Entry 1: Confirmation Bias

September 20 2015

Yesterday, late night, at the early hours of the morning. I was laying down on my bed

staring blankly at 36 paper stars on the ceiling. It was a Saturday night and Saturday

nights are supposed to be lively. I was scrolling my Instagram and my timeline was

flooded with pictures of friends at social gathering, partying and travelling. I was

poverty-stricken as it was already the halfway of the month. Feeling as poor as a

church mouse, I had no choice but to remain at home. On the spur of the moment, I

received a text message from my best friend, Najmi who was going through a

monotonous night as well. He told me to put on something comfortable and he was

going to pick me up in 15 minutes. I spring out of bed and put on my sweater and

jeans. I was bright eyed and bushy tailed to find out what Najmi had in my mind for

the night. Once he arrived, I get on the car and Najmi asked ‘Are you ready to meet

my friends on the other side?’ and at that very instant it clicked to my mind that we

are going ghost hunting and to be sincere I was slightly daunted to find out about the

supernatural even though I have never encountered them before, as mother had

always told me to never interfere and mess around with the supernatural, but not

under any circumstances would I admit that I am intimidated, especially admitting to

Najmi, my narcissism took over and I mask a happy face and said ‘Let’s go!’ Najmi

was grinning from ear to ear happy with my riposte. Me and Najmi had always burn

in curiosity to find out about the existence of the supernatural so we drove off to a

preoccupied house in Shah Alam itself; the house that we went had made a name for

itself for being haunted. The house was previously the deceased Mona Fandey’s

house. Mona Fandey was an occultist back in the 90′s, and reportedly using the black

arts to help many politicians accomplishing power. She was put to death in 2001 for

dismembering and partially skinning the politician Mazlan Idris in 1993 while

performing a ritual to grant him with power. During her capital punishment, she

declared “I will never die,” and her house we came to visit supposedly tormented due

to the black arts that she carried out there. As we reached the house, Najmi open his

car boot and took out an Ouija board in which we bought from EBay a few weeks

back. The board was engraved with letters, numbers, ‘hello’, ‘goodbye’, ‘yes’ and

‘no’. I had always been agnostic about the other-worldly and I am not easily inclined

to old folks tale and other people’s ghost experience, not until I eyewitness for myself.

So today I braced myself to find out. We climbed up the rusted gates which are

chained, clearly we are trespassing and that gave me a kick of thrill, we walked

through the unwelcoming garden of the house which offered an eerie glimpse. The

garden was covered with junk and long grass. We entered the house and explored the

bungalow which was left to rot. The living room was filled with clutter, furniture were

wrecked and there are holes on the roof and walls. We settled at the living room, We

sat on the floor, with our knees touching and placed the Ouija Board on our knees. We

then placed our hands on the planchette, which was the movable indicator. Najmi

started of the ritual by summoning any spirit in the house by saying ‘Hello, is there

any spirits dwells in this house?” There were no reply at first but we did not gave up

and Najmi asked again and suddenly the planchette moves slowly to the ‘Yes’

symbol. Najmi looked at me with horror. He then asked, ‘Are you a good spirit?” and

the planchette moves very quickly to the ‘No’ symbol. We were supposed to say

goodbye if this were to happen but Najmi continue on playing and asked ‘we need

proof’ and the planchette stops moving. We waited for a while and suddenly Najmi

was acting abnormal, he chocked and slammed the Ouija Board and then he started

muttering foreign language that I couldn’t understand and suddenly he passed out.

After two minutes, he became conscious and told me that a spirit had just possessed

him. I was worried but at the same time, I know it was an act of exaggeration because

a ghost or a spirit did not move the planchette but instead I moved it. What I learned

from what happened is when we were to go ghost hunting we have detach ourselves

from confirmation bias in order to perform a paranormal activity. Confirmation bias is

when you see something because you want to see it, not necessarily because the

evidence fits or is concrete. You look for evidence to fit a theory, rather than fitting a

theory to the evidence. A prime example of confirmation bias is belief in the

supernatural; when you already want to believe in ghosts, it's easy to interpret a

negative emotion by acting out like you are possessed, but instead the cause of it all

was just a fake moving planchette.

Above is a picture of me and Najmi at the main entrance of the haunted house. This

picture shows a poor attempt of me masking a smile.

Entry 2: Motivation.

September 27 2015.

