Sentimental Moments - It's "Emo" Time

The semester is finally drawing to an end. Yay. I'm finally not going to be tortured any further by those God-damned LSM modules any more but at the same time, this will be one of the final moments for this professional communication module. Getting through this module was by no means an easy feat. The assignments, coupled with those from my other history GEM, suffocated me with tons of work such that I almost sank into a bout of depression at one time. Anyway, enough ranting and down to my takeaways for this module.

I started this module with a very objective approach to communication. I viewed communication as a tool for survival and for achieving objectives. Although true, this is not all there is to the topic of communication. Interpersonal communication entails the soul of a person, drawing very heavily on one's emotional intelligence. The bonds that I've forged with TAJJ through doing the project together is a testament of this, teaching me the importance of investing my emotions into relationships. This personal approach to this last post is in contrast to my formal first post, to show that communication really depends on how well you handle the conditions and factors.

I think that the art of communication is a skill that needs to be constantly refined and used. If you don't exercise it, it will surely weaken. Learning to communicate doesn't take place only in the classroom. In fact, most of the learning has to be done outside when we are interacting with people. We have to constantly be aware of our conduct, refining it through learning from other people. I've come to believe that the spirit of this module is to embark us on a lifelong journey of self-awareness and constant self-improvement.

Lastly, I'd like to thank Brad for being such a charismatic teacher. Thanks for all your patience with us bad kids and for all the interesting and enriching experiences that you've shared with us in class.

Jeremy, signing off.

All about Woody (Shameless self-advertisement)

Woodford Jeremy Michael is friendly, helpful, original, patient and reflective.He is quite well versed in job skills such as administration, liasing, supervising, tutoring, teaching and writing. He can also use computer programs in Microsoft Office.

Jeremy possesses critical skills such as being able to follow instructions well and to get along well with others. He can manage, plan and organise well, is punctual and responsible. He is good at speaking and writing, as well as supervising and leading. He is also detail-oriented and is good at researching.

Jeremy is caring, diplomatic, encouraging, helpful patient and is a good mentor. When leading, he is also good at delegating work, sets clear and realistic goals, has integrity, is good at organising and is results-oriented.

Last but not least, Jeremy loves playing on the guitar and is an ardent fan of Guns and Roses (Rock On!) . He is also quite artistic and can sketch relatively well.

Lessons from TAJJ

This project was certainly one of the most interesting I've ever had, as I had to depend very heavily on my project mates to pull through the project.

The period of time where I had to do the bulk of the work for the project was also the time where I had to study for my mid term tests. These were no ordinary mid terms mind you. These were the mid terms of the legendary Life Science year 2 core modules, which were as torturous as the Draize test. I really felt like a lab rat/rabbit/monkey this semester.

I felt that my group did exceptionally well working with each other and understanding each other's situation, covering for each other whenever someone needed help. We managed to communicate with each other effectively and worked together seamlessly.

There was one minor hiccup that I could mention though. I was assigned to do the background of the report and the introduction of the literature report. However, the "eternally-blur" me misunderstood it as doing one introduction for the whole project and it ended up with me not being able to attend one meeting with the required work done. Luckily, no harm was done and I was able to finish up my portion of the work peacefully. Thank you TAJJ!

Meet the (Chinese) Parents

Ling was finally going to bring her boyfriend, Bruce, to meet her parents over dinner. This would be a critical moment and his performance would determine whether Tracey's parents would accept this "Ang-Moh" as an in-law. Therefore, Tracey tried to brief her boyfriend about the Chinese culture and its "do's and don'ts" before the dinner, hoping that it would help him score those much needed points.

The dinner was a disaster. When the dishes were served, Bruce helped himself to the food heartily, unaware of the need for subtleties when taking food. What happened next was worse. When Ling’s mother brought out her signature dish, she followed the custom of Chinese cooks to criticise their own dishes in a bid to be modest. Guests were supposed to disagree, saying that it was delicious. However, Bruce commented that the dish could do with a little more soy sauce and proceeded to add some soy sauce to the dish in front of the cook herself!

Ling almost fainted on the spot. Would this potential “In-law” become an “Out-law” instead?

