Week 3 Assignment

1. What evidence can you find for synchronicity?

Well, the example I used in class last week was when I was still living in Michigan (Not many of my stories really have to do with living OUT of Michigan, considering I've only been in Cali for about five weeks now). In any case, it was a few years ago when I was driving my second car (A white 1987 Pontiac Grand Prix, for those curious) home from the mall with my girlfriend at the time, Carolyn. I mentioned her in my first post regarding a recovered memory.

Anyway, for the weeks previous, I'd been trying to tune into myself and how I felt and what I was thinking and how my body reacted before, during, and after seeing a police car. Eventually, it became something like an intuition that I could sense cop cars, and oftentimes where they were in space compared to me.

I'd been trying to hone this skill, and for the better part of that summer (I did a lot of driving of both her car and mine, so it was easy to practice), I could feel when cops were around me. I suppose it could be seen as coincidence, but it's more interesting (and more fun) to see it as something that I controlled, something that could be made sharper or left to become dull.

But I digress...

It was night time (probably about 10-1030pm, so outside of head- and streetlights, you couldn't see much. This particular street only had a few streetlights, so it wasn't as if I could see what was ahead of me. As we passed an intersection, a somewhat familiar feeling washed over me and I turned to Carolyn and said "There's a cop next to us." She was puzzled by the statement, but as I looked in my rearview mirror, a white car with typical Holland P.D. markings pulled out and turned the same direction I was heading.

When I've told this story before, I compared that skill to that of a radar detector but I obviously had far less sensitivity to it than the circuits of something specifically designed for that purpose.

I feel that this is one of my better experiences with synchronicity. I also noticed that as Fall rolled around and school started back up, I was driving less, and the ability to know where cops were feel to the wayside as my homework assignments started picking up.

2. Based on what you know, how would you explain connectivity?




I think the Zits comic above is one of the better examples of connectivity and synchronicity. Jeremy is always able to tell who's calling as the phone is ringing. His mom refers to him as the "Human premium phone package."

Anyway, I believe that some people can take that connectivity and, as I did in my story above, hone it to the point of an ability and use it when they want to. I know people who have been friends so long that, in a moment of complete silence, a simple look to one another can tell them what they're thinking. And once that moment has passed, both of them will burst out laughing because of how their connection works, and because they both fully understand what was going to be said, or what needed to be said.

As for an explanation, I don't really think I can give anything terribly concrete. Or at least, what I believe as my explanation isn't something I can fully put into words. As I mentioned above, I believe that an instance of synchronicity can be isolated and focused upon, and that once a person knows how to utilize it, that they'll be able to use it when they want or need; or in my case with the cop story above, it will just passively happen as long as you're aware of how you feel and what you might be thinking.

I think that's probably as much as I can say, although I fear it may already be too convoluted.

Week 2 Assignment

1. Your reflections on uncertainty.

This poses an interesting question, to me. Let's start it off this way; when I think of the concept of certainty, the thing that comes first to mind is that old, somewhat depressing line: "The only thing certain in life is death and taxes."

I feel like in some ways this is absolutely true, because so much in life is random and, well, uncertain. There are degrees of certainty and uncertainty, I think, though. A good example might be how I came to be in the East Bay.

Two and a half years ago, in my second semester at Baker College, I was in a class that taught energy massage therapy techniques, like Reiki and polarity therapy. The one thing I really remember from the class is how to balance Chakras, but that's neither here nor there.

As I may have told many of you, the midterm for this class was to experience one of the modalities we learned about, and I chose acupuncture. Long story short, I ended up wanting to go to school for acupuncture, and decided on a school in Seattle called Bastyr University. I applied twice, the first time they told me that I didn't have enough, or even the right credits to apply, and that my application was withdrawn. The second time, roughly a year later, I happily resubmitted, two shining letters of recommendation, my resume, and my transcripts.

A few months later, I was called by the director of admissions and told that they'd like to interview me. This was further than I had gotten in my previous attempt, so I was happy. I assumed that because I was in Michigan that they'd simply do it over the phone, but not so. Within two days, I spent roughly $600 on a plane ticket and hotel for a month and a half later (mid-May). The interview went well enough, although my outfit was a little lax for what they seemed to want; lax enough that they felt the need to point it out, which I was slightly annoyed at. I decided afterwards that if a school is going to base who they accept on what they wear, then I don't even want to go there.

Either way, it was a massive shock when I got the letter in the mail telling me to try again next year. Immediately I was freaking out. The rug had basically been pulled out from under me (definitely a good week and a half of uncertainty here, which was NOT a good feeling). Eventually I found AIMC's website, and sent off an email in a hurry, with a quick reply from Roselle telling me that they were still accepting students, that my credits were sufficient, and that they can do the interview over the phone.

I'd use the "long story short" cliche again, but I think we're well past that point. Anyway, I was accepted to AIMC, and a short time later I was buying my train ticket to the Emeryville station. I was full of relief that the feeling of certainty had been returned to me.

Apologies for the long story, especially considering I have two more questions to answer.

