Comment Posted

If it had a home would it be my eyes?



The mind can be likened to a computer for more than the obvious reason of its role as a processor. To broach the sensitive, just as a thought, the computer is a human and the computer-user is whatever one might wanna consider to be divine and above. All of consciousness is then whenever the computer is on, without its being aware of anything that is really guiding its operations.

Then make the computer think everything it does is of its own choice and will, and you will safely remain invisible to the computer.



Colour psychology can be really fascinating. For example, it has been shown that red can, quite universally across cultures, rile people up more just by them looking at it. Sometimes, a woman can seem more attractive by just wearing a red dress. I think this means that red serves to heighten emotion and arousal such that whatever the base emotion - aggression or attraction just to name two - gets elevated.

That is the cause-effect part of things. But I also believe the colours one chooses to decorate or shroud one's more personal and functional belongings, such as the walls of one's room, one's handphone, one's watch, etc (as opposed to one's living room or one's occasion clothes) are indicative of one's personality and self-identity. It might sound a little obvious but I'm of the opinion that this indicator can have quite powerful predictive ability.

And I think it is more important to look at the personal things that don't often get shown to the world because those non-private belongings have a greater degree of conscious statement-making, rather than what one really subconsciously perceives of oneself.

Subconscious perception is interesting in that it reveals far more. One may choose to hide a weakness by consciously displaying colours or behaving in a way that announce the opposite of that weakness. But in one's subconscious self-percept, one knows in a non-conscious manner about what one dislikes about oneself, which is often the basis for insecurity. As for those who are more comfortable as they are, the colours between what's private and what's personal overlap more. But the fundamental idea is basically that what one likes to colour his or her personal belongings is very much more telling.

Offhand, I can make an educated guess about what some colours represent. Red probably signifies an emotional and passionate streak. Dark blue would probably represent a powerful calmness and/or stability. Green might have something to do with zest, quirkiness, being different or intelligent. Brown strikes me as down-to-earth. And et cetera the guesses may go.



I am half listening to music and half trying to sleep in the sofa chairs fashioned into a coffin-like womb in the school library after my cognitive psychology paper (a conservative estimate brings me to establish that 93.7% of the time I'm in the library for purely sleeping purposes), and also entertaining half-baked random thoughts flittering around.




Audio Candy:
Broken Social Scene - Lover's Spit

We Hold These Truths To Be Self-Evident

If we hope enough without expecting too much, things will always work out. And if we are curious, humble and open enough, answers will come.



Cognitive Psychology has been the dominant peripheral activity of the daily grind recently. While many have expressed disdain towards the impending mid-terms this week, I'm strangely looking very much forward to it. I think this is very much an indicator of how comfortable I feel studying and even embracing psychology as a discipline, and I'm very much fortunate for that.



With pride, Socscistan: The Little Republic will finish printing and come in by Friday. All of us can't believe how much of a miracle this little newsletter-magazine has been, from our maiden meeting in late January where we were all direction-impaired beings foraying into something that we had no idea could ever take off, to a confident publication that has exceeded the original 14 pages we thought we'd struggle to fill up to a total of 28 pages.

Socscistan: The Little Republic will be dropped off in (hopefully not so) insiduous and strategic locations on Saturday in conjunction with the SMU Open House, so look out for it. The team is confident that it won't disappoint. :]

"Humanity takes itself too seriously. It is the world's original sin. If the caveman had known how to laugh, History would have been different."
- Oscar Wilde

Audio Candy:
Jamiroquai - Just Dance

Lesson In Niche Identification... NOT

Here's an example of what you should never do as a marketer.

Welcome to the Apex Group:
There is one key reason why Apex will drastically improve your unloading process. The reason is profitability. We make less than any of our competitors. While most would consider this a weakness, we consider it our greatest strength. We make less, because we choose to reinvest into our employees and into initiatives that make our company safer and better. While the average unloading contract lasts 2-3 years, Apex's average tenured client is seven years. We build long lasting working relationships that benefit both parties. That experience of working together for a long period of time is what builds continuity and ultimately increases efficiency. Because at Apex, We lift you higher.

