Tuesday, May 08, 2012
i've been watching a video of a fellow enfj talk. haha. it's quite enjoyable to listen to people talk about themselves (and out of counselling). i really quite enjoy it actually. it's like getting to know the person more :)
so anyway, the girl was raving over hunger games in one of her videos, and she took 9 hrs to finish the first book.
and my first thought was like "isn't 9 hrs a little long? i took 3 and a half o_o is that a positive trait of ppl with ADD?' hahaa. ah well.
anyway, the point is, i really quite enjoy listening to people talk.
i just realized that my facebook posts are quite different from my blog posts.
hahaha.
i think my facebook posts comes out more from my sang. my blog posts mainly from my mel.
or maybe cos blog posts tend to be the result of the overflow of my bubbling thoughts. my thoughts bubble everyday, so they overflow almost daily. hahaa.
i had quite a bit of time today to be by myself :D to plan for the week, to journal down my thoughts and learnings in the past week, to reflect through things with God. to take the single rider's queue for transformers, to become lightheaded after the cyclone ride, and hurrying over to the human one. to catch the last session of shrek's adventure. to take 4 rides in 1 and a half hrs :o
i think i shall add on a theme park to my house in heaven. if possible.
"you broke my heart, cos i couldn't dance, you didn't even want me around
and now i'm back to let you know i can really shake them down"
Monday, May 07, 2012
06 Fate/Stay Night OST ~ Kodoku na Junrei
songs like this makes me wanna learn piano :) haha. found this in my songlist.
when I was 16, my friend asked me this:
"something about responsibility. do you think it is a person's responsibility to 'contact everybody to reduce this missing of theirs'? or, in general, do you think it is a person's responsibility to placate everyone who loves you and might get jealous/feel neglected/hurt when you don't happen to spend time enough with them according to that other person(s)?
and how much is it your responsibility?
it wld be easy to say it's all her responsibility of course. but let's say she doesn't even want to talk to me. would it be her responsibility just because i want her to?
but what if you have, say a married couple. and the wife is very open and friendly or something, and inadvertantly hurts her husband. is it her responsibility then to do something about it so that he doesn't feel hurt? or shld he just 'not be so conservative'?
what do you think?"
i remember knowing that she was referring to the girl she liked.
at 16, i was thinking about what it means to live, about people who’re committing suicide, about sexuality, about friendships, about what it means to love people, about the place of touch in people’s lives, about what courses I would take when I get into psychology in uni.
at 26, i'm still thinking about these things, with the exception of the courses to take, and adding a few other things. except that now i think of these things in the context of who God is in my life, what i know, and how these things make sense in the light of who i believe in.
recently a lot of references to my secondary school has been coming up. am making sense of my history, and how it's shaped me as who i am now.
Sunday, May 06, 2012
Friday, May 04, 2012
I've been doing a lot more research on adult ADD these days. I learned some new things. hahaa. Like for eg, the diagnostic criteria, as well as how diagnosis is done. I've been wondering why Dr Lee never gave me diagnostic tests to do.. found this on the add resource website:
That is, a back-and-forth conversation with a live specialist allows for further clarification and exploration which are processes that are extremely important to making a correct diagnosis.
--> which is exactly what he did with me. haha. he also correctly pointed out certain scenarios which I faced.
So basically, a shortage of Norepinephrine and Dopamine causes ADD. haha. See this:
"behaviorally, you can raise dopamine and norepinephrine levels by participating in risky behavior or constant high stress situations (video games, extreme sports, risky driving, criminal activities, police, fire, security, war, emergency services, etc.), but the side effects of such behaviors is generally burn-out, injuries or legal problems."
--> i'm not actually sure if this is a bad thing? cos it does allow me to take risks more easily. i guess it's bad when i used to play games for hours and hours at end in secondary school without doing my homework cos homework was boring and not particularly enticing. learning was pretty interesting though :D i guess that also explains for why interesting things will definitely captivate me, and why i struggle so badly with boring paperwork and why listening to SNSD helps me to concentrate (like now). it's like there must be enough interesting stimulus for the brain to work properly. other conditions include an aircon environment and bright lights. or the night and bright lights. i'm not apologetic about loving exciting theme park rides though. hoho.
The following section is with regards to sleep and people with ADHD/ADD:
Adults with ADHD went to bed later than control subjects and had a wider range of bedtimes (mean +/- SD = 18 +/- 92 min vs 54 +/- 69 min before midnight; P < .001), were more likely to take over an hour to fall asleep (OR = 5.22, P = .001), and were more likely (P < .003) to experience difficulty going to bed, going to sleep, sleeping restfully, or waking in the morning. Adults with ADHD experienced daytime sleepiness more often (OR = 2.23, P = .003) and reported more sleep problems (mean +/- SD = 6.7 +/- 2.5 vs 4.3 +/- 2.2; P < .001) than controls. All sleep impairments were significantly associated with ADHD independent of contributions to sleep disruption from ADHD pharmacotherapy, comorbidities likely to contribute to sleep disturbance, and age at ADHD onset.
from another site: Somewhere in the vicinity of 80% of adults with ADD have sleep onset insomnia -- difficulty getting to sleep -- often at both bedtime and later in the night when they wake up.
A large number of people with untreated ADD develop certain "sleep habits." They may use a strategy of going to bed really late when they are clearly tired because they know that they have difficulty getting to sleep if they lay down earlier. Or, they may use "white noise" (television or music on in background) to distract them from thinking and to create "boredom" and sleep.
--> Basically, it just means that people with ADHD have poorer sleep quality. again, it doesn't really bother me since I ensure I'm really tired before going to sleep , and because of my nice work place, I have a staff lounge which I can rest in. and i take lots of short naps whenever i'm on the bus/mrt... i guess the flexibility at my work place helps me in managing this. though the sleep issues affect my punctuality :P
The site also addresses the myth that ADD is a myth diagnosis. I don't know how to explain how frustrating it was to try to explain to people that you may have ADD and have your own friends (well meaning nevertheless, but frustrating all the same) tell you the following:
1) ohhh. extroverts are like that, they usually flit from one thing to another
2) are you sure? maybe you're just hyper
3) i think you were just lazy...
so i really appreciated the other few who : a) accepted that i may have it, but loved me anyway; b) just acknowledged without making comments
"Often, people who fit the criteria for the ADD diagnosis who have higher IQs can find work-arounds for processing information faster, but compared to someone else with the same IQ, the ADD brain cannot outperform the non-ADD brain."
--> i generally don't like to touch on the topic of intelligence, because truth be told, other than the fact that i scored top in class for 5 years in primary school, and that i was placed in the gifted education programme in secondary school, i didn't feel very smart, especially in secondary school when i started failing subjects in Sec 1. It's always a mis-match between what I know I know, and what my results will tell me. For example, I will understand all concepts perfectly well, I memorize things well (and I can still remember lots of details from what I've learned , especially in biology, till now). I think I'm very blessed. In that,I have a good memory from young, and I do believe that my intelligence is above average (note that I'm not boasting here. It's just that I am thankful for how my IQ may have buffered a lot of the disadvantages that my lack of attention has caused.) I remember that the interviewers at SMU asked me before as to why there's such a discrepancy between my SAT score (i've only done my SAT once) and my A level results.
"The fact is kids and adults with ADHD learn better while "fidgeting." Fidgeting is not perfect, but it does have arousal and priming effects on neural transmission in the prefrontal cortex, probably by increasing available dopamine and norepineprhine."
[sleepy. i'm getting bored. lol. how i tackle this at work is that i'd tackle a novel task whenever i start to lose focus.. which is around every 15 mins. in counselling sessions, it's different cos it's interesting, and i do LOTS of things to help myself concentrate ^^ generally, my love for people helps me to concentrate better.]
"Easy distractibility" manifests itself in several different behavioral and information processing ways. The signs that such easy ADD distractibility produce include (1) difficulty staying on task, (2) hypersensitivity to sound and touch, (3) difficulty reading, with a typical ADD scenario of read a couple of paragraphs, get distracted by some other thought (or noise), forget what was read, have to re-read a lot; (4) forgetfulness, poor follow-through, disorganization, (5) indecision, procrastination, (6) sleep-onset insomnia and difficulty returning to sleep when awakened, and (7) social "phobia" or anxiety, among other things.
--> i experience (1) and (2) vividly. i'm not so bothered by (3) because usually i'm reading things which are interesting to me. i actually can hyperfocus when i'm reading and spend hours just to finish the book (E.g. 3 hrs to finish Hunger Games, 13 hrs straight to finish each of Harry Potter's books...). something like that.
"ADDers will often interrupt others in conversations because they are not in control of their thoughts and images, and "can't put them on hold." If they attempt to put them on hold, they may lose the thought or image completely."
--> but no one understands. lol. one of the areas i was always getting scolded for. i'm able to control this much better now, cos my first shepherd, Jun Ting, taught me to just write down whateve it is I wanted to say (so that i won't forget it, and still hold on to it.). i can't explain how much pain it's caused me in the past. it came to a point that i started to doubt myself, and just refused to share anything.
the following is a section i really like, since it gives me a slight advantage over other people in certain things:
"To many people, "hyperfocus" is a very puzzling aspect of the behavior of the ADDer. How can it be that a supremely distractible person can all of a sudden be so focused on one thing that you can't get them to stop, slow-down, think of others, think of consequences, or change focus. Why do they make such good video game players who can sit and compete for hours at a time? The answer is in the serial single-tasking that takes place in the ADD brain.
