Minutes to Midnight

It's a relatively new album by Linkin Park, referring to the Doomsday Clock.
The world is 5 minutes away from its end, according to this particular calculation.
I felt 5 minutes away from blowing up at someone, but have kept quiet. Even pretended that nothing happened.
Have never believed I would like Linkin Park, or any rock band for the matter.
But these weeks, have been the noisier the better. The better to vent my frustration, the better to drown out the noise outside.
Of course it helps if the lyrics are meaningful at the same time.
Currently have a desire to get superwoofer speakers, but am refraining because moving it would be a disaster and back on campus, superwoofer speakers will get me in trouble.
The practical mind got me into this bind, and at the same time is preventing me from getting back.
The only way perhaps is to do as one of the songs in the album goes: "remember the best and leave all the rest behind." Too bad, I have to do this even before they die.

Stalker

Online stalkers are scary. Recently, I found out that a friend stalks me on facebook, reads my status and updates, which means he/she has an account, but refuses to let anyone read his/her profile and has added no one in our common circle of friends. And this person is not a random acquaintance, that kind that you have only met once or twice. Why pretend to be open but privately stalk people? Frankly, the idea of adding friends is so that it is a two-way thing.

The online world is dangerous. And please, stalker, cover your tracks.

How long is long?

30 years is a long time, longer than what I can possibly imagine. That is how long Alice has been with the company. Judy has been there for 33 years. They are the administrative staff, and are consistently the lowest in a never-ending hierarchy in which not everyone starts at the bottom.
A bond of 6 years already sound like an eternity. They definitely deserve more respect, for their experience and perseverance through all the good and bad times.

Weekend

Had a very happy weekend, the fact of going back to work tomorrow not withstanding. Met up with Xin en and Nicole yesterday. Despite not having eaten together for nearly a year, there was so much to talk about over fried seafood and italian dessert. It is a wonder how we can be so completely at ease with each other. Time apart has not had much effect, and the lunch (that stretched till dinnertime) left me feeling slightly nostalgic. These moments make me feel alive, happy and human.

Today, watched royston tan's 881. It is a nostalgic show for my parents, since it has a getai setting and is full of old hokkien songs. For me, it is another movie that attempts to incorporate elements of musical and is strange in its artsy handling of a very heartland theme. I love it for the friendship between the two main characters, 木瓜姐妹, and the passion they have for what they do. How many people can love what they do, to the extent of going ahead despite obstacles and society's perceptions and giving up their family, love and even their lives? And how many can find someone who would whole-heartedly share the journey and be a mutual source of strength even in their weakest moments?

One of the main songs:<< 一人一半>>

演唱： 伍家辉
词： 小寒 曲： 范俊福

一人一半 感情不散
一人一素故 感情才会久

时光累积 安静的泪滴
一心去追 爱那么可贵

这样的人 这样地等
无非是 等个回应眼神
为爱反滚 不及伤痕
甘心为你一身都浮沉

这样的人 别笑我蠢
傻傻的 心痛也不觉疼
就算天冷 就算难残忍
等你想起这没用的人

一人一半 感情不散
已经找到爱 为何要离开

已经找到爱 为何要离开

一句话, 心里的话

一个小孩,
很多事情不清楚.
不会的只能边看边学,
感谢朋友的提点体谅.

少了儿时的童真,
多了大人的拘谨,
该想的没想清楚, 就胡里胡涂地说出来.
该放的, 却想了许久.

书上学不会,
慢慢用心领悟
却不知还会得罪多少人,
失去几个朋友.

但愿
能拔苗助长,
早日收放自如.

In the end, who pays?

