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Friday, January 29, 2010

Along Comes February

Hello

And so January draws to an end - and with that the end of the first month (or so) of school. [I have a ton of work due, I have no idea why I'm blogging... Maybe because it's a Friday night and I should be relaxing...?] When you have a ton of things to do, time seems to pass wayyy too quickly for its own good, and oops! Along comes February.

February - the shortest month of the year. The time of the year (usually) that brings with it Chinese New Year and yes! That entails the start of spring (according to the Lunar Calendar - which apparently ignores Northern regions like Michigan because we're definitely not getting much spring in Februrary), and spring supposedly brings renewal and growth.

It's also time for the Asia Business Conference (it's next week, omg) of which I've been a part of, for the past few months. It's not quite over yet so I shouldn't be reflecting upon what I've learned quite yet, but I must say that being on the board has taught me a lot - how things are done, in a more MBA-way. It makes the debate events we planned and executed in JC look like... well, they look like exactly how they are - planned and executed by JC students. Kids, in other words, in the eyes of university students and graduate students.

But what's most impressive about this is that if you really think about it, most MBA students are probably under 30 years of age, which means that they are only a couple of years older than me. In other words, the big bad world of a job has that much of an effect on a person. Wow. That's ... mind-boggling really. I feel like a child compared to my graduate school friends - even when they are only a couple of years older than I am.

In the past, hierarchy mattered a lot in primary school (omg! Those scary and tall primary six-ers!), in secondary school (ahhh senior is there! RUN!), and in junior college (oh, those JC 1s... kids...). But the age differences are more flattened out in college - where you can interact with people from all age groups (well, within 17/18 - 29~ anyway) and learn all sorts of things from all sorts of experiences. I don't know how it is in Singapore, since I'm in Michigan and all, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have had as much opportunity to interact with students from graduate school. And they can really teach so much - even if they don't know that they are.^_^

So with the end of January bringing with it a dreadful cold blast on us in Ann Arbor, the depressing weather tends to bring out all these contemplative thoughts.=P But I guess what really triggered this entry was the fact that I'm busy (gasp, is that possible?! I know..-_-") and stressed out (so many emails to send, so much work to complete, and I still have to apply for internships?!) which is a due product of this evil time called the Winter Semester.

It is without a doubt the most tiring time of the year for school since winterbreak isn't quite long enough to recover from the fatigue of Fall Semester, and it brings with it the need to fight the cold with all your strength, while dealing with school. Horrors.

I've always thought that it'd be better to return to being a kid and having less stuff on mind about my future, but then again... I'm pretty happy about where I am right now, and about all the stuff I have learned and have yet to learn.^_^

So to end off this entry on a happy note, and hopefully with some motivation to finish everything [not that I really have a choice... I'm even skipping the Utada concert. OMG.]...

Here's to February with カピバラさん (Kapibara-san)! ^_^

cheers
*[-witchstone-]*

[music : Rain Gackt + 柊 Do as Infinity]
[mood : ~_~]
[food : Black Sugar Milk Tea! ^_^ and 高丽菜！]

PS: I've sent my first Diana F+ film rolls for developing! I'm looking forward to the results~ ^_^

Labels: Ann Arbor, Asia Business Conference, thoughts, umich

Saturday, January 23, 2010

New Year: Patience

Hello!

I've been so busy lately blogging has been like, wayyyy at the bottom of my to-do list. I don't even know if it was on my list to tell you the truth. Haha.

But anyway, I'm currently in a bind because my phone is dying (the scrolling buttons need many MANY many pushes to respond... xP Apart from that it's perfect which is even more annoying because if the buttons don't work, it doesn't matter if everything else is since you can't access them. xP) and so is my laptop (in various ways - the sound system, the wireless access is starting to give way, the keys are in various states of ruin, etc). (T_T)

I can definitely survive with a little patience (I love how everything in life is a test of patience and personal virtue) because all I have to do is stab at my phone's navigational buttons harder and more often, and utilize the USB sound port (which is really crappy by the way, so I don't recommend it to anyone unless you're desperate like I am) as well as restart/shut down my laptop often to hope that the next time, the wireless works.^_^

Patience patience.

With patience too it'll be helpful for dealing with work (far too much so patiently getting through everything is a wonderful skill), patience also helps in working with clay (which I sneakily do in the Art and Architecture Building thanks to XW!), and, well, patience is basically incredibly useful when dealing with people in general. Ommm.

Currently my outstanding list of things to do is pouring off the table, and leaking into every corner of the room that is my life at the moment. I've always said that I'd rather be busy than not at all, but being busy to the point where I don't even have time to watch anime is pretty much not on my appreciated list of things. The first anime I watched since winterbreak was last night. I don't know whether that's something to rejoice about or not. X__X

Definitely not. It's anime. OMG.

Oh speaking of patience, Gackt is truly testing everyone's patience with his infinite delays as to the release of his latest concert DVD. And Amazon too is trying my patience by suddenly having a book I ordered out of stock.

I guess I should patiently redirect all my irritated emotions into the creative project that we're meant to do for Psychology of Creativity (a 500-level - graduate level - engineering class, can you believe it?!). I intend mine to involve food and cooking of some kind. Maybe it's a good time to try out all those ideas I had for starting a cake business! Haha. Once again, patience is called for dealing with all those probable failures.

