My fanatic love

It has been a weekend of sports for me. Whether it was watching, playing or betting, they all gave me an injection of excitement, joy and relief in different doses. In terms of watching, I had the opportunity to witness Manchester United move ever closer to securing a record ninth league title. This was one hell of a relief after a rather uncertain period of unconvincing displays. After being glued for two hours infront of that TV screen, I could not but only reflect on the emotional rollercoaster I went through in those 120 minutes. My heart and mood were ever so consistent with the scores of the match and turn of play. I felt so happy at the end, with my team finishing on top and winning a difficult match, but I could not but feel weak in terms of being so affected by the fortunes of a football. How can a goal make me so happy and cheer me up for the whole day and how can I miskick or a goal for the opposition makes everything looks so gloomy and sad. I even noticed that lately I stopped taking joy in watching football as a sport, I am too concerned about the wellbeing of my team now, everything else does not matter now. Let the others team play their football, good for them but I am losing interest. It is either my team that is playing and better be winning or ..sorry but not interested. I am losing the appreciation for the sport in general but at the same time becoming more of an extremist with regards to Man Utd.

Friends always told me that I have the material to be a hooligan given the right circumstances. I think they were right to an extent. I would just need a bunch of other fanatics, some beer and tickets for the weekend matches. A scary but still plausible scenario that came across my mind lately.

In terms of playing, I am as passionate as ever and I proved it this weekend. Playing through the pain-barrier is not enjoyable for many but it gives me a sense of weird satisfaction at the end. I was never afraid to get stuck in and commit myself to the tackle and thus the frequent bruises after some football. It is supposed to be ‘ fun ’ but sometimes my desire to win overrides that and find myself taking things too seriously and overly competitive.

And for betting, I lost but my friend made some good money. All part of the adrenaline-rush package but not as enjoyable as watching and playing sports. I am saying that probably because I did not predict the scores right.

Enough about football and my fanaticism for now, more serious stuff to follow :).

Done and Dusted

So another semester is over and hence I have time to add something to this blog. It has been one hell of a ride full of challenges and obstacles. I was always a person looking for a fight, something to stimulate me and keep me on my toes. This semester has been exactly that. I still remember Dr. D’s words in one orientation session in first year ‘’Students are like balloons, the more we pump them, the higher they rise. The higher we turn the heat, the more they inflate. ‘’. That did not mean much then and I don’t deny thinking: What the hell is he on? What balloons, what heating? What’s with the physics from day one?

So two school years on and in a different faculty from Dr. D’s , I know exactly what he meant that day. My first year was when I got pumped, heated and truly pushed to the limit. The process was controlled by a traditional faculty that is built on feeding you facts that you are expected to memorise. My second year was the main turning point, I switched faculty probably for the better. Now , I am not being pushed, hassled or fed knowledge but rather given the choice of control my own learning and education. Quite fascinating to say the least, I was given the choice, and I did not look back. My year was supposed to be hell in terms of academic load, and I thrived in the fires and flames of that hell. It needs a considerable amount of self-motivation and determination, luckily I was never short on neither, otherwise the whole year could have gone to utter waste.

I sound like a true nerd, but switching faculties opened my eyes towards a whole new world of learning, opportunities and invitations for continuous improvements.

CS follow-up

I have mentioned ‘complexity science’ in an earlier post and promised to follow up. Away from the boring explanations and the tedious words and expressions, I think I found a complex adaptive system ( yes, one of those tedious words ) existing in individuals. The term was supposed to fit a system that is composed of interacting variables, to my surprise, this term seems to apply to individual cases as well. Finding most of those individual complex adaptive systems to be of female gender is probably not a coincidence afterall....