So in the darkness I hide

Pain

in my right eye, my lips, my cold body, down through my ribs, and my heart.

LET ME GO

/ No more control. /

To be free is the only way out.

PALEO Mind Over Body | Day 8

/ Priority. /


Envision what brings joy to you & your loved ones. Act on it.


Success is inevitable.

PALEO Mind Over Body | Day 4

/ Sleep quality matters, a lot. /


Lack of sleep in addition to the coldness this morning dragged me away from my usual early training.


Yet, I've decided to shift this to the night time which I found to be much effective for exercising and in restricting the amount of food intake before bed.


Good read to share:


Read Daniel Thomas Hind's answer to What will happen if I don't eat carbs for 3 weeks? on Quora

/ Stay grateful and healthy. /

PALEO Mind Over Body | Day 3

/ Back to the regular three meals a day /


Period came, OMAD on hold while Paleo is going strong.


Out and about for lunch but no cheat whatsoever devouring a hearty pot of water-boiled veggies in considerable portion.


Zero intake of refined carbs which would otherwise put me into coma quickly upon returning to my comfy little corner at the office.

Voices from the Deep

Through the waves of memories she sails
into the sea of fragmented remains.
So cold and alone every no one just wander
losing sight of their way back to the every nowhere.

Whispering loud from underneath;
muffled answers from your mouth.
Sweet mumbles still sound the same to me
as before I went under.

OMAD + PALEO Mind Over Body | Day 2

/ Setting fire to yesterday with the long-awaited dawn so calm and peaceful one can only dream of. /

Alertness at peak, my mind hasn't felt this consciously-awared for such a long while, almost TOO long.

Hit the sack by 11PM last night; woke up by 7:20AM this morning.

Everything went as planned. My Yoga + HIIT had never been easier and breakfast was a forgotten diction.

Mentally satisfied, I fed myself with an article written by a fellow bodybuilder who committed to a 30-day OMAD diet.

Taking note from predecessors, I believe in myself that I can and will do an excellent, or even better job.

But first, remember the following advice:

• Sufficient sleep equals sufficient discipline.
• Refined carbohydrates are one of the worst addictions leading to unnecessary cravings every three hours.
• Us humans don't need excess weight and food which are only the consequences of the food industry, their manipulative adverts as well as our own boredom and declined discipline.
• Our ancestors were not used to feeding three meals a day, because it was plain unnecessary and only bounding to our mobility which sacrifices our ability to flee in case of attack from predators.

Sticking to this OMAD lifestyle and Paleo diet is not as difficult as one can imagine, unless you have a lot of social gatherings that usually happen in restaurants, which then becomes slightly problematic.

It's gonna be tough, but you can do it and you will, just like how you've made it through the last time.

Just bear in mind:

• Do only what is right.
• Try your very best, literally.
• You, are what you cultivate.
• Anything in excess is wasteful, as with the mind, nutrition and communication.
• You can achieve almost anything you set your mind to and take concrete actions for.

/ Success is inevitably on its way. And you, are the deserving one. /

OMAD + PALEO Mind Over Body | Day 1

 / Started out sloppy but ended in an industrious note. /

Woke up late at 7:33AM, yet committed to my usual Yoga + HIIT routine.

Late for 8 minutes to work, to no surprise. But girl, the Libarian, the 'Good Student' who held the record of receiving the most number of Disciplinary Award for six straight years... WHERE has your discipline gone?

One lesson I do learn from this accident is that both the queue and the interval of shuttle bus boost after 9AM.

Freelancing plus private tutoring till 9PM did not sooth my intense craving for food after 24 hours of fasting. Yet, it didn't beat my mental strength, which powered my whole day through my first meal at 10PM at home.

Thanks to mama, who saved me dinner, of just the right portion and the right choice, consisting of mushrooms, veggies, fish, tofu and a few slices of shredded chicken.

Superwoman is an understatement of how much she is capable of. This reminds me of being grateful every day for the love bestowed on me.

A tough, but rewarding day.

