National Day

Nope, its not National Day yet as of now, but I did go to school today for some National Day Observance Ceremony.

Its really nothing much... went there to sing song take pledge with the old folks (aka NUS President, and alumnus). The whole thing lasted like 15mins... and i spent the night before rooting out my shirt and tie.. =_=" , not to mention 1/2hr dressing up and 1hr travelling.

I nearly forgot how to sing that national day anthem. its been like 5years since I last sang it? the pledge sounds funny to me too.. been too long. hahaa. had a short tea reception, then went home. There was only like 4youngsters at the whole thing, excludin the choir. sian.

confidence

There are two types of people in this world (I always wanted to write that phrase, but never got around to doing it properly), one egoistic, the other insecure. They both lie on the ends of the same continuum, of which somewhere in the middle lies the elusive point of being confident.

The egoistic type, in a bid to appear confident, or simply because it is in his nature to boost, always purports to preach and teach "the best ways" or "the correct view" to others (yes, I am well-aware of the irony here). Its almost instinctual at most situations, the egoistic would be the one constantly talking, telling people how they should feel, how the situations should be analysed, and how he's "been there, done that" and thus his ways should be more trustworthy. Rarely does he pause to reflect if his ways are really the best choices one could have.

The Insecure, also trying to appear confident, constantly insists on his own ways of doing things. Frequently being mistaken for the Egoistic, the Insecure does not, unlike the Egoistic, thinks that his ways are the best ways to do things. He just wanted to be different, to be confident of his own methods of doing things, resulting in him insisting too much on his ways and deaf to other alternatives.

The Confident, is not really a balance between the Insecure and the Egoistic, but more of a happy-go-lucky person who doesnt insist on his own ways, nor is constantly preaching about what are the best ways or paying lip-service to finding them. The Confident is satisfied with doing things in the best way he knows, quietly and without thinking they are indeed the best ways possible, and always ready to review his ways and measure them carefully in light of new alternatives.

Destiny

Only recently my mum broke some bad news to me. Or rather, some bad news for me, which may in all probability be good news for you, them, or the entire mankind.

Well, the story is that when I was still very young, my mum consulted a fortune teller about our futures (me and my sis). What the fortune teller said is something like this: I would have romance when I am age 24.

But the problem now is, as some of you would not notice, is that these fortune tellers go by the lunar calender, and we are in reality, all 1 year older than what our NRIC claim us to be. So I am already 25 years old by chinese reckoning. That means that my age for romance has past!

That wouldnt be so bad if it werent for a television show I watched when I was very young again (witness the corrupting influence of TV on young minds): the show's entire theme was explicitly that if you missed your yin yuan, then you are destined to lead the rest of your life alone!

Its like a window, a one shot chance at getting someone to accompany you for the rest of your life; once you missed that chance, you are going to be stuck on that train which goes chute-chute away without ever stopping again.

Woe be me!

On the other hand, not that I really believe all these stuff anyway. But they are quite fun to talk about.

selfish

Because we are all humans, we are born with some innate capacity to take care of ourselves, strictly speaking, oneself, and this goes beyond the need to feed and clothe oneself. We are perhaps more selfish than we would ever want to admit to ourselves, but it is also this selfishness that allow us to survive at all.

The prerequisite of survival is selfishness: cooperation may be an excellent way of improving our lives, or even chances of long term survival, but without selfishness, we cant even talk about cooperation, not when cooperation is tolerated ultimately for the condition of personal survival. (if personal survival is not guaranteed most of the time, then no one would ever cooperate.)

Thus it is no surprise that language has evolved around this concept of selfishness, and came up with many defensive phrases. Phrases like "I told you so", "I knew that would happen", "You should have" etc. are actually defensive, with the intent of putting the spotlight on the other person, shifting the blame away from oneself.

While on the receiving end, such phrases sound especially offensive and annoying, they sound equally irritating to others who are merely observing the exchange, for subconsciously, they recognise the human's baser instinct to be defensive and shift blame away from oneself, and from a community point of view, any egoistic maneuvers are to be condemned.

Hence there developed an interesting relationship between self and society, a paradox if Kant were alive to say it: the self wants to, needs to in fact, be selfish, but the society frowns upon such acts; the society however, is not any abstract entity overlooking the whole mankind, but made up of countless other selves who themselves want to and need to be selfish.

