Dedication to Canvas (my coms group)

The last Communications entry for the blog YAY!!! Well just want to make the last entry one meaningful post for my communication group and how well they treated me :) even when our lessons clashes in odd days. Nevertheless, they still did not bear a grudge on me, I hope XD. We started off really shaky, cause not everyone in the group is a Singaporean. At the start it was really terrible, especially for me because of the negative perception of being the only guy in the group = slave (from pass experience). Everyone use to be so quiet not wanting to comment on each other’s idea cause of the fear of giving everyone a negative perception of being the devil, which might result in the lousy peer evaluation. But times have change as we spend more time together doing the project; we spend our time doing constructive work while having fun together, laughing, gossiping et cetra. Sometimes my group will speak in their own mother tongue (maybe it is easier to express their thought), but there is always someone who would kindly convert whatever is said into English for those who cannot understand and that includes me (so lucky right? J). One thing I like about my group is that there is really no prejudice on each other. Tolerance is at the max.

Well, I feel that the need to understand each other in a group is really important to doing well. Of course one should not take a stereotyping view of like he’s of another race, hence a loser. Personally, I got to know quite a lot of things from my group like a little of Malay and two lines of Japanese. The fighting scene made and directed by us. These are the little things that might just make one smile for the rest of the day.

On exclusionary language

I remembered once upon time during the days of adolescence where my peers and classmates sought for their identity and for the sense of belonging to a particular group. During those days were the times where everyone had to belong to a group in order to feel “accepted” or “recognised”.
As such, while different groups tried to differentiate themselves from the rest of the community, codes, hand shakes and sometimes to the extreme, even crests were born. In all desperate attempts to paradoxically “individualise” “groups”, the F language was born.
The F language, although ironically should only be understood by a certain group, presumably the group who first came up with it, begin to proliferate amongst the rest within the community for example, our school. Slowly, it began to even manifest itself amongst teenagers or people of my age and before anyone realises, almost everyone on the street who were of the same generation could speak the F language. An attempt to differentiate one’s group failed miserable as in-groups did not keep to their part of the bargain—to maintain the group’s “code” language.
What’s all the ranting about? I am not trying to forcefully share a part of my adolescence-hood with you good readers but rather, I am trying to raise a point that even though a group can make use of exclusionary language, the extent of “exclusionary” can only go as far as the tightness of the lips of in-groups. This whole argument about exclusionary language is only but a theory or a concept which is very flexible.
Exclusionary language, as its name suggests, refers to any forms of terminology or jargons which are supposedly shared and only understood by a certain group within its in-group members. The fact that the in-group members are the only ones who understand the language separates or excludes the rest from the former. However, how exclusive is this exclusionary language? Alas, but it can only be exclusive unless in-group members decides to be “nice” and educate friends and fellow peers who are technically considered out-group in an attempt to look “cool” or to boast about their group. This brings me back to my point that exclusionary language is a very flimsy, or rather, flexible concept although it does a good job defining terms and jargons which we may not understand, never mind that we may one day be so lucky as to be educated by one of them in-groups regarding these “foreign languages” or shall I say, “exclusionary language”?
Delving deeper into thoughts about exclusionary language, I have to further elaborate that sometimes, exclusionary language can include jargons or terms used by professionals. In these cases then, the “exclusion” that it has on people should be thought of as a subtle and unconscious form of exclusion. This would probably be easier understood in a story form. Imagine you are a doctor and you have spent more than six years studying terms which are far from lay man’s and it is all internalised within you thanks to the millions of tests you have gone through. One day while you were having coffee with your friend (who is anyone else but a doctor) when suddenly you have a headache at the back of your head. Instead of saying “oh no, I have a throbbing pain at the back of my head” you say, “oh no, I have a muscle tension stretching across my occipital lobe from the medulla.” How is your friend going to react to this? You did not use these jargons on purpose but because it was internalised within you, it came out automatically as compared to the previous example whereby groups come up with codes or languages specially to exclude people.
This concludes the point that exclusionary language can be both subtle and blatant as with the two scenarios I have described above.

