So you took a plunge.
You swam, you swam, and swam.
You got yourself wet all over.
You wanted to give up, but you told yourself to press on.
Things started to fall together,
The current started to get calmer.
You found yourself here and now,
and you realize that this is thanks to all your hard work.
And you ask,
Is this what I wanted?
Do I want to continue?
Rise above. Keep swimming.
For life is not about never getting hurt. Life is all about getting harmed while never allowing it to get you hurt.
-Truly Indonesia's Finest
Sunday, 27 April 2014
Monday, 21 April 2014
The Essence of Social Dance
Now, I shall not claim that I have acquired the philosophy of Argentine Tango, or any social dance whatsoever. I, however, have realized that now I have an apt way to justify my involvement in such endeavor, as I explained to an upperclassman while we were queuing for free crepes and Falafels at Amherst's Citifest.
Well, we should firstly go back to the whole "I won't be able to experience this in Asia" type of argument; Which is false but true at the same time. False because I am certain that there are Argentine Tango clubs in China, Singapore, and probably Jakarta, but true because I wouldn't have the guts to even try out these things if I were to stay in Asia.
I know some people would denounce Argentine Tango merely as a slow, rather boring form of dance. Of course, it is a social dance, not a performance/competition type of dance like Salsa, Swing, or Ballroom: We don't practice our ass off to achieve perfection with a permanent partner who we know inside out. We negotiate beauty through imperfection and improvisation, while learning how to handle and welcome new people in our life as we minimize our distances from the practice position, to the open embrace, and finally the close embrace.
As cliche as it sounds, impermanence is the sole permanence. People come and go, and social dance confers the opportunity to break this overarching walls the modern society has imprisoned us in. We learn how to balance small talk with our dance moves, how to manage our personal boundaries while learning how to touch and handle the other. My coach sums it up in an interesting point: Young men of today compete in athletic games to show off their prowess, giving the ladies a signal of his capability. This should not be the case as athletic prowess does not in any way foretell the guy's ability to handle his woman. Is he able to treat her well, is he able to touch her well? It should not be strength, it should be beauty, it should be the delicacy.
I dare not say I now know how to handle my women. I dare say that I have become much more confident in my interactions and my touch with them. For one reason or another, I have this slight fear that as an international Asian guy, I would be kinda looked down upon by western girls, and this is reflected by the lack of my confidence, needless to say especially around Caucasian women. Last Saturday, at Amherst's day of Tango, I met a girl who taught me otherwise. Tatiana from France is such an amazing sight. No, she may not be the warmest or the most patient lady out there, but she treated me nicely and fairly. We danced, we touched, and we saw each other as partners, as equals. This gave me the confidence, this gave me what I sought after, that hey, after all, regardless of everything else, I am a gentleman, too. I liked how she instilled such confidence in me, and finally I got to lead her well. And we hugged twice before parting.
Now that is such a sweet lady, and this is the experience I am seeking for and is gratefully blessed with. Thank you, Tatiana ;)
Truly Indonesia's Finest,
Well, we should firstly go back to the whole "I won't be able to experience this in Asia" type of argument; Which is false but true at the same time. False because I am certain that there are Argentine Tango clubs in China, Singapore, and probably Jakarta, but true because I wouldn't have the guts to even try out these things if I were to stay in Asia.
I know some people would denounce Argentine Tango merely as a slow, rather boring form of dance. Of course, it is a social dance, not a performance/competition type of dance like Salsa, Swing, or Ballroom: We don't practice our ass off to achieve perfection with a permanent partner who we know inside out. We negotiate beauty through imperfection and improvisation, while learning how to handle and welcome new people in our life as we minimize our distances from the practice position, to the open embrace, and finally the close embrace.
As cliche as it sounds, impermanence is the sole permanence. People come and go, and social dance confers the opportunity to break this overarching walls the modern society has imprisoned us in. We learn how to balance small talk with our dance moves, how to manage our personal boundaries while learning how to touch and handle the other. My coach sums it up in an interesting point: Young men of today compete in athletic games to show off their prowess, giving the ladies a signal of his capability. This should not be the case as athletic prowess does not in any way foretell the guy's ability to handle his woman. Is he able to treat her well, is he able to touch her well? It should not be strength, it should be beauty, it should be the delicacy.
