My Story

And I refused to recognise Death

2012-01-15T13:40:00.005-05:00

Here I am in the year 2012. Alive.

The build up to the new year has been nothing but different. I spent my Christmas in Costa Rica, New Year's Eve in Cusco, Peru. In a continent I had never been to. The final minutes of 2011 were spent on the streets of Cusco, where misguided fireworks flew at all angles, at times landing beside me. With impossible exuberance and adrenaline rush from the inherent danger, I entered the new year, almost unwillingly.

I thought having my friend's camera stolen was a bad start to the year, but I was to be proven wrong. On the first of January 2012, our tour bus found a bus overturned in a valley as we were blissfully ignorant of all the suffering going on. Amidst the mayhem, we managed to bring two of the victims onto the bus, in a desperate attempt to rush them to the nearest hospital. In the Sacred Valley, the nearest was too far. Time froze and its tapestry stretched into the horizon.

I froze. A call for doctors or medics came from the front of the bus. Sitting at the corner of the bus, no sound came out of me. I knew not of what to do. My meagre first-aid training and incomprehensible Spanish could not heal fractured skulls and brain damage. Helplessly took its time strangling me.

Prayed. How piously did I pray. I had no idea who or what I was praying to. Was it the Christian God? One that I have so much doubts about. At that point it really did not matter, I could not help, so I hoped that someone else could. I prayed for recovery, for survival. As moments passed, and the change of tones from the other passengers, I began praying for peace. I hope that they found peace in their hearts. I hoped that their families are safe and find a way to more on. I prayed that they did not suffer.

When we were finally at the hospital, it was almost clear that it was too late. I dared not watch as they were brought out in stretchers. I lacked the guts to face death in the face. I realised that I was not ready to face the ugly side of life. I am not ready to admit that suffering exists, that the pain is real. I have been avoiding it throughout my life, hoping that if I could successfully ignore it, that it will cease to exist. I am not sure if I will ever be ready.

I have to be. "Do not fear death, but rather the unlived life." Pain, suffering, death are part and parcel of life and unless I learn to internalise them, I will not be truly living. My life is full of inconsistencies because I try so hard to ignore them. I think the incident traumatised me and forced me to reconsider my life. It has forced me to learn and embrace the supposed "ugly". It has reminded me that in a funeral, we are celebrating life.

And that perhaps, we do not need a funeral to start celebrating.

Shocking Serenity

2011-12-14T23:36:00.003-05:00

The emotions that boil within me can only be described as a shocking serenity. There is a peace in my heart and mind that I have never felt before. In a moment nothing in the world matters but everything does at the same time. In the midst of my finals, I found time. For myself, for friends. I am not worried about not doing well. I am not worried about doing badly. I am just not worried.

As of now, I cannot tell if this state of mind is fleeting and if I might crash in the future. It would be foolish to believe that a boom can last forever and there can be no more recessions. Yet, I could not care less for the recession now. I am enjoying this surprising calm that is within me. I am living my life now. In the moment.

Because I cannot spend my life waiting for the next recession.

Shocking Serenity

2011-12-14T23:36:00.002-05:00

Because I cannot spend my life waiting for the next recession.

What a wonderful world indeed

2011-12-14T13:14:00.000-05:00

Breathe

2011-12-07T20:56:00.002-05:00

Once in a while, close your eyes, shut off your senses and breathe. Appreciate that each breathe is unique and can never be replaced. The particles represent the past, the present and the future. Passing through you.

Then breathe again.

Rebirth

2011-12-06T11:58:00.001-05:00

Dear all,

I can only describe the last three weeks as a period of rediscovery. Initially I thought I was experiencing a quarter-life crisis, then it became an identity crisis, yet, honestly, it was a whole lot of whining. It dawned upon me that engaging in self-pity and misery will not only destroy me but also my family and friends. That realisation was the slap in the face I needed to bring me out of it.

I had this idea that I was facing insurmountable problems and was actively seeking solutions to it. It was until someone asking me what the problem was that I realised there was none. It was simply a situation. A situation that has no right or wrong actions to be undertaken. I could either continue living my life to the fullest, appreciating the wonders of this Earth, or put my life on hold and deconstruct my entire being, which was what I did in the past three weeks. I was so afraid of destroying my life that I inevitably destroyed it for those three weeks.

I had always thought that my situation was a curse. A combination of rotten lemons thrust onto me by Life itself. Yet, someone rightly pointed out that it was not a curse, but a blessing in disguise. I have failed to see the half-full glass once again. Indeed it is a wonderful blessing. One that I am only beginning to take it. It has, can and will allow me to appreciate life so much more than I already do. For so long I have taken so many things for granted, now I am going to lose some of it but I am going to gain so much more.

I think at the end of it all, I am filled with more joy and love that I can ever imagine. I think the pain and suffering I had was just the residual effects of my past avoidance of the issue. Confronting it head-on exposed me to such vulnerability and it burned. It burnt me so badly. As with the Great Fire, I am now given an opportunity. One to rebuild my life upon the foundations that I have. With the family and friends that I love.

I quite like lemons.

Life is wonderful again.

Then there was light

2011-12-06T10:13:00.000-05:00

There, as I laid in the comfort of my bed, a stream of sunlight flowed through the cheap translucent cream curtains and fell so gently on my face and into the room. The silent burst of light filled the room with unspoken warmth and hope. I know now that life can only get better.

Crossroads

2011-12-03T20:36:00.002-05:00

There he is at the crossroads. Red was the colour that flashed.

Unsure of the possible dangers of the road and the path beyond. He started to take a step back. Then another. And another. Soon, he has turned a 180 degrees and started running. Running. The shops at the distance contained people engaging in meaningful conversations and such joy in their laughters. He could not understand them. He could not hear them.

A left turn. A sigh of relief was released from his lungs as he could no longer see the crossroad. It is a dark alley and shady characters are all around. Yet, there was no fear. Somehow all this darkness and danger became comforting. It was a retreat from the light. From the street with life. In the darkness it dawned upon him that this was not a place to dwell. One has to run and move on.

Another left turn. People recognise him in this street. The heat within was so unbearable that he removed his jacket. With that, the wounds were visible through the soaked shirt. This time, he could not care less. The wounds have been there for the longest time and it has not healed. Perhaps it never will. With the jacket gone, he could breathe with a more ease. But with it gone, the injuries become so salient, so real. He needs to run. Stopping with only making it worse. He must never stop running, or at least try his best not to. They cannot help him, they don't know how. Neither does he. He keeps running.

The final left turn. The realisation that he is heading towards the same spot destroys his spirit. There is no running from this one. There was no right turn. The waves of doubt and hurt crashes upon him. As he tries to seek comfort in the ocean floor, he knows it is not possible. He must keep running. Screams and shouts are only audible through his earphones.

At the crossroad. He knows that he has to make a decision now. The alley beckons but it will be running in circles. The path ahead is so uncertain and painful.

The light starts to flash.

2011-11-29T14:10:00.001-05:00

All alone,
On the edge of sleep,
My old familiar friend
Comes and lies down next to me.

You can't choose what stays and what fades away

2011-11-26T13:17:00.001-05:00

Yale - Harvard Game

2011-11-19T19:53:00.003-05:00

Someone got killed in an accident at the game today. There is a great sadness in my heart that I cannot speak of. I know not of the person, but the misery is still there.

2011-11-18T14:48:00.003-05:00

Just realised that what I had been feeling was pretty much like a mid-life crisis. At the age of 22.

What a life. Haha

Comfort

2011-11-13T16:18:00.002-05:00

I have found comfort in my life again.

Laughter is really the best medicine. Given all that I have, all the pain that I perceive, the best solution is to laugh at it. Mourning over the inevitable is a waste of emotion and time. Time that is fleeting should be spent in utter joy. Laugh. Laugh in happy occasions, laugh in misery. Laugh when there is no reason to. Be crazy.

To You

2011-11-10T10:16:00.002-05:00

I am going to have to outsource to You for this one.

Taking Stock of My Life

2011-11-09T10:47:00.005-05:00

It is increasingly ironic that I am so protective and secretive about my life with my friends and family but I open myself out to everyone in the virtual world. Perhaps I seek comfort in not getting a reaction from people, or it may just be that I am just too afraid to face reality head on.

I spill my guts out in this blog. And I am so thankful because it allows me to solidify my thoughts. Putting thought into prose allows for better structure and a stronger critical analysis. For me, paintings and poems contains so much more meaning because every single stroke or word is chosen with such great consideration that it becomes possible to peek into the minds of the artist and understand their thoughts.

Furthermore, it allows me to cherry-pick what I write and gives me an avenue to keep stock of the little joys I have in life.

Whilst I had previously written about the yearning for more and disappointment during my formative years in education, I fail to express the impossible joy I had as well.

My university years were the best years of my life. It was a time of coincidences and exploration. I learnt so much about myself and allowed myself to grow with the people around me. The friendships that I made and the activities that I did would not have been possible anywhere else. Whilst I moan about wanted to be in Oxbridge or LSE, if I was given a choice now to change my decision a few years ago, I would not have changed anything. It was just such an uncensored period of happiness and comfort that I enjoyed. The lack of academic rigour that I wanted meant that I could do so much more. And I did. There was the skydiving, scubadiving, hitch-hiking, ballroom dancing, gliding, hiking, camping, travelling, horse-riding, volunteering, charity sales, stewarding, rafting, kayaking, scootering, cycling, driving, and so so much more.

There is a need to write down the good in life. We need to keep track of it. I think it is far too easy to lose oneself in a half-empty cup, unless we take note that the cup is half-full. The concious effort of writing the blessings in life does exactly that. It keeps me grounded, it helps me conceptualise the blessings that I am eternally grateful for and it makes all the worries that I had before seem slightly less worrying. As such, even the ability to write this all out is a blessing in itself. =)

Brain in hyperdrive

2011-11-09T10:24:00.002-05:00

My mind is going haywire these couple of days. I need to find something to take my mind off thinking, before I go mad.

The day has just started and I am tired. I wish I could stop being a maximiser. I wish I could stop aiming for perfection. The incessant pursuit for perfection has only led me to disappointment. Throughout my life, I have been achieving the so called perfection to a certain degree, but it was never enough. The elusive concept of perfection evades achievement. A near perfect score for my pre-university days was viewed as such an achievement by my friends and family, but a failure by myself. I thought satisfaction will come to my dismayed self if I achieved a perfect score. But it did not.

Even when I did get a 100% score for exams or tests at university, I was not happy or even satisfied. I was looking for something more. I could not be contented.

I want everything. If I had gotten a perfect score, I would have wanted to have done something else better. When I got into Warwick, I wanted to be somewhere else. When I am at Yale, I wanted to be at Cambridge. Even if I was at Cambridge, I would still have wanted to be at Yale. It is not the case of wanted to have the other, but wanting both. Yearning for multiple lives and timeframes creates this impossibility in the physical world paradigm that we are in; thus leaving me with a clear answer that my desires will never be satiated, therefore eternal disappointment.

The problem arises now, that I have no idea what I am seeking in life. I wish I knew. I wish I could conceptualise it. I wish the vision that I had for myself in 20 years time could be true, but the more I move through life, the more unlikely/impossible it will be. I thought that getting top awards was a goal I can work towards. The problem was, I did achieve it. I have accolades, yet I am not contented. I guess the problem is one of tangibility. The pursuit of contentment instead of perfection is one that is unquantifiable, thus I find it so hard. I know that it is a choice. That happiness and contentment are choices that I can willingly make and will myself to be, but yet I find it so hard.

Song of the moment

2011-11-08T09:09:00.002-05:00

2011-11-07T19:17:00.001-05:00

Burnt out.

In Happiness and In Sadness

2011-11-06T16:25:00.002-05:00

I have noticed that this blog has turned into a dark place. It has been my outlet of sadness, doubt and insecurity.

Ever since allow myself to experience uncensored happiness, I exposed myself to the lack of it, which at times, leads to sadness. I doubt that you can have one without the other and for the longest time I chose to have none. Not indulging in excess happiness has allowed me to led my life in a methodical way, bulldozing through problems with the "best" possible solution, regardless of my emotional state.

Throughout the recent years, I have allowed myself to embrace joy in such a way never before experienced. With that I embraced sadness. And whilst facebook is the ideal avenue to express the joy in my heart, blogging allowed me to conceptualise my thoughts, to rant and to expel the pain in my heart.

Now, more than ever, I think I need this avenue. I have always been helping friends due with their issues, and that kept me away from mine. Now, with the lack of issues to due with, it is hitting me. My issues. Things that I tried to hard to avoid. And I cannot seem to tell anyone about it.

I hate medical appointments. There, I am forced to acknowledge the elephant in the room. There, there is no running. I hate physiotherapy. I hate the fact that I have to do all those seemingly easy task with such difficulty and such disappointment. I hate not being normal. I avoided team sports since young because I could not keep up with the others. I could not be part of a team, I never truly learned to love teamwork. The fear of disappointing others crippled me. I dare not play football/basketball/sports for the fear that no one would want me on their team. I did not even try. I tell others that I hate physical contact. No, I fear it. I fear that all will be revealed to them. I fear that they will know the truth even though they already do. I guess I fear that I cannot continue to ignore the truth if others know as well. I cannot pretend that all is well, all is amazing. I think because of this, I avoid being too close to anyone. I cannot deal with intimacy at any level, I fear it. Hate and fear has driven me to a corner and at times I am so lost.

That is why I thank you. No matter who you are, if you even exist, for reading this. To you whom I may or may not know, the act of being with me through this cyberspace provides me some virtual comfort. The comfort that I dare not seek from the people that I know. I don't think you know how much you mean to me.

Enjoyment

2011-11-05T01:01:00.002-04:00

Just watched V for Vendetta. A great movie for all I saw were the flaws in it. I have become so accustom to it that I critically analysis everything, stripping it of its essence, dissecting it until there is nothing left.

Movies are an avenue for one to suspend one's beliefs and enjoy. Yet, with every flaw I find, I bring myself back into reality, into what I try so desperately hard to escape. I have found so many flaws in my life and yet this is the only reality I have. There is no "other reality" to revert even if I wished so badly to.

Both physically and mentally exhausted, I shall now return to bed and hope my dreams are better than reality.

The fear of missing out

2011-11-04T10:20:00.003-04:00

The fear of missing out, FOMO. The recent explosion of the phenomenon due to social media has never been elucidated to me until now. Facebook has always been a place to catch up with friends, occasionally stalk them and ask them for help. Yet, it is also the number one place to find oneself in a jealous pit. The rise of social media has made it far to easy to find someone who is living a life that you deem "better".

Such a selection bias was not as evident in the past. You could not simply ring up your wealthier or happier friends to ask if they were doing okay, hoping that they were not, or being envious when they were. Nowadays, however, we can do so all the time.

We are now able to see events that our friends have created yet not invite us. That jealously or anger of non-invitation may stem from events for a group that you are not even part of. Or even in a country that you are currently away from.

It is now in the realm of possibility to indulge oneself with jealousy, at a mere click of a button.

However, we fail to see that social media does not portray reality as well as we think. We see success but not the path to it. We may admire the yacht our friend bought but fail to see that his job takes up so much time, he hardly every uses it.

The worst bit, is when we lose track of what we have when looking at what we don't. I have always be envious when people travel during their exchange programs. For six months, they have such a carefree life and could travel whenever they want. I wanted that. So much so that I had forgotten that I had 4 years to do that and have travelled to so many places that one cannot even imagine.

By focusing my attention on others, I failed to see the wonderful blessings in life. Thus I fear that I would lose perspective with social media. I do not fear missing out on events that my friends organised. I fear missing out on my life.

Bliss

2011-10-28T23:38:00.002-04:00

Bliss is the heart that may be filled with boredom. If not in a perpetual state, one is left with brief and fleeting periods of inactivity or lack of much thought. Thus we often look at the emptiness and grumble about trying to fill it with objects of insignificance. For if they were any significance, one need no make any effort.

Hence, bliss is the mind that knows not of any immediate urgency or worry and as such is boredom out of its wits.

What is it like?

2011-10-21T00:17:00.002-04:00

"Why are you doing your masters?"

That question haunts me in so many ways. Mainly because to find an answer would mean digging into my past. The easy way out would be a casual remark about delaying work and having fun at the moment. However, that would only be partially true. I do not think I could bring myself to take on such great contractual agreement with the notion of throwing close to fifty thousand dollars away for the sake of fun.

Beyond the enjoyment of being a student, I think part of me struggles with coming to terms with my background. My ignorance of the world has led me to believe that the academic institution that I attended had no bearing on my abilities and others would recognise that as well. Realisation of it led to the realisation that I needed to bring myself out of the relative poverty I was in. Relative, as I was leading a fairly normal and extremely comfortable life, but I knew that my working class roots was not going to get me my ideal law or banking internships through connections. I had to prove myself, I had to go on the paper chase. And I think I still am on that race course.

One of the reasons I wanted to study at Cambridge was the ability to attain that "status", however superficial as it may be. As the first in my family to go to college, or even dare aspire to get into one, there was that expectation from myself that I needed to get into the best, whatever it may be. Yet life took such a drastic turn and I was forced to apply in such a limited time, with little hope of getting into anywhere. I lost my opportunity to apply to the US, to Oxbridge and to other institutions, unless I took a year off. A year off would be way too costly for my taking, hence I had to make a choice. Pursue an overseas experience or take up my offer in Law locally.

It was the mixture of loss and opportunity cost that haunts me. Even now. When I decided to pursue a masters degree, it was another opportunity to claw my way out of the poverty cycle. In the three years overseas, the normality of opulence was abundant. People spent without care. Massive wastage is not important. My frugality due to upbringing was looked upon with curious eyes.

I think that was my sign. I saw people not appreciating their given wealth, for it was given. Pursuing a masters at a relatively good university would help alleviate my family's financial situation, now and the future. Now my children will have a graduate parent, and aspire for greater, knowing that it is possible.

I have no idea if this decision will pay off. And as I soak in the uncertainty of it, I guess the best answer for why pursue a masters would be, "to have fun".

The Choosing

2011-10-15T17:17:00.001-04:00

The Choosing

We were first equal Mary and I
with the same coloured ribbons in mouse-coloured
hair,
and with equal shyness
we curtseyed to the lady councillor
for copies of Collins’s Children Classics.
First equal, equally proud.

Best friends too Mary and I
a common bond in being cleverest(equal)
in our small school’s small class.
I remember
the competition for top desk
or to read aloud the lesson
at school service.
And my terrible fear
of her superiority at sums.

I remember the housing scheme
Where we both stayed.
The same house, different homes,
where the choices were made.

I don’t know exactly why they moved,
but anyway they went.
Something about a three-apartment
and a cheaper rent.
But from the top deck of the high school bus
I’d glimpse
among the others on the corner
Mary’s father, mufflered, contrasting strangely
with the elegant greyhounds by his side.
He didn’t believe in high school education,
especially for girls,
or in forking out for uniforms.

