My dad's girl....

Last week, Mr. Murali showed us a movie, which entitled: "College Road Trip". The movie revolves between a pair of father and daughter. The father loves and cares for his dearest daughter so much that he would plan everything for his daughter. When his daughter is getting old enough to make her own choice of university, he is very disapointed as his girl prefers to study at a university that is far away from home. The climax of the story arise when the father and daughter start to talk to each other, face-to-face and heart-to-heart. The father soon realises that he thought that he knew everything about his girl very well; it appears that his baby girl was only trying to be "daddy's girl" in front of him along the years. After all the comedies and talks between the father and daughter along the road trip to the daughter's choice of college/university, both of them have finally come to a point which they compromise with each other and this had strengthen their bond.

Throughout this movie session, I had tears in my eyes. The daughter was like me, and the father - of course - reminds me of my dad. I am the eldest in the family. I can study well, and I have been being good all the time. Thus, this man that I have been calling "papa" for nearly 18 years has high hopes on me all the time. He would planned everything for me. He would want the best for me, and expect me to obey his planning. In some circumstances, in my opinion, he thought that he knows me well. Well, for me, just like the daughter in the movie, I had tried my best to be my dad's good girl. However, as I am getting bigger, I start to realise that I can actually make my own decision, and I have also realise that not all the things that my dad plans for me is the best for me.

At the beginning of the year, I started to change: from daddy's good girl to "bad girl". Not that I did those kinda bad stuff, just that I have started to make my plan for them to listen to what I want for myself. During the period of time, things are difficult for me and my parents. I would always hide in my own room whenever I am back home, and I would not talk to them if it's not necessary. Fortunately, the situation had only last for 2 months. After that, I found myself in wrong. I tried to reverse the mistake by treating them better. For now, though my dad still thinks that he knows me well (which I don't think so), things are getting smooth between us. Sometimes, I would still have to make up some white lies to him, for me to maintain the image of "his-very-good-daddy's girl" in front of my dad. I know that my dad is making his effort in letting me to make my own decision, and I know that I can always make sure that my decision will not harm me after getting his opinion. It will be hard for him to see his "little-girl" growing up and eventually will not need his guidance anymore.

Dad, I wish to tell you that: After all, I am still my dad's girl, and I will always be. Love you, dad. Thanks for everything. *hug*

PS: It's weird that I would not be able to tell him this face-to-face, for sure! I think most of the children today are in this situation too..
Human beings.. They LOVE, but they don't say it out. Look at how they communicate.. Ah.. FASCINATING~

*wink*

=Yin Foong=

perception

Different people have different perception. The way we perceive others or vice versa defines the way we communicate with each other. Sometimes, i would think, why must we live under the perception of other people? where is our true self? To me, the answer is there is no True Self. The way we are right now is created by the people around us. This is somehow related to the self-fulfilling prophecy. Because we want to live up to the expectation of others; we want to confirm by the people around us; we want to praise by the others; we want to avoid punishment, therefore, we are what we are right now. Do you get what i m trying to say?



This makes me think of a story that is quite interesting.



A couple bought a donkey from the market. On the way home,a boy commented, "Very stupid. Why neither of them ride on the donkey?"Upon hearing that, the husband let the wife ride on the donkey. He walked besides them.

Later, an old man saw it and commented, "The husband is the head of family. How can the wife ride on the donkey while the husband is on foot?" Hearing this, the wife quickly got down and let the husband ride on the donkey.
Further on the way home, they met an old Lady. She commented, "How can the man ride on the donkey but let the wife walk. He is no gentleman."The husband thus quickly asked the wife to join him on the donkey.

Then, they met a young man. He commented, "Poor donkey, how can you hold up the weight of two persons. They are cruel to you." Hearing that, the husband and wife immediately climbed down from the donkey and carried it on their shoulders.
It seems to be the only choice left. Later, on a narrow bridge, the donkey was frightened and struggled. They lost their balance and fell into the river.



