Songs

Are we hearing to music or listening to music? This is what I wondering the most. Sometimes, when I listen to a song, normally I don’t remember the lyrics of that song but just hearing what the melody it is. Is this considered hearing or listening? I don’t know.

However, sometimes I do remember the lyrics of a song. But, it always happened whenever the lyrics of the song really suit my mood and feeling at that moment, then I will listen carefully to the song. But, sometimes I can do my other stuff with the radio on and listen to a song also.

In addition, the lyrics and melody of a song can affect our mood and feeling when we listen to it. Maybe that time we are considered listening to the song but not hearing, because we attached not only meaning but also our feeling to the songs.

In conclusion, I like to listen to the songs.

Listening VS Hearing

We often judge others on the first sight. Then, we will have a lot of either good or bad impression about the person in our mind. This can actually affect our communication with the person because within a communication, we will have to speak to the person or listen to what he/she says.

And this can be very irrational. When we don’t like a person, we will often shut our ears automatically without trying to listen what the person says. This happened to me every time. When I am in a bad mood, I will definitely keep quiet and refuse to communicate to others.

Moreover, what others tell me, I will just simply hearing what they say but not truly listen to them. Hearing is totally different with listening. By hearing, I am just only hear what the person say and nod or shake my head without really wanted to answer them. Or sometimes, I will just ignore what they had said. However, with listening, it is really need effort to understand and respond to them.

In conclusion, if I really want to become a good listener, I may be putting more effort to listen what others say. And I should not act prematurely without really listen what did others said. I want to become a competence listener.

Smile

When there's gloom and doom all around us, what do we do to make ourselves feel better? We smile of course! Yes, by just simply contracting those cheek muscles of ours, the world would just seem like a better place in an instant.

Smiling is one the simplest forms of non verbal communication known to mankind. Studies have shown that by merely smiling, our bodies would release feel-good hormones within us akin to when a laugh is being made. This in turn leads to us feeling a sense of satisfaction and joy whenever we do it.

A smile can also do wonders in a situation when someone is really sad or depressed, as it is contagious as well healing both at the same time. There is just something in us all that makes us feel great whenever we see other people, even strangers, that smile whenever we catch a glimpse of it on their faces.

Meanings of a WORD

Language is a verbal symbol system that allows us to take messages and utterances, in the form of words, and translate them into meaning. Besides, the meaning of a word or language is not depends on the word, but is rather in the way that people make sense of it.

Yesterday during my critical thinking skill tutorial, we were asked to get into a group of three. Then, we asked to give definitions of eight different words. The most difficult word that we came across was “blues”. Normally the meaning of “blues” that we commonly know is the word is use to describe the color of the cloudless sky.

However, during our discussion, we were almost argued for the meaning of the word. This is because “blues” can actually have a lot of different meanings. For examples, it can use to describe the feeling of depression. It can also use to show unexpectedly. Beside this word, the “dog” means “a canine creature that brings love and warmth to a human family”. On the other hand, it can also carry a totally opposite extreme meaning which is use to describe something that is worthless or of poor quality, a despicable person, or an ugly person. Maybe in different situation, we can use the word “dog” to describe a person that you dislike other than just use to describe a lovely pet.

In conclusion, the meanings of a word are in people, and it is depend on when and where is the situation it should be used rather than on the word itself.

To la or not to la

I met this friend of mine a few months back in college. He was a foreign student from Dubai studying the same course as me. Whenever a conversation between him and a typical Malaysian student begins, he would have this sort of perplexed look on his face, as if he couldn't quite understand what was being said. I've always wondered why this was the case.

So out of curiosity, I went on to ask him why? The answer that he gave turned out to be a complete surprise to me. It actually turns out that 'typical' Malaysian student would almost always add a "la" behind every sentence. For example, "Why are you doing this la!", or "I'll give the file tomorrow la." or, "Let's go eat la.". This becomes very confusing for my poor friend as back home, "la" actually means "no". That meant for every single day of his life here in Malaysia, he's been hearing us Malaysians saying "No" to every sentence we speak! All this would explain why he would sometimes look lost in our conversations.

