Gift of intelligence- gift or curse?

I feel that the gift of intelligence is, to a certain extent, a curse. Firstly, this is because I feel that a person with a gift if intelligence will be so smart that it will be difficult to converse with the other party with a lower IQ as the person with higher intelligence will talk about things that are way beyond the average layman. Or, the person with a higher IQ will use powerful words that the average layman cannot understand. The smarter person will probably include the use of many theories while talking to an average layman. The average layperson will not understand what the person with the higher IQ is talking about and this will cause a communication breakdown. Furthermore, the smarter person might give an average layman an inferiority complex and thus, the layman will shun and try to avoid the smarter person. This will cause the smarter person to lose his friends and this in turn will turn him into an outcast. Thus, he cannot converse with people of his same level as the reason is simple- you do not make friends with an intellect everyday. Therefore, he will become very cold towards people and will probably turn eccentric. This will also cause him to be lonely, downcast and forlorn. In today's world, one needs friends to survive. It is impossible to not rely on friends. My first point is further explained in Flowers for Algernon. In the story, Charlie Gordon finds it impossible to communicate with his peers effectively, transforms into an outcast and becomes unhappy.

Secondly, if you are too smart, you would get discriminated and laughed at. This is a scary part in the society. If you are different, people would segregate you. They do not care whether you are too smart or stupid, too tall or short, too fat or skinny. As long as you are different, they will call you names, beat you up and treat you like a freak. They will make you feel frustrated at yourself at being different. This stress, accumulate enough and it will turn into a full blown illness like depression. This will cause you to have low self-esteem and you will be depressed. This is further explained in Flowers for Algernon, where Charlie said," Before, they laughed and despised me for my dullness and ignorance; now, they hate me for my knowledge and understanding. What do they want of me?"

Lastly, being smart will mean that many people will pin their hopes on you to build or create something wonderful and revolutionary. Examples are cures for cancer and Aids, or Solutions to stem global warming. The pressure will not only be from the public, it will be from teachers, empolyees and employers. All of them demand greatness from you just because you have a higher IQ than them. This will be mounting pressure on you and once you make a mistake, the public and other people will hiss at you- just because you have a higher IQ. What the public does not know is that people with higher intelligence are also the same as them.

In conclusion, I feel that the gift of intelligence is to a larger extent, a curse, rather than a gift. Yes, one must have soaring aspirations to suceed and aim to be nothing but the best and having a higher intelligence than all the rest helps just fine. However, I feel that sometimes being an average Joe may just be fine as well.

differences between Percy Jackson's book and movie

Difference 1

At the starting of the movie, it shows Poseidon, the god of the sea , confronting his brother, Zeus, god of lightning, ruler of Olympus and of all the gods. At the starting of the book, it does not tell the confrontation but it is Percy who is narrating the story and introducing himself.

Difference 2

On the run from the Minotaur in the movie, Percy's Mum is driving Gabe's car in an attempt to escape. A cow is thrown by the Minotaur on the road and Percy's Mum swerve the car and it overturns. In the book, Gabe's car is struck by lightning and overturned.

Difference 3

In the book, Grover is knocked unconscious and Percy had to drag him into camp Half-blood. In the movie, Grover is not injured and he and Percy made it safely into the gates of camp Half-blood.

Difference 4

In the book, Dionysus is the camp director of camp Half-blood, while in the movie, Chiron, a centaur, is the camp director.

Difference 5

In the movie, when Percy is introduced to camp Half-blood, he is shown by Chiron to his house near the water built by his father, Poseidon. In the book, Percy stays at the Hermes cabin at the beginning .

Difference 6

In the book, Clarisse, daughter of Ares, god of war, is the camp bully. She despises Percy at first and tries to injure him during the capture the flag. In the movie, Clarisse is not even mentioned.

Difference 7

In the book, Luke has a scar running down his cheek from a dragon attack after trying to steal the golden apple . In the movie, Luke does not have a scar.

