Aeroplanes... and more...

CnH(2n+2) + (2n+1/2)O2 >>>>> nCO2 + (n+1)H20

Alright, so it's a bit vague, and the format's all wrong, but hopefully the chemically minded get the gist...

It's the (organic) chemistry of combustion of basic hydrocarbon (alkane) chains. The CnH(2n+1) is the hydrocarbon chain, or - more tangibly (names are simplest isomers from Butane up. Longer chains = more isomers, but end result of combustion remains the same)

C1H(2x1 + 2)        =  CH4        =  Methane
C2H(2x2 + 2)        =  C2H6      =  Ethane
C3H(2x3 + 2)        =  C3H8      =  Propane
C4H(2x4 + 2)        =  C4H10    =  Butane
C5H(2x5 + 2)        =  C5H12    =  Pentane
C6H(2x6 + 2)        =  C6H14    =  Hexane
C7H(2x7 + 2)        =  C7H16    =  Heptane
C8H(2x8 + 2)        =  C8H18    =  Octane
C9H(2x9 + 2)        =  C9H20    =  Nonane
C10H(2x10 + 2)     =  C10H22  =  Decane
C11H(2x11 + 2)      =  C11H24  =  Undecane

And so on and so forth into infinity (well...)

These are also known as paraffins, and are found in most of our oil-based fuels. As a general rule, the thicker the fuel, the longer the chains.

What is the reason for someone who walked out of sixth-form chemistry three weeks before the finals to start talking organic chemistry, you ask?

Jet fuel. 


Jet fuel is a petroleum based fuel, and (although for some reason a lot of people think it's benzene, the wonderful ring hydrocarbon of awesomeness and ourobouros that brightens up every AS-level organic chemistry paper...) it is composed almost entirely of a variety of these simple hydrocarbons (again, keyword Alkane, because sooner or later I'm going to forget that not everyone knows that word).

In burning any alkane, we have the formula I opened with:

CnH(2n+2) + (2n+1/2)O2 >>>>> nCO2 + (n+1)H20

 To give this context, lets talk about methane. With just one carbon, it's the simplest, 

To burn methane, we need one molecule of methane and two and a half of oxygen gas (this is a theoretical burning, so we can have half of a molecule), and we'll produce one molecule of carbon dioxide and two of water. 

So in burning methane (getting swiftly to the crux of this matter) you produce half as many carbon dioxide molecules as you produce water.


At this stage you may well wonder where I'm going with this. 

It ends up at jet trails. And it's less convoluted than you might expect. 


If you burn ethane, with two carbons, you end up producing two carbon dioxides for every water molecule.

Propane produces 3 carbon dioxide, four water. (75%)

Butane produces 4 carbon dioxide, five waters. (


And so it follows. For every Carbon chain you burn, you produce one more water molecule than you produce carbon dioxide.


Now, it may interest you to know that, at fixed temperature and pressure, one mole of any gas occupies the exact same amount of space as another.

This is useful because a mole is a numerically-derived unit, which we can divide by about 602,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 to get to the statement:

"one molecule of any gas at a fixed temperature and pressure takes up exactly the same amount of space".

Now comes the jet fuel/jet trails bit.

The jet trail is formed by water molecules in fuel emissions being spewed out into the pretty-cold atmosphere, where the sudden temperature drop causes them to condense and form clouds. 

While there is a fair amount of Diana Rossing (chain reactions in me-speak) leading to the formation of what eventually becomes a cirrus cloud, while the trail is still a clear line leading from the tail end of the jet, it's still composed mostly of the water from the jet's own burning fuel. 

This is all very exciting, of course.

Along with this water, comes fractionally less of carbon dioxide, taking up fractionally less space. In the best case scenario, with the burning of methane, there is half as much carbon dioxide you can't see being spewed into the sky as there is water that you can see (because it condenses). 

Methane is the best case scenario, and a very unrealistic one at that. In widely used jet fuels, ratios vary but chain lengths hover between 5 and 16 - so CO2 to water ratios at the plane-end hover between 5/6 (83.3%) and 16/17 (94.1%).



So for every jet-trail of rapidly-condensed water vapour across the sky, there's more than three-quarters that volume of carbon dioxide being spewed out, too.


Which, regardless of your stance on global warming, is really quite alarming. 




Go forth and smivel wisely. And cut back on air travel if you'd like coasts to stay roughly where they are...





P.S - This all came about while I was on the train, on the way to my driving theory test (which I aced, by the way), and trying to count the jet-trails etched across Hampshire's blue sky (which I failed to do. And I'm not mathematically impaired). Hampshire's airports combined wouldn't be expected to handle the volume of a recognised international airport such as Heathrow, Gatwick or the likes. Just so y'all know.

Olympic Closing Ceremony review... from BBC HD coverage.

It sucked.

