for a change

“Ladies and gentlemen, in keeping with the spirit of the Olympics, please do not applaud competitors’ errors. Thank you.”

To my satisfaction, after at least two matches of local fans applauding whenever the opponent of Li Na, a Chinese female tennis player, would double fault (i.e. two successive salah serves), they were finally told off. Granted that their interest in the sport of tennis was largely relegated to the sphere of a fellow Chinese playing in the match, and therefore they probably were not aware of expected tennis-watching etiquette, but even with that taken into consideration, i did think that they were at least partly to blame in terms of being disrespectful of whoever Li’s opponent happened to be. Nothing against Li though (she is a very good tennis player, and in fact, she did yell at those errant fans to shut up at one point), but thanks to such ignorant fans, for the first time ever i ended up rooting for Venus Williams in their match (and of course Venus went on to lose, but that’s another matter…)

It’s things such as this that which have made me to be the anti-supporter, if you’d like, of the Chinese team (admittedly, my sympathy for Liu Xiang and his untimely injury was more than matched by glee that at least some of the ridiculous Chinese public pressure for performance was not satisfied). Way back in 2001, in fact, i was probably one of the few here who was (albeit silently) rooting (in vain) for Toronto to win the bid to host the games, and in the seven years since then i’ve still not warmed in the slightest to Beijing. I suppose that to a large extent my rationale behind such a negative (and minority) view of the hosts has already been covered ad infinitum by the (chiefly western) news media (e.g. human rights abuses, pollution etc - such as this), and to that end I do recognize that there exist inherent flaws and sound counter-arguments. Nevertheless, there definitely are more than legitimate concerns in favor of a dissenting view, and perhaps I feel more strongly about them than most others (at least in this particular neck of the woods) do. So where that is concerned perhaps the ‘agree to disagree’ truce camp is the best way to go.

The other major factor behind my lack of enthusiasm, sad to say, is basically the inherent Chinese-ness of everything. Definitely my early disdain for Mandarin, a result of this more-than-reluctant so-called ‘mother tongue’ student being force-fed xi zi and zhao ju and what not for way too long a time, and hating almost every moment of it, has somehow developed over the years into an aversion of (and cynicism towards) many things Chinese, particularly whenever the annoying Chinese cultural card is played. So i rarely eat Chinese food (at least not voluntarily), think nothing of wearing black at CNY or sticking my chopsticks into the bowl rather than resting them at the rim (and in fact in cases would purposely do so just to annoy some others), and would never go to China for a holiday (again, at least not voluntarily).

And so now when there’s all this talk about how the impressive opening ceremony has shown how China has ‘made it’, i lament the unnecessary extravagance and opulence of the whole thing, thinking that $ could have been better spent in many other areas. When China dominates the competition in sports like pingpong and diving (and at least for the former sport, proving a very successful exporter of top-notch players to lesser rival countries such as S’pore), I regret the extremely tough Soviet-era training that these world-beaters have had to undergo in order to get where they are, separating parents from child and depriving the latter from many aspects of a childhood (and not forgetting the hundreds, of not thousands of others who are not the best, and as such not making it to the world stage, their effort at least in this respect being in vain. And when China is head-and-shoulders above the rest of the countries in the medal tally, prompting all those sentiments of how Chinese from all over the world can be truly proud to be Chinese, here am i rolling my eyes, wondering how, with more than a fifth of the world’s population to work with, surely such an achievement is but merely to be expected (and of course this sparks all those commentaries comparing India’s one gold to China’s close-to-fifty at this point).

In any case, China definitely deserves to be congratulated on its performance during the Olympics, be it in terms of sporting or hosting achievements. However, there lies much behind these achievements that is far less worthy of praise, and perhaps is more worthy of criticism. Not popular sentiments, i know – and perhaps i may kena whacked for voicing such views. Oh well, again, let’s agree to disagree on this. (and so don’t even get me started on how irritated i am with those who criticize people like me who don’t care much for Singapore’s alleged sporting success in the form of a silver medal – in short, all credit is due to the three ladies and the team behind them, but at the end of the day, regardless of all the talk about S'pore being small, and how we are a globalized society and what not, personally there is something inherently wrong with the way in which they have come to represent the country with such blatant recruitment being undertaken and how their success/failure is perceived and handled by the media and the public - oops, so i got started :p)

Sianifying nie work awaits…

Singapoor?

I remain ambivalent (not quite opposed towards, though probably i’m inching more and more towards that stance) towards Singapore’s purported Olympic medal prospects, due to the fact that virtually all of the realistic chances S’pore has of getting a medal basically lie with people who have been recruited from overseas to join ‘Team Singapore’. I’m definitely not being xenophobic or ultra-nationalistic or anything of that sort – if these people are able to get chances to perform well on the international stage that would possibly have been denied them otherwise, and help to encourage the further development of local sporting talent, then by all means go ahead. My issue is with the way in which S’pore has really been relying far too much on them in order to, and here may i borrow a cheesy slogan form the 2010 youth Olympics, ‘blaze the trail’ in the international sporting arena. Yes there’s all that talk of how we are an immigrant society, but really the makeup of the S’pore team in terms of whether their nationality was a result of birth or acquisition far from mirrors what it is on a national level. I won’t go as far as to call them sporting mercenaries, although definitely that term came to my mind with reference to them…

But even with that aside, i do pity these foreign-born Singaporeans, who have unfortunately become victims of the apparent national thirst for Olympic glory – in the sense that unrealistic expectations of a medal have become pinned on them. Of course, it’s hardly the kind of pressure that perhaps China places on its athletes, but still i can’t help but think that it is not constructive in any way… Take Tao Li as a case in point – she slices more than a second off her personal best in the 100m Butterfly, setting a new Asian record in the process, and for all that effort following a respectable 5^th place in the final this is the thanks she gets – as someone who has “dashed the country’s hopes” and “failing to top” her previous record in the final. Surely she deserves far more credit than that! It’s ironic that she’s treated this way precisely because she performed so well in earlier rounds.

Of course, the good ‘ol local press doesn’t exempt the S’porean-born athletes from their unrealistic expectations either. Today’s ST gave its report on the S’pore swimmers – and (apart from Tao Li) save a mention of one of them breaking the national record, everything else was about how they failed to make the semi-finals/finals. Maybe if the reporters had done their homework they would have realized how those who do make it to that stage are really in a different class to begin with, and have at least appeared to (cos i’m sure they are) acknowledge their effort.

And in any case, i pity the women’s table tennis team (and hey, guess where all of them were born?) should they not be able to get a medal. And if they do, i won’t be too excited either…

travel trials

It's a pity that smrt/sbs transit don't offer frequent traveller programs like many of their airborne counterparts do - say, for example, chalking up 100km on public transport being able to redeem a fere return mrt trip or something like that - for if that were the case, in a year's time not just me but at least half of the rest of the nie student population would be eligible for quite a fair bit of free travel...

Well, one thing that bus/train travel does offer, though, is the opportunity to see some of the worst and most selfish acts of typical ugly Singaporean behavior being unapologetically exhibited for all to see, and to be inconvenienced by. I've mentioned this before, but seriously, i can never get tired of being pissed off by people who crowd the entrances to buses/trains in order to barge in and find a seat long before the people inside have exited (of course this applies less to sbs buses than it does to say nus buses though). Especially since my mrt trips require changing trains at interchange stations and terminating at boon lay, the sight of people thinking nothing of standing right in front of the train doors, gearing up for the mad push throw the throng of exiting passengers in order to score a prime seat, particularly during peak periods, is more than commonplace.

