Looking back at my last post, September 11th and the date today November 22nd.. it has been 2 months which I have not written anything on this blog. That is no surprise though, as much as I love expressing myself and sharing my experiences and thoughts about life, the struggle to find time to do everything I fancy has prompted me to prioritize certain activities above others. After submitting my final essay of the semester (3rd essay of the semester) last Monday, I am able to have some much needed break from the courseworks finally. The 3 essays were assigned in a way that students have to somehow race against time, the first due in October, and the next 2 due on the SAME DAY in November. The writing itself can probably be done in 2-3 days to be fair, but the amount of research we are expected to put in takes weeks and weeks of time. Anyways, it does not even matter anymore.
**
Despite the hectic past 2 months, I enjoyed myself throughout this process. The opportunity to join the Residence Life Team last year and work for them this year has given me working experiences different from the norm job. Moreover, joining the university's intramural basketball team with my Malaysian peers also helped in keeping my health, fitness and competitive spirit intact. Apart from these activities, my gaming friends from last year in Exeter also invited me to a few DotA2 matches here and there, and by playing those games, the night passes by pretty quick. One thing I have not been able to commit time on is my Nintendo 3ds and the new game I purchased called Bravely Default. That is one hard game to play and requires a lot of strategy and planning and I just do not have the time for that unfortunately.
**
2nd year stress is real. As essays and exams start to play a vital role in the students' overall degree, the need to perform exceptionally in those aspects is there. Not only that, it is also the time of the degree year where students' have to compete for roles in companies for the summer internship.Being at this stage brings in a lot worry and suspense. Applying to large companies in U.K is such a big challenge.. looking at the amount of international students and local students here, the competition is ridiculously fierce and a chance for me to work for them is like a flash in the pan. Gradually, sleep has become my best friend since the start of the 2nd year.. the only time which I can distance myself from all these thoughts. Nevertheless, never try never know.. who'd thought I would end up in the U.K and doing a psychology degree anyways?
**
The urge to spend is real here in the U.K., partly because you are able to discover things and events that are either never going to be available or are ridiculously expensive in Malaysia. First thing that comes to mind is that, I am finally going to be able to travel around Europe! (thanks to Vicky for the invitation.) In December, I will be going to Switzerland and Austria for 10 days, and fingers crossed, I have enough time to study when I get back to the U.K. as exam's right around the corner. :x Also, I bought tickets for Dream Theater's concert in February next year at the Palladium, London, which is also something I can hardly wait for! Still.. I have the urge to spend on a winter coat and a pair of headphones.. damn.
But one thing is rather comforting is that, I am earning some discount from living in the university accommodation as a result of working for the university.. so technically, I am spending those money on my living expenses and things I wanna buy. Fair enough?
**
Oh well.. that's all for this post.
Signing off,
Jayden
Sunday, November 22, 2015
Friday, September 11, 2015
The tale of different perspectives
Before I proceed to the main topic of this post, I would like to do a short recap of the events I have been through the past 2 months. Despite failing to obtain an internship..(which I kind of expected really..), it was a satisfying summer break for me as I did nearly everything I couldn't really do during the university term. From completing games, reading comics, watching anime, learning guitar songs, playing basketball.. I couldn't think of a better way for me to thoroughly enjoy and at the same time exhaust myself through this break. Although I am still rather salty for not landing myself an internship.. but hey, look at the bright side, I earned myself more time to spend with my family and friends.
Now, it has been a week since I arrived in Exeter.. and I am starting to love this place all over again. The weather, the scenery and the hills.. they bring back many memories from my first year. Almost this time last year when I first arrived in my university, I was suffering from culture shock, language barrier, accents from my local flatmates from different parts of the UK and also the lack of Malaysian companionship.. I spent most of the time trying to settle in than to enjoy the peaceful environment that my university has. Luckily, everything went great gradually and I managed to get through my first year without many problems at all.
It still feels like a dream to study here.
**
Back to the topic.
During the last two months of my summer break, I found conversations with my friends and families increasingly interesting. It's probably not what they say though, but what can I gain from what they say. I believe most people know about the importance of eye contact and body language in a conversation.. fair enough.. but I find that these are little things that people in general tend to neglect while having a casual talk.. unless in a formal surrounding. It is quite easy to see whether somebody remains focused in a conversation or not.. just by looking at their gestures and listening to what they say. Well, this is what I find anyways.. most of people I talked to, depending on the subject, will either keep eye contact throughout the conversation or constantly diverting their attention away for a few millisecond. For me, it is a sign of a great conversation. Those who are not really interested would just refuse to keep eye contact at all throughout that subject.. signalling that they are just responding out of polite and do not expect to continue on the conversation.
