I'm here today to ramble about random things, to just let words flow from my fingertips and print themselves in a haphazard manner on your computer screen, so, please do not read it if you want to see a quality post, go read some other entries that I posted.
Life has became rather meaningless recently, well life has always been meaningless, in fact now it's not meaningless, it's depressing. I'm just depressed for no reason, wasting my time away in a manner that I don't wish to. And I feel low and down for no reason. I thought it will go away, for I feel happy when I don't have a reason to feel sad. But no, now it's the other way round. I feel sad because there's no reason to be happy. I have no idea why I became so pessimistic.
Stress, stress is piling up. That moment when I just spent another holiday meaninglessly away without completing my homework, CenTaD research, all the things I have wanted to do at the start of the holiday. I was playing brainwars, battlecamp, smash, watching meaningless buzzfeed videos, scrolling through facebook and wechat anxious for updates, waking up every noon and going to sleep every dusk. I'm living a zombie life. I desire for change, but this lifestyle has gotten so comfortable, it has the same gravity as the bed at 6 in the morning. The pull is so strong you simply cannot get away.
(Away, I would rather sail away; like a swan, that's here and gone)
CenTaD is not going well, but I'm already too tired to invest any more time and energy into it. Partner is not very proactive, but now I just feel like throwing all the work to him. My accuse is not justified. He has olympiad training, I have nothing. Though I feel like I'm doing the majority of the work, and taking majority of the initiative. I don't mind doing more work, but taking initiative is tiring as hell. But, he has olympiad training, so it's natural that I shoulder more work and responsibility. Right?
If you see my previous post on emotional lessons, I mentioned that I spoke some harsh words. That's after I got scolded by mentor, in a subtle, sarcastic manner. Mentor is not that bad, just that we are too slow. Not doing something that could have done 2 weeks ago. I wanted to do things sequentially. Anyhow, now that I have done it, it became totally unnecessary. Now we will have to dismantle everything again. Maybe I'm taking TOO much initiative; mentor is right, this could be a one person project. I don't have to wait for my partner to do stuff, I'm supposed to do everything because partner is busy and doesn't care.
Sorry for the acidity. Now that I start thinking about it, I got angry again. Chill. Hold on a second.
Okay I'm back. Now that I have experienced anger, I shall go back to despair because I haven't done any holiday homework. Just looked through vector again and got stucked on one question for 2 hours. Was doing tutorial that was supposed to be completed before holiday began. Did two and half questions for an entire day, and it's not even supposed to be difficult. VECTOR GO TO HELL WHO THE DEVIL INVENTED IT AND INCLUDED IT IN A LEVEL SYLLABUS
Chill
Yes, so I have pretty much forgotten everything I have learnt in the previous year, haven't done any homework, research is screwed.
Ok, I think now my depression is justified.
Oh yes, and KI IS research. I still haven't settled down on a topic.
And screw maths.
Screw human relations.
Screw SSEF.
Ok I'm done.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
P.S.
Wow you actually managed to make it this far? I thought I told you that this post is going to be meaningless, why do you still read it.
Stare at you.
Staring intensifies.
Continue staring.
Still looking at you.
My eyes never moved.
You are getting creeped out.
My lips start to curl.
*smile*
*Laugh* you are really creeped out aren't you.
Have a nice day.
Sunday 28 December 2014
Friday 12 December 2014
so much feels
Recently a lot of emotional things happen. It's almost like I'm taking a course that life offers me, everything is bundled and packaged nicely. It's just so coincidental.
First is the lost of control of my own emotions. Nothing serious, no harm is made. Sent a really long message that has a harsh tone, which I regretted later on. The point could be better conveyed. This is one of the few rare occasions that I let my emotions get the hold of me. I'm still trying to get over the feeling of guilt.
Then yesterday my friend lost control of her emotions. There was a built up throughout the day (being criticised by senior etc.) and when we are playing a board game with a senior and the senior criticised her again, she broke down.
She's the kind of person who cares a lot of what others think of her. She wants to be liked by others but it's precisely this sensitivity that kept others at a distance. And this incident just made her spill out all of the previous emotions that she has tried hard to keep under control.
The senior was at a loss of what to do at first and asked me to talk to her. I tried, but it isn't exactly helping. Since she's also quite conscientious about others seeing her feelings, I thought I will leave her to chill and talk to the senior instead. But she insisted that there's no need to hide it from her so the three of us went to a bench and started to talk about the problem.
It was a three hour long emotional talk. Turns out that the senior also broke down when he was at our age, for similar reasons, attending the same event. This incident rekindled his memory of the past. The two of them actually have similar personalities and more or less faced the same problems. The senior started to share his experiences and how he got over his problems. It is a very deep, emotional and insightful session. I felt I learnt so much after the talk, more than the emotional maturity I gained for a year.
This made me reflect about my own emotions. I used to lose control of it quite often. Now, I'm much much better at keeping them in a safe place. However, after this session I'm wondering if I'm actually avoiding or ignoring my own emotions. Over the years I've learnt to not show my emotions and to not care about a great deal of things. I saw this in a page I visited (http://www.intpexperience.com/emotions.php) and I thought it's really good:
For INTPs, the emotions can be like carrying a huge, overfull pot of soup. The chaotic swings and the ever present danger of spilling can feel dangerous. We develop a natural desire to Avoid the negative and dangerous ones, to keep the soup from sloshing and knocking the pot out of our hands. We learn to walk carefully, calmly. We try to keep balance.
In general, we believe that all observations contain important information about the workings of the world, including emotions. We turn our rational functions onto our feelings to analyze and understand them, to find their meaning. Even if the raw emotions are positive or otherwise manageable, the process of mixing focused thought with emotion super-charges them. The emotions can feel very deep and meaningful. That's not a problem until we get violated, embarrassed, or not valued. Then, the super-charged emotion blows up like a ticking timebomb. Again, the emotions are primed to be more intense than for other people.
It's like my childhood. And I still remember the countless times that I nearly cried because I cannot solve a maths problem no matter what.
Re-evaluating my emotion is like opening up a dangerous portal. If I handle it well, I will become a better and more complete person. If I did not handle it well and become excessively emotional, it can wreck havoc in my life.
Maybe if I ponder about it long enough, I will eventually get it.
First is the lost of control of my own emotions. Nothing serious, no harm is made. Sent a really long message that has a harsh tone, which I regretted later on. The point could be better conveyed. This is one of the few rare occasions that I let my emotions get the hold of me. I'm still trying to get over the feeling of guilt.
Then yesterday my friend lost control of her emotions. There was a built up throughout the day (being criticised by senior etc.) and when we are playing a board game with a senior and the senior criticised her again, she broke down.
She's the kind of person who cares a lot of what others think of her. She wants to be liked by others but it's precisely this sensitivity that kept others at a distance. And this incident just made her spill out all of the previous emotions that she has tried hard to keep under control.
The senior was at a loss of what to do at first and asked me to talk to her. I tried, but it isn't exactly helping. Since she's also quite conscientious about others seeing her feelings, I thought I will leave her to chill and talk to the senior instead. But she insisted that there's no need to hide it from her so the three of us went to a bench and started to talk about the problem.
It was a three hour long emotional talk. Turns out that the senior also broke down when he was at our age, for similar reasons, attending the same event. This incident rekindled his memory of the past. The two of them actually have similar personalities and more or less faced the same problems. The senior started to share his experiences and how he got over his problems. It is a very deep, emotional and insightful session. I felt I learnt so much after the talk, more than the emotional maturity I gained for a year.
This made me reflect about my own emotions. I used to lose control of it quite often. Now, I'm much much better at keeping them in a safe place. However, after this session I'm wondering if I'm actually avoiding or ignoring my own emotions. Over the years I've learnt to not show my emotions and to not care about a great deal of things. I saw this in a page I visited (http://www.intpexperience.com/emotions.php) and I thought it's really good:
For INTPs, the emotions can be like carrying a huge, overfull pot of soup. The chaotic swings and the ever present danger of spilling can feel dangerous. We develop a natural desire to Avoid the negative and dangerous ones, to keep the soup from sloshing and knocking the pot out of our hands. We learn to walk carefully, calmly. We try to keep balance.
In general, we believe that all observations contain important information about the workings of the world, including emotions. We turn our rational functions onto our feelings to analyze and understand them, to find their meaning. Even if the raw emotions are positive or otherwise manageable, the process of mixing focused thought with emotion super-charges them. The emotions can feel very deep and meaningful. That's not a problem until we get violated, embarrassed, or not valued. Then, the super-charged emotion blows up like a ticking timebomb. Again, the emotions are primed to be more intense than for other people.
Given that emotions can be radioactive for us, we become adept as using rationality to box in the dangerous animals. Every time they get poked and start pacing in their cage, we use rationality to blanket the emotions and keep them within controlled, safe parameters. In short, our Avoidance has crystallized our rational preferences. We've learned what we're good at, and what we're not.
So why are the seas so stormy for INTPs? First off, it's not our fault. Some people are simply more sensitive to certain stimuli than others. Some people can't stand the smell of perfume. Some can't stand rough fabric on their skin. Some can't stand bright light. For INTPs, the experience of emotions is like listening to music with the volume blasting. We like the music, but if it's too loud, it's painful to the ears. Even if it's not, the blaring music has a tendency to disturb the neighbors. For most types, weathering a bad emotion is like a sailing a lake with choppy water. No big deal. It passes. But for INTPs, it can be like a hurricane. Howling wind and driving spray. You get off the boat looking like Nick Nolte after he was arrested. We learn to become good meteorologists to avoid the storms in the first place.
And I resonated so well with this:
Let's meet Ivan and Irina INTP.
They are cute-as-a-button five year old children. Awww, aren't they sweet?
But already, they are carrying wounds. Particular wounds. They were inflicted by times like these:
*In trying to assemble a complicated toy, they just can't seem to get it right. They get really FRUSTRATED. The feeling that wells up in them is terribly strong. They feel so emotional that it feels like a coming volcanic eruption. They either need to scream, break something, hurt themselves, or cry (or all of the above). All of those things have consequences that they don't want to face (provoking something else, embarrassment, etc.), but the feeling is so strong that they can't hold it back. They might grab handfuls of their hair and pull. Or growl. Yet, their desire (or need) to assemble the toy correctly won't let them stop. Other children just leave behind what is frustrating them or cry for a little bit and move on. The INTP will vent an emotional outburst, then swing from intense anger to intense embarrassment because of what they've done. Big swings. Big highs and big lows.
*In a certain place or with a certain person, they feel enormous feelings of happiness and meaning. It's so powerful that they want to share it with others. But not just share by explaining it like a dissertation. At first, they assume that others feel the same strong emotion and want to feel it together. However, when they reach out and try, it becomes very clear that the feeling is not shared. The rush of positive emotions swings to sharp embarrassment and confusion. Again, the swing is extreme. Other people would be disappointed, but try again later. The INTP may vow never to repeat this very unpleasant experience and never reach out to that person again. Ever.
Re-evaluating my emotion is like opening up a dangerous portal. If I handle it well, I will become a better and more complete person. If I did not handle it well and become excessively emotional, it can wreck havoc in my life.
Maybe if I ponder about it long enough, I will eventually get it.
Sunday 7 December 2014
Coding and cats
Before you read the rest of this post, just a disclaimer that the two items in the title have no relation whatsoever. I just like to chunk random things together and random links can be made, like coding a cat or a cat coding.
Nm, so back to what I want to post. Yup, so two things. Let's talk about cats first, since majority of the internet likes the latter.
Remember the post on me being a weirdo to a cat? After that incident I did not see the cat anymore, and I miss it very much. Every Saturday after my piano lesson I will go the usual place it rests, which is between a bush and a palm tree. But to my disappointment, it's not there. For some time I thought it is dead, because once I saw a mouse scampering nearby. If the cat is alive and thriving he/she will not tolerate scampering of such screature.
Yesterday I was on my way to piano lesson as usual. On my way I noticed a white cat. When I returned it's still there, to my surprise. No this is not the cat that I mentioned above, that one is black. This one is all white, has greyish blue eyes, and the dirt near it's mouth makes it look like it's forever smiling. The cat is emoing on the edge of a 1 metre high platform. I approach it slowly, but it does not seem as frightened as the black cat mentioned above. Then I went really close and lowered myself to its level, my eye focused on it's face. It appeared very uncomfortable, turning it's face away but it's eyeball is turned in my direction. Yeah I'm being weird again.
Upon close examination I realise cats have distinct facial features. This one has a relatively long face, long nose and less gigantic eyes compared with others. It reminds me of someone but I can't remember. Maybe cats have personality like humans too. Every cat is different.
After a few minutes I got up and went away. As I turned it started to lick itself, just being a cat.
I wonder how it's like from the cat's perspective. An unknown human approaches it and did nothing but stare at it for 5 minutes.
And I continued my journey home. That's where the black cat come in. Yes, the one that has been missing for ages. It's at the usual place. Imagine my amazement to have seen two cats on such short intervals and able to see my favourite cat again.
But this time, it's a bit different. The cat has a blue collar. And it's just sitting here, refusing to move when I approach it. Maybe it's less afraid of humans now, given that it finally found itself an owner. On one hand, I'm happy that it has found itself a home. On another hand, I'm slightly sad, for the alert cat is gone. I like the old cat, it had character. I even doubted whether it's the same cat. But what is the chance that a cat similar in appearance appears at the same specific place in the same time of the week?