I have a ton of photos in my camera from winterbreak, baking/cooking sessions, and our trip to the Detroit Institute of Art + Windsor! I will... test everyone's patience and upload them eventually. Just like what I've been saying for every other photo I've taken so far.=X

Photos. I need to figure out a way to develop those 120mm films from my Diana F+ shoots!!! (T_T)

Developing patience of an extraordinary degree might be a good goal this year - it comes in handy everywhere, all the time, and with everybody. In fact, patiently dealing with people might be the most important skill of all.^_^

To patience! May the force be with you.

cheers
*[-witchstone-]*

[music : this Japanese song whose title I cannot, for the life of me, remember]
[mood : attempting to be patiently zen]
[food : Butternut Squash!!!]

Labels: new year, patience, thoughts, umich

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Globalization, Culture, and Psychology

Hello,

Recently, Roy sent me an article from the NY Times titled "The Americanization of Mental Health" (click to read the article!) which discusses the implications of the West in general spreading their ideas and definitions of mental health across the world. Since every country and every culture is different - can mental health also be shared so readily all over the world?

Obviously there are problems because each culture has its own set of beliefs and everyone is affected by mental illnesses in different ways. For example, in the article the problem of anorexia was cited. Before anorexia became a well-known worldwide phenomenon, a psychologist in Hong Kong was studying patients who had a form of anorexia that significantly differed from the Western definition of anorexia (an eating disorder). However, when he was about to publish his research, a girl in Hong Kong collapsed and died from being too thin (ie: anorexia in Western terms?) and in a matter of hours, the whole of Hong Kong knew about anorexia - not from an Asian perspective but from a Western perspective. Till today, this has had implications because what had been the complaints of anorexics in Hong Kong in the past, had now changed to large numbers of patients citing the Western definition of anorexia as the main problem they faced.

The article also discusses other aspects of mental health, not just importing the DSM around the world, but also labelling of patients, and how each culture deals with patients and the implications of that on patient recovery.

Since I'm currently taking a course on Culture, Self, Brain - a study of the new field of cultural neuroscience - it was very interesting to read this article and see how different cultures view mental illness from different aspects. And how because of the export of the DSM and thus Western ideas of mental health, there has been a flattening of cultural variation and a lack of understanding of the cultural and environmental impact on mental illness. Just from what we went through in class many past researchers have defined culture as something to do with one's environment and social group. Thus it does appear to me that although western methods of treating mental illness might be effective (or not...), it lacks the cultural implications of each group of people - and instead removes culture as a factor.

What happens instead that each culture, with its different views of human nature and sense of self, has been greatly impacted by western views - thus changing the fundamental way we see ourselves as people. I suppose this can't be good in the longterm thanks to the flattening of differences through "globalization" (basically an import of western values and ideals to other countries... well, that's probably an older definition such as how people were savages if they weren't christian, or illiterate if they couldn't read English/French/etc in the past). With each culture comes its own culture differences and quirks! I think that's the most interesting thing we can learn about other people - what makes them different from ourselves and what can we learn from that?

All told, this is a really interesting article, and brings up several contentious points. ^_^ Ah, the debate about psychology... Will it ever end?

cheers
*[-witchstone-]*

[music : My Heart Draws a Dream Theater of Kiss Live! L'arc-en-Ciel]
[mood : ^_^v]
[food : sambal minced meat eggplant!]

Labels: psychology, thoughts

Monday, January 11, 2010

Houses of Dreams

Houses of Dreams

You took my empty dreams
And filled them every one
With tenderness and nobleness,
April and the sun.

The old empty dreams
Where my thoughts would throng
Are far too full of happiness
To even hold a song.

Oh, the empty dreams were dim
And the empty dreams were wide,
They were sweet and shadowy houses
Where my thoughts could hide.

But you took my dreams away
And you made them all come true --
My thoughts have no place now to play,
And nothing now to do.

Sarah Teasdale

In Fall semester, the dreams of people in finding that perfect job for themselves are raised and crushed as recruiters come and go, and applications receive (or do not receive) replies. In Winter semester however, the building of dreams through internships are raised and crushed equally. Each semester brings the recruiters around - for full-time hire and for internships - and everyone gets into a tizzy as they seek out the people they need in order to achieve what they have always dreamed of doing.

But if someone doesn't have a dream, where does that person end up? Or maybe someone has too many dreams, and doesn't know which direction the road leads? Or someone might have that one dream, but is having only one too limiting and invites more failure than success?

I guess every student and anyone out there, is plagued with problems throughout both semesters - and we haven't even gotten to schoolwork yet. Or exams. X__X

May this semester in 2010 go well.^_^

cheers
*[-witchstone-]*

[music : tsuki no akari + tegami Angela Aki]
[mood : ~_~]
[food : BREAD! Hot Chocolate!]

Labels: poem, thoughts, umich

Wednesday, January 06, 2010

明けましておめでとうございます！

明けましておめでとうございます！
今年もよろしくお願いします！

Happy New Year!

And so starts a new year, 2010.

It didn't start off too well for some of us, what with falling sick and all... But with the semester kicking off today, it can only get better! ^_^

I wonder what the year will bring?

I don't really have any new year resolutions this year... I haven't really had a chance to think of any that I might really stick to. But as always, one must constantly improve oneself and that is probably what I will try to do.^_^

May everyone have a great year ahead! And here's to another year of blogging.=)

cheers
*[-witchstone-]*

[music : Honey & Clover!]
[mood : sniffly]
[food : thai~]

Labels: misc, new year

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