Mr. Locke, Do You Have the Key?

My family was over today for dinner, it was great. It really was, we all caught up a bit, talked about everything under the sun (or around it) and generally just enjoyed each others company. One topic in particular we talked about has been resonating with me for a bit now. The topic of morality, it started off by discussing if humans are innately good. My view on this is pretty firm, I side with John Locke in his regard of the newly born human brain as "tabula rasa"... a blank slate. I can look at this from many angles, if you look at language development in infants, they literally have the capacity to adhere to any language. It is the language that is present around them that they end up acquiring, through a pruning process the brain is generally narrowed down to the vital neurons. Babies are extremely passive, they spend an enormous, if not all their time, observing. Through observation they start to develop a sense of things. It isn't even until later in life (2, maybe --- 5 years old) that they develop a sense of self. One experiment in particular that comes to mind regarding this says it isn't until we have a sense of self that we can form episodic (things that happen to you) memories (as oppose to semantic, factual memories). This experiment was carried out by having numerous children go through the process of looking in a mirror, then having the mothers place a red patch on the forehead without them noticing. The children now looked into the mirror again, if they have a sense of self they would reach to their own head to remove the patch, if not, they reached or pointed toward the mirror image. Now, the children were taken to a foreign room and given a lion stuffed animal, this lion was placed in the bottom drawer of a cabinet, the same for every subject. Two weeks later the children were brought back into that foreign room and asked where the lion was, it was only the children who had passed the red patch task, who had a sense of self (if you will) that remembered where the lion was! So, now that I finished that little tangent, I don't know if I agree with Locke's view completely, which is that the world will describe information through experience of the five senses. This knowledge is then reflected upon and perfected, arriving at the abstract concepts such as space, time, etc... He was an empiricist. Don't get me wrong here, I do believe much experience comes from the five senses, and it is perfected through reflection - but I am not so sure that this is the only way we can acquire knowledge. Another view point I like is Rationalism, headed by Mr. Rene Descartes, it is to believe we can acquire knowledge from thought alone, without influence from the external world. I think this is what gives us the ability to think about the abstract concepts such as space, time etc, not the senses, what sense makes us think about a god? The super string theory? Now a man named Immanuel Kant tried to combine these two views, and I like that. So running with him, he poses an argument on morality, to tie everything back to the beginning ;). I'm not saying this is my view, but he liked something that he termed "universalizability" (well, he probably didn't, he was German) this basically said that a right action is something that can be applied across all people at all times. In his echoing translated words, "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law." That gives a pretty good structure for what is moral. For example... someone sent you a video link of their new movie, they ask hey did you watch the link? You didn't, but maybe in consideration of their feelings you want to say a white lie and say yes. Using Kant's morality view, in this situation, telling a white lie, if applied universally, would probably be a very bad thing. Therefore Kant would conclude that telling the white lie would be immoral. Wam-bam-thankyoumaam. Well, there is one philosophers view on one topic. I don't know if I agree with that, if morality is something to be applied universally in the first place, or is it something that each person should find for themselves. Actually, I am leaning more towards the latter at the moment. Nietzsche looks at this through "master" and "slave" morality, the former consisting of the individuals break through from the societal norm and constructing their own moral truths, the latter consisting of a herd morality in favor of the weak and powerless - he views many religions as having slave morality. I think morality is certainly a matter for discovery through self, however, I do think many people need the stability of moral rules. So here lies another situation where I will not give in to either absolute side, and I feel most things don't settle on an absolute side. Empiricism or Rationalism? Universal or Independent Morality? I don't think these are black and white questions, there are arguments and evidence for both working - and in that - one cannot be an absolute...

Welp, I'm not even going to bother re-reading this one, bed time! ;)

Mind Over Matter, and a Little Rant

“You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.”