Ten years later on a Saturday-
I am coming home from the library-
sitting near me on the bus,
Mary
with a husband who is tall,
curly haired, has eyes for no one else but Mary.
Her arms are round the full-shaped vase
that is her body.
Oh, you can see where the attraction lies
in Mary’s life-
not that I envy her, really.

And I am coming from the library
with my arms full of books.
I think of the prizes
that were ours for the taking
and wonder when the choices got made
we don’t remember making.

Liz Lochhead

Breathing

2011-10-01T22:29:00.002-04:00

I am back to this new state of which I struggle. To allow myself to me happy is to allow myself to be sad. One cannot truly experience one-sided joy with no other state of emotion to compare to. It is so tiring, this constant cycle that runs through my life and having to ignore it over and over again. I feel oppressed, suppressed, overwhelmed.

I want to, need to breathe again.

2011-09-24T00:13:00.003-04:00

A philosophy professor stood before his class with some items in front of him. When class began, he wordlessly picked up a large empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with rocks about two inches in diameter. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles, poured them into the jar and lightly shook it. The pebbles, of course, rolled into the open areas between the rocks. The students laughed. He asked his students again if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else.“Now,” said the professor, “I want you to recognize that this is your life. The rocks are the important things—your family, your partner, your health, your children—anything that is so important to you that if it were lost, you would be nearly destroyed. The pebbles are the other things in life that matter, but on a smaller scale. The pebbles represent things like your job, your house, your car. The sand is everything else—the small stuff.“If you put the sand or the pebbles into the jar first, there is no room for the rocks. The same goes for your life. If you spend all your energy and time on the small stuff, material things, you will never have room for the things that are truly most important. Pay attention to the things that are critical in your life. Play with your children. Take your partner out dancing. There will always be time to go to work, clean the house, give a dinner party and fix the disposal.”Wise words. In your own life, be sure to take care of the rocks first—the things that really matter. Remember, the rest is only pebbles and sand.

Need.

2011-09-24T00:04:00.002-04:00

All of a sudden I just felt the need to write. To engage in prose as I used to. I am not sure if I am happy or sad here, but I know I am afraid. I am as such a state because I see around me people who are so free of financial woes, walking along side those filled with it.

An Apple store is soon to be opened across a soup kitchen. This captures the image of the city perfectly. Everywhere I look, I see poverty. Yet I see wealth walked through it, transiting through this city, tearing it apart as they seek to claim their honorary paper at the end of four college years, leaving the place as they found it. Like Olson's Roaming Bandits, they come, take and leave. The city seems to oblige.

Yet my fear is not of the 50% of students who do not need any financial aid to pay off the 220,000 dollar tuition fees. I fear that I am slowly becoming one of those people. My constant struggle from a working class family has led me to slowly deviate from its values. I am not sure what I will become.

A New Beginning

2011-08-28T18:57:00.003-04:00

In the midst of all the chaos that is an earthquake and hurricane Irene, I am here. At Yale.

3 months of denial and travelling has allowed me to block out the fear, anticipation and even preparation for such a move. Whilst settling in physically was relatively easy, I feel that my mental state is still in a state of flux, unaware of what to think.

As one looks outside to the world of New England, it is clear. The next nine months would go by swiftly, filled with joy and regret for things that I did, should have done and did not do. As of now, contemplating the future is scary, because this is the last year of being in academia for a long time. Maybe forever. Struggling to embrace everything with open arms, I fear that it is impossible to do it all. I need to find time to rediscover myself. In fact, to discover myself. My life has been put on hold for too many years too long. I have to start now and it petrifies me.

I just hope I am not alone.

Last few breaths: The third, thus terminal three terms

2011-07-31T15:28:00.002-04:00

I have finally graduated from my three years at Warwick. Such has been the life that I led. My final year was unapologetically fast. There was no time for rest, none for languid contemplation. Everything that needed to happen during my undergraduate life has just about eight months to come into fruition or wait till the next viable opportunity, which may be never.

Moving back onto campus brought about both joy and reminiscence. I loved my new flatmates and the kitchen which I seemingly spent my final year inhabiting in. Yet I would come to miss my old housemates for I would not be able to leap straight into topics of a deeper level, having to slowly break the ice with my new companions.

This year saw me becoming a steward of the Warwick Arts Centre. Something that I wanted to and failed to do during first year and forgotten during my second, only to remember in my third. It was such fun watching comedy and other art events and get paid. What a joyous job it was.

Crossing the Atlantic was one of the highlights of the year. For many years I have heard of the wonders of what laid in the New World and the opportunities it brought to its new inhabitants. Only upon reaching and venturing out of the tourist spot did I understand that it was only half-true. There were still many trapped in the constant struggle to free themselves from the poverty cycle. I saw homeless people, beggars at my prospective university, loitering outside the safe boundaries which the university security lingered. It was that juxtaposition of upper class elitism that allowed most of the students enter the Ivy bush which was sadly surrounded by abandoned weed. When I was asked how much my education would cost, a great amount of guilt gathered within me as a whispered "30K" under my breath. So much of it could help those around me and yet it was spent solely on me. It was then that I decided that I needed to give back so much more to society than I had previously thought. It was not simply the monetary amount, but the opportunity that it could have given others.

Indeed, the year saw me wrestling myself, trying to figure out my future. To stay or to go. Much of me wanted to go yet I was tempted to stay. As of now, I am unable to determine if the choice was a good one. Who knows? Perhaps busking in uncertainty is the only way to live.

With this I end my feeble attempt to write out my memories. As one looks forward into the uncertain future, reviewing the determined past will occur with increased rarity. Reality is slowly dawning upon me that I have probably seen my university for the last time and may never see it again. I can try to constantly recall every detail, every crack or peel in the walls of my department, but it will not bring me back. Therefore, I shall leave it as it is, allowing my memory to pick up the best and the worst to remember and when that fades, hopefully return to this post to jolt my memory into those hazy days. As of now, I shall be contented busking in the uncertain future and hazy past.

The next few...

2011-07-15T13:36:00.003-04:00

Time seemed to pass so much faster once year two began. Events, emotions occurred in such quick succession that one finds it hard to segment and store them in well define memory spaces.

46 Arden Street, Coventry. The place where I dwelled for almost a year. I loved how the warmth of the company I was with aided in my pure ignorance and disregard for a building that had signs of crushing me to death should rainfall reach certain levels. Non-functioning stoves, mouldy fridges and leaking ceilings, is there any thing we cannot face? This are memories that will soon be forgotten when time does its magic on me.

For the better, I guess. Maybe not everything has to be remembered. The feeling of warmth, a home away from home, will be felt and not remembered for each detailed recollection would be too tedious and withdraw from me the pleasures of the slightly hazy yet clear memory.

I will remember that we had wonderful meals together, but not the meals. There was uncontrollable laughter, sometimes accompanied with tears, yet the topic of which laughter originated is of no importance.

The destruction of time heals my mind of its imperfections by removing the inconsequential details of life that one needs not of. Yet I must be wary of the inevitable loss and take precautions against the removal of memories that are of utmost importance.

I do hope that forty or fifty years down, I will remember the feeling I had when I stayed with Oliver, Caleb, Royce and Stephanie at 46 Arden Street, Coventry.

My Third Breath: Arthur Vick

2011-07-13T11:52:00.003-04:00

Many breaths were taken in Arthur Vick, the most expensive accommodation available on campus. It is described as a nice, quiet room and en-suite. It was not.

Granted it was nice. Who would have known that applying in a group of three, we would be allocating in a ex-resident tutor flat, with rooms of various sizes and one shared bathroom. This 'accident' proved to be such an amazing experience and cushioned the blow from leaving the comfort of home. Life would have been so different if I had a single room, one that I actually applied for.

I remember talking too loudly. I still do. I remember being reprimanded for doing so. I no longer am. Talking was always in session. We hid in our rooms, locked the doors to avoid tutors. We hid in the bathroom in fear. The multiple gatherings we had had us in first name basis with our tutors.

There were many meals in AV1, but none too memorable. Except perhaps the one Iron Chef event we had with Royce and Abigail choosing Strawberries and Chocolate as our two main ingredients. One was red and it did not please Claire.

Chinese Stir-Fry. Crappy Sausages. Chicken Rice from paste. Pasta. Random minced meat with soy sauce. I cannot recall what we ate. Perhaps for the better.

We did bake. Bake we did. For Chinese New Year. For Claire's birthday (Pre-mix).

I couldn't ask for a better accommodation arrangement in first year.

My Second Breath: Initial Lectures

2011-07-13T11:43:00.004-04:00

The initial few lectures involved meeting Wayne and Wen Jie at the Piazza prior, in order to get the correct room/theatre. This was accompanied with us walking into Costcutters, observing the deals that they had, ranging from the free Guardian bowl or chocolate whenever a newspaper was bought. The paper was always bought, never read. The bowl, used till it broke.

This ritual of meeting before lectures would slowly die down as time took its toll. Attending lectures was sometimes not a priority, for some of us at least.

How eager we were! We bought the core text for almost every single module we took. We hardly used them, but cherished not going to the library for them. We would not learn our lesson for the next two years, buying books we do not need, skipping lectures that we did.

First year was spent studying too much, trying to understand the system.

There I took my breath

2011-07-13T11:00:00.004-04:00

There, in the piazza, I took it in. Took it all in. Sweet, cold summer air rushed and filled my empty lungs. This air, this place, would be removed from my senses and into my memories in a few days time.

I cannot help but feel helpless at the end. Why do all good things come to an end? Yet, perhaps it is already over and I am simply in pure denial, simply ignoring the remote possibility that university life, at least undergraduate life, ended along with my exams. Maybe it was gone long before my exams. Or perhaps there was and will be no end to it. But there has to be, it has to end for me to move on, in hope for greater things to come. I am seeking closure and graduation seems to be the most anti-climatic moment for that.

There is a need, a desire to pen down every single memory I have of this place. In a book, a blog, somewhere, anywhere. For if I do not do so quickly, my memory might start fading and recollection becomes a difficulty I cannot bare to face.

I stand at the piazza and took in another breath.

I was here. Three years ago, landing into London with a British Airway flight from Singapore. Taking the student shutter bus at Heathrow. I remember buying a pre-paid Sim card at the airport, only to forget that after inserting the Sim card, I am required to enter the code to top up the value of the card. Realisation of that sad fact come only after I had displaced the code, along with other rubbish I had with me. My first lost in the UK.

The day was filled with running to get my keys for my bigger-than-normal room at Arthur Vick 249A, convincing the student volunteers that I needed to get my luggage ahead of everyone else because I had something important on and that I had to leave really soon. Important, was the Jason Mraz concert at the Royal Albert Hall. With that, I dumped my stuff in my room and was in London once again. I stayed with Richard, a graduate of Warwick, one that I would never have met on campus and have a hard time recalling how we first interacted.

The bus back from Victoria station left us as we rushed in, late. With that, my first two days of university was nothing less than exciting.

Set fire to the rain

2011-02-25T19:11:00.001-05:00

Lost and now Found

2010-12-29T19:14:00.003-05:00

"And it takes a lost before you found it" - Jason Mraz

My wallet, stolen, Barcelona. The memory that shrouds my mind was suppose to haunt me through the nights and yet it died away as silently as my wallet was taken from me.

This was not the first time that something was taken from me. I lost my handphone in Marseilles the year before. Both by people with ill intent.

Detachment for the object, both literally and emotionally, gets more real once objects are lost. It was easier with my handphone, for it was simply overcoming the hassle of getting a new one. Yet with my wallet, it was different. This was a gift from my cousins. It was not simply a wallet, but a gift, hence that made it so much more painful.

That was my initial thought.

And yet, I was wrong. It was not about the wallet, it was never about it. The emotional attachments I had to the wallet should not have been there in the first place. The physical object was merely a proxy for me to channel the gift of which I had overlooked. The issue with giving something physical or matter, is that what matters is not the matter, but that which does not have matter. What I had received from my cousins was not a wallet, but a gift that represented a whole range of meaning; love, concern etc. It would have been the same if the gift was a handphone, a backpack, a note or simply words. Only with this realisation can I see that it was so foolish of me to think that I had lost a gift from my cousins. The gift that is given cannot be un-given. I still had the gift with me, but it was only because as a human being in my corporal form I sought out physical objects to channel ideas.

So perhaps all was not lost. It was through losing my wallet that I was allowed to strip the gift from all its material form and appreciate its true identity.

In losing it, I found my gift.

Leaving on a jet plane... Again.

2010-10-01T07:16:00.001-04:00

Once again I am faced with the inevitable prospect of leaving my home and all its comfort. Halted, in the middle of a shopping mall, I breathed in. Slowly. And again. Taking in the sight and smell I will once again be leaving behind.

Every year I am accompanied with various emotions during departure. During my maiden flight, it was of anticipation and trepidation, the adrenaline-filled fear propelled me into university life, and not to mention a Jason Mraz concert. The second time was shrouded with hope and excitement as I knew my housemates and the endless joy that we would experience, except that it was not endless. Time was a painful constraint. Once again, I shall enter the airport and this time I am deeply sadden. Not because of the final year ahead, but the very fact that there will be no more after the final year. While I do contemplate the possibility that I may be allowed to do a Master's but to be honest, I am realistic about my chances.

Herein lies the problem of me trying not to over exert myself whilst I try to cramp in everything that I ever want to do before embarking on my career in 30 weeks of school term and 9 weeks of holiday. I do not know what the future may hold, but I do know that I will be breathing in the shopping centre air very soon.

Too soon.

Home, Truly

2010-09-30T07:36:00.002-04:00

It has been one month and a few weeks since I have been back to Singapore and I am leaving again.

Funny how our plans changed. I had never intended to return. The initial plan was for that particular internship in London that never materialised for some reason and hence lead to a series of mad planning and re-scheduling. Even so, I did not want to return. I went for summer schools in Geneva and London, spending a good two months travelling and living off my suitcase. I contemplated on how to fill up my final month of summer and somehow returning home did not seem like a viable option at that time.

I guess I had ruled it out as an option the moment I left for the UK in September the year before. Yes that was me. Always one with a vision or a plan way in advance and troubleshooting my way through. One senior was shocked that I was asking about Master's programme even before matriculating into my undergraduate. But it had to be done. And in September, I decided that I was not ready to return. Am I now? Perhaps not yet, but I will never know when. For what reasons I felt that I was not ready, if any, it was perhaps not strong enough to deter me from returning as the reasons to do so are so much stronger now. Yes, as much as I planned not to return, I had an alternative plan to return as well. And now, I will have to see if it worked out.

But beyond plans and words, my family was one huge draw. Whilst home I tried to find and capture a photo that would encapsulate what Singapore meant to me as a home and failed miserably to find one. It became clear that what drew me make, and the things that make this place a home are the intangible bits of it. It was the conversations, the laughter and even the quarrels if any. It boils down to the aspects invisible to the camera or it's photographer. A photograph can only, at its best, hint at such a scenario. But one has to be here to truly appreciate it.

Insights into the future

2010-09-30T07:27:00.003-04:00

My muscle biopsy went by quite smoothly. Yet, similar to any relationship, the pain kicks in after the breakup and not during it. Well, at least that is what I think, coming from a being devoid of emotional capacity.

I struggled to use my arm and at times decided it was best not to try. The dis-enabling or disabling of my arm brought about a new appreciation of it. Never have I cherished those that are given so freely and naturally. And yes, cliché, but the removal of the privilege led me to treasure it more.

Perhaps even more worrying for me, is the idea that this may very well be what I am to face in the future. With my biological clock ticking and mechanisms that do not follow the natural path, I may not be able to treasure the supposed naturally endowed usages of my body. It is a painful thought to contemplate and I am not sure if I can be truly ready for it. But I have to try.

We all have to someday.

Dear Old Singapore

2010-09-16T04:03:00.004-04:00

Being back home brings back all the memories that I suppressed over the years overseas. Forgotten were many aspects of Singapore and our culture that I had a culture shock coming back. The noise, the speed and the heat. All hit me at once. Heat and Humidity uninvitedly re-entered my life like an awkward class gathering which comprises of your ex-girlfriends.

More importantly, it was the tradition that I have forgotten. "Forgotten" is a misnomer in the sense that I had no prior knowledge to allow the possibility of forgetfulness. It was just today that I attended a ceremony in remembrance of my late grandfather in a temple. Placed on the 80th tile at the tenth level, I looked up towards the tablet that represented him. Had I seen him in my lifetime perhaps it would jolt more emotion within me. But I did not know this man, at least in my living memory. I knew him through my grandmother and their descendants of which I am one. As I was there, I partook in symbolic activities that elude me. I was in perfect mechanical motion, mimicking those around me, blending into the background, as any other. Taking in the smell and sight, I knew not of this tradition and I fear that it will soon wither away in light of our westernised world. Even western traditions are dying off, let alone ours. Within offerings, all I gathered were paper being combusted into ashes. A systematic physical process that could be comprehended. Should I seek to learn the meanings behind this traditions or should I let it slip by me, for it is unimportant in my life? Then again, is it really unimportant?

Part of me fears that if I fail to remember the actions of the past, I cannot really move on into the future. I saw my colleagues participating in the rituals of the Chinese 7th Lunar Month of the Hungry Ghost Festival. Even now, I know of it as the Hungry Ghost Festival, without the slightest clue on its Chinese name. Or perhaps it is simply because my mastery of the Chinese language is as good as my comprehension of Latin. During the ritual, paper offerings were burnt and food was offered to those deceased. It was not a religious ritual, as I do not reckon that there was a religion that underpin this, but rather a tradition and culture passed down through generations, until now. Even languages are slowly lost with time. I tried to speak to my grandmother today in Hokkien, because in that very instant I had forgotten that I was Hainanese and I spoke an alien language to her. That language was lost on me too.

As much as I seek to break free from all cultural restrictions in my life, allowing me to embrace all cultures, I fear that I have lost my family's very own. When asked about my history, the long historical journey can only begin from me, because in that very cerebrum of mine, there was nothing in and about the past. Meanings and teachings are now diluted with frivolous tagline. Mid-Autumn festival is now Lantern/Mooncake Festival, and there are Dumpling Festival and Red Packet Festival.

Maybe it is just me and my pure ignorance. I will think about embracing my historical culture, after learning to re-embrace Heat and Humidity.

My 21st 31st

2010-08-31T10:50:00.001-04:00

It only truly dawned upon me when my age was asked of me. Twenty or wait no twenty-one today. That was my answer. It was greeted with mixed responses. One of congratulations and the other of envy or at least announced envy from older colleagues. Some who wish that they could restart all over again, some just wanting less wrinkles. Having seen this date over and over again for 21 times on this planet, in addition to the nine months in a human being, I find myself being officiated into one as well. A human being given almost all the rights that the society can provide and all the responsibility for his/her actions. Hereby comes the stage in life where there are no longer any movies to look forward to sneaking into because you are too young. Voting is possible but perhaps not required. Yet, other than that and the overly-hyped up American mentality of independence, it is no more special than any of the other 20 dates.