The Apex Group. We lift you higher
(Taken from http://www.apexlogisticsgroup.com/index.php)

Audio Candy:
Your Winter - Sister Hazel

Voice

Justin was just telling me about some shitty protest in NYU (New York University) where he studies now. It's like the protesters barricaded the school cafeteria and only dispersed after the school cut off the internet service and nobody could get their Facebook updates.

Apparently protests aren't all that fun and games. Protesters are actually disliked by most normal people, because they end up digressing from the original point of protest to a whole host of other insane and stupid things, turning the passing of a simple day into wading through thick sludge. In this case, things started out as a protest demanding that the school admin reveal the budgeting and funding for the school to ensure that they're not fleecing the students, but then their list of demands grew to include stuff like 'the university must give money to the University of Gaza', 'the university must give 13 full annual scholarships to Palestinian students', 'the school library must be open to the public' (i.e. the school library becomes hobo hotel), 'the school must be all green and vegan' (not that bad on first glance, but then think of all the lefty nutjob ideals about the environment), etc, making life here pale in relative excitement. But I won't stake a claim on whether such excitement is good or bad.

In contrast, when our sociopolitical club Apolitical got registered as a CCA under SMU, we definitely got on the radar and some dude made us register under some government list. The specially-designed system either filters us out somehow, or there are people employed just to sniff us or any potential dissent out. Whee.




We defend democracy by forgoing it.

Audio Candy:
David Garrett - Smooth Criminal

It's Alive!

Prof Luan: "And I will curve the two classes. I will only have so many As and Bs to give, so I do not want the other class to have an advantage and you should not talk about the paper after you are done."

The bell curve. It does exist! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Every professor has some excuse not to remember names at the beginning of the term, and then have a miraculous memory upgrade by the time the term ends for class participation grades. They don't give themselves enough credit for that.


In cognitive psychology class: Is a tomato a fruit?

No, because it is not sweet.
Yes, because it has seeds.
No, because it is found in the vegetables section.
Yes, because it is borne from a flower.

Subway sandwiches are healthy because they have vegetables in them.
There are tomatoes in a subway sandwich.
Bad command or file name
MultipleRequestsOnSession




Audio Candy:
Bowling For Soup - High School Never Ends

And Worry Angels After All

It is always funny in a somewhat amazingly stupid manner whenever someone's pre-emptive strike turns into an unnecessary self-jack.



I'm starting to feel the urge to embark on another crazy run. Or cycle.



(Cashmere Mafia)

Davis: How can you do this to me?

Juliet: How can I do this to you? To you. You lied to me, you betrayed me... and you broke my heart. First in little ways, and then, in big ones. Some of those, I can get past; but.. I can't trust you, Davis. And I never will again. Not because I don't want to, and not because I'm not incapable of it, but because you don't deserve it.


Well said, Juliet.




I just want to make sure it’s living hell for anyone out there who’s going to beat me.
- Ken Souza, champion duathlete, on his hellish training regime

Audio Candy:
Paramore - Decode

Eating The Economic Pie

China has recently stated that she intends to encourage spending and increase imports from other countries. When China makes a statement like that, you'd ignore it at your own peril. If she really achieves what she intends to, it could very well signal a global economic shift, which technically might be for the better (since a major big-ass permanent exporter represents a market system glut of sorts in it's blatant one-sidedness).

If all that global visiting going on lately by China leaders and her attendance at the economic forum at Davos doesn't signify China's assertion that she intends to open up and become an active player, I don't know what is. Along with this could come a day when the world has no choice but to turn to China, because they will start calling the shots and we will have no choice but to obey.