Mahatma Gandhi Well, I think this is a pretty powerful quote. Most of Gandhi's are, he was so free, free from all the harmful things that come from loving the body. I feel this applies to me a little at the moment. I recently came down with a case of Poison Oak, and I mean, it is everywhere! Even on my face, needless to say, I don't really feel like going out in public with all these blisters shooting golden-rod pus out... sorry if that was graphic, but when I really sat down and thought about it. How lucky am I that something like this only affects my body, rather than my mind. After all, that is really all that matters. Thank god for that blood brain barrier...

It is funny how Gandhi says you will never imprison my mind. The times I feel most imprisoned is when I am in a normal setting with normal people, but no one has one thing to say that is worth thinking about. This reminds me of a quote by Eleanor Roosevelt... “Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people” How right on is that one? It is almost equivalent of a plague to sit in a room with a group of people who are in an intense gossip session. Our minds are so capable of running on such a high level of thinking, unfortunately that level is rarely achieved in the daily routines of most people. However, it is so rewarding once this level is reached. Don't get me wrong, I don't think I am anywhere near the peak of my enlightenment, but I know it's there, I know I can get there, I know I am on the path; even that small distinction from the "average" man (if you will) is exponential. I don't think we should ever stop learning, never turn your back on your curiosity, strive toward the mysterious... “A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.” Oliver Wendell Holmes That is in harmony with one of my previous posts about how the more I learn, the more I want to learn. This quote shows why getting out there and living, experiencing things and learning are so important. Learning is food for the mind, and that is so much more important than food for the body (sometimes :] ). I just wish I could poke people, and they would wake up, see the potential in themselves and start transforming their minds. Learning shouldn't be a hard process that is on par with taking a wheat grass shot, it should be something we exert ourselves for, fighting for every last bit of knowledge we can get...

In my opinion...

Two things

1. I love volleyball. It is probably my favorite sport, nope, it is. I am having trouble deciding it if I like it better than baseball back when I was in my prime. Maybe, just maybe. Especially beach volleyball, what's better than a day at the beach? I could go into details about all the specific things that I like about volleyball, but I don't think that is very important for you to know at the moment :P.

2. I just read an article that was trying to find the cellular processes that allow birds to flock together, fish to combine into schools and swim together, as well as other similar situations. Think about a giant school of fish swimming, they make turns, sometimes sharp turns, especially with a predator present - yet all the fish somehow stick right on each other, as if some choreographer was directing the swimming. How is this possible? Well the researchers were looking at what makes collective behavior. The study looked at Dictyostelium, which is a slime mold, they measured the chemical release of a certain part of it, finding that once this chemical amount reached a certain critical point, the cell started firing in a pulsating fashion sending more amounts of this chemical to the neighboring cells - prompting them to pulsate as well. Eventually, this lead to the cells growing in sync with each other and then the unified movement of the slime mode. How interesting is that? This research field also goes along with how humans have cells that turn into organs, how does that happen? We have clumps of cells that bind together and become our heart, our liver, our spleen. Have you ever stopped to think how these organs come into place? They definitely weren't in the sperm and the egg, somehow (probably in the way I just described) our cells come together to form them. So amazing. Biophysicists did this study, just chart that down as another field I want to tackle... gah!

So much time...

I have so much time this summer, and so much time left in life (I hope). In Edinburgh, I felt like I was always doing something, whether it was traveling or hanging out with friends, walking around the city or just enjoying the day. Lately I have been in Temecula, most of my friends are in San Diego - and Temecula is a pretty boring place to be for my age range. With all this being said, I have been watching the minutes pass until I go to sleep the next day. I need to get a job, or something. What a sad turn around from the lifestyle I just came from! But... things will start picking up soon. I have ordered three books from Amazon; "The Field" "The Intention Experiment" by Lynne McTaggart and "The World As I See It" by Albert Einstein... I am going out to get an acoustic guitar today... and I am jumping on to work as a construction/day laborer for the addition to the house my Dad is doing. Hopefully all that will help me bide my time better, as now I only have my Saturday volleyball commitment. I would love to be good at the guitar by the time I move back to San Diego as well, the idea of being able to construct my own music is very appealing to me.

