Author Archives: Evan Ng

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Recollection and Reminiscence

by Evan Ng Posted on October 19, 2011

1. How would you begin the process of recovering your memory? Who would you turn to, where would you search, and how would you proceed?

To begin, I would start with my family. The only group of people who would know who I truly am, how I act, and what I do will always start with the people I’ve been with my entire life. I would go to my parents to find out about my past, what I’m doing in the present, and what I aspire to be in the future. I would look up to my brother and my sister to find out how I acted and learn about everything I’ve ever done with my family. After I learn about who I am again, I would go to my significant other for help. She would take me to places we’ve gone and help me relive those moments we shared together, such as a walk in the park, a picnic, or even traveling across the United States. Being able to go through the same process may even allow my brain to recollect past memories. Then of course, I would play with the Internet. Every bit of information is on the Internet these days and the only way to learn about the current world is to use technology.

2. Please describe the emotional journey you imagine you would be going through as you attempt to reconstruct your life. Imagine the feelings you would have.

Having retrograde amnesia, I would be dazed, confused, and depressed. Not knowing who people are, where I live or who I am can make anyone break down. I would take my time to absorb what had happened and return to my family for help. I would dedicate my time to figuring out everything, even if it meant that I wouldn’t like it now. Having the patience and confidence to rebuild my own physical and emotional state would very demanding, so I would seek out more help from my closest friends. Having guidance from my significant other and my closest friends will help me understand what kind of person I was. Hopefully while I’m going through this journey I don’t give up. I have a very strong tendency to push through boundaries and work harder. Even at times, I’m sure I would doubt my existence in other peoples’ lives. I would feel guilty of forcing others to help me when they have other things going on in their lives. I would try to make others quit while I try to help myself, but knowing my family and my friends they would never leave me behind. The key to happiness is being able to achieve self-actualization. The only people who can help you get there are your friends and family.

3. Suppose you were able to pick and choose the memories you wanted to recover from your life. What types of memories would you choose to retain and what types of memories might you decide to edit out of your remembered experience? Positive, negative, painful, happy, angry, frightened, etc. Please elaborate and explain some your decision making process.

Unlike many others who would want to edit out memories, whether they were during embarrassing situations or even painful events, I would not give up anything. Of course, no one enjoys negative moments in life, but what I get out of my past memories are experience. I have learned to accept experiences whenever they happen because they teach you something new and help you grow as an individual. No matter how embarrassing or scary they might be, it gives you the opportunity to learn from them or laugh about them at the dinner table in the future. Other categories that many would question about would be traumatic events. It is true that no one wants to experience something that will haunt him or her, but I feel that through a series of dedicated trials (such as asking for advice or meditating), anyone can get through them. Everyone has the ability to overcome fear.

Moments in life that I would like to keep forever would be celebrations and major events in my family’s, friends’, and my life. Things such as birthday parties and vacations are some memorable events that I’d like to keep. I’d also like to retain my graduation from high school (and hopefully my graduation from college!) and the day I adopted my first dog because as a younger adolescent, I was like a thousand fireworks going off when it happened. Even moments in life where I stumbled and made a fool of myself are worth a million. I feel that there are more memories that I’d like to keep then lose, not that I have had more happier memories then sad ones. Being able to be content and satisfied with who I am as an individual is what makes the decision making process of choosing my memories so important.

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Bonjour!

by Evan Ng Posted on September 17, 2011

Hello everyone!

My name is Evan Ng and I’m currently a sophomore at Baruch College.  I grew up in a small cozy neighborhood in Queens and now currently reside in a suburban town in Long Island. After moving from my hometown, I lost almost all contact with my childhood friends because at the time (just finished elementary school), I was not too fond with technology and phone numbers. At the start of my new middle school, I was insecure with who to talk with and what social groups to join in because many of the other students around me were more wealthy and outgoing then I was. It was definitely a big jump from Queens to Long Island for me and it wasn’t any easier for my brother and sister. It took nearly a year or two for me to finally understand about myself and to learn to never compare myself to others. After flying through middle school and graduating Glen Cove High School, I’m proud of who I am today and I hope that I can achieve even more at Baruch College!

I’m currently majoring in finance at Baruch College and I have to say thus far, Intro to Psych is currently my favorite class. To be honest, when I found out that we had to learn about the parts of the brain I wanted to smack my head repeatedly against a brick wall. I fell asleep everyday in my biology class in high school because biological science wasn’t my thing. After being in PSY 1001 for four weeks, I have to say I’m actually surprised that I’m enjoying every bit of it (including brain anatomy)! I’ve always had an interest in how the mind works and its influences through nature and nurture.

I don’t really use social networking media (twitter, tumbler, but rarely Facebook), but a book that really made an impact on my life and the way I think now is The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch. There are so many notable quotes in Pausch’s book that listing them here would take forever (and too much space, not like I haven’t made this post long enough already). If you ever have time, give this book a read!

