Pixelated Scribbles

Oh! Oh! Remember about me asking what’s the difference between basic research and applied research in THIS post? Well, I think I’ve finally figured it out.

Many thanks to my Oxford dictionary of Psychology, it defined basic research as research that has to do with hypothesis testing and trying to find out about a phenomena. Whereas applied research is research in trying to solve problems. Pretty clear cut huh? Well, I didn’t think so! When I was trying to categorise my saved journals into applied and science, I got confused!! So after hours of pondering and all sorts of activities inbetween (yes, this included the essay write up!), I finally got it!!

Applied in BA is something that is of social significance. Then I thought, the easiest way to distinguish between basic research and applied research is this – if the research involves rats, pigeons, and whatever animal, then it’s basic; if the study involves people with specific traits (e.g. self injurious behaviou, autism, aggression, etc), then it’s applied.

Alhamdulilah. I deserve a golden sticker!

Here’s a little change from the whole seriousness of my recent posts.

Tagged by Nisa. Basically, I had to use Google Image to answer the questions below. I’m meant to tag 7 other people too..but..naaaaaaaahhh~ Hahah.

The Age of my next Birthday

A place I’d like to travel to

A favourite place

A favourite thing

A favourite food

A favourite colour

The city I live in

The city I was born in

A nickname I had

College Major

Name of my love

A bad habit

A hobby

Wishlist

Nothing in life is certain but one, and that is the inevitable death.

We don’t know if we’re going to pass or fail an exam. We don’t know what another person is going to say in a conversation. We don’t know which potential employer is going to give us a job. We don’t know what we might come across at the road ahead. There is nothing that we can be certain of in this life other than our death. We all know that we’re going to die one day, but we’ll never know when that day will be.  In 10 years time? 20 years time? Next year? Next week? Later today? Who knows?

I’m not trying to dampen the mood here, or make people feel depressed. What I’m trying to say is that maybe we should stop living our lives as if we’re going to live forever. If we could just TRY to remember the certainty-uncertainty (certain because it will definitely happen, and uncertain because we don’t know when it’s going to happen) of death in our daily lives, maybe we’d stop wasting so much time. Maybe we’d stop hurting our parents’ feelings. Maybe we’d stop living a reckless life. Maybe we’d start preparing for the afterlife for those who believe in the afterlife. As time passes through us, the closer we are to death. And once our death comes, there is nothing that’s going to stop it from happening. Nothing.

So let this be a reminder to all of us, and especially for me. Let us stop “killing time”, and make each and every moment worthwhile as much as possible.

To readers who are well and able, please give sadaqah of surah Al-Fatihah to my late grandfather, Hj Lamit, who passed away earlier today. Jazakumallahu ahsanu khairan.

One of the topics that we learned in class today was on social validity. Social validity can be measured in 3 dimensions:

1. Social significance of the goals,
2. Appropriateness of procedures, and
3. Social importance of effectiveness.

The goals set for an intervention/treatment/programme should be the things that:

1. the direct consumer (clients, e.g. child);
2. indirect consumers (people who are directly in contact with the clients, e.g. the group who requested for the programme);
3. the immediate community (e.g. teachers, extended family, neighbours); and
4. the extended community (the society as a whole)

consider to be important. I’d elaborate furthur but I’m a bit tired. So I’ll trust your intelligence to grasp this concept. Then the procedures being used has to be feasable for the implementors of the intervention. They should like it. They should find it easy to implement. They should fell comfortable about delivering the programme. Despite what the data might show, the outcome of the treatment should be percieved as effective by the consumers and not by the researcher.

Why does social validity matter? Let me see. Would anybody want to use a treatment that they don’t think would be effective? Would you want to be wasting time investing and designing a procedure that is abandoned half way because the consumers didn’t like it, or didn’t think it was working? Do you want to use a programme that has a bad reputation?

So my question here is – does the religious “education” (schools, home, TV, Radio, etc) in Brunei have social validity? The question was sparked by today’s lecture (as you can see above), and also a blog post linked by Nisah (post can be read HERE). Here’s a little extract from the post:

How much I underestimated the importance of finding a masjid, a community, that welcomes, challenges and improves, instead of ignores, dulls and insults.  We can tell people in our community, “You have to go to jumu’ah.”  It is for men a fard.  But what happens when the khutbah sucks, the Imam is lost, nobody understands anything and half the congregation, namely the youth, end up falling off and disappearing, because nobody cares and so, in cynicism, they do not care in a kind of wa ‘alaykum salam for forever.

With the increasing moral dilemma faced by Brunei, is anybody doing anything about it? For instance, if the strong encouragement to enroll into Ugama schools was meant to prevent or minimise moral conflicts in Brunei, why are the “social issues” increasing instead? Is there a decrease in the number of people attending ugama schools during the older and “better” times as compared to now? What’s the educational history of the people who have committed these “immoral acts”; did they used to attend or never attended ugama school? To take the question a little bit further – has this method (enrollment into ugama school) become ineffective, and has it become socially invalid?