Now in regards to my life, I'm 20. I was telling my cousin the other day how much time we have left. He was saying he was getting old because he is graduating college. No way! There is so much left to do and experience, it's insane. Around this age range it seems we have everything planned out already, we're going to college for 4 years, grad school, get a job, get married, have kids, etc... We are always trying to get somewhere, and when we get there, somewhere else is on the list. I would like to slow it down, enjoy where I am... invest in the process, not the outcome.

Some things change and some things never change

I woke up pretty early again on Thursday, 7AM. This is becoming a routine, and I like it. I feel like I have an extra day before my day even starts! Anyway. I went and got Crystal and we headed off to the beach. Last second we diverted and decided to go to Sunset Cliffs, as neither of us had been before. It was great, we walked along the cliffs and stopped a few times to go walk to the edges of them. We ended up having esoteric conversations for a few hours, caught up a bit and just enjoyed the day all together. This was completely opposite of the conversations and things I did the day before, there is so much life and meaning when time is spent this way. I definitely prefer this over the typical San Diego State lifestyle... Unfortunately, I got buuuuurned. My shoulder is red ripe tomato color. Eh, I guess the sun was mad I didn't see him for a while.

The whole day was spent hanging out with Crystal, Ashley and then Josh came from Temecula! I had not had a solid hangout day with him in well over 2 years. It was like nothing changed, we got along great, passing jokes off of each other like we rehearsed them. The four of us went to Hooters (AND WE WILL NEVER GO BACK) ... the food wasn't the worst, just deep fried and death filled. It definitely came back to attack later. Oh well, it was a fun dinner. Later we all headed back to Temecula, to go to Evan's house, he was having a little get together. Great seeing all my friends there as well.

It is really weird, it seems the strong relationships I had before I left got stronger during the time I was gone, and the weaker ones almost vanished completely. There is no common ground for these to survive on any longer. I grew up, and out grew the lifestyle I once had.

Coming Home

I have been back for a few days now. Benjamin Button sums the feeling up best "It's a funny thing about comin' home. Looks the same, smells the same, feels the same. You'll realize what's changed is you." Couldn't have said it better myself, everyone here is the same as when I left. But I have changed, it really throws my mind for a loop because the last time I remember hanging out with these people, it was so much different then presently. I've read through a few travel blogs and they all talk about this feeling when coming home, as if the world has been turned down a bit. I was constantly moving, constantly packing my bags and seeking out adventure; it seems I have now hit a brick wall. The thought that I will be in one place for such a long time seems foreign to me. I am surprised that my trip of 4 months has had such an impact on my outlook. Although many of the blogs also say that this feeling passes, it is a prominent one at the moment. I want to get away. Hopefully I can find some peace soon, because this turmoil in myself is not ideal.

Waking Life and Some Thoughts

That movie (Waking Life) is one that I feel everyone should watch. It isn't packed full of action, drama, comedy or any of those typical movie categories. It is packed with information, with ideas, with philosophical questions. The things that bring people to life when they think about them, the very things that gives us our individuality. It isn't what kind of clothes we wear, or how we wear our hair. It is what we think, who we are to the deepest core of ourselves.

I feel like most people don't even have this conscious awareness of the universe to realize how small we really are. We are the big bad humans, here to control the world. No - we are the size of 1/1000000 of a grain of sand. A very wise Cosmologist Carl Sagan compared our attempts in contacting other life forms in the universe to that of a single man, standing in the middle of the Amazon Rain Forest, screaming trying to reach our civilizations on the outside. This is highly improbable. There are 250 billion known stars in the galaxy (as of 1976), with all the calculations of pressure, atmospheric conditions, temperature, the whole mix needed for life - there is approximately one million other intelligent life forms out there. Now that may sound like a lot, but that is every 1 / 200,000 stars. The closest star clusters to us are 300 light years away, that's really far away. To give you an example, if we (and we have) tried to contact them via radio waves (travels at the speed of light, which is the fastest something can travel [as we know]) it will take THREE HUNDRED years just to reach the star! Not to mention the other THREE HUNDRED years to reply! Even if there was life on the closest stars to us, we wouldn't know until the year 2600!!! That's to say if we haven't blown ourselves up yet.

