PREQUEL - I ( THE RED SQUARE STREETS )

It was a night immersed in the stars.. The Moon was seemingly beige.. when she looked it through the glasses of the champagne tower in front of her.

The clapping & cheering pulled her out of the immersion.. immersion into the enthralling beauty of that night.

Finally, she remembered, where she was. She too clapped to adjust in time & manner.. with a smile.. an innocent but a forced one.
She saw him coming. He came & gestured towards the dance floor. She continued.. with that smile..
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After quarter of an hour.. she excused herself.
She moved towards the bar counter & asked for plain water. She took a few sips.. before turning around to look at him on the dance floor, where he continued dancing with all his wits & charm.
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With a 'lonely smile' on her face, she made her way out of that splendiferous night.
After taking only a few steps in the corridor following downstairs, she heard a gentle utterance of the word "Mademoiselle!" in a male voice filled with awe.. from behind. She turned & encountered a silhouetted figure of a man with *his arms stretched towards her to pass over her clutch-bag. Taking the bag she realized that she had left it on the counter.

Before that she could take a step forward to thank *him, face-to-face, *he left.
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Walking towards her car.. she was thinking of the scar, she noticed on the hand that passed her bag.
 
                ..... To be continued in PREQUEL -II ( THE RED SQUARE STREETS )

MENTOR, MEDIA & MESS

Gone are the days where the word 'Teacher' used to remind us of an old, geeky - personality with books in one hand and & a stick in the other. Particularly those 'drilling stares'.. 😁

New - age teachers are young achievers of their times. They're composed of new pedagogical techniques, sharp minds, competency, divergent thinking, flexible understanding & analyzing approaches.

Most of them believe in having a friendly atmosphere, beyond the conventional norms of strictness & rigidity. They're well -versed in the act of balancing knowledge with fun, discipline with spontaneity & competency with capacity.

And a new trend of this era's teacher-student relationship sees befriending themselves on social media. Well, there are simple as well as not-so-simple rules of this relationship to abide by; especially for adult students - those who express their gratitude by becoming too pally with their teachers.
Most of the teachers then find it difficult to draw the line,with such over - friendly student of theirs.
While some teachers feel that social media helps to connect with their otherwise reclusive students, diminishing the line of hesitance, others say, it also demean the line of respect & regard, with students entering into their personal sphere.

The platform should be used to share study- related content & to most extent, the issues of life in which students need the right advice.
Obviously, there are other ways to express your love for your teacher, than writing cheesy & personal comments on every picture they upload.

Both teacher & student need to maintain the integrity & purpose of this bond in every possible situation.

P.S. "HAPPY TEACHERS' DAY"

"Come to think of it ...."

It is, while reading about Kohlberg's Theory & Piaget's Ideas of Moral Development & Various stages of Emotional Development in humans that I had a sort of brainstorm & decided to write this post.

MORAL DEVELOPMENT

It was interesting to find out that posing moral dilemmas on humans, can result in better understanding of their personalities. It is because solving moral dilemmas involves trying to coordinate with one's conflicting needs & motives (including the laws of one's culture + morality of one's peers + parents' & teachers' guidelines + self interest).
Our Moral Decision Making benefits from practice & maturity & yes :) also from the 'specific' instructions, we get from our elders, on how to generalize those to "life".

EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Oscar Wilde once said, " The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray. "
And what I feel, going astray is the only way to get our worlds. (A bit philosophical, I know ;-D)
One more philosophy I remember, says, "The world is a tragedy to those who feel, but a comedy to those who think."
Emotions play an important role in life. Our emotional expressions change with the dimensions of emotions when we grow towards maturity. All of us have different patterns of emotional development & are affected by various factors such as our health, intellectual levels, environment etc.

There are these basic emotions like :-
• Happy :-)
• Excited :-D
• Tender :-l
• Scared :-o
• Angry :-(
• Sad :-/

And yes, not to forget, differences of emotional expressions are vehemently found between Girls & Boys. Girls often dissolve into tears or temper outbursts while Boys express their annoyance & anxiety by being sullen & moody.
But even these emotional development & differences in men & women have some purposes.
-Men like excitement, challenges, change, uncertainty..While Women like predictability, safety, continuity, roots & relationship - stability.
-She typically cares more than he, about details of almost everything.
-She tempers his impulsiveness & foolish tendencies while he nudges her out of apathy & excessive caution.
-She expresses confidence in her man when he feels to be needed.
-She appreciate little & big things his man does, while he does & wants best for her.

