Work In Progress

I'm in the progress of migrating and optimizing my blog for Wordpress on my own server, so you might experience funkiness when accessing the blog during this period of time. ETA is unavailable, though it is largely related to the amount of 'sanity-keeper' apple juice I have left.

kthxbai :D

NP Youth Leadership Academy 1

The Youth Leader's Academy is an initiative by Ngee Ann Polytechnic to train student leaders from various secondary school of over a 3-day period through games and leadership discovery programs.

Okay, I'm tired now, so here's a slideshow first.

REPLIES

18 May 08, 02:04 PM Joel: Second year dude,second year. *Points to profile* Jeremy: Oooo, thanks for the heads up!

11 May 08, 05:55 PM xiangwei: are you going to step into everyone's realities now? Jeremy: That sounds so rude man.

9 May 08, 12:34 AM tamia: hey jasly! JEREMY IS A VERY NAUGHT BOY Jeremy: Yo Tamia! PAIGE IS ALSO VERY NAUGHTY.

6 May 08, 03:57 AM shuhao: like the "look through my lense" thing. it's really nice Jeremy: Thanks Shuhao! I've decided not to edit the layout that much anymore. It's so taxing to fix and build over and over.

4 May 08, 12:54 AM Joel: Get the next best thing : Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 Jeremy: OH OH! On ma way now.

My Web Sucks

I'm seriously contemplating if I should redo my website. The more I look at it, the more dissatisfied I am about the whole damn thing. It's completely functional but the idea that it opens in a popup box and its inflexible to change is just... irritating.

So many pseudo-flash elements and with the recent extension of deadlines, I can't help but think if this is an opportunity to do it. Moreover, my radio's sorta done. So, why not?

But.... so much work has been done on the damn thing. And Shan accepts it. So..? Sigh.

Where Is She?

I reach my hand out to the handle bar. It was cold. Drawing away heat from my hand, it warmed up, emanating its own warmth thereafter. Slowly, it loses energy, as the cold wind of neglect caresses it.

I looked past my arm as the train chugs through the night. It was a Monday night, with the train's engine accentuating the commuters' chatter. Some were sleeping, some were listening were music. Most were sleeping. She was sleeping.

With a pink backpack and a blue tote bag, she seems to posses both the fragility of a child and the strength of perseverance. With her small hands, she reached for her eyes, rubbing away the drowsiness that's engulfing her.

I looked on as she falls asleep and then nods back to life. A repetitive motion telling the story of her day in a single word - draining. She was just another commuter, she didn't bother me. I didn't bother.

The train pulls us into the station and a voice tells me that this is where I alight. The nodding little girl awakes from her rhythmic slumber with a single "Oe!". Her mother, I suppose, gets up and walks away, towards the door and down the escalator.

From behind the little girl, I looked on, as she struggles with her bags. Drowsy, she stumbles a few steps and I heave a sigh of relieve with each safe step she takes. Towards the escalator, amongst the crowd she goes - looking up and around for her mother.

The lady she was with walked on ahead, never turning back once. Where, where did she go?

This's what you're looking for. kthxbai

Today I went to school for YLA training and something one of the instructors said was quite enlightening. He told the story of a patient whose doctors gave up upon because the patient said he saw dead babies floating in the air. Psychiatrists gave up on him and locked him up in a mental hospital.

Then this guy came along, and the patient told him, "I see dead babies floating in the air."

The guy, a doctor of sorts, said to him, "Okay, next time you see one, show it to me."

The patient then saw a dead baby floating by and pointed it out to the doctor; "It's over there."

The doctor then said to the patient, "Okay. The next time you see a dead baby, I want to you to reach out and touch it; if you can't touch it, its not there right?"

The patient did as the doctor told and said he could not feel the babies floating in the air, as much as he tried to touch them.

The doctor then said, "Fine, you're cured."

The moral of this story is that to become effective communicators and leaders, we first have to understand how the person we're trying to reach out to perceives things. We must understand that communication only happens on our own terms and it's a two way street - if neither wants to reach out and achieve an understanding - there's no communication. In other words, we must be aware of the reality that the other person lives in before dismissing them as nutjobs or whathaveyou.


