Reciprocity

I'm in mpw class now watching a video about reciprocity with this academic professor from stanford explainin the power of reciprocity and increasing the likelihood of influencing others around us to say yes to things we want them to. and he guaranteed it works.

he cited a research they conducted whereby his co-researcher randomly picked addresses from the phone book and started sending xmas cards to them despite not knowing them. n to their amazement..a ton of xmas cards returned. And this happened for the next 10 years and neither parties knew who each other were!
It was also found that e son of one of the recipients of e cards..had to travel to Arizona (where the cards originated)..n they couldnt find a place for him to stay. Thus e recipient wrote to the professor explaining the case n asked if e son could stay with em..n e reply was yes!

They've nv met.

The professor then went on to cite more cases with e example of Ethiopia sending money to mexico to help relieve the victims in Mexico due to the earthquake in 2007. The world were puzzled and asked.."why did u send e money when ur ppl r starvin n homeless??"

n the ruler of e Ethiopia sat up straight n said.."becos in 1935..when Italy invaded us..Mexico came to our aid..n helped us.."
Despite being 72 years down the road..Ethiopia still felt e obligation to reciprocate and return the goodwill.

He conlcuded that the law of reciprocity exists and if we do good to others, others will do good to us! We shud go out and do good to as many ppl on as many things as possible!

I was sold by the idea for about 5 seconds before i started thinking..

We've been sending money..help..knowledge and technology (esp water tech) to Malaysia and Indonesia (tsunami military and financial relieve). We got nothing but accusations, imported robbery (majority of crime in singapore e last few yrs were by Msians), labelled small red dot and constantly threatened by politicians there.

Reciprocity?? so much for guarantees...

I'm back!

yes..i'm finally bac to where i call home..
i miss e food here! i like western food alrite..but..aft some 60 str western meals...
i would like some asian now..

when i touched down at Changi International Airport (CIA)..i had a welcomed sense of familiarity..
seeing the airport i recognize..even seeing familiar airlines! (there's so many airlines i've seen for e first time in europe)

when i patron e DFS...i was treated to great service and really helpful staff even though it was pretty plain obvious i'm a fellow Singaporean. It made me feel proud dat our service standards, while not the best YET, is actually better than some european nations.

i've been unable to blog cos i was busy settling some admin stuff n also i've began my work as Research Assistant (RA) in SMU. But i'll post pics soon! (I have more than 3000 pics n videos!)

i went to grab a haircut a few days back..cos..i was startin to hav a jungle thingy growing on my head..
n as i headed out..i actually had a little bit of adjusting back to do!

Adjusting back..

all of a sudden..cars r right hand driven. when i cross roads..i looked left first! n realised i was lookin at e wrong direction! haha..
the singapore road system is really really simple as compared to europe..our lanes..r onli for cars..haha..
as the mrt moved along e track across the road..i was left thinking.. "hm..the mrt..realli moves VEEERY slowly.." (not to forget..our mrt lines r soooo simple! not complicated in any sense!)

wad i realli noticed was how our locals dress..i dunno y...e Europeans dress up everywhere they go..even if its to the market. prob partly due to our climate..we..hm..r always in super casual stuff..haha..

while i was away..i would spot fellow Asians...but here..we're everywhere!..haha..all of a sudden..there r so little whites..n i actually understood every word dat ppl were sayin..haha..

i love my home country..although..i love travelling too..i shall return to e EU soon..its a great place to travel..
next..i'm going to japan in aug...

n after japan..i shall make plans for e states..i wanna see wall street one day! (stupid shuwei..stop showing off wall street photos to me!) he even visited Wharton in University of Pennsylvania! Ivy league..donald trump..n more imptly..its e Sch that SMU is officially modeled after..

alritey..bac to my RA work now..

i shall blog abt europe ctry by ctry..since it would be crazy to talk abt day by day..(i'll hav to make so many post!)

ciao...

National Day Parade 2007

E second last day of Starringsmu was to help out in the NDP. As helpers of Starringsmu...we were all part of the biggest Singapore Flag (formed by umbrellas@ the padang) in history and were on national tv.

Below are some pictures of Singapore's 42nd birthday...

