how far would we go to obey?

by

A few weeks back, we were talking about social influence in Social Psychology class. We touched on the topic of obedience where my TA talked about an experiment devised a long time ago by Milgram. It was an experiment where a volunteer was assigned the teacher role and the other person was assigned the learner role. The teacher and learner sat in separate rooms. The teacher was supposed to “teach” the learner a set of words. The learner was supposed to remember those words and responded to the teacher’s questions. If the learner answered incorrectly, the teacher administered an electric shock and increased the voltage each time. The voltage ranged from 0-450mv. Of course, 450mv was fatal. What the teacher didn’t know was that he/she wasn’t really administering any electric shocks. He/she would hear recorded groans and screams. Whenever the teacher felt uncomfortable and wanted to stop the experiment, the experimenter would not say “no,” but would say that the experiment required the volunteer to continue. What the experimenters wanted to know was the level of obedience to authority of the volunteer in the face of evil. The volunteer “knew” that the electric shocks were fatal. The experimenter did not disallow the volunteer to stop the experiment, he merely said that the experiment required the volunteer to continue. Shockingly, 65% of the volunteers continued all the way to the fatal 450mv. This experiment was later disallowed and labeled as unethical. However, it was done again in 2009. This is only the first part of the full clip. To watch the full clip, go to YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PassGyF8X8

The end of the clip has the most impact as the experimenter talks about the experiment. I swear that if you ever did something like this (whether you’re the experimenter or volunteer), you’ll just become disillusioned with life and people. I also think the level of obedience depends on the age of the volunteer and how much it differs with the experimenter. The younger the volunteer and the larger the age gap, the more obedient the volunteer is. That scares me a lot as this would be true for all kids in school. Although they have the knowledge of right and wrong, they also fear and respect their elders which would often trump their knowledge in these situations.

perspectives

by

I have started blogging for the217.com. It’s more of a themed blog where I discuss about life in general in CU occasionally making references to life in Singapore. By the way, I’ve not moved, this blog is still functional.

Now, on to Perspectives…

seeing underwater

by

Muahahaha…soon I’ll be able to do that and I will be able to see those fishies when I go snorkeling again during Winter break. Of course, that comes with a massive price tag after I went to the optician today. I had to go through an eye test and fitting of contact lenses and all that jazz.

No, that does not mean I’m going to permanently ditch my glasses for contact lenses. You must understand, I started wearing glasses since I was 8. I’m too used to wearing them. I tried switching to contact lenses when I was 19 (I think), but it just felt too weird. Nobody understood when I said things seemed to be bigger. Felt really weird.

Anyway, I told that to the optician and he explained that it’s not that objects are bigger. It’s the glasses that makes things seem smaller. I kinda of figured that out since contact lenses are directly on your eyeballs, but glasses are a distance away. Just needed confirmation from someone and not have people think I’m crazy saying that things seem to appear bigger.

Another reason why I will not ditch my glasses. If you look carefully, one eye is smaller than the other. Glasses kinda hides that and doesn’t make it obvious.

I had no idea that different brands of contact lenses have different curvatures. I was given a trial pair to put on while at the optician’s and was having a hard time getting them in. Ok, I admit perhaps I need to get used to putting on contact lenses again, but don’t get me wrong, I know how to do it unlike the first time I got contact lenses. After what seemed like forever (and two teary eyes later), they were in. However, the left eye was really uncomfortable. It felt like there was something in my eye and whenever I blinked, it made my eye tear. The optician thought I had put it on the other way round. Doubt so since I know how to see which way is the correct side…the whole bowl shape thing. I had it on the right way. He went into the store and got out another brand of contact lenses with a greater curvature. This time it felt perfect. No discomfort. He told me that my eyeballs were more curved.

Oh, and damn was I impressed that they actually have trial pairs in their store that were my degree. As most know, I’m as blind as a bat and not many people have that high a degree. Most who have it probably have gone through lasik to correct that. The only people I know who can match that are my sister and Ling.

summer in chambana

by

The first week of Summer classes has ended. Each session is definitely longer than the usual, but they aren’t that bad. There may be some really dry stuff to go through, but overall it is quite ok. I would have preferred to take a statistics class and a psychology class instead of two psychology classes. That way, I could have a balance of memory/thinking work and calculation work. But the statistics class was cancelled due to low signup, so I really don’t have a choice.

The weather in Chambana has been pretty crazy. Heat wave, then heavy rain, then sun again. Some days it can get so hot (like Singapore hot, except it’s not that humid). Those days make me feel really lethargic.

And then you think, what can of life can little towns like Champaign and Urbana possibly have? Wouldn’t spending summer here be totally boring? Not so. There have been fairs going on to get the community together. Deary and I went to Taste of C-U and we wanted to go to Strawberry Jam, but it rained heavily that day, so we decided against it.