2. Your comments on Causality

Let's see..Cause and effect..

I had written a paper once back in my second year of college regarding Causality. Most people picked topics like why people become murders or rapists or alcholics, and then did their research and wrote their paper. I didn't want to do anything that simple or common, so I started writing on topics that came to mind. I went through three before figuring out that this assignment was harder than the professor had made it out to be.

Finally, I realized that my topic was staring straight at me, and I chose: Why I Can't Think of a Topic.

Obviously there's no research to be done there, and I just had to write my paper off of opinions and personal experience, but I figured it was a solid enough topic that I should get the B I needed to pass the class. The paper was written, turned in, and handed back a week later with a perfect grade, with a note telling me that she would like use it as an example in her future classes.

Not entirely sure what that has to do with cause and effect, but it's a good little story.

I'm not sure if I subscribe to the totality of causality (the rhyme was completely unintentional, but makes me laugh regardless) such as the Chaos Theory, in that if a butterfly flaps its wings, there will be a storm on the other side of the planet. I do believe that some things can have that effect, but I don't feel like something on such a small scale could have such a grand impact.

3. Is the Universe weird?

I think I would have to say yes. I'm not sure you'll find many people to answer this question differently. But now that I'm trying to find the words to explain just why I think the universe is weird, they escape me. I think it might be one of those things that people can see in their periphery, but once they look directly at it, it disappears (This analogy brought to you by the TV show, Dead Like Me. If you've seen it, I think you'll know what I'm referring to, hahah)

Assignment for Week 1

Answers to this week's quiz:

1. What attracts me to Chinese medicine?

Well, during the middle of my first year working toward my massage therapy degree, I took an Energy Massage Techniques class. The midterm project for this class was to experience one of the modalities we'd learned about that dealt with energy (Acupuncture, Reiki, polarity therapy, cranio-sacral therapy, etc), and I had chosen acupuncture. I'd always been interested in it, but never had a real reason to find a practitioner and try it out. My professor referred me to a man who was a third generation acupuncturist. His his grandfather, and his father and he had all been acupuncturists.

I made my appointment for late February, and drove over to see him a couple weeks later. I didn't know at all what to expect, but he gave off a surprisingly calm aura, and it immediately settled my nerves. He answered any questions I had, as well as telling me why he was doing what he was doing (looking at my tongue, feeling my wrist, and so on), until he told me he had developed a treatment plan for me. I went in there relatively pain, stress, and disease free, so we settled on trying to fix my seasonal allergies. After the treatment, spring rolled around, as well as fall, with no symptoms. As soon as spring had come and gone, I told my professor that I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, what I was going to aim to do with my life.

2. What do I honestly think of physics, really?

Before our first class, I had expected a lot of math, which was unfortunate, because I had left my graphing calculator in Michigan along with my will to do any more math. After the first class, I think I'll have an easy time immersing myself in the material. A friend of mine started out as an astrophysics major at Michigan State University, but because she couldn't justify her brilliant ideas with the math, she fell behind on the material and ended up switching majors within her freshman year. As I mentioned before, I'm glad that this isn't a math class. Numbers and I don't tend to get along well.

3. Now that I think about it, have I ever experienced time "slowing down" or "speeding up"?

One time that comes readily to mind is when my friend suggested I listen to a music track, called Absinthe. It must be listened with stereo headphones, and the nicer, the better. I have a pair of comfortable Sony over-the-ear headphones, and I had 45 minutes (The length of the track) of time to sit and see what happened. She explained to me that she had done it previously and had some rather odd hallucinations on the backs of her eyelids. Bear in mind that she had done this without the use of hallucinogenic drugs or the like.

As I sat down and started to fall into the sound (the sound is of two different, sustained notes. One played in the left ear, one in the right), things started dancing across the back of my eyelids. I was rather shocked, but I decided to keep my eyes closed for the duration. At one point, I found myself back in high school, remembering a memory as vividly as if I were reliving it at that exact moment. I remembered details that, had it not been for this forced-meditative state, I would never have remembered.

When the 45 minutes was up, I could hardly believe it. It took me roughly fifteen minutes to snap completely out of the trance the sound had put me in. I was blown away. And even as I sit here writing this, I can't remember what scene it was that played across the back of my eyelids; I only know that it was from high school, and that I was dating a girl named Carolyn.

This is definitely a better example of time speeding up than I gave in class (simply saying "meditation,"), but I figured that, instead of being rather long winded, I could simply detail my post with details of the example I had originally had in mind.

Post your reflections on this week's class - "The Meaning of Time"

I really enjoyed the discussion for this first week, however, I found it kind of hard to grasp the ideas of P-time and M-time. With only a table to guide us, it felt like it was hard to explain to the other students what exactly the difference between Eastern and Western views on time were.

I particularly enjoyed learning about the seven arrows of time. I didn't know anything like that even existed, but it's neat to know. It may even be what I end up writing my midterm paper about, though I don't want to sell myself short with the myriad topics we'll cover before the paper is due.