In short: while we all need to be selfish, others dont like us to be, even though they need to be selfish as well.

tag

I just realised that I could tag some people to do the dumb thing I did in the previous post. And because I know it would annoy my friends to be tagged (some of them particularly), I hereby tag dominic, yx, yongcen, wei yee, peckleng. hehee.

dunno whats this is called.

Because I have been tagged by neville, and there isnt really anything interesting that I could do...

favourites
favourite colour: blue
favourite food: petai (google for it if you never heard of this)
favourite song: 重生
favourite movie: The Matrix Trilogy
favourite sport: Cycling? Not very sporty type.
favourite day of the week: Wednesday, cos the week is still young.
favourite season: Where? What??
favourite ice-cream: Chocolate or Vanilla.

currents
current mood: Dreamy
current taste: not very high
current clothes: singlet and shorts
current deskstop: Some photo of some mountain dominic sent me.
current time: 10.13pm
current surroundings: cool air and quietness.
current annoyances: That I cant think of any politically correct annoyances to pen down.
current thoughts: Of someone.

firsts
first best friend: Guanghock.
first crush: Crush, not loves or likes rite? A girl call Rachel.
first movie: How I know?
first lie: How I know?
first music: How I know? Oh wait I know. Its either the "10 little Indians", or the "Dang Bing Ge" (Be soldier song)

lasts
last cigarette: Never had one.
last alcoholic drink: At weixin's bday party. Drank a cup of mixed beer as forfeit.
last car ride: Last Friday, a colleague drove us to lunch.
last crush: Crush, not loves or likes rite? A girl call Rachel.
last movie: X men 3.
last phone call: Today, just now. Called jiayong.
last cd played: Thats a compilation (illegal) of mp3s which I play almost every night when I am sleeping. (yes, when, not prior to). Incidentally it does have a name to it... wait i go check. .. oh ya... "Nice songs". Not overly inventive huh.

have you ever
have you ever dated your best friend: Go out with best friend? Guy? Not counted as date rite? Gal? But my best friends are always guys leh. So no I guess.
have you ever broken the law: uh probably. In Singapore, every person breaks the law inevitably (read: too many laws).
have you ever been arrested: nope
have you ever skinny-dipped: nope
have you ever been on tv: ya, when I was very young.
have you ever kissed someone you don't know: nope

5 things you are wearing: specs, singlet, shorts and underwear la. lol. thats 4, not 5.
4 things you did today: Walked about Cityhall area, played arcade, thought about someone, talked to some people.
3 things you can hear right now: the TV outside, the mp3 on my pc, the insects outside.
1 thing you do when you are bored: play online games.

Independence

Independence is not a disposition to refuse help.
It is a character trait that prefers doing things by oneself if it is within one's means. Refusing help when things are beyond one's means, or would take an improportionately immense work to do as compared to being helped, is not independence, but mistaking that for it.

Happiness

Because we are only humans, we could never experience never ending happiness: not because there isnt such a thing, but because human capacity is such that any pleasure or happiness goes into lull after numerous repetition - we get bored. We probably can get used to anything, and when we do, even the ultimate pleasure at one point of time for you can seem to pale.

That is why the smart person never eats his favorite food for every meal, everyday.

There is no such thing as an ever ascending slope of happiness. To move up, you must be down first; to continuously ascend, you must continuously descend. The slope of happiness is infinite only for those who know how to recycle the same incline. Those who hope for eternal ascension into happiness have the inevitable fate of falling off the slope at the far end, and being never able to pick themselves up.

There aint any sage who leads an ascetic existence and being happy at all times. If there is such a being, he definitely isnt human. The happiest person alive is the one who know when to pull himself down the slope, and ascend it again - descending fast, and prolonging the ascend.

There is no happiness without sadness, and no sadness without happiness. If you fall off the slope, and refuse to ascend for fear of falling again, then that past happiness will always serve as the earmark for your eternal depression: how unhappy you are is measured by the distance you are away from that highest point of happiness.

On the other hand, if you are continuedly ascending most of the time, then the much treaded point of depression will be the point against which your happiness is constantly being measured.

It is much easier to stay unhappy, than to continuedly ascend, but nonetheless, continued descent seem pretty much impossible too.

My job

Almost the last few days I will be working at this company, so I'm going to do a review of what I have been up to there. This goes back to a few weeks ago when a classmate of mine called me to offer me this "office job". What do I do there? "Writing checks mostly." Well, that sounded pretty easy, so I took it up there and then.