This story tell us that we cannot always live to the expectation of others. Although we are what we are because we want to confirm by other people, we just cannot fulfill the expectation of every people. Sometimes, we have to choose. You can never have everyone praise you, nor will everyone condemn you. Never in the past, not at present, and never will be in the future.

prayers

helloooo.... today after so long i went to the Gurdwara (Sikh temple). it was so peaceful there.. man the food was soooooo good. even though it was vegetarian, it was still fantastic. they made tafu sambal, dhal, vegetarian chicken rendang style and for dessert, KHEER.. kheer is like sweet bubur. it was WAYYY better that ALI MAJU'S food. anyway lets put the awesome yummy food a side and talk bout prayers.. prayers are really important. every religion has their own way of praying. it is important for every individual to believe in prayers and more importantly GOD. by praying, you are communicating wit god. when you are in problems, the only person we seek help from is HIM. but but but, don't only pray and communicate wit HIM when you are facing problems. that's is not right. take some time thanking HIM for all you have. you shouldn't only ask god to help you when you are in need rite? that is being METLABHI. that's a Punjabi word ;) it means, when u want something, than only you wana ask help from someone if not Ur not bothered bout that someone.. so ya, you have just learnt something in Punjabi.

so people, better pray ok? don't be metlabhi.. hehe.. have a great day. aaahh i can't forget the awesome food i had just now. im hungry.. ok ok got to go now. peace out.

- simren gill -

Different alternatives?

I would like to share my experience during my football training in Bukit Jalil. I'm a candidate for the Malaysian Women's Team. But I had to drop out from the tournament because of a 3 week injury. Anyways, the women's coach is an ex National Player from China. Although she's stayed in Malaysia for a whole lot of years but she still can't grasp English, what more Malay.
Her English is very broken. Most of the times we can't even understand what she says. But we all have one thing in common. The language of football. Lol. We all understand GOAL! Pass, shoot, kick,cross, dribble and more.
All the coach can say in malay is : Faham? and makan! haha. Makan is important! Though her English is not good, she basically shows us what she wants us to do rather then tell us because its hard for us to understand. Even though there's a language barrier but we still can understand each other through different alternatives. There's always a solution to everything.
-Peace-

Language disorder & human communication

While I was trying to search for some informations to write and post for this blog, I found a phrase written on one the pages that I'd browsed through. The phrase is: Language disorder in human communication. Though I didn't click on the link to check on it, but it had really caught my attention. After second thought, I'd decided to post something regarding this here.

I have an aunty; she is a younger sister of my dad. I don't really know much about her as I seldom talk to my aunties and uncles. The things I knew are: her husband had passed away long time ago in a car accident - she has a son (who is my cousin brother) - she has speech disorder. She couldn't speak well; to be precise, she can't say any words but only sounds like "ahh", "umm" etc. I don't really remember what is the cause of her disorder. There are 2 versions of the cause which pop into my mind when I am recalling what my dad told me long time ago. First, it's beacuse of an accident, and second, when she's in her young age, she caught a high fever and after that she could not speak well, the illness got worsen til today.

Well, the main issue that I wish to emphasise in here is not about the cause of the disorder.
I wanna talk about the way she communicate with people, especially her son.

Since the only "word" that can be uttered from her mouth is the "ahh" sound, it's not easy to understand what she's trying to tell us most of the time. I remembered once when she's instructing me to get something from the kitchen, I could not understand it until my granma comes and tells me what she's trying to say. It's weird that my granma could understand the sign language she gave, but I obviously do not.

On the other hand, the way she communicates with her son is very special too. Once, when I was in granma's house for the festive celebration, my cousin brother was late back home. (PS: My this aunt and her son are staying at my granma's house.) His mother, who is my aunt pulled him aside and I saw them start arguing. The way they argue is not really in words, but in sound. As a by-stander, I could not understand what both of them are "talking" to each other. All I can conclude is that they are arguing, from their face expressions and body languages. "Seems like aunty is scolding cousin brother", I told myself.

