Saturday, February 21, 2009

what is the right mindset?

what is the right mindset?

what are we trained for since young?
study hard, get into a good university and eventually get a good job?

have you heard your parents said:

"go to school and be an entrepreneur?"

sadly enough that is not what we have been trained for.Our society, namely Asians, have this mindset that life is just about studying, get into a good uni and get a good job, not forgetting also to get a good family.

this mindset is being passed on generations by generations from the last 20 decades or more, no one knows for sure. what are the implications from it? Well one thing for sure, a whole stereotype generations will be born and no one dares to takes risk to be an entreprenuer. Taking risks are considered as serious as taking drugs for some in our society. You could harm yourself by taking drugs(risks,in this context).

Our society have been brain-washed that to fail is the last thing you want to do in life. To fail means suicide. To fail means to degrade not only your name and family honour. But to fail will never means to learn from mistakes and be better.

Do you realize how often do you hear suicide cases in the news or in the newspaper?

“Most suicides in the world occur in Asia, which is estimated to account for up to 60% of all suicides. According to the World Health Organization, China, India and Japan may account for 40% of all world suicides. “ ..Wikipedia

Although the factors that contributes to suicide are many, but I’m sure that a bigger percentage of it is because of the “cannot fail” mentality. As I said before, we, Asians, are trained not to fail and to some extent, not to be a failure. Teenagers and adults both commit suicide regardless of race. Teenagers commit suicide because when their parents put high hopes on them and in the end they could not performed as expected, this forces them to take the easy path, away from agony and humiliation they might get. Adults, also face failure but not in their teens. Maybe they have not gone through failure before and believe me this is what makes suicides prevalent. Most adults that commit suicide are those who are unemployed or those who failed in their business. The fact that they have never failed before and when they actually did, it is unacceptable to them and hence the only way to avoid living around humiliation and disgrace is to move on to the other “world” where no one knows them.

What I’m trying to say is that our society need to change our way of thinking. We need to be given the freedom to do what we like and not just blindly do something that we feel obliged to. Sad to say, I’m one of the consequences from this mindset. My path was chosen and the road I’m on now will never diverged.( I love drawings and designs, and if given a chance whether to do architecture or design, I’ll choose design. But because the government only offer scholarships for critical profession, so I only can say “ come to me, Architecture rather than “ here I come, Architecture”. If you get what I mean.

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Anyway today I went to KLIA to send off seniors that fly to UNSW. KLIA is such a huge place. The feelings I felt were indescribable. Will I be able to be here, next year this time around? Or will I’ll be here stranded alone in an island watching the only ship sails away? I wonder……


the environment at the luggage counter

me and Germae

franky and a senior( i don't know her name )

the sign board

wah

departure list

sydney where they are going

when only i can go there?


before I leave, i took this where all the scholars gathers

goodbye!!!!


blog response on this post:

http://youngbanana.blogspot.com/2009/02/re-what-is-right-mindset.html

http://ryukid.blogspot.com/2009/02/re-what-is-right-mindset.html

and if there is anyone else doing a post on this please so let me know ya :)

Friday, February 13, 2009

out of breath!

Hi, sorry for not updating. But I shall now. Okay, first of all, I’ve changed group for the documentary thing. I’m in ah beng’s team now. We are going to discuss about premarital sex. i find it relaxing and joyful working together in this group because we have the same mindset and working along is not a problem. We came out with so much funny ideas and laughed all the way through the shooting session. Anyway I’m sure going to post the documentary up once we finished editing and honestly, the editing part is not as easy as you think. Now only I realized that editors for movies are going through a hard time editing, rooted in front of the screen trying their best to produce the best they can.

On last Thursday, OUR Club( which is the JPA sponsored scholars club) organized a Chinese new year party at the student houses. Although not everyone came but I did enjoy myself there, taking videos with my phone and interviewing people asking what is their wish for the year. And without a doubt, I got almost the same answer each time, “ I want o fly to Australia” or “ I want to fly to Germany”. However, there were a few that have a different wish on their mind. “ I want to get a husband”, “I want to marry before I fly” and ‘I want to be with someone”. Well, you guessed it, most of them who answered were girls. Hmm, I wonder are they really wishing to marry that soon? They were also some who ran away and avoided the camera as I was approaching them. It was funny. That particular moment I mean. Anyhow, despite the not enough drinks and curry puffs from IKEA( yes curry puffs), and also for the fact that I have lots of assignment queuing up on my desk, I certainly enjoyed my time hanging out with my friends.

