rain

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How smart are you?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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!

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

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?

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

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

something

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

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

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.

Robert Jordan

Robert Jordan, author of The Wheel of Time series, one of my favorite fantasy series, passed away on 16 Sept 2007 (US time I think).

We mourn the passing of a brilliant writer.

chance

We drift
like dandelion seeds,
under a huge expanse of infinite sky;
Alone
as far as the eye can see.

sign

On a sign en route to the Judgment Day hearing:

Philosophers, this way ==>
<== Everyone else, this way.

Below, someone scribbled: How do you define "philosophers"?

Even below: You go this way, id**t. ==>

(If there is a Judgment day, and Judgments handing out to everyone, somehow I think that philosophers will take the longest time of all in accepting the verdict, insisting on the definition of every term used in the Judgment, debating about how the Judgment can be true, debating about if the Judgment is really true, maybe even debating if it is logically possible to be standing there receiving Judgment, regardless if the Judgment had been passed in their favor.)

Is Chivalry dead?

I heard this question over the radio today, as the DJ was polling people about it. The responses varied, some saying "yes, but women killed it," some saying simply "yes". Others have more reasons backing up their emphatic yeses, but because the sun is shining outside, the birds are chirping, the grass is cutting themselves, and the thoughts cluttering my head, I couldn't hear them beyond a few words. Some guy replied that it is not dead, because he is still practicing it. Others sneered. Mostly women.

I don't think chivalry is dead; myself, I hold the doors for women all the time, strangers or not, offer a helping hand whenever I saw the fairer sex burdened, holding out an umbrella when it's raining, and pull chairs for them (though none, so far, sat in the proffered chairs). I don't do these for men; being more likely to slam the door in their faces than not. Just kidding. But less likely to hold doors for men overall.

But I think, chivalry should be dead.

At the very least, it should be if equality of the sexes is the priority. These days, women fight for equality at every turn, and grumble if the door wasn't held out for them. This is not saying that I'm against equality, nor saying there is equality already. Progress has been made, but equality in the workplace is perhaps not perfect yet.

But if you expect equality, don't expect chivalry. We have to start somewhere, why not start at the simple things like opening your own door, and holding your own bags? Why, the thing that runs through a woman's mind when men offer a helping hand might just be "You think I can't even open a door myself? Looking down on us again?" We'd never know what women think, and if we are going to step on toes anyway, why not just step on one set of toes and open our own door. Easier for us that way.

Besides, half the time, no, probably more than half the time, when I open a door for a woman, she would just sweep pass me without even looking at me, all the while looking like she owned the place, and I the doorman. No thanks from the queen either.

Nothing pays, chivalry least of all.

Couple that with the next poll taken at the same radio station, this one on whether women like bad boys. Surprisingly, all the women who called in replied that they do. Not so surprising perhaps if my friend's case is any gauge: he never opened any door for any girl, and his girlfriend-who-back-then-wasn't-his girlfriend-yet, would stare incredulously at his back while I hold the door open for her. Yet we know, even at that time, that she was smitten with him.

Not being chivalrous adds to the charm I learnt. What are your views?

Before they found Neo

In his left hand, Morpheus shows a blue pill. Morpheus said: "You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. (a red pill is shown in his other hand) You take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes." Then he placed the pills on the table in front of him.

Neon looked at the pills, clearly undecided. "You are saying," Neon began, "that if I take the pill on the right, you will show me the truth of the Matrix..."

"Right", said Morpheus.

"...and I will wake up as though nothing happened if I take the left pill."

"Right."

"Now it's the right pill?" probed Neon.

"Wait, what? No, I mean it's correct. It's the left pill."

"So if I take the blue pill, I will know the truth of the matter?" Neon asked again.

"No no, if you take the blue pill, you will wake up tomorrow as though nothing happened. Oh wait, I see. Your right is my left, my left is your right."

Neon paused a while. "So I take the red pill on the left,"

"Right. I mean, correct." said Morpheus.

"...I will know the truth of the Matrix..."

"Right," said Morpheus again. Neon nods slowly.

"...but if I take the blue pill on the left..."

"No, the blue pill is on the right," interjected Morpheus.

"...I will wake up tomorrow as though nothing happened."

"Yes."

"Blue pill for truth..."

"No, red!"

"Okay, red pill for not waking up tomorrow?"

"No no! It's for waking up tomorrow as though nothing happened, not for not waking up."

