BSE - the IN thing for older women

as much as i wanted to comment on the rather amusing conversation happening in facebook right now, over a silly picture tagged with me, i rather talk about something more relevant to studies. makes it more relevant and maybe i'll remember it better since the textbook is just full of paragraphs with points scattered all over the place and not really worth the effort to pick them out one by one and prepared it like a secondary school science question.

BSE, the abbreviation for Breast Self-examination, is basically what the name suggests. breast cancer increases with age, but checking breasts for cancer goes the other way with age. one reason the txtbook didn't suggest, but i thought of, might be women have higher sexual drive when they're younger, which leads to 'breast self-examination'. of course it's complete bullshit, but it's worth a thought. self-arousal coupled with self-examination for lumps, this two don't really goes together on second thought. the examination would probably kill any mood for arousal.

and that's why, i thought to myself, for the benefit of my future wife, i would willingly volunteer the service of my hands daily, in order to prevent something that could be cured with early detection. however, the text did mention that most women (and that would probably mean almost all men), do not know how to do BSE properly. an amateur would probably be crying over any hard matter that she felt.

health psychology, that's what i'm reading. the topic is on specific health-related behaviors.

something that has been going on for some time in my mind since the consideration of companies providing internships for psychology undergraduates...i'm interested in quite a number of fields which i can't really decide a favourite. still, here's something that i thought i could actually do, and also make money out of it.

online gaming addiction has been, and will be increasingly, a problem ever since the start of the world wide web. the entire world shrink into a small (though sometimes as large as the map in WoW) virtual space where you meet all kinds of idiots going around killing newbies, annoying everyone, and also kind souls who give you equipments for free and help you through questing. i'm a victim, and a sucker for mmorpgs. the desire to overpower everyone else in the game has always been an aim which i know wasn't realistic given that there're always other kids who will have more time and are more willingly to spend that much cash on a game to be the 'best'. still, the competitive side of me often drags me into the login page and kept me hooked for hours. that, before the deadlines of several assignments and readings hit me so hard that i uninstall the games to prevent myself from playing it (i wanna call it a psychological self-intervention but it's too simple, direct, and common sense to be one).

going back to what i wanted to say...
games have their elements of keeping people hooked for hours. be it the young, teens, young adults, old adults. games do not have a limit on age. and that is why i often find lao uncles playing chinese chess downstairs, smoking their time away... and the schema of 4 aunties sitting around a table playing mahjong. kids, most probably in their own rooms killing zombies. facebook has its fair share of gaming time by the users (i.e. farmville, mafia). smartphone apps, some useful, but personally, i would prefer apps that are games.

games in itself is enjoyable by the players. often, the most successful games that keep the players going for hours, and committed for what seemed like an entire life, are able to engage the players in a special psychological state, that some famous guy with a long name that i can't pronounce nor remember, whom coined the term, 'FLOW'. something like flowing water, maybe? i'm fascinated by this field ever since i got to know it. and the thought of masturabation may be a state of flow, just entered my mind. ha.

so, there must be some things that make us suckers for games, be it the physical, or the virtual. we enjoy these games. and, we want to win at this games, to achieve something, to gain that self-efficacy that we desire. so what are these factors?

my vision is to intergrate these uncharted factors, into virtual games that educate people in the academic field. sounds simple, common-sensical. but the thing is, i haven't come across any teaching method that is even remotely relevant. maybe all my teachers were too mainstreamed for this kind of unproven scientific junk. i once watched a movie about a guy who don't study well but plays basketball well. i think the girl helped him by incorporating basketball into learning. this might not work for everyone, but it's worth considering as what's greater than enjoying the learning process. maybe the achievements, but the learning process is still impt. without it, how do those achievements appear at the end?

and of cuz, programming issues would be out of the boundaries for an IT-cretin like me. so, if this plan ever materialize, perhaps i will engage vian.

then, maybe i can earn some money out of this games which help students to learn, and me to earn $. win-win situation. and by then, i expect many students to carry smartphones around. game apps that are educational~!

for someone who is about to buy his first phone, i think i'm thinking too far.
if anyone wanna steal my idea or improvise it like what the facebook creator did, sure. my ideas are not original. it's just that i haven't come across any crystallization of the ideas yet in my so-mainstream country, or island. i'm quite sure in order to revolutionize the education system which is turning children into studying machines, i will have to be a minister of education or higher. ha.