Since the beginning of the semester, “Jennifer” has suffered the following misfortunes:
– her apartment burned down;
– her mother ended up in a hospital;
– she was mistakenly arrested and incarcerated for several days;
– she had a car accident and her car was totaled;
– she got evicted from her new place;
– her elder son broke his ankle;
– her younger son dislocated his shoulder while playing football;
– she got fired;
– both of her sons were laid up with the flu;
– she had a food poisoning.
I don’t want to be insensitive but I’d rather Jennifer didn’t come too close to me or her bad luck might rub off on me.
Jokes apart, though, how do you explain such a collection of misfortunes within the framework of your worldview? Mind you, I’m sure “Jennifer” is not lying about any of this. She is a mature person who is in no way obligated to take my course. There is no reason for her to lie.
Clarissa's Blog 
How do I explain it? She’s unlucky. There are people like that. Every day life is a constant struggle against bad luck. Bizarre innit!
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That’s what N. says. But then he is Russian. 🙂
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I’ve known unlucky people. You can try and help them, doesn’t work. Bad luck just lands on them over and over again, and quite spontaneously from unrelated sources. Best thing to do is run for the hills before it rubs off on you. 🙂
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sorry, that anon comment was mine!
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“She is a mature person who is in no way obligated to take my course. There is no reason for her to lie.”
Except assignments deadlines?
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She doesn’t need this course.
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Where I’m from they call her condition ‘snakebit’. I had a cousin who tried to help someone who was snakebit and everything they did was either ineffectual or backfired. Maybe the ancients were on to something with that whole ‘cursed by the gods’ thing…
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When you feel overburdened by a problem you tend to be less able to handle other problems well: you’re less focused since you’re irritated, tired, nervous etc. In your mind you also have built up an image of your self as a failure or inept which makes you as well more prone to act this way.
People as well react negatively towards you: they may think you suspicious, unconsciously treat you with less respect etc. and so the next problem piles up.
We have to do our best that the first problem doesn’t break us down and keep our heads up to avoid a chain to happen.
By playing chess you can become aware of this pheonemon other than experiment yourself: If you have one piece under attack or a mate threat you want to solve that tension and you tend to focus more on it than the rest of the game. Usually after that you start making less sound moves losing more material or win opportunities.
Theoretically won games are lost this way all the time even by Grandmasters.
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I’ve also had such moments in my life when everything would go horribly wrong at the same time. Your explanation is very profound. It makes a lot of sense.
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She is just unlucky.
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Well, in this case, it sounds like several of the misfortunes that have befallen her might be interrelated with one another (i.e, her house burned down, her mother was hospitalized for smoke inhalation, she was falsely incarcerated on suspicion of arson, her employer fired her for missing shifts so she couldn’t afford to pay rent, and was too stressed-out to drive carefully, et cetera). Of course, I don’t know the details.
I suppose on the whole though, that even if there’s only a small probability of any given calamity befalling an individual during the course of a year, there are a lot of individuals in the world and so, statistically, there should be at least a few who end up suffering a year from hell.
I wish I could provide a better explanation; I myself am often mystified by the fact that there seem to be people and days who are simply cursed by the gods.
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The inference that I draw is that this woman is poor, obese, addicted to a bad diet, lives in a run-down environment, bathes irregularly and is careless. This genetic disposition carries down to her offspring. Such individuals rarely do well in a work environment, expose themselves to illnesses, and drive erratically. To correct for such a set of misfortunes requires that she develops a new, better lifestyle. She has the choice. I do not believe in such a sequence as bad luck, rather as bad choices.
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All I know about this student is what is visible and that is her figure. She is very skinny and seems obsessed with weight.
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