Sunset at Santa Monica (29-Dec-11)

This is my first sunset experience althu I hate all sunset pics including these, I just don't like the sunset!
(photos are taken with my iphone 3gs)

2011 - The second most stressful year of my life (so far?)

Inspired by http://www.bloggylife.com/2011/12/31/resolutions-thoughts/

I decided to spend an hour writing this:

I can’t go thru everything I have experienced and everything I’m experiencing right now but these are only "some" of the things:

A) The graduate application process is torture. (Well I guess every step is painful):

1.  Getting recommendation letters is the worst part I believe specially when you’re not a recent graduate.
2.  Writing the statement of purpose when you don’t yet have a clear research plan is pain.
3. Waiting is the most painful part of the process. (You’d wait for 3-4 months).
4. I had a stressful situation with the school I wanted to attend. The graduate division rejected my initial department recommendation and it took me two months to convince them that I deserve a chance.

B) Leaving your job is hard:

1.  You’d think it’s easy but It’s not specially when you have worked really hard to reach your current position. 
2. I don’t have to explain the insecurities associated with leaving a job.
3. Although graduate school is an investment but spending all your savings to go to graduate school is a bit scary. (What if it’s not worth it?).
4.  Having an acceptance to the same program at KU didn’t help. (Everyone was like why are you doing this?).

C) Moving is hard:

1. Living alone is not easy and living with a stranger is not fun specially when she’s so annoying!
2.  Meeting your colleagues who are mostly recent graduates was not encouraging.
3. Many grad students are depressed and I didn’t know that, I guess I met the wrong mix at first.
4. & I miss my family & friends. 

D) Going back to school is hard:

1. Doing assignments, reading and listening to lectures is so hard after all these years. Nothing is easy or straight forward as it used to be. My first exam was a horrible experience, it was a disaster! 
2. Having a crush on a professor doesn't help, it is a distraction! 

E) Future uncertainties:

1. I need a job and I hope I get one soon otherwise I’m going to be broke next year.
2. I really want to work with professor X but I need to work so hard for it since I don’t have any background in his field. (The most stressful thing right now).
3. My classes next term are so difficult and I don’t have the prerequisites but I need to take them!
4. I need to apply for funding although I haven’t found anything I’m eligible for (coming from a rich country doesn’t help).
5. Next fall I’ll again have to apply for PhD programs, another graduate application process. I just hope I can keep a good GPA to be able to apply.
6. Also, the hair I'm losing due to stress is freaking me out, I hope it stops!

Information Is Beautiful: Evidence for Popular Dietary Supplements

  

A beautiful chart from a beautiful website.

The chart shows graphically the scientific evidence for some popular dietary supplements. Check it out:

 http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/play/snake-oil-supplements/  

I have for example looked up the elements for mental health and googled the ones with strong to promising evidence:

*According to wikipedia, "St. John's wort" is a herbal treatment for depression and PMS. (Strong Evidence)

*Creatine which is found in meat and fish boosts brain power. "Vegetarians and vegans do not get any creatine from food sources. Creatine levels in blood plasma are very low in these populations." 

*Tyrosine is found in many food sources. "Low Tyrosine leads to conditions, such as muscle weakness, muscle loss, mood disorders, ...etc." 



Shutting Down Your Awareness

I read this interesting piece from the book: “Mindsight” by Dr. Daniel Siegel.

Chapter 7: Cut Off From the Neck Down, Reconnecting the Mind and the Body.

The chapter starts with this patient who came saying that her life felt empty and meaningless. She seemed disconnected and cold. In details the author talks about how the patient’s early life was filled with unfair opportunities. The turning point for the patient was when she promised herself that she "would never feel anything again". She was 11.

The author explains: to cope with those difficult situations we build our own defensive mechanisms whether for example by ignoring the situation, concentrating on the positive side (optimism) or by projecting those experience on others and then hating them for it.

By building these defense mechanisms, we build a firewall around our awareness to protect us from those feelings, but by doing that you filter out both the good and the bad feelings. The ACC “Anterior Cingular Cortex”, located in the middle prefrontal cortex in the brain, regulates our awareness.

The ACC is responsible for many things:

1. The pain for social rejection and the physical pain are both in the ACC.
2. “It's the area between our thinking cortex and our feeling limbic regions.”
3. “It registers physical sensations from the body and feelings from our social interactions.”
4. “It regulates the focus of our attention.”
5. “It links body, emotion attention social awareness.”
6. It’s responsible for letting us feel connected.

The problem with shutting down the ACC is not only with filtering the good feelings out but with the fact that even if you removed the pain from your awareness it still has an affect on you, your decision making and your body. Feelings will still be there in our nervous system, brainstem and the limbic areas. You’re eliminating the awareness only.

Think about it!

*note: There are so many other details in the chapter*.

