| 1:28 am, Sunday, June 16 2002 One year back in Time After few weeks of silence, I decided to come back and renew my website. So far, I am hoping to have a new theme. don't know what it is yet, will be thinking about it. Probably means some new icons and pictures too! Actually it was about this time last year that I started this website. Thinking back, I remember I was in Hong Kong, busy volunteering at a New Immigrant Centre, Tsuen Wan, of the Hong Kong Squatter Evangelistic Fellowship. I guess each time going there and coming back home, I often had a story to tell my parents, about the children and the three teens I work with. Haven't talked to them for a while.... I wonder if they would still remember me. Sometimes, it's hard. I always move here and there. I always get to meet and build up a relationships with some people. But then when I fly back to Toronto, it's hard to keep up. There is always people in Toronto to keep up with. How much can you do to maintain friendships? |
| Stress. Why? 06.16.2002 In the past two three weeks, I have to admit I have been feeling very very stressed out. Very confused too. I am taking summer school, Biopsychology, a second year program requirement course I've been shying away from for the past two years because I knew it was hard. It's not very easy to learn, say, 4 chapters about the brain and different behaviours and all the specific mechanisms in two weeks. I am very tired, very exhausted from the past school year - honestly, I can say I have been feeling very sick of school since final exams in may. I attribute it to school. But on the other hand, what I realize is that the real stress comes from myself. I am the one who pushes myself too hard. I keep thinking in my head, "I can't do it. I can't do it". Several wonderful friends around me prompted me to think seriously about what life is really for. What am I living for? Who am I living for? Why? What am I afraid of? What am I looking for? Perhaps I have been living under people's expectations, a lot of times my parents expectations. However, the funny thing is they no longer have that much expectations for me. Besides graduating from Univesity, they don't ask for more; at least not as hard as I imagine. In fact, they no longer required A's anything from me since first year. But weirdly, I've been pushing myself too hard and driving myself crazy. Not that I ace in school. But this excessive anxiety (which rushes my breathing and tenses up my muscles) won't help me do any better at school either. Secondly, I see that am living for my own comfort, my own selfish comfort. I like to feel comfortable, I don't like to be pushed to do what I am not used to doing. I like feeling relaxed. I like to feel easy. In a way, I am scared of changes and new challenges. So "What's next?" I am not sure yet. But I am still thinking. |
| June 2002 |
| 1:03pm, Wednesday, June 19 2002 At this current moment, I just came out from the Cafeteria in the Med Sci Building, walked home across King Circle and along Willcocks St. back in my room. I think I am craving some Chinese food, a nice plate of BBQ pork and Soya Sauce Chicken on steamy Chinese rice! That's what I want right now. Or actually, dimsum would not be too bad either. I am just really hungry I guess. Oh! I earned 10 buck on Monday by drinking some milkshake, eating and rating three different types of Chocolate cookies, eh?! They are Double Chocolate Chip, Chocolate Chuck and Reverse Chocolate Chip! Well, it' not like anything regular type of job! But it's what they called a "Taste Experiment" in a psychology lab. Yup, I went in, and the experimenter brought in smooth and tasty cup of milkshake for me, Yum Yum! And then, three full batches of freshly baked cookies! I can eat as much as I want to rate how 'sour', 'bitter', 'sweet', 'chocolatey', 'salty', 'good-tasting' and how much I like the cookies. At the end, during the debriefing time, of course I find out that the name Taste Experiment |
| is just a deception! It's actually a Social Psychology experiment testing the difference in the eating habits of dieters and non-dieters. Their hypothesis is that for non-dieters, there are foods like chocolate cookies, milkshake and etc. that are considered prohibited, and so usually they shy away from them. But because they were told to drink the milkshake initially, meaning that they have broken their diet rules at first, they'll proceed to "mess up" even more cookies and etc. than they usually would. Now, this is a little different from non-dieters. Non-dieters actually eat, not according to whether they "mess up" or not, but rather based on how full they feel. So the independent variable of the study is the amount of milkshake the subject initially drinks (ranging from zero, for control group, and 1o.z., 5o.z. and 10 o.z. for experimental groups). And the dependent variable is how many cookies altogether the subject has eaten. Don't know if this sound complicated. But don't worry if it does. The point is the milkshake and the cookies tasted pretty good and I had a great time eating there, plus earning 10 bucks just by filling out some questionaires and papers in a few minutes! hee hee.... I guess this is a simple and happy thing for me in a long while! |