Finally, It's Our Time In The Sun

trendspotting

2011-02-24T01:43:00.000-08:00

people connect logically instead of physically. interests v proximity

online retail goes boutique, specialty based.

mobile apps are designed with a market in mind before social, location and camera functions are added, combining what used to be a single, functional app (eg. camera, instagram) into product or themed app (food + camera, food spotting)

the previous 2 examples are examples of the reversal of the design motivation after a technology has matured amongst both developers and users

the UI is king and logic is UI and UI is logic. the browser is dated.
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if prosperity is a tidal wave that carries the nation upwards as a whole, class differentials are still present. social mobility is statistically untrue and only exists anecdotally

if well defined eras are due to the collective forgetting of the past... what happens when u don't forget or as a collective we no longer care about the same thing

suspending the Singaporean dream

2011-02-13T21:56:00.000-08:00

There are some things I have heard that have been proven true. Being overseas has insulated me from the pressures of Singaporean society that inevitably gets to people of my age.

I thought I didn't, but it seems now I think I subscribe to the Singaporean dream. I can't quite remember if I did before. Or was it never rigorously questioned and answered?

Are we as humans so unprincipled? We seem to get nudged about by these context-dependent forces. Can we be that different a person depending on where we are?

Do I merely idealize and idolize a life of individualistic pursuits? Maybe. It temporarily exempts me from the trenches of the Singaporean society, and feeds my ego and vanity at the same time, if that was my motivation.

If I do not know my motivation, what do I know? I know I believe with every fibre that the goal of self-actualization is important. I want to exhaust every opportunity for new experience available to me.

I know want the Singaporean dream.

I know time waits for no one.

Something about convention

2011-01-09T04:39:00.000-08:00

People who are truly unconventional don’t really think too much about being unconventional, they go about life the only way they know how.

Then there are some, who embrace the unconventional - so that they can avoid judgement based on conventional criterion all altogether, for fear that they would fail if they were judged with the same rule. This is escapism, and their entire character and self-identity rests on the scaffolds of social perception, of either positive nature or indifference.

This pretending-not-to-care-but-secretly-caring situation is rather pathetic and the true test of whether one really is unconventional is if we keep doing what we love even when the whole world is not watching.

the end of an era #1

2010-12-16T12:18:00.000-08:00

so it's the end of an era. I feel like i have overstayed my welcome in the age of wilful adolescence. but I think that should never change no matter what I do, i'll leave that thought for another time.

time to work and take on real responsibilities like an adult.

I have made peace with some things I cannot control.

I hate to say goodbye, part of me never will. but I see all my friends assimilate without complaint, and I think that's gonna be how this plays out with me.

Am I Just Wanting What I Can't Have?

2010-10-07T10:02:00.000-07:00

I am talking about my career. Or possibly both.

Having to decide for yourself

2010-09-01T22:10:00.000-07:00

Having a multitude of opportunities is at times, frustrating. I get paralyzed by choice. For every path I dare to take, I leave behind a thousand other opportunities. Sometimes I envy the scholars here. They know what lies ahead.

I always wanted to be surer of myself. And the thing is, I realised I have been asking questions I have never seriously entertained in the past.

I had to actually make a decision (as opposed to bonded scholars) as to whether or not to return to Singapore. Although that may seem like a foregone conclusion given the various things that tie me to the place, the very act of consideration suddenly illuminates a part of me I had taken for granted. I had to weigh the push and pull factors that decide where I wanted to end up.

The transience of a young, restless population and being far far away has made me appreciate radical differences of social dynamics. I think we really have to work at relationships, even between platonic friends. In Singapore we have it easy - everyone is just there. Being away from home, and having lived in NYC, you have to work hard to have a social life, to keep friends.

Where do I want to end up? Do I love my country, my family, my friends? Are dreams really THAT important? Maybe pragmatism isn't that bad? I really really like Singapore's style of governance!? Sometimes having the simple, standard natural progression of the Singaporean life does not look so bad. Does the outside world truly have something to offer me that Singapore can't?

I just like how rewarding it is to have had to think about these questions.

On Gifting

2010-08-29T14:00:00.000-07:00

I rather you buy something I don't like than ask for someone else's opinion. At least you put thought into it. At least it's your mistake.

Why do we bow down anyway?

2010-08-15T16:40:00.000-07:00

all the kids have always known
that the emperor wears no clothes,
but they bow to down to him anyway,
cause it’s better than being alone

- Ready to Start

The lyrics caught me off-guard with it's piercing clarity. Its simplicity is exactly what I needed to rally around to remind myself why I fight. We give ourselves reasons, we rationalize, we weave entire worlds just to get further away from who we are.