I woke up before the usual time today, without having the need to hit my alarm’s

snooze button. It was Friday morning and my body, mind and spirit was

metaphorically screaming ‘Hooray’! I don’t have college classes on Friday morning

so I am able to join the Yoga class every Friday morning. I stretched and without

procrastinating I hit the shower, brushed my teeth and put on my yoga attire. I tied my

hair in a bun, had a light breakfast that consisted of mueslis, bananas and strawberries,

grabbed my yoga mat and made my way to the yoga class two rows away from home.

I was the earliest to reach there. Mr. Dhillip, the yoga guru said ‘Good Morning, early

as usual Farah’ I replied gleefully ‘Good morning, Mr Dhillip. Of course I’m here

early. I am always exhilarated and pumped up when I’m doing yoga’. 20 minutes

later, our yoga class started. We started of with doing deep breathings and warm ups.

We then proceed to do the Surya Namaskar or also know as the Sun Salutation which

is a stretching exercise which energize the body as we stretch and strengthen all the

major muscles. Later on we perform other yoga asanas. I was obsessed with yoga and

how it made me feel. The hour seems fleeting and it goes by much meteoric. Yoga

doesn't just scoop up my spirits. It basically perk up my life. It open my eyes to the

fundamental quality of who I am or at least someone I’d love to be, and therein I find

peace. Therein I find happiness. Doing yoga is an intrinsic motivation for me. After

the yoga class is over, I walked back home like a cat that has got it’s cream. I had

assignments that needed my attention but knowing that I still have time, I went back

to bed and set my alarm clock to wake me up four hours later. At 3p.m the alarm

clock rang, I hit the snooze button, and after 10 minutes later the alarm rang again, I

dragged my feet to do my assignments. I postponed my prearranged action when the

TV was showing ‘Mad Max’. After the movie, I realized that I should start doing my

assignments. As I was going to start my assignment, I was in a tight corner to pen

down my ideas for my English Journal essay that was assigned for our English

subject. I then start to doubt myself, ‘Do I really want to finish up my assignment’

No. Then I question myself again, ‘Do I need to finish up my assignment’ Yes. ‘Why

do I have to finish up my assignment’ because if I don’t my parents’ will be in

towering rage at me for getting low-grade results. I regard with distaste when I have

to do my assignments but it is an obligation for me to complete it because if I don’t I

would fall short of my parents’ expectations. What motivates me to complete my

assignment was thinking about the pain in the brain it would cause me if I do not pass

my assignments and having my parents’ sending flea to my ear. This kind of

motivation is called the Extrinsic Motivation, after a few hours later; I managed to

finish up my English journal assignment. Motivations lead me to do yoga and to

complete my assignment. Motivation is divided into two, which are Intrinsic and

Extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is when I am motivated by internal factors.

Intrinsic motivation pushes me to do things just for the fun of it, or because I believe

it is a good or right thing to do. An intrinsically motivated person will choose to do an

act if they feel that they will enjoy doing the task. In my case, I enjoy doing yoga

because it makes me happy thus I do it. Extrinsic motivation refers to behavior that is

driven by external rewards such as money, fame, grades, and praise. This type of

motivation arises from outside the individual, as opposed to intrinsic motivation,

which originates inside of the individual. In my case, the reason I complete my

assignments are because of the external factor which are to obtain good grades and

avoid punishment from my parents’.

Above is a picture of Mr. Dhillip while he is performing the basha breathing.

Entry Three: Self Fulfilling Prophecy

October 1 2015

I am writing this as I a wrapped up a vacation in Penang where I got to spend time

with two girls who could not be more contrasting from each other. This made me

awake my mind of a recurring concept that I had learned in Social Psychology class.

That is the concept of the self-fulfilling prophecy. I went to Penang with two of my

girlfriends, Sam and Nadine. Both of them are working at the cruise and I only get to

see them once every five months. Sam was way much more older than Nadine and me

as she turned 30 this year, while Nadine’s in her early twenties as me. We stayed there

for five days and we had a great time there by hanging out at the beach, getting our

skin tanned under the sun, we went food hunting, night-market shopping, we went

sightseeing and also we went partying. On the last day of our stay in Penang, The

three of us spent our day at a party at Randall’s house, in which both of them had

never met before, Randall’s my old friend whom I haven’t met for years and

Randall’s party was predominated with a younger crowd. The crowds were at their

early twenties. In this setting, if people knew nothing else about Sam and Nadine,

they would expect Sam to be downright out of place and feel alienated. She may

suggest an image of a lone woman, looking for companionship at an ineligible place.