In reference to the above quoted paragraph; if a majority of the jemaah never listen to the khutbah anymore, there has to be a reason (or even reasons) for this. The author mentioned about the way it’s delivered. Why don’t they try to find what the rest of the jemaah feel and think. Collect the data; take into account the comments by the jemaah and modify the different variables that might influence the likeliness of attending behaviour during the khutbah; then ask the jemaah again about the khutbah after the intervention.

This is the beauty of Islam – it marries religion with science. Islam doesn’t compartmentalise spirituality and science. So why can’t we use scientific methods to understand our community, to understand the problems faced by the society, and to find a solution for these problems? As long as it’s not against the syariah, it should be ok, right?

Right. I need sleep. I’m already doing half of my typing with my eyes close. Till then; peace.

As said previously, I’d breakdown the talk by Moez Masoud in a number of posts. So if you see “Soul Cruch” in the header, that’d be part of the “series”. Sounds like a TV show now, doesn’t it? Huhuhu. Soooo…righty ho!

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We are living in a time where greed takes a predominant role in our lives and in our society. We keep wanting something that we don’t really need. May it be a new pair of branded stilettos despite already having a cupboard full of them; or a need to cut off more trees to build more shopping complexes despite already having shopping complexes that are still half empty. Once we start thinking that we need what we really don’t need, we’d begin to desperately search for more “space” to accommodate these needs – whether or not it’s on the expense of others (humans, non-humans, earth). It doesn’t matter. As long as we can get what we THINK we need, that is all that should matter. As the saying goes; the ends justify the means. But we can’t really have enough of what we don’t really need.

The Prophet used to say, “If the son of Adam were given a valley full of gold, he would love to have a second one; and if he were given a second one, he would love to have a third, for nothing fills the belly of Adam’s son except dust.” (Sahih Bukhari)

Our time today is ruled by this “materialistic philosophy”. This greed in humans is like a cancerous cell. It multiplies and kills. Let’s just look at the state of our environment today. Flash floods, landslides, excessive raining, thinning of the ozone layer. Why are these happening? So that WE could have a taste of what we have done.

Corruption have appeared on land and in the sea because of the hands of men; Allah wants them to taste a part of their doings, so that they might return to the right path. (Surah Ar Rum:41)

What’s happening to the environment today is caused by man himself. US! (us as in we..not the United States) Their desire to gain profits, and more profits, and MORE profits. The “need” to meet the infinite materialisitc demands.

Inside of us, there is the nafs which could be defined as soul, self, ego. Take your pick. To understand its nature, we would then have to look at Surah Yusuf, ayat 53:

And I am not free (from blame), for the inner self (nafs) is inclined to evil, except when My Lord bestows His Mercy (Upon whom He wills). Verily, my Lord is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful

With this nafs, we could either:

1. control it and command it to do good, or
2. allow it to go wild and ruin us and our surroundings.

Thus, it’s this raging nafs that is causing us to become disillusioned by the short-term and temporary gratification that we attain from the splendours on earth. So how do we get around this? How can we put a leash around this raging nafs to benefit ourselves AND the whole of humanity? That, my beautiful people, I shall elaborate on the next “Soul Crunch” post

‘Till then…peace

That’s it! It’s 1:26am, and I’ve given up trying to go to sleep.

Rather than waste my time TRYING to go to sleep, I might as well use the time to do my work. I am behind scheduleeeeeeeee! Or maybe my “schedule” is just a bit over ambitious? Whatever it is, I’m going to do work. I might even throw in some coffee so I’d be nice and alert.

Will I regretting this tomorrow? Let’s see…I have lectures from 10.30am – 6pm. Then there’s an Islamic talk from 6pm. So yes, I will regret this tomorrow. Or should I say “later”? 

*shrug*

A recent study have shown that…….

…unhappy people watch more TV!!

So don’t you be raising your eyebrows at me when I say that I don’t have a TV at home :p

HERE’s the link to the original article

Guess where I was on Friday?  

Ladies and gentlemen, that is Moez Masoud <3 <3 <3

Millions and millions of thanks to flatmate for agreeing for come with me to the talk. I would’ve felt really, really silly running around the tube stations and getting lost ALONE at the LSE campus. And thank you for taking his picture when my camera decided to die on me – out of ALL days!

I didn’t really know he was coming to the UK until Tuesday, I think. I almost went to Nottingham instead because I thought he’d only be going there. But I found out that he’d be in London too, so I decided to just see him when he was in London. London’s closer – or is it not?  Well, it was 28 pounds well spent! If a handful, JUST a handful of the religious leaders (broadly categorising) in Brunei spoke like him, with so much passion, conviction and cultural literacy, a moral dilemma could’ve been the least of our worries. As you can see from the picture – I sat front row! I could’ve sat closer but I was shy. Huhuhuh. This is just waaaaay better than any gigs or concerts. Serius!