Fine collections of arts, gilded buildings and fountains, painted ceilings and luxuriously furnished interiors mark Paris, the city of lights. It is a beautiful city to spend a week in, and it was a dream come true for me to see for myself the legacies of the history I did at A level. Bastilles, Tuilleries, Napoleon's tomb, Versailles and a whole string of other monuments were built by or in memory of the Kings, Napoleon and Napoleon III. These buildings took an extraordinarily long time to build by modern standards, and lasted even longer. I used to complain that 1789, the year of the French Revolution, was such a long time ago, and to visit these buildings that even predated the Revolution was awe-inspiring, to say the least.
It is also a city full of colourful contradictions. It craves peace, dedicating monuments to its patron saint, St. Genevieve, to avert the destruction of war. Yet, it was constantly plagued by wars and revolutions, and is to this day, proud of its military achievement. It is a fine balance, the abhorrence for war vs. the celebration and commemoration of French military legacies.
It was the birthplace of the Enlightenment, the Age of Reason which replaced the unquestioning faith in God, and in Paris, some churches were converted to Temples of Reason during the Revolution. Yet, it has very beautiful churches, like Notre-Dame with its cute gargoyles. The Parisians have achieved a balance in this too, being able to reconcile the idea of honouring great French mortals like Voltaire and Rousseau in the Pantheon, originally dedicated to St. Genevieve.
The trip would have been perfect, if I had time to slow down and walk through Paris' shopping districts and eat Parisian food rather than sandwiches. But I guess, this is the cost for seeing as much of French history and art as we could.
But it was great to be able to meet a longtime friend again. I met Yvonne for dinner on three nights, and we had French food, Korean food and bubble tea! Yes, there is no bubble tea in Coventry. Really grateful to her for keeping me company and showing me around despite having only a relatively short one-week holiday. And it is always good to be able to catch up with a long time friend.
All in all, it was a great trip, though I left with a tinge of guilt that the pinnacle of French cultural achievements that I got to witness came at the expense of generations of French who suffered their rulers' excesses.

For pictures, click on the Gargoyle. :p

Cowabunga!!!

Yesterday night, I went with a group of friends to relive our childhood days. We went to watch TMNT, a show which all of us were faithfully glued to at 5.30pm on weekdays. CGI has given 2D turtle-heroes more defined features and more heroic-appearances.
But for all the high-tech equipment used in the making of the movie, turtles still used old equipment - swords, ninja ropes and smoke pellets. When they need to find each other, they meet each other physically. No handphones with high-tech blue-tooth sets.
The storyline has become more sophisticated though, dealing with the questions of good leadership, family and how too much of a good thing can become a curse. Even the villain was not all evil. He had sought to open a gate to the past, that would in fact unleash all the demons onto New York city, only because he was the creature who attained immortality 3000 years ago and lived to regret it. Only by opening the gate can he undo the curse.
Speaking of the villain, it is quite funny how the baddies all looked like they came out from warcraft. New York city is typical TMNT grounds, but the world of the baddies located 3000 years ago in time and space is Warcraft landscape! And I always thought Warcraft was progress from TMNT.
Well, mindless entertainment with a good dose of childhood memories and a guaranteed good ending works wonders. Cowabunga.

Truth or Dare?

truth: I am an unadventurous scaredy-cat who will be better-off placed on a package tour and be brought around.
dare: Run off to a European city by myself for 4 days 3 nights.


Result: Off I went to Brussels, with a bagpack of clothes and an invisible baggage of jitters. Yes, I was crazy to do that, but it was a way to force myself out of my comfort zone once again, out of my room. With that, I made this short trip my own unique experience, learning things I never could from books or travelling with people.


First, about Brussels:
Brussels town centre is incredibly beautiful, and cultured. But at the same time, everywhere outside of it pales in comparison, and even appears backward. I stayed a 15-minute tram ride away from the town centre, in this place called Helmet in Schaerbeek. When I got off the tram, my first impression was that I have landed in the area behind Little India, or in Johore. The area was full of shops abandoned, some full of graffitti, some barely operational, others half-torn down.
Brussels is also incredibly blessed for its culture and history. The beauty and grandeur that remain are a shade of the past, which has been lost through haphazard restructuring and horrendous town-planning. Basically, they draw plans, and tear down whatever is in the way and fill up whatever holes, rivers and canals that lie in that direction. Old urban settlements are often found near rivers, but the river Senne in Brussels has been made into a longkang, filled up and then made into a tree-lined boulevard. Even the process of tearing down was never done properly. The Coudenberg palace which was destroyed in a fire and remained in ruins for 40 years was built on a slope. When they required the place, they filled up the slope to level it and merely tore down whatever was still above ground level.
Amazing.