On the other hand, you would expect Nadine to be more in tune with the crowd at the

party. In actual reality, both of them are at each other’s side of the coin. You see, Sam

was filled with aplomb, easy to get along with and basically a hail-fellow-well-met

person. Sam had a positive vibe on everything and everyone around her. Nadine on

the other hand was very reserved, she had scruples about blending in with the crowd

and very self-doubting; she kept going on about how ill at ease she felt. So at the

party, Sam was amusing herself and people around her, being engaged in

conversation, laughing with everyone around her, and drawing the attention of the

guests. People at the party really had a preference for Sam for her fun attitude. Nadine

remained as a wall-flower and went to a great degree, unnoticed, except by me. I

attempted to loosen her up a few times but was left with the impression that she was

kind of socially awkward and difficult to blend with. So Sam, who was socially

accepted by the younger people at the party, should have been the odd one out but she

turned out as the life of the party that everyone wanted to be around simply because

she believed herself to be youthful and fun, so and acted in the spirit of it. Meanwhile,

Nadine who should have been well coordinated in but believed herself to be the

idiosyncratic and odd one ended up being exactly that. Once the vacation came to an

end, I was left alone without my two girlfriends. I felt a little awkward going around

by myself. Particularly when it came to partying and shopping. But I challenged

myself to go out and be lively anyway. After all, I was not about to waste my life

being self contained. A self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that directly or

indirectly causes itself to become true, by the very terms of the prophecy itself, due to

positive feedback between belief and behavior. Basically, whatever we think as

ourselves, it would shape the reality. What I learned from this Self-fulfilling prophecy

is that if you think that you are too old, set against, or that the environment is not your

comfort zone, you will continue to demonstrate the truth of it as long as you act in

accordance with that belief.

Entry Four: Stereotyping

October 8 2015

I deal with people who stereotype me a lot on daily basis. People expecting me to

become who they picture me to be, people who tend to misinterpret the image that I

am trying to portray and it seriously annoying. Today mark the date of the day I get

stereotyped so much. It started off as a normal day, I met my friend Zhafry who I

haven’t met for the past two months and I was really gingered up to see him. We met

up at COSANS, a coffee shop in Subang Jaya. As we reached there, the first thing

Zhaf said to me was ‘Hey! Woah! You look like you lose a lot of weight!” After

taking in the order, I took out my money and wanted to pay for my coffee, Zhaf

pushed and refused to let me pay and say ‘It’s not a gentleman thing to do to let a

female friend pay for her drink’ I was never comfortable of this stereotype idea of

man having to pay for as I can afford to pay by myself and I explained to him that It

wasn’t necessary and I don’t expect man to pay for me when we go out. So we just sat

down and talked after taking our orders, we talked about what we had been missing

for the last two months, catching up and then the conversation went deep and Zhaf

decided to ask me if I was taking drugs and if I had any problems that contributed to

my weight loss. I was shocked when he stereotyped me as a drug addict just because I

lose weight. Smoking or yoga would have contributed to my weight loss but I had

never took drugs in my life and I was a little upset that he thought of me in a way.

After the meeting with Zhaf, I drove home and found a few cars parked at the porch

of my house. My relatives were there and I thought to myself ‘Awesome! A great day

to deal with more stereotypes!” As I made my way inside the house, I greet my family

members and one of my aunties asked me ‘your dress looks nice and your makeup is

super on point. Are you out for a date and flirting anyone?” ‘No’ I answered politely.

She definitely rubbed me the wrong way with the way she stereotyped me thinking

that I am dressing nicely and wear make up just to impress a love interest. I really

choose to look acceptably good because it gives me a felicitous feeling and it had

nothing to do with impressing anyone else. I sat down at the table as a courtesy to

entertain the guest of the house. Then another auntie pop up with another tasteless

question, ‘When are you getting married?” I irked and answered ‘Never’ even though

