you’ve shown me what i’ve got

do you know what it feels like,

   when you tell me what means most to me, after you guys, are mere distractions to my studies?

do you know what it feels like,

   when you tell me all my contributions to them, are mere obstacles to my grades?

do you know what it feels like,

   when you tell me there are other more important things in life than them?

do you know,

   they mean so much to me that i call them my kids?

do you know,

   they gave me the love that i have never experienced?

do you know,

   they made me discover sides of myself i never knew?

do you even know,

   how much i love them?

do you even know,

   how much i love you both?

do you even know,

   me?

i am crying so bad,

the pain words cannot even begin to describe.

hey aren’t you taking it a bit too far

once again i should be studying for ki, but well i just wanted to get some thoughts out of my head and do some emotional catharsis cause i think it would help if i somehow organised my thoughts during this process so that i can maybe write a good essay on language come ki on wednesday.

wow that was a long sentence. 

but before i do that, i think it is really strange how when writing essays, it always seems to be easier to write the position that is more commonly accepted, cause the marker always seems to go onto the track of “what about this? there is a counter-argument to the counter-argument that you just made” if you try to trod on the path less taken. it seems as if your essay is going against the marker’s own belief system and well the essay becomes full of red ink defending one’s own belief system and naturally things do not look so rosy anymore. oh wells. perhaps the path less taken is just less convincing most of the time and it takes a really good writer and lots of time to be able to do well.

oh and when i thought about language, i thought it was very strange that everyone thinks in some kind of visual way. it was strange to me, but certainly common to everyone else. it seems to be some kind of consensus that yes, everyone thinks visually and that forms a good defence argument to show that thought is possible without language. and obviously this good defence argument does not need further elaboration cause it can be said to be “common ground” since the marker would naturally understand what you are saying.

but it just does not work for me! i do not know why though. yes, i do readily admit that i have visual thoughts in my mind – but it does not in any way tell me that thought is possible without language because language appears first in my mind before i am actually able to formulate the image. it is like how if someone says “dog” to me, i would actually think “d-o-g” before the image of the dog is formed. i told my teacher about this issue, and she was like “seriously? that can’t be true. everyone thinks visually, you just need to think more clearly about what you are thinking.” okay…

she suggested thinking of a birthday party. well i have not exactly been thinking about birthday parties, but a few weeks back when i thought about what i wanted to do to embarrass jieliang for his birthday, the thoughts in my head really went “okay first jieliang” then image pop out. i didn’t have the “okay first” but i certainly did have the label “jieliang”. then before i imagined the cape that i wanted to make, i did think “c-a-p-e” in my mind first! basically the plan was laid out with the use of language to form the final picture.

so it seems to me that i don’t actually have thoughts before language. which is quite strange especially since i would definitely be much slower than all my peers in terms of brain processing. right.

ah okay that was some long “before i begin”. well yeah.

okay a commonly used argument for you can have thoughts without language is the fact that sometimes we struggle to find the right word to express our thoughts – this necessarily means that we had thoughts prior to language, cause if language came first, then we would not have struggled at all since the thoughts would be expressed in language straightaway.

i think this is a highly convincing argument but then, i still feel that being the messed up creatures that we are, and owing to the fact that our brain is not exactly very advanced till the point that we are as organised as a computer (though it does not mean we are not smarter than computers), struggling to find the right word does not necessitate the existence of thoughts before language.

in my opinion, i think it might be possible that our thoughts might be expressed in a huge mess of words in our minds, like a pot floating with many ingredients. many a times, these mess of words may contradict each other, like how the pot may have like carrot and shoes – but when we struggle to find the right word to express our thoughts, we are trying to organise all these words together to put them in a succint form rather than spending one thousand pages trying to express what our thoughts are saying.

so i think i am trying to say that the “struggling to find the right word” does not mean that we had the thought first, then we try to put it in words, rather, we had the thought expressed in many words, then we try to put it in a elegant and succint form so that people would understand what we are trying to communicate.

oh wells. oh and i also do not like the puce and taupe argument! this is puce, if you’re wondering. and taupe is like one thousand different colours that i shan’t try to show here. it looks like puke. the taupe shown is just one of the many taupe colours. basically the argument goes that perhaps, we would be able to produce a mental image of this colour without even knowing the name for it – so we are actually able to have thought without language!