But we always knew. We talked about it amongst ourselves, to a frenzy. Stuff we used to hate we now do begrudgingly. We were young, we had the world at our feet, we thought that wasn't going to be us. But the urge to assimilate chips away till we find ourselves blissfully where we didn't want to be.

Such a poetic few lines that almost needs no explanation.

Doors

2010-08-10T20:18:00.000-07:00

[11:13:09 PM] Me: well
[11:13:11 PM] Me: guys
[11:13:17 PM] Me: they never close doors
[11:13:24 PM] Me: girls are so good at slamming them
[11:13:29 PM] Me: and keeping them closed
[11:13:36 PM] G: really?
[11:13:45 PM] Me: erm i guess
[11:13:48 PM] G: yea, it's kinda true sometimes
[11:13:55 PM] Me: girls are so good its scary
[11:14:04 PM] Me: i am genuinely afraid

Just me, geeking out over AF

2010-08-09T21:35:00.000-07:00

This post is just going to be me, talking about why I love Arcade Fire. I know their story, I love their songs. I heard them at Madison Square Garden - a historic night for Indie-Rock.

In a way, even at age 25, working in a bank, wearing clothes that grown ups wear, I never thought of myself as a grown up. By night, I am skating through the streets of NYC, seeking out gigs, enjoying the breeze at Washington Square Park and browsing The Strand when the staff are closing shop for the day.

None of us are adults, really. We know nothing about nothing. That's what I think. The Arcade Fire songs are tinged with the lostness of youth, the angst, the hope. It deals with the the world of pretentious, flashy, modern lives that people now either hope to or already live in. Their songs mentions the word 'kids' more than any other collection of songs I know. They are the voice of the new youth, with new struggles, made less obvious by the fact they live in relative material comfort.

Maybe it is a theme I have always had at the back of my mind. Who ever really grows up? We look the part, talk the the part, dress the part, that's about it - we are kids, too privileged, too lost.

I for one will never feel like an adult, nor lull myself, nor build a wall of denial to convince myself of adulthood.

'Wake up' is probably the anthem for our generation. So much for now.

Summing Up July '10

2010-07-29T19:58:00.000-07:00

Working partitions your day strictly into work and non-work. That's the difference at least for me, between work and school. I suddenly don't feel I am taking time away from work when I read. I forgot how great reading is.

I hate buying souvenirs when I travel mostly because it hardly recreates the experiential richness of the place. But for that very same fact I can never give or sell away good books - because they are reminders of destinations in the my heart and mind that I've been.

For some reason this song has really grabbed me and couldn't let go. It is catchy, no doubt about that. But I guess the song really captured my state of mind this summer. Its a heartfelt plea to I guess, everyone, to keep the car running.

There are so many things I have left up in the air ever since I got over here. Pursuing my dreams? Maybe. But thats still an open verdict. There are so many things, ideas, dreams, people, food, relationships, routines....

Somehow I guess it's also my plea to everything to 'keep the car running' because I am on my way too, not sure when I will get there but I will be back. Even to myself. Some dreams are so far out of reach I might have even allowed myself to ease off the pedal in my pursuit.

Reflection

2010-06-25T20:33:00.001-07:00

Sometimes you just gotta count your blessings huh.

I am sitting at Washington Sq Park listening to this pretty entertaining band of buskers. And I decided to do a little reflection.

Almost a decade ago, I could only dream of being in NYC. Movies books tv music news. There was a magnetism about this place.

3 years ago when I was watching Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist I think at The Cathay, I remember overhearing some guy reminiscing about how he remembers this street and that shop ( ok he should have kept a little more quiet ) - and I remembered vividly that I shit I wanted to be able to do that too.

And so it has come to pass. I live like a block away front the Grays Papaya featured in that movie. I live and work here, if only for the summer.

Work and the routine of daily life has set in and it's natural to slip into the numbing trance of daily life. But hey I should really be high fiving myself through the spacetime continuum ( credit himym ) right. I don't think 10 years ago I could have even imagined this? Maybe?

Guys

2010-06-25T11:06:00.001-07:00

Single guys and people who sell insurance are pretty much the same - you question why they are befriending you.

read first. cringe later.

2010-06-21T19:28:00.000-07:00

so you know sometimes you are supposed to look at the book/iphone/thing-her-hand in the middle of a discussion, but you find yourself losing concentration for a few secs just staring at her cos she's breath-taking when she's serious.

