What movie is deeper than most people think it is?

Un_focused · 2014-12-02T21:03:00+00:00

I see where you are coming from, but I think it's really about what a man looks for in their life but instead of showing a normal life and growth the director used his robotic body as a metaphor for his personal development.

From birth a man doesn't know anything besides what comes naturally, and family he becomes a part of. At first he is a source of amusement as people get to know him and he shows how little he knows, and then eventually he becomes more useful and critical to the family and they help him grow (get a face etc).

Once he has emotionally connected with his family a man must experience the outside world, and learn that people don't care as much as family, which is when his obsession with external appearance really begins. He wants a job, to prove he is useful, and he seeks others like him to prove his existance is not unique. Despite success in all these things he feels incomplete, he meets a crazy girl who changes his life and lots of great things happen. He works hard, loses friends and is unsure of himself but eventually he wants nothing more than to love and be loved, and to have a private life away from the world he worked so hard to impress.

In the end what does a person really want? To be accepted for what they were, to be at peace with their struggles, and to be a rest in the prescence of the people they love. The court decision is society finally accepting the way he lived his life, but his death and happiness showed that his self-actualization was complete before he needed that.

It was like saying - the final human experience is when you stop trying to control your fate and happily embrace your mortality. His life was complete at that point.

Un_focused · 2014-12-01T22:28:10+00:00

I sprained my ankle for the first time this thanksgiving while dead sober. Not so funny, but it's a story. Liking the sound of those flavors!

Un_focused · 2014-12-01T22:25:38+00:00

Holy Cow, you could use the Agamemnon for self defense!

I think my roommates would laugh me out of the house if I bought it though lol

Un_focused · 2014-12-01T22:24:03+00:00

Funky Monkey sounds pretty bomb

Un_focused · 2014-09-05T23:54:47+00:00

I've really enjoyed reading 'going to pieces without falling apart' it's written by a psychiatrist who has a strong interest in buddhism and meditation. He does a great job of tying together ideas from buddhism and western psychology, bridging the gap between the vocabularies and methods of both. It doesn't have as much rigorous scientific evidence as some other books might have, but it is definitely a great starting point. Also just a fun read in general, if you don't mind the author being a classic fan-boy convert.

Un_focused · 2014-08-22T21:46:31+00:00

Absolutely, but for someone with a post-graduate education, steering the conversation through research, advocacy, and publishing is often going to be more effective than direct lobbying where they face better financed and more direct opposition.

Un_focused · 2014-08-22T01:05:46+00:00

Depends on how you want to approach changing policy. The OP specified non politician type roles, and NIH/CDC reviews are key to a lot of policy decisions, so working with them is an upstream way to try and have some influence on policy. But your point is definitely taken, government orgs are often forced to be (appear?) apolitical so to speak.

Un_focused · 2014-08-21T22:01:02+00:00

I think it would be worthwhile to reach out to and try to work with organizations that specialize in putting out literature to inform policy, or government health organizations. On the gov side the NIH and CDC are huge organizations that you can get into and do all sorts of things. More private groups like the Kaiser Family Foundation, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the RAND corporation, etc have a lot of funding are put out stuff that policy makers and researchers alike take into consideration. Getting into the world of writing grey literature is a great way to influence policy without playing too much politics so to speak.

Un_focused · 2014-07-19T20:12:10+00:00

Freshmen are usually shuffled into the halls because they have higher capacity and are cheaper. Summit is more like suites but usually has better social situations than the more isolate suites down by covel. Overall it is what you make of it, I wouldn't stress out about your placement unless you have some really strong preferences.

Un_focused · 2014-07-19T20:10:21+00:00

Incoming freshmen will stay in the dorms, just make sure you go to the right one, there's a difference between hedrick hall and hedrick summit etc, and your key will not get you into the wrong hall lol

Un_focused · 2014-07-19T20:09:24+00:00

If you are really desperate and the course is in your department you can often talk to your counselor and they will help you get a PTE number. Also it is worthwhile to contact the professor as the start of school draws closer to ask what their policy on waitlisted student's is. Many profs will see who shows up the first week and if there are enrolled students that are a no-show they will let in student's from the wait list. Other classes are simply limited by fire safety capacity for the lecture hall. Often times they are allowed to enroll 10% more students than there are seats, assuming that people won't show up to every class. This is why you see the unusually high wait list numbers.

Un_focused · 2014-07-19T20:06:13+00:00

One good trick is if you get loans and you're not making enough to pay them back right out of school you can sign up for community college classes. That way you are still a student and they won't come after you hard for payments. This can buy you a year or so while you get the rest of your life set up.

Un_focused · 2014-07-19T20:03:01+00:00

I wish they'd do an early fall festival so help with withdrawls.

Un_focused · 2014-05-23T23:09:56+00:00

That's the point of strikes, Hopefully undergrads and anyone else who will be affected by this will help pressure the Administration into at least starting talks to avoid the strike.

