Empathy

UFO sighting

Navy spokesman Joseph Gradisher has confirmed that three videos posted to the To the Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences (TTSA)— the organization founded by Blink 182 rocker Tom DeLonge in 2015 to pursue research into UFOs and extraterrestrial life — do indeed show “unidentified aerial phenomena.”

I am empathic towards this, even though it seems as if there is nothing to care about, there is. The article was very interesting to me as there has been a lot of supposed UFO sightings than always has a reason to not be a UFO such as, “it’s a government plane”. I think that it’s arrogant to think that we are the only living things in the universe, as it is very big, bigger than we can comprehend, it is almost impossible, in my mind, that we are the only ones out there. I think there are a lot of people that would disagree with the Blink 182 band member, as that is their belief and not try to understand where he’s coming from, as they might have a different explanation to the videos posted even if a higher authority says that it is unidentified. There are a lot of things that can’t be explained and aliens isn’t something that is confirmed, but it hasn’t been debunked which I understand.

Applying the notion of outrospection to it, a lot of people must be disagreeing with Tom DeLonge’s views as they might not see where he is coming from and the evidence that supports him. They might think it’s silly that a band member has an organization, Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences (TTSA), and might not believe him since he is a band member. However I understand that a lot of things haven’t been discovered, but I think that anyone could discover it but people would only trust others that have an authority or have power and have been proven to be right by other things they have done, such as scientists. But I am able to see why people believe in things such as UFOs as there is something that we don’t know about, and are curious to find out more.

I changed my thinking and it changed my life!

I admire people who can empathize as it helps me when people do this, and I know it can help others. I also admire people who can understand other people’s feelings and is respectful to people’s opinions and perspectives. As well as a good listener and is very patient. I dislike people who are selfish, critical,  does not take into consideration other people’s feelings and opinions, egotistical and who can’t empathize. 

I want to understand people’s feelings better as it can help improve relationships and I want to avoid being egotistical because it doesn’t help you or anyone.

This year, I would like to develop the skill/quality of being patient and understanding other people’s feelings. This is important to me because I think it is an important still to have. This will help me develop my relationships and make them better. It will also help me not get angry all the time and control my emotions by being patient. This will help others feel like they can express what they feel around me and that I can help them as much as I can.

I dislike that I am impatient. I see this in myself as I get angry at little things. This bothers me because it affects the people around me as I can snap at any moment and I feel bad right after but I still do it because I’ve grown accustomed to it. I can overcome this by trying to not snap at everything by thinking about what I am going to say first, this will improve my relationships and my happiness. I think this will help me become an overall better person and people may respect the skill if I had it. 

ALIS Test

The ALIS test could potentially predict what your IB score could be based on the people who have scored the same on the test however I think that there are many other factors that contribute to your grade, like ability and how much we study. ALIS only tested a specific part of our intelligence and not related to our subjects, so it can’t really predict what we would score but can give a good range of what you may get. A student could improve or even slack off after the test so their score won’t be the same as the ALIS one.

I think that if we were to find out our predicted it might influence the way we behave or how well we do in the subject. If it was a low score some students may be keen to get better to improve their score or they might not try at all because they think they’re going to get a low score anyways so there’s no point. If it was a high score students could get over confident and not do as well in their actual exams.

Representation

Texts can represent the stereotypes of different groups although I think it can never fully represent a group unless the author is part of the group. However I think people need to realise that it is not real, that it is text that someone wrote, for example ‘Crazy Rich Asians’, people were upset that It didn’t include all Asians, other than Chinese people. I think people should take in account the story of the movie, how it’s centred around a Singaporean Chinese family, many of people get offended over small things and it is hard to satisfy everyone reading a text. The people who had a problem with this the most are the Asians who didn’t get represented in the movie, to which I don’t think it was the author’s intentions. Since the movie is centred around a Chinese family, I think the author chose to include more Chinese people and he wasn’t trying to exclude anyone. However, it could pose as a inconvenience as people who are not part of the culture may believe that in SIngapore that is how it is, but they should realise that it is just a movie and it is made for entertainment and is not trying to explain the situation of Singapore. I think that a lot of text can represent a stereotype of that group or even what the author knows and thinks about that group, so the text is true to them, but maybe not someone else. Overall I think that texts can represent groups of people to those who agree with the text whether it be true or false, I think that many can not have the same understanding of all the different groups.

I think identity can play a role in how we understand texts as if there is something in the text that we can relate to, it might be easier to understand what the author was trying to say. I think that if you don’t identify with a piece of text it can make it harder to understand what is written or portrayed as it doesn’t affect you. A text could also be relatable to a small group of people but it can help others learn about that group or how the author represents that group.

Replication and Falsification

People thinking the earth was in the centre of the solar system is falsification as it was proven wrong, but now we believe that the sun is in the centre and that all the planets revolve around it, we believe this to be true because of the evidence we have found through tests and observations, however in the future this could be proven false through advanced technology or more observations.

 

Plants growing towards the sun could be replication, as the theory could be tested and observed many times to come to the conclusion and the test can be replicated. We believe this because everytime the test is performed we get the same answers.

Multivocality

What is the significance of a single text having many meanings?

I think that everyone can interpret things differently and there’s no “right answer” to a text. I think that people can pick up pieces in a text and signify with it perhaps from experiences, that’s why they have a different look towards it. However someone who hasn’t experienced it might have a different look towards it because they don’t understand what it is like to go through it. I think that the different meanings could help different people relate to the text and understand the piece better.

Why is it significant that the flag has no one, fixed meaning?

The flag can signify different things to everyone however even to the people who live in that country for example America, the flag can have different meanings and I think that is important as not many things have a fixed meaning. People have different perspectives on a lot of things. As well as more people can resonate with the flags if there is more than meaning behind it. I think more people might identify with the country if it did have a lot of meanings behind it. Some of the different meanings might be bad as well, to what people who don’t live in the country, like America, might see a meaning behind it that American people can’t see or choose to ignore.

If texts have multiple meanings, what is the significance for reading literature and other written texts?

I think that reading different texts and literature can help someone find something to relate to and i think the interpretation of different meanings help with that, as if there was a fixed meaning, perhaps less people could identify and relate to the texts. Since people have different perspectives on things, some may find it hard to understand the piece of text so I think it is significant that texts have different meanings in them.