"So the red pill is for waking up tomorrow?"

"Yes! Argh, I mean, No! Blue pill is for not waking up tomorrow!"

"So it's like a sleeping pill?"

"What?"

"The red pill is. Right?"

"No! No wait, left... right. Oh yes, you are correct, it's your right."

Neon sat up suddenly, a decisive light shining in his eyes. "Right, I want the right pill." And suiting his words, he reached for it.

"Wait. Stop." Morpheus began, his voice rising in his haste. "Are you sure you got it correct? Wait..... no... wait! Aww fu*k!"

Food

Suddenly have the craving for MeeHun Kuay at the Jurong West market, and for a Subway sandwich, tuckey slices with mustard sauce and olives. The latter, I know where to get, but the former, is probably beyond my reach. Just like the prawn noodles stall at BoonLay I have enjoyed when I was really young; both stalls are gone now, moved to goodness knows where.

I can almost imagine the thick and aromatic smell of the prawn noodles soup--almost imagine because that's all I remember of it; it's been so long that it is impossible for me to "almost smell" it, only "almost imagine" it. I can still almost taste the Meehun Kuay at the Jurong West market however, since it's just been a year since I had a bowl.

Which reminds me of a bowl of meepok I had many years back, at dunno where. It was really spicy, but it was so good that even the spiciness seems essential to the taste. I've only eaten it once, but the memory of it remained with me so far. I doubt I'll ever get to eat it again, since I have forgotten where it was located. Besides, the stall owner was an old man, and no one lasts forever.

Then there was the roti prata, with its incredibly strong curry, spicy yet not overpowering, and the crispy prata itself. I had that once only too, but the stall is still there i think. I don't remember where it is either, but I know I had it at a drive-around supper thingy with my friends--they will know where if I ask.

I wonder, though, if these food would be so special if they weren't so out of my reach now.

a prayer

"Protect me from knowing what I don't need to know. Protect me from even knowing that there are things to know that I don't know. Protect me from knowing that I decided not to know about the things that I decided not to know about. Amen.

Lord, lord, lord. Protect me from the consequences of the above prayer. Amen."

-Mostly Harmless, Douglas Adams

Darkest day of my life.

08/07/2007 was my day of Commencement.

09/07/2007 was the day I went partially blind. Specifically, in my left eye.

it started on the day of commencement. Because I was wearing contacts, and it has been a long day, my eye started drying I guess. when I reached home to remove the contacts, my eyes were pretty tired and dreid already. and when I removed it, I accidentally ripped my cornea, I ddint know that at first of cos. I just started having blurry vision in my left eye. Played a bit of games before I went to bed.

In the middle of the night, my eye started to hurt. At first its just like something got into my eye. But around 3am, the pain was realy terrbile. by 5am, the pain was unbearable. I was rushed to NUH by my family.

along the way, the pain was so bad that seriously, death would have been a much better relief. Or just to have my eye dug out. I was having my eyes closed, but even if i opened my eyes, it still hurt the same. and it hurts worse whenever my eye moved. which happen all the time, responding to some physical stimuli, or sound. I couldnt open the right eye, for the eye-eye coordination will make the left eye move under the eyelids, and thats when I feel like dying.

At nuh, the doctor dripped some instant relief eye drops into my eyes, and I was thus relievd of the unbearable pain for sometime. my vision was still blurry, abd my left eye still felt swollen. I was given medicine, and told that it would recover in 48hrs time most probably. When I left the hospital, the pain resumed, the eyedrops effects wearing off. Oral painkillers did not work at all.

All the way till 10am, I was hurting like crazy, and the left eye constantly weeping, which added to the pain. I was given a small vial of instant pain relief, but it contained only like 5 drops, and each drop could only relieve the pain for 5mins before the tears wash it off and the pain resuming.

Now its better, after spending 1 whole day being blinded, and attempting to sleep with the pain. All sorts of information went through my mind when I was blind. Like how sleeping will land you in the REM sleep approx 1-4hrs after you fell asleep. REM which stands for rapid eye movemenet will virtually guarantee that any relief I can get from sleeping will be worsen, and disturbed by the REM cycle. I thought of the ethics class, which talked about pain so unbearable, that it is an assault to the dignity of human life to be allowed to be continued. I thought of things I cant recall now. I thought of people, most of them images from the previous day Commencement. I thought of what I would do if I went blind, what I should do. Of Braille. I thought of some people, I didnt think of some people.

