Interpersonal TKAM

Conduct an interview with a friend (not from HCI) or family member. Find out from their point of view on prejudice and discrimination. Either record the interview or write out the interview transcript.

Me: To you, what is prejudice and discrimination?

Brother: Prejudice is the act of being biased against a particular someone, while discrimination is the act of insulting or pushing all the blame to a particular someone as a result of prejudice. These two occur globally. Despite all the education and advertisements for a harmonious city, there are still many cases of discrimination as a result of prejudice, especially in the field of racial discrimination. If you notice, many citizens of Singapore are still unable to live with other races. However, I would be glad to say that this type of discrimination and prejudice has definitely improved since many years back when all the blame are being pushed to a certain discriminated group just because that is the way of life.

Me: What do you think caused all this prejudice and discrimination?

Brother: I feel that all these arose from the fact that way back ago, the people of darker skin colours have been discriminated against all this while. Hence, there is no difference now or before. The present society, I believe, have been greatly influenced by their ancestors and are just following the norms, discriminating and be prejudiced against those of other skin tones. Like I said previously though, through education, the present kids are able to accept people of other races, not being discriminatory against them. If this continues to persist through our society, it will come to a fact that everyone is of equal status and no discrimination or signs of prejudice will continue to exist. Hence, a more peaceful and harmonious society will definitely be achieved.

Me: You mentioned that other races are being discriminated against. Which race do you think is being discriminated against most?

Brother: In my opinion, I feel that the Indians are being discriminated against most. This is not an insult, but if you were to go out with your friends, etc. you would definitely have one or two racist jokes. I feel that Indians have been discriminated against since a long time ago. People are now just following the "tradition" of discriminating Indians, without even knowing why. They just know that Indians are of a race which has been discriminated against and should continue to be.

Me: Could you please sum up what you have said?

Brother: To sum it all up, discrimination and prejudice are prevalent in today's society, though tremendously improved, but there is still a large room for improvement. People are normally influenced by their ancestors to continue the trend and to continue discriminating other races. However, with the education kids are receiving as of late, this problem can soon be solved and there will be a much peaceful and harmonious environment.

This interview was done with my brother on 1st March. In my opinion, I feel that discrimination and prejudice are indeed influenced by past ancestors. However, if kids were to think of it, it is rather stupid to discriminate people who are supposedly of the same status as us. We are all human beings. Skin colour is just another factor that differentiates us, but it should not affect our status in the society. I feel that kids should be able to understand this but they still do it anyway just for the thrill of it. However, they have never given a thought to how other people would think, the emotional hurt people are going through.

Hence, I would like to say that we should never treat people differently and we should all be of equal status no matter what race we are in. Discrimination and prejudice are only because of personal choice, and NOT because it is a fact that we MUST discriminate against certain groups of people.

Polo

Hi all once again. Today, although I have two tests on Friday and I have to study, I felt the need of voicing out.

So, I am here with a post on polo, no not the polo sweets, but my CCA Waterpolo. Recently, I have been having a few troubles with my game. Whenever we are doing ball handling, I cannot seem to pass or receive the ball well, passing the ball either too low, too high, too hard, or too light. All these really led to my poor performance. My coach always tells me, "Dexter, if you are unable to even pass properly, how are you going to play waterpolo?" He also said once before, "Dexter, your basics are gone. You really need to go and remember." These sentences really caused a great impact on me and have been ringing in my head all the time whenever I am playing waterpolo. Because of this incessant reminder of myself, I felt myself being extremely careful whenever I pass. However, this has caused me to be so careful that I sometimes lose the confidence of passing well and my mind just goes blank, not knowing where and how to pass properly. In the end, I sometimes pass the ball out or at the wrong position of my teammate. I have been rebuked several times because of my poor technique being displayed in the game, causing my team to lose the ball to the opposing team easily.

As a result of this, I have been really dejected, not knowing what got into me, why my play is worsening. When we did sprints on one day, because I felt really despondent, I sprinted before my captain even told us to. This caused him to be really irritated and I really am sorry about that. So, here I am apologising to my captain, Darren.

