Been busy again these few days.

There wasnt wushu on sunday, so I actually called up bowei zhigao and cheuck to hang out and chill, did all my assignments on sat already. So cheuck came for a haircut before we went to see zhigao at tampines swimming complex. He was with tat heng, so after hanging out awhile we went back to my house to enjoy martabaks and played mahjongs and pokers.... awesome simple fun light day~

So there along the way to my house, we saw this happy family playing basketball. Father, mother, 3 children and the maid was playing basketball happily. The father was expectedly dribbling the ball, gliding through and pass them, and they were all having a good time. Smiles that is so mild and gentle, that in within, lies the warmth of a harmonious family, like a tranquil candle flame, luminous yet nondestructive.

Anyway today in sociology we learned about deviance. Deviance is behaviors that violates social norms, social as in current society, regardless or morality and etc. Context, person, or place in which an action is performed affects the judgement of deviance act.

By symbolic interactionist theory, specifically the control theory, our bonds to society through family, friends etc stop us from being deviant, thus it is when the bonds are weakened that we start to deviate. Another way to explain deviance, by differential association is that we learn to follow the lead of the groups we mix with. These 2 ways are rather similar, just that one is that the group tie an individual down to avoid defiance, another is that the group initiates defiance. The labeling theory is then rather interesting, its like a self fulfilling prophecy, whereby firstly society label them as deviant, thus leads to many problems that made deviance happen despite the fact that we could actually prevent it. Examples are yellow ribbon, where society deny them of second chance, thus they revert back to crime.

By functionalist perspective, Robert Merton states in his anomie theory that unequal access to society’s institutionalised means blocked success in achieving societal goal, thus people feel strain and feel anomie and face institutional discrimination. This means some work hard doesnt succeed, some doesnt work hard succeed, resulting in some dispirited, and their reaction to it result in deviance.

SG = Societal Goals (aims that are commonly shared among majority)
IM = Institutional Means (methods that society recognize as acceptable)

Conformity is accept SG, accept IM, meaning that this is not deviance, and is common amongst us like working hard, get a job, aim 5C.. etc...

Innovation is accept SG yet rejects IM, they think that there are other means to achieve the goals, for example drug dealers, they earn by other methods that society deem underhand.

Ritualism is to reject SG yet accepts IM. Although this falls under one of the 4 deviance paths, this might not always result in deviance. This is simply doing things for other abstract goals. In cases where people work hard in things for other reason but to achieve SG, is when they already have attained in other fields, and just do it for interest, to fulfill Self-Actualization in Maslow's Hierachy of Needs, to achieve Ego Integrity by Erikson's Stages of Psychosocial Development. Thus, we cant say these people are in deviance, even in cases where they simply want to jump stage, they did not really do any harm. However these are deviance because they simply violates the social norms, which means they go against the flow, they lived in their own world, their utopia, their idealism.

Retreatism is simply escapist. They reject SG and reject IM. These are drug addicts, dropouts, etc, that society more or less considered hopeless. However of course there might be hundreds of reason behind their behaviors, or simply not inspired enough.

By conflict perspective, the ones in power set their own definitions of deviance on other groups to protect their own position & privileges in society like using law as an instrument of oppression to punish the crimes of the poor severely while diverting legal attention away from the crimes of the rich.

Food for thoughts:

In war, winning a war is heroic, but to the losing side, the winning side is savager, so to victory side is acceptable, but still the fact is that killing is still inhumanly.

Many times, we have strong reaction to deviance but explaination is not clear cut or irrational.

A busy week bolted pass like a breeze, though rushing here and there, preparing this and that, everything seemed to be alright in the end. Im now left with 2 quizes to do over the weekend, most probably sunday. Wednesday was my competition, rushed here and there too, almost got 'walkover' because neither of us heard the announcement to mark attendance, and i simply ignored the whole group of nan quan people because they are not flashy enough, so to my impression they are competing for traditional nan quan, awesome much? luckily the attendance lady was kind =D As usual I did not perform as well as what I did in warm ups or at the carpark on monday. Oh well, still have plenty of chances, though Im totally reluctant to be involved in physical heavy activities. Perhaps I should find more activities to be active in other than wushu, been in it for 5 years already, could have gotten a long service award if i were a teacher for moe haha =) Time for re-socialization, a phrase for meeting new faces and bond with them. After that rushed my assignments at night.

