Thursday 29 November 2007

my triangle.

if you have some time to kill...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2Z6tDSb6c8

yay sesame street. =P

Tuesday 27 November 2007

doodles.

it's the last week of classes for my first term at the u of o. wow.

they were playing disney songs at work today, and i was hit by a wave of childhood nostalgia.

as much as i complain about the decisions i have to make, and as frustrated as i am about how difficult making those decisions are, i have realized that i wouldn't have it any other way (from a discussion with bryan).

relationships (whether platonic or romantic) can only last if both parties are willing to share the changes in themselves, and embrace the changes in the other, and to accept that they are different and always will be (from a discussion with sean/sean's family).

advent begins next week - it's gonna be my first christmas in my 19 years on earth that i'll be spending without the pushparatnams.

the temperature has dropped below freezing already.

every tuesday and thursday i drag myself out of bed in the wee hours of the morning and wish i didn't have to go to work... but the kids always do something that bring a smile to my face and make it worthwhile.

i've been getting random flashbacks about home.

i've been listening to piano pieces on itunes lately... it's soothing.

i haven't talked to my friends back home in a long while.

a wave of work is looming behind me (i still have my back turned on it) and is gonna crash over me pretty soon. and it's not gonna be pretty.

i'm glad i'm doing psychology.

i don't think winter break will be as bad as i thought it would be.

i bumped into joon while i was having lunch today, and we were talking, i guess with a malaysian accent but with good grammar and no lahs... and the friends he was with went, "we didn't understand a word you said! were you speaking english?" haha.

samy vellu in "the star" today: "In this country (malaysia), we are very open ... I have never seen a government which is more open."
hmm. it'll be interesting to see where this goes.

Sunday 25 November 2007

maybe.

"and all the roads we have to walk are winding,
and all the lights that light the way are blinding..."

-wonderwall, oasis.

sloth.

it's been a good break. a lazy break, but a good one nonetheless.

thanksgiving was awesome... it was really nice of sean to invite me to spend thanksgiving with his family. the food was great - we had turkey, squash soup, mashed potatoes, sweet potato rolls, salad, apple pie and my favorite - french beans with shrimp that tasted like home. the vegetables were actually crunchy! =P

but what i liked best was just being in a family atmosphere again after so long. and especially after hearing so many depressing statistics about how many marriages end in divorce, and how many children grow up in single parent homes, and how many children are abused and neglected, and after capturing the friedmans, it was nice to be in a loving and respectful home environment. reassuring. yeah, so thanks sean. =)

i've also watched a whole load of movies over the past few days, it's pretty unbelievable. on wednesday i watched "the bourne identity" and part of "the bourne supremacy", on thursday i finished "the bourne supremacy" and watched "lost in translation" at sean's. then on friday i watched my first ever movie at the cinema here in america with yayoi and sean - we watched "beowulf", which i happen to be reading for my lit class at the moment, and that night i watched "ocean's 11" online. and today i watched "gone with the wind". hehe. of all the movies i have to say... "beowulf" was the best. especially if you've read the epic. in fact, i encourage you to read the epic first before watching the movie - it's the first good adaptation i've seen from book to screen. i think the plot twists that have been added on are amazing... they add so much more depth to the story. go watch.

thankfully, i've done more than just watch movies and eat this holiday - i went shooting today! with like real firearms! i tried... a rifle and a shotgun. i think. i'm not sure if i got the names right. but it was a lot of fun! sean, david, akiko and i went up into the hills and shot empty "apple cider" cans. turns out i've got better aim than i thought i did, so don't piss me off. especially when i have a gun. =P

that's been my long weekend so far - got one day left tomorrow. one more day til all my work comes crashing down on me again. it's so bad that i've barely done anything over the past four days... i think the problem is that this break kinda gives me the illusion that i have a whole lotta time to get everything done, when in fact i don't. it's hard to get motivated when deadlines are more than 24 hours away. >.<

anyway. it's been fun. good, mindless fun. =)

Thursday 22 November 2007

capturing the friedmans.

