Dreams

Relationships

2010-07-24T18:16:00.005+08:00

Relationships take patience and effort to maintain. Of course, this does not refer to only love relationships--family, friends, co-workers; maintaining a cordial, if not happy, relationship with them is important.

The level of priority in maintaining these relationships probably depends on how much time you spend with each group of people, and their ability to make your life a living hell. And topping the list is definitely the person you are going to spend the rest of your life with.

There are perks to being in a relationship. You get someone to confide in, someone who cares specially about you, someone you can unabashedly care about, someone you can look forward to meeting, etc. But a relationship is seldom all roses and flutters. Reality always intrudes into the happy picture--be it an stressful day at work, or a random incident that really pisses you off, all has the potential to turn your day into a nightmare. And just when you expect to be rid of all these annoyances, to go home to the arms of your loved one, you find yourself getting into another argument with your loved one.

The problem is this: when you are unhappy, and you bring your bad mood home, chances are that your mood will rub off on those who are closest to you. Some will take it personally, while some shun you for fear of conflict. And you being in a bad mood, inevitably the smallest things will get you riled up.

The solution? Well, there is probably no one solution for everyone, and there probably isn't one solution for each couple. Different circumstances call for different treatments. But the key word is patience. And make more allowances for the person who has a bad day. Sometimes when you are having a bad day, you get a bit irrational, you also want people to give in to you unconditionally. So when you are on the receiving end of it, try to remember that and give in, for the time being at least. You can thrash him when his mood blows over.

Depending on the person, you also need to cheer the person up in the way he/she prefers. For my girlfriend, she prefers to be left alone. Or I will allow her to rant a bit. For me, a hug with comforting words will be best. And the more hugs the better.

Maintaining a relationship that lasts isn't easy, but it will be easier if everyone keeps that goal in mind all the time.

camera

2010-07-03T11:37:00.002+08:00

Sometimes, we see the world through camera lens. We hold up the cameras to beautiful images, fitting the world into a four sided frame, seeking to capture the best image possible within this space.

And sometimes, we forgot to look at the world without these camera frames.

PC Shows

2010-06-27T10:30:00.005+08:00

PC shows, or IT fairs, however you call them, are not good places to buy good IT stuff.

Cheap stuff, maybe, if you are lucky, and if you manage to avoid being trampled to death by the huge throng of IT enthusiasts. But not good stuff. And certainly not good and cheap stuff.

I have my fair share of IT shows. I used to go just to catch a bargain, but almost never did buy anything. The first time I did buy though, was last year when I went there to buy a laptop for my sister. There was a promotion, for students only, for an immensely cheap HP laptop, with great stats at only 1.3k. I braved the crowd with my Mel on the tow, heroically and paranoiacally fending off the crowd from her, queuing up and enduring incompetent salespersons, finally to close the deal with a promise from the supplier that the laptop will arrive in 1 week.

It took 2 weeks to come, and slightly more than a year later, it crashed. Yap and jianzhong who bought the same laptop had worse luck: they are having problems with the "super bargain buy" laptop even earlier than i did.

Undeterred by that, I went to a PC show this year again. Supposedly the telcos will have "great bargains" up for grabs at the PC show, and since I am looking for a new phone with a new contract, what better place to apply for one than at a PC show?

So I dragged mel with me again to the PC show. There was a damn long queue at the starhub booth, but luckily one of the salespersons told me that I do not need to apply for my cable tv subscription there (which I am intending to as well), since all other starhub shops give the same package, just without the freebies. Since the freebies is just an anti virus which I don't need, I chose not to queue there and then, much to the relief of mel.

The phone queue was much shorter, but I had to endure incompetent salespersons again, and a mel who was alternating between dozing off on my shoulder and trying to bite the head off the incompetent salesgirl.

Mel bought a motorola phone for me as a birthday present, the latest model. Since it was pretty expensive, I was quite careful about buying it. I asked specifically what happens if there is something wrong with it when I go home. The salesgirl told me that they would do a 1 for 1 exchange for me. That settled me, so I went ahead and made the purchase.

Turned out that there IS something wrong with the phone when I brought it home. Instead of charging up, it discharges when I connect it to the power socket. So I tried to do the 1 for 1 exchange. Turns out that starhub won't do it. They say that motorola insists that we bring the faulty phones to them. I don't know if they are lying, but that sounds like a damn lame excuse from starhub. what is the difference between starhub bringing the phones to motorola and us bringing the phones instead?

So I had to go to motorola. There is just ONE motorola service shop in the whole of singapore. and it is located at The Cathay. Look, if it is not just next the MRT, then it is a ulu shopping center in my dictionary. And looking at the number of people that frequent the near empty building, apparently most singaporeans agree with me.

At the one and only motorola shop, there are seven counters, but only ONE service staff. And she is the cashier, service, collection all rolled into one. Even though I was the next in line, I have to wait 30 minutes before I can even speak to her.

And, surprise surprise, she refused to do a 1 for 1 exchange. Said she had to send it in for testing first, according to the company's regulations. So fine, I left it with her. Few hours later they called to tell me that the phone is fine, and i should just bring it back with me. I was flabbergasted, and no way am I going to take the phone back only to have it discharging on me again. Is it so hard to change a phone for me on the spot, when I have not even used the phone for one day? So I demanded that they change the phone.

They said they will get back to me. And they didn't. Further attempts to call them for 2 consecutive days are futile. Presumably the cashier cum service cum collection is also the phone operator. Mel managed to get them once though, and I have no idea what she told them (hopefully she didn't walk them through the image of her chewing on their entrails), but she managed to convince them to change a phone for me. They called me at the end of the second day to tell me to collect the new phone.

So far, the newer phone is working fine. But as far as I am concerned, motorola's service is absolutely terrible. Starhub's service is lousy too. Moral of the story is: never to buy bargain stuff at the IT show. And always check out the service shops before buying into a new brand of IT products.

My dog

2010-05-16T15:19:00.008+08:00

I also have a dog. She doesn't live with me and my cat though; she lives with my girlfriend instead.

Sophie, the dog (or actually, the bitch), loves me. She makes this very clear from the way she hyperventilates while wagging her tail furiously every time I drop by. She also barks at me, jumps on me (and my nuts), bites my hand when I stroke her, and tries to rip my skin off with her nails when I am doing absolutely nothing to her. She also does the occasional lunging for my throat when I'm cutting her nails. But she loves me. I think.

She also loves my socks. If you can't find her around the house, then you can bet a leg that she's under the bed chewing on my socks. Many a times I had to go home wearing a saliva-soaked sock.

One of her favorite hobbies is eating poop. That's why it is giving me pause to note that another of her favorite past-time is licking our hands. The second-worst possible scenario is hearing Mel's parents shout from the living room, "Aiyoh, she just ate poop again!" when she is licking your hand. The worst scenario would be hearing that when she's licking your face. I think I should be thankful that I've only ever encountered the second-worst scenario before.

Sophie has a nice English name--rather befitting of a dog that belongs to two Philosophy majors. Mel gave it to her. She also has a Chinese name, which I gave her--Er Wei. I think it sounds very sophisticated, and gentle and everything nice. And since her surname is Goh, taking Mel's surname, we use her full name very frequently. Especially when she is trying to clamber onto us, or trying to burrow herself into our armpits.

Cats

2010-05-07T21:28:00.002+08:00

I have two cats in my home, one black one white. The white one belongs to me, while the black one doesn't. The black one, called New New, belongs to my dad. And it is peeing in my cat's litter tray, instead of her own, as I am typing this.

The reason why New New belongs to my dad is because he was the one who picked her up from the streets, even after much protests from the family and Edward, which is my white cat. My dad insisted, and he insisted he wants a cat to himself, so now New new is here to stay. My way to deal with the problem is to make it absolutely clear that I would not clean up after his cat, and let him know that rearing a cat is not a simple walk in the park. New new peeing in my cat's litter tray threw a wrench in my perfect plan.

I have no idea why, but animals seem to like me--maybe because of some scent I have, or maybe I'm just very good at playing with them. The black cat spends almost all her time in my room when I'm home. This is not without its benefits. My white boy, the rebellious teenager, spends almost all his time keeping an eye on her. New new being in my room means that he is spending more time in his room (which is my room) too.

New new is still in the kitten phase--which means she is very playful, and she doesn't mind human contact. Edward is long past the stage, and he is unusually fastidious, even for a cat. He would endure you stroking him for all of 5 seconds, then he would grumble very loudly and stalk off. He wasn't like that when he was still a baby.

I think I am experiencing fatherhood way before I have kids.

Be happy

2010-04-10T20:34:00.002+08:00

I still remember once when I went on a date with my girlfriend, Mel, to Orchard Road. It was a feel good date, brought on by an impromptu decision to go out and enjoy to release all the stress we have been feeling. It was supposed to be a go all out and enjoy night, and neither of us wanted anything to dampen our spirits.

We were just walking along, when suddenly some people in front of us stopped and made a fuss (over something I couldn't remember), effectively blocking our path. The usual us would have clucked our tongues at them, and bitched about it in private afterwards. But just before we started our private tirade about the idiots, I stopped myself and told Mel that it was supposed to be a feel good night--no point spoiling it by dwelling on that incident. Mel just laughed and agreed.

And it felt good. All along I thought that venting my frustrations out by bitching under my breath would make me feel better. But it never worked. Voicing out my frustrations only serves to reinforce them. This incident shows me that while the frustration is still in the process of building up, I should have just nipped it in the bud and think about other stuff.

In this case, my goal is to have a carefree night. So I focused on that. And it worked. I suppose I could have just bitched about it, working myself into an anger, and feel frustrated for like 10 minutes. But what is the point? The only thing I would have achieved is to make myself unhappy for an extended period of time.

Of course, if your frustrations were already welling up, and you feel like bursting already, I think it is best that you simply talk to someone about it. But unless you are clinically depressed, you wouldn't be focused on your frustrations all day long. These frustrations would take time to form; you can even feel them coming up, like a tide of brackish water rising up your throat. They are the unhappy thoughts that pop up from time to time amidst a sea of happy thoughts. And precisely when they are taking their time to form, we have to do our best to think of other happier thoughts.

Divert your attention with something nice. Distract yourself. Focus on making yourself happy.

There are unhappy times. These are the times when work has been thrust upon us without a choice, when life doesn't go our way. Life is imperfect as it is with these times. Why double, or triple the duration by dwelling on them when you could be enjoying yourself? If you have to work for eight hours a day, and you spend another eight hours dwelling on the stresses of work, aren't you spending sixteen hours a day in misery? Why torture yourself so?

Let the misery times be miserable, and the non-misery times be happy.

Actor-cat

2010-01-04T20:33:00.005+08:00

"Yessir! If you are looking for the best actor-cat, you have come to the right person... cat!"

"I believe I can fly."

"I can star in vampire shows."

"I can sing too...'月亮代表我的心...'"

"Hmm... what's that smell?"

Is life a trial?

2009-12-19T22:11:00.002+08:00

It either started with Sophie (Mel's doggie) getting skin problems, or me getting rejected by ANU for my PhD application. After that, it's just one problem after the other.

Monash rejected my application as well soon after, and within a week, the uni reverted on the status of my MA thesis: major amendments required before further examination. And when just when I thought things cannot possibly be worse, Edward (our cat) developed some eye problem. One of his third eyelids is out, and he looks pained by the light. He also failed to pee and poo for a day, and was feeling a little feverish.

We brought him to the vet the first thing in the morning, since it was night time when we discovered his ailments. The vet surprisingly diagnosed the eye problem as nothing serious, just a little infection. The trouble is with not peeing. Apparently his bladder is full, but he is unable to pee. That might mean he has crystals in his urinary tract, or the tract is inflamed, or some serious problems. If he continues to be unable to pee, he will die in a few days.

That's not it. The vet also found a small lump on his belly. And apparently his sagging belly is slightly too big to be normal as well.

The vet wanted to hospitalize him for 3 days. But I have heard horror stories about mt pleasant, so I decided not. They gave him a jab to ease the inflammation, if it is one, and told me to monitor the situation. I decided that if he still doesn't pee soon, I will bring him to another clinic to be hospitalized.

Thankfully he did, and has been peeing (seemingly) normally now. Because I wasn't there at the clinic in person, I called back to speak to the vet. I needed to know where the lump is in order to monitor it. The vet was off duty by the time I called, but the clinic promised that they will get her to call me back. She didn't though.

I'm going to call them tmr, and get the location of the lump, and after that, switch vet.

photo updates

2009-11-06T22:12:00.003+08:00

Updates

2009-10-21T20:17:00.003+08:00

ANU rejected my phd application. =s So don't ask me about it anymore. I might apply elsewhere.

Now I am working at the Royal Bank of Scotland, as a contract staff. Work place is at One Raffles Quay. Pay is decent for a temp staff.

New kitten

2009-09-06T15:53:00.002+08:00

We just adopted a little kitten. He is a half siamese, only 9 weeks old now. Mel named him Edward, and he's been staying at my place for 2 weeks already. He's quite naughty/playful, manja at times, and sleepy the rest of it.

This is his puss-in-boots look.

Teddy

2009-08-17T20:07:00.002+08:00

First we have tree-huggers.

Then we have human-huggers.

In the case of wars

2009-08-03T17:29:00.004+08:00

Forgive me if I'm grossly mistaken about this.

When we have a disagreement between nations, our leaders cannot just sit down and just talk about it (because the other parties are always made up of idiots who refuse to see reason, i.e. give us what we want without question).

We need to war. We kill their people and raze their buildings. They do the same to us. Finally, when one side cannot take it anymore, it surrenders.

The winner has the advantage in the talks now, and the loser must concede to most of, if not all, the conditions laid down by the winner (if it refuses, kill some more people and raze more buildings).

Thus we have peace again.

Question: why can't we simply have the leaders play Scissors, Paper, Stone with each other? Or arm wrestling or something?

Thesis

2009-07-29T11:51:00.002+08:00

I'm really, really swamped with work now, thus it's no surprise that I'm not blogging regularly. Not that I have been blogging regularly for the past 6months though, haha. The past trend, however, is that I will blog a lot when I'm using my brains intensively for my work. This time is different: either because I am REALLY busy this time, or I'm not actually using much brain power for this thesis. Heh.

Animals! (sort of)

2009-06-24T12:17:00.012+08:00

What's that blop of cotton-like thing?

Presenting Sophie, the Japanese Spitz! My girlfriend's doggie. Contrary to her name, which sort of means wisdom in greek, Sophie can be quite silly at times. Or some would say, most of the times.

Aww isn't that cute?

This isn't an animal, obviously, but it is here because I built it. Simply an amazing feat of architecture, don't you think? I suggest you agree for the sake of your health.

Don't know what the silly girl is doing. Legs all over the place.

Bird's eggs! Found in a packet of van houten chocolate! Ok, not really. They just look a lot like bird's eggs, but they are chocolate (gone bad I suspect). I've returned them to the shop after agonizing and fussing (as mel would say) over it for an hour or so.

Kittens I found in campus! Betcha only saw two. It's kittens photo hunt time! Can you find all four kittens in the picture?