Anyway, the topic was entitled “Soul Crunch : How Building the Right Relationships Can Help You Survive Troubled Times”. From a glance, one would expect him to focus on the relationship between us and God, and how  everything else would follow through from there on – but there’s an extension to that. There are actually other things (2 more) that we also need to work on  to get that spiritual peace, happiness, and stability; to fight that ‘materialistic philosphy’ and the greed that’s eating up the society; and to find that Paradise in the Hereafter, God willing. I shall dedicate one post focusing on just this at a different time. 

Another assumption that one might derive from seeing that topic (or even the event itself) is how it would only be applicable to the Muslims and ONLY benefit the Muslims. Well, it wasn’t and isn’t. A significant part of the talk was infact on how we could act as a society, and how our actions could benefit the humanity as a whole. He actually began his talk by quoting the lyrics of a song by Eddie Vedder. Below is the vid clip and the lyrics of the aforementioned song.

It’s a mystery to me.
We have a Greed, with which we have agreed.
And you think you have to want more than you need.
Until you have it all, you won’t be Free.
Society, you’re a crazy breed.
I hope you’re not lonely without me.
When you want more than you have, you think you need.
And when you think more than you want your thoughts begin to bleed.
I think I need to find a bigger place.
‘Cause when you have more than you think you need more space.
There’s those thinking more less, less is more.Th

Now, wouldn’t you agree? I will, insya Allah (God willing), dedicate another post on this aspect alone at a different time… so you can then expect me to breakdown the talk into a number of posts  

Till then. Peace.

I don’t understand why BA need to conceptualise every. single. thing. What’s wrong with using/calling it command or demand instead of ‘mand’. Why can’t motivation remain as motivation and not be further complicated by calling it ‘Motivating Operations’ and subdividing it into ‘Establishing Motivation’ and ‘Abolishing Motivation’ (there are more subdivisions, btw).  Remembering the jargons is one thing. Defining them in THEIR words is another thing.

The rant may not be directly related to my current state of mind, instead it is triggered by this sudden flood of information that’s getting a bit too overwhelming for me. I’ve been working on one of my essays since this afternoon. It’s exciting (yes, weirdly) yet scary at the same time.

It’s a blessing to be in a university here. We have an almost unlimited access to thousands and thousands of academic journals. So it makes research and learning a whole lot easier and enriching. But when there are just SO many journals under the same topic of interest, you just don’t know which ones are actually relevant.  In my case, I’m swimming thorugh the sea of academia love letters to do an essay. The more I read, the more blurry the general question of the essay title becomes. I even had to use the brain of a polititian-in-training to help me see the light at the end of THIS tunnel.  Yes, I’m getting a cognitive overload here. Synaptic connections aren’t enough for a quick absorption of information.

I should stop for a while and spend some quality time with God.

I managed to arrive home before 8pm today. Yes, it’s a big deal for me. On a usual Monday night after we’re done at the masjid, we’d usually look for food outside the vicitiny of our homes. Yes, simply put as makan luar. Too much money to burn? Far from it! Our freezer’s been a bit empty as of lately. Class is going to end at 3pm tomorrow, so will definetly do some grocery shopping, insya Allah.

Last week in class, we covered this topic on the different interventions (contingency management) used to treat people with substance abuse (heroine, cocain, tobacco, etc). So, there was this one particular study that have been shown to work. Roughly, the treatment involves the participants turning up to some sort of group therapy at a predetermined date and time (every month? every few months?) and providing urine for a drug test (forgive me if that’s not an appropriate term). Upon their attendance to this meeting, AND evidence of a ‘clean’ urine, they would be entitled to draw from a pool of prizes – similar to the lucky draw concept. So it could be a wide screen TV or money, whatever. So there I was, excited, and thought , “Wow~ If only Brunei knew about this. Maybe they could use this sort of treatment for Al-Islah and the likes of it,” But then I thought, “Is this syariah compliant?” Lucky draw is haram, so is this similar to lucky draws? Would this be haram too?

So. After today’s lecture on Surah Al-Qamar, I managed to ask one of the well knowledgeable brothers (he sometimes replaces the Sheikh for the the Monday lectures) concerning the CM intervention mentioned above. My concern was on the possibility that treatment would be similar to gambling. However, he said that it is not haram, because it’s not gambling. Instead of relying on chance to get the “rewards”, the participants had to actually use their abilities to aqcuire them. In this case, they had to be drug-free, and had to turn up for the group therapy. Hence, the aforementioned treatment is not haram. Wallahualam bisawab. Allah knows what is correct. There’s actually another type of intervention that uses similar principles, but different variables that’s also been found to work.

It’s exciting to learn things could benefit the people back home. Let’s just hope that an opportunity will come that would enable me to make good use of the knowledge, insya Allah.

Forgive me if my latest posts are…boring. Islam, Behaviour Analysis and current issues seem to be the only things that interest me. Yes. I’m old :p