Kesepian

It's been a funny experience here...the more similar you are to them then you are invisible, you don't even exist.

If you can speak and read Chinese and you are a Chinese then you are not invited out nor to any activities. If you stand out by being really really tall and you are a Black or White person then you're welcomed very warmly.

Can you imagine 4 person in a small crammed room and a lecturer comes in and talks to the 2 guys, he doesn't even acknowledge the 2 girls' presence. Not a smile, nod or even a Hi. It was like as though they were not existent. I guess the girls felt hurt...It was rude too. 

The two gurls have been here 2 weeks earlier than the 2 guys but the girls were not asked out by anyone. In a foreign country with different cultures and language, the girls didn't know anything about the culture or food or even shopping. Left alone to fend for themselves. They observed the local students to see what to do after people finished the food, where to throw the rubbish.

Then the 2 men came and the men were taken out on the 1st day they arrived. Every evening the men were asked out by the local guys and girls. The two girls were invisible...

How did the 2 girls feel?

In the meeting, the guys were given task for the event that the University was going to host. Then the director asked the students what the girls were to do...The students had no idea, they totally forgot the girls existed...

How did the 2 girls feel? The girls were intern students too but the university students treated them like the female interns were non existent...The local female students showed the favoritism more evidently. 

I don't know if we are 2nd class people, invisible people or just not really welcomed?

Here's where you sleep. Set up your own tent and don't bother me...Find your meals yourself and go discover the surroundings by yourself. Pandai-pandailah you hidup.

social media demographics

COOPER SMITH SEP. 24, 2013, 11:35 PM
Social Media Demographics: The Surprising Identity Of Each Major Social Network

Each social media platform has cultivated a unique identity thanks to the demographics of the people who participate in the network. Some platforms are preferred by young adults, who are most active in the evening, others by high-income professionals, who are posting throughout the workday.

We explained in a recent report why many brands and businesses need platform-focused social media strategies, rather than a diluted strategy that aims to be everywhere at once.

In a new report from BI Intelligence, we break down the demographics of each major social media platform to help brands and businesses decide which networks they should prioritize. Being able to identify the demographics of social media audiences at a granular level is the basis for all targeted marketing and messaging. The report also spotlights the opportunities that lie ahead for each social network, how demographics affect usage patterns, and why some platforms are better for brands than others. 

Access the Full Report By Signing Up For A Free Trial Today > > 

Here are some of our surprising findings: 

• Facebook still skews young, but the 45- to 54-year-old age bracket has seen 45% growth since year-end 2012. Among U.S. Internet users, 73% with incomes above $75,000 are on Facebook (compared to 17% who are on Twitter). Eight-six percent of Facebook's users are outside the U.S.
• Instagram: Sixty-eight percent of Instagram's users are women.
• Twitter has a surprisingly young user population for a large social network — 27% of 18 to 29-year-olds in the U.S. use Twitter, compared to only 16% of people in their thirties and forties. 
• LinkedIn is international and skews toward male users. 
• Google+ is the most male-oriented of the major social networks. It's 70% male.
• Pinterest is dominated by tablet users. And, according to Nielsen data, 84% of U.S. Pinterest users are women.
• Tumblr is strong with teens and young adults interested in self-expression, but only 8% of U.S. Internet users with incomes above $75,000 use Tumblr.

In full, the special report: 

• Analyzes gender, income, and age statistics for each social network
• Includes 16 charts and datasets that provide an in-depth picture of demographics on each of the major social networks
• Discusses mobile activity on social media and its relative weight on each of the platforms
• Looks at daypart statistics to gauge how demographics drives daily activity peaks on each of the networks
• Examines how international the user bases of each social network have become

For full instant access to the report on Social Media Demographics, sign up for a free two week trial subscription to BI Intelligence. 

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/a-primer-on-social-media-demographics-2013-9#ixzz2fxBexZdA

Mid autumn Festival

Here in Taiwan, the mid autumn festival aka mooncake festival is celebrated very heavily like as though it is Chinese New Year...
almost a 4 days holiday. Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Today Thursday 19 Sep is THE day.

Here's a nice chinese literature (poem) by Su Shi aka Dong Po during the Song Dynasty.

Title: 水调歌头 明月几时有 When will the moon be clear and bright?

When will the moon be clear and bright?
With a cup of wine in my hand, I ask the blue sky
what season it would be up the heaven for tonight.

Oh Moon, how I wish to get closer
By riding on the breeze.
Yet I fear your crystal and jade chateau,
Are much too high and cold.
So, let me just dance here with my moonlight shadow.

Rounds and rounds, my red mansion, till you shine on my silk pillow,
Sleepless, but bearing no regrets
Blame not the full moon when people has to apart
Sorrow or joy, be near or far,
Things happen like that, and we still believe in fate.