I'm getting some dough from the GST offset package. I suppose this means I'm being manipulated within some larger financial scheme that our bigwigs are tweaking the system with, but I guess I'll feel less guilty when I watch my next movie knowing that the money is going to a bigger noble cause and will be used to stimulate the economy which will guarantee more jobs for our fellow men and probably not a pay-raise for some other inconspicuous and smart people. Hurray!




Only two things are certain in this world: Death and taxes.

Audio Candy:
Rob Pattinson - Never Think

FFS

A horde of opinionated people have sprung up giving their $.02 after Obama secured the USS789 billion stimulus package. Maybe I'm joining them too.

Before this, the Republicans were considering a US$700 billion bailout for major corporations who fucked the US economic system up.


"With 700 billion dollars, you could give everyone on the planet $100, which is more than a sizable percentage of them will make this year.

With 700 billion dollars, you could give every citizen of the United States $2000 - of course, it sort of works the other way around, doesn't it? We're the ones that will be giving the $2000 to foot the bill for this.

Instead, for 700 billion dollars, we are rewarding companies that were mismanaged. Which means, I presume, that a very small number of already-absurdly-wealthy old white guys will be made even wealthier. And I will still be left trying to make ends meet every month.

I'm sure there's a huge amount about this that I don't understand, but what I do understand is that I am being asked to pay for irresponsible management of huge companies, and I also understand that this is not capitalism. This is corporate welfare. This is a handout. And it's a bunch of wealthy people in government rewarding themselves, propping up their own portfolios, and rewarding their buddies on wall street, completely without regard for those of us who foot the bill."


In terms closer to home, it's something like this. A completely screwed up professor commits a crapload of errors over a couple of terms, and then approaches the Dean and says, "I'm really sorry about my mistakes, but I need money to make up for them. Not only that, I'd like a bonus too!" And the Dean approves the request, and gets the students to pay higher school fees.

At one time people were wondering, if the 2nd bailout got through like the first one did, whether we were wasting a crisis.

Obama's call for the stimulus package while refusing to help the major financial players is a good way to go and would potentially save many jobs. Ceasing tax cuts for the rich would begin putting a stop to corporate America's hold on state politics and public policy, which means we would finally see some proper, smart and at least logical decisions being made for once. People have accused Obama of being socialist especially when he's considered seizing errant banks and corporations that have gone bankrupt instead of giving them money 'to stay afloat' but I couldn't think them any more ignorant right now.




Audio Candy:
Stars - One More Night

Comes From Within

"The road that stretches before the feet of a man is a challenge to his heart long before it tests the strength of his legs. Our destiny is to run to the edge of the world and beyond, off into the darkness: sure for all our blindness, secure for all our helplessness, strong for all our weakness, gaily in love for all the pressure on our hearts."

"Life must be lived, even by those who cannot find the courage to face it. In the living of it, every mind must meet the rebuff of mystery. To some men, this will be an exultant challenge: that so much can be known and truth not be exhausted, that so much is still to be sought, that truth is an ocean not to be contained in the pool of a human mind. To others, this is a humiliation not to be borne; for it marks out sharply the limits of our proud minds. In the living of life, every mind must face the unyielding rock of reality, of a truth that does not bend to our whim or fantasy, of the rule that measures the life and mind of a man."

- St Thomas, The Summa Theologica




Audio Candy:
I Am Ghost - The Denouement

Repress

In your eyes I lost my place
Could stay a while and I'm melting
In your eyes like my first time
That I caught fire, just stay with me
Lay with me now



What I did in the earlier part of today completely grosses me out whenever I think about it. If I were ever to commit them again, I would come really close to killing myself.




Audio Candy:
The Used - I Caught Fire

Bystander Apathy Effect

"I have a very strong feeling that the opposite of love is not hate - it's apathy. It's not giving a damn."