Which brings me to another thing, war. I cannot stress how much I dislike the concept of this. I have found through my recent traveling around the world that a good majority of the people I talked to categorize people into races, countries, etc. I do feel this is normal, as you probably are thinking as you are reading over this. Now although it is sometimes useful when talking about select groups of people, to refer to the human species in terms of countries - or different religions, is a terrible way to look at the human species! I believe it is the sole reason that we have war in the first place, we place these categories upon people, we separate us from them. This creates differences that normally would not be there, after all we are the same species. Sure we grew up on different continents, using different arbitrary language symbols to communicate feelings and ideas. But we are one in the same, in the very essence of our humanity. Once these restrictions and classifications are lifted off people, I think a great weight will be lifted off the human race as well. We will spend less time worrying about what other countries are doing, our relationships with the other people and finally become one with them. We will strive toward a common good for all humanity, I predict this will be necessary in the near future, if not, I think our world as we know is posed with great danger. Especially with the new developments of weapon technology. The capacity to entirely destroy a civilization is harnessed with the press of a button.

The more I learn, the more I want to learn. I said these words Yesterday. I don't know why, they kind of just came to me. I couldn't agree more with myself, though. I can relate it to the example of a bunch of fish in a pond; starting with a little fish, who eats littler fish - becoming bigger, now this same fish eats more little fish or bigger little fish to grow even larger, the cycle keeps going and going. With the fish needing to eat more and more to keep growing. I relate my mind to the original fish, and all the fish I am eating are the arts, philosophy and science. The more and more I learn, the more I realize how much is still out there to learn. The mysterious is beckoning me to come explore in all of its wonder. This just brought two quotes up to mind; the first, by Gerry Spence "I'd rather have a mind opened by wonder than one closed by belief" I wish more people would hear this quote and understand it. What good is having a working mind without being able to explore the different possibilities of a situation? So often I see people firmly committed in a belief, when I question them about it, they not only fail to defend the belief with any weight, but seem to dismiss the question all together in a ' I know I am right ' kind of fashion. If you keep the mind open, you will keep learning, once it is closed, learning ceases and biases are formed. One of the biggest things I have learned in recent times is the value of an objective mind, without emotions and without bias, this leaves everything as it is ready to be examined. I have been able to look past how I feel about things personally, and view them for what they really are. This has increased my knowledge and understanding of both people and the universe tremendously. I will leave you with the second quote, by Albert Einstein "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed." This couldn't be more right on, I believe, and of course we couldn't expect less from our good friend Mister Einstein. . .