I think the bigger implication of what I learned today is that in most environments and communications scenarios, too much is implied. We expect people around us to see things through our views. We dismiss our opponents, if any, as being ignorant and malicious just because they don't see eye to eye with some issues. The thing is, there is just no understanding and both sides assume that yes, something is wrong with the other party.

And because much of how we feel is implied, there's a veil of uncertainty. This uncertainty leads to all sorts of conflicts because no one understands the big picture. Only a part of it. Just think back a little; how many times have we went "oh my, isn't it obvious enough? blah blah" when someone doesn't 'get us' immediately? I myself am guilty of that.

Let's also not forget that different people have different perceptions - we respond and interpret differently to a defined set of stimuli.


As a result of implied messages and lack of understanding, a lot can happen. People say things, make judgements based on one side of stories, propagate falsities, behind the back 'political campaigns', assumptions that one another's malicious, make character associations, stereotyping and ultimately, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Plus, when people have similar ideas about something, they tend to reinforce it, turning it into something more acceptable and legitimate. If one person believes that a dress is cool, she's weird. If 200 girls starts wearing that dress, somehow it's not weird anymore, and it's become 'popular opinion'.

This is further exacerbated by the fact that we tend to seek out opinions that reinforces, rather than contradicts our believes. We readily dismiss contradicting statements and ideas because they challenges our world view. See how all of this assumption and implied shit have the potential to seriously skewer things? Yeap, that's quite bad.

But having said all of that, nothing's going to change. People are still going to continue doing like they are now, with implied messages and expected understandings. Theory-wise, if everything is said out and placed on the table, there'd be a whole lot less of misunderstandings. However, with different agendas, environmental factors, and levels of what I'd call 'ballsiness', it'd just be a faux pas.


So I guess the takeaway is this; the next time we want to assume, imply, and expect other people to just understand our implied messages, stop and take the effort to articulate for reals, what you mean. Let's all try to understand and live in one another's reality, cause' srisly, we'd all rather spend our time doing more meaningful things right?

Like eating oranges, for example. Now that's communication.

Voice of MRT Announcements

Ever wondered who's behind all those "Your attention please, eating or drinking is not allowed..." announcements on the trains and stations? Here, take a peek.



Hell, I wonder if she even does those "beep beep beep" sounds too? In any case, the voice on trains has been changed to an unfriendly lady, without "thanks" and other niceties. Oh, the new voice delivers spam too. "Latest... tunnel tv..."

ICRW

In Soviet Ambassadors, you don't clean room, room clean you! But srisly, keep the room clean or Nini will kiss you.

Ambassadors' Recruitment drive is around mid-way now and I'd say it has been real hectic! 3 days signups and 3 days of games is really tiring and next week will be the 2nd round of interviews - the leaders' interviews. I can still remember my interview back then, it was... surreal to think back of it now.

Anyway, after recruitment drive, lots more events are coming up. Youth Leaders Academy, Training and Bonding Camp, NLB Read! Singapore 2008 - all within the span of 2 months or so. Not to mention the drudgery of schoolwork - though I have as much as I can tried to get it out of the way, some projects move slower than the others, so meh.


The WebD folio assignment has been long completed, but I still consider it to be a work-in-progress. I read somewhere that building a website is faster and easier, than the optimization and improvements that follow. I finished it some 2 weeks or so ago, and I've been tweaking and tweaking it since then. It's still crappy, so more improvements!

The thing with it is, I don't feel for the design anymore. Maybe because I've been looking at it for such a long time it just gets sick. I'm leaning towards leaner, cleaner solutions, but the thought of having to rebuild and reoptimize every single component just puts me off.

Schoolwork is still fine, because not everything's coming in yet, but the external commitments are just FAWAZAR. Oh and I just realised that I have not touched my camera for a darn long time. Almost a month now. Oh how nice it would be to go shooting.

Soon! After I'm done with the radio magazine I'm running free!