Now, we can’t really blame Bruce right? He was just acting like how he would be in a Caucasian family, where everything is open. He would never have realised the subtle and silent customs of the Chinese culture. Everything is learnt slowly through the years living in a Chinese family. Bruce was just trying to be helpful in adding the soy sauce. He wouldn’t have reacted to Ling’s mother’s comments in that way if he had a deeper understanding of the Chinese culture. Maybe he should have done a little more homework before coming over for such an important dinner?

The Fur Trade Horror

Aren't those furry soft toys and plushies such a pleasure to squeeze and to hug? Just thinking about the softeness of the texture makes you want to coo.

Stop

What if that fur was real and that it came from a fur farm in China? What is a fur farm? A place where fur is grown? I'm sorry to burst your bubble but a fur farm is hell on Earth. It is where countless animals are brought to be skinned for their fur. Be it dogs, cats, foxes or even monkeys, the list of animals goes on.

What's so horrible about that? We eat cows and chickens everyday right?

The horror is that these animals are skinned ALIVE, with no anasthesia or even any effort to kill them before the process. Just the process of bringing the animals to the farm is cruel in its own rights, where several animals are crammed into small cages and transported on lorries. The cages are "unloaded" by being thrown from heights of up to 30 feet from the top of the lorries to the ground. Legs are broken and bones are shattered, but these animals are still not dead yet.

The animals are then taken out and bashed senseless with sticks and poles before being skinned. The details are truly disturbing and brutal.

Here are a few readings for your information on this topic. Be warned that there are very graphic images and videos that may be viewed.
http://www.hsus.org/about_us/humane_society_international_hsi/cruelty_issues_around_the_world/dying_for_fur_recent_investigation_shows_cruelty_at_chinese_fur_farms.html
http://www.peta.org.uk/feat/dogcatfurUK.asp
http://buyhard.net46.net/animalcruelty.htm#dogslaughter

Some people around the world are aware of these atrocities and try to fight them. Sadly, most people do not care, thinking that this has nothing to do with them and that they would not be able to do anything to help anyway.

They are dead wrong.

By buying such products we are supporting the propagation of the fur trade. What the fur trade has succeeded in making fur socially acceptable by subtly incorporating fur products into merchandises. A coat with a fur collar, a parka with fur trim around the hood, a scarf, or wrap, or a handbag with fur detail. These are some examples of such products.

We can and should be morally bound to do something regarding this issue. What should be done is to teach the population about the cruelties of the fur trade and to enable them to identify the consumer actions that support their trade.

My question now is: How many people in NUS actually know of this issue? Then, how many people in Singapore know about this issue? We will not be able to do anything about this problem if we do not even know of its existence. Its time to stir the masses.

Saying No

Sammy had a problem. He was the new kid in the class this year after a school transfer. At first, all seemed well as everybody was quite cool with him. Things started taking a turn for the worse when a group of boys from his class started borrowing a small amount of money from him. Initially, he enthusiastically lent them the money, thinking nothing much of it. However, they continued borrowing money from him, promising that they would return the money soon. The promises were never fulfilled.

When Sammy finally decided to confront the boys about the issues, the most unexpected thing happened. The boys brought him to an isolated place in school and beat him up, threatening to do him further harm if he ever dared to bring up the issue again. They also made him promise not to tell his parents the real reason for his injuries.

Sammy went home full of fear and doubt about himself. What did he do wrong to warrant such an attack on himself? Then something extraordiary happened. As he was surfing the internet while nursing his bruises, Sammy stumbled onto Woody's blog post titled "The Mind of the Bully". Sammy realised that while it was not his fault that the incident happened, he might really have been sending the wrong message to others, always flashing the latest accessories and gadets that his parents had bought for him to his classmates. Sammy had also always been a scatterbrain, always stumbling around the place clumsily and never really knowing what was going on around him. Could this be the reason he was targeted?

Sammy decided to do something to resolve this problem. Now, how was he going to go about tackling this issue?

The Mind of the Bully

Almost all of us have been the victim of a bully at one point of our lives or another. Be it physical or verbal bullying, make no mistake, the bully only has ill-will for you. His actions are malicious in nature and are meant to harm you. He dervies pleasure from hurting you. Sometimes, the victim doesn't even know that he is being bullied and often doesn't know how to defend himself against these attacks.

This post aims to analyse how the bully picks his victim and how he attacks him, as well as how the victim reacts and the results of his reactions.