Day 114

Well... It’s over. I am back in California. Thursday was a great last day… I started out by heading to the Royal Gardens with Jordan and Daniel. We talked while we walked through all the different types of trees and plant life… It actually was a huge place with some pretty great scenery. Quite enjoyable. Daniel and I met up with Dave for dinner after that. For my last dinner in Scotland, I decided to go with the traditional Scottish meal of Haggis, Potatoes and Gravy. It was good, but the concept of Haggis itself never failed to protrude in the back of my mind, making the meal less enjoyable then it could have been. Afterwards I began my packing… it didn’t take as long as I thought it was going to. Finished up by 9pm. Dave called me around 8 because he was also taking off back to the highlands, I went out and said my goodbyes to him and we went our separate ways. I can tell this is going to quickly become a depressing day. Everyone is going out to Karaoke tonight, Malcolm and I headed over around 10, the majority of the group was already there. This was great, about 20 of my good friends were at Karaoke. We sang some songs, had a few drinks, and just had an overall great time. When we left at midnight, half went onto a club and half went back to my flat. We just played a few drinking games and talked. Daniel Malcolm and Rob stayed up with me until my cab got there at 3:30am… By then, I have already parted with so many people. But this was especially impacting, leaving my two roommates for the last 4 months and one of my closest friends – and really all of Scotland. I just remember sitting in the cab seconds after it pulled away with such a feeling of isolation. The barrier in between the cabby and I, windows and doors all around me, covered with a veil of rain water… I was all alone in the back seat with essentially all I own. This amazing chapter of my life has come to an end. Even so, the things I have experienced, the culture I have breathed in, the people I met and the growth I went through will perpetuate in the following chapters with an everlasting presence. I can’t help but being a bit sad at the moment, on the other hand, it will be great to be back. I will be giving my Mom, Dad and Brother hugs in about 2 hours… be reunited with all my best friends in San Diego… feel the warmth of the sun upon my skin once again… and just continue growing and learning in myself and in general. I will continue to try and live each day to the fullest, and smile while looking onward. The promise future holds is always uplifting for me, I know great things are in store, I can feel it to a certainty.

Day 111-113

So, Monday and Tuesday consisted of playing the guitar. Hanging out with Dave and Daniel, and having some more good conversations. We also watched The Matrix, which I haven't seen since it came out when I was like 10. I had no idea it was so philosophical in that we are all plugged into pods - everything is generated through electrical signals to our brains... this whole thinking (originally from a French philosopher, Jean Baudrillard) + the action?! It is such a great movie! Anyway. Now I am set to watch the next two as well, see how the whole thing wraps up. I feel I am finally at a developed state of mind where I can truly understand the complete package of movies like this and other more mindful movies. It has given me a desire to go back and watch all the movies I call my favorites, such as a beautiful mind (did it), eternal sunshine of a spotless mind and the butterfly effect. I clearly remember enjoying them and what they had to offer back when I watched them, but now I feel I could get much more out of them. Another movie I watched with Dan in the last few days was Waking Life, which is by far my favorite movie. I was showing it to Dan for the first time and he loved it as well. This movie is purely philosophical and demands full capacity of your frontal cortex throughout the film. I tell people that you could pause this movie every 5 minutes and have a full day long conversation about what was just said. That is how much of a thinker this movie is, I can't get enough of it.

Wednesday was Cinco De Drinko, err, I mean Mayo! Well to start things off, Dave graduated around noon. So... a celebration was obviously in order. Dave and I met up with Dan at his place and had a few drinks. Then we met up with Nick at the pool hall... we played for probably 3 hours... where everyone was slightly worse due to the alcohol, I was flourishing. I felt as though I was back on my game from when I use to play every day. It was a great feeling! Anyhow, we finished up the pool, everyone temporarily went their separate ways to get dinner and changed and what not. Tonight we were celebrating, it was Dave/Nick/and my last night... not to mention Cinco de Mayo! So - I went to Dave's around 7:30, everyone else showed up around 8 and later and we started the night off right. A little later we were at a bar/club type deal that was into the festivities as well, I got myself a nice cowboy hat/sombrero as well as a Corona beer opener and backpack. Apparently they liked me. It was a ton of fun, and we didn't slow down until 3am. Now we started saying goodbye to some people, and that was definitely sad... I will miss my close friends I met here a lot. The group I have in Scotland is so diverse, it is a really great atmosphere when we all get together; I think it is because for the most part everyone is very non-judgmental and objective about the world. This leads to very accepting personalities and is great for open fun and conversations. Well... at least I have excuses to go visit quite a few different places around the world :).