we watched "capturing the friedmans" in cognitive development today... man, was it disturbing. the movie/documentary was about a father and son (arnold and jesse friedman) who were accused of sodomizing and abusing boys who took computer and piano classes under arnold. arnold and jesse repeatedly maintained their innocence, and there was a lot of ambiguity about whether or not the children were giving accurate information or if their stories were false memories.

the thing is, it's really easy to lead a child into believing something really happened when it didn't, which was something we studied in class. apparently the children were asked a lot of leading questions - there's a difference between saying "did jesse do anything to you?" versus "jesse touched you, didn't he?". and a few of the children later admitted that they said they were sodomized because they felt pressured to do so, and that they wanted the questioning to end. parents said that investigators pressed children into saying they were abused - when a child said nothing had happened the investigators said they knew something did happen and they wanted the children to tell them the details. one child was sent to therapy by his parents and underwent hypnosis, which has been found to sometimes plant memories, and through hypnosis the boy remembered or "remembered" a repressed memory of being sodomized - his first memory of anything of that sort.

on the other hand, arnold was found to have stacks and stacks of paedophilic material. he admitted to being a paedophile, and said he had his first sexual encounter when he was 13 and his brother was 8. his brother doesn't remember anything about it, but his brother is now gay. i don't know if there is a connection between the two. arnold's mother divorced his father when he was really young, and his mother shared a room with him and his brother. and she used to bring her boyfriends into the room and have sex with her sons present. it's so messed up.

in the end, both arnold and jesse pleaded guilty - arnold pleaded guilty because he hoped to save jesse, and jesse pleaded guilty later because he didn't think he had a chance of being found innocent against the public hysteria, so he was hoping for a lighter sentence by pleading guilty. he was 19. arnold later committed suicide.

oh, and arnold's son/jesse's older brother is the best birthday clown in new york.

Wednesday 21 November 2007

Tuesday 20 November 2007

more psychocology.

i had my daycare debate today! which was cool for two reasons:

1. my professor decided to divide the class into groups and have us research particular topics intensively and then debate and write a paper on it, instead of having a final. so i'm glad it's done! (the debate, not the paper... if only.) and i think it went well. =)
2. i haven't done debate in such a long time... i can't believe it's been over 2 years! gosh. working with my daycare team was fun, but it was nowhere near debating with yin and val. those were the days.

oh, and i got my draft for my paper back today too... the one i was working on all night. turns out not sleeping to work on it has it's adverse effects too - in my references section i italicized the titles of the journal articles, which weren't supposed to be italicized, and didn't italicize the titles of the journals, which were supposed to be italicized.
and i didn't just do it for one reference - i did it for ALL of them. lol.
but i got a good score on it, so no harm done, thankfully.

next up:
1. my lit paper due next monday. i'm probably gonna do a comparative analysis of the didactic roles of gilgamesh and rama... which is as much fun as it sounds. it's not too bad, really.
2. i have to watch and write a short paper on beowulf cos we're reading it in class now... anyone seen it? is it any good? and...
3. my first thanksgiving ever! i'm looking forward to it. =)

Monday 19 November 2007

psych(o)ed me.

i just conducted my first ever experiment on a kid! muahahaha.
i messed up a little here and there, but i think it went pretty well overall... i'm learning. the kid warmed up pretty quick and wasn't traumatized or anything. hehe.
basically the experiments are to find out if the kid has what's called theory of mind, which in layman terms is whether or not the kid understands that other people may have desires and beliefs that may differ from their own, and that these desires and beliefs may or may not affect behavior.
so we just play games with the kids and tell them stories and then ask them questions... good stuff.
getting involved in this is great for me cause i'm pretty interested in doing research as part of my future career, so hands-on experience is valuable.

i was talking to the grad student whose research study this is, and i realized that i've actually done quite a lot in the two months i've been here - i've gotten a major-related job, gotten an internship that actually gives me a chance to run experimental sessions, which is rare, and completed two 400-level psych courses. i think i've started out pretty well. =)

now i just have to keep the momentum going.
and study quantum mechanics for tomorrow. (boooo...)

