Varsity Newspaper: Unforgotten Words.

Varsity, is an independent student weekly newspaper, of Cambridge University. It has the distinction of being one of but three independent student newspapers in the UK.

Long ago, when I was a student at Cambridge University, I recall reading some quotes, from students about Cambridge. One of those quotes has stuck with me, ever since.

The, sadly anonymous student wit, was quoted to have said, words to the effect:

"Intelligent life in space? I would settle for intelligent life in Cambridge."

Sometimes, I felt like that about Cambridge, too. No doubt that is why I have never forgotten the expressed sentiment.

The funny thing is that that quote from Varsity is one of the few things that has stuck with me, from its pages. One of the others was a story about a former student who committed suicide, quite young, but that is another story...

Perhaps it is the profundity of the particular remarks, or stories, that endures, in my mind - or the ones that capture, aptly, the nature of life and place. All the rest is lost, as, perhaps, deemed inconsequential by my mind and so unworthy of remembrance.

I wonder who that wit in the Varsity newspaper was? Did they go on to have an interesting life? Did they find the intelligent people they sought?

If anyone knows who said that quote, please let me know in the comments below. Thanks.

Please note that the quote above may not have used the exact words of the Varsity wit, but the meaning is the same. That is just how I choose to remember it.

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page. To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 4, this month, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here: http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at: http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is at http://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)

The Right Stuff.

Sometimes, character is more important than anything else.

Over a week ago, Fintan went running with his mother, Syahidah. Now, as most regular readers will know, my wife is a rather athletic woman: she simply breathes physical exertion and has a love of challenging sporting activities that would just intimidate most people.

So, Syahidah ran alongside Fintan, rather amiably. It was a run around our neighbourhood, on the street in the early evening, as the sky began to take on a pink tinge. It was pleasant, as most evenings are, around here. She was enjoying her companionable run beside her seven year old son. He began to pull ahead of her, somewhat, but she wasn’t concerned that he had any chance of winning – for there was something she rather thought he was not considering: eventually they would have to run uphill. At that point, she expected Fintan to slow down and her to catch up and overtake him.

She jogged on, for some minutes. As they rounded a corner in the street and began the uphill climb home, Fintan did, indeed, begin to slow down. Running uphill is a big enough challenge for a seasoned adult –but, for a young boy, it was certainly quite an effort.

Syahidah smiled to herself, inwardly. Now, she was going to overtake him.

At this moment, Fintan did something unexpected. He suddenly started to pump his legs faster and faster, leaping forward UP the hill, as if it wasn’t really there. He raced ahead. Syahidah tried to catch him, but simply couldn’t match his pace. He was off, leaving her trailing in the distance.

I was waiting in front of our house, for their return. Fintan came rushing around the corner, racing towards me with a grin.

At last, he stood before me, curiously, not breathing heavily at all – or at least not noticeably.

I looked at my phone’s clock.

“Seven minutes.”, I told him.

He considered the number. By itself it meant nothing, however, allied with another fact, it had potent meaning.

“You beat mummy.”, I said, with gentle approval. “Well done.”

“When my legs began to burn, then I began to run faster!”, he explained.

I found myself laughing. “You ran FASTER when your legs began to burn?!”.

“Yes.” He said, perhaps a little amused at himself.

“That, Fintan, is when most people would stop running.”

A minute later, Syahidah arrived. “Eight minutes.”, I told her.

Her eyes appraised Fintan. Her face still held a lingering surprise that he had beaten her.

“He ran faster when his legs began to burn.”, I told her.

“He is crazy! That is when people collapse.”