Difference 8

In the book, Ares, the god of war, has a significant role in the story, while in the movie, Ares is not even mentioned.

Differences 9

In the book, Percy fights Ares near the beach, while in the movie, Percy fights with Luke near the empire state building instead.

Difference 10

In the book, Percy fights three furies at multiple times, while in the movie, Percy fights only one fury at the Greek and Roman museum.

Flowers for Algernon (Laboratory Reports)

Laboratory Report 1

This is Dr Strauss here. I am starting to keep track of our new experiment, Charlie Gordon. I will be tracking Charlie's behaviour throughout the entire experiment. Our new experiment has an IQ of 68 and he is 37 years old. I hear that he wants to be smart. Well, we'll give him a chance. Charlie was introduced to me by his teacher at the adult night school, Miss Kinnian.

Laboratory Report 2

Our experiment did his first test today. It was a Rorschach test, a psychological test used to measure personality traits and general intelligence. He got jittery when he heard the word test. I think that he thought he was going to fail the test. The subject has low self-esteem. When our tester asked him to say out what he saw on the paper, he said he only saw an inkblot. We gave Charlie two other cards with red and blue ink spilled on it. He still said that he only saw an inkblot.

Laboratory Report 3

Today, we had a Thematic Apperception test on Charlie. We asked him to tell a story of the picture but he said "How can you tell stories about people you never met?" He refused to cooperate with us on this test. After that, we had Charlie race with Algernon, a white mouse which we had increased the IQ of. Charlie lost every race. He seemed disheartened.

Laboratory Report 4

Today is the big day. We had just finished operating on Charlie to increase his IQ permanently. We had to allow Charlie to rest after the operation. He seemed awfully determined to become smart.

Laboratory Report 5

Charlie is impatient that he is not getting smarter and he is getting frustrated at the Rorschach and Thematic Apperception Tests. He is also quite frustrated at racing with Algernon as he keeps losing to him. We placed a television to let Charlie listen to it while he is asleep.

Laboratory Report 6

Today, Charlie beat Algernon at racing! However, he lost the other three rounds as he was too excited. He seems very attracted to Algernon. Charlie's Progress Report is getting better-- his spelling and grammar too. This is a significant breakthrough.

Laboratory Report 7

Charlie's grammar, spelling and punctuation is getting better. He starts to realise what is going on around him. Today, he realises that he is being made fun of as his colleagues are laughing at him, not with him. He doesn't race with Algernon any more. Charlie is clearly getting smarter.

Laboratory Report 8

Charlie starts to elaborate on both the Rorschach and Thematic Apperception Test. Charlie is starting to use big words in his progress report. He starts to read up a lot of books. He can scan a few sentenses at a time, while a normal person can take in only part by part.

Laboratory Report 9

Charlie can now type 75 words a minute and it is a remarkable rate. He is learning a lot at an astonishing rate! He can speak and write Chinese, Hebrew, Latin, Greek, German and many more. As Charlie getting to smart, it is not easy for him to get along with other people so he becomes an isolated person.

Laboratory Report 10

Algernon gets aggressive a week ago and died two days ago. Charlie is worried and he researches on our experiment. However, he is already deteriorating. He starts to lose his languages and he starts to get confused easily and has poor memory. He starts to get disorganised and cannot type anymore. Finally, he starts to go back into his original state. I have just heard, Charlie has already left this town.

Thematic Apperception Test

The thematic Apperception Test, or TAT, is a projective psychological test. Historically, it has been among the most widely used, researched and taught of such tests. Its adherents claim that it taps a subject's unconscious t0 reveal repressed aspectsof personality, motives and needs for achivement, power and intimacy, and problem-solving abilities.

History

TAT was developed by the American psychologists Henry A. Murray and Christiana D. Morgan at Havard during the 1930s to explore the underlying dynamics of personality, such as internal conflicts, dominant drives, interests and motives. According to Melville scholar Howard P Vincent, that the TAT came into being when the two pshchologists adapted the implicit lesson of Melville's [Moby Dick] "Doubloon" chapter to a new and larger creative, therapeutic purpose.