On a side note, CATS the musical is coming to sg in Jan. Really want to go watch. #randominsertion
Now, coding.
Finally started learning coding at codeacademy. The website offered courses on 6 coding languages, including: html&css, javascript, jQuery, PHP, Python and Ruby. It also teach you useful stuff like web developer skills and learning popular APIs. Learnt a bit of javascript and web developer skills. However, I googled what's the best language to learn for a beginner and it appeared that C/C++ is best to learn about how the machine functions on the fundamental level, while having a steep learning curve and python is the most beginner friendly. Java is voted for its usefulness. Then I learnt that javascript is not java. Hmm, maybe I shall learn python first, then finish javascript and go to C to understand what I'm writing. Yes I'm ambitious muhahaha.
Always thought programming and coding is cool. It's like creating magic with lines of words and symbols. There are endless possibilities.
And the reason I decided to start? Stumbled this cool game called lightbot. Teaching the concepts of programming through a very fun game. Each level is a puzzle. Thought it's really fun, and one thing lead to another. Strongly recommend. Light bot 2 is fun too.
The links:
http://armorgames.com/play/2205/light-bot
http://armorgames.com/play/6061/light-bot-20
K bye.
Nm, so back to what I want to post. Yup, so two things. Let's talk about cats first, since majority of the internet likes the latter.
Remember the post on me being a weirdo to a cat? After that incident I did not see the cat anymore, and I miss it very much. Every Saturday after my piano lesson I will go the usual place it rests, which is between a bush and a palm tree. But to my disappointment, it's not there. For some time I thought it is dead, because once I saw a mouse scampering nearby. If the cat is alive and thriving he/she will not tolerate scampering of such screature.
Yesterday I was on my way to piano lesson as usual. On my way I noticed a white cat. When I returned it's still there, to my surprise. No this is not the cat that I mentioned above, that one is black. This one is all white, has greyish blue eyes, and the dirt near it's mouth makes it look like it's forever smiling. The cat is emoing on the edge of a 1 metre high platform. I approach it slowly, but it does not seem as frightened as the black cat mentioned above. Then I went really close and lowered myself to its level, my eye focused on it's face. It appeared very uncomfortable, turning it's face away but it's eyeball is turned in my direction. Yeah I'm being weird again.
Upon close examination I realise cats have distinct facial features. This one has a relatively long face, long nose and less gigantic eyes compared with others. It reminds me of someone but I can't remember. Maybe cats have personality like humans too. Every cat is different.
After a few minutes I got up and went away. As I turned it started to lick itself, just being a cat.
I wonder how it's like from the cat's perspective. An unknown human approaches it and did nothing but stare at it for 5 minutes.
And I continued my journey home. That's where the black cat come in. Yes, the one that has been missing for ages. It's at the usual place. Imagine my amazement to have seen two cats on such short intervals and able to see my favourite cat again.
But this time, it's a bit different. The cat has a blue collar. And it's just sitting here, refusing to move when I approach it. Maybe it's less afraid of humans now, given that it finally found itself an owner. On one hand, I'm happy that it has found itself a home. On another hand, I'm slightly sad, for the alert cat is gone. I like the old cat, it had character. I even doubted whether it's the same cat. But what is the chance that a cat similar in appearance appears at the same specific place in the same time of the week?
On a side note, CATS the musical is coming to sg in Jan. Really want to go watch. #randominsertion
Now, coding.
Finally started learning coding at codeacademy. The website offered courses on 6 coding languages, including: html&css, javascript, jQuery, PHP, Python and Ruby. It also teach you useful stuff like web developer skills and learning popular APIs. Learnt a bit of javascript and web developer skills. However, I googled what's the best language to learn for a beginner and it appeared that C/C++ is best to learn about how the machine functions on the fundamental level, while having a steep learning curve and python is the most beginner friendly. Java is voted for its usefulness. Then I learnt that javascript is not java. Hmm, maybe I shall learn python first, then finish javascript and go to C to understand what I'm writing. Yes I'm ambitious muhahaha.
Always thought programming and coding is cool. It's like creating magic with lines of words and symbols. There are endless possibilities.
And the reason I decided to start? Stumbled this cool game called lightbot. Teaching the concepts of programming through a very fun game. Each level is a puzzle. Thought it's really fun, and one thing lead to another. Strongly recommend. Light bot 2 is fun too.
The links:
http://armorgames.com/play/2205/light-bot
http://armorgames.com/play/6061/light-bot-20
K bye.
Sunday 16 November 2014
Chemistry olympiad journey
Chem O in two days time...
So at the beginning of year, I was like this:
Then every time after selection tests, I'm like this:
And now, I'm like this:
Ok, on a more serious note, regardless of what I will get in the end, I have really learnt a lot in this journey. Honestly, mugging so hard for olympiad is kind of stupid, but it gives me the activation energy to study at least. While I'm dying from all the mugging, I changed my perspective a bit and realise that I may be just scratching the surface of the iceberg. Just like how I thought I know quite a bit at the start of JC. It is nothing compared with what I know now, and what I know currently will be probably like nothing compared with what I will know a few years later, or maybe even a few months later, seeing how much I progressed this year.
Although bagging home some medals will be nice...
Why didn't I put in more effort in the year? Reflecting back, I realised that my life may be too hedonistic, indulging in meaningless phone games and reading of unimportant feeds on phone. Sometimes I will just slouch on my bed and scroll through my phone for hours. It's really bad, I should change. No, I will change.
I shall not treat this competition so seriously, in case I panic like the past few days. Treating things lightly will always make things turn out for the better.
To myself, good luck, have fun.
So at the beginning of year, I was like this:
Then every time after selection tests, I'm like this:
And now, I'm like this:
Ok, on a more serious note, regardless of what I will get in the end, I have really learnt a lot in this journey. Honestly, mugging so hard for olympiad is kind of stupid, but it gives me the activation energy to study at least. While I'm dying from all the mugging, I changed my perspective a bit and realise that I may be just scratching the surface of the iceberg. Just like how I thought I know quite a bit at the start of JC. It is nothing compared with what I know now, and what I know currently will be probably like nothing compared with what I will know a few years later, or maybe even a few months later, seeing how much I progressed this year.
Although bagging home some medals will be nice...
Why didn't I put in more effort in the year? Reflecting back, I realised that my life may be too hedonistic, indulging in meaningless phone games and reading of unimportant feeds on phone. Sometimes I will just slouch on my bed and scroll through my phone for hours. It's really bad, I should change. No, I will change.
I shall not treat this competition so seriously, in case I panic like the past few days. Treating things lightly will always make things turn out for the better.
To myself, good luck, have fun.
Sunday 2 November 2014
Alter Ego
It's a rare occasion that I'm making a game commentary, but the game is so good. Recently I stumbled across a couple of interesting games, and they are all very thought provoking. Let's start with the simple one first: the infinite ocean.
The game is a point and click puzzle game, just like any escape games, where you collect stuff etc.
However, the essence of the game lies in the various logs stored in the computer and disks. Ok, from now on, spoiler alert. If you want to experience the game before reading on, click here: http://armorgames.com/play/7327/the-infinite-ocean
There is a story behind. Apparently you in this game is part of a group of research scientists, who are working on a project to create a sentient being out of computers. And you succeeded. Then you move on to have intellectual and philosophical discussions with the it/he/she/whatever, about beauty, human behaviours etc. The computer is unable to understand irrational human behaviours which you also find it hard to explain. But the computer is able to feel. It has a more powerful imagination than any human in the planet and is thus able to "see" the future, consequences of all your actions.
Halfway through your project the government starts to intervene. Because the computer also has powerful computing power, it want the computer to lay out the best defense for the nation possible as it's about to engage in some sort of war. Either that or the team has to abandon the project. Reluctantly the team gives in to the government. However, as the computer is developed, it starts to realise what it's built for. Seeing how the war will have devastating consequences, it begins to resist. Eventually, it want to control all the military computer based things to stop the war.
Of course the government will not allow that, so it put on a ban on the computer's thoughts. The being created sort of "slept" leaving the rest to handle the task by the government.
You somehow wake up in your research lab losing your memory, and you have to refigure everything out. You in this game has no character and really no choices to make. Eventually you can reach the last bot and deactivate this limitation set on the computer, in which it can then take over and stop the war. If you do a speed run you will probably take 5 minutes. However, if you read through every log the scientist, the being and the government made, it will probably take hours.
The game brings up many interesting questions, such as the possibility of a non-biological sentient being, the nature of existence and thoughts, and also how stupid human actions are such as war.
Ok, moving on, the next game is even more interesting and sophisticated. It's literally a game of life. But it's text based, and every choice you make will shape you as a person. A whole bunch of possibilities to be explored, and you will not even get to experience every question in the first round of your gameplay.
This is how the interface looks like:
You will click on each icon which will present you with a question. It looks something like this:
You begin with the infant stage, then moves on to child, adolescent, young adulthood, adulthood, middle adulthood, old age and eventually death. Of course just like real life, certain wrong choices may lead to wrong choices and cause premature death, but the chance of that is pretty low.
As you move on with life, the situations become increasingly complex. You will have to juggle work, family, relationship and others. You have many stats that most of your choices will affect.
Examples of difficult situations:
And you will realise that certain stats of yours will pose limitations. For example, I still have no idea how to successfully get the job of researcher.
And towards the end it gets really sad. You progressed through the game really fast without realising and then you found out that you haven't done a lot of things that you wanted (Eg. getting married, have kids, have a decent job, earn money). There is a limited number of clicks per stage. Before you know it, you have died.
Still a thought provoking game nonetheless, makes you realise that life is so short and yet can be so rich in the build up of all those little things. The game stimulates real life quite well. The only part I dislike is that so many steps are needed to find a partner, get married and have kids that it will take up many turns of the game, making you unable to do other things. Only if they assign less turns at infancy stage and more towards the later part of life.
Anyway, link here if you would like to play: http://www.playalterego.com/alterego
So that's about it. Life doesn't have much changes now, just PW, inadequate mugging for chem O and slacking away on mobile games. Apart from that, some music that I enjoyed listening to recently:
Good night.
The game is a point and click puzzle game, just like any escape games, where you collect stuff etc.
However, the essence of the game lies in the various logs stored in the computer and disks. Ok, from now on, spoiler alert. If you want to experience the game before reading on, click here: http://armorgames.com/play/7327/the-infinite-ocean
There is a story behind. Apparently you in this game is part of a group of research scientists, who are working on a project to create a sentient being out of computers. And you succeeded. Then you move on to have intellectual and philosophical discussions with the it/he/she/whatever, about beauty, human behaviours etc. The computer is unable to understand irrational human behaviours which you also find it hard to explain. But the computer is able to feel. It has a more powerful imagination than any human in the planet and is thus able to "see" the future, consequences of all your actions.
Halfway through your project the government starts to intervene. Because the computer also has powerful computing power, it want the computer to lay out the best defense for the nation possible as it's about to engage in some sort of war. Either that or the team has to abandon the project. Reluctantly the team gives in to the government. However, as the computer is developed, it starts to realise what it's built for. Seeing how the war will have devastating consequences, it begins to resist. Eventually, it want to control all the military computer based things to stop the war.
Of course the government will not allow that, so it put on a ban on the computer's thoughts. The being created sort of "slept" leaving the rest to handle the task by the government.
You somehow wake up in your research lab losing your memory, and you have to refigure everything out. You in this game has no character and really no choices to make. Eventually you can reach the last bot and deactivate this limitation set on the computer, in which it can then take over and stop the war. If you do a speed run you will probably take 5 minutes. However, if you read through every log the scientist, the being and the government made, it will probably take hours.
The game brings up many interesting questions, such as the possibility of a non-biological sentient being, the nature of existence and thoughts, and also how stupid human actions are such as war.
Ok, moving on, the next game is even more interesting and sophisticated. It's literally a game of life. But it's text based, and every choice you make will shape you as a person. A whole bunch of possibilities to be explored, and you will not even get to experience every question in the first round of your gameplay.
This is how the interface looks like:
You will click on each icon which will present you with a question. It looks something like this:
You begin with the infant stage, then moves on to child, adolescent, young adulthood, adulthood, middle adulthood, old age and eventually death. Of course just like real life, certain wrong choices may lead to wrong choices and cause premature death, but the chance of that is pretty low.
As you move on with life, the situations become increasingly complex. You will have to juggle work, family, relationship and others. You have many stats that most of your choices will affect.
Examples of difficult situations:
And you will realise that certain stats of yours will pose limitations. For example, I still have no idea how to successfully get the job of researcher.
And towards the end it gets really sad. You progressed through the game really fast without realising and then you found out that you haven't done a lot of things that you wanted (Eg. getting married, have kids, have a decent job, earn money). There is a limited number of clicks per stage. Before you know it, you have died.
Still a thought provoking game nonetheless, makes you realise that life is so short and yet can be so rich in the build up of all those little things. The game stimulates real life quite well. The only part I dislike is that so many steps are needed to find a partner, get married and have kids that it will take up many turns of the game, making you unable to do other things. Only if they assign less turns at infancy stage and more towards the later part of life.