The sound technician should be beaten with sticks for completely failing to do anything remotely resembling his job. 

In no particular order, these bits were the bits that, on their own, would have got marks slightly more than 3/10.

1) Boris Johnson waving a large piece of flammable material close to an open flame and potentially sparking an international conflict: 8/10 (Boris just gets voted in as mayor so that we can rely on free standup at the end of any major event). 

2) Eric Idle and his completely random dancers: 6/10 - it made no sense, but it was colourful and I may have laughed a little.

3) The Spice Girls (I'm so ashamed) - 8/10. Much as I hate to put crappy celebrities up there with the Boris, they were - unusually - making less about themselves and just playing their (awful) music as though they had a good sense of humour. Infinitely more enjoyable than expected, but that might have been because all the stars that people wanted to see were... not there.

4) Jessie J and "Queen" with... I can't even remember. Because it was less of a let-down than realising that neither David Bowie nor Kate Bush would actually be present, but instead some wierd people would do something symbolic yet completely irrelevant while their music played. 5/10 
[(also entertaining because it ran at the same time as my discovery that: a) My sister did not know who John Lennon was; b) She thought he died recently; and c) she didn't know that Freddie Mercury was dead (and yet has every Queen song ever on her computer)]

5) The bit at the beginning where there was an interesting set which was on screen for what, three minutes? Meanwhile a reliant robin was exploded by an amusing but tired Italian Job quote and Stomp was being entertaining (but seemed as though they were lid-synching). 6/10



And now, because the thing that we Brits do best (apart from the rest of the olympics) is moan, these were the very worst bits of the ceremony...

1) Beady Eye being so awful that for a moment I thought they were actually a cheesy cover band of Oasis. 1/10 (mark for showing up at all)


2) The sound technician being so bad at his job that you couldn't even hear half the acts. (Annie Lennox, Emili Sandé and the Who all seemed to be singing without a real microphone. Kaiser Chiefs were also difficult to hear, not sure if that's a bad thing, though). 0/10 for mucking up so many other things that could have been at least half decent otherwise.

3) The moment when you realised that the tap-dancing sound wasn't actually coming from Renato Sorriso's feet, but canned on the speakers. 2/10 for having such great choreography but faking it (the rest of the Brazil stuff gets a 5 or a 6, I'm not sure)

4) Fatboy Slim DJing when the octopus was infinitely more interesting and, frankly, a bit of Mighty Boosh, David Bowie or perhaps Yoko Ono's severed head would have been a more appropriate centrepiece to it. 3/10 because at least the sound was working and the octopus had so very much potential. 

5) George Michael being on stage at the beginning and by his turning up assuring us that it could only get better when it didn't, really. 0/10 because he seemed to think that it was all about him and it never seemed to end...

6) The exploding tightrope dummy. Just.... made no sense... why??? 2 points for randomness, -1 for lack of closure = 1/10.


One good thing about the awful ceremony was that the dull Belgian man (Jacques Rogge) who seems to turn up at all these ceremonies and talk into amusingly shaped microphones for too long seemed interesting by comparison. 

And the final thing that I am very pleased with is that I said during the ceremony that it seemed an appropriate transition from the public-spirity goodness of the Olympics, focusing on all those people acheiving greatness through hard work, to the typical UK grimy, cheesy, unimpressive celebrity culture, underwhelming events and mind-numbing dullness. Today, quite a few reviewers seem to agree. Not least the awesome Lynne Truss.

I have considered the possibility that the off-the-mark feel of the closing ceremony was an intentional but tongue in cheek reference to public expectations for the olympics, but I doubt it. 




It isn't really worth lynching Kim Gavin over, and Yoko Ono's hugely irrelevant Lennonface (ungraded) is not worth decapitating her for (and the piece could have been hilarious if it was a massive Lennonface-palm instead). But after the sheer awesomeness of the rest of the Olympics, it felt like it had been rushed together with no real thought, and as though Mr Bean had been asked to handle the artistic direction and forgotten to hire a choreographer.

Personal Statement Part ii... the elimination round.

So, having got past the "I hate me, how do I say that nicely in a personal statement?" part (here, in case you're interested),  I now have to find some way to whittle down the nauseating string of positive adjectives into a personal statement.



Based on the adjectives that I managed to twist out of my self loathing, I could say that I am an organised, committed, creative, engaging, positive, outgoing, flexible, contemplative, observant, unbiased, tolerant, reflective individual who is independent and happy to instigate, but good at taking a back seat, confident but constantly striving for self improvement and open to criticism, passionate and enthusiastic but having perspective, taking a balanced view, knowledgeable and with a thirst for knowledge, assertive with good prioritising skills and attention to detail, looking for work in the environmental sector with a long-term view of furthering my higher education.