This is my deduction anyways.
**
Also what I find was that some people I have met tend to only think in one direction. For example, some typical motivators might say, "you are able to succeed in something if you work hard.. like <inserts famous names>." I find it ridiculous, how about those that work hard and fail.. obviously no one is going to remember their names and I would bet with those 'motivators' the list of failures are going to be longer than those that succeeded.
Moreover, things like "you should do this way, it is the correct way and nothing will go wrong." is also a prime example of one-directional thinking. It reminds me about the "functional fixedness" theory which I learnt in a psychology lecture - a cognitive bias that limits a person to using an object only in the way it is traditionally used. Yes, nothing will go wrong but to be fair, the other way might work as well but because of the sentence "nothing will go wrong", we tend to shun away from experimenting various options.
Obviously, this relies heavily on the situation.. if it is something major or important, we would definitely, if not, automatically choose the safe path and eliminate any forms of risk. However, casual stuffs like strategy games, cooking, even simple stuffs like how to tie a tie.. there are so many different ways to go about it.
What I am trying to say here is, do not stop, mock, jeer at someone for having a different way of tackling a same problem in comparison. It's that easy.
Obviously, this relies heavily on the situation.. if it is something major or important, we would definitely, if not, automatically choose the safe path and eliminate any forms of risk. However, casual stuffs like strategy games, cooking, even simple stuffs like how to tie a tie.. there are so many different ways to go about it.
What I am trying to say here is, do not stop, mock, jeer at someone for having a different way of tackling a same problem in comparison. It's that easy.
**
I believe we were all born with an ego.. no matter egoism or egotism. A simple simple experiment is by randomly picking up your old class photograph. If my deduction isn't wrong, the first person you are looking in the photograph is probably none other than yourself. Yes, I believe this indicates how self-centered we are.. not in a bad way, but it shows how we care about ourselves more than anybody else. Because people want to look good in a photo, thus, they will check ourselves first before caring about how anybody else looks.
The strength of the ego is probably why various people have various difficulty levels in accepting advice from others. Self-bias thoughts and cognitive dissonance cause us to think that what we ought to do is always better than what other people suggest. However, that is just 'what we think'. A successful person, in my book, has to be able to absorb numerous advice while suppressing his/her inner thoughts and at the same time holding the urge to refute any statements.
The strength of the ego is probably why various people have various difficulty levels in accepting advice from others. Self-bias thoughts and cognitive dissonance cause us to think that what we ought to do is always better than what other people suggest. However, that is just 'what we think'. A successful person, in my book, has to be able to absorb numerous advice while suppressing his/her inner thoughts and at the same time holding the urge to refute any statements.
And that is what I am striving to achieve.
**
Oh well, few more days to freshers and meeting my new flatmates.
Hopefully it will be a smooth-sailing and successful 2nd year for me, fingers crossed.
Bye,
Jayden
Monday, August 10, 2015
Fools.
My beloved country has finally done it, becoming the brightest spotlight internationally for all the wrong reasons. From the scandalous 1MDB to the rediscovery of the missing aeroplane MH 370, these are not news that make us, the Malaysian citizens proud at all. Moreover, the way the government have handled these issues thus far, are not very convincing.
Questions have been continuously hurled towards our "much-respected" Prime Minister but his answers, responses and even actions towards them are ridiculous. It is a great chance for him to prove that he is a great leader but he has blown it completely. His weak responses have been thoroughly exploited by the opposition parties and foreign media, which somehow is able to give a clearer view about the process and details of the whole 1MDB issue.
Obviously, we as the citizen were told that foreign media reports are 'fake, mere speculation, lack evidence etc..' However, just by saying that, the government are not doing themselves favour at all as this means that something is happening, and there is much more unknown information yet to be found.
Seriously, the situation of this issue is disastrous and will continue to be a downward spiral until probably 'the fall' of the current government. As issues like the problem of GST - which was implemented at the wrong time and the fall of the money value - ridiculously low now remains, it is hard to see them staying afloat for a few more months. *grabs popcorn*
**
I love talking to my friends about how living in the UK has 20% VAT whenever we buy items and goods there. It is a hefty cost compared to what we are experiencing now in the country but, I did not really hear any complaints about it at all. You know why? In UK, the basic minimum wage is around 5 pound an hour, and just by converting the amount into MYR, you will be utterly shocked at that figure. Not only that, in UK, for us international students, who presumably cooks everyday for our meals, probably spend around 20 pounds a week at most for the groceries. Dude, you can earn that shit just by working 4 hours in the UK. Convert it into MYR and you probably have to work for 3 days, 24 hours.
