Hebrew Word of the Day 1

That's right, you heard me correctly. This is my blog, which means that I can change its purpose any time I want to suit my needs.

I've been learning hebrew lately (the holy tongue, what better language to have as your second in command?) and am looking for good ways to really integrate it into my thinking. I reckon that finding a word (from a handy dandy Hebrew-English dictionary) and expressing it in different tenses with different conjugations should help!

So, here we go!








This word is a verb meaning "Close". If you want to express it as "to close" then you have to change it to have a "li" in front of it and a vav in between the gimel and the reish like so:








And now for conjugations (hopefully this process of typing this stuff into my Hebrew word processor, taking a screenshot of the word, and then zeroing in on the word itself so that i can subsequently put it in here isn't too arduous).

Past Tense



I closed

You (male) closed

You (female) closed

He closed

She closed

We closed

You (masculine plural) closed

You (feminine plural) closed

They (masculine) closed

They (feminine) closed

---

Present Tense


I (m/f) close
You (male) close
You (female) close

He closes

She closes

We (m/f) are closing

You (masculine plural) are closing

You (feminine plural) are closing

They (masculine) are closing

They (feminine) are closing

---

Future Tense


I will close
You (male) will close

You (female) will close

He will close
She will close

We will close

You (masculine plural) will close
You (feminine plural) will close

They (masculine) will close

They (feminine) will close

---

Well that's all for now. Hopefully I'll find an easier way of posting the hebrew on here than this cut and paste business.

Bye for now,

- Inkhorn

Sci Fi Convention

I tried posting this entry yesterday, but in the process of uploading a picture
the post got lost :( Well yesterday I went to a Sci Fi convention at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre down on Front Street. I would have to say the very first thing I expected when my friend proposed to me that we go was that we would see a lot of people dressed up in Star Trek/Star Wars/Other addictive sci fi costumes. To tell you the truth I was really hoping for it, as it's quite an interesting sight to see! Much to my disappointment, there was a paucity of costumed people there. The few people I did see dressed up in costume were either dressed up as Star Wars or Final Fantasy characters, with one guy breaking with this convention by dressing up as a Dragon Ball Z character and a small group of people dressed up as Counter-Strike characters.

This is sub-culture for you. Hordes of people who would normally be indistinguishable from the rest of us, all coming out into the open as the Sci-Fi devotees they are! I find the whole obsession people have with the unreal to be very fascinating. I would call it (as would the person who I went to the convention with) an attempt to bring spirituality to an otherwise dull and mundane life. Some people might call this an unhealthy obsession, but what would you have these people do? Find meaninglessness in the societally prescribed ways of searching for happiness? For meaningfulness?

We all have to find our own paths in life. Sometimes we choose to conform to what our parents want out of us. Sometimes we choose to conform to what friends want, lovers want, society wants, etc. The question is: does your method of finding meaning work? Are you really happy? Are you ruining your life through your happiness? If you don't have G-d or some other deity defining this for you then you have to figure this out for yourself, and not blindly follow what other people prescribe for you.

Anyway, to get back to the convention, I got to meet Marina Sirtis, Diana Troy from Star Trek! It was pretty exciting, but I found myself at a loss about what to say to her. Luckily my friend wasn't as shy as I was. She got a picture of Marina Sirtis, obtained a signature from her, and chatted with her a bit. Then we got some pictures together. I don't know whether I blushed or not when asked to take a picture with Diana Troy, but it would be hard to imagine not blushing!!

I really liked Star Trek: The Next Generation. It was a Sci Fi show with good acting, plots and dialogue. On reflection, I find the gender roles on that series to be quite stereotyped. Diana Troy - who we'll use because she is so fresh in memory :D - was a character with some very typical traits of a woman with a job to match. She was a humanoid life form from a planed called Betazoid with an intrinsic ability to determine what other people were feeling by concentrating on them. On the show the word for this was a person who is an "Empath". Her qualities as an Empath made her perfect for the position of Ship's counselor on the Star Ship Enterprise. I don't know how to verify a stereotype, but on discussing this with my friend I confirmed that there is a stereotype about women that they are typically more empathic than men. In addition to this I know that women have been traditionally relegated to the helping professions, maintaining their subservient status even in the work force. It is true that this has changed considerably over the past half century, but it is still an issue.

