Thursday 27 September 2012

[Dream] Neverending Stairs, Public Defaecation & Human Trafficking

My dreams are usually incoherent, jumpy, and disjointed (are these 3 actually synonyms? oops). However, the dream I had last night was surprisingly coherent and continuous. What made it more amazing was that I actually woke up halfway, went to the bathroom, went back to sleep and slipped right back into it.

 

It started out with a job interview I was going for. I had the address on hand but I had no idea how to get there, so I was using Maps to navigate, as I very often did so in the US. (I was in Singapore in the dream, as I realized at the end) I reached this school-like building (maybe it was a school, I can't remember) and started climbing up the stairs for some reason.

I reached the 7th floor (Yes, I remember distinctly it was the 7th, not the 6th or the 8th), and continued climbing the stairs. The weird thing was, after the 7th floor, the stairs started going downwards instead of up, so eventually I ended up back at the bottom. It was something like those neverending staircase illusions, just that it wasn't neverending - it brought me up and then back down.

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="373"] Never-ending stairs[/caption]

 

 

 

I asked for directions several times, and the people I asked all said 'oh, just show your map to any truck driver, he'll know the place', because apparently the location of the job interview was quite obscure and normal people can't find it but truck drivers always go there so they know.

At this point, I believe I woke up to pee, but I really can't remember. It's like, when a dream becomes fused, you don't really remember where the beginning or the end was. It all becomes continuous.

---

I was making my way to the interview location, and I reached this small shop, and needed the toilet to shit. I told the storekeeper, who was an old man, and he said go ahead. I looked down and saw a toilet bowl right there in the open, and somehow for some weird reason, I didn't hesitate at all and I just pulled my pants down and sat on the toilet bowl right there in the open, and felt no shame whatsoever. WEIRD.



---

I arrived at the building of the interview finally, and some guards or something came down to escort me up the building. Then somehow I suddenly had a companion (I can't remember who, one of my friends) and she was with me too, going for the interview. We went all the way up to the HQ, and we were seated.

Then this person told us that he's passing us the newest model of the mobile phone, and we were to test it. He handed over this block of plastic to my friend, and when it became clearer I saw it was some old walkie talkie. At that point I started to realize it was all a sham.

My friend was told to press a button every time a light came on, otherwise she would be shocked by a little electric current. This is exactly like what I'm reading about in my Learning and Conditioning module!

After some time, we realized we were being held captive, and would be used as slaves for this experiment.

---

It is with great pity that I CAN'T REMEMBER what happened next, but I distinctly recall it was the most exciting - somehow, someway, I managed to escape from the place! It involved me outsmarting the guards or something but I really can't remember.

Then I went to meet Weiqin because we were supposed to go out I think. She said she needed to find her dad regarding something, and when I followed her back to the building I was at before, I realized her dad was the boss of that company!!

Me: "Weiqin, do you know what your dad does for work?"

Qin: "No I don't know I never asked, what?"

Me: "Nevermind, it's better not to know."

And she somehow didn't pester me and left it as that.

Now the thing is her dad still doesn't know that I had escaped yet, so when we walked up to him I saw a flash of recognition and surprise cross his eyes but he quickly suppressed and hid it as he spoke to Weiqin. We were asking for permission to go out of town or something, and he told us we had to rent a car so we could drive out.

The whole conversation was intense as I wasn't sure what he would do - on one hand he wanted to recapture me but I think he wanted to hide the nature of his job from weiqin so he didn't do so.

The dream ended with us walking off, and she was asking if I was sure I wanted to drive out of town, as it may be inconvenient for me to get back later. I then responded with something like 'Aiya, out of town is only like, to Hougang or something right? That's alright I can go home from there'

This made little sense but ok, dreams don't usually make sense. And yup that's all. I had a second vivid, long dream but I totally forgot that because I was exerting all my memory cells to remember this one.