Look carefully, can you see the black garden slug in the middle of the photo? Simply disgusting! Reminds me of this show about killer slugs, which I forgot the name of. This photo was taken while I was trying to snap more pictures of the kittens.

The white kitten is basking in the moonlight. Or would have been if the moon were out that night.

The Hunt

2009-06-23T13:43:00.003+08:00

Now I pretend to leave,
shifting slightly
gearing to go.
And watch as people
play a little charade
a little feet dancing
Right in front of me.

They are the wolves
they are the hounds
they are moving in for the kill!
Then I settle back in,
and watch as the wolves therein
Howl and scream.

Disgust

2009-06-22T14:57:00.003+08:00

You singaporean!
The look on your face
as you squeeze through the train doors;
the loathsome Greed
as you jostle for seats
Disgusts me.

And as I get up from my seat,
you shift ever so slightly,
not to give me space
but to maneuver yourself
to sit before others do so.

Fair trade

2009-06-01T20:53:00.004+08:00

The kind of people you mix with really do affect the way you are.

When I was still a young and unassuming kid in secondary kid, I once asked around my friends for computer games, having just recently acquired a computer from my aunt. I remember this boy telling me about a game, which he described in some details, generally telling me what a great game it is. So I asked him for it, and he say "Can, but you must trade me a game also. It's only fair, right?"

I remember thinking that's right, a one-for-one exchange is only right. And I would have thought that such is how the world operates, even between friends. However, because I have only just gotten my computer then, I have no games of my own, and as such, is unable to carry out any trade.

Then I went to another friend's house, probably to do some project work. Edmund, the friend, introduced me to another game, which I still remember as Sango 3, a war strategy game based on the 3 states warring period. Maybe he offered, or maybe I asked for it, he copied the game for me on some floppy discs to bring home. When I pointed out that I don't have any games to trade him in return, he just dismissed it saying he doesn't need any trade.

I guess I could have grown up either way, being a stickler for fair trade, or being generous with my stuff. Maybe it was due to the chronological order of how the events played out, or maybe it just sits better with me because I was on the receiving end of Edmund's generosity, I turned out to be the generous sort after all.

Of course, this is not putting down people who insist on fair trade. In fact, with my current world view (nihilistic), and with the apparent advent of many freeloaders in this world, insistence on fair trade seems pretty much the consistent thing for me to do. Perhaps my generosity nature is yet another symptom of my irrationality.

reservist

2009-05-19T20:22:00.003+08:00

Haven't been blogging regularly nor doing work these days. The reason, as some of you would have known, is that I have been called up for reservist for the past 2 weeks, and as of now, I still have a few more days of reservist left. I hate the army, really.

A couple of nights on the hard floor in camp makes me realize how comfortable my bed really is. A couple of weeks in camp makes me realize how little time I have left for doing my thesis. I might just flunk it simply because the $%#@ CO thinks he is actually smart enough to tell when I really need the time to complete my thesis. Bunch of %^@#$ fools.

The philosophers' trial

2009-04-17T21:52:00.001+08:00

At the philosophers' trial, some philosophers are charged with causing grievous harm to fictitious characters in thought experiments...

Surreality

2009-04-03T21:05:00.000+08:00

Broad blue skies,

and a jade-like moon.

Colors in the wind

and the love of my life.

You can't step into the same river twice

2009-03-27T14:49:00.003+08:00

Not only because the river is constantly changing, "YOU" are constantly changing too, hence the title.

If some philosophers are correct (namely the 4-dimensionalists), then you are not the same person as the person a year ago. Nor are you the same person an hour ago. Not even a second ago.

I know what you are thinking. You are thinking: of course I am not the same person I was a second ago. I have changed, slightly, from moment to moment. Compare the you 10 years ago and the you now, there will have been differences in terms of physical states and beliefs and desires. If we assume that the changes take place along a continuum of time, gradually and smoothly, then there will be changes however imperceptible every second. (At the very least, each breath you take will cause chemical changes throughout your body, resulting in minute changes at every moment in time.)

But that's not what those philosophers meant. You are not the same person not because you are a changed person at every following second. You are not even a changed person from the previous second because the previous "you" are not even you AT ALL.

Now what does that mean exactly, to say that the previous "you"-s are not even you at all? In layman terms, it means that a second ago, there is a person who looks almost exactly like you, who shares nearly all of your beliefs and desires, and wants to do almost nearly everything that the current you is doing. But that person is not you. He looks like you, acts like you, thinks like you; he thinks he will be you, and you think you had been him, but he is not you, neither are you him.

You are not the same person as the person who started reading this page. Nor are you the same person as the person who started reading this sentence. You exist only at an instant. For the length of reading this page, an infinity of you would have existed and flickered out, each thinking (naively) that they have existed all along with a history of, say, 20 odd years, and will continue to exist for quite some time yet.

How do we explain the appearance of personal history that we appear to be able to call up in our memories? Each of the instantaneous you possess an entire set of beliefs, desires, and memories, each largely coherent with the preceding you. For example you at time T would possess the memories of having sat down at the table and the current experiences of sitting down at the table; you at time T+1 would possess the memories of sitting down at the table and the current experiences of reading this post; you at time T+2 would have the memories of reading this post, and the current experiences of trying to remember all the memories you have since childhood in order to prove this post wrong; you at time T+3 would have the memories of trying to remember all the memories you have since childhood in order to prove this post wrong and the current experiences of doing that some more., etc.

All the memories are merely apparent memories. They are real memories, but only in the sense that they appear to be of the current you doing certain things in the past. But you never did those things, your previous selves might have, but they weren't you.

In fact, you don't need to have the previous selves in order to have those memories. They could simply have appeared in the repertoire of the current you's mind without there being any previous beings having done whatever you thought you have done in those memories.

You could simply be an instantaneous being who appeared and disappeared, thinking that it has lived for quite some time, and will live for some time yet, and there being no other instantaneous you-s before or after you.

You are thinking: now this surely is absurd. I reflect now, and I can just feel it. There is a whole history stretching back from me. I remember me doing all those stuff. Look, I am touching my cheek now. I shall vividly remember this feeling. 2 seconds later, I am pretty sure that it is the same me who did that cheek-touching; I have that experience in me now, even. Surely I am not mistaken about that!

But you are, if those philosophers are correct. You only think that you are the same person who did the cheek-touching. Maybe there has been a person who really did the cheek touching, but that person is not you, even if the details of the memories you have now is almost identical to the experiences that person has while touching his cheek.

Up till this point, I have not yet given any reasons for thinking this account of you surviving time is correct. But how do you know that it isn't?

Clement's Demon

2009-03-25T22:47:00.004+08:00

Suppose one day a Demon pops up in front of you. He randomly chooses fifteen people and threatens to obliterate them with a single word, unless you agree to sacrifice 2 hours of your time everyday for 40 years devoted to counting sand.

Assuming that:

1. You do not take any pleasure whatsoever in counting sand (and most definitely none whatsoever in counting sand 2 hours everyday for the rest of your life);

2. You know (for sure) that the Demon will keep his word--he will not obliterate the people if you agree to sacrifice 2 hours of your time everyday for 40years. If at any point of time you break that agreement, he would obliterate the 15 chosen people immediately.

3. The 15 people will live for another 80 years yet if not obliterated by the Demon.

Would you do it? That is, do you think that the value of 15 human lives is great enough to warrant you giving up 2 hours of your life everyday for 40 years?

Scam kidnapping

2009-03-19T10:58:00.005+08:00

Recently, my household has been hit by a series of scam calls.

The first was a few months ago, when I went for a Cameron Highlands trip. It was the last day of the trip (luckily), and I suddenly received a call from some private number. I didn't pick it up since I always get those irritating phone salespeople trying to sell me some stupid bonds. It rang on however, and I decided to pick it up on the second time. It was my aunt. She practically screamed at me, asking me where I am, and how come my mum is rushing out to pay some men who claimed to have kidnapped me.

So in a frenzy, I settled my aunt, and tried calling my mum. Her phone was engaged. So I tried calling my sis. Engaged too. Figured that my mum was talking to my sis. So I smsed the both of them. Minutes later, my sis called back, demanding the same questions as my aunt did. Then my mum called, and I reassured her that nothing's wrong, and that she should make a police report.

The rest of the day was spent in worrying thoughts of what would happen if the scammers decided that robbing us would be better than trying to scam us now that the scam failed.

As a result of that scam call, we changed our phone number and made it private.

The second scam call was a few weeks ago. I picked it up this time round. It was faint, as though the reception wasn't that good, and I vaguely heard someone talking. So I went "hello? hello? I can't hear you." Then the voice got progressively louder, like someone adjusting the mouthpiece. Then I heard someone crying, "(sob sob) I'm in trouble already. (sob sob.)" I didn't respond. Then he repeated himself. I hung up immediately.

It couldn't have been my dad, since it doesn't sound like him, neither does he sound like any of my friends. I was half tempted to laugh at him and call his bluff. But I decided not to incur his wrath, or we might get free pig head hanging on our door tmr.

So here's a word of caution for every of my friends out there. Such things do happen, and not only in the news. Somehow there is a greater urgency when it happens to people near us, and hence it would be good if you tell your parents about such incidents. My mum always caution us about such scam calls when she watches the news, but yet she panicked when it happened to her, and she didn't even think of calling me to verify. And don't think you are safe just because your number is private, because you are not.

Updates

2009-03-10T10:18:00.003+08:00

If you haven't known it yet from my facebook updates, I've gotten a girlfriend, which would explain why I am always busy these days and almost never online. That is, if you count online only every other day as "almost never online"; relative to how I was really always online back in the old days, I think that's a fair exaggeration.

I didn't even game much these days. Of the past week, I think I gamed a grand total of 2.5 hours. Over the past month, probably only 3hrs. Luckily, instead of neglecting my work, I actually worked more: from 0 hour a day to 1-2hours a day. But that might just be due to stress from the approaching deadline.

I organized a philosophy introductory series for the year ones some time back. I gave the first talk, and it went rather well, in terms of the turn out and the reception of the talk. The philosophy society helped me do the advertising, so I have them to thank for it.

The second talk however, I did the "advertising" myself, which just involves pasting two posters at the department and nothing else. Worse still, the initial timing for the talk was changed 3 times, owing to unforeseen clashes with other classes (i.e. due to super bad planning on my part), and the final one still clashed with a logic module. As expected, the turn out was extremely bad: none showed up.

I owe an apology to weng hong for agreeing to give a talk but giving him no audience. Sorry!

Reservist

2009-02-15T22:05:00.002+08:00

Finally, the dreaded time has come. Starting tomorrow, I will be going for my first ever In Camp training for NS, aka ICT. I heard that I may be able to stay out, since they don't seem to want to provide bunks for us to stay overnight. I have sooo many things to do, and they had to force me to listen to stupid army lectures on how to man a radio set that is a relic from the last war world.

In any case, I will be uncontactable via emails, facebook etc., during this period. 16-21 Feb. Do sms or call me if there is anything. You can also try calling me in the day, so that I will get charged (as in charged in court) for disturbing the stupid lectures with my ringing phone.

And they have to recall us just after 14th Feb.

*Waves*

Please give up your Seats

2009-02-04T13:05:00.002+08:00

A curious trend on the MRT is on the rise recently, ever since SMRT decided to make the "Please give up this seat" sign at the corner seats more conspicuous.

Now, we see people choosing not to sit at the corner seats if they can find seats elsewhere, presumably because the seats are for the elderly and disabled (and not because they are lazy to give up their seats later). However, this does not exactly translate into more seats for the elderly and disabled. In fact, it seems to have the opposite effect.

Because the conscientious people refuse to take the seats, the seats are, almost inevitably, taken up by people who don't give a damn about others. And when the elderly or the disabled enter the carriage, these people who don't give a damn about others would just continue to not give a damn to the elderly etc.

And because the signs are so conspicuous about which seats are for the elderly, the other people on the other seats, including those who so "conscientiously" refused to sit at the corner seats, deem it not their duty to give up their seats instead. In the end, no one gave up their seats.

So in the end, the elderly and disabled and the pregnant have to stand.

But on the other hand, if Singapore is so full of such bastards, doesn't it stand to reason that the elderly and the pregnant were once bastards themselves too?

Secondary school reunion

2009-01-28T23:31:00.003+08:00

Met up with my secondary school friends today. I haven't seen them for 10 years (really!), so it was with some trepidation that I went to it.

Interestingly, almost all of them haven't changed a bit. I mean, seriously. They look just like when they were in secondary school. Well, some of the guys are taller, and some of the girls wear make-ups now, but other than that, everyone is just a (slightly) enlarged version of themselves in the past.

Oddly enough, they say the same thing of me, that I haven't changed at all. Which is odd because, just a few days ago when I went chinese new year visiting, all my relatives said that I have changed. My cousin couldn't even recognise me! And I've been faithfully going to the annual family reunion dinners.

So the conclusion to draw is that everyone changes every year. But it's all a cycle. After you have changed 10 times, when the 10-year cycle concluded, then hey presto! you have changed back into the original you again.

Facts have thus once again vindicated the doctrine of Eternal Recurrence propounded by Nietzsche, even if that's not what the doctrine originally stated.

Call of the wild

2009-01-15T13:38:00.003+08:00

Man likes to domesticate things. We've domesticated savage hounds, turned them into cute puppies. We've tamed felines, breeding them into standoffish house pets. We've brought birds, rodents, and even reptiles into the house. We made creatures of the wild produce milk and lay eggs for our consumption and do stunts for our entertainment. But there's one creature which we probably would never be able to tame.

Woman, the untamable.

Older

2009-01-11T00:35:00.005+08:00

I just attended a friend's wedding dinner tonight, which made me realize a couple of things that has been bubbling under the lid waiting to be realized long ago, but for some mysterious reason, has not.

First off, I am getting older. I suppose we all feel older whenever a friend gets married, and you are still a bachelor. But the fact is, I am extremely justified in feeling older. And with a couple more years stuck in the university, the worst is yet to come.

Along with the realization about age, comes the realization about money. To put it bluntly, I am broke. Not exactly penniless, but definitely related through some strong bloodline to it. It just adds to the misery knowing that friends around my age have already repaid their study loans, own a car, applied for a flat, and have a couple of kids on the way.

I suppose I was first attracted to the idea of doing a PhD and being a professor by the supposedly high pay the professors get. 6K a month for a starting pay sounds like really a lot, until you sit down and do your maths, and realize that friends of your age who has started working 6 years before you finally get your Phd would have accumulated so much savings that you have a hell of catching up to do before you can even be as financially stable as them. And that's not counting how much their pay would be by the time you finished your PhD which seems to last forever.

That's assuming you would land a job upon graduation.

For now, having a Phd seems practically having a white elephant. Sure you have a nice sounding "Dr" prefix from then on, but that comes with a price. Or rather, the prefix itself IS the price; introduce me anyone with a Dr in front of their name, and the word "nerd" inevitably pops into mind.

Getting a girlfriend is hard; forget about getting a wife. At least in the short term. If you are staring at another 3 years spent in the university dorm, with a meagre stipend just enough for bread everyday, you don't really want to try feeding another mouth with it. Romantic dates and long holidays are romantic only to the extent that you pay only for your own share, which is not really that romantic anymore. That's assuming that you have the money to go on any dates at all.

