Coffee Hour

SDSU offers a social event called Coffee Hour every Friday. New food representing different countries is up every week. I dont really know why its called “Coffee Hour” while its serving mostly food. The word “coffee hour” just sounds like an old British “tea party” for me. It might confuse a lot of people. Anyways, there had been Brazilian food, Mexican, Chinese, Korean, Turkish, Swedish, and so so on. Last week was Vietnamese.

I and a few more Vietnamese people were responsible for making the food based on the $125 that International Student Center (ISC) provides. We spent from 8pm the night before till freaking 3 in the morning to finish making all the food. It turned out good, fed lots of people, they all seemed to love it. People hung out, got to know each other while we were serving food, it was a great experience.

The crew

Concept 2: Reinforcement vs. Punishment

Would you rather reinforcement?

As many of us know from Psychology 101, or even way earlier than that, that reinforcement always outworks punishment.

There was an activity in my class the other day. Class activities are rare, especially in university since all the material are often serious, plus class capacity and time don’t allow many activities. Anyway, two volunteer, each take turn to do the activity, while the other has to wait outside. The first person had to find a hidden object in the auditorium, following the class instruction. The fun part is the instruction, whenever he got close to the object the class would clap hands and cheer for him, the closer he got the more cheers he received until he find whatever was hidden. Second person had to do the same thing, except he received “boos” as a punishment whenever he’s far away from the object.

Results: The first person found the hidden object way faster than the second one.

Lesson learned after 5 days since I didn’t pay attention at first and think more about it as the days went: If you want someone to achieve a certain thing, there is only 1 or very limited ways to do the job right. If you help and point him/her to the right direction, they will eventually be successful with the task. On the other hand, there are tons and tons tons of ways to do the job wrong, and if you just point out whatever was done wrong, the person would not find the real path as effectively. All the reasons why he’s not doing it right, all the BS and drama along the way will confuse him. (the second person in the activity ended up running around, looked all confused and we could see his face turning red from embarrassment and pressure)

Quick & easy definition:

Positive reinforcement is when you add a stimulus right after a behavior to increase future frequency of that behavior. Giving your little brother a candy after he gets a good grade to increase his future likelihood of getting another good grade.

Negative reinforcement is when you remove an unpleasant event for an increase in future frequency. A headache is an unpleasant event, you take a pill to remove it so you can feel better.

Punishment is whatever the heck you do to decrease future frequency. When you punish a kid for peeing in the floor as an example.

Catching Up

A day off school last week didn’t seem to be a big deal at first, but now it is.

The thing is that most of my classes are in a sequence, like a big chain, if I miss a link, it’s super hard to get everything together. And I picked my busiest day of the week to miss as well.

I had to catch up with 4 classes I missed that day. First thing first, get the notes. Good thing I have friends in most of my classes, so it’s not a big deal. But it wouldn’t be so strange for me to ask some random classmate for notes. Then, if they’re nice enough and have some free time, my friends would go over the notes with me. Then I had to look up stuff from the book, but most of the time I won’t get everything from the lecture out of the book. Going to ask the professor if you get stuck on stuff would also be a great idea.

I’m finally caught up now though, I hope, after a week of trying. Well, midterms are coming up, no more skipping school.

Auto Shop

I wanted to change my oil so I went to an auto shop the other day. I don’t go to automobile shops that often, or any tire shops. I used to be doing all these stuff at home with a guy I was staying with. He was so nice and knowledgeable about cars that he was willing to give me advice on how to do stuff and helped me out with whatever. But since I moved down here to California, things start to get expensive because I don’t have a space and anyone else who can help me with my car.

Anyways, I chose this tire shop over the others because I received an ad from them in the mail. I often throw away ads, but this time I just accidentally read this one over and decided to check them out. What got my attention was the price, they said they would change my oil for $12. Thats a really really good deal. But when I went inside, I was dumb enough to let them persuade me to buy and replace a new oil filter for “better mileage and old cars need new filters.” I paid $128 for that thing. Well hope that helps in the long run.

But then they kept telling me to replace all the stuff in my car. First the hose, then the belt whatsoever. I dont have all that money. It sounded really expensive at first, but then figuring out I seemed to lose interest, they kept reducing the price. I finally decided to just keep my car as it is and tell them to stop trying.

So a bit of advice, people will try to rip you off. They make a living out of that, it’s their job to do so. And it’s your job to keep your money.

A Day Off School

I had sth to take care of on Tuesday, so I decided to take my first day off school for this semester. I’m a kind of person that always show up to class. I do take days off once in a while, or partially taking a day off, but not yet for this semester, at least til last Monday.

A day without school seems fine, I asked a few of my friends to take notes for me. Like mentioned in some of my previous posts, I only take 1 class on Mon and Wed, while 4 on Tue and Thu. I came back on Thursday and got the notes from my friends, but it was hard to understand as hell.

I consider myself smart haha. And I always think that I can figure things out by myself without much help. I thought this time I can just simply read the book and understand what I missed earlier. But no, haha heck no. I did scan through the book a bit, but when I went to school today and listened to the lecture, it was so freaking confusing. I sat in class for about 1h30min, and could not understand anything at all! I do feel bad now, I “just realize” that classes are getting way way harder.

Next time, no more taking time off school for no reason, I’ll also need to ask for help from friends or use office hours from instructors to get what I missed back.

Cosmetic Surgeries

I’m taking 6 classes this semester, 5 of them are upper division business classes, the other one is a writing class. This one is not among my favorites, but it’s kinda interesting once I pay attention haha.

