13:00

I heard it again tonight; "I believe that God is raising up a generation that will be warriors for him, who won't be content with letting Satan have dominion over the broken and the abused...". Its not the first time I've heard this, and unfortunatly its probably not going to be the last. The question I ask is, how do you know? What is it that makes our generation any different to other generations? Why is our generation going to be any better? Forgive me, but I am skeptical. In the past there have been passionate leaders, and I am guessing they have probably said the same things in their time. There have probably been charasmatics jumping up and down telling everyone that there will be revival. Why do people want to believe this? Its quite simple really. Christianity hasn't been doing so well recently, its been declining relative to the population (Wikipedia says so!). Yet God is moving in some churches - so if God is working, but Christianity has been declining, then God must be starting a turn around right? I'm not convinced. We've got to be careful we don't just tell ourselves that something is getting better, just because we want it to get better (Much like we do with memory for relationships, and our life in general). So, God isn't moving in this generation. We're all just the same as the previous generations. Got that? There is no hope! None whatsoever. You may as well go to the garden and eat worms. Because Christianity is a dying religion. Christians aren't a good witness, they just sit on their butt - unless they go to church, where they only say how they are going to change the world, but then go home and do nothing. If you're Christian, what thoughts ran through your head as you read that last paragraph? Perhaps you thought I had finally lost it. Perhaps you thought I was taking my anti-pentecostalism way past the line. If you were offended, I apologize - I was just trying to make a point. Perhaps Christianity is a spent force, perhaps we ought to throw in the towel? No. I am not going to sit on my butt any more. I'm not content with words. Actions are required. Which brings me back to the original point. God is able to raise up a generation who will achieve wonders, but only if we are prepared to act, to draw closer to him. We cannot isolate the subject 'God is working', forgetting the object of the sentence, 'in me'. Why should God work in this generation rather than any previous generation? Lets give him a reason! Let us draw near to him, and he will draw near to us! (see James 4:8). I might add that tonight the speaker redeemed herself by not stopping with the "I believe..." but encouraged people to draw near, and be 'a warrior' for this generation. Commendable. If people act on what is happening, then we will be able to look back and say with absolute certianty, that God did raise up a generation that achieved something. In the meantime, our actions dictate whether or not this will happen. I believe God will achieve great things with this generation, if we are prepared to pay the cost.

Study

2004-10-22T15:51:00.000+13:00

I don't like study. I prefer doing something. None of this preparing for the few hours, where it all counts. I prefer direct feedback. Like when you've written 500 words, you know you've got 500 words for whatever assesment it is. But study, it doesn't really matter - for all you know it could be stuff thats not on topic, or you may forget it on the day. ick.

Linkage

2004-10-22T10:49:00.001+13:00

Ok, I've decided to follow Matt's example, and get myself external bookmarks via del.icio.us. It saves a lot of space methinks. You can find a link on the side, or here: del.icio.us

Epilogue: Scholarships

2004-10-21T20:00:00.000+13:00

You guys may recall an earlier post of mine entitled 'Scholarships', where it was discussed whether or not one should apply for scholarships offered by freemasons. I'd like to answer a few things on the last comment. There are three things I want to mention (which don't directly relate to the scholarship - meh):

I believe one of the characterisitics of a mature christian is that the thought that christianity might be wrong has crossed their mind. I think I'm mature, and I've certianly considered the option. (And I can't hate the commenter, because they did it anonymously)
The fact that christianity is the oldest (is it?) doesn't guarantee its authenticity. Part of its authenticity is based on Jesus, particularly his death and ressurection (if a guy can come back from the dead, something must be there), part of its authenticity comes from the spirit working in christians (unfortunatly this doesn't often work), but not from how old christianity is. (Also see Josh 24:2, which mentions Abraham worshiped other gods before Jehovah / Yahweh - is it the oldest religion?)
I'm interested as to what the commenter meant by 'winning'. I wonder, do they mean winning as in being correct, or winning as becoming the accepted religion. My first thoughts were to the later (if this is the case, let me assure you - thankfully modern christianity has come to a point where we don't burn people at the stake if they disagree. But if christianity did become dominant, and they want to burn you at the stake, let it be known I will do what I can to prevent this - No-one ought to force people to follow their God). However, I'm guessing its the former. In which case I'd recommend you continue to search for truth. Try to ignore ardent exclusivists of any religion who tell you if you don't agree with them you'll burn in hell - they could be right, but hell avoiding isn't the motivation. If you genuinely search for God and for truth, you'll find that God is out there, and that he wants to meet with you.

_{_{Disclaimer: This post is not meant to define my position on exclusivism, but rather on my position towards finding truth}} Anyway - The scholarship - what happened? If you imagine the continuum of the 'absolute acceptableness' of certian things, applying for the scholarship was in the middle - possibly positive, possibly negative. However, there were some additional factors worth mentioning:

A lot of uncertianty. I wasn't sure whether or not it was good, I didn't have my mind definitlty made up. I could see both sides of the argument.
There wasn't too much to be gained from it. It was a relatively small scholarship that doesn't allow other scholarships, so potential for good is lessened.
At the same time, a lot of people were quite ardent in thinking it was incorrect, which meant that I require a decent threshold to go through with it. (Don't get me wrong, I'll challenge the status quo even if people are ardently holding it, provided I am sure of me challenging it).

These factors all taken together, meant that I was unsure about the losses and gains, and in this cases of morality, I think a conservative strategy is preferable to a risk-taking strategy. Better safe than sorry (In this case). So, this uncertianty convinced me to ignore it for a while with the possibility of revising my decision nearer to the application date, but before I knew it, the application date had passed. Oh well. But thanks to everyone who contributed to it. _{Edit 24/10/04: Strong Exclusivists -> Ardent Exclusivists. (See comments)}

Life

2004-10-20T13:08:00.000+13:00

The problem with life is that simple answers never really answer the questions, and at the same time, we don't have enough time to find non-simple answers for most of the questions we could (and quite possibly should) answer. Blah.

Culture and Stereotypes

2004-10-17T23:31:00.000+13:00

Earlier, on Nathan's Blog, Scotty asked Nathan:

Here is another sterotype. Certain ethnic groups are more likely to be criminals - but not all of any particular group are (except for Cretans who are all liars, evil beasts, and lazy gluttons Titus 1:12). Do you think that this is actually due to ethnicity, or perhaps something like breakdown of familial structure being more common in that particular ethnic group. And if you believe it is due to familial breakdown being more prevalent within that ethnic group, why is that the case? Is THAT to do with ethnicity or is there something deeper again?

I'm not sure if this is going to be a complete answer to the question, or if its going to say anything more than matt, but it seems to me like a good thought. My first thought is that ethnicity (genes) doesn't cause crime. Whatever approach you take (be you a creationist or evolutionist), we are a relatively new species, and originated from a small group of genetically related individuals. There just hasn't been enough time for more criminal genes to become dominant in different populations, given that pretty much any environment we are in, crime has the same affordances (i.e. it can be benificial, provided you get away with it). I admit, variation in these does occur, but variations are with micro-culture, so it wouldn't be consistent enough to produce genetic variation cross ethnicity for criminal behaviour. Genes will play a part, but I don't think they're the numero uno. So it looks like Culture is the major culprit - but is it? One thing I've learned from both psychology and christianity is that sociology is wrong. Man is not corrupted by culture. Man is corrupted, because whatever envirnment he is placed in, he will not automatically perform what is good - rather he will perform what is selfish. Crime - and here we use a higher sense of the word, meaning anything that deviates what is the best - affords benifits for the individual, and hence the individual will always be prepared to sacrifice the greater good for their own personal good. Culture then is a mechanisim of restraint. Without culture, without some external controls, the world would go to the dogs. I don't think I need to defend this point - but the point is, resources are scare. If everyone was free to do what they wanted, eventually they would do something that impeded on someone elses freedom, because, there isn't enough to go round. I want to have the best piece of land, the best friends, etc..., but so does everyone else. So, controls are put in place to help prevent people fighting over it all. So how come some cultures and ethnicities are more criminal prone? If the genetic part of ethnicity is not a factor, then it comes mostly down to culture. I would put it to you that there are two main factors influencing how well a culture helps cut down on crime First, some cultures will be better than others at promoting a healthy society. To take a random example, a pirate's port. Quite simple. But generally larger cultures are decent at producing a system by which individuals are encouraged to stay away from crime. The reason being that if they don't, then the culture will eventually tear itself apart. (Micro-cultures are interesting - e.g. gangs. In this case they often have a degree of respect within the micro-culture, and so are still being controlled, but they don't have the same respect to those outside) The second influence is that of the degree of affinity, loyalty, proximity to the culture(s). If you come from a very good culture, yet you hate its principles, and are removed from it, then chances are you will rebel. I'm sure there are varying levels of this, from external control, to internal taking on of the views, but at the moment I'm just going to stick with affinity to the culture. Perhaps a later post, or someone else could talk about it. Which of these has the greatest influence? I would go with affinity to culture. Why? because generally cultures will produce a decent amount of control (i.e. they vary from 75%-95%) but when someone rejects control they reject it completely (i.e. 0%). The good thing is that often they do associate with another culture, but unfortunatly, underdog cultures as the one mentioned earlier. So now the question is, how come some ethnicities are more likely to reject the controls of society? There are potentially a lot of explanations, but one that I will look at is being the minority, or particularly bi-cultural. If you are in the majority, close affinity to your culture is the default. On the other hand, if you are the minority, your culture has less power over you, and at the same time, the majority culture also doesn't have a lot of control over you. You are between cultures, in the gap, and you can quite easily reject controls of both cultures. This I think can explain some of these ethnic groups that have higher incidence of crime. There are of course factors that prevent you from slipping through this gap. I can see two sides to the coin - firstly a minority culture can try to remain seperate. Which means people tend to keep away from the gap, but if they fall in it, its pretty big. The stereotypical traditional parents (e.g. whale rider etc...) illustrates this perfectly - they maintain their culture, but often their children don't. On the other hand, the cultures may be compatable, which allows people to keep their identity, and take on two cultures. An example of a non-compatable culture would be a tribal warrior culture trying to join with western culture. Not good. So, those are my thoughts so far. The most noticible variation in criminal activity in ethnicities is caused by big disruptions. The biggest source of disruptions is not taking on a culture, which can result from two cultures being incompatable, and an attempt to live in both worlds.

Poll

2004-10-14T16:02:00.000+13:00

Stereotypes

2004-10-13T20:39:00.000+13:00

I promised this post Correlations exist. Therefore stereotypes can help us predict general patterns - they help save cognitive resources. But they are bad when you over-apply them to individuals, especially when you pay attention to the stereotype, and forget the actual characteristics. Naughty. So, Pentecostals are often happy clappy. But we don't assume all are. Because some aren't. (There has been too much pentecostalism in this blog of late - sorry - I'd better tone it down...)

Busy

2004-10-13T20:38:00.000+13:00

I've been quite busy over the past week. The good thing is that its given me an oppurtunity to publish a few of those posts that I've had sitting in drafts. Yay. cye!

Binary Pentecostalism

2004-10-10T11:54:00.000+13:00

Hopefully I won't offend anyone here. These are just more thoughts, and I don't think they even attacks pentecostalism. Rather I see it as criticism of what isn't pentecostal but that which is often bundled with it. So feel free to disagree with me - I respect the pentecostal viewpoint, and recognize that those who hold it are still christians, and think that their zeal and passion is something that should be present in other churches (not necessarily in the same way, but yeah. you know what I mean). Also, note that I don't discount the existance of the gifts of the Holy Spirit happening these days (Link).

Something that I don't get with some pentecostals is the fact you need to 'practice' tongues or prophecy. If tongues, etc are a gift of God, then surely you either have them or not - they should be spontaneous, and not a learned skill. The whole idea of mixing what is supposedly God's true gifts with human efforts is irreconcilable with my understanding of scripture. If on the other hand they are psychological 'glossolalia' then they will be learnt - so you'd need to practice it! So it really destroys any validity of tongues. (For this reason I will never attempt to fake tongues, because if I was to ever speak in genuine tongues, I wouldn't want to worry that I learnt them) Anyway, if someone tells me to 'practice' tongues, then they are telling me to:
1. Try to achieve God's work through my own strength or
2. Fake it, consciously or subconsciously
Which are really the same thing. And not good - Or have I got it completely wrong?
The other thing is, I don't see room for semi-pentecostalism. If Tongues and Prophecy are a good thing, then they should be encouraged. So I don't see a problem with a sermon from a Pentecostal guy telling people "you should be speaking in tongues (yo)". Just so long as they're being biblical about it, and not relying on some over used, single, out-of-context, not-really-saying-anything-on-it's-own verse (e.g. Acts 1:8). Yeah.

