Sharing a brainwave with a friend.
It’s always awesome when you find out you and a friend is thinking the exact same thing at a moment! Whether it be something random like what to have for lunch or something more complicated like plan of attack for exams. Still yet to reach the awesome level of telepathic communication as seen on HIMYM though haha.
Love.
I don’t know if that counts as “simple”. But despite all the work and emotional energy that goes into a loving relationship – be it family, friend or lover – love is essentially a simple pleasure. Even when you’re having the most difficult day, a fleeting image of that person’s smile or a memory you shared will instantly restore your energy and put a smile on your face.
For example, I get flashbacks to my childhood and the days I spent with my parents and that makes me happy. Or I’ll think of some crazy adventures that I’ve been on with close friends. Or various other memories with people I cared about that makes me laugh to myself.
As four wise men once sang, all you need is love.
Being proud of and propagating your cultural heritage.
First of all apologies for not keeping to the “post every day” rule. I had short cases on Tuesday and was up till 4am the night before prepping for it : Was pretty shattered last night so instead of studying I chose to play Magic with a friend for hours, get Nandos for dinner, and watch TV shows until I went to bed early. Recovered since but study is boooring.
Anyway, today was Hangul Day (한글날), yay!!! Hangul is the Korean alphabet and was invented by King Sejong the Great (세종대왕) 567 years ago. It is a beautiful written language that was designed scientifically and logically to better represent sounds, making it easier for common people to learn. To celebrate it, I made a small event on Facebook where I wrote my friends’ names in Korean haha. One friend jokingly said “Arnold Schwarzenegger”, so I happily obliged… along with a sketch 😛
Happy coincidences.
Life is full of chance and coincidences. Coincidences can range from something simple like bumping into someone you haven’t seen in a while at a supermarket, to what some people call “fate” or “miracle” or “destiny”.
Mathematics will tell you that coincidences are simply the product of the law of large numbers – that it is merely a statistical event. Psychology will tell you that we are just victims of the regression fallacy. Religious people will tell you that it is an act of god.
For me, happy coincidences are just little events in life that spice things up a bit. I don’t believe in fate or destiny or some omnipotent deity, but that doesn’t mean that I treat coincidences as unimportant random events. I find that rather than dismissing it, identifying it as something good makes my life a little bit happier. Who cares if the reason that all the traffic lights were green might be a sign? Who cares if the reason that the song that JUST happens to fit my mood comes on a shuffled playlist was statistical chance? Who cares if you call meeting your soul partner destiny?
What matters to me in the end is that it happened and it made me happy. I also find identifying the coincidences and the steps that led to it happening quite interesting (because I’m a huge nerd, which I say with pride). For example, if I had decided to stick with my plan of going to Asan Hospital instead of Severance Hospital for my selective this year, I wouldn’t have met the girl that invited me to WKMSO and I wouldn’t have met the awesome people I did, nor would I have had my unforgettable NYC/Vegas adventure.
Maybe the reason it makes me happy is that knowing that if even a tiny detail was changed, say if I was put on a different shift to that person, things would have turned out quite differently. For better or for worse. But the fact is that things happened to happen in the way it did and it led to me having an amazing time.
And that my friends, is a long-winding rant-y explanation to why I love the butterfly effect.
Drowning in a tsunami of nostalgia.
So recently a 4-episode anime special came out… called Pokemon The Origin. Yes, they finally made a Pokemon anime that stays true to the original Pokemon Red/Blue game!!! Well, Red/Green because it’s originally Japanese. Anyway, I watched all of it and love love loved it 😀 The anime itself was good quality and there were tons of references to the original game that I grew up with! Plus, Mega Charizard X what. Needless to say, it evoked powerful earthquakes of nostalgia within me.