Somehow, this incident bothered me for a while. The bond between my aunt and her son was so strong and they can understand what each other is trying to say, without using languge and words! Though my cousin brother looks kinda naughty boy and does not listen to his mother, but I could tell that he actually loved her very much. This mother has brought him up with her own hands for so many years, and both of them had each other during their tough time. It's kinda touch to see how they communicate without words, but only with sounds and body languages, which most of the time others can't understand.

So, what can I conclude from the way of communication between my aunt and her son? Simple, communication does not really depend on words, but the people. Sometimes, even with words, we still can't really communicate with each other, don't we? Let's think about the way some of us communicate with our parents. Get what I mean now?
Thus, as the fortunate ones, let's use the gift we have - our speech and language - and communicate with the ones arround us, in a good and correct way, to show your love and care.
**wink**

=Yin Foong=

Practice vs Rehearse

There's one interesting article that i have read in Toastmaster magazine Nov 2004, written by Dave Zielinski, a freelance writer in New York and Minneapolis. He can be contacted at zskidoo@aol.com; and the tittle of the article is called 'Perfect Practice'.

As previous post i hav posted about overcoming PSP, now i shall be telling (quite) in depth the ways to be prepared in speeches. Well you see, you are given a time to practice your perfect speech; let's say maybe around 2 weeks (according to the foundation course timing), but you will be using less than 1 week to practice, or probably the last 3 days to nail your speech. That; is normal. Even i do that. Well, the thing is, despite any given hours, minutes, days, weeks or months, you will always have not enough of time. True? Oh, we understand you. I know what you are thinking about, we all are busy people.

Regardless how many time left for you before you were to do speech remember this:
Practise, Practice, Practice; then, Rehearse, Rehearse and Rehearse. Chant after me please;
Practise, Practise, Practice; then, Rehearse, Rehearse and Rehearse.

Sounds stupid, but this is the one you have to remember when you are preparing for your presentation.

What the difference between Practise and Rehearse?
Practice: You do it all the time from 8pm to the next 8am morning before you go to school. You keep on mantra-ing and remembering all the lines and texts everywhere you go; toilet, classes, dining table, under table, at the house garden, next to the washin machine; basically even when you are in your lalaland. You keep on practising on your speeches when you are busying with activities. It's not wrong; but it's not the only way to survive your speech. You may remember it, but you won't be good in delivering it.

Rehease: It combines the art of speaking and non-verbal communication. It's more, i will dare say, better than just practising. Well you see, when you are rehearsing, you are on your feet, standing and rehearse as if you are in front talking. You will be using your hand gestures, some eye contacts (with the plants, television or wink at fish in the aquarium), pacing and interacting with the AV equipments. When you are used to rehearsing, using a bit of movement here and there, eventually when you are up on stage (obviously you will be standing) and then you are begin with a smooth flow and every non-verbal communication of yours is under control. It is better if you are going to do presentation with visual aid, you can rehearse with your powerpoint to help you in it. Make sure your presentation is clear enough, not too long and it is easy to read and for you to tell.

Nevertheless, you should always revise after you hav practised and rehearse.

"Too often we overlook what we are going to say during practice, and under-work how we are going to say it during rehearsal. If it were only about the material, we could simply e-mail our presentations to audiences and have them e-mail any questions back."

Liew Hui Qing, Jaime

Public Speaking Phobia

Are you having this symptoms:

1. Sweating (hands, legs, forehead, any parts of your body or the entire body)
2. Shaking knees and hands
3. Quivering voice (as if you just came out from an ice room)
4. Flushing (in your head especially)
5. Rapid heartbeat (you even can hear it in your ears)
6. Nausea
7. Or any other similar symptoms to it;

when you are facing a number of audiences in various places; class, lab, stage, etc? Then, it's obvious you are having PSP. Nope, not that kind of game devices, it's my own abbreviation of Public Speaking Phobia.

