What Am I? Normal or Abnormal?

The Brink of Abnormal and Normal

Thesis statement: I think myself as a uniqe person because I like to be different.

These are what I want to discuss here:

- the reasons why I am unique

- the difficulty

I consider myself as different than the others. Different in interests, I mean. For example, when most people like economy or bussiness management or any other general matters, I prefer East Asian studies or Medieval studies or History. I do not know why; it is just there. Well, not exactly all of History topics offered; it is boring to hear lectures on the Holocaust, WW II and stuffs about war.

I like to play video games. In this field, I bet there are not many girls who like to do this. Although I couldn't play them often, I found it is very useful in honing my English speaking (don't know why. Maybe listening to the speaking part) and listening. I like this better than going out somewhere, although I am more than happy to hang out with my friends, which are Pricilla (11), Yevi & Tasia (10). Mostly we hang out in my house because they like it there and they prefer it that way than goin' out.

Although I am confident with the fact that I am unique, however I am still not brave enough to be "different in public". There is this feeling that hinders me to do what I want. The strongest feeling (represented in sentence) I got is "I am afraid to do wrong while the others are right." For some people, this might not be a big deal. I am, however, do not like to be singled out for something shameful, especially if among the crowds are certain persons that could cause some pressure upon me. I am not going to mention these people's names here, but I can say that there are 3 persons in this school.

Ok, that is all for now. Whaaatt??? Only that??. Hehee, yeah sorry. I have no idea of what I should say more, since my other brain is thinking for tomorrow's collage. Aarghh! I only got 2 pics so far. Tell you what, this collage is not my thing. Reason? Have no mood to tell them now.

That is all I can say.

Discussion in Sexism: "Like I care..."

*WARNING: everything written here is based on MY opinion*

On Tuesday, Oct. 3rd, 2006 (which is yesterday), we had some discussions about sexism with Priska and Adinda as the moderator (taken from "Springboards for Discussing Sexism" UnderstandingPrejudice.org).

1. Are beauty contests such as the Miss America Pageant a form of pornography?
- Absolutely not!! Look, what is pornography anyway? I say it is a form where some girls or boys pose in erotic way without any clothing whatsoever. Meanwhile, the girls in Miss Universe -when they used their bikini- they did not perform any sort of erotic performances. They did that because -I think- to emphasize that their bodies are in good shape. Only some extremists or fanatics would say that this is a pornography. Take an example of the recent Indonesian finalist for Miss Universe (I forgot her name). When she went back to Jakarta, the extremist Muslim sects like FPI persecuted her because she wore a bikini and had it display internationally. They thought this kind of act as a form of pornography and therefore, brought shame to Indonesia (which is a Muslim country).

2. Do media images influences whether you see someone as sexually attractive? If so, how do you feel about corporations having this influence on you?
- Personally, I don't really care about this issue. ABout different numbers in corporation, I thought it is also possible that there aren't many applicants based on a gender. Ex. the student council decided to have 50-50 females & males for LDC participants. However, it turns out that there are more male applicants than females. Therefore, we could not judge them for being sexism if the result turns out to be 40-60 females & males. If an outsider sees this and think that the student council is sexist, they are in fundamental attribution error.

That is all for now. Write more later.

Prejudice, discrimination, stereotype.

Ladies and gentlemen, may I present you: "Psych-er's" first entry of the week!

This entry will talk about prejudice, discrimination and stereotype. These 3 things are part of social psychology and somehow related to the way human thinks, feels and behaves about a certain group of people or even someone. Let us start with prejudice first.

Prejudice is an attitude shown based on feeling (mostly negative) toward a certain group of people. According to me, attitude is shown through our body language. How to identify that? Let say you are a victim of A's dislikeness (new noun). You know that you are a victim when:

- A avoids to talk much with you. S/he will answer whatever you asked, but in single sentence or even a word. e.g.: Ya; no; uh-huh. Mainly, A will give this "sign" to just end this via body language.

- A talks in cynical/sarcastic tone with this I-don't-like-u-just-go-away expression.

Some real life example of prejudism would be:

- this dislikeness of someone belonging to an ethnic group or religious group or races.

- in some teen-culture, dislikeness toward the nerds & geeks from those who are popular in their school. Try read Princess Diaries for more income.

Discrimination (for me) is the level 2 form of prejudice (it's lvl. 1). If prejudice is about attitude, discrimination is action. Its definition would be a negative behavior/ action that grows from prejudice. Some examples are:

- a certain groups are set asides and receive unfair treatment other than the "ok" group.

- in canteen, the nerds & geeks sit in their own table and would not be acceptable to sit with the populars unless they are invited (which most probably wouldn't happen for a really long time).

Same book applied.

Stereotype is a "label" toward someone/a group of people. When we know someone for a quite long time, eventually we could have "labeling" them with what we already learn about this person. For instance, there are 4 boys in class that are the "smartest" in my year. Since I knew them since grade 7, "smart" would be my stereotype for them.

Another example would be the role-play we conduct in Tuesday, 12/9/06. We chose a paper that has an adjective on it and it was attached on our back without looking at it. Then, we had to socialize with them and behaved according to the stereotype given. I got "violent" and people were like afraid of me; they thought I was a psycopath who brings knife everywhere. Violent could be describe as someone who always use their fist and not just knife. I thought I was a psycopath or an assassin before I could take a look at my adjective.

That's it for today. Write more later.