One thing for sure, I wont be wearing contacts again for the rest of my life.

p.s. I was typing most of this post with my eyes closed. So pardon any mistakes. and the vanity of being able to do so.

A simple puzzle

Eight buttons are arranged in a single column. From the top they read

1. Statements on pressed buttons are false; statements on unpressed buttons are true.
2. Exactly one button adjacent to this one is pressed.
3. No two adjacent buttons are pressed.
4. The sum of pressed buttons is not prime.
5. More than half the buttons are pressed.
6. The order of button numbers is reversed (but not the statements).
7. Less than two odd buttons are pressed.
8. The number of pressed buttons is odd.

Which button numbers do you press?

The hell it is a simple puzzle. I still can't solve it as of now. Been trying for an hour and counting. Whoever can solve it, tell me. Guys I'll kill, girls I'll marry.

Love

Then Love said to Eros
For we are not you,
nor you us.
Hatred and anger
gives us strength,
just as kind words
and understanding do.
The Joy
and Exhilaration,
the Fear
and Disappointment,
like a roller coaster
its ups and downs
Equally essential.
We are not infinite
Happiness and comfort;
a jolt of pain,
a touch of
unpredictability.
Maybe even more hurt
than joy.
When some of these
Conflicting
emotions arise,
we exist.
For We are just a name
mankind has given Us
for these
jumble
of confused emotions.

The Exciting Life

I was playing games when this happened. Specifically, I was trying to kill a boss monster with the help of several similar level players and my cyber friend, which is damn difficult to kill (the boss, not my friend; we die too easily in fact), and we had spent like 1hr already trying to kill it with no avail.

Then my phone rang.

It was around 5pm, not one of those stormy weather nights with lightnings flashing and thunder crashing, nor is it the particularly eerie kind that rang in the middle of the night just after you have done the unspeakables and feeling damn guilty about it, since it was, after all, not in the middle of the night. In fact, it was a rather cheery evening, and the TV set blaring outside my room where my mum and dad were watching it, as though it may run away without their constant vigilance. In any case, my phone rang, and it is a rather normal, non-eerie, mundane sort of ringing (other than the fact that I am using a song as my ring tone instead of the standard ring-ring, but the song doesn't make it eerie, or non-mundane either).

It rang. And hung up immediately. Which is equivalent to my phone vibrating for a second without even the melody starting up.

An instant later, a sms came through.

Hi

What? Hi? Who's that? My first thought was it is a wrong number, since I don't recognise it; the person was probably trying to apologise for dialing the wrong number a second ago.

Well not really, my first thought was "Damn! This stupid boss is insanely hard to kill, damn these game-makers, and who's this person anyway?" But this doesn't convey the sense of mystery I was trying to bring across, so I lied.

2mins later, another sms came through.

Hi can I know u.

Woa what? Who's this? Alarm bells started going off. I have a stalker?! Secret admirer? Naturally I have many of them, but this is the first time any of them made a move. How did she get my number? IS it a "she" at all? Does she knows who I am, or is she just randomly dialing a number to harass? (I prefer to think it as a "she"; "he" is just too ewwwww to contemplate.)

Because I am a very busy person, with bosses to slay and girls to date in my all too precious free time, I didn't reply the sms. Neither did I want to reply it, since it may after all, be just some harassing tricks. So I left it alone, and probably, it would find some other handsome guy to harass.

And that will be the end of the affair. Just let it die down quietly, and no one will be hurt. I am a very gentle person, you've noticed. If you didn't, I'm telling you now, and you should take my word for it.

But that's not the end. Today, when I am commuting from NUS back home in a bus, my phone rang again. Because I am in a bus, and I am talking to Ms Ziyi, I am in the kind of psychological mood that doesn't really suspect anything, and I just pick up the phone without thinking, since it was ringing rather persistently.

On the other end of the phone, I heard some light breathing sounds, but no one was speaking.

I went "hallo hallo?" and suddenly the call hung up.

Alarm bells went off again, and I hurriedly checked the caller ID. It was the same caller last evening!

Who is this mysterious caller? What did the person just achieved by calling? Why did she hang up? The leading detectives at the scene immediately came up with 3 theories to answer these tricky questions (there was in fact, just 1 leading detective at the scene, namely me. Ms Ziyi might qualify as a sidekick though.)

