Great to know that I have lots of deep thinkers and talented people around me =D hopefully I can see them grow successful and well off one day =D

陳孟奇 - I Believe In You (unplugged)

Are we in control or being controlled? As much as we think we are in the driver seat, holding the remote control, or playing the chess board, our actions are mere resultant forces of all the societal forces around us. We are just the object that moved as the forces act upon us, with perhaps a little inertia. Our decisions may seem independent, but is usually in fact shaped by many societal forces such as norms, cultures, events, 3rd parties, even marketing techniques and illusions, to the extent of religion.

A ted talk by Dan Ariel brought across an interesting point, humans, as much as we thought we are being rational, being justified in making the right decisions, being experienced to not make past mistakes, we are consistently, continuously, constantly, being influenced to make that decision.

Dan Ariely used a great example of visual illusion, the funny thing is that we will always be influenced by them despite knowing them, despite revealing the illusion. So as advertising, there are times we see make decisions because we want a deal, we want a good deal. Thus, it’s inevitable that they would include one or two out of mind choices to bring out the attractiveness of the choice they want you to take. Also, many times they would set a default such that we did not consider much on the consequences of the decision, such as checking a box if you WANT or DO NOT WANT to donate your organs.

Then, Dan explains the possible reason as to why we make certain decisions. He explains that sometimes, we chose to go for the default, simply because we would have more choices if we were to change it. For example, a doctor who had forgotten AN alternative medicine for hip injury would probably try that on the patient the following day instead of recommending him to go for a hip replacement, but in cases when he had forgotten TWO OR MORE alternatives, he would just let the patient proceed with the hip replacement.

Lets apply these to daily observations, who would you take for a bar hopping or a date, a slightly less attractive friend than you? No? What would you want to achieve? See how your ‘date’s decision could be deterred by external societal forces?

So then, what I think, is that we are constantly conditioned to think that we are making decision, so we are actually under controlled to make decisions, not that there are things such as fate or whatsoever, but our decisions, is due to the decisions of hundreds and thousands of people, in different timing, place and situation. So I do think that we should have faith in the decision. I watched an upcoming drama series “Wan Fu Lou’, a little spoil here, the protagonist said, that since she had made the decision, no point trying to make it right, why not just go on with the decision and see where it will lead to”, exactly, que sera sera, nothing we can do, but have faith, have faith in that decision you’ve made, and be optimistic.

Since after o lvl, I’ve been evaluating the choices and decisions I’ve made every night before sleep, and I find that, many times, those might not be the best decision, but because of that decision, I could make better decisions, so why dwell over spilled milk? Anyway, life works in a mysterious way, my supervisor just called to cancel my work, as such, I could accompany my relatives to tour marina bay as he study and finish his homework for he got to accompany his family tomorrow. =D

Oh yea, days ago, I gave ODJ to a classmate, that ended in a more suitable hand, she was delighted, and sort of more faith than me in X-tianity, so it certainly benefited her more than it would on me, so that cheered me up really. Ive always believed Im better off as a medium to make a difference to other people more in need. =D

For the 4.14, I would not waste the church money on me, I would definitely share what I've learnt, and hopefully I can teach more suitable people how to apply, just as how I have been trying to output all my knowledge for people to use it for the benefit of mankind, and hopefully not to people who could use them in acts of inhumanity. =D

POM I tutored my classmates on leading, and all bits and pieces, though I'm definitely not the ideal effective teacher, that following day, I went to a classmate house, that missed the group study session, and was rather scared she could not catch up, and went through bit of POM which came out =D but again, as I'm definitely not the ideal effective teacher, she didnt really apply those in exams, but sigh, at least I've tried, and she did not completely forget, just overstressed, naturally. =D

In Zhigao chalet, his friend went to ntuc to buy drinks, resulted him left with nothing to eat, and we ran out of charcoal, so I went to forage the area, and found remaining charcoals to cook the remaining chickens, he was thankly and delighted, so do I. =D

For the very least, for all I've done, I've made a difference.

I feel loved:
Words of Affirmation
Receiving Gifts

I show to others:
Words of Affirmation
Acts of Service

Above is my love languages =D

Tomorrow is Samy Rajoo's birthday as well as John Tan's of SCC =D 2 awesome people's birthday. Today I had a successful speech, a successful interview, a successful tutoring and also visited SCC and played a little in the playground at bedok library with the same old few kids in town. Felt age is catching up fast, I pant more as I ran, and would need more effort to keep a certain distance away from the catcher. I couldnt even match ____ now, though he claimed to do badly in 1.6, which im surprised.

I tried to persuade ___ to be home by 6.45, yet I wasnt firm, which thus he dragged till 7.10, and resulted in him in deep shit i guess, cuz his mum is home. Spoke with him, realized though his relationship with his mum is rather strained and often I heard of claims that his mum lack of parenting experience which often showed bad example to him, he still got this care for his mum, that he would remember certain memorable outings and 'love' his mum gave him, mostly in a distant past.

