Wrapping up....

Well. I have now been in Hawaii for approximately 3 months now. It has been fun for the most part and I really wish I could stay longer.  But doing so would be ungrateful as I shouldn't forget that my stay had already been extended for another month.

So time to just stuck it all up and absorb as much as I can, and hopefully I am able to maintain all that I am now, as well as further improve for the better.

I have a new set of goals now. Some that were carried forward, some that are building on previous goals and let's not forget some new ones.

With only weeks to go to the new year,  i'm just getting a head start on my goals for the next year and with a little drive, it is my aim to be able to accomplish these goals.

Serious post this time. More on fun stuff when the time comes in the future =)

Official Retirement

So I now announce the confirmed retirement of my faithful watch that has been with me for the past one year.

Value for money, considering all the hurt that I put him through. The rough handling,  the animal attacks, the frequent water immersions, the occasional chemical spills...

Badly scratched up, I know. But he can rest now.

And so.....

His successor!!!!

Here's to many more years of not so careful handing and harsh working conditions. 

Training in Hawaii - Day 4

Ok so I'm about to start my fourth day here. I won't say that I've started work cause I don't feel that way yet. It's the second day reporting for work but so far it has been an orientation process, and that, in my book, doesn't count as work.

I had my first dolphin encounter yesterday and it was awesome. The animal was awesome, their techniques were awesome, their training results were awesome, trainer/presenter was awesome... God everything was awesome. In that order, incidentally. Lol.

I just so looking forward to learning everything I can here and just being the best I can be. I just keep recalling this line from one of Dean Koontz, where this certain bartender absorbs everything like a sponge but doesn't leech anything out when squeezed. That's what I aim to be as my output here seems to be unappreciated and to some point resented for some people. Any output of mine shall be filtered thoroughly through a stringent social and need-to-know filtration process.

Anyway, another aim of mine is to keep a log on stuff I've learned and blog as frequently as possible. A picture a day, if possible.

So much for aims. I wish the 'real' stuff will start soon.

...

I am a trainer.

There was a time when I would shy away from that and say I'm still learning. But be it confidence or arrogance or both, I hope I do my master well when I proclaim myself a trainer.

Because whatever I do, reflects on the mentor whom I owe so much to.

It is with this disclaimer that I say, that for a trainer, it is most satisfying and rewarding when you successfully shape a behaviour,  and even more so when it is done using a methodology that you came up with on your own.

Unfortunately at this time, I am not in the frame of mind to dwell on the positive side of things.

At this point in time, I find that as a trainer, the most discouraging, demotivating thing that could happen is not being able to shape a behaviour. Not because your method was wrong, no.

But because you weren't able to follow through with the method that you came up with.

It is with that, that the frustration of eternally wondering what could have been, eats me out inside, and it is a pent up feeling not unlike trying to suppress an animal from breaking out of its cage.

The sucess rate of what I'm doing, if I may so dare to announce, has a basic, simple and logical core.

Need.

If you are on the side where you need something so desperately, and you let that desperation be shown, then, my poor friend, you are on the side that will be controlled.

If there is one thing I've learned, is to NEVER, in any situation, let your desperation be known.

This does not just apply to what I do, it is a way of life.

But yet again I have gone off the topic of my original rant.

The source of my demotivation and frustration.

My inability to carry through with my training methodology.

Twice this has happened to me, but by different people of different status. The first was not as frustrating in comparison but it was demotivating just the same.

That person was brought in after me to learn from me. And dutifully I had taught that person all the basics.

Then this creature had to get so ahead of itself and disregard everything I had to say after. Okay. Fine.

I was training a new behaviour at the time, and had accidentally captured another behaviour.  So I put that captured behaviour on KIV, opting to perfect the behaviour that was ACTUALLY in training at the time.

And of course, this person knew about this captured behaviour as well, and decided to shape that behaviour behind my back.

Problem was, I found out about it. Well, this was my animal and the reason why this captured behaviour was put on hold is that it will affect this other behavior that I'm trying to shape.

I confronted this person and explained what was happening and what was going to be the consequences if it were to continue. The obligatory nodding of heads ensued but my words were totally disregarded.

And so I failed to shape that behaviour. Which frustrated me to no end, but as I had to work my future methodology around this interference I took it as a challenge to my career and salvaged what was left of my motivation.

That example was easy to deal with because that person was an underling of sorts and whatever interference there was it was done following the basics of training somewhat.

This next instance has been happening ever since I could remember, but I only got frustrated recently because I had not known better.

It is when you are unable to complete your methodology because you are not allowed to. Because a higher-up decided that your methodology was wrong.

It is when you are not given complete freedom to shape that behaviour.

It is when you are forced to stop shaping halfway and making everything worse. Like how you stop an antibiotic before the end of course and the bacteria grows stronger and harder to kill.

It is when they insist on implementing something else that will totally destroy what you have strived so hard to achieve.

It is when they do all this with no knowledge or understanding that they are making things worse and they refuse to hear and understand you when you try so fucking hard to explain to them.

It is when they create a monster and lament on how terrible it is and how they can't give up on the thing they have created and proceed to make things worse with their ignorance.

It is when you try to step in and make things right, try to prevent future misery that seemingly only you can forsee happening to them. Only to face rejection and denial.

It is when you're trying to fucking give up but they keep asking you to try. To continue using their method.

To fucking make everything worse by doing the wrong thing.