 

Thursday 20 September 2012

Thematic Apperception Test

For one of my assignments, I was required to take an online Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), which is basically a psychological test with psychodynamic origins - the gist of it is that you look at a picture, then you write a story based on what you've seen. The psychologist then analyzes what you have written, and gives you an interpretation - presumably because what you have written is a projection of your inner thoughts and desires.

You can try it out yourself if you wish, DON'T CONTINUE READING if you want to try it, because my story is below. Don't copy! haha. Just head on over to this website to try out the test first, just takes 10 minutes. http://www.utpsyc.org/TATintro/

Don't read on if you're going to try it, because it'll affect your answer! (It's the same picture)

Tuesday 18 September 2012

Food in Boston

I have been raving about how good the food I'm eating here is, so now, I'm going to SHOW you exactly what I've been eating. Remember, this is part of my dining plan in the dormitory I'm staying in - AKA hall food! And it's buffet every single meal.

This series of pictures shows exactly what I ate throughout the day, from Monday - Sunday. Enjoy!

[caption id="attachment_1768" align="alignleft" width="500"] Hard boiled eggs, hamburger patty, potato cubes, scrambled eggs, bacon, banana and a glass of milk.
What's on my plate is what I call the 'Breakfast Scramble'. They have these few dishes every morning, and I eat it almost everyday.[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1770" align="alignleft" width="500"] Asian Salisbury Steak with Soba Noodle Saute[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1771" align="alignleft" width="500"] Honey Brine Roasted Chicken with long beans[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1772" align="alignleft" width="500"] Salad, fruits, and yoghurt. And a glass of chocolate milk out of the picture.[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1773" align="alignleft" width="500"] Warren Burger - basically a cheeseburger with some special yummy sweet onion sauce that they add[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1774" align="alignleft" width="500"] Classic Mac & Cheese. Always long queues for this yummy dish. Topped off this meal with a glass of orange juice.[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1775" align="alignleft" width="500"] BBQ Ribs with Potato Salad[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1776" align="alignleft" width="500"] Chicken Parmesan with Pasta. And you can see my plate of salad off-camera.. ok let me just show you everything:[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1777" align="alignleft" width="500"] Garden Salad, Apple Juice, and a Banana :)[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1778" align="alignleft" width="500"] Egg and Cheese Burrito[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1780" align="alignleft" width="500"] My complete breakfast for that day. Breakfast scramble and the burrito and milk[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1781" align="alignleft" width="500"] Buffalo Chicken Wrap with Tomatoes and Veg[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1782" align="alignleft" width="500"] Jerk Chicken (I don't know why it's called this) and salad and hard boiled eggs. With a glass of Orange Juice[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1783" align="alignleft" width="500"] Buffalo Wings and Tots (deep fried potato cubes). The hot sauce was wicked nice.[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1784" align="alignleft" width="500"] Some coleslaw / salad thingy with cheese[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1785" align="alignleft" width="500"] My current favourite breakfast dish - Mushroom + Minced Meat + CHEESEEEE omelette[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1786" align="alignleft" width="500"] Buffalo Chicken (with some coleslaw)[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1787" align="alignleft" width="500"] BBQ Chopped Chicken Salad[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1788" align="alignleft" width="500"] Savory Peach Chicken (Gluten Free)[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1789" align="alignleft" width="500"] My entire meal. That's an orange btw.[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1790" align="alignleft" width="500"] Grilled Chicken with Peach Sauce + Some nice Pasta with Sliced Bratwurst sausages[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1791" align="alignleft" width="500"] Breakfast scramble, omelette, and pancakes with fruits :)[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1792" align="alignleft" width="500"] Vegan nuggets, Chipotle Glazed Pork Loin[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1793" align="alignleft" width="500"] LOBSTER MAINE (this was my first time eating lobster!! I've only eaten crab before this... it's not that nice but I guess rare things are more coveted)
comes with Baked Potato and Corn of the Cob.[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1794" align="alignleft" width="500"] 1/4 Rotisserie Chicken (surrounded by random salad I threw in)[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1795" align="alignleft" width="500"] Breakfast Scramble with Whole Wheat French Toast.
(They have other fruits besides bananas, such as apples, pears, oranges)[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1796" align="alignleft" width="500"] Baked Fish with Assorted Salad[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1797" align="alignleft" width="500"] Mac & Cheese with Mushrooms and Minced Meat! Yummy![/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1798" align="alignleft" width="500"] Topped off with orange juice and, yes, banana again.[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1799" align="alignleft" width="500"] Glazed Turkey with BBQ sauce, and Home Zone Taco. With a glass of milk[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1800" align="alignleft" width="500"] The dish on the left is one of my favourite desserts - mixed fruits (honeydew, pineapple,banana) smothered with yoghurt :)
On the right is some roasted chicken[/caption]

