What they say

Consider this: An alien comes to Earth and after some difficulty, you manage to teach him basic arithmatic, some English, and the numbers 1 to 10. He appears to understand spoken words, although he cannot master to speak them. One day you were having a conversation with him. The topic is about dolphins. This is how it goes:

You: This is a dolphin. It is very intelligent. Do you agree?
Alien: No.
You: Why do you say that?
Alien: (Pointing to the dolphin) One-one-two. No two-two-four.
You: What does that mean?
Alien: (Pointing to you) One-one-two. Two-two-four. (Pointing to dolphin) One-one-two. No two-two-four.
You: I still do not understand what are you saying.
Alien: (Pointing to you) One-one-two. Two-two-four. (Pointing to himself) One-one-two. Two-two-four. (Pointing to dolphin) One-one-two. No two-two-four.
You: Ah, now I understand. You are saying that I am intelligent life, you are an intelligent life, but the dolphin, althought it is intelligent, does not have high level intelligence?
Alien: Yes.

Using only several words, the alien is able to convey abstract ideas about intelligence and comparison. Astonishing, but this is hardly my point. Now, consider this: Instead of limited command of language, it is limited command of expressions.

Do you know what I mean?

I meant that instead of the full range of the human emotions and their attendant facial and body expressions, someone somewhere are only capable of expressing two types of emotions, and they use this two emotions to convey all their emotions. For example, a man, GM, are capable of only expressing impatience and laughter. To express anger, he uses impatience with no laughter. To convey irritance or annoyance, he uses impatience with some laughter. To convey sadness, he uses neither. To express happiness, he uses laughter. To convey amazement, he uses impatience with a pinch of laughter. In short, he uses a combination of two expressions with different timings and severity to convey the full range of human emotions. Tell me, is this possible?

What about someone who are only able to express three types of emotions, all wildly different from each other? What about someone who does not know how to express some of the emotions becouse he has never been exposed to that kind of emotion before? What is he doesn't know how to express them? The correct mannerism, way, timing, and feel?

What if to express respectful answer, someone uses quick, short words in his questioning? Is he being disrespectful? Or does he just does not know which words to use to correctly convey his respect? Many a time I have been caught in this trap. Sounding disrespect even when I meant the utmost respect to the person I spoke to. Needless to say, it is unnerving and grating sometimes to see their faces.

For that and many others, I would like to apologize to all my friends and acquintance that I have unknowingly insulted, angered, ignored or otherwise slighted. Those feelings you get are not intentional on my part becouse I mean them harmless. I am sorry.

Besides, if I really want to insult somebody, I tell them straight to the face with no sugar-coating or talk behind their back. It is who I proud to be and will be for a very long time. Ciou.

Addendum:
When a kid ask an adult what something is or how something should be done, the adult will be invariably answer in a patient and generally non-condesending attitude. When an adult ask the same question to another adult, the second adult will ussually ask, "You should know better!" The problem is, the first adult doesn't know any better. So, is he (the 1st adult) should be penalised/scolded?

Psychology

I have a friend. well, not exactly a friend, but a friend of a friend. She (yes, a she!) is a psychology master or something in the local university. Studying the inner owrkings of the human mind. I thought to myself when she asked us to fill up a questionaire for her, "Hmm, why study human nature in uni when you can equally study them in the streets?" And my second question is, "Is she paying good money to know how to say "crazy" in the longest possible wording possible?"

I believe that human nature is definable through observation. For example, when you sit on a bus, at the window seat, where do you look? Do you look out the window? Do you look at your fellow passangers? Do you close your eyes? Where you look can tell an observer something about you. If you look out the window, you are the more introverted type, shy and avoids social contact if possible, a dreamer or your're sad/down/discouraged. It is a sign of you. It's ego.

If you tend to look at the passangers, and in the process strike up a conversation with them, you're the more sociable type, confident, a doer or you're happy/peppy/happy-go-lucky. It is a sign that you're interested in other people. It's about them, not you. It's likeble/popular.

If you close your eyes, it means that you're sleeping, afraid of eye contact, afraid of social contact to a degree far worse than looking out the window, unable to face reality and yourself. It is still about you, but more specifically, your fear. You are uncertain and unsure of yourself, selling yourself short in the things you do.

Honestly now, I made up all the above. But that is the impression I get when I look at people in busses, trains and in the mall. It is interesting what story lies behind the way they look at things. Admitedly, I stare, really hard, at those people. Probably explains why generally people are afraid of me! LOL! What I'm trying to say is, go to the mall/shopping centre, buy a cup of tea, sit down on a bench, and watch the people walk pass you. You will be surprised that there are many stories to be told by the way people talk, walk, buy or even sit. Now, this is better than sitting in a room full of students and trying to remember the meaning of schizophreny.

Going to Bangkok!

Horait!!! Now ladiessss and gentlemen!! Me, shiruikage, thereby announces that I will go to Bangkok to see some bang c**k action! All of you are not invited coz I do not have extra tickets to bring you all, and two, no money liou lar.....

Heheheh. Never been to Thailand although technically it is the closes country to Sitiawan (not counting Indonesia! :p). I wonder what it's like around November...I hope nobody riots there that time. Okaylar, just wanna update you guys. Heheheh. Maybe I should learn a few Thai phrases and get skinned alife! hahahah!!

Sawadika!!

I do not know what to write...

I have a blog. So do many millions of other people. I do not have an interesting blog. Thousands of others do. I do not update my blog very often. Hundreds of others do. I do not know what they write, but one thing is for sure: I do not know what is there to write about.

Several days back, in the Singapore main daily, there was a discussion about the role of online blogs they play in society, a debate sparked by the banning of a local blogger, mr brown, by the government of Singapore for his commentary of what he thinks is wrong with Singapore. The government is obviously not happy that mr brown portrayed Singapore in such a negative light. I am not about to comment on this.

But out of this fiasco, I got thinking. If blogs are not mainstream media, why is it that so many infomation that is written are just copies of what the mainstream meadia is printing? Granted that they can write whatever they want to write, but is it a mainstream media in its own right? Many seems to think so based on it's wide spread appeal and audience. I think the government of Singapore is afraid of this; they are losing control of what can be said and done in Singapore.

However, if they are not mainstream, what about alternative? Apparently, they (meaning governments anywhere) doesn't like it any more than they like mainstream. They merely tolerated it. Is there original content on personal blogs to justify it apparently villaineous content? Or is it just private words for friends and strangers that happen to be public? Sort of like writing a letter to a friend and leaving the letter on a table on a busy street. Think about it.

I have a dream...

...that people would stop treating me like idiots, pay me obscene amount of money to do nothing, and does not expect me to work to save myself. Yeah, that would be my dream. In short, I wanna be Bill Gates with all the whistles and grand houses without actually working for it. You know, bank account growing at millions of dollars weekly without having to do anything?

Anyway, this company of mine, sucks man. First they told me to submit a report within 3 days, now they expect me to rewrite the report and submit it within ONE day! And they report had better be the winner of a competition that the company joined. Sigh...If I'm not so clever, I'd almost given up on the report.