And even if you do like someone very much, there is practically nothing you can do about it. Unless she is prepared to throw everything down here in singapore and go overseas with you to live in a dump. And if you really like someone, you don't even want to subject her to that. You can only hope and pray, like the ancient chinese scholars who leave their homeland for the imperial examinations, that you come back laden with glory (and cash) and nothing has changed. Statisticians would tell you that such possibility is in the range of something small to the power of something big, and philosophers would tell you that it is an impossibility.

What to do? What would you do in my circumstances?

Suck thumb.

New Year's Resolutions

2009-01-01T00:30:00.003+08:00

Yay 2009! Happy New Year! Wishes and greetings all around for a day which has absolutely no significance whatsoever other than an arbitrary flip of the calender. But anyhow, I do sincerely wish all my friends good health and good luck for the next 365 days, which is another entirely arbitrary number with no significance whatsoever.

Now for the New year Resolutions:

1. Work Hard! On my MA thesis, and my PhD application! And get into a good PhD program dammit.
2. Stop having stray thoughts.
3. Gain another 5-10 kg. In case you didn't know, my last year's resolution for my weight went perfectly according to plan. I gained 10kg over last year.
4. Get my black belt. Which is impossible, since they only hold 3 gradings each year, and I'm 4kyu. Or am I 3rd?
5. Improve family relationships.
6. Be less weird.
7. Be less enthusiastic in various areas.

Ok that's it so far. Maybe I'll think of more resolutions another day.

A philosopher's undying love

2008-12-28T11:20:00.007+08:00

You are the most important thing in my life, even more important than my PhD thesis.

There are more important things than you in this world, but I haven’t found any yet; I mean, it is logically possible that they are there…

How impossibly beautiful you are! Just like the round square!

You are my everything! (Depending on how you define “everything.” And also “my,” and “you.”)

I love you more than mere words can express. That’s a contradiction.

I mean, I love you more than mere words can express, where “love” refers to something which cannot be otherwise referred to.

If it is the case that I don’t love you, 1 plus 1 would equal 3. But 1 plus 1 is not equal to 3. Therefore it is the case that I love you.

God gave me free will to love you! That’s assuming that God is omnipotent, omni-benevolent, and there is no such possible world where there is no free will and is better than the actual world.

You are the most beautiful woman I have seen at this moment!

It cannot possibly be thought that it is not the case that I don't not love you.

If you clear all thoughts out of your head for a moment, you will experience the all-embracing love that is present in the universe. Actually that’s just me.

You know I love you. Loosely speaking. Heck, if Hume is right, we can’t even know the sun will rise tomorrow. Strictly speaking, you can’t know I love you…

…how do you even know that I exist, not simply as a figment as your imagination?

If you are a brain-in-a-vat, I want to be your vat.

You are like* the stars in the sky!
* similar in certain aspects, not necessarily more than one. Similarity in material composition would suffice.

I love you till the end of time! Ok, your time just ended.

I can’t live without you! Every time I am alone, I am actually “living”.

Resolu...

2008-12-26T19:49:00.002+08:00

It's the new year, and it's time for new... What? It's not new year yet? Oh right, it's only Christmas. Well, that means there's still time to procrastinate on making any new resolutions. 4 more days to be precise. Hmm... I wonder if I made any resolution about procrastination for year 2008. Probably I think--procrastination is practically on everyone's lists of resolutions. Well then, if so, I am only just trying to keep to my resolution.

Evenings

2008-12-16T21:06:00.004+08:00

When I was young, my modes of entertainment were precious and few. My parents didn't believe in buying one of those gaming consoles for me, thinking it would distract me from studying, nor do they like me reading too many story books, for the same reason. And I didn't have many toys, thinking they are a waste of money; nor do I watch TV, because it is simply a waste of time.

My parents would be both out working in those days, and I wasn't exactly on the best of terms with my sister back then. Thinking back, I wonder how I survived the boredom that must pervade my childhood.

I do remember one bit of entertainment I had. In the evenings, just before the light starts to fade into the yellow color of sunset, I would curl up in this wooden reclining arm chair, listening to a Walkman. Back then, I have this earphones that were really huge; they look like ear muffs, and they encase my ears completely like two shields. Because of their design, I can blast the music as loud as I want, and yet no one else can hear it at all. They also render me completely unable to hear anything other than the music.

With the fading light, and the loud music in my ears, it would feel as though I am completely in a world of my own, cut off from anything outside. For hours, I would just lie in the chair, watching the light slowly changing from white to yellow, to orangish-red, and finally to complete darkness. And through it all, I can see the shadows from the windows slowly lengthening, creeping across the floor tiles so stealthily as though trying hard not be noticed.

It is unbelievably serene. It is also unbelievably lonely.

Then before the light failed completely, there will be the sounds of the lock rattling, signaling either my mum, or my dad coming back from work. And I would run and open the door for them.

Love thy neighbours?

2008-12-15T10:11:00.005+08:00

I have bastard neighbours.

Strictly speaking, I don't know whether they are considered my neighbours since they live, respectively, above and below me. Let us call them Upper and Lower.

Upper is a family with kids and old folks. In the morning, around 6am, one of them would get up to pound chili. Apparently they eat chili everyday, and they can't just simply grind it. They have to pound the hell of them it, and the sleep out of everyone in my house.

And they must have belonged to some ancient, mystical clan that dictates that all pounding have to be done on the ground itself, without any paddings, or they will incur the wrath of some great earth spirit. As such, we get to experience the full surround sound of the rhythmic pounding every single day for a few months. Until I shouted at them to shut the hell up.

At 7am, when their kid wakes up from all the pounding, he will decide that he wants pay back for the noise. But most curiously, the payback is done to us. He would ride on his fake car, which sounds like a ton, and go careening across his flat. Now the sound experience is even better. We can actually trace the car with our eyes as the rumble of the car approaches, until it circles our heads for a brief respite, then it would zoom off again to another corner of his flat. His parents, and grandparents are doing a fabulous job of teaching the kid sensitivity; he will probably grow up to be a jerk, not unlike his parents and grandparents.

And of course, why stop at disturbing people with noises, when you can actually irritate them with smell? One of them Upper, I have no idea which, loves smoking. And he loves smoking at the window directly above mine. Probably because if he smokes in-house, he will kill the kid which shows so much promise of growing up into a jerk and he doesn't want that, he tries to kill me instead with his second hand smoke; he blows them out of his window, and without fail, the wind blows them into mine.

And since I have the habit of sleeping with my door closed, the smoke stays inside while I sleep, until I wake up half-choking over the smoke to shut the windows. Then I have to open my door to air the room, which is impossible since the windows are shut and there's no air circulation. So I have to wait for him to finish his stick, before opening the windows again.

Every night, I have to do that. Sometimes at 1am, sometimes at 3am, but without fail, 5am. And people wonder why I always look like I didn't get enough sleep. He doesn't only smoke at night though, it is just that I have the sense to stay out of the house in the day most of the time.

Just when you thought that only Uppers can affect you, since they can do things to your ceiling which is their floor, while Belows can't do anything to their ceiling which is my floor, the Belows began their smell attack. Interestingly, even though cigarette smoke only travels downwards due to their density, incense smoke is light enough to float up the air. Every friday, we are fumigated, unwillingly, with some intensely pungent incense and treated to an un-interrupted stream of ringing experience for exactly an hour. It was close all the windows, or die. Apparently, it must be some rites to send people like us on the way.

I don't want to live here anymore. Not with my bastard neighbours, and the super ulu-ness of the place. I hate it.

Can you differentiate all these?

2008-12-13T17:49:00.000+08:00

You think you are wrong, but if you are wrong, then you are right.
You think you are wrong, and if you are wrong, then you are right.

You think you are wrong, and if you are right, then you are wrong.
You think you are wrong, but if you are right, then you are wrong.

You think you are wrong, but if you are right, then you are right.

RAM

2008-12-02T18:07:00.003+08:00

I upgraded my laptop RAM today. Earlier on, I had gone to the NUS co-op to check out how much they are selling the RAM for. The price they quoted was 99 bucks for 2Gb, and 50 bucks for 1Gb.

Today I went down to Simlim, and guess how much I bought my 2Gb Ram for? Only 34bucks! And it's the same brand. I'll never trust NUS's prices again. Complete rip-off.

Identity

2008-11-17T12:05:00.003+08:00

"Most of us have a special and intense interest in what will happen to us. You learn that someone will be run over by a truck tomorrow; you are saddened, feel pity, and think reflectively about the frailty of life; one bit of information is added, that the someone is you, and a whole new set of emotions rise in your breast." -- John Perry, "The importance of being identical"

Stars

2008-11-15T15:11:00.002+08:00

When you see the starry heavens,
Do you ever wonder
what the stars are for?
What do the glittering celestial bodies
which looked so cold and beautiful,
aloof and distant,
have as their purpose?

The tempting answer is:
None.
They simply exist.
That is all to it;
just as it is all to it that we are here.
Purposeless, and random.

But suppose
Maybe,
it could just be that
They are here
just so I can wonder about them.

Money

2008-11-14T11:34:00.001+08:00

When you see a dollar note on the ground

dropped by someone in a hurry

you mustn't tell anyone.

For if you do,

they will ask you,

Why didn't you pick it up?

And you would have to explain

the police stations,

they don't accept loose notes

as lost-and-found articles;

there will be no identifying signs

that point to whose its owner was.

And it would be impossible

to ask around

with the note in hand

whoever lost it just moments before.

At least

it would be a great hassle to.

Then they would ask

outraged,

Why didn't you just pocket it?

An outrageous suggestion proposed outrageously.

So don't ask me

if I saw that note,

when I pretended not to.

day 3 and 4--the peaks of HK

2008-11-01T20:47:00.001+08:00

Had western breakfast yesterday at the Medicine School of HK. It was really nice and cheap, especially the bacon. I even considered ordering one more set, but decided against eventually.

In the afternoon, we went to Central. Originally I had wanted to go try one of the famous duck egg wanton noodles there, and the egg tarts, but when I had my lunch, I discovered that my sense of taste is gone completely from the flu. sianzzzz. So I rescheduled the food tasting to another day, and just ate some normal food.

One of the two famous egg tarts stalls at Central was sold out on the tarts, but the other produced a pipping hot tray of egg tarts just when I stepped into the shop. The crust is soft and the egg jelly on it really looks like jelly. But I couldn’t taste a single thing. =s

From Central, we walked through Lan Kuai Fang, which is the Clarke quay equivalent in HK. It was super crowded since it was Halloween yesterday, and people are crowding the streets dressing up like witches and vampires. Rather hapenning, but since it was really hard to walk with all those people jaunting around, I didn’t manage to take any pictures.

Then we went to the Victoria Peak, or simply the Peak as the Hongkongers so endearingly called it. Nothing much actually, except you can see Hong Kong from the top of the mountain.

Today we went to Lantau island, where they have the huge Buddha at the top of the peak. Took cable car up, even though I didn’t really like the heights, but it was quite worth it; by bus, the journey up would have taken around 1hr, what took only 15mins by cable. The view is great too, from the cable car.

Then it was a 280 steps climb up the stairs to reach the Buddha. Lines and lines of shops sprang out around the Buddha and the temple, making it look really commercialized. I’m sure the Buddha would have disagreed with it.

I’m actually still sick during this 2 days. Think I’m not enjoying the trip as I ought to be.

day 2 in exciting HK!

2008-10-31T11:22:00.002+08:00

But it wasn't really an exciting day though. I fell sick on day 1; got a sorethroat and a slight fever, so that sucks great time. The chinese university of hk is built on a hill, or maybe its a mountain; the slopes are extremely steep, and if you think NTU or NUS is bad, try imagining NUS on Bukit Timah Hill. Well, no. It is worse than even that. Try imagining NUS on Mount Everest, and you will begin to see the picture.

Bendict took me around the university for sightseeing in the morning, and I almost died from exhaustion from all the ups and downs, or maybe it is because I am sick. But I sure know that I will be having much bigger calves muscles by the time I'm back home in Singapore.

Unfortunately they didn't have any philosophers there who specialize in the areas I am in, like Metaphysics or Philosophy of Mind. There are a lot of chinese philosophers though (duh!).

After breakfast at one of the cafeteria in the uni, where the food is only so-so, and where they have an unhealthy obsession with cabbage (which I can't for my life see how anyone could actually like eating), Bendict took me to the "chinatown" of HK--MongKok. We walked from MongKok to Victoria Harbor, just soaking in the sights along the way without actually shopping, or even window shopping. (If you want photos, go to my facebook. ) Since I was running a fever, and the sun is so damn hot, I didn't really enjoy the walk. The Victoria River is big though; Singapore river looks like a joke compared to it. But I suppose the River will look like a joke comparing to some other bigger rivers as well.

Then I crashed Bendict's modules, where Loy's teacher is teaching. It is on Ethics, really ethics and not metaethics, so that's really new to me. They were talking about the seven sins like anger, jealousy etc. I didn't even know people teach that in Philosophy. hahaa.

After that it was dinner at the same cafeteria, where I had the "Four Treasure Rice", which is just a fancy name for chicken rice with roast meat and salted egg. They have it in Bishan too, but of course the items are really different. The salted egg is nice though, and for the first time in my entire life, I saw why people actually eat salted egg. Those in singapore just can't make the mark. The chicken tasted very different from singapore's steamed chicken too--much more tastier and tender.

After that, we adjourned back to the hostel, cancelling the plans to go Causeway Bay cos I was feeling a bit sick and tired. Played games and went online to chat for the rest of the night. zzzz

Day 1 in Hong Kong

2008-10-31T11:21:00.002+08:00

Eh nothing much. I just took a jetstar flight from Singapore to HK at 3.40pm, arrived at HK at around 7 plus, and it was already completely dark there, depriving me of the bird’s eye view of the island.

Oooohh actually there is something. Someone accused me of stealing his ipod when we landed at HK airport. That guy was sitting like one seat away from me in the plane, and there’s no one sitting between us. He wasn’t trying to be friendly at all; when i had to squeeze pass him go use the toilet, I apologized to him but he didn’t even acknowledge it.

Then when we landed, and after collecting my baggage, he came up to me and asked me if I had seen his ipod. I thought he was just asking me if I had seen him leaving it somewhere, so I said no. I suggested that he go back to the plane and check, but he said he just did. So I just made sympathetic noises and said that was unfortunate.

I thought that was it, but he still didn’t go, and instead just keep telling me how important his ipod is to him, for the information he stored on it etc. Then he apologised, saying he wasn’t suspecting me. Then he said, “Well, no. I AM suspecting you.” Now what can one say to that? So I just said I understand, but I didn’t take his ipod.

Yet he went on, and keep asking, “You really didn’t have it?” I supposed I was a little pissed off, so I just started walking away while saying, “No I don’t.” I could have offered to let him check my bag I guess, but nah… Why should I? I don’t even see how at any point of time I was physically close enough for me to actually take his ipod without him noticing.