I dare not say I now know how to handle my women. I dare say that I have become much more confident in my interactions and my touch with them. For one reason or another, I have this slight fear that as an international Asian guy, I would be kinda looked down upon by western girls, and this is reflected by the lack of my confidence, needless to say especially around Caucasian women. Last Saturday, at Amherst's day of Tango, I met a girl who taught me otherwise. Tatiana from France is such an amazing sight. No, she may not be the warmest or the most patient lady out there, but she treated me nicely and fairly. We danced, we touched, and we saw each other as partners, as equals. This gave me the confidence, this gave me what I sought after, that hey, after all, regardless of everything else, I am a gentleman, too. I liked how she instilled such confidence in me, and finally I got to lead her well. And we hugged twice before parting.
Now that is such a sweet lady, and this is the experience I am seeking for and is gratefully blessed with. Thank you, Tatiana ;)
Truly Indonesia's Finest,
Sunday, 13 April 2014
Relationship Advice from a Psych Prof
So here at my dorm, Williston, we have tea time every Sunday evenings 9pm. This week's special though, as my RC (Resident Counselor, some sort of upperclassmen who are responsible for the dorm's wellbeing) managed to get ahold of Professor Sanderson. Prof Sanderson is one of the most popular psychology professor at Amherst College, so much so that even sophomores have zero chance to enroll in her classes.
She shared her story about dating and relationships in college, and it was summarized in five points. The story was spiced with so many different anecdotes and examples, but for the sake of brevity I shall try my best to pick out the most relevant ones. (or rather the ones I remember the most)
So, before you can actually date someone, you should
1. Meet somebody. Yes, right, put yourself out, and actually try to meet someone. It can be through various means, such as going to parties, bars, or even through more nonobvious settings such as volunteering, dance lessons, etc. Simply because you can't get into a relationship with someone who you've never met before. (unless we're talking about online dating here, in which we "virtually" meet someone)
2. Render yourself vulnerable. Put your heart at stake, and express your interest to the person at some point. The person you like is (hopefully) not a psychic who will be able to read your mind, and you will have to let the person know. Prof Sanderson compared this with the analogy of asking questions in the class. You often have questions, and you are invited to ask questions, but you don't ask em because you are afraid that you look stupid. You see the rest of the class not asking questions, and you think that they don't NOT because they don't want to look stupid, you think it's more because they're all already smart and don't need to ask the question. And turns out everyone thinks the same way and the question was never asked.
At some point of the time, you just simply have to go out there, and tell the person the truth. Another anecdote she shared was about an ex student who was a senior athlete, good looking, intelligent, confident etc. He came to meet her personally to tell her about how he's in love with a girl since his freshman year, and how he feels that she's the one etc etc. Professor's advice? Let her know. And this guy was simply blown away at the suggestion. It's as if that the professor's telling him not to wear clothes. (ps. this was not part of the story, but at the Q&A, the professor shared how she told her current husband that she loved him, twice, and got rejected twice, when she was an undergraduate at Stanford. A few years after graduation though, the guy just came up to her door and declared his love for her. And they are married 20 years since.)
3. Okay, so now assume that you have found the person, and you have expressed your feelings. And the person said 'yes'. Now, you have to stimulate a state of arousal in that person. Okay, I am going to be super nerdy and just spam out my intro to psych knowledge here: According to this Schachter guy or whatever, the body's physiological response to states of fear, giddy excitation, and love (it's the two factor theory), and yes, so people can mistake fear from the suspension bridge into attraction (it's in fact a legit psych experiment, which you can Google it: "suspension bridge effect"). Other sources of arousal include: coffee's caffeine, roller coasters, haunted house, etc. Apparently this is used in reality tv dating shows (dates are based upon the participants' greatest fears), and she shared a story about the two survivors of a plane crash got engaged (they did not meet in the plane's couch, they met at the plane's wings after the crash to the Hudson lake). So, you can use this principle to create an aroused emotional state in your crush, and hopefully they will misattribute the heightened heartbeat and sweating palms to being excited around you and for having fallen for you.