And these very contrasting inclinations work to a couples' best advantage.

Primary emotional needs of She includes Caring, Understanding & Respect. While He needs Space, Support & Appreciation for his deeds.

Even their stress-coping-techniques are different from each other as He reduces stress by forgetting about problems while She prefers talking about the problem to reduce stress.

Here's the formula :-)

1)Being aware of each others' (needs + emotions) = helps in the prosperity of relationship;

whereas,

2)(lack of awareness) + (lack of communication) = leads to Emotional Resentment.

Think!

Which formula are you applying?

P.S. (1)Thoughts and ideas expressed in this blog post are illustrative and not exhaustive.
    
         (2) Neither of He or She is superior but yes, each is certainly unique :)

We All Actually never understood Einstein's Theory Of Relativity

According to Google, Albert Einstein, in his theory of special relativity, determined
that the laws of physics are the same for all non-accelerating observers, and he showed that the speed of light within a vacuum is the same no matter the speed at which an observer travels.

In a popular science magazine, I read about the ABC of this 'gobbledygook' an article on the Gravity Waves, explained by T R GOPALAKRISHNAN & concluded that the principles of the theory are actually quite easy to understand by learning about gravitational waves in just four simple steps.
I am sharing the superficial elements of the article as what I understood :

1) THE CONCEPT OF SPACE-TIME

-According to Newton, gravity was a force- that a body attracts another body over a distance. But Einstein said that there could be a better explanation for gravity.

-Einstein actually took the concepts of SPACE & TIME (which are related) & wove them together in a single idea, called Space-time.

-Thinking of space-time as fabric, and the universe as a trampoline, Einstein's theory says space-time can be curved, & what we feel as 'gravity' is the "effect" of that curvature.

2) SPACE-TIME & GRAVITY

-Now imagine what would happen to the trampoline, if we place a huge solid Gold ball over it?

-Yes, obviously.. the trampoline would sink & cause a curvature.

-Now, suppose if we drop another solid Silver ball, smaller in size, on the periphery of the trampoline.. what would happen?

-Undoubtedly, it'd roll down towards the huge Gold ball.

-So, the conclusion here is, the earth is the Gold ball, the moon is the silver ball & the curvature or gravity you can say, is what attracts the moon to earth.

-The bigger the mass of an object, the deeper the curvature it causes.

3) GRAVITY & GEODESICS

-In case of trampoline, the silver ball would roll down to the huge gold ball in a straight line. But it doesn't happen so in the real world.

-Throw a ball into the air, & it makes a parabola in space. Similarly, a celestial body follows a path called geodesic (the equivalent of a straight line in the four-dimensional space-time).

-The moon also orbits the earth in a geodesic.

4) GRAVITY AS WAVES

-Firstly, we need to know what are gravitational waves?

-Let's suppose two heavy iron balls circling each other in the trampoline. Their movement causes ripples in the fabric, which spread outward.
In space-time, such ripples are called gravitational waves.

- When dense bodies such as neutron stars & black holes orbit around each other, the ripples in space-time resemble that of the surface of an agitated pond.

-The denser the objects, the more powerful the waves they generate.
-The faster the objects move, the more waves they produce.
-And the waves travel at the speed of light.

-Einstein's Point Of View :

-What at LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory) detected was the gravitational waves produced by the circling-around & subsequent collision of two black holes, which were 29 & 36 times the mass of the sun.

-The collision resulted in a bigger black hole, which was 62 times the mass of the sun.

-But, 29+36=65. The new black hole had a solar mass of 62. So, here the question arises where did the mass equivalent of three suns go?

-I was unable to guess the answer properly, but my guess was somewhere close to the explanation.
-Wave is a form of energy, and energy is a form of matter. E= mc^2, which means the mass equivalent of three suns went as energy of the gravitational waves.

-There's you have just thought like Einstein.   :-)

-But....
-Scientists found that it does not happen so.
-Reason- An unknown energy was deforming the tunnels, changing their length ever so slightly. As a result, the distance travelled by the beams varied, and they were not reaching the beam splitter at the same time.
Bingo, said the scientists as they had finally caught a gravitational wave.