Day 110

Very productive day today in terms of progression of myself... it started out by reading a little and then I headed over to Daniel's flat. Claire was over there and we all hungout for a bit. When she left the guitar lessons started, I felt like I made pretty good progress, Daniel thinks I definitely did and was impressed with how fast I was learning it. But I feel like I was learning it slowly, although it is tough to compare something like that to anything else I learn about. Where it can just be ... well ... learned, guitar involves much more of your procedure memory in that you need to train your body (hands) to make very precise and specific movements. Remembering where to put the fingers is not the hard part, I can tell you where I put them for both of the songs I learned right now, but to be able to integrate this knowledge of information to the motor movements is another thing altogether. Anyway, after about 4 hours of this, Dave came over and then the three of us headed to the pool hall around 9. We played for a few hours, definitely a fun time. From here we headed back to Dave's and were all craving some pizza - ordered 2 XXL's from Papa John's for only 18 pounds. What a deal. Chomped on those while starting some good conversation. Dave was kinda in his own world talking to someone on the computer - but Daniel and I proceeded to get into abstract conversations. As we had two sessions of good talk the day before, it was proceeding further into pure philosophical topics. Dave ended up leaving at about 2AM I want to say, to go to bed. Daniel and I kept talking, and the next thing I know, the sun is up, and it is 5am! Insane. Completely worth it though, the things you learn about yourself, and the other person in times like this are unmatched and inaccessible from any other avenue. Speaking to someone about their inner most thoughts and feelings on subjects really exposes you to who they are as a person in their core, it is through this that I believe the firmest relationships can be built upon. Daniel mentioned how our conversation covered such a wide range of topics, and that in most cases, their would be someone who let their emotions get in the way or were too stubborn on their view on a topic, causing the conversation to cease or be less powerful. That is so true, for one example, we were able to talk about religion from a completely objective point of view, and I think that is a necessary tool in itself to be able to pull your human desires out of a conversation and examine it purely from a philosophical standpoint... so important for any growth. I was telling him, that earlier in this year I mentioned to my Dad that I didn't find I had a lot of people to have these talks with. That went more than tip-toeing into the pond. That upon reflection of that talk, I asked myself why, why wasn't I having these talks? In most cases, it seems that you just have to hit the right subject, and it will develop into that. There is another way though, that I have found out and utilize to the fullest now. Start them... what a concept. I have changed the way I communicate with people now, instead of skimming along in fear of offensiveness or who knows what, I immediately desire to delve into their brains and find out how they really think about a subject. I feel that in this, I am not only more satisfied with my talks with people, but we have better conversations. This is how I feel communication should be used. Not to gossip, not to talk about the latest celebrity scandals... but to evaluate your thoughts as well as come across the different possibilities and views in others thoughts. Sure, there will always be room for talking about things that don't revolve around the creation of the universe, and don't get me wrong, these are necessary for keeping a healthy lifestyle and not becoming so detached from reality. This would be what I would term the playful side of talk, however, the philosophical side is so crucial for any growth as person. I can't stress enough how much I feel this way. I remember Daniel saying towards the end of our conversation that this is probably what Socrates and Plato did, they just talked about everything so openly and became so intelligent - it is probably exactly what they did! Another thing he said really struck me, he said he felt his brain working. That is something that people need to do more often! Exercise that thing in your skull. It is after all, you, along with every single representation of this thing we call reality. I can feel myself about to go into a three hour tangent. So I will end here. But damn, I love philosophizing.

Day 109

Today was a great day. I feel like every day is. Yet this one was good particularly because it was filled with two separate occasions of deep conversations, with a movie watching of IronMan2 in the middle.