Saturday 17 November 2007

transition.

so i haven't been updating my blog as frequently as i used to... i don't think it's a sign of its impending doom - not just yet anyway. i think it's just cos i've been getting more settled here, and the more settled i get the more i sink into a kinda routine and so everything doesn't seem as novel or as blog-worthy as it used to. routine gives things a sense of familiarity. it's pretty amazing to think that i've only been here for a little over two months - it seems like way, way longer.

and i can't decide if this is a good or bad thing, but i'm gonna have to abandon my familiar rhythm and get used to a different beat pretty soon. term's almost over! in two weeks i'll be having my finals, and after finals it'll be winter break for about a month, and then i'll be on to my second term here. so i feel like i've been faced with a lot of (relatively) big decisions over the past week or so. short-term decisions, like whether and where to travel, where to stay, whether to get a job, what subjects to take next term, how many credits to take on... and then there are the long -term decisions, like whether or not to change my academic plan, looking into grad schools, narrowing my career focus, deciding which psych lab i should affiliate myself with, what my honors thesis could be about, thinking about whether i should do a post grad in psych or now maybe education... so many choices. it's making me feel all grown up. kinda.

one thing i am grateful for tho, is that i'm 100% sure that psychology is the major for me. i'm doing two psych classes, a lit class and a chem class and i'm enjoying my psych classes so much better and doing really well in them. chem's the worst for me this term - we started on quantum mechanics this week and my professor covered the whole chapter in just three lectures. he was just speeding through the material and it all went straight over my head. swoosh. it's crazy. i wouldn't be stretching the truth by saying it's all greek to me, because it really is! with psi and sigma and nu and lambda... and planck's constant and eigenfunctions and bohr models... ugh. i have a quiz on it on monday.

anyhow. i just got back from brunch, and i really enjoyed the walk back. i was reminded me really strongly about subang (that's home to me, all you american people... that's right, up in the trees.)... it's like there was a storm from about 1-4pm, with lots of lightning and thunder. i'd have stayed home, probably curled up on the sofa in my living room with a book, and then probably taken a nap. and it's now about 6pm and i go out for a walk... the sky's still all gloomy and the ground is strewn with leaves cos the wind was blowing through the trees pretty hard. but it's still now, with the occasional breeze. and it's cold (well "cold", now that i'm here). and i go to one of the parks nearby just to sit on a bench for while... breathing in the moisture in the air and feeling the humidity on my skin.

but... it's nice here too. i like how there's always something pretty to look at. =) it's been sorta cleaned up now, but at one point there were piles of leaves everywhere. it looked really messy, but i liked it - it was kinda like having my room with me wherever i went. haha.

that was quite an aimless ramble huh?

Tuesday 13 November 2007

YAY! =D

I JUST FOUND MY RING!
it was in the honors college lounge, in front of the computer i used last wednesday... why i took it off and put in on the table to use the com i'll never know.
laugh at me all you want but i don't care because I HAVE IT BACK!
you were right melmel. =)

and i just found out i did brilliant (that's british for awesome, sean and bryan) in my second cognitive development midterm - even better than i did in my first, which i didn't think possible.

i'm happy.
in case you haven't noticed.
=D

Sunday 11 November 2007

lemons.

i've decided to draw on ping's favorite quote:
"when life hands you lemons, make lemonade."

i'm gonna put in so much sugar in my lemonade i'll be diabetic before i'm through.
and i'll put in a shot or two (or three or four) of vater (har har.) just for the fun of it.
and then i'm gonna enjoy it, every last drop.

and i'm gonna try very hard not to think about milo ais.

Saturday 10 November 2007

objects are objects are objects.

i never really thought i was one to have attachments to anything material... sure i value the things that i have, and i don't like losing things in general (who does?) but i didn't think i'd be THIS affected.
i keep telling myself that we're more than anything we own, and i know that.
but still.
it sucks pretty bad. actually, it sucks really bad.

i'm still kicking myself.
why can't i remember what i did with it?!
this is why people shouldn't give me nice things. >.<

Friday 9 November 2007

22 years!

happy anniversary mummy and daddy!
it's not the 9th here yet, but it is back home...
glad you haven't gotten sick of each other yet. =)
love you!

