Today has been a really good day.
One of my lecturers - the one who gives a lot of eye contact to the first row - had the 'man flu.' It was rather funny because he looked out into the crowd for sympathy and realised that there pretty much only females.
My second lecture was given by my personal tutor. My friend - who usually never turns up - had to today because she thought that Liz would notice her absence and 'kill her'. Some lectures are really entertaining because the lecturer keeps spitting out jokes, left right and centre whilst the content is not at all as riveting or stimulating as the lecturer intended. I had this problem learning about free will (because philosophy, despite being entwined with psychology, doesn't interest me much). Some lecturers are really informative with the absence of jokes. Only one lecture has failed on both accounts (learning about gestures - I cried mentally. I was soooo bored!). I appreciate that it is really hard for lecturers to do both, so I usually just care about whether I found the topic interesting or not (seeing as I am there to learn).
However, Liz's lecture was like watching a comedian and also learning something interesting. We learnt about empathy. She started off the lecture not so subtly hinting about how neither Brexit or Trump's presidency was pleasing (I knew what she was getting at seeing as yesterday during a tutorial, she called him a slimy man, upon talking about the lack of empathy and the division in our current society, it wasn't hard to get at). Then she went on to blatantly make comments.
Apparently, there are eight types of empathy. Knowing what someone else is feeling (knowing is rather debatable because can you know someone's feelings even if you're really close?) There is imitation because apparently crossing your arms when someone else does or laughing hysterically when someone else does is empathy. There is emotional contagion where one person has an emotion and it's spread proceeds like a snowball effect witnessed in situations such as mass panic. There is attributing or trying to have an abstract idea of feelings of characters or inanimate objects (which I do when I write fanfiction and you probably do when you think, hmmm, that is a cool tree, I wonder what it is feeling?) There is one in which you lose yourself completely in the pursuit of trying to empathise. There is empathy where you feel distressed thinking of someone's emotions. I realise now I probably haven't stated eight. (I don't think I can remember all of them).
It was also a good day as my friend bought me some pasta her mum made and another gave me a 20 pounds Nandos voucher as a belated Christmas present. Also, I took part in an experiment where I had to play Solitaire - love that game! - for eight minutes whilst hooked up to a sweat detector and I got paid 5 pounds.
On top of this and most importantly, J went to the GP and he's been giving medication. It has a lot of side effects and there is a possibility that for the first week, he may exhibit suicidal behaviours because of the drug (scary!) so he asked me and A to monitor him and to flag up anything if he is behaving weirdly. It apparently takes two weeks for the medication to work. He's happy, though. I have never seen him happier. I hope hope hope that the medication works and that he is on the road to recovery.
At nine I am going to basketball for beginners. :)
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