Man, see how crazy it is. The answer to GST is simple, we are not ready for it. When our income is not growing, the implementation of GST is not going to impact the peoples' live positively in every aspect at all. Is the government blind to see this fact, or do they just need more cash urgently for whatever reasons.
**
Recently, my friend Facebook messaged me and wished me good luck. I asked him 'For what?'. He told me to look at the exchange rate and told me that spending in the UK would be tough for me from now on.
To be fair, I don't even wanna look at the exchange rate anymore.. it is a major disappointment.
For a country filled with the wealth of natural resources, the failure to recover from this free fall of exchange rates will definitely put it's own future, economically, in jeopardy....
To save a sinking ship however, it needs a great captain,
but, what if our captain has already plotted his escape,
and we are just fools drowning in this sinking ship?
Speechless, (Oh the irony..)
Jayden
Tuesday, July 21, 2015
Definition of Success
Success, in Google dictionary, is defined as 'the accomplishment of an aim or purpose'. It is merely a word to describe the outcome of a situation, nevertheless, the view of 'success' can be very subjective.
We cannot run away from this word in reality. Being born into not only an Asian but a Chinese family, this word has already been imprinted into my life, I believe, even before I am born. The typical Chinese community has a overwhelming sense of pride, and can be seen quite clearly that 'success' seems to be a trait that can be used to show off or act as a comparison tool. This therefore, results in the term 'kiasu' - afraid of losing, a term which Malaysians love to use to label the Singaporeans.
Over the years of having exams, I had literally no stress in facing them. I do not worry about the thought of facing the exams and have no idea why. Not even the gruesome A-levels paper inflicted the level of stress which actually cause me to worry about the papers. To me, if you study, you will not fail, that's that. Unless, the individual has something at stake or did not study at all, then undeniably the stress level can be high prior to exams.
This though, might be the explanation for me to not achieve the best possible results for ANY of my examinations. I could only get average results or above average results at best. However, unlike some of my peers, I treat examination days just like any usual day and well just want to get the day done with, not thinking of my results. Therefore, when I told friends about what I think about when facing my exams, some of them are quite envious.
Success, however, in the modern community is used as a comparison between individual. As an individual you might acknowledge your success, but from the society you can be a failure. I guess this is one of the reasons of how stress emerge and conquer the minds of people, especially the young ones.
A clear example would be seeing how parents like to compare their children's results among each other. This is one scenario that never fails to happen every time after the results of the latest examinations were released. There can be four type of parents, those who simply don't care about the results at all, those who care about the improvement of their own child and awards the child when improvement is seen, those who care about the improvement but punishes the child for not being able to achieve results same as his peers, and those who just show off their children. Social comparison theory tells us that people compare to know their standards in the society.. fair enough. Other than that, it also tells us that people tend to compare with people weaker than them to feel better. Therefore, all I can say is don't be that kind of parents who just want to show off how well your children did. It's stupid. A well-known fact, our country's education is deteriorating, and the demand of tuition for the children of every household is on the rise, even during the period of primary school. Doesn't that mean those parents who are able to send their children to tuition has an advantage in getting the best outcome? Sending children to as many tuition as possible, robbing their childhood.., albeit getting the best results, is that success to you?
Like I said, success is subjective. I can be rich and it is success to me, but to the richer ones, they might call me a failure. Thus, in this scenario, it tests the strength of will power, do you accept yourself as a successful person or a failure? Are you going to care about what other people think? This is basically how thoughts get swindled and when people fall into this trap, confidence gets destroyed.
As long as you believe on the dictionary definition of success, you can basically lead a happy life as I believe most people can accomplish their aim. Obviously, this also depends on what are you trying to aim for and how much effort did you put in to accomplish it. Basically what I am trying to say is to achieve success for yourself and not what other want you to be. Just live your way and fuck what other thinks about you.
Whenever you are being compared, just think of the basis of Social Comparison Theory - they are just trying to compare with you to think of where they stand in the society, that doesn't mean you are at the bottom, it is just that they are one step above you. Rather than having the thought of you are the failure and he/she is the successor, just think that both of you are successful and that he/she is more successful than you.
Use that as your motivation to strive for greater heights.
I firmly believe that there is no failure in life, and as long as you are here in this world, there is always 'success' for you to find. And it's up to you to decide whether to hunt for it or not.
Signing off,
Jayden
We cannot run away from this word in reality. Being born into not only an Asian but a Chinese family, this word has already been imprinted into my life, I believe, even before I am born. The typical Chinese community has a overwhelming sense of pride, and can be seen quite clearly that 'success' seems to be a trait that can be used to show off or act as a comparison tool. This therefore, results in the term 'kiasu' - afraid of losing, a term which Malaysians love to use to label the Singaporeans.