Ok. Bye Byes.

Reinforcment vs. Fulfillment

2004-10-10T00:24:00.000+13:00

My life keeps on coming back to this: What is pleasurable is not always what is fulfilling, and sometimes merely serves as a reinforcer. Why is it that I enjoy work, yet I find it easy to be lazy so that I produce a lower quality result? Why do some things seem like a good thing at the time, but then just fade away, leaving you feel dissatisfied, and wishing you had more? Surely I ought to know what is fulfilling and what is not? Surely with all my 21 years experience I would have learnt which paths are better. Well, to a degree I have learnt, in that I know the paths. So, now I must put my money where my mouth is, and walk down my path. Good night.

Finding the 'best' mindset: Applications of Partial Derivates

2004-10-09T12:51:00.000+13:00

I was looking for something else in my archives, and I saw a previous post that says a similar thing to this one. Interesting. But, I am writing a follow up the highly contentious post on clustering of beliefs (where I attempted to look at the links between arminianism and pentecostalism). This post is meant to look at an application of this idea to finding truth. Its a wee bit long, but a lot of its analogy, so should make easy reading. I want you to imagine for a minute you are trapped in an underground cave (if you're at all claustrophobic - pretend you're trying to find the top of a mountian to get a good view out of the clouds) filled with water, and the water level is slowly rising. You want to find the highest point, because there will be an air bubble there where you can breathe. You swim up through the dark waters until you find the ceiling of the cave - you follow the ceiling as it goes up and up, until you find an air bubble. Horray! You can breathe. Question: Are you at the highest point? A simple way to try and find this out is to feel the slope of the ceiling. Its gradient tells you which way to go for the highest point. The problem is that the ceiling isn't a universal cone - there could be multiple peaks that you can't see from where you are. The only way to discover these other peaks is to explore, at first you go down lower, but then you follow the ceiling up again, and, you find another peak, perhaps higher than the last, perhaps lower. Ok, now the surface of the underground cave is all the possible mindsets we can have. Be they arminian or calvinist. And the movements we make along the ceiling are our thoughts, while the height of the ceiling is the consistency of our mindest - we want to maximize this. Example: an pentecostal arminianist who begins to think about calvinism starts to move across, as they consider the implications of calvinism. They figure that calvinism isn't correct, as they have to move downward when they move across. And as they think about non-pentecostalism (evangelicalism?) they move in a different direction, again they move down, and conclude that pentecostalism is the way. If they were to think about non-pentecostalism and calvinism together, in a combined mindset they have to go down, but they start to go up again, because there is a peak at this location. So, what I'm saying is that even though our little mindset we have here and now seems the best, because any small change we make leads to more inconsistencies, our mindset may not be the best. We may have to consider large scale changes before we find a mindset that is more consistent. So, when looking at someone elses argument, it may help to consider the consistency of the issue in terms of their position, rather than just looking at the issue in terms of your position. You may find that opposite issues are able to be held given opposite mindsets. Lastly, Axioms are perhaps where this analogy breaks down. Maybe they aren't. If you have an axiom, you may want to challenge it, but you should have a good reason for holding it. If you do, challenging it can be quite a large step, and is probably time consuming. So be careful when you challenge what is fundamental (but at the same time - be careful what you consider fundamental).

Illegal activities anyone?

2004-10-07T19:48:00.000+13:00

_{Note: Read the earlier post if you want meaningfullness} (Heh - if we still had google ads, I wonder what would come up...) A confederate and I were walking home the other day, and the conversation happened to turn to crime. Not the nasty messy stuff involving gangs and guns - the nice quiet crime that people don't see or know about, the type where the offenders are normal. Con artistry. Fraud and the like. The stuff that the goodies do in movies. It was rather interesting, as we decided that if we were to do it, we'd probably be pretty good at it. We would be able to, in our opinion, work out all the details, and do it in a way that no-one would suspect us, and get away with a comfortable sum, and still live our lives. Perhaps. So I'm wondering, how many of you guys have thought about doing something like they do on Oceans Eleven or the Itialian Job (though most likely on a smaller scale)? _{So you know, the results page has one of the options slightly wrong - it says 'a lot', when it should say 'some of the'. Yeah. Silly poll host.}

What we don't want to know

2004-10-07T13:39:00.000+13:00

In my earlier post, I briefly touched on the cost of knowing the truth. What I didn't examine was why knowledge and truth causes sorrow and grief. Why don't we like to know more truth? Surely knowledge is good! A lot of our pictures of the world are idealized. We build little models of how things are in our mind, mostly revolving around ourselves. We don't like to think that perhaps we aren't the most amazing person in the world, so we construct models that make us at least above average. We do this in a multitude of ways, by placing emphasis on what we are good at, by narrowing down our focus to things that support our hypotheses that we are above average, and I'm sure there are more ways to do this. The problem is that when we start to seriously think about our assumptions, we begin to realize that the little world we build in our mind isn't accurate. We aren't the bees knees. For sure, we have strengths, but we also have weaknesses, and big ones. We do have friends, but sometimes even our friends don't like what we are doing or saying. For people like me, our illusion will inevitably be shattered. It is only a matter of time before the nagging doubt starts to enter our mind. And once its entered your mind it grows inside of you, and you begin to challenge how good you really are. You can't help but notice that other people don't see you in the same way that you see yourself, and you yearn for objectivity. This realization is like a journey from subjectivity and confidence through the seas of doubt and ill-confidence - if you didn't know where it was going, you might be tempted to think it wasn't worth it. What's on the other side of this journey? Well, to tell the truth I haven't made it there yet. But I can see the shores of that distant land of confidence in a more accurate knowledge of the world. Perhaps its the one island in a chain of islands of increasing self-discovery? If this so, I'm going to keep journeying on. I want truth - I'm not going to like all of what I learn, but likablity was never a good measure of truthfulness.

Memory

2004-10-06T23:06:00.000+13:00

My last presentation for the year is going to be on memory intimate relationships. Which will be a nice interesting way to end the year. Anyway, I've recently been looking at memory biases over time, and there are a few depressing findings - It seems like a lot of our cognitive resources are devoted to convincing us that we are good, without requiring us to do anything. For example, we are often more critical of our past, presumably because it makes the present look better, and the future even better. So, things are improving, we can keep doing what we are doing now, and our future will be even better. Yay I begin worrying that I haven't changed in my life, that I'm still the same, that I think I'm getting better, but actually aren't. I don't like some of what I'm thinking - I'm learning that "with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief" (From Ecclesiastes 1). The more you know, the more stuff you have to worry about. Yet despite the worry, despite the grief, despite the sorrow, I know I wouldn't trade it back. Ignorance is bliss? Not for me - I want truth, despite the cost. _{Edit 7/9/04: Formatting change}

Pedantic

2004-10-06T15:11:00.000+13:00

I'm pedantic today. A blog is the whole blog, the template, the comments, etc... A post is a piece of writing on the blog, e.g.

The beech is often black.

Blogging refers to doing stuff with blogs, possibly including posting, commenting, etc... So if you say you've just written a blog on X, then that means you've just made another blog. If you've posted on X, or written a post on X, then you've written something on your blog about X. People often blurr this distinction. Anyhow... And, while I'm being pedantic, an update is something you add to a post

The beech is often black. Update: Today I went to beech and found out that the beech isn't black.

An edit is a change to a post, it doesn't actually have content

The beach is often black. Update: Today I went to beach and found out that the beach isn't black. Edit: Changed beech to beach

Ok, so an update really is an edit, but when I say edit, I mean to say 'I edited this', so I don't say 'I edited this and added that the beech isn't black' - its silly (much like this post). Ok. Thats enough procrastinating for me. Post some more photo ideas!

Tramp

2004-10-05T22:10:00.000+13:00

It has been suggested: A tramp So, readers of this blog are invited to keep the 26th-28th of november free for a tramp. Its also going to be advertised on the cu site - The more the merrier! Its probably not going to be a hard core crazy go nuts tramp, more like a scenic one, so that more people can come and enjoy it. But I'm sure people will still be able to be crazy if they want... (and it's not dangerous crazy) Yeah. _{Edit 6/9/04: it'd -> it's}

Lack of Photos

2004-10-05T21:20:00.000+13:00

Hey guys Recently I haven't posted a lot of photos, so to remedy the situation, I'm going to ask you all to suggest what you want a picture of, and then I'll see what I can do. (probably during study break ;) So, comment away... _{Originality notice: This wasn't actually my idea - I saw it on blogger.com.} _{Update 6/9/04:} I forgot to mention, because I won't be able to accomodate all the suggestions, I won't do all the photos. But I'll do my best!

Fyi: Anonymous Comments

2004-10-05T21:06:00.000+13:00

Just so you know, you can now comment if you aren't registered with blogger. I've noticed a few comments from non-bloggers, and I don't want to excluse them. My reservations still exist - I have a low view of people using anonymous comments to mock and or insult without giving a name, so I've decided on a policy of deleting comments that don't have a name. (Unless it gets forgotten or I can't be bothered, or something) _{Edit 6/9/04: Changed policy}

Arminianism implies Pentecostalism?

2004-10-02T13:06:00.000+12:00

I was thinking last night, an Arminian is more likely to be a Pentecostal than a Calvinist. Like so: (For the purposes of this argument I've just stuck to the arminiansim-calvinism dichotomy, because I'm not looking for truth about the soverignty of God and Man's free will in this post.) (Note: Personal doesn't equal internal, impersonal doesn't equal external) A Calvinist believes that the spirit works in the hearts of the chosen, and this brings them to God. Because he has been chosen, the evidence only needs to be in his heart, that God has touched him, and made him understand. The fact that the Christian is being drawn to God is shows he has been chosen, and thus provides assurance. He does not need to rely on gifts of the spirit to provide assurance An Arminian believes everyone has the option of being saved. Therefore there should be evidence that is external, tangible, and definite. If this view is taken, then there needs to be a demonstration that God has worked. So tongues, words of knowledge, etc are demonstrations of this, and give assurance that the church is correct. (I'm still not sure this makes sense - it make a whole lot more sense last night... :S) This is evidence for what I call 'clustering', in that one belief is never independent, but when one belief is held, it is more likely that another belief will be held. The next couple of posts I intend to write will be based on this, and its application to:

Stereotypes of mindsets, and their validity: Are all pentecostals' happy clappy?
Finding the 'best' mindset: Applications of Partial derivates

So, stay tuned for the next exciting episode of Nathan's Blog (or, Nathan has an essay and is procrastinating.) _{Edit 2/10/04: Attempted to clarify...}

Someone

2004-09-30T21:14:00.000+12:00

a big shot a celebrity an important person somebody a name a big name a star a superstar somebody

A king size block of chocolate to the person who works out where this comes from! (and can collect the prize from my location) Offer runs out when people stop guessing and I reveal it.

You're not in an essay writing mood if:

2004-09-30T20:23:00.000+12:00

You check the word count every hundreds words
You write all the headings and sub-headings and do all the references, but just can't be bothered with the text
You make numerous trips to different parts of the house, and go on thousands of little errands which involve:
1. getting up
2. going somewhere
3. getting distracted
4. forgetting what you were doing
5. going back to the computer
6. remembering the errand, (go back to step 1)
You spend a whole lot of time with lists;
1. Ordered, and
2. Unordered, and
You get distracted from your essay by thinking about the distraction from the essay
You post to your blog about getting distracted from your essay

Silly Poll Thing

2004-09-30T13:23:00.000+12:00

Boy. That was annoying. I was playing round with the poll, seeing how easy it was to get the format right, but I decided I wouldn't actually put it was up. So I wasn't going to publish it, until I realized I needed to check the formatting on my blog. So, I published, looked at, (it looked bad) then I went back to save it as a draft, and blogger stopped responding. So I worked on my essay for an hour, but in the meantime, three people had voted. (And a forth while I wrote this post...) Ok, so maybe I'll post the poll again sometime, but maybe not.

The nor'wester

2004-09-30T09:46:00.000+12:00

I was just wondering; how do you guys react to canterbury's nor'wester? If you have experienced canterbury's nor-wester, leave a comment, and include how long you've lived in christchurch, like so: Some people are energized, some people get headaches, I think I'm closer to the former, but its an experience where everything goes all surreal and cool. It almost makes it feel like a movie where it might be the end of the world (as we know it), and I'm the hero who is trying to save the day. I was brought up in christchurch, and have lived here for most of my life.