Toast to you, we are all be blessed
Though distant away, we look at the same moon
And in that way, we have never been apart.

Su Shi (translated by Charles Hartman) ^[8]

And here's a song about the moon, originally by Teresa Teng..but this is the Faye Wong version.

When will a bright moon be coming?

I hold up the wine to ask the sky not knowing the mansions in heaven

how is it up there tonight?

chorus:

I desire to ride the wind there however i am concerned about the  jade chambers

the higher one goes the colder it gets, flirting with the clear shadow as the dance begin

can anything in  the world of mortals compare?

turn around the red roof, close down the pavilion, shine through my insomnia

I should have no regrets but must the moon be full when we part?

People have sorrow, joy, parting and coming together

The moon can be shady, clear, full or deficient? (the moon has dark cloudless circle lacking

this matter has never been perfect

I long for us to achieve longevity, A thousand miles apart yet we see the same moon

Below is another translation which is more literal.

Life is about parting and coming together

The moon has times when it is not round

Nothing is perfect [It is an entirely difficult thing](It has ever been difficult to manage this)

Only wishing for eternity

No matter how far apart, it is happiness to see the same moon

Work day 1 and 2

1st day of Internship

Just wear casual clothes and slippers and bring a laptop...Cultural shock eh? I packed so many office or formal clothes but turns out I packed the wrong kind of clothes...LoL, I should have brought more casual attire.

Aletheia University is a private university in Taiwan. It is the sport management pioneer in Taiwan, the first university that established a Sports Management Department. Similar to University Malaya which was also the first university in Malaysia to offer Sport Studies.

We arrived very early..Office time is 9am-5pm...But we arrived at 8:15am.
Nika aka Lu Mei is like the administrator, our boss. Nika gave us the link of the websites..we checked it and noted some mistakes. When Nika came in at 9am to see us, she asked us to check the websites...we already did it so we told her what we observed. Later Nika came in and told us to find some info on Malaysia and Singapore but we already did that before we came to Taiwan cause Prof Noah asked us to do it, so we just forwarded it to her...
Wah, Malaysians are so efficient right? haha.

Next, we were called to the Director of Sports Management Department, Cheng-Ter Kuo where we folded the chinese posters and arranged some documents and out them into an envelope. After we were almost done, Nika came in and told us that the documents need to match the name and universities. All the documents, name and universities name were in chinese characters... Owh, now we have to take it all out and match the documents...chinese characters...Test my character recognising skills... huhu.

2nd day of work. We had to copy the seminar guests into the invitation letter on Word then change it to PDF. After we finished it, Nika told us to add the title "Dr." to the names...Ok, here we go again...After that task, we were told to translate the university's Sport Management Department website.
Google translate is not really helpful since it is direct translation so the grammar and meanings can be funny. Chinese traditional characters and cultural differences in the character usage made it tougher for us.
I do not really know Mandarin so just use google and some rational in making sense of the sentences.
At 4.50pm, 10 minutes before our work ended, Nika came in and told us we do not need to translate everything...Well, that's good news right? Not, if you have been translating the page that you don't need to translate... Haha. I found out the year here is 102 year of republic aka the Minguo calendar,
the republic of China Calendar...in Malaysia we use the Gregorian calendar meaning it's year 2013 now.

 Our own office but I feel like animals in a zoo, anyone can pass by and look at us, look what's on our laptop screen and what we are doing...huahuahua

Half way instructions and half way through the work receiving a more complete instruction later. Welcome to reality where change is constant and what you do just now may be of no use. 

Church on day 4

I didn't go to the Aletheia university chapel since it's still sem break. There's a church 50meters away from campus. I saw 2 mat salleh ladies welcoming  people and so I asked if it was a church. They were so friendly and  I was introduced to more people and they were very nice. Friendly, welcoming and really nice. They took my phone number. The service was in Mandarin so I couldn't really understand.

We started with announcements, prayer then appointment of priesthood of some members. Then was hymn and then welcoming those newly baptised. There was a baptism last month too, Ooh, a church that actively baptises... Next was hymn and then bread and wine and then testimony sharing by ordinary members on a certain given topic. The topic was endowment(appointment of priesthood) and Temple (there's a Temple in almost evry country-people  are sealed there and basically performing Aaronic priesthood stuff) and restoration...

The moment I heard "Temple and seal", I was thinking somethinng is wrong
Later on I found out the church name was church of the latter saints and when one of the member sitting next showed me their scriptures... New Testament, Old testament and Book of MORMON and a few others. I  was like "oh God, I'm in a cult"

Apparently the Tamsui/Damsui church is in Taiwanese...So, I guess I'll be with this church until the semester starts in 2 weeks...

advice

The last few days before leaving to Taiwan for internship was pretty busy.
Going out friends, course mates, ex-roomie and Sabah Outward Bound School (OBS) teammates catching up with them.