But that is long, boring and wordy. Not that I'm in a position to, but I wouldn't hire someone so... immodest. In fairness, if I was a recruiter (which I am not), I would prefer to hire someone who put no personal statement because they feel that singing one's own praises is trite and - more importantly - vain.

I feel slightly unwell. And the point of the exercise is to feel better about myself, not to want to vomit on myself.

Because of the way that I  came up with these adjectives (which is far too long to go into within brackets) some of these words are redundant. The next task, then, is to group associated and/or interchangeable words:





positive
knowledgeable / engaging

contemplative / reflective
observant / attention to detail / organised


flexible/ independent / happy to instigate / creative / good prioritising skills
confident / assertive / outgoing

flexible / tolerant / good at taking a back seat


tolerant / open to criticism / striving for self improvement
committed / passionate / enthusiastic / thirst for knowledge

having perspective / taking a balanced view / unbiased

You may notice that flexible and tolerant are both included twice: flexible because it says that I can lead or follow (independent or taking a back seat), tolerant because it says that I can take leadership and advice (taking a back seat and open to criticism.

So the next step is to try and make sure it doesn't sound cliche. 

Let's get rid of:

Positive - in the current economic climate, it says a lot about you that you can spend 8 months unemployed and stay positive, but it's a little bit... peripheral.

Attention to detail - I was on a "how to get employed" course a while ago (can you tell it didn't work?) and one of the words that everyone used and it annoyed me that the lovely instructor didn't pick up on was "Attention to detail." I'm not exaggerating when I tell you that out of the five other people there, all of them included "Attention to detail" on their draft personal statements.

Of the two remaining, observant and organised... organised is not something to boast about. It's either required or not required, and you're not expected to apply for administrative posts if you're not organised. Stating the obvious in such an application might make them question whether you are actually organised. Well, if they were me.

So that's out.

(Do bear in mind that recruitment agencies use the most twattish thing ever to sift through CVs - automated keyword searches. And guess what? Automated keyword searches ignore the people that have used more original language and go for the drones. However, quite where in your CV the word is doesn't matter to the bot, so it could be an idea to put spare/commonly used words... between the lines*)

Between contemplative and reflective, I would tend towards contemplative. Reflective conjures images of someone daydreaming philosophies in the back of biology class. It's out.

Because they are a little less wound, the "independent" words are difficult to get rid of. Independent itself is again, a bit of a cliche and (I think I recall hearing) has gained a sort of stigma as it may mean that someone is impossible to get on with. It's out. Good prioritising skills feels like organised - if you're applying for a position where you have to prioritise, and you're saying you can lead, it's pretty much assumed that you know where you stand on getting the cake out of the oven or the baby out of the burning building. And less cut-and-dry cases. It's gone. 

Flexible is generally a useful one to keep in, and creative I'm going to hold onto as it's a little bit outside of the "independent" box. Happy to Instigate, then, is going to stand for independent here (although it is liable to tweaking later in the game...)

Outgoing sounds too much "I'm going to climb a mountain and then jump out of a plane" for most jobs (although I would imagine it's a useful hidden keyword for sales positions). Confident sounds a little bit overblown ("I know I'm wonderful, just hire me!" sort of thing). That may be the point, but Assertive is a good word because it tells them that you're not going to be in their face, but that you aren't going to just sit back and take abuse, either. It is possibly a bit cliche, but it's cliche because it's a very good thing to be that is not a prerequisite, and, if you have an assertive bone in your body (even if, like mine, it's in one of your toes), it may be worth keeping it (the adjective, not the bone) in for the semi-final.

I'm in two minds about Tolerant. It sounds a little bit like Nick Griffin (British Nationalist Party racist bigot leader, just in case you didn't know) saying "Some of my best friends are black!" (Although I doubt he'd say something like that and lose his single voter). Regardless that it's not actually about seperating yourself from ethnic/religious intolerance, but rather about tolerating bosses who are assholes (with me being British, that means "donkeyholes", which is infinitely less insulting than the alternative and need not be censored), it sounds like you're trying to cover up that you're actually an intolerant jerk. It can be different in context, of course, and may be another useful hidden word.

Open to criticism versus striving for self improvement is dealt with as such: which one takes a more active role? Striving for self improvement. It says you're not just open to criticism, you actively seek out criticism and advice to make yourself better. It wins. 

Now we come to committed, passionate, enthusiastic and thirsty for knowledge. 

These ones are difficult. The first three sound a little bit cliche, and thirsty for knowledge sounds wierd without one of them. It's going away (for now). Eager to learn may be a better one to say that you eat knowledge for breakfast, but if we use striving for self improvement, we cover that ground anyway.

Passionate is a little too informal, unless you're going for good cause work. It's disappearing from generic personal statementland in the meantime. Committed and enthusiastic work reasonably well together, so they both stay, for now. 