If a thought or a pursuit shows up in the ADD brain that particularly captures its attention, it can become "locked on," not unlike a resource-demanding software program that eats up all the available RAM and makes it impossible to open up any other program at all. This is the most significant variable in creating the hyperfocus of the ADD brain -- the single-tasking locked on focus that allows almost nothing else to be noticed.
The other significant variable that leads to "hyperfocus" behavior is the need for structure and stability. So-called "simpler tasks" that may be more activity-oriented than a challenge to working memory may become a comfort zone of activity and a preferred activity due to our human need for less chaos (less distraction). In other words, it is a method of "zoning out." For the person who is being relatively "tortured" by streaming thoughts and images and those feelings of relative chaos and disorganization, an entertaining and engaging activity that helps screen out all that other stuff is a welcome relief. "
[i was just saying that i dont get distracted when reading, when i realized i couldn't read more than a few lines of the article cos i'm no longer absorbing]
[okay i'm back from doing other things]
"Getting the correct diagnosis can be a shock and can lead to a period of considerable bereavement. Such newly-diagnosed and properly treated adult ADDers often go through a mourning process related to past educational and training struggles, lost opportunities and relationships, substance abuse, financial troubles and criminality, and other significant troubles that took place while they were undiagnosed or misdiagnosed and not properly treated."
--> i'm okay. i guess it's cos i've long suspected it. but there's a lot of relief. and now it's not waffy, like i can finally go abt tackling it.
I wrote this 'article', as well as am openly sharing this information because, like all other things, i believe that it's important to educate and empower people. i don't believe in keeping what I know to myself, and there's no benefit in doing so anyway. so it's better to share the knowledge, and if you find yourself facing some of the same issues that I face, or know someone who does, feel free to talk to me about it :)
That is, a back-and-forth conversation with a live specialist allows for further clarification and exploration which are processes that are extremely important to making a correct diagnosis.
--> which is exactly what he did with me. haha. he also correctly pointed out certain scenarios which I faced.
So basically, a shortage of Norepinephrine and Dopamine causes ADD. haha. See this:
"behaviorally, you can raise dopamine and norepinephrine levels by participating in risky behavior or constant high stress situations (video games, extreme sports, risky driving, criminal activities, police, fire, security, war, emergency services, etc.), but the side effects of such behaviors is generally burn-out, injuries or legal problems."
--> i'm not actually sure if this is a bad thing? cos it does allow me to take risks more easily. i guess it's bad when i used to play games for hours and hours at end in secondary school without doing my homework cos homework was boring and not particularly enticing. learning was pretty interesting though :D i guess that also explains for why interesting things will definitely captivate me, and why i struggle so badly with boring paperwork and why listening to SNSD helps me to concentrate (like now). it's like there must be enough interesting stimulus for the brain to work properly. other conditions include an aircon environment and bright lights. or the night and bright lights. i'm not apologetic about loving exciting theme park rides though. hoho.
The following section is with regards to sleep and people with ADHD/ADD:
Adults with ADHD went to bed later than control subjects and had a wider range of bedtimes (mean +/- SD = 18 +/- 92 min vs 54 +/- 69 min before midnight; P < .001), were more likely to take over an hour to fall asleep (OR = 5.22, P = .001), and were more likely (P < .003) to experience difficulty going to bed, going to sleep, sleeping restfully, or waking in the morning. Adults with ADHD experienced daytime sleepiness more often (OR = 2.23, P = .003) and reported more sleep problems (mean +/- SD = 6.7 +/- 2.5 vs 4.3 +/- 2.2; P < .001) than controls. All sleep impairments were significantly associated with ADHD independent of contributions to sleep disruption from ADHD pharmacotherapy, comorbidities likely to contribute to sleep disturbance, and age at ADHD onset.
from another site: Somewhere in the vicinity of 80% of adults with ADD have sleep onset insomnia -- difficulty getting to sleep -- often at both bedtime and later in the night when they wake up.
A large number of people with untreated ADD develop certain "sleep habits." They may use a strategy of going to bed really late when they are clearly tired because they know that they have difficulty getting to sleep if they lay down earlier. Or, they may use "white noise" (television or music on in background) to distract them from thinking and to create "boredom" and sleep.
--> Basically, it just means that people with ADHD have poorer sleep quality. again, it doesn't really bother me since I ensure I'm really tired before going to sleep , and because of my nice work place, I have a staff lounge which I can rest in. and i take lots of short naps whenever i'm on the bus/mrt... i guess the flexibility at my work place helps me in managing this. though the sleep issues affect my punctuality :P
The site also addresses the myth that ADD is a myth diagnosis. I don't know how to explain how frustrating it was to try to explain to people that you may have ADD and have your own friends (well meaning nevertheless, but frustrating all the same) tell you the following:
1) ohhh. extroverts are like that, they usually flit from one thing to another
2) are you sure? maybe you're just hyper
3) i think you were just lazy...
so i really appreciated the other few who : a) accepted that i may have it, but loved me anyway; b) just acknowledged without making comments
"Often, people who fit the criteria for the ADD diagnosis who have higher IQs can find work-arounds for processing information faster, but compared to someone else with the same IQ, the ADD brain cannot outperform the non-ADD brain."
--> i generally don't like to touch on the topic of intelligence, because truth be told, other than the fact that i scored top in class for 5 years in primary school, and that i was placed in the gifted education programme in secondary school, i didn't feel very smart, especially in secondary school when i started failing subjects in Sec 1. It's always a mis-match between what I know I know, and what my results will tell me. For example, I will understand all concepts perfectly well, I memorize things well (and I can still remember lots of details from what I've learned , especially in biology, till now). I think I'm very blessed. In that,I have a good memory from young, and I do believe that my intelligence is above average (note that I'm not boasting here. It's just that I am thankful for how my IQ may have buffered a lot of the disadvantages that my lack of attention has caused.) I remember that the interviewers at SMU asked me before as to why there's such a discrepancy between my SAT score (i've only done my SAT once) and my A level results.
"The fact is kids and adults with ADHD learn better while "fidgeting." Fidgeting is not perfect, but it does have arousal and priming effects on neural transmission in the prefrontal cortex, probably by increasing available dopamine and norepineprhine."
[sleepy. i'm getting bored. lol. how i tackle this at work is that i'd tackle a novel task whenever i start to lose focus.. which is around every 15 mins. in counselling sessions, it's different cos it's interesting, and i do LOTS of things to help myself concentrate ^^ generally, my love for people helps me to concentrate better.]
"Easy distractibility" manifests itself in several different behavioral and information processing ways. The signs that such easy ADD distractibility produce include (1) difficulty staying on task, (2) hypersensitivity to sound and touch, (3) difficulty reading, with a typical ADD scenario of read a couple of paragraphs, get distracted by some other thought (or noise), forget what was read, have to re-read a lot; (4) forgetfulness, poor follow-through, disorganization, (5) indecision, procrastination, (6) sleep-onset insomnia and difficulty returning to sleep when awakened, and (7) social "phobia" or anxiety, among other things.
--> i experience (1) and (2) vividly. i'm not so bothered by (3) because usually i'm reading things which are interesting to me. i actually can hyperfocus when i'm reading and spend hours just to finish the book (E.g. 3 hrs to finish Hunger Games, 13 hrs straight to finish each of Harry Potter's books...). something like that.
"ADDers will often interrupt others in conversations because they are not in control of their thoughts and images, and "can't put them on hold." If they attempt to put them on hold, they may lose the thought or image completely."
--> but no one understands. lol. one of the areas i was always getting scolded for. i'm able to control this much better now, cos my first shepherd, Jun Ting, taught me to just write down whateve it is I wanted to say (so that i won't forget it, and still hold on to it.). i can't explain how much pain it's caused me in the past. it came to a point that i started to doubt myself, and just refused to share anything.
the following is a section i really like, since it gives me a slight advantage over other people in certain things:
"To many people, "hyperfocus" is a very puzzling aspect of the behavior of the ADDer. How can it be that a supremely distractible person can all of a sudden be so focused on one thing that you can't get them to stop, slow-down, think of others, think of consequences, or change focus. Why do they make such good video game players who can sit and compete for hours at a time? The answer is in the serial single-tasking that takes place in the ADD brain.
If a thought or a pursuit shows up in the ADD brain that particularly captures its attention, it can become "locked on," not unlike a resource-demanding software program that eats up all the available RAM and makes it impossible to open up any other program at all. This is the most significant variable in creating the hyperfocus of the ADD brain -- the single-tasking locked on focus that allows almost nothing else to be noticed.
The other significant variable that leads to "hyperfocus" behavior is the need for structure and stability. So-called "simpler tasks" that may be more activity-oriented than a challenge to working memory may become a comfort zone of activity and a preferred activity due to our human need for less chaos (less distraction). In other words, it is a method of "zoning out." For the person who is being relatively "tortured" by streaming thoughts and images and those feelings of relative chaos and disorganization, an entertaining and engaging activity that helps screen out all that other stuff is a welcome relief. "
[i was just saying that i dont get distracted when reading, when i realized i couldn't read more than a few lines of the article cos i'm no longer absorbing]
[okay i'm back from doing other things]
"Getting the correct diagnosis can be a shock and can lead to a period of considerable bereavement. Such newly-diagnosed and properly treated adult ADDers often go through a mourning process related to past educational and training struggles, lost opportunities and relationships, substance abuse, financial troubles and criminality, and other significant troubles that took place while they were undiagnosed or misdiagnosed and not properly treated."
