Mar 7, 2019
29/July/2013
I’m in science now (3rd period) and I really want to draw. I love drawing. I hope I keep drawing even when I’m an adult.
seen from China
seen from Türkiye
seen from China
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from Thailand
seen from China
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from South Korea
seen from China
seen from China
seen from Malaysia
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from China
29/July/2013
I’m in science now (3rd period) and I really want to draw. I love drawing. I hope I keep drawing even when I’m an adult.
#7: Hunting for Falcons
After exploring for a little bit, I decided to check on Logan Thackeray. He asked me if I had ever heard of the Falcon Company.
Of course I have. My sister Deborah was one of them, and she died along with all the rest.
Logan asked me about her to update their records. He asked me if we were Krytan.
Hello? Does he not see me right now? Do I not look like a Canthan?
I thought it was a stupid question, but I didn’t wanna make a scene, so I just straightforwardly told him that, no, we’re Canthan. Not Krytan.
He sent me over to Eldvin Monastery to ask Capten Tervelan about the Falcon Company. Tervelan claims to know nothing, and even threw some shade at Logan for spending too much time behind the walls. I didn’t like that. I don’t like Tervelan, but he’s Seraph, so I have to show respect.
Tervelan asked me to help him and his men defend the Monastery from an upcoming centaur attack. As usual, we held them off. This new sword of mine isn’t stained with as much of their blood as my old one, but it does the job better.
Then this one big centaur, they call him Hruud the Reaver, waltzed up to the entrance asking for the Hero of Shaemoor: me.
Wow, this centaur captain wants to see me? Should I be honored or scared?
Whatever. I can take him. He bragged about wanting to kill someone who claims to be better than him. I know I am and all, but when did I ever say that? Now he’s just pointing fingers! How rude.
It’s about time I taught him a lesson. I did. As my sword cut right through his horse body, he dropped dead in front of all his men, who ran like cowards.
Tervelan congratulated me, and told me to meet up with his squad by the centaurs’ camp.
What? There’s only one guy.
This guy, Sergeant Bigsby, didn’t seem to like me much, that is, until he recognized me.
That’s right. As soon as he found out that I’m Deborah Higashi’s little brother, he started being nice. Apparently he’s a friend of hers, and it became easier to talk to him. He even offered to help me find out what happened to the Falcons.
Well, there’s only two of us, but I’ve soloed centaur camps before, this shouldn’t be any different.
Bigsby and I held off the centaurs pretty well, and even knocked down some of their weapon racks. But I found this ripped journal page. I’ll read it later.
This other centaur captain, Mallus the Impure, I believe they call him, showed up after we killed all of his men. Bigsby and I had no trouble taking him down.
I showed Bigsby the page. It claims that the centaurs took prisoners, and flat out accused Tervelan of setting them up for sacrifice.
I consulted with Bigsby on what to do, and he suggested I either confront Tervelan directly, or go back to Captain Thackeray.
Logan’s been a great friend to me, so I don’t doubt he would trust me. I’ll take this to him.
- Lucan
Motivation [1] and Core Affect (Emotions) [2]
“The best way to inspire people to superior performance is to convince them by everything you do and your everyday attitude that are wholeheartedly supporting them.”
-Harold Geneen.
Motivation is the inner drive that makes one person define, modify and repeat desired behaviors which help to achieve a goal. Stimulating, recognizing and rewarding good habits among one’s staff is the key to getting the most out of them and maintain high-performance workforce.
Managers should strive to not only motivate but also to inspire employees to contribute to the firm’s vision. People become inspired when they work on ideals that they believe in. The best illustration derives from the story told in class about the Inner Chamber story by Venugopal Gupta (2014), where the stone cutters committed to work more time and give everything they could in order to contribute to the Temple’s best look. Leaders should carefully plan strategies that inspire and motivate employees to commit to a favorable end.
Although past works on motivation theories have neglected emotions because of lack of scientific evidence to treat them as a unit of analysis, emotion is directly linked to motivation. For more precise use of the notion, Russell (2003) and Barret (1999) have introduced the concept of Core Affect defined as an entity that produces systematic and coherent changes in feelings, behaviors and psychological activation. Theorists tended to view emotion as a barrier to effective management and focused on the psychological processes of voluntary and goal directed actions. Core Affect, meanwhile, addresses how “feelings influence work motivation through their influence on judgements involved in conscious behavioral choices, such as goal setting.” (Feldman Barrett & Bartunek, 2004) In other words, how feelings of pleasure or unpleasure and activation or deactivation affect work motivation.
What do recent works on Motivation Theory show as a response of past criticism on existing theories?
Due to some criticism addressing void in motivation theories, a relatively new theory is emerging. It has been called Cultural Intelligence and refers to “a person’s capability to adapt effectively to new cultural contexts” (Adler & Gundersen, 2008) within a three-aspect framework: cognitive, motivational and behavioral.