We just finished a topic on cosmetic surgeries. This class is not designed to set your mind on a topic, or to change it, it’s supposed to enhance your knowledge and your analysis on a topic. I think I’m ready to go out there and argue more about what I think about this issues now.

According to Articlebase.com, the latest ASAPS report states that:

· Breast augmentation is up by 9%, and breast lift is up by 23%

· Women had 91% of cosmetic procedures

· The number of procedures performed on men was nearly 1 million

· Surgical procedures made up almost 19% of the total procedures with nonsurgical procedures comprising 81%

· Since 1997, surgical procedures have increased by 119% and nonsurgical procedures by 726%

· The top five surgical procedures were (in descending order): liposuction, breast augmentation, blepharoplasty (eyelid surgery), rhinoplasty (nose surgery), and abominoplasty (tummy tuck)

· The top five nonsurgical procedures were: BOTOX, laser hair removal, hyaluronic acid

treatments, microdermabrasion, and chemical peels

· The top five procedures for men were: liposuction, rhinoplasty, blepharoplasty, male breast reduction, and facelift

· 83.4% of breast augmentation procedures were completed with saline implants, and the remaining 16.6% chose silicone

· Patients between age 35 and 50 accounted for the majority of cosmetic procedures at 47% of the total

Reading all the article in class, the most surprising was that the beauty issue is not the concern for women anymore, it’s also growing in men for various reasons.

First Exams Graded

Just random me setting up my boxing stand

I dont know if I should be excited or not right now. Maybe I’ll go with excited since there are more good news.

First and obvious good news. I’m done with all my midterm exams, I’ll probably be free from sticking my head in the books all the time for about 2-3 weeks.

Then, small bad news. I didn’t do so well on my marketing test. Marketing is supposed to be one of my harder class this semester I guess, but it’s not supposed to be that bad. Comparing to Finance, it should just be a piece of cake. I ended up with only 26 outta 50, but with a curve so it’s not as terrible as it seems. The class average was 27. I dont like the fact that I’m the one who’s below the curve. I’m often not competitive, but maybe I’m so used to being on the top half.

Lastly, the good news. My Management test ended up with 86%, while the class average was 77%. The best thing was my Finance class, I got 16 outta 20, that makes it 80%. I’m really pleased with that because it is one hell of a hard class. Like mentioned before in Midterm Week, the professor expects much from us. The class average was only 12 so I was definitely on top of the class haha. Just playing, there’re a few that got 17, 18 and 19.

New lesson learned: Try to balance out my life, as well as classes. If I spend too much time on one perspective, I’ll simply ignore all the other ones that are equally important and miss out.

Another ticket!

Okay I’m pretty mad right now because I just got a ticket. I’m cool with having a ticket, as long as it’s convincing. If I’m driving 100mph in a 65mph zone, then I’m well deserve the freaking ticket.

Here’s the story. Nah not really a story because it’s hella short, but anywho. I was in the school parking lot, heading to the main street to go home. My phone rang, I picked up. Talked for about 30 seconds (I dont enjoy talking on the phone much, some exceptions), while driving at less than 3mph. A cop pulled me over and gave me a ticket for cell phone violation. To be honest, I’ve heard of the no texting while driving rule, but not this one. I know it’s my fault for not “obeying the rule”. But look cop, there was tons of cars in front of me, and I was driving slower than an old lady walking with an old smelly dog, and you pulled me over for “distracted control of vehicle?”

Its so dumb. It’s legal to talk on the phone with a handsfree headset, or bluetooth. But you seriously expect me to pull out my bluetooth, turn it on, then call the person back since the process took so long and they hang up. And you think that it would be safer than just freaking answer the call from my phone for 30 secs? Geez.

Anyway, it was just my personal opinion, sorry for getting it off on you guys. But I’m gonna be walking around carrying my bluetooth now, just in case I need to talk while driving. And remember, the police officers ain’t kidding around with you. (unless you’re a cute girl that know how to apologize haha jk)

Textbooks

Used books are always a good solution

I just finished buying all my textbooks, I just bought 5 books for 6 classes, lucky me because it would have been way worse to spend more money on books for that last class. And guess how much I had to pay for those 5 books. $650! Spent the damn $650 for the freaking textbooks??? I never spent that much before, or even half that much. The main reason for my text to be this expensive is because I bought it at the actual bookstore, not online through Amazon anymore. On average I save about $100 each quarter buying books online.

This time I could not get away with it, I had to buy the whole package for almost every book, that includes the CD and all the access code required by the professors to log in online and do the assignments. Also buying cheap txt online also means buying used books. And pretty much all my classes come out with new textbooks this semester. The same with my 2 business classes last semester as well. I dont know if this is the way business professors and business book publishers do their job, new textbooks come almost every semester so far for me.

But I’m sure the books will be worth reading. They’d better be. Nah I’m playing, they look kinda interesting. Everything has its own price right, and it’ll have its own value as well.

My recommendation: Get yours early!

First day of Feb

haha I cant think of a better title.

There are gonna be many events coming up this month. Lots of birthdays but I’m not gonna list them all, just mine on the 11th. Then Valentines, and Tet.

Tet is pretty much Lunar New Year, the so-called “Chinese New Year.” I hate it when people call it Chinese New Year. Its cool for Chinese people to say that, just like we Vietnamese call it Tet, but its unfair for other countries that have this big event. Its the best to go with Lunar New Year. I’ll probably explain more about Tet as it gets closer. This year it’ll be exactly on the same day as Valentine’s.