--> i'm okay. i guess it's cos i've long suspected it. but there's a lot of relief. and now it's not waffy, like i can finally go abt tackling it.
I wrote this 'article', as well as am openly sharing this information because, like all other things, i believe that it's important to educate and empower people. i don't believe in keeping what I know to myself, and there's no benefit in doing so anyway. so it's better to share the knowledge, and if you find yourself facing some of the same issues that I face, or know someone who does, feel free to talk to me about it :)
Wednesday, May 02, 2012
Tuesday, May 01, 2012
GIRLS' GENERATION-TTS_TWINKLE_Music Video
Taetiseo's first MV! it's amazing to see Seohyun's transformation from the maknae to someone more elegant and mature in the video, and great to see Taeyeon's old hairstyles coming back! :D love the white piano scene :D
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Friday, April 27, 2012
i think i don't recover well from disappointments.
i guess i usually see the good in people (even when there may not be much), and thus if i'm disappointed in a person, i just wash my hands off and the disappointment is deeply etched, and the scar framed. and forever i can only see the person through the scar. oh dear.
Monday, April 23, 2012
saw this from an enfj forum:
a reply to comments on how enfjs can cut off their relationships (in general) fast and not look back:
"i have noticed that I hold onto relationships until they are so dead that when it finally breaks for good, it's not really shocking and i'm surprised at how i tend to not feel as much pain as i anticipated--but that is because i felt so much pain when the relationship started dying...(i guess identical to how one grieves a death resulting from a long-term disease as compared to how one grieves an unexpected death...)"
--> i can understand. i think the anticipation's worse than the actual thing. and since the anticipation's so painful, the actual thing was not actually as bad as the actual thing. a morbid way of putting it would be that with each new friendship i have, i already start to anticipate the end, how it'd end, what it'd mean when the friendship drift apart, what i'd miss. things like that T_T
on how enfjs tend to have many friends, and how the friends whom enfjs treasure deeply may think:
"but she saw me open up to a lot of people--so why would she think I thought any more highly of her than all my other friends? It was so odd because she was so clearly special to me... It was hard to understand how she evaluated my sincerity levels based on how many other people I talked to. I didnt understand why she did NOT want to talk to a lot of people all the time too-- then it would be so easy for her to tell that even if you have a lot of acquaintenances or friends, that doesnt subtract from your really good friendships..."
--> there are friends, good friends, and there are those who will always be more closely placed in our hearts than others. the ones we won't hesitate to sacrifice or die for.
Friday, April 20, 2012
on a side note, i really feel blessed to have my cluster supervisor. i guess it's quite enjoyable to be able to discuss something you're passionate about (e.g. plays and movies) with someone who actually enjoys them and deliberately talks to u abt it. hahaa. it could be her way of connecting, but i think it makes a big difference in my life. and she wants to give me the pin she got from Freud's last session cos she knows i couldn't catch it. and she knew abt the extra shows too. intriguing!
haha. my batch's counsellor friends say i've grown serious. i thought i've always been serious. haha. it's interesting to hear people's comments of you i guess. i think i've grown bolder in voicing out my thoughts and feelings, and in speaking up though. and in pushing forward for some things.
i felt i've always been a person who's never been really interested in promotion and all that, and to be honest, my main motivation would be that i feel fulfilled in what i'm doing and that life is interesting. after today's GB connect, i somehow have the feeling that perhaps i should be more deliberate with the promotional aspect of my job. cos i guess i want to be able to influence to a greater extent, not just the students, but even the aspect of how school counselling can be.
Monday, April 16, 2012
Friday, April 13, 2012
okay. updating my list of completed Agatha Christie books :D
Death in the clouds, death on the nile (this was pretty interesting), destination unknown, dumb witness, elephants can remember :) reading endless night now! lol. and concurrently in the midst of four other books >_< (hidden smile of God, Drifting life by Yorishiro Tatsumi, Murakami's "The elephant Vanishes", and 日本人知らない日本語一。
and there're two other books waiting for me.
i think i shall. finish them soon! time to devour books. yumyum
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
i hate it whenever people voice out how the gep is elitist, and yada and yada.
i mean, seriously, is being mainstream necessarily bad? is being in gep necessarily good?
i did enjoy the yrs i was in gep, but that's not cos we were especially trained to be leaders or whatsoever, it's more of missing the times we did crazy things in the class, or out of class, or the things we learned which were enjoyable (to me anyway). or having the chance to do independent research projects in topics that we enjoyed.
at the end of the day, does it really matter who's from gep and who's not? ain't we all human beings living life, breathing the same kind of air, bleeding when we're cut, hurting when people leave us. we have our vast areas of interests, we might not all end up in the government sector or in leadership positions, or even covet these positions.
one doesn't bash the music elective programme, or art elective, or the athletic advantage of some others.. so why do people keep bashing the ge programme? o_o it makes no sense.
Saturday, April 07, 2012
slightly disturbed after watching A Dangerous Method. lol.
disturbed cos my brain kept screaming out countertransference!!! through the movie. and i guess it's an occupational hazard, but i kept analyzing the details of what they were conversing about, and linking them to what i remember out of what i learned in psych and counselling previously.
how can a therapist get into a relationship with his client?
that's just ETHICALLY and MORALLY (he's married!) wrong!
and not to say it certainly DOESN'T HELP the client AT ALL.
disturbed cos my brain kept screaming out countertransference!!! through the movie. and i guess it's an occupational hazard, but i kept analyzing the details of what they were conversing about, and linking them to what i remember out of what i learned in psych and counselling previously.
how can a therapist get into a relationship with his client?
that's just ETHICALLY and MORALLY (he's married!) wrong!
and not to say it certainly DOESN'T HELP the client AT ALL.
Thursday, April 05, 2012
starting new project (again). haha.
would you share a part of your life story with me? :)
something which you've perhaps wanted to share, but have not had the chance to?
You'd be guaranteed:
1) confidentiality (cos no one's gonna read it but me.)
2) a reply if you decide that you want one :)
i do not provide:
1) reciprocal sharing. treat it as a timecapsule of sorts :)
Wednesday, April 04, 2012
Found this comment on one of the comment on one of the websites:
As an adult living with ADHD, I find this site somewhat depressing for me. First of all, I did struggle though college, but I made it though(Oh, and I was diagnosed when I was 5 years old too). It first occured to me that maybe I should get help with my disorder when I was a senior in college. I was the student who the A students came to when they had a question about something. However, I was the one who made B's and C's, yet I studied and understood the core concepts just as much as an A student did. My problem got alot worse when I hit the real world, and it almost got fired from my first real job that I had. I was eventually forced to get help, and I decided to take medication. My life is now 100 times better than it was before. I take meds, and I recieve counseling. While medication isnt a cure all nor an end all, it certainly helps. Also, many people believe that medication turns an ADHD person into a normal person, and that the fun side of them goes away too. It did no such thing to me, and people have told me that I am a funner person to be around. What makes this site depressing to me is the fact that so many spouses just seem to vent about their ADHD husband. If I would have read this site before I got help and meds, It would have sent me into an even deeper depression than the rut I was already in. Nevertheless I am beyond that, and I am a much stronger person. But I have to advocate for the ADHD single man or woman, or the ADHD man or woman in a relationship. When they or their spouse come across this website looking for relationship help, what are they going to think/expect? ADHD is NO EXCUSE for violent behavior or criminal behavior. But from what many have written on here, it seems like the word ADHD is synonomous for the words violent and criminal. I even saw one post that basically was telling any non-ADDer in a relationship just to cut and run. Domestic violence is a problem that affects ADD and non ADD people, and people of all walks of life, income, and race. I think its dumb to judge a whole group of people with a condition based on what you experianced with one person. And I also have to question how much of that was caused by ADHD, and how much was caused by the things that cause domestic violence in non-ADHD people. If ADHD has done one thing for me that I like, it has given me an excuse to allways try to find room for improvement in life. Also, be sure and read the positive aspects of this disorder.
Tuesday, April 03, 2012
Thursday, March 29, 2012
CNBLUE 3rd Mini Album [EAR FUN] Title song Hey You M/V Full Ver
lol. between SHINee (my students asked me to go listen to them) and CNBlue, I still prefer CNBlue. haha.
ENFJs find more satisfying where we have these parameters included in our job.
- Work and interact regularly with other people where regular encouragement is shared.
- Be qualified and competent to do the job well.
- A succession of projects to facilitate and complete in your own uniquely creative way.
- Be challenged with new possibilities and problems to solve improve life for others.
- Clear guidelines and latitude to add your creative input.
- You have a voice and say in decisions on goals and how they are accomplished.
- Many interesting projects for you to organize, control and be responsible for with some mechanism or assistance to keep in mind important facts and details.
- Work and interact regularly with other people where regular encouragement is shared.
- Be qualified and competent to do the job well.
- A succession of projects to facilitate and complete in your own uniquely creative way.
