‘Life is like poker, you win some and you lose some. The only difference is, in life you cannot fold the hand you are given; you got to play with it.’ Surely other people will be dealt better hands, like pocket aces (2 aces) or ace king suited (my favourite hand in poker) for example. In real life that might be equivalent to be born into a rich family or gifted with extraordinary talents. But what if your hand is crap, just say a 4, Jack unsuited or a 2 9 unsuited. Do you say, ‘Damn y is life so unfair? Or ‘curse my luck’ (real life equivalent: ‘why am I cursed with this disability? Or why can’t I get rich parents?’) OR do u say, ‘So what if my hand is ugly. With hard work (try to outwit, outlast, outplay other players on the table to win the tournament) or some luck (get awesome community cards like 2 more 9s so you would make a triple) I might actually get something out of this.’
The majority of us are given average but decent cards. However there are some of us who are given the short end of the stick. These people (who maybe lack the looks, or intelligence or are born with disabilities or genetic diseases) somehow manage to compensate for their lack of something with something special of their own. It could be a fierce determination to succeed, or a gentle kind heart, which I think most people lack, even those with the best hands. You have probably heard many inspirational stories about a young boy/girl who is dying of some disease but yet manage to live his life to the max + even more too. Stories like a boy in the 1990s from Canada who managed to raise millions of dollars for cancer patients before he died. I remember something that he told his mom, ‘Mom, I managed to raise millions of dollars for cancer but I can’t even afford to buy you a present’. This made me think. Us, the fortunate ones seem to take life for granted while others who want that chance to live to badly are unlucky to have it taken away so soon. That’s why I think that suicide is the most selfish thing a person ever can do.
We, I think must admire their will to triumph over adversities that make even the toughest of men falter and celebrate the lives of those who somehow manage to win it even with the worst of hands. It seems that life must be fair then, opening excellent community cards, granting them with the opportunity to win. Maybe its karma, ‘What you give is what you get returned’.
So what do I think the moral of this is? We should never take things for granted, always do good and never ever curse the hand you’d been dealt. No one knows what life has in store for us. Cause after all, ‘Life, is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are gonna get’.

Humans are always looking for something new to do. This trial and error method is a very powerful way to finding out new things, be it good or bad. When a person stumbles across something new and that something benefits him to a certain degree, he’ll most likely do that thing again. Everytime he does it, the action becomes more and more a part of his daily routine until 1 day he’ll realise that he will do that action without thinking. By this stage, he has then developed a new habit.
A habit is the usual condition or state of a person or thing, either natural or acquired, regarded as something had, possessed, and firmly retained. (en.wikipedia.org).

Take James for an example (a purely fictional character). 1 day he returns home late from work and so couldn’t take a shower before he went to bed. He tells himself that he feels dirty and therefore the 1st thing in the morning he would take a shower. So early the next day, the 1st thing he does is to take a shower. That shower, rejuvenated him and made him more productive during the day. He felt refreshed, more happy and more motivated. So he tells himself ‘hey showering in the morning is great, lets do it again tomorrow.’ This scenario would repeat itself for weeks. Then after sometime, James would shower every morning without thinking about it.

The beginning of a habit is like an invisible thread, but every time we repeat the act we strengthen the strand, add to it another filament, until it becomes a great cable and binds us irrevocably in thought and act. -Orison Swett Marden.

Heres a secret for u people. Before every exam or test or maybe something very important, I’ll psych myself up with a ritualistic ‘series of actions’. It starts off with me standing up with my eyes closed. Then I form this image of a person’s silhouette standing in front of a big huge red ‘I’m ready’ sign. As I do that, I loosen my muscles up (ie I’ll hop on the spot, u know like what NFL players do before a game). The images gets clearer and clearer until finally I can see the person. Then a voice in my head reads that sign, and suddenly the image shifts to a wrestling arena, at the time when a wrestler makes his entrance. So actually its just a huge explosion. After that I revert to a Ray Lewis prematch prep talk (he is a NFL player) and chant like he would chant ‘How bad do you want it’ ‘ How bad do you want it’. Finally I’ll answer myself saying ‘I want it bad’ or something similar… my psyching up is complete. I know this story sounds weird but it works, the method actually works. To be honest, this might sound very cheesy to you guys but I feel super motivated after this, ready to tackle anything. So how did I adopt that habit? I can assure you that I only started doing this in 6th form or something. Haha, well come to think about it I can’t even remember how I started this ritual.