Anyway, link here if you would like to play: http://www.playalterego.com/alterego
So that's about it. Life doesn't have much changes now, just PW, inadequate mugging for chem O and slacking away on mobile games. Apart from that, some music that I enjoyed listening to recently:
Good night.
Tuesday 14 October 2014
Some coincidence
So after finishing the previous post, I went out of my room to my charging phone and had some whatsapp conversation with my chem teacher. The conversation somehow went to H3 and he is sad that less people want to take H3 chem. I tell him that maybe people lose confidence after promos and think they can't qualify for H3. He replies that then these kind of people cannot take H3 because H3 requires a "child like dream". Funny how I just finished a post on that.
So I replied him, then a lot of people can't meet this criteria because very few people have a child like dream nowaday.
Lol I sound so pessimistic.
Actually deep down, I feel that everyone has that child like dream. But most are not awaken. The dream fall asleep as the people grew up. They will be forgotten in a corner, or kept in confinement within a nicely locked up box.
寻梦
在水中的倒影
在斑斓的星空
在玄幻的光影
在婉转的旋律
找不到
回忆被遗忘的过去
久违的快乐
一直锁在心里
梦
还在那
孤寂角落里
把心灵上的灰吹走
拾梦
Suddenly feeling poetic. I'm a poet now.
So I replied him, then a lot of people can't meet this criteria because very few people have a child like dream nowaday.
Lol I sound so pessimistic.
Actually deep down, I feel that everyone has that child like dream. But most are not awaken. The dream fall asleep as the people grew up. They will be forgotten in a corner, or kept in confinement within a nicely locked up box.
寻梦
在水中的倒影
在斑斓的星空
在玄幻的光影
在婉转的旋律
找不到
回忆被遗忘的过去
久违的快乐
一直锁在心里
梦
还在那
孤寂角落里
把心灵上的灰吹走
拾梦
Suddenly feeling poetic. I'm a poet now.
Monday 13 October 2014
Imagination
With some recent introspection I realised that I am gradually losing my imagination.
It used to be so easy, put me in any environment and not long after a while I will start to fantasize about all sorts of things and form weird theories by myself. Those interesting imageries and thoughts used to be the essence of my life, without me realising it.
Now, they don't come and visit me anymore. When my mind goes blank, it really goes blank, not processing anything. No more interesting things going on inside.
Or, I'll just be dwelling on past memories and melodies. Which may be interesting but never more interesting than all those weird things I used to create.
And the sad things is, I can't even remember what I used to imagine anymore. I can only vaguely recall that it's an exciting inner world where no one knows. It's my own secret garden. It's my relief to my external world, and it's filled with beautiful things. Then an amusing thought (which usually consists of a possible string of events that will never occur flashing by in a split of a second) pops up and I cannot help but to let out a smile.
Now, I'm just becoming a dull and boring person. I am becoming an adult whom I once was so baffled about regarding their preoccupation with trivial and boring stuff.
Boring, boring, boring.
I'm becoming ordinary. I am losing my identity. I become a person who can tackle all troubles life and society throw me, but losing originality, losing the "灵气" that I was born with.
I will become a person that read newspaper and settle bills, a person doing mundane things everyday, and worse, things I don't like just to fend my living D:
I will waste my life away, wasting it on TVs, checking phone replies, social media, useless small talks, and other useless crap.
Then I'll lose my direction, I will constantly ask myself what's the meaning of life because I'm living a life that I find not meaningful, then continue wasting it away by bothering myself with that question.
Children do not have to bother about whether life is meaningful. They just indulge in every moment of it, and they do not question themselves if time is worth spent. They do not value time like money. Yet they are very happy, although in an adult's eye spending 3 hours playing with trains is a complete waste of time.
Can I just be selfish, I don't live to contribute to society, I live for myself.
I want to simplify everything, restoring my child at heart, restoring my imagination and pure joy that stems from nothing. The world is such a fun place if you view it from another perspective.
It used to be so easy, put me in any environment and not long after a while I will start to fantasize about all sorts of things and form weird theories by myself. Those interesting imageries and thoughts used to be the essence of my life, without me realising it.
Now, they don't come and visit me anymore. When my mind goes blank, it really goes blank, not processing anything. No more interesting things going on inside.
Or, I'll just be dwelling on past memories and melodies. Which may be interesting but never more interesting than all those weird things I used to create.
And the sad things is, I can't even remember what I used to imagine anymore. I can only vaguely recall that it's an exciting inner world where no one knows. It's my own secret garden. It's my relief to my external world, and it's filled with beautiful things. Then an amusing thought (which usually consists of a possible string of events that will never occur flashing by in a split of a second) pops up and I cannot help but to let out a smile.
Now, I'm just becoming a dull and boring person. I am becoming an adult whom I once was so baffled about regarding their preoccupation with trivial and boring stuff.
Boring, boring, boring.
I'm becoming ordinary. I am losing my identity. I become a person who can tackle all troubles life and society throw me, but losing originality, losing the "灵气" that I was born with.
I will become a person that read newspaper and settle bills, a person doing mundane things everyday, and worse, things I don't like just to fend my living D:
I will waste my life away, wasting it on TVs, checking phone replies, social media, useless small talks, and other useless crap.
Then I'll lose my direction, I will constantly ask myself what's the meaning of life because I'm living a life that I find not meaningful, then continue wasting it away by bothering myself with that question.
Children do not have to bother about whether life is meaningful. They just indulge in every moment of it, and they do not question themselves if time is worth spent. They do not value time like money. Yet they are very happy, although in an adult's eye spending 3 hours playing with trains is a complete waste of time.
Can I just be selfish, I don't live to contribute to society, I live for myself.
I want to simplify everything, restoring my child at heart, restoring my imagination and pure joy that stems from nothing. The world is such a fun place if you view it from another perspective.
Tuesday 30 September 2014
Panic attack
Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit
Maths tmr, maths tmr, maths tmr, maths tmr, maths tmr, maths tmr, maths tmr
I'm so screwed. Should have started revision earlier. Look at all those questions I don't know how to do. Look at all those stupid careless mistakes that I have made. Ahh I can't think.
A 3 hour paper, and everything is over. One day more, another day another destiny.
Hyperventilates. Heavy breathing.
Chill, I need to come down. You know your stuff, you can do this.
No you don't know your stuff. You know all the formulas but you are not familiar with them. You remembered things but you can't apply. And you haven't even started looking through graphing, inequalities, functions and vectors.
These topics are easy, I can just briefly look through them. Well except for vectors, missed half of the lessons on that one.
Well it's 11.39 pm now. HURRY UP AND GO LOOK THROUGH BEFORE YOU DIE A HORRENDOUS DEATH TMR.
Must not panic, I can do this, I just have to think.
What if I can't think D: like for so many practice questions that I have done today.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
FML.
It's ok. The paper is out of 100 right? To get an A just ensure that you don't lose more than 30 marks.
Easier said than done.
Maths, y you do dis ;_;
Maths tmr, maths tmr, maths tmr, maths tmr, maths tmr, maths tmr, maths tmr
I'm so screwed. Should have started revision earlier. Look at all those questions I don't know how to do. Look at all those stupid careless mistakes that I have made. Ahh I can't think.
A 3 hour paper, and everything is over. One day more, another day another destiny.
Hyperventilates. Heavy breathing.
Chill, I need to come down. You know your stuff, you can do this.
No you don't know your stuff. You know all the formulas but you are not familiar with them. You remembered things but you can't apply. And you haven't even started looking through graphing, inequalities, functions and vectors.
These topics are easy, I can just briefly look through them. Well except for vectors, missed half of the lessons on that one.
Well it's 11.39 pm now. HURRY UP AND GO LOOK THROUGH BEFORE YOU DIE A HORRENDOUS DEATH TMR.
Must not panic, I can do this, I just have to think.
What if I can't think D: like for so many practice questions that I have done today.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
FML.
It's ok. The paper is out of 100 right? To get an A just ensure that you don't lose more than 30 marks.
Easier said than done.
Maths, y you do dis ;_;
Monday 21 July 2014
A Bad Day
I originally intended to play piano to fend off my sorrow, but I decided to write this post first instead in case I forgot about my sadness.
Every bad day starts with being late, or nearly late.
Blame my white alarm clock, which is supposed to ring at 6.00 am faithfully, and it betrayed me. Trust me if it did ring and I didn't hear my entire family would be awaken and pull me off my bed annoyed. At 6.45 my dad was going to the toilet and realised I was still sleeping, and he woke me up.
I literally jumped out of my bed upon hearing the time. Usually I would have left my house at 6.45am.
Finished brushing teeth, washing face, washing braces, wearing uniform, tie hair and refilling my bottle in 10 minutes. Dashed all the way to the bus stop and waited for 10 minutes for the bus to come.
Thank goodness I was still not late.
Ok, so being nearly late wasn't even close to being the worst thing of the day. Chem prac was really the thing that ruined the day. The previous prac was an epic fail because I didn't read the instruction properly and had no time to finish. But at least I got accurate results. Today's prac was a fail in greater proportions as I couldn't even get legit results. It was almost the same value no matter how different the volumes of the reactants added were. Sometimes I even wonder if my bottle contain reagents or distilled water. And similar to the previous time I didn't have time to finish, this time with even more questions left blank. And made several blunders that were spotted by Mr W. "Maybe you shouldn't go to (REACH) Cambridge" as he saw how I screwed up two consecutive pracs. Maybe he didn't realise how much that sentence weighs. I felt like a arrow shooting right through me. Right through. Not on the knee.
And I got really depressed after that. When you get depressed everything will not seem to function the way they would. No big deal, I almost forgot about it during KI and maths. But there's something that felt heavy in me. I wasn't acting sad, neither was I happy.
And then during PW I was sitting next to J in the library working on our PW, which I didn't really feel like doing. He seemed slightly depressed as well, as the class just got back their GP and GP is hell of a bitch. Without Angela we didn't know what to do. I still have my part uncompleted (or rather, barely started). I was being called a burden a few times. J occasionally spout some offensive stuff that I didn't catch or pretend not to have heard. I acted as though I didn't care, but I do care, just a little, especially when you have had a bad day.
And then at Maths tutorial J got really hyped up after his adrenaline rush caused by his maths presentation, while I sat beside him with no one else sitting beside me and feeling awkward. GT was sitting diagonally across, telling me how he got a B for GP. I was like "Not Bad" and he went not bad do you know how hard it is to get good grades for GP etc etc. He wanted a compliment so I gave him one, justifying that my "not bad" meant "very good".
And somehow during maths I was jokingly comparing tall and short people, saying tall people have less oxygen to breathe. J suddenly went doesn't matter still beat you in chem. I instantly felt a sense of disgust. Now, the more I think about the day, the more disgusted I felt, especially after seeing GT chasing YF to snatch his maths paper, just to see how much YF got for his maths.
I'm sick with this meaningless result obsession. It's just a number. Why bother.
To put a glorious end to this day, my sandwich dropped onto the ground as I headed home. I haven't taken a single bite of that sandwich.
Disclaimer: If anyone chanced upon this blog, this post meant no offense to anyone. After second thought I only put the initials of the names of people involved. If you see yourself, don't feel offended. We all know that feeling when you had a bad day. I'm probably not feeling the same way towards you now.
Every bad day starts with being late, or nearly late.
Blame my white alarm clock, which is supposed to ring at 6.00 am faithfully, and it betrayed me. Trust me if it did ring and I didn't hear my entire family would be awaken and pull me off my bed annoyed. At 6.45 my dad was going to the toilet and realised I was still sleeping, and he woke me up.
I literally jumped out of my bed upon hearing the time. Usually I would have left my house at 6.45am.
Finished brushing teeth, washing face, washing braces, wearing uniform, tie hair and refilling my bottle in 10 minutes. Dashed all the way to the bus stop and waited for 10 minutes for the bus to come.
Thank goodness I was still not late.
Ok, so being nearly late wasn't even close to being the worst thing of the day. Chem prac was really the thing that ruined the day. The previous prac was an epic fail because I didn't read the instruction properly and had no time to finish. But at least I got accurate results. Today's prac was a fail in greater proportions as I couldn't even get legit results. It was almost the same value no matter how different the volumes of the reactants added were. Sometimes I even wonder if my bottle contain reagents or distilled water. And similar to the previous time I didn't have time to finish, this time with even more questions left blank. And made several blunders that were spotted by Mr W. "Maybe you shouldn't go to (REACH) Cambridge" as he saw how I screwed up two consecutive pracs. Maybe he didn't realise how much that sentence weighs. I felt like a arrow shooting right through me. Right through. Not on the knee.
And I got really depressed after that. When you get depressed everything will not seem to function the way they would. No big deal, I almost forgot about it during KI and maths. But there's something that felt heavy in me. I wasn't acting sad, neither was I happy.
And then during PW I was sitting next to J in the library working on our PW, which I didn't really feel like doing. He seemed slightly depressed as well, as the class just got back their GP and GP is hell of a bitch. Without Angela we didn't know what to do. I still have my part uncompleted (or rather, barely started). I was being called a burden a few times. J occasionally spout some offensive stuff that I didn't catch or pretend not to have heard. I acted as though I didn't care, but I do care, just a little, especially when you have had a bad day.