- Be challenged with new possibilities and problems to solve improve life for others.
- Clear guidelines and latitude to add your creative input.
- You have a voice and say in decisions on goals and how they are accomplished.
- Many interesting projects for you to organize, control and be responsible for with some mechanism or assistance to keep in mind important facts and details.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
It's quite enjoyable to know that your cluster supervisor enjoys plays and movies too. hahaa. i'm not sure if it's her way of connecting herself with us, but it's certainly nice when she asked again as to whether i've watched any plays recently. i mentioned about Freud's last session and how i couldn't get tickets to it and she says she's going for it!
hahaa
she's lending me a book which is about Freud and Lewis as well too :) so i'm looking forward to that too!
supervision's my most enjoyed time of the month. lol. ironically i feel safer at supervision than in school. and it pushes me to like counselling more in these times =)
or maybe cos i really enjoy the process of how there's someone who very apparently enjoys the same things that i do, and in the discussion of cases, look out for similar things that i'd look out for as well. and someone whom i can clearly learn from as well.
similar theoretical orientation i guess. that's pretty enjoyable. it's like something within u is satisfied.
hahaa
she's lending me a book which is about Freud and Lewis as well too :) so i'm looking forward to that too!
supervision's my most enjoyed time of the month. lol. ironically i feel safer at supervision than in school. and it pushes me to like counselling more in these times =)
or maybe cos i really enjoy the process of how there's someone who very apparently enjoys the same things that i do, and in the discussion of cases, look out for similar things that i'd look out for as well. and someone whom i can clearly learn from as well.
similar theoretical orientation i guess. that's pretty enjoyable. it's like something within u is satisfied.
i can't stand injustice. it boils me inside and makes me want to wreck havoc.
and i know i can, but i won't.
i won't because it is not up to me to mete justice. God is my Judge and my appeal. and it is up to Him what He wants to do with the situation.
He reminded me to pray for my enemy (it will heap coals on their heads).
He reminded me to love my enemy (that at the end of the day He will be glorified).
He reminded me that He fights for me (and in that i remember the strength of His hand and His authority).
i'm not fully satisfied. but i can sense that i'm more assured. and more clear headed.
prayed for protection too.
and i know i can, but i won't.
i won't because it is not up to me to mete justice. God is my Judge and my appeal. and it is up to Him what He wants to do with the situation.
He reminded me to pray for my enemy (it will heap coals on their heads).
He reminded me to love my enemy (that at the end of the day He will be glorified).
He reminded me that He fights for me (and in that i remember the strength of His hand and His authority).
i'm not fully satisfied. but i can sense that i'm more assured. and more clear headed.
prayed for protection too.
Monday, March 26, 2012
Stronger Acoustic - Hillsong with lyrics
sober mind. clean heart. humble spirit
there is truth that sets me free
Jesus Christ who lives in me
You are stronger
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Monday, March 19, 2012
Thinking about Masters, and where to take it, and when to take it, and how much to pay for it.
Seems like most of the Masters are full time, and it'd take 2 yrs to finish the courses.
looking at accreditation courses now too. more specifically art therapy and narrative therapy (since i can't seem to find the accreditation courses for psychodynamic). certification as a narrative therapist would be interesting. haha
possibilities are more exciting than everyday work!
Seems like most of the Masters are full time, and it'd take 2 yrs to finish the courses.
looking at accreditation courses now too. more specifically art therapy and narrative therapy (since i can't seem to find the accreditation courses for psychodynamic). certification as a narrative therapist would be interesting. haha
possibilities are more exciting than everyday work!
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
i'm not sure if it's cos it's late, or if it's cos of lack of contact, but i realized that i totally forgot and cannot for the world of me recall something i should know at the back of my hand.
it's interesting how fast a human being can forget, adapt, move on and accept the new reality as it is. haha.
そのままはいいんですよ。笑。
遅いから、いま寝なければならないとおもう。
今週はたくさん日本語を勉強しようとおもっているが、実話いろいろ人にあったり、本をよんだら、日本語の歌や映画をみた。時間がなくなる。大変だとおもう。
えと、どうして今日本語でかくの？復習したいかもしれない。たくさん復習をすれば、上手になる。上手になりたい！
シンイーン、がんばりなさい！
it's interesting how fast a human being can forget, adapt, move on and accept the new reality as it is. haha.
そのままはいいんですよ。笑。
遅いから、いま寝なければならないとおもう。
今週はたくさん日本語を勉強しようとおもっているが、実話いろいろ人にあったり、本をよんだら、日本語の歌や映画をみた。時間がなくなる。大変だとおもう。
えと、どうして今日本語でかくの？復習したいかもしれない。たくさん復習をすれば、上手になる。上手になりたい！
シンイーン、がんばりなさい！
Going for DDAT training. recently has been using a lot more of ways other than talking with my students (especially for the ones dealing with strong emotions at that current moment). and i do see the limit in talking as well, since my students are not the kind who think a lot, or express themselves well..
am still wondering abt the credibility of this therapy style though. wondering if i should continue to venture more into this, or if i should get training in other therapies. have also been using a lot more of narrative therapy recently.
the other one that i'm considering is to get further training in psychodynamic psychotherapy (mouthful there), since it's my default and most preferred way of therapy (lol. was evaluating a case with my cluster mates, and my own natural thought patterns felt neatly into the psychodynamic way of looking at cases,such that the qns i bring across quite different from some of the people, since most of their primary approach would be systemic.) i really think it's 'cos of the psychology background that i have. hoho.
thoughts...
am still wondering abt the credibility of this therapy style though. wondering if i should continue to venture more into this, or if i should get training in other therapies. have also been using a lot more of narrative therapy recently.
the other one that i'm considering is to get further training in psychodynamic psychotherapy (mouthful there), since it's my default and most preferred way of therapy (lol. was evaluating a case with my cluster mates, and my own natural thought patterns felt neatly into the psychodynamic way of looking at cases,such that the qns i bring across quite different from some of the people, since most of their primary approach would be systemic.) i really think it's 'cos of the psychology background that i have. hoho.
thoughts...
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
there're times i wonder if it's good to be desensitized to things. or whether it's better to remain sensitive.
like for e.g. seeing people's cut wrists.
i mean, to me, when i see students' cut wrists and fresh wounds, i don't react, but rather go straight into half nurse/half counsellor mode. but when you see pictures posted online from people you know.. u start to wonder if u should have more of a reaction towards it.
rather than treating it as a matter of fact kind of issue. lol. thoughts like 'oh. cuts again. hmm. near wrist, lots of blood, but doesn't look deep. horizontal wounds. new ones, without any scars seen. first time cutting' comes to my mind :\ evaluative thoughts, rather than caring ones.
and yet, when i wanna switch to my caring mode, i find that i may not be the best person to talk to that person, or i know that it'd adversely affect me.
so perhaps, to protect myself, it may sometimes be better to be slightly more desensitized to things? lol
like for e.g. seeing people's cut wrists.
i mean, to me, when i see students' cut wrists and fresh wounds, i don't react, but rather go straight into half nurse/half counsellor mode. but when you see pictures posted online from people you know.. u start to wonder if u should have more of a reaction towards it.
rather than treating it as a matter of fact kind of issue. lol. thoughts like 'oh. cuts again. hmm. near wrist, lots of blood, but doesn't look deep. horizontal wounds. new ones, without any scars seen. first time cutting' comes to my mind :\ evaluative thoughts, rather than caring ones.
and yet, when i wanna switch to my caring mode, i find that i may not be the best person to talk to that person, or i know that it'd adversely affect me.
so perhaps, to protect myself, it may sometimes be better to be slightly more desensitized to things? lol
Monday, March 12, 2012
Sunday, March 11, 2012
D.Gray-Man Ending 8 Changin' Full
i miss all my animes. and the abundant amount of time to watch them. hahahaha. i shall have a tv in heaven with all the animes i've always wanted to watch there as well^^
Thursday, March 08, 2012
Tuesday, March 06, 2012
a summary of what transpired:
P: I need you to go for an ISO meeting tmr, and to write out some SOPs for the counselling side.
me: okay....... you need the SOPs by tmr?
P: no.. tmr's just the meeting. to know the rationale of why we need certain things....
me: I see. Is that the school's birthday present for me?
P: Why? is today your birthday?
me: No. Tomorrow is :P
P: I need you to go for an ISO meeting tmr, and to write out some SOPs for the counselling side.
me: okay....... you need the SOPs by tmr?
P: no.. tmr's just the meeting. to know the rationale of why we need certain things....
me: I see. Is that the school's birthday present for me?
P: Why? is today your birthday?
me: No. Tomorrow is :P
when reading what's below, doesn't one find that the principles in the bible are geared towards what is specifically advocated to be healthy for us? humility (God opposes the proud), relationships (fellowship), looking ahead (with the reminder that our citizenship is not here), altruism (serving others)..
Was reading the article on 'What makes us happy?'
and here're excerpts which I resonate with:
" The story gets to the heart of Vaillant’s angle on the Grant Study. His central question is not how much or how little trouble these men met, but rather precisely how—and to what effect—they responded to that trouble. His main interpretive lens has been the psychoanalytic metaphor of “adaptations,” or unconscious responses to pain, conflict, or uncertainty. Formalized by Anna Freud on the basis of her father’s work, adaptations (also called “defense mechanisms”) are unconscious thoughts and behaviors that you could say either shape or distort—depending on whether you approve or disapprove—a person’s reality.