-Thanks to the wave's effect, the lasers were recombining in such a way that it produced a measurable signal at the light detector.
-What I found interesting was - When converted to an audible sound, the waves made an unmistakable 'chirp', the loudness of which helped scientists make a rough estimate of the age of the waves.
In this case, (to my amaze) 1.3 billion years!!

P.S. - Now, I can say that Albert Einstein's theory of Relativity is not completely beyond my brain. :-)

Making judgements & Being Judgemental are two different things my dear !

I'm writing this blog post based on a technical point of view, rather than abstract thinking (as unlike most of my previous ones.)
But also, I've not gone for a literature review kind of thing. It's still a piece of my thought process just including a bit of technicalities.
Okay.. Now if you pay attention it's actually a loaded question :
What is the difference between making judgements & being a judgmental person?
Everyone make judgements all the time so
why are only certain people accused of being judgmental?
Well.. answer to this question can be easily obtained from a dictionary. Yeah!
If we look up the word judgmental in the dictionary there are generally two meanings :
1)One has to do with making judgments; so, yes, at a basic level, making judgments is being judgmental :-)
2) The other meaning of judgmental has to do with being 'overly critical' in an unhelpful way :-(
It is when we make judgments in ways that have harmful or negative consequences that we are being judgmental in ways that are best to avoid.

Okay.. Now moving forward.. I'll try to elucidate the process & associated things behind this, adopting a statistical approach. (My newfound attitude! ;-))

•In any kind of scientific investigation or survey sort of things, a small portion (sample) of the entire targeted population is used for study. And on the basis of the information contained in the sample, we draw out conclusions about the population & that's how generalisations originate.
Best example of its kind: Conducting exit polls to predict the election results.
This procedure can also be used to predict about the events, which are yet to occur, on the basis of past events. This is very much the concept of Inferential Statistics; closely tied to the logic of hypothesis testing.

•In hypothesis testing, we have a particular value in mind.
(Now it seems that the post is going abstruse, let's take an example to understand this concept.)
- Particular value, here, can be understood as our preconceived notions about a person (He always does so, he's this way only) ,
thing (Glasses <3 are meant to be broken) ,
situation (First job interview: Fear or not to Fear? etc.)
We 'Homo sapiens' tend to hypothesize that this value "characterise" the population of observations.

Actually, what we are supposed to do :

•In estimation, no particular population value need to be stated.
-(We actually don't require to view everybody with the same frame of mind. We need to understand that everyone is different & unique in their own ways & so needed our perspective to be: WIDE)

Rather, we need to question is, what is the population value? (What all there is in this being, that makes me consider him twice? What are his strengths, his potential, his source of energy, his VALUE?)

•Hypothesis testing is one of the important areas of our analyses, decision -making process that we come across in our day-to-day situations. (Most often in judging our surroundings) & then taking decisions or resolutions to change ourselves either by adopting or withdrawing from the situation. (Ah! we the complex beings!!)

How This Is Done?

• Firstly, we define our hypothesis as a statement, which may or may not be true about our target (whosoever going to be judged by us).
Here, it could be a possibility that the probability distribution of our assumption that we wish to validate, is not in a convincing ratio. ( For e.g., Not all men are impassive. Mind it! )
Most of the times, our experiences are gained from 2-3 persons (random samples, you can say), instead of entire population. And we draw our conclusions regarding this world, (a giant word in itself, indeed!). That's the very thing which should not be done. AT ALL!!
•Before drawing inferences about the entire population (here, world) it should always be kept in mind that the observed results might have come due to chance factor .(Let's suppose your boss is the typical stricter among the lot, but this can merely be a chance factor that you're the only one chosen to survive him! bad luck though ;-))  
So, One of the very precautionary thing here, is that the Chance Factor needs to be ruled out in order to have a balanced perspective towards this world.

•Now for avoiding these chance factors,  probability of chance occurrence of the observed results need to be examined.

This can be done by examining :
1) Null Hypothesis
2) Alternative Hypothesis

Null hypothesis is that we assume that the two samples (with or without having chance factor) came from the same population.

While, Alternative hypothesis is counter proposition to Null hypothesis; which assumes that the two samples belong to two different populations.

