2009年1月31日星期六

Blog #2 Interpersonal Relationships

Fiona has two close friends named Liza and Sally. All of them are final year students from NUS. They are of 3 different characters. Fiona is optimistic, trustworthy and confident. While, Liza is hardworking but pessimistic and has weak self discipline. Lastly, Sally is committed, realistic and lack of self confidence.

Then every time when Sally feels lonely, she will go to Fiona’s dormitory and watch television drama with her. As they have different timetable, Fiona needs to go to bed early due to 8am classes, while Sally sleeps late most of the time. So when Sally drops by, Fiona will sacrifice some of her sleeping time to accompany her. While watching the TV, Sally provides latest news to Fiona, like which friend of theirs got employed even before they graduate.

Meanwhile, Liza is always vexed about her daily affairs. Thus she also turns to Fiona for help and counseling. At first Fiona thinks that she can handle her friendships well, but lately she realizes that she is mentally drained and begins to fall asleep in classes. In addition, as Fiona is still unemployed due to the bad economy, she started to lose her self confidence and become pessimistic. Life to her seems to be tougher than ever.

What should Fiona do now?

5 条评论:

  1. Hey Feng Lu,

    In my opinion, I feel that Fiona should voice out to her both her friends that she is under tremendous stress and she needs sometime alone.In addition, she can refer Liza to Sally so she can voice her problem to Sally while they are watching television drama together. Wouldn't the problem be solved?

    Funny Ji Fang

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  2. This seems like a typical problem faced by NUS female students living in Hostel. I am sure the guys knows what to do when faced in this kind of situation. They just ask his friends to leave him alone. I guess girls requires some subtlety when handling such problem. Perhaps if she needs time alone, she can tell Liza politely that , she needs to sleep as there are early lessons next day, and arrange a time when it is convenient for her to come to watch TV. Regarding stress on the poor economy, maybe she can attend some stress management lessons set up by the NUS Counselling services.

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  3. Totally agree with what Sensitive says! Haha! Guys are usually more direct, so they feel it is okay to voice out their concerns if their friends are disrupting their daily routine.

    I feel that Fiona is trying to please both of her friends so as to maintain the friendships. But since both Liza and Sally are her friends, they should understand if Fiona takes the initiative to voice her conerns given her confident personality.

    In short, it is about setting the correct priorities and balancing between time spent on friends and yourself. Agree?

    Cheers!

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  4. Hi Lovely Lu,

    The following are my opinions.

    I think Fiona is a very good friend to both Sally and Liza. But often, they say 好人早死, haha so I think it's high time that Fiona alert both her friends of her current predicament of not having enough sleep and not able to cope with lessons. Do not be afraid of losing them cause if they are really true friends, they will understand.

    The next issue would be the job issue. There's this famous saying, "There's nothing to fear, but fear itself." Do not be overly pessimistic about the situation, and certainly, confidence cannot be something to be banked on an issue such as not getting a job BEFORE graduation. Like what Fiona has realised, it's not her fault really, it's the economy. Frankly, pessimism will get one no where, personally I will rather face a challenge with a smile, realised more often than not, it will bring a better clarity of thought and better outcomes.

    Just my 2 cents worth! :P

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  5. From the above comments, we can see the differences between guys and gals: how they even react differently to communication issues. ;)

    This is an interesting example that Lu has brought up.

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