Title: Belief about recognition.

Some stuff that I just realized while walking.

In an Asian society such as S’pore, people are taught not to seek for recognition but to let those who see the recognition talk about it, the value of being humble is indeed a very important one, but somehow through the generations, the value seemed to be taught in a manner that seemed self-destructing.

Eg. Conversation between A & B
A: Hey B, how did you get such great results
B: No lah, just pure luck. (Attributes success to luck)

This is a very typical example in the Asian society where we do not accept the recognition and instead attribute the success to non-core reasons such as luck or other people. Somehow, it affect our mindset; it lowers our self-confidence thus making ourselves instead of others not recognizing our achievements.

Reflecting on my growing-up years, I realized that it is this behavior that made me missed the opportunities of taking up positions in classes, ECAs which might result in another “me”; in short, I limit myself to my full potential.

I think what should be done in the future is to put myself on the line, to take up positions that I had not dared to but are definitely within my capability. After all, we our have limited numbers of years to live, so why not make the place a better place if you can.

今天的欠扁边问答题

问： 是谁把肉粽拾起来
答： 祥龙
因为：降龙十八掌 （祥龙拾“肉粽”福建方言）

哈哈 够冷罢

The significant event for today have to be Liang Jin Ru's concert.
(Many thanks to Emmie for her help in getting the tickets for me, also special thanks to Spencer who made the time to pass me the tickets ^_^)

Today's event is much better executed compared to the FIR concert, started queuing outside the auditorium since 1630 and managed to get in by 1820. Was with FuMing chatting about Liang Jing Ru (he's definitely an expert in that field, haha~) Oh, an unexpected guess is Adrian. He actually took the time to rush down to NTU from SMU, haha~ (tickets courtesy through Apryl's network of friends) At 1920, the concert started promptly with a perfect rendition of "Ning Xia" followed by a few more songs in her new compilation.

During a games segment, my friends Martin and Tao zhui volunteered for it. Ling Zhi and Jin Ru interview the participants before starting the games, during which a guy actually kneel down and profess his liking for Jin Ru(hehe~) Martin, as usual done a comedy rendition of her songs which brought much laughter to crowd. As for Tao Zhui, no one believed his name is that and thought that he's teasing Jin Ru. The marathon singing of verses of Jin Ru's songs ended after a 4-5 rounds. Jin Ru brought us more songs, even a short unplug version of David Tao's song "Ai, Hen Jian Dan". Her voice is heavenly - it is crystal clear, powerful and sung with all her souls in it. Wow, been a while since I heard such good quality singing.

After she officially left the stage, the audience demanded an encore - Jin Ru really didn't prepared for much songs so she sang some songs unpluged, even Rasa sayang~ haha~ indeed, it's an interesting experience...

She held an autograph session after the concert - I didn't go thinking that there'll be many people vying for her autograph, sharks - should have attempted and see if there really are so many people, well pass is pass, anyway, she'll definitely be back in S'pore in the near future ~ at least she says she's going to hold a concert in Jan/Feb.

Can't wait for the next Singer to perform in NTU.... kekeke~

Attended the sunset mass this evening, Arch Bishop Nicholas who's there for the comfirmation ritual later on gave a homily on leading our life as a christians - can't really recall the details - he ended saying that we live a life that shows Christ shining though us "It is not I, but Christ living through me" Anyway, it got me really thinking and reflecting, how am I leading my life in the Christian and what I should do to live a life that profess my faith and beliefs. Hmm, now thinking of it, perhaps a thing that I could do is to study hard for the coming exams - as they always say "do your best that you can to honor your God, our lord" talking about which, I haven't really been putting efforts, sigh~

Yeah. My Home computer is finally up and running after hours of hardwork and hassle of hardware and software installation.

Points to take note:
1) Do monthly backup of documents, it's better than losing everything you have when the HDD crash.

2) Do a yearly system backup, so that recovery time can be dramatically shorten.

Lab evaluation for Comp Grap in Design this morning - another assignment done and this signifies that exam is really round the corner.... :(

Sigh... After exams time to mug again for the Design & Development Project. Pro or con? I'll find out very soon.