Thursday 8 November 2007

alanis and jason.

"it's like rain on your wedding day
it's a free ride when you've already paid
it's the good advice that you just didn't take
and who would've thought it figured?

a traffic jam when you're already late
a no-smoking sign on your cigarette break
it's like ten thousand spoons
when all you need is a knife
it's meeting the man of my dreams
and then meeting his beautiful wife
and isn't it ironic, don't you think?"

-ironic, alanis morisette

you know what else is ironic?
you staying up all night to work on a paper, and then your professor announcing that she's decided to extend the deadline.
woooohoo.

anyhow, staying up all night was quite an experience. suddenly i had so much time! and the rest of my week is looking pretty good now i've gotten most of the major stuff out the way. it's so weird that i felt so alive yesterday - except for like an hour or two. i wanted to put up a post about it then but didn't wanna speak to soon, cos the full effects usually hit when you actually do get some sleep. but today wasn't bad! sure, i was falling asleep in chem and i feel tired now, but it's really nothing out of the ordinary. and i probably looked worse than usual, but i only bumped into joon and goen - goen's a girl and joon doesn't count, so no harm there. =)

my verdict on staying up all night:
in this case it was definitely worthwhile, but i don't think i'll be doing it again anytime soon. i'm not gonna push my luck.

this evening i was walking around with a slight smile on my face - something i haven't caught myself doing in a while.
maybe it was because the sun was out. maybe not.

"i reckon it's again my turn
to win some or learn some."

- i'm yours, jason mraz.

isn't that an awesome way to look at life?

Tuesday 6 November 2007

he, she and her.

he runs along an invisible path, as fast as he can, looking at me saying, "i wun, i wun"... then he falls - unintentionally or not i don't know, sitting down hard on his bum. it doesn't hurt him or anything. he looks around mildly and then says, "i fall" to no one in particular. he sits there for a moment, then he grabs a handful of leaves from the ground and sorta chucks it in front of himself. he grabs another handful, with the other hand this time, and throws it ahead again. seemingly satisfied, he gets up and walks... aimlessly, but contentedly.

she sees her blowing bubbles. "issy's turn, issy's turn!" she says, head tilted up as far as it can go. when this doesn't work she become increasingly agitated, sorta running on the spot. "issy's turn bo bubs!" she wants her turn, but is distracted by the pretty bubbles - purple, amber and a brownish green. she forgets about doing her little dance for a while - trying to get a finger into a big bubble just out of reach. she reaches, reaches, reaches... and then topples over, landing on her bum. she gets up and frowns. "issy's turn!", more insistently this time.

she looks down, smiles, and gets on one knee, bubble wand in one hand, bottle of bubble solution in the other. "okay, lucy's turn," she says. she blows, but her lips are kinda pressed together with her bottom lip sticking a bit further out, so she's blowing up into her fringe. she tries again, this time with a crease between her eyebrows.

she laughs, not unkindly, and says, "look lucy, put your mouth like this," shaping her mouth into an "o", "and then you blow. gently." her next attempt's an improvement, and on her fourth try she actually manages to produce two bubbles. small ones. but she's too focused on the wand and on getting her blowing right that she fails to notice them.

"look, you did it!", she says, pointing to the small bubbles. she looks at her, surprised, and by the time she shifts her attention to the bubbles they've popped.

she turns her eyes back to the bubble wand, bringing her lips so close to it that they probably tasted bitter the next time she ran her tongue over them. she shapes her mouth into an "o" and blows. hard. a bubble half forms, and then pops before leaving the wand.

she laughs, gets back on her feet and blows bubbles down toward her. she smiles and waves her hands around, jumping, popping as many of them as she can.