Writing, Movies, Anticipation

2004-09-29T23:09:00.000+12:00

Blah. I keep writing stuff and thinking "that's not really saying anything", "that's doesn't apply to the point", "that's what you said then", and so forth. So sometimes I get the feeling what I write isnt worth it. Not very good. Maybe I should do a writing course? Nah.... In other news, the movie AvP is what you'd expect. So is the Bourne Supremacy. Yeah. Movies often are like that. I've been thinking a bit about foresight, and planning. It is a good thing to be able to anticipate things, to have a plan for everything that will happen. That way you can increase your chances of a positive outcome. Yeah. So thats what I want. To be able to anticipate, and formulate plans in advance. At the same time I want to be able to think on my feet, because unfortinatly somethings are unpredictable, and unanticipatable. (For some reasons that last word reminds me of some alien mothership. Its got symmetry happening, and is big. It must be alien! - probably predator alien given what we've been seeing) Ok, I think I should go to bed now... I'm starting to be unproductive.

Mt Pyramid

2004-09-27T22:24:00.000+12:00

_{Apologies for any mistakes and errors, I wrote this while tired...} It finished with seven very tired, very sore guys who had learnt a few lessons. It had started out as a stag party with intentions for a short hike. We had arisen a little late, but figured that if we left the hut at 11, we could reach the bottom of the mountain by 11:30, climb up the snow chute to the summit by 2, return to the base of the mountain at 3, to the van by 3:30, and then drive back to christchurch by 5, so that Richard (not agentb) would be able to say farewell to his folks. We decided on having a large brunch, thus eliminating the need for lunch on the mountain, and set out. After a short walk, we reached the foot of the mountain. Above us was the steep narrow path, surrounded on both sides by trees. We started the slow climb up the path, to discover the stones under our feet were far from firm. A lot of the time wee took two steps forward, only to slide back a step. Nevertheless, we pushed on, knowing that we were climbing rapidly. Half-way up the mountain we stopped and had a snack break, where we ate some of our chips, and confectionery. With a lighter load and rested feet, we set off again, moving slowly but steadily to the summit. It wasn't long before we crossed the freezing line, where the ground beneath our feet was suddenly firm, with the stones being frozen. However, the ice that held the stones together soon made our ascent more and more difficult. But we pressed on. This was where we made a mistake. The two fitter, more energetic climbers continued to climb, while the Flinns lagged behind. I myself was somewhere in between, and saw little choice but to attempt to catch up with the leaders and hope that they stopped to allow those lagging behind to catch up. But we continued far up into the snow, using sticks as ice axes to transverse the steep and slippery slopes. Finally after making my way though deep snow I managed to reach the other three climbers on a ridge a short while away from the top. Looking back, we didn't think the Flinns would make it. The snow was hard enough for us. Nath, Rich and Sean decided that they would attempt to make the summit, while I decided it wasn't worth it, considering the equipment we had, and the difficulty we had had already. So I stayed, while the other three left their packs, and continued towards the summit. I sat there, and waited. After about fifteen minutes they reached what we had thought was the summit. The actual summit was behind the first peak, and so Nath, Rich and Sean continued on towards the peak, leaving me alone. After an hour sitting alone, I saw the Flinns - they hadn't stopped, or turned back - they were courageously climbing higher and higher, but on the other side of the mountain. This meant that in order to meet up again, they had to climb to the summit and come back down with Nath, Rich and Sean. Around this time, Rich had the first slide. He was descending to help the Flinns, when he lost grip, as slid over ice towards a drop. He attempted to stop himself early, but his attempts didn't help, and he slid until he was mere meters away from the cliff. We were relieved. By the time they had all made it to the packs, it was five, and the sun was getting lower and lower. We realized we only had a couple of hours of sunlight, and only one torch. So we slid down the mountain as far as we dared until we reached the ice, and then proceeded to hurry down, following the footsteps we had created on the way up. Suddenly Josh slipped, and the next thing we see is Josh sliding out of control down on the ice, round the corner, and out of sight. We hurried towards him, running where the soft snow allowed it, and using trees to get across patches of ice. We found him a couple of hundred meters down the snow chute, with bloody hands, but otherwise fine. After bandaging Josh's hands with what first aid equipment we have, we hurried down the side of the mountain, with the sun slowly disappearing from view. We finally reach the bottom of the mountain, as darkness surrounds us. After an hour in the van, we finally make it to christchurch, at 10 o'clock. Tired, hungry, exhausted, and in pain we head inside for some rest, and to break our 11 hour fast. Finally, the end. It was quite a mission. I'll certainly remember this tramp. I'll also remember the spirit of our party - our determination - we never let what happened get to us, we remained positive, and never let go. We were challenged, but we rose to meet it. We never gave up - we remained resolute. Kudos to our party, and to Josh's friends. But I'll still remember our stupidity - I'll remember the importance of being prepared for the conditions, and doing stuff the right way. And I'll remember the feeling of seeing your friend slide helplessly down a mountain side, and the danger that we put ourselves through. But finally, I'll remember that despite our stupidity, we still made it. We had spirit for sure, but none of our spirit protected us when we slid helplessly down the mountain, none of our spirit kept the weather perfect, none of our spirit was able to ensure numerous other things didn't go wrong. Someone was looking after us - he's obviously got plans for us yet, and I continue to live my knowing that there is a reason I am alive, and so I will keep living in this knowledge. _{Update 29/9/2004:} The mountian may not actually be called mount Pyramid. To get to the mountian, go to the St Margrets Hut near Mt White, climb up the ridge behind the hut, and continue to your left to the start of a marked path. Follow the path through the trees until it reaches the river. Cross the river, then the fence. Continue in roughly the same direction, continuing along the flat, you will have to perform a second river crossing, and shortly later you need to get you feet wet as you climb round a cliff. 100 metres after the cliff is the snow chute. From there just keep climbing up and up. If in doubt take the left path (it'll all get to the summit, but the left is easier).

Short Story Idea

2004-09-26T17:01:00.000+12:00

I want to write a short story about an organic fish and chip shop. I figure it would be a weird enough setting to explore ideas about why people do some of the weird stuff that they do.

Virtual Reality

2004-09-24T14:10:00.000+12:00

Virtual Reality is cool - anyone want to make me a HMD?

Quasi-Pentecostalism

2004-09-23T11:28:00.000+12:00

Ok, last sunday I attended ABC, where there was a service run by some guys whose names I've conviently forgotten. I was intrigued over the next few days that people commented on my attendance at a semi-pentecostal church. I got the feeling they were waiting for me to criticise it. Some characterisitics that seemed pentecostal-like:

Loud Music
Scripture was used in the sermon, but the sermon wasn't focused/centered/based on scripture
An empahsis on the spiritual, and dependance on dualism
An Altar Call of sorts (which had the pressure to come to the front, but they acknowledged that it was God that mattered, they didn't mind), in which they prayed for each other

So, it resembled a pentecostal service, but it was hardly pentecostal. There were pretty much no tongues, only one mention of 'word of knowledge' (but that was with reference to a biblical event, so conservatives would agree with it). So, my conclusion was that it wasn't a pentecostal service, rather, quasi-pentecostal. It may have seemed similar, but it wasn't the same. I wonder why people raised the issue with me? Do people think I'm scared of loud music and modern songs in church? That I only worship in hymms? That I'm scared of going up the front and being prayed for? and that people shouldn't pray for specific people in church? That I don't think the spiritual exists? People are excused if they do. I think that in my attempts to make sure the gifts of the spirit are looked at in a biblical fashion, that perhaps I have been percieved as an anti-non-traditionalist. Perhaps I come across that way. Nevertheless, I don't intend to fit nicely into anyone's boxes. More generally, I've noticed that I often appear to take a hard line on stuff, and then people think that what I've said on the issue is my definitive view on it. When I say I don't like how X leads to Y, this doesn't mean I think X is completely worthless. One appraoch to an issue rarely defines me - I often see both sides of the argument, and argue only one because the other person is arguing the other, because hopefully this will lead to a balanced view.

Pratical Implications for People Searching for Mates

2004-09-22T17:37:00.000+12:00

Heh. I love doing an essay that involves reading articles with sections entitled: 'Lessons From Market Research: Pratical Implications for People Searching for Mates' I'm assuming you'll want to know what they said - The basic thing was that guys and girls need a minimum amount of a certian quality, and after this, they look at other qualities. Guys need to have high enough money making potential, and girls need to have high enough beauty. If these factors are high enough, other factors come into play, but if they are too low for the prospective partner, then no relationship will occur.

Free Games

2004-09-21T11:58:00.000+12:00

I respect companies that release their games as freeware when they bring out the new version. Yay for starseige tribes. Its quite a cool multiplayer game, with some quite cool features. Its a bit old fashioned, but still cool. It's got vehicles, buildings, turrets, heaps of coolness. Bots aren't too good (as in, either they put up an annoying fight that kills you or doesn't. Binary performance?), but the game wasn't written for them, (i'm using a third party program). Yeah. I don't have a lot of assesment on at the moment.

A joke

2004-09-19T17:08:00.000+12:00

Ar me hearties. A joke for ye on this fine day! This land lubber child went to see a pirate movie, but wasn't let in, because it was arr-rated

I'm not a Psychologist

2004-09-18T11:04:00.000+12:00

As of today, I'm not a psychologist. My 11 hours of glory has come to an end. Alas. I don't think I'll have the chance of being one again. Maybe I should be a speech language therapist?

Fear

2004-09-16T23:26:00.000+12:00

I'm afraid. of spiders when they suddenly appear in front of me (but not at other times) of speaking in front of lots of people of talking to 'juliet_(n)' of getting stuck somewhere i can't get out of talking to lecturers But these are only petty, childish fears. (The type you tell to people when they jokingly ask you 'what are you afraid of?') I overcome these. I'm afraid of losing what I value, what I've worked for of hurting others, seeing them be hurt of being completely open to people, perhaps because of a fear of not being loved, being lonely More so, I'm afraid of what I cannot see, touch or feel of what I know nothing about of what I can do nothing about of what could make those other things which I'm afraid of a reality of what may be, or may never be (but I'll never know) of the unknown? At the same time, I am supremely confident. By God's grace I have come this far. Whatever is around the next corner, whatever I must face, he has allowed it. So far I have not been dissapointed. _{Edit 17/9/04: Changed 'behind the next obstacle' -> 'around the next corner'}

Emotion

2004-09-16T18:20:00.000+12:00

I like listening to a bit of les mis now and then. Theres quite a lot of emotion in the songs:

And must I now begin to doubt, Who never doubted all these years? My heart is stone and still it trembles The world I have known is lost in shadow. Is he from heaven or from hell? And does he know That granting me my life today This man has killed me even so? I am reaching, but I fall And the stars are black and cold As I stare into the void Of a world that cannot hold I'll escape now from the world From the world of Jean Valjean. There is nowhere I can turn There is no way to go on....

I was thinking the other day, Emotion is quite hard to quantify, quite hard to capture. Is it that a lot of emotion is communicated using that other 90% of communication that is lost when communicating in text? Kinda interesting - I'm not sure how true it is, but if our current communication system is based on reason, perhaps the next major breakthrough will be in incorporating emotional expression into text. Ok, its not that text is devoid of emotion (take poems for example), but rather its that its harder to express emotion in text than face to face. Just like modern audio technology tends to damage our hearing, and more so at higher frequencies, perhaps modern information technology is damaging our communication, and more so at the more emotive levels? If so, we really should spend less time blogging. Hmmpf. I suppose I'd better stop writing then. Dang - I had other stuff to write. cya!

Good Wallpaper

2004-09-15T22:52:00.000+12:00

The effects of Good Wallpaper are under-rated. I feel a lot more fulfilled with a picture of a jupiter-like moon framed by trees and tranquil water as a desktop, compared to a blue background. Thanks Mike!

Feedback

2004-09-15T22:41:00.000+12:00

The folks here at Nathan's Blog want to ensure the optimum experience for all users of the aforementioned blog. We recognize that despite the best efforts, there is always a chance some things (in the realm of blogger, and reality) may have been overlooked by the authors. Pursuant to this we wish to make it clear that all are welcome to comment (in an e-mail, text, or other personal communication) to either Nathan or Fred providing criticisms or suggestions, relating to the blog or to life in general. Feedback provided in an appropriate way is welcomed, especially about those issues that may have been overlooked. It is not our desire that we overlook issues that could be hurting and/or damaging to any relationship. We also wish to make it clear that this post is not a 'please comment and tell me that you love me and that I haven't done anything to offend you', but rather it is what it says it is; a request that if anything relating to us is bothering you, please bring it to our attention, so that we may set things right. (Because of this, comments are not enabled. Feel free to use other forms of feedback if you desire clarification) Lastly, please do not speculate as to the origins of this, rather, treat it as a reminder of the fact that we desire that to "...be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you[us], live at peace with everyone." (Romans 12:17-18)

Internet Quizes

2004-09-14T21:58:00.000+12:00

I decided to follow Andrew's Example, and look up some internet quizes: Given my reputation, I had to try this one: What fire are you? - But I'm not sure what on earth a blue fire is. Meh.