The cognitive aspect refers to the way one learns to think when facing with any cross-cultural situation. It is about thinking, learning and strategizing how to interact with other cultures in a way that result genuine and unpretentious. The motivational side deals with the level of affinity toward a new culture and explains how strongly one person holds his own culture towards new cultural values and norms when he faces it for the first time. It is the part of emotions and tolerance. Finally, the behavioral aspect includes the actions and responses used in intercultural encounters, as well as the ability to adapt to new behavioral patterns that are appropriate for specific situations.
Developing and strengthening can be a powerful tool to increase manager’s efficacy to interact across cultures. Cultural intelligent managers suspend judgement and understand the nuances of diverse situations by anticipating to or preparing for actual encounters.
Bibliography
Adler, N. J., & Gundersen, A. (2008). International Dimensions of Organizational Behavior. Mason: South-Western, a part of Cengage Learning.
Feldman Barrett, L., & Bartunek, J. M. (2004). The Role of Affective Experience in Work Motivation. The Academy of Management Review, 423-439.
Ragan's Management Resources. (2005). Developing a High-Performance Workforce. Chicago: Lawrence Ragan Communication.
==> England: Do something.
==> England: Do something.
What is there to do? England had the urge to retrieve his tea but it should have gotten cold by then. Besides, the living room was now, as much as England hated to admit, Sealand's territory and any attempts to disrupt the area would result in that little twat holding a tantrum. Why did he have to raise such difficult children? Well, there was that one child...
Hmm... Maybe he should speak with him. After all, both of them had been really busy lately and this little project had opened up an opportunity for most of the countries to relax a bit.
England climbed downstairs and peeked carefully into the living room. He'd have to cross it to get back to his office. The small boy's eyes were glued to the screen, his unusually large hat angled in a way the most of his head was covered. The Brit slowly crept in and crossed the room in a hurry, not bothering to check if his tea was still there.
He headed straight for his office and sat down at his desk. Apparently, the server program was still running. How long would it take for that blasted American to fix his disks? Just the thought of it was having England's blood pressure spike up.
After a moment of steaming, he took a deep breath and exhaled in a defeated tone. "God, I'm exhausted..."
England returned to his original task and opened his pesterchum account. His eyes scrolled down the list until he came to what he believed to be the person he was looking for.
--englishGentleman began pestering apologeticCanadian-- EG: Hello? Canada? AC: oh why hello there england AC: how are you EG: I've been very stressed lately. EG: That blasted American is such a bother. EG: You understand, right? AC: america can be a bit rowdy AC: but he just needs someone to remind him to keep a level head AC: im sure youre best for the job EG: Well, who else but a gentleman? EG: Canada, how are you so different than your brother? AC: i believe thats just my personality AC: besides i like taking things slow and steady AC: how else could we enjoy the outdoors
England could already feel his stress draining from his body. Canada was such a calming country.
EG: Anyhow, what are you up to now? EG: Possibly could we enjoy some tea during this little "project"? AC: well... EG: What's wrong, Canada? EG: Something bothering you? AC: i'm actually somewhere already... EG: Oh? Where? AC: uh... EG: Are you at Cuba's house? AC: actually im in europe...
His blood ran cold.
EG: You are. EG: May I ask where in Europe? AC: ... EG: I thought so. EG: If you will excuse me. --englishGentleman ceased pestering apologeticCanadian--
--englishGentleman began pestering gorgeousAmant-- EG: Hello, FROG. GA: Ugh, its ze monton noir l'Europe. GA: Why are you disturbing me? GA: Is it for some advice on your drab fashion sense? GA: If so, you should already know you are 'opeless. EG: What a bother. EG: I had hoped that by talking to you digitally I would escape that ATROCIOUS accent of yours. EG: Regretfully, I was wrong. GA: As wrong as your taste in cooking. EG: Why are you bringing my cooking into this? GA: You were naming things you were wrong in. GA: Cooking is one. GA: Fashion another. GA: There's also the fact you claim you are friends with fées. EG: Fees? GA: Non, fées. EG: Why would I be friends with bills? GA: Fairies, you poor excuse for a nation, not fees. GA: You claim fairies are real. EG: Because they bloody are! GA: Et les licornes et les gnomes et les lapins volants. EG: SPEAK THE QUEEN'S ENGLISH! GA: Unicorns, gnomes, and flying bunnies. GA: Please tell me, why are you not in an asylum yet?
England rubbed his temple. It was already throbbing. Why did that frog irritate him so much?
EG: Well, Pepe le Pew, EG: I was wondering why Canada is in that bloody house of yours. GA: 'ow is that any concern of yours? EG: BECAUSE I BLOODY RAISED CANADA GA: AS DID I EG: HE TAKES AFTER ME AS A WONDERFUL GENTLEMAN GA: NON HE LEARNED MORE FROM ME EG: BEARDED TOAD GA: T'AS UNE TÊTE A FAIRE SAUTER LES PLAQUES D'EGOUTS!* EG: THAT MAKES NO SENSE GA: I DID NOT ANSWER TO BE INSULTED BY YOU EG: WELL YOU KNOW WHAT EG: I WILL SAY WHATEVER I BLOODY WANT TO SAY GA: ... EG: WHAT? EG: SPEECHLESS? EG: OVERWHELMED BY MY IMMENSE BRITISHNESS? EG: WELL GOD BLESS THE QUEEN THE FROG FINALLY SHUT UP! GA: Quiet, Angleterre. EG: AND WHY SHOULD I? GA: Something is wrong... EG: What? EG: Hey, answer me. EG: France! --gorgeousAmant ceased pestering englishGentleman--
England stared a bit at the screen before laughing dryly.