Taking a balanced view is clearly a messy way of saying unbiased. It's going, although unbalanced is another one for the invisible keywords if I suspect auto-filters are in use. As for having perspective... it sounds like it would be appropriate if you're applying to work in, for example, a funeral home, and are no stranger to grief, but it sounds a little out of place otherwise. Unbiased is great if you want to be a judge, but Objective might be better here.

So far, then, we're down to:
Knowledgeable, Engaging, Striving for self improvement, Contemplative, Observant, Flexible, Happy to Instigate, Creative, Assertive, Good at taking a back seat,  committed, enthusiastic and Objective.

This still seems a bit much - if I was to say:

"I am a knowledgeable and engaging  zoology graduate from the University of Nottingham, looking for work in the [e.g. customer service industry]. I am assertive but observant and flexible, happy to instigate or to take a back seat, and would enthusiastically commit to a role that makes the most of my objectiveness while challenging my creativity and allowing opportunities for self improvement."

it would seem a little bit... crowded. In particular Objectiveness doesn't seem to fit in, and the "but" between assertive and observant makes it seem as though we're using assertive as a euphemism for aggressive (when we just want to say we're capable of aggression when required). 

One option is to thrown in a third sentence (radical, I know):

"I am a knowledgeable and engaging  zoology graduate from the University of Nottingham, looking for work in the [e.g. catering industry]. I am observant, flexible and assertive, capable of instigation and objectively taking direction.  I would enthusiastically commit to a role that challenges my creativity and provides opportunities for self-improvement."

It's pretty keyword rich, and can't be read more than a couple of times, but as a basic structure, it works (more or less...).

However, I don't want something to work more or less - I want something that works. 

And that brings us to the next major hurdle in trouble. 

The first thing I do when proofreading anything (usually longer things, to be fair) is read them aloud. And reading it aloud, I'm getting rid of objective. It just doesn't fit. Other than that, it seems to be ready for someone else to tell me whether it's alright, and to go in pulp CVs in between... 



"I am a knowledgeable and engaging zoology graduate from the University of Nottingham, looking for work in the retail industry. I am observant, flexible and assertive, capable of instigation and taking direction, and would enthusiastically commit to a role that challenges my creativity and provides opportunities for self-improvement."





In other news, I have a rejection from Cardiff on their otters job.

Not unexpected, and at least they got back to me. And it wasn't right after the closing date, either, which means they must have thought about it. I would make this relevent by saying that they would have given me the job if I'd had a personal statement, but as it turns out, most of the jobs I apply for don't even want to see your CV, but rather require you to fill out an application form.









*By between the lines I mean throw invisible keywords into your CV. By colouring them white and putting them either in headers or footers or after fullstops, you keep them invisible but make sure the bots don't pass you by because you can think for yourself and/or use a thesaurus. 

Personal Statement... Finding something nice to say when I hate myself.

DISCLAIMER - while the following post lists a few psychopathologies that I once believed I suffered from, I recognise that I do not suffer from any of these - certainly not to a clinical level - and do not wish to give the impression that I am comparing my own problems to those of people who actually do suffer from debilitating psychopathologies. 



So I need to write a personal statement (because apparently every CV needs one... (although seeing as the person that told me that told me that I have zero chance of ever getting a job anyway... should I really bother?)). 

The first thing that I've heard you should do is come up with a list of adjectives to describe yourself. 

This is also the first place where I typically fail. There are two reasons for this:

1) If I spend too much time thinking about it, I realise that I hate myself.

2) Although I disagree on many of the details, I broadly agree with Bandura, Mischel and the other one's Social Learning Theory derived view that there is no such thing as personality, just a series of context-dependent behaviours derived from previous experience. 

As you may gather from the second point, I did A-level Psychology.

But before you run away screaming in fear of some pre-academic wittering on as though an A-level gives you any real grasp of a subject (which it doesn't), this is not about Psychology.

This is about something much, much worse. 

Me. 

As you may gather from it being enormous and bold, this next bit is the crucial take-away point here.

I spent the entire A-level self-diagnosing with just about every personality disorder going.

Which I now realise may have some purpose. 

I shall start by listing the things that I thought could be wrong with me...

Psychopathologies:

1) OCD.

2) Paranoid Schizophrenia.

3) Bipolar/Manic Depression.

4) Mild(ish) Sociopathy.

5) Autistic. 

6) Insecure Avoidant (Ainsworth and Bell).

The next step is to outline the behaviours that were suggestive of each of these issues.

1) "OCD" - certain things (not all) must be in perfect order. Once order is lost from said things (most notably books, DVDs, and other things for which the order does not technically matter), my life descends into chaos and hope vanishes. When something in my life has been interfered with by someone else, the pit of despair is most readily escaped from by scattering a couple of hundred DVD cases on the floor and alphabetising them.