Second, travelling in a non-English-speaking country is a different experience altogether. In tourist areas, my bad attempts to speak in French were met by reassuring replies in English. In other areas, the locals and I struggle along with each other, taking very long to think in each other's language. The solution: buy everything you need in a supermarket. Minimal communication needed. :p


Third, travelling alone forces me to talk to strangers. On this trip, I spoke to a Hungarian, a Romanian and a Slovakian, all happening to just be in Brussels. They had different ideas, and I was forced to understand how and why they think the way they do. The most surprising of all was the Romanian girl, who insisted that government should legislate away all problems, including *gasps* family-planning. She agrees with China's One-Child Policy, and when questioned about the consequences that China faces now, her highly pragmatic answer: "If it has to be done, it has to be done." Friends provide good travelling company, so I won't stray and seek the company of strangers.


Lastly, self-planned, everything-DIY holidays are TIRING. From the usual booking of hostels and transportation and planning of itineraries, a solo holiday creates the additional stress of having to be extra alert all the time. From dodging beggars, buskers, drunkards, gangsters, to pretending to be confident even though I was hopeless lost. On the ferry from the French coast to UK, I kept dozing off, but woke up every 3 minutes because it is dangerous to fall asleep. (Another crazy thing I did: took a bus to Belgium that involved the bus driving up onto the ferry.)


If I want to take a good break, I would stay in my room and sleep or book a package tour. But the crazy side of me still thinks it is all worthwhile even though I'm now more tired than before I left.
And now, PHOTOS.




Me looking kind of buay-song, in front of the Cinquantenaire. Can't really manage everything and self-take the photo. :D

You have my respect

It does not matter how many qualifications you have.
You have my respect if you...

... write for normal people to read. (i.e. non-academics)
... can work through the most complicated linkages, and present them elegantly without losing their complexities.
... can write about the most boring stuff on earth, and yet still be engaging.
... do not need big words to make your arguments sound impressive. A good argument is convincing no matter how you present it.
... do not need to create hybrid words to put your point across.

I am a demanding reader. Or to put it nastily, I am a moronic reader with a short attention span.

Uniquely Singapore

My home country wants to be everything else, but itself. It wants to be bustling like London, diverse like New York, culturally vibrant like Paris and socially graceful like Japan. How to be uniquely Singapore, except as a jigsaw puzzle made up of pieces which others have developed over hundreds of years? We already have Chinatown, Little India, Katong and Kampong Glam. Do we need Little London, Little NY, Little Paris and Little Japan as well? It is a little scary, but learning from the virtues of others is the defining trait of Singapore - the combination of kiasu and kiasi.

Sometimes I wish we are a little more self-confident. There is nothing wrong with being Singaporean, and not British, American, French or Japanese. We have Singlish, a lot of Singaporean food, maybe even a culture of self-deprecation. We have our homegrown talents, our own playwrights, dancers, musicians, acting talents, film-makers. All of them are quite capable of making it onto the global stage, if only we would give them the support that we give to foreign artistes. There must be a reason why they often strike it out in Taiwan and Hong Kong before coming back.

People laugh at our ban on chewing gum. It is true that it sounds stupid. But wait, and look at that patch of gum still stuck in my room's carpet, from someone who might even have graduated. We need people to tell us to stand behind the yellow line in 4 languages, but they do that too in the London tube stations - just that London does not have 4 languages. For all that our laws are a laughing stock of the world with Singapore even taking pride in being a "fine city", we do not fine people for crossing the road while talking on their mobiles. Neither do we legislate to make seat belts compulsory on buses. And the newest proposed legislation in Kentucky, US: Make cigarettes self-extinguishing, because people keep burning down their houses while smoking. Yes, we don't allow demonstrations and we are still in the process of figuring out gay rights, but maybe we should appreciate the little freedoms that we do enjoy.

We can be some country somewhere, not quite any country anywhere, but certainly not every country everywhere. We cannot have everything, something has to give. Bustling can mean being on the brink of overcrowding, and culturally vibrant and efficiency do not quite go together. While we learn from others who are culturally so much older than ourselves, the challenge is to achieve that delicate balance, and not become nothing more than an incomprehensible, even contradictory, mish-mash of global cultures.

Go out, open our eyes, get impressed. For that matter, I am still waiting to jet off to Paris, New York and Japan to experience the difference and I still love the baguette, burger and sashimi. But while we keep thinking the grass is greener on the other side, please try to remember the colour of the grass at home.