Thur was hectic too. Due to lack of rehearsal my group did not perform as good, but im still pleased =D at least the teacher is rather impressed and entertained. =) scores~! Survived through a long day till 6pm, then rushed back home, and then rushed to toa payoh stadium. Oh dang boarded the bus at the wrong side, then have to wait 21mins for the next bus... unlucky me.... Oh yea, sin5 smsed me 'why isit everytime i sms u, u're at home', i was too busy reading my book i was not bothered by it, i actually replied, 'coincidence?' hahahahhahah~!! now i come to think of it, anyone would be pissed off my that reply haha~! anyway yea he replied me with 'hai you lian jiang', im guessing it means to pull down other people or something like that since until now i make no sense of that phrase, but yea when i asked for clarification he said 'still got face to ask', so I said: then what for you tell me this?... OMG I was so not myself then, totally have no idea why did I rebutted that way, probably irritated by the constant incoming msgs that disrupts my reading, but thanks to that i realized I boarded the bus at the wrong side hahaha... now, reflecting on it, that was an awesome rebut, it's like suan-ing him for saying look up in a language the target dont understand, aka a waste. Interesting... Was rather pissed for like appearing at toa payoh for nothing, no purpose, when I could have fetched my dad form airport and had dinner with him.....

Today just as I thought the contest will end late, I actually reached toa payoh at 7.35.. cool... well, finally its all over~! finally can eat a good peaceful dinner for the next few days at least~!!! pasar malam at pop excel tmr, oh you know what this means~ more food and goodies for me~!!!!! yum yum om nom nom nom.... sunday gonna meet up with zhigao bowei cheuck yimei for a small gathering since we havent met for as long as we started poly, just a small one to eat eat tok tok mahjong.... with martabaks~! oh yea must call johann try~ he was complaining that he missed all the chances to eat that haha. then the rest are probably for my cell group and my students... =D and some for wushu as well...

Poly updates: Sociology is manageable but most interested and motivated in, started to get hang of business modules, public speaking is no problem, acad writing is still at the lost lamb stage but at least i produced some work...

ciao~

Today started off great with sociology with terence leong, and nice POM lecturer, and ofcoz great lunch and coaching Johann, but its that fucker that spoil my day.

Firstly his tutorial is the worst in our module, one that we wont learn anything from it since we have the textbooks and lecture notes with drama mama julia, he's lesson is pure boredom, and thus I tried to make every lesson rather fun.

Secondly, he didnt give us a yardstick to look up to or his expectations of the poster he wants us to do today. It was like giving a car to a 10 year old and expect him to know a 3 point parking when he doesnt even know how to uturn, and he fucking spoil the whole atmosphere when the 10 year old is having fun and proud of knowing how to do a uturn after many tries.

Thirdly who the fuck will read a poster of 50% words?? since it is an awareness poster, obviously we need to attract passers-by by having pictures that make then curious of what the poster is about, not turning them off with lots of info. See the 'speak good english campaign'? Isnt it more attractive to have a poster with "why the bus so long?" being stroke off and corrected into "Why is the bus taking so long?" instead of dumping chunks of grammar rules?

Frankly, I was quite glad of our poster, it's eye catching to me, very straightforward message of telling viewers to quit certain lifestyle to prevent stroke, though many redundant pictures my team mates included in it.

Seriously man, I have no issues with others, but he is seriously a ***** fuck, what a cunt wasting the earth's resources and stealing our fresh oxygens yet giving us shit and co2, and cant even decompose to become fossil oil since he's too compelling for bacteria to even feast on his corpse, and polluting our water and fish supply if we dispose him into the sea, cant even incinerate because it would further deplete our oxygen supply and produce more harmful gases contributed to global warming... totally pissed... many great speakers also uses drama and exaggeration gestures to reach out to their audiences, like adam khoo, russel peter, etc... he didnt even specify what type of poster and formality he expect lorh, somemore he said it was to prepare us for a presentation at the end of module to an audience of the HSS cohort, so target audience is teens, dont u think they will be turn down by plain words in posters, they prefer learning thought fun and entertainment.... he's a total asshole. Damn it he's worst than shit, even shit was from delicious, nutritious, glutinous food. Why would the man who made the lion and the lamb, who decreed each one of us according to your plan, made such a lowly being?