Then I watched On The Fringe, a channel 8 drama on teen deviance and gangsterism. Some spoiler ahead~! Do not read on if you havent watched until episode 17 yet. Tomato had a bitch as his mum, that left him in the lurch with his grand dad, her dad, and did not care about him at all. However her death affected him much, cuz it is the mum-son relationship, a special kind of bond, that he would never forget simple trivial things like the food his mum bought for him when he was young. Alot of times, I do believe that though we think that we're in control, we're being controlled. Our behavior is shaped by many societal forces and culture and events.

Sigh, somehow in bus alone as I make my way back home, I had this thought that having me as a son might be to a certain extent a misfortune. I am always rather deviant, very curious, planning to be single forever, not the study hard get stable job kind, talk too much. It's rather strange, the reason of me being single is parenting, and it is parenting that made me feel like being a better parent.... Hmm....

Weird, maybe I think too much, but marriage is a hinder to my social life, and activities. Other than that:

1) Human change, what happens if I or my spouse change
2) Being single is better than divorced
3) Love can love to the extend of not loving, simply for the greater good, for the other party's happiness
4) Matthew 19:11, some people chose to be Single for a greater good
5) My child would be a human, and to err is human, bad parenting might result in a ruined kid
6) Divorced parents, kids badly affected
7) Does being married a necessarily? What is love? What is family? What are laws?What are norms (temporarily) Dutiful or passionate?
8) There are many other loved-less kids
9) Many people are into lust, they couldnt differentiate the difference, resulting in them too rush into relationship and ended up with lots of shit
10) How would my child live his/her life?
11) Tied down on responsibilities
12) I might be a bad example
13) I might not have the means to support my family
14) Will my child live a happy life in this screwed up world?
15) Will I neglect or lose out in segments of my life because of raising a family?

I can't light no more of your darkness
All my pictures seem to fade to black and white
I'm growing tired and time stands still before me
Frozen here on the ladder of my life

I can no longer influence you,
As time seemed to die away,
Leaving me exhausted, alone, anomie, lagged
And unable to move on, climb on to see the "sun"

Too late to save myself from falling
I took a chance and changed your way of life
But you misread my meaning when I met you
Closed the door and left me blinded by the light

It's too late to stop myself from delving into your world too deeply
I took the initiatives to make a difference
Yet you had never seen such intention, such passion
And you just left! Stomped out of my life! Shut me out from your world!

I can't find, oh the right romantic line
But see me once and see the way I feel
Don't discard me just because you think I mean you harm
But these cuts I have they need love to help them heal

No words is positive enough for me to cry out
Would you just stand in my shoes?
Can't you give yourself a chance to see the significant difference?
I'm hurt, I'm scarred, by you, and only you, can heal.

Don't let the sun go down on me
Although I search myself, it's always someone else I see
I'd just allow a fragment of your life to wander free
But losing everything is like the sun going down on me

Dont just leave me
For I'm but a mirror of you
I dont mind a portion of it blurred away, cracked away
But not retaining any part of the mirror is like in a void, in an abyss

Choco Bread Siva: i was just a sucker with no self esteem, till i met my G1B01 classmates. They gave me confidence and made me believe that im not a loser after all. Thanks guys!

Felt really great seeing this status update... recalling how apathetic was he and so defensive, like the whole world owed him something, but yea he's a totally great guy, uniquely and awesomely Siva....

This proves once again, Differential Association Theory, and Control Theory, that a person's behavior depends alot on the environment he is in and the informal sanctions such as frown, alienate, teases and insults thats imposed on him.

For the next few days, I should summarizing what Ive learnt through the whole semester.

Mainly Socio though, lots of chapters to cover, culture, family, gender, religion (not too much since its sensitive), McDonalization =D

POM perhaps, all the 4 functions, Marketing... erm.... we'll see how....

Anyway, went for pools with KeiYun on Sat, I still think that he's quite an introvert, same as WeiChong, oh yea, that day I redeemed my free Ice Kacang thanks to insing.com, I went up the bus with the bowl and the bus driver gave me a 'diao' stare, then signalled me to get off, so i ran all the way to weichong house to share with him, which by then melted almost till a quarter left haha.

Oh yea, learnt Man Jiang Hong today, and also add ons to Ba Gua Zhang =D

Oh yea, was talking to Cheuck and I won a small friendly argument, he commented that I was trying to psycho him, so I replied:

well thats labelling theory of sociology, u think uve been psychoed by me cuz ____ kept telling people im a good psychoer, but by doing so he's a better psychoer, and thus people think im always psychoing when im argueing, when ppl like ____ is a better arguer thus better psychoer, and evaded the label...

if u compare the persuasiveness in all of us, i guarrentee im the worst among the 4 simply cuz im being labelled as a psychoer and they got away with them, to prove, im always the one being "exposed" for psychoing...

Interestign sociology works in my life?? thats one example, many more =D sociology is fun =D

Lean On Me - Michael Bolton

2-4 Family - Lean On Me (With The Family) (1999)