Proust was a Neuroscientist

2010-06-14T19:59:00.000-07:00

Recall changes the memory with the things we feel and know now. What we taste and smell is a constant dialectic with what we think, expect and environmental factors. We are a subjective creature.

2 days in paris

2010-06-12T21:09:00.001-07:00

"It always fascinated me how people go from loving you madly to nothing at all, nothing. It hurts so much. When I feel someone is going to leave me, I have a tendency to break up first before I get to hear the whole thing. Here it is. One more, one less. Another wasted love story. I really love this one. When I think that its over, that I'll never see him again like this... well yes, I'll bump into him, we'll meet our new boyfriend and girlfriend, act as if we had never been together, then we'll slowly think of each other less and less until we forget each other completely. Almost. Always the same for me. Break up, break down. Drink up, fool around. Meet one guy, then another, fuck around. Forget the one and only. Then after a few months of total emptiness start again to look for true love, desperately look everywhere and after two years of loneliness meet a new love and swear it is the one, until that one is gone as well. There's a moment in life where you can't recover any more from another break-up. And even if this person bugs you sixty percent of the time, well you still can’t live without him. And even if he wakes you up every day by sneezing right in your face, well you love his sneezes more than anyone else's kisses."

-Julie Delpy
2 Days in Paris

Girl with no buts

2010-06-10T16:52:00.001-07:00

I want one

Timing is Everything

2010-06-10T12:16:00.001-07:00

Knowing what you want before the person you want does is an arduous wait.

This changes everything

2010-06-09T20:36:00.001-07:00

Everything. Not what you think.

This Is Why I Ride

2010-06-03T21:11:00.000-07:00

Zombies

2010-06-01T14:00:00.000-07:00

I swore I wouldn't be one of those corporate zombies on Shenton way.
Broke part of that vow. It's Rockefeller Center instead. Still a zombie

and so too this will come to pass

2010-05-05T18:54:00.000-07:00

i am sitting outside of newell simon and i am questioning the whole issue of monogamy and commitment. i think they are important, but each day that fact seems to hang on only by the flimsy thread of convention.

how can one commit knowing that the very thing that makes him consider committing can be found potentially in the next person he or she meets? Why is commitment good, anyway? I can't go along with conventions were founded based on the assumptions of the past.

i don't know. knowing me, probably it's more of an excuse to not even try.

love is cruel economics. what you want, you can't get. what you can get, you don't want.

Pain

2010-05-04T21:18:00.000-07:00

Not necessarily on my knee unfortunately. More confused than anything else

Not-Work

2010-05-03T07:44:00.000-07:00

These days I have at any one time multiple injuries on me. Injuries from living life.

Stalkers

2010-05-03T07:40:00.000-07:00

I think the pysche of stalkers is pretty straightforward. Indifference is just utterly intolerable. They rather be hated and constantly be on the mind of the stalked if they can't be loved.

Science can't do shit

2010-04-30T20:36:00.001-07:00

Ok. So we know love can easily be explained away by evolutionary psychology. It is merely series of coordinated psychophysiological chemical reactions that allows the human race to survive. It's kinda weird to know that yet have nothing we can do about it.

On Advice

2010-04-14T23:37:00.001-07:00

Advice is overrated. People who need advice the most are the people least likely to take it.

In 5 Years

2010-04-14T20:16:00.000-07:00

I'd be 30. I'll look back and think how stupid I had been. So why even bother? Humans are funny this way. With their irrationality and shit. Rationality, principle, now seems overrated. I am starting to think its a situational construct. I'll keep at it.

Holstering It

2010-04-11T23:55:00.000-07:00

I believe in holstering it for your friends. I believe in things like that. Sucks when you actually have to do it.

Having some kind of opinion

2010-02-28T11:33:00.000-08:00

I think it is perfectly ok to have a similar opinion to others'. The important thing is that you truly believe it is also your own, and would have come to the same independent conclusion. That's the hard part. We often get lazy and don't think any further. It is so much easier borrowing an opinion and lulling ourselves into belief without justification.

My Desktop Publishing Assignment - Postcard

2010-02-19T16:54:00.001-08:00

Fun with Photoshop! kinda late in the game for me, but what the hell still, still lovin it despite incessant corrections my younger friends are offering me.

More distilled from P&S of Work

2010-02-17T09:41:00.001-08:00

I guess meritocracy is kinda like aristocracy, the rich get richer, except that now the people at the bottom can only blame themselves for their failure.

