Casual Conversation

Stay where?

 

With a place, a thought, a person, an activity, a job, a marriage, a country, a plan. Anything.

 

Is that a word?

 

Exactly. I have rich friends who like to think that they got that way because of 'hard work'. In reality they work no harder than anyone else, they just happen to be in jobs which pay them a lot of money. The main reasons that has happened is through luck - luck that they were born in a rich country (Australia), that they had loving, supportive families, got a great education, are naturally intelligent and gifted in areas which the market determines they should be paid well for and luck that they came of employable age at the beginning of the IT boom.

On the other hand - imagine being born to a poor family in a war torn country, watching your family slaughtered before your eyes and you also happen to be not that smart. The chances that 'hard work' alone can lift you out of that are very, very slim.

 

It is, actually.

 

Is it the same as 'persevere'? Or is it a made up American word like 'conversate' instead of 'converse' or 'burglarise' instead of 'burgle'?

 

It's a word used by therapists to describe behaviors where people fixate on things.

 

So...they could just say 'fixate'. Funny old therapists!

 

I was looking for this thread last week, I remember it being a lot longer like 50 something pages,
Somebody told me Ray deleted it. What happened? How did it come back?

 

"Perseverate" has been used for ages. It makes the clinicians sound way more knowledgeable than if they use a mundane word like "fixate".

 

In clinical psychology, especially when talking about autism or OCD, the two words have different connotations.

Perseverate refers to behaviors that continue to be repeated even after the object/event is removed. Wino used the word in reference to autism where perseverate fits very well.

It's not a big deal. Colloquially, the two are used interchangeably.

 

The 'casual' and actually 'conversation' got twisted. I like this one better anyway

I know in my experience it was a totally different road that I thought I'd be on. Having been born in America and being raised in the middle class afforded me the opportunity to move into a higher career level than I ever dreamed of. It was a coincidence along with luck and schooling that got me to where I could retire and still afford to have my own home. I didn't want much but got a whole lot more than I thought I'd get

 

Some days it's the island of Lilliput. Some days it's the island of Brobdingnag. Other days it's the same old jungle. It's time for some Swift again.

 

Did Stepehenie Meyer hit a jackpot with her Twilight books or what! I did not like them at all, but then I am not a tween. I do know several adults that went crazy for that series.

What I do love is how she got the idea in a dream and just sat down to write. Well, her three kids and the generation after them will not want for anything thanks to Edward and Bella ;D

 

There seems to be a new device out every month that works to capture individual attention. How many more ways can we come up with to keep people prisoners in their little electronic bubbles?

 

It will only get better.

 

I took this photo of intrepid's bathroom



when I borrowed "The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner" - The Twilight serries companion novella

 

Ooops! Cat's out of the bag now

 

The extraordinary syllabi of David Foster Wallace. Michael, you might like this!

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/roiphe/2011/11/david_foster_wallace_s_syllabus_is_there_any_better_.single.html

Some of DFW's teaching materials at UT Austin:

http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/press/releases/2010/dfw/teaching/#syllabus