Kcirtap: July 2007

Last Friday, being a dedicated Theatre Management Team (TMT) member, I helped out in the event Sinphonique! or whatever the spelling. I was in charge of handling the old cranky spotlight on the right of the auditorium. It being heavy was not so much an issue other than I lack the muscle endurance. The unbearable were the facts that the spotlight does not rotate smoothly, this made trailing the emcees a jagged process; there was no rehersals for us, everything was impromptu, mistakes happened but doubt audience would give a damn about them; and the event was 2.5 hours long, I was standing all the time lest the 15 minutes interval. Again, I lack the muscle endurance.

Saturday, woke up with a slight sore throat. Not expecting it to get healed within a week. Good news from Desmondo: he is putting those wicked designs onto shirt templates. Steaming liao.

Monday, good to know that all subjects passed so far and that there IS break before examinations. Can still slack. During the Microbiology class, the laboratory was filled with laughter. On my part, I particularly enjoyed my Faint-Spell-Fall. Perfect execution such that Weeping suggested me to join drama club. If they do mime I will definately join. Memorising lines, putting on those fake expressions, getting into character and speaking in the exagerated way are not my style. My style is what makes me unique. She also mentioned that after reading my blog, she felt that I am ...... therefore I suggested the word [anti-social]. She found it fitting but I told her that my anti-social-ness is an improved and specialised.

Tuesday, the cough is getting a little buay tahan. Half way through the day then I realised: at least half the class won't appear tomorrow for the dedicated, 1-hour econs lesson from 12pm to 1pm. Procrastination still pre-dominates this stage of my life. At night, received a SMS asking for TMT members' assistance on Friday, 3rd Aug 2007 7pm - 9pm for an event for Rotaract Club. What the hell is that club? Come to think about it, May be I should quit Sudoku Club since a) I learnt nothing new as I know most of the techniques and b) there is like no members left.

Thanks to Tickle.com, yet another personality test which this time is pretty accurate in the results.

What Breed of Dog Are You at Work?

Patrick, you're a Labrador.

As a Labrador, you are one of the most reliable workers out there. Your demeanor and sincere desire to do a good job and please others makes you an asset to any job. In the heat of a debate, you can remain calm and agreeable — capable of mediating conflict with a diplomatic approach.

You're equally good at working in on team and individual projects. And that discipline combined with your skills in group dynamics will serve you well whatever you do. You get along well with co-workers, both inside of work and out.

Labs are a favorite with most people. Compared to others, you are a calm and agreeable creature. You enjoy the company of other dogs but don't min being alone and staying in your doghouse at times. You are genial to the point that you don't often disclose your own conflicts with others.

Labs love to please others. Because of that, you may sometimes tend to take responsibility to everything — and that may slow down your productivity. But that's not something to worry too much about since you seem to be able to get the work done. Labs are seen as one of the kindest and most reliable breeds. They are fairly active and emotionally stable. As a result, they are extremely popular and find themselves running around with different crowds, able to mix into just about any situation with confidence.

Of these characteristics, what sets you and other Labradors apart from different breeds is a combination of three factors:

Your level of dominance: Your Alpha/Beta factor.
Your need for affiliation: Your desire to associate with colleagues.
Your temperament: How much you wear your heart on your sleeve.

By looking at your scores on these three dimensions, we determined your dog type.

Are you an Alpha or a Beta?
Climbing over people on your way up the ladder to success — it's just not your style. You and your fellow Labrador are Beta dogs at work — true diplomats who get the job done. What separates you from the Alpha dogs out there? Not ambition. You want to succeed as much as anyone. It's just that you play by different rules — you aren't driven to win at any expense. You also know that sometimes you make a bigger difference and get more done if you're not obsessed by the highest rank, the grandest title, or the greatest responsibility. Although it's unusual for you to be particularly competitive, you have your moments and know when it's time to take on a challenge. You're not aggressive by nature and it takes a lot to get you steamed about things, which helps you pick your battles. Your patient nature is generally an asset in the workplace. People are relaxed around you. Because you are not as visibly competitive as your Alpha colleagues, however, you may mistakenly appear to lack their zeal or drive. But overall, people appreciate your Beta ways. You care about your work, and more importantly, you care about understanding and building workplace relationships — relationships you can benefit from later down the line.

