Honour Thesis Journey - a revive of this blog

Hi everyone,

I'm back after a long hiatus. The reason why I am penning this down is to help future NUS Psychology Year 3s gain a better understanding of the year-long journey called PL4401 - Honour Thesis.

1. Finding a supervisor
Most seniors would advise you to contact NUS profs. whom you had/ are currently completing a module under and whom you share common research interests with. The former is because you will be able to grasp how fast he/ she responds back, his/ her personality/ OCEAN/ INFP blah blah... The critical time period to ask is during Year 3 Sem 2 - which most people tend to go on Student Exchange Programs (SEPs). I did too and personally suffered due to:

• Inability to physically knock down doors consult profs. in the Psychology department
• One less semester to get to know more profs. to do the above point

Optimistic, naive and gullible, I asked an overseas prof which I did a psychology module under to be my supervisor and he agreed to it. PSA: Do not get an overseas supervisor. I suffered a lot from having an overseas supervisor who went MIA on me 3 months after he said yes (do not trust American Profs...). Which brings me to my next section...

2. Deciding on a research topic
This ties in with step 1 because a prof with aligning interest to your research topic will be more internally motivated to help you and additionally have a vast sea of knowledge to guide you. Depending on your prof you consulted for supervision, you may be required to come up with your own research topic ideas first or simply work on the prof's existing research projects. If you belong to the former, do conduct some preliminary research to find out what is currently lacking in the research field (you can look at the "future recommendations" portion of papers for inspiration). Nonetheless, it should be formed up nearing the end of the semester 2.

3. Drafting up the IRB/ DERC
Once you are done with step 1 and 2, you can start drafting up the documents required for approval to conduct an experiment. Within NUS, there are two different types of experiment you can conduct - Human Biomedical Research (HBR) or Social, Behavioural, Education Research (SBER). For HBR, they are mostly neurocognitive researchs requiring use of medical equipment such as the ECG, FMRI etc. while for SBER, they are mostly your computer research lab experiments either digitized or dinosaur age pen-and-paper. Both of which requires an Ethics Approval which is where the IRB/ DERC comes in. External supervisors, depending on their organization and what participants are they working with, may require additional set of Ethics Approval documents so do consult your supervisors on this. If you need help on what to fill up for which portions, you can refer to your seniors' drafts to see what they did right. DO NOT PLAGIARIZE. This should ideally be completed mid-vacation period of Sem 2 (mid- to end-June). Luckily, during this period, my useless overseas supervisor was still communicating albeit only once fortnightly.

** Some of you may have already have pre-collected research data from your supervisors which exempts you from requiring an Ethics Approval. In this case, you will still be required to fill up a document (different from IRB/ DERC) - "Form for Request for Waiver of Primary Data Requirement".**

3a. Setting up your experiment
Experiments can either be a novel one or an existing one. The latter is easier because your supervisor would be aware of it and can guide you in setting up your experiment. The former requires more guidance from your supervisor but can still be achieved. Unfortunately, I belong to none. Again, because of my said supervisor and the lack of online resources, I am forced to learn coding and code my entire digitized experiment myself. It took 12 bottles of beer, at least 10 sleepless nights, 2 months of crippling depression and a computer (plus encouraging supportive girlfriend and friends). Nonetheless, as long as you complete your experiment by Year 4 Sem 1 Week 2, you are good to go.

4. Using the Research Participants Pool
Remember you were once required to complete 12 RP points for PL1101E and PL2131? Yes, karma is a bitch. In order for you to use the RP pool, you will need to have an approval documentation of your IRB/ DERC (usually in the form of email), 2 completed RP Requisition forms and a Participant Information Sheet (which is within your IRB/ DERC). Send this to the RP coordinator thru the RP mailbox in the Psychology Department. The turnaround time should be 2 to 3 weeks so you should be able to get approval for RP Pool nearing the start of Year 4 Sem 1 where students' brains are fresh and rejuvenated for your experiment muahaha. Upon confirmation, you will also receive a researcher account tied to your NUS account and a default password to change later for SONA system.

It is beneficial to attend at least 1 session of the SONA system briefing to know how to use the system and things to do/ not do as a researcher.

5. Setting up an experiment timeslot
If you require a physical location to conduct your experiments, you can look towards booking a computer lab with NUS Psychology Department. First check for the availability of the room thru Skedda (refer to NUS Psychology Department Resources page). Then contact the relevant personnel for which dates and time you want to book for your selected room. The turnaround should be 3 to 5 days (personally, I think it's faster if you emailed after 5pm so she reads it the first thing in the morning). Only upon email confirmation then you list down the available experiment timeslots on SONA.

