Place where your joy begins

Also known as…

F*** I Never Actually Learned this S***
Well its that time of the year that every student everywhere attending International Schools or American schools dread. The finals week. Last year wasn’t as bad. I just studied for my finals everyday and BOOM BOOM BOOM I just took them. But this year… THIS SATURDAY IS MY SATII SUBJECT TEST FOR WORLD HISTORY GRRR and I wasn’t able to study a lot for them because of FINAL PROJECTS. Now todays my only day studying and hopefully I’ll do okay tomorrow…Solely depending on my luck. AHAH but then what I’m worried about are my finals…

That’s how I am right now GAHHH WAKE ME UP FROM THIS DREAM.

Umm… So, I participated in that movie. Scott’s Psychology Final Project… But what I didn’t know was that he is showing it to the WHOLE class. Wow. wow. wow. There goes my pride. Tell me now, if anybody wants to be me in the video, TELL ME NOW AND I’D LOVE TO SWITCH WITH YOU.

But let me take a moment to explain the background of the making of the video. In Scott’s project, he is trying to explain the concept of “Big Five” personalities in Psychology. Let me quote from wikipedia.org,

“The five factors are Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism (OCEAN, or CANOE if rearranged). They are also referred to as the “Five Factor Model” (FFM). However, some discussion remains about how to interpret the Openness factor, which is sometimes called “Intellect.” ^[3] Each factor consists of a cluster of more specific traits that correlate together. For example, extraversion includes such related qualities as sociability, excitement seeking, impulsiveness, and positive emotions.”

If you look back at the video again, it’ll make a little more sense than before… Maybe.

Often music can make us cry, make us laugh, and drive us crazy. It’s probably one of the most effective ways of conveying emotion. Music choice one of the most important aspect of movie making, depending on the music, it can determine if the movie’s good or not, especially for scary movies. Imagine the song Island in the Sun by Weezer, in Ju-on. Umm… NO. I’d quit watching the movie as soon as I heard that. And well, I went around asking a few girls. But it seems like their number one wish when a guy is asking them out, is to sing a love song.
So what’s in a music? It’s the fact that the lyrics, often of great meaning like Imagine by John Lenon, are carried through our voice. Our voice is probably the most effective sound in the whole of universe. Even when reading the same lines, depending of the tone of or emphasis of certain words in the sentence, it can carry a completely different emotion.
Then what determines good music from bad music? A “good” music will be a combination of all the qualities mentioned before. Proper tone plus meaningful lyrics. But music’s been turning into the wrong side. Popular music these days often have no meaning whatsoever but are often just catchy. It’s a shame

I’m probably not the first person you’d turn to for faith in god. I haven’t gone to church in a few months now. I don’t know most of the bible stories, I’ve never enjoyed church (partly because of terrible experience I had at church camp when I was in 1st grade) . But I do have some “Christian” values I guess which just passed on to me from my parents. Who are faithful followers of God.
I do know one thing for sure. That comic ain’t right. It’s just sad that so many things revolve around money these days. Success is measured through the amount of money you earn each year, happiness is measured through object of possession, and love is provided through money.
Our world’s mixed with things that we have no clue of. Full of things that will constantly be changing. But there’s always just one thing that I’m always sure of. God’s unconditional love towards us.
“CHEESY!” You are thinking in your head. But there’s no other way of saying this. When you feel it, you’ll know and there’s no other way of expressing this. It’s just so great. His love for us. It should never be even compared to anything or ever doubted us.
Our preacher once talked of a man who went crazy for money and possession. He started out with no house and poor. Soon he was able to get a house and a decent job, he was crazy happy but he saw another neighbor with toilet in his house. Out of his jealousy, he worked hard to get a house just like that. But his ambition grew every time he moved and it seemed that he could never fulfill his needs.
Certainly he is successful, work wise. But did he succeed in life? Most definitely not because although he has learned a lot of money, his goals were never satisfied and all his life, he spent in order to achieve that goal. He never took a moment to enjoy his wealth.
God silently watches every individual over their life. Asian or European, tall or short, fat or skinny, he shows no discrimination. this comic comparing god not existing with the amount of money earned made me upset. >: (

They aren’t actually gone wild but, the technology has certainly gone wild. It was only a few years back when mankind was amazed that they had built a ROBOT. But now, they can create parts of the robot connected to our brain so that it functions just by the power of the thought

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/29/science/29brain.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Look at that, now even those who were paralyzed can have a new life and have a normal life. This is certainly great. Well, for a few weeks I was scared for my life when I heard the word “paralyzed” because I was actually | | *the space in between* THAT close to becoming paralyzed myself because of the accident. The denture on my skull went until it almost touched the part of brain that controlled my face muscles. So, right after the accident, half of my face was only functioning 80% as well as the other half. It was just a scary thought… Not being able to move half my face. Imagine for those who have their whole body paralyzed. Their thoughts still dwindle in their little heads, which they can’t move. But they can’t express any of their thoughts or link them to action. THIS can all be solved now, although I bet this will be REAL expensive when it’s first offered to the general market. However, hopefully over time the price of it will decline and it’ll be available widely to the general population.