Other than Diana Troy, you can also note that both Beverley Crusher and Tasha Yar were put into positions that befitted their stature. One was a doctor, but the other was quite anomalous. Reading up on Tasha Yar's Biography from the Star Trek Site, we find that

The original security chief under Captain Jean-Luc Picard on the U.S.S. Enterprise led a tragic yet heroic life until her death in the line of duty in 2364

. I guess someone had problems with a short haired female in some position of authority on the Enterprise. This is why I said that even she was put into a position that befitted her stature. Instead of staying on as Chief of Security, she was killed; to be replaced by the hyper-masculine, war-like Warf!

Critical analysis aside, Marina Sirtis seemed like a very nice woman. She mentioned that she will soon be going to England to look for acting work!

Another notable occurrence at the Sci Fi convention was a piece of artwork I got! Observe:



I liked the art work of this particular artist. A lot of his stuff was noticeably different from most other stuff I have seen. The character concepts he made (of which mine is one) are very original and imaginative. Two other notable pictures he drew were: a "Worm Regent", a very muscular human with a spikey snake's tale for a bottom half of his body, and some really well dressed, strong woman - who did not have big lips and boobs!

I would really like to post this artist's website, but it didn't seem to be up when I tried it. Maybe I'll post the address for it later.

All in all it was an interesting time!

Until next experience,

- Inkhorn

Studying!

Forgive me Blog, for I have ignored you.

It's been 10 days since my last post.

What have I been doing during that time? Work work work study study study. It is a testament to the sadism of education that most people must study endlessly for these hugely significant entrance exams. Don't get me wrong, I like to be prepared for evaluations and everything; I'd just rather be prepared for evaluations based on more interesting material.

For most of the summer I have been brushing up on my mathematical skills. It's a tough job as I haven't really exercised them since high school. As with muscles, if you don't exercise a skill enough then it's likely to deteriorate. That's where I started from when I picked up my GRE Math Prep book. It is pretty handy in the way it's organized. It starts from simple arithmetic skills, then moves on to Algebra, then Word Problems, then Geometry, then Quantitative Comparison, then it gives you 30 question practice tests covering every area of math one should have learned after working through the whole book. The main issue after you've finished this book is speed. How fast can you reason through each problem? How well can you prioritize / budget your time? Which questions are the most important to spend time on and which ones should you make educated guesses on? I still have to take more GRE practice tests just to make sure I know how to deal with the time constraints.

Yesterday I began my vocabulary studying. You might say that it's quite late to be doing that, but thank G-d my vocabulary skills have been exercised abundantly throughout my University career. I'm reading through a book by Princeton Review called Word Smart for the GRE. As the link I just posted indicates, I purchased it from www.amazon.ca . It is cheap in price, small in size, but great in its value. It starts off by giving you strategies for memorizing word lists, advice about the vocab section on the GRE, and some reasons why expanding your vocabulary is important. Then it goes into quizzes where you: match a word up with its antonym, match a word up with its simple definition, fill in the blanks found within sentences, and create sentences that indicate the relationship between couplets of words presented in several lists (an exercise to increase your ability to recognize relationships between words in analogy questions on the GRE). Now the big task is to try my best to learn huge alphabetically ordered word lists in the biggest chapter in the book. That could take about 9 days, if I divide up the alphabetic total by parts of 2 and a half letters each day.

Well... I guess the remainder of my study time is going to involve solidifying my knowledge of GRE vocabulary and testing myself with any practice GREs that I can find.

Please wish that my efforts will be successful :)

- Inkhorn

It's back!

Well school is coming around the corner in a matter of 3 and a bit weeks time. Am I happy about this? Yes I certainly am! Not only does school provide me with endless intellectual stimulation but ever since I started living in residence I've realized that I can actually socialize at school too!
This year is going to have some more pressure to it for sure. My General GRE is coming up on September the 26th at 1pm. I've been studying bits and pieces for it all summer. I'm at a stage now where I need to study the verbal section (I'm waiting for a nice Princeton Review book in the mail) and need to keep taking tests to make sure my Math studying has paid off. In terms of reading comprehension, I guess I need to find more practice questions on that to make sure that I'm good at it.