A bit of everything

"Half of life is happiness, the other half is hardship," said Sai-O (the empress of the Sai Kingdom).

"I live in greater luxury, because I have greater responsibilities," said the empress of Kyou.

These two characters are from Twelve Kingdoms, my favourite anime. Cartoons present the realities of life simply, without hurting too much and cutting out the happy endings.

I remembered the wish on my 18th birthday, that I won't be in SG to celebrate it. I got that wish, but that was kind of silly, because for the next three years, it will be birthday, new year, CNY, dragonboat festival, mid-autumn festival and christmas in a foreign land.

Yes, masochistic me seeking self-punishment. But I get my fair share of rewards, I would think.

One and a half weeks ago, I went to Dublin for 3 days, where I would otherwise have gone only as part of some 12-day Europe tour. We travelled for an entire night to arrive in Dublin the next morning, tired and semi-comatose. It was folly, but also characteristic of a wild adventure. I loved the place, soaking in the atmosphere for three days, walking by the river, going to the various museums, eating fish and chips at the roadside and experiencing the qualitative distinctiveness of the place. Places of attractions are more or less the same everywhere, but each must feel different.

10 000 miles away from home, so that I can set up a base camp, from which to venture further afield.

More photos if you would click on the above image. =)

CNY

This is the first CNY spent overseas. No long long long reunion dinner, last minute cleanups, balloon-blowing, frantic sms-ing at midnight. During mid-autumn festival, I was thinking to myself: "CNY is going to be hell."

It turned out to be so much better than expected. Thanks to friends who still remember though we are at least 10 000 miles and 8 hours time difference apart. Thanks to friends here who helped to recreate the atmosphere. CNY is not sad and lonely, just different. Fun, laughter, seemingly neverending good old chinese food, suanning each other, a lot of lime juice, UNO.

Not sad or lonely, just a different way of celebration.

Happy New Year to all my friends, regardless of where you are (Home, US, UK, Australia, ...) !

Ice kachang, without the kachang.

The last blog was deleted, because it was a tad too angsty, written in post-politics-essay frenzy and boiling-point anger. I want this place to be one of reflective calm, not crazy stormy chaos. Will try my best.

It snowed the whole of last night and this morning. It snowed so much that people's lives have come to a standstill. Non-essential lessons are cancelled, planes stop flying, schools closed, people refrained from getting out of their houses because they could not drive. A bout of snow, and plans need to be changed at the very last minute.

人定胜天. Maybe not.

Perhaps someone should write something on the effect of climate on GDP.

The lake froze over, grass vanished under a blanket of white and pathways were reduced to trails of footprints. I felt like skating, though not over that pond, and eating ice kachang, though ice is in abundance and kachang nowhere to be found. Snow is nice and fun to walk on, but melted snow is grosse, slushy and made worse by dirt on the road.

Even the whitest things have their dark side, c'est la vie.

Someone should also invent shoes with retractable spikes.

"My warmest welcome to my house, fully equipped with central heating."

Skating, anyone?

Bring on the syrup, condensed milk, corn and attap seeds!

Suaku in winterland

It snowed on Tuesday night, and it was truly beautiful. It was easy to forget that snow is nothing but frozen rain, until I trudged through puddles of half-melted snow/ice to politics seminar the next morning. I love the scenery, but it will be great if it isn't so cold this week, when I spent most of my nights trudging around Earlsdon and coughing, sneezing and wheezing away.

In fact this is the first night in a week when I actually got to have the night to myself. Not that the people I'm house-hunting with are bad company, I'm just incredibly tired. Somehow I wonder if I'm losing the can-do attitude here. I used to promise myself to be back on track by the next day whenever I fall sick, and always managed. The last time I didn't quite scold myself for grinding my life to a halt by falling sick was some time in JC, when school for a while felt rather robotic and meaningless. It took me a whole year to feel alive again, and am not quite ready to get back to the zombie-like and half-comatose state.

Speaking of the nearly-a-year hiatus from school, it seems like I have forgotten how to study. Years and years of essay, note-taking and summarising training have gone with the wind in the face of disparate and disjointed readings which are making less and less sense. I must seat myself down and get disciplined once more, revert to the student mentality of just processing every piece of information methodologically, aka. mechanically.