There’s nothing much about college. Valentine’s day sales was okay. Prom ticket sales currently seem to be not doing that good. And each of the Student Council members needs to sell at least 5 more tickets, compulsory. Argh! But I shall try my best.

I’m not sure why but as time goes on, my efficiency level drops drastically. Every time during the first month of school or college, I’m able to be at par with all the subjects in terms of studying and revising but as I said for the subsequent months, my stamina will run low and I can’t catch up anymore. I was leaved behind and I’m running out of breath. Eventually, I will stop running. But now, I’m trying not to stop completely. Let’s just say I’m walking , then jog, and when I’m tired I walk again. The cycle then continues. But no more running. Maybe it is in me that I can’t run long distance. I never do.

Well I guess till here then.

Sunday, February 1, 2009

Happy Chinese New Year!

Finally, after a one week holiday because of Chinese Niu Year, oops sorry, it should be Chinese New Year, I’m back in my hostel rummaging through my bags and piles of books checking whether I’ve finished my homework or not. Holidays are never meant to be holidays without holiday homework, don’t you think so?

Anyway let me talk about my third week of college in January and my Chinese New Year break. First of all, during that third week, nothing much happened except for a role play we did in class based on the novel BOY by Roald Dahl. Everyone did a great feat at performing except me. I’m a bad actor seriously. I’m terribly sorry for being the factor that made the performance of my group (me, mud and fadli) worst than the rest. I envy those who were able to perform well and brilliantly. When I watched them performing I almost thought they were real actors ( those who do acting for a living) . They do have the potential I must say. I can’t act and I don’t know why. Maybe it’s not what I was born to do for. Who knows? Okay now let’s continue, there were two winners and they were given a packet of liquorice bootlaces. Liquorice bootlaces are some kind of sweet that were mentioned in the novel and it is long and plastic-like. It even tastes like plastic. And if you look at the pictures you might mistook them for red wires and not sweets. However, it was an opportunity to actually taste something that is new in my life and that was a great experience :)

Apart from that, the groups for documentary were already divided. I’m in the same group with mud, fadli, atiqah and also syireen. After a brief discussion in the library, we came out with an idea to document about performing arts. Well, I am not sure whether we will discuss about “the life of a performer” or “performing arts in general”. We will sit around together and discuss more in depth about this. Hopefully, we will be able to make an exciting documentary that will not bore anyone.

I went back Ipoh with Ming Chai on Friday, 23rd of January, by bus. We reached around 9 pm after a long three hours journey because of traffic jams in the highway. Everyone was rushing back for Chinese New Year. Lights from cars were illuminating the darkness of the highway and to me it was a beautiful sight. The highway looked livelier.

My family and i went to my grandmother house for reunion dinner. She is a great cook and the dishes she made were really scrumptious, instantly feeding the famished stomach of ours. My cousins were there too and we spent time talking and watching television till midnight before we went back home and call it a day.

The first day of Chinese New Year was dull. Woke up late and just lazed around at home. No going over to relatives or friends house. In fact no friends did invite me to their house for Chinese New Year. but I’m not going to tell you the boring part of my Chinese New Year, I’m going to reveal something more interesting.

During the first day of Chinese New year, my grandmother went and visits her friend somewhere in Tambun. The house was filled with people. She was inside talking with her friend when she noticed chaos outside the house, just by the gate .The people gathered were shouting and pointing at the sky. Curiously, she went out along with everyone in the house to see what was all the fuss about.

Now, as she reached outside, someone shouted “there’s a dragon! I saw a dragon!” Hence, my grandmother looked at the sky and with astonishment she saw a shiny red and green body like that of a snake. It was beautiful she said. However, when she got there, the dragon head went into the cloud already. Some said they saw the head earlier. Then sensing there was nothing more to see, she went back inside.

My brother and I listened to her story with amazement. It is true? We were curious ourselves, being great fans of mythical creatures, we questioned her many times about how does it looked like. She said what she saw was not a rainbow because the long shiny body was in a snake like shape. An S shape to be exact. Wow! I was certainly baffled. How lucky she was. If she did see the body of the dragon, then it means dragons do exist? Furthermore, this dragon appeared not on any other day but on the first day of Chinese New Year, isn’t that a coincidence?

Anyway I guess till here then. I hope I did made you wonder whether dragons really exist and if you found something or just anything related to this do inform me ya ;)