bookbard
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Posts posted by bookbard
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7 minutes ago, kbutton said:
Then there is the idea of synesthesia—when two kinds of sensory perceptions fuse together in the brain, such as smelling colors. There are lots of different kinds (I think visual spatial representations of time are one of the most common), and I can totally imagine hearing something as a stress response.
I, and most of the females in our family have synesthesia - mostly colour/letter version, but some other common versions too like colours for music, visualising time and so on. It is very different from actually seeing things though, and I feel like it's closer to imagination than actual senses. However, I guess a lot of people mistake imagination for divine visions, so perhaps there's a link there.
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2 minutes ago, Wheres Toto said:
I've thought about this before and wondered if the lack these days is because of all the noise we are always surrounded by. Were our inner voices louder when there wasn't constant noise.
That's an interesting idea! Fits in with the idea that cultural upheaval made a difference to the way we thought about consciousness, our minds and our thoughts. And I think we all know that we come up with the best ideas when we're out in nature having a walk rather than in busy built up landscapes.
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45 minutes ago, Hannah said:
This sounds very similar to the UK system from what I understand (Laura, please correct me). One can apply to 5 universities total via the central system called UCAS. Provisional acceptance is on GCSE marks + personal statement + interviews for select courses such as medicine. Final admission is based on A-level exams (or highers for Scotland), which are also standardized.
Sounds similar. I know there are some courses where you need say an audition or portfolio, maybe there are some you need an interview for. It is very state based in Australia, though - you only apply for universities within your state using the centralised system. You can apply outside your state but there's a different way, I don't know how it's done. And of course, there's other ways if you didn't complete your exam, or you're mature aged. But no personal statement pr essay as far as I know. A lot of homeschoolers get in by doing Open University courses first and then using those results as a way to get into mainstream university courses.
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On 1/12/2024 at 6:43 AM, Condessa said:
When I was in middle school, I was walking up the steep hill from the bus stop to my home alone one afternoon. A car drove up the hill from behind me and slowed. I saw the man driving it turn his head to look at me as he drove on slowly past and then sped up before disappearing around the curve ahead of me. As soon as the car was out of sight, I heard a voice quite near me say “run” in an urgent tone. I began to run as fast as I could up the steep hill towards home with my heavy backpack. I had passed maybe 15 houses when the same voice said “hide”, and I jumped over some bushes forming a low hedge in a front yard and lay down behind them, looking out underneath them near the ground. A moment later the same car came driving slowly up the hill from behind me again, with the man’s head turning and looking from side to side. He must have looped through the neighborhood and back around. Once the car had again passed me up the hill, I heard the voice say “run” again, and I ran the rest of the way home.
So I was thinking about this story this week when I read the book "Enchantment" by Katherine May, which references an idea that in ancient time our right brain 'spoke' to our left brain in almost auditory hallucinations, so we heard it from 'the gods', rather than absorbing our inner dialogue as coming from ourselves. I wonder if this happens in a crisis more commonly than we think? Command hallucinations are common in people with schizophrenia, but perhaps they actually occur in everyone at some point?
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In Australia it is different - we had to pick 5 courses from any universities in a ranked list. Then once you do your end of year 12 exam, the mark for that is compared with the mark needed for each course (the mark is a percentile rank). You then get accepted to the course based on your mark, but you had about a week to change your mind if you wanted. I have no idea if it's changed much nowadays although I've heard there are some universities making offers before the exams are even held, based on what I'm not sure.
I do remember putting in the end of year "yearbook' type thing that I wanted to work for World Vision, lol! Well, I didn't and I'm no longer Christian, however I did work in Aid & Development in a number of different countries so same thing I guess.