Firstly, let me rest assure the audience that I am eternally grateful for all the people in my life of whom allowed me to be alive today. Honestly, who would have known that I would make it this far in life? Surviving has become and will become my greatest achievement till I die, or perhaps beyond if I lived in Japan. Birthdays are used as milestones to try and mark out what I have done with my life on a more philosophical and spiritual level, whereas New Years are meant for the creation of goals that we know too well we will never achieve. My goal was to achieve nothing through the year, hopefully I will prove my theory right.

As I step into tomorrow, or at least sleep into it, I hope for the better and for less wrinkles.

I was about to Facebook this

2010-08-21T03:54:00.003-04:00

Just before I wrote on my facebook wall, I hesitated and decided that such a statement need not be on that wall.

What was I about to write? I was about to tell the world that " I hate looking young, especially under 18". All this to spark a discussion or simply an avenue for me to rant about how I was stopped outside a cinema for an identity check in order to watch a movie that was meant for the eyes of those who have been around for at least eighteen years of age. Moi-meme? I was about to turn 21 in one week. Yet I was stopped. Coming from a foreign country, I emptied all the contents of my now wrecked wallet, leaving me to prove my old age with a plain bank card and a whole stack of hard cash. The plain card failed to prove my identity, but come to think of it, the stack of cash might have gotten me in. In the end I could not watch the movie and had to forgo some sunk costs.

Yet, I digress. That was the not intention of this post, should it even have an intention to begin with. The thought that someone posts something on Facebook or even in that mysterious device Twitter, for the sake of a response intrigued me. I was becoming one of them. In a society where your worth is determined more and more by the number of friends you have and the comments you get on your Facebook wall. Let me correct myself. It is determined by the statistical number of Facebook accounts that claim that you are their friend, regardless of whether they have met you even for a second in their lives, and the number of "Likes" and comments, any comments, the more the merrier.

In this day and age, the conversations seems to be gearing towards a me-and-the-world style of conversing. One which really requires just a singular candidate because the world can simply remain mute. Today's world forgets slightly the joy of small talk in cafes and meeting up to share stories of your lives and all the experiences you have had since the last encounter with each other. What is there to be updated by if all that has happened is so meticulously articulated in the cyber world?

Some conversations need to be shared face to face with a level of error, without spelling-checks or green grammatical signals. Such conversations can grow and build into something unexpected. An inital discussion of price of water can lead to talks on North Korea or how to make a good Paella. Some sentences should not be punctuated perfectly with commas and periods but with uncontrollable laughters that disrupts all but the joy you share. I do miss those times. Even as I type this, I am falling deeper and deeper into the realm of Ipods, PSP, Iphone and the world of ME. The world where I would never have had a conversation with a random bloke in an IT shop in London about a fan and how expensive it was, because he would be been plugged into his Ipad, blogging away, oblivious to everyone around him. I wish not to be that person, but fear that I am already halfway there.

The only good thing that came out ( Went in) that night that I was rejected entry

Going Home

2010-08-15T00:16:00.001-04:00

Another three weeks have gone by. Sitting in the empty cafe at Birmingham airport, I am more than halfway through my summer vacations. How fast has it been, mere hours formed days and days passed to become weeks. Soon my school term will begin and a new year awaits. Yet once again, I have learnt a lot and there is much to learn from the three weeks at the LSE. Knowledge beyond academic, if any was even gained in that spectrum. London offered me a myriad of opportunities and experience. Being so central, walking to anywhere in London is possible. Be it Holborn, Covent Garden, Leicester Square and so on. Only be truly walking within London can you experience the true feel of the magnificent city.

The smell, oh the smell. That vile stench of sweet aroma diffusing from cuisines from all over the world. Lebanese, Moroccan, Chinese, French, American, Spanish, English and the rest of the world can reside in harmony in your belly. Low lying mists of such mystical flavours linger all over the city, tempting not only the locals but people of all other cultures to embrace and partake in the universally cultural habit of feasting. Never have I seen so many variety of food in one location within the reach of the general public, opening a whole new world to the world.

And if your wallet is not open to the idea, just listen. Listen to the melody of fire-engines, symphony of police cars and most importantly the untold whispers of the streets. Having stayed in Geneva and London, I have experienced two very international and multicultural cities that varied so significantly. Just listen to the accents and the sounds that flow from the tender lips of the pedestrians as they gather at a traffic junction. Those well-mannered and suited businessmen of Geneva speak with crisp internationally comprehendible English, and revert to their mother tongues when in the comfort of their home. Londoners speak with all sort of accents, some may not even be considered English. They speak it with such comfort that hides the years they took to pick up the language in order to seek work here. Those in Geneva are living a portion of their lives in a foreign land and would leave once the work contract states so. Those in London are living their lives in their new found home land and may never leave. Talks of multi-cultured societies has never struck me so intensively until I listen to a group of friends conversing with a spectrum of accents, all speaking English, regarding each other as equals. Undoubtedly, there will be reports of racism and bigotry, but it happens everywhere in the world. And the existence of such incidents does not exclude the possibility of racial harmony existing as well.

Testament to my new found belief in saying yes to new uncertainty and embracing the unknown in hopes for something better, I have been through an amazing three weeks in London. The friends I have made, through random conversations during breakfast, just talking during classes or randomly on the streets. Every breakfast, I make an effort to talk to almost everyone on my table, be it someone I knew before or someone new. I have learnt the art of socialising from a friend during a reception and of which, the most important rule is that one must strive to appear as comfortable and at ease in the most awkward situations, even though everyone else in the situation is as awkward as you. In socialising, you are given the carte blanche to just walk into a group of people having a private conversation, eavesdrop before interrupting their conversation by giving your two cents worth. On any other situation, a four letter word to describe such a situation comes to mind and it starts with a R and ends with E.

Every time I visit London, I find something new. It is a place that never fails to amaze me and dazzle me with its old English charm. From visiting the biggest Hindu temple outside India, to attempting to take a picture on the zebra crossing of Abbey Road, I did not repeat any activities that I had done before but there are still more do to.

That is not to say that there were no down sides to it. London is draining as well. Be it the weather, the cost of living or the pollution, it is a tough place to be in. Even the sights and sounds can be a huge distraction from academics. I am not sure if I can cope with it should I wish to study there. If I can. But beyond all that, the friends I made and the experiences I had transformed what might have been an ordinarily boring summer into an experience of a lifetime.

Italian Mayhem!

2010-07-21T16:40:00.002-04:00

I had the worst time getting into Milan! Firstly my train DID NOT EXIST, the ticket and reservation I had were for a train that did not run and never will, so I had to change tickets, changing my arrival from 2pm to 7pm. Other people had the same problem as me. When I was in Milan, no one was willing to help me when I asked how to get a bus ticket, or where to find the kiosk to buy it. I asked 4 people and all of them said they did not know. I went into a pharmacy to ask and the counter lady simply said " I don't know, goodbye." Surely they have taken a bus once in their entire life in Milan. I walked for an hour trying to find a ticket and gave up, deciding to try and cheat and not pay for the bus. The very next stop, the inspectors came up the bus! Had to get off and spend another 30 mins finding a ticket, after realising that it was the same ticket for the metro. I couldn't find my hostel because they directions they gave were wrong! It was the wrong bus stop and direction. I had to walk up and down the street to find in, imagine St. Petersburg, but worse because I had two luggages, laptop and camera. Got to my hostel and found out that someone conveniently refused to check-out and I had to change hostel! This after I spent an hour finding the hostel in the dark. In the new hostel, there is no free internet as promised! Thankfully someone does not have a password for their wireless. I reached Milan at 7pm, I reached my hostel at 10.30pm. Dead tired.

St. Etienne

2010-07-20T02:59:00.001-04:00

I just wanted to write this before I forget everything. The experience was wonderful. Never have I thought that I would be so integrated into the French culture or with so many acquaintances. I still cannot believe that Antonin went all the way to get me from Moirans because he was going to the Saint Etienne festival of the Mandarin and was not in Grenoble for me to couchsurf at. If it was me, I might have just said “Sorry, I am not in town.” But he actually invited me to it and went out of the way to bring me there and take care of me. Amazing, simply amazing. During the festival, he introduced me to all his friends, and my, does he know a lot of people. I think he might actually know the entire town because he grew up there. I envy that life where you grow up in a small town and everyone knows each other, be it the young and the old. The festival was less of a celebration of the Mandarin but more of a celebration of the community, where old friends reunite and people who went away return.

It was also the first time I felt slightly tipsy because I was made to try their different liquors and beers. I know realise that I am a sleepy drunk should I ever be drunk. I went to a bench and took a nap. Drunk at 3pm in the afternoon. Only in France. The party went on through the night into the next day. Of course, the experience was not completely perfect. At times I felt slightly lost and insecure because everyone spoke French and I could hardly hold a conversation beyond five sentences. And my fate was tied to Antonin as my stuff was at his place and I could not go back because I did not know how, it was midnight and he seems slightly tipsy. Luckily for me and my pigeon French, I managed to talk to his mother who was going back and she offered to drive me back. She was so amazing and kind-hearted. I don’t know if she knows that I know, but I saw her pour out her drink that was offered to her by friends when they were not going so that she could pretend that she finished her drink and could bring me home. That was really quite a touching moment. Oh did I mention that I hitchhiked into the festival. I never thought I would hitchhike again.

The next day I woke up and we had breakfast in the garden with a barberque. It was so surreal being part of their community and listening to them speak French. Even though I hardly spoke a word, I thought that it was so heartening that they opened up their house and their lives to me and allowed me to experience it. I tried sharing my chilli flakes with them but I don’t think they enjoyed it that much.

We later went back to the festival and watched the parade. Once again I was introduced to everyone, I am so inspired by him. He managed to treat me as if he knew me for a lifetime and introduced me without hesitation. I met this guy would was quite intrigued by Asia, and has been to Japan, Thailand etc. We had such a great conversation about the French culture, Singapore’s political system and so on. Maybe he will even visit Singapore some day!

Afterwhich we went to watch the parade. Their community is so friendly and warm. They offered wine and food whilst parading and people splashed water at each other, threw hay and flour, all in good fun. There was this group of guys that were in the parade and they sang and danced together despite being drench with wine, water, flour and hay. Their camaraderie is so admirable and I envy that.

Soon, the parade was over, and after dodging all the stuff thrown at me, I managed to protect my camera from being destroyed. The rest of the gang, however, were sort of drenched. Whilst trying to explain that I was protecting my bag, hence I was so clean, someone asked if they could see my bag. The minute I released my bag, (bad move), water and hay came flying my way. It was all in good fun, and it was quite extraordinary that they considered me to be a close enough friend to drench me with stuff, along with their other close friends. As one of them said, “You are (I am) now French.”, I was literally “soaked” in French culture. They even manage to soak their female friend who tried so hard to avoid getting wet.

We had lunch on the road of the village. Literally on the road, the cars had to manoeuvre around us to get past. Such an interesting experience that I don’t think I would ever experience should I travel differently.

We headed back to Grenoble after lunch and I talked to the lady that was driving me back to Grenoble. It was such a lovely conversation and I am continuously amazing by the vast amount of experiences and dreams that people have. She wanted to be a musical therapist for autistic children. I wish I could meet everyone in the world and learn about their life. I think there is an overwhelming greed inside of me that wants to experience the life of others because one life is just not enough for me, perhaps.

It is 11pm now and I am in Grenoble even though I have yet to really see the city. But I guess the experience itself would simply overwhelm any possible architectural marvels that rest in Grenoble. I will leave tomorrow for Nice and I have no idea what lies ahead of me, but I can only hope for the best, and I have great faith.

"Because now I am French"

The end is near

2010-07-15T17:41:00.005-04:00

It has been such a bittersweet journey. Much to my amazement. I thought I would have the tenacity to write about my daily happenings but that clearly failed. These three weeks have taught me a lot, beyond the academia of French. I learnt to be even more independent, with the lack of close friends around, for once, in the two years that I was overseas.

I understand why people want to stay together now, because of the safety and comfort it gives. Yet, I know how to be independent and rely on myself now. Like a newborn thrown out its nest for the first time, I had to learn how to fly.

I have done so many crazy things in the short span of three weeks. The first weekend included dinner with a Singaporean couple and an intern from MFA. Visiting Cern and learning more about the Large Hadron Collider. And finally hiking with a group of Swiss-French people, up Mt. Saleve, using only my broken and badly spoken french to communicate.

I met so many people along the way, engaging in small talk, yet hoping for more. But maybe that is what its suppose to be? Or that is what the adult world is like. Nevertheless, I did things that I wanted to do, rather than follow the crowd and try to blend in.

The next weekend, I went to Nyon with a Korean friend I just met. We would later on head for the Lake Parade in Geneva, with a French-Algerian friend. It was fun and interesting talking to them, at Mcdonald's and along the parade. The Sunday consisted of me heading down to Annecy in France for a visit at the amazing resort town. It was truly breathtaking and amazing. The water beckoned me to join it, but I could not, because I was travelling alone. Yet, I did not regret that, for it was went I travelled alone, I allowed myself to experience all the emotions that I seemed to have bottled up inside. At a fast food restaurant Quick Bite, I felt this surge of overwhelming sadness as this lady in front of me seemed to be recalling a sad moment in her life. But within minutes, I was swarmed in a sea of pure happiness. Euphoria struck me like a train on a track. I could not explain it and there was no reason for it but it was just it. Then everything became calm. As if my heart and mind were now synchronised with the lake outside, and we were moving in tandem, without conflict. For that instant, I found peace in my heart and life and I think I need to constantly do so before my mind engulfs me with thoughts of unimaginable scenarios and hypothesis.

Now it is the last day of school and I have to leave. I left the house I stayed in for a year just three weeks ago. Now I am leaving the room I have stayed in for three weeks. It has been a wonderful journey and it was all worth it. I am going to start a new adventure now. Who knows what it might hold. But I am stronger now and my heart and mind are calm now, so I can face anything in my way.

5th Day ( Friday 2nd July)

2010-07-05T15:43:00.003-04:00

Today was good. Had dinner with a Singaporean couple and met another Singaporean in Geneva! Not too sure what I will do tomorrow but we will see how. The first weekend of summer school!

4th Day ( Thursday 1st July)

2010-07-05T15:26:00.003-04:00

New class. New people. A lot more introduction to do. Thankfully there is another new student around! Yes, I am not alone. People in this class speak a lot slower and conjugations can easier to understand, which I am utterly thankful for. I finally understand why my friend felt so frustrated when she was in French 2 with me. Because she studied French from a book and a summer course, she got put into the advance class with not enough practice with listening comprehension. As such, she could not understand most of the lessons and went on to quit the class. I was shock when she did that but now I totally understand how she feels.

No more Singaporean classmate but a whole load of international people to mix around with. From the States, Egypt, Columbia, Germany, Russia, Japan, and so much more. The only drawback, and perhaps a good point as well, is that all of them seem to speak English or at least understand me when I secretly try to sneak a few English words into the conversation, for lack of a proper French dictionary in my head. Had French singing lessons today. Phew, a lesson where I do not have to think and all I do is try to make sounds at the right pitch and frequency without necessarily knowing if the sounds that I am making creates a word or not.

3rd Day

2010-06-30T15:06:00.002-04:00

I spoke to my professor and he told me that I had to stay in my class for the day and that I can only change after that day. Went through the day alright. It did not seem as bad as the last time, perhaps because there was a lot less listening and speaking involved.

When I still wanted to change lessons afterwards, I could only assume that my prof told me that my grammar and writing was good because he kept going on about how I might want to stay and try listening more instead of changing because it would be a shame etc etc. I could not make out most of the words. But I decided to change it nevertheless because it was too demoralising to go through a day without being able to speak at the same frequency as the other person.

Met a girl from Bolivia who wanted to change class as well and we went for ice cream which cost 7 francs. Kill me now. I hate it that I am making friends with random people and they seem to leave the next day and I never see anyone again. It is so tiring and I am so tired. I think I got the wrong impression from MeiSum that it would be so easy to have fun and travel or play around with your classmates. Because most of mine are working adults and/or spouses of people who are working so they have a life outside of school which they return to. Whereas for me, I am stuck all by myself. I truly hope I do not go mad trying to live life in isolation. I think that living alone as grown so so much harder since I lived in a house with friends and conversation happened all the time. How am I going to survive this!

2nd Day

2010-06-30T15:03:00.003-04:00

Oh apparently I did not do so bad in the placement test after all. In fact, I did quite well. I got placed into B2 which is for higher level students, there was this guy with 4 years of french learning experience and he got into B1. And the ranking goes from bottom to top, A1, A2, B1, B2, C . That's it.

At first I thought wow, exciting stuff, I will learn so much. But boy was I wrong. Everyone there was so much more fluent than me and I could not learn much because I did not understand the conversations that were going on. It was so bad and depressing. Especially since I went for the lectures in French and I could hardly make out the words that were coming out of the lecturers' mouth. I had to strain my ears to pick out a few words and even so, I had no idea what context it was in or what the lecturer was truly talking about.

Am now thinking of lowering my level...

Official First Day

2010-06-28T16:12:00.003-04:00

Finally got my internet sorted.

Went for the placement test which was a nightmare, I had never done dictation in French so that was completely off my expectations. I could barely make out the listening either. Bad start.

Had a walking tour around Geneva, interesting but draining under the afternoon sun. I felt socially isolated. Need to learn to hold a conversation in French before it turns into the awkwardness that is the silence.

Hopefully when I get my actual class tomorrow it will be all better. Hopefully.

First day of Summer School

2010-06-28T16:01:00.002-04:00

Boredom and self-isolation has driven me into talking to myself. It feels weird detached from everything entering summer school. Perhaps it has something to do with my leaving the house I spent the last almost-a-year in and the fact that I left it in such a hurry and with so much unfinished business, and yet not return home, made my current situation a bit awkward.