Getting ahead at work (Leading the pack)
Because you are relatively laid back and less aggressive than the Alphas in your midst, people see you as a consoler, or someone to whom they can talk. You inspire their confidence because you are not always hurried and you patiently listen to others. Although there are many upsides to being a Beta in terms of your congeniality, life satisfaction, and health, there are a few downsides as well. Your unhurried style can sometimes make you seem as though you lack ambition. Your bosses may assume that you are satisfied with your lot and may pass you by for a promotion in favor of a colleague who seems hungrier than you. Your challenge is to maintain your Beta style while conveying to your colleagues and bosses that you are a high achiever and that you do compete when it counts.

Job satisfaction (How to wag your tail every day)
If you want to please your inner dog at work, you need to identify an office environment that suits your social needs. When it comes to your job, there are a number of components that make it a good fit for you. Are you doing the work you want to be doing? Are you working for the kind of company you want to work for? Is your personality a good match for your career?

In addition to those aspects of work, there is another factor that directly influences how happy you are at work: How important is it for you to make meaningful relationships with your fellow workers? Some people think this is crucial for their job satisfaction. Others find interacting with co-workers (beyond necessary needs) time-consuming, irrelevant, and disruptive to their productivity. In short, some people want to develop relationships with co-workers beyond the collaborations critical for the company, while others prefer to reduce the social intensity at work without alienating their colleagues.

Your need for affiliation in the workplace
Labradors like you work well alone and with others. As long as you're mixing it up, that's fine by you. If you had your choice, however, you'd rather surround yourself with a few close friends rather than a mass of people you barely know. At the same time, you don't mind going to social events alone and figure you'll meet new people there. At the office, however, the flurry of social activities can sometimes get in the way of your work. In fact, it might get so distracting at times that you prefer to come in early or leave late — just to have some quiet time to work on your own.

Since you're balancing your occasional need to work alone with your desire to collaborate and be social, you, more than others, may have a hard time setting boundaries with co-workers. You generally get along with everyone but you don't necessarily want to be best friends with everyone at work. Just keep your cool if you're starting to get crowded. Work is always a good excuse if someone's spending too much time in your workspace.

Your Temperament
Whether it's too many deadlines or unreasonable bosses, everyone experiences job-related stress. How you handle stress and anxiety varies from dog to dog. Tickle analyzed your temperament. And now, we can take a look at how you cope with stress and how it impacts others around you.

As a breed, Labradors are fairly easy-going most of the time. But when you're feeling stressed, you prefer to keep your feelings to yourself instead of letting them rise to the surface. The fact that you suppress your feelings instead of blurting out your opinions when they first occur makes you a "suppressor."

Suppressors feel greater control when they have time to analyze and think about their feelings. While this does have some benefits, it also can get in the way sometimes. It's likely that instead of admitting to work anxiety, you try to bury it so it won't "get in the way" of you doing a good job. While it's good to be focused on your work, don't underestimate the feelings of stress or unease that you might have. You might be so good at suppressing feelings that you don't fully acknowledge that you're feeling uneasy about things.

The problem with that is even if you try to avoid stress, it tends to find ways to leak out. When you become less tolerant of everyday hassles — getting annoyed by friendly co-workers, getting especially tense in meetings, getting overly frustrated by traffic jams, getting flustered when you can't find your favorite pen — know that these are all indicators that there's something else bothering you. Just be aware of these signs so you can take the time to figure out what's causing your stress. Ultimately, not coming to terms with your feelings and letting people know about them reduces your chances of ever feeling completely content at the workplace.