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I've been able to read a fair bit lately which has been nice. I read Saevus Corvus Deals with the Dead by K Parker/Tom Holt. His stuff is always a risk, but I very much enjoyed this dark fantasy, an anti-war story really. I read Rebecca Ross' sequel, Ruthless Vows, which tied everything up all right but wasn't super amazing as a stand-alone. I read 2 non-fiction by Katherine May, Enchantment and Wintering. I like nature writing so that was good, but her bits and pieces style kind of put me off a bit; it is good to have a female nature writer though. I read Starter Villain by John Scalzi which is a fast-paced clever and silly action story - I liked it. I read Ocean Vuong's On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous which started off well but just rolled on sadder and more traumatic until I was desperate for the end. I've started A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes and already feel like it will be a bit of a slog. Oh well! I have a pile more to read so that's good.
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I posted in December I think about my friend who had Covid for the 4th time. Her whole family now has Covid for the 5th time.
So many people locally have had Covid over the Christmas/NY period. They aren't really encouraging boosters for anyone under 65 any more, so very few people have had them.
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On 1/13/2024 at 3:05 PM, Melissa in Australia said:
Daycare here in Australia is only free for children at extreme risk with DHHS involvement..otherwise it is just subsidised by tax offsets. My brother is paying over $600 per week for daycare for 1 child
Actually in most states Preschool is free (in Victoria, this began in 2023; in NSW, it depends where you live). The only problem is that the hours for preschool tend to be the same as school, so it doesn't suit people who need childcare (long daycare). Daycare is subsidised but it is so complicated I have no idea how it works.
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41 minutes ago, Condessa said:
Dingos?
The only place where dingos seem to be dangerous is on K'gari island where tourist interaction has stopped them being scared of humans. I haven't heard of any other issues (except Azaria Chamberlain of course, but that was a unique situation quite a long time ago now). There are definitely dingos where we live, but I've never heard of them attacking bushwalkers, or even approaching them.
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18 minutes ago, chocolate-chip chooky said:
You know what's interesting?
My youngest daughter says she never wants to travel to the USA.
Mass shootings are way scarier than snakes and spiders.
And bears. Bears are way scarier than snakes or spiders. Plus you have mountain lions. We can walk through the bush knowing there's no predator that will leap out of the bushes at you, let alone try to eat you.
I think the scariest animal in Australia is the crocodile. But you can avoid them by not hanging around waterways in the northern areas of Australia. It's too hot up that way anyway lol. Stay south and you'll be right, esp in winter, because the snakes are too lethargic to bother you.
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My parents are in their late 70s and still work all day on the farm. They don't do all the actual activities they used to, though - they have outsourced some of the more physically taxing activities. But they are still out doing weeding, picking, spraying and sorting and packing for market. I cannot imagine that will ever stop - they'll die on the place one day or at least get so unwell that they head straight for the old people's home.
The job I'm doing now I inherited from an 85 yr old, who spends her time now with various grandchildren and quilting. She's still pretty fit. I could easily stay in it till I drop, too - at least part-time.
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Oh and apparently covid is showing a preference for the wetter time of the year, which for the last few years has been summer in Australia. We've had flood after flood since December.
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4 hours ago, KSera said:
Has this happened with any of the other variants, where the Australia wave has lined up with the US wave? I feel like they have usually been staggered, but I’m not sure. It’s interesting for sure, and I’d think driven more by holiday behavior than anything else. Have your past Christmas/New year seasons not been as high Illness as your midwinter wave?
5 hours ago, Terabith said:We seem to be getting a summer wave and a winter wave since December 2021, when all the protections were removed. I think it's because we get the new variants from Europe and America as there's a lot of travel happening at that time, and of course because Christmas/New Year involves a lot of parties.
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Just being reported now that the current covid wave in Australia is higher than during the height of winter. I assume it's the new variant. My son's going to a sports day camp next week . . .
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Thought this was interesting: RSV shown to infect nerve cells, cause inflammation and damage | ScienceDaily
I feel like the research into Covid has made scientists and the public look more at the way viruses affect us.
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Have you watched his video about his background? I believe he studied science communication, and he goes into the problem of simplifying things to be inaccurate, too. The video about how Kurzgesagt is funded is another useful one. I think the book Immune is brilliant too, my 10 yr old son loves it and explains all sorts of stuff to me. I hope they do another one!