•Now, in these..the alternative hypothesis is not directly tested, rather its acceptance or rejection is determined by the rejection or retention of the other one. (The Null Hypothesis)
And all this acceptance & Rejection game is mostly played in the dimensions of probability.
-If the probability value of our assumption being correct is quite high, & observed results are not significant. NULL HYPOTHESIS IS ACCEPTED. Or otherwise REJECTED.

P.S.- I've taken my best efforts to blend  layman understanding with statistical approach. Even then, if it fails to strike  the chords of your brain wires, I'd suggest you to reread later.
May the incubation effect work!

Why You Are The Way You Are

Before continuing with my interest , I want to highlight that the title of this blog post has already been subtitled in a famous book The Birth Order Book , a 1982
non-fiction book by Dr. Kevin Leman on Birth Order and its potential influence on Personality and Development. As per my interests, I found this book worth holding out till the end.
The Idea of writing this blog post came to me while reading the magnificent history of Personality Assessment. I believe, the very first objective of studying psychology that comes to a naive mind is to understand the ways in which people behave & why they behave so. They are of immediate interest to family, friends & neighbours, for whom the behaviour of a certain person is likely to have direct consequence.
Here, via this post I aim to generalize a small concept of Personality Assessment & Related Fields in a lucid manner to the masses.
••In regard to personality tests, one finds that the first name is of Greek Physician Hippocrates. He theorised that everyone has four fluids (The Humoural Theory) : Blood, Phlegm (respiratory secretions), Yellow bile & Black bile. Another Greek Physician pointed out that based on these body fluids, there are four 'temperaments', viz., Sanguine, Phlegm, Choleric & Melancholic respectively.
-The Sanguine person is supposed to be warm, optimistic & confident.
-The Phlegmatic body brings about a temperament which is sluggish, apathetic & indifferent.
- The Choleric body consists of violence, anger & aggression.
-The Melancholic body includes sadness, depression & melancholy.
••Different from the mainstream, then in 1958, based on the famous Jung's theory psychologists developed types of personality which were to be decided based on the four questions, as given below :
1) Preferred source of your energy? (Internal or External)
2) Preferred source of perception? (Senses or Intuition)
3) Preferred decision making system? (On Logics or Feelings)
4) Preferred life style? (Ordered or Adaptable)
••One more interesting theory that assumed that human personality is a reflection of physical body is Somatotype theory. This theory divides people into three major types:
a) The Ectomorph (who is thin & fragile)
b) The Mesomorph (who is powerful & muscular)
c) The Endomorph (who is round, soft and fat).
As most individuals have a combination of these three body types, the personality characteristics are determined by the relative proportions of the body type factors in their individual somatotype. [somato- of or relating to the human or animal body.]
This is just a bit of fascination. There are much more rich & interesting facts regarding Assessment of Personality deepening one's attraction towards psychology.

THE RED SQUARE STREETS

"Hey! Stop"
"I was calling you so hard.... you just didn't listen ! .... What's wrong with you ?"
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"Nothing ! .... I just didn't pay attention"

He then walked away. His ignorance allowed just this much to come out from inside him.
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She was still standing at the same place.... puzzled!
She saw him going away, till his persona shrunk to the size of 'dew'.... outside as well as inside her !
Her eyes experienced a different hue all around her. For a second, she almost gone blank.... trying to sync with the coldness (with which he left) & the warmth (she always possessed).
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The clock struck sharply.. marking the hour, from the clock tower behind her, bringing her into consciousness.
After a long period of numbness.. finally tears ran down her cheeks. The warmth of tears helped her regain sensitivity.
She didn't even once.. try to wipe them out as.. every falling tear was taking away her sorrow with it.
And that's what she really wanted then.
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She made her hands move in search of her phone. Taking it out.. she hurriedly typed something & without a delay her thumb pressed the send button.
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Her message was received. But this time.. to 'whom' she really wanted to.
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A few minutes after.... she was with *him. She really was .... with *him.
This time she stretched her hand towards *him. *He held it with the same gentleness as *he always wanted to. She gave *him *his life & her world.. & with a loving heart.... *he promised to take utmost care of it.
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With smiles on their faces, they both walked on. They walked on.... the streets of Red Square, Moscow.
The streets .... that witnessed the most substantial turn of her life.
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She never looked back. And she will never forget the Red Square streets.. as that day those streets walked with her too.

P.S. -• He & *He were two different beings.
        -•  The famous 'Saviour tower' is the clock tower mentioned in this fictional composition.