In the world today, I think area of the world that this device will be most useful will be the third world countries. Still suffering from effects of World War I and World War II, imperialism, and post-imperialism. Countries’ lands are often bombarded with land mines and poor citizens of these countries, who are often oblivious of the mines existence steps over them. The people are often killed, if lucky, amputated and they’ll not be able to support themselves in anyway. Not only mines but third world countries still engage in civil wars. With bullets flying everywhere, it’s easy to become paralyzed. This invention will help these people dearly. I want to invent something that’ll help humankind one day

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/25/world/asia/25schools.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp

Oh, no.

Yes, it was a disaster. Yes, a lot of people were killed with many buildings breaking apart. What if so many of these lives could’ve been saved. We all agree that human life is much more valuable than, millions of dollars. Then wouldn’t hundreds of thousands of children’s lives be worth saving for? for a couple of billion or even tens of billions of dollars?
If you are saying no in your mind… you need to go see a psychiatrist. Come on, IT’S THE LAW. PLUS IT’S A PLACE WHERE HUNDREDS AND THOUSANDS OF CHILDREN, future of this world is going to spend most of their time. The school buildings were illegal and poorly built. But it’s not all schools that were destroyed. Private schools are fine and now are used as shelter for most of the residents. Public schools… were built with materials that shouldn’t be used to build in the first place. Then when the earthquake occured, it killed thousands of children. It’s just sad that few bucks couldn’t be spared by the Chinese government to save thousands of their youngsters.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/22/us/politics/22health.html?bl&ex=1211774400&en=4e4ad2bb937703cc&ei=5087%0A

He even looks old in his picture that was only taken 4months ago. I don’t know about American Presidents, but Korean presidents certainly don’t look the same from when they go in and when they come out… they look much older and much more tired. Take a look at Roh Moo-hyun.

Before

After

Can this man survive??? Senator McCain has recently undergone a cancer surgery which he still sees regularly for check up. Well, we can assume that’s a normal procedure, any president could’ve gotten a surgery… BUT why is he then afraid to release his medical records? He had delayed it for a YEAR, with the excuse that “scheduling” of the doctors was a difficult task. how come these doctors can’t make time for the CANDIDATE of United States of America??? This should’ve been their first priority, which makes McCain’s defense even more questionable. Is he really healthy???He says he’s releasing the records… FINALLY but the question is… Why aren’t the records allowed to go out? It’s just strange that for a man who claims that he is healthy keeps his health records so secretive.
But say this man was elected as president… and for some bizzare reason if he gets in an accident and passes away. the world would be in trouble. it’s already in trouble because of Bush attacking every country he feels like. we need a stable government for the world economy which is offset by the rise of oil prices. the world can’t take a risk. so lets not.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7413268.stm

dudes.  that is not cool. people were burned for witchcraft. this is what happened during the middle ages due to impact of the Bubonic Plague when the Pope could not stop it… he blamed it on the witches doing stuff thats wicked. But… all this was scientifically proven wrong! WHAT ARE THESE PEOPLE DOING????? We all know witches don’t exist… It’s just not possible. then why are people getting killed for witchcraft just like in the middle ages?

this is certainly unfortunate. and it also shows us what kind of society these people live in. their society has only progressed so far as of middle ages. while the rest of the world are continuously progressing. this isn’t a matter to be neglected. ngos such as the united nations should take bigger part in African societies, in this case, and many other societies around the world which are uneducated to eliminate these unnecessary deaths in the world. to have someone killed in the twenty first century for witchcraft is absurd. this problem should be eliminated as soon as possible.

Continuing on the topic of George W. Bush from before, I’ve already mentioned what he’s done wrong. But as I thought more about why the artists were so interested in the situation when there’s been other President’s who have made the wrong choices too. This cartoon explained it in 4 simple boxes. There has to be a situation in some “people” have to be in grave danger. In the case above, the robbers going to kill him. When President Bush started war, what was his reason? “America is under threat from terrorists.” Not surprisingly, the support for Bush as a president jumped drastically as a reason of 9/11 attacks. America was THIRSTY for revenge. So pounced on our poor victim, as we all know, Afghanistan. Reason for invasion changed constantly, for peace, for Osama bin Laden, for Weapon of Mass Destruction, and for Saddam Hussein. In a sense President Bush acted as if he was the superhero of our world. But instead of helping anything, as you can see from the comic,  the situation got worse. The world has seen the rise of terrorist activities, and unrest everywhere. Did he save us? He save the Americans? I hope at least he did one of those things.

One of the problems of our society is the value of money.  Which probably originates from the book, Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith and his idea of laissez-faire. As illustrated above, even little kids know what money is and how it works. Well, certainly people have become wealthier and money’s become more common (in certain areas). The problem of this is that money seems to play a big part in EVERYTHING. Almost. Like marriage for instance, now more than ever, old, wrinkled guys with a lot of cash are getting married to hot sexy woman. Not that this is wrong in anyway… THIS WOULD BE PERFECTLY fine if they had real “LOVE.” If you looked at my previous blog post about love, you’d figure out what I’m talking about. I BELIEVE, its just my opinion but they don’t have real love. Most of these couples, last a couple of months. After the break up, it’s usually followed by a massive law suit from the female side who wants “their” share as respected wife. In a normal circumstance, this would be fair and just. But, the whole purpose of these woman were to get the money of poor, and lonely old man therefore I think no money should be grated to those women. Yet, the court has ruled so far to at least give couple of millions to the wives. I don’t think money’s done much good to our society