4. So having done steps 1-3, you now have to project an idealized version of your partner or loved ones, to keep the romance burning. Why? Sounds like a terrible advice, right? Well, it's simply doing what you do to yourself and extending it to your partner. Why? Because most of us overestimate ourselves. We think that we're above average in looks, grades, personality, etc. So conventional wisdom states that the normal people have realistic expectations etc, and the depressed people are super sad and pessimistic about their life. It was actually discovered that this is not at all true: the depressed people actually have the normal expectations of their life, extremely realistic about themselves and the world. We, the "normal" people, actually think about ourselves and others in idealized terms, and have these delusions about us being extraordinary. Consider these facts: More than 70% of American drivers think that they are an above-average driver (which is statistically impossible).
So why do we have to think about our partner in idealized terms? Professor Sanderson shares another psych experiment: So a couple in the room sits down facing one another, and were asked to fill out a survey that determines whether they "see the relationship in the same way as one another or not", and they were told that the questions in the survey form they had are exactly the same questions. So at the first page they were asked how they first met one another, their first kiss, etc. At the second page, one of the person's questions made him/her list down things that he/she does not like about the partner. So he/she slowly lists down these small irks. Meanwhile, what the person does not know is the partner's question, which requires the partner to list down the things he/she had in the dorm room. So imagine the feeling of the first person who sees his partner filling down the sheet as fast as possible, with a lot of things, and even requesting an extra sheet of paper to fill in the answers. The third question for the first person though, requires that person to list down things that he/she loves about the partner. Amazingly enough, if the person has idealized notions about the partner, he/she will list even more things that he/she loves about the partner in spite of thinking that the partner listed so many bad things about him/her. This is because the person becomes so grateful that his/her partner is still with him/her despite all the bad things that is listed. Here's how you idealize a partner: not stubborn but determined, not stingy or miserly but frugal and saving the planet.
5. The last step is fight evenly. According to a psych research, the greatest indicator of a divorce in a marriage is how couples fight. Not how often, but how. Can the couple actually talk out their differences between one another, express anger and frustration, and deal with it together? Or do they seek passive-aggressive means, or allow small things to build up and explode like a volcano? So encourage openness. Be honest about your expectations and frustrations. Learn to fight it out, like an adult. Don't be like the person professor Sanderson shared about: He's been seeing a girl for six months, and they broke up. Simply because one day, the girl asked him about where is the relationship heading to, and the guy simply sent her packing. Simply because the guy wanted to deal the pre-emptive strike (which in all honesty, we all agree that she could be asking for a marriage instead of asking for a breakup!!) Be honest, be open, talk. Be angry, be frustrated, but deal with it together.
Thank you Professor Sanderson, thank you Amherst College, for such experiences are what makes studying thousands of miles away from home worth it :)
Truly Indonesia's Finest,
She shared her story about dating and relationships in college, and it was summarized in five points. The story was spiced with so many different anecdotes and examples, but for the sake of brevity I shall try my best to pick out the most relevant ones. (or rather the ones I remember the most)
So, before you can actually date someone, you should
1. Meet somebody. Yes, right, put yourself out, and actually try to meet someone. It can be through various means, such as going to parties, bars, or even through more nonobvious settings such as volunteering, dance lessons, etc. Simply because you can't get into a relationship with someone who you've never met before. (unless we're talking about online dating here, in which we "virtually" meet someone)
2. Render yourself vulnerable. Put your heart at stake, and express your interest to the person at some point. The person you like is (hopefully) not a psychic who will be able to read your mind, and you will have to let the person know. Prof Sanderson compared this with the analogy of asking questions in the class. You often have questions, and you are invited to ask questions, but you don't ask em because you are afraid that you look stupid. You see the rest of the class not asking questions, and you think that they don't NOT because they don't want to look stupid, you think it's more because they're all already smart and don't need to ask the question. And turns out everyone thinks the same way and the question was never asked.