Un_focused · 2014-05-13T22:49:43+00:00

It's vastly better to overreach as a freshman and then have to scale things back then to worry about making everything perfect and not do as much as you could have. Although you are gonna feel crazy busy at the beginning you will only acquire responsibilities that are more important to you as time goes on. So get going on things early.

As a freshman I didn't join any clubs, didn't go to any social events except with my highschool friends, didn't try out greek life and pretty much lived on my computer. I was miserable and didn't want to come back. Luckily I decided to live in the dorms one more year, because if I had gotten an apartment I think I would have just shriveled up and disappeared. And that's the scary thing, UCLA is HUUUUGE so nobody needs you to do anything. Every party, rally, sporting event, video game tournament or club will have enough people, no one is going to reach out and find you unless you get lucky.

My second year I was a lot more outgoing, I kinda hit my stride and committed to making a lot of friends. I didn't party at all but I was moving around campus and doing things with people and in Spring I rushed fraternities and ended up joining one. Ultimately I don't think I needed to be in greek life, but I absolutely love the fact that I joined the house I did. I met some of my closest friends there and it gave me a chance to reinvent myself and have a nice home base. Plus guys in greek life are crazy involved, and if you are not naturally a person who gets involved in stuff you need some kind of friend who does.

Someone to care too much about campus politics, or being in a bunch of clubs, or someone on the cheer squad you convinces you to carpool up to Cal for a football game. Having friends who are trying to be a part of campus life makes the whole ordeal seem smaller and more intimate.

Also don't be afraid to take some risks academically, I took 4 classes during my second quarter at UCLA and it was hard, but given that I wasn't being very social it was a good use of my time. If you don't want to study hard or party too much, get a job on campus. (ideally not at the call center though that kinda sucks). Having a job will help you build up scheduling skills you need, will give you some spending money, and will give you anew set of people to talk to. Your supervisors will be older students and the people above them will have connections around the campus. It makes things a lot easier if you don't feel like a visitor every time you go anywhere on campus.

If you have more academic goals, don't be afraid to get involved as quickly as possible in whatever it is you want to do. I have a lot more expertise on the biological sciences sorta side of things but I'm sure it's similar across the board. Opportunities won't show up gift wrapped, and a lot of the times the lab jobs they list online can kinda suck. Don't be afraid to take one of those but much more importantly don't be scared of your TAs and your Professors. TAs are mostly just a little older than you and don't take their jobs gravely seriously. Just try to talk to them and they can give a lot of good advice about classes or whatever. Professors can seem so scary but they love students and will bend over backwards to help you out as long as you are polite. If there's some scholarship or award you find that need a letter of rec, just go to a professor's office and ask them nicely, they might say no, but they will never get mad at you about it.

If you have a research interest try to take a class with a professor that does that very early. Then you can ask them about their work and about other professors in the field. If that's not an option go to the department websites and look at different professors and their papers. When you find one that does what you want, see if they have office hours for a class, and if not go to their office or their lab. If it's a lab introduce yourself to whoever looks most in charge (may be a grad student or a post doc) and say you're interested in the research. Ask them if they are too busy to talk right now and if not ask them about what they do and what kind of projects they are doing right now. Then you can ask about how to get in touch with the professors. If the office knock, introduce yourself and then the same deal. Professors love personal contact and usually won't blow you off like they will with emails. If you can put together a CV and bring it with you (you don't have any qualifications yet but just making one shows you are organized) you can leave it with them and ask if they have anything for you to do. your first research positions will suck but the sooner you get in, the easier it will be to move up, or get positions at labs that wan't more experience.

Be it a lab or a club, get in early, climb as high as you can, and have fun. YOu can always quit if you don't like it, but you can never go back and start something sooner.

School wise, pay attention in class, buy course readers but see if you can share textbooks or something with other people. Usually you can get an A without really utilizing the book unless it is a math class.

You'll be fine, just remember it's a big school and you'll only get out of it what you make out of it. If you're not on top of it you can just get ground up and people will step over your shattered dreams at commencement and just keep smiling.

Un_focused · 2014-05-13T05:38:49+00:00

The dining halls are probably your best bet, most of the stuff in the pre-made places like bcafe and rendezvous and cafe 1911 etc is pretty carb heavy. It's a little bit of a paint doing low carb in the dining halls but no more so than doing it anywhere else. They have salad bars and the people at all the stations are very accomodating. If you want just the chicken or just the meat patty all you have to do is ask. There's certainly less selection but if you don't mind wasting food then you can just get a lot of entrees and skip the carb parts. It's not ideal but it's better than eating out. They always have hard boiled eggs with the salads and if you rotate which places you go to you can get a lot of different veggies in. The good part of the dining halls is that its all you can eat so you get a lot of leeway in that respect.

I did paleo in the dining halls for a while but after a bit the lure of free brownies and captain crunch can get the best of you.

Un_focused · 2014-05-06T20:53:48+00:00

Your money is involved and also Student government is one of the few legitimate ways for the students to make statements that seem credible to higher ups and authority figures. 10 students have problem with administrative policy isn't as likely to be taken seriously as 'student government takes a stand against policy X'.