i don’t like this argument! rawr. cause i think even though we do not have the appropriate label for this colour, we would see the colour as “purplish-pink-brown” or something to that extent. the name of the mental image of the colour does not actually have to correspond with the real world – i could have named it “nanana” and when i wanted to conjure this “nameless (or wrong?)” colour puce, my mind would just go “nanana” and i would have the right colour! it does not actually mean that we can have thought without language what.

sigh. i am tired. this is some long entry and i am not even done writing it. anyway soon to be done.

yeah so today js and i and the rest of the s03s classes were watching some cave documentary during bio lecture, and it struck us how egoistic us humans are. i mean like it is really strange!

the narrator was talking about one of the caves, and he mentioned that the scientists/explorers were really shocked that they could actually find life forms in one of the caves even though it had such an inhospitable environment – there was insufficient oxygen in the cave, and sulphuric acid drop from the cave top, acidic enough to burn you.

i think it is really like a value-judgement! the cave being inhabitable for us humans does not mean it cannot be a home to other creatures right – why do we have to be shocked?! so crap. -.-”

and and every time the ki textbook talks about how psychologists found out that babies and animals can think without the presence of language. and how this really means that we can have thought without language. but seriously, how do we know that the babies and pigeons don’t actually have a language of their own? they just don’t communicate with us – it doesn’t mean we can conclude that way.

oh my god i am really very tired.

examples examples examples!

switching the definitions

and so ki common test is on the coming wednesday! and wy is super pro. her essay outline is an essay by itself. i can’t imagine how long her actual essay is. and of course being the 非常厉害 wy, mrs leong was in awe of her essay outline and forwarded to her ki classes!

and i shall 学习 yepyep.

oh anyway i was reminded of the cool concept of “emotional catharsis” which is actually a cool name for emotional cleansing. because well i am trying to study for ki. i don’t think it really works when you watch an art piece like play or movie, but i think when i write in my blog, i tend to undergo emotional catharsis.

there are many times when i get lost and seem to let go of my resolve, but when i write in my blog, i seem to get over things very fast and get a hold on myself again. sigh. but things seem so different now. i used to be so emotional (not in the emo “tortured souls unable to face the world” kind of emo), but emotional in the way that i could feel – but now i think i have got so rational that feelings do not really seem to matter now? it might explain why my writing style has got so different.

i think there are times where i still write in the feelings kind of style, but they are just not present on this blog. i guess those stuff have got too close to personal i think.

sigh.

i think it is time to study.

once again, i ask myself.

guarded – so guarded.

when did the door close shut on others?

when did the door close to stop the feelings?

i don’t know,

the door refuses to let it out.

xkcd.com

haha i think it’s really romantic.

or not.

oh wells!

it was only made for a few people

thanks,

it almost made me cry.

just almost.

cause i am stronger than that.

that’s what all of that taught me.

anyway i really should be studying for bio spa tomorrow, especially since it’s skill A. and especially since i didn’t so well for the mock spa! sigh. okay i shall do this quick one before i forget what i was thinking yesterday morning. and off to mugging bio spa land after this. no lalaland i hope.

i think it’s highly amusing how some polite people tend to hold lifts for their neighbours when the lift reaches the ground level. if they exit first, they will stop and press the button until their one neighbour comes out of the lift. (there are 2 people in the lift originally.) and all this, despite not speaking a single word to their neighbour during the excruciating 52 seconds (that’s my lift, don’t know about yours.) from the top level to the ground level.

i just think it’s so weird! it seems as if they just want to be nice, and acknowledge the presence of their neighbours in some ways or another. yeah i think it is a really nice gesture, and it makes a auntie think, “wow what a nice and kind and polite boy this is!” of course, it is a chivalrous (i think) act in our unchivalrous society.

but despite this and despite the fact that i hardly talk to my neighbours except for some of the aunties if they talk to me first (i smile at them okay!), and despite the fact that i am really nice, i have never really tried holding the lift for my neighbours unless there’s like a big group (3?) of them in the lift and i am the one exiting first. it is really not cause i am impolite or unchivalrous or just plain mean. it is for the simple reason that i know the lift door will not close on them while that one neighbour is exiting behind me. seriously, the lift door does not even close after 2 neighbours exit the lift!

yeah so it is not that i do not acknowledge their presence while they are riding the lift with me, i just think it is really quite a odd thing to do - holding the lift door for them. it just seems unnecessary. there are other ways to acknowledge your neighbour’s existence, like smiling at them!

oh wells. i was thinking about this yesterday morning and i almost burst out laughing while walking towards the bus stop. okay it is not that funny, but i just think it is quite strange.

it’s a strange world. but still better than bio spa land. oh wells.