Anyway yea the only reason i didnt flip tables and throw chairs is because of conflict perspective, he holds the authority to my future, so gotta put up with him... fml.. and also because i wanna reduce risk of injury that might prevent me unleashing my full potential on this wed...

Oh well, im grateful for Johann for chilling out at his carpark, and venting my anger on my wushu routine.... oh and thx mum for preparing a great dinner~!! minched beef sliced potatos with sweet sauce... totally awesome....

Today training was quite alright, since cant expect much change from trainees but all the best. And so after than went to eat teppan and went home for a quick bath and rested...

Decided to meet Samy on a last minute decision with Jane. It was always a great visit, as awesome as ever. Noone could read me like a physics textbook better than Samy~! He enlightened me with the description that I'm a passive-aggressive. Yea I think although in many ways I seemed to just go with the flow, dilly dally, que sera sera, I think when it comes to my happiness, I would hold on it tight. As mentioned, I'll never let anyone to deprive me of my rightful share of happiness.

There was once I was with Tai and we mentioned about social awkwardness and first negative impressions, etc... so I said okay if I'm in a situation whereby another person or a group got a problem with me, I can always leave. It will benefit both parties since there will be tensions between the two parties if I stayed on and suppress this 'bean' (inspiration from the princess who is irritated by a bean below her mattress). However in the first place, why would they want to meet up or wait for me in the first place. Oh I think we were talking about latecoming.

So back to my point, yes I can be very cocky at times, to possess such a 'I'm the boss of my own happiness' attitude. Other than that, I would be easy going and laid back, appreciating everyone by their own personal uniqueness and perspectives.

Since I have the whole day to blog today, I'll start summarizing about boundaries, specifically, Internal/External boundaries, internal being thoughts happening inside the body and external being what is outside the body. so basically there's 8 of them.

Projection/Isolation. This is simply whether or not you put yourselves in others shoes. Projection is like you project a person’s image on someone else, so you form a similar impression on the person out of biasness. You lost the distinction between yourself and the projected ‘screen’. Daily life examples are the ability to relate to the scenarios in movies. Isolation is the total opposite, like detaching yourself with empathy itself. People of certain occupation that have to deal with cruelty and such will tend to isolate themselves, though this would mean probably better work efficiency but he/she becomes cold and detached.

Mode. This is basically the distinction between thoughts, feelings and action, which people often mixed up. By inception theory, a thought is the first step of doing the action itself. However, the book gave another perspective, that sometimes we are too reserved. Ting Sheng ZJ gave an awesome statement: 不要吝啬你的掌声 Do not reserve your clap. The very fact that a competitor stepped into the stage to compete is plausible, especially when he did a splendid performance, or not giving up after certain mistakes. This is the spirit of wushu as an art and a sport. So yes, some parents or supervisors are proud with their children or employees, yet they are stuck in the thoughts and perhaps feel boundaries yet did not conquer into the do boundary.

Polarity. In another words, this is the 2 extremes, without this boundary awareness one would make a decision to take only one side, not even 鱼和熊掌不可兼得, it’s totally one or another, no ‘teach him to fish so he can feed himself for a lifetime’ thing. Thus with a boundary one can transform (either/or) into (and).

Threshold. This is one important step to manage the Polarity boundary. This is the awareness of moderation, that enough is enough. Some interesting examples is that many times, people do not realize that they had finish a whole pack of chips or candy because they are too indulged in the initial feeling, that they held on to that despite grabbing for more endlessly. Some held on to an unrealistic definition of success, that they don’t realize how successful his life already is. For a period of time I felt that way, as though all my work is in vain and that I accomplished nothing but wasting my time on earth. This occurs for only a brief period of time, until I saw significant change in a few people around me, and these really woke me up like experiencing a kick while I’m venturing into my deeper levels of consciousness (dreams).

Causality. This is like not able to distinct between real and fantasy that they lost logical thinking. Examples are kids thinking that it was their fault to say "I hate you" to the parent and coincidentally the parent died.

The last 2 are Identity and Time, which is rather straightforward and thus I wont elaborate... thats all folks...

Today I finally removed my braces~!! woohoo~!

Alright, yepp, who ever said being laid-back have nothing to do for we dont search for problems. Problems do come to us. On thursday was suppose to have trainign at 8pm, yet a last minute notice came to say that a sec 4 guy needs help in maths, so I went at 7.45 for half an hour before going to training, which turns out to start off late as well. =) All is well...

