Squizz's Fizzy Diary

redsquirrel80

Weeding.. well from the flower bed we only really weed grass, dandelions, and a plant which I don't know what it is but has very recognizable leaves and the slugs love hiding under it! Other than that, just leaving it to see what comes up. A few things have self-seeded from last year - some with a bit of help from me, so hoping it should be nice and colourful by summer

Karmacat

I love the ones that self seed! In my old garden, the grape hyacinths took over in one of the terraces, and in the front there was a patch of marguerites about 6' x 8', it was fantastic.

redsquirrel80

Lovely! Lots of poppies here and some, erm, purple things, and some sort of bittercress that has exploding seed pods

Just thinking.. this treats budget is great.. but I can't think of anything I want at the moment :rotfl:

Ellidee

Hey Squizz who is the S.E. who commented on fb after me ? We have friends in common so I guess I should 'know' her too ! x

redsquirrel80

Ellidee wrote: »

Hey Squizz who is the S.E. who commented on fb after me ? We have friends in common so I guess I should 'know' her too ! x

It's se999 on here

Just been to a student open afternoon to give out information - was dead quiet, would say it was waste of an afternoon but I did get to gossip with a woman from another part of our office for two hours

boredofbeingathome

redsquirrel80 wrote: »

Weeding.. well from the flower bed we only really weed grass, dandelions, and a plant which I don't know what it is but has very recognizable leaves and the slugs love hiding under it! Other than that, just leaving it to see what comes up. A few things have self-seeded from last year - some with a bit of help from me, so hoping it should be nice and colourful by summer

I have a rockery in my front garden and i love seeing what new plants come up in it every year as it is a fav for the birds hopping along it. I reckon they drop a lot of seeds, so they in turn flower..i have some lovely little yellow star flowers which self seed and come up every year.:D

redsquirrel80

They sound lovely Bob - it's all very exciting We now have a pea sprouting on the windowsill (I planted a few but the first one has just sprouted), tiny basil seedlings and tiny wild garlic seedlings.. lovely and sunny today so hopefully they'll have another growth spurt. Far too nice to be stuck indoors all day... hmmph!

Got a good chunk of studying done last night - really enjoying this section of the course on Emotions, got all sorts of things scribbled down that I want to read up on when I get a chance. In particular there's some quite interesting things that lead into mental health issues.. which is a bit of a growing area at the moment.. http://www.uclan.ac.uk/information/courses/ma_pgdip_pgcert_philosophy_and_mental_health.php

Still not thought of anything I want to treat myself to from my treats budget - maybe that means the budgeting is working?

Karmacat

Is that the course you're doing, Squizz? I got my Diploma in Astronomy from UCLan! About ten years ago now, but it was one of the early distance learning things, and the woman there was brilliant. Plus there was an optional weekend at their own astronomy study centre, which has several smaller telescopes and a huge one in its own dome, it was fab!

I'm sure I should say something useful about emotions and mental health, seeing as wot my job is, but compared to astronomy it kind of loses out I really should have chucked in the counselling training twenty years ago and gone out to the Mojave Desert to be a support worker in a private spaceflight company :D:D

redsquirrel80

No, I'm doing http://www3.open.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/course/aa308.htm at the moment. Might look at the UCLan one or something similar once I'm finished.. the thing that's really making my brain 'buzz' at the moment is the idea that emotions are 'intentional' i.e. directed towards something, but theories of emotion have trouble with things like depression or anxiety which seem to be like emotions but have no 'intentional object'.. and one of the things that is so difficult about depression etc is that it doesn't seem to be 'about' anything. I'm also quite interested in the idea that emotions are involuntary and uncontrollable - what about when we 'make' ourselves feel an emotion - by thinking about something sad (e.g. actors trying to make themselves cry for a scene), or "thinking happy thoughts"...? Some of the theories say we can't control emotions, but some say we can - some take them to be judgements, and we can decide how to judge a situation.

Sorry rambled a bit there! Lots of other things I'm pondering too - are emotions primitive or modern and sophisticated? How do we 'learn' emotions as we grow up?

Ahh you'd have been wonderful in the desert, I see you wondering around in a spacesuit for some reason.. but you are wonderful anyway, I bet the difference you've made to people through your work is amazing

Karmacat

Of course you're OU! I wasn't thinking, sorry ... emotions ... hmmm..... I've had to evolve my own theories, based on other stuff - there are plenty of superficial things we can control, at least temporarily - but if you try to control too much for too long, they'll come back and bite you - not necessarily in the way you expect, either. In my view of emotions, depression and anxiety aren't emotions in themselves, they're *covers* for emotions - underneath depression is usually anger, for example, and under anxiety is fear. Not foolproof, but enough for a working hypothesis.

I know that theory about emotions being judgements, and so controllable, tho I hadn't heard it put that way - again, what I work with is that many emotions don't make sense in the present (e.g. being furious with somebody because they're walking too slowly in front of you) but they do make sense in the past, e.g. in childhood you were trapped somewhere - the sense of confinement is the same, and thats why the sense memory of the old emotion is triggered, and dumped unfairly onto some hapless passerby who just happens to be walking slowly.

Getting people to make those connections and heal them (e.g. stop dumping on hapless passersby) is a huge part of my job. I'd better stop - I'm sure I just missed a trading signal :eek: - maybe I am quite interested in this stuff after all