And then at Maths tutorial J got really hyped up after his adrenaline rush caused by his maths presentation, while I sat beside him with no one else sitting beside me and feeling awkward. GT was sitting diagonally across, telling me how he got a B for GP. I was like "Not Bad" and he went not bad do you know how hard it is to get good grades for GP etc etc. He wanted a compliment so I gave him one, justifying that my "not bad" meant "very good".
And somehow during maths I was jokingly comparing tall and short people, saying tall people have less oxygen to breathe. J suddenly went doesn't matter still beat you in chem. I instantly felt a sense of disgust. Now, the more I think about the day, the more disgusted I felt, especially after seeing GT chasing YF to snatch his maths paper, just to see how much YF got for his maths.
I'm sick with this meaningless result obsession. It's just a number. Why bother.
To put a glorious end to this day, my sandwich dropped onto the ground as I headed home. I haven't taken a single bite of that sandwich.
-------------------------- random divider ---------------------------
Disclaimer: If anyone chanced upon this blog, this post meant no offense to anyone. After second thought I only put the initials of the names of people involved. If you see yourself, don't feel offended. We all know that feeling when you had a bad day. I'm probably not feeling the same way towards you now.
Sunday 6 July 2014
hyper-reality
I don't know why, sometimes I feel that everything around me is simulated, that all the people I've interacted with are merely NPCs. Sometimes I feel so withdrawn from my environment that I lost my sense of reality. Of course it's entirely possible that our world is indeed a trick played on our brain (or whatever that perceives). But the feeling I'm having right now is hard to be described. It's even less real than the matrix. I'm basically denying everything that I'm perceiving, but still living life as though I'm playing along with all these simulations.
What is reality? Does reality even exist?
This question has been pondered over since the time when I'm Secondary 4. I have written a post about it but not well elaborated. I have figured out a series of things can be real--the abstract. Ideas, structure, emotions. These things are hard to deny, for we know they exist. Although nobody has understood exactly what they are, they do exist. On the contrary, things that seem very concrete appears easiest to deny of their existence. For example, I'm staring at my computer screen. It is bright, it contains all those words that I have typed, but whether the screen is indeed there is unknown. Colours and words can be easily created in my mind. I could be well in a dream.
Noumenon is real, but phenomenon isn't?
What is reality? Does reality even exist?
This question has been pondered over since the time when I'm Secondary 4. I have written a post about it but not well elaborated. I have figured out a series of things can be real--the abstract. Ideas, structure, emotions. These things are hard to deny, for we know they exist. Although nobody has understood exactly what they are, they do exist. On the contrary, things that seem very concrete appears easiest to deny of their existence. For example, I'm staring at my computer screen. It is bright, it contains all those words that I have typed, but whether the screen is indeed there is unknown. Colours and words can be easily created in my mind. I could be well in a dream.
Noumenon is real, but phenomenon isn't?
But if we are to deny every bit of sensory experience, we may slip into hedonism or even suicide, both by common sense don't sound good. Therefore it's better to just play along, even though reality may not exist.
Sunday 29 June 2014
Music appreciation post again, and summary for this holiday
Tomorrow, well actually today since it's past 12, marks the end of this June "holiday". I think it will be nice to do a little summary of what I have done, and also to push down the previous post on me being weird.
So, where shall I begin. Ah, first there's astro challenge, which I took part for the first day's and YOLOed. On the second day of astro challenge I was already on the plane to Taiyuan, China. It was some flight, since we transferred three times. Spent a week in China with my grandparents before I returned and went on another trip to port dickson, Malaysia for the annual astronomy retreat. Spent another 4 days there, with 2 days on the bus. And for the rest time I was either slacking or doing work. Oh and I spent a couple of days doing CenTaD research as well. Let's see what I've done:
1. Maths differentiation tutorial 5B (done in China)
2. Chem planning 3,4 and 6 (in one day)
3. Chem BT 2013
4. Chem pre-block test practice (done in two days)
5. Maths revision package topic 1-3 (four days)
6. Unfinished physics tutorial on circular motion and gravity
Ok I can't think of anymore for now. And if you have guessed it, I'm compiling this list to make it seem like I didn't slack too much throughout the holidays, so that I feel less guilty. Anyway, I have reasons, like oversea trips, for the things I haven't done, like:
1. EoM
2. KI lit review (1000 words)
3. Physics revision
4. Majority of KI revision
5. Maths revision package topic 4-5 and mock BT paper
I'm screwed.
Oh right, I'm supposed to share some nice music as well. Forget about what I'e written above. Here's some music that I found myself to enjoy upon discovering them:
Twilight techno
Portal ending theme--still alive
Okay I guess that's it for now. Block test coming in one day *cries*
No, I must be strong, and persevere. This is a test that I must do well in. I think I need some faith. Okay bye.
So, where shall I begin. Ah, first there's astro challenge, which I took part for the first day's and YOLOed. On the second day of astro challenge I was already on the plane to Taiyuan, China. It was some flight, since we transferred three times. Spent a week in China with my grandparents before I returned and went on another trip to port dickson, Malaysia for the annual astronomy retreat. Spent another 4 days there, with 2 days on the bus. And for the rest time I was either slacking or doing work. Oh and I spent a couple of days doing CenTaD research as well. Let's see what I've done:
1. Maths differentiation tutorial 5B (done in China)
2. Chem planning 3,4 and 6 (in one day)
3. Chem BT 2013
4. Chem pre-block test practice (done in two days)
5. Maths revision package topic 1-3 (four days)
6. Unfinished physics tutorial on circular motion and gravity
Ok I can't think of anymore for now. And if you have guessed it, I'm compiling this list to make it seem like I didn't slack too much throughout the holidays, so that I feel less guilty. Anyway, I have reasons, like oversea trips, for the things I haven't done, like:
1. EoM
2. KI lit review (1000 words)
3. Physics revision
4. Majority of KI revision
5. Maths revision package topic 4-5 and mock BT paper
I'm screwed.
Oh right, I'm supposed to share some nice music as well. Forget about what I'e written above. Here's some music that I found myself to enjoy upon discovering them:
Twilight techno
Which brings me to talk about my newest obsession during the holidays, which is the game portal (and portal 2). I have no idea how it developed, just searching up random memes like the cake is a lie, watched some gameplay videos and I instantly began to like it. And until now I still haven't played it. Nomoneynocreditcardsadlife.
And I found this awesome video, must watch:
Oh yay.
Which brings me to tetris theme because I really love the tetris theme and start searching tetris remix and started playing tetris on my phone which wasted a couple more of my time...
Anyway, tetris remix:
And the awesome twilight techno by minecraft noteblock. I first learn of the music from this video:
And no I didn't forget about portal 2 themes. I love them as well, but still alive is still the best.
Btw I just scrolled through all the videos I've watched on youtube recently. Hmm I'm actually quite productive...on these sorts of random stuff. Can't believe I've watched so many videos in this holiday.
And I nearly forgot this:
It's the background music for the video pikachu on acid. Go look it up, it's awesome in a weird way.
And another video for fun:
Sorry I got distracted again watching amelie videos although not being able to understand a single word they say.
Okay I guess that's it for now. Block test coming in one day *cries*
No, I must be strong, and persevere. This is a test that I must do well in. I think I need some faith. Okay bye.
Saturday 21 June 2014
I'm a cat and I find this offensive
Today, I offended a cat.
Was on my way back from my piano lesson, and I purposely went by the path that I saw the cat on my way to the piano lesson. No surprise, it's still there.
So I decided to bring some entertainment to the cat. I stood there and stare at the cat. The cat stare back at me, appearing uncomfortable. Finally, it decided to look away.
I shifted a little.
The cat immediately turn back in a split of a second. I continued to stone there. The cat turn back again. But its ears are twitching.
Shifted a little bit and jerked to a stop. Immediately it turned again. My bottle in my hand was still swinging, but I'm still. I even tried to breathe slowly.
*Above procedure repeated 5 times.*
I got bored of this, so I decided to do sth different. Thinking that if I jumped the cat can only hear me when I land, I jumped, vertically up.
Instantly the cat dashed forward with a lightning speed. Then it turn back and stared at me in horror.
I shrugged, and walk away.
The cat let out a sharp cry.
Sorry cat, if we were ever to encounter each other again, I will treat you nicely. You are a good cat.
Was on my way back from my piano lesson, and I purposely went by the path that I saw the cat on my way to the piano lesson. No surprise, it's still there.
So I decided to bring some entertainment to the cat. I stood there and stare at the cat. The cat stare back at me, appearing uncomfortable. Finally, it decided to look away.
I shifted a little.
The cat immediately turn back in a split of a second. I continued to stone there. The cat turn back again. But its ears are twitching.
Shifted a little bit and jerked to a stop. Immediately it turned again. My bottle in my hand was still swinging, but I'm still. I even tried to breathe slowly.
*Above procedure repeated 5 times.*
I got bored of this, so I decided to do sth different. Thinking that if I jumped the cat can only hear me when I land, I jumped, vertically up.
Instantly the cat dashed forward with a lightning speed. Then it turn back and stared at me in horror.
I shrugged, and walk away.
The cat let out a sharp cry.
Sorry cat, if we were ever to encounter each other again, I will treat you nicely. You are a good cat.
Monday 2 June 2014
Self-fulfilling prophecy
Sigh, set a good looking do-able list of agendas to be completed tonight, and I'm totally not following it. Got distracted here and there and now I'm blogging in the middle of night. It is 3.10 am now. I shall make this quick.
So holiday has started, while having so many things to be completed this period of lesson-free period should not be termed "holiday" (I don't think holidays exist, somehow the word can be found in the dictionary. Weird. Must have been a misprint) I decided to slack off a bit for the first two days and look, now I have to stay awake in the middle of the night to complete my essay and other things.
Why am I still blogging then -.- gah. Anyway, my point is that in the two days of pure slacking I accomplished a lot of things, that's completely random and serve no real purpose in life. An example will be me finally reaching the cosmic limit of the once loved but now hated game 2048. The 131072 tile hath been created (in practice mode of course, do I look that out of life). Real 2048 fans know that after that tile nothing bigger is possible because to create a number even bigger you will need more space than that is available. Then I went on to play this game called the silent age. Really awesome game. Managed to complete the first chapter. The second chapter is not out yet. But it looks really awesome. Here is their website: http://thesilentage.com/blog/
Now the pianoguys beethoven's 5 secrets is playing in the background. Note to self: never set your favourite music to be the alarm.
Okay I'm back. So much rubbish and I haven't gotten to my main point. My main point is that, I also managed to watch the Matrix. Finally. Found it in an obscure corner of youtube. With my training in KI and all I wasn't really mindblown by the dream and reality thing. However I picked up a very important point on self-realisation: believing in yourself.
Since an early age I have had little confidence in myself. It got better over the years, but it is still a challenge.Being a rational person, I see no ground where I can base this belief on, belief of my capabilities. To believe I will need proof, but as we know, ability is a self-fulfilling prophecy. You will need some faith to achieve what you want to be.
I have based my belief on the measurable achievements I attain and what others tell me. But over the years I realise that it is not a very good way, because that will make one result driven and neglect other more important things, and also most of the time people don't give a damn about other people. Moreover every time I receive a compliment I was conflicted between two feelings, one is to feel happy about being recognised and other to be modest about any good achievements, so as not to appear shameless. Anyway I find myself a weird being that I sometimes couldn't even comprehend.
After not doing very well for the first half of the year, I think I need to regain some faith in myself. But I find it very difficult. Confidence is a positive feedback. When you gain some confidence, you will get more and more confident. But where shall I start?
Yet I know I need to get some, right now. I need faith to carry on.
From the matrix, I know that faith could be a powerful thing. I know I will be able to accomplish great things with it. Shall I blindly believe in myself? Maybe that's what I shall do, although I have no idea how.
Bleh this post is going nowhere. Time to start on my KI essay.
So holiday has started, while having so many things to be completed this period of lesson-free period should not be termed "holiday" (I don't think holidays exist, somehow the word can be found in the dictionary. Weird. Must have been a misprint) I decided to slack off a bit for the first two days and look, now I have to stay awake in the middle of the night to complete my essay and other things.
Why am I still blogging then -.- gah. Anyway, my point is that in the two days of pure slacking I accomplished a lot of things, that's completely random and serve no real purpose in life. An example will be me finally reaching the cosmic limit of the once loved but now hated game 2048. The 131072 tile hath been created (in practice mode of course, do I look that out of life). Real 2048 fans know that after that tile nothing bigger is possible because to create a number even bigger you will need more space than that is available. Then I went on to play this game called the silent age. Really awesome game. Managed to complete the first chapter. The second chapter is not out yet. But it looks really awesome. Here is their website: http://thesilentage.com/blog/
Now the pianoguys beethoven's 5 secrets is playing in the background. Note to self: never set your favourite music to be the alarm.
Okay I'm back. So much rubbish and I haven't gotten to my main point. My main point is that, I also managed to watch the Matrix. Finally. Found it in an obscure corner of youtube. With my training in KI and all I wasn't really mindblown by the dream and reality thing. However I picked up a very important point on self-realisation: believing in yourself.