I just wanted to ruffle her feathers, trying to be provocative. All of my relatives look

at me ill at ease, and asked me ‘Why? Did you got your heartbroken? Are you

lesbian? What leaded to this misfortune?” I gave a firm look and answered ‘Not all

woman’s priority in life is to get married’ I felt like I was over the moon for

expressing my answer and they backfire me and asked ‘Don’t you want to settle down

and have kids of your own someday?” I answered ‘No. Not really. Babies are

annoying and not every woman loves children besides I have other things I had in

mind for the future’. After that, they pretty much remained tongue-tied. I can see that

they are sunk in gloom with the remark that I made but for me it was not a big deal

and it was just a perseverance effect in which their schema are formed and to them

woman should be married and it’s hard for them to accept and let go of the fact

opposing to it. I tried to escape the awkward situation and made my way to the TV

room to watch a basketball game that was about to start. The TV room was apparently

dominated with my male cousins and they were surprised that I am interested in

watching basketball. One of my male cousins spoke his mind by saying that girls

knew nothing of basketball and the only reason I was watching it was because I

thought the players were hot. Having enough of getting stereotyped and labeled for

the day, I threw the television remote control on my cousin’s face without expecting

another stereotyped remark from him asking me if I was on my menstrual period. I

had never believe in the pre menstrual syndrome and men would usually stereotyped

woman who are bad-tempered and furious are having their premenstrual syndrome.

What happened today, mainly focused on people’s stereotype on how a woman

should behave and what to expect from a woman. For instance, expecting a woman to

know how to cook and thinking that woman are bad at playing video games. I have to

say that stereotyping is inaccurate and it is wrong to generalize woman as every

woman has a way of her own. Stereotype means assuming all members of a group

share some common feature.

Entry Five: Observational Learning

October 12 2015

I was cleaning my room tonight, and I stumbled upon myself an old box that I kept all

my sentimental stuff, which I called the memory box. I kept all of my stuff that I don’t

have the heart to throw in the box. In there, I saw a picture of me and my boyfriend

five years back and it brought back memories and I realized that a lot had changed in

five years and it was unanticipated on how things have changed. I am grateful that I

was brought up by a very lovely family, both mum and dad are very devoted to

towards each other after all the years of being together, we have been raised to

respect one another in the family equally. Dad still practices and continues to take

mum out for movie dates, and he would still buy my mother flowers and gifts.

Mother on the other hand, would bake for my dad as my dad is a sweet tooth and he

takes fond of cakes and sweet goods, every weekend. My siblings, and me learned

that this is the way my parents show their love to each other and my brother, Fareez

would reflect back the actions that is showed from my father to portray his love to

his girlfriend by buying gifts and flowers and taking her to the movies. He would see

her every once in three days. Observational learning causes this behavior. Fareez

would watch my dad who is playing the role model and he would repeat his actions.

In my case, I have been together with my boyfriend for five years and he has a

different way of showing his love to me. Back on the earlier days we were together,

most of the time he was busy at work and he was unable to spend a lot of time with

me. His behavior sometimes eats my heart out and it made me lacked of certainty

whether he really loved me and if he had other love involvement with someone else.

I had been made to understand that he had other commitments like paying his car

loan and paying his study loans so he rarely bought me flowers or gifts as he have

much more important things to use his money. His parents are divorced and he lives

with his father. I assumed that the reason why he is not as cheerful as I am most of

the time is because he adopted an attitude from his father which is also a behavior

caused by observational learning. Occasionally, he would take me out for dinner and

we would watch movies as well but sometimes I expect him to treat me more like

how my dad would treat me. At times, I feel that when he lacks give me attention

and doesn’t live up to my expectation, I feel like he doesn’t love me. I would bake for

him to show my love for him but he doesn’t respond to the way I expect him to do. I

began to be mindful of our different family background, his commitments and he

may be stress over work. I accepted the fact that every one has a different way of

expressing themselves and I began to get a grip of the relationship. I still continued

to do small things for him for instance; baked for him cupcakes at times and at times

I would buy him gifts and send him love notes. I did not expect anything in return

and I feel happy being with him. As years goes by, I realized that he started to

change. He began to prioritize me and make time for me more often, even though I

already accepted him the way he was and his lifestyle. Occasionally, he would buy

me flowers and when he had extra time we would even go on a vacation together. I

believed that the reason he started to change is because he had learned a different

way to express his love for me. He learned it from the way I treated him and he

began to feel comfortable at doing it. Observational learning is basically watching

others engage in behaviors and then repeating those action. Observational learning

can also explain how we acquire attitudes, fears, opinions or specific behavior.