Edited to add - I did a quick google and apparently immunologists think it's accurate, so all good!
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16 minutes ago, Ginevra said:
It’s hard to really plan for the future because he isn’t cooperating with having even a regular physical, much less some other diagnostics that he really ought to have. He was talking about getting the colonoscopy he was supposed to get when Covid put the kabosh on it but when I said, “I want you to do that, yes, but I don’t think they’re going to do it *now*, until you’ve had another complete physical.” But he won’t make the appointment for that so…
This is so common and so frustrating. My other half is the same - is supposed to be liaising with a specialist over his kidneys. Cancelled one appt (actually was a no-show!) with a really good Dr. He's feeling fine at the moment, so thinks all is well, but of course it's not that simple. I've been hassling him to get a tetanus shot too. For the most part at this point I try to let it go - it's his life, his health - but it is annoying when it leads to emergency visits and a lot of hassle on my part (and perhaps down the track turning me into a carer when it could be preventable).
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On 1/7/2024 at 11:37 AM, Faith-manor said:
So ya, I am worried. This isn't a one off, a "weird" year. We have been consistently having fewer chill hours per year since the 2010 with the warming trend beginning to be noticeable prior to that.
Yep.
We get about 1 snow day a year where we live, as in one day where it is actually cold enough to settle on the ground. This year (2023), nope. Not a single day of snow. I wonder if it will ever really snow up here again.
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8 hours ago, Acadie said:
We have more historical wastewater data than most states, and our wastewater levels are actually higher now than the original Omicron wave, when the school had a mask requirement.
Interesting. Apparently the current levels of Covid in the community in NSW are at one of its highest as well. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-01-09/nsw-sydney-covid-variant-virus-pandemic-hospitalisations/103298610
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2 hours ago, Farrar said:
I'm a bit fascinated by how many of you still had recess in middle school. We had a few minutes after lunch rotation where we could walk around on the track, but half the time they just made us stay in the classroom. When I taught middle school, we totally had recess, but that was a small school.
In our high school (year 7-12, so from 11.5yrs to 17.5yrs), we had a half hour recess and an hour's lunch each day. This was partly so groups like choir and so forth could meet during the lunch break.
NB in Australia.
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14 minutes ago, prairiewindmomma said:
It has been the greatest joy as an adult to sit on my couch with a quilt and a cup of (decaf) Earl Grey and read a book on a rainy afternoon….and finally not feel guilty for being idle.
I'm glad. I love downtime. I definitely spent whole days reading when it was school holidays.
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So I've heard that with a chronic cough you are supposed to get a chest xray to make sure it isn't lung cancer. I don't know if that's the case in the USA.
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Had to walk half a km to the bus stop and back. Then running about at school, games and sport etc. We had a farm so lots of walking about there, we used to bushwalk by ourselves a bit which involved a bit of clambering over rocks. We rode our bikes around the place. We did not do any out of school games or sports or anything. We did have swimming lessons during summer, maybe a week's intensive, and we swam when we went to the beach. I was always last in the school races for everything as I was the smallest, but it did not bother me.
My kids don't do much either really, just lots of walking and playing and riding bikes. We do try to go swimming once a week (heated pool) and do one other activity such as indoor rock climbing which they like, and they also have Scouts which involves lots of movement games, hiking or biking.
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13 minutes ago, Melissa in Australia said:
I think I was 15 the first time I had pizza
All the fast food places didn't reach our way till I was in my teens. Reading @Ausmumof3 meals sounds familiar. I went crazy when I left home and went to university and had access to all the junk!
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January 2024: What are you reading?
in The Chat Board
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One of my favourite comfort reads! I really enjoy this book
I ended up finishing A Thousand Ships and it got better, I enjoyed it by the end. I was worried it would be just a plain retelling of this and that but there were some obscure stories I didn't know, and there were some interesting ideas. I think this is it for my Troy retellings though, I've ended up reading a few. One I haven't mentioned is David Malouf's Ransom, which is a retelling of Priam meeting Achilles; Malouf's writing is exquisite.