Theory 1: The mysterious caller is in fact, a man, who hung up upon hearing my voice, which showed him that I am not a female. This is premised on the assumption that the caller initially dialed my number randomly, without knowing who or what gender I am.

Theory 2: The mysterious caller is a female, a secret admirer, who freaked out upon hearing my sexy voice, hence hanging up on me. Possibility very high, when we factor in the indubitable effect my voice have on people. (Theory 2 is postulated by my untrustworthy sidekick, Ms Ziyi, but is actually rather plausible. Some promotion may be in order here if she proves to be right.)

Theory 3: Some jerks have written my number on the seat at the back of some bus, or on some toilet door, stating "CALL THIS NUMBER 9***-**** for ***."

More to come... if the calls and smses continue.

trekking in Stong (Kelantan)

Yo all, just back from trekking. Technically, not really JUST back, since I was busy playing games the past 3 days, but anyhow. Here are some photos.



Before the trek.



in the train. Bumpy ride.



at the train station. It's nothing much actually, just a small outpost.



Some of my group members at the coffee shop near the train station.



In the van, towards the caves. They are 3 of the 6members in our group.



Cave. The other photos are blurry.



Like this.



A shaft of sunlight from a natural window in the cave. That's me in the photo btw.



One of the many trees along the way. If you have been to many treks, you know that all the photos of the actual trek all look indistinguishable from each other. Just trees.



Finally the summit. One of the lousiest summit I have ever climbed. No scenery whatsoever. The sign reads 1,399m (4664Feet). That makes it a mountain, possibly the highest I ever scaled.



This is NOT taken at the summit. It is at the basecamp. Great scenery though. I think the "base" camp is around 1000 feet high.



Abseiling from the waterfall. Unfortunately, that wasn't me in the photo. I dunno who it is either. I didnt abseil though, cos I pulled a thigh muscle during the trek up, so I didnt think I am fit to abseil down.



scenery from the base camp during the day. cf. the photo earlier of the clouds.

Ok that's it.

Blemishes

The world isn't perfect,
Nor will it ever be.

love

Love, without it we are merely existing;
with it, we are more than alive;
Losing it is to be worse than dead.

updates

Lately, I have been going for Karate classes twice a week. It was really fun, and the training invigorating. But my slipped discs are giving me problems. I may need to see a physiotherapist soon.

Will be going trekking in Stong, Kelantan from 29th May to 2nd June. Couldn't find anyone to go with me, so well, I had to go with a group of strangers. This will not be the first time I trek with a group of unfamiliar faces anyway.

Couldn't really find a good overseas Masters program. The only school with deadline still open is University of Melbourne (May 31), and it may not be the best school catering to my interests. Hope I don't have to stay in singapore.

Anyone has any temp job for me?

Freeeeeeeee

Woot, last paper was over. I am now... er... unofficially graduated already, if the darn ceremony is supposed to be the official thingy. If I get perfect score this sem, I might get first class, if not, second upper is cool too.

Stuff to do this...er... holidays(?):

1. learn karate.
2. learn driving.
3. learn Diving
4. learn fishing
5. go trekking
6. buy lots of stuff
7. buy/read lots of books
8. earn some money
9. search for masters opportunities overseas.
10. see how to publish my thesis in some journal.
11. oh ya, get my damn laptop repaired. the "Q" and the "1" key broke down, even though I only have this laptop for 2months.


Ya, thats right, I may not be doing Masters here, for some reason. So I hope to find some overseas Masters, hopefully Australia (then I can bunk in freeeeee with dom. hehee. ) Still, I may be doing Masters here, if I couldnt find any good opportunities overseas. Pray huh? (I wonder which you will be praying for though, to stay or not to stay? hahahaaa)

doggie Bramble

Got Bramble from Yeek's website. wahahaa, I've always wanted a dog, so a dog it is. Help me feed it from time to time. Must drop the biscuit from above, or put it directly into its mouth, else it won't leave the pointer. If you click on the More button, there is even a ball which you can use to play with Bramble. If you want a pet, and need help with the html, can ask me AFTER the exams. heh

Heheee... got another pet. A bat, so I named it Nagel =p Click on it to let it fly around. Give it some flies from time to time. If you want to let it sleep, click on the stone ceiling. woot.