The whole journey here was tiring. Waiting for the coach at the bus stop, hoping not to be robbed, turning and getting ready to run at every single minute sound. Arriving at the airport, where there is a queue that stretch all the way out of the airport, yes, out of the airport, because Easyjet booked all their million and one flights on the same day at the same time. Soon we had people who were being called forward because their flight was going to take off and they had to check-in. People were being rewarded for being late, essentially. Come in late, and just before your flight is taking off, get a queue jump. Whereas for the person who came in 3 hours early will queue for about an hour or more because you are cutting their queue. There was this American guy who thought priority boarding was priority check-in. Not sure how to explain that to him except for the fact that boarding was not checking in. The flight itself was alright just that my phone rang before we landing because my alarm was set to that time. So even though the phone was turned off, it rang. And that annoyed some people, especially me, who was asleep. Finding the way to the dorm was a nightmare, only because there was no directions and major works were being done to the roads so all the bus routes have changed so I had no idea where the bus I was suppose to take was. Finally got the dorm, covered in perspiration, only to find that I had no internet without a password. Went down to the counter and realised it was closed until 6pm. Fine, I said to myself, I shall go and do some groceries. Only that it was Sunday and all the shops were closed. So I had to force myself to survive on a cheeseburger which cost about 2 pounds and a pack of biscuits that cost 4 pounds. I will be so broke by the end of this. Slept on a relatively empty stomach.

You are what you are made of...

2010-06-14T06:50:00.003-04:00

I have just recently watched a documentary on Atoms and Physics. Not the best timing, noting that my examinations are in 3 days but hey, I am sure Economics uses some theories. Right?

During the documentary, it dawned upon me the amazing reality of trying to understand the world around us. We, as humans, are made of atoms. The very same and identical building blocks of the rocks, the sea, or the sky around us. That very special combination of atoms allowed us to evolve into sentient beings and hence possessing the ability to reason and analysis. Well at least some of us.

While physicist trying to explain the universe may seem mundane and/or slightly nerdy. Viewing the universe in atomic level, it is so fascinating; the idea that a collection of atoms can attempt to understand and analysis fellow atom collections or uncover the mysteries behind the atom, the renown fundamental building block of ourselves and hence society. It gives a whole new meaning to the word introspection.

Basking in the revelation, we should all rejoice in the fact that everything and everyone are one and the same. We came and are made from the same building blocks and will be returned to the same form in time to come. Just as energy gets passed on and recycled, we are too. Hopefully the understanding or realisation that we are one and the same can lead to something good in this world.

Between Two Lungs

2010-06-08T05:15:00.000-04:00

Between two lungs it was released
The breath that captured me
The sigh that blew me forward

Cause it was trapped
Trapped between two lungs
It was trapped between two lungs
It was trapped between two lungs

And my running feet could fly
Each breath screaming
"We are all too young to die"

Between two lungs it was released
The breath that passed from you to me
That flew between us as we slept
That slipped from your mouth into mine
It crept between two lungs
It was released
The breath that passed from you to me
That flew between us as we slept
That slipped from your mouth into mine
It crept

Cause it was trapped
Tapped between two lungs
It was trapped between two lungs

Now all the days of begging
The days of theft
No more gasping for a breath
The air has filled me head-to-toe
And I can see the ground far below
I have this breath
And I hold it tight
And I keep it in my chest
With all my mgiht
I pray to God this breath will last
As it pushes past my lips
As I...

Between two lungs it was released
The breath that passed from you to me

What If...

2010-06-07T11:38:00.003-04:00

The ability to analysis oneself has brought me a perfect avenue for eternal procrastination. With introspection, I constantly question my actions, and the past will therefore inevitably haunt me. In both good and bad ways. Therefore, it got me thinking; not that I have ever stopped.

I believe that the question of "What if... " is the most dangerous and destructive one, so it be brought too far. It causes one to rethink one's life and question all historic action and the possibility of life being different from what it is now. It brings about this notion of if not A, what could it be? No pun intended. And with the universe and all its possibilities, the mind enters a state of disillusion. For one can always imagine a state that is better than what he/she has now, given the infinite choices and possibility the universe offers. What if I was born Bill Gate's child? What if I did not reject the law school? What if I had enough time for my application to allow me to get into OxBridge? All these questions are not healthy. They essentially puts your current life on hold, to contemplate the potential that you might have had. Indulging in these thoughts will just lead one to stop living essentially, because it becomes too tempting to live in one's mind of what if's.

How then, does one refrain from falling into this trap? We could live by the philosophy of not questioning the what if's, as how a vice-principal whom I interviewed tries. Unfortunately, I made the grave error of asking him what he would be had he not been a teacher.

We could be content we what we have. But how many people can actually achieve that level of contentment? Who are we to kid ourselves and claim that we can truly be 100% content. I doubt anyone can be that content, for if we did, there will be no incentive to do any thing more or less. I do believe that we can reach some form of contentment with our decisions but not absolute contentment. And therefore, perhaps we should and can work towards maximising our level of contentment.

Using theories which I am desperately trying to incorporate into my brain for the upcoming examinations, I envision myself in the future critiquing my present self. Every action I do now should be consistent to the evaluation of my future self on my present. I must not be able to generate a sense of regret in the future for the actions now. And with the introspection of retrospect, I am able to apply my actions with a higher confidence of a lower regret level. I guess that is why I am doing so much or at least trying to, during my time in the present for I know I would regret it in the future when I look back and see a person who simply lazed around and watched the world go by.

Other times, I just wish I had more time and brain power to focus on my exams.

Ken Robison nous dit en quoi l'école tue la créativité.

2010-05-28T13:18:00.001-04:00

A minute of silent for a week of sadness

2010-05-20T18:54:00.002-04:00

The circle of life can only come full circle if there were endings to beginnings. And I have heard far too many sad news within the last week. I cannot deal with it, I guess. There is always that part of me that wishes that I could freeze time and everything, keeping it stagant, pristine and yet unreal. It has always been one of my greatest fear and throughout the years I realised that I did not fear the Reaper knocking on my door, but to those whom I love so dear. Because selfish is one which I am for my departure would not concern me for I would not have a say or grief in it, it would be those whom I love or love me. On the other hand, it devastes me, the very prospect of the inevitable. It haunts me every night, like a spider dangling off the ceiling from a tread every other moment, reigniting the spark of fear when your flames finally calmed down.

It got me thinking today, on a whole different note. I thought about the human body and how we completely regenerate and replace every cell of our body after seven short years. Who was the boy who blow out the candles on the black-forest cake for his third birthday? I would think that it was me, but not a single bit of what I am now was him. Memories are formed and transferred miraculously from one molecule or atom to another, through a series of highly complex chemical and biological reactions which we are unable to understand for now. Even with communication, language, this amazing ability occurs where we can, with the use of our vocal chords, move air molecules in the form of systematic sounds to instigate a chain reaction within the brain of another, forming knowledge within him. If I had the ability to see atoms, it would see as if some atoms simply flow across two entities and shifted some other atom. Nothing more than that. Yet the human mind works on that simplicity.

What does it mean then to be alive? If I was not what I were eight years ago, am I just in a stage where I transferred knowledge from seven years before to seven years ahead, as if having a long continuous conversation with myself internally? Perhaps I am just an intermediate, moving myself forward by pulling the train tracks at the back of the train and bringing it in front, moving ever so slowly but surely. Yet there comes the question of what I am if I were but a noise, a sound made when someone else talks about me to another. Am I not in there as well, for the concept of what I am need not require any physical aspect of me to be constant or existent at all. I guess what I concluded is that people can live as themselves, in their physical form, or as memories. With memories come this powerful sense of being, being embedded into someone else's physical form, forming one entirely new combination of atoms and a whole different being all together. The passing of the physical is not as important as the preservation of those memories for it is with them that they can live forever, where they are timeless, frozen in the most pristine stages. And it is where they are truly loved from the inside.

Reflection

2010-05-15T09:48:00.002-04:00

Year after year, I look back at my posts and I laugh at myself. Feeling very much older and more mature, only to be ridiculed by future me once again. For that I am glad, as there is at least the possibility that I am growing and of course, that I am alive to see my post.

Before I enter university about two years ago, I asked myself, what I want to do. This is an extract.

Economics Society (Purely for note stealing =P)
The Comedy Society
Paintball
Singapore Society (This one is more or less a guarantee)
Photographic Society
Student Cinema ( Who can say no to cheap movies? )
Good Food Society ( Let alone good food? )
Street Vibe ( The closest to normal dance society -_-)
Warwick Volunteers

Travelling

Don't worry, I laughed when I saw it as well. Just as I will laugh when I see this again. Yet, what have I done so far? Was it what I had set out to do and what will I do next?

For once, I did not join a bulk of the societies that I wanted to.

In Year One,

I joined Singapore Society, my home away from home.

I took part in Latin and Ballroom, even in the national competition in Blackpool.

Joined Photography, did not like it.

Went for one Eastern Food appreciation session.

Took Part in a hitchhike from campus to Morocco.

Went Gliding, for free.

Took French as a module.

Travelled

In Year Two,

Became exec for Singapore Society

Became exec for Warwick Hitch

Went Skydiving

Organised charity runs and fundraising events for MDC.

Learning Driving

Took French 2 as a module

Going to University of Geneva for summer school

Going to London School of Economics for summer school

Travel

In Year Three, I want to...

Go to Latin America

Finish my driving course

Learn an instrument

Do the Great Ocean Walk in Australia during Easter

See the Northern Lights

Join an active society

Find avenues to volunteer/ make a difference

Take French 4

Organise TEDx Conference

Travel

Find myself.

There are so many things that I want to do yet so little time. Despite winning the International Student of the Year for my achievements, I still feel that I can do more and I want to.

Hopefully I will not laugh too much when rereading this.

Hey Soul Sister!

2010-05-12T05:35:00.000-04:00

Oh bummer, its Summer

2010-05-10T17:26:00.001-04:00

These few days were nothing less than stressful. Yet not of the examination anxieties, of which I am way overdue. It was the worry of my summer plans. What am I to do with three whole months allocated to me, without a structure or theme, free for me to do as my heart desires.

That was the problem. I have no idea what my heart desires. I thought so hard about it. My struggle with my summer plans was not that I could not find a place to live in, not that I lack money ( But donations are still welcomed), or anything else, other than the fact that I did not know what I wanted to do.

I asked around, seeking suggestions and opinions of what people had done and are going to do. And it surprised me that I was shocked when some of them were not going to do anything but just be at home with their family. The realisation of my shock was indeed shocking. My mental gears were now in motion, given new lubrication through the shock. For so long have I been led to lead a life filled with activities one after another, just so that I can be in motion, constantly. It was as if my clockwork world would cease had I stopped working and let the spring of my wind-up playground unwind helplessly. Even in my college days, I would pack my day so vigorously that my activities would literally overlap and I had to be two places more that once in a day. I became a machine to my mechanical motion, mindlessly in activity for the sake of doing so. Even resting, it itself was an activity of inactivity for me.

Now that it is salient to me, I need to make a choice if I am to lead my life the way I have been led to lead, or to lead an unlead life, one without the structure of my previous societal norm forced upon me. I am now unsure, and with summer, as well as bugs, approaching, I need to gain control of my life soon.

But, will I change the channel?

Amazing Post, read it!

2010-05-10T15:07:00.001-04:00

Paved With Good Intentions
December 17th, 2006 by Colin Goh and Yen Yen Woo

Our movie “Singapore Dreaming” didn’t spring out of nowhere.

In some ways, the story really began with an article we wrote waaaay back in 2000 for the Singapore International Foundation’s 10th anniversary book, where we distinguished between the “Singapore Dream” and the “Singapore Plan”…

We didn’t expect anyone to read it (does anyone really read the commemorative books of Government-linked agencies?), but somehow, it struck a chord in someone - someone who was moved (or ‘eng’) enough to circulate it on the internet where it went round like crazy.

We’re still getting mail about it, six years later, and often very confessional letters too. We’re very, very touched by everyone who’ve felt compelled to share with us their stories of heartache, success and struggle. We can’t believe this simple essay, charting our difficult move from Singapore to New York, could spark such reflection. We hope the movie sparks similar soul searching and debate.

In the meantime, why not read the original article? It’s reproduced below. A lot has changed since then, and we hope to reflect on the changes in future articles. But we believe our sentiments have stayed the same, and we have tried our best to hold on to the idealism so many years ago…

The following essay was written for Singaporeans Exposed: Navigating the Ins and Outs of Globalisation (published to commemorate the 10th Anniversary of the Singapore International Foundation, 2001, Landmark Books)

PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS:
How living in New York has illuminated for us the difference between the Singaporean Dream and the Singaporean Plan
By Colin Goh & Joyceln Woo Yen Yen

Former lawyer turned writer/cartoonist Colin Goh and educator Joyceln Woo are married and have been living in New York for the past three years.

COLIN & JOYCELN: We fell in love and in June 1998, we got married - true Singaporean style. The studio photography, the clothes, church, the dinner and the hundred of guests that we had never met before. What happened to us after that was not so typically Singaporean. Here are our stories.

JOYCELN: As a child, I could never sleep the night before the first day of school. The night before my first day of teaching was no different. I didn’t know what to expect but I knew that I was going to help kids learn, be the best teacher, and make a difference.

At my first staff meeting, the principal screened an image familiar to all new schoolteachers - the Prism. Like a magical crystal ball, the Prism told many things. It could predict how well students entering secondary school with 4 subjects at PSLE would do for the ‘O’ levels. With the Prism, we could evaluate each student’s potential grade in literature based on his/her PSLE grades and then tell if our school had “added value” to the child’s education.

Looking into the Prism, the principal announced that while she was concerned about the various aspects of development - Intellectual, Aesthetic, Moral, and Physical - “This year, our school will focus on the Intellectual.” By this, she meant that as teachers, we should all ensure that we stretched the potential of the students so that they performed “better than expected” at the ‘O’ levels. I noticed in the subsequent years that we never decided to focus on any other aspect of development. There was never an Aesthetic, Moral or Physical year.

The conversations in the staff room educated me considerably about the concerns of teachers.

“Oh, I heard you bought the new condo in Bukit Batok, that’s a good investment…”

“So which piano school are you sending your child to now?”

“Do you want to go buy diamonds with us, we are going to buy diamonds this afternoon.”

In my naïveté, this came as a shock. Why weren’t teachers talking about helping students learn or improving instruction?

And when they WERE talking about improving instruction, it was invariably:

“So what questions do you think will come out for this year’s ‘O’ levels?”

“Yes! Yes! I spotted the right questions!”

“You have to make sure your students write 5 ‘compositions’ and do 5 ‘comprehensions’ this semester.”

And when questions were asked, the answer was inevitably “Can’t change. That’s what the principal wants to see.”

The culture in the staff room was a mix of different groups:

· the Tai-Tais, women who had married well-off husbands, and who admired, respected and competed with each other for their Ferragamo shoes and Louis Vuitton bags.

· the few unmarried men who were mothered by the Tai-Tais as they were regarded as “good” men (i.e. hardworking and honest) but ironically insufficiently compelling marriage material (for why on earth would a functioning, virile, desirable man become a teacher?).

· the married men who usually lived in HDB flats (unlike the Tai-Tais and their non-teacher husbands), who generally kept to themselves.

· the older single women who were diligent in ensuring that all forms are handed in on time and helping students who need extra help get the preferred grades. They were usually more conservatively (and cheaply) dressed, and did not generally interact socially with the Tai-Tais.

· the expatriate teachers who were generally avoided by the other teachers and not expected to do very much because they either could not be trusted to do the work, were too difficult to communicate with, or were too troublesome to work with. And when they got together, they made plain their disdain for Singapore and its school system of which they were a part. Stereotypical as it may sound, those I’d met had invariably come to Singapore either to heal from a broken marriage (in which case, getting involved with a local woman usually came with the package), or had fled an unsuccessful career so they could return home and say, “I spent a few years in the Orient.”

· And the young teachers, bright-eyed and bushytailed, who believed they could make a difference, and who usually started out immensely popular with the students. They organized extra activities which they were not required to do, sat with students for long hours when they had problems, and generally tried to innovate with teaching. The Tai-Tais usually tried to matchmake the young single female teachers with single men they knew, but never the single male teachers. Seasoned teachers generally sat back and placed bets on when the neophytes would eventually burn out.

I didn’t know a single lazy teacher - everyone was extremely hardworking, taking work home, often physically running around as they hurried to different parts of the school. The teachers hardly had time to rest and reflect. It was as if we had been trained to work hard, but not to think.

What unites Secondary 4 teachers is the common goal of ensuring their students score well in the ‘O’ levels - preferably better in the subject that they teach rather than in another subject. Success is defined largely in terms of how many As produced in their class.

I remember one year distinctly - the school had done well in history and the Sec 4 history teacher was jumping up and down in glee, like she had won a war. On the other hand, the students hadn’t done as well in literature and the teacher was walking around with her head down, wishing that the bulletin board with the results didn’t place the teacher’s name next to the results of each class. While everyone congratulated the history teacher on doing well in spotting the right questions, we all didn’t know what to say to the literature teacher. We sort of patted her shoulder as if someone had died.

And for non-Sec 4 teachers, our overriding concern was assigning the required number of tests and exercises and grading them. Each semester, all our students had to submit binders containing their completed and graded assignments. And each semester, the teachers would spend several days of class time ensuring that the students had everything in place, as the submission of completed binders were a factor in a teacher’s evaluation. The binders would disappear for months because it would take the Head of Department that long to go through the binders and count how many assignments had been completed. It didn’t seem to matter if the teacher had taken 5 minutes to grade each composition or 30 minutes to make sure that the students received meaningful feedback. What was important was that the assignments were there.

I felt both angry and guilty that my idealism constantly came up against so many artificial obstacles. I felt that the obsession with bookkeeping and papering over any mistakes, real or perceived, allowed neither time nor space for innovation. Further, the mania to deliver standardized results trumped the notion of harnessing individual potential, of the teachers and the students.
Worse, I felt I could not raise these issues. There was a culture of silence.

My experiences are not about bad principals or teachers in particular. It is about ways of being and seeing that represent to me, the Singapore legacy that I have inherited. The principals and teachers that I talked about are not to blame individually - it is just so difficult to be and to see otherwise in the busy-ness, routines, and duties of our everyday lives.

I decided to leave to pursue graduate studies. Teacher education in Singapore is tilted more to the vocational than the intellectual and I wanted the space, time and knowledge to help me articulate and frame what I was thinking and feeling. On a more pragmatic level, I knew that nobody took the feelings of groundling teachers seriously and that people would probably listen to me more if I had a doctorate. I was disappointed, but still hopeful.

COLIN: I remember my first visit to New York. I had just graduated in law from University College London, and had several months before I was scheduled to take the English bar exams. Where most of my friends had chosen to do attachments with Singaporean law firms with the prudent aim of acclimatizing themselves with the career-to-come, I was paralysed with a single, terrible thought: “These are the last few months I’ll ever have to indulge my youthful passions.”

In an impulsive moment, and much to my parents’ annoyance, I blew every last cent I had and wangled myself a place in a cartooning course at Manhattan’s School of Visual Art. I had been cartooning for The New Paper for several years by then (my comic strip The Concrete Jungle continues to run in their august pages), but had no formal training.

I chose Manhattan because it was supposed to be the cynosure of the creative world, and most important of all, where Marvel and DC Comics had their headquarters. Where else would one study cartooning but in Spiderman’s territory?