Well, i have to be honest and say that as unapologetic as they are about barging in and pushing aside exiting passengers in the process (and btw i'm sure a lot of these exiting passengers are guilty of barging in themselves), so am i about going out of my way to obstruct their quest to score a quick seat to as far an extent as i able to, by purposely standing in their way and making sure to push back whenever they push against me (and isn't that a law of Newton anyways?), Of course i make sure not to smother old people/children or accidentally outrage someone's modesty in the process, although i have to admit that at some times i'm tempted to do so (i mean the former, btw, not the latter)

The other day there was my experience with an impatient fairly old lady who was seated in a crowded train car. I was standing near the exit at the time. When the train was approaching Dhoby Ghaut (which was my intended stop), the lady, along with her hubby, got up and tried to shuffle her way past the crowd towards the door, evidently because she was intending to alight there as well. Fair enough. When she got behind me however, not only did she utter something in a Chinese dialect unintelligible to me which i can infer was to the effect of " i want to go out", but she also started poking me at the back rather strongly. I was quite annoyed so i turned round and tried to inform her that i was intending to alight at the stop as well. As she responded to this only by poking and pushing more vigorously, i can only conclude that she understood English as well as i did her unintelligible Chinese dialect, so i decided to quit trying to explain to her that i was exiting as well (and admittedly, restraining myself from scolding her loudly, which wouldn't have been nice or right at all) and just endured her continued pokes and pushes (eh, while trying to lean back so as to make my point clear to her that i was not going to move for her - there was no space to do so in any case). In retrospect maybe i should have shown less anger and more consideration for the elderly, but seriously, i would have let her through (methinks) had the train not been so crowded and there been no room to move to anyways - in any case, if she did get out first, she'd still proceed to be overtaken and swarmed by the hoards making a beeline for the nearest escalator/elevator, so i don't see the point of her getting off first.

Then, i was reading today's paper, and the expat column in particular, i was pleased to see the guest writer commenting on something that has also garnered my annoyance as of late, namely what he terms "escalator paralysis" - the phenomenon in which people inexplicably lose all power of lower limb movement upon setting foot upon an escalator/travellator/walkalator - i do find it weird that how rushed, for example, that people tend to be upon exiting at mrt train so as to reach an escalator, they then proceed to stop dead in their tracks once reaching the escalator. That's ok as long as they keep to one side, a practice that is almost religiously carried out in say tube escalators in London. But no, S'poreans just have to think nothing more of stopping on both sides of the escalator, blocking the way of those who do not succumb to this paralysis (i.e. me, for one). One good thing though is that normally when i gradually inch my way towards such people they soon get the hint and move aside for me to pass, if that is possible (you see, old lady in the mrt, i'm not unreasonable, i only expect to get through if there is indeed room to pass), and even apologize in the process. In any case, this is precisely why i normally take the stairs instead of the escalator at that middle part of citylink where you have to go down and then up again...

In other developments, if anyone reading this happens to be in Brazil now, turn on your telly to espn and see if you can spot my interview :p. What happened was that i was on my way back home from service this morning, at the junction of Raffles City next to Raffles Hotel and Chijmes, when this ang moh guy (with an ang moh cameraman behind him) approached me and asked if he could ask me some questions on S'pore and the Brazilian soccer team (he was wearing an ESPN Brasil shirt). Since i was free i agreed and so, after positioning myself against the suitable backdrop of Raffles Hotel, the camera got rolling and he fired away with his questions.

Unfortunately he asked about S'pore and what i feel about living here - well as can be evidenced from this space i was in one of my typical anti moods, but i figured that if i were to express those feelings about S'pore i would have not done us much good and at the same time may risk some S'porean expat in Brazil calling me out in the ST or something, so i tried to stay positive with my response (i said S'pore was fun, for goodness sakes), although how believable i was i can't be sure. He then proceeded on to my next expert subject, soccer (apparently the Brazilian olympic soccer team is in town and are playing against S'pore - i was pretty aware of the former but barely aware of the latter). He asked me to name some Brazilian soccer players - think i didn't do too bad - i knew there was Ronaldinho, Kaka and Ronaldo (though has he retired?). Oh if only he could have quizzed me on Brazilian tennis players, politicians, history, or food instead, then maybe i'd appear to be less of an idiot. And then he asked me what are S'pore's chances against the Brazilian team in the upcoming match - well, as much as i would like to show my faith in my national team (oh, who am i kidding?), i had to be logical and realistic, and so i answered that i was sure Brazil would win (hey, at least i didn't say we'll be thrashed). And there ended my two minutes of Brazilian fame.

keep rollin' rollin' rollin' rollin'

The past four weeks of experience in the school that shall remain anonymous (i'd call it "Anonymous Secondary School" but then its initials would spell, er, well, you know =p...) totally surpassed my expectations - which, granted were not much to begin with. I won't plunge again into my spiel on how i was hitherto under the impression that all so-called neighborhood schools were the same until i was blissfully enlightened upon getting posted there (eh although that's the basic jist of it), but suffice to say that there were so many cool surprises and learning experiences along the way that have most definitely helped to prepare me for what lies ahead.

Unfortunately, between now and what lies ahead is one full year of stuff that i'm not very enthusiastic about. Prior to this, i really did not know how to respond when asked how i was feeling about the year ahead, especially since the responses i'd received from those who've gone before have been extremely polarized - i.e. people either love it or hate it. And thus it was with this in mind that i approached this past introductory week with as open mind as i could.

However, sad to say the way in which the past week's programs have really awakened my uber-cynical negative side - eh dunno how safe it is to elaborate on that here, but well to put it briefly, the nature of most of the activities organized over the past week, seemingly for our benefit, have really not been worth the three hours and $5 taken for traveling every day. There are some redeeming points, of course, like meeting new (and similarly-minded) people and getting more familiar with the campus (and even then they have more to do with externalities than with the institution as a whole), but by and large if i were to do nothing about my attitude in the year ahead i foresee a lot of complaining about all and sundry to myself and to others - honestly, its stuff like this which makes me unable to envision staying in this place (as in this country) in the long run. For example, if even the slightest component of ne stuff is going to trigger the good ol' roll of the eyes from me, imagine how much mileage mine will chalk up over the course of this upcoming year - and that's just one of the many things which don't sit well with me.

But more on the good side of things (to try and distract me from all the complainables) - i've quite a good timetable (at least compared to some others i've seen) and in terms of relations with people things have for the most part gone on fine. There's also the unique circumstance (and believe me, this is used ad nauseaum by the people there as a manipulative mechanism via attempted emotional blackmail) of us actually being paid, rather than paying, to go for class. So bearing that in mind, imagine my glee upon reading thursday's st home section p.2 on the failure of even that to come through (and yes, i am one of the four hundred) - facial egg, to say the least. Oops i'm back to the bad stuff again :p

Anyways, this week was ameliorated by various school-related (as in the Anonymous Sec School i.e. *SS) teachers/students outings. When comparing notes with people who were in other schools, one thing i realize is that at least in terms of the support and friendship of the community in the school *SS has come out tops - it's far from perfect, of course, but nevertheless it's been a real great community to be around over the past month or so - part of the reason why i'm definitely more than open to going back there next time. There are reasons against too, though, but no point in going through them here eh.

uncommenced

As can perhaps be gathered by this point, i was not the happiest of campers come final results time, which of course happened right smack in the middle of an otherwise real enjoyable and fun Vietnam trip. As i've mentioned countless times before, as much as i was trying not to make a big deal out of results, well it still was a big enough of a deal for me to tip the scales, souring me on nus in general. And it was along those lines that i decided to skip the much-ballyhooed commencement. It was not so much that i didn't want to go cos of the bad final results, but more that (at least at the moment) i felt that nus had caused me so much grief in general (with the results adding to the huge pile of existing grievances - although i'll admit that some of them have entirely to do with me and not with nus) that the last thing i wanted to do is to end things off with the school on such a note.Perhaps that sounds childish, but yeah at the time (and in fact now still, albeit on a reduced scale) it made (and makes) perfect sense to me.

On the other hand, i'd be a big liar if i were to say that i didn't care at all for apparently dropping down after the promise of three-and-a-half years leading up to something more uplifting. But to that end, actually by the end of the Vietnam trip i was pretty ok with that, so i didn't even bother to proceed along any avenue of appeal. However, i was not up to keeping on thinking about the results again and again, and as such skipping the ceremony (which at least imho is almost entirely a chore to attend save for the post-ceremony picture-taking anyways) was, in my typical avoidance mindset, the logical way to go. And it was this eclectic combination of rationale behind skipping the thingy that i conveyed to the (typically shocked/non-understanding) folk who asked me about commencement.