Sounds of the babies

I really liked this old post, so I am reposting it. Turned out that my predictions were really accurate (I was 21 when I posted this).

gals at their birthdays:

1st day:
everyone look at me!!

3rd birthday:
am i pretty?

4th:
hey its my birthday today!

9th:
i want to grow up, taller!! prettier!!

12th:
approaching... btw, anyone noticed its my birthday?

16th:
i am young and vibrant!!

17th:
ONE MORE YEAR TO GO!! on second thoughts...

18th:
Is it here already?! the prime age!! oh god... i am getting old.

19th:
well, i am still 18.

21st:
young AND mature!! and woe betide the next guy who says otherwise.

22nd:
its quite fine with me if most ppl forgot its my bday today actually.

23rd:
sigh...

25th:
guess its time to get married... before the wrinkles set in.

27th:
its the kids!!

30th:
i'll silenced anyone who knows my REAL age.

34th:
i think the guy who said i looked 21 really meant it!!



boys at their birthdays:

1st day:
i cry, therefore i am.

4th birthday:
think i'll beat that punk at sch today, since it's MY day.

5th:
better not try that this year.

7th:
woa... i want those muscles.

12th:
when do i get them? the gals are slipping away already!!

17th:
no one remembers my birthday... oh well, WE guys are not supposed to complain about that.

18th:
crap... the gals are supposed to be at their best age. they are already acting like they are older than us. i dun even notice any difference in them.

21st:
NOW its my turn... muahahaa.. watch and weep!!!

22nd:
still single.

24th:
hey, are the gals getting prettier, or are my expectations lowering?

28th:
still feel the same... IC says otherwise. exercise exercise!!

31st:
oh boy... i am 31st? is that supposed to be old or prime?

35th:
the kid called me uncle?!!

40th:
that kid greeted me today, nice boy.

epitaph

Herein lies a number of my chess pieces, lost as of this date, perhaps irretrievably:

2 black
3 white

Fantasy

He surveys the scene before him. He seems to be in an enclosed room, devoid of any furnishings; even the walls are drab gray. The room is huge, roughly circular in shape, though the walls run straight and meet each other at large angles. There is no apparent light source but there is light in the room, enabling him to see. It seems slightly pale, as though the light is filtered through some badly scratched glass, bringing no cheer with it.

There are a number of doors in the walls, all shut now, the shape of the room making them hard to count exactly how many they are. A host of creatures had tried to come through some of these doors, previously opened, and he has no idea how long he fought before finally driving all of them out and closing the doors once again after them. The room looks like a battlefield now, with spots of red scattered amidst the thick dust on the floor, and scuffles of footprints everywhere, the air slightly cloying--sweet perhaps from the blood. The man pants slightly, adding drops of sweat to the dirt on the floor.

Crossing the room in huge steps, he hurries to lock the doors with a set of keys he has with him, all save one. He pauses at the last one and examines it. The doors are slightly translucent, all fashioned in such a way that they can only be be opened from within. Curiosity had led him to open some of the doors previously, leading to the unexpected struggles that ended just minutes ago. He can still see some of the creatures milling outside the room through the translucent material of the doors. After a moment, he decides that he need not lock this particular door: nothing could come through this door anyway, he reflects wryly.

He returns to the center of the room, as far away from the doors as he could tell, trying to catch his breath. Soon, he knows all too well, boredom will lead him to open one of the doors again. Such is the curse of this stone prison.

Let's work our brains a bit

Betrand Russell came up with this paradox (in my own words):

In a town, a barber shaves all and only those who don't shave themselves.

Is there anything wrong with this scenario? Sounds rather normal actually, doesn't it? Well, let us ask, however, if the barber shaves himself. Suppose that he does. It certainly makes sense to say the barber shaves himself, since he saves money that way without having to go to another barber.

But, wait a minute. So the barber shaves himself? Yet it is said that the barber shaves all and only those who don't shave themselves! If the barber shaves himself, he doesn't qualify under the set of people who don't shave themselves. So the barber can't shave himself!

Alright, not a problem. We'll just restrain the barber from shaving himself, on pains of committing a paradox. So the barber doesn't shave himself.

But wait again! Did you just say that the barber doesn't shave himself? Well then, he qualifies now under the set of people who don't shave themselves! And according to what is stated, he has to shave himself, since he shaves all and only those people who don't shave themselves, which includes himself!

But if he shaves himself, then he cannot shave himself.

