baby blues

Kat: "you can't hang on to baby sentences and in the same way baby scenes... you can't have babies... means to an end. it's brutal"

me: hahaha kat that's so profound

Kat: "i didn't make that up... that's what we were told on the first day of newsroom class... and yet, people held on to babies in their reports... and got brutally edited"

These were the content of a conversation Kat and I were having a few weeks back. It was loosely about being able to suck up criticism and be making necessary changes. Well, this thought floated back to my mind now that I am finally done with the coordination of pitch training for the top 11 startups who are going to pitch at this event that I am organizing.

I noticed a trend (non-significant since it was only out of 11 startups) who had flashy decks and they were unusually resistant to feedback that Aneace dispensed. The result was that they made minimal changes to their deck which were merely cosmetic changes that does not include the fundamental elements that Aneace earlier suggested .

And this resistance was so obviously displayed by a startup asking Aneace, "so... what further advice would you give me on my deck... other than just changing the slides?". That question was posed after half an hour of suggestions from Aneace to improve on the startup's supposedly revised deck (which looked no different from the original deck)

It was really the cutest question ever!

The person was very obviously impervious to suggestions could lead to the possible detriment of his pitch.

I cannot comment as to whether I think it's wise or not for the person to listen to Aneace since I am not a VC with intrinsic interest in the value of the product, and neither have I participated in similar pitching competitions.

What really intrigued me was the resistance to change. It made me think about how erroneous it is to be unreceptive to change. I mean that's pretty obvious problem since there ARE self-help books targeting that problem and also Kat's advise on 'not holding on to babies'.

It seems unintuitive for humans to be so non-adaptive as to not take advise for a problem they have not begun to realise. Even when the problem is explicitly expounded (in this case Aneace stated the problems), it is pretty clear that the persons has just shut-down and decided to pick up only information that supported their own ideas. Interesting..

So what are the solutions which would make this advise-giving possible? What kind of approach should Aneace have adopted with these startups? How could he have identified them and thus the approach to use to reduce the resistance towards his advise?

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On a separate note, I was at my friend's place after dinner and he has this adorable nephew who refused to play with us 'strangers'.

I believe that baby is only a little more than a year old and what I couldn't help thinking was how the baby was able to discriminate familiars and strangers very quickly. It's like humans have an in-built mechanism for biasness. Sure, we have a very developed area in our brains (fusiform gyrus) that is dedicated to the differentiating of faces. And it seems that this ability to discriminate is this precursor for exclusion, leading to selfishness, prejudice, racism, chauvinism... the list goes on..

So to what extent can we forgive discriminatory behaviour as just purely human nature? To what extent should the behaviour be modified? What kind of re-education is needed for extensive prejudice?

Hmmmsss... there ARE interesting psychology papers on prejudice and stuff. Those that I mostly read upon (or remember) are about priming and Implicit Associations. Can't remember if there's anything about the amelioration of these behaviours.


okay, neither are anything new. Just random thought that blab out throughout the day. no wonder im so distracted.

i was giving thought about my supposed 'stoning behaviour' and i realised that it appears more often when i have more thoughts in my mind which makes me unfoccused in the present. It's sth worth investigating this whole thing about stoning. Or maybe a better word is 'daydreaming'.

I should find out if there's any lit on daydreaming. could be a possible thesis topic :P

LOL

how many times am i gonna say that I will update my blog more regularly... only to cast it aside for more interesting endeavours like Sushi-Go-Round and Big Bang Theory.

Well, today i'm merely updating for the sake of touching base with this blog and to feel less guilty about overlooking my commitment to train my mind to be able to focus on a train of thought and not go off tangent.

So let's begin:

I caught X-Men: First Class with Gilbert today and it was frigging awesome! It has to be one better movies I caught this year, along with Kungfu Panda 2 and Black Swan.

Okay bye.

Acacia Rise

I am done with 7 weeks of internship at Acacia Rise, a school that uses guided participation to encourage dynamic thinking through its activities and syllabus. They follow closely to RDI. It was an amazing time there and I feel like I learnt so much more through the interaction with the kids and guidance from the teachers. The kids I worked with made real improvements over the time I was there and that was very affirming to my belief in that particular method of autism intervention..