It is when everything fails because of their ignorance and they ask you why it is a failure.

Asking you to fucking help and then slamming the fucking door in your face.

A behaviour cannot have more than one shaper. If there exists a need to have multiple shapers, the multiples must absolutely be carbon copies of the other.

I trying to give up on trying, so please don't ask me to fucking give a damn anymore.

The Key

You know, years ago, I gave the key to you.

My key.

Back then, you kept me in check, even if you did not realize it. Then as the years went by, I forgot that the key remained with you. I pretended that it was mine again to give. And delusionally I made myself believe I gave the key away to several other people.

Maybe that was why it never felt real when they gave it back.

Granted, they never kept it for long, but I made myself believe that they were responsible for keeping me in check, since I had given them the key.

But it was always you.

And I finally realized, remembered, that the key was in your possession, when (ironically) it ceased to be.

That was the day you threw it back at me.

You did not throw it with purpose, rather, I believe that you did not realize you were throwing anything at all.

There was no force behind it.

But the fact that it was the REAL key, made it hurt.

The key is with me now. And you are no longer keeping my morality in check after all these years.

Therefore, my morality (or lack of  it) demands that I destroy the only key that grants entrance to my heavily guarded fortress while I have the chance. Before I give it away again.

That fortress of mine? There are no footsteps within but my own.

You had the key.

But you never entered.

Now no one ever will.

Checking off the list

Right. 

So as the first month of twelve this year is nearing an end, I am THIS (> <) close to completing my first resolution:

Pay my PTPTN.

Which will be done in the next two weeks, as it is not good to owe people money over Chinese New Year. (A belief I make my principle, anyway)

I’ve also accomplished a sub-resolution. But I shall remain mysterious about this one. Hahahaha~

Moving on.

Next in the list is to replace my c7 with an s3, due maybe April or May, given two reasons. One being that after that pulling that PTPTN stint, I will be broke for the next few months trying to rebuild my “fortune” and also that s4 is supposed to be announced around March, so being me, I’m waiting for the price to drop. A reeeeally risky move seeing that Note2 SUDDENLY had a price increase god knows for what reason.

After that…. There will be another resolution requiring the use of one grand (or more) of my savings. So….

Damn. The year of the Snake is definitely a money spending year for me. I can only hope that the year of the Horse will protect my wallet more. 

Looking up, Glaring down.

I rarely look up at people. Not that I’m some pompous, arrogant brat (although that is debatable to some people to some extent), but that people I met rarely give me the chance to do so. Or more specifically, my own weird and abnormal way of classifying people prevents me from doing so.

Most of the time I treat those around me as equals, with the condition that they are 5 years older/younger than me. Any older, I find them hard to communicate with with their extra experiences and stubbornness and un-open-mindedness (to some extent), any younger and I consider them annoying brats and wish to have nothing to do with them (I do have a psychological complex regarding people, I confess).

Anyway.

I try my best to respect everyone that I know and come into contact with (unless, of course, you’re this stranger tourist from a foreign land that think you are so high and mighty that you can do whatever you want on foreign soil just because you come from a richer country and is richer than most of us, or along those lines.)

Back-tracking.

I try. But I’m the “an eye for both eyes, a tooth for your jaw” kinda person. But this has nothing to do with the topic at hand.

What I’m trying to say is, the people who I should be looking up to does not have anything worth looking at. And those I DO look up to, I can count using fingers on one hand. I try very hard to win their approval. I crave it (though I hope I do not do it too obviously ^^ll) and it upsets me when I feel that I do not meet their expectations and that I let them down. But it also hurts that they do not trust me enough to be doing what I’m supposed to do, and to do what I can within my various limitations.

I am not perfect. All I can do is try. And mostly when I attempt something, I give myself an 80% or higher chance of actually succeeding.

I suppose it’s good that I’ve people that place expectations that is my 90-150% (though not now, as I’ve let said people down), but right now my limit is to constantly run at 80%, to go higher than that will warrant a breakdown the next day and I won’t be able to bring out the usual 80%.

I can't really run at 100% everyday. If I do, I can't function at 150% when the situation really needs it. >.<

Do you see that?

I see it. It upsets me that that gaze you reserve for those you disdain has now been deemed appropriate for me. I still respect them. I do. But I need to stop looking up to them, for my own sake.

Thinking about it hurts. And it’s demotivating. That doesn’t help. At all.

Gah. I’m confusing myself. I need my mind to stop spinning.

Ze Obligatory New Year Post

Okay, so it’s nearly a week into the new year, and looking back at last year, at this time I was two-timing offers from to two companies (God, I’ve been working for a year! Almost anyway. Has it really been THAT long?). Anyway, last year was the first year that I have a list of resolutions, which, I might add, I held on to for the beginning half of the year.

>here comes the excuse<

-Then, in the later half, the old bean refused to renew the lease on the then current house and we have to shift in two weeks short notice to another place 5 minutes drive away. Story of my life, for as long as I have been born. So we shifted and the transition did hell to my momentum, which I never really did regain even now (I’m trying!) and the first of my new year resolutions failed. Horribly.-

But that’s that.

This year, I’m gonna like write it in capital letters and stick it somewhere noticeable. That kinda visibility should up it’s chances of surviving a bit.

I haven’t really gotten to write this year’s yet. But top of the list is to: repay PTPTN!!!

I’ll think of the others later. XD