You realise how important someone is to you when that person's departure makes you cry. And yesterday one friend left Nottingham, not coming back for anytime soon.. and after she left i really really cried. Didn't realise how much she's been in my life until now. Right now i feel a sense of loss, knowing that one big chapter of my life has closed, never to be back. Things won't be the same again, everything in my Undergrad life is now in the past. But i'm also happy for the fact that i'm crying! Because it's like how two strangers didn't mean anything to one another before, but after becoming friends they tamed each other and became unique people in this world. A musing: that's life isn't it? There's always a good and a bad side. You become happy, but you eventually feel sad when it all comes to an end.

Oh well. Blows nose.

After several months of stagnation and a broken promise about wanting to continue on from my last post, I am writing to say that I've reached Nottingham safe and sound, tired but alive :) Today i moved into my new accomm, quite happy with the room that i've got, cosy but big enough for me to pace about, fidget and perhaps do a jigsaw puzzle on the floor.

Right now, I've a flatmate from China, who's gonna do Masters in Law. Cool huh? I guess I was too hasty in speaking to her first in English, so she hesitated awhile before telling me that I can call her "Faith". Then i said my name is "Zi Jing". So she looked at me and asked where I was and if i spoke chinese! Haha. so funny. I dunno why Chinese pple like to give themselves English names... what is wrong with calling yourself what you've always been called? Anyway, on 1st impressions, i feel like i can talk to her quite well, hopefully this year will be one where I can make new friends from all over the world and just be merry and enjoy school.

Even tho this is my 4th time coming back here, I still felt that pang of home-sickness and a tad of loneliness and a foreign feel. the past 2 months have been a most restful and fulfilling summer holidays for me, with the a capella concert with choir friends, reading many novels, going swimming often enough to make me love the exercise now, and just spending much time with family and friends. then today, the whole academic world of psychology came back to me with a fren asking me to do a psy survey for a lecturer! dear me.

Um. Next week is an induction week for the post graduate psychology courses. I am no longer based in School of Psychology, but the Institute of Work, Health and Organisations, which is concerned with psychology applied to W.H.O. The course which im studying is MSc in Occupational Psychology. Class size is estimated to be about 40 big, which is quite big compared to other courses. This course is really new to me, i've never done any modules related to Occ Psy in my undergrad, except for a dissertation which was written out of my own research. Should be interesting i think, except for the fact that i don't really know what to expect in terms of the learning curve, style of teaching, and whether i will really enjoy this course.

To you who's reading, hope that you're well and drop a tag!

It's the exam period again. And after discussing work with a fren today i felt SOOOOO.. ok lar, QUITE stressed. It's THAT feeling again. How many times must I tell myself that really it's okay! And I don't have so worry nor be anxious. I want to enjoy this last two weeks of official schooling before I unofficially graduate from this course! It's been 3 years, how fast. Yep. learning about eating disorders and addictions and sport/exercise psychology. Pretty humanistic stuff, and they got me thinking about people I know who are related to these topics. Thing about all these studying is that they make me become so detatched from the "patients" that I don't even feel what these disorders mean!

And yar.. I went looking at houses this afternoon, after visiting two houses and seeing stranger faces, i felt this sudden pang of loneliness and that rush of "i know nobody" feeling. It'll be so sad! With so many of my good friends leaving already.. I don't actually know if I want to continue staying in a house, with potential people that I don't know... a house is TOO intimate sometimes i feel, for me to be completely comfortable with people that i don't even know! So tat's why maybe returning to broadgate park may be a good idea. then again.. im so fussy about so many things.. got to change man.. or im never gonna be satisfied.

Im gonna tell myself to not be bothered about accomm right now, for i believe it will be provided and sorted out in due time.

Prioritise, concentrate, peservere. Keep at it.

The doors to the Big Apple have just one by one closed up on me. Impossible to complete within one year, not eligible for extra funding, family and friends who genuinely are not encouraging. Basically, No, No and No. Ultimately, there is also little peace in my heart.

