december, december

A great ending to an eventful year.

posing at the end of youth camp..

JAG

kit and myself during the hawaiian dinner

duet- with su ann in christmas dinner

To: you

I wonder who you are at times
I wonder if you’re reading these lines
For now, you may be a stranger to me
Though I’m pretty sure you won’t be a ‘he’

I’m not so good with poems
In fact, I can’t even find a word that rhymes with ‘poems’
The number of syllables in this stanza does not match either
Not that I bother!

Are you that girl whom I find attractive?
How can I tell? There are many like you
Are you that girl who seems seductive?
My apologies then, for missing my cue

Do you stand tall, or are you short?
Maybe it’s the latter, since you’re hard to spot
It’ll be hard to tell if the ‘One’ is you
Perhaps even harder will be the words “I do”

I think of you now and then
I know you’d be heaven-sent
Yes it’s true, that I don’t know who you are
But as long as you’re in my thoughts,

You won’t be too far

Reward ÷ Effort

I guess I ain't much of a 'blogger'. By blogger i mean someone who almost regards the blog like a diary, except it's online and available to anyone. I dont post anything intimate here (which is why i dont really liek tags), no feelings, not many of 'what happened to me' stories, mainly nonsense crap and occasionally some thoughts/opinions. Sometimes I regurgitate the nonsense i learn in class here. Gonna be done with this subject in a week or so! (quite interesting , Media Theories)

Expectation of reward

Effort

According to Schramm (some dude who came up with communication models) there is a reason to the choices we make when we select the media. He came up with this 'formula' to explain why we do what we do, called the 'Fraction of Selection'.

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In simple words, the choices you make are based on two things. What you gain from the choice (reward) and what it takes to achieve it (effort). You search for the highest incentive and the least effort and then make a choice based on these two criterias.

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Reward over effort.

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But, does it make sense in real life?

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Mother gives young boy a choice between two options: clean up his room and earn himself an icecream, or play and laze around and lose his reward. By Schamm's logic, assuming the young boy really enjoys icecream, the 'reward' would take the form of the icecream and the 'effort' would be his cleaning up. Obviously then, he would choose the former option. But lets say the reward of an icecream does not out-weigh the effort involved to earn it- the young boy is lazy and doesnt mind not having an icecream, then lazing around would be his choice.

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If Schramm is right, we are essentially reward-oriented creatures.

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But what about those altruistic ppl? Those moral, kind, caring type of people, who make choices against their will and even to their own disadvantage for the 'rewards' of other people who, while in most cases are close to them, are sometimes STRANGERS to them? And what about the man who sacrifices his 'rewards' for the reward of another, and almost stupidly endures the 'big effort' part of the equation for his brother's gain?

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Then, 'reward' is a very broad term.

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It just boils down to how you see your 'reward', or whether you consider something a 'reward', because the EFFORT's gonna always be the same, but the REWARD can be altered to how you perceive it.

Repeat.

A. Repeat. Method. Repeat. Often. Repeat. Employed. Repeat. By. Repeat. A. Repeat. Propagandist. Repeat. Is. Repeat. Repetition. Repeat. Usually. Repeat. The. Repeat. Message. Repeat. Is. Repeat. Simplified. Repeat. And. Repeat. Repeated. Repeat. To. Repeat. Reinforce. Repeat. Its. Repeat. Impact. Repeat. I’ve. Repeat. Always. Repeat. Had. Repeat. A. Repeat. Fascination. Repeat. With. Repeat. Great. Repeat. And. Repeat. Charismatic. Repeat. Public. Repeat. Speakers. Repeat. Who. Repeat. Are. Repeat. Able. Repeat. To. Repeat. Make. Repeat. Huge. Repeat. Ripples. Repeat. In. Repeat. The. Repeat. Lives. Repeat. Of. Repeat. Their. Repeat. Audiences. Repeat. The. Repeat. Best. Repeat. Public. Repeat. Speakers. Repeat. Are. Repeat. Essentially. Repeat. The. Repeat. Best. Repeat. Propagandists. Repeat. Because. Repeat. They. Repeat. Influence. Repeat. People. Repeat. To. Repeat. Believe. Repeat. And. Repeat. Act. Repeat. On. Repeat. Those. Repeat. Beliefs. Repeat.

This. Repeat. Is. Repeat. My. Repeat. Aspiration. Repeat.

Flags of white

"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep, to gain that which he cannot lose"

comparisons

-received this forwarded mail from JC.

Units of measurement

Today at Theories of the Media class, Mr Abraham (sweat machine) jolted me out of my reverie with a question.

“ABEL. How do you measure love?”
To which I answered without a blink, “You can’t”.

Now, we all know, theoretically speaking, you can’t measure something as abstract as love. There won’t be units to gauge its volume or depth. But if we are honest with ourselves enough, we do ‘measure’ it, don’t we?

Unconsciously, the person who spends more time with you, shoots more sms-es to your phone, buys you more gifts is perceived to have more love for you than the one who did all that but less. You reason that these actions do indicate in some way their level of affection and are by-products of their care.

