Blob blob?

Human, as we all know, are judgemental beings, so eager to deduce and decide. So, especially when meeting with a new person, one tends to analyse him or her first before even coming to a conclusion about the person, just for the sake of coming to a conclusion! Through basic conversation, one picks up information about the other person, not only small talk but also your body language as well. One of the most prominent identities of yourself that is essential for someone to judge you is your opinion on the world issues. Everyone have their own opinion of almost every issues; world hunger, gender equality, terrorism, everyone has something to say about that. But if you come to think of it, does it all really matter? Your thoughts, on everything, are quite worthless as it can never change the world. However, it does provide a person with an identity, a standpoint in life and accounts for something to whom the person is. It helps people to answer the infamous question of “Who am I?”

Everyday in your conduct with others in life, there will be a lot of information giving of you and information receiving of others. At the end of the day, given the limited time of a single conversation, a person will come to a conclusion about you and who he or she thinks you are. “First impression”, that is what it is called. Really, first impression is really quite important. Why? Because a bad “first impression” may consequently denote the non-existence of a “second impression”! (Nope, the other person will steer away miles from you, ha ha ha!!!)

But of course, if your first impression is good, more conversations will soon take place between you and the other person. Every time this is done, you collect more “information” on the person and this is further super-imposed on the existing knowledge you have about the person initially. Then again, the reverse is the same.

So, it can be said that in every single conversation you take part in, whether it be with a stranger on the street or even with your parents, you’re always being observed, analysed and having information collected from you every time you open your mouth. Isn’t it interesting to note that speech makes up only 20% of the communication process, the rest being body language? Now you know why businessmen like to meet face to face rather than close a deal on the phone or via email!!!

A direct application of this is like that: You are actually collecting information about me by actually reading this article.
The more you read this blog, the more you know about me, even if you don’t know me. (^.^)

This is a well known fact; Penangites tend to glare fiercely at any driver on the streets who commits a minor blunder at the road. It is like an unspoken culture of Penang, everyone does it but no one talks about it. When someone cuts a person while driving, the person if possible, will drive side by side to that driver. Then, he or she will glare at the person with a slightly disgust in their expression! The driver then will pretend not to notice the other driver’s glares by looking straight although in reality he or she already knows that. Like the Malaysians we are, we rarely resort to verbal abuse, but we do still convey our anger, through all the glaring and facial expressions. I have no idea why exactly Penangites do this. My guess is that by glaring, they can telepathically, make the person feel guilty and at the same time vent their anger towards the driver. Those staring would probably try to convey thoughts like “You blockhead!!” or “You cow!!” From the viewpoint of the driver that makes the mistake, a feeling of melancholy and inferiority will often subsequently follow after that blunder contributed by self-consciousness (more of which is embarrassment) and of course, the numerous angry glares you get! Hey, maybe “telephatic-glaring” actually does work! (^_^); Ha ha!!

What about you? Have you encountered any situations like that?

Nothing to say. Just wanted to share a nice photo I took in Japan. Amazing, that was the first word that came to my mind! Simply amazing….

Note: Pop-up is 0.5mb so may take a while to load. Kept it in high res so it can be used as a wallpaper.

Previously, I wrote an article on ambitions. Today, I want to write about purpose. Purpose is what that is sustaining our lives. A life without purpose, would not be living at all. Think about it, each of our life has a purpose. Whether it is a long term or short term goal, you live for something. For the students, to get good jobs later. For the parents, to make money so that their children can live a good life. For the young adult, to quickly climb up the cooperate ladder to become successful in his or her career. Each of us live with a purpose.

Purpose is what that sustains life. If you have no purpose in life, what’s the good of living? Like a piece of junk, you should be ditched away. You may say, “But I don’t have a clear purpose of life, yet here I am today, still alive!” Aha! But you do have a purpose in life and that is to keep on living!!! Surprisingly, for the poor, there will always be a purpose, that is to survive! As long as the person has the basic instincts to live, there is a purpose to live.

Sometime, people may lose the will to live. What they have been living for, for so long, has suddenly disappeared. A void is formed in his or her life, a gap so sudden that the mind is unable to adapt with that lost. In other words, a person loses his or her will to live. As results depression and the feelings to commit suicide will arise. Let’s take a very down to earth example. Boyfriend and girlfriend relationship among teenagers are often like so. If those two lovebirds break up, this may result in one (or two) of them losing the will to live. Suicidal among teenagers are often because of this. The self-manifested purpose of living for the other partner may become an obsession to the guy or girl, until it becomes his or her main purpose in life, may cause him or her to kill themselves once the “purpose” is lost. Another case may come from being raised in a broken home. Everyday, the teen get told on how useless he or she is until one day, the teen actually believes it. Feeling useless (unloved) and without a purpose in life, an attempt to kill himself or herself may very well follow.

In life, we live for many reasons, but there is always something that constitutes your main purpose to live. As discussed previously, obsession of a single purpose may cause trouble. The obsession to that single purpose may make it become your only reason to live. Some people that live only to become a success, once the person reaches his or her point of “success”, the person may lose his or her purpose in life.

Christianity and other forms of religions act as a great safety net for such problem. There will always be a purpose in your life because you live for God not for yourself. Even if you lose the reason to life for yourself, you will never lose the purpose to live for God.

Hence that is why they always say, it is the journey that counts, not the destination, for when you reach your destination, you have no idea where to go anymore!!!

