My Thoughts…

My cute little cousin is down with chicken pok. It is quite funny the way she got it. It reminds me of when I got mine. I was in form 2 then. I have spots on my back but didn’t know. Then i didn’t have fever so it wasn’t obvious I was not well. It was after the movie Jurassic Park forgotten which part that my mum realise I have chicken pok for I was red and wasn’t feeling good =)

It was the same for Michelle. She is happily running around and no one knows why she has red spots. My aunt thought rashes towards something. My mum then ask if it is chicken pok. She has spots on her back, legs, hands and face. Poor little girl. Wonder if she is willing to stay at home for she loves to go to school and it is hard to make her stay at home for she would cry her heart out that she wants to go to school. It is so hard but its weird to see a little girl who loves school. Hopefully she get well soon so she can go back to school. I think my aunt would keep her at home for at least 2 weeks which was the duration I was kept at home to rott when I had mine ^_^

This is an article that was written by Adrian Lo a year back. I always thought it happen in high school but surprise it happens in university life. Can it be said their mentallity is until high school and haven’t grown up due to insecurity towards something?

First question to ponder on will be what is the definition of a bully? Classic definitions brings to mind scenes from the Simpsons, where the big brat with a history of problems beats up on smaller kids and steals their lunch money. Fast forward years ahead, a bully can take many different forms indeed, they do not go pinching pennies from lunch money, but they go after things which are equally as petty to satisfy their own internal needs and weaknesses.

Often, a bully will show the following traits:
- The need to dominate and feel superior to others
- The fear of being proven wrong
- The fear of what they are not familiar with
- The inability to make their own stand, often hiding when confronted in ways they are not used to
- The inability to take personal responsibility for the results of their actions, often shifting blame to others or claim that they have got nothing to do with it

Now you may all be wondering why I am writing about this to a group of university undergrads or even some of the graduates which are on this list. Well, that is because we still come across bullies everyday in our lives. As I had mentioned above, they no longer beat you up just to steal your lunch money, but they attack you in different ways instead.

The most distinguishing trait of a bully is the need to feel superior to others. This superiority that they need to project is often artificial, and has got no foundation at all. Such bullies exists everywhere, be it as part of a social group, a project group, at work, or even in a student club.

A bully will often find ways to escape from any form of work at all, by claiming that he is too brilliant to waste time on menial tasks, forcing others to do it, then claiming all credits for any work that has been done. The most dangerous part of a bully is actually to do with how they can play with your mind, in order to make a person feel inferior so that he can feel superior. Common tactics includes:
- Showing discouragement when somebody has an innovative idea, because the idea did not come from him
- Talking a lot about something that everybody else has little understanding of, to make himself look superior (often the bully will have almost zilch understanding of it anyways, and the opinion of the bully will tend to take a 180 degree turn when he is revealed to be a fraud)
- If a bully is not able to do something, he will make it seem as if it is such a difficult and tedious thing to do and on how he had barely been able to pull it off, in an effort to discourage others from attempting and succeeding where he had failed.

Often, when the bully finds that his usual tactics of discouragement does not have any effect, aggressiveness and anger will be shown in order to cow others into submission. This is often the last resort of a bully.

Now, dealing effectively with a bully does not mean that you will need to be as devious and aggressive as the bully to get him to back away. It is as simple as being able to quietly make your stand in a confident manner. This is what bullies are afraid of the most, a show of confidence in others when they deal with him, as this will chip away at his own sense of superiority.

To understand why this is so and to be able to pull this off effectively, one must first understand the number one compulsion of a bully, which is the need to feel superior at others, and often at the expense of the success of others.

Take for example a scenario when a bully is trying to discourage you from doing something that you can do just because he isnt able to do it, or tries to tell your that an innovative idea that you have is actually a bad idea. He will usually try to tell you what a difficult thing it is to do, that he do not think that it is possible at all. He will try to question the facts your have, to make you doublt yourself. Comments of discouragement from a bully usually go like:
- “I have already tested it, and I find that it does not work”
- “There will be a lot of problems if you try to do this”
- “There are a lot of problems that you are not aware of”
- “Studies shows that this is not a good idea at all”

Be more confident in yourselves! A bully is only armored by his appearance, and that is very thin armor indeed. Instead of being on the defensive trying to defend your ideas, try asking back questions instead. Asking a bully back questions like:
- “How did you test it? What is your test methodology?”
- “Exactly what sort of problems will occur?”
- “Exactly what studies are you referring to? I wish to cross reference with those that I already have that says otherwise”

Questions like those can yield fantastic results. The bully will often be taken aback, as the one thing that they are not used to at all is being talked back to. Often a bully will not be able to response with their usual confidence self, and if you are to persist, you will see the air of superiority that they wear as a mask start to crumble around them, they will start stammering away, start to mutter a lot of things non related to the issue to distract you and so on.