Grilled Cheese with Bacon (not sure what the red sauce is but it's nice), Portuguese Meatloaf with 'Chicken Nuggets' (They were more like popcorn chicken!)


[caption id="attachment_1805" align="alignleft" width="500"] A closer look at the yummy Portuguese Meatloaf[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1806" align="alignleft" width="500"] Breaded Pork Cutlet with Sauteed Spinach[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1807" align="alignleft" width="500"] Pepperoni Pizza + Chocolate Milk to complete the meal :)[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1808" align="alignleft" width="500"] Crispy Pork Cutlet with Potato Cubes[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1809" align="alignleft" width="500"] With my Warren Burger (I really like this, just had one :p)[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1810" align="alignleft" width="337"] Pancakes smothered with mixed fruits. They were out of strawberries! :(([/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1811" align="alignleft" width="311"] Rotisserie Chicken with Cajun Style Rice and long beans[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1812" align="alignleft" width="266"] Roast Beef with Some yummy cream sauce pasta[/caption]

Wow... looking back, I'm also quite amazed that I ate such a large variety of food... IN JUST ONE WEEK. Unbelievable. I'm going to be so spoilt by this good food O.O

Monday 10 September 2012

Nonsensical Spam Bots

You know those spam bots that post spam links on tagboards, comments on blogs, and everywhere they can? They are annoying right? Even worse, they could be malicious - clicking on any of the links may infect your computer with some sort of malware or virus.  But the fact of the matter is, spam bots typically have a purpose - to get you to click on a link.

On the other hand, there are some spam bots which... to me, really serves no purpose, besides to spam? I have seen some spam comments that make no sense or are just pretty hilarious. Here are some of them:
"To want a spninakg is to need a spninakg.  This is not true in all cases but in this one I feel that want and need are one in the same.  A spninakg is a serious thing.  Most people develope a reson to be spanked and therefore feel as if they deserve a spninakg.  If you feel as if you deserve a spninakg then you feel you need it.  If you feel like you want it, then you need it so that you can stop thinking of the reason you deserve it.Now, I don't know if this makes sense to anyone besides me or not.  When I want a spninakg, that feeling doesn't leave me until my wife gives me one, and from our conversations, it doesn't leave her until she recieves what she feels she deserves.  So when one developes a want for a spninakg, in order to move on with their daily life, a spninakg is needed!

Does this make any sense to you? Well it took me several seconds but I realized 'spinankg' is not some new-fangled drug that they're selling but it's 'spanking' rearranged.

Another one:
Phenomenal baerkodwn of the topic, you should write for me too!

In this case, it's 'breakdown'! I'm actually quite intrigued by these anagram bots and trying to figure out what they mean lolol
Master composer of the National Anthem Captain Ram Singh Thakur’s tune cuneinots to infuse a spirit of patriotism among millions of Indians. Captain Ram Singh Thakur (15 August 1914-15 April 2002) was an Indian freedom fighter, musician and the composer of the music of the current version of the Indian National Anthem. He also composed, while serving in the Indian National Army a number of patriotic songs including Kadam Kadam Badaye Ja… and Subh Sukh Chain . Later in life, Captain Singh worked for the Provincial Arms Constabulary band Uttar Pradesh (PAC).Ram was born in Village of Khanyara, Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh on August 15, 1914. As the son of a serviceman, Ram was encouraged to enroll in the army. After completing school in 1922, Ram joined the 1st Gorkha Rifles as a recru...