My seven year old son, Fintan, had trounced his athletic mum, in a race. Yet, it was not his body that had won, with its smaller, shorter legs and restricted pace, compared to hers. No. It was his WILL that had won. Fintan had pushed his body, to greater exertion, precisely when most people would have given up the race. When his legs began to complain of the effort, that was the moment when he demanded more of them. To my understanding, this is very significant. It shows what kind of character Fintan has. When the situation becomes more difficult, when his body complains of the effort, that is precisely when he will make his greatest effort. Fintan will not allow himself to be defeated by the mere limits of his body. His strength of will, allows him to overcome such limits, to push his body beyond what others might have thought possible for a seven year old to accomplish.

I am pleased to see this characteristic in Fintan. I believe it will enable him to do difficult things, to overcome challenges others would simply give up on, once they realize their innate difficulty. He is only seven, yet he is already a higher performing athlete than his mother, when he chooses to be. That is certainly unexpected, given what I know of Syahidah’s capabilities in such areas.

I am reminded of the day he went rock climbing, and the way he flung himself through the air, from handhold to handhold, seemingly unconcerned and unmindful of the fall beneath him. He fairly ran up the rock face, as if it were no challenge at all, overcoming it in a state of delight. It seems, very much, that Fintan not only does not shirk from physical challenges, but relishes them. He thinks it is fun, to push the body to its limits and do things that seem quite unreasonable. I wonder where this will take him? One thing is for sure: he definitely has the “Right Stuff.”

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page. To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 4, this month, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here: http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at: http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is at http://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)

ICSSH 2011, International Conference on Social Science and Humanity, Singapore.

I have been a little quiet, on my blog, these past few days, but I have been far from quiet, in the real world. I have just presented a new paper, at the ICSSH 2011 conference, in Singapore.

The International Conference on Social Science and Humanity, 2011, was an interdisciplinary conference with a very wide range of papers presented – everything from computer science, through athletes in advertising, through psychology, through the history of tea production, to ethics. It was a conference in which you might encounter virtually anything. My own paper, “Is Peer Review Unethical?”, was well received. I presented it on the afternoon of Monday 28th February 2011.

The paper, which enumerates the problems of peer review, will be published, somewhat ironically, in the peer reviewed IEEE Xplore, which is ISI listed. It may also be published elsewhere, though I have yet to be informed about this. I shall save full details of the paper, until its actual publication. Here, however, I will note that my paper constituted an ethical analysis of peer review. In it, I identified a significant number of systematic ethical failings in peer review, and propose solutions to them all. Additionally, I propose principles and guidelines by which a peer reviewed journal could be constructed to prevent all ethical problems.

Now, why, you may be wondering, is my paper, “Is Peer Review Unethical?”, important? Well, one very big reason is that peer review is deeply flawed and that these flaws affect the livelihoods and careers of every single academic on Earth. They also affect, detrimentally, the very progress and health of science itself. Thus, my paper, which proposes how to solve all of these problems, could not, in fact, be more important, for its potential beneficial effects on academia, and Mankind as a whole.

The organizers of the ICSSH 2011 conference, IEDRC (International Economics Development and Research Center), told me that it would take three to nine months for the paper to be published in IEEE Xplore – so, please be patient. When it is published, I will link to it, for you to have a good read.

Thanks to HELP University College, for sponsoring my attendance at the ICSSH 2011 conference in Singapore.

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page. To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 4, this month, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here: http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at: http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is at http://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)

How to build a supercar.

Little boys and girls do the strangest things, for the strangest reasons. That is what makes them so fun to observe.

Today, Syahidah caught sight of Tiarnan, five, at work on his cousin Arissa’s scooter. He was placing stickers on it and had fairly covered it, in the brightly coloured decals.

“What are you doing?”, she asked of her son.

“I am tuning it.”, he said, without looking away from his task.

How funny. In his mind, he was “tuning” the scooter, just as cars are “tuned” to make them faster with a higher performance.

With a smile she left him to it.

Later on in the day, he made a gloomy observation to his mother.

“The tuning didn’t work. The stickers are SO heavy!”

Well, at least I know where to go if I ever need my car tuned. I can just ask my littlest son.

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page. To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 4, this month, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here: http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at: http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is at http://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)