Essay done...finally

[enismirdal]

Grattis på födelsedagen Zira, zavalfuin!

Many happy returns! (And thanks to Uli for the nifty phrase, hee hee!)

Am tired, it seems, and slightly stressed. Mondays seem to kill me off a bit. Which, typically, is the day when I have work to finish of for tomorrow. Never a lot, but enough to make me think, "Unflibble!"

I owe my flatmate the price of three onions, must not forget...

Something I read today made me think... Cambridge University, apparently, has the highest rate of depression in the UK. Why is it that the better/easier people have it, often, the harder it is for them to find happiness? It's a strange way for things to be.

Oh, btw, I'm now archived on OEAM! Go me! I've got Underestimated (updated, no Grelvish) up there already, and This Hope is on its way up. And, hopefully, an author profile, though not a very good one, I fear.

Am starting to think about Christmas cards. Might be fun to send them to LJ friends as well as RL friends, indeed :)

Comments

[requiem-17-23.livejournal.com]

Wasn't it Socrates who said that the better you expect things to be, the more disappointed and unhappy you are?

People with a gift - any gift - tend to assume things ought to go better for them because of this gift. This leads them to have higher expectations of life, which makes them almost permanently disappointed. This is not a good state for promotion of happiness. Thus gifted people tend to be less happy.

I'm probably wrong about which /particular/ loopy Greek thought that up, though...

[atreic.livejournal.com]

Err, I'm not even convinced people have things better / easier at Cambridge than at other places. We have the highest living costs outside London, and a more demanding and stressful workload than any other UK university

On top of that is the problem of people realising they're not "the best", which screws up a lot of people.

Also there's the theory that people can only be really good if they're broken in other interesting ways. I'm not sure I believe that one, but over history lots of the famous / talented / powerful people end up going mad and chopping off their own ears, etc.

Oh, Cambridge isn't that bad... ;)

[enismirdal.livejournal.com]

Well, it is the best university in the country - if you get into Cambridge, you are pretty much guaranteed an incredibly good education compared with most other universities. The people are wonderful, the town is beautiful, the supervision system means there are always people who really do care about you doing well.

The kind of pastoral nature of how things are set up means that even the most sheltered, common-sense-free geeks can moreor less manage to cope with daily life, and everything seems to be arranged for you, much of the time. You are pretty much guaranteed accommodation for 3 years, which most universities don't do, leaving some people at a bit of a loose end.

A lot of subjects give you an enormous amount of choice about where to take it, and BioNatSci, for example, is a wonderful way to allowpeople to make up their minds later once they know more about the subjects, rather than other unis, where you apply for a specific discipline. If I'd taken up my Warwick offer, I'd be doing Biochem now and, most likely, be despising it!

What else about Cambridge? Cheap college bars right close to where you live, lectures within a few minutes' walk (unless you're at Girton/Homerton or a Vet, or a Physicist). Any yeah, I guess we do have a stupidly hard workload at times...but we get the longest holidays anywhere!

And dude, MAY WEEK!

I think we got it pretty good, really...although yes, I guess the 'not the best' factor gets everyone to some extent.

Re: Oh, Cambridge isn't that bad... ;)

[psieye.livejournal.com]

>> lectures within a few minutes' walk (unless you're at Girton/Homerton or a Vet, or a Physicist)

1st year: Lectures are in 5 minutes' walk, or 10 at worst.
2nd year: Lectures are 10 minutes' walk, or 20 for some.
3rd/4th year: All lectures are 30 minutes' walk - 25 if you power walk.

Yes, Catz Physicists do walk a lot for lectures! :p