Since an early age I have had little confidence in myself. It got better over the years, but it is still a challenge.Being a rational person, I see no ground where I can base this belief on, belief of my capabilities. To believe I will need proof, but as we know, ability is a self-fulfilling prophecy. You will need some faith to achieve what you want to be.
I have based my belief on the measurable achievements I attain and what others tell me. But over the years I realise that it is not a very good way, because that will make one result driven and neglect other more important things, and also most of the time people don't give a damn about other people. Moreover every time I receive a compliment I was conflicted between two feelings, one is to feel happy about being recognised and other to be modest about any good achievements, so as not to appear shameless. Anyway I find myself a weird being that I sometimes couldn't even comprehend.
After not doing very well for the first half of the year, I think I need to regain some faith in myself. But I find it very difficult. Confidence is a positive feedback. When you gain some confidence, you will get more and more confident. But where shall I start?
Yet I know I need to get some, right now. I need faith to carry on.
From the matrix, I know that faith could be a powerful thing. I know I will be able to accomplish great things with it. Shall I blindly believe in myself? Maybe that's what I shall do, although I have no idea how.
Bleh this post is going nowhere. Time to start on my KI essay.
Friday 23 May 2014
Not a normal title
Wow I haven't been posting for a really long time.
As you may have guessed it, the mundane school work leaves me no time to do anything like this, whatsoever.
I'm beginning to feel a lost sense of self. I don't feel like my old self anymore. I'm becoming a person I totally don't want to become, although the change may be good, it just isn't me anymore.
It seems to me, that I've been bothering too much about other people's business, that I neglected my own. It has never happened before. I don't know why, but I'm trying to understand the people around me, trying to make sense of my environment. As a result I neglected my academic pursuit. I don't like this, I want the rational, analytic and critical me back, the one who's obsessed with all the theories and creativity, the one who's in love with chemistry more than any person around her, even at the expense of losing this EQ that I have developed, for some strange reason.
Yes, time to abandon feelings and return to my thinking. I love to think more than to feel.
Anyway, I've concluded that humans are fundamentally incomprehensible, but theories can. I shall just pretend to be ignorant of my environment, although I clearly feel things are not very right. I don't want to be involved in all these politics anyway, they drain my energy away. I should reserve my energy for more useful things.
Like Chem O
Astro challenge
Catching up with all the parts of the syllabus that I don't understand
Gah
Sigh, and maybe to finally clear up the pile of secondary stuff that was meant to be cleared during the last December holiday.
When can I stop being distracted, stop be procrastinating and be more efficient. T.T
Btw I obtained 16384 on practice mode for 2048, and 4096 for the real thing. Yay.
Wait what? MUST NOT BE DISTRACTED BY 2048.
I think I must develop this habit of chanting "chem chem chem chem chem" whenever I feel like I'm being distracted.
Yeah I'll be fine :) Now why am I still writing this post
As you may have guessed it, the mundane school work leaves me no time to do anything like this, whatsoever.
I'm beginning to feel a lost sense of self. I don't feel like my old self anymore. I'm becoming a person I totally don't want to become, although the change may be good, it just isn't me anymore.
It seems to me, that I've been bothering too much about other people's business, that I neglected my own. It has never happened before. I don't know why, but I'm trying to understand the people around me, trying to make sense of my environment. As a result I neglected my academic pursuit. I don't like this, I want the rational, analytic and critical me back, the one who's obsessed with all the theories and creativity, the one who's in love with chemistry more than any person around her, even at the expense of losing this EQ that I have developed, for some strange reason.
Yes, time to abandon feelings and return to my thinking. I love to think more than to feel.
Anyway, I've concluded that humans are fundamentally incomprehensible, but theories can. I shall just pretend to be ignorant of my environment, although I clearly feel things are not very right. I don't want to be involved in all these politics anyway, they drain my energy away. I should reserve my energy for more useful things.
Like Chem O
Astro challenge
Catching up with all the parts of the syllabus that I don't understand
Gah
Sigh, and maybe to finally clear up the pile of secondary stuff that was meant to be cleared during the last December holiday.
When can I stop being distracted, stop be procrastinating and be more efficient. T.T
Btw I obtained 16384 on practice mode for 2048, and 4096 for the real thing. Yay.
Wait what? MUST NOT BE DISTRACTED BY 2048.
I think I must develop this habit of chanting "chem chem chem chem chem" whenever I feel like I'm being distracted.
Yeah I'll be fine :) Now why am I still writing this post
Tuesday 29 April 2014
Ideals and reality
This question has been bothering me since I entered junior college. To be idealistic or realistic? I come here with my dreams and passion, but on the other hand I also want to achieve good results, for my tests and other commitments. So far I have met two groups of people, one being the hardcore muggers and the other being a bit overly idealistic. The former group way outnumbered the latter though (This is Singapore). However, despite the high level of pragmatism prevailing my environment, I still side with the latter approach. Today I had a chat with a senior who helped me to gain some faith, that people like me still exist. In fact he is more to the extreme end than me. To make time for his passion, he only spend enough effort in school work to achieve an acceptable standard. And to keep his passion on going, he choose to not go for competitions (but still went for training just for the sake of learning). I really like how he values passion and the learning process, and I find it admirable that he can actually forgo things like recognition and reputation. I admit that I will never be able to let go of my results so carefreely like him, as some part of me still wish to be recognised for my competency, I think this compromise my learning as a result. Just like in secondary school, I would rather study for a biology quiz that takes up less than 1 percent of my overall grades than to read my awesome fundamentals of organic chem. I was given the chance to read it but I just give it away like that to make way for such trivial things. Looking back, it isn't worth it, but I guess at that time I was simply caught up in the environment in which everyone was mugging for tests and daoing these "extra commitments".
Now, people around me are still mugging, but I think there's more to JC life than mugging, even in the learning aspect alone.Mugging is not the same as learning. To me, mugging is like doing the same work repetitively until you are so familiar with it you can just do it with your eyes closed. Or memorising definitions and equations and all that is needed to be remembered. Learning, on the other hand, is about understanding things novel. I love learning, but I detest mugging, for I feel mugging being simply a waste of time. If the level of understanding is reached, then there is no need to do so many practices of the same kind.(Maybe not for maths, which is the reason my maths is so weak, but that will be another story for another day).
People need to set their eyes on the bigger picture, the bigger goal. A-level is not the end, college is not the end. Even after you getting a PhD and start working, it is never the end. Tie everything you are doing now to your future. Set your goals far and high. Only then can you feel that what you are doing right now is truly meaningful. I still don't know if this idealistic approach is correct, after all recognition is what you need to survive in the world. But just wait a while, enrich yourself before eagerly displaying what you've already got (and spending too much time on it). Real gold will shine eventually, and people will look up to you and come to you in the end. Just be patient, and never stop improving yourself, in a way you want yourself to truly become, not as how other sees you. Like how Mr Wee says, follow your heart. It may not be the shortest way to success, but it certainly won't set you on the wrong path.
Now, people around me are still mugging, but I think there's more to JC life than mugging, even in the learning aspect alone.Mugging is not the same as learning. To me, mugging is like doing the same work repetitively until you are so familiar with it you can just do it with your eyes closed. Or memorising definitions and equations and all that is needed to be remembered. Learning, on the other hand, is about understanding things novel. I love learning, but I detest mugging, for I feel mugging being simply a waste of time. If the level of understanding is reached, then there is no need to do so many practices of the same kind.(Maybe not for maths, which is the reason my maths is so weak, but that will be another story for another day).
People need to set their eyes on the bigger picture, the bigger goal. A-level is not the end, college is not the end. Even after you getting a PhD and start working, it is never the end. Tie everything you are doing now to your future. Set your goals far and high. Only then can you feel that what you are doing right now is truly meaningful. I still don't know if this idealistic approach is correct, after all recognition is what you need to survive in the world. But just wait a while, enrich yourself before eagerly displaying what you've already got (and spending too much time on it). Real gold will shine eventually, and people will look up to you and come to you in the end. Just be patient, and never stop improving yourself, in a way you want yourself to truly become, not as how other sees you. Like how Mr Wee says, follow your heart. It may not be the shortest way to success, but it certainly won't set you on the wrong path.
Saturday 29 March 2014
loneliness
Whenever I go into introspection, I feel alone.
I've always been trying to find ways in which I can rationalise personality. I found MBTI, I found some hope. But now I lost hope in it again. It's just so fallacious.
Everyone is unique, everyone is alone. You can have social interactions with other people, but it's hard to go in-depth. Even married couples remain mysterious to each other, there's always some part in a person that is never explored.
I saw this quote in Google headquarter once: All human beings have three lives: public, private, and secret. You can access a person's public life, if you are an acquaintance. You may access his private life, if you are his close friend/spouse/family member. But you can never access the secret life. That will be a locked room in which the key only lies in the heart of the person himself.
Sometimes, even the person himself has lost the key.
Maybe I'm asking for too much. Maybe interaction with others at a superficial level is enough. But isn't that a bit sad? A bit...I don't know, lonely.
But who am I to delve into other's personalities, when I don't even understand myself? Are we meant to understand ourselves in the first place? Every decision I make seem to base on a ground that I don't quite understand. Why would I do that? Why would I want that? What is the thing, that influences my choices, my mood and my thoughts? Is it pure randomness? Is it a higher being? If there's actually a thing that affects us, are we still free, conscious individuals?
I really don't know. Thinking of all these make my brain hurt. And I'm still feeling very lonely. And more confused.
I've always been trying to find ways in which I can rationalise personality. I found MBTI, I found some hope. But now I lost hope in it again. It's just so fallacious.
Everyone is unique, everyone is alone. You can have social interactions with other people, but it's hard to go in-depth. Even married couples remain mysterious to each other, there's always some part in a person that is never explored.
I saw this quote in Google headquarter once: All human beings have three lives: public, private, and secret. You can access a person's public life, if you are an acquaintance. You may access his private life, if you are his close friend/spouse/family member. But you can never access the secret life. That will be a locked room in which the key only lies in the heart of the person himself.
Sometimes, even the person himself has lost the key.
Maybe I'm asking for too much. Maybe interaction with others at a superficial level is enough. But isn't that a bit sad? A bit...I don't know, lonely.
But who am I to delve into other's personalities, when I don't even understand myself? Are we meant to understand ourselves in the first place? Every decision I make seem to base on a ground that I don't quite understand. Why would I do that? Why would I want that? What is the thing, that influences my choices, my mood and my thoughts? Is it pure randomness? Is it a higher being? If there's actually a thing that affects us, are we still free, conscious individuals?
I really don't know. Thinking of all these make my brain hurt. And I'm still feeling very lonely. And more confused.
Wednesday 26 March 2014
Chemistry Olympiad selection test
I planned to post this before the test but I was too busy studying for it. Now that the test is over, I will just combine the experience before the test and during that of the test itself.
To be honest I was quite desperate before the test. Somehow I feel that it's a must to get into chemistry olympiad, for the following reasons:
1. It can motivate me to learn more things. It's always good to have teacher and peers who are good in chemistry to teach you and guide you in your way to learning chem.
2. It feels impossible to get good results for the Singapore Chemistry Olympiad if you are not in the training team.
3. Most of the seniors I know who are good in chemistry are in the training team. Somehow I feel that if you are not in the training team, you are not good enough. How am I suppose to further my studies and base my career on it if I'm not good enough?
But after the test, I feel that there's still a long way for me to go.
Maybe the test is hard, maybe it isn't because I wasn't really thinking. But I realise that my foundation is still somewhat weak. There're definitely some marks lost due to not understanding the terms in the question, which is quite stupid. And I was crapping half of the time. I guess sometimes I just don't know what the question is talking about. And there are some questions I didn't finish as well due to lack of time.
Also, I didn't study smart. I was reading up on all the extra stuff in McMurry, without knowing that only A level stuff is tested (or is it) according to Dewei. In the end I didn't really study much for arene mechanism. But it was fun, gaining new knowledge as you continue to read.
Actually, after today, apart from having a mild depression from the test, I also realise that it's not that important to get into the training team. This test shows me the standard and I feel I'm not really there yet. If I happen to get in, will the accelerated learning really benefit me? After days of hardcore mugging during the holidays, I realise that knowledge, which I once thought was so inaccessible, could just be gained easily as long as you put in the effort to read it. This is like a new method of studying discovered. Back in high school, the mentality was that school test is important, which may be true since I won't get into this class if I didn't perform well enough for my school tests. I did try to read up on things but then they were compromised by homework and mugging for tests. Moreover, the good books are all in the red-spot section making borrowing them really inconvenient. Whereas in hc now, all the books are available for longer duration of borrowing. I can just borrow it whenever I want, and take my time at home to read them.
So maybe I should level up my standard by reading stuff. Although I still prefer a mentor to guide me along my learning journey, I can try to build up my foundation by extensive reading. It's just that...I still seem so far away from that standard. When can I ever catch up with the rest?
To be honest I was quite desperate before the test. Somehow I feel that it's a must to get into chemistry olympiad, for the following reasons:
1. It can motivate me to learn more things. It's always good to have teacher and peers who are good in chemistry to teach you and guide you in your way to learning chem.
2. It feels impossible to get good results for the Singapore Chemistry Olympiad if you are not in the training team.
3. Most of the seniors I know who are good in chemistry are in the training team. Somehow I feel that if you are not in the training team, you are not good enough. How am I suppose to further my studies and base my career on it if I'm not good enough?