You're blue fire. You're cool, calm, and collected. Nothing ever bothers you much, and you don't care about many things. However, what you do care about you care deeply about. You're very laid back, and often get called lazy. Don't sweat it tho, you know you're not, and that's all that matters. ;) (better pic coming soon)

I wouldn't bother taking this one if I was you. I wanted to do a powerpuff girls one, and I tired a few: On the first one I was Bubbles (66%) or Blossom (33%). (Percentage was the result of one question not being applicable, so I did it 3 times, and voila!) The Next one I did I was Professor Utonium. The Last one I did I managed to break it the first time. Then I got to be Blossom. So obviously there isn't a lot of inter-test reliability here. So you've got to wonder about the validity of it. I guess I could be the Smart, Father-like figure, but then the first and last tests don't test for that, so the first picks up on other qualities, while the last converts the father\smartness into leadership, and hence blossom. Interesting... The most interesting one I did was: Are You a Stalker? You'll be pleased to know, I was normal:

You're a NORMAL CRUSHER! Good, somebody normal. You should see all the weirdos that took this test before you. You remind me of... well, me.. before my wishes came true. Keep at it, eventually you'll get what you want.

I would be keen to see what other people got on this one... Ok, thats enough time wasting for me!

Potentially Confusing

2004-09-13T23:56:00.000+12:00

1 Corinthians 14:22-25 is probably the single most confusing passage of scripture that I know of. Doesn't it say one thing, then directly afterwards contradict it?

Tongues, then, are a sign, not for believers but for unbelievers; prophecy, however, is for believers, not for unbelievers. So if the whole church comes together and everyone speaks in tongues, and some who do not understand or some unbelievers come in, will they not say that you are out of your mind? But if an unbeliever or someone who does not understand comes in while everybody is prophesying, he will be convinced by all that he is a sinner and will be judged by all, and the secrets of his heart will be laid bare. So he will fall down and worship God, exclaiming, "God is really among you!"

Confused as I am? As a side note, it doesn't prove that the bible is uninspired Even if these were words of men, the writer would be aware of the blatent contradiction. So the confusion would be there in the original, and therefore must be the result of the message not being preserved, or the translation being 100% accurate. (e.g. there could be something that comes out in the greek that is lost in a direct english translation - ambiguity over 'for' perhaps?)

Perceptions: Competence and Confidence

2004-09-13T15:00:00.000+12:00

If my intimate relationships lecturer has it right, our lives are all about perceptions - how we see somethings, how we see others, and how we see ourselves. Self-Perceptions are funny things. Its interesting to see how different people percieve themselves - though you have to wonder - does someone ever really tell you how they see themselves? I know I certianly don't tell the world how I percieve myself - I give them a few hints here and there, but most of the time these are in the form of jokes, and exaggeration so they rarely convey a lot of information. The thing is, self-perceptions have an effect on what we do. If we have a self-perception that everyone loves us despite what we do, we'll probably be not too concerned about what we do, and might end up a narcisistic extravert. If on the other hand we think that people are going to be very critical about what we do, we'll be a lot more cautious in what we do. It doesn't just affect what we plan to do, but it affects how well we do it. If you have talked to Jeremy about the importance of setting high goals you'll be able to grasp this. If you think you are good at something, chances are, you will be. That's why its important to have decent self-perceptions. One problem with this is that people often seem to have unrealistic self-perceptions. I'm somewhat interested by this, because a not-too-high self-perception will have good results, with increased confidence, increased well-being, and the like. While on the other hand, a low self-perception is bad, whether its unrealistic or not. So, if you get a choice, choose a high-but-not-too-high self-perception - But at the same time, it is handy to know what you are really like, what you really can do. Its at this point you get those annoying feelings of insensitivity, and insecurity coming in (Unless you happen to have robust high self-perception). If all that I've said is true, then I may not quite as cool as I think I am. Its kinda weird. How do you balance a sense of self-efficacy with a true and accurate knowledge of your own abilities? And can you have a positive appraisal of yourself without looking down on others? To be honest, I don't know the answers to the questions. Perhaps we could just be simplistic and not think about it? Or we could be meta-cognitivistic, and realize all this stuff, and somehow realize that we are competent, and more competent when we realize this. We then can experiment trying out what we can do when we have a high self-perception. We might surprise ourselves - we might suceed, or we might fail, but if we keep it up, we can then realize what we can do, and realize that we are competent in this, and thus remain confident. This post has been brought to you by the letter 'P'

Pentecostalism - wrong again?

2004-09-13T13:15:00.000+12:00

If someone tells you that you need to be baptised in order to experience the holy spirit, they are wrong: ACTS 10:46-48 _{The title probably is a bit misleading, not all pentecostals would profess that you have to be baptised in order to experience the holy spirit, but a few probably would.}

Protesting

2004-09-13T11:47:00.000+12:00

Well, Destiny Church managed to get the front page of the press again today. This time some protesters went along to their service, and ended up punching one of the members of the church and one of them was ran down by an elderly church-goer. I don't blame destiny church, nor the elderly lady for this, as from what it looks like, it was the protesters fault. In our culture, you have a right to free speech, and it seems a right to free protest. Its one of my pet annoyances with the culture is that protests are so common, and so often done in the wrong spirit. You have a right to protest, a right to seek answers, but you have a responsibility to do it the right way. At this stage I'd like to offer some suggestions on how you ought to protest. For a start, you need to be in your right mind, you need to be fully aware, and fully in control of your mental faculties, and yourself. This rules out drug-taking before protests, drinking (as was the case in this example), and anything else that doesn't keep you in your right mind (e.g. sleep deprivation?). A drunken mob is not a protest. It is far too easy for a protest to get out of hand, to become violent and excessively insulting, and it doesn't make people want to join your cause. And if you aren't in control of yourself, you're likely to slip up on some of the things below as well. Next, you want to be careful in what you are doing and saying. This means you shouldn't have to resort to swearing, you shouldn't be unnecessarily obstructing peoples lives or vehicles (you might get run down if they panic for one). It achieves nothing to just be annoying. A point needs to be made, and a point can be made without inciting ill-feeling against your cause. You also should be careful about the setting of where you are doing it, and who you are doing it to. The elderly, children should not be harrassed - its really intimidation if you pick on the elderly (as was the case here) or children. There is a right and a wrong place to protest and its not going to help your cause if you do it the wrong way. When protesting, you need to respect other's rights. They do have the right to believe what they believe, they do have a right to disagree with you. And they have a right to ignore you when you protest (As an aside, they have a responsibility to think about the issues you raise, but it is neither you right nor responsibility to enforce this). Respect goes a long way. And protest culture often loses this key element of resolving disagreement. _{Edit 13/9/04: The protesters did the punching not the church goers.}

XP SP2

2004-09-12T15:28:00.000+12:00

I'm just downloading the network install of Service Pack 2 - If anyone should want a copy of it on CD, rather than downloading it, I might be able to lend one to you. (Provided you're in my locale, and not some freaky stalker)

Thinking

2004-09-11T19:27:00.000+12:00

The cool _{thing _{about _<sub>tags}is}that they add together in the ^{same ^{way ^<sup> tags} do} - but if ^{you ^{want _to}combine them_how} cool is this? I like thinking. I think people should think more. If ever I was to start a secret society, I think the ability to think critically would have to be an entry critera. Perhaps a good entry question: "What are the disadvantages of joining this secret society?" "Why shouldn't this secret society exist?" "Why shouldn't we let you in?" to test their thinkingness, especially thinking what they disagree with, which is a very good measure of thinkingness. But speaking of secret societies, check out the post on Scholarships and comments. Its a long way to go before the record of 54, but its getting there...

If it doesn't cost anything, is it worth anything?

2004-09-11T15:57:00.000+12:00

I was thinking last night, what is actually happening with this leglislation that the Labour government has insisted on passing? What are the differences between the old ideal of marriage, and the newer idea of Civil Unions (The issue of gays & lesbians aside - thats another issue)? What I believe we are seeing is the decrease in the commitment required to formally recognize the relationship. Its not just recent - we've seen it with the increase in divorces and the like. The fact is, people just don't see marriage as such a big commitment any more. With the earlier leglislation treating de factos just like married couples, this further decreases the commitment. And finally, with the civil unions bill taking out the religious component, and making it just something before the government, it takes it to lower level of commitment. If you want to formalize the relationship, all you have to do is sign some forms. Lowering this commitment required does have some advantages. To use an overused example, wives (female partners?) caught in abusive relationships might be able to exit the relationship. If could be considered to add to people's freedom, so that they can do what they like. It also does lead to more people making the commitment, which means that more people will have this formal relationship, and get the advantages of this. Perhaps thats a little more fair. But the main problem with lowering this commitment required to have this relationship is the problem of lowering the value of it. If it takes nothing to get a relationship, then really, the relationship doesn't have value. Take for example student loans - before 2005, you get more student allowance if you are married. Now due to the fact that de facto relationships need to be put on the same level as married relationships, after 2005, student allowances (for under 25yr olds without kids) won't depend on your marital (or de facto) status. It'll just depend on your parents. Another example I was thinking about was passports - if commitment continues to decrease, will people still be allowed to come into New Zealand just because they are unionized to a New Zealander? If the commitment continues to fall, then I imagine the rules with regard this will have to change, otherwise we'll get a lot of people arriving because they're hot. Protocols such as this rely on high commitment. Children are one of the primary reasons for a high-commitment marriage. For better upbringing, children should have stable parents. Two parents provide more support than one. Two parents provide more consistency in upbringing than four or five that keep changing. So, while I believe its ok to bring the commitment levels down a little, we really should start to worry at what is going to happen in the long run. Do we really want to bring commitment to relationship down so far that relationships have no value? at the extreme, if commitment falls to zero, we'll end up with a totally 'open' society - I certianly don't want this. I don't want a society that considers it acceptable to cheat, to sleep round - there would be no true love, just pleasure. "You me baby are nothing but mammals..."? Even evolutionists have to admit we're more than just animals - we are one of few species that pair bonds. Is it wise to pretend we aren't different? I'm sure it doesn't take a degree in psychology to see the ways pair bonding benefits society. While the Civil Unions Bill isn't going to bring us to the extreme I mentioned, but we should be concerned about where a decreasing commitment leads to. Is it the best for society if relationships are cheap? _{Edit 12/9/04: Clarifications as results of comments}

Prosperity

2004-09-11T15:18:00.001+12:00

Part of being human means sometimes you get good stuff. Like money, cool toys and the like. Part of being Christian means sometimes you feel guilty for having all this enjoyable stuff. Look at all those people who don't have stuff - they are starving, don't have food, and the like. Aren't we putting ourselves before them by spending stuff on ourselves? Often you get the message that as Christians, we have to be poor, only buying what is absolutely necessary, and making sure you buy the cheapest stuff, so as to make money go the furtherest. I'm not sure God wants us to live impoverished lives - It is legitimate to spend some of what you have on yourself, and there's no sense feeling guilty for "unnecessary" spending. On the other side of the coin, we oughtn't be wasteful with money. There is a degree to which we need to use our money well, and not waste it, but we need to do this in a non-legalistic way, and we mustn't be overly concerned with money - spending excessive time and energy on not spending money can be compared to spending excessive time and energy on keeping money. You'll be much better off if you are free with yout money. Being free with our money means we are free to spend on others as well as our self. So we shouldn't really care too much about it all, and focus on what matters. If we don't really care too much about money, and focus on what matters, then money is going to fall under what matters. That said, we need to make sure:

We are thankful for what God has given us, and
we aren't being over the top with our spending and
we are contributing to others.

And if we're doing these, then money, along with other blessings shouldn't be too much of a worry. Worry is just unproductive. I guess what I've been realizing is that we are Free. In Christ comes freedom, not slavery to man-made laws and expectations. Our desire to do good is based on freedom, not legalism. So I do good because I want to, not because Christians are meant to do good. _{Update 11/9/04:} Esther just wrote a good post about this, showing that we oughtn't be materialistic, which probably balances out what I'm saying here.