If he cannot shave himself, then he has to shave himself.

A paradox! So does the damn barber shaves himself or not?!
Well, simple. This barber doesn't exist. He is a walking paradox. There is no trick in this analysis, other than being vague to leave out the technicalities. Some food for thought huh?

Such is life

We complain about life,
yet we spent countless afternoons waiting for evenings to come,
whiling our mornings away in bed just cause there is nothing else to do
fretting over what other people think and say about you
and worrying about what people do not say about you
counting the years past and estimating the years ahead, mourning the shortness of life
mulling about who loves you and who to love
engage in activities that we don't seem to like, but seem right to do
considering our emotions, some of which coming from being unable to fathom our emotions
looking at the clock so that we can safely say the day is past and time for sleep
playing rpg while life plays you as rpg
Then at the end of it, we say, as a matter of custom
that life is too short;
whilst in the meantime, life is meaningless.

I need more.
So much more, that I don't have to consider what life is.

how special?

We don't seem to need to love any particular someone,
but simply need to love... someone.

One and only.
Specialness seems the effect, not the cause.

future house

I did a bit of room cleaning today, and was totally shagged out after that. Which prompted me to fantasize about the future house I want to have.

Firstly, I want a room dedicated to my hobbies: bridge, calligraphy and weiqi/Go. I want a corner for my chess set, together with a chess table. Somewhat near to it will be a small table for my poker cards for bridge, together with my bridge books. At the other corner, I need a table where I can write my calligraphy. The whole room will have a wooden floor, and no windows to minimize distractions; the room has to be sound proof as well, and of course, air-conned. Minimalist style.

Then I want another room for my books. There will be hundreds, thousands of book, philosophy and otherwise, all lined up in bookshelves which will decorate the room like a library. There will be a few chairs littered around the room; a bean couch here, a reclining chair there, and a full back armchair somewhere. Carpeted, and no windows too. I don't want the dust getting in.

There has to be a study room, with a sturdy wooden table for work desk, and my laptop on it. (It has to be a laptop, since I want to bring it all around the house.) A small bookshelf beside the table, where I can put the books I am currently reading/working on. Carpeted too, but with windows, shut tight with air-conditioning on. The window has to face somewhere nice, preferably some natural scenery like a far off woods. Need blinds so I can draw them at night, to ensure no monsters/homicidal maniac/ghosts will be peeping in. This room will be more decorated than the minimalist style the other two rooms have, so that I can entertain friends in here. Scatter a few chairs and sofa around, like an office.

Then if I have a underground room, I'll call it a cellar, and stick my wine collection in it. I don't particularly like wine, nor do I have any wine collection as of now, but it sure is cool to have a wine cellar. In any case, the more I collect, the less wine there will be out there circulating; I'm doing the world a favor that way.

Bedroom too, but I have no strong opinions on decoration here. Maybe a traditional japanese tatami-ed style.

I'm thinking I probably can't get a wife, so that's 5rooms plus living rooms (two of them), and I think they call the kitchen a room too, so that has to be a 8room house. In the unlikely event that I do have a wife, she will be wanting 3 rooms to herself too, to be fair. So a 11room house in that case. Need a maid to keep the dust at bay.

the pit

Those within, cry for release;
those without, try to jump in.
What a sham!
Outside and inside,
no one is happy.

Intuited

The tricky part is to tell when I'm joking, and when I'm not.

gone

When one day I'm gone, I wouldn't want people to say things like "I'll miss him," "He's a good friend, a good man." etc. I don't think I can stand being addressed in the third-person after I'm gone; it will be like the relationships I once share with them no longer exist anymore, like a break-off or something, though of course, technically that's true.

Maybe some people would go thinking: I should feel sad, this is a sad thing. Maybe they will be sad to the point that they would drop a tear or two when they think furiously of the times I shared with them, the jokes I made them laugh with, the tiny little incidents of remorse that will never get resolved already.

I don't want all that.

What I really want, when I am gone, is people to thump their hearts and weep their eyes out, crying that they couldn't live on without me, that life is no longer meaningful.

Yea, that will be cool.

Gavagai

How do you know
that you are not a rabbit
waiting to be snared.

Dreams are free movies

Dreams are like movies, and going to sleep nightly is like preparing to go to the movies, except that you, personally, are going to star in every single one of them.