Those few months were the most mind-blowing of my life. By day, I was either sequestered in a musty studio sketching Brazilian women or wandering the varied New York neighbourhoods. By night, I hung out with the other residents of the international hostel I was staying at - a diverse crowd of students from Argentina to Kazakhstan and everywhere in between. I had always thought Singapore to be a model of diversity and cosmopolitan progress, but over countless milkshake-fueled discussions in East Village hangouts, I felt like the proverbial mountain tortoise.

It was also the first time I began to question the path I was about to take. I was meeting people who were taking chances and simply following the dictates of their passion, whether it was art, dance or securities.

I had studied law largely because it was often cited it as the next best thing after medicine, which I knew I’d be awful at. Besides, SM Lee was a lawyer. What better endorsement could a Singaporean have? Despite being a published cartoonist and writer by then, I never thought about a career in the arts. It was a completely nonexistent option.

What was worse was that my parents never forced me into law. I just read their minds, I guess. Besides, all my friends seemed to be doing it too. It was the Singaporean Dream.

I also remember in my first year in law school, my parents telling me about SM Lee’s now seminal “If I were an undergraduate” speech, where he told JC students that were he a student now, he would not study law; he would be an engineer, join the civil service, then obtain an MBA and thereafter enter the private sector. SM Lee had switched from Coke to Pepsi. There was a New Dream.

For a moment, I thought, well, if I’m yesterday’s man, I might as well deviate from the path altogether. However, that year, the Singapore government decided it had too many lawyers and restricted the number of recognized overseas law schools. A rumour began spreading amongst the legal undergrad community that it wouldn’t be long before they didn’t recognize British qualifications altogether. We had to hurry and enter the Singapore workforce as soon as possible, before we were shut out. (As we now know, the rumour was unfounded, and Singapore now admits it needs more lawyers.)

Nevertheless, out of prudence, I shelved any thought of changing fields and became a barrister, then an advocate and solicitor of the Supreme Court of Singapore.

I joined a large law firm, again largely because it was commonly believed that it was good to bloody oneself in the trenches of the giants. I practiced shipping law, again an extremely prudent choice, what with our being the world’s busiest port. Further, it was perceived as exciting because shipping lawyers often had to go out to sea to arrest ships. (In truth, arresting ships is not vastly different from what loansharks do when they hang pig’s heads on debtors’ doors.)

I had a decent, almost enviable, income. I had to keep telling myself that, because the lifestyle was neither decent nor enviable.
Clients called me at 2 am in the morning. The High Court Registry nicknamed me “Mr. 5 O’Clock” because I regularly filed papers right under the guillotine, never of my own volition. My only pleasure was catching up on industry gossip while waiting in line to argue before the court registrars. There was not a single Chinese New Year holiday where I would not find myself in the office. My parents only caught fleeting glimpses of me early in the morning when I rushed to work, or late at night, when I stumbled in, surly and mentally exhausted. I saw Joyceln, then simply my girlfriend, for a few precious, stolen hours on Sundays.

But I had the job, and more important, the income. They brought me a measure of social acceptability. Parents’ friends would nod approvingly, non-lawyer friends would remark how much lower their salaries were. I made enough to afford membership in a club I never had time to step into, and for season parking in town. I had credit cards and designer ties. I could share war stories about work that might have seemed glamourous to non-lawyer friends, weaned as they were on a diet of Ally McBeal. I was in the secure embrace of the Singaporean Dream.

My epiphany came as I was descending the gangway of a very large oil tanker. At a height of ten storeys or more, the gangway abruptly slipped its moorings and fell several feet. I found myself in mid air for several terrifying seconds. Luckily the crew managed to secure it again. As I retrieved my dropped manhood, I saw bits of the vessel fall into the sea below. If I had not held tight to the chains, I would be dead.

When I told my colleagues about it, no one batted an eyelid. It was simply one of the hazards of the job, like the long hours and the symbolic fellating of clients. Some even quipped, “Who says law isn’t exciting?” But working late that night in the stale air of my office, surrounded by musty documents and lit by the sickly iridescence of my computer monitor, I knew I had to get out.
My brush with death made me reflect on my life, as I suppose all encounters with the reaper must do. I realized I was unhappy. Not weeping-and-gnashing-of-teeth unhappy, just that dull ache of uninspiration. Yet, on paper, I should have been completely content.

My conviction was reinforced when I passed my boss’s office and saw her toiling away. Much more senior, she was still keeping the crazy hours of a junior lawyer. She had a brilliant mind, equity in a giant and prestigious firm and a sizeable income, but I realized that I didn’t aspire to her lifestyle. And she was by no means unique. If I did not aspire to be my boss, then what was the point? My life stretched before my eyes, and I did not want to take another step in its direction.

I then made a classic Singaporean evaluation: if I’m going to suffer, then by god, I’ll suffer for more money. I figured American lawyers make the most money, so that’s where I’ll go. I decided the fastest way to do this would be to do a one year Master’s degree, preferably in an Ivy League university, since it would provide me ingress into the American market.

I spoke to Joyceln, and told her that the only place I wanted to go was New York, because I wanted to recapture a little of that energy I had felt years ago. Despite some reservations (New York has a not wholly undeserved reputation), we both applied to Columbia University, New York’s only Ivy League university. Miraculously, we were both accepted.

We quit our jobs, got married, emptied our bank accounts and left immediately.

JOYCELN: When applying to do my doctorate at Columbia’s famous Teachers College, I spoke to several professors at the only education institution in Singapore to find out about possible financial support. I had intended to study curriculum and technology, and felt my experience teaching as well as a stint designing educational software in an IT firm would be valuable.

However, the door was abruptly slammed in my face when I was told over the phone, “If you are not in computer science, and not a first class graduate, there is nothing we need to talk about.”

Perhaps spurred by anger, I worked like a demon at Teachers College and earned several academic awards, including a doctoral research fellowship which covered both tuition and a stipend, and came unencumbered by any bond, moral or otherwise. The myopia with which I had been treated had ironically turned out to be a blessing.

I even met with our Education Minister when he visited Teachers College. Of the questions he asked me, two stood out: “When are you going back to Singapore?” and “When are you going to have babies?” It hit me that I had never spoken to the Minister when I was teaching in Singapore. I wondered: am I valuable to the country only after I leave?

COLIN: Armed with a Masters from Columbia Law School and the grandiose title of “Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar” which Columbia had over-generously bestowed upon me, and having passed the New York bar exams, I knocked on the doors of some of the largest law firms in the world.

I recall one battery of interviews being carried out in a large hotel, where prospective lawyers would shuttle in and out of the rooms, each occupied by interviewers from the firms.

A fellow prospector asked me, “Which other profession requires you to shuttle from hotel room to hotel room?”

“Prostitution,” I remarked, and we both laughed.

It proved a prophetic statement, for when touring the offices of prospective firms, instead of feeling pumped, I felt horrified by the all-too familiar office layout, the mounds of paper spilling onto the floor, the designer suits thrown over the backs of chairs.
The last straw came when a partner of one Midtown firm patted me on the back and said, “I think you’d be perfect to help work on our port project out in Saudi Arabia!”

It suddenly hit me that I was not embarking on real change at all. I was merely rearranging the furniture. Like a good little boy, I had made all the pragmatic, sensible decisions… and it was about to push me into the abyss. I was still trying to achieve the Singaporean Dream, except overseas, and on a larger scale. Well, not exactly…

It was then that I understood the difference between the Singaporean Dream and the Singaporean Plan. And what is the difference?
I suppose the Dream has to be one of searching for peace and the liberty to conduct one’s life as one sees fit.

That’s probably what my ancestors sought when they left China: the governments of the Ming and Manchu were ruthlessly restrictive of cross-border commerce, the lifeblood of my ethnic Hokkien and Teochew forbears.

And no doubt it was the Dream, fueled by hard work and courage, that has made Singapore the indisputable commercial success it is today. And our story is a wonderful one: the Little Island That Could.

However, invariably once people attain success, they start to canonize the steps they took to achievement. This is how Dreams become Plans, and how one hegemony replaces another: the search for peace and liberty becomes get into a good school, then a good university, then a stable job, then buy property and stock. The problem is, then what?

There is nothing inherently unique about the Singaporean Dream. The American Dream of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is substantially the same. (And especially in the upper middle class, the American Dream is fast becoming a Plan too: prep school, Ivy League, Wall Street.)

But what to me gives America more hope is that they still celebrate mavericks; they may never find happiness, but their liberty to pursue it is sacred.

My experience in Singapore was, however, very different. There were always people telling you what and how you should do things, and imposing penalties for deviation. There were ‘right’ schools, ‘right’ professions, ‘right’ strategies.

Of course there are those who would argue that ultimately, the choice is one’s own and that there is nothing to prevent one from doing what he or she wants in Singapore. After all, isn’t it one’s fault for caving in to peer pressure? I would humbly submit that while theoretically true, such an argument betrays an ignorance of the combined workings of hegemony and power.

The issue is how expansive the reigning ideology is. In Singapore, the dominant view is to do whatever works (whatever that may be, and regardless of who it worked for). In New York (I won’t pretend that America is homogeneous), the prevailing view is that everyone should find what makes him or herself unique, and capitalize on that.

Manhattan is smaller than Singapore, yet there is space for both Wall Street Wizards and Alphabet City Shamans to coexist. Despite occasional border skirmishes, there is recognition that the city would be a lot poorer if everyone marched to the same drum.
An overly romantic myth? Perhaps. But that such a myth could persist in a hostile and cynical environment like New York, was encouraging to me. And anyway, the ‘fulfillment’ promised by the Singapore Plan was equally illusory. In a competition of myths, I chose the one that gave the most latitude to one’s passions over the one that indulged one’s fears.

JOYCELN: I think the most striking thing about New York is that so many people here are in transition. They don’t know where they are going to be or what they are going to be doing in 6 months’ time. But they are all working towards their individual dreams, in their own individual way, and not according to some mandated blueprint or destination.

The receptionist in my building is also an actor. I recently met a waitress who was a graduate student in philosophy. I have classmates who are not only still at work, but who also shoot films whenever they can.

Until New York, I didn’t know I could be poor and still volunteer to help others who are more needy than me - not tomorrow, or next year, or when my income reaches a certain level, but today.

I now tutor the children in my neighborhood who need help but can’t afford to pay. I didn’t know how great it feels to be able to write, and express my anger, worries, and joys. I didn’t know that if I am dissatisfied by policies, I can get together with others to express it.

Just last week, there was a public school that was boycotting a state-mandated test because the test was taking away precious instructional time. What a novel idea! I didn’t know I was not alone, that there are other Singaporeans who think like I do, who want to make a difference but who are afraid and are so used to being silent.

COLIN: The insidiousness is this: in adhering to the Singaporean Plan, I was acting pragmatically, but ultimately, dishonestly.

As late as the interlude between pupilage and practice, I had written a play that was performed for the Singapore Arts Festival Fringe, for which the British Council had sponsored me to attend the Royal Court Theatre in London’s prestigious theatre school. Further, throughout my years of practice, I also managed to continue cartooning The Concrete Jungle. While I enjoyed writing and drawing, never for a second did I think this might be a career. Worse, I felt compelled to downgrade their importance in my life. First was money, then pleasure. It was simply un-Singaporean to think one could get pleasure without money, or that working should be pleasurable.

But now I refuse to postpone my dreams any further, and shelve them under some misguided notion of pragmatism. How often was I told as a child by my elders, “wait till you grow up,” “wait till after exams”, “wait till after you graduate”. I do not desire to wait until I retire. I might not make it that far. I refuse to be a walking mid-life crisis in the making.

But living one’s dreams is difficult because it is a lone undertaking. There is no such thing as shared dreams; they are personal creatures. And while my peers are making partner and buying cars, I live in rented student accommodation and scatter my work to the ocean of publications, hoping for a bite. Thus far, I have only been published a couple of times, far from being enough to pay the rent. Yet I do not feel despair. Trite as it may sound, I recognize that life is about the journey, and not the destination.

JOYCELN: In Singapore, a considerable amount of talk in education has been about continuing to be competitive in the global marketplace. Singapore seems to have done well in this respect - we have consistently come in first in the International Math and Science Study.

But in tandem with the fear of losing out on notional global competitiveness is the willingness of many educators, policy-makers, and parents to “train” the young to delay their dreams, desires and play for a future goal, to “wait till after you finish your homework,” to “wait till after the exams” while at the same time plying them with material bribes.

On the global front, it is ironic that the US is trying to emphasize academic standards while Japan, who also finished in the top ranks of the International Math and Science Study, is trying to cut down on the curriculum to allow more time for play. Both cite global competitiveness as their reason for doing so. One wonders as a country, whether we are listening to the everyday experiences of our own children, parents and teachers, or simply responding to some speculative construction of what is needed to be competitive.

Can anyone say for sure what’s needed? Only a few months ago, countries cried out for schools to produce more dotcommers. A look at the rollercoaster line that is the NASDAQ should be cause for circumspection.

There are signs that children in Singapore are straining under this ethos. Recent newspapers reports have reported that parents are spending an inordinate amount of money and time to send their children for after-school tuition so that they can achieve better results; scoring high marks in tests and exams have been found to be a top concern for students; the average 10 year-old has been found to spend 6 hours in school and up to 8 hours on homework and tuition each day, and, students have been reported to experience physical reactions such as diarrhoea and asthma attacks during or just before exams. Is this education, or child labor? Has scoring well in tests become the reason for tests themselves? How do teachers, parents, and teachers begin to imagine our lives differently?

COLIN: I think it is important not to wholly discredit the Singapore Plan. It worked for some and may yet work for others. However, it is also true that the road to hell is paved with good intentions and that it is always an error to confuse what is with what ought to be.

JOYCELN: Consider these 2 stories. Which is closer to yours?

You wake up everyday and work from Monday to Friday, and often, Saturday too. If you finish work early, you and your partner go to your parents’ place for dinner and see your child for a few hours. If you work late, you buy a packet of char kway teow from the hawker centre but eat it at home because it’s too warm to eat there. You’re not crazy about the job but you know that if you keep at it, you can afford a car in 3 years’ time, and in 5 years’ time, buy a condo close to the primary school you want to send your kid to. Your conversations with people are either for the purpose of networking, work, or for familial obligations you cannot avoid. On weekends, you play golf with your friends at your country club or watch a movie with your partner. Once a year, you go on a ten day vacation to New York, London, or Paris, and when your children are big enough, Disneyland.

Alternatively, you wake up and you have no idea what is going to happen today, tomorrow, 6 months or a year later. Ironically, because of this uncertainty, all possibilities exist for you. You can be the Prime Minister of Singapore, you can make a movie, you can cook a meal you have never cooked before, eat at a place you have never eaten before, you can color your hair red, you can skip instead of walk, you can volunteer at the school you have always wanted to volunteer at, you can write a book, or you can have a baby even though you don’t have a maid. You have conversations with people who set your heart palpitating and your mind on fire. Your weekday is not so different from your weekend because everyday you are thinking, creating, and more important, imagining.

Most of us recognize the first story and its pursuit of the 5 Cs of “cash, condo, car, country club, credit card.” It is the Plan, which imposes a conclusion on you, and you work in order to make all the pieces fit. A bus stop advertisement I saw recently said it best: “We spend all our youth chasing money, and when we attain it, we spend all our money chasing youth.”

A Dream, on the other hand, carries you on its wings to worlds that your heart and mind have never known.

COLIN: My fault was accepting that the Plan would naturally work for me. One doesn’t have to accept a legacy one inherits. I was complicit in my unhappiness. I did not question enough, whether it was my elders, the government, newspapers, consultants, whatever. I foolishly let others make up my mind for me. I rather fear I am not alone in this folly.

If there is any blame to be laid, it is the upholding of a compliant, unquestioning culture; that some people should never be challenged because of age, status or whatever. It is not solely the establishment’s fault; all political parties are entitled to play politics. But it is wholly our fault for not fighting for what we believe in.

COLIN & JOYCELN: Criticism and disagreement is not treason, and our words emanate as much from our dissatisfaction with, as our love for Singapore. We simply believe that we are more than our legacy. This is the dream of immigrants everywhere, whether they arrive in Singapore or on Ellis Island.

Postscript from Colin & Yen: Well, that was written yonks ago, and things have definitely changed, even if our beliefs haven’t. We hope to write an update to “Paved” soon, detailing how we went about trying to make our dreams work for us. So please check back often!

http://www.colinandyenyen.com/wordpress/paved-with-good-intentions/

I want

2010-05-10T14:06:00.001-04:00

Rome

2010-05-08T12:31:00.000-04:00

2010-05-08T10:14:00.000-04:00

Stephen Fry on Self-Pity

2010-05-01T17:30:00.001-04:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRypc92X5Xc&playnext_from=TL&videos=eTM-bdNj3J8&feature=feedrec

Heard too much of "Too Much"?

2010-03-07T18:12:00.004-05:00

Have you ever heard the saying, "Too much of (something) is bad for you?".

Sad to admit, it must be true. By very definition of it. Too much is but only the point with exceeds ideal. Anything more than ideal has to be be bad for you or else it would not be a deviation from the ideal or the point of which it should not exceed. Or perhaps a new ideal point would have to arise, and thus, it is no longer too much. So what is too much? It is most obviously bad for you.

2010-02-19T17:06:00.000-05:00

Oh the slow afternoon sun. Hanging so drowsily in the day. Things come to an end and I embark back home. Mindless bodies on the carriage, daily routines must go on. Oh so quietly does the silent song plays. In my castle I rework on my puzzle. My answer to life shall it be called. Piece by piece I tirelessly place, trying to find a fit, whatever it may be. I cannot see the true figure of my making. Only slight hints and teases. And when I am so close to figuring out the meaning of it all, Life throws a ball and displaces all my work and pain. All for nothing, I screamed. Piece by piece they are picked up, struggle to go back. Yet, I cannot remember the original work, for it was destroyed with all the hurt. I tried oh I tried. The images keep eluding me, taunting me, whispering into my tender ears. Can I not be but an ignorant fool, enjoying pleasures in oblivion? Who is to say a fool’s joy is any less than that of a well-thought man, one with many gifts and of too many times, sorrows. Night is falling and I am still undone. It refuses to be fixed and time is lacking. I have to go to be now. The darkness claws my veins and blood seeps out, coating my body with a protection from which I do not know. Shiver comes without fail, entering my skin, reminding me of the puzzle not yet solved. Soon, as always, my mind stops and the silent song begins.
My skin. Tenderised with the warmth of the Sun and Life. Wounds healed by the love of day and of morning breeze. Never have my eyes been greeted by such splendid light but of that of everyday. The heart which runs of love pumps blood of joy into the rest. I become whole again and ready to leave. Ever so ignorantly I step out of the box, into the wonderful light, leaving the darkness. Only to return again. A day in the cell, a night in...