And we lose ourselves in the powder just to find we were always free

2010-02-11T23:04:00.001-08:00

i love the snowstorm. it jolts our senses. it reminds us that the banality of everyday life is truly our own making and it shouldn't take knee-high snow to remind us we can be free from routine.

so life has been rather good to me. Fortuitously, my friend from BarCap chucked my resume into a shortlisted pile in an admittedly random interview selection process. And of course I screwed up the technical part of the interview. I guess I would never know how, but I got my job. Not my dream job, but it’ll do as a summer internship. At least it’s in my dream city.

The weather has been harsh but the aftermath has been nothing but fun.

i think i am pretty mindfucked by something too. i really hate that sort of feeling, the type that knocks you off whatever precarious zen-like equilibrium you were perched on. i don’t need those sort of problems right now.

Pleasures and Sorrows of Work – Visible Betterment of Human Life

2010-02-11T22:18:00.001-08:00

It is surely significant that the adults who feature in the children's books are rarely, if ever, Regional Sales Managers or Building Services Engineers. They are shopkeepers, builders, cooks, or farmers – people whose labour can be easily linked to the visible betterment of human life.

Paris Je' Taime and bits on Art and Life

2009-12-28T17:34:00.000-08:00

Below are some soundbites that sort of circled in my head during my trip in Europe. It was also strangely serendipitous, almost, that I was reading de Botton's How Proust Can Change Your Life during the trip.

Architecture. Art. Food... Art

If New York represents the here and now, Paris seems to be in a permanent state of nostalgia. It's a beautiful, beautiful place.

I think I kinda realize why I find myself enjoying art more than I thought I could. I love science. And I realised they aren't so different, science and art. In science, people are systematically converging upon an objective definition of a world view, something, stuff.... In art, there is an individual struggle to describe what is (as opposed to what can be seen), which is also a provision of some world view. Both disciplines in a way contribute to the description of our universe, perhaps from different starting points.

Why should we care about finer or a greater variety of things in life? If I read Proust correctly, it is so that we are sensitized to new things and hence we gain new experiences. Why learn about art, why learn a new language, a new hobby or other time wasting endeavors? It's really like growing a new pair of eyes where there wasn't. Would a blind man want a pair of eyes? Sensitize yourself so you enjoy some things that were always there all along.

Europe and a Mish-mash Fall 09

2009-12-27T16:03:00.000-08:00

Well, the following is a bunch of notes not exactly in chronological or event logical order. I just wrote them whenever I had the time to.

-------------

Its 1.30 PM German Time. It took me nearly a day to to get here. I lucked my way to Frankfurt Am Main train station, and stepped right onto a train bound for Berlin. It's less modern, but as dreary as I had always pictured it, since we studied Germany for the German class. Dragging a longboard around is irritating. SQ has the BEST movies.

----- Mind-blowing movie

So I shall I digress, to the movie that I had been wanting to watch -' Whatever Works' somehow this obscure movie managed to sneak its way into the KrisWorld catalog. Another recent Woody Allen vehicle, another inexplicably serendipitous juxtaposition of opposites just to illustrate a point (not unlike VCB). The moral of this story is a very relatable one. Sometimes we have to accept whatever that works. A grumpy, cynical middle aged genius physicist gets dumped by his smart, beautiful, cultured wife - then a country girl from New Orleans just pops into his life.

There is one point in the movie where he wakes in the middle of the night screaming. He's too smart and often sees the truth in life and the universe and the petty, microbial nature of human behavior. Near the beginning of the movie he flashes back to point where he woke up one night decides that his whole relationship with his wife was erroneous. The argument was quite simple - because she was smart, beautiful, and loved the arts, she was a fantastic fit, she made sense. THEREFORE: it was a perfectly rational decision. Maybe love is really about loving someone you didn't expect to love.

----- Berlin

Ok, managed to find myself a nice hostel. Berlin has been alright I guess. Nothing I didn't expect. I am typing out of a Starbucks near Alexenderplatz, trying to while away my time before I take a midnight train ...going.... Amsterdam. Today was pretty interesting. After a weirdly healthy breakfast, I set out to guide myself through Berlin with a guidebook and awesome traveller's intuition. I made my way to a slice of Berlin Wall near my hotel and took a train (somehow Tokyo made me immune to confusing train maps - takes me a bit of time but Berlin's is easy to navigate) to Brandenburg Gate. Strangely I seem to scavenge the remaining bits of German I learnt as I go along, and thank goodness we learnt food and drink names - I thought they were a waste of time last semester.