I have reflected and I could come up with two reasons. Firstly, it is because I have not been taking training seriously, which should not be the case because I made sure I trained hard whenever I went down to training. Another reason, which should be the accurate reason, is because of my council duties and projects. As a result of these, I have been skipping training quite often, thus causing my skills to deteriorate. But now, I have been going training diligently and train really hard to buck up because I do not have as much duties now. I really hope I will be able to do well in the National Competition.

I have written what I want to say and I thank you for looking at this post of mine, lending me a "watching eye" although I don't really know if you are. Now that I'm done with this post, I have to go for my late dinner!

P.S. Do you face any difficulties with your CCAs? How do you cope with them?

Double Happiness

Hi guys! It's been two weeks since my last post. The first day of the Lunar New Year is just over. Have you'll got many red packets? Have you'll visited your relatives and caught up on your relationships with them? Or have you'll been gambling in this festive season? No matter what you'll have been doing, I hope that all of you have had much fun, joy and laughter today as it was for me.

As I always have been doing in the past years, I visited my grandmother's house first, paying my respects to my grandfather and her. After that, I started visiting my uncles and aunts from my maternal side, before I reunited with my paternal's side of the family. I spent my entire afternoon at my grandmother's house, playing and catching up with my cousins. We had lots of fun together and I would say that time there was well spent since we managed to improve our relationship with each other. We played games like charades and even played mahjong. It was really an enjoyable time with them.

After dinner, they went over to one of my granduncle's house to visit him, while my family came home to have a bath and visit my neighbour's house since we have already visited that granduncle of mine. I enjoyed being in my neighbour's house although we became neighbours for merely two months as they treated as with much warmth, like we were not strangers at all. I enjoyed their company a lot. Then, I went home for my bath and waited in my living room for the next and last activity of the night -- my paternal's side of the family were watching a movie together.

To be honest, I was in fact growing a little bored waiting for their arrival to pick up my grandparents who were at my house. Perhaps I was not accustomed to the break in between a hectic and exciting day of having fun with my friends and relatives. Finally, my uncle arrived and we made our way to Bishan's Junction 8 where we watched our movie, "Little Big Soldier". It was not too bad a movie, being humorous and having a meaning at the same time, teaching us not to give up no matter how bad times were. It is really a meaningful movie and I recommend to all you readers reading this blog post. Do not miss it!

After all these activities for the day, it finally brings me to here, writing this long blog post. It is 12am in the morning of Monday now. You might be wondering why the title of this blog post is named "Double Happiness". The explanation to this will come up next.

My father celebrated his birthday last week on 6th February, a Saturday. My paternal family came to my house to have a reunion dinner in celebration of the coming Lunar New Year. At the same time, since it was my father's birthday, we celebrated it as well. We had a lot of fun last week, and a sumptuous dinner as well. This brings me to my point of "Double Happiness". This "Double Happiness" is not supposed to be referred to as my "Double Happiness", but instead, my father's "Double Happiness". Tomorrow, or today, 15th February is my father's birthday according to the Lunar Calendar. I have just wished him happy birthday. Since it is the New Year season and my father's birthday at the same time, wouldn't it mean "Double Happiness"? Tomorrow, my father will have double the joy, not only from visiting relatives' houses, but also because he is a birthday boy!

Hence, this blog post was meant to be dedicated to my father, to wish him a HAPPY BIRTHDAY and MAY HE ALWAYS BE STRONG AND HEALTHY! This wish of mine goes out to everyone reading this as well. Have a HAPPY NEW YEAR AND I WISH YOU THE BEST OF HEALTH! I am really looking forward to tomorrow and I do hope that you enjoy your day tomorrow too! :)

P.S. Maybe you would like to share your New Year experience here? Was it an enjoyable one? Why or why not?

Welcoming A New Month

Hi guys! It's me once again! So, one month is over in this new year of new hopes and resolutions to accomplish. I hope that you guys had a fruitful January!

With this month ending, it bring the end of term 1 closer. Needless to say, the term tests are drawing even nearer. As a result, many people are trying to make full use of their time to study and prepare for the tests, hoping to score well and possibly get exemptions. However, I would like to remind you guys that there is a time to play and there is a time to study. Please balance your time between studying and playing. :) It is important to take time off to relax or you will go bonkers just studying the entire day. For example, you could take time to update your blogs, if you have one.

