Fr. Christopher once said that many Catholics comes to church only on a few occasions that the priest have termed it as "hatch (baptism), match (marriage) and dispatch (anointing of the sick)" Funny, but have some truth in it.
This semester, I learnt about the whole 3 categories from hatch, to mismatch (rather than match) and dispatch. It's really cool to be able to learn all these things from on hands research and assignments. Again, this semester is probably the semester which I learnt most in terms of gaining experience. It's been a wonderful experience and i see it fit to be an ending semester for me :)
Hatch - learnt about children. more specifically how to do therapeutic play with children. children are awesome beings don't you think so? they have such immense live in them. So good at gaining insight and yet at times asked the silliest question ever. Cute max! The special thing about this course is that we have to go out and actually do real play sessions with real kids. No longer like counseling skills where we video record role play. This is REAL PLAY! and it's really a challenging experience, a great experience
Mismatch - y mismatch rather than match? because of contemporary psych, where we learn about different ideologies humans have as an adult. Children don't fight for ideology. Old people are probably at an age where it doesn't matter as much. It's the adults who fight for what they think should be and there's where the mismatch comes in. Many people just don't understand the other parties' point of view and don't 1 to listen. So what happens? mismatch and therefore fight. war happens, sadly.
Through this subject, I learnt a lot about different ideologies and at the same time got to explore my own beliefs. Beliefs about religion, sexuality, law, prejudice and discrimination etc. and it's really been an eye opener to learn about how different people view the same thing. We have to interview people regarding what their thoughts are about certain topics. And it is here that I went to a mosque for the first time. Do you know that mosque are actually a pretty nice place (forgive me cause i never entered a mosque before)? At least the mosque at my place is really pretty :) It was also the first time i have been to a tattoo shop and an indian temple. Challenging, yet memorable experience.
Dispatch - Old people. Group process' assignment was about older adults and we got to go to an old folks home, and the experience was just AWESOME! really proud of the old folks home that we visited. Proves that old folks need not live a miserable like how I always thought would happen. From group process subject, I managed to learn more about different groups of people from children to older adults and it expanded my horizon on things. Not challenging, but really good experience. Not to mentioned the fact that I got to make good friends.
I was pretty anxious with taking these subjects because I do not have my normal friends to take it with me, which means group assignment might be screwed up. Amazingly, the group experience have been awesome, even with random selection for contemporary psych. I guess God have His mercy on me. ^^ Group counseling is good, although I felt that it should have been a lot more better.
Before I end, there are a few myths that I would like to debunk
1) Sex workers choose their 'profession' - they did not. Because of lack of education and the need to survive, they have no other alternative. Do you really think people enjoy having sex with anyone anytime?
2) Drug addicts are stupid and society's trash - they are not. they are pretty smart actually because if they want to, they can get what they want (drugs) by any means, without getting caught. Why else you think there are so many drug addicts out there? They are not society's trash. Many of them actually can contribute to the society, but very little people believe in people who have history of drug addicts. So what do they do? Nothing. Simply because people don't believe in them
3) People who don't believe in my religion will go to hell - ok, for this 1, i shall not say 'not true' because ultimately, I am not the one who makes the decision. But I do think God is merciful enough. Protestants (sorry if i am generalizing) love to quote this verse from the Bible to show that there's a clear distinction between them and others
2 Corinthians 6:14 Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?
From what i see, the Bible cannot be taken literally and the point to be taken here is what does it mean by 'unbelievers'? Protestants (Sorry if i am generalizing again) seems to take the word 'unbelievers' as those who are not protestants. but are all non protestants bad? If the answer is no, then the following words "for what do righteousness and wickedness have in common" does not make sense.
Then it comes to the question. Who are believers? Believe in what? Believers of course is to me believers in Jesus, but more importantly, what is Jesus? Jesus is love. God is love. And therefore believers in love and those who work towards spreading love are known as believers. Naturally, unbelievers would mean that they don't believe and don't spread love. Following this line of thought, then the second part of there verse now makes sense no?
In conclusion, i learnt a lot of things this sem. nice for me :) You might want to rethink of some of the things you believe in. If you reject certain things and believe in certain things, it might be time to re explore what are the rationale behind those thoughts and beliefs.
God Bless~