On a side note, don’t you hate waking up in the morning with someone beside you and you have no idea who they are, how they got there, and why they are dead?

2010-01-20T18:18:00.001-05:00

RECENTLY a suspicious-looking cardboard box was found outside a Territorial Army centre in Bristol, Police magazine reports. The TA called the police, who called an Army bomb disposal unit, which blew the box up - to find it full of leaflets on how to deal with suspicious-looking packages.

2010-01-20T17:10:00.001-05:00

I almost wish we were butterflies and liv'd but three summer days--three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain.

- John Keats, Letter to Fanny Brawne, July 1, 1819

Not the best thing to do to a person who rejected you

2010-01-12T10:28:00.001-05:00

No more Sugar for me

2010-01-12T10:16:00.002-05:00

I can't believe I am saying this but I think the Sugarbabes make for the prefect example for existence and identity arguments.

Does the Sugarbabes remain the Sugarbabies when all their original members are completely replaced by new ones? If not, what are they now?

When the first member left and a new one took over, are they still the Sugarbabes?

When did the Sugarbabes officially cease to exist or has it always existed?

Is existence a progression of loss and gain of members, or once one original is lost the identity is lost?

Did the Sugarbabes change when the last member of the group left?

Why is this so hard? We never had this problem with the Spice Girls

A new year

2010-01-08T18:45:00.002-05:00

Feet shuffling
Sounds reappearing
Things are moving
Planes are landing
Things are becoming normal
Time to resume
Pick up where I left off
Time to put on that smile.

"I Don't Believe You" - Pink

2010-01-06T16:00:00.000-05:00

Lyrics:
I dont mind it
I dont mind at all
Its like youre the swing set
And Im the kid that falls
Its like the way we fight
The times I cry
We come to blows
And every night
The passions there
So its gotta be right
Right?

Refrain:

No I dont believe you
When you say dont come around here no more
I wont remind you
You said we wouldnt be apart
No I dont believe you
When you say you dont need me anymore
So dont pretend to
Not love me at all

I dont mind it
I still dont mind at all
Its like
one of those bad dreams
When you cant wake up
Looks like
youve given up
Youve had enough
But I want more
No I won´t stop
'Cause I just know
Youll come around
Right?

Refrain:

No, I dont believe you
When you say dont come around here no more
I wont remind you
You said we wouldnt be apart
No I dont believe you
When you say you dont need me anymore
So dont pretend to
Not love me at all

Just dont stand there and watch me fall
'Cause I, 'cause I still dont mind at all

Its like
the way we fight
The times I cry
We come to blows
And every night
The passion's there
So its got to be right,
Right?

Refrain:

No I dont believe you
When you say dont come around here no more
I wont remind you
You said we wouldnt be apart
No I dont believe you
When you say you dont need me anymore
So dont pretend to
Not love me at all

Cause I dont believe you

2010-01-04T13:31:00.001-05:00

2010-01-04T13:21:00.001-05:00

2010-01-04T13:20:00.002-05:00

Sand Art

2009-12-31T13:24:00.000-05:00

The last line should read, "You are always by my side"

Dreaming with two dreams

2009-12-30T13:40:00.002-05:00

Dreaming can be quite a traumatic experience.

I dreamt that I was in a school/hostel and something was happening. I was leaving or trying to. Yet I could not seem to get pass certain doorways or rooms. I just did not have the mental capacity to conjure them up, I suppose.

Halfway through trying to leave, I realised I was dreaming or so to speak. I felt that the world was artificial and I needed to wake up. Yet I had no recollection of who I was in real life, no seed or anchor to pull me back to my current reality. I tried so desperately to mimic the action of opening my eyes, hoping it will jolt me awake.

Only this time, I went into another location, another scenario. And this time, I was not sure whether it was a dream. I could not differentiate it any longer. I became paranoid and started looking for signs. Up against the wall, I began to press my hand and slowly sweep across the wall and the various hanging objects. I could feel them. I could feel the lumps in the badly painted wall, the wooden frames of my supposed family photo and the caution and redness of the fire alarm. The smell of the room was obvious as well. It was not of the lavender my room has now, but of another scent.

That was when, I suppose my character went into a state of insanity, unable to tell what is real anymore. It was only when he tried again, to mimic the action of waking up that I finally woken up to where I am now. But I am no longer sure...

On a side note, I tried to go to the gym today, in spite of the immigration officer's claim of me being fat or at the least fatter, but it was closed early due to holidays. I ended up buying a pack of crisps and watching How I Met Your Mother. C'est la vie.

I can no longer enjoy the sunsets

2009-12-07T12:36:00.003-05:00

Cleaning my room

2009-11-29T07:21:00.002-05:00

I hate the idea of cleaning my room. The clear stuff that are there. Why can't it be as it is? Ignored.

I am not a fan of clearing that pile of rubbish that I chucked aside and hid under a sheet of cloth. It looked fine from the outside. Really, it does. Why do I have to clear it, can't I just pretend it is not there?

My room was so much nicer when things were hidden, even the smell was cleaner. Now it feels tired. It drains me. I feel that I have to keep being busy or keep talking to people or be in the public to avoid having the clean my room.

All the photos I have of me putting up a smile are as it is.

Cleaning my room is such hard work. I wish, I wish I could just sleep it all away. But I am so tired of always being tired.

Google Chrome OS

2009-11-20T13:06:00.000-05:00

Shame is not in my dictionary

2009-11-04T19:47:00.001-05:00

Being shameless that I am, I am going to announce that my new address is

46 Arden Street
Earlsdon
Coventry
CV5 6FD
UK

Through the dark

2009-10-12T13:42:00.002-04:00

When I saw their backs, it was it.

This song was one of the first songs I heard after they left.

The first few lines meant quite a bit.

And perhaps they never will...

2009-09-14T10:09:00.000-04:00

You hear but do not listen,
Express but do not comprehend.
Bleeding
Physical, Mental, Spiritual.
Alone.

Amazing Pure Human Vocal

2009-09-13T00:25:00.001-04:00

Daphne and Apollo - Nerina Pallot

2009-09-08T12:20:00.002-04:00

Into my I am going to watch a concert so I will listen to all the songs mood.

Nerina's songs can soothingly heartbreaking for some reason.

Direct from Wikipedia,

The curse of Apollo, the god of the sun and music, was brought onto him when he insulted the young Eros for playing with bow and arrows.

Apollo was a great warrior and said to him, "What have you to do with warlike weapons? Leave them for hands worthy of them. Behold the conquest I have won by means of them over the vast serpent who stretched his poisonous body over acres of the plain! Be content with your torch, child, and kindle up your flames, as you call them, where you will, but presume not to meddle with my weapons."

The petulant Eros took two arrows, one of gold and one of lead. With the leaden shaft, to incite hatred, he shot the nymph Daphne and with the golden one, to incite love, he shot Apollo through the heart. Apollo was seized with love for the maiden, and she in turn abhorred Apollo. In fact, she spurned her many would-be lovers preferring instead woodland sports and exploring the woods. Her father demanded that she get married so that she may give him grandchildren. She begged her father to let her remain unmarried.

He warned her saying, "Your own face will forbid it."

Apollo continually followed her, begging her to stay, but the nymph continued her flight. They were evenly matched in the race until Eros intervened and helped him gain upon Daphne.

Seeing that Apollo was bound to catch her, she called upon her father, "Help me, Peneus! Open the earth to enclose me, or change my form, which has brought me into this danger!"

Suddenly her skin turned into bark, her hair became leaves, and her arms were transformed into branches. She stopped running as her feet became rooted to the ground. Apollo embraced the branches, but even the branches shrank away from him. Since Apollo could no longer take her as his wife, he vowed to tend her as his tree, and used his powers of eternal youth to render her ever green. Since then the leaves of the Bay laurel tree have never known decay.

Venus loved Dapne and so did Apollo
So why can't I make myself like a tree?
Why must I burn daily and nightly
When nobody's running - well not after me.
Must I wait, must I pray.
For something good to come my way?
[ Find more Lyrics on www.mp3lyrics.org/Au3C ]

Oh Daphne was stupid! Oh, how could she do it?
How could she turn a prince from her door?
'Cause if you came calling, boy i'd let you in
But you don't come calling, not anymore.
So I wait, and I grow old
When i'm dead, then you'll know.
Do you know?
You know.

Warwick Summer Games

2009-09-06T02:29:00.003-04:00

It was a day of sports, teamwork and fun. Many participants went home feeling accomplished with trophies and multiple tanlines to boot.

For the non-sporty fans, we got to meet up with friends from the past and freshers got to mingle and know more about one another.

On a side note, I realised that my lack of sports has allowed me to gain a few kilograms while I am in Singapore. Great, not I cannot blame the shrinking pants anymore.

In picture: Home gains > 2kg.

Come dine with me, Not

2009-09-04T03:06:00.000-04:00

Along my daily routine of eating and sleeping, I often digress and do random useless stuff like watching the tele. Keeping up with my pseudo-british roots, I caught up with "Come dine with me", a Channel 4 production, one of the few show I actually like. Any show would be preferred to Big Brother which thankfully ended its run. There is justice in this world.

Being lazy, I ripped off the explanation of the show from the all powerful Wikipedia.

Come Dine With Me is a Channel 4 television programme shown in the United Kingdom, first broadcast in January 2005. The show has four (originally five) amateur chefs competing against each other hosting a dinner party for the other contestants. Each competitor then rates the host's performance with the winner winning a £1,000 cash prize. An element of comedy is added to the show through comedian Dave Lamb, who provides a dry and "bitingly sarcastic" narration.

While watching the show, I witness the ugly side of the human race. The competitors were suppose to rate the dinner they just enjoyed in a range from 1 to 10, 10 being the best. A contestant Isabelle Goldstein, in a vicious bid to win, rated everyone with a low 1,2 or 3. She claimed that one dinner was so wonderful and almost perfect, in fact she took home some of the food, yet gave him a low score of 3 out of 10. Right. As such, no one could top her score because the rest of them were nice human beings.

This caused me to wonder if I would have done the same. Knowing the circumstance, definitely no. I would know that everyone I knew and people whom I have yet to meet would have a possibility to watch it. How could I do such an act for a mere 1000 pounds. And why would I tell it blatantly to the camera. One reason I can never understand why people who plot on Survivor tell the world how conniving they are.

Would I have done it if I knew I could get away with it? That is a different and interesting story.

Followup,

Contestant Isabelle Goldstein, a week 7 guest who consistently marked her competitors lowly, was asked to re-mark on day 5 in order to "avoid public humiliation"

You are a menace in Venice

2009-09-03T12:05:00.001-04:00

Interesting. I have always thought that Venice was in danger of becoming an artifical sugar-coated version of the great city it once was.
Herein lies the dilemma that one must face; With limited time on this Earth and an overwhelming population eager to visit Venice, should you stop the disintegration of the city's culture and citizen's lifestyle by not being a tourist in their midst? By not visiting Venice, you are reducing the impact of tourism and its negative externalities on the people. On the flip side, you are depriving yourself from viewing the city and its grandeur.

Once they reach the tipping point, there is no turning back and Venice will become the disneyland the tour agencies are so pleased to see. Almost like a prisoner's dilemma I would say.

To go or not to go. That is the question.

I went, so oh well.

Venice plots ban on day-trippers to stop overcrowding

Venice is considering a radical scheme under which it would restrict the number of visitors to the city by banning day-trippers, helping it cope with the crush of mass tourism.

By Nick Squires in Rome

The Italian city's beleaguered authorities are calling for "drastic decisions" to stop Venice from being strangled by the daily influx of hordes of visitors who crowd its narrow alleyways and Renaissance squares.

One proposal is that visitors will have to have hotel reservations to secure entry.

Enrico Mingardi, who is in charge of public transport for the lagoon city, is proposing that tourists should have to pre-book their visits.

"There's a need to study a project where there is a cap on the number of visitors," he told the newspaper La Nuova Venezia. "If you have a booking, you can come in; if not, you can't".

"There is a physical threshold, above which we cannot go," he said, adding that Venetians could "no longer tolerate the discomforts" of mass tourism.

Mr Mingardi did not say how the booking system would be enforced, or whether tourists without hotel, museum or boat trip reservations would be turned back.

But he said the council would initiate discussions with tourist associations and residents' groups this week to explore the idea.

A council spokesman said: "The idea of setting a limit on the number of tourists has been discussed on and off for the last 20 or 30 years.

"It's always proved very controversial because it goes against the democratic principle that anyone should be able to come to Venice."

A booking system would only add to the sense that "La Serenissima" is becoming an architectural and historical theme park devoid of real life.

Its population is expected in the next few weeks to dip beneath 60,000 – a level which some residents see as the crucial number of inhabitants needed for Venice to survive as a functioning city, rather than as a vast open air museum.

More on time, God, dreams

2009-09-03T11:56:00.000-04:00

My dream was multi-fold and I shall slowly type and post them out.

The second part was how God can be scientifcally eternal once it is in the fourth dimension and beyond.

In the fourth dimension, time is seen in a single frame. To draw an example, if I were to take pictures of a monkey walking across a room, I will end up with about 10 photos for the 10 seconds it took.

In the fourth dimension, time is compressed into a single frame and I will only need one shot and one photograph to be able to see the monkey from one end of the room to the other end. This is different from the "blurred motion image" you seen in photos today. It is something out of this world and hard or almost impossible to imagine because we are in this dimension of limited paradigm.

Therefore, if a being was in the fourth dimension, he/she would be able to transcend all of time and be there for start to end. There will not be aging because it is beyond the boundaries of time. Any dimensions about which will also be devoided or shall I say, free of the constraints of time. Hence the idea of an eternal being could be possible and scientically justified.

Perhaps the idea of heaven or hell can come in. What if life in this dimension was just as it is. Life in this dimension. After which death is a process where we move on to the next, "eternal" dimension and we deem that as heaven or hell?

My dreams are incoherent and do stop me when I am rambling nonsense.

The smart people got there first

2009-09-03T05:09:00.002-04:00

I spent my insomnia thinking about time and the fourth dimension. Soon this idea lunged forward and jolted me. The tesseract is a shadow representation of the fourth dimension in our world. In order to extrapolate the fourth dimension from the third, in a order of right angles, we can use curves hence allowing a total of six ninety degree angles to be at a point. A curved cube could still exist in the third dimension hence we could effectively map the fourth out without losing any valuable information. Pondering over how exciting this theory may be, I got up this morning to read more about it.

And I found this in Wikipedia.

They got there first!

Love Will Tear Us Apart - Nerina Pallot

2009-09-02T09:55:00.001-04:00

"Love Will Tear Us Apart"

When routine bites hard and ambitions are low,
And resentment rides high, but emotions won't grow,
And we're changing our ways - taking different roads.

Love, love will tear us apart again.
Love, love will tear us apart again.

Why is this bedroom so cold?
You turn away on your side.
Is my timing that flawed, our respect run so dry?
Yet, there's still this appeal that we've kept through the years.

And love, love will tear us apart again.
Love, love will tear us apart again.

You cry out in your sleep - all my failings exposed.
I've got a taste in my mouth as desperation takes hold.
Is it something so good? Just can't function no more.
Yeah, something so good. Just can't function no more.

And love, love will tear us apart again.
Love, love will tear us apart again.
Love, love will tear us apart.
Love will tear us apart.
Love will tear us apart again.
Love...

Thank You.

2009-09-01T03:34:00.000-04:00

Thank you.

Birthdays are just another day for me. Yes, I do cherish the fact that I have survived for exactly 7300 days as of yesterday. But I do that all the time. Due to circumstance and my ever innate and overwhelming fear of death by any ordinary daily objects, I treasure each day, everyday regardless of the occasion.

Yet somehow yesterday was slightly different from the rest. It was not because of the message people send me, or wrote on my facebook wall ( Some of which were the "oh-its-his-birthday-occuring-to-facebook" messages). There was something different.

I am not a fan of birthdays, partly because of my ever failing attempts to blow out candles without marking the entire cake with bodily fluids. It was mostly ceremonial and my family never did believe in it.

Yet, when I saw my friends, some of whom I had not seen for so long, there was this surreal feeling about it. Not because I still meant something, but because it allowed for the perfect avenue to catch up and reminisce. Birthdays are never celebrated by friends of the future, but of the past and present. And I take joy in celebrating that.

Now, the day, as it is for me, is no longer the celebration that I am aging, balding and gaining weight ( all of which are not ENTIRELY true), but of the ties that I have made throughout my life, the relationships and laughter, even sadness we shared.

For that I am grateful. And I would love to thank everyone that made it happen. Even those who forgot that my birthday was on the 31/08. Thank you! =)

P.S. Anyway, for those who forgot, I still welcome cheques. =P

A Photographic Journey

2009-09-01T03:21:00.009-04:00

Curves

Isolation

Smile

Intertwining Lights

Vivocity, Singapore

Complementary Contrast

Completion

I like how the reflection completes the shape of the pillar.

City of Fire

Orchard Ion, Singapore

Push the Button

Boredom

2009-08-31T10:37:00.000-04:00

And this College Humour video of "Website Story" prevented me from embedding it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtPb8g8Jl6I

Madtv - Webster's Dictionary

2009-08-23T11:32:00.000-04:00

HAHAHAHAHAHA

The Guild - Do You Wanna Date My Avatar

2009-08-23T10:32:00.002-04:00

A slight deviation from the serious note before.

The video they made are quite cool. Especially the regular shows they make that are less than 5 minutes long each. You can watch them on youtube or www.watchtheguild.com. I leave you now with the hot gamer girl.

Notice for the Sitting of Parliament on 18th of August 2009

2009-08-22T05:00:00.001-04:00

Notice for the Sitting of Parliament on 18^th of August 2009

MOTION

By Mr Viswa Sadasivan (Nominated Member)

NATION BUILDING TENETS:

That this House reaffirms its commitment to the nation building tenets as enshrined in the National Pledge when debating national policies, especially economic policies.

_______________

Preamble

1. Mr Speaker, Sir, I thank you for giving me the opportunity to move this motion.

2. Mr Speaker, Sir, I beg to move, “That this House reaffirms its commitment to the nation building tenets as enshrined in the National Pledge when debating national policies, especially economic policies.

3. My inspiration to speak on this subject came about a month and a half ago when I was invited by BG Tan Chuan Jin, Chairman of NDP EXCO 2009 to write a piece on what the National Pledge means to me. Before that, BG Tan and I had discussed at some length the meaning of the Pledge and why it is important that it is re-energised; become a living, breathing mantra for all Singaporeans. We lamented, with a good measure of alacrity, the way we used to “get it over and done with” in school when we had to recite it – a tradition, we gathered, is held up even today! We talked about how beautifully crafted our Pledge was, and what a waste it is that its meaning and power is not understood enough or reflected on, let alone garnered for rallying us as a people.