Vaillant explains defenses as the mental equivalent of a basic biological process. When we cut ourselves, for example, our blood clots—a swift and involuntary response that maintains homeostasis. Similarly, when we encounter a challenge large or small—a mother’s death or a broken shoelace—our defenses float us through the emotional swamp. And just as clotting can save us from bleeding to death—or plug a coronary artery and lead to a heart attack—defenses can spell our redemption or ruin. Vaillant’s taxonomy ranks defenses from worst to best, in four categories.
At the bottom of the pile are the unhealthiest, or “psychotic,” adaptations—like paranoia, hallucination, or megalomania—which, while they can serve to make reality tolerable for the person employing them, seem crazy to anyone else. One level up are the “immature” adaptations, which include acting out, passive aggression, hypochondria, projection, and fantasy. These aren’t as isolating as psychotic adaptations, but they impede intimacy. “Neurotic” defenses are common in “normal” people. These include intellectualization (mutating the primal stuff of life into objects of formal thought); dissociation (intense, often brief, removal from one’s feelings); and repression, which, Vaillant says, can involve “seemingly inexplicable naïveté, memory lapse, or failure to acknowledge input from a selected sense organ.” The healthiest, or “mature,” adaptations include altruism, humor, anticipation (looking ahead and planning for future discomfort), suppression (a conscious decision to postpone attention to an impulse or conflict, to be addressed in good time), and sublimation (finding outlets for feelings, like putting aggression into sport, or lust into courtship).
…
What allows people to work, and love, as they grow old? By the time the Grant Study men had entered retirement, Vaillant, who had then been following them for a quarter century, had identified seven major factors that predict healthy aging, both physically and psychologically.
Employing mature adaptations was one. The others were education, stable marriage, not smoking, not abusing alcohol, some exercise, and healthy weight. Of the 106 Harvard men who had five or six of these factors in their favor at age 50, half ended up at 80 as what Vaillant called “happy-well” and only 7.5 percent as “sad-sick.” Meanwhile, of the men who had three or fewer of the health factors at age 50, none ended up “happy-well” at 80. Even if they had been in adequate physical shape at 50, the men who had three or fewer protective factors were three times as likely to be dead at 80 as those with four or more factors.
…
The study has yielded some additional subtle surprises. Regular exercise in college predicted late-life mental health better than it did physical health. And depression turned out to be a major drain on physical health: of the men who were diagnosed with depression by age 50, more than 70 percent had died or were chronically ill by 63. More broadly, pessimists seemed to suffer physically in comparison with optimists, perhaps because they’re less likely to connect with others or care for themselves.
…
Vaillant’s other main interest is the power of relationships. “It is social aptitude,” he writes, “not intellectual brilliance or parental social class, that leads to successful aging.” Warm connections are necessary—and if not found in a mother or father, they can come from siblings, uncles, friends, mentors. The men’s relationships at age 47, he found, predicted late-life adjustment better than any other variable, except defenses. Good sibling relationships seem especially powerful: 93 percent of the men who were thriving at age 65 had been close to a brother or sister when younger. In an interview in the March 2008 newsletter to the Grant Study subjects, Vaillant was asked, “What have you learned from the Grant Study men?” Vaillant’s response: “That the only thing that really matters in life are your relationships to other people.”
In contrast to the Grant data, the Glueck study data suggested that industriousness in childhood—as indicated by such things as whether the boys had part-time jobs, took on chores, or joined school clubs or sports teams—predicted adult mental health better than any other factor, including family cohesion and warm maternal relationships. “What we do,” Vaillant concluded, “affects how we feel just as much as how we feel affects what we do.”
---
Last October, I watched him give a lecture to Seligman’s graduate students on the power of positive emotions—awe, love, compassion, gratitude, forgiveness, joy, hope, and trust (or faith). “The happiness books say, ‘Try happiness. You’ll like it a lot more than misery’—which is perfectly true,” he told them. But why, he asked, do people tell psychologists they’d cross the street to avoid someone who had given them a compliment the previous day?
In fact, Vaillant went on, positive emotions make us more vulnerable than negative ones. One reason is that they’re future-oriented. Fear and sadness have immediate payoffs—protecting us from attack or attracting resources at times of distress. Gratitude and joy, over time, will yield better health and deeper connections—but in the short term actually put us at risk. That’s because, while negative emotions tend to be insulating, positive emotions expose us to the common elements of rejection and heartbreak.
…
To illustrate his point, he told a story about one of his “prize” Grant Study men, a doctor and well-loved husband. “On his 70th birthday,” Vaillant said, “when he retired from the faculty of medicine, his wife got hold of his patient list and secretly wrote to many of his longest-running patients, ‘Would you write a letter of appreciation?’ And back came 100 single-spaced, desperately loving letters—often with pictures attached. And she put them in a lovely presentation box covered with Thai silk, and gave it to him.” Eight years later, Vaillant interviewed the man, who proudly pulled the box down from his shelf. “George, I don’t know what you’re going to make of this,” the man said, as he began to cry, “but I’ve never read it.” “It’s very hard,” Vaillant said, “for most of us to tolerate being loved.”
Perhaps in this, I thought, lies the key to the good life—not rules to follow, nor problems to avoid, but an engaged humility, an earnest acceptance of life’s pains and promises.
and here're excerpts which I resonate with:
" The story gets to the heart of Vaillant’s angle on the Grant Study. His central question is not how much or how little trouble these men met, but rather precisely how—and to what effect—they responded to that trouble. His main interpretive lens has been the psychoanalytic metaphor of “adaptations,” or unconscious responses to pain, conflict, or uncertainty. Formalized by Anna Freud on the basis of her father’s work, adaptations (also called “defense mechanisms”) are unconscious thoughts and behaviors that you could say either shape or distort—depending on whether you approve or disapprove—a person’s reality.
Vaillant explains defenses as the mental equivalent of a basic biological process. When we cut ourselves, for example, our blood clots—a swift and involuntary response that maintains homeostasis. Similarly, when we encounter a challenge large or small—a mother’s death or a broken shoelace—our defenses float us through the emotional swamp. And just as clotting can save us from bleeding to death—or plug a coronary artery and lead to a heart attack—defenses can spell our redemption or ruin. Vaillant’s taxonomy ranks defenses from worst to best, in four categories.
At the bottom of the pile are the unhealthiest, or “psychotic,” adaptations—like paranoia, hallucination, or megalomania—which, while they can serve to make reality tolerable for the person employing them, seem crazy to anyone else. One level up are the “immature” adaptations, which include acting out, passive aggression, hypochondria, projection, and fantasy. These aren’t as isolating as psychotic adaptations, but they impede intimacy. “Neurotic” defenses are common in “normal” people. These include intellectualization (mutating the primal stuff of life into objects of formal thought); dissociation (intense, often brief, removal from one’s feelings); and repression, which, Vaillant says, can involve “seemingly inexplicable naïveté, memory lapse, or failure to acknowledge input from a selected sense organ.” The healthiest, or “mature,” adaptations include altruism, humor, anticipation (looking ahead and planning for future discomfort), suppression (a conscious decision to postpone attention to an impulse or conflict, to be addressed in good time), and sublimation (finding outlets for feelings, like putting aggression into sport, or lust into courtship).
…
What allows people to work, and love, as they grow old? By the time the Grant Study men had entered retirement, Vaillant, who had then been following them for a quarter century, had identified seven major factors that predict healthy aging, both physically and psychologically.
Employing mature adaptations was one. The others were education, stable marriage, not smoking, not abusing alcohol, some exercise, and healthy weight. Of the 106 Harvard men who had five or six of these factors in their favor at age 50, half ended up at 80 as what Vaillant called “happy-well” and only 7.5 percent as “sad-sick.” Meanwhile, of the men who had three or fewer of the health factors at age 50, none ended up “happy-well” at 80. Even if they had been in adequate physical shape at 50, the men who had three or fewer protective factors were three times as likely to be dead at 80 as those with four or more factors.
…
The study has yielded some additional subtle surprises. Regular exercise in college predicted late-life mental health better than it did physical health. And depression turned out to be a major drain on physical health: of the men who were diagnosed with depression by age 50, more than 70 percent had died or were chronically ill by 63. More broadly, pessimists seemed to suffer physically in comparison with optimists, perhaps because they’re less likely to connect with others or care for themselves.
…
Vaillant’s other main interest is the power of relationships. “It is social aptitude,” he writes, “not intellectual brilliance or parental social class, that leads to successful aging.” Warm connections are necessary—and if not found in a mother or father, they can come from siblings, uncles, friends, mentors. The men’s relationships at age 47, he found, predicted late-life adjustment better than any other variable, except defenses. Good sibling relationships seem especially powerful: 93 percent of the men who were thriving at age 65 had been close to a brother or sister when younger. In an interview in the March 2008 newsletter to the Grant Study subjects, Vaillant was asked, “What have you learned from the Grant Study men?” Vaillant’s response: “That the only thing that really matters in life are your relationships to other people.”
