BEWARE!!! Construction Zone!!

Hello my dear readers, today my joint work with my friend and kiddo (inside joke) MiLky begins. He will be assisting me as Chief Web Designer, while I keep writing to you. It’s one super big favour he’s doing for me, and I’m very grateful he accepted.

He likes the colour blue, is always very helpful and nice, and worries a whole lot for those he cares the most. A friend I hope will never part from my side, and a true gem I was super lucky to find along my path.

I hope that his shyness will go away and he’ll dare to share here more of his GFX-ing work. With this, we will both set on a new journey of learning, mastering skills and sharing our progress with those who read us. So, I hope you’ll like the changes that the blog will be having, because I’m sure they will be awesome. :)

Thank you for staying with me from the beginning to this point, and I trust you will keep me company as I move along.

 

:)

-DS Razzmatazz.

Vagaciones~!

OH. SEÑOR. MIO!

V A C A T I O N S are here ! !

The moment I waited for... For about four months is finally here! The end of my school term. And the beginning of my super-short-for-mental-health-but-überly-needed vacations. I am officially in the beginning of the third quarter of my career, having just finished term 8 out of 12 mandatory terms. The knowledge I've gained so far is basically about the normal (expecter) functioning of the human mind and an introduction towards the main theory streams of Psychology. Soon will begin the deeper look into the pathologies... You know, the interesting stuff for those that aren't in the career (statement arises from empirical knowledge)... And bla bla bla, I don't want to speak about school right now!

The title of this blog post is intentionally misspelled. Vacaciones means vacations, for the ones that perhaps didn't dare to guess. Vago(a), means literally vague, "ser vago(a)" means "being a lazy person (the change from the termination 'o' to 'a' just denotes the change in the gender of the word, which does not work in English)"... So I merged both words, making it resemble the idea that I don't want to do anything school related during this time. But, being it Psych, there's no escape route! Everywhere I look there is human interaction! It's the one of the few sciences whose experimental subject is of the same species as the investigator.

How long is it? A week. Yes. Just one week.

I.e. seven days. If you add the weekend before the start of classes, then... it's actually nine.

And then back to the rodeo. For another four months.

There's no use in whining. Any solutions? The thing is taking advantage of the little free time I have. And I have a few things in mind. I'm aching to go out to dance, in first instance. I blame my latina blood ¬¬ . I just. need. to. dance. I also am trying to make a trip to the beach one of these days. Even though I don't want to get black. Meh, who cares! One of my best friends is coming home from Boston this Wednesday, and I'm planning to spend some time with her. Also, want to go to the Book Fair that will be held this week too. And that's just to mention a few of the things I want to do (that imply me to get out of this house). As for the things I want to do while at home, well I want to get used to being a Mod, I want to draw a bit, sleep a lot.

What would you suggest me I do on my vacations?

Following the line of me wanting to dance, here are some songs I wanna dance to. The lyrics aren't a state of art, but the rhythm gets my Latin blood rushing. Haha, it's like a calling. Have you ever felt a "calling"? For a rough example, most of the people I know from a determined country (which I'm not naming) feel a calling towards protecting their nation's "liberty".

La Despedida by Daddy Yankee (Puerto Rico) [I'm only putting a lyrics video because the video is a bit sad, even though it's fast paced] Concentrate on the rhythm, if you feel like your body moves with it, you might have some Latin blood in you!! Haha, that sounded so… not-scientific.

Danza Kuduro by Don Omar and Lucenzo. If you watched the latest movie of Fast and Furious, then you might recognize Don Omar, and the song. It has Spanish and Portuguese parts. On the first video.. I just want to say not all Latinas look like that. >.<

I like more the second video. It's mostly Portuguese with a bit of English and Spanish by a dude called Big Ali (whom I know nothing about). I also like the more down to earth style of the video. Both versions are worth listening to, though.

 

 

And Taboo by Don Omar. Again, “Fast and Furious” reference. It has Spanish and Portuguese.

This music genre is not my favourite, however, they have that Latin flavour that I feel like dancing to at this moment. Haha. Perhaps you can feel a bit Latin too once you've heard them?

 

:)

-DS Razzmatazz

A Strange Country?

One of these days, I found myself somehow reading a blog written for the help of people that want to learn Japanese and in it, I found a video that was really interesting, about Japan.

It is called "Japan: The Strange Country". It was designed as the thesis project of designer Tanaka Kenichi:

“This is my final thesis project. I created info-graphic, motion piece.
My objective is to make Japanese people to think about that everything happening here in Japan, isn’t that normal. So I created this video from foreigner’s point of view, rather than Japanese people’s point of view. I created Japanese version, English version, and Japanese voice w/English subtitle version.”

In response to some comments criticizing his work he replied:

"By the way, please don’t call me racist, because I am one of short, small eyes Japanese."