Your impact on others
People in the workplace feel comfortable with you knowing that you'll listen all the way through before judging a situation. This is good. It increases your reliability and adds a sense of calm to the workplace. You are even-keeled and react to events and emotions with deliberation. For your sense of comfort, you need to feel in control, but you also want to project that image to others as well.

Because of this, you weigh the benefits and consequences of voicing you opinion before doing so. Most of the time, you temper your feelings — making an effort to be diplomatic when you can be. As a result, most people see consistency in your behavior and mood.

Your attempts to moderate your feelings however, limit the ability of others to get to know the real, uncensored you. It also makes it more difficult for people to know how they can best fulfill your needs and wishes. co-workers are not mind readers. Bear that in mind and remember to give them positive direction for what you do want, or how you best operate in conjunction with them. Additionally, your bottled up feelings are likely to blow up sometime — even in a meeting unrelated to your initial frustrations. That will confuse colleagues, so make sure you can separate your issues.

How Trainable Are You?
When it comes right down to it, every dog has it's own quirks. To get a more complete profile of you at work, we went beyond your breed to find out how you learn and adapt to change. Those factors combined with the other personality characteristics we've discussed will paint a full picture of your breed of dog at work.

To proceed up the career ladder, you've got to understand the way you learn. If you don't know that, you can miss opportunities along the way, and lose valuable time and energy trying to understand concepts and positions critical to your job.

You are an introspective learner, a ponderer. You learn best when you have the time to think about things on your own, before you have to act on them. You'd rather act more slowly, but consider all the possibilities and options than act quickly and make adjustments later. And beyond that, once you learn something, you can be counted on to be thorough and reliable. You are confident of your abilities and are not afraid to admit you need to learn more. In work situations, people probably think of you as the follow-through person.

So learn how to use your introspective learning style to your advantage. Take the time to understand the types of environments in which you learn most effectively. If you follow these rules, you will become a faster and more successful learner.

Use your learning style to your advantage
Because you are an introspective learner, you have a careful and methodical style. Since you prefer to pore over material before acting on it, try to find extra time to study up before you hit meetings. That will help you appear prepared to colleagues if you are called on to offer your opinion because you have already had the time you like to mull things over. It is difficult for you to learn in a group format when everyone has his or her own pace. When you are reflecting on the material, you will learn it faster if you think about the "what ifs" and anticipate objections or troubles. Jot down your thoughts on paper so that you can share them with others in a meeting.

Still, meetings and seminars can be difficult for you, sometimes. To keep yourself engaged, ask questions often and request that there be a short break every hour to give you a chance to absorb the material.

How do you respond to the new and the different?
How you react to new situations or adapt to change gives you insight into your personality. While you were taking the test, Tickle examined your tendency to seek new situations and your ability to cope with change.

You like to know your job and be the expert at it. While others are racing around scoping out new roles, you prefer to become an instrumental player at work, one people come to for answers and expertise. You know what your role within the workplace is, and don't feel compelled to explore new and different directions all that often. That's in part because you prefer predictable situations over surprises.

You find routines comforting. With all the chaos of the office, they provide you a sense of stability and control to serve as a good base for you. When those stars are lined up right, it sets you up to enjoy being in charge. While everyone is leaping to the new idea or trend, you wisely remember where your responsibilities lie. It is not that you dislike change, it's just that part of you worries that you won't like your new routine as much as your old ones. But when duty calls, you're just fine at adjusting once you have a chance to get accustomed to your new surroundings. Once you do that, you're back to your comfortable self again.

Now that you know more about your exploratory nature, read on to see ways that you can adapt better to your work environment.