SMOKE SMOKE SMOKERSSS

Non-verbal communication, something that did not strike me until recently(due to some special reasons) is much more effective than its verbal counterpart. As the old saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words.



The gruesome images are designed to disgust smokers, and try to use the shock factor to persuade smokers to quit. The effectiveness of this campaign can be seen especially on the teenagers. For instance, I have a female friend who was so disturbed by the images on the cigarette boxes, that she got one of those cigarette containers, just to put their cigarettes in.

In the past, words were used to inform the smokers on the danger and harm smoking can deal to one person, an advertisement of the quitting smoking can get you a near motor-bicycle, but that did not really stop the smokers from cutting down. Now the usage of these new unsettling images of cancerous growths and (more recently) deformed foetuses are far more effective in deterring smokers from lighting up their next cigarette. A television advertisement, featuring a woman with a sallow complexion and whose teeth had fallen out, was panned by the public for being too unsettling. At least now there are more people (especially the female smokers) aware of how smoking can destroy the image of being BEAUTIFUL.

Hence, the dilemma of how much of the shock factor to include in future anti-smoking campaigns. Too much, and the general population will complain of the overly repulsive images shown. Too little, and the intended effect will be completely lost on smokers once again.

In the mean time, we must keep in mind that the longer we take to decide just how unpleasant we want to make our health warnings, the more time the smokers have to get used, and eventually become immune, to yet another method of discouraging them from smoking.

The judgement mao ?

Recently, one of my close friends told me that I am a guy who is not flexible in getting to know friends. Unfortunately, that is quite true. (-_-“). Well, I do not know about how people make friends, but I do classify them under different class – class mates, school mates, friends, close friends. The people under the friends list usually are people whom I look and treat differently. Others might find this weird, but to me, juding someone by their attitudes usually can tell whether is this person classify under the friend list or “something-mate” list.
Judging people usually means to see or analyze if the people around us are trustworthy, honest, or even just behaving and saying something that is of contradictory to what they are thinking in reality.
There are non-verbal cues which will allow us to draw conclusions about a person whether he is being honest and there are physiological affects when one lies. This would include the heartbeat increasing, the uptight feeling or the energetic feeling as adrenalin kicks in in an attempt to come up with a plausible story. This may lead to perspiration or dilation of the pupils and darting eyes.
Body language, Oculesics and many others like adaptors can give someone away if they’re lying, but however, there are two sides to the coin. What we can use to point out a lie can also help liars to prevent the potential slip.
By observing one’s actions after you have intentionally assured him of your trust in him, liars will tend to look around as an attempt to try calming oneself down and also in an attempt to look like he/she is feeling miserable. Sometimes, in order to make the opposite person trust in him/her, he/she will stare the other person straight in the eye while telling a lie.
Body language can also give way a lie as when someone lies, they tend to fidget more in an attempt to adapt to the heightened bodily reaction to the lie so that they will feel more at ease with the lie. Sometimes they even make use of emotions to help add on to their lie. By displaying anger or sadness, it affects the other party who is listening and causes them to either empathize or feel intimidated into believing their “story”.

XiaoMing

Ok this is a little random but i got to post this post to say a big thank you to XiaoMing for his help on the creation of the blog comment post :):)

Is valentines day an important day for couples ?

There is always this thought inside me, wondering is valentines day really the day, which i(as a guy) should treat my girlfriend like a princess. Seeing many young couples in town holding flowers, soft toys, gifts, is really a sight that one can only see once a year.
To me, valentines day is a day for show only. people bringing out their girlfriend out in super flashy clothing. i mean what's the point, a girl should be treated nicely every other day

Valentine’s day, a day when all love birds celebrates their romantic relationship. One can see girls carrying soft toys, flowers, presents etc. that is also the day when boys “show off” their girlfriends to the rest (somewhat like a trophy). I didn’t take much effort into these tools of showing off because I believe one should love n treat a girl with respect not only on Valentine’s Day. What made me ponder on the “love” word was actually when I heard a retro song being played days after Valentine’s Day. The song is titled what is love by Haddaway, a song usually played in clubs during retro night (last time I heard it being played in a club was in sparks)

