Friday, April 30, 2010

The Dark Knight

Yea i know it's a super late post to talk about the dark knight.. but i finally manage to watch the show, after wanting so long to watch it.. credits to Weng Sing for transfering the show to me. ^^

It's a really interesting story. Besides the really joker portrayal of the joker, i like how he manages to capture and bring out the evil side of human. to see how fragile all of us are.. we might say we are good people, with good intentions, pure thoughts and kind behavior, but when it gets down to surviving, do we really give a shit about what we do to other people in order to survive?

the people of Gotham wants Batman to come out and unmask himself, not because he needs to, but because they are scared.

the D.A turned evil after seeing his love being exploded..

the people on the ship wanted to blow each other off.. and suprisingly, the criminals, the convicts, were the one who made up their mind not to blow the other ship. the ship with the ordinary citizens on the other hand wanted to blow up the other ship so badly because they thought that they deserve it. they thought that the criminals deserves to die, not them. eventhough both didn't blew up each other, but it sheds light on how people can make decisions when it comes down to life and death.

it shows that truth and justice is not black and white. it shows how some people can be criminal, and at the same time hero. talking about hero, there is actually very little research in psychology regarding the psychology of heroism. How strange could this be huh? Imagine this... if psychologist know what makes or shapes someone to be more heroic, then psychologist could probably coach more heroes out onto the street. psychology have tons of research on why people don't do stuff they should, like the diffusion of responsibility in Kitty Genovese case, but not much about what would spur someone to be heroic.

Zimbardo stated that these 2 criterias made someone to be qualified as a hero:
a) an active behavior (acts upon something, not just think about it)
b) for someone else (not egocentric, but people centered)

If these 2 can be cultivated in people, probably the streets will be more safe, where people are willing to help each other out. And not just being passive when something happens. But i am willing to admit, i think when something goes wrong, i would probably stone, rather than acting hero. :x

God Bless~

Dreams, dreams, dreams

On 27th April 2010, i dreamt something really interesting. Am not going to say what it is.. but it proves that my superego is still pretty strong even when i am dreaming. :x

Today i had 2 interesting dreams. First was in the morning, and then in the evening.. let's start with the morning 1

I remember that my sister sorta kinda caught/have 2 really really big snakes.. erm.. they said they going to spay insecticide onto both of them to make them sleep, and then i forgotten what they wanted to do with it. anyway.. they didn't sprayed the snakes for whatever reason.. they placed the snakes in their room..

then i dreamt that wei kang and another person came into my room. (yes i know it's weird i dreamt about him.. :x) anyway.. he was like always.. acting cool but he is warm la.. then my lil sis brought in the 2 snakes from her room into my room, and someone actually knocked onto the snakes.. i think the person who knocked into the snakes is aaron chow. XD (dang lots of characters in my dream)

then my lil sis got shocked and sorta threw the snakes onto the floor, and the snakes were aggitated. then the snakes fought with each other and then someone dear to me was kinda sacrificed in the battle.. like.. collateral damage. :x

then i think i woke up..

another dream was when i slept this afternoon.. i dreamt that i was like in a game, playing the game or watching the game being played out. It's actually pretty cool, like i was a pirate and need to steal the treasure.. something like that, and it's cool. i don't know how to express the pictures in my head, but it's nice la. :p

it's holiday.. got time to sleep, stone and... stone..

God Bless~

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Y lad and lass don't communicate well

Disclaimer: This post will be gender biased. XD

I think i finally can explain y lad and lass don't communicate well together. Because lass break the maxim of cooperative conversation. XD Grice proposed that there are four maxims to cooperative communication which are:

a) Maxim of quantity - information should be at the quantity required. E.g. when people ask what u eat, saying chicken rice is appropriate. U don't say something which has too little information like 'food' or too much like 'rice cooked with chicken stock and with roast chicken'

b) Maxim of quality - we try and say things which are true and we don't say things we believe to be false. Self explanatory

c) Maxim of relation - should be relevant. If i ask where to go eat, u don't answer let's go shopping.

d) Maxim or manner - avoid ambiguity. Be clear, brief and orderly.