/ Delayed Gratification. /

How to Deal With Narcissists: 14 Traits and 6 Strategies

Based on my own traumatic experience with a Narcissist, and upon reading a lot of articles on Narcissism and Narcissistic Personality Disorder, it can be concluded that a Narcissist has the following characteristics:

1. Dominant and competitive.
2. Never really mean to care for anybody.
3. See people as tools to help them achieve their own goals, or as energy supply for them.
4. Always have the last word.
5. Have no empathy or compassion; and pretend to have one in public.
6. Cannot stand to have any one else except themselves in their own world.
7. Believe they are better and more important than everyone else and basically just look down on everyone, even their boss. 
8. Would not hesitate to dump those who are of no use to them.
9. Broadcast both implicitly and explicitly to everyone that everything about them is the best: their taste, their friends, their toys, their experience etc. And do this repeatedly until they get the admiration and compliments to feed and sustain their inflated ego.
10. If they cannot get the ego boost they crave, they feel threatened and would do anything to get their ego fed, for instance, by punishing those people who do not give them the admiration response. 
11. How do they get energy from those who do not praise them:
• Make that person feel internally inferior to them.
• Whenever something's wrong, they put the blame on that person.
• Even if it's actually their fault, not that person's.
• Grasp any opportunity to devalue that person.
12. They think that person is a disgrace to them and would try to not only show a distinction and separation between themselves and that person in front of the others, but also isolate that person from everyone else.
13. Good at portraying a fake, positive image of their own to the public.
14. Victimize themselves and try to make that person the abuser instead in front of the others.

Below is video which I also find useful in identifying a narcissist, though the tips provided within are a bit vague and require further explanation and instructions.

Now you know how toxic a narcissist is, how should you deal with them when you unfortunately encounter one?

1. If possible, just run! As far as you can! Never even deal with them.
2. Please bear in mind: the longer you're under their influence, the more it'll scar you mentally, and the longer it'll take you to recover.
3. If you must face them, try to give them the ego feed they need by complimenting them or their toys. Hopefully they will think they have you in their hands and won't harm you... yet.
4. Don't confront them. Remember they have no empathy and don't feel your pain. They just want to diminish you completely. No matter what, they will always have the last word. And they are illogical and unreasonable to argue with, you will always end up losing.
5. The major problem is - they're hard to be spotted. Sometimes you won't even know if you're in one of these relationships until it's probably too late. What we should do is to learn more about their straits, their behaviors and their tactics, so that we will identify it once they used it on us.
6. Most importantly, don't ever let other people undermine you. Try to build up a strong foundation for your source of confidence (not upon matters that would deteriorate like physical attractiveness, but on things like intelligence), believe in yourself and don't let others' words get deep inside us.

Hope you find this article helpful and stay narc-free! :)

Where are you now?

It doesn't matter what kind of person you were in the past, or who you will become in the future. Cos' people change every day.

What really matters is who you are and what you are doing at this very moment.

Narcissists could be your worst nightmare

When you're stuck with a narcissist with no way out, you're most likely doomed, especially when you inhibits such personality as mine that often avoids conflicts and keeps silent even when treated unfairly.

It also takes forever to recover from the psychological damage after prolonged exposure to an aggressive narcissist.

What is a narcissist?

Sam Vaknin provided some insights on the characteristics of narcissists, which I find pretty accurate judging from my own observation, as cited in Kreger (2011, October 19):

The narcissist actively solicits narcissistic supply--adulation, compliments, admiration, subservience, attention, and being feared--from others in order to sustain his fragile and dysfunctional ego. Thus, he constantly courts possible rejection, criticism, disagreement, and even mockery.  

The narcissist is, therefore, dependent on other people. (...)

 Being deprived of narcissistic supply is like being hollowed out, mentally disemboweled or watching oneself die. It is a cosmic evaporation, disintegrating into molecules of terrified anguish, helplessly and inexorably. It is disintegrating like the zombies or the vampires in horror movies. It is terrifying and the narcissist will do anything to avoid it.

According to Kreger (2011, October 19), narcissists' biggest fear is losing the narcissistic supply, and therefore would devalue or discard the "supply" from whom they cannot get the admiration or attention they crave, even under the circumstance that the "supply" has done no obvious wrong.

Narcissists may act overtly or covertly. The overt ones may publicly humiliate you because they are flashy and want all the attention; while the covert ones are very much two-faced and sneaky, draining you out without letting others know and risking their reputation.

Reference:
Kreger, R. (2011, October 19). What Borderlines and Narcissists Fear Most: Part A. Psychology Today. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/stop-walking-eggshells/201110/what-borderlines-and-narcissists-fear-most-part

What I've Learnt About Motivation

1. Achieve the state of 'flow'
   Challenge and ability have positive correlation. The optimum point is met when the challenge you're facing perfectly matches your ability. When the task is too challenging, outweighing your ability, do something to upgrade yourself. In other words, be more hard-working.
   