When I’m not killing myself (not literally) over schoolwork, I try my best to maintain a balanced lifestyle by dedicating my time to my family and engaging in other activities with my friends. I play tennis (favorite sport) as much as I can, including other racquet sports such as badminton, squash and ping pong (not too good at ping pong though). I also play other team sports (football and basketball) so that I can hang out with my friends more often. I read anything I can possibly learn from and try to expand my knowledge of everything around me whenever I get the chance. I’ve always loved traveling and hope that in the near future, I will be able to travel to other countries and absorb as much as I can from there.

“The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough.”

– Randy Pausch

Posted in Say Hello | 5 Comments

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Comments Across the Site

"1. After reading the reflection writer’s description, what do you think was happening to them during the meditation on a physiological level? After reading through the reflection, I was surprised, yet understanding of her current physiological level. I feel that her current stress level (built up from school, work, and relationship) was at a level that her unconscious was fighting to control, almost as if a lion is trying to get out of it’s cage. When she attempted to try and meditate, her unconscious wouldn’t let her relent any stress because there were too many thoughts bouncing around her mind. Referring to the example I gave, by trying to relieve the stress, she was only letting the lion get out of control and grow unstable. Unfortunately, the meditation did not help ease her stress because the meditation couldn’t help control her thoughts. She became more or less tired and sleepy because her unconscious is exhausted and strained from trying to subdue the amount of stress built up in her. 2. Based on your readings throughout the semester, what areas of their central and peripheral nervous systems may have been effected during the meditation? In her situation, the central nervous system was probably undergoing high levels of brain activity because she had thoughts that wouldn’t go away when she attempted to clear her mind in meditation. In the autonomic nervous system within the PNS (peripheral nervous system), her breathing and heartbeat are probably maintaining a constant, but accelerated interval because her stress was never relieved. 3. What questions do you have for the writer about their experience? The best method, I feel that is, to remove your stress is to take on your stressors one by one. I believe that it’s better to assess and control each situation rather then trying to meditate and “ignore” the problems (not saying meditation doesn’t work/help, but for your scenario we’ve already seen that meditation didn’t work). For your relationship, have you taken the opportunity to take to someone close (family or friend) and try to relent the feelings you have? For your schoolwork, have you asked a friend or professor for help on things you are having trouble with? For work, have you tried to ask your boss/manager to get less hours for the time being until the semester is over? Try not to keep everything inside. Doing so only leads to more frustration and stress. 4. Based on the description provided, would you be open to trying the same meditation exercise? With those results, I would probably not try the same meditation exercise. It was not successful for her."
posted on Nov 29, 2011, on the post Intro Guided Meditation

"My hypothesis for this study’s outcome is that students who exercise would be able to have a stronger mental state when it came to school-related activities. My suggestions for the researcher would be to create a more sophisticated, yet coordinated plan on conducting the experiment. By using the students who receive no exercise as the control group and the students who do receive exercise as the experimental group, measuring the dependent variable (grades) will be much more efficient. As the researcher has mentioned, there can be many confounding variables in this experiment unfortunately. It will be difficult to prove anyone’s hypothesis because the numbers of confounding variables diminish the value of any results that can be obtained. The experiment would need to be stratified so that more individual categories can be created. Several confounding variables could be the grade level of each participant, the gender of the participant, the type of exercises that each participant partakes in, the weight of each participant, the diet of each participant, the duration spent exercising, medical conditions of the participant, etc. Each of these can cause a myriad of different results. Through this hypothetical research, several adjustments can be made to create different results for great purposes. We can change the research so that we only measure the mental activity of male and female, or those who are obese and underweight, etc. By changing the category of the type of people we are measuring, we can create a whole new basis for a hypothesis and ultimately a new experiment."
posted on Oct 3, 2011, on the post Case Study for how everyday exercise can improve cognitive stability in college students.

"Glad to know that my blog post has been worth the read (well, hopefully it wasn't too long and boring)! I do agree, moving around isn't in anyone's best interest sometimes. Especially when you're young, but life only has one road and you just have to take the opportunity to make the best of it. Also to Kyra's question, I commute from time to time from Long Island now (an hour and a half to get to class..!). After my fun and exciting commute every morning waking up at 5AM just to catch a scheduled 6AM train to barely make my 7:50AM class during my freshman year, I learned to make a few adjustments. Sort of (seeing how I still commute to an early class like PSY 1001). It definitely beats waking up at 5AM though!"
posted on Sep 20, 2011, on the post Bonjour!

"I'm also an avid tennis player (and tennis fan) too! Definitely let me know if you're up for a challenge, I'm starting to get tennis withdrawal because of schoolwork."
posted on Sep 17, 2011, on the post Hello Introduction to Psychology Class!!

"That's cool! I've actually been trying to find some way to travel to London because it's been on my list of places to travel to. I will definitely take your advice to look into studying abroad!"
posted on Sep 17, 2011, on the post A bit about me…

"That's quite the introduction (Ludlow view)! I wanted to dorm at Ludlow, but I couldn't get a spot for this semester. It's great that you're embracing Baruch College willfully and that you're not shy or embarrassed about yourself. Good luck to you with everything!"
posted on Sep 17, 2011, on the post Hello Everyone :)