Movie Immersion

2004-09-11T13:19:00.000+12:00

I went to The Terminal last night, with the girls from hermil, and others. It was a pretty good movie, but it did end up with a power struggle ('You can't do that! you're beaten!' - Hero is about to give in, but then minions come to hero's aid, and the hero does it. Yay! Hurrah for unfaithful minions who don't blindly follow orders!), which gets overdone. Anyhow, it reminded me of why I like to watch a movie every so often - Immersion. The wonderful thing about having a screen that occupies a significant portion of your visual field, with surround sound, is the ease with which you can enter into another world, and forget about life outside of the movie. Clearly, this can be a bad thing, if you allow the myopia to take over. Like alcohol (and drugs), if you take too much of it, you forget about reality too much, and you start to live away from reality. Not good. But, I have found losing touch with reality to be productive, 'if taken in moderation'. For a start, it can help you to relax, help you be creative and the like, but the bit I like, is waking back up to reality. I like sitting there for a while after the movie, thinking about the movie, 'remembering' its not real, and realizing I've got to think about reality again. Then I get to build up my thoughts about life from scratch. Its like reseting the computer - you have all these background processes that are just running because they always have been running. Then you reboot, and start up all the programs you want. So, in a like manner, I get to start thoughts up that I want to think, and this helps me to assess what I'm doing with my life. Thats why I like to immerse myself in a movie every now and then. _{Edit 11/9/04: Reworded computer analogy for clarity}

Comment Record: 54

2004-09-09T13:50:00.000+12:00

I just wanted to let you all know, my record for the total number of comments is 54. You can check the original post at: Nathan's Old Blog Or go to the comments themselves. (The old blog used a different commenting system)

Essays

2004-09-08T17:19:00.000+12:00

I'm writing an essay. One thing occurred to me. In these essays we are basically writing ideas, a lot of which we reference as not our own to avoid plagiarism (which is avoided like the plague...). At the same time we are told we should be aiming for a more professional writing style, which equates to emulating the style of the authors we are reading. So, how can we write the ideas of the authors, in the style of the authors, without commiting the sin of plagiarism? We are basically copying them no matter what! Seems a little absurd sometimes. Its not really that bad, we never are copying exactly what they say, as we get to put a few of our own thoughts in there, but it makes it hard to juggle it all. _{Update 9/9/04:} I was reading Matt's blog, and I noticed a link to An essay on essays. I thought it had relavence to this post, and the previous one. Nice to know I'm not the only one thinking about thinking and writing about writing.

Truth and Persuasion

2004-09-07T22:37:00.000+12:00

In a perfect world, Truth ought to be the most persuasive of arguments. Sadly, in this world, what is most persuasive is hardly truthful. Indeed, what is untruthful is often presented more persuasively than truth itself. What is it about our state as humans that leads us embrace the well-sounding arguments over the well-thought arguments? What is it that leads us to listen to those persuading voices, to put our trust in them, abandon our reasoning, and accept what they preach? While the masses should be critical of what they read, instead they accept the words of the one who to them is the most persuasive. And far too often this one is the one who tells them what they want to hear. Being critical, especially of one's own position is admirable in all. Why would writers and directors write with more persuasion when there is less truth? Perhaps it is that when they are unsure of what is being said, and, knowing that what they are saying is correct, they rely not on truth, but on persuasion. As writers then, when there is less truth in what we are saying, we must be wary of tempering it with persuasion. All the while we strive for truth, but at the same time we must not forget to be persuasive in our truth, so that those who read well-thought arguments do not dismiss them as ill-sounding arguments. If (the writing style) sounded pretty weird its because I was pretending I was an old guy writing from a while back - I sometimes get the urge to write is new and fascinating ways (however, this time I wrote in an old boring way. meh). Just finally before I hit publish, I notice I didn't make any spelling mistakes while writing that! I guess it must be that me pretending to be an old, well established writer, caused me to be good in my writing. Weirod! ok cya!

Scholarships

2004-09-07T15:30:00.000+12:00

I've recently been by the scholarships office to look at who might want to pay me money. One Scholarship that took my interest was the Free Masons Scholarship. Do people think it would be right to recieve money from Free Masons, considering the bad press they seem to get? Isn't it just money after all? Or is there no such thing as a free lunch? So long as I don't have a problem with it, isn't it alright? ...fishing for comments...

Another presentation

2004-09-06T22:56:00.000+12:00

Heh... I've got another presentation tomorrow morning, on the prefrontal lobes. Its my second to last one (this year). After that hopefully I won't be worrying about hour long presentations and telling everyone about it. I do feel like I might have asked for sympathy too many times. Rightyho! Good night!

What to post when you don't have a topic?.

2004-09-06T16:29:00.000+12:00

A post about a lost pencil???? Its a bit frustrating. Its almost as bad as having a really good idea for writing a poem, and not actually being inspired enough to actually write it. Yeuctch. I wish inspiration was like token romances in movies. Come to think of it, wouldn't it be better if romances were as common as token romances in movies? (i.e. we all had one)? Am I sounding desperate here? Ok. Thats the cue to stop. cye!

Triggers

2004-09-05T22:50:00.000+12:00

One random thing that keep happening to me is this: I think about something for ages and ages, but don't make any changes until a point in time, where I do a sudden switch from one thing to another. I'm wondering if this is a good thing. Perhaps I need to be gradual and consistent in my tofs and actions?

What am I becoming?

2004-09-05T00:12:00.000+12:00

Aside from being a very sporadic blogger, and a stressed student who doesn't plan as well as he should, I think I'm turning into a word geek. Part of its the ease with which you can look up words on firefox (if you have the dictionary.com search bar), and I guess I like knowing what I'm saying, so yeah. Maybe I should do a word of the day? Today's word of the day is Psarolite. It is a silicified stem of tree fern, found in abundance in the Triassic. Thats pretty cool. Do you feel enlightened? Maybe I won't do this again....

Praying...

2004-09-04T20:19:00.000+12:00

"God, I want to have a good academic career." "ok." "God, I want a really beautiful wife." (Inner beauty :D) "ok." "God, I want to be respected by everyone." "ok." "God, I really want your blessing" "ok." "Um... God, when's this going to happen?" "Whenever you want." "Cool. Can that be now, or like starting now - like, a few scholarship offers would be cool, and a girlfriend would go pretty far." "It can start now." "Ok then, I'd be awfully thankful if you did it now." "If I did it now? I've been doing what I've been doing for thousands of years." "But I don't have a wife, I don't even have a girlfriend!." "there's something I'd like to tell you. If you want stuff, I'm all for it. But I'm not going to just give you everything. You should be ashamed of yourself - I've given you so much already - you're smart, funny, likeable, everything anyone could want, you've got everything you need to get what you want, and on top of it all you've got a relationship with me, and here you come just asking for blessings to be served up on your plate! I like to bless you, but I don't bless someone who isn't prepared to put in a little effort of his own." _{Note that this isn't an actual conversation (I don't actually pray like that). Please forgive me for putting words in God's mouth, I've attempted to make a point, not to convey direct words from God. These are the words of a man, not of God. I've taken a bit (lot) of poetic license here} _{Edit 5/9/04: Got rid of a request and an "ok" that implied bad stuff. I didn't mean it like it came out when I wrote it. I just read it and realized it could have really really easily come out as really really insulting to everyone reading this blog.}

Welcome Back!

2004-09-04T20:18:00.000+12:00

Welcome back to the world of blogging Esther!

The soverignty of God :D

2004-09-04T20:15:00.000+12:00

Hehe... Am I bringing out an issue again? I'm not trying to bring up the whole soverignty of God thing again, it got covered in Reubens Blog, and Andrews Blog. Anyhow, what I wanted to look at the idea of God's plan, and how we should think about it. For the record, I got the idea for this post while reading Lindsey's Blog. With regards to plans, I think there are three possible view points (there are probably more - I love a good generalization):

God's plans are revisable
God's plans are eternal and not at all revisable. Everything God decides on will come to pass
God has an eternal plan, which will happen, and he has plans within this bigger plan. This is the view I think I hold. Its almost like God has an eternal face, and a temporal face.

Ok, so this isn't meant to be an argument over soverignty, I want to look at how we should react to this stuff. In order to do so, I've written three paragraphs with regard to each view point - read your one, and then read the bit below it (starting with so in 'strong'). If you hold view point one, this is simple, what I'm going to say is probably going to make a lot of sense to you. If you hold view point two, you're going to disagree with what I'm going to say. Meh. So you can keep reading, and you might find you agree with me, or not. Up to you really. Just remember, this post isn't intended to debate the different view points. If you hold view point three (like me), its a _little more complex (but cooler). In the rest of the post I am planning on dealing with the plans that are revisable. I believe the plans that are eternal aren't available to us (except perhaps in retrospect), so the revisable plans are the ones that matter to us in terms of decision making and planning our lives. Hence in terms of planning, and how we live our lives we need to pay attention to the revisable plans, which is what this post is about. So. God has plans that are revisable. What does this mean for you and I? This means that we have free will. This means we can do what we want, and what we want will have consequences. These plans are not fail-safe. So, what do we need to do? We need to act, we need to think, we need to carefully work out what God wants us to do. Just because God has plans, it doesn't mean they are going ahead despite what we do. If we aren't willing to let God do stuff, he isn't going to do it. God's revisable plans aren't simple 'this is going to happen' plans. We're talking massive 'flow' patterns with thousands of variables so that a good probabilitistic outcome will be obtained. If we were talking in terms of computations involved, we wouldn't be able to compute it (without another universe), because there'd be a computation for everything in the universe. And the rules that this massive system are based on isn't just a simple "God Loves you and will Bless you", but its based on all his principles (e.g. "he who doesn't work doesn't eat" "eye for an eye" at the same time as "he who shows mercy will be shown mercy" and "While we were sinners Christ died for us). So don't think that just because God has these plans that Good stuff is going to happen. Sometimes you've got to put a favourable input into the system to get a favourable output out. (But other times you don't) I think I'm on the same wavelength (at one level) as Reuben, who finished his post:

God is Sovereign, and all-powerful, but He has let us control our own lives. This is why we must choose well, for the evidence of humankind's poor use of freedom is surely destroying the people who live here.

Amen. Choose well, for consequences exist.

Lost Pencil

2004-09-03T10:33:00.000+12:00

I've lost my favourite pencil. Its Green, Big, Fat, takes .7 HB Leads, looks nice and ergonomic, and has an eraser on the end which you can twist to retract or extend the eraser. Its really quite a nice pencil and I was beginning to get quite attached to it - I've had it since the beginning of the year. So if anyone happens to find it, I'd be very grateful if they return it.

Alopecia Areata

2004-09-01T21:17:00.000+12:00

Well, two sundays ago I had a hair cut, one of those ones where you take all the hair off:
You may notice there are some gaping holes in the hair. What is it you ask? I've had this for about 6 or 7 months now, I noticed it first in a photo of myself I took while going on a tramp, as I saw a wee patch of hair missing. I didn't worry about it too much until it grew bigger, so I went to see a dermatologist, and he diagnosed me with Alopecia Areata. I've got cream I put on it, so the hair has been regrowing. Unfortunatly Its also been growing outwards as you don't put the cream where the hair is, so its a bit like crop circles, or even ring worm. But thankfully it seems to be slowing in its growth, and the hair is re-growing. The wikipedia article I link to mentioned that the effects of alopecia areata are psychological. Kinda ironic. It has been interesting to see people's reactions to it. Some people ask straight up, some tactfully ask about it, others tactfully ask someone else. I've had one person wonder if I've been going through Chemotherapy. All very interesting. I'm not really that worried about it. I've had bad hair in the past. People joking about it can be a wee bit annoying, and I do get a wee bit frustrated at that. But then, I do like to make jokes about it myself, so its a bit weird. Uh yeah. So if you see me with bad hair, now you know the reason why. So you don't need to make an issue about it. yay cye!

Oops...

2004-09-01T20:46:00.000+12:00

I tripped...

Competition!!!

2004-09-01T15:01:00.000+12:00

Ok guys I've re-grouped all the blogs on the side there, and given them some (pseudo-)random TLAs or 2LAs. The competition is to come up with a name for the different groups (e.g. Lumps of Lichi Eaters). You are allowed to change the TLA or 2LA slightly if you want (e.g. MCG -> MCC = Mostly Cabbage Consumers). By slightly I mean changing one letter to something that looks or sounds or feels similar (e.g. C->G or C->K/S). Cool. (I wonder if anyone will participate? Maybe I should tell people not to, then later tell them they can?) meh. cye!