So imagine the irony, after all of that deep thinking through and rationalization that i went through over the course of more than a month, for me to receive a text from my ex-form teacher, who had attended the first of the ceremonies, offering his congratulations - he had seen my name on the book of names. Hah - in retrospect it's quite funny la, but at that point i was like hmm... although at the end of the day i'd still rather not have gone, even if it means no nice pictures, as i suppose most, if not all of what i was my own reasons for not going still holds.

And in any case, this has been a valuable experience for me, spiritually, at least, and of course i'm thankful that in the end, things turned out as they did - one thing's for sure, i'd definitely not be as (usefully) reflective had things been clear cut form the start.

when and where?

One of the few things that has frustrated me about teaching life (or at least as close to it as i've ever gotten so far) is the early wake-up time. By itself that's actually not a problem - but combined with having to leave the house within half-an-hour so as to get to school by sevenish that means that my usual time slot allocated for having my quiet time is gone - the relatively short bus journey, coupled with the usual annoyances that tv mobile brings, makes any form of prolonged meaningful Bible reading there a distinct impossibility. Once i reach school, there's not enough time before assembly, and in any case there's too much hustle going on in the staff room at that time to make that possible. Once assembly is over, i either have classes or have other work to do, and in any case i don't feel good about taking official school time out to do what i rather ought to dedicate the so-called firstfruits of time to doing instead. So that means that i either have my qt after the dismissal bell rings (but still there's much hustle in the staff room, and in any case i feel too conspicuous), or on the bus ride back (if i happen to be blessed with a tv mobile-less bus, although i'm always half-asleep on the bus rides back, so that ain't the best time). And if all that fails, then we have today's scenario, when up till this time at night, i've still not had qt yet.

It's frustrating in the sense that since i've had to adopt this schedule, qt has almost never failed to be a touch-and-go sorta thing, especially since i'm either in a rush to get back to work or back to sleep. While nie promises a brief respite from this, in the long (or at least medium) term, i'll have to find a way around this current predicament i find myself in. And goodness knows at this time i really ought to be focusing more on God, something that i've really been unable to get myself to do for far too long. Not that He has stopped speaking to me - quite the contrary actually (if what i hear to be true is confirmed, i'll feel a right idiot methinks) - but at least on my part things kinda suck...

molding/molded

Looking through the travel classifieds in the staff lounge today, the relatively cheap offers caught my eye - then i looked at the dates offered (July, August, September...) and realized that in my (at least) near future, i won't be able to take advantage of such good deals anymore - instead i'll be competing with the tons of S'porean families at marked-up peak period prices to go to places during the december holidays where chances are i'll encounter some of these families again, making a beeline for the nearest Chinese restaurant and the cheap shopping as well, not failing to embarrass themselves (well, if not themselves, then definitely me) and cause real negative impressions of S'poreans to form in the eyes of locals in the process, prompting me to try and distance myself from them as far as possible, putting on a fake accent for starters. Hmm of course it's not as exaggerated as that (or at least i hope not), but the general idea is there.

And i'd admit, my personal need to get out frequently (re: at the very least, once a year) from here for a sufficient (re: at least two, unhassled weeks) break has been one of the key factors behind me constantly saying that i don't see myself in this job for too long a period of time - it's too monotonous and restrictive for me in that way - how to trek across Europe/ do a roadtrip across the States (of course i'd need to learn how to drive first for that one) like that?

At the same time, there's the possibility of being called to other things of a less secular nature by then, something that has been at the back of my mind ever since Urbana - but for that think the next few years would entail a lot of (particularly spiritual) change on my part - ah but these are still early days yet so won't go too into that now.

In any case, the past two weeks have been real helpful in helping me to put into perspective what i'm about to get into - real thankful for that cos think that's something i needed in the wake of all that's been going on recently - so the next two weeks ought to be real exciting =)

hush hush

a lot of what would otherwise be going in here has to be the victim of rather brutal (but nevertheless wholly necessary) self-censorship, in order to minimize the possibility of any complications arising in the future, so when all the school stuff is taken out of the picture i don't seem to have much left to talk about. At least not immediately... (So if you want to know about that then catch me one day)

Um, so then what's left? (i'm asking myself that question) Well suffice to say that i'm (quite surprisingly) looking forward to the remaining two-and-a-half weeks here, less so to the months following that at nie, and have no clue what to make of what follows that (but we'll worry about that when we get nearer there)

Oh goodness i'm watching a wimbledon update on now, and the two people talking are trying to pronounce "Zheng Jie" properly, and are failing badly (zhheng zhhee anyone?). Hey, i just realized that that's (i mean zheng) my chinese surname - harhar...

I do wish i had more opportunity to get some time off - of course Vietnam was all of less than a month ago, but still, no real chance to get a prolonged (and at least predominantly solitary) retreat, ideally away from S'pore. There's been a lot to think about recently, and the inability to do so has taken its toll on several levels. I don't mind settling for a nice long bike ride but as my bike has been stolen, i've recently had to resort to borrowing my brother's one whilst i procrastinate getting my own new one, and as things would have it, the last two times i wanted to go out the bike was unavailable. I really should be running too, but i can't bring myself to run near my place for various reasons - that's probably the biggest thing i'll miss about pgp life. And in fact at this point there's not much else i'm sentimental about regarding the darn school...

tacticality

Have become duly aware of the dangers of throwing caution to the wind when it comes to doing this, particularly within the context of being a teaching staff in a school, so i shall be deliberately vague (so people who shouldn't be reading this don't) and brief (cos i've to wake up at an disgustingly early hour in order to get to school before marikita) here.

So for the next four weeks starting from yest i'm attached to a mixed school in the near-west area - initially i was rather apprehensive on how it would be, but various unexpected but nevertheless positive surprises have come my way, not the least of them having three people i know (and chances are, you know too) among my colleagues. Additionally, i've been really impressed to see the dedication of the staff here, made me think more about why i'm getting myself into teaching in the first place - will elaborate another time maybe, when me no need to sleep...

Anyways, in other news, i'm more or less decided - yup, barring any major objections from the folks (which are unlikely in any case), am going ahead with it, or rather, going ahead with not going ahead with it...

out of place

NIE stuff has started - this week there was registration on tuesday, briefing stuff on wednesday and something called 'teacher's prep program' yesterday and today - four days of travel to and from the school that seems to be closer to Gelang Patah and even Kukup than it is to my house equals around $20 of transport money being spent - which means i've had to consciously work at changing my usual habit of topping up my farecard with just $10 at each go, cos i've realized if i kept that up, i'd be topping up my card almost every day. That aside, the sheer act of traveling from my place all the way there and back is tortuous enough as it is (i may be a travel buff but that's strictly restricted to travel outside of S'pore, although come to think of it traveling to NIE is just about as close as one can get to doing that without leaving the S'pore mainland...).

These past two days was the aforementioned tpp - admittedly (and i mentioned as much at the end of the session during the checkout session) i was not looking forward to the thingy at the start - i believe i described it as "(moe/nie's attempt to make us) waste two otherwise perfectly free days." To my unexpected surprise it turned out hardly like i'd have expected it to, in good part because our facilitator was this cool lady who was discerning enough to do less of the program and more of the sharing of rich personal experiences (and boy does she have a lot of them), and also cos of the people met/friends made.

No secret that in any case though, at the start of the week i wasn't in a good mood - and to that end one thing i was consistently praying for during my qts in the morning was for (pleasant) surprises of any kind to come my way - and by the end of the week thankfully God delivered a lot of those my way, stuff like how the tpp turned out, bumping into someone i've not seen in four years, catching-up/bleah-ing opportunities etc - all these definitely helped to de-death-glare-ify my face as the week progressed...

A string of semi-related random things that happened to me this week:

1) Went to the Malay stall to get lunch one day - the people before and after me were both addressed and served using Mandarin, but when it was my turn, the lady took one look at me and went "abang!" in order to catch my attention. That was followed by "lagi" and other random Malay words when i was pointing to the dishes i wanted, she even told me the cost of the plate in Malay...

