Battles are over... for all who put up a glorious fight.... well done!

Post sch activities shall begin in less than 24 hrs.....

just watch

About what's to come soon

We really are learning new things everyday. =)

Let's talk about computer vision and signal processing for example. I've been reading on them for so long and there're so many new things that I'll learn from the same sets of notes. Anyways, I've decided that signal processing can be as interesting as computer vision if (BIG IF) the computer is able to compute fourier transform automatically. I can never understand the math operations.

And there's this friend who has an interesting analogy about beef and bacon. You'll never know if bacon will be served, but you'll have to finish the beef before it gets tough. Kinda funny but it gave me an idea on what I can do. I'll just ask for the bacon.

And I'm learning how to deal with supposedly simple things. Just took me a while cos of the rough patch i was going through but now I'm clear minded enough to handle them. It just got to me that you can search for inspirations in a hundred places, but in the end you got to make a decision for yourself. And most of the time you'll already have decided but just require a little reassurance to tell you you're on track. That's when friends come in, and I have good friends. :)

Oh..... and I've got an idea on how to master turning while blading instantly. Just go down a steep slope with a sharp turn. Should I try that? The last time I tried that with my bike I had a broken arm for 3 weeks.

Here's my favourite song of the week

:)

If someone gives me a battle speech like the one in LOTR now, it definitely will fire things up.

5 more days to the last exam.... like a final chance to score...

And then slightly more than a week to FYP presentation. 9 months of labour and we gotta push hard alright!!!!

sounds like giving birth

About cognitive dissonance

Jason must be in a very good mood yesterday to treat me hot chocolate.

Anyway, there are always so many angles to look at the same problem. I was introduced to this psychological concept called cognitive dissonance yesterday and I spent some time reading about it. This is, of course, at the expense of doing one more past year but I'm getting quite sick of that already.

Cognitive dissonance describes the uncomfortable feeling when one cognition is in conflict with the other. This can be the realization that what you've always thought to be true isn't actually true. Hence, the mind creates new reasons to maintain conflicting principles or it filters away information to keep the former beliefs. This may then result in over justification, self-denial or hostility.

Applying this theory to the relationships between people, it offers some insights.

Were you ever angry at someone because that person did not behave like how you thought he should? Or felt confused because the person's behaviour fell short of your expectations?

Have you felt insecure because your actions to another person were not reciprocated in the way you have desired?

Did you feel betrayed when a best friend did something that was seemingly damaging to you, and hence you reacted in hositility?

You see, in our minds, we have a list of what people should and shouldn't do. And when reality and ideals contradict, we build up a defence mechanism to tell us to stay away or to counter attack. I've seen it happening around me too often. Like the two best friends who fought with each other because they were expecting the other person to do more work. The girlfriend who convinced herself that the boyfriend didn't love her because he wasn't the first to wish her happy birthday. The father who was disappointed in his son because he wasn't going in the direction the father had planned for him.

For me, I have also been through disappointment and frustration when things didn't turn out the way I believed they would. In the process, I have been mean to a lot of people too, especially when I was much younger. I hope i'm much better now.

Anyway, that brings us to one question. Why did we have expectations on what people should and shouldn't do in the first place? If a friend didn't send his wishes on your birthday, does that make him an unworthy friend? If a good friend hurled insults at you, would that destroy all the friendship you've built over the years?

I guess sometimes we have to modulate our expectations. Is it possible to have less expectations on people around you and just have good faith that they are all valuable? Can we overlook the little things we think are signals to what they're thinking? I don't know too.

But what is important here is that we must keep ourselves in check. Are the display of hostility a necessity or just effects of dissonance? If it's due to the dissonace, dip your head in cold water before you do anything else.

Maybe that will help to ease the dissonance.

yesterday's boyband

I came across this while I was searching for the song....



Super boy band in the yesteryear. I didn't know that the boy band craze started before our time.

The same white jackets....

The different coloured pants...

The deliberate synchronized movements...

The blown up hairstyle....

Hahahaha... It was really funny when I first saw it. Why were the girls screaming for them? But i realised that everyone in that time looked and moved that way so maybe it wasn't supposed to be funny.

After watching the whole thing.... it was really quite cool. hahaha. Now I have another thing to search for when I'm youtubing

Boyzone... on the other hand, didn't look as good when they first started.



Or is it because people back then like to see sissy boy bands?

the best songs on whose line

Let's observe a minute of silence to mourn for my A........


Ready????

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ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Ok.... cheap thrill..... I just quite du lan that I spent so much time on the first question..... hope my quizzes can pull up my grades. Pinned so much hope on this one.

sneeze

The last few steps

Yesterday was officially the last day of school. After my papers in the next 2 weeks, my 18 years of school life, together with many other things, would come to an end.

After my quiz and afternoon nap yesterday, I met up with a friend in the music dreamers cafe. Great place to relax but I guess my mood was too heavy for that. I didn't even manage to make light hearted small talks and I hope I didn't bore my friend.

Anyway, I was thinking about all the things that happened in my life recently. It was really like a roller coaster ride. The ups and downs came so fast that I never really got the chance to understand what was going on. One moment I was in depression, the other moment something good happened, and then something bad happened again and the cycle went on and on.

What I did realise is that there are just so many things in life that's beyond my control. I have not asked for all these to happen but they did. And I never imagined that things would be so different from what I have originally thought.

Maybe that's what it's meant to be. Life should never be predictable or it would be colourless. But I would still like to gain some control. So for my sake, I'm going to make some resolutions.

By 30th April, which is the day of my last paper, I want to let go of it all. All the anger, the questions, the feelings and maybe even the things that remind me of the past. I tried that so many times but it's really impossible to forget unless I whack my head with something and it's impossible to forgive because I'm really not that nice. But from that day onwards, I will concentrate on my new life.

I need a change very badly. I really hope I can gain more control in my life.