Obviously there were times I felt pretty miserable, as the day-to-day becomes quite mundane. And then I was juggling two other jobs at the same time, which meant I was pretty exhausted. But I kept myself sane by reading up more about autism, neuroplasticity and watching scientists share their knowledge on platforms like TED.

Well, it's over and now I'm look forward to the work at e27 and my NUS proff. Although Acacia did ask me to go back and help in an adhoc basis. So it's really good. I will get to see my kids!

Okay well updates updates... I chopped my hair shorter cos my days were so busy I felt like my hair was such a burden. I camwhored today, will post up the photos later in this post.

At e27, I am allowed to work from home. SUCK ON THAT. super awesome right. well, not all the time. When I work from home, my family automatically assumes that I am bumming and assigns me chores. Otherwise they keep talking to me and then I get distracted. Another downside is that I'm really working 24/7. The plus-side is that I am working from home, which really sounds like a cool job to have. :\ LOL.

I had a dream we went away, left this city for a day
You took me southwards on a plane and showed me Spain or somewhere
But in reality your not so keen to show me anything
And I thought you liked me.

baby, catch my fever.

IM ALIVE.

hahaha. feeling especially perky since I had a good day today. Deciding to relish on how awesome my weekend has been.

Today. Got to work before 8AM, singing Home as I sashayed to work since I was totally early. Then work was pretty fun, physically tiring as per usual, chasing the kids around the place. Headed to Central @ Clarke Quay to meet Bryan for high tea at TCC. Yum yum licks. It was great meeting him to catch up before he begins jet-setting. Envious! He's heading to Aus, Japan then Taiwan.

The weekend was pretty good too.

Friday night was at Hsuzy's place having a steakout. Basically, we shared 2KG worth of beef between the 12 of us. All of us prepared a little somethingsomething as sides for the steak. I did a simple yoghurt dessert consisting of yoghurt, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and cereal toppings. I did that because I was so damn sick of cooking since I've been doing quite a fair bit due to the 'festivities' (or reallly just plain ole' boredom). However, it was a really excellent recipe for very little effort. The recipe is really whatever you see in it, plus whatever cereal you crave for. and a teaspoon of honey.




Then sat came, got my nails done with Ade since my nails were beginning to look realllly shitty. My fingertips are now feeling sweeeeeeet in pink and my toes are feeling sexy in their earthy tone. Ade and I shopped and then we met up with Hsuzy and Gil and headed to Burger Shack to fill our tummies. their burger and fries were unbelievably yummy. I can't believe it took me so long to finally taste them. Then after, headed to Qing's place for some rockbanding till 2am. Excellento.

Sunday was a day of rest. I was woken abruptly from my beauty sleep by the deliveryman. And since I couldn't get back to sleep, I settled down in front of the TV and proceeded to watch three to four movies back to back. Three to four because one of the movies was so bad I left it running on the TV while i did other stuff. Not exactly being proud of my non-energy-saving methods but I was home alone and I hate it when the house gets too quiet. So anyway, the more memorable films were Charlie St Cloud and Sophie's Revenge (2009). I especially recommend Sophie's Revenge to anyone who loves arty dressed up setups and deliberate cartoonish transitions. This film is honestly the <3 in that aspect. Otherwise, it's a very nice lightweight romantic comedy that everyone will love. Also, you would have never known Zhang Zi Yi could effectively act in such a quirky role. Here are some pictures to whet your appetites, and hopefully you'd go catch it too. PS. I <3 the set.

brand new year, completely new beginnings.

I started the first two days of my 2011 SLEEPING like a log. haha. it has been good though. i really love my sleep.

It's been a great year; Finally graduating from NUS. Meeting Gilbert. Being closer friends to Ade and Mich. Still really firm friends with my secondary school mates whom i love so dearly. Celebrating Yul's 22nd birthday. Upgraded from owning scaly cold-blooded pets to a nice warm furry hamster.

Anyway, NEW YEAR RES 2011: in 2010, i couldn't tell a lie with a straight face. 2011, i will work on my 'i'm-completely-innocent' face. if all fails, i guess i'll just have to miaow for forgiveness.

Other resolutions:
Find a job/school.
Get that driving license.
Train my hamster.
Sew something (I am now the proud owner of a sewing machine goddamnit)
Start being more active, lest i become a jelly at the end of 2011.

yeah that's about it. okay bye.