At this point, the bully may start to get aggressive and show anger in order to cow you into submission. As per the normal, the best tactic is to just quietly stand your ground with confidence. A bully is often hurt the most when his sense of superiority is destroyed, and that can be easily be destroyed when somebody refuses to cow to him.

Often also at this point, the bully will try to drag others into the discussion, to support him in telling you how bad an idea that you are having and so on. This is mainly due to the insecurity of the bully when he finds that he is not able to convince you of something, he will need backup not to convince you, but mainly so he can restore his sense of superiority by having people who agree with him around him.

Item of note that should you are to stand up to a bully in such a way, you will have alienated him very very much indeed. Not because you have offended him, but because he now fears you. There is this saying in the Bible that goes: “It only takes a spark to get a fire going”. He will now fear the fire from your spark, as that spark that you created will erode away at his sense of superiority and he very much fears that others may start standing up to him as well. Often in such cases, a bully will start talking about you behind your back, because he will fear to do so in any other manners as he will know that he is not able to stand up to you any longer and is desperately afraid of others knowing it.

Basically, to summarize it all, the main danger that we all face from bullies in our everyday lives is the discouragement that they will try to force upon to everybody around them so they can feel superior. Learn to be more confident of yourselves, so that you can live out the fullest potential of what you are capable of.

Very often we take things for granted for we know we have a lot of chances. But life is short. We do not know what will happen. Like the movie “Click”. The guy is so into his work that he neglect his family for he wants to provide the best for them but in the end, he skip all the bad part of his life that he misses a lot of his life. When he realize it, it is too late.

I do wonder. How come we only realize all this when something bad happens to us? Like we neglect our love ones and work hard but then we have a bad illness that make us stop work and look back in our lifes. It is only then we realize what we left out. How we take things for granted that there would be other time to make it up but the time never come. There is a quote which says the best things in life is the simplicity in life. By just appreciating what there is before us and not expect too much. But do we do that? Don’t think so. All we think is make more money so we can provide better things for our love ones. Have we ever thought what is it that they want most? It isn’t the money but the time spend together.

Have you wonder how come the poor are happy just being poor? Why are the rich never satisfied with what they have? If we keep looking for something better, we would always be searching and not be satisfied. By appreciating what there is before us could make life happier. Why do we want to deny that? We always choose the easy way in life. We do not want to work hard to achieve or maintain something when these are the two important thing I believe is important. We would always let the things we can get easily distract us from those that we have to work hard on.

There are some who regret not appreciating the things they have till it is too late. Would that happen to me? Does it need something bad to happen to me or someone I love to realize all these? I don’t know. I can only leave my faith to God. Life is a road where we do not know what would happen in future unless we work for it. He has made a way for us but we have to work hard to reach that path we want and leave the rest in His hands. There are a lot of crossroads in life where we are to make the decisions. I just hope that I can be able to do what I want to do before something bad happens to me. One thing I know is I’m meeting with the people I care most as often as I can. If I can’t I do wish it would not be too late.

It can be said that all of us are insecure in this world. No one would realise it for it isn’t obvious. Different factors cause us to be insecure. Some of us faces them and accept them while others try hard to run away and it do shows their insecurity. How do we know we are insecure? I’m not sure but I think it link with our fears. What are we afraid most. For me I think it is loneliness. I don’t like to be alone and like to have friends everywhere. I do make friends from all age group. But there is a possibility that I make friends with them that they don’t like me. But that is the fact in this world. You can’t have everyone to like you. So its ok for me.

How do we overcome them? The more we deny them, the more it haunt us and the more we are pressure to convince ourselves that we are not that. We would then use people around us to boost our own confident. I think that as long we can boost our self confident and self-esteem, we can overcome it but not really. If used in wrong manner, it might be harmful for when we get rejection from what we expect, it would prompt that person to really want to get the acceptance or to make that person’s life hell. If not, if that person is a timid person, they might shy away and hide from the world for they daren’t step foot on the outside world.

It takes courage to accept our own insecurity. That is why, security is consider an important aspect in a human needs. There is this hierarchy where our basic needs has to be met before we move on to security then society, self-esteem then self actualization. Most of us are till the security which is more on how safe we are at home and when we are outside but not on our own security on ourself. We are physically secure but not mentally and emotionally secure. The socializing is more on people we meet. Some of us might not be able to be here due to our insecurity and not know how to bring ourselves. But how do we cure our insecurity?

