Issues

I've seen a lot of people with issues lately, particularly on twitter. I'm not sure whether thats actually true - to some extent I probably project my own experience and feelings onto other people, but none the less I notice a lot of people crying out for attention and care.

It raises a some questions for me.

• How do you express your care for people via social media?

Its quite hard to express how you feel about something in a short message such as a tweet. Even in longer message formats, its harder to encode emotion/feeling/context/emphasis/etc in instant messages. 

It's also hard to pick those things up from those electronic messages on the receiving end. It leaves a lot up to interpretation and, if one is not clever about it, can leave out the feedback loops - ie the loops for confirming and clarifying intention. 

• What/Where are the boundaries for strangers? 

One of my own challenges is seeing people who have issues (projection or otherwise) and feeling the need to give them advice. Where are the boundaries for that? Should you never but into someone elses life? Is the fact they're on twitter an indication that they are looking for people, even strangers, to give them help. 

That makes me think of a video interview I saw of one of the creators of twitter talking about how Twitter enables you to feel a part of someone elses life. The thing is that it can also make you feel close to complete strangers - you're seeing what they're up to and perhaps some of their inner thoughts and feelings, after all. 

In this new world of connectedness and openness do we embrace the intimacy that is scrolling in front of us, or do we stick to the constructs of personal privacy and protocol that we observe in other human interaction? 

I think I shall contemplate these things. 

Android

I bought an Android phone a few weeks back. A Motorola Defy, to be precise. Its got Android 2.2 on it. Hopefully moto upgrade to 2.3 or later at some point soon.

I quite like it. Its fast, it works (big upgrade from my prior Nokia e75), has a good range of apps, and a good social network integration engine.

There are only 3 things missing:

• Front facing camera. Makes it hard to do video calling. 
• Push notifications (or Cloud to Device Messaging as Google calls it). Only the built in apps have it, as google have not fully released the API. Hopefully this happens soon so apps can start using push instead of battery sucking polling/pulling. 
• Decent music apps. I used an iPod up until now, and basically none of the Android music apps come close to the interface an features of iPod. Some have a few nice features, but are missing basic nice things like shuffle by albums or shake to shuffle. 

Am glad to be on a touch phone, and have had a lot of fun with various apps. 

My favourites so far:

• Epicurious - good app for finding recipes
• Whatsapp - good app for text/multimedia messaging via mobile data
• Opera Mobile - much smoother than the built in browser, and does on-the-fly data compression (can add a bit of page load time tho as pages are retrieved via Opera's servers)
• Audiomanager - good app for having finer grained control over sounds - eg being able to disable notifications sounds but not the ring tone

Good fun!

Some things

So I haven't done this for quite a while. I have a few things that might be worthwhile sharing...

Existentialism


No, I'm not a philosopher. I mean the existence of one's self.

So I've been seeing a psychologist weekly, bar the odd holiday, since July 2010 - almost 10 months now. I'm quite astounded by the length of time it took to get past a series of defenses and coping strategies cleverly, if unintentionally, placed around what I can only best describe as the small child that sits at the core of my existence. There are other words for that "child," but I will resist the temptation to be a Google certified psychology expert here.

It is quite amazing what the mind can do to survive. I haven't really figured out why exactly yet, but from an early age I lacked the innate feeling of inclusion or worth. In response, I developed strategies to acquire at least some sense of those things. Helpfulness is the most obvious one. Helping others to get a sense of importance and achievement - but typically at my expense and someone else's benefit. Projection is another - projecting my lack of worth and such onto others when certain things about them spark empathy in me. A way to express how I feel by seeing myself in someone else. Not very effective, however. Anxiety and planning is another common theme.

With that spinning broken record beginning to come to a halt now that I am quite aware - 'quite' as in I notice myself doing it on a day to day basis - I find myself coming back to a couple of core conundrums. 1. The value of existence.
2. How on earth do I value meaningful connections when I'm most comfortable when I'm hidden bar the passive methods I've developed above.

1.

Now dont misinterpret this. I'm not referring to a will to not exist, quite the opposite. Some philosophy might actually help here, but I'm not exactly Aristotle. The point I keep coming around to is that while one can fill life with many great things, relationships, experiences,  - what is the overall value of the culmination of life when it is finite. In other words, everybody dies. It'd be good if I could resolve this - without regressing to the distractions above - as it can be quite a de-motivator to contemplate one's role in the complete unit of humanity. By that, I mean life - or time if you like - as a whole, and the role even the greatest of people play in it. The grand scheme.

2.

This is not something anyone can really solve for me with an explanation. I think its basically going to be about getting used to the concept of not needing a justification or reason to be of worth/value/meaning, and also a bit about recognizing when that is actually happening. A foreign concept.

Computer stuff


So on and off, as motivation allows, I've been doing some work on a wee web application called Web Albums Uploader. You can head over to www.webalbumsuploader.com and take a look-see if you like. Its nice to build something that is useful to me.

Sexuality


I am gay. Some people probably still dont know this. Mainly because I'm not the best at communicating it, and I still have some amount of fear and anxiety about being outwardly open. Its all over my Facebook and Twitter accounts and anyone that is close to me on a regular basis will know, but I'm a bit passive beyond that. I have a boyfriend, his name is Patrick. He's in New Plymouth at the moment so we're doing long distance. That leaves a bit to be desired but I'm comfortable with it. Not a lot else to say about my sexuality beyond that.