That’s when I thought about the Knapps model of relationship (mid terms on that topic)

10 stages of Knapps model of relationship

Initiating

Experimenting

Intensifying

Integrating

Bonding

Differentiating

Circumscribing

Stagnating

Avoiding

Termination

It’s it memorable to think about how we started off to get to know the girl, how we develop our relationship with the girl – going out for a date, movies, simple outings like shopping (typical excuse of “I need to buy a shoe” etc). For example, we can take about the intensifying process whereby the boy or girl adopts. One might start off shy just to get to chat with the “girl of his dreams” then steps taken to approach her. Starting off with a cautious and safe approach towards the girl, hoping for the girl feels comfortable with interacting with him. This will prevent the girl from having negative perception of the guy getting to have a hidden agenda instead of just making friends.

These can either make one smile or cry when they recall those wonderful, memorable incidents between the two.

Personally, I view love as something special that one must appreciate the other. I’m not talking about puppy love, playboy love blah blah blah. I talking about the love that will get one into a marriage. Both parties must really understand one another, knowing when to stop rubbing in when they suffer miscommunication. Not to bring up past issues, the boyfriends’ past or vice versa as these are the little things that might cause one to reach the limits (not everyone likes to be reminded of their past). One must trust in order for mutual understanding, for example, when you see your girlfriend going out with a RANDOM guy, first impression would be the “what is that person trying to do? Seduce my girlfriend?” these are the first thoughts that strike a person usually. One should clam himself down and think from the girlfriends’ perspective. Because there are incidents that the RANDOM guy might be his cousin, old schools mate? One can always talk about this incident when both are together, in a nice tone of course. To me, what is yours will remain yours what doesn’t will go one day, it’s just a matter of time. For all those injured lovebirds, you could try using my method of looking at love.

Oh here comes the latest episode of skip beat episode 17 that all skip beat fans have long waited for.
I decided to make this episode for post as there are so many things to talk about regarding how the video clip is portrayed to us as audience. As u can see in the picture, one can feel the aura of the scene without the artist translating it out in verbal form.
In the far back background (picture 1) there are flames scorching fiercely to emphasize the mood in that particular scene. It represents anger, hatred, fury etc. showing that Kyoko, the main character (the woman) is in a fits of bursting out in anger. Just in front of the background there’s a purplish and pink lining around the character, which is the aura of the character. The ominous color and the irregular shape of the aura show the killing/sinister/mysterious intention of Kyoko. However, the opposite is shown in the other background (picture 2). As it is sunny, it shows the sort of ambience of a sunshine girl (a girl who is forever happy with no worries or sadness). Hence concluding that have a different background can mean a different set of emotions of the anime character.
Next we focus move to the centre of the pictures, the posture. In picture 1, the posture of Kyoko shows that she is frustrated and do not want to be disturbed by anyone. With her left arm beside her body shows that she is trying her best to remain calm, however her right hand shows that the limit was up n was trying to elbow the devil away who was bugging her. In picture 2 shows the snapping of finger pose, showing carefree emotion, opposite from picture 1.
Moving along, a slight drift from the centre, we look at the calafares in the pictures, the devil and the flower. In picture 1, the devils represent sinister and evil thoughts and also part the color given to the devil contributed to the sinister feeling. In picture 2 however, shows a flower barb, shows a young innocent thought of Kyoko. The bright colors given to the flower further emphasize the innocence in Kyoko.

Lastly, we focus on the eyes. If you watch anime or have a background in art, one can tell from the drawing and shading of the eyes, the degree of the emotion the character portrays. In picture 1, the dark sharp patch for eyes resembles a black goggles as thought it was mean to cover up the eyes giving it sinister feeling. The shading at the side of the face shows darkness within filled with hatred and killing intentions. In picture 2 however, shows the kawaii type of eyes, the happy “n” shape eyes. Thus shading and shape of the eyes is the main give away on the feelings projected out from the characters especially characters in Japanese anime.

here is the link for skip beat episode 17 hope you guys enjoy it. :)http://animediatv.blogspot.com/2009/02/skip-beat-17-best-show-ever-shoutaroooo.html