2) Today during class our facilitator was telling a story which somehow involved porridge (she tends to digress a lot), and she was talking about something called "um," which most of the class seemed to understand immediately - i was left clueless until my groupmate informed me that it is some chinese dialect (hokkien?) term which refers to the liquid part of porridge - she was so surprised that i had no idea what that was, and then she asked me (with a serious face btw) "are you local?"

3) Later on she somehow came to the topic of patriotism (i forget how), and she asked the class "would you stand up for S'pore?" My cynical self's immediate reaction was to cringe and roll my eyes, i thought she was jokingly asking a rhetorical question. I was thus freaked to realize that several people immediately said "yes!" rather assuredly. Not that i'm about to betray the country, but i'm not one for such strong outward displays of patriotism, just never realized that most others are quite unlike me heh... Eek who's the one who needs NE lessons now eh?

Anyways, think i've come to the conclusion that the best way to deal with the situation is avoidance, in whatever means it may take - hmm that seems to be a common theme in me life eh...

running on (near) empty

Saturday was kinda a reunion sorta day - in the afternoon went back to acjc for a choir 20th anniversary thanksgiving service thingy - it's hard to believe that it's already been seven years since leaving jc - but anyways, that was a good opportunity to touch base with old faces (not many, i was one of only two people from my batch who were there) and get reacquainted with some of the music that pulsated through my brain over those two years [me being the kind who retains music in my mind well, i honestly can still remember a good portion of the music and lyrics (in my part, at least) that formed our repertoire (well with four/five-hour-long rehearsals twice a week, it's hard not to actually)]. Good also to see again what the seemingly endless stream of fundraising we did during those two years went into (especially when the school is unadorned with makeshift stalls and decorations during funorama - which has been the only other reason i've been back there apart from this in recent history). And also (unlikely, but at least became more open to the possibility) a widening of potential posting opportunities post-nie. But at the same time i was also reminded of how out of touch i (was and) am with choir life in general. Heck.

After that it was time for a cross-country mrt ride (first of many more to come methinks in the near future) to another barker class reunion. Honestly, in the past two reunions i've attended this year, i would never have expected to enjoy myself as much as i did - it's great to see how everyone looks roughly the same but nevertheless seems to have grown a lot in the emotional/spiritual sense, and also look back on good times all those years ago. Everyone's really come a long way, though i must admit, many of the various classroom shenanigans that people were recalling were stuff i was hitherto unaware of.

I wonder now if that was at least in part because while in sec 3/4 i was admittedly a (relatively) guai student who probably was too busy being a guai student to notice that all this was going on, at a time when many of the others (by their own admission) didn't really study much during that time, but have since gone on to much greater things in their own right, such as getting into good schools and graduating with good degrees or finding a great job, that sorta thing - along those lines i seriously wonder if i had more or less exhausted whatever capacity i had to be that sort of guai student by the time nus, and in particular the period after coming back from exchange, came around, culminating in the spectacular academic failure that is my final sem. And along similar lines, whether my early involvement in all things VCF pre-exchange sort of sapped a good deal of the capacity i had for cf involvement in general, culminating in my dwindling energy put in to cf stuff over the last year (yes, in spite of being in exco), up to the state of near apathy that i seem to be feeling at this moment. Of course, as per my usual disclaimer, i am probably making things out to be far worse than they actually are, but in essence, it's all there.

Well, the obvious alternative to that hypothesis is that things just changed dramatically for me upon coming back from exchange - i've a good portion of what was written in the excellent report in Saturday's ST on disoriented S'poreans returning here after time abroad to support that theory (even if five months isn't exactly the longest of times, as compared to say years/decades). I'd like to think that it's a combination of the two, plus other random factors.

Oh well. i know how much i hate overthinking/overanalysis, and i figure that's exactly what i'm doing in the above, so let's keep it at that for now - just hope that things change soon enough...

wanderlust

The Vietnam trip was by and large my first real experience at backpacking (or at least as close to backpacking as i've ever been on - with the actual procurement and usage of a backpack playing a big part in that) - typically my travels (or at least those of the non-family/non-school trip variety) have fallen into either the shamelessly-invite-self-to-stay-with-relatives/family-friends or the pay-a-premium-and-share-a-proper-hotel-room variety - i.e. i'm more used to slightly more atas accomodations (and more importantly, washroom facilities) when it comes to traveling.

But basically by the end of the Vietnam trip, i realized that i can easily go down a scale when it comes to traveling - the important thing is more the new places seen than the place you stay in, unless of course you make your hotel your destination like those atas places you see on discovery travel and living...

Eh so anyways, even during the trip and since coming back a whole host of places have popped up in my head which i would like to go to in the near future (i.e. before stuff like backaches and joint pains make more rigorous travel a non-option). What great timing that this happens at the same time as my schedule is about to get a whole lot less flexible in the long term, but ah well, we can always dream eh...

My main criteria is that the place must interest me (like duh), and if a language that i'm at least a tad familiar in is spoken there that's an added plus (except for mandarin of course, which i'd rather not use at all). Don't necessarily have to backpack there, more atas types of travel is definitely an option, as long as got enough $ - anyways Vietnam has taught me that i don't really like to shop, so which means more $ for other stuff, like eating =)

In random, indulgent order:

1) Visit the 21 states in the US i've yet to visit - those i'm especially keen on are Ohio (although that's almost solely cos i want to go here); Alaska (cos i want to go on a cruise far away enough from S'poreans who will storm the buffet lines and has more interesting and new places to call port in than Melaka and/or Phuket); Colorado (for mountains and skiing); Vermont (for fall scenery and Ben & Jerry's) and Wisconsin (well it's near enough to Chicago, which is my favorite big city in the US, and i don't mind stuffing myself with cheese). How convenient that they all are relatively far away from each other eh - (as in they don't touch each other...). Bah.

2) Revisit Chapel Hill, and old friends, and at the same time see more of NC, especially the mountains which i didn't see at all, maybe hike at least a fair bit of the Appalachian Trail too...

3) Go around the Philippines - hike the rice terraces, swim with whale sharks, chill at the beach in Boracay/Palawan, chocolate hills (how can you go wrong with a place called chocolate hills?) - hopefully by the time i get back there i'll have enough command of the language to live up to my appearance...

4) Some kind of backpacking trail around Europe - either around France (where i'll hopefully be able to cope with the language), the central and eastern parts (i.e. funky ex-Communist countries), or Scandinavia and the surrounding regions (where i know a couple of people, who hopefully still know me heh) - this of course, will take far more time than methinks i'll ever have available in the next few years, but at least speaking at this point in time this is enough reason for me to take a break once my bond is up hmm...

5) (if got less time and $) go around Thailand, since i can speak enough Thai to make me wish i was there instead of Vietnam during the trip owing to communication problems.

6) South Africa (just cos i want to go to Sub-Saharan Africa, and this is the most accessible part of it to go to)

7) Mauritius (not cos of it's proven honeymoon potential, but cos it's a French-speaking place with great scenery)

8) Tunisia/Morocco (eh cos French is spoken there and i want to go to North Africa too - yes i'm that predictable)

9) South America (if ever i get to picking up Spanish - just to cover another continent - i can do without going to Antarctica - too expensive and unfeasible)

Heh maybe that'll do for now - don't want to get to indulgent and unrealistic, and anyways i've been blessed with the opportunity to go to a lot of places as it is... And i don't want to rake up unnecessary carbon emissions... But still, any takers to any of the above?

If not, i'll find my way to these places myself... Hopefully... Eventually...

i've had a few

Got back yesterday from Vietnam - two weeks with random exco peeps, navigating our way from Saigon/HCMC up to Hanoi with various stops in between. Overall was a good time, goodness knows that i could do with an added holiday, even though it was not to a place where i conventionally would have chosen. In any case, the company elevates the enjoyment of a holiday from depending on the destination per se eh?