I believe the way a person dresses and acts has a great influence on his vulnerability to being bullied. A person who dresses in a "geekish" manner appears to be physically weak and unable to defend himself against physical attacks. Similarly, a person who is timid is unlikely to even retaliate when attacks. Bullies often look out for traits such as these in their victim as they are signs that the person is not physically or psychologically strong enough to withstand their abuse.

The bully will also act and dress in a way that reinforces his or her position of the aggressor. Jocks threaten to beat anybody up who dares to mess with them. The obnoxious woman who always insults other people's dressing never fails to be one of the most trendy people in the room. All this is done in a bid to make sure that they are superior to the victim in the areas where they are attacking them.

Lastly, when a victim submissively tolerates the bully's abuse, he is actually telling the bully that he can continue his attacks, that he can get away with his actions. Conversely, if the victim stands up for himself and retaliates (regardless of the manner), he sends the message that he will not condone the bully's behaviour and is capable of defending himself and even attacking back if the need arises.

In conclusion, I believe that most bullying cases can be prevented if the victim portrays a better image and takes appropriate countermeasures when attacked. So stand up for yourselves people!

Reply to Brad

Thank you Brad for your encouraging comments! I do have a very interesting and logical explanation to your question.

I do believe that the human race has reached the next critical stage of evolution, where our advancement is no longer just dependent on our physical adaptations to our surrounding environment but also on the evolution of our global civilization.

Simply put, if we continue to abuse our environment and degrade it, the world will eventually become too inhospitable for us to live in. In this scenario, the human race will either go extinct or would have developed the technology to enable us to live in space independent of the earth. The earth would have simply "shrugged" us off.

Either way, life on earth will continue to exist, with or without us. The key thing to take note of is that life on earth has never been stable. Mass extinctions have happened on many occasions throughout earth's history and evolution has brought the biodiversity back to a certain number again. Life on earth exists as a system in equilibrium with the environment.

Whatever we are trying to preserve now is just an environment on earth that is suitable for human life, which is not permanent anyway. For the continued survival and propagation of our species in this universe (not just independent of the earth), we will have to develop a civilisation with near utopian judicial, governmental, economic, media, educational and social systems. This will lead to the concept of the different stages of maturity of civilizations.

Where effective communication skills are required is really within the global community as a whole, not only between our various governments but also our various multi-national organisations. This is in the pursuit of the development of better systems in the areas previously listed.

Now, the question would be: Can we achieve this technological superiority by the time we reach the critical time where the earth can no longer support human life? And can we continue to develop the systems that we require to survive at our continual stages of civilisation?

The Importance of Effective Communication Skills in Life

This is a blog by a student taking a module on professional communication. As much as I would like to write with an informal setting, to facilitate my training on communicating in a professional manner, I have decided to write my posts with a degree of formality.

The decision to write in a formal manner demonstrates the importance of developing effective communication skills in human society. Man is a social animal that has evolved to survive through the formation of tightly knit social units. Through communicating with each other, prehistoric men were able to hunt down large prey using the most primitive of weapons. This is because communicating with one another allows for people to coordinate with each other and work together to conquer otherwise insurmountable tasks. It is this ability to work in a coordinated group that has allowed Man to dominate our planet even though we are not the most physically viable of all animal species.

In this modern age, the role of communication in a person’s life has not decreased one bit. In order to achieve a successful and wholesome life, a person must develop skills that enable him to communicate well with people. The ability to communicate well with people opens up a channel rich in opportunities to obtain resources such as information, finances and even more contacts.

Interestingly, a person’s level of emotional intelligence is an important factor in determining how well one can communicate with others and a person’s ability to communicate with others greatly affects a person’s emotional health. Introverted people often experience problems such as low self esteem and low self confidence. Conversely, people who are poor communicators often find it hard to maintain good relationships with people. For example, parents who have difficulty expressing affection for their children often cause their children to grow up emotionally impaired, thinking that their parents don’t love them. Many conflicts and misunderstandings often stem from miscommunication between people.

Personally, I have learnt about the importance of communicating well with people in maintaining good relations with people. Through heart wrenching conflicts where good friends have been lost and countless hours of self reflection, I have learnt the value of respect for people. Experience has taught me to pay attention to the emotional state of people and to be wise in my choice of words and tone of speech when speaking to people. Ultimately, it is the quality of the relationships that I have with my family and friends that determine the degree of happiness and fulfillment that I find in life; and this is only possible through the development of effective communication skills.