Are younger generations getting shorter or taller? (Short Time)

If you think that kids are now shorter or taller than how your generation used to be, read this:

Galton’s experiment:

In 1875, Galton (Google Him) distributed packets of sweet pea pods of uniform size and weight to seven friends. Galton then measured the seeds of the successive generation. He noticed that the median diameter of the large seeds was less than that of the parents while the median diameter of the small seeds were greater that of the parents.

He continued to notice the same effect in the height of humans that is if one’s measurement is far from its mean, the other will closer to its mean “regression toward the mean”. The process doesn’t go out of control. People don’t get dumber or smarter over short periods of time. And the same can be applied to intelligence, artistic talent, etc.

So for example, if the parents are tall, their kids would not necessarily be as tall and if the parents are short, their kids would not be necessarily as short.

Source: Book: The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives by Leonard Mlodinow

Puzzle: The Monty Hall Problem

"Ask Marilyn” is a famous column where Marilyn answers readers’ questions. (Marilyn is listed as the world’s highest recorded IQ: 228). One of the questions was inspired by the game show “Let’s Make Deal” hosted by Monty Hall.

In the game, there are 3 doors with 2 goats and 1 car. You start by choosing one door; the host then opens of the “goat” doors. You are now left with 2 doors. The host asks if you would like to switch the door? 

Is it better to switch or not?

You would think that it makes no difference. Marilyn said that it is better to switch. Almost 10,000 readers of which are 1000 PhD holders were upset with Marilyn’s answer. One of them even said, “If all those PhD holders are wrong then the country is in serious trouble”! but at the end Marilyn was right J

Easy Explanation     

Scenario One: You are lucky, you choose the door with the car and you win (probability: 1/3)

Scenario Two: You are not lucky (probability 2/3), you choose the door with the goat, at this point the host opens the “goat” door, and hence you are left with the “car” door and so it’s better to switch.

Door 1	Door 2	Door 3	result if switching	result if staying
Car	Goat	Goat	Goat	Car
Goat	Car	Goat	Car	Goat
Goat	Goat	Car	Car	Goat

The table is taken from the Wikipedia

Which clearly shows that if you switched, the chance of getting the car would be (2/3 or 66%) while if you didn’t switch, the chance of getting the car would be (1/3 or 33%)

Does it make sense? J

Source: Book: The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives

Kuwaiti Documentary: TOKAI

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbFlrW8UWCI&feature=related

Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31-1pieS-HI&feature=related

“There are 200,000 Bangladeshi workers in Kuwait

Workers from other third world countries flock to this oil rich nations in hopes of fulfilling their dreams

The injustice goes on”

When will this cruelty end?

When will the government do something about these companies?

Why can’t they have their rights?

Don’t tell me that they live in much worse conditions in their countries; it doesn’t give you the right to oppress them like that.

Thank you Abdul Rahman Al Ajeel Al Askar

Abeer Tebawi

Vachan Sharma

Thank you Mark for posting the short documentary

More about “Left Mind vs. Right Mind”

From the book: “My Stroke of Insight” by Jill Bolte Taylo, Chapter 16.

Right Mind: 

• It’s all about right here, right now, the richness of the moment, filled with gratitude for my life and every one in it.
• It smiles a lot and is extremely friendly.
• Compassionate, nurturing and eternally optimistic
• It observes without judgment. No judgment of good/bad or right/wrong.
• It is sensitive to non-verbal communication, and accurately decodes emotion.
• It is your intuition and higher consciousness.
• Highly creative: thinks out of the box. Not limited by the rules of regulations set by the left mind.
• Free, not bogged by the past or fearful of what the future may bring or not bring.
• Thinks in images/pictures.
• Looks at the big picture and how things relate to each other.
• The Extreme Right Mind: seldom connect to a common reality and spend most of our time with head in the clouds.

Left Mind: 

• Preoccupied with details and runs your life on a tight schedule.
• The more serious side.
• It defines boundaries and judges everything as right/wrong or good/bad.
• Responsible for transforming all the information and possibilities into something manageable.
• It is what you use to communicate to the external world.
• Thinks in language and speaks to you constantly.
• Your organizer: has the ability to organize, categorize, describe, judge and critically analyze everything.
• Has the ability to multitask.
• Identifies patterns.
• Processes large volumes of information (much faster that that the right mind).
• The storyteller: brilliant at making up stories, filling the blanks where there are gaps in data and generating alternative scenarios.
• Genius at generating What-if possibilities and drawing conclusions.
• Your ego center.
• Your critical analytical mind.
• The Extreme Left Mind: exhibits extremely rigid thinking patterns that are analytically critical.

Tonight's Moon

"The moon will make its closest approach to Earth in 18 years—making the so-called supermoon the biggest full moon in years."

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/03/110318-supermoon-earth-japan-earthquake-tsunami-science-space-biggest-full-moon/?source=link_tw20110318news-moon

Don't Miss It, It's Gorgeous