6. Wait for participants to sign up and send confirmation email

7. Conduct experiment and finish collecting data

8. Pre-writing phase
By now, you would have already bounced several emails/ messages to your supervisor regarding the progress of your Honour Thesis. You would also have known from past modules (PL2131 and PL2132) that the data has to be cleaned up. So do the necessary data cleaning and check back with your peers if need be to ascertain that you do not miss out on any data red flags i.e. incomplete data, anomalies, response bias etc. Start analysing the data for any significant findings early because if you did not find significance, it could be due to your poor analysis skills which can be rectified by some Professor Magic.

9. Writing phase
Nothing much. Essentially, try to be concise. I quote the document "PL4401 - Information on Honours Thesis" - Clarity is King. Also, prepare for stressed nights, irregular sleep cycle, re-writing of your Honour Thesis, frustration at not finding empirical support for your results. Other than that, survive and you will see the end of the light.

P.S. I suffered a hell lot because of COVID-19 and being cooped up at home decreases my productivity significantly (p < .001). It was H E L L.

10. ???
Submit your Honour Thesis on time.

11. Profit

Parenting

Child: It's hard to be a parent, yes, we acknowledge that.

Parent: It's hard to be a kid, yes, they know that too.

Child: Parents always envision mini replicas of themselves on us, hoping that someday sometime, we would live up to what they want us to be. Yet, we are not. We are unique individuals, of different minds and bodies; we have differing aspirations.

Parent: Our children are not listening to us; they think we are always nagging at them. Why can't they just understand that we only want them to be the best and doing well is for their own sake? We've led hard lives and understood that hard work pays off eventually. We never ever want our children to stay up late nor be outside for too long.

Child: They just don't understand, don't they? Times have changed - no longer is hard work associated to having a good comfortable life; the equations to success just doesn't match up. There are now many different ways to achieve something; it's not always the direct route that nets success. Yes, we stay up late but we are ultimately adolescents - there's bound to be festering bubbling energy within us. No, we do not loiter outside just to make you worry about us - we can handle ourselves. "Smoking is bad. Don't join gangs. Avoid fights" We know all these, so please stop nagging.

We are good children. We just want you to see that.

Parent: Our parents have led tough lives, they treated us harshly but we know it's for our own good. We must in turn provide the best education for our children, inculcate the ideal values into our children and mould them into responsible leaders of tomorrow. They do not know how much we care for them, for we ourselves only learn to cherish our parents after they are gone. So yes, we will keep scolding. Yes, we will keep nagging.

We are good parents. We just want you to see that.
_____________________________________________________________

Ever wondered whether there is a perfect set of parenting techniques? The answer is no.

Because every child is different. Likewise, every parent is different too. The parenting style cannot simply be adopted from our past; we live in the present, therefore the parenting style has to adapt to suit the child too. If either the child or the parent does not communicate, how are they to know if they have each other's interests at heart?

I believe there are situations to use "rightfully wrong" or "wrongfully right". Parents and their children can be both wrong yet right in their own aspects. Anger should almost never be shown to each other; it is an emotion, not an action. So don't release your anger, curb it, cool it down, explain rationally. Afterall, anger reduces your lifespan.

Johor Bahru (again)!

This is my 2nd trip to JB. However, this time we decided to head further inwards to check out KSL mall instead.

I was slightly late this time :( sorry girl! 下不为例. We then boarded bus 950 towards Woodlands Checkpoint. Pro-tip: Board at Woodlands Bus Interchange; you will definitely not be able to board from subsequent bus stops. There was no jam nor peanut butter, everything was smooth since it was a Monday.
Estimated waiting time: 0.75 hours.

Took a random bus that stopped at KSL, had breakfast at Alishan Coffee House (?) somewhere behind KSL along a long stretch of food. Breakfast was cheap and delicious, "because all Alisons make good breakfast hurhur"

Nice shop auntie suggested 3 pieces of bread instead of 4 in case we couldn't finish

Brunch: RM11.50

Strolled within KSL, nothing fancy caught our eye. She said there was an amazing laksa outlet which was very dirty but oh and behold, it was not there got upgraded into a classy clean shop. Decided on watching a movie. Movie choices were great and since we had no strong WiFi connection nearby (there's KFC free Wifi but I swear someone is just out to troll me and renamed his Wifi name to KFC), we had to wait for the movie trailers to be played on the screens just in front of the ticket counter. UNFORTUNATELY, WHEN WE STARTED WATCHING, IT WAS PLAYING ALL THE MOVIES THAT WE HAD ALREADY WATCHED. Guess who gave up and simply impulsed bought movie tickets to watch Rings.

