Psygeek was down for a bit tonight, as I switched over from b2evolution to wordpress. All of my posts have been imported, but the comments have not been imported. I have them all though, so they eventually should make it over to the new psygeek. I realized after I started that it would have been nice for me to give a warning, but it was kind of spur of the moment. I'd grown weary of b2evolution's blog structure, and that more than anything set off the switch-a-roo. I'll be tinkering over the next few days as I get a new logo designed and up, and fiddling with the layout and design of the blog. So bear with me! :)

There's concern about this new strain of swine flu going around, and I get that -- but people need to be cautious about anyone claiming to have cures or preventative measures to combat the swine flu. Homeopathic remedies don't work -- they're more placebo than anything else. And while a boost in morale is good and all, when it comes down to it and your life is on the line, they don't cut it.

I can't embed the video because of the blogging platform I use, and I used viddler to upload my presentation, so all you'll get is a pretty link! and since I switched to wordpress, voila!

Enjoy!

My poster for my thesis that I presented at the WPA is now available online! Soon, I'll also have a video of my presentation that I did at my school on youtube, maybe tonight, and then I'll link that up here as well. So, here's the link for anyone who is interested: Asimov Poster Presentation

Eventually, I'll also have a pdf version of my thesis paper available for those who are interested as well. Now, off to WPA again!

I've completed my thesis! Been working on the speech, the powerpoint, and the poster. All of which are done. Now I just have my presentations! My thesis will be presented this Wednesday at my college (Pacific University). All the seniors here are presenting their senior theses as well, and it's open to the public -- so if anyone were in the area and wanted to come see what a bunch of 22 year-olds (give or take a few years) are writing about, come on over! Then I have my poster session at the WPA conference this Friday for my senior thesis, and another one this Saturday for the work I did with my advisor and a fellow student. It's all very exciting work! And all of it has kept me away from doing anything else!

In fact, I should be studying for an exam -- but I hopped on over here and saw that I hadn't written in one month, and decided I had to post some sort of update. I promise an update in the next week wherein I write about my thesis and all of the work I've done, and everything else even remotely related.

Until then, peace.

I have a couple of draft posts, soon to be published. They would have been up by now, but my laptop crashed last week and I had to get a new one. Not only that, but when it crashed, it took my senior thesis with it. So I spent many hours transcribing the 20 pages I have so far while also trying to meet new deadlines. Luckily, I have an extremely understanding and immensely awesome thesis professor.

So in this deficit of psygeek posting, here is a video I found intriguing:

Here's the link to the original article the video comes from. I'm not sure I agree with her about the whole genius outside of the body, feeding you this creativity that makes your work marvelous, but I think she makes excellent points about the burdens of being labeled a genius and about what it's like to make great works.

Do you believe that dreams have meaning? Or do you think that dream material is a product of the random firing of neurons in the brain which is then translated into some sort of dream, and given a plot? I think it's ridiculous that anyone might think that dreams have no inherent meaning at all.

If they didn't have meaning, why would we have wish fulfillment dreams? When we're really excited for that rock concert that's coming up, we dream of going to the concert and having the time of our lives. Trauma victims often relive their experiences in dreams, over and over. When we're stressed out and need a break, we have dreams of going on vacation and sipping martinis on the beach. If dreams didn't have any meaning, they wouldn't make any sort of sense.

The first marker in knocking down this argument is the simple fact that, even if subscribe to the theory that dreams are the product of the random firing of neurons in the brain, there would still have to be some meaning to them because the neurons that would fire would most likely be the ones that see more activation when we're awake; they would probably be closely related to what we think about all day long. We see something strange, it stands out, when we go to bed, we dream about it. That's pretty straightforward. Our dreams would still be based upon our experiences and what we know.

The notion is silly, is what it is. It's entirely possibly that I'm biased, I take the Freudian perspective for a lot of things. A lot of what Freud has to say in his theory of psychoanalysis makes sense.

I found out fairly recently that my senior thesis was accepted at the WPA Conference in Portland, from April 23 - 26! I'm pretty excited! I'll have a poster there. No formal presentations, I believe. So, if you're in the area, look for a poster there about Isaac Asimov and Compulsive Writing. :-)

Speaking of my senior thesis, it's pretty much soaking up all of my free time when I'm not working on homework for other classes. I'll be formally presenting my thesis at my university on April 22nd, along with most every other senior in my university. It's nerve-wracking and completely exciting experience at the same time. I'll have to start giving fake speeches and practicing so I don't sound like a stuttering fool. Maybe I'll get someone to record it and then post it up here as youtube video. That could be... scary. I'll have to think about that.