4. It was when I was writing my thoughts for the essay that I realised how powerful the Pledge was, and how much it means to me, in spirit. The process of writing the essay was cathartic as an avalanche of memories came rushing at me – memories, good and not so pleasant, that formed the basis of my belief system as a citizen of this country, my home. The National Pledge, I realised, contained the basis of who we are and what makes us unique. In fact, it holds the key to our success as a peaceful, harmonious and certainly economically successful nation. And it struck me that the National Pledge is the only document, if we could call it one, that cannot be amended by a two-thirds majority in Parliament! In effect, our National Pledge is akin to the Bill of Rights in the United States of America; it defines who we are; what we aspire to remain regardless of the realities of a fast changing world; it is about what we stand for – our credo.

5. It has often been said that Singapore does not have an ideology – that pragmatism is our mantra and modus operandi. But if we examine our National Pledge closely, it is our national ideology – a set of inalienable values, precepts that demand adherence in the face of the lure of pragmatism. It is designed to serve as the moral compass for us as a people – we lose it, ignore it, or misabuse it to our peril.

6. The stability provided by the National Pledge gave us, especially our government, the confidence to take decisive steps, make quantum leaps, rapidly shift gears or change directions to keep us moving with the currents – knowing very well the boat is even keeled and won’t capsize. As such, the value of the Pledge comes into sharp relief not when the going is good, but when we are facing tough challenges, be it the economic challenges we are up against now, or SARS a few years ago. During these times, when scarcity is the order of the day, the centripetal forces of race, religion, language, and class go into overdrive – our instincts and impulses become primordial. It is during these times that our mettle, our resilience as a nation is tested. We did well during the SARS outbreak, and we appear to be working together to get through the current economic crisis. But the fault lines remain. What if we were to face a national crisis today that is not based on economic or health issues but on race and religion, like the race riots of 1964? Are we confident our national impulses are entrenched enough to override the divisive, primordial instincts? If the situation worsens and our livelihood and survival as a country is in doubt, would we have enough Singapore citizens, let alone PRs, digging in our heels come what may because this is our home? I wish I could say with absolute certainty the answer is “yes”. The truth is, I am not sure.

7. Look at results of a scientific survey done in 2007 by the Singapore Polytechnic. 800 Singaporean youth – between the ages of 15 and 20 – were polled. They all went to Singapore schools and attended National Education sessions, as required. 37% of the youths polled said categorically that they are not patriotic. More than 50% said they would migrate if given a chance. The findings of this survey are not very different from many others conducted with youths, younger working adults, overseas Singaporeans and even National Servicemen. I read a July 2009 article in AsiaOne.com that quoted a major survey by Experiences 2009 (the organiser of an annual US education convention) that highlighted that of the 153 Singaporean students studying overseas polled, 79% prefer to work in the USA after they graduate. Earlier this year, at Chung Cheng High School’s 70^th anniversary celebration, Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong revealed that more than one-fifth of the students who performed well in their “A” level examination between 1996 and 1999 are no longer working in Singapore today, a decade later. Even though these findings may not be surprising for some of us, they must certainly be a cause of concern.

8. To me, the biggest challenge we face, as a nation, is not so much the sluggish GDP growth or flight of capital. It is not about whether we have enough able bodies here to create economic prosperity, but whether we have enough hearts and souls committed enough to make this home, not just a convenient place to live, work and play. We need to ask ourselves if we are an “Inc” or a nation. If we are content to define ourselves as an “Inc” then our focus should be on the top and bottom lines and ensuring shareholder returns in quantifiable terms. But if we want to be a nation – then it is imperative that we balance quantifiable outcomes and technical KPIs with emotion-based outcomes such as racial and religious harmony, and peace and happiness. To achieve this, society needs to place a premium on and reward commitment, comradeship and conviction – qualities that provide the resilience needed to face a sea of troubles; that remain consistent regardless of the fortunes of the day; that form the ultimate buffer against uncertainties during tumultuous times. This is a key point highlighted most lucidly by Prime Minister Lee two days ago in his National Day Rally speech.

9. The tenets of the National Pledge point to what we need to do to build and sustain this resilience, this tenacity, this self-efficacy. But it will not serve us well if we merely pay lip-service to the Pledge and recite it as a ritual without internalising what it means.

10. We need to give our National Pledge the importance due to it as the ultimate glue that binds us as a people, a nation. We got a sense of the emotive power of the Pledge during National Day this year, when at 8.22 in the evening, the whole nation breathed it together. Many of my friends told me how emotional a moment it was for them and their family – and here you are talking about some who you could not possibly imagine had the capacity to think beyond the sex appeal of numbers and digits! My 10 year old daughter, Maya, told me she felt she was saying the Pledge for the first time because it was said with feeling. My wife told me being at this year’s NDP gave her hope, and a stronger belief that, deep down, we are one united people. My business partner, who is a PR, said it made her feel Singaporean and proud of it. The emphasis on the Pledge cannot be incidental or utilitarian. We need to commit to ensuring that every time each of us recites the National Pledge, we say it with commitment. For this, we must ensure all citizens from young understand it beyond the words. Most importantly, we in Parliament must lead the way by demonstrating that no national policy or Bill will be passed if it goes contrary to the letter or spirit of the Pledge. Better still, if we can reaffirm our commitment to the tenets of the National Pledge – that they have primacy when considering national policies, especially economic policies.

11. So, what are the key tenets of the National Pledge? Mr Speaker, Sir, allow me now to take the House through each of the 4 key tenets and share my thoughts on what they mean to me, how we have fared and what we need to address more, going forward.

The 4 key tenets of the Pledge

12. Let me start with the idea of Citizenship – “We the citizens of Singapore….”

13. Born in 1959, the year we gained self-ruling status, I have had the opportunity to experience the steady, sometimes tumultuous, evolution of Singapore – and to a large extent this has shaped my idea of citizenship and commitment to country. Seeing the strapping, young Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew speak at the Fullerton Square arguing passionately for merger with Malaysia, and then the excitement of Merdeka Day on the 16^th of September 1963 when we became part of Malaysia, and learning that the Hibiscus was our national flower; witnessing the racial riots as a boy, experiencing the tense environment of the curfew; trying to figure out why our Prime Minister was in tears as he talked on black and white TV on the 9^th of August about our independence – something that should normally call for celebrations; I remember the feeling of pride, even as a boy, as I watched our first National Day Parade on TV in 1966 with President Yusof Bin Ishak in full military ceremonial attire reviewing the parade at the padang; then in 1967, the obvious trepidation parents felt when their sons were called up for National Service – how quite a few of my friends and family chose to leave the country because of it; the British announcing their pull-out and many losing their jobs including my father and uncle; the single-minded drive to industrialise and with it the creation of jobs and modernisation of the country – the transport system, buildings, proliferation of HDB flats, and at a personal level when I was in secondary one, having to vacate the old Raffles Institution (built in 1823 by Sir Stamford Raffles) when we marched as a school to the spanking new premises replete with an Olympic sized swimming pool at Grange Road. What dramatic changes we have seen, and benefited from in just 50 years – that Prime Minister Lee illustrated during the National Day Rally. It wasn’t just nostalgic for me. I felt this surge of pride, as I am sure many other Singaporeans did during the visual treat by our PM with his witty asides!

14. National Day, especially in recent years, has been an occasion for me to reflect on how far we have come as a nation, a people – how we moved from black and white to colour and now different shades of each colour. How from being pre-occupied with getting water in our homes and sanitation, and ensuring our children get their BCG injections, today our concerns are with quality of life, travel, upgrading our home, and for an increasing number, freedom of expression.

15. I am humbled by what we have achieved in just over 40 years – what I have been given the opportunity to have and enjoy today. While lapping up the comforts of the day, how could we forget the journey here; the tough and rough corners we had to negotiate. How could we not pause to appreciate, if not salute, the many champions – leaders and unsung heroes alike – who got us here. It was service to the nation (even when we were hardly a nation) and self belief, self efficacy that propelled them. Many of them may not have known what JFK said about asking not what the country can do for you, but what you can do for your country – but they lived it. Many of these were everyday people, people I knew growing up – people I had conversations with; people who taught me the importance of believing and striving. I understood the meaning of being a citizen from these unschooled stalwarts.

16. Citizenship is not a concept – it is something you live, breathe and feel, deeply. For this reason, I believe it is futile for us to talk in technical or legalistic terms about citizenship – rights, obligations, fairness!

17. Just as it would be odd to talk about rights and obligations as a son or daughter when it comes to protecting our parents and our family, in my view, it does not make much sense for us to ask why, as citizens, we should serve our country. Would we have got here if our forefathers thought along similar lines – their sacrifices are immeasurable. For this reason, as a citizen and National Serviceman, I say let’s drop the term National Service “liability”. It should be National Service “commitment”. The words I was introduced to, made to understand experientially as an officer cadet in the SAF in 1978 still ring true in my heart – “Duty, Honour, Country”.

18. If this is how a citizen ought to feel – unqualified commitment to country – what then is the “duty” of the country to us? Citizens should be made to feel our commitment is appreciated and not taken for granted. Rewards and privileges must be significant and discernable, and accorded without being asked for. Until recently, the only differentiator was that citizens could vote during elections – something that many hardly see as a privilege given the one party dominance in local politics and the fact that about half the wards are not contested in a General Election. Recently, there has been some effort in drawing a clearer distinction between citizens and PRs, in healthcare, for example. But this is not enough. Many Singaporeans I have spoken to still feel that they are taken for granted. Yes, we see the need to augment our resources by bringing in foreign talent, for economic reasons primarily. But if we don’t pay more attention to the sentiments of citizens in this regard, especially in areas such as competition for jobs and national service commitment, we could face a further erosion of rootedness and commitment to country. The consequences of this should be evident. I am aware this is a complex issue, but the government must pay more attention to this, and this House must remind it to do so.

19. The country, through the government, is also expected to be accountable to citizens. And this accountability must be visible. People’s views and concerns must be sought and heard, and acted upon. Where the government cannot address citizens’ views and concerns, it must explain the reasons. Yes, this may be tedious and at times could slow things down for government, but it must be done. Similarly, when citizens challenge the government on issues and policies, the response needs to come across as being sincere and not robust and intimidating on the one hand and callous and cavalier on the other.

20. Citizenship also comes with the right to expressing views and concerns without fear of reprisal. The climate of fear, that loomed large right up to the late 80s, is not so evident today – but I still come across people who say they are afraid to speak up on matters they feel strongly about because they are afraid of consequences. Half in jest they point to the sprinkler sensors and ask if they are indeed sprinklers. But only half in jest! The government has come some way with actions to ameliorate this concern, but I feel more can be done, because a climate of fear, no matter how mild, can erode our sense of ownership and affect rootedness. The government should be happy when people rise to state why they disagree with policies even if it is conveyed as robustly as the government’s own responses to the people – it shows that we care. Where you see anger, you are likely to find passion and commitment. The government can afford to “chill” more and be less thin-skinned! There is a distinct difference between being pro-Singapore and anti-government. In this regard, the “social contract” between the government and the people established in the 1960s needs to be better tailored to suit the higher level needs of citizens today.

21. The government must address this better and faster, not as a tactical consideration to extend the longevity of rule but because it is simply the right thing to do. It is not a legal but a moral imperative.

22. The second tenet of the Pledge is that we strive to become a “united people, regardless of race, language or religion.”

23. We live in a pluralistic world – people with diverse backgrounds, interests, beliefs and goals. It is challenging to unite people, but we cannot and should not give up the belief that we can build a collective reflex. This reflex is not a function of economics or material goals but built on a deep belief system that all of us – regardless of our station in life – can relate to. It is more than a shared interest. It has to be a core belief that we share, that connects with our sense of self, our worth, identity, our aspirations. It must make us feel good about ourselves as a people, knowing that it is unique to us. It has to have the power to transcend the social, political and economic differences amongst us.

24. To find what this core belief system is, we need to go beyond the obvious; beyond the formulaic prescriptions that may have worked before. We need to move from the “what we do, and do well” paradigm towards addressing the question, “what do we stand for, as a people”.

25. In corporate parlance, we shift from “mission” to ‘credo”.

26. Organisations start off with a focus on the bottom-line and profits that translate to bonuses for staff. As success kicks in, bottom-line and profit increasingly become nothing more than a hygiene factor i.e. it is expected and therefore not enough to retain good talent as the competitors have the same capacity to entice. When you have to manage success, you think purely in terms of the bottom-line to your peril. Worthy people stay because of satisfaction, challenge and pride of association. This is why highly successful organisations focus more on doing the right thing and getting people to identify with what they stand for; these organisations strive to be admired.

27. For me, what we can claim is uniquely Singaporean that is admired by many would include our multi-racial, multi-religious make up; our honest, transparent, reliable set-up; and the principle of equal opportunity that we will not give up. These are values that we have built up over the years, and today have become an intrinsic part of our psyche, our culture as a people. Time and time again my friends and visitors from overseas remind me of how lucky we are to be in an environment with such a level of racial and religious harmony – that we should not take it for granted. Yes, we are guilty of taking this for granted. We need to take pains to illustrate these values experientially to our younger generation so that we don’t risk losing them.

27. In order to prevent healthy scepticism in our people, especially our young, from becoming entrenched cynicism, we, as a society, need to address apparent contradictions and mixed signals. Examples are the issue of Malay-Muslims in the SAF, SAP schools and cultural elitism, the need for ethnic based self help groups, the need for us to maintain the current racial distribution in society, and whether Singapore is ready for an ethnic minority Prime Minister.

28. We have come a long way since the late Mr S Rajaratman gave us the National Pledge. Much has changed along the way, sometimes for the better and other times posing a challenge to national unity. The terrorist threat is a case in point – it has set us back in our efforts to build trust and a social compact. We need to avoid becoming alarmist. But we cannot afford to be complacent and stick to the assumptions relevant in the years before.

29. I am heartened by the government’s proactive approach in ensuring that racial harmony and our social compact are not threatened. Initiatives such as the IRCCs and the Community Engagement Programme, and the creation of organisations such as OnePeople.com can go some way in building resilience in this area. Likewise, lucid and timely articulation of the government’s unwavering stance against any elements whose words or actions could undermine inter racial-religious trust has helped send the desired signal to the ground. Senior Minister Prof S Jayakumar’s considered thoughts on why it’s foolhardy to take racial harmony for granted captured in his interview published in The Straits Times last month is a good example of this. And of course, Prime Minister Lee’s clear, honest and inspiring articulation of the same point in his National Day Rally speech is timely. To me being complacent about our racial harmony based on what we see on the smooth surface is akin to skating on thin ice: we assume from the surface that the ground is solid, but all it takes is one crack to deepen and spread into a network of cracks. By the time we realise how thin the ice is, it may be too late.

30. We need to move forward in a leap of faith: that yes there are fault lines and some have deepened and widened, but the bonds that have come to bind us at a basic level since the 1960s can endure if we choose to focus on it. What we must avoid is overt propaganda, which can be counter-productive. Instead, we should seek to deepen the primordial ties between communities using sports, arts and culture and the mass media as agents. Talking about the media, let me suggest something the TV media should do in this regard. When TV came to Singapore in 1963, there was just one channel – so we watched all programmes regardless of language. Then it became two channels – channel 5 in English and Malay, and channel 8 in Mandarin and Tamil. What was interesting, as a result, and because it wasn’t that convenient to switch channels (no remote control), Tamil newsreaders were recognised in Chinatown. Likewise, Chinese newscasters had star status when they went to Little India! Today, with each ethnic community having our own channel – we have lost the opportunity to cross-fertilise through the media! It would be useful to have a policy for each vernacular channel to carry more stories or features about what is happening in the other communities.

31. The third key tenet of the Pledge is about building a “democratic society based on justice and equality”.

32. I am very thankful that my father chose to make Singapore his home when he came here with a few dollars in his pocket in the 1940s. Yes, it is far from perfect here. I certainly have issues with many things in my country, but would I wish to raise my 10 year old daughter anywhere else given today’s realities? The answer is a clear “no”.

33. Yes, I do lament our lack of freedom to express ourselves, and the government’s seemingly unmitigated grip on power and what appears to be an inconsistent willingness to listen to public sentiment that does not suit it

34. Yet, how can I not appreciate what I have received from my country in spite of these setbacks, and in some cases because of them. Equal opportunity, meritocracy, and pragmatism were the underlying principles of governance that allowed us to grab opportunities and prosper.

35. However, even as we hold on to these values, we need to recognise that the lay of the land has changed, and drastically, in some ways. The freedom for citizens to express themselves, a free press and a truly level playing field in politics for a credible multi-party system to evolve – all of which are fundamentals of democracy – were placed on the backburners to make way for progress and prosperity. Perhaps we needed to accept the trade-off as part of the social contract. The outcome of progress was affluence, and an educated and sophisticated populace whose needs have gone several notches higher. A roof over the head, a clean living environment, a good education and good healthcare system – today these are for many Singaporeans nothing more than basic factors; things any good government is expected to deliver. In short, the government has created conditions for success, which in turn today gives it the challenge of managing the success and the expectations that come with it.

36. Accountability requires the government to go beyond lip-service in addressing the call for greater democracy, civil liberties and choices. In the Political arena – a more level playing field especially in the management of elections and media coverage. What is increasingly demanded is fairness and justice, not just in form but substance. Yes, it is ridiculous to expect the incumbent party in government to facilitate the opposition parties to win more seats in Parliament. But what is asked for is that the government desist from making it difficult in an unfair and undemocratic manner for the opposition to gain success – through last minute changes in electoral boundaries, or a lack of media coverage or what can sometimes be seen as biased coverage. In my view, it is the duty of a responsible government to help evolve a political climate that encourages greater interest and participation from the people. If not, people are likely to feel increasingly alienated and disenfranchised resulting in apathy and, worse, cynicism. I fear this is already happening.

37. But thanks to the advent of the internet and new media, there appears to be a resurgence of interest in the people to engage in debate in issues. I sense there is a growing sense of restlessness and even helplessness with what is viewed as a media that is aligned with the government. Many in this group are now vacillating towards cyberspace, seeking out and contributing contrary viewpoints, often explicitly anti-establishment. This is gaining momentum, given the ubiquitous nature of the internet, and the growing number of net savvy Singaporeans and PRs. While some illuminating and thought provoking ideas are raised in the cyber sites, it is not uncommon to find misinformation and at times, I suspect, even disinformation circulating. The tone can be angry and sometimes downright caustic seasoned with a good doze of vulgarities! What is giving this new ‘movement’ life and momentum is essentially the perception that the mainstream media tows the government’s line because it is required to. We can sit here and debate whether or not this is true. But for me that is not what is critical. What is important is for us to acknowledge that there is a challenge here – the mainstream media needs to gain greater credibility in the eyes of the people, and must not be seen as functioning to serve the interest of the establishment. The current situation is certainly not healthy for the government or the country as it nurtures a “them versus us” climate that could become unnecessarily adversarial.

