the one with amanda the "unnecessarily dominated" leader

My ankle got worse after the yoga class last night, today I cannot even walk properly and every step took me by pain. Well guess only can blame that on myself -- I have been to gym almost every single day from two weeks ago when I got the gym pass, and dont know what the hell I was thinking decided still continue my yoga after I hurt my ankle days before. Just hope I can recover soon because I miss walking and running freely.

Sociology class becomes more and more interesting and I always feel like have learned a lot after lectures and tutorials. Even though it is not fun when trying to understand all the readings with sociology terms, it feels good when you go to classes and brainstorming with the lecturer and find out oh it is like this. The sociology course I am taking here is about welfare system which mainly focuses on western welfare system -- I don't know why but I could hardly find anything refering those regimes we have in Asia in all the references, not to mention taking China as example. But it is interesting to observe some of characteristics of nordic welfare state here in Norway. For example, I though it is only by accident when I noticed it is the husband here would take care of the babies. But after a while, I found that actually it is always the daddy who take over the prams or hold babies in streets. It is not saying how powerful women are in the society but the females are undoubtly encouraged to persue what they want and family/childcare would not be an obstacle. Speaking of observation in streets, it is also true that old people here often do things on their own. No matter on the icy roads or crowded stores, it is so common to see the old people quietly mind their own business. Locals say maybe its because Norwegians are very independent, well, ever since they enter adulthood. Not sure if its an Scandinavian characteristic as well but it reminds me of the very popular American individualism concept in China.

Although I walked like disabled today, I still need to go to this assessment center for AIESEC. I did not realize it was the final stage of memership recruitment until I got NHH so was bit surprised. Well it was a final round interview and it was the longest (maybe the toughest) and most formal one I have ever had. It is a large group interview and we have 10 candidates in total. In the two and half hours, we performed tasks including a group discussion and small presentation. At final stage, there was an q&a session for individuals. I shall say I performed average in the group discussion but maybe its because of the language or the leadership style. A teamplayer commented me as "unnecessarily dominated". It is very interesting to join this group interview not only because I had experienced a challenging one but also that it made me rethink myself as well as the environment.
Remember Dad once told me there is something very essential and good deep in Chinese culture which is seeking the peace inside yourself and not be influnced by anything good or bad (it might be bad translation eh eh..). I would understand it as think about you and only you inside, which might sounds like Individualism in America but actually it totally the opposite. Individualism in America depends a lot on how you present yourself and how you win over others. Something like "as long as you have faith in yourself, YOU can do it". In this sense, I always persume that something is western culture has very much to do with competition. Children are educated to compete with each other and feel good about themselves based on others' praises. I don't know what it is like exactly about myself but I do think I enjoy the process of competing and I would be aggressive when I force myself to compete.
But that is not the important part of today's interview because I think I just perform how I am supposed to and the point is, people would think it is being aggressive. And my guess is, it is all about environment. It would be a culture thing in North America that everybody in the group wants his/her voice to be heared and people would never hesitate to express their opinions, well plus English is their first language so there is no problem at all. It would all about presentation if put this case in HK. Business people are very well trained to present themselves just in order to leave impression on whoever might be judging (think about the Business students in CUHK errhh). Well then I thought about the commerce students I met at Queens then they can be more perfect.
hmmm...I'm kind of lost in what I am gonna say here, maybe should compare a little with the students here but I dont have a big sample size ;-)

2 in the morning already so I am very sleepy... Only hope my ankle can get better soon cause I know got a long way to go.

Best to all of you.

Love,
Amanda