Bendict was there at the airport to pick me up. He’s my extremely accomodating host for the trip, and even has a Octopus card ready for me to use when I got there! We had dinner at one of the cafeteria in a shopping center, which I dunno the name of. I ate some fried rice with chicken strips and unlike singaporean fried rice, where you are really eating the rice, HK fried rice is so choke-full of other ingredients, that the rice is more like a side dish. Expensive though, cos its the normal fare but already costing me 6SGD. Pity I didn’t think to take any pictures of it at that time.

Then I followed Bendict to his hostel in Chinese University of Hong Kong. It was pretty late after dinner, and I was tired after the 3hrs flight, where I had absolutely nothing to do since I didn’t bring my laptop battery, and didn’t bring any philosophy books with me to read, so I went to sleep quite early. Note to self: next time, bring something.

Clouds

2008-10-30T17:52:00.003+08:00

Clouds
they are pretty little things,
like wisps of icings on a clear blue cake.
scattered around,
seemingly randomly
In that odd complex mathematical shapes
reminiscent of the Mandelbrot set.
Clouds are nice to watch,
especially from atop.
But I wish we didn't have to fly through them;
they make the plane rock
alarmingly so.

Smells

2008-10-14T14:39:00.000+08:00

Ah, the sweetness of life,

a pungent whiff;

the heady aroma.

Another day at home.

Love

2008-10-11T15:55:00.001+08:00

An error theory about love.

Lifestyle

2008-10-08T21:03:00.002+08:00

Now, what have I been up to lately? Well, nothing much actually. Or if you look at it another way, quite a lot in fact.

For starters, I'm still going for karate regularly. Twice a week roughly.

Then I'm still going for gym regularly too. Also twice a week.

Got classes twice a week at campus. Officially, I don't need to attend any more classes, but these two classes are actually quite relevant to my research, so I'm sitting in.

Started my driving lessons too, finally. The driving test is on 29th Dec. I've been going for driving lessons twice a week too!

Going for physiotherapy for my back problem every fortnight.

Trying to read Parfit's Reasons and Persons, and Kripke's Naming and Necessity at the same time. The latter is rather short, though I'm still taking some time to finish it. The former is for one of the classes I mentioned above, and it seems to have good potential for finding a thesis topic for myself. I might want to re-read Dainton's article as well.

With all these going on, I'm surprised I even have time to game. But I do. In fact, I game 2-5hrs each day. I really don't have much time for anything else though. Life is pretty much wake up, do any of the above mentioned things for the whole day, then sleep. I've always wondered, people are known to comment on other people's lives as being "no life." I wonder now if my lifestyle is one that is extremely happening, or extremely "no life"?

Just joking

2008-09-25T16:28:00.000+08:00

I like to crack jokes. However, not many people actually understand the jokes I made. That's where the problem comes in.

The thing is, it is not hard to laugh at my jokes. They usually consists of two layers of meanings, one superficial and the other deeper. One can laugh at the superficial while failing to catch the deeper joke entirely. One may even just laugh at the way I crack the jokes, as opposed to the jokes themselves, deeper meaning or not since, as I have been told a couple of times, I do get pretty animated sometimes.

The problem with such jokes is that I'll never know if the person got the deeper meaning or merely the superficial one. I can only assume that she did, because there is no way she could laugh so heartily at the superficial layer. Then again, I can't be too sure.

The first hint that people just aren't getting the deeper jokes came when I was an undergraduate. I was "marveling" at the N** system of allowing students to take their tests in the Lecture theatre, which was such an awesomely stupid idea since everyone can just turn around and look at each other's script without even straining. I can even lean back slightly, and see the person's script behind me! I was so amazed that I told my friend that "Hey, we can compare our answers later, and we can even discuss quietly; no one will even see us!" We had a good laugh over that. Later when we were submitting our scripts, she spotted a mistake on my script, and told me about it. Then she was surprised that I didn't want to change the answer.

That's the problem apparently. Most people think that when I made any propositions, and I want to make it sound natural, I will just pass it off as a joke, but I still meant it beneath my joking exterior. That's not true however. The case above for example, was a joke in the sense that the system was so stupid that we can actually cheat, but it is also a deeper joke in the sense that I, one of the last persons to actually want to cheat, is actually the one who suggested cheating. The first layer is a sarcastic jab at the school; the second layer is a sarcastic jab at myself for being such a goody-two-shoes.

Naturally, if you don't know me well enough to be a goody-two-shoes, you wouldn't know the second layer of the joke. Or, if you don't know me well enough to know I always make layered jokes, you also won't know from the joke that I actually considered myself to be a goody-two-shoes.

Why do I want to make layered jokes then? Just stick to the simple ones you say. Well, for one, layered jokes are more fun. Any tom, dick or harry can do some piece of slapstick humor. It is only when you throw in some intellectual thinking into the joke, that you see the real fun of it. It is like a secret shared between the teller and his audience, all the more fun because it is unspoken yet perfectly understood. Douglas Adams once said this of Monty Python, that it made him realise "comedy was a medium in which extremely intelligent people could express things that simply couldn't be expressed any other way." That was the spirit of my jokes methink, or at least, I aim to have that spirit.

Again, the problem crops up; how many people would actually understand the intelligent jokes, or how many would bother to try? In my previous post, how many actually got the joke in the last two lines? And did I really mean it when I say that the electronic ordering system was stupid? You will be surprised at how many people actually didn't get it.

This problem creates some additional problems. Some people, owing to a misunderstanding of my jokes, or a failure to appreciate the deeper layer, think that I am egoistic (in fact usually when I am jokingly self-deprecating), callous (when I joke about leaving people who I care about in the lurch; I wouldn't joke about it if they were people I don't care about), or vulgar (I don't even want to imagine why). Which would explain why some people took an intense dislike to me, and some of the weird comments that I am really egoistic and like.

Maybe I ought to add a disclaimer each time I make a joke, to emphasize that it is just a joke. Something like "Hahaa, JUST JOKING."

In a perfect world, there is no need for such disclaimers. But apparently this is not that world.

Jokes with double meanings are double the fun, but it can get a little lonely in a world where no one understands them. Even something seems to be lost the minute I actually declare that "Hahaa, just joking." Something IS lost already the minute I wrote this post.

SME

2008-09-22T18:34:00.010+08:00

Fans of Macdonald's breakfasts would know the agony of ordering the best meal on the breakfast menu: a Sausage McMuffin with egg meal.

For one, your tongue has no business twisting around seven syllables first thing in the morning. And if you take your time mouthing the words, chances are by the time you said "A sausage... McMuffin..." the cashier would have registered your order as a Sausage mcMuffin meal, which god knows is the worst meal on the menu, and woe be on you to try to retract that order.

The Macdonald's staff however have a way around that particular problem. They never had to shout across the restaurant first thing in the morning, "A sausage McMuffin with egg meal!", "Another sausage McMuffin with egg meal!", "Yet another sausage McMuffin with egg meal goddammit!" If they had, it would be obvious that god wouldn't patron Macdonald's very often. As it is, they shout this instead, "One SME, please!", "Another SME!" Or they would if the latest electronic ordering system had not been put in place, which is a stupid idea anyway--there is nothing like listening to the staff shouting one SME, two SMEs first thing in the morning.

The funny thing is, I had never dared to place that order instead. I know if I did, the Macdonalds staff would go "Huh? What SME? SMRT is to the left of Jurong Point. Please refer to the menu and place your order accordingly." Or they would if they had a Bachelor's degree in English at Cambridge. They would probably just go "Huh?" and look blankly at me. Then I would have to explain that I actually wanted "a Sausage McMuffin with egg meal", whereupon they would nod and shout across the restauarant "one SME, please!"

It is like a special code word, something that is unique to the Macdonald's staff. Coming from a patron, it wouldn't make any sense, but it would if it were coming from another Macdonald's staff. It is like if you were riding on one of the SMRT trains, and an aunty, who moments ago had mulishly squeezed in through the train doors just as it was opening, turned to you and said, "Do you have Being? " You would go "Huh?", or think that she is asking if you are a Beng, even though it is perfectly clear English and even though half of the Philosophy department would agree that it is perfectly non-rubbish.

So it is with a kind of philosophical respect that I avoid using "SME" with the Macdonald's staff. Let them have their own special way of speaking I'd say; if the Continentals can do it, why not them?

There is however, one particular thing which I am wondering at. I mentioned earlier that the Sausage McMuffin meal is the worst on the menu. Which is rather a pity, because I have never seen anyone ordering it. Why is it a pity however?

Well the reason is rather simple. Suppose one had said "One Sausage McMuffin meal, please." What then would the Macdonald's staff shout across the restaurant?

"One SM, please!"

Gladly, around the back, please.

Fly — previously published in my old blog

2008-09-12T10:40:00.000+08:00

Born in the dark alleys, amidst heaps of rotting refuse, this is no ordinary fly. On the day it was born, an incandescent white dove had glided overhead, portending a great fly in the wait. Its mother had decided on the spot that its going to be named after the auspicious dove, but had been unable to convey her decision since she was immediately eaten up by the auspicious bird.

The fly is, naturally, unaware of its mother's misfortune, nor of its own name. It had earned its own name in its own right; having lived a total of 2 months, it is already one of the most experienced fly around.

The fly has one abnormality; it is born with a squint: the left eye tends to wander. That is to say, while other flies see a thousand images reflected in their thousands facets of both eyes, this fly sees double that. It might have accounted for its longevity, it might not.

Altogether, it is a humble fly. It has no illusions about the future; one day is as good as any, so long as it could roll about in the dumps every nightfall, and perform the dance with some females every now and then. That has on occasions, led to no small embarrassment--til now, he couldn't quite figure out how to tell the females from the males. The only consolation being the rest of the community similarly in the state of confusion.

Suddenly something jolts it out its reverie. Whirling quickly towards the origin of the smell, its myriads of small eyes zooms in on a plate of prawns lying innocently on a table. The smell of the thing overwhelmed its head, and it made a beeline for it.

A slight change in the air pressure is all the warning it got. Flipping itself desperately, it somersaults in two tight loops, the extra momentum carrying it narrowly beyond the path of a black fly swat passing through the strip of air it occupied a moment ago.

There is a slight pause. As though the owner of the fly swat is surprised at the miss.

Then the air erupts in a flurry of blows, coming in from all directions, seeking to squash the fly in its ever tightening range. The fly clamps down on its teeth, dodging the millions of swipes it sees, slipping through the gaps in between the strokes. It is a matter of life and death, literally.

An orange coloured fly swat joins in the fray, and the air is practically humming with death. But still, it has not lived its life thus far for nought: every feint is quickly seen through, every killing stroke carefully averted.

Abruptly, a pair of chopsticks weaves in amidst the wild swipes of the two flyswats, and would have crushed the fly between its metal vises had it not seen it coming head on, so silent it has been. As it is, the chopsticks only missed its left antenna by mere nano-inches. A martial arts exponent, it thought, judging from the efficient way it reaches in from afar and withdrawing just as fast to allow for the swinging of the swats.

The split second it is distracted, it finds itself being pursued in the horizontal path of the black swat. Cursing itself inwardly, it tries to angle off left before climbing. It soon realises its mistake when the orange swat swerves with frightening speed in midstroke to meet the black swat with the full intention of catching it in between.

With a desperation it is coming to feel, it flattens its wings and banks sharply, plunging downwards, spiralling furiously between the two rapidly narrowing swats. It clears the fatal runway at the last instant before the two swats rams into each other; spiralling brings it face to face with the two hideous swats screaming past its face that set its teeth chattering with the sheer force of it just before they clamped shut.

For a moment, it could see bits and pieces of the previous victims that had fallen under the twin weapons; appendages and abdomens frozen forever in the cracks and folds of the swats.

More by instinct than anything, it kicks with all its strength at the two swats just as it clears them, adding to the air impact, propelling it even further from the swats, thus barely avoiding the chopsticks as it snaps at the spot it has vacated split seconds earlier.

Wings almost a blur, it flings itself away from the table. A dozens rubber bands followed it, dashing themselves against the wall with a loud smack when they missed.

Escaped! The fly exults in triumph. It could hear the exclamations of the hairless apes in the distance. "No fly have escaped my swat for years!" "THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE! IT GOT PAST MY CHOPSTICKS!"

So much for the martial arts exponents, the fly thought smugly, that wasn't too hard...

WHAM!

A toddler lifts one of its pudgy foot, exposing the half flatten fly.

"Where did it go?!?"

"Quick, find it!"

Drawing breath is a mighty effort, but the fly grits its teeth, resolutely keeping its eyes closed. It has been through situations like this, as long as it keeps its cool, recovery is not a problem, playing dead is only...

WHAM WHAM WHAM

The toddler bends to examine the gooey remains of the fly, fascinated at how the insides of the fly possess a distinctly different colour from the fly itself.

The search for the fly continued, but the apes never found it.

Left lying desolately in a corner, the grave of a legend never to be found again remained unmarked, all alone.

Debate -- previously published in my old blog

2008-09-07T19:50:00.002+08:00

Note: This is just for fun, if you are that kind that would scream Blasphemy everytime anything supernatural is mentioned, you best not read on. Its just for fun yah, and I am not poking fun at any religion.

At a Philosophy conference, a highly sophisticated debate on the existence of god is going on. For the benefit of the larger non-philosophically inclined audience out there, the actual debate is translated into easy to understand language, leaving out the technical terms.

Philosopher A: God exist because...

Philosopher B injected: God doesn't exist.

A : He does.

B: Doesn't.

A: Does!

B: Doesn't!!!

A banged on the table for effect, knocking over his glass of water in the process, and screamed back: DOES!!!!!!!

B did exactly the same thing, though cleverly exchanging the 'does' with a 'doesn't', which was regarded as a very neat move by the seated audience who gave him an ovation.

A composed himself visibly after having obviously lost the first round of debate, cleared his throat and started again: God exist because...

B: ...doesn't.

A ignored him and continued: because the Bible says so.

B jumped to his feet, and was pushed back into his seat by his colleagues for his trouble, but shot back anyway: And why should we trust the Bible?

A: Because the Bible is based on the words of God.

B: and?

A: and the words of God are always true.

B: So you are saying God says he exist, so he exist???

A: yes!!!

God appeared with a poof in the middle of the conference room, and interrupted: NOW I DON'T THINK I SAID THAT EXACTLY; I AM NOT EVEN SURE I EXIST.

Jaws around the room began dropping onto the floor, much to the consternation of the janitors who had to sweep up after the debate.

A jumped to his feet and exclaimed: Ah ha! The final and crushing proof! By His very appearance!

B: wait a minute! How do we even know he is He? This is a philosophical debate for heaven's sake, the last thing we need is the real thing! We need theoretical proofs! We refuse to believe in anything even if it is there, unless you can write it down in paper for us to read!

A: hmm, yah. prove that you are God first.

WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE ME DO?

A: like turn this table into solid gold?

He turned the table into solid gold.

LIKE THIS?

B: Can you turn him into a pig? (points at A)

A: Why you... ! Why do you.... oink oink oink oink.. want to turn me into.... Whats everybody laughing at?

LIKE THIS?

B: how about creating a rock that you cant lift?

He created a rock that he cant lift.

LIKE THIS?

B: Ah ha! so you are conceding that there is something that you cant do afterall! You cant lift the rock, so you are not omnipotent!