Of course, if you have lost your purpose to live, you should let it settle before finding another purpose. Like a recently widowed person, you need to overcome the feeling of meaningless with another new purpose in life. This explains the extreme changes in attitude of some people once losing their spouses in an unexpected accident or sickness. Your entire life’s purpose has changed. Consider this, if something that has no part in your purpose of life were to diminish, it wouldn’t really affect you. Everyday, people die of AIDS. It doesn’t affect the way you live because it doesn’t affect your purpose in life. But, if it were to affect you child, then it affected your life and its purpose. If say, a person’s child dies (or anyone dear) because of AIDS, then his or her life would lose purpose for a while. Later however, the purpose to rid the world of aids will arise, replacing the previously lost main purpose that has been there. Lance Armstrong, the world champion cyclist is an example of that. After getting brushed by cancer himself, he suddenly becomes aware of the seriousness and he make it his purpose in life to aid others, even to the extend on spending millions to set up his foundation. Cancer has almost threatened him to lose his life’s purpose (becoming the champion of his sports) and this gives him another purpose in life which is to help fight cancer. That is how purpose works.

And that is that, nothing more nothing less. (-_-)

Consider this, 40000 Japanese comics (manga) for you to choose from, A wide selection of Japanese cartoons (Anime) and a comfortable place to read and watch all those movies. This is one of the many “Manga Motels” in Japan. Like the average motel, a person actually rent a room for a period of time. This will also allow the person full access to all the manga and anime he or she can read. Think of it as Japanese buffet for the mind. This concept motel is so cool. Wow, I wish one day they will do this in Malaysia!

While waiting for the red light to turn green at a junction, I saw a guy on a bike beside me wearing a safety vest. You know, those type of safety vest that they show on TV, the one for traffic safety. I thought to myself, “Wow, this guy is so cautious, wearing the safety vest and all. A good example for all of us to follow!” After he is done wearing it, he revved his bike and off he flew! The fellow zoomed through while the light was red, weeving through cars and bike in front at top speed! What the…? (=_=)

I mean, the fellow was not speeding initially, but after donning the “miraculous” vest, he suddenly thinks he is Superman!!! People like this you can only find in Penang!

School life, a lifestyle that will probably revolve around books, homework and tuitions. The student’s life is hectic, especially today with the immense gain of knowledge and technology, so does the syllables. Students are expected to learn so much in so little time. The question is, how?

When it comes down to the crunch, to me,  the most effective way to study is to truly understand what you’re studying. There is not much point to study the whole day and not understand any of it, right? Of course, you say, but one must also memorize, for subjects like biology, it comes down to memory work. True, but with understanding, memory work will become much easier, don’t you think? Relate what you study with your real life, apply that knowledge, so that it may become a part of you. Do not separate your academic knowledge with your other knowledge (most students do). Instead, fuse all the knowledge you have together, making it a matrix of linked information. True understanding of the subject will only happen when you can relate to what you have studied. Look around you, does what you study be applicable to your daily life? The ships on the docks, the blossom trees you saw on the way to school, ask yourself, how does all those be applicable to your knowledge obtain from what you study. For example, reading the latest articles on weight control and all gives you the opportunity to link what you know about the human digestion system with the articles. Links like this further clarifies the subjects for you, and such memory jogs periodically helps sustain the information in you mind.

Being able to learn from what you study is the most important thing of all. Learning, is the ideal result of study. A splitting headache, is the results of learning gone awry. To be able to understand is what that matters most. A good teacher is a teacher that is able to make the students understand, to be able to relate with the students’ understanding, to understand who those students are and how to approach them. Good teachers instill humor into teaching, captivating the students’ attention and explains concepts in a simple way so that it is understandable by students. Study should be the same, a good book is not the ones jam-packed with information, but the ones written clearly and understandable. For most of us, study comes from books and the most important thing for you to do first is to get good books. Without them, the rest would be pointless.

The lack of passion to study plagues most students, making them "resistant" to understanding the concepts studied. If there is no impetus driving a person to study a certain subject, there will not be any effort made to understand, thus nothing is achieved through study. Interest, that is needed to drive studying. How to we obtain this interest? That’s where linking comes in. Get real, most of us hates what we learn in school. You think, "There is no point for me to study this crap. How can this lot of useless information be of any good to me?" There is no purpose to study, so therefore, we must create one. Apply this knowledge in real life by linking what you learn with the everyday thing that happen. If you do this enough, you will be able to "see" a purpose in learning all that. If you’re lucky, you may actually become interested with what you’re studying!

Learning should be fun and proactive. It is not just a bout books only. There are other means of learning beside your textbook. For example, if you’re learning Spanish, why not find a pen-pal from Spain while you’re at it. In the end, you will be interested with the subject because you can see the value of the subject, as a communication tool between you and your Spanish friend. You can see how the subject relates to your life and the subject will become interesting to you. When you become interested, understanding will become a breeze and the subject will become a joy to study, not a burden. Embracing the subject, it really does wonders! (^_^)

Update 5/4/06:
You know that remembering fact is actually easier, with this method. By relating or cross refencing everything you study, information retention is better as more neurotic links are made in your mind to "hold" that memory. The more connection you make about the subject, it is actually better. so, by associating a memory with something more prominent, the better it sticks, compared to something less prominent. So, two ways to remember something better; by more association or by a more prominent association.