Fitness


I've been going to the gym for quite a while now, but only self paced and not overly vigorous until recently. That is, when I changed gyms and started a personal training program. Wholy fucking shit. I assure you I am in agony at the moment, but it is also very rewarding and I am getting good results and progressing fast. I hope to keep doing this indefinitely.

Things to do


There are some things I'm quite keen to do some time soon.

Finishing my pilots licences is a good one. It got left in the lurch when I went to uni. Once I stop seeing my shrink I think I will put the money into flying instead. I've picked up some project management at work - would like to progress this.

I'm also interested in being involved in more community things, maybe you can suggest something. I'm good with geeky stuff.



This is all that comes to mind about me at the moment. Make some comments if you like, or dont. The choices are endless.

Hamish

Bon Voyage

Bonjour bonjour,

Well I am about to leave Canada! Head outta here on Tuesday and off to England.
Am done with my work and uni studies now. Assuming I pass my project (!) I have finished my degree :)

Been lotsa fun here, met heaps of new people. Kinda thinking it would be nice to stay a bit longer now it's summer, but alas travels await.

Looking forward to seeing everyone back in NZ, and cant wait to get some hands on some decent fresh food :D

See everyone soon,
Hamish

PS: I hearby call in all favours, debts, and missed birthday & christmas presents, in cash form for my world travel fund which is somewhat lacking! ;)

New Number

Hello,

Just a quick post. I am in my new place, going very well. The people are very friendly and sociable. Having lots of bbqs. Am loving it. Heading down to New York this weekend, should be great :)

Have got a new wellington number. Signed up for the www.2talk.co.nz internet phone service which is very very good, far better than Skype which I had been using for Computer to Phoneline calls.

Ask me for my new number - would prefer to send it via email rather than in a blog post.

Hamish

Bonsoir

Bonsoir mes amis,

How is everyone? please do feel free to send me an email or add a comment or something.

Montreal is becoming nice. The snow is almost all gone, its getting up to the mid twenties above zero now. People are outside on the streets and in the parks, its great. I am moving apartment soon, over to Le Plateau which is a bit more expensive but it is very close to a lot of activity and a lot of nightlife. Should be good. Am going to be living with 4 others in a nice apartment on the corner of Duluth and St Hubert (Pronounced Dooloot and Sane oobare).

Otherwise things are fairly similar - work is work. Am making progress on my project.

I have booked a seat on a bus tour down to New York City on the 17th - 19th May. Am looking forward to it. Am going to be staying just off Times Square. Will be able to see the Empire State building and Ground Zero and the Statue of Liberty and a bunch of things. Am also going to see the musical Rent on broadway.

Anyway, not much else to say. Am looking forward to getting out more. My workmate took me on a walking tour around part of the city that I hadn't seen already. Was a brilliant nice day, I sat in Parc Lafontaine for a while on the way back.

Catch you all later,
Hamish

Hello

Hello,

Just a quick post. Haven't been up to much lately. Went skiing again a couple of weeks ago, then spent the rest of the week and easter weekend sick! Not very exciting being in a distant city stuck inside!! Oh well, Am feeling better now and the weather is starting to get a bit warmer now so things are looking brighter.

Got a haircut last night seeing as I was looking more like a talking mop than a human being . Seems that a mixture of english speaking client and french speaking hairstylist = mohawk hah!.

Anyhow, not much else to report. Work is much the same. Hoping I might be able to squeeze in another bit of skiing before the season ends, not sure yet.

Hope all is well,

Hamish

Not Dead, No Broken Bones

Bonjour et Bienvenue,

How is everyone going?

Figure I had best make a post before people start making inquiries with the embassy!

Have still been trucking along with work and whatnot lately. Work is not too bad. Had a good week a couple of weeks ago working with a couple of others on some policy things. Was nice having human interaction for a change!

Montreal is starting to get slighly warmer. There getting to be more and more days where its above freezin. Still a bunch of snow around and more is expected. I went skiing last weekend with my flatmate Jessica and her friends Sreela and Nick. Was good fun. I'm not very good at it - spent most of the time on the beginner slope, but we are hoping to go bak during the week and I might try and get over there next weekend to improve myself before the winter is over! Got a nice ski jacket at Sport Expert - was marked down from $250 to $70, and got some ski pants and goggles and Montreal Canadienes (local Hockey team) tshirt :D

My boss Benoit took me to the Montreal Symphony Orchestra on Thursday evening, was very nice - they are pretty damn good. They played Tchaikovsky which is nice and lively.

Went out to my flatmate Charles' best friend Louis' brother Axcel's (not sure how to spell, pronounced kinda like axe-ell) girlfriend's birthday dinner. Had some nice Vietnamese/Thai food then they had a private area booked at a popular nightclub which was quite cool.

Today I went snow tubing with friend and his kid - was good fun but am now entirely exhausted. This week will be pretty standard I think. Hopefully will get over to the mountain again one afternoon and evening, otherwise will just be working.

Hope all is well,

Hamish