Well generally i think sometimes it's hard talking to girls or to understand what they really mean when they say things (this coming from a lad's perspective, as i said so in my disclaimer, it's gender biased)

Consider these 2 situations

Situation A

Lad: Hey, what do u want to eat today?
Lass: Anything lah
Lad: Owhkay, so let's go eat... mamak
Lass: Mamak again?
Lad: ok ok .. how about wantan mee?
Lass: Don't 1.
Lad: then u got any idea?
Lass: Anything lah

See, in this situation, the lass violated maxim or quantity, quality and manner. 'Anything lah' doesn't mean anything lah. It means u have to sorta kinda guess correctly what she wants. At this point, most guys, like myself, would be at a total lost on what to do. According to Grice, people would want to end conversation with people who violates maxims, well because u don't know what to or how to answer them back.

Situation B

Lass: Dear, tonight i have to go to my friend's party. Would you want to come along?
Lad: Sorry dear, tonight i promised my friends that we will be going *somewhere*
Lass: FINE!
Lad: Don't angry lah. I already promised them beforehand.
Lass: I AM NOT ANGRY!

'Fine' is a very fine word to be used by lass. it usually doesn't mean 'fine' at all, especially when said with a high pitch voice. :x the last sentence is hard to interpret, because the nonverbal and verbal is incongruent. Here, violation of maxim of quality (lass say not angry when they are) and violation of maxim of manner (ambiguity) is occuring. Often times, this leaves the guy very 'mao dun'. Don't know what to do. Should the lad trust her and therefore don't comfort her? or should he comfort her, which the assumption is that she is not telling the truth? should she be left alone or not? :x

As stated earlier, violation of maxims will lead other people to avoid conversation, and when guys violate maxims, that's what they are trying to achieve. Typically. They want to be left alone, because they know they are not in good mood. Girls on the other hand is more puzzling. Violation can sometimes signal wanting to end conversation, or could signal for more attention.

Seemingly, girls have better understanding of how to understand violation of maxims between themselves. Probably if these can be analyzed, and then taught to guys, there probably would be less argument between both genders. Of course, learning the violation of maxims by guys and then teaching girls will be great as well.

God Bless~

Friday, April 23, 2010

The Lucifer Effect

I guess it's time for some update.

Last 2 days, i watched the lecture (on youtube) given by Zimbardo (yes the infamous dude who did the Stanford prison experiment) on why people do evil things. And his lecture is astounding. I mean, his way of talking is normal, not really astounding, but what is astounding is how he thinks and make his points clear. He coined the term The Lucifer Effect to symbolize how one person who is seemingly good capable of doing bad things.

His lecture is very insightful on why humans can do such attrocities towards other people, drawing from many many research, and real world examples. Got good internal and external validity. :) and it's really scary how people are capable to do such evil things to other people INTENTIONALLY.

really interesting. go watch.

have been pretty busy these few days with exams and thesis defence. Thesis defence was owhkay i suppose. should start at 3 pm, but i came out at 2.59. XD not many questions asked, i think only 2 questions. And my supervisor asked me whether i considered presenting in ARUPS.

exam on the other hand is owhkay too i suppose. aiseh, for PSY 303, everyone came out saying gg.com. So i guess, when viewed that way, i am not that bad gua.. lol.. self comforting thoughts. for PSY 317, i think owhkay also la. can do, but don't know can ace not. :x Liggy posted in her blog asking students not to take this subject. XD i think this subject quite fun ler.. u know beforehand what are the questions wo.. not good enough? lol..

isn't it funny how intrusive thoughts keep on coming in when u are trying to study for finals? hahaha.. it comes especially frequent during important crucial moments. isn't it funny how different we are? and yet, and yet, i still have this stupid cognition and affect. i don't even know how to rationalize or intellectualize it. a little bit too hard to comprehend. :x

ok time for cognitive and then holiday ^^

God Bless~

Monday, April 12, 2010

Acting career? XD

After our movie was shown in class, i got some feedbacks regarding the movie. Generally the feedback was positive, and i am actually pretty suprised by how little Goh commented on our movie. Besides saying that the basketball scenes were not easy to be shot, i don't remember him saying anything else.. but for most of the other groups, he have tons of comments. i wonder y :x but i am more concerned about how i did in the movie itself, my potrayal of the character in the movie.