Fortunately after a few months later, he has gotten the hang of this local slang of ours, and it seems that he is beginning to master its infectious properties. Now, he would freely spray a string of "la's" in his conversation with Malaysians. This just goes to show that whenever there's a need to blend into society, humans will always find ways to do it eventually~la!

The Beautiful Game

One of the most popular game in the world, football. Played almost everywhere at anytime, from the bushland of Australia, to the back alleys of Paris, even in the humble kampungs of Malaysia. It is a game that breaks down the social barriers of society and has the uncanny ability to unify people irregardless of race and creed. Not to mention, it is also a sport that truly epitomises the human expression of emotions.

Ever notice that whenever a conversation about football begins, fans would often refer to their favourite team with words like 'our team', such as 'our team thrashed your team yesterday'. Is is this sort of close association with their favourite team that really brings about a sense of unity amongst fans of the sport. A true fan would travel half the world just to watch their team play, cheer their team on when they are losing, jump for joy like a maniac whenever a goal is scored, fans can be so loyal even to the extent of crying when their team loses and in extreme cases, committing suicide when the loss becomes unbearable.

The amount of affiliation that the fans have over their team, combine with the pride and joy of being associated with them, is just a very basic human need of being recognized. Man, since time immemorial has always wanted to be the 'nail that sticks out'. By being able to associate themselves with their team, they can in a way, indirectly attain a sense of belonging while getting recognition all at the same time.

This feeling of belonging, is further exemplified by the players on the pitch. Many of them play for their teams with their hearts on their sleeves, often, they would literally put their heads in the line of duty while playing for their team when clearing a goal bound shot or just to make sure possession of the ball doesn't fall to the opposition. However, the proof that both players and fans alike are 'one with their team' is clearly showed for all to see. That is whenever a winning goal is scored. The eruption of emotions that precedes it is just mind-boggling! At times, 90 minutes of pure compressed tension just waiting for that winning goal pops when the ball is put behind the net by a player. The ecstasy of seeing the players and fans alike celebrating, full of passion and desire is really a sight to behold and goes on to prove that football, truly is The Beautiful Game.

On Top of the World

Now, I'm actually a very visual-oriented individual, which is why I normally try to blog using pictures or using a minimal amount of words. As the subject requires me to write blogs in essay form, I can't help but oblige. I will, however, use images in my posts as points of reference.

Perception is all about how people see things differently than how they are, or how others see it.

I find this picture very amazing, and the artist very creative and calculative. The lady appears to be posing atop the letter 'W', held up by a man more than ten times her size; whilst at close inspection, the lady is in fact laying on the ground some distance away from the man, and that the 'World' is painted across the ground, creating a very realistic illusion that the people here actually appear to be part of the painting, or that the painting is actually part of reality.

The picture can also be seen as a play with words, or a pun. With the lady laying on the letter 'W' from the word 'World', you could say that the lady is on top of the 'world'.

Perception

Normally, we tend to assume that others are similar to us. This was what I did last day. I thought that others will be scared of cockroach too.

I got an hour and half of break after my human communication class yesterday. After that, I went to toilet that is near to sr7 room with my friend, May. When we were washing our hands inside the toilet, suddenly, I saw a big and scary cockroach crawling on the wall in front of me beside the mirror. By instinct, I screamed as loud as I could. “Ah!!!!!” shouted out loudly.

I almost ran out quickly from the toilet while May was just walking out of the toilet calmly. I was so shocked and asked her why don’t she feel frightened or anything about the cockroach. I tried to explain to her how scary and dirty the cockroach was but she seems like doesn’t matter. For her, cockroach is just a small insect that does not harm at all. For me, I was just too bombastic with the small creatures while my friend did not think or feel the way I do.

Maybe by prejudice, I just commonly imagine that others possess the same hates to cockroach as I do. Instead, not everyone will be frightened of cockroach as I do.

Type of communications

This is the second week of my Human Communication lesson. I think I had got a brief introduction about communication and how a better communication can be constructing. Besides found that the lesson which we had on last Thursday during our tutorial class was quite interesting. I still remembered that during last tutorial class, we were required to do a simple presentation about the noun we got and related it to what we had learnt during the lectures.