The world is not dangerous because of those who do harm but because of those who look at it without doing anything.
- Albert Einstein

Audio Candy:
Urbandux - Bozo

Punks Not Dead

"We need to remember that what mattered in the early 1960s was not what JFK knew about Casals or the music of Schumann and Couperin and Mendelssohn. What mattered was that Casals was performing at the White House, a great day for the arts in America that also served to remind Americans that art has no borders, that a Spaniard playing German music in Washington was indeed part of the American experience. Here was a lesson in the importance of art, a lesson that might help to jump-start music education in the public schools and inspire more adults to turn to the classical station on the radio and go to record stores and concert halls. For Obama, who is constrained in so many ways by the ever-darkening economic situation, the symbolic possibilities of the arts are one arena in which he can act with real freedom."

- Jed Perl, Obamalot, The New Republic

Audio Candy:
The Spill Canvas - Break A Leg

Mid-Afternoon Drivel

I'm really quite baffled by the number of dubious-sounding URL messages being sent to me on MSN. At the rate things are going, I'm gonna get more virus URLs than actual conversation messages.

I know they're virus-related stuff and those online friends aren't deliberately throwing them my way but it's like. Dude why'd you click it in the first place? Some of the URLs are really so obvious that the best benefit of the doubt I could give is that people's muscular memories have replaced their minds.

I mean seriously, URLs like http://awesome.quickgiftz.com/ and http://iambluebird.real-cool-newyear-party-pics.com/ deserve more suspicion.



On another note, one of the most cringe-worthy things I've ever seen are comments to Facebook relationship status changes. Breakup comments are often far more distasteful, but both get-together and breakup comments are really bad.

Example.

(heartbreak image) John is no longer listed as in a relationship with Jane.
Joan: oh no what happened?! are u guys really separated?
Jenny: sigh... i really thot it wld last.
Jian: are u ok?

Who on earth in their right minds would tell you their sensitive sob story on Facebook in the glaring light of the public, especially when they've just endured one of the crappiest periods of their lives? And, personally, even more so when one has good premise to believe that every snooper on Facebook has a ravishing appetite for lapping it up for misplaced reasons?

Or maybe my opinion is the misplaced one - people actually like the attention from such a display. At any rate, I never fail to cringe internally whenever I see such comments.



On yet another note, this is an amazing 'video'. Just do as the instructions say.






Whenever you read a good book, it's like the author is right there, in the room, talking to you, which is why I don't like to read good books.
- Jack Handey

Audio Candy:
Broken Social Scene - Anthems For A 17 Year-Old Girl

Rise And Fall

I'm celebrating my reunion dinner today, a full week in advance from the actual day because tradition, once again, doesn't hold up to conveniences. My yearly reunion dinners are celebrated together with my extended family on my dad's side so it's a huge group. On the actual day, we'd be fighting the crowds and higher prices, in addition to being much busier doing Chinese New Year preparations closer to the day, so everyone figured that they'd be better off just coming together on an alternate day instead. Why not?

I've nothing against having my reunion dinner away from the actual date, my weak belief in this whole festival notwithstanding, but on an academic note I think this again shows that, somewhere between the adages that change is the only constant and that modernity has no room for tradition, we seem to have a natural social programming to gravitate away from saturated or expired practices; 'saturated' and 'expired' only so defined by the people of the age they own.

No one can say for sure that traditional Catholic axioms are absolute truths, that making it back on the actual day religiously for reunion dinner every year is the best way to preserve the family, that refraining from the television makes one a better person. But neither can anyone say for a fact that such thoughts or practices are outdated. Human nature doesn't provide the intelligence to discern whether moving in a certain direction ultimately leads to a demise for our species. For now, living in an information and internet technology-intense era just redefines what the masses believe should be the right way to live.

There is hardly a right or wrong here when the majority intends to ostracise and ultimately condemn and eliminate minority or dying practices. At the very basis of social human behaviour, people will instinctively frown upon acts that do not go with the flow. Even more deep-seated than that, when one considers Gestalt psychology, people naturally group even black squares and blue circles according to what makes it look most convenient to describe. When practices are perceived as obstacles, then people will evolve by changing those practices or ditching them. We are innately wired to deny those we perceive as deviant and as we move along the chain reaction from the mind to society at large, sometimes it really comes as no surprise when age-old practices are compromised to make way for convenience and efficiency, often euphemised with a seemingly innocent "why not?" by unknowing revolutionists while blasted as a blasphemous indecency by the generation we are leaving behind.