But after the test, I feel that there's still a long way for me to go.
Maybe the test is hard, maybe it isn't because I wasn't really thinking. But I realise that my foundation is still somewhat weak. There're definitely some marks lost due to not understanding the terms in the question, which is quite stupid. And I was crapping half of the time. I guess sometimes I just don't know what the question is talking about. And there are some questions I didn't finish as well due to lack of time.
Also, I didn't study smart. I was reading up on all the extra stuff in McMurry, without knowing that only A level stuff is tested (or is it) according to Dewei. In the end I didn't really study much for arene mechanism. But it was fun, gaining new knowledge as you continue to read.
Actually, after today, apart from having a mild depression from the test, I also realise that it's not that important to get into the training team. This test shows me the standard and I feel I'm not really there yet. If I happen to get in, will the accelerated learning really benefit me? After days of hardcore mugging during the holidays, I realise that knowledge, which I once thought was so inaccessible, could just be gained easily as long as you put in the effort to read it. This is like a new method of studying discovered. Back in high school, the mentality was that school test is important, which may be true since I won't get into this class if I didn't perform well enough for my school tests. I did try to read up on things but then they were compromised by homework and mugging for tests. Moreover, the good books are all in the red-spot section making borrowing them really inconvenient. Whereas in hc now, all the books are available for longer duration of borrowing. I can just borrow it whenever I want, and take my time at home to read them.
So maybe I should level up my standard by reading stuff. Although I still prefer a mentor to guide me along my learning journey, I can try to build up my foundation by extensive reading. It's just that...I still seem so far away from that standard. When can I ever catch up with the rest?
Tuesday 18 March 2014
Regarding empathy
I have never regarded service highly, you know, like going around distributing food to the less unfortunate, paint their homes or donating money, this sort of "act of kindness on purpose". In fact, I have always felt that the fact we need to do these things indicates that the government is not doing its job well, for if the welfare coverage is thorough those "less unfortunate" can live independently of help. I used to hold the view that people doing this kind of things are doing it for selfish reasons--so that they feel better about themselves. But recently, I realise that maybe people do help others out of pure goodwill, because they are able to feel the pain of those in need. And that may be the reason I've been holding on to this view for so long--lack of empathy.
It's not like I have no feelings for others at all. I'm not a sociopath. But my empathy is mostly based on common experience i.e. when I feel the pain of a person it's likely because I have experienced similar things before and the memory is being summoned. My parents are not very well off, but at least I grow up in an environment with good physical conditions, love and toys. I have never experienced that kind of poor living conditions with a constantly empty stomach before (although I'm often starving because I don't eat breakfast and have to eat leftover food every afternoon in primary school...long story). Therefore, it's really difficult to empathise with those people, who are stucked in less fortunate kind of life.
Not only this, sometimes it's hard for me to even empathise with my peers. I cannot understand people crying over results, people sad because they have a quarrel with their friends etc etc. Maybe it's because I have never attached a great significance to these things. Even if they happen to me, I will not be as affected as my friends who also experience them.
Back to the service part, to make myself feel the people, I try to imagine being one of them, which is the best I can do. Imagine if I am an urban poor, living in a crammed apartment with electricity and water occasionally cut off. I have no decent food to eat except for porridge, in which I'll still be starving after the meal. Will I want someone to give me food? Of course. But still, this does not resolve the root of the issue.
I feel that there's something very wrong with our society. We have all the NGOs who are actively helping out the "less fortunate" and students doing CIP and all that. But these actions should be completely voluntary and out of kindness. It is not their obligation. Moreover, there's some things that they can't do. You can help to organise and clean the house, but can you change it to a bigger house for a family of five living in a one room flat? You can't. It's the government's responsibility, but now the government is pushing the responsibility to the NGOs, expecting them to be the ones taking care of everything...
Sorry I'm writing very incoherently. Basically the reason I started this post is because I realise there are people who really feel the pain of the people suffering and who will feel very happy for people they have managed to help. This make me feel somewhat bad about myself, because I simply fail to do that. Maybe I'm over-critical, but I tend to look at issues from a (relative) objective angle and find out the real reason to a problem in order to solve it completely. Yes, it's true that service can help people, but not in a very significant way in my opinion. The problem still persists.
And shall I do something to make me empathise more? It's very difficult, unless I'm really being put into that condition, which I refuse. Maybe people are born different, so some are meant to deal better with people and emotions while others better with systems and inventions. Either way, you can make a positive change to the world. The world will always have a place for you.
It's not like I have no feelings for others at all. I'm not a sociopath. But my empathy is mostly based on common experience i.e. when I feel the pain of a person it's likely because I have experienced similar things before and the memory is being summoned. My parents are not very well off, but at least I grow up in an environment with good physical conditions, love and toys. I have never experienced that kind of poor living conditions with a constantly empty stomach before (although I'm often starving because I don't eat breakfast and have to eat leftover food every afternoon in primary school...long story). Therefore, it's really difficult to empathise with those people, who are stucked in less fortunate kind of life.
Not only this, sometimes it's hard for me to even empathise with my peers. I cannot understand people crying over results, people sad because they have a quarrel with their friends etc etc. Maybe it's because I have never attached a great significance to these things. Even if they happen to me, I will not be as affected as my friends who also experience them.
Back to the service part, to make myself feel the people, I try to imagine being one of them, which is the best I can do. Imagine if I am an urban poor, living in a crammed apartment with electricity and water occasionally cut off. I have no decent food to eat except for porridge, in which I'll still be starving after the meal. Will I want someone to give me food? Of course. But still, this does not resolve the root of the issue.
I feel that there's something very wrong with our society. We have all the NGOs who are actively helping out the "less fortunate" and students doing CIP and all that. But these actions should be completely voluntary and out of kindness. It is not their obligation. Moreover, there's some things that they can't do. You can help to organise and clean the house, but can you change it to a bigger house for a family of five living in a one room flat? You can't. It's the government's responsibility, but now the government is pushing the responsibility to the NGOs, expecting them to be the ones taking care of everything...
Sorry I'm writing very incoherently. Basically the reason I started this post is because I realise there are people who really feel the pain of the people suffering and who will feel very happy for people they have managed to help. This make me feel somewhat bad about myself, because I simply fail to do that. Maybe I'm over-critical, but I tend to look at issues from a (relative) objective angle and find out the real reason to a problem in order to solve it completely. Yes, it's true that service can help people, but not in a very significant way in my opinion. The problem still persists.
And shall I do something to make me empathise more? It's very difficult, unless I'm really being put into that condition, which I refuse. Maybe people are born different, so some are meant to deal better with people and emotions while others better with systems and inventions. Either way, you can make a positive change to the world. The world will always have a place for you.
Friday 14 March 2014
Sleeping late again
As you can see from the time I post this, I didn't sleep tonight at all.
I really need to do something with my life.
The thing is, I don't even know how and why I end up sleeping so late. It's not that I'm very productive anyway...started out to complete my physics kinematics ws and did three questions in five hours. What was I doing for the past 5 hours???
Ok I admit, I was distracted by my comp. To be honest I was stalking people, my classmates and my CT. The results are rather interesting but I'll not post here. And there's facebook and all. Every time I stay up late, it's for a different cause. Until today, I still cannot find the root cause of all this screwed sleep pattern.
Maybe it's my lack of awareness of time, together with the "don't care" attitude. I really have no regard of time when I'm engaged in activities that I'm interested in. It felt like 5 mins until I check the clock and realised that 1 hour passed. One hour passed, just like that. How wasted.
This issue is important. I'm going to reduce my lifespan by a lot if this continues. I need to do something about it. But how? If I have to constantly check the time I'll be unable to concentrate in what I'm doing, and that will just make more time wasted. I think it's still the problem of self control. Maybe I should just try to stop myself in indulging in activities that are not important. This defies the natural human cognitive response to attention grabbing things but oh well...
What is life?
I really need to do something with my life.
The thing is, I don't even know how and why I end up sleeping so late. It's not that I'm very productive anyway...started out to complete my physics kinematics ws and did three questions in five hours. What was I doing for the past 5 hours???
Ok I admit, I was distracted by my comp. To be honest I was stalking people, my classmates and my CT. The results are rather interesting but I'll not post here. And there's facebook and all. Every time I stay up late, it's for a different cause. Until today, I still cannot find the root cause of all this screwed sleep pattern.
Maybe it's my lack of awareness of time, together with the "don't care" attitude. I really have no regard of time when I'm engaged in activities that I'm interested in. It felt like 5 mins until I check the clock and realised that 1 hour passed. One hour passed, just like that. How wasted.
This issue is important. I'm going to reduce my lifespan by a lot if this continues. I need to do something about it. But how? If I have to constantly check the time I'll be unable to concentrate in what I'm doing, and that will just make more time wasted. I think it's still the problem of self control. Maybe I should just try to stop myself in indulging in activities that are not important. This defies the natural human cognitive response to attention grabbing things but oh well...
What is life?
Tuesday 11 March 2014
Why the effort
Recently I begin to wonder why do we have to put in effort for things, why do people have the drive to achieve excellence, and that will can be so strong sometimes, but no one knows where it comes from? Is it merely a survival instinct? I think there's more to that. Even if you don't do so well, you can still have a decent life. Why do some people want to over exert themselves so much?
I can never see the value in repeated practice to perform a simple task well. If the task is complex it may still be worth it because it's more like you master a skill. However doing the same simple thing over and over again bores the hell out of me. That may be the reason why I hate sport, especially running, so much.
They say that if you want to be expert at something, you must practise it for at least 100 hours (or something like that). For me, the degree of tolerance really depends on the nature of the subject of practice. I still cannot understand individuals who practice the same thing over and over again for the sake of being proficient in it. That may be a good drive at the start, but I feel that such passion won't last long. This is just like people who practise the same type of questions over and over again for the exams, such that when similar questions come out they can just close their eyes and do them. I feel that they are doing it for the wrong reasons. Sure, you can achieve better mark in the exam, but what does that mark mean? What is it that they see in that number, that makes them work so hard unnecessarily? To me, if you have no genuine interest and appreciation in what you are putting effort for but you put in effort merely to achieve that desired standard, then I would say the effort is put in vain.
To do well for something, I feel that the most important thing is still appreciation. Appreciation in what you do. There is nobody in the top of their profession who doesn't appreciate what they are doing. They must see the value of their actions, then they will feel that the effort they put in is for a good cause. You must see the big picture first, or life will just be a repeating race of task completion that has no meaning assigned, and hence no satisfaction can be gained from the effort you put in.
So maybe I'll amend my view. Maybe it's good to push yourself forward sometimes, as long as it's for the right reasons. However it will be unreasonable to exert yourself too much. There are more things to life than just to pursue your interests. Pursuing your dream is a wonderful thing, it gives you the big kind of happiness in your life. But small happiness in life also matters. Listening to a nice piece of music, drinking your favourite beverage, enjoying a nice picnic in a breezy afternoon, ice cream, chocolate...sorry I'm getting distracted. Anyway, these sensual fulfillment can also be a small form of satisfaction.
There's still a kind of happiness you can get, and that will be from interpersonal relationships. Friendship, kinship, love relationships, and so on. Sometimes you may, strangely, derive the greatest satisfaction of life from these. However, this has been a problematic area for me, since I'm not good with people, and I find that people relations are too complex to handle and they may become troublesome if handled inappropriately. As such, I tend to value solitude over company. I know I may be missing things, but it's alright, I still have a long time in life to learn and approach people. Quality is over quantity, so I would rather have a few very close people, than a large group of acquaintance whom I do not know well.
Anyway how do I even go from putting in effort to people relations. My main point for this post is actually how we can balance hard work with enjoyment of life. We know that our time is finite, so we can't possibly dedicate all our time to our career/interest and leave no time for enjoyment of life, unless all your joy in life is entirely derived from your interest which is a bit sad. It's okay to relax once a while, but you must have a general direction of your life in mind so you will not want to slack too much because you know there are many exciting things waiting to be done.
I can never see the value in repeated practice to perform a simple task well. If the task is complex it may still be worth it because it's more like you master a skill. However doing the same simple thing over and over again bores the hell out of me. That may be the reason why I hate sport, especially running, so much.
They say that if you want to be expert at something, you must practise it for at least 100 hours (or something like that). For me, the degree of tolerance really depends on the nature of the subject of practice. I still cannot understand individuals who practice the same thing over and over again for the sake of being proficient in it. That may be a good drive at the start, but I feel that such passion won't last long. This is just like people who practise the same type of questions over and over again for the exams, such that when similar questions come out they can just close their eyes and do them. I feel that they are doing it for the wrong reasons. Sure, you can achieve better mark in the exam, but what does that mark mean? What is it that they see in that number, that makes them work so hard unnecessarily? To me, if you have no genuine interest and appreciation in what you are putting effort for but you put in effort merely to achieve that desired standard, then I would say the effort is put in vain.
To do well for something, I feel that the most important thing is still appreciation. Appreciation in what you do. There is nobody in the top of their profession who doesn't appreciate what they are doing. They must see the value of their actions, then they will feel that the effort they put in is for a good cause. You must see the big picture first, or life will just be a repeating race of task completion that has no meaning assigned, and hence no satisfaction can be gained from the effort you put in.