Unfortunately, the noun that we had was "DOORKNOB". When we got this noun, we were started to think about this noun in our mind. We started to ask ourselves about questions like "What can we say about doorknob?" and "Isn't that a doorknob is just a non-living things and how it can be related to human communication?" and during that time an intrapersonal communication had took place. While others were still thinking quietly about the noun, I and Xin Yi started to have a dyadic communication that involved only two of us. I asked her about the topic and both of us had tried to make a story that is relevant to our course.

Then, our group started to discuss about the topic. At that moment, a small group communication had carried out. Everyone contributed their own opinion about "doorknob" and at last we had an idea about the presentation. We were the first group to present. While we were presenting, other groups were required to listen and debate on our topic. A public communication was taking place when we talked about our topic in front of everyone. There were about six groups presented and they had made it successfully.
In conclusion, I found that different types of communications can take place at everywhere and every time. Besides, the tutorial class was interesting. We can carry out different types of communications during the class. I look forward to next human communication class.

A humans preception towards the truth

The media in my humble opinion is one of the most effective channels that people use today to promote and market both new and existing ideas as well as products to the public. It is also a very good medium in which individuals or societies can use to manipulate certain facts and exploit them to their own advantage.

Such is the simplicity of the human mind, that it often perceives that what has been seen and heard the for the first time as the truth. More often than not, this is done without a second thought towards the subject. Realizing this, a telecommunications company by the name of Digi has greatly used, or shall I say, taken advantage of the persuasive power of the media to generate a steady stream of income for themselves. You might say that im talking a load of rubbish, but I do have a point to prove to you here. So please, hear me out.

Im sure lately you've seen the advertisements made by Digi with the song 'I Will Follow You' being played over and over again in the background with a person of unknown gender dressed up ridiculously in a yellow suit faithfully following every Digi user wherever they go. While this advertisement clearly shows the intentions of their product, whereby its users will get good connectivity for their mobile phones no matter where they are, it certainly is anything but the truth. In fact, this is all just a big fat marketing lie. The truth is that Digi has one of the poorest phone connectivity receptions in the country. Yet, despite knowing this, many of its users still remain faithful towards the service that Digi provides just because they wholeheartedly believed what was laid before their eyes when the advertisement was being played.

Such a case would go on to prove that the amount of influence that the media has over the people in terms of persuasion as well as manipulating the truth in the field of communications. Now, Digi is not the only one thats responsible for abusing the usage of the media, many other people in different fields of occupations do it too. From fashion designers who want to promote their flawed new designs, to politicians that mislead people by creating situations where they would gain the most votes or favours from them, it is prevalent all around us.

Nevertheless, it is also up to us to learn to be judgemental towards such claims being displayed in the media. For we as human beings were given the gift of rationalization. As such, we should use it to its fullest extent in an effort to recognize the fact from the fiction and to withhold all initial perceptions towards the subject without the element of bias until the truth has been uncovered.

First week of human comm lessons

Communications between individuals exist all around us. Like what had happened during our very first class for the subject of Human Communications. We had an ice-breaking session that day, where we were told to ask our follow classmates about their reasons for taking up the subject of Human Comm. We were required to interview a random person in class in order to gather those information.

Looking around and observing, I noticed many forms of communications taking place. From the dyadic form of a conversation between two people interviewing one another, such as myself and the others in the classroom, to the intrapersonal side of communication where I kept asking myself questions like 'Who should I interview?', 'What should I say?' or 'Why is half the class wearing red T-shirts today?'

Those were just some the questions I had floating inside my mind that very day. Right after the interviews were done, other forms of communications took place. The prodding questions of Mr.Murali our lecturer being one of them, as well as the replies of the students who were told to voice out their findings from their interviews. Answers were both interesting and and revealing at the same time. These answers left most in the classroom with a very positive first-impressions of our new classmates.

It is amazing to think that almost any form of communication just happens by themselves regardless of the amount of interaction taking place, and this just makes for a very interesting semester of Human Comm lessons for the weeks to come.