OH, YOU WANT ME TO LIFT THAT ROCK?

He went and lift that rock.

B: Then you didnt create a rock that you cant lift in the first place! You are still not omnipotent!

OK DUDE.

He created a bigger rock.

I CAN'T LIFT THAT NOW.

B: Not omnipotent!

YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND, I AM A DYNAMIC GOD. WHEN YOU ASKED ME TO CREATE THAT ROCK, I CAN'T LIFT IT, BUT WHEN YOU ASK ME TO LIFT IT, I CAN. GET IT?

A: But God is not supposed to be dynamic...

LOOK, SMART ASS. WHO'S THE GOD HERE, YOU OR ME?

B: But if God is dynamic, then nothing in the world would be static. What about moral laws? Rights and wrongs. They would be totally dynamic as well then?

WHAT MAKES YOU THINK THEY ARE NOT?

B: What makes you think they are?

COS I CREATED THEM.

B: and how would I know that?

THATS MY POINT, YOU DON'T. SO I FORGIVE YOU, AMEN.

A: Wait a minute. Just now when you appeared, you said you don't even know if you yourself exist.

YUP, THATS CORRECT, OLD BOY.

A: Do you know about Descartes?

ARE YOU DOUBTING MY ALL-KNOWING ASPECT NOW?

A: eh... no. thats just a perfunctory question.

I KNOW.

A: err.... ok nvm. Back to Descartes, you cant don't know that if you exist.

WHY?

A: Do you doubt that you exist?

THATS WHAT I AM SAYING.

A: But the very act of doubting reaffirms a mind. You doubt, you can think, therefore you exist.

NEGATIVE.

A: huh?

HOW DO YOU KNOW I CAN DOUBT? YOU ARE NOT ME.

A: well, you just said you can, didnt you?

AH HA! YOU THINK I SAID I CAN DOUBT, BUT HOW CAN YOU BE SURE I AM NOT MERELY PART OF YOUR IMAGINATION?

A: well... are you then?

NO.

A: So you can doubt, and exist?

HOW DO YOU KNOW IF WHAT I JUST TOLD YOU IS NOT PART OF YOUR IMAGINATION?

A: well...

SO I DON'T KNOW IF I EXIST.

A (feebly): but you can know...

CHUCK THAT LINE OF THOUGHT ALREADY.

He then proceed to disappear with another poof, taking the solid gold table with him, sending the academic papers resting peacefully on it a moment ago flying into the air.

Questions

2008-08-30T18:48:00.000+08:00

A list of important questions which I am preoccupied with these days:

1. What thesis topic?

2. If two events A and B each individually determine a third event, why do we need event B, given that event A exists?

3. Should I do a PhD? Or should I get a job in Singapore?

4. Who do I like?

5. Who loves me?

6. Am I smart? Or was I merely lucky thus far?

Words are all I have

2008-08-29T15:02:00.004+08:00

I have never subscribed to the view that “a picture is worth a thousand words.” To me, that seems plainly wrong. To describe a picture in words never serves to capture the essence of it--not the barest outline. What you have before you, a painting, when described, is merely an elaborate name which you have just given to it, a baptism of sorts, but never accurate. Taken in isolation, the description just given would never have evoked in another person the picture which you saw.

That, some would say, is exactly what the phrase meant, that the picture is much more than words can do. But that in itself is a mistake, for to compare pictures with words is to assume they have at least some grounds of comparison, when they are in fact, as different as possibly can be.

Yet that is not to say words are inferior to pictures. In certain ways, words are markedly superior in producing images in the mind of which the greatest painters could not hope to emulate. For the painters, for all their creative geniuses, could only show their audience a single image; different interpretations to be sure, but nonetheless a single image. Words could do better; a certain description of a single scene could produce in its readers completely different images, not to mention having its own myriad of interpretations at the same time. In the world of words, sight and sound come together to form a tapestry of life, a moving 3 dimensional, real time successions of colorful events with you at the center of all, a silent observer of events as they play out in full color and vibrancy all around you.

A simple description like “It was a dreary day, full of smog and gloom, as I sat crowded in a morning bus, watching the pavement crept by” is both simple and rich at the same time, hinting at images beyond what it described, of the other vehicles crowding the road producing the dreaded smog; of the rush of the morning as students and commuters crowding each other in the morning bus, each hoping for more speed than the laden vehicle could give. One could imagine the oppressive feeling of being in that bus, and the underlying mood of the author, which is at once interspersed amongst the imageries conjured up in one’s mind. All these, needless to say, cannot be captured in the entirety by a 2-dimensional canvas, not even in a moving theatre of holographic images.

Kaisen Maki!

2008-08-24T23:25:00.004+08:00

I was at Jurong Point today with my sis, shopping for some takeaway sushi. Then I spotted this.

A closer look

OMG, "Kaisen Maki"? People actually eat this? I don't know whether to feel honored or afraid. If you don't know why, I'm not going to tell you. haha

Latest update: I realised that "Kaisen Maki" could actually be a typo for "Kaizen Maki" which is a sushi described as made with "eel, flying fish roe, cucumber and melon with wasabi." Not a surprising typo since I took the photo on the 24th of Aug, whereas the packaging shows it "was" packed on the 25th.

chinese

2008-08-17T23:07:00.006+08:00

I happened to catch a snatch of chinese news today on the tv, and it was reporting on some singer who held a concert somewhere, who apparently performed exceedingly well. What caught my attention however was how the reporter described the performance as hauntingly beautiful which made all the audience, this is the interesting part, "听出耳油."

Which meant, literally, that some yellow fluid is dripping out of your ears.

Now that's one really disturbing image. Imagine you are seated in a posh concert hall, with few hundred people all dressed to the nines, all holding their breath to a hauntingly beautiful melody. And suddenly, as the melody reaches its crescendo, you feel something wet creeping down your auditory canal. And you slowly realized, that out of the ears of the mesmerized audience, something yellow is dripping out slowly, staining velvet coats and bare shoulders in a persistent stream...

Bleagh.

Well it is only a metaphor I guess, but one couldn't help feeling that it is a rather crass one. Certainly not one to inspire the feeling of beauty when applied to any piece of music. Not unless it's a music designed to magically clean out your ear canal.

Change

2008-08-17T11:19:00.001+08:00

"Calvin: Know what I pray for?
Hobbes: What?
Calvin: The strength to change what I can, the inability to accept what I can't, and the incapacity to tell the difference."--Bill Waterson

Slack

2008-08-11T11:46:00.001+08:00

Sometimes it seems that life is about being happy. And if being happy involves doing nothing much other than slacking around, doing things that we like, or not thinking about unhappy thoughts, then we ought to be doing exactly that.

The trick however, is being able to slack around, doing things that we like, and not think about unhappy thoughts. One got to make a living after all, even if living is about being happy, you need food at the very least to carry on doing that. And if you try to earn your bread, in all possibilities the three important things outlined above are going to be quickly crowded out of your life. What then?

The balance seems to be somewhere between getting a job with no life and getting a life with no bread; we want a job that gives money, but minimal or no work is required. Is there such a job? Yes, being an academic. Or more specifically, being a philosophy academic. Other areas of academia like the social sciences does an admirable job of not doing any real work under the pretense of "research", but philosophy carries it to the extremes, where the only "research" involves racking your brains for a viable thesis topic. You don't even need to survey pesky undergraduates, or run babies through a lab maze. You don't even need to get out of bed.

In many ways, my thinking is affected by this ancient chinese philosopher Chuangzi. If you read his works, you will understand what I mean--he advocates not doing anything that might put you under undue stress or unhappiness, or indeed doing anything at all. In an early chapter of his book Chuangzi, he speaks of the Weiqi master who died young due to brilliance, and the zitherist who vomitted blood over his art. Later on, he speaks approvingly of the tree which has a crooked trunk and soft wood which is totally incapable of fashioning into anything, whereas the nice and straight hardwood due to its excellent quality, gets chopped down very early in its career precisely for those qualities.

My calligraphy teacher once advised me that Chuangzi is not a good read for young people. The young should be full of drive and ambitions; they should want things they couldn't achieve and do things that are severely stupid. Chuangzi teaches the exact opposite. I kinda agree with him now. Such a lifestyle tend to drag into monotony, and it seems way too early to be concentrating on putting one foot after another to live your life out.

That said, I have ambitions enough for ten people (judging from the ambitions some people around me has), so I haven't really been following what Chuangzi says to the word. I do however slack a lot. That's following the spirt of the word isn't it? Though that probably isn't a good idea, much better had it been the other way round right?

Or not, probably better if I had been able to throw Chuangzi entirely. On the other hand, if I had, I wouldn't be able to enjoy life, doing the things that I like, slack a bit, and not think about unhappy things. Maybe I'm good the way I am. haha

Weekends only

2008-08-03T08:58:00.004+08:00

Last night was wonderful, but for the movie. And even the movie was great, just that the seating wasn't: we were in the front row of the theatre and right smack in the center. We had to crane our necks almost 90deg to watch the show, and I could feel a headache coming on even while they were showing the trailers.

That said, The Dark Knight is nonetheless a great show. It's just that I couldn't remember much of it since my brain was continually drained of its juices while watching it. Watch it for The Joker though.

Phd

2008-07-15T17:00:00.004+08:00

Stole this from the PHD comic, so if you find it interesting, do visit the site itself (and hopefully by this exhortation, the author wouldn't sue me for stealing his comic). http://www.phdcomics.com/

The horrifying truth behind my career move. Or rather, my "non-career" move.

Stand up for yourself

2008-07-07T18:36:00.008+08:00

I was at the gym today, doing my lats pull-down, while behind me was a kid, around 18-19 years old, stretching in preparation, I think, for the barbell press machine. This was when suddenly, a stocky man of around 40+ rushed into the gyming area with his bag and everything, threw his towel on the barbell press machine, and rushed off back to the locker area to deposit his bag. He certainly took his time after the act of “chopping” the machine, for he even went to the toilet and sauntered about the gym.

When he returned to the machine, the kid approached him and asked if he can share the machine by taking turns. The stocky bastard refused by saying, ” I am only just starting my sets.” And the stupid kid just stood there and took it. In the end, the kid waited for nearly 30mins, doing nothing much, while the stocky bastard strutted around the gym with his chest out doing one set of exercise here and another there, taking his time chatting with his gym friends, returning only occasionally to use the barbell press, all the while leaving his towel on it to prevent the kid from using.

What’s the use of going to gym if you cannot even stand up for yourself; you are just inviting people to step all over you. The kid should have stopped the man immediately when he was trying to put his towel on the machine saying “Sorry, I am using this machine. And no, you couldn’t share it even if you asked, which you didn’t, because you are such a bastard.” At the very least, the kid could have insisted on sharing, explaining that he was there first.

That’s the problem with Singaporeans nowadays. They have no manners, and they dare not stand up for themselves. If your toes got stepped on in the MRT, you would keep quiet and pretend that you didn’t mind that at all. No one would bother to apologise. And you would pretend that you didn’t mind that either. If some retard blew his stinking cigarette smoke in your face, you would just pretend to enjoy it until he left and you glare menacingly at his back.

In this world, justice only exists if you enforce it. Waiting for divine retribution? Do you think God is going to kick his ass in heaven just because he has no manners? Or perhaps you think retribution comes in more intangible form, like a guilty conscience. Some assholes simply don't have that; they can lead their whole lives out happily cutting queues, happily barfing on your bag, and going around happily beating people up. You can console yourself thinking that these bad actions surely will have repercussions for them in the long run, but it is just going to be pathetic wishful thinking on your part.

Sports injuries

2008-07-06T18:14:00.004+08:00

Newly acquired:

1. Left jaw. Got punched in the jaw today in exchange for a punch in the chest. Not a particularly clever exchange.

2. Left knee. Not sure if injured from too much karate or gym.

Old, and healing injuries:

3. Right index finger. Injured while blocking a kick.

4. Right pinky. Injured when my fist and my opponent's fist meet.

Old, and not healing well injuries:

5. Right thumb. Injured while doing finger push-ups for fun. Constantly aggravated while punching.

6. Right big toe. Injured from slipping on opponent's sweat. Really evil, that.

Assorted injuries:

7. There was a bruise on my chest from being repeatedly slammed by a japanese sensei. It's gone now.

8. Abrasions and blisters everywhere on my feet.

Heaven and Hell

2008-06-30T12:54:00.007+08:00

An assassin working for an evil feudal lord in ancient times had a wildly successful career getting rid of his lord's enemies, until his lord was assassinated by some other assassin, thus ending the evil reign and his particularly lucrative job. Following the reign of peace brought on by the death of the evil feudal lord, the assassin was sorely out of job, and lacking other skills, he became a farmer and led his life out farming on some desolate plot of dirt.

When he died, the assassin arrived at the gates of Heaven. Nonplussed, he went up to the gatekeeper who was standing behind a podium twenty feet high.

"Excuse me. Has there been a mistake of some sort? I don't think I'm supposed to be here."

The gatekeeper looked up from the huge tome he was bending over, and flashed the assassin a wry smile. "You are worried that you arrived before the gates of Heaven?"

"Well, yes. I don't want to get my hopes high, you know? I mean, there's no way I can be going to Heaven, and I think I'd rather go straight to Hell, instead of lurking around in Heaven for a while before they realize there's a mistake and kick me out. It'll be a double torture."

"If that's the way you would have it," said the gatekeeper. "Your name, please?"

The assassin told him.

The gatekeeper consulted the huge tome briefly, leafing through it with inhuman speed, before finally looking up. "Well it appears all in order. You are due for Heaven, and not too soon too."

Taken aback, though not too unpleasantly so, the assassin was lost for words for a moment.

"And it appears that you have done quite a lot of good too. A well deserved stay for you I must say."

"What?" the assassin blurted out. "Did you know that I was an assassin for an evil feudal lord? I kill people to earn my keep!"

"Yes," the gatekeeper agreed, "an assassin for an evil feudal lord who killed many good people all intent on plotting against the feudal lord.

"Good life." added the gatekeeper.

"What?"

"Very good life in fact."

"Look," the assassin persevered, "Are you saying I am going into Heaven for killing all these good people? Is this some kind of a joke?"

"No, god, no! " The gatekeeper was taken aback by the suggestion.

"Good, I thought that was rather implausible too..."

"In Heaven, we don't joke about such things. You are precisely going into Heaven for killing all these good people."

"What?"

"Let me put it into perspective for you. You have," explained the gatekeeper, "sent a commendable number of people into Heaven. Heaven, as you know it and as advertised, is a place of unlimited or infinite goodness, where only good people reside. By sending people into Heaven, these people get to enjoy an infinity of goodness and happiness. By extension, since you are the one who sent them here, you have generated an infinite amount of goodness and happiness in this world. There is no greater good than that a mortal can achieve. You are, metaphorically speaking, the Charon of Heaven."

A metaphor in bad taste too, thought the assassin. But he was not to be put off.

"You know, that sounds very philosophical and deep to me, and I kind of like it since the outcome of all that is I get to go to Heaven. But seriously speaking, if you ask me, it sounds like bullshit to me, if you don't mind."