Another review for uP System Desgin (MSD) tmr, finish up the report and it'll be mugging time.

Luckily for this semester's paper, it'll spread out for the entire 3 weeks of exam period. Otherwise.... Well.... It'll be hell of a time.... I don't mean it isn't now but it can be worse.

Freak!

My brother called me earlier on and told me a bad news...

My harddisk crashed or so it seemed to him...

Sigh~ what a time for the system to crash... luckily I've got most of my critical data in my computer in the hostel. Still that means that I might have to spend some time troubleshooting the silly system. Sigh~ To think it is a Western Digital 60GB I bought 2 years ago.

I'll see what I can do this week to get it up to the basic mode of operation and leave the rest to my brother....

Wahhh..... No internet for this weekend at home..... :(

Final, Oral presentation over.

Didn't seem to do very well in it. At least less than what I expect. Well, I think I focus too much on the material rather than doing the presentation part - a definite need for improvement.
Some feedback Dr Khong
- Too dependent on cards
- Too many "errs" "aahs", seem to happen most of the time. Critical mistake to correct
- Didn't engage audience (should have asked a question to get them thinking)
- Didn't move and looking down too much.

Well, something for me to work on during my toastmaster sessions.

Sigh, been busy with so many stuff. Hopefully can settle everything this week and focus on the coming exams.

Anyway, my assignment that took me quite a while to write... Should have spent more time writing/expressing myself when I was young to build up the skills for that. Haha~

Below is the article I did for my 2nd assignment

One may ask: “What is self-limiting beliefs?” Before we embark on the question, we will discuss how beliefs are formed.

According to many sources, it can be said that beliefs are formed through our experiences that we had accumulated over the years. When we are young, parents, society and/or other significant figures impart some of their beliefs to us through their teachings, conversations and actions which we observe in their daily life

As we grow up, some of the basic beliefs that were formed are internalized through limited experience and build upon in later years. Once the basic set of beliefs is formed, new information from the environment are selected and produces new beliefs that are generally consistent with the old basic set, be it rational or irrational, since they are seen as the “truth” by the believer.

The believer is then guided by the set of beliefs and performs actions that are in line with them. Whether the results are productive or unproductive (to the individual or his society), it is seen as the correct decision that he has made.

The powerful effects of beliefs can be seen from several real life examples
1.) The Pygmalion effect or otherwise known as the self-fulfilling prophecy. In 1957 Prof Robert Merton of Columbia University (Sociology) conducted an experiment where a teacher was told that she will be teaching a class of gifted students where in fact, the students are tested and found to be of low IQ. The teacher believing in what she is told, did her best and treated them as gifted and taught in all ways possible to get them interested in class. At the end of the test period, the students have improved their academic grades dramatically and on average, gained 25 points on their IQ tests. This experiment results shows that useful beliefs will led to productive actions and hence achieve what one used to think as unachievable.

2.) The placebo effect, a term commonly known among physicians, has been heatedly discussed and studies for past decades. It involves the effect that the mind is actually capable of willing the body well. Although studies are yet conclusive, but there is no doubt that the mind is capable to do so from the fact that we human used less than 3% of the mind’s capacity over our entire life.

3.) People with very strong and firm beliefs are also noted for their undying will and determination, for example
Mr Lee Kwan Yew – had he not changed his belief that it is possible for Singapore, an island without much natural resources, to survive without Malaysia, he would have given up all hopes and Singapore would have long been erased from history books instead of being an advanced and modern city nation that we knew of today.
Sylvester Stallone, who acted in “Rocky”, suffered from paralyzed facial nerve since young, yet, he had a great dream of becoming an inspiring actor. After rejections for acting roles again and again, he final got a chance and went on to become one of Hollywood greatest stars ever.

4.) Another interesting example of the power of belief is the running of sub four minute mile accomplished by Sir Roger Bannister. Before he achieved the feat of breaking the records, no one is able to do it, yet within a year after he did it, 37 other runners also did it and in the following year, another 300 did the same. This proved that once the limiting belief was destroyed, things became possible.