    Csikszentmihalyi's flow model

   (Source: Wikipedia)
2. To have, or to be?
   Do you have a lot of desire to own many different things, or to be someone different? Think about it.
3. Delayed gratification
   An old study found that people who are willing to delay their gratification for long-term rewards will be more successful in long term. Researcher distributed two marshmallows to each child experiment target, told them that they would leave for awhile and would give them two extra marshmallows if they did not eat it before the researcher came back. As a trace study, researcher followed up on the targets after several years and discovered that the children who did not eat the marshmallows turned out to be more successful in general.
4. Happiness or satisfaction?
   Every one craves happiness, but it only has short term effect, unlike satisfaction.
5. Live in the present, not the past nor future
   People who live in the past tend to have a lot of grudge; while those who live in the future tend to be anxious and worried, yet they do not act on it.
6. According to the official standard, each degree credit accounts for 1 hour of class per week, and the suggested time for revision is 2 hours per 1-hour-class.
7. Think of your role model
   Or just anyone you admire in any aspect.

7 Quick Fixes to Combat Fear

1. Arrive on site earlier than usual
   Inspect and feel the environment. Then choose an area which particularly makes you feel comfortable and safe, and stay there.
2. Feel your body and use your senses
   Make yourself comfortable by finding support for your body, like a chair, and adopt a relaxing and securing posture. Then feel the weight and warmth of your body where you feel most relaxing and secured.
3. Breathe using your stomach not lungs
   Breathe all the way into your stomach, and you should feel your stomach moving if you do it right. Then breathe out, and it should last longer than your breathe-in. Indeed, the more we breathe into our lungs deliberately and rapidly, the more nervous we are making ourselves.
4. Tell your problem to your friends, and seek their immediate support when in fear
   You'd feel more resolved if you tell your friends about the fear you have. Also they can help you when your next panic attack comes. Tell them immediately when you're frightened, and seek their comfort and support.
5. Soothing visuals
   Find something visual that appeals to you and make you feel comfortable, be it a laughing puppy on a poster, or a meaningful bookmark of your own. Focus on it so that you'd be less affected by the threats around.
6. Acknowledges your fear and physiological reactions
   It's okay to tremble, has intense heartbeat and random involuntary movement when we confront with our fears. It's normal and human. But then you begin your road to healing and overcoming it by having your own inner peace of mind and thus regaining control of your mind and body.
7. Know that life is about ups and downs and, most importantly, balance
   We all have our ups and downs. It's life. To stay sane and move on, we need to strike a good balance between the two ends. As my counselor said to me, 'good food, good friends, good sleep.' Treat yourself properly so that it'd better counteracts the negative side of your daily life.

Transforming our minds to overcome fear

We all have our own demons and I know it's hard to overcome them immediately. But we need to take our first step to at least try and confront with it. Below are some of my delusional self-talking that I want to document and hopefully will also help some of you struggling out there.

1. Stop comparing ourselves with others, especially those we thought are doing better than us.
   Our life is ours, not any one else's. If we are slacking behind the group that we're in, don't panic and don't give up. Just do our best. Meet our own standard, not the others'. As long as we're doing our best, we don't need to bear their judgments.
2. Let go. It's okay to relax and go wild a little. Everyone needs a break. It's okay to suck sometimes, we don't have to be the hero/high-achiever/the best/the beloved all the time. It's okay to be hated and judged. Just ignore how others view us, and be ourselves. What really matters is not the view of theirs but ours. Everyone can despise us, talk down on us, but never us doing it to ourselves.
3. Put the problem matter in perspective. Most of the time, when we compare our problems to other serious world problems, we realize how trivial our problem is in comparison and feel more competent in handling it.
4. Do what we love. Spare some time to do something that makes us happy, be it listening to music, doing karaokes or sports, or watching movies... anything. We need a balance in our emotions and an escape from the hectic, depressing work that we do everyday.

Avalanche

This is it. I'm breaking down. Would I still do so if no one cares?

I'm blaming it to all my past life experiences and will merely stand here watching it all collapse, watching myself dissolve. I'm gonna make it dramatic, as if it's as traumatic as those who went through serious tragedies.

Disorganized, disoriented, detached; headache, insomnia, fatigue, unmotivated, aimless, ashamed, embarrassed, withdrawn, depressed, loss of appetite, anxious, intense heartbeats...

I don't know anymore. What am I supposed to do? How did I end up here? What do I even want?

One voice says I should runaway and heal in a secure place, another says it's not worthy to give up now and I should confront with my fear.

These voices are tearing me down. I really don't know what to do.

Aim high

Aim high, and you'll have higher achievements. If you aim at getting Grade A+, you'll not likely to fall into the category of Grade B.

Often it's not that we are not capable of achieving it, it's that we do not want to. What does aiming A+ mean? It means responsibility. It means hard work. It means lots and lots of effort into working our way up. Some people don't want that. They don't want to carry the burden or pay the efforts, and so they'll never get A+, unless they're naturally gifted like a prodigy.