Or filing a photograph of an insect in detailed taxonomy.

2)i) "Paranoid schizophrenia" - I get less done than I should because some part of me constantly criticising everything I do and evaluating every action for the worst outcome that can be "reasonably" expected (for which we add another little discussion point (below)), and it's not unusual for me to think that randomers on the street are talking about me/laughing at me. Narcissistic on some twisted level, I know. But having been teased (not in my imagination) quite extensively at school, not unrealistic.

2)ii) My version of reasonable is a little beyond reasonable. Aged 21 I convinced myself that an entire suburb of Nottingham was in a Different dimension. One year on I still half-believe that any footpath I haven't seen before is a portal to the distant past. And don't even get me started on swimming alone. 

3) "Bipolar/manic depression": Everyone has ups and downs. On the extreme up, I have thought I was some kind of God (I'll not be specific here in case any real ones out there get offended and smite me where I sit), and at the lowest end (most recently brought about by the evil bitch nice lady at hell the job centre), the thought of laying my head down on the road in front of the wheel of a moving bus and seeing it pop like a grape was very tempting. In the "up" phase, I impart more information than anybody needs to know about any point anyone bothers to make, and tend to dominate conversations whether anyone wants me to or no. In the down phase, I want a hollywood style apocalypse to wipe out everyone on the planet except me and perhaps a few tolerable acquaintances. 

4) "Mild(ish) Sociopathy" - I am uncomfortably aware that my moral priorities do not always match up with everyone else's. I'm not certain that anyone finds morality as an instinct, but I do suspect that most are not as coldl and analytical in their moral decisions. This is - unusually - not something I consider to be a negative. I usually know whether something I do is right or wrong because I have almost always taken the time to think about it. A lot of people think they separate right from wrong but are actually just following through with what they society expects them to see as right and wrong, and are thus at more dangerous of "following the traffic" over the speed limit (e.g. Nazi Germany, Boer War etc.). 

5) "Autistic" - a general failure to understand the pleasure in certain popular pastimes. Other than that, the key points of this are distributed through the others. 

6) Insecure Avoidant - This is the only one that I am confident actually applies. I have a difficulty with long-term attachments to people (strangely, I have difficulty not becoming attached to almost anything else). The trouble with my response to feelings of social inadequacy is that - when in a social situation where I feel uncomfortable, I have taken to pushing myself right through that door, becoming apparently extroverted, egotistic and showing my atrocious sense of humour for all to see. So the people who don't run screaming think that I have a special bond with them, and then I fail to make any contact for three years... Some people tolerate this (and become what could be loosely termed friends) others can get offended. 

Part three involves breaking these down into adjectives.

1) "OCD" -  Organised(Easy); Stubborn;

2) "Paranoid Schizophrenic" i) Self Critical; Self-evaluating; Negative; Pessimistic;

                                               ii) Delusional;

3) "Bipolar" - Can appear to be: Egotistic; Depressive; Loquatious; Know-it-all; Self-destructive; Extroverted; Inconsistent; Verbose; Quiet; Non-contributary; Domineering; Aggressive; Defensive; Passive; Disinterested; Exciteable; Insecure; (see why I thought I was bipolar?);

4) "Mild(ish) Sociopathy" - Cold; Analytical; Utilitarian; Amoral (but not immoral);

5) "Autistic" - Socially inadequate;

6) Insecure Avoidant - Antisocial; Shy; Introverted,

Dissociate from their roots and list them:

Organised,     Stubborn,     Self Critical,     Self Evaluating,     Negative,     Pessimistic     Delusional,     Egotistic,     Depressive,     Loquatious,     Know-it-all,     Self Destructive,     Extroverted,     Inconsistent,     Verbose,     Quiet,     Non-contributary,     Domineering,      Aggressive,     Defensive,     Passive,     Disinterested,     Exciteable,     Insecure,     Cold,      Analytical,     Utilitarian,     Amoral,     Socially inadequate,     Antisocial,     Shy,     Introverted.

Find something positive to say about each one (or at least neutral). 

Use a thesaurus as necessary

(highlighted red is negative, green is positive and yellow is somewhere in between)