We first met in SOA's conference hall..

And den we set off to the padang..

There were crowds everywhere..

The moment we arrived...

There was alreadi a queue to be involved in the NDP flag..

Umbrellas laid down on specific grids..

@|an . abel

Corlissa . @|an

Members of Starringsmu Group 13

We joined the queue..

Took pictures while queuein..

continue to queue..

and queue..

and queue...

look at the height difference!!

Flag on head??

Zoomed in..

White zone

Red zone

In the grids..

Camwhore spotted..









Students from TP

Rehearsal

Parade Commander Wannbe



Performances before NDP...

I am...

Abel . Farid . alan

We're all tattooed..



Its hard to talk on phone there man..

TP ppl making noise

Relac la..

And get more tattoos!

This yr's NDP goodie bag can be detached into many parts..to form different colours..or form a longer bag..
And a longer bag..is exactly what the TP ppl did..
n turn it..into...a body bag...lol

The guy was thrown into it..

And Zipped up.
And Trapped.

Tattoo wannabe..who kept failing..
and failing..

And finally one successful one..
but severely out of place..



We tried to take the flag flying..

so..

so....

so......

many times...

And finally succeeded..

More ppl filling in..needed 10,000 ppl to form the flag.

There were cheapos who went to steal n pass umbrellas to ppl on the outside..

e first set of parachuters

Red Flair..

Descending..

clappers in action..



While we were settin up the giant spore flag..

They tried to mimic us..

And camera flashes went off thru out the building..















It became dark quickly..



View by the habour..













Citing the pledge

Fireworks!

The following are copied from Ciwei's blog..tink he took tremendous pictures of the fireworks..

After the parade...cityhall area was so packed..it tookme 15 minutes just to leave the padang area...i realli felt like sardines.

After the NDP..i drove down to bedok to look up michael and ze yan for supper at simpang bedok..and wow..some areas of bedok are realli confusin man..lol..

Vintage car we spotted at Simpang Bedok

Post NDP 'Lets Celebrate'

After the NDP..on friday..I had to help out at yet another CSP..this time..the SMU-SMRT Ambassador. (I'll be at NTU next Wed-Fri, 9am to 5 pm btw). And after the SMRT stuff..i popped by to 'Lets Celebrate' to check out e last day of starringsmu.

To my horror...they already had evil plans for me...

all thanx to the 'wonderful' team mates like cynthia who couldnt stop shouting my name n volunteerin me the moment i stepped into the hall..

n i was volunteered to play the role of a gay couple..
grr...I hope i'll be TA for her Financial Acct class..n i'll fail her every quiz.. =p

it was damn embarrassing man..how many hundreds of ppl there man..

sigh..lol..

nonetheless..i was sporty enuff to take up the role. No video footage will be provided. Ever.

I muz say that the starringsmu committee realli put in alot of effort to make the whole program a big success. It was a pity i missed the first 5 events and was only involved in the last 3 cos the first few events looked fun too!

The last part of 'Lets Celebrate' was potluck dinner...where we ate at the admin block's swimming pool area..staring across town..the night view..accompanied with lots of music and funny events..

I always loved looking out to the entire town area from there..

and there was even fireworks at china town area..not sure y..

too bad i din hav my camera with me.

Although i onli spent 2 and a half days with my starringsmu team mates (I onli knew weiyuan)..we somehow gelled pretty well..

well enuff to volunteer me..*pout*

haha.

we were in fact the last grp to leave the roof area..spending hours sittin at the ledge..chatting bout life..sch..n tons of other things..

n yes..it includes gossips..lol...

n "NO!" cynthia and kien te..SMU guys r not 'players'..i'm such a classic example.. =p

how innocent can..lol.

It was great talking to so many freshmen...though they always make me feel like i'm so old..esp the gals..comin in at tender age of 19...

But it was nice..

esp with ppl like farid..who cannot be any more vain and in love with himself..

sigh..

maybe i'll run for org comm for some CSP next summer..maybe group 13 ppl can go run it together..

but for now..

sch is gonna start soon..so we should all really enjoy as much of the remainin holidays as we possibly can..

Thank you all members of group 13 for making the CSP such an enjoyable process!