I do not know how but by accepting it and not fighting it make life better. The more we fight, we might feel like we can fight but long run, it would drain us. Why want to fight something that we have to accept and act accordingly to manage it. Learning to accept it is the first step then think of ways to see how to make yourself more secure. This is based on ourselves and no one else. Some would actually drag others into their insecurity to make themselves feel better. But if others doesn’t give them the respond they want, what would happen? Make that person’s life miserable or try to accept their insecurity?

But by denying our own insecurity, would it contribute to our maturity? Would it slow us on how we see what life is? What level of mentallity are we on then? I would only get answers when I ask a phycologist when I meet one to ask questions

It was a nice time though. The sports carnival was good. Had some fun and the match was good. It was then that I got a message from a old pingpong friend whom I used to play with in MCA near PJ Hilton. It has been nearly a year since I last went there to play and train. Was scared to go there after so long but the uncle message me to go and visit them if I don’t play anymore. Felt so honoured. So went over to give all the uncles a visit.

Once there, I was shocked to see all the uncles are still young and very active. All ask what happen to me. Some thought I haven’t been there for 2 years. Didn’t know it seems that long. Some took a while to recognize me for they compliment that I had became prettier. Felt so good. Felt so “pai sei” but it felt good. I never had anyone compliment me like this before. Talk to all the uncles there and had fun. Kinda miss it. Will start going there to play again next week

Its this time of the year where there is a Sports Carnival in campus. I have join the table tennis event. This time, there is a female group and the male group. Whoa…its better than last years. The format is double knock-out. Same some time also but players don’t get to play much. But this time, the players have to pay a deposit when register to make sure they show up on the day of event. Last year was a major screw up for most event for some sign up but never show up.

I was being cheeky and naughty and ask the organiser if I could play in the man’s event instead. I do not want to play with the females. I saw the look of one of the player when I ask if I could play. I can’t take away their fun and chance to get the medal. All I want is to play and have a fun time and not the medal. If get, it just a bonus. So far I only play one match today. Hmmm…Beat Woon Shen. I think I make the guys feel damn horrible man. A girl beating their ass if I manage to beat them Hopefully I can beat more tomorrow.

When with my pingpong kakis…
1. We would use reverse phycology on them.
2. Always tease them.
3. Act like empire and disturb players.
4. Woon Shen with his lame jokes and his innocent.
5. Trying to gain extra points by cheat services.
6. All have fun playing and disturbing each other.
7. Chin with a bulleye blue black.
8. Morris with his killer spin that gives me blue black
9. Osman who is sporting and cool.
10. Yosia with his killer serve and the way he plays..hehehe

When out with my friends…
1. Maurice impersonating Doremon
2. See the cute couples, Maurice and Sue Lyn and Merv and Karin.
3. Endless jokes.
4. Self entertainment by friends or by passer-bys
5. With Su Ann cheekyness

When out with Melanie
1. Always get tease unexpectedly
2. Never predict what she is thinking
3. Her funny stories and jokes
4. Just enjoy Chinese tea and chit chat
5. Stories on her interesting friends like the poor cat.

When out with my BITN friends…
1. Doris being spontaneous
2. Chung Lern who is Cinderella
3. Leong who really reminds me bout Counter Strike
4. Wah Chai trying to be a good boy
5. Kian Fei with his modified car…damn…
6. Always out to have fun when time to play but serious when comes to work.

There are 11 ways that Wei Sern and Elaine came up with to cheer me up a year plus back =)
1. Stay happy with Elaine(mummy)
2. Get poked by Wei Sern(sai lou) more
3. Think of Elaine getting surprised by Wei Sern
4. Think of Calvin’s(ah kong) butt-shaking dance
5. Get Woon Shen to tell more lame jokes
6. Get insulted by Rick(tai kong) more
7. Ask Jeremy(nenek) to start singing his song
8. Join MUSA gang for nonstop jokes
9. Get Justin to do dumb impersonation
10. Watch Stephen Chow movies
11. Think of Calvin singing whenever it rains

A few ways to have fun when out with King, Senan and my 2001 MUFY group
1. King is always the target to be teased
2. Everyone would be tease till you laugh
3. The unexpected always happen
4. We always can get some treats after meal
5, Expect Woon Shen to do the unexpected
6. Expect King to suggest dumb stuff like going up escalator to choose pringles in carefour
7. Expect Woon Shen to tell lame jokes or act innocent
8. No matter what, we always have fun and a good healthy laugh

