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11/21/2001 Archived Entry: "Snippets"

Some snippets of what I've been doing in the past week.

Lots of rowing: Lots of land training, lots of practice, far too many races. In preparation for one race, we were told by the coaches that they'd be cycling alongside our boat to shout instructions. "Has anyone here read Northern Lights?" demanded one coach. I replied in the affirmative. "Good - we'll be your daemons during the race, sitting on your shoulder and whispering you instructions. Great book that, I'm reading it right now."

Psychology supervision: We were talking about the effects of stimulants and depressants on the body, and the unusual case in which doctors gave stimulants to hyperactive children. Instead of making them even more hyperactive, they instead were calmed down since their neurotransmitter levels were 'reset' to some nominal value. "So," I ventured, "if you gave someone who was tired some depressants, then..."

Books: Finally finished Consciousness Explained, which I am very proud of but it did take me perhaps a month, with maybe 10 or 20 pages read per day. I attribute this slowness to the alien material; most 'academic' texts that I read are about subjects I'm already familiar with, so I can just zoom through them, already knowing the general principles and concepts. Reading this book, which was essentially a mixture of philosophy and psychology, meant that everything I read was completely new to me. Combined with the typically dense style of writing, I found it really hard going and I still don't understand half the stuff in it. Mind you, talking to a friend doing philosophy here reassured me somewhat as she had exactly the same problems even in the second year.

Started on The English by Jeremy Paxman, which is a lot easier to read and in fact feels like a particularly light book. Probably will finish it in a couple of days. Amusing quotation about what the Bishop of Norwich was told by his predecessor, "Welcome to Norfolk. If you want to lead someone in this part of the world, find out where they're going. And walk in front of them."