he catches her eye. "wun, wun!" he urges, beginning another of his laps. she smiles to herself, a pursed up kinda smile, and grabs her by the hand. "run, lucy, run!" she says, taking tiny steps to match her pace. when they complete the lap he falls on his bum again; she throws herself on the ground, and she throws herself on top of her, giggling. she lies there, in the damp leaves, looking up at the tree that was covered in yellow leaves just last week. today its knobbly branches and spindly twigs create a lattice, contrasted against the murky sky above. it's murky, but she has to squint to look up anyway.

and she just lies there, looking up, with leaves in her hair.
her with her runny nose, lying on top of her and giggling close to her face.
and him, saying, "i fall" to no one in particular, playing with his leaves.

fleeting significance.

it's 3.17am.

and i'm still awake. just finished working on my social development draft that's due tomorrow at 12, and i have work from 7.30 to 11 which means i needed to finish it tonight. didn't help that i had a cog dev midterm earlier, followed by a lit quiz. work tomorrow also means i have to be up in about... 3 hours. i think i'll just stay awake - if i go to sleep waking up is gonna be hell. would be interesting to see how i turn out tomorrow, cos i've never really tried it out. i know i'll probably regret it and kivk myself for being so stupid tho, especially since it's just monday. hmm.

some much needed laughs from the game now known as "jewish holiday":






and my all-time favorite:

we should play again soon.

Monday 5 November 2007

i'm sick...

...of reading research articles.

but here's something i thought i'd share:
in research concerning the effects of child maltreatment, it has been found that more negative outcomes are associated with neglect alone, in comparison to a combination of neglect and abuse or abuse alone. in other words, kids prefer being "acknowledged" by their parents or caregivers, even if it means abuse, rather than simply being left alone but not abused.

such is the need we have for human contact.
scary, huh?

undiscovered.

"well the time it takes to know someone
it all can change before you know it's gone
so close your eyes and feel the way i'm with you now
believe there's nothing wrong

you think that i want to run and hide
that i keep it all locked up inside but i just want you to find me

i'm not lost, i'm not lost, just undiscovered
and when we're alone, we're all the same as each other

i'm not running, I'm not hiding
if you dig a little deeper, you will find me..."

-undiscovered, james morrison.

Sunday 4 November 2007

evil pacman got the malaysian farmer!

in case you're wondering what my title's about (which you probably are), a bunch of us were playing this drawing game thing at sean's last night where everyone writes a phrase/word down, and then passes it on to the next person who has to draw it, and then fold over the phrase/word and pass it on to the next person, who has to guess what the picture is and write down the phrase/word, and then fold over the picture and pass it on to the next person... until it comes back to the person who wrote the original word/phrase down. sorry if that didn't make sense! yeah so anyway, i wrote down "ducks vs devils", since that was the game we were gonna watch today - the oregon ducks against the arizona state sun devils. and when it got back to me, it had evolved into "evil pacman chasing a malaysian farmer". that was pretty funny, as were a few of the others we came up with. =)

yeah so anyway, we won the game today! yay. and it was a pretty big deal from what i gather, cos they're ranked higher than us and now we have a shot at the national championship and stuff like that. i'm still not that into it, but at least i know when to cheer and why people boo and what "safety" means, which is good improvement i think. =) everyone was really revved up! i think there were close to 60,000 people at autzen, which was a record high. the way people booed the stray asu (arizona state uni) supporters who wandered into our section was kinda amusing. asu had guts tho - they brought their own flags and ran round the field whenever their team scored a touchdown or a field goal, and they even had their own motorbike riding in before their players! which is specifically a uo thing, i think. the game started at 3.30pm, so by the time it ended it was all dark. would've joined the rest for dinner if i didn't feel a little under the weather, hopefully something i can sleep off >.< i'll go for doco's? dough co.'s? soon guys! when i can enjoy it properly.

so now i'm back "home" (i.e. my room - still feels weird calling it home), and probably gonna have an early night. probably should get some work done too, boo. will put up pics from the game soon, tho they're not that much different from the pictures of past games. we just all have more clothes on. =P

right. til next time! =)

Friday 2 November 2007

where the sun don't shine.

my feet are so FAIR!

halloween, kit, kids and sastera.

wow, has it really been a week since i've posted? time's a-flying!