At some point of the time, you just simply have to go out there, and tell the person the truth. Another anecdote she shared was about an ex student who was a senior athlete, good looking, intelligent, confident etc. He came to meet her personally to tell her about how he's in love with a girl since his freshman year, and how he feels that she's the one etc etc. Professor's advice? Let her know. And this guy was simply blown away at the suggestion. It's as if that the professor's telling him not to wear clothes. (ps. this was not part of the story, but at the Q&A, the professor shared how she told her current husband that she loved him, twice, and got rejected twice, when she was an undergraduate at Stanford. A few years after graduation though, the guy just came up to her door and declared his love for her. And they are married 20 years since.)
3. Okay, so now assume that you have found the person, and you have expressed your feelings. And the person said 'yes'. Now, you have to stimulate a state of arousal in that person. Okay, I am going to be super nerdy and just spam out my intro to psych knowledge here: According to this Schachter guy or whatever, the body's physiological response to states of fear, giddy excitation, and love (it's the two factor theory), and yes, so people can mistake fear from the suspension bridge into attraction (it's in fact a legit psych experiment, which you can Google it: "suspension bridge effect"). Other sources of arousal include: coffee's caffeine, roller coasters, haunted house, etc. Apparently this is used in reality tv dating shows (dates are based upon the participants' greatest fears), and she shared a story about the two survivors of a plane crash got engaged (they did not meet in the plane's couch, they met at the plane's wings after the crash to the Hudson lake). So, you can use this principle to create an aroused emotional state in your crush, and hopefully they will misattribute the heightened heartbeat and sweating palms to being excited around you and for having fallen for you.
4. So having done steps 1-3, you now have to project an idealized version of your partner or loved ones, to keep the romance burning. Why? Sounds like a terrible advice, right? Well, it's simply doing what you do to yourself and extending it to your partner. Why? Because most of us overestimate ourselves. We think that we're above average in looks, grades, personality, etc. So conventional wisdom states that the normal people have realistic expectations etc, and the depressed people are super sad and pessimistic about their life. It was actually discovered that this is not at all true: the depressed people actually have the normal expectations of their life, extremely realistic about themselves and the world. We, the "normal" people, actually think about ourselves and others in idealized terms, and have these delusions about us being extraordinary. Consider these facts: More than 70% of American drivers think that they are an above-average driver (which is statistically impossible).
So why do we have to think about our partner in idealized terms? Professor Sanderson shares another psych experiment: So a couple in the room sits down facing one another, and were asked to fill out a survey that determines whether they "see the relationship in the same way as one another or not", and they were told that the questions in the survey form they had are exactly the same questions. So at the first page they were asked how they first met one another, their first kiss, etc. At the second page, one of the person's questions made him/her list down things that he/she does not like about the partner. So he/she slowly lists down these small irks. Meanwhile, what the person does not know is the partner's question, which requires the partner to list down the things he/she had in the dorm room. So imagine the feeling of the first person who sees his partner filling down the sheet as fast as possible, with a lot of things, and even requesting an extra sheet of paper to fill in the answers. The third question for the first person though, requires that person to list down things that he/she loves about the partner. Amazingly enough, if the person has idealized notions about the partner, he/she will list even more things that he/she loves about the partner in spite of thinking that the partner listed so many bad things about him/her. This is because the person becomes so grateful that his/her partner is still with him/her despite all the bad things that is listed. Here's how you idealize a partner: not stubborn but determined, not stingy or miserly but frugal and saving the planet.