Well, maybe will talk more about Vietnam trip another time. What's on my mind now is the whole issue of graduation and how i'm going to handle it. So in short what happened is that results came out while we were in Vietnam (results that i was not really looking forward to as i guess many can gather). In preparation for whatever those results may have been i tried to spend time during qt/random times of stoning to talk to God specifically about it - even devoted a good one and a half hours or so walking up a good length of the main beach in Nha Trang and back doing just that. Well by the end of all that i thought that at least whatever the results would turn out to be, i'd be (eventually) ok with it. Which i guess is the case now when i write this in retrospect, more or less, at the least.

But at the time boy were they not. It hit me slowly, very slowly, in fact, at first. And then, as i began to think more about it, and realised how i came so close, and the simple action of using the s/u a bit more wisely alone, independent of scoring any better for any class, would have eliminated that 0.01 or so gap, i began to get real pissed - with myself and with the school. Of course, at the same time, what i had been pondering over previously helped to sober me a bit, although overall i was really super frustrated.

Although for much of the next two days i began to retreat into one of my pensive (and where i'm concerned, hence anti-social) moods, think that the Lord worked so wonderfully in timing this to take place in Vietnam and not back in S'pore. In short i was able to look around and see how i really have nothing to complain about, at least relatively speaking - a rehashing of the why (not) me thingy again. So now i'm not really too bothered about it anymore, although admittedly i'm using my time-honored strategy of avoidance to try and tackle the situation. Which is where the current resurfacing of all my thoughts on the matter at this present time comes in - don't want to elaborate here, at least not now - suffice to say that i've a lot more thinking and praying to do i guess. Motivations...

(sorta) parting thoughts

Got back yesterday from exco retreat/advance - it felt kinda weird some of the time, as for the first time in just about year i was at a chalet hanging around with no real work to have to do, where the major decisions to be made are of the what-game-should-we-play-now variety.

So i guess this kinda marks the end of what has been a highly eventful year in exco - lots of ups together with their fair share of downs - but all in all, as i've come to realize is more or less always the case, at least in retrospect, an experience with much to give thanks for - a concrete display of what can happen if you just have faith that He will see you through.

Anyways, any more of that reflection stuff will probably turn all maudlin so i'll avoid that. Basically as it felt weird to not have any work per se to get done during retreat/advance, so now it feels weird that technically VCF is no longer my direct concern, so to speak. And being the kind who tends to focus on a limited amount of key things at a time (and having VCF be one of them over the past four years, and i'd say at the expense of church), to have one biggie come to a sudden endlike this is quite the surreal experience.

Of course, who's to say that i'm cutting off all ties from VCF - yup that's definitely not the case. But in lieu of my arguably special circumstances (which in short are that i really ought to be better rooted in church, especially now that there's no longer VCF), i've been thinking that i really should limit the amount of time i spend coming back to visit and all that, as satisfying an experience as that may be, as that would methinks to at least some extent just serve to perpetuate the frustration that is my current situation. Not that i'm taking time off from CF stuff and cfers along with that, but just that selectivity (if there is such a word) is key for now.

Was watching a short CNN report on James Blake just now - basically he's a top tennis player who a couple of seasons ago went through injury that caused near paralysis, the death of his father and a life-threatening illness all in one short span. What struck me about that is how he was dismissing the "why me?" attitude that perhaps is human nature when afflicted in such a way - he reasoned that people don't ask the same when they achieve success in some way, so why should we do the same when things don't go the way they so-called 'ideally' would? And at least for me, that makes perfect sense. I am not sure what Mr Blake's religious affiliations are, but in applying it to a Christian perspective on things, who are we to question how the Lord lets things go when they don't turn out well, when we welcome with open arms (occasionally accompanied by thanksgiving) the good stuff?

Of course in theory, that's easy to say and affirm, but in practice, ay there's the rub. Throughout the course of much of the past four years i've been struggling with the "why me?" thingy for various setbacks and what not that've happened, the most current one being the far-less-than-satisfactory church situation i'm in, and the long-term implications of that over the years, some of which have already become an occasionally painful reality for me. Guess that's just something that the Lord is still working through, with a more concrete conclusion to the matter still lying far ahead in the distance, if it exists at all. That's where grace and faith come in eh...

Bummed about Burma

I was quite disappointed to read FM George Yeo's comments regarding disaster-hit states in the st today - and i quote - "we must respect the autonomy of countries and accept the fact that they know local situations better than foreign people ever can." Generally speaking, the statement certainly stands. But when you apply it to the current situation in Burma (i refuse to use the M-word as to me that signifies acceptance of the military junta there), surely common sense, aided by decades of experience in dealing with the government, has it that these wise words require deep re-examination.

Yes a country's autonomy ought to be respected - but should it be respected (and from the look of how ASEAN is dealing, or not dealing, with the situation, venerated) to the extent that we forget what a proven incompetent regime we are dealing with here in the first place? All this la-di-da diplomacy can only do so much, and i'm afraid that with reference to the regime heading Burma, it's far from enough - influential players like ASEAN and China really have to start pushing the boundaries of this "respect of autonomy" and show that they mean business to the Burmese government if the latter is ever going to wake up its idea, so to speak. Unfortunately, it seems that the allure of one's own economic gain, plus to a lesser extent, the concept of face, is preventing this from ever happening (cf. Yeo's remarks).

And yes local governments would know the local situation better than foreign people ever can. And Burma's rulers definitely know the local situation very well. Unfortunately it only seems to be in the interests of perpetuating their noxious rule rather than anything else. Their 'in-depth local knowledge,' if you could call it that, is employed only for their own security purposes, and not for the welfare of the disaster-stricken people at all. There's more than sufficient proof to show that the government cannot, or at the least, will not do enough to provide the necessary relief to the people in the vast Irrawaddy Delta area. Apparently a lot of those affected in these areas are Karen Christians, which (i won't go into greater detail here) methinks explains in part why the military is so reticent to even let foreign aid get to them, let alone help them themselves. And there are other reports that the military is taking credit for aid that does not come from them, and are even replacing some of the aid packages with inferior quality ones, keeping the former for their own needs. Disgusting.

I recall a conversation with an American on the plane explaining to him more about the situation in Burma - appalled, he said that direct intervention is needed - and it probably would have happened already had Burma been an oil-rich state. Invasion may be a step (or several steps) too far, but definitely more has to be done.

21 more to go

So at the start of the last sem i'd played around with taking various classes and realized that for once, at last i had the opportunity to end (exams) early, and real early at that, if i chose classes in the interests of fulfilling that end. And while i'd hardly advise the promise of an early holiday to be the main consideration behind the choosing of classes, i'm nevertheless glad that it worked out for me (eh or at least i'll say that until final results come out...)

But back to the story, actually even after settling classes and hence exam schedule, i had no ideas in mind as to what i may have wanted to do once exams ended. And then randomly one day i came across an online advert on cnn.com by SIA with the promo fare to Houston, and to cut a long story short, the very reasonable fares plus tanking US dollar were enough for me to finally decide to get tickets. Furthermore, the final destination was a place in the US i hadn't been before (which is always a key factor) - so why not eh?

Well i could list in detail all that went on but i guess that's rather self-indulgent and anyways i can't remember all the itty bitty details. In lieu of that will just recount random cool things that come to mind.

1) As much as i don't like the elitist bent of SQ (case-in-point: the changing of the direct to NYC/LA flights to an all-business class configuration in order to rake in bigger bucks), (at the risk of being cheesy) it really is a great way to fly - and after suffering through United Airlines to the US the past few times, SIA really is a revelation. The in-flight entertainment is really a cut above - i've this thing against paying the prices we have to pay to watch movies in S'pore, so to watch (allow me to recount) Sweeney Todd (not bad); Ratatouille (only thing i didn't like was the bad French pronunciation); Bee Movie (which is a D movie imho - don't watch it!); Juno (finally!); No Country For Old Men (creepy but good); Dan in Real Life (underrated); plus lots of good tv stuff like Pushing Daisies (wish they'd show it here) and Arrested Development (i miss it) for free (ok, not really free, but at least it seems free) was great. I almost didn't sleep both on the way there and back simply cos there was so much to do. Regret not getting a free S'pore Sling just to see what's the big deal about it...

