New Start

Decided to have a new start... blogging at taixiang.blogspot.com now.

Mental Health First Aider Course

Previously, my impression of mental illness is simply reflected in the word “crazy”. This idea has been brought forth by years of cautious words given by my parents and my short interactions with people in public that are acting abnormally. The fears of the mentally ill are not just about their abnormal behaviours, but rather the uncertainty and lack of knowledge of the conditions. I try not to treat them weirdly, so my natural response will be to ignore their presence.

During the course, the different kinds of mental illnesses were a surprise to me, not because of the number of mental illnesses but rather how common some symptoms and signs are. Some of these common symptoms become mental illnesses just because the individual is unable to cope with it and without treatment eventually becomes mentally ill. Thus, I believe that the most important thing being a mental health first aider is to identify the early symptoms of mental illness and knowing when to seek professional help.

However, I believe that in dealing with mentally ill patients, no course would be able to truly teach someone the correct way in handling situations. The more important thing is to treat mental illness as an illness and not reflective of the person himself. Learning mental health first aid will help in my role as a teacher to ensure that I will be able to help my students with their mental health and to do self-check to maintain my own mental health.

My fellow colleagues

My fellow colleagues from the school that i taught for contract teaching before going to NIE. Who says teachers can't have fun!

Apparently our usual hangouts are the boardgames cafe.

And according to them we usually eat Japanese food too.

And it all started with singing....

More on Thinking Positively

A paragraph from the Thinking Positively article that i was reading previously:

"We live in a world full of sceptics and cynics. They consider themselves to be particularly realistic and do all they can to highlight the wickedness and moral dishonesty that they think are the natural essence of man. They are convinced that every act of generosity and kindness has an ulterior motive and that nobody does anything unless he gets something in return. It is much easier to become cynical and critical in negative situations than to act and fight to improve things"

It's a food for thought, which i have to admit that i am guilty of becoming one. I believe that i am a clear cut pragmatic person, which is as a result of the Singaporean culture that we cannot be complacent and must be competitive. I used to think that such way is just being shrewd, but i guess i am second guessing my thinking now. The reason being after travelling around for a while, i can understand the need for being so suspicious, but yet at the same time i found true kindness and friendliness.

The start of a new year

Just a decade ago, i was taking my O' level. At the turn of the new decade, i am in NIE (National Institute of Education) training to teach at secondary level. I have not been talking much about my teaching experience in my blog, but i guess now since i am in NIE, i could probably post some reflections about what i have learned.

Today is my first day of class, 2 hours in Educational Psychology, which is supposed to teach us about the learning process and how students learn. One of the articles that i have to read so far is about thinking positively. Plainly speaking, it is about whether the cup is half-filled or half empty. In this article, i found some rather encouraging and interesting food for thoughts.

"whoever retains the capacity to appreciate beauty will never grow old"

"beauty and ugliness as such do not exist, rather it is our thoughts and attitudes that make something beautiful or ugly"

"we should not use up all our energy in trying to change those aspects of our lives that cannot be altered but rather work hard to change our attitude to them"

At the start of this new decade, i just hope that i can too think more positively about life. I need to clearly sort out what is required and what is wanted.

Today in history of my life, 15/10/09

I have decided to pen down events or happenings that should be marked in my life calendar simply because it's ichiban (first) or memorable enough, at least to disclose to the public audience.

So today in history, is my first invigilation briefing for national exams, which is the upcoming O' levels. I will be still staying in my own school, assigned to invigilate the isolation room which is to house any sick students but can still continue with their exam. Teachers from 3 other schools were there also, words were exchange and gossip started among us. Seriously teachers can be like students too.

Today, after finish marking some sec 1 physic exam scripts, i got the sec 2 physic scripts today and i must say that it is easy to mark. Easy to mark because i just draw a cross and give 0 simply because so many questions were not attempted.

Today in history, i thought to myself, that i am glad that i have learn to adapt to situation and condition, but i am not sure myself if that is a good thing, because i can potentially lose my interest in a few days. Well... not entirely lose the interest, but more like i do not care whether it happens or not. Maybe happy that things happen, but will not be unhappy just because things do not happen.

And last today, it's tgiaf which is thank god it's almost Friday. Although i am not that religious and monotheistic.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs

I learnt about Maslow's hierarchy of needs during my university when i was taking Management and Organization module i believe. Basically, Maslow's hierarchy of needs reflects on the needs of human beings to achieve happiness. More can be found on the wonderful wikipedia about the topic.

So this pyramid suddenly came up to me when i am evaluating my life. I have no problem with my physiological and safety aspects just because my parents have provided for me a relatively comfortable life. I am still trying to come to a conclusion about the upper levels, to what extent does the factors affect my happiness. Because i believe that the factors are based on personal preferences, like if one is happy with just having one good friend, no reason he/she should be any more unhappy than one who is not content with hanging out with like ten friends or something.

All i know is, my esteem level of happiness apparently have regular recession like the semi-conductor industry. In fact i think now i am going through some low self-esteem phase, which probably have to be overcome by some self-pampering or some sort. O well, what to do, even though i know that i am really quite lucky in various aspects of my life, i always wonder if anything i can do to make it better. But then again, i do not know what is better...