Entering February also reminds me that March is coming closer and my nationals are also approaching. Everyone is trying to go training as diligently as possible now in order to ensure they are in top form and can perform well for nationals. On Tuesday, we are going to have a friendly match with ACS(Barker). I really hope that we will win as it will be a great confident boost to us and we will be able to perform better during the nationals. We have been training really hard in the holidays and I hope that our hard work will pay off and not go down the drain.

Lastly, the Lunar New Year is approaching too. It is really an occasion I look forward to. It is the biggest occasion for Chinese and also a good break for everyone from work or from school. It is a time for families to have a family reunion and improve our family bonding. Speaking of this, I am having a family reunion dinner next week to celebrate the Lunar New Year and at the same time, to celebrate my beloved father's birthday. I really look forward to that day as I will be able to meet my cousins and have fun with them.

I would like to end off with a few questions for thought. Did you think you had a fruitful January? Have you been preparing hard enough? To you, what is the significance of the Lunar New Year?

I hope you have an enjoyable year ahead and all the best for whatever you are doing! :D

Worst Weekend

Greetings to one and all. It is Sunday today. To most of you, Sunday should be a family day when everyone is taking a break from work and studies. But to me, Sundays from now onwards will be the worst day in my entire week.

On Fridays, it is CCA day in my school, which means I have to spend three full hours in the swimming pool. The training schedule makes me utterly exhausted, so when I reach home at night, it will normally be 8-9 o'clock and my eyes will be almost closed and I will just fall onto my bed and sleep after fruitless attempts to try and complete my theory homework for music, which is the next morning. This brings me to my schedule for Saturday.

On Saturday morning, I had my music class early in the morning from 9am-10am, before I went to school for a course organised by the Ortus Council regarding leadership, which was all the way till 1pm, before I went to King Albert Park to have lunch with my friends, where I did my tuition work for my tuition at 4.30. Then, I went home to bathe and had to make my way down to my tuition centre already. The tuition lasted all the way till 6.30 and I had dinner with my family. I reached home at around 9 before I did only a little of my huge pile of work before I went to sleep again.

As for Sunday, the entire morning and afternoon was about the same as Saturday's. The entire Sunday, I had tuition all the way till 4 in the afternoon. And so, here I am now, wondering how I am supposed to complete all my work, Maths, Chinese, History and Language Arts homework. Fortunately, I am going for a camp tomorrow with Primary 5 students from Nanyang Primary so I need not have to submit all my homework by tomorrow. I still have Tuesday night to do my work!

Well, I shouldn't be taking any of my time here! So long and stay tuned to my next post! Wish me luck and goodbye! :D

(P.S. Is your weekend as busy as mine? How do you think I should cope with this situation?)

New Year

Hi guys! This is the 2nd blog I have created since last year and this will be the platform where I will continue with my blog posts. So, it is the new year now, 2010. Congratulations to everyone in my class and the Secondary 2 cohort since you made it pass Secondary 1. However, we have to work harder since it's still a long journey to College!

As some of you readers might know, Secondary 2 is an important year to Hwa Chong students since there will be a streaming. This means that my class will not be together in the same class anymore since some of us will make it to the special programme classes while some of us will remain in the mainstream classes. Hence, this year is an important year to us because we have to do well in order to make it to the better classes, while if we do badly on the other hand, we might end up in the 'O' level class. With the pressure mounting, I am in fact a little afraid I will not be able to cope with my studies. However, I believe that I will be able to pull through... I hope...

Also, with this important year comes a new way of teaching, called JITT (just-in-time-teaching pedagogy). This teaching is where you have to do independent readings on your own before the actual lessons where you just ask questions and do assignments tasked. Also we are called the future class where we will be using laptops to aid us in studying. I look forward to it as I think it is actually quite fascinating and interesting.

The Lunar New Year is approaching and I am really looking forward to it since it not only gives us a break from school, but also a time to visit your relatives! Hence, I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone who is reading this post an early Lunar New Year and may all your new year resolutions come true!