"Had you not sent those good people to Heaven when you did," continued the gatekeeper, pretending that the assassin hadn't spoken, "the good people would have continued plotting against your evil feudal lord, and we have very good statistical data that they might eventually succeed in the absence of assassination attempts made on their lives, and replace the evil feudal lord with their own rule, whereupon it is highly probable that they will do heinous acts of the most unspeakable sort. These good people would hence be unable to qualify for Heaven, which is the place for only good people.

"In fact," the gatekeeper continued in conspiratorial tones, "these good people are rather grateful to you for sending them here. I hear they drink an occasional toast to you."

Whatever, thought the assassin, I'm not going to refuse the cake that's dropped into my hands. Particularly not against such a rubbish argument.

"Enjoy your stay," said the gatekeeper, "and don't worry about it. Worrying is outlawed in Heaven." The gatekeeper winked, tapping against a sign which says "Worrying is outlawed in Heaven."

The assassin turned to go, then suddenly stopped. He approached the gatekeeper again, who was beginning to find him an annoyance.

"Where's the other assassin? I've always wanted to meet him, you know? I don't even know who did it."

"Who are you referring to?" asked the gatekeeper.

"The other assassin who killed my evil feudal lord, who ended the evil reign and my job. He's something, I give him that. He must be here somewhere, right?"

"Oh that guy." said the gatekeeper. "He's in Hell."

"What?" exclaimed the assassin. "What did he do?"

"Apparently he sent some evil feudal lord into Hell. Since Hell, as you know it and as advertised, is a place of infinite badness and unhappiness..."

"You know what? I think just screw this. Where're the stairs?"

"What?"

"I said, where're the stairs. I'm going down."

Bugs

2008-06-23T11:56:00.004+08:00

There is a dead dragonfly in my room.

Which is weird, considering how dragonflies haven't been seen in my area for the past 5 years. Nor the past 6 years. Or the past 8 years. Actually it has never been seen in my area, and now there's one dead in my room.

What is really weird, is that not too long ago, yifeng gave me a handicraft dragonfly from vietnam, and it is currently sitting on top of my bookshelf. Which is where the real dragonfly lay dead at the foot of, as if it died in the last-ditch attempt to reach my wooden dragonfly. Poor fool. I wonder if it really thought my wooden dragonfly is alive.

Now it lay dead under my bed. I have no idea if I should sweep it away with a broom, or just let it be. It looked so elegant, and fragile--sweeping it away seems a sacrilege, much less dumping it into a dustbin.

Talking about bugs reminds me of the dream I had last night. I have really strange dreams these days. Dreams which involves you randomly teleporting from one place to another aren't the strange ones; what is strange are the ones which almost seem to make sense, but not quite, and you have absolutely no idea what brought them on. Like finding yourself in a study group of five, and a maths professor assigning to you a thick book of maths questions to be finished by group effort.

Which is when I find myself staring at a container (a pencil box?) with a HUGE caterpillar crawling slowly at the bottom of it. My fellow (maths) group mates were freaking out slightly from it, so I reached in, freaking out a little myself, to haul it out. But before I touched it, or rather the paper it was crawling on, suddenly I was beset on by a cloud of little bright red ladybugs, flung on me from all sides, possibly by my group mates. I couldn't tell, all I can see were the little red ladybugs which were landing on me everywhere, humming slightly. Strangely, I wasn't as freaked out by the ladybugs as I was by the giant caterpillar, though I did run about trying to fend them off.

I have no idea what that dream meant, nor how I come to dream of it. Guess it's a absolutely meaningless dream. Just like this post.

rain

2008-06-18T15:28:00.003+08:00

It's raining now. It hasn't been raining for a really long time lately, especially this particular kind of rain. It's a kind of mindless kind of splattering rain, not at all like the downpours that fall with a vengeance, nor like the spluttering rain like an engine about to die on you. This is a rain that says "I don't care" as it falls lazily, with sleepy thunder rumbling in the distance, so dense that it could form a curtain obscuring your vision of the distant hills.

This rain reminds me of the time when I was in NS, when we were still in Signals. When I was in NS, we would occasionally get deployed for exercise in our signal vehicles, subjected to the whims of the division commander. There was once I got deployed to Amakeng, which is a restricted army exercise area just beside the Amakeng old folks home. The rain that was falling then is exactly the same kind that is falling now: lazy with a statement.

An interesting side note, my officer told me the restriction on the army area isn't exactly that rigorously being enforced apparently. When we were driving into the area, I could see some villagers looking people waiting before the gate in the rain, waiting for us to open the gate and drive in. When we did open the gate, they walked passed our whole convoy of army vehicles, passed us who were all carrying rifles across our backs and with bayonets on our waists, and walked nonchalently into the restricted army area, disappearing before long into the bushes and trees. My officer told me that these are farmers who grew vegetables inside the restricted area, and they are apparently going to openly harvest them now that we opened the gate. How's that for guts huh? We obviously can't just shoot them, so we studiously ignored them.

Amakeng is really like some rural area, perhaps the last surviving countryside left here. There are even lots of fruit trees scattered around, growing wild. After we set up our vehicles and comms, sometimes we would roam the area looking for durians. We did find some, and they were good, not like the lousy small durians found in Pulau ubin. One of us even plucked a papaya, which unfortunately caused him to sign a lot of extras when he picked it and left in his vehicle, forgotten till it rotted and stank the whole place up.

However, when it is raining like it is now, we weren't able to go booty hunting. For normal army units, raining means a chance of lightning, and if Cat. 1 is sounded, all exercise would be off for fear of lightning strikes. For us signal units, it means hurry up set up your vehicle, put up the 10 stories high antenna and establish communications before you get fucked or struck by lightning, whichever is first.

And establishing communications in the rain is especially hard, if not impossible. For my vehicle, it's worse. My radio sets date back to WW2, and at the best of times, only bloody single-mindedness allowed me to establish comms after hours of tuning and adjusting the antenna. When it is raining like it is now, getting the radio sets to work is like praying for a miracle, which involve alternatingly tuning the radio and going out into the rain to shake the antenna like an idiot trying to get struck by lightning.

Finally after several hours when the comms are established, the rain would disappear, leaving us to steam slightly in our wet clothes under the hot sun. It is entirely more likely that, however, we managed to establish the comms only because the rain is gone.

Bitches and bastards

2008-06-13T18:54:00.003+08:00

Today I was going to have my lunch at the Jurong Point food court when I noticed the woman just in front of me in the queue at the food stall has an arm in a splint. She's middle aged or more, with that singaporean auntie look, and she was hogging the front of the stall, moving to and fro inspecting the utensils, and what-nots. When her food was ready, she paid up slowly, and inspected her receipt with deep concentration, frowning at it slightly even though she could probably see quite well. She's not that old, as you might have thought from the description I provided, but she moved with the speed of my grandmother. It is obvious that her slowness is due to slow wits, rather than the injured arm.

Then she tried to leave with her tray of food, trying with obvious effort to rest most of the weight of the tray on her good hand while the other balances the tray from the side. It is also obvious that she can't make it beyond two steps. So I stopped her and offered to carry her tray to her table.

She directed me to a table some distance away. The table isn't empty. Someone, dressed in long sleeves shirt and looking like a yuppie is sitting at the table, punching leisurely at his handphone whilst waiting. He didn't even look up as a stranger, me, set his mom's food beside him. At least, I think she is his mom. (I observed them later; the aunty was chatting lightly, with the guy looking slightly bored. An almost sure mom-son sign.) The fucker just went on punching on his handphone, almost like food service is common at the food court.

I had the urge to grab his collar and shake some sense into him, asking him why the fuck he didn't buy food for his mom, who has her arm in a splint and nearly just spewed her food all over the floor. In the end a stranger has to carry her food which she obviously couldn't handle, and the dressed to the nines son didn't even have the grace to look embarrassed.

The aunty thanked me profusely with another slow-witted look on her face, but I wasn't impressed. It's as much her own fault for producing such a son, and she didn't even look faintly embarrassed by her son's behavior.

Sometimes I really wonder. There are people who look smart, dress well and speak well, but deep within them seems to be devoid of any moral core. These yuppies, and I have seen any number of them, have something seriously lacking in their upbringing. Maybe that's what you get if you spend most of your time deciding what clothes to wear, which cologne to use, and going to facial and spa every other day. Just yesterday I saw a girl on the train, dressed in such a way that a blind man would look twice, seated at the corner seat, staring at a pregnant woman who got in just after the girl sat down. I saw the considering look in the girl's eyes, directed at the pregnant woman's belly, but after a moment, apparently dismissed the woman from her mind. No one else got up to offer a seat either. A thorough bitch. I for one didn't look twice at her.

Vegetarians

2008-06-10T11:41:00.003+08:00

Philosophy is the only discipline I know of which has so profoundly and seditiously affected its practitioners' daily lives; of the graduate and undergraduate students in my department, four are vegetarians, two other eat only fish other than vegetables, and this is only out of a grand total of 20+ people in the whole department. And that's not counting my professor who is also a vegetarian.

The interesting thing is, none of them are vegetarians for religious reasons. They cite ethical issues to do with the preparation of meat, the very idea of slaughtering animals just for food, the pain visited on the animals in killing them; the very last reason is also the reason why some only eat fish, since there has been studies done to show that fish don't in fact feel pain. Maybe they can't even understand the concept of death--they don't have a fish brain for nothing.

And I have, at least, seriously considered going vegetarian before. But I love my meat too much, and giving in to irrationality, resolved not to think too much about what I am eating. Besides, I have yet to come up with a satisfying argument for myself for not eating meat, given the fact that many species of animals, including man, are naturally evolved to eat and digest meat. But above all, I have a very practical reason not to go vegetarian: my mum would scream and throw me out of the house, refusing to even cook rice for me if I dare to breathe a word of "vegetarian". And then my dad would follow me into going vegetarian, whereupon my mum will scream and drag me back to claw the hell out of me, forcing me to recant. For the sake of avoiding a family tragedy, I refuse to think anymore about going vegetarian.

So, my friends, if you are thinking that eating vegetarian might be a good lifestyle choice for you, leave me a message, or give me a call--I have altogether five pure vegetarians and two not so pure vegetarians for you to choose from, though one of them should be pretty tough due to age.

Subconscious mirroring

2008-06-09T14:50:00.009+08:00

We all do unconscious mirroring, sometimes, to some degree. Some self-help books on imaging, office politics, or interviews recommend doing that in order to build better relationships with your friends, your colleagues and sucking up to your bosses. The general lines to go about doing it is to copy your target's little gestures, leaning back in your seat as he does, crossing your arms if he crosses, breathe to the same rhythm, and pretending to accidentally step in another pile of poo if he did so too.

The danger is that your target might notice your mirroring, and instead of forming a subconscious liking for you, he might be put off, or worse, think that you are mocking him. Hence it is vital, according to the experts, that you keep your mirroring gestures small, natural and entirely unnoticeable. At least to the conscious eye.

However, for the uninitiated, we don't really need to try all that hard. Friends mirror each other whenever they sit and talk, or walk alongside each other. We relax when the others slag visibly in their chairs, lean forward if he does so while talking, and generally walk to the same pace with the same swagger. (This brings us to an interesting observation: if a friend leans back away from you when you lean forward, you have a very clear signal that he/she isn't being very comfortable around you.)

All this is very fine and good, since we want our friends to be comfortable around us, and like us to say the least. However, things can get a little annoying when strangers start to mirror you, also subconsciously. Behold the pedestrian on the sidewalk who obviously was torn between two directions, and just as you were passing him, he would miraculously, and usually to his own surprise too, choose the direction which you are walking in, and walk shoulders to shoulders to you, in tandem, two people crowding a sideway which is empty for miles.

Or the obnoxious smelling man on the train, who seems to lean onto you with every lurch of the train, giving off a smell which only in the best of moods you would call "homely"; each time you lean forward ever so surreptitiously in your seat to escape the smell, he would lean forward after a minute's lag time, totally unconscious that he is doing so simply because his subconscious saw you doing it at the edge of his vision. And if you get up early the moment the train doors closed on the stop before yours, to escape the stench, he would get up early too, ambling along the train corridor after you with that vacant eyed look. All the while his subconscious is spinning up stories why he needed to lean forward due to a creak in the back, or why he needed to get up early due to the crowd in the train. He didn't follow me anymore after we got off the train; I hired someone to take him out.

To the people who know, subconscious mirroring by strangers are irritating, especially since you cannot stop them from mirroring you short of stripping yourself naked and start dancing in the train. Now you know too, being my readers, and I shall gladden my heart with knowing that henceforth I will not be the only one being irritated by subconscious mirroring by strangers.

Brown Belt

2008-06-05T23:55:00.003+08:00

I just got my brown belt; now I am 4th kyu! Wahaha.

I have slightly conflicting emotions now; each time I got a double promotion, I feel like my fighting abilities are not worthy of my kyu, but if I merely got a single promotion, I would feel I'm under-appreciated. Guess it's better to feel not worthy though, ahah.

Fire extinguishers

2008-05-25T11:08:00.010+08:00

While searching the Net for places to buy fire extinguishers, I come across this description of a website selling them. You know how there are tons of English goof ups available on the Net, many of which are hilarious? I think I might have stumbled upon another:

Fire extinguisher

Special Extinguishing formula to impregnate around minor fires whatever their cause, so as to avoid...

This actually sounds grammatically correct. While it may be alright to impregnate minor fires, it means a different thing to impregnate around fires. In any case, this wonder extinguisher is a must-have for baby-less couples; I just wonder how it is used.

Women

2008-05-20T23:47:00.007+08:00

While I'm still rational, I thought it might be best to jot down the things that I look out for in girls, since many have asked, and since it would probably change as the years float by, and it would be a nice comparison to have when looking back at it, say 5 years later.

I've got to stop that, and revise my usage to "women" instead of "girls", since I am at the point in life where to keep on talking about "girls" seems to imply some paedophiliac fetish in me. So what do I look out for in women? As in looking out as criteria for a potential partner, not just idle gazing. (For idle gazing, the criteria is pretty simple, as you would have imagined.)

1. Smart. She's got to be intelligent at the very least. I can't stand bimbos who can't even hold a decent conversation, not even if they got the sexiest body alive. Of course, if she is intelligent then it significantly reduces the risk that she might be unreasonable generally, though I'm not putting any money on that; there is some stubborn streak of unreasonability in most women, and the smartest women is susceptible to some degree of unreasonability at the best of times.

2. Confident. I don't know why, but I like women who are confident, but I suppose this isn't a really big thing to ask for, since most women are confident to the point they are haughty. On the other hand, maybe I am looking not for the over-confident type, but the non-insecure type. That should be harder to come by I should think.

3. Good temper. I have a strange temper. I have an angel's temper up to the point some one flares up at me, then it's all downhill from there. Suppose my future partner has a bad temper, we would simply bounce our tempers off each other until we both reach melting point. Plus I do hate fights, absolutely; I used to have nightmares about having fights with people. (I don't mean karate-y fights, mind.)

4. I used to like long haired girls. I'm not very sure now, since my judgment is a little clouded now, but I think I still do. Not so long that she would look like a pontianak, maybe just around shoulder's length. (So specific? you say. But this is my list, and this is my blog, so I ought to be able to say that, so there.)