I woke up with about 3 hours of sleep. It was now 1PM. I took it pretty easy for most of the day. I watched a few TED videos, one was on the word "simple" versus "complex" ... very interesting. The message it made was from simple things do we really make these complex things, which, because of what they are built from, can be used in a simple way. For example, a cell phone; he broke it down into the circuitry, showing that the circuit boards were nothing but a combination of simply made parts, and the chain goes on. I specifically found this related to the human body, in almost every aspect, we are a complex being made out of simple parts. If I go for one example, I would say take a look at our sight. To see boarders and edges of light alone we have something called "simple cells" which respond directly to orientations of light. These simple cells make up something called "complex cells" which respond to movement and movement direction. The complex cells make something up called "hypercomplex cells" use all of this information and respond to the length of light. Everything starts with something simple, and builds up from it.

"You know you have achieved perfection in design, not when you have nothing more to add, but when you have nothing more to take away." - Karel Vredenburg.

So let me continue. After this I watched one on the computational universe by a man named Stephan Wolfram. This man is a genius. He has spent his whole life on working with algorithms and other methods of computation, in hopes he can make all data accessible and useable one day. Well, he has made tremendous progress, he has one program called Mathematica, and another called Wolfram|Alpha (http://www.wolframalpha.com/index.html) I would suggest just going on and taking a look at the latter. It is a search engine, but it works differently than most search engines. Instead of having spiders roam the web and find relevant information, the information is pulled from large databases - for example - if you have a health based question, it will go to a health journal, guide, etc and give you related information. It can do any sort of math problems, and give you must more than just your answer (although that is given too). Very cool and handy tool for the future. He also showed how our universe could be made by a simple algorithms which is just repeating time after time. There are simple rules that can be repeated to form more complex looking patterns, but these are plainly repetitions of things. However, every once in a while, he explained, there can be a very simple rule - that produces results that are very out of the ordinary. In that, this simple rule produces very random things. It can be used to produce random event generators, and Wolfram argues that something like this rule can probably be shown one day to be the reason our universe is unfolding the way it is. There is much repetition in our universe, but it also has some deviations, something like this rule would account for those.

After I got done doing all this good stuff, Daniel had called me up and asked if I wanted to grab something to eat and talk. So we headed to the golf tavern down stairs. We had some great conversations; about life, social rules, the universe, aliens, our thought processes, past experiences, the brain, music, and more. Definitely a rewarding dinner, which was delicious as well. To get an idea of how far we were going in discussing these matters, when Daniel and I got our food, I was in the middle of explaining something. He finished 90% of his meal, before I took more than two bites of mine. Then when I was done talking, I was able to finish my whole meal while he was talking! These were giant back and forth dialogs, all the more meaningful. I feel to understand someone you really need to let them speak until they feel like they have explained it well, so constantly I see people fighting for the time to talk during a conversation. That isn't a conversation at all, it isn't some deep desire to be heard the most, it is truly for expressing values, ideas, thoughts. Going on a tangent here, there are two models to language that are largely accepted. One is a cognitive model, in which it is posed that talk is merely spoken language. It must assume 3 things to work; 1) the function of talk is to convey information, 2) the model of language is based on the syntactical rules, 3) talk is an activity of an INDIVIDUAL person. The last point is where I feel it goes a bit astray, now don't let me mislead you, this doesn't mean that they think you only talk to yourselves. It means that our brains are involved in processing what we want to say, and in hearing something, it is somewhat the same processes to tell us what people said. In that it is the activity of our brains that convey the information that is inputted and outputted (to explain it briefly and vaguely). Anyway, the other model is the social-pragmatic view of talk. This view says talk is a form of social interaction. In that the only time you talk, is in a joint-activity! Participants co-construct personal, social and cultural worlds as well as do things together when talking such as getting directions or requests. One must be good at turn-taking in order to interpret the talk, and relate it to the issue at hand. Language is truly fascinating, and I have built up much appreciation for it this year in studying it so much. Okay, tangent over, Daniel and I talked for a few hours and then headed to meet up with the rest of our crew to go see Iron Man 2 !