She chose the movie, I provided the screaming.

I was more afraid watching the movie than her although I stopped getting shocked when I understood the plot. Being the braver one in the relationship, she gleefully suggested I watch the prequels to this movie (my body refuses, my heart screams no, but I mouthed "okay" just for her my body is now giving my mouth detention for being blinded by love)
Screams and increased heart-rate: RM18 (please do yourself a favour and flash your student card, it's cheaper)

We found a shop which listed an interesting game - writing the number 1 to 600 without any mistakes of any sort and redeeming a plush toy. Being the gullible determined guy I was, I embarked on a quest to find my "number 600" and rescue her from the evil clutches of Donkey Kong the shopkeeper. Died symbolically at number 238 (my block number is 239 so I guess you can say I died before reaching home)

The temptation to sin is real

I have sinned

Throwing money away to prove my lack of capability: RM30

With my wallet scolding me for my stupidity and two hungry stomachs, we trudged out of the mall to search for lunch/ high tea (it was around 3pm so I wouldn't know what should I even term the meal as).

Restaurant Name: Sushi Mentai

Le pretty placement and her excellent photo-taking skills part 1

Part 2

Part 3

While we were eating, we took the opportunity to connect to Wifi (sigh, typical humans who can't survive without Internet). Found out that I filled up an application form for a volunteering event wrongly (I entered our NRICs into the "Names" option box).

Error 404: Brain not found

Just when we stood up to leave the restaurant, there was a power failure HAHA THAT WAS CERTAINLY SHOCKING.
 Like every conclusion for an essay/ In conclusion, t'was a great meal well worth every Ringgit.
Good food: RM59

Food coma hit pretty hard following that late meal; we kinda slugged around looking at shops and encountering dilemma on whether to try out this food and risk our stomachs exploding or live to die another day. Got le random matcha tart which was not as good as we expected.
Do not try ever again: RM3

We finally decided KSL was too boring and headed for the other mall nearby. It was equally boring -.- so we just sat down at the Macs using the free Wifi to play games on Facebook messenger (she complained that we are beating high scores on my account instead of hers).
Facepalm moment 1: Deciding to stop outside that random other mall to wait for the bus back to the customs.
Facepalm moment 2: Walking back to KSL and waiting at the wrong bus stop only to be guided by the bus service ticket operator
Operator: "you finding the KFC right? it's behind the mall, not here"
Me: huh expression "we are finding the bus to the customs, where should we wait at?"
Operator: "near the KFC. that is where you board the bus to the customs"
HOW THE HECK CAN SOMEONE INTERPRET WHAT SHE IS IMPLYING BASED ON ONLY THE FIRST SENTENCE??!

Finally got on the bus to the customs and back to Singapore

“夕阳西下，鸟儿我们回家。” (Lin, 2011)
P.S. if you didn't get it, it's the lyrics to 会有那么一天 by 林俊杰 :P
EDIT: wow to her saying the above sentence even before she read my blog post. 😍😍

Johor Bahru!

I have finally went to JB to explore (virgin experience so pardon the lack of excitement in the activities).

Met up with her at 9am, but she her bus was late. Took bus 9XX (? questionable number because I forgot BUT BASICALLY most buses tend to reach the woodlands checkpoint)

Because I'm nice this way.

Customs was a bitch, both from the Singapore and Malaysia side as it was a Saturday morning DING DING NO SURPRISES THERE!  
Estimated waiting time: 2 hours.

First foot into City Square Mall at 11.30am, by which we were famished - "I could eat a bull right now (Choa, 2016)". Had brunch at Dragon-i, ordered a decent amount of food.
Brunch: RM70

Walked around the shops for awhile. I wanted to visit the Angry Bird theme park hence we left for Komtar JBCC (just beside City Square Mall). The red angry bird was dancing in front of the entrance so cute. Did not enter in the end as I thought it was for little tods. She suggested visiting Daiso RM5.30 correct as of 17 Dec 16 (legend has it that the Daiso in Malaysia always change their name according to the exchange rate so sometimes it may be Daiso RM5.75 or Daiso RM5.10). We probably looked like idiots fishing with a wooden stick; playing around at Daiso before buying a SUPER SOUR lemon drink. EDIT: uploaded photo of the bomb!

