Saturday 25th January

Find them here!

life really is so simple when you sit back and realise you don’t actually have to do a lot of things. i don’t have to be on my phone constantly. i don’t have to sit inside all day. i don’t have to reply to peoples messages straight away. i don’t have to have what’s in my fridge. i can go out and get groceries and make things that I’m craving. i can go on a walk. i can turn my phone off for a day or two. i can sit and read for hours on end. i can journal for as long as i want. i can mediate. i can cook. i can clean. i can breathe deeply. i can get myself a tea or a coffee. i can have meaningful conversations with my family. i don’t have to be in a constant state of “online”. i can disconnect. I’m not obliged to be here. my name isn’t being called out on a list. i can leave. i can take time away. i am allowed to live.

be my once in a lifetime.

ig: cawefee

7.12.19 // these pictures are from earlier in this week when I was writing an essay on David Hume’s case against miracles. Seeing as I just made a post about how I write essays, here are the pictures of me frantically worrying about this one in particular (tap for better quality idk tumblr does this to me)

posting a spread from 2018 because why not???

Hey phoebe, I have no choice but to keep up with my coursework and I'm having a hard time. Since the Covid lockdown began I've lost motivation, along with my appetite and the will to get out of bed before noon. My brain's in a fog of worry and sadness but I'm not sure how to push past it or stop beating myself up for not being productive.

wow that sounds so tough, my love. I would so recommend reaching out to mental health resources for online counselling such as beyondblue to help with your struggles. It’s not easy being in that place and the best thing you could do for yourself is seek professional guidance. 

Other things that help with low moods are setting a routine that involves:

- messaging friends and family (social fulfilment) - exercise (even 10 mins, try and get your heart rate up!) - journaling (get those unhelpful thoughts out of your head and onto paper) - to-do lists of a max of 3 things per day (It can be even as small as making your bed or having a shower) -self comfort (do things for you PURELY because you like it and you find joy in it, eg. watch a show you like, take a bath, these things don't have to be treated as rewards, you deserve to feel good)

You do NOT have to be productive every moment of every day. Start small and build back up. Set an alarm for 11am, make your bed and grab some water. That can be where you start, you are only human, my love. Be gentle with yourself, get one thing done at a time because that is all you can do. Focus on one task at a time till completion and thank yourself for taking time to do that for yourself. Everything you do is in appreciation of you and the opportunity you have been given to do the things you choose. I know what it’s like to be where you are, to have lost all sense of happiness and self. Build yourself up and start small, the first step is talking with loved ones about it. It’s easier to care for yourself once you realise that other people do as well, to remember you are valued, because I promise you, you are. <3 I love you. Please stay safe.

08.21.22

The first week’s been pretty cool, the teachers can be intimidating but the experience is fun. I think I accidentally grew into those people who take cool notes with memo pads, annotations, and highlights during class hehe <33

If you've ever wondered if you could buy ebooks on Korean websites like Kyobo, the answer is yes:

What did you learn about people? How might a person who is not studying develop their bullshit-ometer?

“What did you learn about people” is much too broad to answer given how much is covered in a three year bachelors degree. Everything from theories of the self, errors biases and heuristics, attitudes and emotions, theories behind behaviours, social influence, group affiliation, psychological development from childhood to adulthood and its effect, models of personality and individual differences, memory, how we learn, the psychology of choice and decisions, and the genetic/biological/social/environmental factors of all of the above and what happens when it goes wrong and becomes pathology.

In terms of developing a bullshit-ometer, or improving your judgement and understanding of evidence, the key is practice. For a module in my first year we were given a paper every week and a prompt sheet to fill in that effectively helped you tear the paper apart. Prompts included everything from the method and sample size, to the statistical tests used, whether they were used appropriately, and whether all of the assumptions of each test were met, etc. It would take me upwards of two hours to get through a ten page paper, and even then I’d miss things. Three years on, I can skim a paper or article or hear a person’s argument, spot any major red flags, and tear it apart under exam conditions in thirty minutes. It takes a lot of time and work to be able to do it quickly. Having it embedded as a philosophy into everything you’re learning helps as you start doing it unconsciously eventually.

Resources:

Bad Science by Ben Goldacre. To me, an absolutely essential read.

The Art of Statistics by David Spiegelhalter. Spiegelhalter is a statistical genius, and he’s now spending his time trying to change the way statistics is taught, moving it away from learning loads of formulas and then trying to figure out how they relate to evidence, towards the PPDAC (problem, plan, data, analysis, conclusion) model. To understand evidence and pick up the misuse of statistics (aka bullshit) you need at least a basic understand of stats. This book does it perfectly, in plain English, with interesting examples. I wish it had been published when I first started my degree.

I Think You’ll Find It’s A Bit More Complicated Than That by Ben Goldacre. This is a collection of most of Ben Goldacre’s columns which used to appear in The Guardian, in which he takes a claim in the media or a new study and tears it apart. It’s an interesting read, might change your perception on a few things, and is him tackling bullshit in practice.

Reckoning With Risk by Gerd Gigerenzer. There are lots of complex statistics in this (which he signposts and you can just pass over), but understanding how statistics of risk work, and what they mean, will completely change how you read and assess a lot of claims made in the news.

The Students 4 Best Evidence blog. It mainly covers evidence based medicine, but the key concepts transfer to all research and claims outside of medicine. Anything under the bias, critical thinking, intro to evidence-based practice, and statistics topics is relevant. Particularly anything tagged ‘tutorials and fundamentals’. Their Key Concepts Archive is a good place to start.

The Testing Treatments website. Again, covers medicine, but most of the points generalise out. Under each concept, say ‘association is not causation’, there is a ‘find learning resources’ link that will find papers, online courses/modules, and books about that concept.

Cochrane Training. Cochrane are the gods of the systematic review. All their online learning modules surrounding assessing evidence are here.

Think Again: How to Reason and Argue, either the book, or the online course. The perfect crash course in reasoning, arguing, avoiding fallacies, picking apart other people’s arguments, and finding bullshit.

The Clearer Thinking website has a range of tools/mini modules. Relevant ones here:

How well can you tell reality from B.S.?

Interpreting evidence

Belief challenger, making your views more accurate

Guess which experiments replicate

More books.

A Field Guide to Lies and Statistics: A Neuroscientist on How to Make Sense of a Complex World by Daniel Levitin

How To Lie With Statistics by Darrell Huff

Are you guys following me on IG? If not, check me out 🥰 @yukkuristudies I’m a lot more active on there ✨