well, this week was definitely better than last week... i had more fun, more sleep, and more exercise. =) oh and i also had my first halloween! i didn't actually do anything on the actual day, but i partied the weekend before. in summary:

1. looking like a nerd one night and an emo the next wasn't too difficult for me. not necessarily a good thing.
2. i made new GIRL friends, yay. fooding at sierra and kelly's was a lot of fun... i actually had a semi-meaningful conversation in mandarin! and i heard "aiyo" for the first time in ages! (kelly's singaporean)
3. iball was a blast! good job isa people! =)
4. don't drink alcohol on an empty stomach, when you're really tired, when you had alcohol the night before, or any combo of the three. lol.
5. "crank dat soulja boy" was overplayed, but i had a blast dancing to it over and over and over and over again.
6. i still haven't carved pumpkins. =(
7. i still don't know how girls could and can walk around with their super-short skirts and minimal tops - i was wearing three layers and i was still cold!
8. sean's been hanging around romandy a lot.

kit had his birthday the day before halloween, so happy birthday buddy! wish i could be there to celebrate it with you and everyone else... i was thinking about it and i realized that it was the first surprise birthday party i've missed since we started having surprise birthday parties for the gang. and that was like, 5 years ago! emofying. anyway, i hope you had a great one!

hmm, what else? work's been getting better... there's nothing like having a kid voluntarily climb into your lap. or run to you for a hug. or turn to you for comfort. and it's hard not to have favorites! i like kids. i still don't like diapers tho, but i'm getting better! oh and speaking of kids, i'm volunteering/interning with a grad student who's carrying out research about theory-of-mind (basically how and when children learn that people have their own beliefs and feelings that may or may not guide their behavior), and we've been practicing the scripts... i'm really excited about running actual experiments! i'm helping out with making phone calls to recruit participants too, and i got us our very first participant! woot. =)

in lit class we just finished with the ramayana, which i enjoyed. with the odyssey, which we did before this, i felt kinda disadvantaged because almost everyone else in class had done it in high school, and the closest i had come to it was watching troy. greek mythology was something i hadn't really been exposed to either. the ramayana was something i was definitely more familiar with, and it's amazing how i felt such a strong cultural connection with it. the way the characters talked, their beliefs, the society... even the names were easier to pronounce. i didn't expect to identify so strongly with it, so it was a pleasant surprise, and a reminder of home.

and probably the most amazing thing is, the lit i learnt in high school back home actually helped! that's right, fellow malaysians, bm sastera is not completely useless! on monday we were gonna have a quiz in class, and i assumed it was gonna be about the odyssey since we had just finished it the week before and we were just gonna start the ramayana that day. i'd completed the assigned reading on the ramayana, but i focused a lot more on the odyssey. and of course the quiz had to be on the ramayana! so i thought i was screwed, but bm sastera came to the rescue! you know how we learnt about this bird-ish dude who was fighting with some other monster dude or something to that effect, and how the bird-ish dude's wings get cut off? well that's from the ramayana, and the bird-ish dude's name is jatayu. one of the extra credit questions was "who is jatayu?" and when i first looked at it i had no idea! then i remembered how we were laughing at the story in high school, about how ridiculously stupid the story was, and remembered that there was a jatayu involved... so i managed to somehow connect the two and answer the question! and the first question was "what's sloka?" and i had no idea at first either, but then i remembered "seloka pak pandir" and all the other selokas, so i hazarded a guess about it being the hindu epic style, which i vaguely remembered reading something about, and i was right! lucky me that bm has some roots in sanskrit. (random note: at work, we keep track of when the kids get diaper changes or when they use the potty, and "bm" is used to denote "bowel movement", i.e. poop. for all you non-malaysians, bm back home stands for bahasa malaysia/melayu, which means malaysian/malay language.)

kay i think i've written enough for today - just submitted a blog post for cog dev (that's our assignment - writing a blog post about something we learnt or read or discussed in class. so cool ya?). next monday i have a quiz and a midterm, and on tuesday i have a paper due... so wish me luck!