As usual my nan quan is still atrocious, and I guess my brain capacity needs to be upgraded for I have overloaded it with too much information and burdens? or should I say responsibilities?

Today helped out in CCN day by providing 'gifts' and spend 4 bucks to support friends' booth and donated the gifts to my booth. Then went for dental. Was too caught up with what materials to give for the sec 1s tomorrow, so I took a cab to buh for dentist, which indeed emptied my wallet that I have to be on credit for my dinner haha.

Oh well, same old me...

I started reading this book I borrowed form the library the other day, and the first few pages interest me. What is the relationship between separation and connection? It is rather paradoxical because if you look it in this way: Separation is to distinct yourself with other with sort of a wall. Connection is to have no walls and be part of one another as one single unit. However, there will be no connection without separation. Why do I say that? Imagine you have a wall, lets say red color, this wall is a separation to distinguish yourself, then others would have walls too, of different colors. Now, there will always be people with walls of the same color as you, thus you two might agree to so called 'connect' with each other by recognizing that your walls have similar properties, and that each of you would be willing to compromise some characteristics or properties to 'expand' the walls, creating sort of a boundary. Awesome much?

Great days~

Tue was vesak day, went to bugis supposedly to observe certain shops for project, did a quick one and we went arcade, then to Si Ma Lu temple, then buy my printer ink, and walked to marina square for pools. Awesome day~

Today had a great 3h break playing truth or dare, then went to times and the library with Meng Wai. Wootz~ I un-blocked my card already~!! like finally after 10 years~!! borrowed 2 books, hoped I wont overdue haha =D 随缘随缘~

Tomorrow gonna have training at carpark, lucky no need go all the way pasir ris woohoo~ Oh well, hope everything goes smoothly, competition in a week's time. Oh btw I decided that I would join the audition for some competition next sun, just to have fun ba...

Speaking of that, we learned the 3 theories of self from Cooley, Mead and Goffman respectively.

Cooley's theory of looking glass self is that we create an image of ourself based on what others might think of us, and thus form a conclusion that we are so ourselves. So there will be influence by virtuous and vicious cycle to some extent, our impression on others will make us assume how they judge us and so we act to that image of self. We imagine how we appear to others, interpret their reactions, develop a self-concept. To remember this, I used the word Cycle against Cooley.

Mead's theory of self is that one would go through imitate, play and game stages. To ease memory works, its the Monkey See Monkey Do theory, its like we see how others do, we try to act like them, then we get into the action, and after being seasoned we try to know what others in other positions view/response on/to this action. So example, after the monkey see and pretended, it will think how other monkeys view him, and thus understand some social rules which is unspoken.

Goffman's presentation of self theory is simply Shakespeare's all the world's a stage theory. Both also uses theatre works as a portrayal of us acting in the real world in front of different target audiences. There would be a on stage and back stage self, what other see, and what other dont see. This is the theory I personally can relate best. Well, can't really come up with any memory aids, but Goffman sounds chim like Shakespeare, so I would think this way. =)

Ofcoz, during the tutorial we learnt about some unspoken social rules for example in Miss Universe, the contestants supposed to say that they wished for world peace, and participate in charitable works, just as contestants of idols have to appear shocked and dramatize the winning process instead of like going around and taunting and show the loser signs.. rofl.. Terrence rocks~!! This is rather interesting, yea I agree to that, we always have to appear as what people like to see in these competitions, adjusting ourselves to the judge's opinions as well, just like the band that were singing old songs until Simon criticize their choice of songs, and deemed those as 'outdated'. And what I find especially funny, is that for prize recipients, they always looked extremely shocked, and their jaws would drop a meter down like as if they had never anticipated their winning. Shortly after that, they would say oh "I didnt expect to win..." and so on and so forth, then they take out a long list of 'thanking' list from their pocket and start the usual thing... I thank my lao pei lao bu.. blah blah... rofl

Watched hit list today via mio tv. I think its a rather nice show, but dont really like the ending, the protagonist went back on his words and sort of betrayed his 'friend'.

Anyway, there was this crime watch on channel 5 also, and the murderer unintentionally killed the victim because the victim coerced him for money. The murderer was sentenced to life imprisonment i think, not too sure about it, but if it is, dont you think it is sending the wrong message of not retaliating against people who wanted you dead? Just like detective conan, i think many criminals are forced to commit crimes initially, so they shouldnt be punished heavily on their firsts, if i were a criminal and was imprisoned when i did nothing wrong but to defend myself, i would hate the authorities more, and lean towards violence and defiance. Wouldnt it better to have counsellings, and monitoring, rather than to be maligned?