Picture with me, if the subconscious mind could speak…

“Is this person your friend?”
“Urm… let me see. 3 hours of love, 4 presents of care, 2 and a quarter smses of affection, half a pat on the back, one sentence of encouragement… I’m not sure, because I didn’t receive 5 seconds of smiles, man.”

That’s how we gauge who are our friends and not. Suddenly the one who sends one sms short of the quota doesn’t love you. You then question why people love certain things because they seem to fall short based on the standards you have set.

“People should love dogs instead of cats because they are more useful, guard the home and are loyal.”
“I like that person because he knows how to play the flute with his nose and can dance on his toes while eating jelly. I don’t like the other person because he can only play the flute with his mouth and not with all the other parts of the human anatomy that can release air.”
“You’re not my close friend because you bought me two things only so far. When you buy 1 more, you would be my half friend-half close friend ok?”

Impossible and immature! You say.

But you do it nonetheless. People are guilty of measuring love eventhough they know it can't be measured. Think about it.

Breakthrough

Today, I finally overcame a great childhood trauma

"If"

"If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;

Or watch the things you gave your life to b r o k e n ,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!"

-my favourite poem in the english syllabus, by Rudyard Kipling. I remember having to recite the entire thing for an English oral presentation in F3 (the above is not the complete poem) and it probably left some kind of impact on me.

"Be a man"

We all have our own interpretations of what a real man is. We all want to be who we ought to be. But what makes a man? The deep voice? The gargantuan ego? The enormous strength? The leg hair(and other hairy sections of the human anatomy)? This poem taught me a valuable lesson, that while a man is always a male, a male need not necessarily be a MAN.

And how, personally, there is still much to learn.

Abby

Once, the doctors said she wouldn't walk until the age of 11.

Now...she runs wherever there is space to.

Once, her existence brought tears and sorrow to the people around her.

Now...she makes us laugh so much with her antics.

Once, many thought she wouldn't amount to much.

Now...she sings the loudest in church.

Once, I would be irritated when people stared at her in the restaurants.

Now...I have learnt to thank God she is around to be stared at.

Once, I wondered what others would think of her.

Now...I'm proud to walk alongside her.

My sister turns 15 today. I love her.

;)

"Listen...you wrote that the world doesn't need a savior. But every day I hear people crying for one." - Superman Returns
From left: Christopher, Meng yoe, Jonathan and myself.

Oh well it was cool seeing baby Joshua so amused. =P

Can you smell the colour nine?

Drummer Boy

Little Baby, Pa rum pum pum pum
I am a poor boy too, Pa rum pum pum pum
I have no gift to bring, Pa rum pum pum pum
That's fit to give the KING, Pa rum pum pum pum
Rum pum pum pum
Rum pum pum pum
Shall I play for You? Pa rum pum pum pum
On my drum

Shall I play for You?
Shall I play for You?
Mary looked at me and nodded
The ox and lamb kept time
I played my drum for Him
Oh I played MY BEST for Christ!

"Women don't want to hear what you think, they want to hear what they think, in a deeper voice"

-Bill Cosby


:D

The Five Love Languages

Physical Touch:		10
Words of Affirmation:		8
Quality Time:		6
Receiving Gifts:		4
Acts of Service:		2

hashiedent

for all the evil in the world, you'd think the simple smile of a child would make it all worth it...

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if books could be married, he would be charged for pushing the legal boundaries of polygamy.

and of course,

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when the bullying at school wasn't enough, pei yeen took care of that at home.

Chia Han Sheng

how time has passed us.

thanks for being one of the best partners in crime ive had

and remember, who is the more superior "Cheah" =D



happy eighteenth birthday....

The Wedding

Piao and Ju's

Sara's house

Kit Yi told us to do the "boy -band pose". I know i havent been showing my childhood friends off as much as Josh and Gatts have, so maybe now would be a good time. =) For the DU-rians, these dudes are the people ive been talking about all this while. They are the guys i grew up with, literally, from small little devils to .....well, big devils. (we havent changed much)

Wearing orange is Garrett. The most musically-inclined, he plays the guitar, bass, drums, saxophone and probably many others if he chooses to. He has what we call musical ears. Of us all, he is the most patient, most blur, most slack. Somehow i think he'll live the longest. Because he is comparatively more well-behaved and less wild, he may seem boring at times. That doesnt change the fact he gets the chicks ;)

Sitting on the floor and wearing blue is Joshua. He just makes you laugh all the time with his antics. You thought i was a clown? Meet Josh. This one has a really warm heart. Without a doubt, very popular because of his friendliness and spontainiety. He is crazy as well and yet can be very innocent at times (so that makes me the most evil among them). And yeah, he farts openly, so much so i can now recognise the smell when he does it without acknowledging it. (yeah he actually acknowledges it)

So there you go. My dear childhood friends =)

In the beginning...

Everything starts with something.

Here,


is where thoughts, reflection and mindtoys are written,

where some events and feelings are shared,

where idealism marries realism.