From the above examples, we can see how strong the power of beliefs is. Towards the opposite end, there are also many examples of how beliefs can stop us from achieving our goals or worse, hurt our body and even others during the process – these are especially evident in mental patients suffering from depression, obsessive compulsive disorder or terrorists who held beliefs that killing or hurting people are the only way to reach their goals. Even normal people like you and me also have some limiting beliefs that stop us from achieving our full potential, typical examples of these are “I’m poor in this subject” or “I’m a poor leader” or “I’ll never be slim”. These limiting beliefs stop us from making an effort to change and suffer from the consequences of them.

Knowing that beliefs are so powerful a tool, we should decide what we should believe in rather than letting others deciding what we should be believing in. Author Robertson Davies described this situation very aptly in his book 'The Deptford Trilogy ' (p477), saying:
"Be sure to choose what you believe and know why you believe it, because if you don't choose your beliefs, you may be certain that some belief, and probably not a very creditable one, will choose you."

In order to eliminate existing limiting beliefs, one method that we can use is the “A to F model” Basically, the six steps involved looking for a particular event that triggers a limiting belief and disputing it to establish new beliefs and emotional response.
(A)ctivity
Self-limiting (B)eliefs
(C)onsequences
(D)isputing beliefs
(E)ffecting new beliefs
Evoking new (F)eelings

After unreasonable beliefs are broke down, we can then apply the method of monitoring self-talk to prevent unreasonable beliefs to form roots in our mind. Since we talk to ourselves most of the day (at least I do), we actually have the most influence on what we are thinking or saying to ourselves. By monitoring our self-thoughts, we are able to stop negative thoughts. We can also affirming our strengths in our self-talk and implant new reasonable and more useful beliefs that enable us to perform more productive actions.

Through the effective understanding of how our beliefs works, monitoring the way we are talking to ourselves and the methods that we could use to evoke new change of behavior, we will be one step closer to be the person that we want to be.


Sources:
http://www.vision.net.au/%7Eapaterson/esoteric/belief_systems.htm
http://www.csicop.org/si/9505/belief.html
GP13 Readings
Brammer L.M. (1991) : How to cope with life transitions
Adam Khoo / Stuart Tan (2004) : Mastering your mind, designing your destiny

After reading many of the readings for GP13 - Personal Mastery for managing change, I seemed to have learnt more about myself and the methods and techniques that I should use for evoking and adapting changes. It is really a worthwhile course to take - didn't regret to go through all the hassle of changing my tutorial classes just to attend that subject. :)

Well, this week is the submission week for the assignment. Gambattee!
Also less than 3 weeks before the start of the great war - semester exams. Kekeke~

Go, go, go!

Where do you fall on the liberal - conservative political spectrum? (United States)
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You are Form 3, Unicorn: The Innocent.

"And The Unicorn knew she wasn't meant to
go into the Dark Wood. Disregarding the advice
given to her by the spirits, Unicorn went
inside and bled silver blood.. For her
misdeed, the world knew evil."

Some examples of the Unicorn Form are Eve
(Christian) and Pandora (Greek).
The Unicorn is associated with the concept of
innocence, the number 3, and the element of
water.
Her sign is the twilight sun.

As a member of Form 3, you are a curious
individual. You are drawn to new things and
become fascinated with ideas you've never come
in contact with before. Some people may say
you are too nosey, but it's only because you
like getting to the bottom of things and
solving them. Unicorns are the best friends to
have because they are inquisitive.


Which Mythological Form Are You?
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You are the Moon card. Entering the Moon we enter
the intuitive and psychic realms. This is the
stuff dreams are made on. And like dreams the
imagery we find here may inspire us or torment
us. Understanding the moon requires looking
within. Our own bodily rhythms are echoed in
this luminary that circles the earth every
month and reflects the sun in its progress.
Listening to those rhythms may produce visions
and lead you towards insight. The Moon is a
force that has legends attached to it. It
carries with it both romance and insanity.
Moonlight reveals itself as an illusion and it
is only those willing to work with the force of
dreams that are able to withstand this
reflective light. Image from: Stevee Postman.
http://www.stevee.com/


Which Tarot Card Are You?
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