Day one reporting at the workplace in jurong west, which is pretty darn near my house, just half an hour away. Stepped into the office, and was immediately ushered into a smaller office room.



The only office room in the whole office.

I was told that is to be my seat, and I just have to wait a little while for them to come tell me what to do. As I sat there alone, in the room all to myself, looking out at the busy staff running about outside my office, all having a tiny desk to themselves with not even a visible partition anywhere, it dawned onto me suddenly exactly what kind of job I was hired into.

The Managing Director of this local branch of the International human resource agency Ade*co.



There can be no mistake about this: I have the only room in the whole office, and I am to write checks for my employees. This is a fabulous job for an undergraduate, even if its a temporary job!

A few days passed, and I settled nicely into the job of TMD (Temporary Managing Director, not tamade) of Ade*co. I should explain my job scope in more details: since this is no ordinary organisation, being a human resource agency and all, the admin staff all handle human resource instead of paperwork, and naturally the MD will have to handle the paperwork instead of human resource as is the norm.

So everyday, this MD shreds the papers which need shredding,



photostat the papers which need photostating,


chop my approval on documents which need chopping,



hold numerous meetings with my staff about increasing productivity in the office,



(my staff)

and write checks for the thousand over employees working under me (I really do write the checks! I just do not sign them. My manager does that instead. My signature is ugly anyway. lol)

Because my office is situated nicely beside the door,



it seems that it is ideal for checking on staff who are late for work, or leaving too early before dismissal. And because it is a human resource agency, there are frequently strangers coming into the office for god knows what reason. And the minute they stepped into the office, to the right, they can see the open door to my very own office, and a suave and very capable-looking Managing Director looking at them straight in the eye, while busy shredding papers.

It gives them the shivers I know; I have that effect, not only on girls.

Once

We only have this life Once;
this youth, Once.
Live it to the fullest!
take risks; live dangerously.

Don't complain about life being boring,
or constantly bad.
If you want happiness,
go all out and enjoy yourself!
Do everything with passion,
with all your heart!

Don't be afraid to get angry,
don't be afraid to cry.
Lie if you want,
laugh whenever!
Hate your enemies openly,
Love your friends outwardly.

Love a girl with all your heart,
and if she doesnt love you,
continue loving her passionately
silently.
If you can,
Love another,
then another
and another.

Go for your dreams,
Be ambitious,
and if you fall short,
don't settle for that yet;
Make another dream!

Nothing Is Impossible
Moderation is Mediocrity

Just

I love waking to the feel of cold wind curling at my feet, the wind steadily building up in strength as it howls through my window, even if I have to wake up at 7am and shut all the windows for fear of rain.

And I love waking again to the sound of heavy rain pelting my windows in a crazy rhythm, as though in a hurry to be somewhere else; and sure enough, gone all too soon.

Then there is the coolness in the air after the wind and the rain, pressing lightly on my eyelids and wouldnt let them open. But its too nice a weather to sleep through, and so I lay there all curled up in the cold, just relaxing and enjoying.

So I had a sudden call to work today, but that doesnt spoil anything. Off to work now, but hey, nice weather. ^^

Desperation

When you see me blogging, either of the two things must have happened: 1. I got such fantastic inspiration to blog which overwhelms everything I have been doing at the moment and forces me to blog immediately, or 2. the game servers are down. In this case, it is the latter reason which caused me to blog. Maybe we should all be grateful to the lousy servers that we are able to see any new posts on my blog at all.

But why not say, in a more sympathetic manner (to myself), that this post is born out of a combination of both reasons. Maybe it weighs heavily on the latter reason, but hey, nothing is ever fair and equal in this world.

Anyhow, let us talk about something that has been on our minds for the longest time ever: relationships. Admit it: ever since primary school, you have been wondering about getting a gf/bf, peering at potential targets and wondering about secret suitors. Or at least, I have been. It all seems to make a lot of sense, even back then. You ought to get a gf/bf, you ought to have some form of courtship, be nice to her/him, get married, have kids, argue with your wife/husband every now and then, beat the kids a bit, etc etc., then teach the same thing to your kids.

