Productivity Inhibition Disorder (PID)

I have a condition, it's called Productivity Inhibition Disorder, or PID. It's an anxiety disorder, the onset of which is dependent on the amount of work I have. The more work, the more severe the symptoms. The "inhibition" part comes from the anxiety, which prevents, or inhibits, me from doing work.

Symptoms:

• Main:
• Inability to be productive; manifests itself in the following manners:
• browsing aimlessly on the internet
• online shopping spree
• compulsively listening to music
• talking to others as a way of delaying productivity
• Other (happens on occasion):
• heart palpitations
• nausea
• shortness of breath
• headache
• loss of appetite

Diagnosis:
The patient will have to be evaluated and monitored by someone with whom he/she is around most of the time. The evaluator will have to observe the patients' habits, making note when any of the above described symptoms appear. This is done over a 2-week period. If the main symptom occurred during this period with a frequency of 6 or more times, the patient is said to have PID.

Treatment:
No known treatments. (Suggestions are welcome)
Usually, when a work-related catastrophic event happens as a result of PID (e.g. failing an exam), the patient will take the necessary means to ensure PID doesn't affect him/her. But this is only temporary, as the severity of the event goes down, the symptoms generally return.

Prognosis:
PID tends to go away on its own. However, recurrence is likely, as described above. Because there are no documented cases in history before today, this prognosis may not be accurate.

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On a different note:
I've updated my blog template today! Here are the changes:

• Post Title Color (Before: Orange, Now: Blue), Link colors (Before: blue, Now: red-orange)
  
• Blog Archives (now instead of "Previous Posts", you can click on the drop down arrow by a month to see all the posts within that month)
• Google AdSense! With this, I'll be making money (albeit in minimal amounts) whenever someone clicks on the ads that I've allowed Google to place in my blog
• Polls! I will post a new poll every 2 weeks, and when I make a new poll, I will post the results of the previous poll. The poll will be located underneath my profile, before the blog archives. All voting will be anonymous.
  

I'll be There for You Because You're There for Me Too...

I've been wondering about the following question for a long time:

Can guys and girls stay just friends and nothing else?

And today, I've finally come to this conclusion:
NO. (Guys and girls can become friends, but can't stay friends.)

Before I go into my reasoning (which only applies to heterosexuals) behind this, it's very important to define just what makes a friend. (This is obvious but...my definition applies to both people in the friendship.)
To me, a friend is someone:

• you have fun hanging out with
• you're not afraid to be yourself around
• who is similar to you on a lot of levels
  
• who doesn't judge you
• who cares about you (i.e. is there for you when you need him/her to be)
• who has no romantic feelings towards you
  
• who has no intention of dating you

The second-to-last point kind of leads to the last point. But they are very important in that they distinguish friends from lovers (or potential lovers). Of course, there are other distinctions as well, but most of the distinctions are caused by these two points.

Given this, why can't girls and guys be just friends and nothing else?
Because there's no need for them to be.

All of the above qualities of a friend can be satisfied by someone of the same sex. We all have guy friends (if we're guys) and girl friends (if we're girls) with whom we have a ton of fun together, support one another, and to whom we're very similar.

And then there's the mixed gender friends group (i.e. girls' guy friends and guys' girl friends). Why, then, does this group exist? From an evolutionary perspective, it can be argued that mixed-gender friendships exist as a basis for potential mates. That is, when a girl becomes friends with a guy and vice versa, there's always a potential that they could become more than friends (whereas, the potential isn't there for same-sex friends).

So...this then begs the question: Do guys and girls act on this potential?
My answer? Yes. Eventually.
That's why they can't stay just friends.

By "act on", I don't mean blatant declaration of their undying romantic love for one another. Acting on the potential, in this case, refers to gradual developments in the friendship that ultimately, and inevitably leads to romantic feelings for one another.

Do they have to act on it?
No.
But again, if they don't act on it (i.e. if there's no development or growth in the friendship--everything is staying put), they most likely won't stay friends either. Because, as explained earlier, there's no point in mixed-gendered friendships because all the qualities of friendship can be satisfied by same-gendered friendships. (This is something people don't like to admit. Sure, you'll still be friends in the short term, but gradually, this friendship tends to die out when both people realize their interests don't coincide.) The mere existence of mixed-gender friendships means that there's intent on both sides (conscious or not) to become more than friends.

Now, something could happen along the way in this development where one person realizes that their opposite-sex friend is not their mate. When this happens, the development halts, and a romantic relationship doesn't result. What happens next? There are two possibilities:
1) they stay "friends"
2) they don't stay friends

I put "friends" in quotation marks because in this situation, the only way for them to still remain "friends" is if A is still attracted to B romantically and hopes that by remaining friends with B, B will change his/her mind about A eventually. Is this a true friendship? No. As I've defined above, a friend is someone who doesn't have ANY romantic feelings towards you and vice versa. B in this case, might think that A is a great friend, satisfying one end of the equation. But the same thing cannot be said for A, whose intentions precludes them from being true friends with B.

This actually is the case with a lot of mixed-gender friendships. In the beginning, both parties are in the dark as to each other's intentions, which tricks both to think that they're friends, and friends only. At this stage, a lot of the developments are unconscious, that is, there are probably a lot of good feelings on both sides, but both parties are unaware of where this is going or if it is going anywhere at all. Then, eventually (assuming this growth continues*), at least one side will have to acknowledge their feelings by telling them to the other side, which prompts a response from the other side as to their feelings for the former side. (I call this "laying one's cards on the table".) After this revealing of intentions, the friendship will either become a romantic relationship, or it'll slowly fizzle out until the two people are no more than mere acquaintances.