It's always somewhat of a surprise to see what your dreams any night may turn out to be. You may yet be leading another day just like when you are awake, but it will always be interesting, always full of twists and unexpected happenings. You'll get to switch between protagonist and antagonist, sometimes you are even your own enemy!

Sometimes dreams are predictable within certain limits, like when you put your mind to it and think really hard about something or someone for a few hours before sleep, and you will probably dream somewhere along the same lines. Yet we'll never feel cheated, like we would if the Matrix 3 had concluded Neo's real world is in fact another Matrix; even if we know roughly the theme of our dreams tonight, the surprise in seeing how it can unfold always never cease to amaze us, bringing forth our most naked emotions almost without difficulty.

Sad dreams are more moving than the Titanic, and horror ones are scarier than the Saw. Love stories take on a personal flavor, hate episodes really resonate within you. We may even have ambivalent feelings towards dreams, love it and hate it, which is what we normally wouldn't say for movies.

Shock and titillate me; what will my dreams be tonight?

New year

It seems that quite a number of people felt the need to give a sort of wrap-up for the past year, so I think I should join the crowd in doing so.

I dunno about what particular misgivings I had of the past year, maybe its because I am still hung-over from last night's countdown (that sounds really happening, but actually I just drank around 3-4 cups of mixed vodka before I was incapacitated). I am not griping about my results since even though I am not in the desired class of honors, my present one is rather good already.

I dunno about anything particularly celebratory I had over the past year as well, again maybe because I am still woozy from the drinks. OK wait, thats not how I intended to blog from the start. There is one thing that I do know I am rather happy about, which initially I had feared to talk about, cos things which I mentioned in my blog seems to have a way of going in the opposite direction of what I predict.

But with caution, I might just be able to carry this happy change of mindset into the new year. Well its nothing great actually, but for being able to not have sad dreams every night, and not stressing over what I might have done, what I have actually done, and what I should do, I think it is indeed something happy for me. The gist of it is I seem to have gotten over someone.

I know I have said this a couple of times already, but this time, I feel something different. And I feel... lighter. I feel exactly like the last time I wasn't infatuated with anyone at all.

This time however, I am not going to walk into another love-trap again, at least not so soon.

blogs

I've come to a decision regarding my 2 blogs that I am currently maintaining. Or rather, a decision to not make a decision. Thats right, I will continue to maintain both blogs, the blogger one and the vox one. The posts will be roughly alternating between both blogs to give some semblance of maintenance.

I know people say that we should try not to be indecisive, and that its not good to drag your decisions till problems crop up, but hey, this isnt about deciding between two girls anyway, so who cares.

I will be trying to blog more of my sensitive posts in Vox, and the more mundane posts in blogger. If you want my vox address, look at the right side where it says "Clement's other blog".

Christmas Day

Christmas only serves to remind me how lonely I feel.

Christmas resolution: to not fall in love for the next 6 years.

My idea of a perfect Christmas Eve

Its the whole empty house all to myself, where the rest of my family went off to church after unsuccessfully badgering me for a few weeks to go. Naturally, I expect a few days of cold war again, as is always the case. Fits with the season I guess. Cold. Get it?

So yea, I figured I should take a break from my applications (oh those accursed forms!) and actually read a book or something. Pretty ambitious plans for a day I must say, except for one thing: I've read all my books thrice over and more, and I simply cant bear to read them again today, and definitely not the academic ones. So I jaunt off to the library after making sure that they have the book I wanted in the shelves by checking online, planning to spend the rest of the day finishing the novel.

Except that they dont have it, even though it says Not-on-Loan in the library catalog. Neat. So I came back home, and watched some dvds alone. I mean, with my headache which decided to pop in and say hi after a week's absence.

Seriously, with the empty house playing my typing sounds back at me, and the thoughts that I have trillions of things left undone, plans for the future, worries about the opposite sex, I think I'm cool. Fits in with the season again.

And I have absolutely no idea what to do. I mean short term wise, for the day. I cant play games on this computer, since its not mine, and I cant do work today, cos I dont feel like doing it. No books to read, no one to talk to, nothing to do.

It's times like this when you really feel you need a girlfriend --so you wouldnt be coped up at home reading my blog complaining about how lousy I feel. Sorry, perfect*. How perfect I feel.

offline

This is extremely fucked up. First my pc keeps dying, now my monitor went completely bonkers, near irreparable. I still need to do my applications for the overseas universities!! This is a conspiracy to keep me from going!! (by whom I dont know however, since I am the only one who uses my pc.)