The bomb (literally)

Lemon Bomb: RM5.30

Survived drinking a sip of it (she makes it look so easy drinking this monster...). Went to another shop which has no impressionable products; the only reason I remembered it because I DID NOT KNOW A TESTER PRODUCT WAS MASCARA AND MASCARA WAS IN LIQUID FORM.

Learn from my mistake guys...

What happened was I pulled out the cap and whooosh the brush came out. I hurriedly checked my white pants and phew, there was not any stain but LO AND BEHOLD! There was a black stroke across the end of her beige pants (sorry again hehe :P). This cascaded into an adventure of seeking makeup removal where the highlight was us going into Sephora and throwing everything that remotely resembled makeup removal onto the stain mark.

After that mini guest starring on the episode of Dora the explorer, we decided to catch a movie at 2pm.

I thought the movie was alright, although her impression of the movie tended towards the negative scale. Plot was not really well thought-out and ending seemed abit rushed.
Movies for two: RM36

 It's time for some cafe-hopping to find a decent cafe to chill. Found Sangkaya which sold Thai coconut ice cream. Ordered the signature ice cream which comes with 4 scoops - original, Thai tea, matcha and chocolate.
Her verdict: Matcha, Thai tea, chocolate and lastly original
Mine: Everything was good?!

A tad under-exposed OOPS

4xIce cream scoops: RM10

It started raining when we finished our ice-cream so we had to hide under a small umbrella and dance jump around avoiding water puddles back to City Square Mall. Went to get sunblock at fake Watsons Guardian because #cheapcheap #thingssingaporeansdoinmalaysia #buyfirstthinklater.

Had a 3 hour K session which included a buffet (quite limited options with below average food BUT WOW SUCH CHEAPNESS MANY SAVINGS MUCH VALUE FOR MONEY).
K session: RM55 per pax
Buffet add-on: RM10 per pax

Walked around more before finally heading back to Singapore. Found a cute exhibit where we spent quite some time pondering a good angle to take this shot.

I told her I should have sneakily removed the barrier and possibly get caught by security

Customs was nice to us this time.
Estimated waiting time: 0.5 hours 

Looking forward to more adventures with her.
Fun and laughter: Priceless

The scariest person in the world

The scariest person in the world isn't a killer nor murderer. They kill with motive. Randomness eventually points to a pattern, a behaviour or even merely a single fleeting thought that incited the killing. However, they are simply a subset of a group that compasses the bigger picture.

The scariest person isn't a terrorist. They, like any other ordinary human being first born in to this world, are void of any influences. Like pieces of white paper, colours are added onto their papers; black, blue, red, green etc. Some people say black stains the papers while the other colours beautify them. I chose to believe black is just any other colour; it's equally beautiful in its own rights. Who is to say that in the eye's of a terrorist, a rosy world should be a world of colour? Perceptions and impressions are different for everyone; they change with external influences, pivoting their mind towards what we perceive as a dangerous mind. With their abnormal minds, they are indeed scary but they aren't what we should be ultimately looking out for.

In fact, the very reason we produce certain actions in response to certain behaviours, is because of our thoughts. We shouldn't be scared of killers; they are everywhere and will pop out anytime. Blame it on karma, or ill-fatedness but chances are we will likely grow old and pass away. We shouldn't be scared of terrorists; they are rare occurrences and whilst their presences result in drastic consequences, as above mentioned, what are the odds of us being close by? We can say what about those victims that perished then? I'd simply say what if we aren't.

All these people are variables in our lives; there is only one constant. Think about it, who will always be there for us, truly, no matter what where why or how.

Ourselves. That's who we should be scared of. Many a times we turn a blind eye to reason, we refuse logic, we abolish the truth from our minds. We seek ignorance, for knowing that not knowing is "beneficial" for us. We hence believe the world is idealistic, that things come our way, we can simply accept what we like and throw out what we don't like; the mind is our filter, we embraces the warmth of lies, deceit and fairy tales, only to slowly burn to death.

And that's why I chose the cold.

It keeps me alive.

Stu-dying

I've been unable to concentrate on studies during this holiday. FML. I realised that if I am given too short of a holiday, I wouldn't be able to study because it's too little time. Then again, if the holiday is too long, I'll tend to procrastinate and dilly dally till near the end of the holiday. Hence begets the question - what is the right length of holiday period for me? Honestly, I do not know. I haven't been the most studious of a student in my secondary education period and this is my first holiday break I had from studies since eons ago. My central idea was to study consistently in university and I did reasonably well, although memory retention is another thing.

Another thing I realised about myself is I study better outside, say at the void deck or at public libraries. The ideal study group size for me is 2 or 3; anymore would just be a crowd. I really cannot function well at home with all the distractions and noise. Sighpie, WHYYYY?!