After World War II, the TAT was adopted more broadly by psychoanalysts and clinicians to evaluate emotionally disturbed patients.

Later, in the 1970s, the Human Potential Movement encouraged pschologists to use the TAT to help their clients understand themselves better and stimulate pesonal growth.

Procedure

The TAT is popularly known as the picture interpretation technique because it uses a standard series of provocative yet ambiguous pictures which the subject must tell a story. The subject is asked to tell as dramatic a story as they can for each picture presented, including: 1.what has led up to the event shown 2.what is happening at the moment 3.what the characters are feeling and thinking 4.what the outcome of the story is

If these elements are omitted, particularly children or individuals of low cognitive abilities, the evaluator may ask the subject about them directly.

There are 31 picture cards in the standard form of TAT. Some of the cards show male figures, some female, some bothy male and female, some of ambiguous gender, some adults, some children, and some show no human figures at all. One is completely blank. Although the cards were originally designed to be matched to the subject in terms of age and gender, any card may be used with any subject. Most practitioners choose a set of approximately ten cards, either using cards that they feel are generally useful, or that they believe will encourage the subject's expression of emotional conflicts relevant to their specific history.

Scoring system

The TAT is a projective test in that, like the Roschach test, its assessment of the subject is based on what he or she projects onto the ambiguous pictures. Therefore, to complete the assessment of each story created by a subject must be carefully analysed to uncover underlying needs, attitudes, and patterns of reaction. Although most clinical practitioners do not use the formal scoring systems, several formal scoring systems have been developed for analyzing TAT stories systematically and consistently.

Criticisms

Some critics of the TAT cards have observed that the characters and environments are dated, even 'old-fashioned', creating a cultural or psychological distance between the patients and these stimuli that makes identifying with them less likely. Also, in researching the responses of the subjects given phtographs versus the TAT, researchers found that the TAT cards evoked more 'defiant' stories (i.e., more negative) than phtographs, leading them to conclude that the differnce was due to the differnces in the characteristics of the images used as stimuli.

Contemporary applications

Despite crticisms,the TAT remains the most widely used tool for research into areas of psychology such as dreams, fantasies, mate selction and their motivation to choose their occupation. Sometimes it is used in a psychiatric or psychological context to access pesonality disorders, or to screen candidates for high-stress occupations. It is also commonly used in routine psychological evaluations, typically without a formal scoring system, as a way to explore emotional conflicts and object relations.

TAT is widely used in France and Argentina using a pschodynamic approach. The Israeli army uses the test for evaluating potential officers. It is also used by the Services Board of India

Top 10 questions about Avatar

Hi everybody, I have just watched the 3-Dimensional film, Avatar by James Cameron. It is one of the highest grossing film ever made. I felt that the movie was quite interesting and rather action-packed. Overall, I loved it. Here are the ten questions about the film.

1.Why has the future wheelchair technology not advanced from our present day wheelchair capabilities?

In the movie the main character and the protagonist, Jake Sully is paaralysed waist down and has to sit in a wheelchair. Since the film Avatar is situated in the future, why is it that Jake Sully is still rolling around in a wheelchair that is the same as the ones that we can buy in any nearby pharmacies? Is it because our protagonist, Jake Sully can't afford an advanced wheelchair? I think not. Apart from the cool bright yellow paint job on the wheelchair, everything is the same. There is no heavy-duty tank tracks, mag-lev hovering , or even a simple motor on the wheelchair, which some modern wheelchairs already have.

2.Why is it that futuristic military benefits are so bad that they a soldier paralysed on a battlefield cannot even afford an operation that could potentially put him back on the front line?