It's a little scary how much of my life school consumes. At the same time I have to admit that my life consists of studying, trying to have a bit of a social life, and preparing for my future. The consideration of what exactly my life is right now pretty much forces me to accept the fact that if I don't enjoy myself now (which thank G-d I am!) then some very precious time will be wasted.

It's a lot easier to goof off as a kid and do stupid things. You have plenty of time, you're not responsible for much (except hopefully your own safety!) and your parents pay for everything! I guess I picked up a definition of life from then that says that I should be pursuing things that are not related to work. My how things have changed!

I like work and school, they're very rewarding. It's just that I have a better idea now about how much of a tool we all become to the economic world around us. You're born, you have fun, you get your parents to buy you cool stuff, and then as you get older you add the element of work to your life. You: work for a living, contribute to society, it gives you money so that you can spend more money on yourself/your family, it uses that money to find ways of getting more money.

Hrmmmm very machiney perspective isn't it? It seems that's why we need ways of creating meaning in our lives, or else why should we continue?

There are a variety of things I can name that make my life worth living (not ranked in order!!):

Love,
Hormones,
Family,
Friends,
Community (the subjective aspect to it, not the geographical aspect),
Religion,
Learning,
Helping,
Eating,
The Beauty of Nature,
The Sound of Music,
Laughing,
Crying,
Singing

...

Wow I could go on for quite a while if I thought about it enough.

Life is beautiful, but right now I'm sitting in front of a laptop ignoring my hunger. I guess that means I'd better go sustain myself so that I can live more :)

Till next time,
Inkhorn

Hypnosis!

Well I had a very interesting experience today with Hypnosis.

I went to a class given by a local Psychiatrist that taught the basics of hypnosis - including myths, theories, notable personalities who contributed to Hypnosis. At the end of the lecture the Psychiatrist facilitated hypnosis for the whole group of people (consisting of 4, including myself) just so that we could get experience feeling what it was like.

Hypnosis became very real for me as soon as I was given a suggestion to go a place where I felt most comfortable. The most comfortable place for me wasn't even really a place, but a feeling. I started to picture myself being propelled all over the place without a care in the world. It was at once stimulating and comforting. Once I got myself into this mindset I was able to dissociate from my surroundings and go into a trance.

The purpose of today's session was not to teach us how to engage in therapy as a person is under hypnosis, but just to stimulate our skills in inducing it.

And induced it I did! I got the chance to induce a trance state in 2 of the participants in today's session. I - and the others who got to try inducing trance states in others - read from a "Hypnosis Scripts" book which provided a number of monologues to use in different stages of hypnosis. Since this trial was only about inducing people into a trance, I only had to select from a small array of induction scripts.

The induction really doesn't involve anything magical. You first need a monologue to use, then a relaxing voice, and some attentiveness to the subjects around you. The scripts are very thematic. They seem to center around making the person(s) comfortable, relaxed, taking them to some serene place, and locating the power in them so that they can use it effectively.

At first I was going too fast (as the Psychiatrist came in for a couple of moments and told me so), so I slowed down and started to get myself into a state of trance preparation. Hovering between a state of alertness, and trance like relaxation, I found that my performance was much better. At the end I fed the suggestion that either person could come out of their trance when they felt like it. One person was able to come out with few difficulties, but the second person didn't seem to be responding. That's when I toughened up just a little and fed her the suggestion that at the count of ten she would wake up, taking with her the feeling of refreshment and relaxation. So, she came out of it and the session was over. :)

It was a really interesting experience and it seems like something that will prove useful for me in my student years and beyond. I hope to learn more about it and get more chances to practice it on other people (in a safe and trusting way!).

York University!

I may be biased, but I've truly enjoyed my experience at York University.