Over the years of having exams, I had literally no stress in facing them. I do not worry about the thought of facing the exams and have no idea why. Not even the gruesome A-levels paper inflicted the level of stress which actually cause me to worry about the papers. To me, if you study, you will not fail, that's that. Unless, the individual has something at stake or did not study at all, then undeniably the stress level can be high prior to exams.
This though, might be the explanation for me to not achieve the best possible results for ANY of my examinations. I could only get average results or above average results at best. However, unlike some of my peers, I treat examination days just like any usual day and well just want to get the day done with, not thinking of my results. Therefore, when I told friends about what I think about when facing my exams, some of them are quite envious.
Success, however, in the modern community is used as a comparison between individual. As an individual you might acknowledge your success, but from the society you can be a failure. I guess this is one of the reasons of how stress emerge and conquer the minds of people, especially the young ones.
A clear example would be seeing how parents like to compare their children's results among each other. This is one scenario that never fails to happen every time after the results of the latest examinations were released. There can be four type of parents, those who simply don't care about the results at all, those who care about the improvement of their own child and awards the child when improvement is seen, those who care about the improvement but punishes the child for not being able to achieve results same as his peers, and those who just show off their children. Social comparison theory tells us that people compare to know their standards in the society.. fair enough. Other than that, it also tells us that people tend to compare with people weaker than them to feel better. Therefore, all I can say is don't be that kind of parents who just want to show off how well your children did. It's stupid. A well-known fact, our country's education is deteriorating, and the demand of tuition for the children of every household is on the rise, even during the period of primary school. Doesn't that mean those parents who are able to send their children to tuition has an advantage in getting the best outcome? Sending children to as many tuition as possible, robbing their childhood.., albeit getting the best results, is that success to you?
Like I said, success is subjective. I can be rich and it is success to me, but to the richer ones, they might call me a failure. Thus, in this scenario, it tests the strength of will power, do you accept yourself as a successful person or a failure? Are you going to care about what other people think? This is basically how thoughts get swindled and when people fall into this trap, confidence gets destroyed.
As long as you believe on the dictionary definition of success, you can basically lead a happy life as I believe most people can accomplish their aim. Obviously, this also depends on what are you trying to aim for and how much effort did you put in to accomplish it. Basically what I am trying to say is to achieve success for yourself and not what other want you to be. Just live your way and fuck what other thinks about you.
Whenever you are being compared, just think of the basis of Social Comparison Theory - they are just trying to compare with you to think of where they stand in the society, that doesn't mean you are at the bottom, it is just that they are one step above you. Rather than having the thought of you are the failure and he/she is the successor, just think that both of you are successful and that he/she is more successful than you.
Use that as your motivation to strive for greater heights.
I firmly believe that there is no failure in life, and as long as you are here in this world, there is always 'success' for you to find. And it's up to you to decide whether to hunt for it or not.
Signing off,
Jayden
Saturday, June 27, 2015
Stuck.
There's always a good side and a bad side for everything. Nothing can be completely beneficial or disruptive, it all depends on how one sees it and perceives it. Therefore, there might be actually no wrong to somebody's thinking and action because to them, it is the right thing to do. The usage of the words 'Human Rights' further enhance this effect, negating the judgement and the condemns of the society towards what we are doing - which can be wrong itself but not in our eye. How many times do we hear advises such as, 'stop smoking, you will have bad health.' Well, to be honest, we are all going to die one day, regardless in an accident, or ultimately out of deteriorating health.
I am not supporting the usage of cigarettes here, rather I want to pinpoint the fact society overemphasize the fact that smoking cigarettes is bad. Since a very young age, I was told by my father to stay away from them as they were bad for health and people get addicted to it. These rather 'wise' words contributed to me thinking that smokers are automatically 'bad people' at that time. Over the years, I have thought about it, why do people still have the idea that smoking is bad entirely?
Just because of health and addiction?
How about shopaholics? How about gamers? How about caffeine addicts?
Why do smokers receive so much attention?
*
After 2 weeks in Malaysia, I am dejected at the fact that I am still unable to get an internship or a job. For the internship, it was just wishful thinking that any company in this country would actually offer me an opportunity. First year student. Psychology student. Joker. The internships that I have applied to did not even have Psychology under their required subjects.
I have also applied to a customer service job, which they have not return to me yet.. fingers crossed man.
*
However, to be honest, I just want to relax and meet up with my friends for these 2 months.
Growing mushrooms at home is actually not a bad idea too.
If I am able to get an internship in UK next year, I will be spending 2 straight years there, and hypothetically, if I am able to get a job right after I graduate, it would be a road of no return.