5. I like tall women. Probably around 1.65m to 1.7m. I am 1.75m, so that's just a slight difference in height. I don't like to have to tower over her, 'cause I will most probably stoop instead. Too much height disparity makes me feel like a paedophile too.

6. Can't stand stubborn women.

7. Sporty types. I wasn't able to say this in the past, since I wasn't very sporty myself. But recently I have been going for karate, trekking, and... erm... cycling? so yea, I am able to come out and claim I like sporty types now.

8. With a tan, i.e. darker complexion. I never had a thing for fair skin, and darker complexion looks rather exotic too. Plus sporty types are more liable to have a tan. See 7 above.

9. Nice eyes. My eyes are probably the nicest feature on my face (some say the only nice feature), so naturally I look out for women with nice eyes. But I probably wouldn't notice your eyes unless I am already interested in you.

10. I don't like the really skinny types, nor the really chubby types. That said, I prefer fleshier women to the simply lean type. This has got to do with myself; I am too thin myself, and long term self gazing formed a general disinclination for thin women.

11. Cheery. I am just writing the criteria as I think of them, so they aren't in any particular order. In fact, being cheery deserves at least a number 3 on this list.

Interestingly, none of the women I have liked before come close to completely fulfilling the list of criteria here, though I suppose the list might have been different in the past too. And I expect the women I will like in the future might fulfill even less of these criteria; Life has a way of going the exact opposite of what I expect to have.

Animal talk

2008-05-19T22:15:00.003+08:00

You know how people would "talk" to animals according to their species? For example, we would "talk" to a cat by meowing at it, growling at a dog, and making chitter-y noises at birds and rodents.

I was just wondering, if aliens were to visit Earth, what kind of noises would they make to "talk" to us? I don't know about other places, but if the aliens were to land in Singapore, they would probably go "la, lah, laaaaahh" at us.

Perfect

2008-05-17T21:49:00.004+08:00

Do you know the feeling when after a period of intense work, stress and exhaustion, after spending countless nights wishing that you would get this piece of assignment done, and when it is suddenly over, you feel not relief that it is behind you, but a tiny bit of emptiness gnawing at your heart alerting you to the fact that you have absolutely nothing to do? And if you have this experience, and if you hate it like I do, then retrospectively, it would mean that we actually liked the stress and exhaustion back then, to some extent.

Or it could be just that we like neither feelings. That seems to be much more plausible, considering how humans seem to be beings that are never contented. If we like someone, we would think that this person is perfect if not for some a-factor. If we are enjoying ourselves at the moment, we would think the moment perfect if not for the nagging piece of undone work at the back of our mind. If we were the richest person on earth, it still wouldn't be perfect since we don't have eternity to enjoy our riches. There are always some if-nots in the way of perfect happiness, enjoyment, what have you.

Plus it sounds ridiculous, at least to most people, to claim that you are enjoying yourself perfectly at any one moment, particularly if it happens that the moment is just a simple affair of sipping from a can of tea. You don't know the meaning of perfect enjoyment, that's what these people would say if you were to be so irresponsible as to proclaim your enjoyment to them.

What then is perfect enjoyment? Maybe that is what comes when you get every odious piece of work out of the way, when you have every conceivable pleasures awaiting your whims, when you have everyone sincerely loving you, etc. But maybe, just maybe, at the end of it all, there is just this tiny bit of emptiness lurking, waiting quietly within the recesses of your heart for this mythical state of perfect enjoyment.

Children of the world

2008-04-30T12:13:00.000+08:00

Look at all the people who commit these atrocities in the world... they were all cute, little kids once before.

How smart are you?

2008-04-15T13:04:00.002+08:00

They say that intelligent people are naturally thinner than most, since the brain uses the largest amount of energy (when used) in the body. No wonder I am so thin.

However, David Hume is fat. My favorite philosopher turned out to be a fat ass, doesn't that just proved my point to be wrong?

Well, Hume famously argued that all deductions and inductions cannot possibly be justified because they all rely on the principle that the past is a good indicator of future events, and this principle is justified only if it is itself true. Hence insofar as all deductions and inductions are premised on circular reasons, they are all unjustified anyway.

Therefore, I must be right when I say all smart people are thinner, since the objection to this (that Hume is fat) cannot possibly be justified according to Hume himself. QED

Tutoring

2008-04-13T11:37:00.006+08:00

Last week I concluded what was hopefully the last teaching assignment for my M.A. here.

Why "hopefully"?

Initially I thought that I love teaching, just that I hate the administration that goes along with it. Stuff like preparing for lessons, doing CCA stuff, deal with delinquents, manage the students fan club etc., they really put me off teaching; that's a huge reason why I don't want to join MOE.

But Philosophy is different; there is minimal pre-lessons preparation needed. Or at least, this is the case for me, since I have taken the very same course that I am teaching, and already have a reasonable grasp of the subject matter. Plus, since I am a philosopher by training, I have lots of philosophical anecdotes and interesting side issues that I could engage my students in, and all these just come on to me impromptu, so it wouldn't look faked or deliberate when I lead my students to them.

Still, it didn't turn out to be that much fun in the end. I still enjoyed teaching to some extent I guess; the amazed look on the students' face when you showed them something they thought initially impossible; the look of comprehension that shone through when you explained something extremely difficult; the look of befuddlement after you showed them how wrong they were in some of their claims; the look of "OMG this is a brilliant piece of argument, but I'm sure I can't remember the details later! Argh!"; the laughters that come after you cracked a hidden joke; all the signs that your students are really enjoying your class, these are my motivation and fuel for teaching.

I've always felt one hour per fortnight is not enough for my students. There are always so much to learn, so much they needed to know, so much they were mistaken about, and there is always the feeling that if they know just a little more, they will see the whole point of doing philosophy (and switch major haha). I've always offered to give my students extra consultation if they have more questions, or if they are interested in something I alluded to in class but didn't talk about in details. I would always do a very detailed breakdown for their post-essay review individually, so that they would actually get something out of it, and write better essays generally even if they aren't going to do philosophy. But sadly, not many students took up my offers; either they are afraid of me, or they thought I was just paying lip-service when I offered.

And the attendance was getting from bad to worse. Last semester was okay; one student didn't show up at all, but the rest turned up fairly regularly. This semester is really bad. I have one student who didn't show up at all, and the rest all on-and-off. It could be that it is a 9am class this semester, but it could also be because my enthusiasm for teaching is waning, and they could sense it.

Some of the students are obviously not interested in learning. And this is not just because they didn't attend classes. Some of them did regularly, but their disinterest still showed. It's like they attended my classes for the entertainment and fun you get when you read a piece of "factual information" that claims you can't lick your own elbows--interesting to know, but just that. And I must say I'm rather animated in class, so going for classes might be akin to going to one of those Taiwan variety shows, or to the circus if you like. These students came and went, I'm still unsure what they got from my class. Certainly they thought about the questions I posed, but I'm not sure any of it registered in their minds out of class.

Some are smart. Too smart in fact. Or should I say, they thought they are too smart. Maybe because I am the same kind of person, I didn't really like them at all. They would give answers that they think immediately solves all the problems that we have been discussing in class, with that offhand air they thought to affect. Which I would immediately show to be false, of course. But that didn't faze them; either they thought my reply is stupid, or they think they could come up with a different answer which would be "too complex" for exposition now in class. In the end, these students didn't do well, for they thought philosophy is what they thought it is, despite me repeatedly shouting in their ears that that is all a mistake.

Then there are the excusers. Whenever there are assignments to be turned in, there are sure to be people who claim that they have some issues that prevent them for handing in their papers on time. I believed most of them, but I wonder at times if I am being taken for a ride. There's once that I was glad I believed the student. 5 days after the deadline of a paper, this student replied to my email that he has financial problems, and hence is working instead of attending classes. He asks if he can just get a zero instead, and concentrate on the next paper. I gave him instead a choice to get zero, and a choice to turn up his paper 2 days later which I will deduct just 6 marks. 2 days later, his paper appeared in my mailbox, and it is one of the better pieces of philosophy I have ever gotten from my students, even though he has never attended a single class of mine.

I feel the most for the last group of students, the enthusiastic but just doesn't get it. They are genuinely interested in philosophy, and they want to do well for this module, but they just can't seem to get the hang of it. There is a certain knack to doing philosophy, intelligence aside. I pay the most attention to them, explaining everything over and over again, spending hours after hours in consultation with them, in the hope that eventually something would seep through, and they would suddenly see the light. Words and texts are merely the medium. they can't really provide understanding; no matter how well you explained a thing, there is always something that the student has to do from within herself if she wants a complete understanding. What I can do is merely provide the opportunity for their light to come forth, but I couldn't ever drag it out of them, much as I try to.

Then after one semester of vomiting blood over the students, the feedback came back, and it made it all worthwhile, in a way. Some of them thought I was a passionate teacher, some thought I was brilliant, one suggests that I "not ask too deep questions, since most students don't really bother thinking that much, especially if they aren't planning to major in philosophy". I take the last comment to be a compliment, even though it was specifically written under the Criticism section. Some thought I was very clear in my exposition, some thought I was approachable, and allows for interaction in class, and makes them think. For all these compliments, I here give my thanks to them, even if I couldn't do so personally, though I wonder why none thought I was damn good looking.

This semester is probably the last semester I would be teaching as a M.A. here. I wonder what my feedback for this semester would be like.

The shame

2008-03-11T11:14:00.005+08:00

We bow our heads low
hunching our shoulders
against the tedium of the world.

It's everywhere we go;
Everyone keeping their eyes down
like some meek animal
who could only see the ground.

Apologizing for the wrongs we have done,
in shame for what others have done;
we are responsible for the times,
So we keep our heads down.

Burying our faces in the papers,
or in some lousy books;
we can't face the world,
for fear of the world.

And the world doesn't look back at us,
for the world is looking down,
in shame of what you have done,
and what you have not.

It's like we are pulling a cart behind us,
full of manure and smelly stuff,
only by looking forward and down
can we heave the load along
never looking back;
and please, don't look up
for whatever reasons there are.

We are responsible for the times,
and hence we repay in shame.
We are the ostrich,
burying our heads with our necks,
hoping
with all our heart,
that shame is the acceptable stance.

Busy

2008-03-03T21:34:00.001+08:00

Sorry, am a little busy, and will be a little busy these days, so no updates!

Looking forward to marking my students' papers... not!

Seats morality

2008-02-18T23:30:00.002+08:00

Today while taking the MRT from Boon Lay to Clementi, I saw something interesting. Well it wouldn’t have occurred to me as interesting if I had just simply thought of it, but it was interesting when I actually see it. What I saw was a pretty girl giving up her seat to an elderly woman. What was interesting is that it was only when I see it, that I realized for my life thus far, it was the first time I saw a pretty girl actually giving up her seat.

It’s not like the first time I have seen people giving up their seats though (I do it myself all the time), but those who do are usually men or women who looked pretty casual. It never occurred to me previously, but I had never seen anyone who are dolled up/dressed up give their seats up before. Especially those yuppies, their eyes seem to have an auto scanning mechanism that pass over people who need their seats.

Maybe I just wasn’t observant enough, but I doubt it–I’m always very alert on the MRT, especially nearing the stops. If I was reading, I would put down my book, and scan the entering passengers; if I was talking to someone, I would look away from that someone and scan the entering passengers; if I was doing nothing particularly, I would put off doing nothing particularly and scan the passengers too.

In the best of all possible worlds, I would have you believe that I was scanning the entering passengers for the elderly or the disabled who might need my seat. In the best of all possible worlds, I would retire as a billionaire 1 year ago too. Since this isn’t the best of all possible worlds, the honest truth is that I was looking at the pretty girls. Or would be looking at the pretty girls if there are any. In the best of all possible worlds, there would be.

Which is why, as a concomitant to girls-watching, I usually notice the elderly and disabled, and occasionally offer my seats to them. Only occasionally because sometimes other people will offer their seats instead. But never the pretty girls, and never the yuppies.

Which brings me to my topic today. If you, at this point, felt it extremely unreasonable that I only just introduced my topic so late in the post, then I think you are extremely justified about it, and hence it is also extremely reasonable for you to start smashing your screen in to vent your frustration.

Where was I?

Ah yes, pretty girls and yuppies. Let’s not talk about the yuppies, since I don’t really know who the term is used for, and its about time to stop blaming people I have no idea who.

These days, pretty girls seem to think that they own the world. Or at least, the world owe them something. They expect to be served, but not serve. It’s always about them, never about others. (Well at least, it’s never about this particular someone–me. But that’s generalizable, isn’t it? If you aren’t concerned about me, you won’t be about anyone. Seems a fairly reasonable argument to make.) And they would never give up their seats on the bus, MRT, taxis, what-have-you-s.

I’m not sure what implications I can draw from this. Perhaps this: that some girls, especially the pretty ones, don’t really have a nice character. What they are really concerned about is having fun, and that means other people pleasing them, generally allowing them to enjoy themselves without a care in the world.

One thing I do know though, is that I wouldn’t want to be part of their entourage of entertainers. Let some other clowns dance to their music.

Complaining

2008-01-29T23:31:00.000+08:00

Today is a bad day. I don't mean a fucking bad day, but a bad day nonetheless.

It started off with me getting insomnia over the first tutorial class today that I had to give at 9am. Couple that with how I had to wake up at 6.30am for the class, makes my day a really bad start. Add to that my back problem, which is tugging on my left leg all the time, my mood wasn't really pretty by the time I left the house.

Then on the bus 96 to school (did I mention I hate public transport?), there was a freaking gay who pressed himself against me on the seat. I was leaning as far away as possible from him, but still his leg was jammed right against mine, and I have no way of removing my leg short of standing up. Luckily he got off at the Archi stop, else if I have to brush pass him when I get down, I might just punch him in the face.

Then it was the class at 9am I was in school for. 85% of the class was terribly late; they only start filing in around 9.15am. We had really a lot to cover in each tutorial, and them forcing me to start the tutorial late meant that we have less time to go through all the materials.

Then I had to go for this talk, which was so boring, that I actually had to pinch myself to not fall asleep. The worse thing is there are 3 parts to the talk (why can't they stick at just 2 parts?), and after 2 sessions of torture, there was absolutely no way I was going to sit through the third one, and I went to the Grad room to sleep.

Then I went for Karate. My half-week hiatus plus my back problem conspired to prevent me from stretching much; I can't even kick properly, nor punch properly. I don't want to stop Karate! I hate it when stuff like that happens.

Only consolation for the day, on the way home on the MRT, there was a girl stealing glances at me even though her boyfriend was just beside her.

Questions

2008-01-20T11:28:00.000+08:00

We are haunted by different questions at various stages of our lives. When we are young, some of the more vivid questions that stood out seems to be "When do I become an adult?" "When can I decide things for myself?" etc.

When we were older, at adolescence, we muse about particular problems, things like "how to get back at the idiot?" or "how to woo that pretty girl?" These seem rather important at that point of time, and the questions we had at childhood faded into inconsequentiality by comparison.

As we grow even older, we move into abstraction, wondering about what love is, wondering about why we have to do exams, and why people are such jerks. And at the background of it all, there is the question of what life is really about, playing on like a soft trumpet just at the edge of hearing.