38. Pragmatism as a modus operandi may have worked well to get us here, but going forward, the government has to accept that the end will not always be seen as justifying the means. Especially with the triumphant advent of the internet driven new media, there is bound to be greater scrutiny of inconsistencies between societal ethos as enshrined in the National Pledge and the Constitution, and actions and statements on the ground. This is an inevitable outcome of success and being plugged into the international grid. As we continue to strive for economic progress we must be guided, and where necessary even constrained, by the fundamentals of our National Pledge spoken through the words “democracy”, “justice” and “equality”. Underscoring the sentiments of these words would be respect, accountability and fairness.

39. The notion of justice is intrinsically linked to fairness. When justice, especially in the way it is meted out, deviates significantly from the common man’s sense of fairness, questions of legitimacy arise. This, I believe, is the basis and value of Common Law. In this regard, the government needs to listen more carefully to the ground and address disquiet and unease in response to specific policies and practices. Examples would be the ground sentiment about the string of libel suits filed by PAP leaders against various opposition party leaders, and the second round of increases in the pay of ministers and senior civil servants soon after a 2 percentage point increase in GST. I am not suggesting that the government be populist and adjust good policies to pander to popular sentiment. This government has earned the respect of many – here and abroad – for coming up with effective policies and being decisive in implementation. My point is that the government can do more to find out why for certain policies and practices there was a strong reaction from a generally accommodating people. Just as important is for the government to take pains to address the key causes for the reaction by going the extra mile in persuading on the rationale for the policy in question and, where necessary, review the policy.

40. The last tenet I would like to discuss is what it means to “achieve happiness, prosperity and progress”.

41. When the National Pledge was crafted in the 1960s, life and aspirations were relatively simple. Common wisdom dictated that economic prosperity and progress led to happiness. And quite often it proved right.

42. Today, the scenario is quite different. Society is more sophisticated. Better educated, travelled, exposed to thoughts, ideas and ideals, people are given to making different life choices. And options are growing, especially with globalisation and greater mobility. Unlike before, there is a growing disjoint between national priorities and those of the individual. It is not unfashionable today for people to take the path not taken, to do what gives them maximum satisfaction even it means economic prosperity is a trade-off. The growing number of successful professionals who have chosen to go into the arts and social work or social enterprise is indication of this trend. Similarly, I see more people being disillusioned with being on the fast track, especially after seeing how “greed” has resulted in the current global meltdown and the suffering that has come with it. Many are vacillating towards a balanced lifestyle, while a growing number is looking to spirituality and philosophy for answers.

43. Consequently, concepts such as “multiple intelligences” advocated by Harvard Professor Howard Gardner, are growing in appeal. People want their desire to choose their paths to success validated. There is a feeling that at the core, the government continues to define success in tangible, economic terms and the singular path to this remains academic ability.

44. While our enduring mantra “society above self” is worthy and has served us well as a nation, given the realities of the day, we need to pay more attention to the needs of the individual. After all, individuals make society and by extension happy individuals with a sense of accomplishment in whatever the fields are, will have a positive, sustainable effect on the happiness quotient of society. This in turn, will have a bearing on prosperity and progress.

45. Perhaps we need to reverse the cause-effect relationship between these desired outcomes. Traditional thinking would suggest that prosperity, defined usually in economic terms, is the cause and happiness is the effect. Now, with research showing that happy people are more productive and driven and therefore have a higher potential for career success, it may make sense for us to pursue happiness as a necessary condition for sustainable economic success. Naturally, this is counter-intuitive but if we are prepared to think out of the box, it may just make sense.

46. Regardless of whether economic prosperity is a cause or effect, one thing is apparent – happiness is a higher goal. It must be.

47. If so, let us now evaluate whether our economic policies have resulted in or at least contributed to happiness. GDP has always been a key indicator of economic performance. Our per capita GDP has risen exponentionally over the past 44 years. According to figures from the department of statistics, in Sing dollar and nominal terms, Singapore’s per capita GDP grew from $1, 567 in 1965 to $53, 192 in 2008, certainly one of the highest in the world. Without doubt, this is something we should be proud of and thank the PAP government for.

48. But when we look closer at what constitutes the GDP, there is cause for concern. According to data, profits take about 46% of Singapore’s GDP, which according to economists I spoke to, is extremely high compared to other developed economies. And from what I understand, half of this high profit share goes to the coffers of foreign-owned companies with operations here. What is left in the GDP pie to directly benefit Singaporeans is therefore a relatively small amount. According to a recent article in the Edge by economist Manu Bhaskaran, and I quote: “…This could be why even though Singapore’s per capita GDP is roughly 11% higher than Hong Kong’s, our per capita consumption is about 21% lower that Hong Kong’s. If we take per capita consumption as a better indicator of welfare, then simply going for high growth per se does not guarantee that we will achieve the best possible welfare outcome for Singaporeans….” Unquote.

49. I am not saying that per capita consumption should replace per capita GDP as the leading indicator for economic well being. What I am highlighting is that per capita GDP or GDP for that matter, as indicators have limitations. Perhaps the government should look at a bundle of indicators to get a better picture of how economic performance is benefiting the people.

50. On the point about happiness, there is another observation I would like to share that should be a matter of concern to all of us – income inequality. According to figures from CIA World Factbook, Singapore ranks as one of the highest in the world in terms of income inequality. The Gini Index is the measurement of income inequality – the higher the Gini coefficient, the worse the level of inequality. Based on 2008 figures, Singapore has a Gini coefficient of 48.10 – which is much higher than other countries in Asia including China, Malaysia and the Philippines. In fact, it would appear that Singapore is closer to many under-developed countries in the Gini Index.

51. Income inequality is not a desirable thing – it certainly can’t be a contributor of happiness in society as a whole. But I didn’t realise that in fact studies have shown that income inequality has a strong bearing on happiness and mental well being of individuals and societies. According to Equality Trust, a London Based organisation, studies have shown that, “…inequality makes life more stressful…(it) divides people by increasing the social distances between us and the widening differences in living standards and lifestyles….” Unquote. In a study conducted by Equality Trust of more than 23 countries all over the world, Singapore has the highest level of income inequality but second lowest in terms of trust amongst the people.

52. One can argue that the figures I quoted may not be accurate or that it is one out of many studies with different findings. That may be the case, but can we or should we summarily dismiss these findings. What if there is truth in what is stated? If indeed happiness and quality of life are higher order goals and economic growth and jobs are a means to achieving those goals, then we should ask ourselves if we need to rethink how we are managing things. We may not need to do a complete turnaround, but it looks like some adjustments are warranted.

53. The final point I would like to make about happiness and sharing of prosperity pertains to the plight of two groups of people in society: the very poor, and the elderly who may not have the financial means to enjoy the golden years of their lives.

54. Financial aid for the poorest of the poor in society is not a fresh issue. Members in this House have argued for Public Assistance to this group to go up. According to MCYS there are about 3,000 families who fall into this category – defined as people unable to work due to illness or disability, with little or no means to finances. The latest upward revisions to the Public Assistance rates are, for example, for an individual – from $330 a month to $360 a month, a $30 increase! For a 4 person family, the Public Assistance increased from $830 a month to $950 per month, a $120 increase.

55. Yes, we don’t want to become a welfare state. But what has that got to do with an elected government’s responsibility to provide the basic needs of a small group of citizens who, it has been established, cannot fend for themselves because of illness or disability. The government’s response to calls for increasing Public Assistance grants has been that we should avoid creating a dependency on handouts which in turn could become a disincentive for working for a living. As such, the government’s view has been to provide a very basic level of assistance which will be supplemented by what the community and grassroots organisations can provide. Yes, this is possible, but why should it be an expectation imposed on them, when government does appear to be in a strong enough financial position to provide the necessary assistance directly. Even if we talk about doubling the Public Assistance for a 4 member family from $950 per month by $1,000 – it would amount to $36 million to benefit 3,000 families or 12,000 needy Singaporeans for a whole year! Our GDP for 2008 was $257 billion and Foreign Reserves officially estimated to be in excess of $250 billion. It is not just about providing for their welfare per se, it is about allowing them a measure of dignity as they struggle with poverty. It is about ensuring their children get good, nutritious meals and a decent level of comfort and security at home to have a decent chance at doing well in school and making it in life. It is a small investment in happiness and dignity for our citizens. I do hope the government will relent on this issue. I am confident that this is something most Singaporeans desire.

56. The other group that deserves special attention and appears in deficit of happiness comprises those in their 70s, 80s and 90s – Singaporeans who worked hard to lay the foundation for what we are enjoying today. Veteran journalist, Mr PN Balji, in a comment piece in TODAY recently referred to them as the “Merdeka Generation”. He laments the plight of those in this group who are “bed-ridden…breaking their backs cleaning up after us in food outlets and even being pushed in wheelchairs by the maids at some of our parks.” Unquote. Do we not feel, as an affluent society, a conscionable people, a good government, that these senior citizens – our grandparents – deserve better? Do they need to fend for themselves in this manner? We owe them dignity and respect. I echo Mr PN Balji’s call: “It is time to start thinking of another pledge, this time for our Merdeka Generation: We, the citizens of Singapore, pledge to look after our Merdeka Generation by taking care of their needs and wants in a way that they can live their golden years in happiness and look back at the nation they helped create with joy and pride.”

3 suggestions to align policies and practices with the Pledge

57. Mr Speaker, Sir, if we agree that the National Pledge is the document that comes closest to capturing who we are, and what we stand for as a nation, then it behoves us as Members of Parliament to give it due importance – as a primary reference when we debate major national policies and practices. It is important for us to ensure alignment of policies with the key tenets of the Pledge. For this to happen instinctively, which is what we need to aspire to, we need to develop a stronger collective reflex that is faithful to the Pledge.

58. To facilitate this, I would like to make three specific suggestions for consideration by this House.

59. First, I believe it would be useful to have a review of all existing major policies and practices to check for significant contradictions with the key tenets of the Pledge – resulting in mixed signals being sent to the ground which in turn could create confusion and disengagement or worse, cynicism. This is an important exercise that should involve participation of the public, private and people sectors. We will benefit not only from the outcome, but the process itself which will help us build a better national collective reflex. I can see an organisation such as REACH spearheading this initiative, together with the CDCs and OnePeople.com.

60. Allow me to highlight a few areas where we may find these mixed signals that I am talking about. First, over the years we have, I feel, become very race conscious as a people. In almost everything we do we are reminded of, asked about our race. Starting with the NRIC, and in almost all application forms – school, job, marriage, clubs and even when signing up for a cooking course at a CC. Then, the creation of ethnic self help groups such as Mendaki, SINDA, CDAC and the Eurasian Association inadvertently exacerbated the problem. Even media reports on crime see the need to highlight the race of the criminal and go a step further in describing him as dark or fair in complexion. Don’t get me wrong, I do see value in some of these initiatives and actions. I am currently serving as Vice President of the Executive Committee of SINDA and have been an active contributor for more than a decade – I can see the practical need for such an organisation and the contribution it makes. I can also understand that for data collection and study of trends it is useful and sometimes necessary to capture the race of the individual. All I am saying is that we need to study this practice carefully and in an open minded manner, with a view to finding ways to amend or tweak the practices to better manage mixed signals that confuse. Many young people I have spoken to have highlighted this apparent contradiction with the “regardless of race” tenet of the Pledge. Principals and teachers too have raised this issue.

61. Another example of an area that the review could look are policies pertaining to foreign workers. We understand the economic and business justification for this, but there continues to be the undesirable effect of wages of Singaporean workers in this category getting depressed. I understand the NTUC is trying to address this issue, but from what I have gathered from talking to lower skilled Singaporean workers their wages have come down. This can’t be a source of happiness for these workers even though there is prosperity for the nation.

62. The second broad suggestion I have to help align policies with the tenets of the Pledge is that we need to urgently address the issue of rootedness and commitment to nation. I view this as a time-bomb ticking in our midst. There is enough evidence that there is a lack of a sense of rootedness on the ground, especially in younger Singaporeans. This could be attributed to many factors which would include a lack of knowledge and understanding of our history and current affairs, a lack of meaningful engagement on matters of national concern, and easier prospects for leaving the country. I do not believe our youth are apathetic. In fact, when effectively engaged they can have strong and constructive ideas and often the commitment to walk the talk. What puzzles me is how come we are in this situation even though we have had national education, and before that, when I was in school, civic education, for decades now? It cannot just be because the young of today have not experienced the difficult times in the earlier years of nationhood.

63. I suspect it could partly be because as a society we seem to have lost the oral tradition of sharing experiences and telling stories. We need to revive this, and fast, while we still have enough people of the older generation who have the stories and are in a condition to share them. The other contributing factor could be that those assigned to “teach” national education may themselves not be sufficiently motivated to do so. Perhaps our teachers are too bogged down with work to have the bandwidth necessary to impart national education with conviction. Also, I suspect that a subject like national education is best conveyed through informal activities and not through formal lectures with the indispensable power-point slides. There could be other more salient reasons or challenges. I feel it is necessary for us to do a systematic review of how we can increase the sense of rootedness and commitment especially of our younger brethren – and this would need to include a open-minded review, and rethink if necessary, on how national education is taught, and how NE initiatives could be better coordinated with similar activities by OnePeople.com and the Community Engagement Programme managed by MHA. In terms of improving the knowledge our youths have about our history and current affairs, I would recommend a revival of importance given to subjects such as history and geography in schools, which in the recent past have been relegated as being “soft subjects” that provide less utility than science subjects. And in the teaching of history my humble request is that we pay more attention to local history and more recent history. I remember when I studied history in school I could rattle off the names of all the sultans in the Malacca Sultanate yet wasn’t taught much of Singapore history.

64. More than teaching these subjects, I hope we can find a way to inject curiosity, interest and fascination in our youth, so that they would be motivated to find out more as a lifelong journey of inquiry. Recently, I met a young lady who had a good honours degree from a local university who didn’t know the difference between the President of Singapore and the Prime Minister. It is not just confounding but upsetting to be confronted by such realities!. Something is very wrong here. Whatever the case might be, one thing is clear to me, what we have right now has not worked well enough, and if we don’t intervene promptly and creatively the tenet of being a united people will not happen in substance.

65. My third and final suggestion seeks to help align our current policies and rules with conventional principles of democracy. From the late 1960s there were stringent rules that discouraged active political activism, even participation. Detention of political activists under the ISA and media controls, whether real or perceived, rightful or not, created a climate of fear that inhibited political participation. Over years, in my view, this crystalised into a political culture of apathy and disinterest. This in turn exacerbated an already fragile sense of rootedness and a lack of patriotism. Our senior political leaders have been highlighting the challenges they have been facing in persuading the best and brightest to serve in political leadership, and why salaries had to be significantly high to help them make the decision to come on board. This situation does not augur well for Singapore on many fronts – it poses problems in succession planning, retards socio-political resilience and could result in a brain drain the moment we face a serious enough crisis.

66. For these reasons, it is imperative that we consciously and proactively start the process of re-politicisation – to get people, especially the youth, interested and involved not only in social work but political matters. A good place to start this would be our universities, which have been the traditional base of political interest and activism. Political associations should be encouraged, and campus rallies should be allowed once again. I know that for some of us in the House, especially for Minister Mentor Lee, this suggestion could be somewhat heretical as unpleasant memories of the 1960s and 70s are still fresh in the mind. But we are indeed dealing with a very different Singapore today: people are generally politically apathetic, risk averse, we are more educated, affluent and so stakes are higher. Regardless of the changed circumstances, there is, as always, the residual and potent energy of youth which today is channelled increasingly towards activism in cyberspace creating an underground culture that may not always be constructive. If we read the content in the blogs and internet sites we can sense restlessness, frustration and even anger. It is my firm belief that if the mainstream environment comes a across less sanitised and more politically engaging, we will, in due course, see a healthy migration of these energies. This is good because in the mainstream there is a greater level of transparency and accountability. But this will only happen if there is real and discernable relaxation of rules pertaining to political participation and activism. Today there is still is a climate of fear though less prevalent than before. This will change if the right signals are given, clearly and unequivocally. And only the government can do this.

Conclusion

67. Mr Speaker, Sir, let me conclude by saying that we are at a point of inflexion – an opportunity to change; to reverse some trends and attitudes that are detrimental to our progress, indeed survivability, as a nation. This government has time and again demonstrated the ability and will to change course when it is deemed to be in the best interest of society – the 1987 reversal of the “stop at 2” policy, the introduction of the IRs and then the F1 grand prix are just some examples. We now need to demonstrate the same will and courage in other areas that have a strong bearing on our resilience as a people, a nation – specifically, areas I have taken the time to elucidate.

68. Yes, in recent years especially, we have seen the government opening up and paying more attention to some of the points highlighted. But there have been mixed signals which are confusing to the ground and this does not incentivise sufficient positive action. Incremental change is generally prudent and less disruptive, but I fear this is not enough to address the issues I raised. The clock is ticking. We need to act fast and radical changes may be called for to get the desired outcome.

69. Yes, there are risks. There will always be risks in change. But that has not and should not now stop us from doing what is right. I put it to the House that in this instance inaction is not an option.

70. We need faith. Faith in our people’s capacity for good judgment. Faith that Singaporeans will not abuse what’s given to them, the privileges, the choices. Faith that we will value the increased space for expression and action and use it well, and appreciate the support given to us in time of need. Yes, there will always be some who will go the other way, but let us not punish the rest of society for this. This government has good reason to trust the people – Singaporeans have stood by the government through thick and thin for 50 years. To a good extent this is demonstration of faith in a government that has, by and large, been upright, effective, responsive and consistently delivered on promises. It is time for the government to reciprocate – by demonstrating faith in the people.

71. I say to the government and to this House, let us take a chance on our people, on ourselves. Let us act on the firm belief that our National Pledge will serve as a bright shining light that keeps us on track. We have reason to believe that we will succeed if we are faithful to the Pledge that was crafted 44 years ago with passion, conviction and foresight by our founding leaders in their infinite wisdom.

72. Mr Speaker, Sir, I thank you, once again, for the opportunity to move this motion.

Hmmmm...

2009-08-21T11:58:00.002-04:00

I was talking to my fellow intern who ended work this week.

She did not have internet access for 8 weeks and I was amazed to find out that some of the permanent staff did not have access as well.

So bewildered was I that this irrational and totally not representation of myself kind of statement came out,

"Wow, then what do they do for the whole 8 hours? Work?"

Polar Sunrise

2009-08-19T08:22:00.001-04:00

Amazing.

I wish I had such calibre.

Falling Slowly

2009-08-17T11:19:00.001-04:00