2) Honestly, i expected New Orleans to be in a more depressed state than it was, in the wake of Katrina and all, but then again, i didn't get to go out of the tourist area, which was relatively less affected. All in all, it's a real interesting city, although the great nightlife is not really my type - the famous Bourbon Street there is dotted with strip clubs, which, to put it discreetly, make it clear in their storefronts what services it is that they provide. That's why i only went down there in the day and avoided it at night. Can't imagine how my father would have reacted if he was there haha.

3) And for all the good food that the city is famous for, unfortunately a lot of it has seafood (which i guess comes as no surprise since it is right by the sea), so didn't really get to sample much of that... Whatever food i did have was good nevertheless.

4) Never seen so many smokers as i did there - in the street, one really could not look in any direction without catching at least one person smoking. It seemed to me that people were either smoking or about to take a smoking break.

5) Wish could spend more time than just one and a half days in Houston - there's actually a surprising amount of stuff to do there. Thought i got a real good deal on the Hyatt there, until i realized that over the weekend, downtown is by and large a dead zone. Never really got out of the central area either. But ah well, it was good anyways.

6) Quite cool how an ex-NBA player ended up to be my cab driver to the airport - and a pretty good one too (three-time all-star) - and at least the minimal bball knowledge that i had was enough to get him really excited that this foreign asian dude knew so much haha.

7) The quick one-day visit to South Bend was really cool - i just like to go to places where the typical S'porean tourist would never go to - and this was one of them. Notre Dame has a real beautiful campus, the nicest i've seen so far, and the spring flowers were real pretty. Also, what cool timing that i was there during the primary elections, so i got to see the electoral process there close-up (during the midterms in '06 there was little action in Chapel Hill - and coincidentally the NC primaries were on the same day).

8) For the record, while i was there i became an Obama supporter :)

9) Even though i've been to Chicago before, and very recently too, am glad managed to go back - not just because there's quite a bit to do there, but also for the company. Think by now i can make my way around the city pretty well without ending up lost.

10) The highlight of Chicago was of course finally getting to watch Wicked (the soundtrack of which i'm listening to right now) - i dunno why i didn't watch it the other time i was there, but anyways, it was just a great experience. As many times as i've seen Defying Gravity on the screen, nothing beats seeing it in front of you on stage. And For Good? *tears* I wonder if it will ever reach here (and not with a third-rate Aussie production).

11) Ate so much there - portions are so big to begin with, and then i had to help my mother to finish up her portion most times (cos i don't like to waste food). Never dumped so many times and so much in a day before (ok wtmi i know)

12) And of course, for frivolity's sake, i also added three more new states to my list (Texas, Louisiana and Michigan) - so we're up to 29/50 now =p

*) Although of course that also meant that there was an awful lot covered in just ten days - oh what i wouldn't give for a nice, relaxed holiday unconstrained from annoyingly constricting S'porean timetables...

Hmm looks like i listed a lot of stuff in detail anyways...

Ah well, in any case, hope to go back again, and particularly back to NC, sooner rather than later. Yup Carolina still on my mind...

And of course what 17 May post isn't complete without a happy birthday greeting?

reverso

Yuppers so i got back from a good but nevertheless very rushed trip yesterday, will talk more about it later while progressively uploading pics on fb, but for now am just biding time until going for dinner...

So people who've been reading this for some time may recall my saaa-ness-induced shirt incident from two years or so back. Well, a similar incident just had to take place one more time before leaving nus, and on my final day of all days - ok the background to this story is that due to both an affinity for walking around plus a desire to cut carbon emissions, i'd taken to walking back to pgp from school at the end of each day. Unfortunately, given the @#$% heat and humidity that we have here (one of the things that annoys me most about S'pore btw), by the time i reach back to my room, my shirt is usually sweat-drenched (but still wearable), so i'll hang it up, turning it inside-out in the process.

And then the morning of my first (and last) papers, i just took one of those shirts (and i suppose you can see where i'm heading with this one by now) and wore it and headed out. Bumped into a classmate at arts canteen and sat there for a while before heading to as7 for my 9am paper on (hooray) Malaysian history. Paper itself was ok, everyone was happy to get through it (and perhaps very apt for the occasion, shouts of Merdeka rang out). And i turned around and asked my friend behind me how was things - then he asked me if i wore my shirt the wrong way - i checked and - oops, so it was inside-out.

My only hope is that he noticed it only because he had spent the two previous hours right behind me and hence had ample opportunity to notice the label sticking out from under my collar (it was a polotee). That's highly likely i guess, or at least i hope, since no one else seemed to look at me strangely - hmm come to think of it, maybe one of the invigilators did... Oh well, in any case needless to say the first place i headed to after that was the washroom to invert the shirt... Whee. I'm such a toot.

from across the earth

Ok after a day of flying and sleep depravation (due more to the uber-coolness that is KrisWorld on SQ than due to problems with sleeping while flying), am now in a Houston airport area hotel (the town is called, believe it or not, Humble), using the free wireless - hope everyone's exams are coming along fine! Will talk more about my own abrogated exam period and flight when am less tired and don't have a 6:15am flight to New Orleans the next day to wake up in time for. Currently my eyes are as red as they were just after i finished writing thesis - heh talk about same condition, totally different cause =p

Losing a (sorta) family member and gaining (sorta) another

Firstly, on a sad note, my bike of just under four and a half years (whom i had belatedly christened Big Blue - yup real imaginative i am i know), got stolen, from, of all places at the carpark under my building where it was chained. The latest in a series of annoyances i have with apartment living. The fact that it was stolen the weekend following our friend MSK's escape has brought forth the possibility that he was the evil dude who broke not one, but two chains in order to steal her. But ah well, its but an irrelevant conspiracy theory... Anyways, BB served me well, and she was sorta due for retirement (i was from time to time considering rubbing her all over with lemon juice in the interests of de-rusting), but even then, this is still rather abrupt. My only hope is that she proves useful to whoever took her (and i don't mean in the scrap metal sense...)

Me being boliao and taking a picture of hands-less bike-riding

BB at Changi Coast Park watching planes land

I know i've been meaning to talk more about my new sibling (i'm talking about the sis) but have not really had the time to do so - oh well, actually, it's been more than three weeks already since i handed it in (hist dept deadline being the earliest in the whole of nus to my knowledge), so i've kinda forgotten a lot about what actually went on. All that comes to mind at the moment is zao-ing an exco meeting early (in my defense, it already was close to 11pm) in order to trundle back to pgp to finish the last bits before sending for printing, sleeping about two hours in between getting back and leaving again for the business library to do whatever was left before printing it (since it's 20% cheaper to print there), and then finally getting it done but then fouling up on the formatting of content page and page numbers, necessitating an emergency call to more computer-adept folk to bail me out, and then finally printing it at around 5pm, while realizing that in my stress and saa-ness, i had both forgotten to bathe that night and had mistakenly printed two extra copies (thus negating any $ that may have been saved via the 20% cheapre printing prices). Well, after a short metamorphosizing period at gohbros, this is the result:

Yup i know the acknowledgements page doesn't begin to express my gratitude to all who have seen me through this process (without sounding too self-indulgent), so i'll just say another (inadequate) thank you to anyone who has in any way helped to see me through this... You are most welcome to look for me if you are actually interested in reading about the construction of a contemporary Filipino American identity, although chances are, you aren't =p

And in the meantime, it's reading week - last one ever!

Mediacrap, or the Modern Narcissus

Anyone who regularly watches this space will know that i have a special annoyance for most stuff to do with mediacrap, and that any mention of them here is to remark upon something bad (cos well i don't see anything good to remark upon).

Well, methinks that this time they've really outdone themselves in the narcissism and self-congratulatory department, as seen in this cna article. Imagine that - they all getting so proud about MediaCorp News "[sweeping] the lion's share of the annual in-house awards given to journalists" (pardon the formal quoting btw, occupational hazard of just having finished thesis). Well - let me analyze that statement a tad - "in-house" = only MediaCorp stuff is eligible, or at the least is heavily favored to win; "given to journalists" = the news department would obviously have the upper hand - i mean, which other department has journalists anyway? I dunno who won the two awards that MediaCorp News didn't win, but that's besides the point - the fact that they didn't win everything shows how poor their quality is (imho). In other words, i can't think of a more flawed set-up for an awards presentation than this one.