We also spent a day at Six Flags Great America. Ok, that’s not in Chambana…but it was AWESOME. My first time going to a water park. Yea, I’m so sua ku that I’ve never been to Fantasy Island and now it’s gone. We didn’t have enough time to finish both the water park and theme park, so we’ll probably go back sometime later. Hehe, we got the annual pass, so it’s “free” admission.

Before I sign off, here’s something really cute I bought a few days ago in the local campus bookstore:

Yup, Hello Kitty tees for my school. Woohoo!

you can’t resist his smile now can you?

by

[edited on June 19, 2010 @ 10.41pm]
Ok, I checked out Nad’s blog and saw she had put up a link to the real reason why the contest was cancelled. Wow, didn’t know so much drama was going on. Well, I guess there will always be sore losers out there.
[/edited]

[edited on June 18, 2010 @ 11.13am]
Okaaaaayyyyy, the organizers decided to cancel the event. This is their reason:

“Due to continuous reported complaints of spamming and flaming of participants in this event to us and Facebook, we regret to announce that this event will be cancelled with immediate effect. We understand many of you have taken the time to commit to this event and we deeply appreciate your efforts. We wish to let you know that cancelling this event was a difficult decision to make and the final resort we had to take.”

Thanks to all who have voted and supported. As much as I hate this, I guess we really have no other choice.
[/edited]

A few months ago, a few of us 7ners were bugging Nad to enter Zayden in a baby contest. And she did…and now, Zayden needs your help to win. Click on his picture and “like” it. You must be logged into Facebook though. Many thanks for helping to vote.


Photo credits: Nadine and Guan

How can you resist this cute lil’ boy? 🙂

fixed problems

by

Ok, I managed to fix some problems.

  1. Found out why external links to my blog were redirecting to a suspicious looking site. Removed rogue script and now everything should be fine and dandy. Re-installed plugins.
  2. Realized why I wasn’t getting any comments (even spam ones). Fixed the problem. So, comment away~~~ 🙂
  3. Got TweetDeck to work with my Facebook account. So, I removed the Twitter application on Facebook and now I can manage everything through my TweetDeck desktop application.

something funky’s going on

by

[edited on June 8, 2010 @ 11.36pm]
Ok, it seems that any external link to my blog has this problem. Going to get to the bottom of this matter. This sucks manz.
[/edited]

Recently I’ve been having some problems with my WordPress plugins, especially Wordbook and WP to Twitter. The links post fine on Facebook, but when you click on them, they get redirected to some suspicious looking site. Trying to isolate the problem, so bear with me if you come here and find something funky going on. I’m just deleting and reinstalling files.

singapore has come to chambana

by

After almost a week of being back home in hot and humid Singapore, I arrived back to an equally hot Chambana. No kidding, we’re having a heat wave here. The days can get up to 31 degrees celsius. Deary and I have been trying to survive on opened windows and a small fan. So far we have been successful despite my many complaints that it’s just TOO hot. Well, until we caved in tonight and turned on the air-con for a short while.

And of course…

Last semester’s results:

ADV400 – A
ADV450 – A-
ADV483 – A-
EALC464 – A
JAPN204 – A-

Total GPA = 3.78
Cumulative GPA = 3.73

*sigh* I missed the A for ADV450 by 4 points. If only I had studied a little harder for the first exam… Such is life. JAPN204 was hard. I can only blame myself for not having the guts to speak up more in class. On a happier note, I’m glad I did well for EALC464. It sure was a tough class.

Oh, by the way, I updated the page of links. 🙂

the lord is my shepherd

by

“The Lord is my shepherd, there is nothing I shall want.”

This verse will hold a lot of meaning from now on. It was sung as a hymn at my grandma’s funeral, it is set in stone at my grandma’s resting place. Mum told me when grandma was in the hospital, one day out of the blue, she just started reciting this verse.

I told my cousin that a part of me felt a little angry because she didn’t wait for me to come home to see her in her final moments, but my cousin told me something else that made me ashamed of ever feeling that way. She was suffering and perhaps death was the only way God could release her from that.

The only comforting thought was that she held my letter to her as her body was cremated – that she took a part of me with her. Yes, like I told Leonard, when someone you know dies, it’s like a part of you dies as well.

Her final resting place is at St. Francis Xavier church together with my great great grandma, great grandparents (grandma’s parents), and my grandaunt (grandma’s oldest sister).


The tape is there to secure the stone since they just sealed it. Her photo will only be put on later. The beads on the mini rosary are red, my grandma’s favourite colour.


Great great grandma, great grandpa, great grandma, grandaunt. Photos are of my great grandparents. So, now I know which side of the family was peranakan. I think my great grandpa is handsome.