Went for a hike yesterday, come to realise that people with different experiences, backgrounds and personalities, will have different views.

There is not much difference in a support group or general public. It still boils down to individuals' personalities and experiences.

People do not seem to be able to understand humours and jokes. Taking it in the literal sense or too seriously.

Why I am always so sensitive to noise level? Today is Chinese New Year in Singapore, there was lion dance, and all the drumming sounds, I felt unable to focus with the rumblings.

Am I going to be like that forever? Thinking about it makes me feel sad and low.

Will I be able to recover fully or I will have to rely on medications for my entire life.

Irritable. Is it related to my condition

I am losing control of my emotions lately, this morning flared up because of a mistake in my loan statement from my bank saying I still owe 2.5 K for my study loan.

The bank said it was my university which asked for the payment.

I called my university and it said my loan capital is correct but the bank has not collected the full amount and asked me to call the bank.

I was worried I had to pay an extra 2.5 K for my loan which I had fully repaid, and raised my voice at the officer who was attending to my call.

Is it normal to feel angry and anxious on this matter?

I applied for half day leave but my supervisor, granted an off, for the work I did.

I get irritated when I am tired, and I feel tired easily as I worry over work,  my loans, and the lack of family support.

Lost it over a small matter

This Friday I lost control of myself and had an argument with my manager over taking my lunch in a room where we kept our files.

I was having a busy morning, doing soil tilling, and then had to order lunch from the caterer for the office, and collecting lunch payment for this week.
To add to that, the spreadsheet formula had to be changed due to a different price for one of the lunch item and I was struggling to tally the amount

I was about to have my lunch in the room to have some quiet moment from the hustle when he approached me and said it is not a proper place to eat in the room. He said I could eat at my desk. I said I would like to be alone. I was thinking that my colleague had told him about it and at that moment I was angry that he acted on her "feedback" and not mine when I told him sometimes back that she raised her voice at me and was causing distress with her way of closing the cupboard's doors with some force.

I told him that I cleared the lunch boxes and did not damage anything in the room. I asked him who told him that having meal in the room is not allowed. He said he was the one and appeared offended. Then he told me to ask the CEO if I did not believe and asked him for permission.

I was angry that he was using the CEO's authority on such a minor thing. I  finished my lunch at the desk, thought about that he just brushed it off when I told him about the treatment I received from my colleague who is of the same nationality and said he was bias and why he did not take action but just said because they were stressed out from work.

He later said he is resigning as our department manager, although I apologised to him over the incident, he said his decision is final.

I was thinking about the bad encounters  I experienced and the bad treatment I had received from him and my other colleagues so I lost control and cried.

Dealing with people in the workplace and finding purpose

Today started on a jittery mood but was feeling ok doing the onion transplant. Think of it again, he was the one who said that we would transplant the old onions to a new row, and kept the old onions in their rows.

He was telling me the correct way to pull out the weeds is to take out the roots and to pull it when the weeds are long. Said farming is all about common sense and books are not useful. Well I think he is unhappy that I wrote to the HR to say there was no proper instructions given by him before he left for overseas.

Why didn"t he say so earlier or even showed me the proper way of doing things and yet saying all that after things did not turn out well?

Earlier I suggested an idea to make a device for my work, and he had told me earlier he would like to use the device for his business after his contract ends.

This afternoon I went to him and he said he wanted to try out the assembly and after figuring out to do his own device he was so proud that he had improvised and found out how to make it work. He then asked me to do my own device after he completed his.

I do not know how to interpret it? Is he a person who when his aims are satisfied, just leave you to your device. Not that I could not figure out myself, but I feel he is acting in a self conceited manner.

I have signed an extended contract, because I like to have hands on experience on using analytical equipments on the formulation parameters.

The other way is to transfer to lab as a chemist, which allows me to learn hands on skills that supplement my degree.

I am just worried that I lack the motor coordination and have concentration problems sometimes.

Book Sharing part 2

Book title: Consciousness and the brain

Continued

The study of conscious access was made possible through experiments like troxler fading and image rivalry.

In troxler fading, you focus on a central spot like a cross which is surrounded by gray spots as what the author presented in the book. As you focus for some time, the gray spots will start to fade awake from your sight.

The author proposes that this was due tohow our eyes evolved with blood vessels running in front of our eye receptors.

I am not sure if I understand what the authoring is explaining correctly.

He said it was due to the blood vessels in front of the receptors, that the brain will start to interpret motionless object as invisible and only detects objects when there is motion, so as we will not constantly bug by the blood vessels in front of our retina.

Image rivalry is the presentation of two distinct images to each of the eyes. The effect will be alternating images of the two pictures presented to each of the eyes.

In the initial stage of visual processing, the images are encoded equally, when it was in deeper areas of processing, the rate of neuron firing changes.

The author went on to point out that image rivalry is dependent on whether attention is given to the pictures.

In an experiment, frequency tags given to the two images (image flickering rate) shows that when image rilvary occurs, the neuron firing rates, which correspond to the image frequency tags
, alternate between the two frequencies when attention is given.

Book Sharing

Book title Consciousness and the Brain - Deciphering how the brain codes our thoughts (Stanislas Dehaene)

There was a group sharing of books in the support group. I shared the contents in this book, but do not really know what to say.

Hopefully writing my understanding of what I read will help.

The book starts off with ancient pictograms of a sleeping man, with his soul wandering from his body. The author is trying to illustrate how mankind has been curious about the link between and the mind. Since ancient time, there was a belief in soul residing in our bodies, and when the mortal bodies die, the spirit is free to wander about.

The author went on to talk about the French philosopher Descartes postulation of the mind as a nonmaterial substance distinct from the machinery of the bodies.

Modern Science until recently has refrained into studying how the mind works, in particular on consciousness due to the difficulty of objective experiment.

The author, a cognitive scientist, in this book tries to explain the concept of consciousness in terms of conscious awareness, which he terms it as conscious access.

Conscious access as I understand, is the brain processes which allow us to be aware of our senses.

There are two related ideas: Wakefulness (State of being physically awake) and Vigilance (the state of being attentive). These two elements are necessary for the state of consciousness, but the most critical element, as suggested by the author, is the state of being aware(conscious access).

Feeling a bit disappointed with the response I got from one in the support group.

She said can people choose what to do in a job when I shared about the lack of support for my suggestions in my work.

I have a feeling she cannot understand the situation I am in and how I feel being taking advantage and she has not understood the points I have made that the company was being patronising saying I was choosing the work I like when in fact I was suggesting improvement.

Anyway I have purchased a gardening book online to see how I can improve weeds control for the "product trial" they are asking me to do.

This week is a roller coaster ride emotionally. Feeling taken advantage of, by the company. When I feedbacked that the ways things are done can be improved, I got a reply that I am trying to choose not doing things that are difficult. Well it is not difficult, but the ways they are done is not effective.

This company tried and said I requested for the work, to put it that it is my duty. I did not ask for doing product trials. Some more the so called product trials is just some gardening. Does it value add to my resume and they have the cheek to say they accommodated me.

Anyway I am going to see how they are going to let me be involved in the work I like to do.

I firmly believe they can be so smug in saying all this, is because of our poor government policy.

Reading a book on human consciousness, it talks about how certain sensory information are reinforced consciously in our mind, and certain info went into our memory unconsciously.

Could this be used to treat emotional hurt and unhappy experiences by rewiring our brain in a manner that negative remarks will not get consciously amplified or we can change our subconscious mind to think differently