I really enjoyed their presence and appreciate them taking time to be with me.

I am going to University of Aletheia in Tamsui, Taipei, Taiwan as I will be doing my internship there for 12 weeks aka 3 months which officially starts on 9 Sep 2013- 1 Dec 2013.

So, I finish my studies part of my degree, just need to pass the internship then my degree is complete.

My mom is worried as it is typhoon season in Taiwan...My elder brother said I gotta think forward already as in what's my next step right after I finish my internship; Internship is serious, it's a taste of your whole working life, something you are gonna do for almost the rest of your working life. The bread and butter of life, the activities that puts money on the table...

Wise words from my course mate:

Don't do things too straight, learn to turn, be flexible, sometimes rules are meant to be broken, don't follow too straight/naive, but choose the correct timing to break rules and not always,

suffer or enjoy the internship experience in a foreign land depends on your decision. 

Think wisely, be open,

Sometimes things won't go exactly like you want, if that happens just accept it and re-do it again, be open minded. Don't frust and blame other people, Maybe sometimes it is other people who caused you the problem but just accept it and go through yourself...this is reality, no more complain-complain already cause complain wont help.

A book I recommend is PRACTICAL WISDOM by Barry Schwarts and Kenneth Sharpe, It's a good read on applying wisdom, the right way to do the right thing. It's like moral, ethics, empathy, and understanding is more important than being right all the time, following the rules strictly. It really teaches us to be human again with wise decisions and proper attitude towards the context. What it taught me is that reading in-between  by understanding the context is more important than being right and judging others. Cause sometimes, people say or act in certain ways to cover up what is really happening inside them, they use distraction to hide themselves, like parables that actually contain double meaning but only to those who sees the words spoken deeper and more than it appears.. its not about always being right, but listening to them secara tersirat..see where their disappointment is coming from. Aristotle taught us Practical Wisdom, often when dealing with other people we need to bend the rules. Wise people know how to bend the rules. Flexible rule, a ruler that bends. Wise people know when and how to bend the rules, they know how to improvise. Improvise and bending rule in the service of others, not for self serving.

Here's what is inside the book...

porn n sex life

Porn Is Ruining The Sex Lives Of An Entire Generation

VIVIAN GIANG

Young men in their 20s apparently have no groove in bed — and it’s all because they’re addicted to pornography, according to a report in Psychology Today.But the problem is much more serious than simply either being good or bad in the sack, it’s a physiological issue causing a new generation of men to lose their libidos 30 years sooner than expected.

How did this happen?

According to the report, overexposure to sexually explicit images and video have caused men to lose interest in ordinary sexual encounters — including experiences with a real woman:

Today’s users can force [their] release by watching porn in multiple windows, searching endlessly, fast-forwarding to the bits they find hottest, switching to live sex chat, viewing constant novelty, firing up their mirror neurons with video action and cam-2-cam, or escalating to extreme genres and anxiety-producing material. It’s all free, easy to access, available within seconds, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

After a period of time, excessive porn watchers overstimulate a neurochemical in their bodies called dopamine — the drive behind every “want” and “desire” that humans feel we need to “overcome.” But with your libido in constant drive mode, your dopamine reaction will become numb and, eventually, you won’t be aroused by the same experiences as before.

This occurrence is similar to veteran drug-users describing their need for stronger mind-inducing chemicals in order to receive the same “high” they once had. In the same way, porn-addicted men will need more extreme sexual experiences to feel the same kind of arousal. 

It’s an endless cycle and if you think Viagra will help, you’re wrong.

Sexual-enhancement drugs work by breaking down a blood vessel dilator called cGMP and this is what causes an erection. If your libido is over worked, the drugs can only cause a physical erection, but a pleasurable sensation cannot be achieved.

The only cure is to avoid internet erotica at all costs, but this will be “one of the most difficult things you’ve ever done,” says the study.

In order to have “normal” sex again, a “reboot” period — six to 12 weeks — is needed by completely letting go of your pornographic nature. Addicts can experience a temporary loss of libido altogether as well as “insomnia, irritability, panic, despair, concentration problems, and even flu-like symptoms.”

source: http://www.businessinsider.com.au/porn-ruining-sex-life-2011-10

different

I don't really know what to say when I see you online. I feel so happy that you are online but I don't know what to say to you.

When we meet up in person, I have so much fun, so much to say and ask.

I guess I'm the type that may be quiet online and noisy offline most of the time when it comes to people I'm close with.

But to people who I am not close, I am noisy online and quiet offline...