Sharing: What's Your Love Language?

Picture taken from Google.

It may be late to be blogging at this hour but I guess its better now or never especially when it comes random thoughts or emotions.What I would like to address now is the baby steps in getting to know oneself better, which is, do you know what's your love language? Knowing this little part of yourself may help you understand why you do the things you do or feel.

I got to know about this love languages back in 2012 and I really cannot recall how I stumble upon it. To be honest, when I took the test for the first time in 2012, all I thought was "ok, cool" and soon it faded into the archives of my brain.

The thing that brought this back was the conversation with my friend which somehow revealed to me what a horrible and awful person I am, Irresponsible with my emotions and actions which caused grief or bitterness in people around me, especially the people I love, When I thought I got it all in control or covered, it is things like these that comes knocking down on that ego throne I have made myself comfortable in. I guess it is true that He works in ways we cannot see.

I shan't talk much about the founder of this love languages test but I have attached a link to his profile with his name. Just click on it if you would like to read more about him.

Gary Chapman revealed that there are 5 types of love languages:

• Quality Time
• Acts of Service
• Physical Touch
• Words of Affirmation
• Receiving Gifts

The definitions are: 

Freakishly enough, it has been exactly 4 years and 13 days I last took the test. The same month but 4 years later! What are the odds. Hmm. Anyhow, here are my results: 

So here's the summary (actually I did this table so that it is easier for me to summarize, LOL): 

2012			2016
Acts of Service	8	11	Acts of Service
Physical Touch	8	5	Physical Touch
Quality Time	7	9	Quality Time
Words of Affirmation	6	4	Words of Affirmation
Receiving Gifts	1	1	Receiving Gifts

Based on the table, Acts of Services and Quality Time turns out to be my highest form of receiving love or perceiving love from someone and I had a mini epiphany that may also be my way of showing love to others as well. Yep, an 'Ah' moment happened when I saw the results. 

Let me try to explain. I did receive comments throughout these four years on how I am 'motherly' or I exude that 'motherly' vibe that can be good but also bad if I don't keep it in check. How?  

Good = caring, loving, etc.
Bad = possessive, bossy, etc. 

Being the eldest of 5 children, I guess doing things for people have been wired in my brain since young. Examples: Helping my siblings (indirectly helping my mom) such as helping them to take a bath/helping them get dressed/helping them read or with their homework means = I love my siblings. This could explain why the "Acts of Service" ranks high on my list of love languages as I grow older, wider, and hopefully in maturity as well. So if I offer to do something for you, know that I like you enough and I am glad to be able to help. Please don't mistaken this as an opportunity to ask people of this love language to do things for you when they did not offer to help. HAHA. 

Next on the list is 'Quality Time'. This is quite self-explanatory. As you grow over the years with good and bad experiences that makes you see and decide who and what is important in your life. Prioritizing. Also something that is still quite new to me. Quality time also requires commitment. One example could be, 'keeping to the agreed time' so that you will have more time to spend with one another instead of waiting on each other that may lead or encourage the simmering of contempt if not dealt with healthily. 

Okay, it is best for me to stop typing now before I start spouting utter rubbish or go on some random sharing as my eyelids are starting to feel heavy. Anyway, before I end my post, I would just like to make it clear that I am in no way affiliated with the website. Just sharing it as I found it helpful in understanding myself better and those around me. You can give this love languages test a try at this link: 

http://www.5lovelanguages.com/

Take the test and share your story in the comments below. 

I would love to hear from you. 

Till next post,

Love,

Sarah :)

Hello! err.. 2016?

     

     

            Wow. It has many moons since I last blogged an entry. I am truly sorry for leaving you in the dark for so long. There are so many emotions, memories, thoughts, rants I want to share. All of them contained inside of me, bursting at the seams. But every time when I get the chance to do so, something comes up.

          I just completed my second semester of my Masters’ Degree and I hope to (no, damn well need to) start my dissertation as soon as possible. It was a packed and trying semester as the learning curve was painfully steep and I literally felt I was struggling to swim in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with only an orange, doughnut float that is keeping me from drowning.

          But I managed to pull through and learnt how to piece the parts of research from scratch and managed to not fail any of my continuous assessments. Now with silent prayers laced with immense fear and hope, I am waiting for my exam results hoping I won’t have to repeat both papers. 

          As the wise Maya Angelou once said, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better” - After discovering this quote, I felt some sense of relief and calmness. It hit a cord within me and its unlike any those quotes that says, “YOU CAN DO IT” or “AIM FOR THE STARS” etc. Her advice is a logical and achievable target, doing the best that you can until you know how to do it better. Something all struggling postgraduate students need to acknowledge and understand.

          Well, I shall put my personal entry on hold for now and share with you on what happened last Thursday in my next post. See ya! :D  

Random Ramblings : First Semester of MESL

Where have I been?

I was blessed with the opportunity to continue my studies in Masters of English as a Second Language in February. It's not teaching English as a Second Language but learning in depth about English as a Second Language. It's a total different ball game altogether. There are quite a handful of people gets teaching English and learning English mixed up.

There's a vast difference between Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) and Masters of English as a Second Language (MESL). TESL mainly focuses on methodology on teaching English and mind you, you don't study or learn English but you learn how to TEACH English to second-language learners. Whereas for MESL, it focuses mainly on language acquisition and here the targeted language is English. Hence, focusing on HOW second-language learners LEARN or ACQUIRE the targeted language, English. Hope this clears the confusion.

Anyhow, I have finally completed my first semester of my Masters program and it was an... interesting ride. Interesting because it felt like travelling a known terrain which becomes the unknown. Familiar parts of the terrain that gave me this false sense of control, but the truth is, I have little or no control at all. It felt as if my four years as an undergraduate student seems nonexistent. I had unlearned and relearned so much that my brains (or whatever is left) felt like exploding out of this thick skull of mine.

Trying to grasp totally new concepts of language acquisitions, exploring works of renowned researchers, and reading papers after papers  has sent me questioning myself why I am here in the first place. According to my course mate who was is linguistic graduate, I quote her, "It is as if the 3 1/2 years of what I have learned as an undergraduate has been compacted into the three weeks of the semester". Imagine that, I am a TESL graduate and linguistics is fairly new to me. I truly felt like I was drowning.  

I thought I knew what I was doing and I thought everything would turn out just fine. But halfway and at the end of the semester, I questioned myself countless of times. Why am I doing this? Is it for the money? Is it for the passion? Is it for the greater good? What's the greater good? How am I going to apply all of these knowledge in my future job? Tons of unanswered questions on replay in my head and as expected, self-doubt comes creeping in to every corner of both my conscious and subconscious mind. Cloaking every light, dampening every spark. It was and still is a struggle. Being depressed was nothing new and every now and then, anxiety attacks kicks in.

Well, that's all for now. Stay tuned for more nonsense from me!