Sigh.. since it's close to midnight right now, there's this subtle sense of loneliness within me. Was listening to the song '恋爱症候群' (love syndrome), it's a song about the process before love, during love, after love, a ballet of a couples coming together and then breaking apart, but in the end, is the process of love that is beautiful, the part where we could offer love willingly and expect nothing more than able to hold each other dearly. Though I have many other ways to love, i feel so empty in the end of the day, despite being with millions of people, having fun with millions of people, doing all sorts of crazy things with millions of people. It's like a beard papa donut without the custard feeling, though I will retain my freshness such that the custard wouldnt make the bread soggy, but surely there would be slight envy witnessing many lovely moments of couples around me. Esp the younger generation, though they will not last, those sweet and childish moments are so cute so blissful so heartwarming, and also those couples that had both their hair greyed, and still they hugged together and the folk sent a kiss on her cheek. *melt*

For the first time, I felt old, its like all the people i know seemed to mature and grow up and probably engaged so rapidly, and Im still the same old me, same old available me. Oh, of course, I started to yearn to have 'flesh bolster' to hold on tight. Yes, I feel free and happy being single, afraid to be tied down by bgr, yet... yea, envy is luring me to the graveyard of 'sanity', since there's a old saying that love is the graveyard of sanity. Haha. Sigh. Nite folks~

watched 华文智多星 Chinese Language Challenge

Interesting topic and debate, which is the must effective media to promote chinese culture? Some great arguments against books and newspaper is that readers are decreasing. Against tv is that the airing time is limited, and also that not all audience could be exposed to it. Some weak arguments are that internet and book have a wide range of selection, how to sieve for the appropriate onces, and their tangent is the edited culture such as spoofs. My argument against this is that this is where the reader must realize that there is plenty of ways to look at a culture, which makes it a culture, the culture appeals to everyone differently, just like a poem can be interpreted differently by several scholars. Also, there is no such thing as absolute truth, even in tv there are misinterpreted information. Moreover, promoting chinese culture through internet can be hard too since seldom there will be people to intentionally search for them, if so, wouldnt books have better awareness coverage, because through a book we might find other books and such in the same shelf. Also, book can be collected as an asset, unlike the soft copy on internet, but to attract to kids, obviously tv is best. Newspaper is quite alright since majority would subscribe to a daily newspaper, however most would not bother but update themselves with current news only.

Feedback about the program, very crap, because the audience are not really engaged into it. Firstly they speak too fast, which may be able to catch but no time to digest and process and come out with solid rebuttal. As they rush for the time limit, they are just vomiting, not debating, the audience have no clues to what they are talking about. Secondly, since it is a national challenge, sending foreigners to represent schools is a disgrace and humiliation to singapore in my point of view. This certainly would not influence locals into chinese culture, but merely asking the 'masters' of the culture to show off their talents and get the big pot of gold. Thirdly, some judges are biased. I think.

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next topic... same sex marriage

im really in a dilemma of which stand to choose.

One one hand I think that marriage is about love, so if a person feels that no opposite gender understands him/her better than a particular same sex, why not get married and look after each other. It's just like best friends, but in more intimate relationship. They doesnt have to have all the weird sex methods and stuffs like that, just simply being 'engaged' and share the same family benefit with other family types. This can also increase the probability for adoption of abandoned kids. Furthermore, this is applicable to only a small group of minorities, thus it doesn't hurt society or anyone in particular, nor requires lots of tolerance and stuffs like that.

The only problem with it is that the adopted kid will need to have sort of a feminine figure as a motherly figure for example a teacher or social worker. However these figures obviously has weaker bonds with them than the real mother, which often leads to them curious about their biological mothers, and vice versa. Thus, these children might not receive a lot of love and high chance of giving in to violence and cases of anomie. Also, same sex marriages tends to have higher divorce case (i think) since they can simply argue and fight, their empathy level is not as high when it is the same sex. Ofcoz, the impression of family for kids is also screwed.... again it is minority, so im leaning slightly to supportive of same sex marriages...