Shannon, Rebecca, Daniel, Rob, Benny, Kyle and myself went to go see the movie. It was definitely a good movie, lots of battles and what not. The graphics were amazing. Afterwards we the girls and Benny split off. Benny is flying to Canada on Sunday, I won't see him again until he visits the states. It is crazy to think I will be leaving all of my friends that I have built up such great relationships with here. Then again, I am sure we will keep in touch and even visit each other. Anyway, we had met up with Dave now as well, so the remaining 4 of us went back to my flat. We stayed and talked for a few hours, mostly about music to start - but this brought me into bringing up binaural beats, which I have spoken about in a previous blog I am sure. I told them about my experiences with them, Dave agreed with what I had to say, as I have got him into them as well. They are pretty amazing, well, our brains are pretty amazing. In short, everyone left with binaural beats on the mind. Tomorrow I am headed over to Daniel's place for some guitar lessons, should be good!

Day 104-108

Well, until Friday, it has been the same old story for the most part. Studying my life away. One of my exams was on Wednesday, Cognitive Psychology. I had to write 3 essays in 2 hours, this made me realize how terrible the system is to test for knowledge of a class. Here is 2 hours, write what you know about 3 topics. First off - what the hell 2 hours?! Not only was I writing as fast as I could the whole entire time, but if you want me to show my damn knowledge of the subject let me write for a longer period of time! I think I am just mad because my hand was cramped for the next 3 hours after the test. Anyway, I wrote one essay on Language, one of Speech Production and one on Speech Perception. I feel like I did a really good job, so, that's good.

Wednesday night was Marc's last night here. We had a little get together at his place and basically all of our friends came. Meaning it turned into a pretty decently sized get together. It was great and I am sure Marc had a good time. It involved lots of debauchery and fun. We had a few giant guy vs girl flip cup games, ten guys vs eight girls to be exact. These were going neck-and-neck (the guys team had some bad flip cup players)... it ended up being 2 to 2 in the series. The final game was epic if I do say so myself, I am the last person to flip to cup, called the Anchor, I beat the girl Anchor by probably .5 of a second. My cup landed flat as hers was probably at a 150 degree angle. The guys went nuts and tackled me, we celebrated like we just won the world series. Gotta love it.

(feel my pain)

Thursday consisted of pure studying. I counted, and I memorized a total of 88 different experiments (including the researchers names and years) as well as all the content I needed for the class. I rehearsed it so many times that I could still recite all I wrote down word for word right now. But when I got into that test room on Friday, and now had 3 hours for 3 exam questions. This time my questions were on facial perception, the sub-components of the prefrontal cortex, and the different routes to vision. My hand never stopped moving, I felt 100% confident in everything I wrote down. I actually put down 85 of the 88 experiments. Talk about some good referencing. Sure, I am being pretty self-loving right now, but damn I felt proud of myself when the time expired. I knew I did everything in my power to prepare and performed to the best that I could. That is how you end a solid semester of studying abroad!

Friday night consisted of celebrations. A little for myself since I just finished school, Benny is leaving on Sunday, and it was Shannon and Carlotta's birthdays! This was all going on as well as the Beltane Fire Festival, which happens once a year on top of Calton Hill... around 10,000-15,000 people show up. We went up there and it was pretty cool, it was actually a little show that this group of fire people put on. They are all naked and painted red, all this symbolism about burning/rebirth etc was in the show. We couldn't really see all of it at all times, and we showed up a few hours after it started, because we didn't know it was a show kind of deal. Still a good time though. At the very end they lit a giant bonfire, some of the red people were dancing next to it. For some reason I had the biggest urge to jump the gate that kept all the pedestrians out and then jump the bonfire, and I mean the biggest urge. So after much debate with myself - I decided to go for it. Captured on video, preserving that moment. I am 100% glad I did it, I felt free for my 1.3 seconds of hang time ;). When we left the festival we headed back to Shannon and Rebeccas flat, where everyone who didn't go to the fire festival was still there celebrating. We all united and had a great time for the rest of the night!