• Organised is already positive.
• Stubborn shows commitment - Committed. 
• Self-Critical and Self Evaluating both suggest that I Strive for self-improvement.
• Negative/Pessimistic/Depressive(you could say Realistic) - can we say Balanced? Is that appropriate here? Yes, perhaps I'm not emotionally well-balanced, but by contemplating the worst possible scenarios I certainly Take a Balanced View...
• Delusional - Creative 
• Egotistic - is more pleasantly described as Confident 
• Loquatious/Verbose - is effectively the same as Engaging 
• Know-it-all - twists nicely to Knowledgeable
• Self Destructive... difficult... one can't say committed, because I am certain that I will not actually self destroy... which suggests that I consider something worth living for, which means that on some level I am Positive.
• Extroverted isn't really a negative, but it becomes more broadly applicable if I say that I am Outgoing
• Inconsistent shows that I am Flexible.
• Quiet could be taken to mean that I am Contemplative
• Passive and Non-contributary mean that I am Capable of Taking a Back Seat.    
• Domineering is also Instigative. That is a word, but not a great one. Lets keep it simple by saying that I am Happy to Instigate.
• Aggressive is similar... definitely not a positive... unless we combine it with Defensive and conclude that I am Assertive when required.
• Disinterested means that I am.... How the hell does anyone make that positive? That's a little bit like republicans trying to make their wilful ignorance seem positive. So where does my disinterest stem from? I say that I'm disinterested because on occasion I have the attention span of a gnat, which is largely because I've become Interested in something else, so you could turn this one right around and say that I have a Thirst for Knowledge. 
• Exciteable? Is it entirely a negative when it just shows that I am Passionate and Enthusiastic?
• Socially Inadequate and Insecure just says that I have doubts about myself and my abilities, which basically says that I am Open to Criticism. 
• Cold is the same as Detached, which says that I can take a step back and put things in Perspective.
• Analytical? Is this a negative? Not in context. It says that I am Observant and have good Attention to Detail. 
• Utilitarian... could once - and in certain situations still could - be considered a positive. However, for the purposes of this exercise, let's say that I am Unbiased and able to Prioritise.
• Amoral - we've already covered that I don't see this as entirely negative, and by seperating me from the blind morality that people draw from societal expectations, I'd say this makes me Tolerant of other people's world views. 
• Antisocial - obviously I don't mean this in the sense of vandalism and violent crime (neither of which I do or support). I'm using it in more-or-less the same way as Shy.  And if I don't always want to be in a crowd, that must meant that I'm happy working alone, which means that I am Independent. 
• Introverted is generally used as a euphemism for shy, which tells you that its meaning is not innately negative. A negative spin would really be Self-Absorbed, so finding the positive of that to escape the negative association with shy says that I am Reflective. 

So, in addition to producing a nauseatingly fauvist spread of highlighted descriptive words and phrases, I have managed to show myself that I am:

Organised;  Committed;  Creative;  Confident;  Engaging;  Knowledgeable;  Positive;  Outgoing;  Flexible;  Contemplative;  Assertive;  Interested;  Passionate;  Enthusiastic;  Observant; Unbiased;  Tolerant;  Independent;  Reflective;  Open to Criticism;  Capable of Taking a Back Seat;  Good at Prioritising;  Happy to Instigate;  Striving for Self-Improvement;  Taking a Balanced View;  Having a Thirst for Knowledge;  Having Perspective; and Having Good Attention to Detail.

The next step is to flesh these out into a personal statement.

I'll get back to you on that one.

Oh, and by the way...

SMIVEL

Disclaimer 2: In addition to recognising that I do not claim to suffer from any of the above listed disorders, please note that saying that I can be Depressive/Depressed is not the same as saying that I suffer from Clinical/Major Depression. There has been an unfair tendency to criticise those who use the word for anything other than the diagnosable disorder, but it literally means that one is feeling down. Which covers everything from having a bad morning to wanting to kill yourself, and is not limited to meaning the disorder.

Smivel out.  

See part ii here

To do list... Eurgh.

So, I currently lead what others might term a spectacularly uninteresting existence.

As such, it seems only rational that I should make a to do list of how to escape the "Life Fail" category of people.

This is more or less how it flows:


1) Get a job.

2) Get a better computer

3) Get back to enjoying photo editing, animation and writing without cursing the effing computer for crashing every thirty seconds.

4) Improve on all counts.

5) Get famous.

6) Get rich.

7) Buy Victoria Province, Au (or the whole of Ausland if obscene fortune permits)

8) Set up awesome captive breeding program for endangered amphibians, reptiles and relict groups of "higher" vertebrates.

9) Do this on stilts (remember, Victoria Province has a C20 year flood cycle).

10) Simultaneously restore large areas of native forest, thereby stabilising first local, and then nationwide climate.

11) Become Australia's favourite person.

12) Get Australian Citizenship.

13) Learn to like Beer.

14) Be Australian.


I'm currently stuck around stage one (the get a job bit) so it seems necessary (strangely) to create an entire to-do list for this level.

Currently, I'm working with a sort of flow-chart of fail that goes like this:

ACTION 1:                                                Search for job
DECISION 1:                               Are jobs available?
            YES (80%) - continue to Action 2                                        NO (20%)- Cry and return to Action 1

ACTION 2:                                 Check person specification
DECISION 2:                                       Do I (even remotely) qualify?
            YES (<10%) - Continue to action 3                                  NO (>90%) - Cry and return to Action 1

ACTION 3:                  Dance around in elation at having prospects
DECISION 3:                                           Still happy and hyper?
           YES (100%) - Continue to Action 4                               NO (not possible) - Prepare popcorn for
                   (and quickly, Puto!)                                                         imminent implosion of universe.