With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to smallpox. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.

- Charles Darwin

Audio Candy:
I See Stars - Save The Cheerleader

WTF Part Two

"This is important because research indicates that too little knowledge about a job can lead to inaccurate job descriptions."

- John M. Ivancevich, Human Resource Management, Pg 156

Just a snippet of the pain and stupidity I have to put up with while reading human resource textbooks.




Audio Candy:
Whitehouse - Mal De Amores

WTF Part One

ST Jan 16, 2009

Likely Mas Selamat has fled

ALMOST a year after he escaped from custody, where is terror fugitive Mas Selamat Kastari?

Home Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng narrowed it to either of two scenarios: one, he is in Singapore and hidden by sympathisers unknown to the authorities, or, two, he has fled the country.

Asked which was the more likely, Mr Wong told The Straits Times: 'It's very hard to say. Both scenarios are plausible. Maybe the second one is more plausible.'



The act of diplomacy and being politically correct can sometimes weigh down heavily on actually sounding like intelligence is part of one's ministerial job scope.




Audio Candy:
Broken Social Scene - KC Accidental

4th Estate

Our upstarting from rags (and hopefully to riches) Social Sciences publication team had our first meet up today to discuss very rogue plans on commencing something like a faculty newsletter, and it was personally very exciting. SMU's publication stint is fascinating in that it boasts such a colourful history despite its rather young age.

But anyway, I guess Blue and Gold has fizzled out primarily because you simply can't generalise campus issues over the faculty-diverse and rather generally apathetic population here without being stretched thin, and that's where I think a specifically Social Sciences-run publication will work.

Especially Social Sciences! There is so, so much potential. There's nothing much to disclose now, especially so as not to disappoint.



Anyway, other than a miserable half-attempt at pretending not to brag about my IPPT conquests, school's reopened and I haven't said much since.

I think, as the university years roll along, I will get happily lonelier around these halls and walls that used to surround as well as represent much laughter and social activity I've had with friends who've made freshman year truly memorable.

We go through inevitable phases and this year is our time. We own the school now - the seniors have stepped aside, moved on, and the year 2s are running excos through a wide array of organisations, groups and societies. The other inevitable phase, I'd suppose, is to move on from the wide-eyed wonder of finally being a university student around other fellas only too eager to soak up the effervescent foray into what seemed like a neverending spiral of novelty and excitement, into being... well, the unsmiling, no-nonsense I-dunno-he-year-3-or-year-4-the-very-old-one-lah. Just kidding. Right now, it only seems too taboo to even have thought that the seasons would've went on forever during those times, but who would've blamed most of us?

So anyway, while I'm going to classes mostly alone (and sitting also mostly alone because I'm not of the friendly variety), I'm actually happier this way. I won't even go as far as to say that gone were the days of being eager and patronising, because for me personally it has evolved from wanting to know more friends into trying to painfully maintain your hi-bye ones instead. The year 1 bubble's burst and now I'm settled. It's very personal, but I'm lucky enough to be pursuing Psychology, which is something that is continuously self-preserving and self-generating in terms of interest, energy, curiosity and passion, and maybe I can't say the same for others where a social life needs to be intact to compensate for the painfully exciting and numerically-decorated modules they are wading through now. Especially when it gets more beautifully profound as the years promise to carry them forth on the wings of intense knowledge. Hmm.

So as it is, as I perceive it, classmates (I'd better specify them to be my Psychology ones) aren't casual friends anymore, but passion-driven counterparts and friendly semi-rivals instead, both friend and challenger in this knowledge quest.

