Your Neurochemical Self

I was left wondering about the details on how did you deal with those African policeman. I find so weird to be in a situation where you're suppose to bribe people or give them money on the sidelines. Just, weird.

Thinking about rules. I'm no saint. I have broken many rules in my lifetime, but only when I was sure the only one who could be harmed was myself. I believe in accountability, guidelines, principles. (Empathetic)Ethics. I'm ambivalent about inflexible laws and harsh punishment, but I definitely think they are a necessary evil.
The world is a mess. Life is a mess. I think much can be said about how society is ruthless and unfair, and how many rules are established by the powerful and unjust to better exploit, and also to prevent themselves from having their prerogatives threatened.

I have friends back from college who cheated a lot through the first two years, but eventually stopped and started to excel. True story. I won't even hint at names here though. =)
Couple of them "needed" to focus on partying instead of studying. But one was going through tough personal problems.
I never taught beyond highschool level, and anyway, my experience in teaching is minimal. But I've always been the kind of person who studies/learns things on his own, having professors/advisors is helpful and part of the educational system long established rules, but I personally don't (like to) depend on them. So... I don't know, cheating(especially on college level and above) is disrespectful, but it's their lives, they'll miss this knowledge later down the road, and well, they will be the ones depending on learning it on their own, or becoming official failures..

ps: I think there's a typo in your text: "(...)because they're likelyPeople[sic] tend to cheat when they see other(...)"

Yes! I wanted to tell all the details about the police encounter - see new post "When You Face An Open Palm: Practical tips for handling a shake-down."

As far as the typo, I looked and looked and couldn't find it. Please give more detail.

As far as cheating in college, uniquely human brain regions for foresight don't develop until then. So it's nice to know people often mature later on. But sadly, tolerance for cheating in the lower grades can create and entrenched habit- ie. permanent neural pathways. LGB

My father has always admonished me for "doing things the hard way" [not our strata's socially expected way] at the same time admonishing me not to jump off the empire state building just because everyone else did. The fact that he has never been able to understand the disparity between what he said and what he expected has, at times, caused bleeding from the ears.

It was lovely to read of another person who, regardless of the lemmings, recognized that counter need and proceeded to change operations. I am a big fan of packing my toys and going home; unfortunately the older I get, I'm finding more and more people declaring the emperor's new clothes are just lovely, and less and less with whom play.