University life is stressful: must study like a student but deal with adult issues like housing, and at the same time, get half the things you think you know thrown out of the window.
Revised perceptions this week:

1. It doesn't mean that if someone is English, he/she speaks and writes perfect English. Example: "The EU was started from 25 countries." Does this remind you of Singlish?

2. Age is an absolute number, but a relative concept.

3. My dad has his reasons for hating to move house.

Enough of depressing random ideas for now, I present pictures of snow outside my hostel. :D

P.S. Rat, please own up! I have narrowed down the possible scope of people, and your repeated appearance has made it impossible to treat it as tagboard spam. I detest people who post anonymously. Dare to write, dare to sign off with your BIG name.

crazy world

Only in this crazy world do you buy tickets to your own event.

Only in this mad place do you pay to work, in uniform, on a weekend. And to make it worse, you cannot enjoy it in peace.

Make all the money you like, but don't cannibalise your kind.

Idiots.

rubbish - random thoughts

1. Francis Fukuyama is right. We have reached the "End of History and the Last of Man". It is not utopia, rather, man, not god, is dead.
2. I might be becoming dyslexic, if that's possible, making a lot of typo errors recently. Outrageous ones too.
3. The scariest thing that can ever happen to you, is to be/become the very person you hate.
4. The best thing about No. 3 is that you will never know. Others would know. It goes by the name of hypocrisy.
5. essay research suffers from the cobweb effect. Word limit high, research more to meet high demand, realises word limit actually does not allow you to write loads, shrinks every argument, then falls way short of word limit.
6. I'm no longer capable of long sentences. Victorian English no more. Am wondering if I should relearn that ability to sound impressive.

The reason for not being able to write a proper post is that I'm incredibly tired. I've got homework to finish, largely because I'm a procrastinator and never gets things done at other people's speeds. Sigh. It also does not help that I've a really short attention span.

What's making it worse is, on top of trying to finish everything, and probably having half the world sniggering at my inability to finish, this term is house-hunting season (yes, not fox-hunting.)! The problem is compounded by three voracious space monsters (we eat space, not from outer space!) who wants everything in a house.

I'm being lame and excessively random. A sign of extreme mental restlessness and need of sleep.

2007

No New Year's resolution for me, because I never keep to them. If there is one for this blog, it will probably be "blog more regularly" and "with more pictures". Somehow after more than one month without an entry, people still come to check and read, and I really appreciate it.

Have gone Missing-In-Action largely because I was having too much fun. From where I left off the last time, I spent the next two weeks keeping insane nights to finish all my homework by end of term. Then I went home for three weeks. Going home is so much fun, though sometimes it is just parents and brother squabbling, in any combination. And of course, me getting to squabble with them in person, rather than over MSN or skype. Somehow you don't miss it, until you have been away from it at length. We went Genting, KL and Malacca, the first two we have gone a number of times, but it is still very enjoyable, not in the exciting-Lake-District sense, but more of spending time together away from work, people and irritating phone calls. Going home also means I can take a break from completely taking charge of my life. Once I step onto the plane, it basically means "on my own". It's independence, but as Spiderman says, "with power, comes responsibility."

2006 can be called "the year of too many changes, too fast". Fresh out of school, went to work. Boss promised that the job will "make you grow up", and I think I did. It was not too hard coping there once I figured out what was happening, it was a lot of fun and the greatest pain about the job was leaving it and the people there. Just when I thought it was enough excitement for one year, I happily uprooted myself to England. You can tell I have a lot of fun, but it is always cold and can get lonely sometimes. At one point was thinking of packing up and going home, since school is essentially readings and more readings which i can do in a warmer place. BUT JW once said to stick to decisions made "come hail or high waters", and I figured I'm not going to get frozen out of school. I'm going to stick here and enjoy it. (I'm the opposite of an electron, always choose the path of most resistance.)

So 2007 now I'm back on campus, and won't be back in sg till at least another half a year. Everyone moves on with their lives, but I'm really hoping I will still be able to catch up where we left off in 2006 for people who I didn't spend enough time with or didn't get to meet during Christmas vacation or wh0 just move too fast in half a year!