alot of the movies being shown took a more minimalist approach where not much is being said, not much is being portrayed by the actors. like i have said, sam's group was one of those. because they themselves are not acting, the burden of wanting to put across the message they intend to does not fall on them. even for those who acted, many took the approach where not much is said. messages are done by writing, like elaine's and timothy's group, drawn, like pebbles, and total silence like sufino's group.

not many take the approach of saying lots of things, probably because it's not easy to memorize the script, and even if it's memorized, i guess it's really not easy to say it out normally and to make it congruent with one's body language. how do i know? because i am in that situation. some groups take the risk like canky's group, and wen fei's group.

it really is not easy to act. no wait.. let me rephrase, it is not easy to act nicely. when doing the film, one of my biggest concern was that i would fail to portray the character effectively, therefore ruining the movie. i have to say and make those things that i say in line with my own body language, while having this anxiety that i wouldn't be able to do well enough, and it's very hard actually. and that is the challenging part of the movie according to my own personal bias. This also applies to other groups who did lots of real time dialogues (not sounds which are recorded and then played accordingly afterwards)

i was pretty depressed over my own acting because i thought (or rather i know) i did a very bad job at some scenes. after the film was edited, i was pretty suprised because it turned out to be fine rather than devastating. after the movie was played, many people came to me and said that my acting was 'real'. real here doesn't mean good. it means real, where according to them, the way i speak in real life and in the movie is the same and therefore the portrayal is pretty realistic reflection of me. i am very happy to hear these positive comments, but what made me happier is the fact that i managed to portray the character effectively. and i guess that's all that matters

until this very end, i would like to extend my thanks to mr. director-cum-cameraman-cum-editor, Mr. Yap.

God Bless~

Feedbacks, feedbacks, feedbacks

Ah finally, all the short films are shown in class already. After watching all the films being made by us, i am actually very proud of what the whole class have to offer in terms of cinematography, scripts, dialogues, acting and how to use different methods to tell their story. i really think some of these films should be sent to compete in Malaysia's Best Short Film award (if there is such a category).. below are some of the movies which i will talk about (for those whom i didn't talk about, don't la be sad k XD) and some of my thoughts on them



1) 50 people 1 question - to me this is a pretty nice short film. it is suitable to be a short film, nice, sweet, short, very meaningful and i think it's pretty professionally done. i love it :D only thing is that it probably lacks originality as the idea came from somewhere else, and also it probably is a shortcut out. it's because they don't have to act out what they want to portray, because it's a documentary, everything inside is real. no acting, no script, interview like 70 people and pick out the best ones.



short cut in a sense that they need not worry about the message not being able to be conveyed successfully, because it definitely will. having said that, i know it's VERY HARD to find people to actually volunteer to be shot. so they have to work hard there to gather enough people for them to compile the movie. NICE MOVIE!



2) Sufino's group - i think not many people like the movie, but i think it's an awesome piece really. nothing is said, but messages are slowly, subtly, and certainly put across throughout the movie. the concept is pretty similar to eternal sunshine of the spotless mind where certain scenes are played here and there, and it is only at the end that everything comes as a whole. it is only then that meaning starts to come alive as connections between scenes can be made.

3) Pebbles - the idea of using drawing pictures to illustrate the movie is simply fantastic. Smart ass idea and the drawing was really cool.

All other movies have their own strengths as well la.. like how Canky's group can do the argument so effortlessly. XD

in general, i am very suprised at how grim the messages in our movie can be. most of the themes in our movie revolves around pessimistic side of life like death, suicide, homosexuality, bullying, discrimination etc. and the themes are pretty repetitive in a sense that more than 1 group do the same thing. it's scary how psychology students think alike. jaded with life? or seeing life as it is? :x

Great job everyone

God Bless~

Sunday, April 11, 2010

Awakenings


Just finished watching this movie and it's a beautiful BEEEEAAAAUUUTIFUUUL movie. I just feel so much emotions while watching the movie. Make us wonder what life is all about and I love so many things inside the movie.