This brings another point into the game. Thinking a bit more into what this video represents made me think about one curious thing that is inherent to all of us. How we see ourselves is not always how others see us. And what we consider usual and normal is not what others consider usual and normal. It is rather funny how we expect others to see things how we see them, and when we realize it’s not like that, we can get confused.

Let me invite you to enter a different way to think. Let me invite you to the Zero Expectation Zone (ZEZ). Try to see how you are, but from a different perspective, how do others perceive you? Are your actions alright with respect to your own values? Try not to expect people to see you how you see yourself. Try to determine when you are expecting something, and try to realize that expectations only bring frustration.

Without further delay, I will present you the video in English. Perhaps you will find it as interesting as I found it to be.

 

I found the video originally here.

The webpage of the artist that created this videos is this.

A Torn Heart’s Rant.

Sometimes I sit by myself and think about you. Yes you, and you, and you over there. You, the one that left me down when I tried to hold on to you. You, the one that abandoned me when you thought I wanted to hurt you. You, the one criticizing me without knowing me, without taking into account my background. You, the one that got close to me to hurt me or ignore my feelings.

Have I hurt you? Have I disrespected you? Have I failed you? I am sorry. But I am more sorry for you if you use that as an excuse to hurt me. And all the time we’ve spent together, we’ve sent it to hell. And all those times and good memories we made, all of those are tainted with glumness and regret.

Do you hate me? Did you love me? I am confused. How come we allowed this to happen? When did we forget how much we meant to each other?

…With my heart,

-DS Razzmatazz.

Reflexiones de una Mente Desaforada.

Perder el contacto con la realidad no es algo de las personas con esquizofrenia únicamente.

Con esa línea quiero empezar el día de hoy mi blog post. Hace unos días discutía con algunos compañeros del curso un análisis que debíamos hacer por nuestra cuenta acerca de una película, a modo de practicar lo aprendido. Estando en estos menesteres, una compañera leyó de sus apuntes: “él había perdido todo contacto con la realidad”. Eso me dejó pensando. Y fui meditando con el pasar de los días, y decidí que debía anotarlo. De manera que aquí les relato mis pensamientos al respecto.

Ella aseguraba que el hombre había perdido contacto con la realidad, pero éste, en su papel principal, interactuaba con otras personas de su entorno y reaccionaba a éstas. Este hombre tenía una trastorno mental severo, el cual había afectado en un gran grado su manera de vivir. Le causaba mucha angustia y pesar. Pero viniendo al caso, ¿acaso nosotros no perdemos el “contacto con la realidad” de vez en cuando? La pérdida de la objetividad, la pérdida del enfoque,…

¿Acaso nosotros no nos encerramos en nosotros mismos cuando queremos olvidar al mundo?

A sabiendas de esto, ¿con qué derecho hemos de sentenciar a la anormalidad a personas de tal manera? Tengo claro, que mi compañera solo hacía una descripción, sin embargo tal descripción me hizo pensar en que muchas personas hoy en día lo hacen de forma natural, sin darse cuenta de lo que implica una sentencia de tal calidad.

Sólo toma unos minutos sentenciar a alguien a la horca.

Dura menos aún ponernos el hacha al hombro y cercenar la cabeza de nuestra víctima.

Se ha discutido mucho el tema de cómo separar a aquellas personas con trastornos mentales de aquellas a que llamamos “normales”. ¿Qué define la normalidad? ¿Quién la define? ¿Por qué se define de tal manera? Hoy en día existen algunos libros bastante grandes en los cuales se exponen una lista de elementos que definen a una enfermedad (DSM-IV-TR, CIE-10). Este mecanismo nos ha servido durando muchos años (aunque no demasiados teniendo en cuenta que la Psicología como ciencia es muy joven todavía) y a pesar de que no es la herramienta perfecta, es la que podemos usar con mayor confiabilidad y validez.

Sin embargo, en ocasiones puedo ver que nos vamos de lo sublime a lo ridículo diciendo que con un solo elemento, con sólo una característica de nuestro recetario de enfermedades ya estamos mostrando la anormalidad. Que no haya confusión, si bien una enfermedad puede constituir una serie de características, esto no significa que tengamos la libertad de resumir la enfermedad a una de ellas únicamente. Porque en tal caso, me declaro enferma mental en todas sus variaciones de color y matiz. Y de plano todos estaríamos enfermos también.

:)

-DS Razzmatazz.

PS: Se utilizan hoy en día tres definiciones para la normalidad:

• Normalidad estadística: involucra que de acuerdo a la curva normal, lo que se encuentre más hacia el centro por debajo de la curva se considera normal, en pocas palabras, lo más frecuente dentro de una población
• Aflicción subjetiva: se refiere a que cada uno de nosotros definimos si estamos normales al sentirnos bien con nosotros mismos
• Discapacidad/Lo ideal: hace referencia a que las discapacidades dividen lo que es normal de lo que no es, es decir, lo esperado vs lo que puede pasar pero que no se espera ni se desea.