It appears to come easily: just because we are "supposed" to love someone, we can do so. I keep searching within me, the "special feeling" for someone. In primary school, that comes easily, wonders upon wonders. It just took a sentence, from my mum no less (who was jesting): "you like that girl rite?" and bam, I knew I was in love, with someone I barely noticed up until that point my mum asked that question. This elusive "special feeling" apparently can be called up by a simple sentence like that.

Well, the feeling didnt last long, not that I remember much of what happened when I was that young. Nor did anything happpen between me and that girl. Goodness! I couldnt even remember her name. heh.

But after that (and we are skipping on ahead to my secondary school days), I got more serious about relationships. Serious meaning I still remember what I did and felt. lol. But thats a story for another day and another post, as is my "love" in jc, and my love in uni.

The weird thing about all these, including the primary school period, is that we seem to have this noose around our necks, dragging us up on tiptoes, tottering everywhere looking for our elusive other halves who are supposed to "complete" us. And after some searching, we found someone whom we can probably tolerate pretty well for some time, and we latched on to him/him like a lifesaver, in a bid to let that noose let up at least a little.

And it did; it is as though the promise of a future spouse tricked the noose into relaxing its hold on us: we can now breathe a little easier, and walk more normally, albeit carefully.

Should the supposed "other half" leave for some reason, immediately our breathing hasten, the noose tightens, and we go on tiptoes again, driven again on this endless search.

But why are we doing this? What is this noose exactly? If it is just simply societal pressure, why does it seem so natural to obey it? The Collectivists would say that it is precisely because it is social, that it seems normal, but we aren't doing sociology here, so they can take a hike.

Well, this post is getting too lengthy as it is. I will continue this (might!), in the next post. Until then, stay tuned!

Individualism

"The man who can really stand alone in the world, only taking counsel from his own conscience--that man is a hero..." - Soren Kierkegaard.

不一樣的魅力

男人要懂得沉默, 才能有魅力, 才會性感. 卻不是無話可說的沉默, 而是藏著萬千話語但無需言語的沉默.

女人要懂得笑, 才會迷人. 但也不是一味的甜笑, 而是帶著強烈的獨立感, 洋溢著智慧的笑, 才夠迷人.

money and time

I quitted my job today, the warehousing job. It is really tough work, and need to OT nearly everyday till 10pm, practically without any OT pay. Thats just lousy. So I made the clever choice of quitting before I psycho-ed myself it is quite a good job afterall.

Because I am such a competent, smart and handsome manual labourer, my boss couldnt bear to let me go. He laid on the ground and grabbed my legs refusing to let me leave. But I kicked him aside, and firmly told him that my talents shouldnt be wasted in such a place. So they held a farewell dinner in my honor which lasted over 2 days, to bid this temp worker who has been with them for the past 4days adieu.

Of course that was all bullshit. But it is really true that I quitted the stupid job. Worked my ass off to get only $280. I rather do the office work for 5days which got me $250.

But why am I working in the first place? To earn more money so I can buy stuff? or for savings? Not exactly. This is for daily expenses. My family is in this financial state now that my dad is roughly not earning any money at all. My sis is earning, but she just started working, so her pay is damn low, and she practically needs to support the whole family with her earnings.

So I needed to get some money, to use or to save whatever. But besides that, a man really need to have some spare cash by him. Lets be honest here: men of my age needs to jio pretty gals out for dates, dinner etc. And you really cant do that without any money, and I certainly could not ask my parents for money to date gals when we are already so poor. So I got to earn some myself to justify my expenditure.

Another problem is that given our financial status, it is highly unlikely that you can find another family in NUS who is very much worse off than us. So the probability of me finding a girlfriend who is much richer than me is near astronomical. Lets not say if there is any particular rich gal I am targetting at the moment; lets just put it this way: all eligible and non-eligible gals around me are all very much richer.

So they got to really not mind going out with a poor guy. Having the reputation for being poor is one thing, going out with someone who cant afford to treat you every now and then, who cant afford to go to posh places even infrequently, or cant even buy you too many roses, thats quite a serious negative point.

Thats why I had to earn a bit of spare cash: to at least be able to take the girl i like out for dates.

And now, I quitted my job. Even though it is bringing in a bit of cash, it really is bad paying; whats more, my back doesnt allow me to carry too heavy stuff, having slipped disc and all. So its better for me to quit, and quitting that mon-sat-everyday-OT-till10pm job also meant I can have time to actually date gals. lol.

