Friday, July 3, 2009

50 First Dates

50 First Dates, which directed by Peter Segal was released in 2004. Starring Adam Sandler (My favourite guy =D) and Drew Barrymore (Such a sweet girl). A touching love story that most girls could cry for it. Henry Roth (Adam Sandler) is a wildlife veterinarian in Hawaii, who meets Lucy Whitmore (Drew Barrymore) a woman who has a short-term memory loss from a car accident a year earlier. Henry is a ladies man on the island who has been breaking the hearts of female tourists for years. Henry meets Lucy at a local cafe and takes her out on a date. Henry falls in love with Lucy, but there is one problem when she awakens in the morning, she can't remember him or anything that happened that day. Henry must devise a plan to meet Lucy everyday and try to get her to fall in love with him again and again. He had experienced rejection by Lucy at first, and caught her attention by injuring himself, he tells lies, all he does are trying to help her to recall their memories. But all these seem to fail and doctor announces that her condition may gone worse. Yet Henry never seems to give up, he films a video by recording the days and moment they went through together, and plays it every morning when Lucy wakes up. They gets married and had a daughter. But Lucy still lost her memory ever since she awakes on her bed. But I do believe they live happy ever after =D...

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

The friend 2

Talking about my friends again, i did some catching up with them when i went back to penang. They asked me what i was studying and i told them i was studying human communication. They looked at me with a confused look and asked me why i choose human com. They actually thought that I, from all the people in the world had trouble communicating with other people and needed to take a subject to teach me to talk. I told them more bout it and i told them about Mark Knapp's development model. All of them were actually interested in what i had to say about the model and started analyzing their relationships. One of my friend said "OMG, im only at the intensifying stage!! I'm so far from the top!!!!". I actually had to explain that she had to get married to reach the final stage. She just replied with a big smile and said, "I so got to do that. I wanna reach the top!! All of us there just stared at her and started laughing really hard. Her boyfriend laugh as well but i think he had other things racing through his mind.

The friend

I actually went back to penang last week on wed, straight after my exams to see a friend of mine who needs all the comforting she can get. She just broke up with her boyfriend of 2 years. She told me the story of how they broke up. Having to think, i actually put hum communication into the reasons why they broke up. Again, miscommunication is the main killer of this relationship. The guy, says he needed the space and said she had an attitude problem so he said he is going to give her a month to change. She, on the other hand actually screamed "GIVE ME ONE MONTH TO CHANGE???? IM NOT AN ASSIGNMENT OR SOMETHING WHICH HAS A DEADLINE!! iM A HUMAN!!" Without talking it out, she storms out and never gave him another chance to talk. The miscommunication here is that he listens to his friends that said he should break up with her because she had an attitude problem. Without actually talking it out with her, he concluded that his girlfriend had an attitude problem. His friends apparently only cling to their first impression of her. The fact was when they first met her, she was not feeling herself and had ignored them. I feel that that is just the problem with everyone. They should not just cling to first impression but then take the time to know a person before judging the person.

Advertisements and Communication

I'm sure you've seen and advertisement (unless of course you're blind........wait if you are, then you can't read this post either.....oh well) When you're surfing the net, you see annoying pop-up ads, when driving along the road, you see massive advertisements everywhere you look and even in magazines there are colorful, out of place ads that disrupt you from the actual content of the book.

Sometimes you see ads with alot of words on it, but it usually doesn't get you to buy it, but the more professional ones only have 3 or so words and it will usually compel you to buy that product. For example: Nike. They're ad just says "Just do it!". 3 words, 3 simple words and a picture of a Nike product is enough to make at least 100 people buy it.

And then on one of those billboard ads, there'll be a picture of a famous celebrity with a milk mustache and next to him/her/it there would be two simple words: "Got milk?". The fact that this ad style has been used for years is proof enough on how well it works.