So.. what now?
Sincerely,
Jayden
I am not supporting the usage of cigarettes here, rather I want to pinpoint the fact society overemphasize the fact that smoking cigarettes is bad. Since a very young age, I was told by my father to stay away from them as they were bad for health and people get addicted to it. These rather 'wise' words contributed to me thinking that smokers are automatically 'bad people' at that time. Over the years, I have thought about it, why do people still have the idea that smoking is bad entirely?
Just because of health and addiction?
How about shopaholics? How about gamers? How about caffeine addicts?
Why do smokers receive so much attention?
*
After 2 weeks in Malaysia, I am dejected at the fact that I am still unable to get an internship or a job. For the internship, it was just wishful thinking that any company in this country would actually offer me an opportunity. First year student. Psychology student. Joker. The internships that I have applied to did not even have Psychology under their required subjects.
I have also applied to a customer service job, which they have not return to me yet.. fingers crossed man.
*
However, to be honest, I just want to relax and meet up with my friends for these 2 months.
Growing mushrooms at home is actually not a bad idea too.
If I am able to get an internship in UK next year, I will be spending 2 straight years there, and hypothetically, if I am able to get a job right after I graduate, it would be a road of no return.
So.. what now?
Sincerely,
Jayden
Thursday, May 28, 2015
Is there true kindness?
The first year of psychology has treated me well.
Contents in some of my modules have enlightened me about the simplicity of human thought process. Reading mind directly is impossible, but with analysis of the facial expression, human gesture, and context of the surrounding, I believe it is fairly easy to at least make a guess about what the person could be experiencing at that particular moment. One thing is for sure though, this first year has taught me well and have encouraged me to think in a perspective well beyond the norm.
Recently, it was disturbing really, for dark thoughts to fill my mind as I let my eyelids fall. This traces back to my first semester, a lecture in social psychology in particular. Mr. Morton, my lecturer (also my personal tutor) was explaining and also questioning about the existence of true altruism. I was completely absorbed in his lecture. For years, I have always thought that helping can either be genuine, or with a motive behind (a reward, an expectancy of receiving help in return). Helping does lead to communication between people which then contributes to our networking, which is a "skill-set" many companies highly value nowadays, thus, beneficial in some ways to us. However, what struck me the most was Thomas's third argument towards altruism.
We help because we do not want to feel bad for not helping.
Not helping puts us in an aversive state. We help to reduce this state.
I can vividly remember, when I first saw this sentence in the lecture hall, all my concentration fell onto it. I thought of the times where I helped people, and tried to apply this concept in each of those situations.. and no matter how hard I tried to deny, the idea of helping always fall between, "I should help, because he is suffering" (feeling bad if you don't help), "I should help because it's my responsibility" (feeling bad because if you don't help, you are abandoning your responsibility), "I should help because it benefits BOTH party". (Since it benefits me as well, so why not?)
Have a think about it. Are you sure you are giving genuine help? A help which does not cost you anything? Of course, thinking at the surface level would lead you to the answer 'Yes, why not?', but try to think more in depth, and you will find the reason behind helping somebody might not be as obvious.
**
After having lectures on Classic Studies in Psychology, it further shatters my idea of what people call 'a kind person'.
There is no kind person, just a situation which allows someone to be kind.
Zimbardo's Prison Experiment and Milgram's Obedience Study. These two studies are disturbing, and had never failed to send chills down my spine whenever I revised the studies - aim, procedures, results, for my exams in midnight.
To give you a brief outline,
for ZPE,
Healthy student volunteers were recruited and placed in a simulated prison, which was designed with the help of a prisoner who was in jail for 10+ years. Basically, volunteers were given roles, either as prisoners or guards and the aim of the study was to test whether the students conformed to their roles.. and they did. Yes, the guards basically harmed the students, abused them, treated them as if they were real prisoners, but in fact, they all belonged at the same level in reality, they were students.
It took only 3 days for the students to be emotionally disturbed.
The experiment portrayed realism and it shows how giving someone a powerful role can totally change their perspectives completely, no matter how similar they have been to you before this.
On the bright side, the experiment was bombarded with many debates and controversy, so it could not 100% justify human nature itself.. however, in my book, the initial results of the study was potent enough to suggest that all of us have a dark side in our subconscious mind, and it will shine when given an opportunity.