Updates

The day before, my sis's pc shorted or crashed. Yesterday, mine followed it too. For a day, I have no computer access at home. Today I just got my pc back, which had recovered for no apparent reason. In the future, should i cease to blog or go online for a long period of time, it meant the same thing has probably happened.

Found a job at ST logistics. Warehousing; I am supposed to move this really heavy cartons of Hang Ten t-shirts around, each around 4-8kg. The pay is 5.5 per hour, and compulsory OT everyday till around 9pm, even though we start work at 8am. OT pay is 1.5times, but ONLY applicable if you had clocked 44hrs a week in the first place. That sucks great time.

Lazy to blog. Ciao.

The enigma

Some of us complain that we live in a boring age: where are the centuars and medusas; where are the Gods who used to walk amongst us, where are the weird and dangerous places which by their existence alone intrigue the curiosity and spawn deeds of bravery and legends? I mean, all we have are the lame Loch Ness Monster who never ate anyone, and the Bermuda Triangle which is in danger of fading into anonymity. Give us a break!

Nowadays everything is claimed to be explicable under the banner of Science; the holy light of Science promises to banish all the monsters under the bed, slaying the evil dragons by sheer reason alone. While this pompous claim seems much resented by the romantics, at the same time, reflection on reason itself will show that it is not really possible, despite its recent success.

However, science aside, perhaps not every myth and legend could really ever be rooted out, or indeed wished to be so. For despite the intervening eons since Adam and Eve, there still remains the greatest enigma of all time, the unfathomable knowledge -- the siren-like woman.

No one ever knows what a woman is thinking, can be thinking, or would be thinking; not another woman, and definitely not a man, maybe not even the woman herself. Trying to guess what a woman is thinking is not so much like trying to guage what direction she might jump while she jumped in an entirely different direction; trying to do so is more like trying to guage what direction she might jump when she suddenly turned into a flock of penguins and fly away.

If there is a vote on the "Greatest Mysteries of the 21st century", I would heartily vote woman to be the first, in addition to the "Greatest Mysteries of all time" and the "The Number one Mysteries probably solvable nowhere in the Future". It is said that even male porcupines dont understand the female porcupines.

To fully describe a woman, it would be best to mix tequila with some bailey, add a pinch of soda, a drop of volka and some raw ethanol, and some ice cubes. The resulting mixture still wouldnt help in describing woman, but drinking it may make the task seems easier.

And to complicate matters, women dont want to be understood, or fully described. There is nothing to irk a woman more than to be told that you understand her fully, or want to understand her someday. Being understood fully can be stifling: every move you make, every breath you take is predictable; every reason you have for doing anything can be told to you from another mouth as if its yours.

While this may be stifling even for men, woman however makes the quality of unknowable into an art, ingraining in us the feeling that the world may change, gravity may go away, but women will always be unfathomable.

recently

I guess I need to update a bit on my life now... else no one will be visiting this blog anymore.

Firstly, I am not doing much during this holidays; I had planned to get a temp job and learn driving after work, but even though I applied for the driving lessons already etc, I havent gone for a single lesson, cos no money since I havent got a proper job.

So I am playing games nearly everyday, and getting black looks from my parents for doing only that. Fortunately I got a few days temp job at some job agency, helping them do miscellaneous stuff like filing, stamping documents, writing cheques etc, so I am bringing a little bit of money home. Not enough to pay for the driving lessons, but probably just enough to stave off my parents' black looks. hehee

Initially hor, I had a grand plan for working during this holidays. I applied for internship at MOE, but for obvious reasons (which I am not stating) the application didnt go through (actually I will be quite surprised if it really does go through).

So my plan B was to go work at some starbucks or coffeebean outlet. (I heard they pay really badly.) Eventually, I didnt go work at starbucks or coffeebean though, I dont drink coffee anyway. sigh.

So after plan B failed, I am just a wandering soul, looking for any kind of stupid job there is to have. Seriously a bit aimless, a bit numb. Even my dreams are composed of scenes in the game, how successful I am at numbing huh. lol.

24th

Come tomorrow and I will be 24 of age. Old liao huh?

Sick

Really am sick, fever etc. Got a cough, took some cough medicine, and perhaps developed some allergy; whole face swollen. super itchy.

dunno how long this spell will take. got a 3 day temp job, sickness+job wun be blogging much.