Maybe on second thoughts, this whole awards thingy isn't so bad, in the sense that i guess hard work deserves to be recognized. My beef though, is that (again, imho) the kind of nonsense that they produce doesn't even begin to warrant them splashing out such a long article to bask in their own perceived (not by me though) achievements. Get their act together, then maybe i will cease from being so critical. But alas, that day appears to be far from a-coming...

side note: this just turned three!

second side note: updates on how thesis went etc will come soon...

i read this halfway, and knew it had to be a joke - oh if only...

Go heels!

it's only words

So here's where it stands as of now:

The thesis is due in a week's time, at 4pm (ok so that technically makes it six days, 22 hours and say forty minutes' time...)

I've completed the intro, chapters one and two, and am halfway through chapter three.

However, lots of feedback over the past week or so has (perhaps inevitably) led me to have to try and do a major reworking of the whole thing, for a variety of reasons which if i list here will just remind me of my grief.

So to that end, i've to sorta overhaul (the word of the past few weeks, eh?) the whole thing, strengthen the line of argument in all that's been written so far, which necessitates quite a bit of cutting and reconceptualizing (whoa will the parallels with cg structure never cease?), two things that i'm not particularly good at doing (whoop so they haven't =p)

Which, believe me, is definitely do-able - but it's a matter of how well this can be done. I've recently gone back to calculating caps once again (the most math i've done this side of "Physics in the Life Sciences"), and realize that the magic number i should aim for is 3.7825 - which sounds very possible, if not for the fact that thesis will have to make up half of that figure, which drastically lowers the odds. Especially if the stuff which i submit looks any more than remotely similar to what i have now...

Oh well, i'm definitely glad to have gotten all the feedback, it really has helped me to think through what i'm writing, and make sure that it's not all just some random sociological fluff. Just wish that i were not in as vulnerable a position as i am now.

And of course there's the added bummer that cos of this i practically missed all of CC that was going on, cos even if i were to go for any of it, think i wouldn't be spiritually and emotionally invested enough to make me more than a seat-filler. Same goes for Holy Week unfortunately.

So now all that lies between now and 4pm on 28 March 2008 is a lot of staring at the computer screen trying to add and cut stuff from here and there, hoping to make enough sense of it to posit a possible grade (which hopefully won't stink), plenty of sleep (yes sleep - at least 9 hours a night for the past week in fact), even more food (have gobbled down one-and-a-half loaves of bread since Monday), hopefully some exercise (or the aforementioned food will take its toll), a visit to Goh Bros at src to submit my title (ack!), another to submit the final stuff (and btw when i went down that day i never realized how big the place actually is - always thought it was just a shopfront), and a final one to collect the bound copies for submission. No sweat, huh?

Oh, and lots of prayer =)

RIP Eve

Well, i didn't know her personally, and only vaguely (if at all, i may be remembering the wrong person - may have voted for her, i can't remember), but the news of Eve Carson's sudden passing still has come as quite a shock, even though it's more than a year since UNC. Even though it's so far away (both temporally and spatially, the blow seems to hit much closer than it perhaps logically ought to). I know that where she was shot was near one of my normal running routes there - and it was so near campus too, so on some weird level that was pretty real for me. And if to me it's already like this, can't imagine how things are like over there.

Anyways, prayers with Eve's family and friends, stay strong Heels.

Edit - dook win seems so much more meaningful now...

C'mon

Eh i dunno why as my deadline draws closer i feel more compelled to put stuff here, even as writing has seen (less than adequate) progress since yesterday - oh MSK, why did you have to escape now of all times?

But anyways, i was again paying an excruciating visit to cna in order to check out local news, when i came across some good news - (no, he's not yet found) they're setting up an independent committee of inquiry to find out how the guy escaped and recommend measures to prevent this from ever happening again.

But wait a minute: independent committee of inquiry you say? Let's pay a little visit to our friends over at dictionary.com:

in·de·pend·ent
–adjective

1.	not influenced or controlled by others in matters of opinion, conduct, etc.; thinking or acting for oneself: an independent thinker.

2.	not subject to another's authority or jurisdiction; autonomous; free: an independent businessman.

3.	not influenced by the thought or action of others: independent research.

Fair enough. Now let's look at who makes up this independent committee:

"The committee is chaired by Goh Joon Seng, a retired judge (and current member of the Council of Presidential Advisers), with former police commissioner and current ambassador-at-large Tee Tua Ba, and Deputy Secretary of Security at the Home Affairs Ministry, Choong May Ling"

So let me get this straight, "independent" as defined by the higher-ups somehow is able to describe a presidential adviser (ok, that one still can i guess), a former police commissioner and current ambassador-at-large (hmm tricky - but to give the benefit of the doubt, he is a former police commissioner, so he is not currently within the system), and *what?!* a deputy secretary at MHA [ok, this doubt of mine doesn't even have any benefit to worm out of it - seriously, none of the above definitions (nor any from the rest on the list, for that matter) could even in their most liberal interpretation, include a senior official from the ministry in charge of ISD, who run the Whitley detention center in the first place].

Aiyah, but well i've really to be getting back to work - doesn't mean i'm not super miffed at the whole thing though - i still maintain that our friend WKS ought to give a sincere apology for a change and then step down - though chances are, when the findings of this 'independent' committee come out, he'll still be there without a tinge of guilt, and with that same arrogant mug. Sad.

you pay 'em peanuts, you get peanuts

um ok i guess under the circumstances (first draft due in just over 52 hours' time, with only 1/6 of the maximum word count now being actually typed out), typing this perhaps isn't exactly the best idea (and i'd sort of resolved not to put anything new here until i handed the draft up).

but well, to let my rarely-seen optimistic streak manifest itself at an opportune moment, i have at least finished a (tentative) introduction, somehow managing to squeeze everything into the 1000 word limit (and then periodically - as in every fifteen minutes or so - revisiting it for revision, alternating between trimming and adding as it appears to fit best at that point in time, but ensuring that i end up with exactly 1000 words), and i've also done the opening few paragraphs of each of my three chapters, which for me is the most troubling part to do, after that, the content is by and large already up here (points to head). But of course there's nothing to write for a conclusion yet cos i'm still not sure how's that gonna turn out... Well anyways, this is meant to be a work in progress, and i know there'll be a lot of revision to do once i get the draft back, so why do up so much that will end up being cut and revamped? (i can practically see the angel and devil on either side of my head now...)

in any case, they chose, of all times, now to install a drainage system right by the slope outside my window, so there's this constant and jarring drilling noise that i've to contend with... And anyways who am i if not the ultimate last-minute worker (who still never misses a work deadline thank you very much)?

let me randomly grumble aloud as to how somehow the higher-ups tend to get away scot free over here - there was the business with the dunking; our dear friend TT and his shenanigans with the nkf (btw is that word like back in now that Juno has uttered it?); and now this inexcusable escape, yet none of the relevant highly-paid folk get the sack, or even a reprimand for that matter. Instead it's those further below (i wouldn't call them scapegoats, but to some extent that's a valid use of the word) who get it bad. Anywhere else and it's bye-bye seven-figure salary (oh wait, i stand corrected, anywhere else there wouldn't be a seven-figure salary). And in this most recent case, what do we get? Nothing but a smug, insincere apology delivered with the same arrogance and that oh-look-at-me-mr-high-and-mighty face. Surely if people are paid that much, they can at least have the common decency to be more accountable for their responsibilities...

herein ends the rant of a concerned and pissed off S'porean. Now back to writing (oops, actually, think i'll lunch first =p).

Happy 122nd - while you celebrate your birthday at the Shangri-la, i'll be at pgp toiling over my com.

btw, i came across this quick poll on the channelnewsasia website (as much as i hate cna, the other realistic option for getting local news online is ST which requires payment, and imho they don't deserve it). my views on the youth olympics aside (and they shall remain private), when i saw this my first reaction was "what the s***" (pardon the bad language) [btw just cut-n-paste cos couldn't figure out html]

quick poll:

Singapore has won the bid to play host for the 2010 Youth Olympics Games.