5. The last step is fight evenly. According to a psych research, the greatest indicator of a divorce in a marriage is how couples fight. Not how often, but how. Can the couple actually talk out their differences between one another, express anger and frustration, and deal with it together? Or do they seek passive-aggressive means, or allow small things to build up and explode like a volcano? So encourage openness. Be honest about your expectations and frustrations. Learn to fight it out, like an adult. Don't be like the person professor Sanderson shared about: He's been seeing a girl for six months, and they broke up. Simply because one day, the girl asked him about where is the relationship heading to, and the guy simply sent her packing. Simply because the guy wanted to deal the pre-emptive strike (which in all honesty, we all agree that she could be asking for a marriage instead of asking for a breakup!!) Be honest, be open, talk. Be angry, be frustrated, but deal with it together.
Thank you Professor Sanderson, thank you Amherst College, for such experiences are what makes studying thousands of miles away from home worth it :)
Truly Indonesia's Finest,
Saturday, 5 April 2014
Delicate Dance
I think life is a delicate dance.
Therefore, I figured that I have to learn to dance delicately, while still enjoying the music nonetheless.
So on Friday I decided to be a badass, skipping my three classes for a networking session at a particularly renowned finance and assets management firm at New York. I would say that the experience itself is quite interesting, and as I learned (slightly painfully) myself, I am not an introvert. More to that later. I did get some handshakes, questions, and names, though. And for now I can at least tell the difference between a primary product and a secondary product, and also a risk manager and a product analyst.
Again, the same impression I got when I attended Morgan Stanley's info session last semester, if I ever get the chance to work my ass off in the finance world, it sounds like the workload of A Levels and Amherst's combined, with a typical 70-80 hours of working a week, and with much fewer holidays, probably around 15 days of paid leave per YEAR. But doing so will allow me to shit gold and piss silver.
Today was quite interesting. Again, there's this whole delicate dancing thingy in the morning, (but am very grateful nonetheless), and spent four hours on watching a softball game. Amherst was playing Middlebury, and thankfully we managed to win the third match. It doesn't help that the enemy's pitcher (no.1) and shortstop (no.7) are total hotties. (no.7 was an Asian btw, the only Asian in the whole field, yay fellow Asian!) Wrong place, wrong time, but good call ;)
And I ate dinner with this lad from Turkey who goes by Melih. He is an english major, and thinks that we all should read more english literature. Quiz for the readers: Can you name 5 female English writers? (I can't, and he thinks that it's a shame that very few people can.) ((Hint: The Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, To the Lighthouse, Pride and Prejudice, Harry Potter :p) He has an interesting point though, and probably I shall take more humanities classes.
Alright, catch you later!
Truly Indonesia's Finest
Therefore, I figured that I have to learn to dance delicately, while still enjoying the music nonetheless.
So on Friday I decided to be a badass, skipping my three classes for a networking session at a particularly renowned finance and assets management firm at New York. I would say that the experience itself is quite interesting, and as I learned (slightly painfully) myself, I am not an introvert. More to that later. I did get some handshakes, questions, and names, though. And for now I can at least tell the difference between a primary product and a secondary product, and also a risk manager and a product analyst.
Again, the same impression I got when I attended Morgan Stanley's info session last semester, if I ever get the chance to work my ass off in the finance world, it sounds like the workload of A Levels and Amherst's combined, with a typical 70-80 hours of working a week, and with much fewer holidays, probably around 15 days of paid leave per YEAR. But doing so will allow me to shit gold and piss silver.
Today was quite interesting. Again, there's this whole delicate dancing thingy in the morning, (but am very grateful nonetheless), and spent four hours on watching a softball game. Amherst was playing Middlebury, and thankfully we managed to win the third match. It doesn't help that the enemy's pitcher (no.1) and shortstop (no.7) are total hotties. (no.7 was an Asian btw, the only Asian in the whole field, yay fellow Asian!) Wrong place, wrong time, but good call ;)
And I ate dinner with this lad from Turkey who goes by Melih. He is an english major, and thinks that we all should read more english literature. Quiz for the readers: Can you name 5 female English writers? (I can't, and he thinks that it's a shame that very few people can.) ((Hint: The Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, To the Lighthouse, Pride and Prejudice, Harry Potter :p) He has an interesting point though, and probably I shall take more humanities classes.
Alright, catch you later!
Truly Indonesia's Finest
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