*
I am a fan of Ryan Higa's videos and have been following him since his 'How to be a ..' videos in the early years. 2 years back, he released a video called Most Annoying People on the Internet and named them MAPOTI in short. Two types of MAPOTI he had suggested in the video was 'The Attention Whore' and 'Overly Deep Person'. People like these never fail to take selfies and photos and pair them with captions which do not have any relation (literally 0% meaning) to the photos. The most common ones I have often seen nowadays happen to be selfies following a emotional love quote, a quote showing how lonely you are and you need a partner, or even trivial matters. An example would be a photo with 'I can't fall asleep' printed at the caption column.
FFS. If this is not attention seeking, I don't know what is. Narcissism.. hmm.. maybe? (They tend present themselves as perfect or good-looking as possible in those photos especially.)
Please if you are desperate for love, go look for it. A photo of yourself would not stop you from being lonely, unless people's commends and comments are actually what you really want. If you can't sleep, find a way to sleep. I still do not understand the logic behind 'I can't sleep so I am going to take a pic of myself.'
Hey, do you still remember the times when photos are only used to capture a memorable event? A memory which you want it to be frozen in time so you can look back X years later and say, 'Wow, I remembered I had great fun.' or in some cases.. 'I used to know this person very well..'.
The technology is improving leaps and bounds, from camera, to a phone camera, then front phone camera and now we have selfie sticks abundantly available in the market.
It seems like the purpose of taking photos has evolved with time as well.
Or maybe, the development of technology is just too good of an opportunity to unleash the potential of attention-seeking and narcissism in humans.
A selfie or photo of others is harmless and it doesn't relate to me in any way, but it can sometimes be very irritating to see.
I wonder why?
P.S. The content of my post is not targeted to any particular person, just a common scenario which I have experienced.
Signing off,
Jayden
Contents in some of my modules have enlightened me about the simplicity of human thought process. Reading mind directly is impossible, but with analysis of the facial expression, human gesture, and context of the surrounding, I believe it is fairly easy to at least make a guess about what the person could be experiencing at that particular moment. One thing is for sure though, this first year has taught me well and have encouraged me to think in a perspective well beyond the norm.
Recently, it was disturbing really, for dark thoughts to fill my mind as I let my eyelids fall. This traces back to my first semester, a lecture in social psychology in particular. Mr. Morton, my lecturer (also my personal tutor) was explaining and also questioning about the existence of true altruism. I was completely absorbed in his lecture. For years, I have always thought that helping can either be genuine, or with a motive behind (a reward, an expectancy of receiving help in return). Helping does lead to communication between people which then contributes to our networking, which is a "skill-set" many companies highly value nowadays, thus, beneficial in some ways to us. However, what struck me the most was Thomas's third argument towards altruism.
We help because we do not want to feel bad for not helping.
Not helping puts us in an aversive state. We help to reduce this state.
I can vividly remember, when I first saw this sentence in the lecture hall, all my concentration fell onto it. I thought of the times where I helped people, and tried to apply this concept in each of those situations.. and no matter how hard I tried to deny, the idea of helping always fall between, "I should help, because he is suffering" (feeling bad if you don't help), "I should help because it's my responsibility" (feeling bad because if you don't help, you are abandoning your responsibility), "I should help because it benefits BOTH party". (Since it benefits me as well, so why not?)
Have a think about it. Are you sure you are giving genuine help? A help which does not cost you anything? Of course, thinking at the surface level would lead you to the answer 'Yes, why not?', but try to think more in depth, and you will find the reason behind helping somebody might not be as obvious.
**
After having lectures on Classic Studies in Psychology, it further shatters my idea of what people call 'a kind person'.
There is no kind person, just a situation which allows someone to be kind.
Zimbardo's Prison Experiment and Milgram's Obedience Study. These two studies are disturbing, and had never failed to send chills down my spine whenever I revised the studies - aim, procedures, results, for my exams in midnight.
To give you a brief outline,
for ZPE,
Healthy student volunteers were recruited and placed in a simulated prison, which was designed with the help of a prisoner who was in jail for 10+ years. Basically, volunteers were given roles, either as prisoners or guards and the aim of the study was to test whether the students conformed to their roles.. and they did. Yes, the guards basically harmed the students, abused them, treated them as if they were real prisoners, but in fact, they all belonged at the same level in reality, they were students.
It took only 3 days for the students to be emotionally disturbed.
Not only that, the experiment only lasted about 6 days before parents of "prisoners" threatened to sue Zimbardo.
The experiment portrayed realism and it shows how giving someone a powerful role can totally change their perspectives completely, no matter how similar they have been to you before this.
On the bright side, the experiment was bombarded with many debates and controversy, so it could not 100% justify human nature itself.. however, in my book, the initial results of the study was potent enough to suggest that all of us have a dark side in our subconscious mind, and it will shine when given an opportunity.