-Yes! It shows size doesn't matter and I am glad for the vote of confidence

-I believe this will develop sport in Singapore and teach people to look beyond the material

yup, these were the only two options btw - it's kinda like what Colbert does when he poses visibly annoyed Democratic congressmen this question during "Better Know A District": "George W. Bush - great president, or the greatest president?" Kinda farny in that case, less so here...

oh goodness save me from this crap (cna, i mean)...

totally random note of the day

They were airing "The Queen" on central just now - it so happened that it was also the last movie i watched in an actual movie theater - that was in Jan last year. So i figure that i'm not much of a movie person eh...

ah well, anyways, there won't be much over here in the near future, at least not until by God's grace a sufficient amount of thesis stuff is churned out for the first draft (due 3 Mar)...

So until then, wish me well...

clash

Yup it's time for my oh-so-favorite holiday of the year again. Perhaps to subconsciously commemorate the occasion, i started playing the few chinese songs that exist on my home pc (and btw doesn't Stefanie Sun look so auntie in those canned food ads at bus stops?), something that i've not done since 18 Aug 2007 (it says so on the itunes thingy) and only after starting to type this post did i realize the link.

Well, i'm glad at least that this year's cny is probably as minimally disruptive as they get - we had dinner last night, then there's lunch today, and that pretty much marks the end of any family observances of the holiday. There's also another dinner tonight, but at least i'm spared from having to do any visiting this year, something that i perhaps was nonchalant about when i was younger, but ever since i got older, and $ got less and less, the sole redeeming quality of it all has gotten less and less effective, and in the past five or more years or so have gotten real sian of visiting. May even head back to school to do work tomorrow, in part to avoid having to be dragged down to visit more random people, but also cos after i left my room yesterday and was on the bus back, i realized that i had both left behind perishable food in my room and left the windows wide open.

Unfortunately though, attempts to avoid cny music by staying away from supermarkets and the like unless absolutely necessary have not met with much success, and to make matters worse, my dear presidential neighbor has some cny activities planned and hence now i hear more cny music blasted from a chinese orchestra (so just as well i'm playing more acceptable chinese music to drown that out...). Hmm, yet another reason to go back to school tomorrow - and in any case i've lots of work to do...

This is the first year that i can remember where i've tried to actively do something in the light of Lent season. Food wise, however, i've found it hard to find something to abstain from - at first i was thinking along the lines of cny delicacies like pineapple tarts/love letters etc, but then i realized i don't really like to eat those in any case, so it would be no kick. I already don't eat seafood so no go there, and i was already cutting down on fish both cos it's often too fishy and cos of my concerns over overfishing and the difficulty here (compared to say, in the States) to find out what varieties have in fact been overfished (and hence, might as well avoid all fish). Then, i was thinking along the lines of beef as well, but then again my choice to avoid it would have more to do with the inefficiency of cows as a food source since the calories they consume in their grain feed is far less than the calories their meat produces (i.e. people go hungry at the expense of wasted calories), and less so for religious reasons. And of course cows fart/belch methane too. But in any case i just remembered that i did in fact eat beef at yesterday's dinner so it can't count either heh... So i dunno, chocs? But i don't exactly crave those. Ice cream? But i don't get to eat it often anyways. Alcohol? But i drink like once a year if not less...

So while i still dunno about the food bit, i've decided to avoid youtube for this period, since i do lose at least four productive hours every month or so to browsing random nonsense thingies. Interesting though, how the RC Church here wrote to the Vatican for permission to find an alternative date for Ash Wednesday fasting observation in the light of it coinciding with typical reunion dinner night - raises questions on if and when it is right to compromise Christian practices (or even to label it a compromise) for the sake of culture...

Ah crap there's the Dook game on now and i can't catch it - they're not even airing it on espn here - what a travesty...

work = mad

Graduation requirements are such that i've had to take class after class of so-called breadth modules - i can envision the official rationale behind it is that nus can then go on to produce well-rounded young men and women who will be well-equipped to face the unique challenges of today's society or something along these lines, only cheesier.

Well at class the other day the lecturer noted that F = ma - fair enough, i remember that from O level physics. Then came the next equation: work = Fd. And of course, being the diligent well-rounded young man that i am, i substituted formula one into formula two - voilà: the only thing i still remember from that day's class: work = mad. Go figure.

Wonder why each semester seems to pass by faster and faster - that three weeks of school are already over is just insane - and it's now just under two months till ht is due [and so far the (lack of) progress report sees me having written no more than a tentative, pre-edited and horribly overly-long lit review (but i've probably read more books than the whole rest of last year already)] and exactly a month after that when i take my first and last papers of the sem and of my entire undergrad career. That's quite hard to fathom now, but judging from the pace that things have been coming this way in no time it should be easier to grasp - just hope that my writing can keep pace with it! But seriously (yes, seriously =p) i'm quite happy with the amount of stuff that somehow has been done so far - it's a real reminder that the Lord is carrying me through it...

So cny is coming up, and as per usual i'm looking forward to it as much as i am to the latest update on Britney Spears' struggles with sobriety, child custody and the like. Guess the big silver lining i can draw out of it is the extra few days free to get some work done (i wanna say "but who am i kidding?" but in faith, i'm sure i'll get quite a bit done =)

And hooray for trips post-exams (dunno what they might be yet, but i shall celebrate in advance too)!!!

Finally managed to catch me some tennis the other day since channel 5 decided to air the Aussie Open Finals - only managed to catch the men's one, but anyways i guess my eardrums needed a rest and subjecting myself to Maria Sharapova's shrieks wouldn't help. As normally happens when i end up following a match, the one i didn't want to win won, and by my analysis it was more of Tsonga losing the match than Djokovic winning it (not that he wasn't good though), but ah heck, at least it was real quality tennis. My father, of course, theorized that Tsonga would have played better sans the ear stud - i'm not too sure about that one =p

And speaking of tennis, who's game for this wed 10-12pm at SRC?

Was reading the ST when they talked about the monetary awards presentation to the SEA Games gold medal winners - i couldn't help noticing the many foreign-born people among them - then they were also talking about how player A from the table tennis team just overtook player B in the world rankings, and how she's the highest non-Chinese player in the rankings. Then i thought to myself, but wait a minute, she is Chinese, as is player B, and i reckon just about close to every single player in the world's top ten.

Kudos to the Chinese (no matter what country they represent) for being so talented at ping pong. Heck, if i remember correctly, all but one member from our male and female national team's players are actually from China. And honestly speaking, i don't think that under these circumstances, Singapore deserves any more credit than being the best recruiter of Chinese talent that would otherwise be barely able to represent China on the highest world stages cos there are too many better players already in China. So to that end, i don't really care for any of the foreign sporting talent's achievements for S'pore, as in i welcome these foreign-born S'poreans, and they definitely deserve their accolades and all, but the SSC shouldn't go around trumping their achievements as S'porean achievements, assigning the S'porean label to them just like that. To me, it just cheapens the S'poreanness of the whole thing.

Was also reading about the upcoming Uni Town thingy nus is putting up, and how it was put in some special 'green' category which meant that it would be given priority access to limited building resources. Same goes, if i'm not wrong, to the casino (let's call a spade a spade please) developments. Fair enough - what i think stinks is that they never did the same thing for the new KTP Hospital, something that is arguably more important. After all, the Uni Town is only being pushed to be completed so fast because S'pore is bidding for the Youth Olympic Games, yet another marquee event that would put S'pore up there with the Londons and New Yorks as a (and i'm so sick of this term) "World Class City". Healthcare for a rapidly ageing (and expanding - though lky took the target down by a whole 1 million people) population takes a back seat, even when there's been a space crunch at the govt hospitals, especially in the C class wards. Just as well that something is being done to regulate the demand side by introducing means testing, but how about the supply side by speeding up the construction of the hospital (and original plans in fact had in mind a general hospital in Jurong by 2004 or so - what happened to that?). Once again the everyday S'porean whose voice gets lost amidst the progress-minded and pragmatic in our political landscape has gotten played out...