Everybody is different

2004-09-01T14:00:00.000+12:00

Some people are good writers. Andrea and Matt are good writers. Some people want to be good writers. Nathan wants to be a good writer (among other things). Some people are incessantly busy with university work and other activities that they seem to get themselves involved with. Nathan is incessantly busy with university work and other activities that he seems to get himself involved with. Everybody is different No two people are not on fire (awwwww.....)

I forgot my shoes again...

2004-08-31T13:33:00.000+12:00

Dang! Does anyone else forget to bring their shoes to uni? Makes your feet feel cold on a day like this.

The past will catch up with you...

2004-08-30T11:10:00.000+12:00

_{(In an Archetypical Genre, which I'm probably over doing)} A man is running from it. Those demons of the past. He runs from it, he hides from it, living to escape it. He tries to build his life, but there's never enough room - the past always inhibits his growth, causing him to build underground, to not venture out of what is safe. In his running and hiding he leaves behind much of what he loves. The past has nearly caught up with him, it must be time to start anew, to run somewhere else again. But then, he begins to wonder why he ran. He wonders what is so scary that he must hide from it. Is it worth abandoning all that he loves to escape it? The past will catch up with him, but now, he looks forward to it, he looks forward to defeating it. He turns to face it, weapon in hand, with a grim determination, knowing that he stands to lose a lot in facing it, but a lot more in running from it. For him, it ends now - the future is here.

Fascism

2004-08-26T19:30:00.000+12:00

I'd like to start with a quote from Maxim's e-mail thingy which I thought was interesting:

While the Civil Union Bills have received extensive media coverage in New Zealand, almost no attention has been given to a law change in Australia that prevents same-sex 'marriage'. On 13th of August, the Australian Senate, with support of Labour, passed a Government Bill to protect marriage 38 votes to 6. The critical clause reads: "Marriage means the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life." This will be inserted into the Australia's 43 year-old Marriage Act.

Funny that they should be able to be so "homophobic" seem to get away with it, whereas when people think about airing views against gay marriages in New Zealand, they get referred to as Nazis and Fascists. Anyhoo, I just thought I'd put it in context.

Fascism

Destiny Church received a lot of bad media over their march, with their black T-shirts (what colour should they have worn anyway? Pink? Purple?) and their chanting of slogans against the civil unions bill. Oh no! Its a rally against what everyone else disagrees with! Uh oh! They must be fascists! This isn't an issue, or rather, it shouldn't be. They aren't Nazis, they (hopefully) don't hate gays, they oppose the civil unions bill. It is really quite, fascist, to use the word, to label the other side of the debate as evil. Its a bit silly really. Lets get over the fact that they disagree with the liberal government, and work it out. I guess this part of the "Protest Culture" we've got. If you disagree with someone, do a protest against it. March against it, tell people you disagree with it. This is good, we want people to know when we disagree with them. But this goes too far when we lose our sense of reason. People get involved in a cause and end up only seeing one side of the argument (Cognitive Dissonance I guess?). Protests and Riots are quite similar, and I think we ought to avoid crossing this line. It all comes down to humility - we should never assume we are right. We need give others the right to voice their disagreements with us. We need to get out of a mentality of anger, hate and pride, and try to be respectful. (I am probably sounding a little arrogant in saying that we should be like this, but I'm just a strong arguer.) Ok, That was a bit of a tangent, me telling you that people should stick to the issue, and here I am wasting four paragraphs telling you this. (Well, five now...).

Gays

Gay people are people. They have rights, and I don't want to take it from them. I also don't consider them any more inherently sinful than myself.

The Civil Union Bill

I disagree with it. Because I believe that marriage is for between a man and a woman. Like I said, I don't hate gays, and I'm not trying to take away their rights. In fact, I think its better for this country that the civil union bill doesn't go through. I want my democratic right to be able to disagree with something, and to be represented in parliament. I want the government to ask me what I think about the issue, and not just make up their own minds about it, about how they think it should be. And if I am represented in parliament, and it turns out that 60% of NZ support the civil unions bill, then so be it. But if only 20% support it, and the Civil Union Bill goes through, then who's rights are being violated? Christians have rights too you know. To those who are against it: Don't let people squash your rights. Do something about what you believe, but don't attempt to squash others rights. To those who are for it: Don't let people squash your rights. Do something about what you believe, but don't attempt to squash others rights. To those saying: 'I don't want to impose my morality on someone else': If the bill goes through, won't you be the one imposed upon? Is asking to be heard wrong? What's wrong with asking for your democratic right? To those saying: 'I really don't know what's going on!' Pat yourself on the back, because either way it goes you won't be disappointed. But make sure you are thinking about - It just might have consequences. (Its annoying when you get to this point in a post and you've got stuff left to say - Perhaps it will come out in comments, otherwise I'll write a post on it...) Edit 27/8/2004: Formatting Changes, Small Rewording for clarity

Lack of Posts

2004-08-26T15:29:00.000+12:00

Firstly, Thanks to everyone in the entire world for not posting. Good work. Next, I apologize for the randomness of the post. Meh. I was in a weird mood, and I wrote the post. The title came from the song I was listening to at the time. Secondly, I do have stuff to post on, but I really should be working on the essay. To remind myself, and to keep reader interest, here are things that I may post about in the future:

Civil Unions, Destiny Protest. (If I leave this too long it may fizzle though. hmmph.)
A 'personal issue' post. (hehe. This'll get you anticipating stuff - but most of you are probably already aware of it)
I might post a draft of 'Why/How I am a Christian'
Something about Dichotomies and Dualisms might get put up, because those words are pretty cool.
A little look at a random Old Testament Book. I'm quite the one for random and obscure books. But this isn't really that obscure. Wait and see...
A random wrong theory - I need to do a bit of criticising.

Yeah. So don't stop reading my blog... And leave comments about which posts you'd most like - because I'll probably end up missing out on some Thirdly, you're cool. cye! Edit 26/8/04: Added extra topic, Added Invitation for comments after topics

Fake Plastic Trees

2004-08-24T23:48:00.000+12:00

No-one comment on this post ok? ta.

How I made my millions

2004-08-21T16:11:00.000+12:00

If I could have one (ordinary music) CD, at the moment, I'd want the Radiohead B-Side: No Surprises, CD1. I've just been attempting to play How I made my millions on the guitar (I've tried on the piano as well), but it just isn't the same! I can't do the voice thing properly, at least, not without hearing it again. I haven't heard the track for ages. It was one of my favourites, but I got rid of it, along with all my other illegal mp3s. And I miss it. :( Edit 23/8/04: Paino -> Piano

RssReader - free RSS reader displays any RSS and Atom news feed

2004-08-21T01:18:00.000+12:00

I just thought I'd draw your attention to this: RssReader - free RSS reader displays any RSS and Atom news feed You use it for checking blogs. It checks the different blogs for updates, and if the blogs have been updated, it saves the new posts to disk. It can also notify you when there are new posts. Its great. The only short-coming is that you can't check comments with it. But aside from this, its a great piece of software, that saves me a lot of time. If (when) you get it, you will want to know the address of the atom feed: For Blogspot Blogs the address of the atom feed is: http://theeel.blogspot.com/atom.xml, where you vary the subdomain (theeel) to whatever. And! you can also use it to check various news sites, and even the CU notices!

The night before the presentation...

2004-08-19T23:29:00.000+12:00

is usually stressful, as you begin to worry about whether or not what you're going to say is on topic, and whether you are going to stuff up. The thing is, if you do make a mistake, you make a mistake alone in front of everyone, not in amongst a bunch of other essays or tests. The pressure is there to perform on the day, yet you need a lot of preparation, you can't get by without a plan of attack like you might be able to do on a test. Anyway. I'm going to go to bed. Your thoughts and prayers are be appreciated. It happens at 11:00. cye!

Another Archetype?

2004-08-19T20:20:00.000+12:00

I was re-reading my post on Archetypes or whatever you want to call them, and I remembered another archetype. I captured it best in verse ages ago, before I really knew what I was talking about:

I said I wanted only her I said I always thought of her I promised her my love I just wanted someone, anyone I said I loved only her I said I was made for her I promised her my heart I just longed for someone, anyone I said I needed only her I said I couldn't cope without her I promised her my life I just needed someone, anyone I broke away from her I never saw her again I left her with all my lies I had someone else I loved her then left her I damaged her heart I never cared I had someone else

I don't really like this archetype. I hope you don't either (well, I hope you like the way it's constructed, but I hope you dislike what it represents). Finally, I'd like to add that I didn't write this retrospectivily, but prospectivily - I didn't write this because I had something, I wrote it because I didn't want to become something. Which is, I believe, the reason why archetypes exist. As Matt suggested, perhaps they express a part of ourselves we aren't totally aware of. This is likely, but at the same time they also tell us something about who we want to be. Perhaps they even help shape who we will be?

Anonymous Comments

2004-08-19T14:53:00.000+12:00

I'm thinking of not allowing anonymous comments on my blog. The only reason I allowed them was so if someone who wasn't with blogger came along, they could leave a comment with the name on the bottom - This hasn't happened, instead commenting as anonymous hasn't really contributed in any great way to the blog in general. It has allowed for a bit of tongue and cheek, but I always think tongue and cheek ought to have a name beside it. Any comments?

HAPPY CAPS LOCK DAY

2004-08-19T10:15:00.000+12:00

I WISH YOU ALL HAPPY SEASONALITIES AND NUMEROUS HILARIOUS INTERLUDES CAPS LOCK DIABLOG CYE!

Archetypes

2004-08-18T23:03:00.000+12:00

The other day I was thinking about stuff, and I realized that I've quite a few images of people in my head that often appear in my thoughts and my poems. These Archetypes, if we are to call them this, seem to resonate with me. I seem strangely drawn to them, to think about them, to write about them. I sometimes cry for them, sometimes revere them and sometimes try to be like them. Other times I try to live as if they existed, and try to make sure that if I met them I'd be able to help them, or they'd help me. I've an archetype of a man in the cold, sitting in the ruins of something he poured his life into, destroyed. The rain is falling down, and running through his hair, he is cold, wet, all he has been working on has been destroyed. He stands up, tall and proud, and walks away. Another man is standing alone in the field, with wind blowing against him, and the hordes of 'the dark' riding against him. Wind blows against him, yet he stands firm, awaiting his destiny. His fists clench, then relax. In a flash of light he rushes at the oncoming horde. A Sage sees the future, and can see what will happen if he doesn't prevent some event. He will be greatly diminished, and pain may result. But for some reason he lets it go ahead, because he claims it isn't his to change. He fades out of this chapter. (Ok, this is a bit more vague - this one is really hard to describe) This last one is quite different. Its probably not really an archetype, but what the hey. It's probably better done with a change of person. Think of this as an extract out of their diary, journal or blog(?):

I saw her again today. It was really good to see her again. I've been thinking about her a lot, but I can see she doesn't think about me. How come she always talks to him? Its not like we're really that different. We do pretty much the same things, probably text her about the same, but she always replies to his texts. And how come I always spot them alone together? How come we never happen to meet up one-on-one? What does he do? I write her e-mails, I laugh at her jokes. She just doesn't seem to pay attention to me. Chances are they'll end up going out. Why wasn't it me? I thought I was pretty suited to her. Maybe its because he got in first? So next time I've just got to 'get in' first? But how? What is this 'getting in' anyway? Won't it be weird to try to 'get in' to whoever happens to come along next? Or is it just that I never know people well enough anyway? I feel like a social failure. I'm always watching people do stuff together, but I can never do it myself. How come I don't have any real relationships? How come I never get asked to do stuff? Why do I always initiate? I wonder what would happen if I didn't initiate? Would people even know? All I know is that I'm on the outside, and I just don't know how to get it. I wish it was different

There's nothing quite like a good bit of empathizing (or is it sympathizing?) with apparitions. - I'm not sure quite how well that went, but I think you get the general idea.

Empathy

Come to think of it, I think doing what I just did is a productive activity. I often attempt to 'experience' in my head things other people go through, and putting an imaginary person in an imaginary situation is taking it to another level. Its good, it helps me to understand others, at least to a small degree. I recommend doing it, even just with real people. Try and get inside their head, to 'tof' what they are 'tofing'. Awesome cye! Edit 19/8/04: Small Formatting Change

New word: tof

2004-08-18T22:32:00.000+12:00

As we all know that thinking and feeling are highly related, and that some people claim to think, while others claim to feel, I have decided to use the word tof instead of think and/or feel. What do you tof about it?