Today is one of those days where being single hits me in the feels again. I will just have to keep telling myself studying is priority and blame the horrible zodiac prediction.

Wealth: 3/3
Love: 1/3

... oh well, I'm contented to keep picking up money from the floor then :)

Starting my journey in NUS; goodbye to my NSmates

School is starting in a few hours time although I kept my Monday free from lessons LOL.

A lot happened in the past few weeks, from having a blast with Shawn at Legoland to receiving news of NUS cancelling all camps to my last day at work and so on...

1. Legoland with my crazy bishan-mate Shawn da man!

Impromptu gay bro outing with Shawn! We headed off to Jurong East bus interchange then took bus CW3 (don't ask me why the funny numbers) towards Tuas 2nd Link, transferred to bus CW7L where we alighted right at Legoland Malaysia!  

Total time from Bishan to Legoland - 2hrs 30mins!! WOW

Hello Legoland~

Weather forecasted rain, but I guessed my killer smile was too bright :P
We bought tickets to both waterpark and themepark -EDIT: I strongly advise not to go to the waterpark if you've been to adventure cove.-

Almost forgot to change into our wet attire when depositing our bags at the themepark, and realised we CAN ACTUALLY DEPOSIT OUR BAGS AT THE WATERPARK SECTION. Went to the waterpark section only to make the same mistake again (forgetting to change into our wet attire shawn my PS wtf happened to forceprep). Spent the most amount of time not at any super fun water station but at the Build-a-Boat.

That's right, building a Lego structure beats all water activities #childhood

We proceeded to knock out all the competition DIE LITTLE KIDS, but alas our hunger got the better of us so we left dejectedly towards the mall across Legoland for some unhealthy Colonel Sanders.

Total time in Waterpark - 3hrs

After ingesting all those fats chicken wings, we headed to the main event LEGOLAND!!

Malaysia Police doing an excellent job as usual

We took a spin at every cool ride. Memorable ones include:
- TECHNIC Twisters <- it's basically Spinning Teacups on insane mode
- LEGO MINDSTORMS <- we did not expect controlling robot Emmet to do crazy shit was so fun but yes 11/10 for pure crazy retardedness
- Conquer the Dragon by Maybank <- had to insert "by Maybank cuz they sponsored the ride" Shawn and I had an interesting discussion about the ride being 80% complete with zero funding left and Maybank coming to the rescue to sponsor it all and hence they had to suck Maybank's cock so hard.
- Ninjago Live Show <- another unexpected amazing performance by puppeteers so do support them!

Hmm nothing else I remembered to be fun but we shall see...

Took a cab to our hotel which is situated near Hello Kitty town and beside an awesome harbour view!!
I strongly recommend Hotel Jen Puteri Harbour, affordable prices with amazingly fluffy bed and marshmallow pillows~ mm simply heavenly. Had Jap cuisine and beer after dinner, totally abusing the MYR to SGD ratio HAHAHA. We checked out the following day and went back home.

Gay af, but idc

Total time spent having fun - 29hrs

2. NUS cancellation of Freshmen Orientation Camp (FOC not free of charge)

Came back from my overseas fun to the shocking news of orientation camp being cancelled due to public outcry. I believe what is needed to be said has been said so I shan't mention further. We, the OGLs and S house councilors, decided to have a get-together either way to foster bonds among the new freshies and seniors. I'm really thankful for all the support S1 has given me because frankly speaking, it was tough as an AOGL and I wouldn't have managed without my councilors and seniors. Thanks <3
Thanks to the very spontaneous group of S1 freshies too for attending whatever events S house planned for and supporting Arts RAG!

Great sunny day out at Marina Barrage

3. Dedication to people in my NS life

It's been a lovely year in 8 SIR, especially so in Eastern Sector. Shout out to my OC and CSM, cadres, region clerks, PSes and fellow officers! Continue to excel in whatever you do, and put in your 110% even if no one is watching you. I have faith that everyone of you will grow from your NS cycle as I did, JIAYOU :)

This burden here had to request for a photo together before my promotion to LTA

4. See you, because it's not goodbye

To that special someone 1149km away, I'm sorry for leaving you. I was too casual with my promises, I took your heart even before I confirmed my feelings and I left you shattered and broken. You were the right girl for me| I am deeply sure you were, but it was the wrong place and wrong time.

"The time may not

             be prime for us,

            though you are

              a special person.

We may be just

                   two different clocks

            that do not tock

   in unison."

                             - Lang Leav