Psychologically speaking, this method works because it imprints the image of the product in our heads, and the words will make us recognize it better. And so, when we see milk, or a Nike product, subconsciously we feel like buying it because of the advertisement. How much words and pictures can affect a human mind can be very frightening and useful at the same time, but that's the power of communication. So be it psychological or just very convincing, this one-way form of communication used by big buisnesses works and it works well.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Terminating

I don't understand why people choose to terminate their marriage when at the same time, their children had grown up. Recently I get to know my childhood best friend's parents are about to terminate their 30 years marriage. Both her parents are so close to my parents that they used to own a company back in 10 years time. I would say my parents were lucky enough to build their own business and went through successfully after that. Yet, this man ( my best friend's father aka my dad's best friend) started to develop his business by borrowing capital from many people, including my dad. He didn't seem to tell his wife either because she didn't know anything till the day he was totally broke. His business was failed of course, due to some reason that I think it wouldn't be appropriate to tell here. Her wife was told by one of his husband's business partner recently. She was shocked, for giving his husband 200 thousand to support his business. But still his husband did not let her know that his business had closed down. My friend told me her mother was suffer from depression, and she can feel the melancholy. They(my friend and her mother) decided to shift to her home town, tried to avoid her husband and as well as the so called 'loan shark'. I did not know till i read those form my friend's blog. I tried to call them, my mom too. But they seemed didn't want us to interrupt. So, are they going to terminate their marriage which last for more than 30 years? Wouldn't it be so saddening? =(((

Saturday, June 20, 2009

The Secret

An interesting book- The Secret- that I bought last year from Kinokuniya. I believe most of you have heard of this book, or maybe you actually owned it. At that very moment, while I was flipping through this book. It did remind me of some psychology theories. It looked interesting to me and therefore now is on my bookshelf. After studying few chapters of Human Communication. A theory that rings the bell in my mind! If you had gone through the content of The Secret, you will know that all they said are mostly about the Universe. For those who don't read it, is in fact a book that teaches you (or reminds you) to achieve your goals by mutter to yourself so many times that you could imagine it really happens. What the author explained was, when you keep repeating the same wish in your mind, your mind will connect to the Universe and finally things will happen as what you wish. Sounds creepy huh? =/ black magic, that was my first impression, LOL. Self-fulfilling prophecy would be a better theory to explain it, I presumed. Let me recall the definition of self-fulfilling prophecy. It is a prediction or expectation of oneself that makes an outcome more likely to occur than would otherwise have been the case. I remember that's few pages in the book writting about a girl that was desperate to get a perfect husband. One of the authors of The Secret told her to do what he/she (couldn't remember) insist. Do you know what the author tell her what to do? Instead of mutter to herself billions of time that she would like to marry a nice man; she in fact live like she already had a husband! She bought a king-size bed and slept on a side and left another side empty (pretending the 'husband' was sleeping beside her), she cleaned up her cupboard so there will be some spaces (pretending the 'husband's clothes had actually occupied the spaces) and so on. And well, of course you know the final result. She married to a man who she always meet in her dream. There are many examples given in the book. Hmm.. can't really recall most part of them.

This book is in fact a nice book that you can try, I don't mind to lend you. Because that book costs RM80! Dare not to get another one. =/

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Facial Expressions

OK, we've talked alot about non-verbal communication like body language, but one particular area of the body can tell you alot about what a person is feeling or thinking. A raised eyebrow can indicate interest or confusion, a smirk could indicate amusement or the person could be scheming something...

For example, today at college, a friend a pack of cards and we played a friendly game of Black Jack (I've always wondered, why BLACK Jack? Racial prejudice??). When my friend drew another card, his face distorted to a frown and squinted eyes. This obviously meant his cards were a bust. My other friend however, when he drew a card, didn't change his facial expression at all. After drawing my cards, we revealed our hands and, as it turned out, I was right about my friend busting but my poker faced friend had a 20 with three cards while I had 19 with the same number of cards.

My point is, just the face by itself can provide a myriad of information on the unspoken words of that person. There are also various games besides Black jack that rely on watching peoples facial expressions to win. Facial expressions can tell you if that person is lying or hiding something. So the next time you're with a friend or family member, try paying attention to their facial expression and try to decipher what they may be thinking.