In contrast to the Grant data, the Glueck study data suggested that industriousness in childhood—as indicated by such things as whether the boys had part-time jobs, took on chores, or joined school clubs or sports teams—predicted adult mental health better than any other factor, including family cohesion and warm maternal relationships. “What we do,” Vaillant concluded, “affects how we feel just as much as how we feel affects what we do.”
---
Last October, I watched him give a lecture to Seligman’s graduate students on the power of positive emotions—awe, love, compassion, gratitude, forgiveness, joy, hope, and trust (or faith). “The happiness books say, ‘Try happiness. You’ll like it a lot more than misery’—which is perfectly true,” he told them. But why, he asked, do people tell psychologists they’d cross the street to avoid someone who had given them a compliment the previous day?
In fact, Vaillant went on, positive emotions make us more vulnerable than negative ones. One reason is that they’re future-oriented. Fear and sadness have immediate payoffs—protecting us from attack or attracting resources at times of distress. Gratitude and joy, over time, will yield better health and deeper connections—but in the short term actually put us at risk. That’s because, while negative emotions tend to be insulating, positive emotions expose us to the common elements of rejection and heartbreak.
…
To illustrate his point, he told a story about one of his “prize” Grant Study men, a doctor and well-loved husband. “On his 70th birthday,” Vaillant said, “when he retired from the faculty of medicine, his wife got hold of his patient list and secretly wrote to many of his longest-running patients, ‘Would you write a letter of appreciation?’ And back came 100 single-spaced, desperately loving letters—often with pictures attached. And she put them in a lovely presentation box covered with Thai silk, and gave it to him.” Eight years later, Vaillant interviewed the man, who proudly pulled the box down from his shelf. “George, I don’t know what you’re going to make of this,” the man said, as he began to cry, “but I’ve never read it.” “It’s very hard,” Vaillant said, “for most of us to tolerate being loved.”
Perhaps in this, I thought, lies the key to the good life—not rules to follow, nor problems to avoid, but an engaged humility, an earnest acceptance of life’s pains and promises.
Sunday, March 04, 2012
today Eugene arranged a training for us by Christopher Fong. you can search up his name on google under 'Christopher Fong psychologist'. it was a pretty cosy session, with just the 9 of us and Christopher himself. felt blessed through the session, learned much,and certain information or techniques i've used with my own case was affirmed as well.
the topic was on addictions and formation of gender identity.
hope to use what i've learned today to integrate with my own counselling orientation for more of such cases in the future!
the topic was on addictions and formation of gender identity.
hope to use what i've learned today to integrate with my own counselling orientation for more of such cases in the future!
Friday, March 02, 2012
Unlike traditional sheet mask, HydroGel mask does not have any holding medium. It is made directly from pure nutrients and essence into a soft water-gel mask, just like how ice is formed from water. Hydrogel is soft and gentle on skin. Upon applying Hydrogel, it will melt onto face creating an entire new masking experience.
oooh! so interesting~ i shall observe it melt.
oooh! so interesting~ i shall observe it melt.
Today I tried the SANA Namerakahonpo Cleansing Wash. hahaha.
it's got a great smell! smells like i'm washing my face with tofu. hahaa. and it's got a great texture too.. slightly shimmery, and silky looking =)
just that it was too drying for my skin.
but then again, the skin analyst says that i have dry skin (whatttT?) so maybe that's the reason? could be good for pple with oily skin :D hahahaa.
i love the smell though!
am trying on the hydrogel now (to replace whatever was stripped off by the above mentioned wash). haha. weird smell. and weird texture. adheres perfectly to the face though. wonder what the effect will be like. let's see. hahaha
it's got a great smell! smells like i'm washing my face with tofu. hahaa. and it's got a great texture too.. slightly shimmery, and silky looking =)
just that it was too drying for my skin.
but then again, the skin analyst says that i have dry skin (whatttT?) so maybe that's the reason? could be good for pple with oily skin :D hahahaa.
i love the smell though!
am trying on the hydrogel now (to replace whatever was stripped off by the above mentioned wash). haha. weird smell. and weird texture. adheres perfectly to the face though. wonder what the effect will be like. let's see. hahaha
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
It made an impact on me when my cluster supervisor asked me if I was at The Ark, and that she saw me there.
It made an impact on me because I felt that my love for watching plays was finally converged into the counselling area. No idea why, but I've always kept my likings and my 'self' out of the counselling session, perhaps because I felt the need to behave more maturely because I'm the youngest.
but when she said that, and when she mentioned about Extremely loud and incredibly close (which was what i wanted to watch yesterday but didn't in the end), there was such a joy in my heart, like something connected between two passions that I had.
went for my first drama meeting today, and i resonate with what Dennis said about how even if they're not doing drama, they'd still go to watch plays, they'd still find out who won the oscars (things like that). i guess i resonate with that because previously i couldn't help in the production of dramas or movies, but i've always enjoyed , and actively sought them out. but to me, i've always wondered if i'm not in its production, can i still consider it as my passion?
but i guess i can, though i may not be at the same level as others, but i guess the fact that it's around on my mind constantly makes it count as well? haha.
we did a tableau today of a story in the bible. hahaha. my group did the adulterous woman scene. it was beautiful when i saw one of the teams who did a tableau of Jesus asking Peter to walk on water. it was like viewing a painting. wow.
then we did fairytales in 60 seconds. hahahahaa. that was so funny. and i'm amazed at the creativity of some of the people.
:)
enjoyed it cos learned today.
Jiali mentioned that now it's to let Him turn passion into something eternally meaningful.
i agree! :) and i think it'd take me a long journey to discover what it means too :)
thinking if i can explore playback theatre again in the future. still considering what masters to take if i take masters in the future.
faith based counselling, were 3 words that stuck to me today as well :)
It made an impact on me because I felt that my love for watching plays was finally converged into the counselling area. No idea why, but I've always kept my likings and my 'self' out of the counselling session, perhaps because I felt the need to behave more maturely because I'm the youngest.
but when she said that, and when she mentioned about Extremely loud and incredibly close (which was what i wanted to watch yesterday but didn't in the end), there was such a joy in my heart, like something connected between two passions that I had.
went for my first drama meeting today, and i resonate with what Dennis said about how even if they're not doing drama, they'd still go to watch plays, they'd still find out who won the oscars (things like that). i guess i resonate with that because previously i couldn't help in the production of dramas or movies, but i've always enjoyed , and actively sought them out. but to me, i've always wondered if i'm not in its production, can i still consider it as my passion?
but i guess i can, though i may not be at the same level as others, but i guess the fact that it's around on my mind constantly makes it count as well? haha.
we did a tableau today of a story in the bible. hahaha. my group did the adulterous woman scene. it was beautiful when i saw one of the teams who did a tableau of Jesus asking Peter to walk on water. it was like viewing a painting. wow.
then we did fairytales in 60 seconds. hahahahaa. that was so funny. and i'm amazed at the creativity of some of the people.
:)
enjoyed it cos learned today.
Jiali mentioned that now it's to let Him turn passion into something eternally meaningful.
i agree! :) and i think it'd take me a long journey to discover what it means too :)
thinking if i can explore playback theatre again in the future. still considering what masters to take if i take masters in the future.
faith based counselling, were 3 words that stuck to me today as well :)
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Just learned from penguin yesterday that we can invest using our CPF account, with the minimum of 20k in the account.
i'm considering if i should invest the amount beyond 20k, just to see if i can get higher retuns, or if i should not touch it, or if i should transfer it into my SA account to get the interest rate of 4% since that extra amount is only earning a rate of 2.5% instead of 3.5%. hahaa
and yay, meeting dorling for dinner before my first drama meeting. excited!
i'm considering if i should invest the amount beyond 20k, just to see if i can get higher retuns, or if i should not touch it, or if i should transfer it into my SA account to get the interest rate of 4% since that extra amount is only earning a rate of 2.5% instead of 3.5%. hahaa
and yay, meeting dorling for dinner before my first drama meeting. excited!
Monday, February 27, 2012
Something I really enjoy in my work, are the times when students walk in and just chitchat with you. hahahaa.
Just had some drama girls come in (they helped us out in the drama performance for the parents to show what RTP is about) and say hi. haha. one's super energetic and her energy bounced off me.
and she told me of what her class thinks about me, which amused me greatly.
Just had some drama girls come in (they helped us out in the drama performance for the parents to show what RTP is about) and say hi. haha. one's super energetic and her energy bounced off me.
and she told me of what her class thinks about me, which amused me greatly.
Was just thinking about friendships and this song came to mind :)
don't you feel that there are some friends in life whom you wish will always be around with you? that no matter what, no matter where, no matter the situation, whether it's silent, or full of words, you just feel comfortable with them.
:)
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Friday, February 24, 2012
I really appreciate people who seek to build you up even though you're not directly under them.