It’s probably not an understatement to say that Pokemon was the single most awesome thing about my childhood. I was – I AM – obsessed about the series, whether it be the game, cartoon or trading card game. I still have happy memories playing the original games on my gameboy, and emulating it on my old school computer. Hell, used to have it all saved in floppy disks and shit. And the days new Pokemon games came out were like second Chistmases to me~
All that nostalgia I mentioned above could not be ignored. And despite the fact that I have a massive exam next Tuesday, I have…restarted Pokemon Red. OTL. Oh and what’s that? Pokemon X/Y comes out tomorrow? Well shit, good bye med school. But it’ll be totally worth it.
Time to catch ‘em all (unlike the STDs that I should be studying for exams).
Listening to music by your favourite artists.
She’s back! <3
Laughing over even the silliest of things.
There are many people who frown upon cheesy humour and say “that’s just immature” or something along the lines of “that’s not sophisticated enough for someone like me”. Essentially, everyone has a standard that they measure all things humorous against.
Mine happens to be rather low, so I’ll easily laugh over the littlest things or find a TV show episode very funny even when others just LOOK at me funny haha. But my rationale is that the end result is that I’m laughing and releasing tons of endorphins into my bloodstream.
So who cares if other people think the things you like are lame? As long as you’re happy. 🙂
Relevant ARK: https://jineralknowledge.com/laughter
Treating yo’self.
I’m a firm believer in operant conditioning. When I start gearing up for exam study, I implement a reward system of giving myself a piece of chocolate after completing a lecture (or set amount of work). This motivates me to work faster, more efficiently and gets me revved up for study mode.
We just had our first (out of two) major exam today, hence another late post. See we have two massive exams at the end of 5th year that pretty much covers all of our clinical knowledge. Since we don’t have exams in our final year, this is pretty much THE exam for med school. That along with short cases which I had last week (practical clinical examinations).
So for doing a good job, I treated myself to making nachos, playing Pokemon and watching copious amounts of TV. The Walking Dead has started and daaaaayam it be good!!! 😀 My original plan was to do a bit of study but screw it, daddy needs a break before starting study for the last exam…
Anyway for those of you who are working your asses off… treat yo self.
Walking on sunshine.
So I mentioned before the awesomeness of staying indoors while it’s pouring outside, but the opposite is still awesome. Nothing lifts your spirits as much as a clear blue sky and beautiful sunshine, with a hint of a cool breeze~ Luckily spring is properly settling in in NZ, just in time for holidays next week!
Of course this being Auckland, the weather is as fickle as a teenage girl. That bitch will rain on you with no notice. Like, there’s no point looking at a forecast because it will most likely be wrong for at least half the day. But I digress.
Here’s a photo around the place I live, showing off awesome spring weather 🙂
Doing absolutely nothing.
I kinda mentioned this in a previous post, but that was more in the context of taking a break. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE doing stuff. Especially right now where all I can think of is all the stuff I’m waiting to do as soon as exams are over. But there’s a real simple joy in doing absolutely nothing. Just…sitting there, you know?
Of course I don’t mean literally nothing where you switch off your brain. That’s what you do when you watch TV (which I heartily endorse). But I mean putting down the book you’re reading or pausing that video, sitting back and getting lost in your thoughts. Maybe you’ll ponder the deep philosophies of what it means to be alive, or create an imaginary world you can adventure in.
If you don’t feel like exploring the inner workings of your mind, then get lost in your surroundings. Have you ever really taken into account what you see, hear, smell, taste and touch? Bernard Werber talked about a relaxation technique called “Opening your senses” in his books, which involves you systematically saying out loud everything you experience in the moment with each sense. For example, close your eyes and say everything you hear, to the smallest detail. Then do the same with all your other senses, you’ll notice that you’ve been missing out a lot of things in this world.
Sherlock Holmes stated that there is a great difference between seeing and observing. Try this out sometime. Have a cup of coffee at a cafe by yourself and look around you. You might see a boy and a girl making idle chit chat, but you might observe the two showing various subtle body language signs of mutual attraction. See if you can figure out a person’s job or personality or health condition just from observation. People-watching can be very fun, as long as you’re not being…you know, creepy.
So go on, drop what you’re doing, go lie in a patch of grass or sit at a cafe or wherever and just do nothing.
