Cognitive processes toward the addition of friends on Facebook.

Sat, 13 Feb 2010
1 min read
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Or: Why I have stopped adding people I know as friends on Facebook.

  1. Hey, many updates in my ‘Live Feed’!
  2. Hey, that’s a funny comment on someone’s status message/picture/video/etc!
  3. Hey, that name/face sounds/looks familiar!
  4. Hey, it’s a person I know/used to know!
  5. Hey, let’s add that person as a friend!
  6. Hey, perhaps I should ‘Add a personal message’ to let the person know who I am in case she/he has forgotten me!
  7. Hey, perhaps I should let said person know how I found her/his profile in case she/he thinks I actively went to search for her/him!
  8. Hey… The message looks over-explained, over-apologetic and hence, extremely creepy.
  9. Hey, er… Delete.

I don’t add students either, though I approve friend requests from students. But that’s another story for another time.

Self-censorship.

Thu, 28 Jan 2010
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I spend more time deleting what it is I don’t want to say, as opposed to writing what it is I actually want to say.

Perhaps it’s symptomatic of age. More likely it is because I am too afraid to name the beast.

Sleep paralysis or night terrors.

Sun, 24 Jan 2010
2 min read
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This is a painting entitled “The Nightmare” (1781) by Henry Fuseli and it depicts the condition of sleep paralysis/night terrors.

I used to suffer from this condition. I probably still have it but its occurrences have diminished somewhat since I started:

  • Having (somewhat) regular sleep patterns,
  • Getting (somewhat) more rest, and
  • Moderating my caffeine intake.

Anyway, I just found out that someone close to me suffers from this condition, so I decided to read up about it again. This condition supposedly affects Asians and teens* more than it does other people, so I thought I’d post up some info here so that you can find out how to deal with this condition if you suffer from it too**:

Have a good rest tonight.


* Coincidentally (or not), I used to get the worst attacks during my JC years.
** I realise I suffered from it for so long because:

  • Of ignorance: I thought it was ‘spirits’, and the people around me weren’t inclined to discourage me from adopting that point of view, and
  • It never occurred to me to do research on the conditions I was afflicted with until I was slightly older. Then again, Googling for information has become a norm, so it could also be techno-cultural evolution, I guess.

*** Oh! I think Emily Bronte and Roald Dahl may have made references to sleep paralysis in their stories (Wuthering Heights and a short story about a snake in a bed, respectively) too, although it seemed they might not have known about this condition at those times. I’ll need to dig up the stories again to be sure.