"Blasted toad, trying to put me off my game like that. It'll take more than something like that to throw me off my game."
A huge crash came from the living room. England shot out of his seat.
"Nooooo!"
"Peter!"
He quickly equipped his PISTOLKIND and ran through the door, not bothering to check behind him.
(*You have a face that would make manhole covers pop!)
Japan: Be someone else. <== | ==>
Monday 23.09.13
I left Munich today and it was horrible. This city had become my second home and I loved it there. I've said this to many people and no one agrees, but it reminded me of an older version of Brisbane.
So Kev and I got on the train to Düsseldorf, the six hours we were sitting on that train flew by. German countryside is beautiful but changes so quickly. We were suppose to be swapping train at Mannheim on the way to Düsseldorf but our first train had been late, so the man that was checking tickets let us stay on, as it was going there anyway.
When we got to Düsseldorf we had to find the Eurolines office which was a complete mission. Finally locating it we decided to find a supermarket to get some snacks for the bus ride to London. Walking around a city with massive backpacks on is not the funnest thing. Though if you make it look like you're lost people will come ask you if you need help. Good ol' germans. So we found a supermarket, grabbed as many cans of pringles as we could carry - the best travel snacks, i have no idea why - and walked back to the Eurolines office.
The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. Kev and I watched a Rooster Teeth podcast for the first hour or so then fell asleep.
I woke up when we reached Antwerp, then again in Brugge, and again in Lille. Then it was on the Calais. We finally got wifi after not having it all weekend, I had several worried messages from my family on my facebook. Got time to quickly upload a couple photos then we were back on the bus and headed to London.
I woke up again when the bus stopped, at Victoria station. Unfortunately for us, the tube doesn't open until 6am and we still had an hour before then so we sat and ate the rest of our pringles while we waited.
Entry 7 (Town Life)
Dear Diary Well, my pencil broke yesterday while I was writing, so I didn't get to say goodnight. I'm sorry about that! Well, I guess I should talk about what it was like when we got to a town. The first day was pretty much the same, Zar'roc would always get us somewhere to stay. If the places for rent were to expensive, he would drop me off at the local library, and say he'd figure something out. Sometimes it would take a few hours, but he finds somewhere to stay, usually a lady letting us stay over at her place. I have to sleep in my own room though, Zar'roc says have to talk about what to do tomorrow. Their always pretty happy when I make breakfast though, but I always freeze up when they pet me. I can't really help it thought, I'm just scared of people...and Zar'roc spends less time with me when we're staying at a lady's house. He does go look for a job the second day though, and he's pretty good at getting one. He's had a lot of jobs, and sometimes he keeps them for a whole month, but he always came home and depressed, and said "This isn't what I'm gonna be doing for the rest of my life." He makes money though, and says goodbye to the lady or person renting us a place, restocks, and we're on the road again. I guess the nicest part is that I get to go to the library every day. This time is different though, he bought a house, so that means we're staying! I can spend all day with Zar'roc, and still go to the library! He goes with me also, but he has to get up and go outside to run around, or else his legs start to cramp up. Hehehe...well, I guess I said all there is to say about that also. Hehehe, lots of happy memories! He's a great dad! Well, I'm gonna go to bed now..nighty night!
ENTRY 7: Mind over Matter—How You Think Is How You Cope
Many people acknowledge me as an easygoing person. Yung tipo ng taong hindi napaghahalataang may problem o dinadala. And if asked how I manage to remain unfazed in the face of life’s lemons, I would probably answer:
“Lemons? What lemons?”
Either I have no problems or I don’t always see problems as problems—that’s how I am. I have this extremely handy tendency to take things in stride without being too negatively affected. This is not to say that I am stoic and unemotional; it’s just that I tend to be more affected by positive things. Maybe it’s because I have a fairly good command of problem-focused and emotion-focused strategies. Especially emotion-focused strategies.
My optimistic-yet-realistic side helps my mind transcend the situation and see it in its “profitable” light. By “profitable” I mean, how well will this experience enable me to learn and grow as a person? Will it not kill me and instead serve to make me stronger? Things become a lot more bearable when you think of them that way.
On the other hand, it is my defensive pessimist side that drives my problem-focused coping. By contemplating how things will be from that moment on, I prepare myself for both the good and bad things that might happen along the way and find ways to deal with them. Advance planning helps a lot. And in the event that things don’t go according to plan, at least I was able to anticipate failure and managed to emotionally prepare for it.
Thank God for this lovely set of troubleshooting features.
(P.S.: I hope I didn’t sound too preachy or conceited here :3)