1st week of school ended

Endured 1st week of school! As expected, it was quite a breeze, but with it I foresee tons of undesirable + heavy projects and presentations coming us. The floodgates are open. Say welcome to projects. =\ Not really looking forward to this semester, because it's gonna be the last one before I gotta start working. Sigh. Time zooms past faster than a rocket, or rather it accelerates at rocket speed as we age.

Don't think will have much time to update my blog as school starts. Will be busy with all the dreary stuff, so all audience and viewers, please don't hold too much hope when you check back on the page. Thank you all for your support and interest in my happenings, which are not so as interesting as my inspirational thoughts that only come to be once in a blue blue moon. Haha actually I think I'm starting to crap a little. Because I forgot what I wanted to blog down at the outset. Hmm...

Anyway, Anthon, BK, CH & us 2 sisters went to send off HX at Changi Airport last Sunday. That was quite a memorable evening for reasons some know and some doesn't. Haha. Memorable because my "invisible cloak" is getting thinner and I think I'm getting visible. For those who already know...I can't help putting this down even though I don't really think it's blogging material! It's so amusing!! Lol. Just to remind myself of 2nd January in the indefinite future. Hope that things will only continue to get better. :)

Mmm I had Swensen's 2 days in a row on Thursday and Friday. Met up with a few NJ band mates on Thursday...felt like a farewell dinner for Huiling cuz she's going Finland for IA. Friday met up with Yang'en who's going back London on Sunday. Arh..everyone's going somewhere. But doesn't matter, cuz we have MSN and ICQ! Good that we have these modern technology sometimes, so that you can keep in touch with friends even if you're miles apart right? But of course sometimes you find yourself irritated by your ringing handphone, wondering if that message or call is from someone you don't exactly feel like talking to. Maybe it's about that deadline you dread, a favour you're expecting someone to ask of you, or just a friend whom you don't exactly feel like replying at the moment. Whatever it is, don't you think sometimes you wish you can do away with your handphone so no one can find you? We're too attached to our handphones sometimes. I'm glad we've got a webcam though; friends can see us from miles away too! Must thank my sis and HX for the blessing haha. *thanks!*

By the way I still can't remember what I wanted to blog you know. Doesn't matter..still managed to squeeze some interesting (at least I think so) thoughts. Talking about that, I feel that one of my friends has matured a lot. Maybe it's because of the tsunami that wrecked countless families. Frankly, the ones who suffer are the ones who survive. I admire her new year resolutions, cuz I still can't be as strong as that yet.

To all nice people out there, "do not be so nice, too nice, or overly nice to people who do not deserve it!" Seriously. Being nice exhausts quite a lot of energy if you don't know or don't realise. Especially if you're not happy doing it, but you're doing it just to be nice to your friend (henceforth referred to as "The Friend"). Other than using up a lot of potential energy (thinking about how to do it and deliberating) and kinetic energy (to do it), there's opportunity costs involved! There are things that you should be doing but because you feel bad not helping The Friend, you help before you do your own stuff. There's a risk that you may not complete whatever you planned in your schedule because of this thing that cropped up.

Of course, some people who are more self-interested (I'm not implying that you are mean or what if you fall into this category) would not think twice about rejecting The Friend, or they may not even run into this situation because friends know their STYLE. I would say they are quite rational, because people are really supposed to be self-interested individuals according to the Resourceful Evaluative Maximizing Model, in short REMM. However, the world would be quite cold and undesirable if everyone was like that. Thus, there are people who are more altruistic (concerned for the well-being of others), i.e. the nice people I mentioned in the previous paragraph, who would sacrifice some time and effort for The Friend.

I've always found myself to be complex as is human nature; actually we engage in behaviour that is less than rational too. Not that being non-rational is abnormal, because there's also another model complementing the REMM that captures non-rational behaviour, which is the Pain Avoidance Model (PAM). It's just the dualistic nature of humans that makes us and everything else so complicated. If you remember, I commented before in one of my previous blog entries that as we grow old, we build up walls around us and become defensive. I just realised that this is part of the PAM too. In order to avoid pain associated with a certain situation, we sometimes react in ways that (may be defensive and) make ourselves vulnerable to more pain and worse off.

Non-rational behaviour is the crux of self-control problems. However, it is only human to be imperfect. All of us are both rational and non-rational. Just make the most out of your life and do what your heart tells you to do after rationally weighing the pros and cons! ;) Therefore I shall continue to be a relatively nice person, and you reading this should be nice to me too! Haha. Let's make the world a better place to live in! Lol. *half joking*

By the way I only happened to think about the 2 models that describe human behaviour, REMM and PAM, as I wrote about self interested people. Not intended to bore you or what. I learnt them from one of my favourite articles by Michael C. Jensen in one of my accounting modules. Maybe you can check it out here (I went to search for the article online so you can take a peek if you're interested heh) --> http://www.business.uiuc.edu/~shelley1/Readings/Self-Interest.pdf

After blogging such a longggggg entry, I'm really tired. BOTH eyes and mind. So I shall go rest before starting on my work. Have a great weekend! Rest well people. :)