*
I am a fan of Ryan Higa's videos and have been following him since his 'How to be a ..' videos in the early years. 2 years back, he released a video called Most Annoying People on the Internet and named them MAPOTI in short. Two types of MAPOTI he had suggested in the video was 'The Attention Whore' and 'Overly Deep Person'. People like these never fail to take selfies and photos and pair them with captions which do not have any relation (literally 0% meaning) to the photos. The most common ones I have often seen nowadays happen to be selfies following a emotional love quote, a quote showing how lonely you are and you need a partner, or even trivial matters. An example would be a photo with 'I can't fall asleep' printed at the caption column.
FFS. If this is not attention seeking, I don't know what is. Narcissism.. hmm.. maybe? (They tend present themselves as perfect or good-looking as possible in those photos especially.)
Please if you are desperate for love, go look for it. A photo of yourself would not stop you from being lonely, unless people's commends and comments are actually what you really want. If you can't sleep, find a way to sleep. I still do not understand the logic behind 'I can't sleep so I am going to take a pic of myself.'
Hey, do you still remember the times when photos are only used to capture a memorable event? A memory which you want it to be frozen in time so you can look back X years later and say, 'Wow, I remembered I had great fun.' or in some cases.. 'I used to know this person very well..'.
The technology is improving leaps and bounds, from camera, to a phone camera, then front phone camera and now we have selfie sticks abundantly available in the market.
It seems like the purpose of taking photos has evolved with time as well.
Or maybe, the development of technology is just too good of an opportunity to unleash the potential of attention-seeking and narcissism in humans.
A selfie or photo of others is harmless and it doesn't relate to me in any way, but it can sometimes be very irritating to see.
I wonder why?
P.S. The content of my post is not targeted to any particular person, just a common scenario which I have experienced.
Signing off,
Jayden
Sunday, April 26, 2015
Note to self
Exams are coming in two weeks and I am still here taking a chill pill.
The urgency to study is just not there, however, I have made preparations for it which I feel sufficient enough for me to at least pass the exams. I do want to reach for the moon and go for an overall first-class for my first year, but it seems that the motivation is just not there. There seem to be someone, an illusory figure - something like a 'lil-jay' lying deep inside my consciousness, telling me to relax and play some DotA. That being said, my improved self-control has allowed me to limit the number of games which I play everyday (none at all, sometimes), which I should feel pretty proud of. Yeah, I think after this blog post, I should really go into overdrive and set my mind on the right target.
It has been a great Easter break, but I might just have to leave my updates until after the exams.
So, in this blog post, I will just resort to talking about some of my feelings, mood and some self-reflection.
After leaving college for about a year, I realize more and more of my friends have gotten into a relationship, some from the college, some from the university. It's great to see photos of some of them who are more public with their relationship and it seems like they are having a great time with their partners. Subconsciously, this made me think a lot about being in a relationship, the effects, pros and cons, and the feeling and meaning it gives to a person. To be honest, I missed being in a relationship.. and my last one, although not that long, was certainly enough to provide a great sense of how being liked by a girl feels like and how liking her and the willingness to do anything to be around her feels like. However, in the other part of consciousness, it is reminding me of how being tied to someone means that many issues will come into play, and it will take time to maintain a long-term relationship. Responsibility, trust and minor things such as maintaining the interest of the partner and his/her expectancy, all play a vital role in maintaining a not only healthy but also blissful relationship. It not only requires a lot of effort but most importantly, sacrifice.
Yes, the rage of DotA is back. I have been trying to take a have fun and pure enjoyment approach towards the game but sometimes for me, in-game flaming (scolding, blaming, etc..) is unavoidable. Little do I have any idea behind the reason of my eagerness to win in a mere online game which amounts to nothing when it is over. As a multi-player game which requires people to work together together to achieve an objective, communication between the players is paramount. Playing with random teammates, it is my obligation to give out some instructions/opinions of what is happening in real-game situations. Here comes the most important part. Sometimes, people just either:
a) don't respond
b) respond with a language from another country
c) make a counter argument
d) starts flaming
e) follows
Let me tell you, for the case of c), I would listen if they actually tell me what are they planning to do as this acts at a signal to me that you are actually aware of the current situation.
The worst kind of players, in my opinion, are players who don't communicate and expect people to know what they are thinking, and the worst part is, there are some of my friends who are this type of player. This leads to definite flaming as the rules are simple. Let me break it down. Imagine telling someone what your plans as you see an opportunity for the goal, that person doesn't respond to you, and you went for the opportunity but ended up being dead because you are outnumbered (2-1, 3-2, 4-3 in this case) by the opposing team. I have always been a keyboard warrior in games, because I want people to know my next move, and most of the times people just ignore and don't say a shit. For fuck sake, if you want to play a team game, learn to communicate and stop hiding behind the screen and judge. Sometimes I think a little flaming can sometimes have a positive impact on the game despite the usage of harsh sentences as people actually discuss about the situation.