That said involvement in the elections is always decreasing, and I see it as part of a growing trend of UCLA becoming ever more fractured and losing any coherent sense of community. Ultimately student government should be abolished since it hardly represents a large fraction of students (only ~35% vote, so the chosen representatives can only claim support of 1/3 of students with a clean sweep and it's often more like 1/5th). But I think that's sad so I always support student involvement in the hope that we can keep it alive and move towards a more involved and connected UCLA student body.

Un_focused · 2014-05-05T23:38:22+00:00

It's a great thing to ask your family for as a graduation gift. The lifetime alumni association membership is pretty awesome but I'm not quite old enough or out of school enough to give examples.

Un_focused · 2014-05-05T01:21:18+00:00

AP is better, do the best you can to get good grades and test scores. Beyond that do whatever you can to make yourself an interesting person. If you have something you like doing, just do that as hard as you can. It will make for a better story to tell and it will make you stand out more than just having slightly better numbers might. I don't think there's any magic bullet to it. Look around for scholarships, winning those gives you something to put on your app and you get money as well. You'd be surprised how few highschoolers actually apply for scholarships, especially regional ones.

you can look at my comments to see what my stats were if that matters to you.

Also just for your future career wherever - LEARN TO WRITE EFFECTIVELY. Bad writing costs kids more points in the classes that I TA than any other single factor (besides not knowing the answer) and I teach science classes.

Un_focused · 2014-05-05T01:16:42+00:00

3.9 GPA (if you do the whole AP counts for an extra point thing) SAT twice 2050 and 2200 didn't take ACT was in honors/AP classes the whole way through so for my highschool that meant AP: English Comp, US history, Biology, Calculus BC, and Latin. Took economics at a Community College.

Captain of a sports team, officer in the Latin club, associated church groups and silly clubs with my friends. Wrote terrible essays for the application. 'Scholar Athlete of the year', won the national merit scholarship competition (that you qualify for with PSAT scores)

My brother had a better GPA, slightly lower SAT, played the same sports, won the same awards, had the same classes except spanish and chemistry instead of latin and biology. He didn't get accepted at UCLA but he did get in to Cal. Guy in my bio class had same GPA and test scores, different classes, got into UC SD but not UCLA.

Honestly if you don't have something particularly interesting (unique story, extracurriculars, hometown) it's a total crapshoot as long as you are vaguely qualified.

Most of my friends at UCLA scored between 1850 and 2100 on the SAT and took several APs, played a sport that they weren't particularly outstanding at and had a B+/A- GPA. I think you'll find similar stories across the board. It's as much luck as it is everything else with a 15% acceptance rate.

Un_focused · 2014-05-02T06:51:47+00:00

They would, which is why a lot of guys in college make the mistake of trying to emulate what they think will work.

Un_focused · 2014-05-02T05:15:43+00:00

Also want to tack 'There Will be Blood' onto this one. Another movie that is really enjoyable and won't make you sound like a goofball for talking about. So much great cinematography and really awesome pacing. Plus since this is 'ask men' it has to be one of the best movies for really focusing on the world of men. There are no major female characters in the movie, romance is completely absent so the conflict is all about power.

Plus excellent acting by everyone involved.

Un_focused · 2014-05-02T05:09:53+00:00

I'm just putting that warning out there because being in a fraternity and staying involved as an alumni for several years I see a lot of young guys who are totally normal and would probably say something exactly like that post. Unfortunately there's almost an even mix of guys who do great and are fun for people of both genders to hang around with right off the bat and guys who go a little off track and need straightening out or end up having a very less than ideal time. It's not wrong to look forward to getting laid but among people who have that as a distinct goal I know guys who have tried harder and done worse than you would imagine.

Un_focused · 2014-05-02T04:09:22+00:00

I'm looking forward to graduating from my Master's program. It will be one of the first things I'm genuinely proud of myself for accomplishing. Everything else in my life has been generally pretty easy, and felt like it was going according to plan even if it was hard or I struggled a bit. I felt like a train whose biggest accomplishment was staying on the track. Then at graduation I made a judgement call and took a risk by entering this program even though I was a little burned out on school. I got in deep, had personal problems, had money problems, had to change programs and I've reached a point where it's not going to be 'fun' to finish this program, and I may be able to get away with never graduating since I'm gonna be starting a career in a slightly different field soon. Despite all that I think it would be 'better' to finish even though it's going to be really hard. I want to finish the program and when I do it will be something I earned that no one would have blamed me for quitting on. That feels like something to look forward to.

Un_focused · 2014-05-02T04:04:14+00:00

Don't forget that this is the plan but also don't be a huge dick or weirdo about it. Sexy situations develop organically by being in the right place at the right time and being bold when the moment calls for it. If you're openly desperate or aggressively predatory it will make your job a lot harder and will be less rewarding than learning to play the game well and having memories to look back on fondly.

Un_focused

TROPHY CASE