In the film, Jake Sully is paralysed in battle , but he is unable to get an operation that could put him back on the battlefield. It is baffling that the military is unwilling to let Jake have a spine restoration surgery. Therefore, it conviniently allows Colonel Quaritch to hold hostage the possibility of walking again unless Jake agrees to help in the operation to destroy the Na'vi.

3. Why is it that in the many years into the future, it is so expensive to do a spine restorative operation?

In the film Avatar, Jake Sully is paralysed waist down on the battlefield, yet he does not have the money to pay for the operation. The film is shown in the future, many years from now. Here in the present, medical techonology is already considered advanced and technology is advancing at an atosnishing rate. At this rate of technological advances, it will be in a short time that many complicated operations would be a piece of cake. Thereby, why is it that in the future, it is still so expensive to do a spine restorative operation?

4.Doesn't it seem impractical that the American robot-like suits need to carry actual guns, instead of having weaponry built into its arms?

In some parts of the film (especially the part where the Americans began their land offensive on the Na'vi and the climax where Colonel Quaritch attacked Jake, who was in Avatar form), people in the robot-like suits had their robots to carry guns to shoot at the Na'vi . Doesn't it seem weird to you, as presently, warplanes already have weapons at their fuselage or weapons stored in the plane itself? Needless to say, in the future, the robots would already have weapons stored in the robot-like suit itself.

5.Why is it that the Americans still have the same old helicopters as they do presently during the offensive on the Na'vi?

In the film, during the part where the Americans, with lots of helicopters and a huge aircraft that served as a mobile headquarters, the helicopters they use are the same as the ones we presently have. I find them rather old-fashioned (apart from the mobile aircraft headquarters). The helicopters are generally the same apart from the huge hovering fan that could change its direction. I mean, doesn't the American army even bother to rearm their armies? This is not likely as the United States of America has one of the most advanced armies in the world.

6.Also, why is it that the firepower of the Americans seem as though they are the same as the ones we have presently?

In Avatar, the Americans began their assult on the Na'vi by shooting gas and then by launching numerous missiles on the Na'vi's hometree. The missiles launched, although numerous, are the same missiles that we use today. It may even be outdated as the missilies are so called "dumb" as they do not have a heat tracking sensor, not to mention the state-of-the-art laser sensor and the in-built radar tracking system.

7.Why is it that Jake can start a fire on Pandora, a place with no oxygen?

In the movie, after Jake is stranded from the rest of the group, the sky turns dark and Jake starts to get jittery as he feels that something dangerous is stalking him. Therefore, he lights a fire for him to see clearly and to ward the thing that is stalking him away. How is that possible on a place without oxygen? It is a Science fact that without oxygen, a fire cannot be started. No oxygen, no flame.

8.Why is it that during the fight with Jake, Colonel Quaritch loses his gun and pulls out a giant knife and lunged at Jake? Isn't it unrealistic?

In the film, when the robo-suit which Colonel Quaritch uses, loses its gun. Immediately, Quaritch pulls out a large, long knife that is about the size of the robo-suit's hand. I find that it is very unrealistic as firstly, where in the world did the knife come from? Weaponry was not stored in the robo-suit. Secondly, even though large knifes could be stored in the robo-suit, why would a person choose to store a knife instead of a gun?

9.Since the Na'vi can 'talk' to nature, like animals and their ancestral tree, why didn't they seek nature for help when they were being attacked?

In the movie, it shows that the Na'vi can communicate with nature and even command it-- shown in the part where Jake learns to ride a type of horse and when he tries to control a dragon. Since the Na'vi can communicate with nature, why didn't they ask them for help when they were in need?

10.Why doesn't any coporation begin mining Unobtainium when the Na'vi hometree was felled?

In the film, the Americans attacked the Na'vi just for Unobtainium, which sells for twenty million per kilogram. Since the Americans were so eager to get the mineral out, why didn't they start mining straight away when they felled the Na'vi's hometree? Instead, they waited at their base and they seemed to have no intention of mining Unobtainium.