Yes, let's admit it loud and clear. It's most unlikely for you, me and almost everyone for not to have this little stage of fear. Oh come on, you can speak to your bunch of frens all the time; if you talk unintentionally. But if you are given a speech, a title, a limit of time, a venue and a bunch of frens + strangers to speak beforehand,it will be of course; the horrible experience to encounter.

But we all speak, one day or another coming soon, we will have to speak in front of a lot, a lot of people. Come to think again, let's see, if you can avoid story-telling competition in primary school, no way you can take your exams without doing oral. Ok, you may be ok after the oral time, you might then think you can survive in college/university. Then you are loaded with all kinds of assignments which require you to talk; in front of the class, worst still, in front of classes. Sounds pretty scary right? Eventually when you are up into career, you will need to go for interview, and you won't be sounding assured if you talked with a lot of erms and ahhs in between of the session. By the time you are getting married, well, you still need to give toast to your wedding guests. So, instead of formin the best strategies to avoid it, deal with it.

1. Before the Speech Day
Prepare, prepare, prepare! There's no way you cannot go up to the stage, talked and yet din't prepare anything in your mind, paper, PC, etc. Start to prepare early; think about your message clearly; start with a crappy ideas, write down a simple draft, until you can start with an outline. Organize your speech in timeline order, or at least in sequence. You, and the audience will able to remember if everything in order. Because the one of the biggest fear in PSP is "the fear of going blank", according to the researchers at the University of Manitoba. Next, 'write your speech like a every great speech, with a beginning, middle and an end'. Practice then, make it perfect with not only practice, but also rehearsing. What's the difference? I will elaborate further in my next post. After that, you must visualize that you you can and will be succesful in delivering your speech.

2. On the Speech Day
Choose the professional-looking and comfy clothing for you. When you are comfortable with yourself, you can be comfortable with anyone. Avoid traffic jams and being late. You not only being rude to others, you are wasting their and your time. Then sit at a quiet place in a room where you can relax. Take deep breaths (it really helps!); and each time inhale about 8 seconds before releasing it. According to science study, it tooks that long for the maximum oxygen content to get into your brain. Then clench your fist and release it; clench again and then release for several times until you think your shoulders are relax. Be positive thinking, and never, ever tell your audiences that you are nervous right now. When you are telling them, "err..ahh, to be frank, i'm..a..kinda..haha, you know,...nervous. Oh opps, sorry!...Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,..er sorry; good evening, ladies and gentlemen...", you are then tend to a) tell them you are nervous b) you are telling yourself to be nervous. Good luck then; because once you tell them this, you will make them aware that a) you are nervous b) to notice where is your nervousness; hence causing yourself to be panic when people are really paying attention to you. Speak slowly, clearly, and don't eat your own words. When people are nervous, their mouths will be dried up 3 times faster (my own experiences) and later they have no enough of saliva to help them to speak clearly. So drink plenty of water enough for you; 3 min before speech. If you do it 15 min or beyond, you will go to the bathroom pretty soon.

3. After the horrible experience @ finishing the speech
Wheewwww! It was quite an experience right? Most probably you will be ended up like a roasted chicken (due to flushing) with cold hands and feets. Once you finish, some of you won't think any further, but then most of you will think what the audiences are thinking of you, what the lecturer is thinking of you, and what you are thinking about yourself. YOu will begin something like this: "Oh shoot, i forgot the most important line; awww, i praticed and practiced for so many times but yet i have forgotten to mention it!" or "What did that guy with the red cap thinking of me when i spoke about that? Was he bored? He looked really bored, or was it just me?" etc. But hey, if you did your best, you know you can do it better next time. Ask your audiences + frens' opinions; and think and device ways to help you to improve on it.

Have a great public speaking!


Sources: The article: The Fear of Public Speaking:20 Ways to get over it! by Joann M. Mc Cabe, ATM-S, page 18-21, Toastmaster Magazine, April 2006.


Liew Hui Qing, Jaime