ACTION 4:                             Apply with lightning speed
DECISION 4:                   Did you remember to attach your CV to the e-mail?
        YES (100%) - Breathe sigh of relief,                                     NO (?) - Cry. Hard. Attach and resend.
                Continue to Action 5.                                                                Continue to Action 5

ACTION 5:                                      Await first response
              (Because your ecstatic brain has decided this is the shelf-stacking position for you, and will not consider other avenues at this stage)
                                                                Continue to wait.
                                                      Grow increasingly depressed.
                                                      Waste time on Sporcle.com.
                                                               Recheck e-mail
                                                 Initiate parallel iterations from Action 1.
                                                      (and continue within this iteration)

EVALUATION 1:                            Does any response ever come?
           YES (<10%) - Squeal loudly.                                              NO - Sink further into pit of despair.
               Continue to Evaluation 2.                                                              Return to Action 1

EVALUATION 2:                                       Positive?
          YES (<1%) - Die of Excitement.                     NO: (>99%) - Contemplate the world philosophically.
          Revive and continue to Action 6.                                  Conclude that it is actually Hell.
                                                                            Drink tea and procrastinate online until this feeling passes.
                                                                                             (1 hour to a week, depending)
                                                                                                       Return to Action 1.

ACTION 6:                                                Attend Interview:
                     Be engaging, witty, positive and (difficult) consistent. 

Await feedback.

Keep Waiting.

Can't be long now. 

Wait some more. 

Suffer a down spell. Eat masses of sugar to control mood.

Add further parallel iterations from Action 1. 

Continue waiting. 

Wait...

Okay, they're not getting back to you.

 Give up hope and stop worrying about it.

Oh, wait, they got back to you.

They really liked you at interview (100%) and would like to offer you a job.

Accept.

Repeat this confirmation that you accept.

Await any further word from them.

Repeat your confirmation again, request details.

Actually, they've realised that they want someone longer term for this post. 

But they'll get back to you.

Smile and be friendly. 

Wonder when the hell you gave them the impression that you  gave them any reason to think you were only interested in a short term position.

Talk about this to the woman at the job centre.

Be told that because you have a degree (looks like prospects) and more than 3 months unemployment (looks like a negative) no-one would ever hire you.

Leave the job centre fighting the temptation to throw my head under the wheel of every moving car I see.

Spend a few days feeling devastatingly demotivated.

Return to Action 1. 

This obviously isn't working.

Obviously.

Really Obviously.

So I have a new (potentially more realistic)"To do list" on this level:

1) Revamp CV, including a personal statement (apparently it's not enough to have that in the cover letter).

2) Maintain a list of Applications (with dates).

3) Bite the bullet and call all non-responsive applications a week after application closing date.

4) Call up Temp agencies recently applied to. 

5) Pester the f***ers. 

I'm hoping this one might be a tad more successful. 






PS - Smivel and go forth.

The Lorax - Reviewdom.

(and potentially a mini-rant...)


So I was intending to spend this post fuming about being told that getting a degree and not securing a job the day after graduation has reduced my prospects to nil - by the [SARCASM ALERT]ever-so-nice [SARCASM ALERT] lady at the centre of being-here-makes-me-wonder-if-it-would-be-fun-to-lie-down-in-front-of-a-truck-and-die (A.K.A the Job Centre). I will probably be completely unable to refrain completely from doing so, but that's by the by.



And the reason it's by the by is because I just watched the Lorax. In 2D. 3D isn't worth the price-tag Cineworld puts on it... although frankly, for someone on my income, neither is 2D, but I have an Orange Phone and a few people who wouldn't actively complain if I said they were my friends (well, one), so I got away with it.

I had misgivings about it - Zac Efron, who puts the smug, the git and the can't act in smug git who can't act(although in fairness I'm probably just jealous because he has a career) is in it, and that never bodes well for my enjoyment of a film. I reasoned that since he was just voice-acting in it, he wouldn't have the opportunity to do a pointless scene just to reassure the male viewer that yes, he is still better looking than they are. Evidently, this was a good judgement.

The voice acting was good. I'm not talking about Anna Faris's performance in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, or Steve Carell in Despicable me (or anything else, for that matter), but the general range of emotions and tones suited the mood (and if you don't know that sometimes that doesn't work, see Flushed Away... Kate Winslet and Hugh Jackman are awesome, but they still didn't quite get it) and allowed the scenes to move as though they weren't in an imaginary version of this world where the only things trees are cut down for is -

I'm getting ahead of myself.

The voice acting was good. It more than satisfied requirements.

And then we get to the plot.