Like a previous HoD who's retired from the school.. she'd ask me how i am, and share about certain things about image or how she feels that the welfare and organisation of the staff can be improved...
or my previous RO who's still forwarding emails of possible organizations or talks i can go for, and evaluated my programme with me so as to see how i can possibly beef it up :)
Like a previous HoD who's retired from the school.. she'd ask me how i am, and share about certain things about image or how she feels that the welfare and organisation of the staff can be improved...
or my previous RO who's still forwarding emails of possible organizations or talks i can go for, and evaluated my programme with me so as to see how i can possibly beef it up :)
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
I'm not sure if it's just me, or it's for others as well, but somehow or another, my Burberry The Beat doesn't last long at all! LOL
Could be cos it's the EDT.
i'd spray it on, and it disappears afters like 4 hrs. 4 hrs is VERY SHORT. and i mean like completely disappear. like don't smell anything at all. and it's got a very woodyish spicy note in the middle which i really don't like, though the startng and end notes are really nice and citrusy.
on another note, i really enjoyed today's work though. i counted, 4 counselling cases back to back, and 2 negotiations. tough, but super enjoyable. i wish everyday's like this. hahaa. but now it's the afternoon, and i have to do paperwork. again.
Could be cos it's the EDT.
i'd spray it on, and it disappears afters like 4 hrs. 4 hrs is VERY SHORT. and i mean like completely disappear. like don't smell anything at all. and it's got a very woodyish spicy note in the middle which i really don't like, though the startng and end notes are really nice and citrusy.
on another note, i really enjoyed today's work though. i counted, 4 counselling cases back to back, and 2 negotiations. tough, but super enjoyable. i wish everyday's like this. hahaa. but now it's the afternoon, and i have to do paperwork. again.
Losing A Best Friend Feb. 21, 2012 By Mila Jaroniec
When it happens, you won’t want to believe it. You’ll take their word for it when they say they’re busy, swamped at work, “just doing me.” You’ll make excuses for them, put your ringer on extra loud in case they call. But you’ll still feel the change, and because you can’t rationalize it, you’ll try to ignore it.
It’s a specific kind of loneliness that hits you like a wave of nausea. When the two of you are having a beer and you realize that you have both been staring out the same window for twenty minutes, nothing to say, the opposite of a comfortable silence. When they cancel plans consistently and stall when giving you reasons. When you scroll through your contacts and stop at their name and almost call but don’t, feeling suddenly, inexplicably, abandoned and confused.
Sometimes there’s no huge fight that marks the end of a friendship. No falling out, no major disagreement. Sometimes it just falls apart for no good reason. Distance. New relationships. Priorities. Somehow these things can become more important than your connection; they shouldn’t but they do. And as we get older we tend to downsize, prioritize. Trim the corners of our lives, keeping what’s important and discarding what isn’t. Sometimes we stop needing people in our lives and it isn’t even conscious. No one wakes up in the morning actively thinking “Hmm, I think I’ll stop being friends with so-and-so today.” It just goes out with an empty fizz, like a cigarette hitting the bottom of a Coke can.
In so many ways, losing a close friend is worse than losing a lover. Lovers are transient for the most part but friends are supposed to be there for you always, or so we like to believe. Friendship is a special kind of love that’s not supposed to fade. You never expect the one person you thought you could always depend on to disappear without saying goodbye. And when they do you feel sickeningly stupid and cheated, wondering what you meant to them all along, whether you were just convenient or in the right place at the right time. You never really know for sure.
You look through pictures from back when you were happy — holding each other up drunk and ecstatic, working on art projects on a rainy Sunday afternoon — and can’t understand what happened. Reach for the phone. Attach a photo to an email, start the subject line with some fusion of “Remember this?” and “I miss you…” Get suddenly overwhelmed by a horrible emptiness and discard the draft, leaving the phone untouched. History. So much history flushed down a dirty sink.
And the worst part is, you don’t even know how to explain yourself. You know if you bring this up with them they’ll give you a blank expression and a blank excuse. You don’t want to explain how you feel. You can’t. You just want them to get it, to read you like they used to be able to. You want to take them by the shoulders and shake them, screaming Where are you? What happened?! Until you’re blue in the face. But you can’t do that either, because you’re no longer on the same level and it’s going to make you feel crazy.
In life, it’s a given that you will lose people. People will flow in and out like curtains through an open window, sometimes for no reason at all. But losing someone important to you will feel like a suckerpunch every single time, and you’ll never see it coming. Which makes the friendships that do hold out, the ones that make it through countless breakdowns and breakthroughs and changes and years, so damn important.
----------
sometimes it could just be that they leave.
sometimes it could just be that they have new priorities now, like being in a relationship.
When it happens, you won’t want to believe it. You’ll take their word for it when they say they’re busy, swamped at work, “just doing me.” You’ll make excuses for them, put your ringer on extra loud in case they call. But you’ll still feel the change, and because you can’t rationalize it, you’ll try to ignore it.
It’s a specific kind of loneliness that hits you like a wave of nausea. When the two of you are having a beer and you realize that you have both been staring out the same window for twenty minutes, nothing to say, the opposite of a comfortable silence. When they cancel plans consistently and stall when giving you reasons. When you scroll through your contacts and stop at their name and almost call but don’t, feeling suddenly, inexplicably, abandoned and confused.
Sometimes there’s no huge fight that marks the end of a friendship. No falling out, no major disagreement. Sometimes it just falls apart for no good reason. Distance. New relationships. Priorities. Somehow these things can become more important than your connection; they shouldn’t but they do. And as we get older we tend to downsize, prioritize. Trim the corners of our lives, keeping what’s important and discarding what isn’t. Sometimes we stop needing people in our lives and it isn’t even conscious. No one wakes up in the morning actively thinking “Hmm, I think I’ll stop being friends with so-and-so today.” It just goes out with an empty fizz, like a cigarette hitting the bottom of a Coke can.
In so many ways, losing a close friend is worse than losing a lover. Lovers are transient for the most part but friends are supposed to be there for you always, or so we like to believe. Friendship is a special kind of love that’s not supposed to fade. You never expect the one person you thought you could always depend on to disappear without saying goodbye. And when they do you feel sickeningly stupid and cheated, wondering what you meant to them all along, whether you were just convenient or in the right place at the right time. You never really know for sure.
You look through pictures from back when you were happy — holding each other up drunk and ecstatic, working on art projects on a rainy Sunday afternoon — and can’t understand what happened. Reach for the phone. Attach a photo to an email, start the subject line with some fusion of “Remember this?” and “I miss you…” Get suddenly overwhelmed by a horrible emptiness and discard the draft, leaving the phone untouched. History. So much history flushed down a dirty sink.
And the worst part is, you don’t even know how to explain yourself. You know if you bring this up with them they’ll give you a blank expression and a blank excuse. You don’t want to explain how you feel. You can’t. You just want them to get it, to read you like they used to be able to. You want to take them by the shoulders and shake them, screaming Where are you? What happened?! Until you’re blue in the face. But you can’t do that either, because you’re no longer on the same level and it’s going to make you feel crazy.
In life, it’s a given that you will lose people. People will flow in and out like curtains through an open window, sometimes for no reason at all. But losing someone important to you will feel like a suckerpunch every single time, and you’ll never see it coming. Which makes the friendships that do hold out, the ones that make it through countless breakdowns and breakthroughs and changes and years, so damn important.
----------
sometimes it could just be that they leave.
sometimes it could just be that they have new priorities now, like being in a relationship.
referring students for ESU-B (writing referral reports on them)
tracking of PSL cases and liasing with teachers on what to do with these students
running the RTC (doing up plans with students, arranging for negotiations with teachers, handling the negotiations)
have a counselling session with student who just came back to school
have a session with students who're not regularly in school
calling parents to give advice/get updates on some students
referral of students to other ftsc and typing details so that she can refer to the RCs
update VP on PSL students
discuss with vendor on my programme which is gonna be up in March
collect monitoring charts
random things like:
monitoring special needs child for medicine taking
getting details of a student to ensure that forms for a programme is collected
chit chatting with students who come in, and getting a general sense of these students (quite a bunch will always say hi and come in to update me on their lives/ give me high fives)
and these are just the things i did today. and it'd be the same tmr, with the addition of having to liaise for home visit tmr, and having 2 negotiations tmr.
actually it didn't seem that much when i did it, but now that i typed it, i understood why i felt numbed.
and i still haven't run my ITQ for the programme. nor have i done a proper compilation of the MSL and PSL students. nor have i written my case notes for the counselling sessions. nor have i written the report for the MSL students. nor have i finished my tracking.
ok. i think i feel clearer knowing why i got numbed. hahahaa:) need Your constant fuel God! :)
tracking of PSL cases and liasing with teachers on what to do with these students
running the RTC (doing up plans with students, arranging for negotiations with teachers, handling the negotiations)
have a counselling session with student who just came back to school
have a session with students who're not regularly in school
calling parents to give advice/get updates on some students
referral of students to other ftsc and typing details so that she can refer to the RCs
update VP on PSL students
discuss with vendor on my programme which is gonna be up in March
collect monitoring charts
random things like:
monitoring special needs child for medicine taking
getting details of a student to ensure that forms for a programme is collected
chit chatting with students who come in, and getting a general sense of these students (quite a bunch will always say hi and come in to update me on their lives/ give me high fives)
and these are just the things i did today. and it'd be the same tmr, with the addition of having to liaise for home visit tmr, and having 2 negotiations tmr.
actually it didn't seem that much when i did it, but now that i typed it, i understood why i felt numbed.
and i still haven't run my ITQ for the programme. nor have i done a proper compilation of the MSL and PSL students. nor have i written my case notes for the counselling sessions. nor have i written the report for the MSL students. nor have i finished my tracking.
ok. i think i feel clearer knowing why i got numbed. hahahaa:) need Your constant fuel God! :)
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Monday, February 20, 2012
got back Blankets from someone whom i didn't expect to have lent the book to. HAHAHAHA.
i was super surprised when Joyce passed me back my book o_O
had a good catchup with her! :) seems like my catchups with ppl whose names start with J always happen after a long period of time. LOL.
other than Jesus. hahahaa.
why's 2012 passing by so slowly?!
i keep thinking that a lot of time has passed, but so far it's only been less than 2 months :(
pass faster please. haha
i was super surprised when Joyce passed me back my book o_O
had a good catchup with her! :) seems like my catchups with ppl whose names start with J always happen after a long period of time. LOL.
other than Jesus. hahahaa.
why's 2012 passing by so slowly?!
i keep thinking that a lot of time has passed, but so far it's only been less than 2 months :(
pass faster please. haha
I tried out Burberry's Body perfume on myself, and really liked the notes it ended with! ( didn't like it on first spray, but it mellows into something vanilla-ish). Really nice! Hahaha. Too bad i didnt get it this time. Got The Beat cos I liked the starting notes, but its lotion didn't smell good for me in the midnotes :( I hope the actual perfume will be okay though!