The Psychology program - I hope you know by this point that I'm a Psych nerd - has provided me with a good firm backing in content based Psychology, and has excelled in providing me with immediately useful methods courses. I've taken Intro to Stats, Intro to Research Methods, an Independent Study Course (where I got to do research with a great professor from the department - no class!) and an Intermediate Statistics course. I've loved my methods courses as, like I said, they were useful for the research that I did in my ISC. I'm taking an Honour's Thesis course this coming year, which is much like my ISC from last year. The big difference is that I have to put more emphasis on the writing, which can get quite cumbersome after 7 or 8 revisions of each section of the final research report. It's not the biggest issue though. The great thing is getting the experience and being able to work with smart and supportive people.

Like any social context into which one is ingratiated, I am going to miss York. It will always have a spcial place in my heart (I don't know so much about it having a special place in my wallet. Maybe if I make some nice coinage when I'm older I'll be especially thankful) when I think of it later on in life. These have been the wonder years, to use a cheesy expression. They've been stressful and filled with tons of work, but it was all worth while.

Signing out for the night,
Inkhorn

War... Good G-d! What is it good for?

I just watched a very interesting anime movie with my brother called "Steamboy". Since the link which I have just posted should tell the reader any extensive information about this movie which is desired, I will not go into more detail than is necessary here.

I found the main character in this movie - and ultimately the thought that went into the plot line - to be quite morally sensitive. I think the guiding question behind this movie is "In whose hands are the weapons of war well used?". The main character in the movie, Rae Steam, gets plunged into a conflict between two powers: one, the O'Hara corporation, representing capitalistic greed taking precedence over every other consideration; the other, the British Government, representing the interests of a Nation bent on maintaining its position of power over all other parties.

For the first half of the movie it seemed to me that the O'Hara corporation should be the ones to be considered the "bad guys", therefore naturally the movie should center around having them defeated! As the movie progresses (and I'm truly sorry for this spoiler) we see that the grand picture is not so black and white. The British Government wants to get its hands on this technology which, invented by the main character's grandfather, can help them build better machines of war. At first it seems that it is only the O'Hara corporation that wants to do this, if only for the purpose of selling war machines to other nations. We soon find out Britain's intentions, and are left in a quandry as to who exactly the "good guy" is!

The movie seemed to take me on a carousel ride went from the very nurembergish topic of how much violence can we justify marching under the flag of scientific advancement to the topic of nations and their justification for owning the means of violence.

I would like to, if I may, refer to everyone's favourite contraversial document for some advice here. The reference that we are going to use (retrieved from http://judaism.about.com/library/3_askrabbi_o/bl_simmons_warviolence.htm ) is Sefer Devarim, Parashat Shoftim, Perek 20, Pasuk 10. Otherwise known in English as Deuteronomy, Chapter 20, Verse 10. "When you approach a city to wage war against it, you must propose a peaceful settlement. If the city responds peacefully and opens its gates to you, all the people inside shall become your subjects and serve you." (This is a translation of Rav Aryeh Kaplan, in his "Living Torah" book). Under the exceptional circumstance which this verse refers to, the Jews were actually enjoined to fight an aggressive war against their enemies. Judaism seems to take a responsive stance to war. Even in this case, when Judaism commands the nation to fight against another nation at the beck and call of the G-d of their fathers, they still must take care to preserve life whenever possible.

Juxtaposed with the actions of historical Britain, France and Spain, a Jewish theological nation would not be so intent on expanding its borders without serious debate. An interesting proof from Torah comes from a dialogue between Abraham and G-d during the matter of the infamous Sodom and Gommorah (the first of which was not problematic due to any rectal activity!!!) : "'Will You actually wipe out the innocent together with the guilty? Suppose there are fifty innocent people in the city. Would You still destroy it, and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty good people inside it?' .... G-d said 'If I find fifty innocent people in Sodom, I will spare the entire area for their sake.'" (Genesis, 18:23) Again we see this concern for the well being of people in a perceptibly bad nation.

All of this inquest into Torah really helps me to understand why I liked the main character in this movie. He strove to maintain peace between two potentially evil powers, while leaving the problem of what to do with this new technology in the hands of people who will hopefully come to a better rounded decision that does not require aggression.

It is at this point that I had better stop, as it seems that I am projecting my optimism on to society, which many times does not seem that deserving. I hope I haven't come across as overly preachy in this Blog, as when I am encountered with the concept of morality, it is hard not to think of the religious tradition of my forebears :)