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anyway, today in church was fun haha.. kept deesiao-ing kei yun for his love life haha. JX and him was exchanging love message on fb, specifically competing who love another more, haha, eg: "i love you more", "i love you (number of hearts) more"... haha, so i came up with the song: 在屋顶唱着你的歌 （在 facebook 说 i love you more）, 让世界的人全部都知道, kei yun 喜欢 jia xuan, jia xuan 也是很喜欢 kei yun, 爱开始交结，梦有他儿而美~ hahaha

Nothing much today, oh right, reassured myself of the fact that I really sucked at Gerontology, I only knew 8 of all the blanks in some crossword puzzle in the gerontology handbook, while siva and cherrie filled the blanks like a loaded machine gun.... with pin point accuracy~!! crazy.. crazy... oh well, sun I so called ditched my group due to wushu, felt so sad, gotta solo the public speaking project, since its one of my strength, or at least appears to be. More or less have a brief outline of what im gonna say already =D lazy to type out, perhaps tmr =D

Again, empathy...

Why is it that when a baby in the nursery cry, the other babies cry too? and for no particular reason?

It seems that we have these mirror neurons that actually allows us to put ourselves in others, to so called live vicariously through others. How interesting?

Also, it can be argued that empathy is the opposite of utopia. Puzzled? Yea, because in utopia, there are no mortality and no suffering, so is it true that we are rather 'pessimist', thus understand how cruel is the world, and thus have empathy? Like Houyhnhnms from Gulliver's travels, though everything would be perfect, everything will be based on reasons, there would not be feelings in the world anymore. It is only after Os I started to stop existing and started living, to enjoy christmas and new years, to sing with joy and acknowledgement of the season, of the period of time where doing such activities is most meaningful, just because that there's a time for everything, even the day must give way to the night, we shall have time for certain celebrations, certain cultural practices, certain holidays~!!

Interesting idea eh? Next, empathy is grounded in acknowledgement of death and celebration of life, and is based on our frailty and imperfection, yepp aka vulnerability as what I mentioned in earlier posts.

And eventually, civilization forms through empathy, that we come together and sympathize with one another, through blood ties, and religions, and national identity, and various groups, sense of belonging.... and then forms 'labels' like name of tribes or beliefs or countries or interest groups.

acknowledgement: inspirations from RSA, Gulliver's travel, song lyrics?? =D

What is sociology? Empathy, empathy is the definition, we've got to step out of our shoes and step into other people shoes.

Let's practice some sociology in wushu setting.

Alright, for functionalism, the manifest function would be that trainees engage in wushu for awareness of chinese culture, more involvement in physical activity, to body build. And thus the roles of the trainees is to listen to the trainers, to do their utmost best. The latent function would be probably be the team spirit, the encouragement, the urge to push ourselves forward. The trainers would increase in leading experience, in coaching international standards, in understanding more about wushu. However, there would be dysfunctions, and in this case, probably is that trainees might be driven too hard, their physical health might be compromised, not enough sleep?

In conflict theory, it might be that since the trainers have authority, trainees either oppressed or fight back. So far there is none who fought back, simply because they acknowledge the authority, and willing to obey their orders. However there might be some that has intention of rebel but obstructed by parents or relationship with certain/particular individuals and thus they do not want to disappoint. So they perform so the sake of someone else but not themselves. Other than that, there might be trainee-trainee tensions as well, and some sort of maybe 'indian chief' (unofficial leader) that his/her voice is to be taken seriously. Thus there is some sort of hierarchy, some sort of class of power, and obviously power struggle. People would do their best to prove their worthiness of the 'power' or 'authority' or 'respect'...

In symbolic interactionism, the definition of 'wushu' as a sport or as a performing arts differ, as well as definition of 'competition' and what it symbolize. Wushu to some is a platform to exercise, or some to have bonding with people of the same interest, or to learn chinese culture, or to kill them. Whereas competition, maybe a platform for you to improve significantly, or is meaningless, is a waste of money and time, is a stage to dramatize, is a platform of biasness or presentation (make-up), or to show off, to be recognized in the wushu pugilistic world. Thus there will be conflicting intentions and thus unhappiness in the club. =)

cool eh? simple scenario, complex ways of analyzing...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCvmsMzlF7o&feature=share

Great speaker, great reference for my public speaking project =)

Anyway, today had really great lunches... yes.. lunchES

First I went with my class to pizza hut tampines.

Later on at 3 I met up with Oxy boys (Meng Wai, Bryan, Tan Yi) for popeyes.