I think I'm dangerously making my undergraduate sophomore experience seem like an incredibly noble adventure.

I guess part of the equation for making me work is making me feel like I'm privileged to be where I am. Versus the crappy Social Science Research Methods module in the unbecoming class room crammed together with a bunch of freshmen, Design, Measurement & Analysis in the professional setting of a seminar room definitely feels like a privilege.




If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of loan payments.

Audio Candy:
Alexisonfire - This Could Be Anywhere In The World

Good Game

Audio Candy:

Ani DiFranco - Hypnotized

But Here We Are

I drove in a car and flew in a plane

To come to your house and kick your door in

Now it's down to this, it's just you and me

I'll blow your fucking head off for my country

"Most of the soldiers now fighting Hamas terrorists in Gaza were three or four years old when the U.S. launched the First Gulf War. Most of them have no memories of this war, but their parents remember. They remember these toddlers being rushed to shelters, wearing the special child-friendly version of gas masks. They remember an Israel that doesn't respond to the daily barrage of missiles sent from Iraq onto Tel Aviv and Haifa. A wise decision at the time - the U.S. had asked Israel not to make trouble for the delicate international coalition in which Arab countries were also members - but one that added to the erosion of Israel's deterrence power. Thus, while the U.S. was slowly getting over its Vietnam Syndrome and getting its military groove back - for better or worse, Iraq was the prelude to the Balkan intervention, which was the prelude to both Afghanistan and the second Iraq war - Israel was losing points. The once-mighty regional force was being bombed without reciprocation."

- Shmuel Rosner, Getting Over the Lebanon Syndrome, The New Republic



The war is now somewhat truly affecting because my dad can't put his mind at ease with my business study mission trip down to the troubled country and is quite adamant on cancelling it. This is quite a stupid way of feeling for whoever's plight or frowning upon war and violence but it has no doubt become personal and, in an indirect and small way, much more significant.

Israel and Singapore are fascinatingly so similar and so contrasting at the same time. Both are young nations with small land areas and populations and both have conscript armies. Both lack natural resources and seek to trail-blaze in post-industrial sectors. Both had to do with the British and govern with states borne out of British mandates and laws, and both have an immigrant-supported population. But when one looks at the political situation of the two countries, Israel has been residing in a tumultous pressure cooker with no lack of neighbours with hostile appetites, while Singapore has had it relatively peaceful.

Some people think that this is like a bully whacking a boy in the face with a baseball bat just because the boy pushed him. Personally it feels that, if the baseball bat was indeed used, the boy must've been jabbing the 'bully's balls in a seemingly harmless and periodic fashion for a long stretch of time such that the baseball bat now becomes justified. Hamas militants have been firing rockets into Israeli towns for a while now. Short of a ground battle, Israel has been taunted for its air strike despite rising civilian casualties. Hamas terrorists just want the deadlier ground battle without regard for the escalating death toll of innocent people.

Life goes on in Israel, and even for civilian families who call the battered Gaza Strip area their home, in spite of the missiles whizzing overhead.




Audio Candy:
Damien Rice - Rootless Tree

A Ripple From The Coin Drop

"My mother taught me to devalue her. Even that sentence — let it stand — blames her for everything, including the shame I feel for having been ashamed of her. I grew up watching which fork the others were using, what they were wearing, what they were talking about, what they seemed to be thinking. They, whoever they happened to be, had the power to find us wanting. 'I'm not going to take you anywhere anymore unless you learn how to behave,' my mother said.

"So I set out to 'learn how to behave,' to acquire what Marx called 'cultural capital', or what’s more simply called learning to 'pass'. This aspiration, celebrated in the phrase 'upward mobility' is rooted in shame and, in its undermining of authentic selfhood, creates the vulnerability required by all manner of predators from child molesters to military recruiters to advertisers and financial institutions. After all, aspiration is not an identity but the rejection of one’s identity."

- Richard Hoffman

Audio Candy:

Disturbed - Into The Fire