There are many times when we say things bout others without realizing that we are pointing at ourself most. This is what maybe known as a mirror image. What we do we do not see it clearly but others do. That is why the saying, “When you point a finger at others, you are pointing 4 fingers back at yourself.” If we say others do wrong, we are saying about ourselves also. There is no point to point finger at others when we are part of it. As another saying, “It needs two to clap.” Nothing can happen with only one person. It could when it only affects you alone and no one else. If others have the same problem with you then its you who might be the cause. If others don’t have the problem but only you alone, then the problem lies in our own self. But there are many times when others just don’t bother to say anything for they know no matter what they say or did, it would always be the same. It wouldn’t make a difference but make matter worst.

If there is any problems or misunderstanding, there are 2 solutions. One is to just ignore and don’t care. Normally it works. If it doesn’t for the other just can’t stand letting go of it and like to have attention or let the problem continue or worsen, confrontation might be needed to clear the air. If that also don’t work, then there is nothing you can do. Just call yourself unlucky to get caught in it. This is just pass and parcel of life. Most of us choose what we want to listen and what not to listen. There are times what others say might be false so there is no point to listen. There are also times when what the other say is not logical or worth it so you can’t blame them for not listening. All of us have the right to choose what we want to listen and what not to listen. It is always easier to listen to things that side us but it is hard to listen to the truth for it hurts the most. But for me, the truth do hurt but it is better than long term suffering. In this world, nothing would go the way you want it to be. If it does, you are lucky.

But I believe the hardship that we face is the thing that sharp us to be a better person. So we can’t say that those that suffer are bad people or those that are rich and powerful are good. It all depends on our own up-bringing. The values we learn at home are important for it sharp us as who we are. I won’t deny that some of us are real spoilt or pampered. I won’t deny that I’m one of them but my parents are giving me a hard time by not giving in to me like when I was younger. As I grow, they hold back more and more to make me learn to be independent. It might break their hearts that I have to go through tough time but it makes me a stronger person. They can’t protect me forever so I have to learn to stand on my own.

Sometimes it is wise to keep our mouth shut and not show that we are smart. It is also smart as not to pretend to know tihngs that we actually do not know of. But we are all good in escaping our responsibility on what we say or do that later brings trouble. We hardly admit it but its true. We can ask ourselves how many times we act without thinking of the after effect? How many times did we snap out of it and realize that and start to think before acting? That’s whats happening in this society. We rush into things and jump to conclusion. We think that fighting is needed to solve things when it isn’t. Look at how many young people who died in fights. Is it worth it? Do you want to be part of it? I do hope not. So be careful with you own words. Before naming others or using bad words on others, think back of our own self. What you say bout others might just be your own self more.

A lot of us think that if we always go to church on Sundays and be active in church activities we are considered Holy or called a good Christian. But are you sure you care considered Holy? If you just do it just to be said Holy or be called a good Christian what’s the point. If you do it just to show others you are Holy, what’s the point? You can be active in church but are you doing it for you want to serve the Lord or just to let others know you are so good to spare your time to be involve in church activities? I wonder why do all this when the most important thing is whether you have God in your heart when you do it?

Some of us say we are Holy but do not go to church on Sundays. But if your heart isn’t there what’s the point of going also. But if you really want to be close to God, no matter where you are, you would look for a church to go to and continue to contribute your services to God. Some can tell me when they are back home they contirbute a lot and very active in church events but once they leave home, they are not. But i believe if you want to contribute and serve the Lord, you can do it no matter where you are. I have a friend who is active in church activities and he go for retreats. When he went overseas to study, he went to look for a church there and continue to give his services. It doesn’t matter which church you are at but when we serve God, it doesn’t matter where and which church we are at. Its all the same for our main purpose is to serve the Lord.

How are we considered strong believers? That I’m not sure for all this varies from different people. Some tell me as long as you follow the Bible closely you are consider Holy and would go to Heaven. But if we read the Bible and follow what is written in it but our heart isn’t there, can it be consider we are Holy? Like a preist say, when you go to St Anne and people like to touch the statues. Lets say you are bold, you touch the statue of St Anne, do you think hair will grow? God can only do so much for us but we have to work to help ourselves before God would help us. We can’t depend on God to just give us everything we ask for. If we work hard on it, He would blessed us with it if He thinks that is what we need. But many a times we blame God when we can’t get what we want or things don’t happen the way we want it. But these are the challenges He set for us to be better and stronger person. He is preparing us to receive the best.