I am not a pro gamer or anything, but you don't have to be a pro gamer to learn how to work as a team.
One of the modules of my exams is titled, Human Development, Cognition and Emotion. I can already envision my downfall in this paper. Human thoughts man, I mean I went through the lecture notes of my module and could understand 90% of the contents, but to pick apart the contents and answer the questions individually just feels like an impossible task. Due to the fact that there are too many abstract information, numerous theories and experiments that can be tested regarding the brain, it is going to be a struggle to fit everything in my working memory. Too much on-going proactive interference. (Learning of a new subject affects the memory of the previous subject),
Somebody help help help help.
Sincerely,
Jayden-requires-your-help-if-anyone-ever-reads-this-post
The urgency to study is just not there, however, I have made preparations for it which I feel sufficient enough for me to at least pass the exams. I do want to reach for the moon and go for an overall first-class for my first year, but it seems that the motivation is just not there. There seem to be someone, an illusory figure - something like a 'lil-jay' lying deep inside my consciousness, telling me to relax and play some DotA. That being said, my improved self-control has allowed me to limit the number of games which I play everyday (none at all, sometimes), which I should feel pretty proud of. Yeah, I think after this blog post, I should really go into overdrive and set my mind on the right target.
It has been a great Easter break, but I might just have to leave my updates until after the exams.
So, in this blog post, I will just resort to talking about some of my feelings, mood and some self-reflection.
After leaving college for about a year, I realize more and more of my friends have gotten into a relationship, some from the college, some from the university. It's great to see photos of some of them who are more public with their relationship and it seems like they are having a great time with their partners. Subconsciously, this made me think a lot about being in a relationship, the effects, pros and cons, and the feeling and meaning it gives to a person. To be honest, I missed being in a relationship.. and my last one, although not that long, was certainly enough to provide a great sense of how being liked by a girl feels like and how liking her and the willingness to do anything to be around her feels like. However, in the other part of consciousness, it is reminding me of how being tied to someone means that many issues will come into play, and it will take time to maintain a long-term relationship. Responsibility, trust and minor things such as maintaining the interest of the partner and his/her expectancy, all play a vital role in maintaining a not only healthy but also blissful relationship. It not only requires a lot of effort but most importantly, sacrifice.
Yes, the rage of DotA is back. I have been trying to take a have fun and pure enjoyment approach towards the game but sometimes for me, in-game flaming (scolding, blaming, etc..) is unavoidable. Little do I have any idea behind the reason of my eagerness to win in a mere online game which amounts to nothing when it is over. As a multi-player game which requires people to work together together to achieve an objective, communication between the players is paramount. Playing with random teammates, it is my obligation to give out some instructions/opinions of what is happening in real-game situations. Here comes the most important part. Sometimes, people just either:
a) don't respond
b) respond with a language from another country
c) make a counter argument
d) starts flaming
e) follows
Let me tell you, for the case of c), I would listen if they actually tell me what are they planning to do as this acts at a signal to me that you are actually aware of the current situation.
The worst kind of players, in my opinion, are players who don't communicate and expect people to know what they are thinking, and the worst part is, there are some of my friends who are this type of player. This leads to definite flaming as the rules are simple. Let me break it down. Imagine telling someone what your plans as you see an opportunity for the goal, that person doesn't respond to you, and you went for the opportunity but ended up being dead because you are outnumbered (2-1, 3-2, 4-3 in this case) by the opposing team. I have always been a keyboard warrior in games, because I want people to know my next move, and most of the times people just ignore and don't say a shit. For fuck sake, if you want to play a team game, learn to communicate and stop hiding behind the screen and judge. Sometimes I think a little flaming can sometimes have a positive impact on the game despite the usage of harsh sentences as people actually discuss about the situation.
I am not a pro gamer or anything, but you don't have to be a pro gamer to learn how to work as a team.
One of the modules of my exams is titled, Human Development, Cognition and Emotion. I can already envision my downfall in this paper. Human thoughts man, I mean I went through the lecture notes of my module and could understand 90% of the contents, but to pick apart the contents and answer the questions individually just feels like an impossible task. Due to the fact that there are too many abstract information, numerous theories and experiments that can be tested regarding the brain, it is going to be a struggle to fit everything in my working memory. Too much on-going proactive interference. (Learning of a new subject affects the memory of the previous subject),
Somebody help help help help.
Sincerely,
Jayden-requires-your-help-if-anyone-ever-reads-this-post
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