So what should James and I do if we wanted to break the habit. Simple. We just stop doing it. Initially we would not succeed, but like starting a habit, breaking it takes time as well. If u keep reminding yourself to stop everytime you do it, eventually you would stop doing it. This takes patience and time. Also associating your habit with something negative will make you be more inclined to stop doing it. Basically ask yourself this question ‘How bad do you want to break your habit?’ If you want it very badly, nothing can stop you from achieving that goal. “If there is a will there is always a way”

Do you think that dual personalities exist? Like a dormant side of you that switches on when you are at work, or under stress or when meeting certain people? Think of it this way. Some people are unable to deal with stress in a constructive way and therefore need a new temporary personality so show the world that they are normal, while hiding the fact that they are dealing with deep emotional/personal problems. If they can’t solve this problem soon and another one comes up, logically they will have to use the ‘temporary’ personality longer. In time, as the problem builds up, like water filling up a dam with no holes, you would reach a state where your problems would never be completely gone away. The ‘temporary’ personality is used so often till it becomes permanently engraved in your mind… a new personality or alter ego is born.

Lets call the new personality John Doe and the old one John Smith (all characters are fictional). John Smith is a quiet, shy, submissive and sensitive person who thinks that if he doesn’t change his personality, he will not be socially affective in the outside world. He wants to be accepted by other people, he wants to be included. Being shy and quiet does not get you far, quite frankly because no one will know you exist he thought. Its like being an invisible person, who is aware about everything that goes on around him, but sadly no one is aware of him. This is his dilemma. To fix it he thought, he will need to build up a new ‘façade’, an alter ego that takes over his social life. He needs to construct a new person that will be accepted by the general population that gives him the satisfaction of knowing that he will have people that care about him. He thought, ‘It doesn’t matter who they care about, me or the new guy, we share the same body so we are the same people’. By setting his mind to it, knowing that there is no turning back, he creates John Doe.
Now, John Doe is a total opposite of John Smith. He is a daredevil, laughs loudly, is arrogant at times, the ‘tough’ guy but most importantly he is outgoing. This outgoingness enables him to make new friends quickly, satisfying the social needs of every human being. It was a success. John Smith has doubled the number of new friends in a quarter of the time that he would make if he were his old self. ‘If it works, why change’. Soon enough John Smith will realize that he would not get far on his own and without John Doe. In time, the boundary separating John Smith and John Doe will fade. The artificial personality takes over the innate one. John Smith will be consumed.
All is not lost. At times, when John Smith meets someone he adores, likes…love or forged long-term friendships, he reveals himself. The principle of building relationships based on trust is his guiding principle. He would not lie to a loved one. ‘Will they like John Smith or John Doe?’ he asks himself. ‘It’s a risk that I will have to take.’

Do our alter egos take over us, or are they just imaginary? Or was it just the outgoingness that John Smith showed that gave him new confidence as he managed to find new friends with it? So at the end, John Doe + John Smith = an upgraded John Smith with confidence or a hybrid of personalities? Or did John Doe, like in the story consume John Smith? How i wished i knew the answer.

Do you believe in coincidences or luck? Have you ever thought to urself, ‘What would happen if I were a minute too late or too early?’ Do the question ‘What if….’ pop up frequently in your head?
Well these questions do occasionally pop up in my head and yes I do believe in coincidence and luck.
Here is a story that always leaves me thinking about this, it makes me ask myself these questions. It is a story of how I met her.
It was a Thursday afternoon, it had been raining before and everything was wet. I had a lab after this I thought, so I hoped that physics would finish early so I can get a good seat for the lab. Getting a good seat I learnt, could only be done if u got to the lab early. For my previous bio lab, bio107, I didn’t get the seat I wanted cause physics finished late and so by the time I got to the lab it was already 5/6 full (roughly).
Back to the story. It was Professor Wills lecture…boring mechanics, being taught on that day. He didn’t make the subject more interesting as well. Well it was 10 to 2 and I was getting restless. I told myself that if he doesn’t finish this lecture in 5 minutes sharp, I’m gonna leave early (people who know me will know that this is not me, I never leave a lecture/class early in my life when it is still going on). Tick, tick, tick... concentration level 20% falling fast. Well its 5 to and he is still going on, thats it im going. So I stood up and walked out of the lecture. As I got out, it started to drizzle (just what i needed, to get wet before a 3 hour lab) so I started running to my lab all the way down in the bio building.
Even after all that, I found the lab to be ¾ full. However most of the people in the lab were not there as they were already walking towards the computer labs downstairs (lab 1 for bio101 was just a waste of 3 hours).
So the 1st thing that came to my mind was, ‘hurry up and secure a seat’. "Hurry up, get your stuff so we can lock up the lab"the lab tutor shouted, it was almost chaotic. Then another thing popped up in my head, 'hey lets sit opposite these 2 girls, but wait… that means I have to sit beside this blond girl'. My 1st impression was that she looked bored and uninterested, the type that didn’t really want to be in the lab (never judge a book by its cover i soon found out and the impression has since changed).
Initially I didn’t want to sit beside her cause I was concerned that to get good marks (to achieve that A+), I need a good lab partner. Believe it or not guys, I actually did have some internal conflict going on in my head for a minute or 2. Its like u seen in movies where the little devil and the little angel comes up on either side of your shoulder and try to influence your decision. But i didn't hallucinate or anything i can assure you.
So in the end I decided to be her lab partner. I asked her if anyone was sitting beside her, she said no. Then I introduced myself to her. ‘Hi my name is sujie’. She looked at me in the eye and said ‘Hi nice to meet u, my name is Lara’.
So where does luck or coincidence come into this? 1stly the physics lessonon thursday was mechanics, not electricity (I wouldn’t miss the awesome Prof. Conway’s lectures). Also, I got there exactly when I got there, not a minute later (after I sat down and took my stuff to the com labs, some other person put his bag onto my table, I told him later that it was my seat, he looked disappointed) .....
or earlier (I knew a 1/6 of the people in that lab (about 10 out of 64 people in total) but they had either already gone to the computer lab or i did not realise that they were there. If I did, I would have sat closer to them). So the timing was perfect you might say… well I agree, how my life would be different if it was otherwise.
Last but not least, it just so happened that my lab stream was the last stream that a person can enrol in (stream 16). She didn’t take bio initially,but took it up as an elective. She didn't even do biology in school i think. They didn’t have anywhere else to put her in, so she was placed in my lab.
What a freaky coincidence.