Ways to adapt to your work environment
Most jobs require workers to establish a routine and stick to it. This skill is easier for you than others. Don't underestimate your consistency; it is a strong asset. At the same time, it wouldn't hurt to spend a bit of time developing a higher tolerance to change. Flexibility and the ability and willingness to make changes to improve existing routines are highly valued at most companies. Practice not rigidly scheduling your day and see if you can get the same amount of work done without as much stress. This new way of doing things will take time but it is important that you realize that the more you expose yourself to novel situations, the easier it becomes.

If you feel at loose ends and your responsibilities seem too varied, try sitting down with your superiors to discuss ways of making your calendar more stable. For example, you might be able to figure out ways to devote one day each week to specific responsibilities that you can focus your energies on for that whole day. That will make you feel you have more control over your days.

Being Food Science students, it is important for us to know why human breast milk cannot be made into cheese.

Maths gotten A. Heng those chim questions did not screwed me and those easy one are really easy ones. Maths can be deceptively difficult at times.

Karen Ho was not happy that some of us did not attempt the tutorial.

Ah Phoon was silently furious at those latecomers and that some of us did not attempt the tutorial. He *hinted* that both buffer and chemical kinetics are important.

After the 1 hour Microbiology Lab session, we had the June monthly gathering with Ms Weeping. This time, she borrowed the idea of her Sunday School activity for Father's Day. She spent her own money on 2 packs of colour-coated wires. We were supposed to use 2 wires to bend out bookmark of whatever shape we like. As expected, there was moral behind this activity, a bit philosophical I would say which I like. Some of them are:

----Every piece is a master piece as it is unique, shaped by us.
----The finished product could tell the personality, habits and thoughts of the maker.
----Simplicity is beauty.
----It takes a genius to decipher what is the shape the maker has depicted.
----Simple people can be complicated and vice versa.

In my opinion, this session was better than the previous dart-throwing session, in terms of the ideas and thoughts behind it. Me don't like goal-setting...

I know that this cannot function as a bookmark but is it really so complicated until cannot decipher what I made? Me think Ms Weeping still dunno what it is.

Lastly, I did the test Are You a Secure Lover? by Tickle.

You're not someone who is easy to get close to. You tend to keep people at a distance and in a romantic relationship you're not entirely comfortable with emotional intimacy or commitment. Potential partners may feel that you are a bit mysterious and are a challenge worth pursuing.

Attachment style begins in infancy with the interactions we have with our parents or primary caregivers. Through these early relationships we begin to understand the dynamics and patterns of close relationships and we carry this perspective into our adult relationships.

Psychologists have identified four different relationship attachment styles: secure, preoccupied, dismissing avoidant, and fearful avoidant. Despite the alarming sounding names of some of these styles, there are many understandable reasons why people develop them. Further along in this report we will explain some of the issues underlying each of the attachment styles.

21% of those who have taken our test share this style of attachment.

Dismissing Avoidant

The dismissing avoidant attachment style is theorized to develop when the needs of an infant are consistently not met by the primary caregiver. Bowlby originally observed this style of attachment following World War II in over crowded British orphanages. Because there were so many children and so few staff, the babies were often left alone in cribs for extended periods of time. Not having their basic needs of hunger and affection met, these children learned that the world and the people in it could not be counted on to take care of them.

People with dismissing avoidant attachment style tend to very independent and self-reliant. They don't usually find it easy to open up to others or to let themselves depend on other people. They tend to withdraw from their romantic partner when they or their partner are under stress. When it comes to sex, they are more likely than those with other attachment styles to engage in casual sex. People with a dismissing avoidant attachment style can be attractive because getting to know who they truly are poses an intriguing challenge.

Kcirtap

Monday, July 30, 2007

Women and Pussies

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Traffic Light of FS0703

Saturday, July 21, 2007

Hand-and-Foot Disease & Hairy Poker

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Life of a TMT Member

Sunday, July 08, 2007

D-E-F-I-N-I-T-E-L-Y

Tuesday, July 03, 2007

Of Psychology

Sunday, July 01, 2007

What Happened Thus Far

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