I cant play games, I cant do stuff, cant go online for maybe a month or more, unless i use my sis's pc while she isnt looking, which is exactly what I am doing now. And I dont intend to buy a new monitor. Not going to feed more money into that poor excuse of a computer. Will buy a laptop when I am free. Fuck, needs more money again.

path of least resistance

It's very easy to just flow along the path of least resistance, and lead an easy life; relying on fortuitous events instead of actively creating luck for oneself. I wonder what my life would be like if I choose to just graduate with a Bachelor degree, and I certainly wonder what my life would be like if I choose to do further studies. What I do know is only that I rather dislike a non-academic life.

I have a friend who thinks that she probably doesnt want to rewind time even if given the choice to do so, and I kinda agree with her. Even if we can change past events, I'm not sure if we should do so. However much we might dislike our current situation, there is no telling that we might have hated any other possible alternatives.

Still have to write a statement of purpose for my overseas applications... Feels like hecking it already. Bleah.

sleep

My dad is an insomniac,

my mum is a very light sleeper.

No prize for guessing what I am like.


p.s. I have a new blog at Vox, where I havent posted anything substantial at yet. Will get around to it some day, and also decide how I am to manage these blogs. http://idarhl.vox.com/

webs

And suddenly the magic is gone -
henceforth, wouldn't be caught
so easily again.

Technology

Since I mentioned Douglas Adams in my previous post, I thought it would be cool to quote him again regarding what he has to say about technology, which I found to be awesomely witty and true to a large extent. 'Nuff said, enjoy.

"I've come up with a set of rules that describes our reactions to technologies:

"1. Anything that is in the world when you're born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.

"2. Anything that's invented between when you're fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.

"3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things."
-Adams, Douglas. The Salmon of Doubt.

weather

We don't like it when it rains: when the sky is overcast, dark with foreboding clouds, weeping raindrops as though crying; for it makes us sad. (Actually I don't dislike raining, but I needed to say this for dramatic effect.)

We don't like it when it's sunny: with the scalding sun bearing down on us, like a powerful drum keeping up a beat that our reluctant hearts are forced along unwillingly.

We hate it when it's cold: when the frosty air forces us to wrap ourselves in layers of stifling materials, the cold seeping into our bones, leeching the life from them, leaving us shivering and helpless. (Again, I actually love being cold, but I can't very well say that now.)

We definitely hate it when it's hot: the oppressing heat like a wet and dirty pillow pressing down on our mouths and noses, cooking the sticky sweat from every pore in our skin.

Well then, what about when it's not too hot, nor too cold; when the sun is shining from some unseen angle, the day bright but not blinding, with just a hint of rain on the way, and an occasional breeze from afar that smells of the sweet scent of fresh rain over some forest far away? Just like today, now.

Because when it seems so perfect, when the emotions are in perfect balance with one another, when the heart is at peace with the quiet universe itself, we are at a loss as to what we should feel. Thus we dislike it.

Humans are troublesome creatures, no?

Help

Latest update: problem gone away already, inexplicably. Hopefully it doesnt come back inexplicably again. thanks all who helped, and thanks all who missed me. Miss "anonymous" didnt get my thanks then. hahaaa.

I cant login to Windows Live Messenger, windows messenger, or msn web messenger! I keep getting this

error code: 80048820
extended error code: 80048439

Initially when I tried to troubleshoot, it diagnosed my computer as having some problems with the key ports (which I dont know what the heck that is) After 50tries, it no longer diagnose it with that problem anymore. BUT still cant connect! (I think it just got fed up with me so it stopped showing the error)

The thing is, its definitely not my connection problem since I can access web pages like how I am blogging now. It might be my connection settings though, and I have no idea how to fix it. help. I tried system restore to no avail.

Of course, it may be that MSN is simply down. I highly doubt that but I have no way of checking. On random, I decided to sms like 5friends on their msn status: one doesnt use msn, two are not at home, one decided not to login at all, and the last one didnt reply. =_=""

So help. Anyone. Short of suggesting that I reinstall windows or formatting my harddisk, I will readily take your suggestions.

If no one can help me here, then I wouldnt be able to login to msn for quite some time already. For some that may be good news though.

p.s. It would probably not be a good idea to wait for me to login to msn, then tell me your solution.