Funny thing how someone, just by talking to them or seeing them, can change the way u feel in an instant. He/she will lift your spirits up when your down, take you through tough times.
It happened to me today,
I was feeling down and stressed out before the test, yet after seeing her suddenly I feel happy and relaxed. Seeing her smile melts away all the negative things in me. Hearing her voice drowns out all the negative thoughts. Although she is pretty much the cause of these negative thoughts (subject of another post probably), it doesn really matter… good triumphs in the end, light over dark
What a wonderful feeling. The days problems, washed away by an adrenalin rush, my heart beats faster, and for that moment, all burdens are off my shoulders. Usually when I find out that I had screwed up badly in a test, I feel very frustrated and angry cause I know I could do so much better, yet today I feel the opposite. She sat beside me during the test, making me distracted almost all the time as I was asking myself questions …….will she leave early? Should I leave when she does? If I don’t leave when she does then I won’t get to see her in a long time….. All this while trying to answer hard questions about stats. So I did the test faster than I usually would. Yet again she is the cause of this problem, me screwing up the test but still I feel happy at the end. Why u mite ask? Because I saw her, I talked to her, we laughed together and that is all I could ask for. And guess what…she stayed for the whole duration of the test. After the test, we sat down and chatted for about an hour or so, caught up on things, I found out more about her, her about me
Then I had to leave to catch the bus, so we said goodbye, I’ll talk to her again over the weekend =), my favourite time of the week. Hopefully we’ll meet up again…..that’s my wish for the night.

'When you are with me, I’m free, I don't care less I believe'
Creed - My sacrifice

‘When dreaming I’m guided to another world, Time and time again.

At sunrise I fight to stay asleep, Cause I don’t want to leave the comfort of this place.’

Creed – Higher

This verse pretty much explains what I do when I'm down, i dream. My dreams acts like a shield which protects me from the 'real' world. I ‘feel’ safe, loved, wanted or anything I want to feel actually, in my dreams. The fear of rejection, my greatest fear of all is absent from my dreams.
Hence I daydream sometimes and also I tend sleep a lot when I’m sad. Dreaming heals me mentally and rejuvenates me so I have the strength to face the next day head on. But of course when I’m happy I rather spend time awake in the real world cause I know eventually the real world is the important one, the one that counts.
Dreams to me are like trials of life, trials that can be done over and over again without consequences. Its good practice as you can ‘experiment’ with different actions over the same scenario and at the end choose the best 1 to implement in life.
Dreams act as a beacon of hope. Hope is a strong feeling, probably the only thing that can get a person through the roughest times……it is this hope that fuels a person’s determination….and that makes him/her work their very hardest to get out of it, based on the hope that everything is going be fine again someday…..
I am saying that dreams gives hope of a better future, therefore I think dreams are 1 of man’s greatest gifts as they instill hope and with this hope comes all other attributes such as determination, perseverance, the unwillingness to give up. Dreams give us the creativity to create and to innovate, so we can build new machines, tools that can help us achieve that dream
All the advances in human civilization that we see now were the product of someone’s dream. A person who dared to believe his dream would 1 day come true. A person with the drive and will to make his dream come true. These people have discovered the secret to success, a secret that only we can see it and no one else can…..it lies in the depths of our dreams, we just have to know where to find it.

‘But my friend, I’ll sacrifice all those nights, If I could make the earth and my dreams the same’ Creed - Higher