WHAT ON EARTH IS THIS HAHAHA. This actually goes on for quite a bit, this portion I quoted was 1/4 of the whole comment.

Why do spam bots do these??

Saturday 8 September 2012

Thoughts in Boston

Surprise! I'm blogging again. Yea I've been pretty busy this past week settling into Boston, going for orientations and stuff, and I keep putting off writing this blog post until now. I have many thoughts to pen down and I guess the most coherent way would be to list them as general subject headings and talk about each a little bit.

Weather

It's an often-made joke that when conversation is awkward, people talk about the weather, and I only fully appreciated it when I came here - because there really IS something to talk about, unlike in Singapore when it's just sunny and humid all year round. When I first arrived it was pretty cooling, you could walk around everywhere without sweating that much... but it's actually getting hotter! Damn. No idea why.

The nights get pretty chilly, dipping to 15 degrees sometimes. So it's literally colder outside than indoors (air-conditioned).

I'm hoping it gets colder actually, because I have no fan in my room so it's HOT in the day :( No a/c or anything! I mean, if it's cold you can just wear more clothes.. when it's hot... you SUFFER. Well you can fan yourself with stuff but that's troublesome.

Food

The. Food. Is. Freaking. Awesome. I am working on a blog post that I will post next Sunday (not this coming one) night I hope, and you will see how awesome it is. But just to give you a rough idea - restaurant - style buffet every single meal. And the food is good. (This is dormitory dining halls, AKA hall food in Singapore)

Courses

Many of my friends return from exchange boasting about how little they studied yet how well they did - but somehow I don't think I'll be able to end up like them. I just feel the compulsive need to study... yet again, I am lazy to begin and my brain feels hella rusty. Plus I'm not really getting enough sleep every day because my Muslim roommate wakes me up at 5AM everyday to do his prayers -_- sigh.

ANYWAY. The courses I am taking are pretty awesome - one of them has 4 tests - the first 3 are not cumulative tests (i.e. Test 1 covers Chapter 1-5, Test 2 covers Chapt 6-10, etc), but the final exam is cumulative. However, your score is the best THREE out of the four tests. Which means that if you're satisfied with your first 3 tests, you don't have to take the finals. HAHA. What a joke! Why so easy one. (Maybe the content/tests are very hard that's not what I meant.)

Then I have another module - two essays, no finals. haha!  And another module with 2 tests - no final exam. So essentially.. I only have one finals. Woohoo!

Friends

There is a very open culture in the US where you can go up to anyone and strike up a conversation and then know the guy's name and where he was born and how many pets he has and when he lost his first tooth. Ok I am exaggerating but it's really very NORMAL to do that. Consequently I realize what the whole 'picking up girls' thing is not as woahhh as I thought it was... well my definition of 'picking up girls' is just chatting with a girl and getting her number (not having sex with her) so maybe it's different. I think I have done that (get the number, not have sex) like more than 5-10 times already, with both guys and girls (remember, not the sex).

Ironically (or maybe not), I have made more asian/international friends than American friends. I don't know, there's something about americans that make them harder to talk to and befriend... ironically. This seems to contradict my earlier point but firstly, half the people here are not Americans but international students, and secondly, talking randomly to Americans does not necessarily lead to having a longer conversation and exchange numbers.

Accent

Do I have a US accent yet? No I don't. Nowhere close. Don't think I'll be able to develop one.

 

Ending Thoughts

I admire students who study full-time here, or anywhere overseas in particular. It's quite a big commitment, and a big adjustment to have to make for 4 years. I can't imagine that, really. I'm just really glad I have two Singaporeans here that I can really get along with, and we are meeting new people together. And my favourite part for now is the food hehehe nomnom.