Here is the model I developed to go along with my reasoning:
(Note: The "same" and "different" under "Card Laying" refers to whether both parties have the same feelings for one another, or different feelings; X = end of friendship)
And now, for some interesting asides:

• Despite what I've just argued, I would love for someone to convince me otherwise and show me how it is possible to become and remain friends with someone of the opposite sex because this realization (and the evidence for it) is rather upsetting.
• Sometimes it's hard to gauge whether or not you truly have as many similarities as you think you do your friends/lovers. I find that when you like someone, or you want that person to like you, you mold your interests in a way so that it seems like you have a lot in common with that person. You find ways to expand on things you both like, but this doesn't necessarily mean you have a lot of similarities. You might have a common interest, which you choose to emphasize, thus making it look like a huge similarity. But in fact, it's just ONE common interest out of everything that you do. Conversely, I also find that when you stop liking someone, your "common interests" dramatically decreases.
  

*Because, if it doesn't continue, there won't be a point for them to remain friends.

Over It......?

In light of recent* events, I realized a few rather frustrating things about myself:
1) I tend to get attached to people** quickly
2) I don't tend to get over people quickly
3) the only way I find that I do get over people is to concentrate all of my energy on a new person(s)

:(

In case you haven't realized, 1,2, and 3 can fall into a very, very bad and annoying cycle that's hard to get out of. Wow. The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that this is, indeed, the case for me.

And now, I'm going to abruptly change the topic because I have nothing to say about this anymore. :D

So this fall break, I tried to improve my nonexistent lucid dreaming skills by doing an "experiment". Basically, there are two major methods that one can go about achieving this (lucid dreaming). First there's dream recall--the better you are at remembering your dreams, the more likely you'll be aware of the fact that you're dreaming. And second, there is reality testing, which involves performing a task that would have a different outcome if you're dreaming. The idea is to perform this task over and over again when you're awake so that it becomes a habit. Then when you dream, you'll inevitably perform this task, but in dream world, the outcome would probably be different--and this, the fact that the outcome is different, should lead you to believe that you're dreaming.

I think the second method is rather convoluted and might not always work. (For example, it could happen that the outcome is the same in your dream as in real life, in which case you'd never realize you're dreaming. Also, for something to become a habit, it'll have to be so repetitive and you'll have to constantly remember to do it...which can be a bit of a hassle.)

So I opted to improve my dream recalling skills, which, incidentally, is also nonexistent. And since you dream when you're in REM sleep, I decided to wake myself up then and write down whatever I was dreaming about. Trusting the judgment of a friend who said that you go into REM sleep in around 4.5 hours, I set my alarm for 4:30am and 9:00am, giving myself 2 opportunities to write down my dreams (with 3 nights, I have 6 opportunities in total). With a lamp, pen, and dream diary all within arms reach on my queen sized bed, I was ready.

Four and a half hours later, I woke up to the sound of my alarm (surprisingly) andddddd... was not able to recall a thing. Maybe I wasn't in REM sleep when I got woken up. :-/ So I fell back asleep. Another four and a half hours later, I woke up and stillll.....nothing...

This went on for 2 nights. I don't know why I wasn't able to recall anything... maybe I turned my second alarm off when I was woken up by the first one and just don't remember it. Or maybe I wasn't in REM sleep. Or maybe, I didn't wake up? I don't remember anymore. I think next time, I'll definitely write something down just to prove that I did wake up.

grrr!! THIS IS SO FRUSTRATING!!!

It's been awhile since I've had vivid dreams. Reading from previous entries of my dream diary, my last truly vivid dream was pretty...terrible. I think I was crying even after I woke up...I remember feeling tears stream down to my ears. Yea, no wonder I remembered that one so well..:-\

Anyway...I only have one night left...hopefully tonight will bring me some good dreams that I can remember.

I think in the future, I should put my recorder to use. Much less effort than having to write anything down...

*recent = within last 6 months
**people = guys

A Simple Cipher

So, before I give out the actual cipher (which is a simple Caesar shift with a keyword), I think it'd be useful if I gave a tutorial on how a Caesar shift cipher is made. This way, I bet people would probably at least give it a try first before going "wtf?!". :D

The Caesar Cipher is a simple encryption method that scrambles a message by shifting the alphabet in a certain way.

For example, if you want to scramble "the phantom awaits" using the Caesar cipher, you could:
1) write out the alphabet, then the shifted alphabet* below it:
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A B C D E

2) scramble the message according to the shifted alphabet:
"the phantom awaits" --> "YMJ UMFSYTR FBFNYX"

3) to add another degree of difficulty, you can group the words into 5-letter groups**. This way, it's harder to guess a word based on its length. (i.e. in the above example, if I left the message like that, someone could easily guess that "YMJ" = "the"). So the result is:
YMJUM FSYTR FBFNY X

To decipher a Caesar Cipher, one could use frequency analysis. First you note the most frequently occurring letter in the scrambled message, and compare that to the most frequently occurring letter in regular English text (which is "e"). And based on that, you'd be able to figure out what the rest of the scrambled alphabet looks like (if the shift is a simple shift).

The Caesar shift with a keyword***, say, "bigcat" would be something like:
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
B I G C A T D E F H J K L M N O P Q R S U V W X Y Z


Now here's one for you to try:

PAOBQ RBNHR OJYBQ NHNOP BQQBQ RBPQU XNTTB PR

(Hint: the keyword is the name of a TV show that's two words)




*you can shift the alphabet how ever you want
**When deciphering, it's best to write out the scrambled message in a line, with no spaces, so that, after scrambling, the message looks like this: "thephantomawaits" instead of "theph antom await s", which can be harder to figure out.
***Note that keywords can't contain duplicate letters.