Sunday, February 19, 2012
You are the peace that guards my heart
my help in times of need
You are the truth that leads me on
and brings me to my knees
for there i find You waiting
and there i find release
so with all my heart I'd worship
and unto You I'd sing
for You alone deserve all glory
for You alone deserve all praise
Father we worship and adore You
Father we long to see Your face
for You alone deserve all glory
for You alone deserve all praise
Father we love You
and we worship You this day
praying today and this came to mind:
do we enjoy being in the presence of God today?
do we enjoy the things of God today?
my help in times of need
You are the truth that leads me on
and brings me to my knees
for there i find You waiting
and there i find release
so with all my heart I'd worship
and unto You I'd sing
for You alone deserve all glory
for You alone deserve all praise
Father we worship and adore You
Father we long to see Your face
for You alone deserve all glory
for You alone deserve all praise
Father we love You
and we worship You this day
praying today and this came to mind:
do we enjoy being in the presence of God today?
do we enjoy the things of God today?
tried this bb cream today. hmmm. didn't like the colour when it went on my face, made my face look really pale and weird. and it didn't blend very well either. faded to a nicer colour after 20 mins or so though :) looked much better after that.
after bb cream was removed at night, skin looks healthier than before bb cream was applied:)
not for me though. i still prefer elishacoy. hahahahaa
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Characteristics of Gifted Students Who Are Bored:
Poor attention and daydreaming when bored
Low tolerance for persistence on tasks that seem irrelevant
Begin many projects, see few to completion
Development of judgment lags behind intellectual growth
Intensity may lead to power struggles with authorities
High activity level; may need less sleep
Difficulty restraining desire to talk; may be disruptive
Question rules, customs, and traditions
Lose work, forget homework, are disorganized
May appear careless
Highly sensitive to criticism
Do not exhibit problem behaviors in all situations
More consistent levels of performance at a fairly consistent pace
(Cline, 1999; Webb & Latimer, 1993)
Characteristics of Students with ADHD
Poorly sustained attention
Diminished persistence on tasks not having immediate consequences
Often shift from one uncompleted activity to another
Impulsivity, poor delay of gratification
Impaired adherence to commands to regulate or inhibit behavior in social contexts
More active, restless than other children
Often talk excessively
Often interrupt or intrude on others (e.g., butt into games)
Difficulty adhering to rules and regulations
Often lose things necessary for tasks or activities at home or school
May appear inattentive to details
Highly sensitive to criticism
Problem behaviors exist in all settings, but in some are more severe
Variability in task performance and time used to accomplish tasks.
(Barkley, 1990; Cline, 1999; Webb & Latimer, 1993
hmmm. whatever it is. i'm definitely bored. sigh. i need a job that allows me to travel. lol.
Poor attention and daydreaming when bored
Low tolerance for persistence on tasks that seem irrelevant
Begin many projects, see few to completion
Development of judgment lags behind intellectual growth
Intensity may lead to power struggles with authorities
High activity level; may need less sleep
Difficulty restraining desire to talk; may be disruptive
Question rules, customs, and traditions
Lose work, forget homework, are disorganized
May appear careless
Highly sensitive to criticism
Do not exhibit problem behaviors in all situations
More consistent levels of performance at a fairly consistent pace
(Cline, 1999; Webb & Latimer, 1993)
Characteristics of Students with ADHD
Poorly sustained attention
Diminished persistence on tasks not having immediate consequences
Often shift from one uncompleted activity to another
Impulsivity, poor delay of gratification
Impaired adherence to commands to regulate or inhibit behavior in social contexts
More active, restless than other children
Often talk excessively
Often interrupt or intrude on others (e.g., butt into games)
Difficulty adhering to rules and regulations
Often lose things necessary for tasks or activities at home or school
May appear inattentive to details
Highly sensitive to criticism
Problem behaviors exist in all settings, but in some are more severe
Variability in task performance and time used to accomplish tasks.
(Barkley, 1990; Cline, 1999; Webb & Latimer, 1993
hmmm. whatever it is. i'm definitely bored. sigh. i need a job that allows me to travel. lol.
recently got a lot of samples from the sample store and so I've been using around one a day. I have a whole box of them at this moment (think i don't need to buy any shampoo / bb cream/ moisturizer for the coming 2-3 months if I were to finish using all the samples. hahaha)
just used the above product and i think it's causing me to have a breakout! (of mini pimples). this is rather sad.
i quite like the smell of the ginvera green tea series, but i think it's not very friendly for my skin.
like it's slightly oily for me i guess.
ah well.
the above is a moisturizer. and it's supposed to have oil control properties. hahahaa. i think any oil control stuff may not be too good for my face since my face is slightly to the dry side on the cheeks, and oily on the nose. i shall see what happens tomorrow :)
on a side note, Elishacoy's gold premium bb cream is really really very good! (for me at least). tried the sample and it was one of the most satisfying bb cream i've used (not that i use a lot, but on days that i do use, i do try to see if there's a difference). haha
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Really liked this song after I watched the movie previously. I guess cos I grew up with a value system that appreciates chivalry, perseverence, loyalty, sacrifice.
i guess maybe that's why certain things tick me off greatly.
i also value words very seriously, so i guess when people are careless with words, it ticks me off as well.
haha.
but anyway, it's a nice song :)
Monday, February 13, 2012
Although you think I cope
My head is filled with hope of some place other than here
Although you think I smile
Inside and all the while I'm wondering about my destiny
I'm thinking about all the things
I'd like to do in my life
I'm a dreamer, a distant dreamer
Dreaming far away from today
Even when you see me frown my heart won't let me down
Because I know there's better things to come, woah yeah
And when life gets tough and I feel I've had enough
I hold on to a distant star
yup. that's me alright. haha
My head is filled with hope of some place other than here
Although you think I smile
Inside and all the while I'm wondering about my destiny
I'm thinking about all the things
I'd like to do in my life
I'm a dreamer, a distant dreamer
Dreaming far away from today
Even when you see me frown my heart won't let me down
Because I know there's better things to come, woah yeah
And when life gets tough and I feel I've had enough
I hold on to a distant star
yup. that's me alright. haha
Friday, February 10, 2012
i really like to learn. and i really like to think. i also like to have fun (maybe that's how i give my brains a rest since i don't really stone). hahaa.
tt accounts for why learning stimulates me and gives me great enjoyment, why i read a book every 2 days (storybooks though.. now reading the whole 66 books in her detective novel collection - have finished 2, am on third one "A murder is announced"), and why i do things like buy the fun pass to go to universal studios. hahaa.
i don't mind work if it's fun. i don't mind work if it's to do with people and it's meaningful. so volunteering has never been a problem for me cos there's people and it's meaningful.
i also like to prettify things. so i love being the last one to clear up presentations (in terms of sentence structure and grammar), as well as to find good backgrounds for the presentations.
tt accounts for why learning stimulates me and gives me great enjoyment, why i read a book every 2 days (storybooks though.. now reading the whole 66 books in her detective novel collection - have finished 2, am on third one "A murder is announced"), and why i do things like buy the fun pass to go to universal studios. hahaa.
i don't mind work if it's fun. i don't mind work if it's to do with people and it's meaningful. so volunteering has never been a problem for me cos there's people and it's meaningful.
i also like to prettify things. so i love being the last one to clear up presentations (in terms of sentence structure and grammar), as well as to find good backgrounds for the presentations.
Thursday, February 09, 2012
finished what i usually do in one day in 1 hr and 45 mins when these conditions are met:
1) no one is in the room except for me
2) the aircon is on
3) i can move around the room to do my work (spreading out my stuff over 2 tables)
4) i don't have to type in the records in the excel file i've created for the purpose of tracking.
the disadvantages:
1) i'd still have to type in the records tmr :(
i feel so much more fruitful in this 1 hr and 45 mins than my hours in the morning!
1) no one is in the room except for me
2) the aircon is on
3) i can move around the room to do my work (spreading out my stuff over 2 tables)
4) i don't have to type in the records in the excel file i've created for the purpose of tracking.
the disadvantages:
1) i'd still have to type in the records tmr :(
i feel so much more fruitful in this 1 hr and 45 mins than my hours in the morning!