If you could see the future...

2004-08-18T22:05:00.000+12:00

I'm going to tell you a story, and, like any story worth telling about, it's about a girl. It started back in term one, where I was starting off leading at the local university christian group, running a cell group and the like. I had had a restful summer, but I felt a little pressured with all the work of a new year. But I wasn't going to let that get in the way of doing stuff in the christian group It was around this time when she turned up at the meeting, with a couple of her friends from school. I thought they were pretty cool, and did the old member thing of attempting to get to know them, to make sure they felt like part of the group. Naturally they were invited to cell groups, and they came, much to their credit. I was co-leading a cell group, so I also went along to the cell group opening dinner. From here I got to know her a little, as she was randomly selected for the few initial discussions. As it happened, she happened to end up in our cell group (because of the others in the group I guess), and that's when I had the first realization. Have you ever had a random inkling that something is going to happen? A thought pops into your head and you realize that it makes a lot of sense. It just seems like something is going to happen. Well, this is what happened about now. Whatever it was, I just had this feeling that something was going to happen, that perhaps I would like her, but that it wouldn't work out. But I definitely didn't know for sure. So I didn't do anything. I knew she was cool, and I just thought I was silly in thinking what I was thinking. So, I just ignored it, and got to know her, as you do when you are in a cell group with someone. This was cool I thought, because she is quite a nice person, and we did develop a good friendship. From time to time I'd remember my random premonition, but I'd ignore it. I was never really sure of it, so I didn't do anything. We were doing stuff together, as you do, and I was happy to just ignore what was going on. Until a friend asked me what I thought of her, and commented that they thought she might like me. This was when I had the second realization - perhaps she did actually like me (This was surprising at first). I couldn't hide from it anymore. But I didn't know what to do, so I didn't do anything. I liked her, but I had reason to believe she wasn't my type - Another premonition? I don't know. There was nothing wrong really with her, but that I couldn't see us in the long term. There wasn't the long term potential for us. So, I hoped it would just blow over, and that if I ignored it for long enough, it would disappear. It didn't. The main problem was that I did like hanging out with her, and I did like the thought that she liked me, so I didn't give any clear signals. She picked up on the fact that I thought she was cool, but not on my thoughts and intentions that it wouldn't go anywhere. (Which is hardly surprising - emotions are easy to read, whereas thoughts about these are far harder) So, her liking for me didn't just fade away - it 'festered', and ended up getting to a point where she had to know. It was at that point, when her hopes were at their highest, high enough to risk it and ask me, at that point I had to crush those hopes. I hated it. I hurt her. I try to have high standards, try to be selfless. I attempt to live my life in a way so that I will cause no-one pain, and I broke her heart. I feel like I need to break with the style I'm writing in to really say how frustrated I was. I need a feelings™ paragraph. As a friend, I only wanted to help her, to make her happy. I wanted her to be fulfilled, to be complete, to be without saddness (like all my friends), and here I was breaking her heart. What I wanted to do, I was doing the opposite. She had pain, and I was well aware of it. And that caused me pain. But in retrospect, It was good we didn't get into a relationship, because it wouldn't have worked, and just caused more pain later on. So, it was best to put an end then, rather than later. I did learn some things from this:

Ignoring stuff just doesn't work (Confirming my theory)
Hurting people is not very nice - Even if you don't intentionally hurt someone, it still really sucks, and you wish you could have changed how it was
I can trust in myself not to just like someone because they like me and are cool. This is a relief, because at one point I was a little worried that I'd like any hot girl who indicated she liked me.

Ah well. Thats enough said on that topic. Goodnight!

Memory

2004-08-17T23:01:00.000+12:00

When recalling an event, people often recall it in a way that suits their own preconcieved ideas (sometimes called schemata). So, when I tell you about something, its probably not exactly how it happened, but rather the whole thing probably makes me look better. Its a bit dissapointing really. But I guess thats life. That's what inspired the change in the blurb at the top. Incidently, has anyone found the hidden link yet?

I don't believe in fairies

2004-08-16T22:44:00.000+12:00

Firstly, for any of you who may be linguistic, how come there's fairies and faeries? Are they just different ways of spelling the same thing? Fairies seems a bit kid-like, innocent, where as faeries seem more adult, more mature, and at the same time almost more sinister, dark, and not innocent. Perhaps Faeries don't exist? Anyhow. I was musing about the Peter Pan idea that whenever a kid says "I don't believe in Fairy" a fairy dies. How sad. It reminded me of disc world, where (I am told), belief itself affects reality. It also reminded me of some cases of obsessive compulsive disorder, where people are concerned that things might happen because they thought it - thus they have to be very careful what they think, and get annoyed at themselves for every wishing something upon someone. It does seem a bit ridiculous though. How can the brain directly interact with stuff? Telekenesis doesn't really work. Happy thoughts often aren't enough. How often do we just leave things as thoughts, or beliefs, and not act on it? If we think something, or believe something and don't voice it, or act on it, and don't let anything come of it, then the thought is as good as non-existant. If you really appreciate what someone has done for you, just thinking appreciation isn't going to do anything. But telling them you appreciate them can encourage them, and make them happy. Same goes with if you love someone (platonic, or romantic), you should show them it, at the least tell them of it. Otherwise to them they have no knowledge of it, and its as good non-existant. I just want to encourage you guys to be pratical, to not just leave things in the realm of the hypothetical, in your mind, where it doesn't do anything. Do something! Do something!

Change

2004-08-16T18:31:00.000+12:00

My favourite songs at the moment are The Hands That Built America by u2 and Street Spirit (Fade Out) by Radiohead, and anything by muse, but they don't really count, because I've just got them. One of my favourite songs when I'm in a balanced and thoughtful mood is We never change by Coldplay. I've probably mentioned this before. (At this point Nathan goes out, comes back to see Michelle has posted on songs that have spoken to her. Now, he feels like a bit heathen, as all of the above songs are secular. He mumbles something about christian sub-culture.) I really like the phrase 'we never change do we?' and 'we never learn do we?' (I also like the bit about living in a wooden house, where making friends would be easy, but that's off topic). Maybe I'm a pessimist, maybe we don't change, maybe we just go through cycles. Maybe all my years at uni have brought me back to the same place I was at when I came. I certianly don't feel any different. I've really just got a whole bunch of different friends (not being disrespectful to them of course) and a degree. I don't think my brooding is quite accurate. I have changed, these years have changed me. But at the same time, it wasn't sudden. It was gradual. I would like it if changes were sudden. If I could decide tomorrow to stop doubting in myself, to be self-confident, to be hard working, and to be perfect. But no, we never change do we 'And I don't have a song to sing, and I sin every single day'. But I'm not going to let that stop me. Change will happen, of that I am convinced. I just need to give it time.

Better than Myers-Briggs

2004-08-15T22:48:00.000+12:00

Well, I decided to do that Naruto quiz thing, even though I haven't actually seen the toon. But, its asian martial arts, so it must be cool.
Which Naruto Character are You?
quiz by orangeday.net Going from the descriptions Mike gave on paul's post, I think he sounds cool enough to be somewhat representitive of me. I mean, look how cool he is:

He's skilled
He's mysterious
Sakura (who everyone appears to like, except him) has unrequited love for him.

All good. But anti-social? I guess everyone has to have their weak points, otherwise people would complain that the characters weren't balanced. Can anyone tell that I'm kinda rambling? Yeah. I've spent the last 13 in a van coming back from wanaka. I am missing self-expression. I tell you, snow is a good thing. But when it turns a relatively short trip into what I just experienced, you start to have little doubts about how cool it really it. What was I doing in Wanaka? I had a wedding. Was the wedding cool? Yes, it was very cool. I would describe it, but I'm tired. So I'm going to go to bed. (This way I can conviently forget about it... bwahahahah! opps.. I'm still typing...) Anyhow, Good night everyone.

A new day

2004-08-12T09:32:00.000+12:00

The sun is shining, the post of yesterday seems like a dream. But determination remains. Sleep is good. Now to use my time for something productive.

Dysthimic

2004-08-12T00:02:00.000+12:00

(WARNING: THE FOLLOWING POST CONTAINS "FEELINGS") I am feeling tired today. I'm only seeing the world in black and white, and it seems like theres not much I can do that'll achieve anything (positive), and if there was, it seems like I wouldn't have the energy or ability to do it. I've lost motivation for some stuff (Sorry if I haven't been commenting on your stuff you've posted - keep posting, you're writing good stuff). I feel like butter that has been spread over too much bread (to borrow the analogy from bilbo bagins). What is the point of what I'm doing? Most of it just comes to nothing. Am I discouraged? Perhaps. But at the same time, I'm not going to fold, or give up. I feel just as resolute that I will keep going. Its weird. Even when I'm tired, feel like I've stuffed things up, like all my hopes and dreams have died, I just keep going - I guess theres nothing else to do. In my mind I have the image of a face set in stone. I am walking down this path, and I will continue to do so, despite what happens. I may do one thing, but then see it fail miserably, but I will keep going. I almost feel more alive in this state. I don't know why, but I think its the way I deal with my lack of motivation that contributes to a sense of defiance, pride, a sense of honour, virtue and character. I am Nathan von Hesslehof. I am not overcome Well, to cut a post short (ok, not really, I'm actually finished), I notice the clock has ticked over to 12:01 thursday. So now I can say HAPPY BIRTHDAY MICHELLE!!! gnite! Edit 12/8/04a: Changed name to pseudonym for privacy (so you can't google search Nathan von Hesslehof), Got rid of unnecessary words in the WARNING) Edit 12/8/04b: Changed name in edit (a) to pseudonym

That One Little Thing...

2004-08-11T23:45:00.000+12:00

More thoughts along the line of my post on being yourself. There was a bit of controversy over this post, as someone thought that this could be thought of as an attack, after reading it shortly after I posted it. So I quickly took it off, and now I have revised it. So anyway, without any further ado, here are my musings: Does anyone ever wonder if people see them through the lens of only one thing? As though just one thing that you do dominates your entire character, that your entire being hinges on this one thing? Sometimes I hope that people will see me through the perspective of just one thing. But other times (when that one thing they see isn't what I want them to see) I wish I could be seen as multifaceted. Sometimes I worry that people only see me as fulfilling one role, which scares me, because I may not fill this role forever - and then what happens? Would I just vanish? Am I that small? I hope not.

Nathan's Blog: Comments

2004-08-11T11:55:00.000+12:00

I'd like to add to My previous piece of HTML advice about adding comments to the sidebar. For a start, you want to make sure you add the comment link inside the </li> tag, otherwise it puts the comments with the next item in some browsers. Secondly, you probably want to include the <BlogItemCommentsEnabled> at the start and a </BlogItemCommentsEnabled> at the end of the comment link. That way if you ever have a post with disabled comments it won't have a link to non-existant comments.

Blogging Etiquette?

2004-08-10T22:53:00.000+12:00

(As a side note, this post (the thoughts contained within) was in production long before the UC blog explosion, so this isn't in response to anything recent. I've been meaning to post it for a while, and finally have written it down. This is not meant to be an attack on anyone, but is meant to be a glimpse inside my mind) I've been thinking about this for a while. I've come up with a few principles that I like to use when writing posts, and reading others. Bear in mind that these are descriptions of what is more implicit, so it won't be a 100% accurate description of my behaviour. These are principles, not rules, so don't expect them to be helpful in all situations - these really only apply to posts on ideas. Ok, Enough discussion on limitations. My two guiding principles are perminance and seperability of posts and comments. Pretty cool words huh?

Perminance refers to the idea that what we say ought to be perminant. What I put up on the internet isn't just random text - it has consequences. We should write in a way that recognizes that once it has been written, it has been written, and we should take responsibility for what we write. There are two ways I have found helpful in applying this idea:
- Firstly, I attempt to never delete a post. Once I've said it, I've said it. There is not point trying to cover it up by deleting it. Everyone has probably read it, and been affected by it, so most of the time, I like to leave what I've written up there, even if just testament to my own failings. (Right away springs the example of the post which I published, then withdrew. Heh. The exception to the rule? Most people hadn't seen it, and so by preventing some from seeing it at a bad time, I prevented a bad stuff - perhaps?)
- Secondly, I try not to post anonymously. Why? Because posting anonymously is posting without responsibility - you can write stuff, without really caring for consequences for yourself. Potential for getting annoyed is added, because those who read don't know who said it. (Again there are exceptions - perhaps it can be useful when if playing the devils advocate, or if giving someone anonymous feedback, in a constructive fashion.)
Seperability refers to the fact that a post is, to some degree, seperate to the author. I see a post (on ideas) not as an intrinsic part of a person, but rather a piece of work which they put forward. This principle allows a degree of freedom, as hopefully people are able to express ideas without worrying what people will think of them. Of course, this principle only goes so far, as ideas are never really fully seperated from people. Again, application of the principle yeilds two results:
- Firstly, we need to be limited in what inferences we draw from a person's history into a post. We should be careful in assuming that when someone posts that they are saying what we have heard them say in the past. Rather, its better to look at what they saying in the post, and not what we assume they are saying
- Secondly, we need to be careful what inferences we draw about a person from a post. This taken, a comment criticising a post does not equate to a criticism of the person, but merely the idea.