So think about what we want in life. If we really are determined to achieve A+, dream it, do it and make it happen.

Number of people migrating from Hong Kong to Taiwan reaches 20-year high as political disputes continue

An increasing number of Hong Kong people immigrating to Taiwan has been recorded. Up to 7,498 immigration applications from Hong Kong and Macau residents were received and approved last year, in which 2,832 applicants were Hong Kong students due to study in Taiwan, reaching a 20-year peak, Taiwan authority revealed.

Some Hong Kong emigrants claimed the continuing political disputes in Hong Kong to be one of the factors for the emigration, amongst the favourable immigration policy of Taiwan and the comparable living standard between Taiwan and Hong Kong.

"There are too much political disputes in Hong Kong," the 58-year-old Hong Kong emigrant said, "I wish to have a more peaceful living environment."

Another former Hong Kong resident, Hair stylist Tony, claimed that the living standard in Hong Kong is too high when compared to Taiwan. Designer Ms. Ko indicated that she preferred the culture and moral standard in Taiwan over Hong Kong; the cost of living is also lower in Taiwan.

As revealed by an immigration consultant agent in Hong Kong, the inquiries for emigrating to Taiwan has boosted, and the number of applications received last year has doubled that of the year before. He believed the not-so-high immigration requirement is one of the reasons accounting for the Hong Kong people's preference for Taiwan as immigration destination.

[Source: Sky Post, Hong Kong]

Journalism Prep

Different from novels, advertising copies and academic writings, journalism is a unique genre that utilizes a particular set of language, style and tone. Below are some websites with useful tips on journalism:

1. http://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/journalism/article/art20130702112133610
   
   
   ^^ Put attribution in the second place for stronger intro.
   
   
2. ***http://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/journalism/news-style-guide/article/art20130702112133530
   
   ^^ 'That' defines, 'which' informs; 'Who' = subj. of the v.; 'whom' = obj.
   
   
3. Vocab
   
   http://www.thenewsmanual.net/Resources/glossary.html
   
   http://www.angelfire.com/trek/puknews/refsnp.html
   ^^ some particularly useful vocabs copied directly from the above source
   byline: Line located under headline which tells the name of the writer.
   credit line: Acknowledging the source of a picture.
   cutline: Information below a picture which describes it.
   dateline: The first words in lead of a story which give name of city from which the story was sent.
   desk: Particular area of news coverage for which each editor is responsible ("City Desk" for example).
   filler: A copy with little news value; used to fill space.
   hard news:  up-to-the-minute news and events that are reported immediately.
   inverted pyramid:  Style of news reporting in which the most important information is gives first.
   

   jump: To continue a story from one page to another.justified: Lines of type that are even on the right as well as the left side.
   kicker: A short, catchy word or phrase over a major headline.
   lead: First paragraph of a story, usually telling the 5 Ws (who, what, when, where and why) and H (how).

   libel: Written defamation.masthead:  information about the newspaper, such as the name of the publishing company, names of the officers of the company, location of editorial offices, editorship and distribution facts, all usually found at the top of the editorial page
   morgue:  the newspaper's collection of clippings, photos, reference materials and microfilm
   obit: An obituary; a story of a person's death.
   op-ed page: Opposite editorial page: to give readers'/columnists' opinions different from those of the newspaper
   paralanguage: The semi-verbal responses we make during a conversation, such as "um" and "uh-huh."
   probe: To investigate thoroughly during an interview; to ask follow-up questions that encourage the respondent to explain or elaborate on something already said.
   reefer: Reference line, also called "refer" line.
   sidebar: A shorter, related article that focuses on one aspect of a main article. A sidebar is a secondary story accompanying a major story.
   slander: Oral defamation
   soft news:  background information or human interest stories
   spot news: News obtained first-hand. Fresh news.
   stringer: A writer who works for a newspaper but does not report to the office every day.
   syndicate: Company which sells and distributes cartoons, columns, comics, puzzles, etc. to newspapers.
   tabloid:  a smaller format 1/2 broadsheet folded, often preferred by publishers of local papers or commuter papers and the sensationalist press (National Enquirer)
   wire service:  a news agency or organization that gathers news and transmits it to individual subscribing newspaper (AP, CP, Reuters)
   yellow journalism: Refers to sensational stories and "scare" headlines.

Bad Decision

Anybody would know that the night view at the Peak should be better than that at the Victoria Harbour.

I don't know what I was thinking but I went for the latter... what an idiot...

Somebody please check my brain. I have no common sense at all.