Surely now, I can finally make up my mind? There is only one more option.

I miss home. Haven't seen the faces nor heard the voices of family and friends for such a long time, sigh.

If I could just fly back for a week!

Im sitting in front of the computer researching for my final year project. this is the final stage already. after this, I don't actually want to know about the debate between affect and cognition for a long, long time! I'm tired, to be honest. But I'm still so grateful for having such a wonderful, tireless teacher.

Where has all my energy gone..?

Insanity sometimes is the sane response to a mad society; insanity need not always be a breakdown; it can also be a breakthrough! --Ronald David Laing

Today after attending the weekly seminar held in Psychology where guest speakers are invited to speak about their research interests, I came out feeling refreshed and hopeful. Schizophrenia, characterized by delusions, hallucinations and signs of "madness" is not merely a biological illness. Some people may be more susceptible than others due to genetics (although no specific gene has been found to 'cause' schizophrenia), but genetics alone definitely cannot account for why people become "mad". One study showed very clearly that high risk individuals (I think they are those with family history of schizophrenia), when put in positive familial environments, are not anymore likely than low risk individuals to become schizophrenics. Only when high risk individuals coupled with adverse circumstances, will their likelihood shoot up.

This shows that there IS hope. When a person goes "mad", all is not lost. There are many things that are within the family/friends' control, things that they can do to help the individual recover. In my opinion, support and love are the most important. The individual needs to feel that they have something to fall back upon, that they are not alone in this.

Psychosis is a term used to describe people who have "lost touch with reality". They lose their personality, their normal social functioning, they experience hallucinations, delusional thoughts, and hear voices. It's very similar to schizo. Don't really know the distinction between these two mental illnesses. But there has been many clinical psychologists who are at the forefront of research, who experienced psychosis themselves, in the past. One of them, in a very serious state of psychosis, threw himself under a London Bus; he survived. He now is well, and recently wrote a book about the illness, and urges people to rethink the medical model (which uses medicine to try to treat symptoms). There are so many other factors such as cognition, societal and psychological that play an important role in the development of psychosis.

I felt refreshed and hopeful because I realized that there is so much to be done! So much CAN be done to help people with mental illnesses. There really is a very thin line between sanity and insanity, being normal and being depressed. Life events or circumstances that trigger vulnerability in an individual can tip the state of "normal" into something classified as a mental illness very quickly. Surely, there shouldn't need be any kind of stigmatization attached to these vulnerable people, for who can tell whether oneself wouldn't have the same reaction if one stands in the shoes of those who are vulnerable? And medicine really is the last resort. It doesnt cure, it perhaps relieves symptoms temporarily. Having spoken to people who have gone through more than me, I know that medicine is something that is shunned and avoided.

Yup. Just some thoughts.. it's all a bit incoherent, but hope it enlightens some of u who are reading this post, especially if there are deep-rooted stereotypes of mental patients in your minds, which may not be very helpful.

These days, I feel.. Different. I feel like I'm becoming a new person.

Before I fell asleep last night, it occurred to me that I have lost some of my child ideals and characteristics. I used to have a very strong faith that everyone of us is born to our family for a reason, that God put us IN THERE. And I would always thank God for all that He has given me. As i grew older, I think there are too many outside influences that made me forget about these core beliefs or watered them down. I don't mean that I no longer think that way, I mean that I forgot that I thought that way.

Also, I had a better grasp of single-minded focus. The "Zone" as sports psychologists and sportsmen have come to recognise, when their minds are so clear, so optimistic, and they have precise decision-making skills. I vaguely recall times when I worked through mathematical proofs in school, when I also felt that I was somewhere in the "Zone".. when every step brought me closer to equating the LHS of the equation to the RHS, and i just knew that this was going to be a good one. i think at those times the alpha rhythm in my brain were at their peak! I want to get them back! :)

I want to return to the basics, to the untainted, uninfluenced mental states.