Ok, I'm not sure I've fully explained myself, but I've had a lot of fun with <li> tags, and perhaps you've seen a bit of what I mean. As you can see, the two principles do tend to be in tension, and everything here has exceptions. So take this all with a grain of salt - These are not blanket rules, and are not rules that I expect others to follow, rather they are principles I like to follow. Edit 12/8/04: Nothing Major, Just added some stuff right at the end

H*R: Peasant's Quest

2004-08-08T21:26:00.000+12:00

Well, I did it. I completed Peasant's Quest. Admittedly I borrowed a bit of advice stealing the Jhonka's Riches, and finding the super trinket (Thanks Mike), but the rest of it was all my effort. I got a score of 139/150. Yay Incidently, I notice h*r now has a cool little icon in the task bar. Yay.

Glossolalia

2004-08-05T22:56:00.000+12:00

If you haven't already, you may want to read my post about 1 Cor 13 as it provides a bit of a background as to where I am coming from. I have been thinking a bit about the information I read in Canta. It cited a couple of studies, one on the frequency with which glossolalia is in the natural setting, and the other the fact that about 60-70% of people could replicate tongues after hearing a 60-second sound clip of someone speaking in a tongue. The article also discussed how those who did speak in tongues found it to be a positive experience, even when it wasn't always associated with Christianity. A really good example of it not being associated with Christianity is schitzophrenia - in some cases 'tongues' is another symptom of this mental disorder. My next thought was to connect tongues and the breathing techniques I had encounterd at a camp (see my post Spirituality? New-Age? or just Psychology?). I had had a theory that could describe the possibility of a type of tongues that aren't really spiritual, but aren't bad in and of themselves, but I wasn't sure exactly how to put it. But now, I think I've conceptualized it. The act of muttering something under your breath, for whatever mechanisms, seems to have a function, in that it calms the speaker, makes them feel closer to the divine. Somehow this form of speaking in tongues does the same thing as breathing techniques, but like breathing, this is only psychological. At this point I've probably insulted a whole lot of pentecostals, so I'm going to take one step back and say that I am NOT saying that your experience of tongues is a not spiritual. I am not saying that everyone who speaks in tongues is fooling themselves with some psychological trick. What I am doing is providing a basis to explain possible misuses of tongues. Please don't mis-interpret me here, I'm curently only thinking this is what happens when the speaker thinks 'Hey, I can copy my friends, this tongues thing looks pretty easy' But from here I think I can finally start to piece together my thoughts on the matter. I divide the issue up into the follwoing forms of tongues:

There are human tongues. God will sometimes enable someone to say something in another language. Yeah, not much to say.
There are prophetic tongues. I'm actually not too sure that these are seperate from the other ones, as prophetic tongues need to be in a language, and what seperates these from others is that they have a prophecy attached. My current thinking is that they're basically a combination of tongues and prophecy.
Next come other tongues. Whether these are (always) angelic or not, I don't know.
Then we have glossolalia, which is what I have described above. I'm defining it as just the psychological phenomena, seperate to spiritual stuff, which may differ from some definitions
Faked tongues. I'm not too sure about this one, how different it is from the previous one, but I put this in there to contrast against glossolalia. This is deliberate faking, whereas glossolalia is accidental faking. This is really bad, but glossolalia isn't.

I'd just like to establish at this point that all of these are just hypotheses, things that could be in some cases. I haven't specified the likelihood of the different tongues, or if any actually occur at all. This list is merely intended to bring my hypotheses together. There is potential for some overlap of the different categories - The point is I'm not specifying the reality of any of these, just that these could be likely. Feedback would be appreciated, especially from people who disagree. :) I'd be particularly interested if anyone can come up with any further listings.

Myers-Briggs is Evil!!

2004-08-05T15:42:00.000+12:00

Hi! Its me, attacking myers-briggs again. I think today I shall attack Myers-Briggs in a novel way. Usually I go about attacking it by relating it to Jung, pop-psychology, pseudo-science and the like. Today, I'm going to go one step further and look at another reason why I don't like it: Dichotomization. For those of you who don't know, when I took the Myers-Briggs personality test, I came out as an INTP. Awesome. Now you know everything about me. Or do you? The main problem I have is the Dichotomization, especially over the T vs. F dimension. What is wrong with having thinkers and feelers? Isn't this the way we are? Some of us think, the rest of us feel. I really don't like this - why? Because I am a thinker. I have thoughts about everything, I think about this, I think about that, I think about feelings, I think about thoughts. And does this somehow make me someone without feelings? Am I a robot, devoid of emotion? Definitly not. I am a human, I have feelings just like anyone. I believe Myers-Briggs falls into the pop idea of emotions and feelings - that they are seperate, opposing processes. In reality, how many of your thoughts are without associated feelings? And how many of your feelings do not have any thoughts? The systems of emotions and thoughts are implicitly linked - We do ourselves a great insult to say that one cannot be a thinker and a feeler at the same time. Anyway, thats another one of the those things that bugs me about Myers-Briggs.

Spirituality? New-Age? or just Psychology?

2004-08-03T00:35:00.000+12:00

Camp. Interesting time. I might be able to milk a couple of posts out of it. Here's one:

Spirituality?

Today we talk about Richard's talk, and his interactive time on "spiritual disciplines". Of particular interest is his second group demonstration, the breathing exercise. Readers of this blog should have realized by this time that I'm a bit of a skeptic (hopefully you will have also realized that I value this part of myself), and I was pretty skeptical after the first exercise. Seemed like there was way too much Pentecostal and touchy-feely stuff and not enough bible. But then came the second exercise, the breathing one. The basic idea. Sit there, relax, take deep breaths, breathe in the good stuff, breathe out the good stuff. Richard seemed to make the claim that we could breathe in stuff like God's grace, and breathe out our bad stuff. Perhaps he was using metaphor. In any case, I was ?insulted?. The question marks are because I'm not sure insulted is quite the right word. It captures the disgust, the betrayal, the feeling of having a fish slapped in your face, the general feeling of knowing something is wrong, but that it isn't going to be changed. But its not like I harbor a grudge, nor was there any intentional hurt, nor was there any actual insult. Just the feeling that often accompanies an insult. Probably not a good use of the word, so don't read too much into it ok? - But I must explain why I got this feeling.

New age?

I got this feeling because the last place I had encountered this was at a dojo on crekye road, where people are taught aikido, the art of self-defense by manipulating their 'ki' or energy to defeat their opponents. To a Christian that probably sounds dodgey. But it wasn't too overtly spiritual, and the most spiritual aspect was the breathing. In this case it was far more developed, and you get to know how to correctly breathe in and out properly, how to move your various muscles while breathing and the like. The reason why I was ?insulted? is that I had been told by such people as would (I assume) promote the exercises above that the martial arts such as this are not for Christians. Ah the contradiction. Thankfully I am not one who easily holds grudges against people, nor lets myself be angered by such things, knowing that people probably don't think like I do, they don't see the world in the same way as I, nor have they had the same experiences. And besides, I have made a multitude of assumptions. So, if you are reading this and you happen to support such things that were promoted at camp, do not think that I am annoyed at your nor that I do not respect you. I'm just struggling to see where on earth you come from.

or just Psychology?

My thoughts then began to take me down this path: If breathing exercises such as the ones mentioned above are used both for Christianity, and for what is not-Christian, then we have three possibilities:

The techniques are against Christianity, and hence very sinister, thus Christian Union has gone to the Dogs, we are screwed, the anti-christ has snuck in, and we haven't noticed it. Consequently us, along with the entire Baptist movement needs to be reformed, for the speaker was from a local Baptist church, and any Christian movement supporting such things needs to be radically reformed.
The techniques are positively Christian, and good. If this is the case, the poor suckers doing martial arts are just waiting to be converted. They thought they were learning self-defense, but they're actually going thru a pre-Christian education.
The techniques are not spiritual in nature, but rather psychological.

I didn't think the first two conclusions were denotable, and my mind wandered to thinking about the different treatments for anxiety disorders. Then I realized that sometimes part of treatment for phobias consist of breathing exercises. This lead me to the conclusion that such things are psychological in nature.

My conclusions

So the exercises should not be termed spiritual disciplines, because they are really psychological disciplines. Are they productive then? Yes, I would think they could be productive if used in a correct manner - as a way of relaxing, which allows us to be spiritual, not something that somehow makes us spiritual. But we do ourselves a great disservice by blurring these things, and making them somehow spiritual in and of themselves. "Be still and know that I am God" - obviously just being still isn't going to be productive, and pretending that you can be spiritual just by being still is heretical. Being still facilitates true spirituality. We should not major on the stillness, but the God - Maybe I should have just started with this verse? Ah well. It is getting late, but I've only finished the first bit of what I want to say - I assure you, this idea will return. cye!

New messenger client

2004-08-02T11:49:00.000+12:00

Hey guys, Just letting you all know I now have jabber, so I can talk to all those of you who have a jabber client. If you want me to add you to my contact list, leave your jabber id as a comment, then delete the comment (I get comments e-mailed to me, so I get to see every comment posted - deleting it means other people can't use the address for evil). sweet. cya!

Links

2004-08-01T20:04:00.000+12:00

As Fraser Fraser observed, there are a lot of blogs. I'm currently thinking of reworking my links, possibly using a combination of Brehauts Crazy Folding Posts and some sort of factor analysis. I'm not sure if I'll be able to use actual factor analysis, but I'll give it a go. Yeah.

On the market

2004-07-29T11:38:00.000+12:00

Hey guys, Just thought I'd advertise my avaliability on my blog. I'm currently considering flatting in christchurch next year.

The end???

2004-07-29T11:34:00.000+12:00

With regard to my previous post, Dan is right, I don't think this is the end - it'd take more than a couple of days of silence to convince me to fold. However, I do have a general feeling of finality. So this story isn't ending anytime soon, but perhaps we're moving onto another chapter. I don't know what defines the end of one chapter but I do know the story is developing. What will this new chapter bring? I don't know, but am looking forward to finding out what will happen as time unfolds.

Writers Block

2004-07-27T22:54:00.000+12:00

Uh oh... Haven't written much in a while. ... could this be the end????

Decemberween In July

2004-07-25T16:20:00.000+12:00

Was the 5th item (song by marzipan) in Decemberween In July originally there or did they add it later?

Fire evening

2004-07-25T15:10:00.000+12:00

Well, the fire evening at Paul's place went well. It was the biggest game of fire soccer I have ever participated in. A few things about the evening:

Sorry for the time I kicked it higher than I should have - I forget the limitations sometimes...
I forgot a camera, so I don't have any pictures to post :S
I learnt that before the next fire evening I should practice the fire staff a bit more. With the dual staffs I could manage a butterfly, but I didn't manage to pull off an overhead throw. My single staff was passable, with a few windmills and mushrooms and a bit of stuff between the legs, but overall, it was a bit clumsy.
I also need to find a way of getting kero out of my barrel without ingesting small quantities of it. Through the later half of the evening I was a bit out of it, and I blame the kero, and my cold.
Short DVDs are good, because long ones take up a lot of time, and you don't achieve much just sitting there
Related, but how to lose a guy in 10 days is not worth watching, even if you like chick flicks. The humour just wasn't funny, while the romance was. Yuk

Anyway, thanks to Paul and family for allowing us to use your place. Edit 26/7/04: General improvement on quality of writing and random additions. (I think I was a bit sick and tired when I first wrote this)

Have you ever considered illegally acquiring large sums of money?
	The thought never crossed my mind
	I occasionally think about it
	I think about it - but it's more like a dream, I don't think through any details
	I think about it a bit, and I've thought through some of the details
	I think about it a fair amount, and I think I'd have a fair chance of getting away with it
	I think about it all the time. That $172 million will be MINE!!!
	Me? Think about it... never! Not me. I'm completely innnocent... shifty eyes

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