Chatted with Meng Wai until 6, quite unexpected, but really great and enjoyable =) it reminds me how my pri sch life where we could just sit and talk and we would find it awesome~!

And again, yea Meng Wai mentioned about the difficulty finding a tiong xim peng you too, so it got me thinking, are all poly students thinking this way? If so, are they acting to be practical and 'trendy' and 'horny'? Are their nature really that way that influenced the innocent ones too? Or simply this is the structure of poly life, that everyone is acting to be a poly student. If so, it just implies that everyone are equally afraid/shy/reserved that we somehow keep ourselves 'updated' to a certain social yardstick in terms of topics to engage, interests and etc. So it is still possible to find a true friend there?? Haha, or simply it is just a few of us that decided to embark on this journey.... But yea the underlying observation is basically WE FEEL VULNERABLE, we feel vulnerable about isolation, or rejection, or stuffs like that, thus we are constantly acting that what we do doesnt affect people much, but they affected us much, and thus we affected by it. So what if we simply be ourselves, be happy, be liberated... Oh well, happily individual~ Nothing lasts, but at least make the moments great~!

So yea, great 20 bucks investments~!! 8 for pizza, 8 for popeye, 7 for koi, though Im kindda broke now, I know them better, and quite enjoying their companion already =) Life isnt that bad after all... =D

Poly life is really fun, and I dont miss my sec sch life for any single bit, I think ever since o level is over I have been enjoying this sense of freedom. Though there are still structures and certain pattern in life I must adhere to, I find a lot more freedom than being caged up in the small pathetic classroom without aircons...

Since my 2 days MC, I had found out who are the friends I can trust, and who are the undependable, and ofcoz, what topics to engage conversation with and which have more common to talk and who is simply apathetic. Yet again, I love humans as what they are, especially with some intro in sociology, I appreciate diversity and stuffs like that more. Though I'm still weak to actually make changes to them by influencing, I do satisfy with my observations of the motion and vibrancy.

Nothing lasts forever, not even friends, Samy had labelled me once as the 'lonely one', simply because I had too much connections, that I wont open up completely to any. As sociology had taught me, though within friends we should be truthful and stuffs, there are boundaries and sensitivities, there are personal spaces that we should not mention it or surface certain things even if we know it. Yet I admit, I am more and more open virtually. As society advances, every thing is rapidly changing, even in terms or morality and definitions of what once considered 'common sense' or 'just that way'. Stereotyping steps in too, and we are more and more dramatic, as Shakesphere once said, "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts. We usually give a first impression, then we slowly open up, we slowly discover some of the areas that we should be mindful while engaging with certain people, and certain behaviors and attitudes while hanging out with certain friends, and even the art of conversation, how to keep it alive...

It's really a great experience taking on or participating in different perspectives and to learn and survey about new points of views and beliefs. As Zhigao said too, it would be hard to find a true friend in poly, everyone seemed more competitive, more practical, more selfish, but as we have our common goals, eg project work, effectiveness and efficiency is still there. The common goal is the motivation whereby people disregards everything and put in their utmost effort to reach it. So coming back to a controversial question, are bad guys actually 'good' for they unite people and thus create positive relationship and bonds and trusts among them? Why is it that we are only in one when there is trouble? Megamind is a great movie on that =)

And lastly I would like to end this post by mentioning few of the wisest song in my pov: Let It Be, Que Sera Sera, esp let it be, is one of the most profound ideas I could ever find, that encompasses the entire range of the world's philosophy. Right thats it for my short 30mins time of blogging, sweet dreams folks (or blogger).... Highly doubt anyone read anyway...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principles_of_learning

Laws of Learning:
1)Readiness/Willingness
2)Exercise
3)Effect
4)Primacy
5)Recency
6)Intensity
7)Freedom

Woah so much laws? I think all can be categorized, 1 and 2 and 7 is interlinked, when you are willing to learn, you will be hardworking, and will pursue in all costs to learn. 2 and 5 is also linked, when you keep practice, it will be continuous, it will be repetitive, thus recent. 3 and 4 is linked because the effect of primacy is first impression, which is hard to erase, however this is also depending on 1, the person's willingness to accept different points of views on that subject, so that he will understand it more comprehensively. 3 and 6 is quite the same, is the method of gaining the knowledge and how vivid and strong it is to be able to be anchored deep in the memory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socratic_method

Interesting....