The questions never seem to get answered, but nevertheless we gradually lost them, and moved on to other questions. Questions like "what is the role of money" in my life, and "how the hell do I get more of them?" seem really important now. Especially the latter question, which is rather independent of how you answer the former.

Predictably, some of the questions will haunt us for the rest of our lives, and as we grow even older, a question that pops up every now and then will stand out even more ostensively: what is Death to us? That question could really mean a lot of things, like what does it feels to be dead, or just before death; it could mean how the prospect of being dead sits with us; it could mean what is our reaction to seeing the people around us dying before us (or for the pessimists, our reaction to the possibility that we might be the first to go instead).

Do we really have an answer to any of the questions? Maybe. We do seem to have ready answers to the childhood questions, which are respectively "Legally, 21", and "Probably never." The answers to the other questions appear less obvious. Instead of answering them, we just decide at one point of time that certain questions just don't deserve answering anymore, either due to a change of perspective, or a change of priorities.

With that in mind, and the fact that we are moving inexorably into the future, perhaps there is one thing we should safely conclude: that all questions eventually doesn't matter anymore, and so we should stop fucking around with them, and get down to making life miserable for the idiot in adolescent period.

priorities

2008-01-19T10:27:00.000+08:00

For ambitions and interests, I am giving up money, time, and love. =s

For gaming, I am apparently giving up all the above. =p

The meaning of life

2008-01-17T10:00:00.000+08:00

After doing four years of Philosophy, I've finally discovered the meaning of life.

Life noun (pl. lives) the condition that distinguishes organisms from inorganic objects and dead organisms, being manifested by growth through metabolism, reproduction, and the power of adaptation to environment through changes originating internally.

Meat

2008-01-13T10:01:00.000+08:00

Did you notice that vegetarians tend to smell nicer than meat eaters?

Of course, that could be the reason why we eat beef, but not tiger meat.

Clearance

2008-01-03T15:58:00.000+08:00

At some of the bookstores in Singapore, like Times, or MPH, especially Popular, one can see the store being divided into various sections, touting titles under attractive headings like "Best Sellers", "New Titles", "This Month's Pick", etc. Some of the titles under "New Titles" sport names like "50 ways to get out of your couch", "10 tips for the successful businessman", most of them doomed to join the little noticed section "Clearance" next week.

It may be slightly inaccurate, however, to call the Clearance section "little noticed". Despite Herculean efforts by the shop assistants to make the section as messy and dirty as possible, it is possibly one of the greatest rivals to the Best Sellers section, as people haunt the clearance basket in search of the book they always wanted, but wanted to wait till the author hanged himself from bankruptcy, so the book would go into clearance. Usually, their search turned out fruitless, but that doesn't stop them from trying again the next time.

More likely than not, you will find books written by some celebrity who had some overnight fame, and rightly cashing on their new found fame, or notoriety, produced some books in the same night, hoping to make some money out of it. "The life of Paris H*****--an autobiography", "How I cut my arm off to save my life", etc, are such works.

When I browsed through the very titles which I had just made fun of, I feel a sense of sadness, a sense of futility emanating from the spines of the books. It is as though they are looking back at me, crying of vast disappointment, of despondency. A lifetime of effort, of hopes and high spirits, may have gone into the writing of these books. Yet still, nought counts if you are unable to get people to appreciate what holds within you.

As a writer, I had hoped to write a book, or many of them, someday. It might be too much perhaps, to hope that I would be able to produce some philosophical blockbusters. I don't even have an exact genre in mind. But I do know that I want to write a book.

And I know which section of the bookstores I want my books to go under. It has to be the Clearance section. Whenever I had hoped to achieve something, life always throws me something else instead. Let's just see what life would grant me this time round.

Noise

2008-01-01T13:12:00.000+08:00

If you have extremely good hearing, you will know why I always keep my handphone ringtone down very low, and all the volume settings on my laptop and radio are always near minimum settings. Because I can hear very well, I thought that there is no need to tune up the volume, and no need to cause unnecessary disturbance to other people.

However, every once in a while, I would crank up the volume, especially when listening to some particularly nice songs. The difference is significant, and it is not merely in terms of volume. Previously unnoticed melodies would sound up in the background, blending in so well that you could almost miss them, especially if you had them in low volume. The insignificant sounding drum beat suddenly became something more, thudding my heart along to the rhythm; the violin suddenly tugging at my heart. And now you know why the singer sometimes pause, for no other reason than to bring into relief a particularly intricate turn of melody.

Then of course, at this time, I would be causing disturbance to other people, though now a necessary one.

Worth

2007-12-29T15:15:00.000+08:00

The whole world can be divided into a few major groups of people:

Firstly, about 78% of the people lead their lives without wondering if their lives are worth living;

about 21% of the people thought about it, but assume that their lives are generally worth living;

0.9% of the people know that it is hard to justify the worth of their lives, but think that they have found the reasons where most people have failed;

0.1% thinks that all the above people are in denial.

p.s. I made the statistics up by the way.

It's raining

2007-12-20T10:28:00.000+08:00

The weather is fabulous today; bathing in the morning almost feels like suicide, even with the heater on, but it is a daily ritual that cannot be missed. As I'm sitting in front of my laptop, beside the windows which are thrown wide open to admit the unfettered wind blowing all the way from the sea, nearly freezing my fingers off as I play my games, I wondered about the beautiful cold, and the horrific floods that it must be causing elsewhere.

Completely unreasonable criteria

2007-12-12T12:28:00.000+08:00

Having personally survey 600 females, I have come up with a list of surprisingly UNREASONABLE criteria for what they are expecting of their future husbands/boyfriends to conform to. Here are some of the core criteria they cited:

1. Must be witty.
2. Must be sensitive, but not overly sensitive.
3. Must be loving, but not clingy.

and PREFERABLY to be:

4. Smart. (though this has the air of a paradox--which smart man would accept these criteria?)
5. Good looking.
6. Don't have to be rich, but must be able to at least afford 2 cars, and a condo.
7. Able to cook, and not expect her to cook.
8. Able to do household chores, and not expect her to do.
9. Able to tend the kids.
10. Able to feed the baby.
11. Bear babies, but if not possible, then swear to be her slave for the rest of his life.
12. Able to go shopping without complaining. (and pay up without too)
13. Leave the toilet seat down.

In the face of such unreasonable criteria, I was thinking to myself, heck, why not come up with our own list of unreasonable criteria for women, to even things out. So after thinking about this for 20years, 4months, 4 days and 7hours, I've finally come up with a list of criteria that most men would hope the females will meet, yet would probably never happen. So here's the list of Completely Unreasonable criteria for women:

1. Must be reasonable, which includes not having unreasonable criteria for men. (completely impossible to ask this of women, which is also why it is at the top of the list)

2. Must be smart. (having a bit of intelligence helps them in being more reasonable, if only slightly)

3. Shouldn't be too thin. (contrary to popular belief, skin and bones don't look nice, but women never listens. They just keep complaining about how fat they look, and feel happy secretly when you disagree with them.)

4. Having some character is good, but not too stubborn. (for women, having character is logically equivalent to being very stubborn, hence we may be asking for a logical impossibility).

5. Not too volatile.

6. Don't talk incessantly. (might as well shoot them, than to ask this of them.)

7. Don't expect men to talk much. (You can't understand why men don't like to talk, we can't understand why you like to talk.)

8. Have to be a gamer. (if they can expect men to go shopping, I don't see why we can't expect them to be gamers.)

9. Leave the toilet seat up.

a biological explanation

2007-12-10T09:53:00.000+08:00

It is hard to forget someone because:

after so many years of thinking about the particular person, countless neural connections has been made,

particular neurons are more susceptible to activation when exposed to neurotransmitters emitted by neighbouring neurons,

which in turn are activated by sensory inputs from the environment, like a rose or a piece of melody;

and long term association by the mind, when exposed to such poignant environmental stimuli,

coupled with the current activation of certain fond memories of a certain person (which was probably all the time),

led the brain to form neural pathways, hardwired by the ease of certain activation of neurons by certain stimuli,

like a memory node, the crossroads of all thoughts,

thus she is unforgettable.

But time will cause all to fade,

as old neural pathways are replaced by new, old neurons dying off and replaced by new,

shifting the center from one to another;

Unless, that is, of course, you are still thinking of her.

Wish

2007-11-27T23:17:00.000+08:00

If I have one wish, just one wish, and I can wish for anything at all, I wouldn't wish for the world riches, nor excelling at what I do, nor having a particular girl falling in love with me, not even everlasting life, and also not possessing all the knowledge in the world, even if they are each attractive choice in their own rights.

If I have just one wish, I wish that my spinal bone is normal.

Ramblings

2007-11-13T20:49:00.001+08:00

Staying home these days to rush marking my students’ essays and write my own essay for ISM. I’ve finished marking, but not done on the ISM, though it is technically done. Still needs lots of ironing.

Went to the nearby hawker to have lunch just now. The chicken rice uncle asked me if I am Singaporean, and looked surprised when I said yes. Don’t I look Singaporean? At most, I might have some Malay blood in my veins, but still that should make me look Singaporean no? What do you think?

On my way home, at the void deck, I saw some clothes draped on the stone seats. One is a men’s jeans, another is distinctly a women’s blouse. I looked around for some signs of the woman who might have doffed it, but couldn’t find any, to my utter disappointment. That would have been… interesting, to say the least.

Ok, back to my essay.

Orange belt!

2007-11-03T00:00:00.001+08:00

I got a double promotion for Karate, meaning instead of being promoted to 8th kyu after the recent grading, I am promoted straight to 7th Kyu. Still orange belt, but with 2 stripes instead of 3. Woohoo.

Usually a double promotion is awarded only to people who performed exceedingly well during the grading. But this time round, there are a lot of double promotions being awarded. Mine is not that rare after all. Still, it is worth rejoicing over.

Heeeyaaahhh!!

Exercise

2007-10-21T10:24:00.000+08:00

Last week was the single most hectic week of my life (Hmm, maybe minus army Sispec time).

Monday I went jogging, think 3km.
Tuesday Karate.
Wednesday swimming. I swam more for the tan, but I did swim more than I ever did before, around 10laps =p.
Thursday Karate again.
Friday gym.
Saturday Karate again.

By the end of the Karate on Saturday, I was totally exhausted, and it wasn't even a particularly tough session. But Karate grading is coming, and so, orange belt here I come!

What about work you ask? It's not bad la. Generally I set my own pace, so I'm reading for my ISM at a snail's pace. And teaching doesn't really take up all the time, since I got only one class. A bit worried about the essay I have to write for the ISM however, since I don't even remember when it is due, and a bit worried about my Masters thesis, if I want to apply early for the overseas Phd, I better start doing the thesis soon.

Bite 'em bullets!

2007-10-18T00:04:00.000+08:00

If I were Neo in the Matrix, I wouldn't dodge all the bullets like he did; I would bite every single one of them.

Pictures

2007-10-17T23:39:00.000+08:00

Always when we find a piece of scenery truly breathtaking, beautiful beyond words, we seek to capture it with a snap of our camera. But not before we interpose ourselves, or with a whole group of people, between the camera and the scenery, obscuring part, if not most, of the truly magnificent scene of Nature that we wanted to capture in the entirety in the first place.

Left or right brain?

2007-10-16T12:33:00.000+08:00

Try it. I am right brain it seems, though I can see it both ways.

http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,22492511-5005375,00.html?from=mostpop

Life

2007-10-12T20:38:00.000+08:00

Wake up! There's no afterlife!
This is all you have.

something

2007-10-08T22:55:00.000+08:00

Holding my arms out to the side,
balancing to life
stepping to the music of heartbeat.

A fleeting feeling,
a memory of it.
Gray.

An urgency
towards nothing.

Movies

2007-10-06T20:35:00.000+08:00

Movies that I want to watch, but have no time for, and no one to watch with:

Resident Evil: Extinction
Shoot 'em up
Balls of Fury
Mr Woodcock

IF I do manage to watch all of them, I would be broke too, so that's another reason why I haven't been able to.

Carpe diem

2007-09-23T22:19:00.000+08:00

I understood immediately when Redherring announced in the graduate room that he needed something more; I feel pretty much the same way. It was precisely the reason why I have taken up Karate, something to occupy my time other than endless gaming and sleeping.

Now, my life is, as anyone would affirm from a third-person viewpoint, constructively worthwhile: I run every Monday and Thursday, go for Karate every Tuesday and Friday, do my readings conscientiously on Wednesdays and on the weekends, game minimally, spend my free-time reading leisure books, wake up early enough each day to catch the morning rays, and sleep with the cool night breeze.

Yet, I feel bored. I may not have a lot time on my hands to actually feel much boredom, but the few hours that I do have, I feel it all too acutely. It is not as though I am bored with Karate or doing Philosophy, and the reason I was doing them in the first place is not to lose myself in them anyway; I still love doing what I have been doing, a lot. It is just that, it seems that I should have something more.

What more I could have, I don't really know. I don't have time for anything more as it is, caught between the limited number of hours in a day and physical fatigue from all the exercise.

I don't know what could possibly be that "something more" either. It is not as if being in a relationship right now will fill up that sense of inadequacy, neither would finding some new activity do the trick. I thought of taking up archery, or going for more trekking, but that seems to me just more activities to pass the time; I would enjoy them, for sure, but I don't think either would give me a sense of being "filled".

Passing the time, in anticipation of what? It seems that the whole of human life is just that--passing the time in wait of something we don't really know. Perhaps we are all passing the time before we die. That seems to be the only thing in common for all mankind. We dig our heads into the soil, pretending to be busily caught up with what we are doing at the moment, pretending we did not see the inevitable end of the road. Carpe diem; seize the day, for there certainly is no future.

Maybe what I need is a sense of purpose. Not a purpose, mind, but a sense of purpose. For what can a purpose do? Suppose I have the purpose to save the world, what would that amount to? The world has to be worth saving in the first place. And I have to identify with the purpose; it is no good to tell me that God has dictated that I have to save the world someday; I would just be an unwillingly worker dragged along to save the world if I can't identify with the purpose at all.

And if God dictate that my purpose in life is to be food for some tiger? I can't identify with that anymore than I can identify with a purpose to be a social benefit, not unless I have the particular sense of purpose already.

Well maybe I should have a sense of purpose to be a social benefit, or at least, I should cultivate this sense of purpose. I don't see why, but mostly, I don't see how I can go about doing so. Either I have it, or I don't. Moreover, I don't see how being a social benefit would fill up my life, in the sense that it would motivate me positively.

Some would say, well yea, it is more important that you be a social benefit than how you feel; in other words, I should place priority in making myself useful than making myself happy.

I don't know, that seems to me to be straying from my original intent in making this post: I am not talking about what ought to motivate me, but merely making an observation, and a long-winded complaint, that nothing motivates me much.

Maybe I should take up social service, regardless if that makes me happy or not, but that seems to be a digression on the issue that I am bored. Taking up social service may be good, I may even consider it, but it has nothing to do with the fact that I am bored, and we are back to square one again.

It would be interesting if the Cataclysm happens any time soon.