So maybe I'll amend my view. Maybe it's good to push yourself forward sometimes, as long as it's for the right reasons. However it will be unreasonable to exert yourself too much. There are more things to life than just to pursue your interests. Pursuing your dream is a wonderful thing, it gives you the big kind of happiness in your life. But small happiness in life also matters. Listening to a nice piece of music, drinking your favourite beverage, enjoying a nice picnic in a breezy afternoon, ice cream, chocolate...sorry I'm getting distracted. Anyway, these sensual fulfillment can also be a small form of satisfaction.
There's still a kind of happiness you can get, and that will be from interpersonal relationships. Friendship, kinship, love relationships, and so on. Sometimes you may, strangely, derive the greatest satisfaction of life from these. However, this has been a problematic area for me, since I'm not good with people, and I find that people relations are too complex to handle and they may become troublesome if handled inappropriately. As such, I tend to value solitude over company. I know I may be missing things, but it's alright, I still have a long time in life to learn and approach people. Quality is over quantity, so I would rather have a few very close people, than a large group of acquaintance whom I do not know well.
Anyway how do I even go from putting in effort to people relations. My main point for this post is actually how we can balance hard work with enjoyment of life. We know that our time is finite, so we can't possibly dedicate all our time to our career/interest and leave no time for enjoyment of life, unless all your joy in life is entirely derived from your interest which is a bit sad. It's okay to relax once a while, but you must have a general direction of your life in mind so you will not want to slack too much because you know there are many exciting things waiting to be done.
Wednesday 5 March 2014
Ranting on my high school education
Okay this is not exactly ranting. It pin-points a few things which I feel are very wrong with my high school education or just Singapore education in general. Sorry for the lack of decent posts these days. JC has began and I no longer have the leisure to write about random interesting stuff.
Apparently I was quite bored as always so I went to look through the HCI yearbook for 2013. And I was amazed that they actually listed out every single achievement the school has achieved throughout the year. Looking through their achievement especially in the sciences, I started thinking about the reason for their spectacular results for certain science competitions. Then I started thinking what's the difference between their school and ny that made the results differ so drastically.
Are boys really superior to girls in maths and science? I don't think so. For SJPhO, it's apparent that NY and HCI are on par, if not NY achieving better results. However I noticed for chemistry and biomedical olympiad, the difference is huge. It so happens that I took part in both and seeing their outstanding performance made me a little sad. But what's the reason behind?
I remember that for biomedical olympiad, the amount of help that our school offered could be almost reduced to zero. Okay, so definitely we have to read the textbook, fair enough, and there is a list of reference texts that we have no idea where to find them. Also there are a few links to neuroscience websites. Okay now you have to read up on your own. Kthxbye. Then there's no more news until the day of the competition.
Nobody took the olympiad seriously. In fact, the entire 401 was forced to go for the olympiad. No one was motivated to study for this olympiad and the results, not surprisingly, were quite bad. Only very few of us got into the second round and maybe one or two highly motivated individuals got bronze? The school didn't announce it anyway.
In comparison, those in hci were given thick stacks of notes to refer to. Not saying that we shouldn't try to find more information on our own, but the information on the internet are so disorganized and varying in standards that some notes will definitely be helpful. And also, it's apparent that hci took this competition seriously. Therefore, I think that the students were also more motivated and thus achieved remarkable results in the end.
For SJChO it's a bit of a different story. The reason that HCI always outperform NY in SJChO is mainly due to the difference in difficulty of the school's chemistry syllabus. I still remember the first lesson of our chemistry olympiad training. We were deeply traumatized. Before the day we were still using the convention of bohr's planetary atomic model and suddenly BAM lvl 1up you need to visualise everything in 3D quantum mechanics now and we don't care if you have read the relevant chapters of your chem O textbook we are going to test you on it the first thing on the first lesson! Well the guys have no problems. At first we thought they were so into chem they actually read up and know everything by themselves. No. They actually learnt these stuff in their school syllabus, in Sec 3, before the chem O lessons started.
So we appeared very dumb there for the following chem O lessons, and for a long time felt inferior until we realise that this difference in ability is due to the syllabus.
Not sure if hc chem syllabus is a bit crazy, they actually covered way more things than that required in O level. Especially on physical chemistry. NY, in contrast, really covered only the O level things. This put us into great disadvantage, or rather, put HC into great advantage. Being properly taught and covered in school lessons is definitely better than simply skimming through everything in weekly 2 hour lessons that are not even properly delivered.
Something definitely needs to be done to NY's chem syllabus. Chem is becoming the easiest science to score among the three sciences. There are almost no challenges for chem papers, just the possibility of carelessness. Unless you have difficulty understanding the concepts, chemistry is never difficult. In comparison, NY's physics syllabus, which in my opinion is not that easy, helps to pull up the overall standard of physics students in NY, which may also explain our not so bad results for physics o.
Syllabus aside, there's another thing which I feel HC and NY are very different in, which is the passion and interest in what they are doing. From my observation, girls tend to follow rules. A lot of them don't really know what they want, so they set their grades as a measurable goal, something to spend their time working on. However, they do not feel much for the things they are putting work in. They are putting in their effort purely to be good. Be the good girls they always are.
Boys, on the contrary, can be very passionate in what they are doing. It's this great passion that motivates them and make them push themselves further and further. This is rarely observed in girls. Most girls just want to achieve their standard of "good", and that will be good enough. This may be able to explain why guys tend to outperform girls in competitions, things that require one to go for extra miles. Sure, some girls mug for competitions. But they really just mug for the sake of competition, not their own interest. In the end, they may achieve good results, but their interest may not even lie there. Of course, this theory does not fit for all guys and girls. There will be some girls who are motivated by passion and some guys motivated by result. However, because of the general trend, the school cultures of hc and ny are very different.
For example, the entry requirement for certain special programmes are much higher in NY than in HC. This does not make a lot of sense to me, because since you are only specialising in a field of interest, why must you be good at everything? However that's the case in NY. (It may be due to the belief that most girls when they mug, they mug for everything instead of just one. So only the overall result reflect true ability of the student.) It seems that in NY, you must be first good at something before you can develop your passion for it. I'm not sure what the culture of HC is like, but I know that the requirement is definitely lower, there are more people in the program and many of them who are extremely passionate individuals get to participate in various related activities.
Comparing our high school lives, I feel that mine is a bit wasted. What did I spend my time on? Well I admit in Sec 1 I was totally goofing around. In sec 2 my passion started to develop for the sciences partly because I was good at them and partly because I found the other lessons (especially humanities) unbearable. In sec 3 and 4 was when I started to get really interested in the subject through exposure to higher order stuff.
The exposure that the school gave was definitely not enough. I tried to borrow relevant books and read them. However, reading these books was at the bottom of my to do list. With so much workload and other mugging to do, I have to eventually return them without absorbing much of the content. (just like now I have a university physics textbook right beside me and I'm still blogging this sigh I should read it thoroughly someday). You see, that "someday" is always the excuse for not reading these stuff. I admit I'm a bit of a procrastinator, but I also wished that back then I'm not so caught up in school work, especially in projects and assignments that I know won't assist me much in my learning.
Maybe it's really that my passion is not strong enough. Maybe if it's a hc guy he will prioritize those readings over the mundane school work. I don't know. It could be my own problem, but I was trying. The mindset of many ny girls is to get decent grades for exams, and I was probably one of them. But I'm already in that group that starts late. Some of the hardcore muggers start preparation one months before block tests and two months before end of year. In the end? Good results still not guaranteed (one hard paper that relies heavily on thinking rather than memorisation kills all). I really don't see the point in setting the examination as your only goal since the examination system is very flawed. Marks don't reflect competence. Some of my PRC friends still get many marks deducted because they didn't write precisely enough. Even for physics you have to remember certain model answers to get the full mark. There's just no point.
If I were to relive my high school, I will probably take up a research project in sec 3, be fully committed to it, focus less on grades, and learn more by understanding than memorisation. I don't believe that I'm born innately inferior in my ability to learn and understand. Okay, I'm not born a genius, but I trust that I'm smart. All I need is more commitment and practice, and mostly importantly, the strong drive to understand and gain new knowledge. Now I'm in a good class full of good people. I can learn from them, instead of constantly comparing myself to them and feel inferior. Self-improvement is still the most important thing in life.
Sorry if my post sounds incoherent. It's meant to be a rant post so yeah...but the issues discussed are real and significant. I'm now very happy with all the subjects being the ones I like. I really hope my passion can be strong enough to motivate me to achieve greater heights. Also, practice, although not very interesting, is important to achieve competence. I'm not striving for proficiency but a clear understanding must be reached and I must be able to apply the concepts well. I shall keep that in mind.
P.s. not sure if you can see but I'm trying to improve my english. My english in this post is really bad with repeated vocab and sentence structures...sigh. Also it's a bit sad thinking that probably no one will read this post in the first place.
I remember that for biomedical olympiad, the amount of help that our school offered could be almost reduced to zero. Okay, so definitely we have to read the textbook, fair enough, and there is a list of reference texts that we have no idea where to find them. Also there are a few links to neuroscience websites. Okay now you have to read up on your own. Kthxbye. Then there's no more news until the day of the competition.
Nobody took the olympiad seriously. In fact, the entire 401 was forced to go for the olympiad. No one was motivated to study for this olympiad and the results, not surprisingly, were quite bad. Only very few of us got into the second round and maybe one or two highly motivated individuals got bronze? The school didn't announce it anyway.
In comparison, those in hci were given thick stacks of notes to refer to. Not saying that we shouldn't try to find more information on our own, but the information on the internet are so disorganized and varying in standards that some notes will definitely be helpful. And also, it's apparent that hci took this competition seriously. Therefore, I think that the students were also more motivated and thus achieved remarkable results in the end.
For SJChO it's a bit of a different story. The reason that HCI always outperform NY in SJChO is mainly due to the difference in difficulty of the school's chemistry syllabus. I still remember the first lesson of our chemistry olympiad training. We were deeply traumatized. Before the day we were still using the convention of bohr's planetary atomic model and suddenly BAM lvl 1up you need to visualise everything in 3D quantum mechanics now and we don't care if you have read the relevant chapters of your chem O textbook we are going to test you on it the first thing on the first lesson! Well the guys have no problems. At first we thought they were so into chem they actually read up and know everything by themselves. No. They actually learnt these stuff in their school syllabus, in Sec 3, before the chem O lessons started.
So we appeared very dumb there for the following chem O lessons, and for a long time felt inferior until we realise that this difference in ability is due to the syllabus.
Not sure if hc chem syllabus is a bit crazy, they actually covered way more things than that required in O level. Especially on physical chemistry. NY, in contrast, really covered only the O level things. This put us into great disadvantage, or rather, put HC into great advantage. Being properly taught and covered in school lessons is definitely better than simply skimming through everything in weekly 2 hour lessons that are not even properly delivered.
Something definitely needs to be done to NY's chem syllabus. Chem is becoming the easiest science to score among the three sciences. There are almost no challenges for chem papers, just the possibility of carelessness. Unless you have difficulty understanding the concepts, chemistry is never difficult. In comparison, NY's physics syllabus, which in my opinion is not that easy, helps to pull up the overall standard of physics students in NY, which may also explain our not so bad results for physics o.
Syllabus aside, there's another thing which I feel HC and NY are very different in, which is the passion and interest in what they are doing. From my observation, girls tend to follow rules. A lot of them don't really know what they want, so they set their grades as a measurable goal, something to spend their time working on. However, they do not feel much for the things they are putting work in. They are putting in their effort purely to be good. Be the good girls they always are.
Boys, on the contrary, can be very passionate in what they are doing. It's this great passion that motivates them and make them push themselves further and further. This is rarely observed in girls. Most girls just want to achieve their standard of "good", and that will be good enough. This may be able to explain why guys tend to outperform girls in competitions, things that require one to go for extra miles. Sure, some girls mug for competitions. But they really just mug for the sake of competition, not their own interest. In the end, they may achieve good results, but their interest may not even lie there. Of course, this theory does not fit for all guys and girls. There will be some girls who are motivated by passion and some guys motivated by result. However, because of the general trend, the school cultures of hc and ny are very different.
For example, the entry requirement for certain special programmes are much higher in NY than in HC. This does not make a lot of sense to me, because since you are only specialising in a field of interest, why must you be good at everything? However that's the case in NY. (It may be due to the belief that most girls when they mug, they mug for everything instead of just one. So only the overall result reflect true ability of the student.) It seems that in NY, you must be first good at something before you can develop your passion for it. I'm not sure what the culture of HC is like, but I know that the requirement is definitely lower, there are more people in the program and many of them who are extremely passionate individuals get to participate in various related activities.
Comparing our high school lives, I feel that mine is a bit wasted. What did I spend my time on? Well I admit in Sec 1 I was totally goofing around. In sec 2 my passion started to develop for the sciences partly because I was good at them and partly because I found the other lessons (especially humanities) unbearable. In sec 3 and 4 was when I started to get really interested in the subject through exposure to higher order stuff.