I'm going to go ahead and put a massive SPOILER ALERT here, in great big bold red letters, but I'll try and keep the details to a minimum.


The basic premise - dealing with the public push towards a sterile earth as a bad thing (unlike Meet the Robinsons, which treated the fake plastic future as an ideal) - was an automatic win for me. I like the environment (as should we all), and I feel that films that encourage adults and children to take a more active interest in protecting their environment are a must.

This plotline had a few flaws - first off, the original (and horrific) exploitation of the Dr Seuss-land trees seemed to be limited to a single purpose, where real trees are destroyed for just about every reason we can cook up (including biofuel... Grrr, sugarcane grown for biofuel irks me as much as oil palm and rape crops...). I'll forgive this, though, becuase they got in a lot of the innate usefulness of living trees, and it is possible to lose children's interest by overloading them.

The second big flaw was the same as Avatar's: yes, the film has a wonderful environmental message, but it's had a massive environmental impact, too.

I'm waiting for the DVD release to tell you how annoyed I am by this flaw. If it's in recycled, biodegradeable packaging, then all is forgiven. If not.... I shall be enormously irked by their lack of public commitment to a cause. Public commitment is the most important part for a film that aims to change people's minds, because if you're pressing a cause that you're not even seen to believe in, why should anyone think that it's important?

The more peripheral parts (beyond the natural levels of Dr Seuss-esque crazy, which are never unappreciated) were less consistent. There are two general plotlines - the plot which led to the historical destruction, and the plot which deals with a modern push for regeneration. The first one is flawless (although a number of details are annoying, especially the singing, I think that's intentional), but the second one feels like a couple of scenes were cut out.

Oh, also I loathe marshmallows. Just so y'all know. Because they may be delicious when you've charred the outside over an open fire, but a major ingredient (in most) is boiled hooves. Which is:
             a) repulsive;
             b) disgusting (slightly redundant, but worth saying twice);
             c) not given enough detail to allow children to safely keep Kosher, Halaal et cetera; and - most importantly for me;
             d) they're not vegetarian.

But the inappropriacy of a Walmart's worth of Marshmallows is nicely dealt with.

As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted by myself, the modern-day plotline has loads of potential, a few songs that could have done with being an eensy bit de-gained on the soundtrack (i.e. they were really loud) but seems to have been cut shorter to fit into the 94 minutes it takes up. A little more character development would have been nice before the Marvel Team-up, you know?

But it nicely represents the motivations of teenage boys, the typical three generation family dynamic, the conflict of corporate and public interests, and even the Mother Goose keep-the-world-tidy-and-sterile attitude which plagues the lawnmower and weedkiller nations (another thing that I think is an abomination against rationality is the weekly-mowed lawn. 2 weeks is healthier, 3 weeks allows lawn use and wildlife to interact on a much more positive level, and a single late winter scything, while not really creating a lawn, is the best thing you can do for wildlife while maintaining an open space in your garden). And it gets kudos for all of that.

There is one flaw which is done "for the children", which isn't really anything to do with this particular film, just irks me about a lot of children's films.  

Nothing ever dies. 

And yes, you could say that it's wrong to expose children to death. I disagree. You don't want to desensitize children to death, but it gives them a very unrealistic view of the world to insist that - for example - Spot the dog didn't die, he went to the farm. And we say it's for the children, but really it's for our own convenience, and it's another edge of the whole Mother Goose censorship that has permeated society and creates children who grow up to be people like me, with absolutely no real grasp of the functioning of real society.

So - and this is a spoiler - when the entire forest has been destroyed, the air turned to filth, and the water turned to gloop, not even one of the historical character's forest friends actually dies - they just leave. Sure, they're sad when they leave, because their beautiful home is gone, but it doesn't ring true. If just one of them had been shown to be suffering the effects of human greed in the realistic sense, it would have meant a lot more to the children than it actually did.

And yes, there would have been some children - like my sister - who would have made up a mother goose ending with a rose-tinted world in which everybody lived, but most children remember the tragedy of loss in the lion king far more strongly than they would have done if Scar had just deported Simba's father.



So, finishing that little side-track and going straight into the scores:

Visuals: 9/10 (because with Dr Suess, even the natural world is a little too kempt for me)
Writing: 8/10 (because some character could have done with a touch more development, and a little more realism would have helped drive the message home)
Voice Acting: 6/10 (it was good, but it had a way to go before it could be brilliant)
Songs/songwriting: overall, 8/10, but if it wasn't for each containing portions of pure genius, most of the songs would have got a 4/10.
Ambient Music: 10/10. Made the mood, set the pace, was quiet where it needed to be (Although the only animation I'd score less less than 9 for ambient music was Despicable Me, and that's entirely down to personal taste).

so, Overall: 8.2

and I went in expecting a six, at best.