What is happening in Hong Kong?

The protests currently happening in Hong Kong are based around controversial issues, and the results of these incidents are likely to have international ramifications. Therefore, I am writing this post in order to keep people informed of what exactly caused these protests and the events that have unfolded thus far. As I believe that each individual should be free to form their own opinions of the situation without outside influence, I will do my best to keep the following information as unbiased as possible.

Compassion fatigue.

For those unaware, I recently graduated from the University of Waterloo and I’m now doing graduate studies at the University of Toronto in Clinical Engineering. As a result, I’ve been reading clinical papers like no tomorrow.

One topic that I thought would be nice to talk about was the notion of compassion fatigue. From the perspective of health care, it is defined as the lessening of compassion over time due to work-related events. It is strongly associated with physician burnout, which is one of the leading causes of depression among health care workers. In severe cases, it can result in symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.

The need to belong.

Have you ever noticed that you subconsciously act differently around certain people? Not just subtle changes in vocabulary or expression, but a shift in your personality that almost makes you seem like another person. You might say certain things or act in a certain way in one of your friend groups, but wouldn’t come close to it in another setting.

There’s a theory in microsociology called dramaturgy, which originated from the world of theatre. Erving Goffman first brought it into sociological context by suggesting that human interactions are affected by a desire to be accepted by the audience, or the other party. Thus, people subconsciously modify their personalities, much like actors on a stage, in order to fit in. We take on roles or archetypes in an attempt to get others to like us. As time goes on, we can adopt more and more characteristics of said archetype. It depends on who we’re talking to and in what context.

House of Cards Season 5 – My Thoughts

House of Cards is a Netflix political drama series about the United States federal government and one man’s manipulative rise to power under questionable methods. The show currently has five seasons, with Season 5 being recently released on May 30th. Here are my thoughts (a kind of review, but more of a discussion) on the most recent season.

If you want to test a man’s character, give him power.

Pet peeves.

Annoyances, complaints, personal vexations. Feel free to add to the list.

1. People smoking under a no-smoking sign.
2. Tangled window blinds.
3. A group of people slowly walking side-by-side on a narrow sidewalk. Double points if it’s raining or snowing.
4. Improper uses of a semicolon.
5. When a driver doesn’t signal right but then turns right anyway as you’re waiting to turn right from the joining street. (Yes, I know that proper driving protocol dictates that you should wait anyway, but how many of us actually follow proper driving protocol?)
6. People loudly playing video games in the library. Double points if it’s the silent study area.
7. When the first question that people ask you after you’ve met is, “Are you from China?”
8. No, I don’t play basketball either. The weather is fine up here.
9. Parents who pay zero attention to their kids in public areas.
10. People who play music out loud on a crowded bus.
11. People who shake their leg while seated at a desk.
12. When the windshield wiper blades stop in the middle of their path after turning the car off.
13. When cars slow down after merging in front of you.
14. Losing the remote control.
15. When you’re on hold and the automated voice tells you, “Your call is important to us.”
16. People who come into restaurants right before closing and demand to be served. (I’ve never had a job at a restaurant, but for those who have, I’ll get irritated on your behalf.)
17. Swearing loudly in public areas.
18. Unintentionally leaving little food residues in your glass of water after eating a crumby meal.
19. People who say, “I could care less,” rather than “I couldn’t care less.”
20. Redundant uses of acronyms. (eg. “PIN number” or “LCD display”)

There may be a continuation of this in the future.

…

21. Not knowing whether or not I’ll have the motivation or ideas to write another post.

Mr. Robot Season 1 – My Thoughts

“Hello, friend.”

Mr. Robot is a TV series about a depressed, lonely, and morphine-addicted hacker named Elliot Alderson, played by Rami Malek (who also won an Emmy for this role). Elliot works at the cybersecurity firm Allsafe as a systems engineer, but outside of work, he can only be described as a genius hacker, breaking into other people’s bank accounts, stealing identities, and collecting blackmail. He’s not interested in money or power. His motives are darker: apathy, cynicism, and a deeply-rooted hatred of society and the massive global conglomerate that runs it, which he affectionately calls “Evil Corp”.

Startup culture.

Something that the University of Waterloo is keen on is the supposed “startup culture”. This is especially true for the Engineering faculty. All undergraduate engineering students at the University of Waterloo have to do something called a “design project” that spans their entire fourth year. It is essentially a very time-consuming project in which a group of students have to design (duh), build, and present an invention of theirs related to their field of study at a symposium that is open to the public. Your creation is then carefully critiqued and picked apart by professors who act as judges. I’ve been to a couple of these symposiums, and some of the projects are honestly very impressive. So it’s natural that some students will want to take their project a step further… and build a company out of it.

But within this hall of starry-eyed future entrepreneurs is a glaring problem: most startups never make it past the finish line.

The quarter-life crisis.

The lesser-known sibling of the midlife crisis.

So you’re close to graduating from university, or perhaps you’ve already graduated, and you’re about to enter the working world. It’s a tough set of years that lead to a huge change in your identity and your values.

Remember when we were kids and we couldn’t wait to become adults? How blissfully innocent that was. The thought that we could do all these great things and people would listen to us! And now, as we’re about to leave our childhoods behind, all we want to do is to somehow stem the flow of time and give ourselves a few more years, just a few more, to do whatever we want before our freedom is snatched away by 9-5 jobs, traffic congestion, and monthly bills.

Competition.

For those of you in university (like me), you’re likely cramming in some last-minute studying for your final exams right about now. As I was writing an exam in a gymnasium filled of students a couple days ago, it got me thinking about how much competition is involved in university.

How many of you can say that you genuinely want every single other student in your class to do well and pass with flying colours? There’s always those few students who put no effort into their studies and are too busy playing video games on their laptops during lectures, distracting every other student in their vicinity with annoying mouse clicks. Do those students deserve to do better than students who actually put effort into their courses? Likely not.

“How are you?”

This might be something that my inexperienced mind is unable to fathom, but I get asked every day. “How are you?” Which I’ve come to think is a statement disguised as a question. And the response is always supposed to be something along the lines of, “Good, how are you?”

Here’s a funny story. Back in 2014, I had a colleague ask me the exact same question, “How are you?” It just so happened on that day that I was beginning to develop a sore throat, usually an indicator of the beginning of a cold. So I told him about this and said that I hope it wasn’t a cold after all. And he gave me this look. As if I had just insulted the Queen of Britain. Apparently, telling him how I was wasn’t the right response to “How are you?”

Why do people ask this question when it’s obvious that they don’t really care? Is it just a filler statement to start conversation? Why not just say “Hi”? Why do we have to pretend that we give a damn about the other person?

It’s just a minor annoyance of mine. Of course, it’s better than screaming, “YOUR FEELINGS ARE IRRELEVANT.” But rest assured that if I ask you “How are you?”, I’m perfectly willing to accept a longer conversation than just a few generic words in response.