The exposure that the school gave was definitely not enough. I tried to borrow relevant books and read them. However, reading these books was at the bottom of my to do list. With so much workload and other mugging to do, I have to eventually return them without absorbing much of the content. (just like now I have a university physics textbook right beside me and I'm still blogging this sigh I should read it thoroughly someday). You see, that "someday" is always the excuse for not reading these stuff. I admit I'm a bit of a procrastinator, but I also wished that back then I'm not so caught up in school work, especially in projects and assignments that I know won't assist me much in my learning.
Maybe it's really that my passion is not strong enough. Maybe if it's a hc guy he will prioritize those readings over the mundane school work. I don't know. It could be my own problem, but I was trying. The mindset of many ny girls is to get decent grades for exams, and I was probably one of them. But I'm already in that group that starts late. Some of the hardcore muggers start preparation one months before block tests and two months before end of year. In the end? Good results still not guaranteed (one hard paper that relies heavily on thinking rather than memorisation kills all). I really don't see the point in setting the examination as your only goal since the examination system is very flawed. Marks don't reflect competence. Some of my PRC friends still get many marks deducted because they didn't write precisely enough. Even for physics you have to remember certain model answers to get the full mark. There's just no point.
Sorry if my post sounds incoherent. It's meant to be a rant post so yeah...but the issues discussed are real and significant. I'm now very happy with all the subjects being the ones I like. I really hope my passion can be strong enough to motivate me to achieve greater heights. Also, practice, although not very interesting, is important to achieve competence. I'm not striving for proficiency but a clear understanding must be reached and I must be able to apply the concepts well. I shall keep that in mind.
P.s. not sure if you can see but I'm trying to improve my english. My english in this post is really bad with repeated vocab and sentence structures...sigh. Also it's a bit sad thinking that probably no one will read this post in the first place.
Thursday 27 February 2014
First confirmed encounter with an INTJ
So sorry for the inactiveness recently. Life has became so hectic now that although I have many things I want to share I don't have the time. In fact it's like 2.56 am now and I really should sleep instead of writing this, but oh well...
There's this guy in my class. He doesn't behave very normally and it was pretty obvious since the first day we met him. It is known that he has some kind of condition. Some of his abnormal behaviours include:
-talking very loudly when expressing his views, in a random and interruptive way
-unable to form his speech in a continuous flow, always pause suddenly
-making hissing sounds when he's alone (not engaged in any social interaction)
-persistently talk about one topic when others have moved on to a different topic, oblivious to lack of interest in the topic discussed
-general lack of facial expression
-following people around without the awareness of how people want to stay away from him
And, not sure if coincidentally, he is an INTJ (with 99% certainty).
I have always searched for potential INTJs around me but I don't think I have found many, and I only suspected them to be because they don't really fit well into the description. But this guy, he fits almost every description of an INTJ perfectly. And really as the theory has predicted, there's nothing much to say between INTJ and INTP.
Yes, I'm sure I'm an INTP now. After this encounter, the difference between a J and a P is obvious. The degree to which a J organise his/her life and everything else is pretty scary, or maybe that's just because he has more extreme J characteristic.
Sorry I accidentally spent 20 min looking at type descriptions. Back to the topic. It's quite interesting how people can be grouped and some temperaments just seem to go well with others while some don't. And a difference in a letter could produce so much difference. Now I'm having problem dealing with him. Communication with him feels difficult. How can I convey the message that it's not so right to follow the girls to the bus stop and go home with them everyday o_o
I know he has some condition so it may not be his fault (or is it), and I do wish my class can help him instead of isolating him. However it's just so difficult to tell him what's right and what's wrong in the intuitive sense since he seems to be lacking some of the human experience. I do wish to help him in his integration into the social world, or it will cause a lot of problems, for both him and the society.
There's this guy in my class. He doesn't behave very normally and it was pretty obvious since the first day we met him. It is known that he has some kind of condition. Some of his abnormal behaviours include:
-talking very loudly when expressing his views, in a random and interruptive way
-unable to form his speech in a continuous flow, always pause suddenly
-making hissing sounds when he's alone (not engaged in any social interaction)
-persistently talk about one topic when others have moved on to a different topic, oblivious to lack of interest in the topic discussed
-general lack of facial expression
-following people around without the awareness of how people want to stay away from him
And, not sure if coincidentally, he is an INTJ (with 99% certainty).
I have always searched for potential INTJs around me but I don't think I have found many, and I only suspected them to be because they don't really fit well into the description. But this guy, he fits almost every description of an INTJ perfectly. And really as the theory has predicted, there's nothing much to say between INTJ and INTP.
Yes, I'm sure I'm an INTP now. After this encounter, the difference between a J and a P is obvious. The degree to which a J organise his/her life and everything else is pretty scary, or maybe that's just because he has more extreme J characteristic.
Sorry I accidentally spent 20 min looking at type descriptions. Back to the topic. It's quite interesting how people can be grouped and some temperaments just seem to go well with others while some don't. And a difference in a letter could produce so much difference. Now I'm having problem dealing with him. Communication with him feels difficult. How can I convey the message that it's not so right to follow the girls to the bus stop and go home with them everyday o_o
I know he has some condition so it may not be his fault (or is it), and I do wish my class can help him instead of isolating him. However it's just so difficult to tell him what's right and what's wrong in the intuitive sense since he seems to be lacking some of the human experience. I do wish to help him in his integration into the social world, or it will cause a lot of problems, for both him and the society.
Tuesday 18 February 2014
awesome idea
One day if I'm rich, I'm going to build a real life house that looks like minecraft house. Then I can literally live in minecraft when I want to.
Watch this: https://t.co/WrIqWowRB8
Watch this: https://t.co/WrIqWowRB8
Another update on life
Apparently I'm too bored and don't feel like sleeping yet despite having PW and KI homework yet to be done and the fact that it's 1.16am now. Anyway since JC has started for quite long I suppose it's time to write a blog post about it.
So umm, as I have mentioned in a previous post I'm taking PCMKI and got into 14S7D. It is a really quiet class, but I believe there's a hidden awesomeness in everyone yet to be displayed. I prefer the class to be quiet anyway, I can never build profound friendships with extroverts.
I'm still pretty excited at the things we are going to do at JC. Mr Kwek just granted us all a long term loan on uni physics textbook with modern physics inside which is awesome. #nerdpride I'm also excited at the various research opportunities given to us.
I think I'm still lacking confidence, especially when the people around me are all so experienced in science research and have read up lots of stuff, way more than me anyway. Suddenly I feel very motivated. I don't know much but I can always learn. Although I'm uncertain of how much I can gain in this short timespan of two years, I will do my best to learn as much as I can.
Oh and regarding KI, there's seven people in my class doing KI which is quite a lot, compared to three for our senior's batch. Sadly I'm STILL the only girl in SMTP doing KI. Why... T_T
Ok I should sleep earlier, after reading my new chem notes :D This post is random and somewhat meaningless. Just to give my future self some encouragements and let the passion live on...
kthxbye
So umm, as I have mentioned in a previous post I'm taking PCMKI and got into 14S7D. It is a really quiet class, but I believe there's a hidden awesomeness in everyone yet to be displayed. I prefer the class to be quiet anyway, I can never build profound friendships with extroverts.
I'm still pretty excited at the things we are going to do at JC. Mr Kwek just granted us all a long term loan on uni physics textbook with modern physics inside which is awesome. #nerdpride I'm also excited at the various research opportunities given to us.
I think I'm still lacking confidence, especially when the people around me are all so experienced in science research and have read up lots of stuff, way more than me anyway. Suddenly I feel very motivated. I don't know much but I can always learn. Although I'm uncertain of how much I can gain in this short timespan of two years, I will do my best to learn as much as I can.
Oh and regarding KI, there's seven people in my class doing KI which is quite a lot, compared to three for our senior's batch. Sadly I'm STILL the only girl in SMTP doing KI. Why... T_T
Ok I should sleep earlier, after reading my new chem notes :D This post is random and somewhat meaningless. Just to give my future self some encouragements and let the passion live on...
kthxbye
Monday 3 February 2014
Why is the sky blue? The illusion of knowledge.
I bet most of us have asked this question when we are young: Why is the sky blue? Depending on the type of parents you end up with, you get various responses. The worst ones being "stop bothering me with these annoying questions". Of course better ones may try to explain, that the sky is composed of lights of various wavelength and wavelength blue light is shorter so it's easier to be scattered and then reach our eyes and blah. However most don't know that that's just half of the story. If one is curious enough this question may follow: Why is the sky not violet then, since violet light has even shorter wavelength?
I asked my physics teacher during the GCP trip and he doesn't know either. Being my lazy self I only looked it up just now. The answer is amazing. It shows how many of us are confident that we know the answer but in fact, we don't.
Below is taken from http://www.nbcnews.com/id/8631798/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/why-skies-are-blue-instead-purple/.
The last part makes me wonder how it's like to be a honeybee and how wonderful it is if our eyes can perceive a wider range of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Anyway, that's not the main point. My main point is about how we all fall prey to the illusion of knowledge.
I asked my physics teacher during the GCP trip and he doesn't know either. Being my lazy self I only looked it up just now. The answer is amazing. It shows how many of us are confident that we know the answer but in fact, we don't.
Below is taken from http://www.nbcnews.com/id/8631798/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/why-skies-are-blue-instead-purple/.
The sky is blue — physicists tell us — because blue light in the sun's rays bends more than red light. But this extra bending, or scattering, applies just as much to violet light, so it is reasonable to ask why the sky isn't purple.
The answer, explained fully for the first time in a new scientific paper, is in the eye of the beholder.
"The traditional way that people teach this subject is that sunlight is scattered — more so for shorter wavelengths than for longer ones," says Glenn Smith, an engineering professor at Georgia Tech. "The other half of the explanation is usually left out: how your eye perceives this spectrum."
While writing a physics textbook some years ago, Smith noticed that physiology usually gets short shrift, even though the spectrum of skylight — when analyzed — is about equal parts violet and blue.
Smith has written an article for the July issue of the American Journal of Physics that puts the physics of light together with the physiology of human vision.
"This is nothing that people who work with eyes haven't known for a long time," Smith told LiveScience. "I just had not seen it all in one place before."
The physics behind seeing blue skies The physical explanation for the blueness of the sky is attributed to the work of Lord Rayleigh in the 19th century.
As a common prism reveals, sunlight is made of all the colors of the rainbow. When light from the sun enters Earth's atmosphere, it is scattered, or deflected, by molecules in the atmosphere — primarily nitrogen and oxygen.
Shorter wavelengths (blue and violet) are scattered more than longer wavelengths (red and yellow). So as we look in a direction of the sky away from the sun, we see those wavelengths that are bent the most.
The light of day is actually a complex spectrum of many different wavelengths, but it is dominated by light with wavelengths between 400 nanometers (violet) and 450 nanometers (blue). A nanometer is 1 billionth of a meter.
How the eye sees color The human eye is sensitive to light between roughly 380 and 740 nanometers. On a typical retina, there are 10 million rods for sensing low light levels and 5 million cones for detecting color.
Each cone contains pigments that restrict the range of wavelengths that the cone responds to. There are three varieties of cones for long, medium and short wavelengths.
"You need all three of them to see color correctly," Smith explained.
The peak response for the long cones is at 570 nanometers (yellow), medium at 543 nanometers (green), and short at 442 nanometers (between violet and blue). But the three cones are sensitive over broad, overlapping wavelength ranges, which means two different spectra can cause the same response in a set of various cones.
A good example of this is yellow. There is a certain narrow range of wavelengths that we might call "pure" yellow (or another for "pure" blue, and so on). However, the same set of cones that reacts to a light of pure yellow also responds to the superposition of pure red and pure green light.
The sky's light plays tricks Two spectra that have the same cone response are called metamers. Smith stressed that this only concerns the neural signal coming out of the eye — long before any processing by the brain.
"In previous research, people excised cones from the eyes of dead people and measured the response to different spectra," he said.
The same "trick" that makes red and green turn into yellow is happening in the sky. But in this case, the sky's combination of violet and blue elicits the same cone response as pure blue plus white light, which is an equal mixture of all the colors.
"Your eye can't tell the difference between that complex spectrum and one that is a mixture of pure blue and white," Smith said.
In other animals, the sky color is undoubtedly different. Outside of humans and some other primates, most animals have only two types of cones instead of three (dichromatic vs. trichromatic).
Honeybees and some birds see at ultraviolet wavelengths that are invisible to humans.
Anyway, that's not the main point. My main point is about how we all fall prey to the illusion of knowledge.
I first know about this theory through a show on national geographic channel called "Brain Games". (That's a really good show btw, telling us how badass our brain can be and stuff) Think you know how a zipper works or how a bike looks like? It's likely you don't, even if you are confident you know. The thing is, our brain always tend to be over-confident on things. In the show, they asked people on the streets to give a range of values as their answer. As long as the correct answer falls within the range, they answer correctly. However, most people still give overly small range. For example, do you know how many countries are there in Africa? Don't google, go to the following site:
It's interesting how our brains can deceive ourselves into thinking that we know so many things. The truth is, we don't. Unless we recognise this fact, humans cannot progress. Recognising our limitations in understanding is extremely important in Science. Rather than assuming, we need to examine and analyse our beliefs, and verify them. Ignorance is not about not knowing. Ignorance is not knowing that you don't know, or worse, knowing that you don't know but couldn't care less to know it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)