I love the messages that is in the movie, I love how Robin Williams managed to portray his character so nicely (i can relate to him), i love how the issue of life is being tackled, I love everything the movie has to offer. Definitely a very good movie, and in my opinion, it's even better than Good Will Hunting, which i love a lot as well.



The story talks about Dr. Sayer, a researcher who is trying to find a new job in this hospital, a chronic hospital they call it. It is where people who have mental illness gets place, something like a mental institution. Dr. Sayer has never been involved in any interaction with human as long as his career is concerned because he is a researcher before this. But taking up this job forced him to deal with people.



He then found out that catatonic patients there have response towards certain stimulus and that sparked his interest in trying to find a cure. He managed to find the 'cure' and for a while, the patients awake from their vegetative state.



Leonard, was his first success and I especially love what he told Leonard regarding humans.
As he was telling Leonard about the awesomeness of the periodic table of chemistry, he says that it's the universe in essence. Everything has it's place and it's just so amazing. Leonard asked him 'you are not married are you?'


and he answered



'no.. i am not married. I have never been good with people. It's not that i don't like them, i do. I just hope that i would have more rudimentary understanding of them. If only humans were less unpredictable'



hearing that, i smiled at myself. go watch the movie. it's AWESOME!



God Bless~

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Pregraduation reflection

Even though i haven't finish studying, it feels as if graduation is dawning upon me quickly. Want to run, but cannot escape. I know alot of people who wants to get away from uni as quickly as possible. i on the other hand am ambivalent about graduating.

throughout my 4 years in college, i would say it's one of the most interesting facets in my life. primary and secondary school was fun, fun in a way that it was relatively stress free. college life on the other hand is pretty fun too. more stress, and i really love the process of studying and doing assignments together. i repeat, I LOVE DOING ASSIGNMENTS TOGETHER. reminiscing back at when i first started foundation, slowly up till now, the dynamics of doing assignment changed tremendously.

it was always together gether then, doing and discussing things together, and doing and discussing things together again. everyone was less tied down by other responsibilities, and therefore have time to invest in studies. and when it's done, everyone's happy. everyone's happy during the process, or at least i would think so. from Juz do it Cafe, till MC 100 video, till colloquium posters and presentations, till creating that stupid clip peg game, i love them all. we can have bbq, birthday parties, hanging out together, holiday trips. where have all that gone to?

btw, not all group assignments i like. i only like assignments which i can work with people. i am not afraid of the assignment being tough. i am most afraid of people whom i can't work with. who don't communicate. who don't seem to care. some people i tell u, just don't work cooperatively. or at least i don't see their cooperativeness. and it's very disheartening sometimes when u invest so much, and your team members are as if acuh tak acuh. whether or not they really acuh tak acuh idk, but it seems AS IF la. :x

nowadays, idk y, but it seems everyone's busy. less time to spend on assignments, and therefore everyone wants the economical way out. minimum time wasted, with maximum return. well, i am not saying that it's not good, but what about the enjoyment of completing the assignment? to me, that's very much lost now. everyone just want to get it done with and that's that. period.

is this what life is supposed to be? do we stop and enjoy the roads that we are taking instead of just rushing to the finishing line? do we know what are we chasing after and where are we heading?

as graduation is dawning, i am at a crossroad, thinking where to go after this. take postgrad degree, get a job, get married, have a few kids, and then die? is that what life is all about?

God Bless~

Jade-ism

What's with the jade-ism which fills the world today? is the world such a gloomy place?

Today when i was following one of my friends back from college, the topic on relationships came up. somehow, it led to marriage and my friend said that the person you marry might not necessarily be the person u love most.

well, yeah, i would agree, but i would be optimistic and think that we would hopefully marry someone we truly love? but she's like.. aih.. sudahlah, sui sui bian bian kahwin, and then have kids only. cause she loves kids. :x

is it me that is still under the illusion? or is it she that is too pessimistic?