So back to Brandenburg Tor. I went into the Starbucks diagonally facing the gate to get my morning coffee. Right opposite there was heavy police presence and lines of black cars, one of which had an Indonesian flag. Apparently that hotel was a usual host of for diplomats. As I stepped into Starbucks, I was immediately followed in by 4 heavyset Indonesian middle age men in cheap looking business suits and overcoats, in identical shades of dark navy-blue. The man leading the group had a worn and leathery face, and didn't look like he belonged in a suit. I am pretty sure he has at least given orders to kill someone or personally done it himself before. Indonesian ex-military cronies.The youngest man stood at the back.

As I was finishing up my latte a group of people gathered together right outside. Free walking tour. Ok, why not.

----- That’s all the nonsense I wrote on during the trip, will update other details when I have the time…

Distilled from 'Whatever Works'

2009-12-26T04:55:00.000-08:00

Why does love require us to be crazy and irrational while relationships require us to be ... sensible?

Year in Review F09

2009-12-26T04:03:00.001-08:00

Sitting at the boot of Winny's minibus now, slumping on a stack of snowboards and skis, I stare out at highway trailing from cloudless winter sky.

Regina Spektor's Us gently fills the airwaves as the sunbeams flicker through between bare canopy. Slightly cliched, like a car commercial.

The year was a quick one. This semester was even faster. Work sucks, but that's not uncommon, thankfully I played harder than I ever did.

I shall get academics over with. I guess. Good, not great. People are crazy over here.

Life is a game of optimization, and this semester I choose a bit more fun - I guess the worst semester to do so. Random trips to NYC, great books, longboarding, good TV, snowboarding, tennis, squash, soccer, group dinners, great music, and Europe.

New York City 15-18102009

2009-10-19T12:27:00.001-07:00

A city that that squeezes so much into so small a space

Thursday

JFK
St Marks
Sei Tomoko - Japanese Haircut
PWC Building at Madison Sq CMU Network Night
Terminal 5 - Gas Light Anthem
SoHo K town - Korean Supper fking awesome

Friday

9 Street Expresso awesome Latte
SoHo - UO Uniqlo
Chinatown - Overseas Asian Restaurant with the guys
Bowery Ballroom - Anna Terheim, The Lonely Dear, Asobi Seksu, saw Rachel McAdams
St Marks - Odon West

Saturday

9th street expresso
Westin NYC -Contact Singapore
Efficiency 2.0 office on 7 & B
Life Cafe - Rent Location
Yakiniku West
16 Handles
Bowery Ballroom - Perpetual Groove
Veselka's - Ukranian Diner

Sunday

Vernon Jackson - Cafe Henri, poached eggs with salmon and hollandaise
Greenwich - Cafe Reggio
Chinatown - Great Noodletown NY

New York new York

2009-10-15T07:50:00.001-07:00

A horrid mid semester week gives way to NYC.

One of the Things I'll miss

2009-09-22T20:21:00.000-07:00

Pamela's Diner!!!!!!

500 Days of Summer

2009-08-29T21:39:00.000-07:00

LOVED IT

[12:29:07 PM] Lai Siu Chun: i think it tells the story, which is pretty simple at its heart, as if one was recollecting it

[12:29:30 PM] Lai Siu Chun: and exactly how one would recollect it is by jumping back and forth

[12:29:48 PM] Lai Siu Chun: because people never think linearly

[12:30:35 PM] Lai Siu Chun: they juxtapose events that shared the same emotion, or opposing ones

[12:30:52 PM] Lai Siu Chun: recollection by emotion

[12:31:12 PM] georgi-says-hola: true

[12:31:25 PM] georgi-says-hola: we remember all these good things and bad things at different points

[12:31:35 PM] georgi-says-hola: as if to convince ourselves that it was one or the other

[12:31:50 PM] georgi-says-hola: but really it is both.

[12:31:54 PM] georgi-says-hola: damn, that makes me a little sad.

[12:32:37 PM] Lai Siu Chun: yeap

[12:33:33 PM] Lai Siu Chun: its both good and bad happening all the time, sequentially

[12:33:44 PM] Lai Siu Chun: but we never recall it that way

My Room - Cathedral Mansions

2009-08-27T20:21:00.000-07:00

Man U Jersey
Friends Poster
Mr Shrute!
My Room - Simply furnished, zero frills.

Selfless or Selfish

2009-08-27T20:10:00.001-07:00

Do not tell the person the truth, if it hurts the person. Because many times the teller just wishes to alleviate himself from the burden of repressed guilt, and what good does it do for the innocent party anyway?

The guy should just shut up and live with the fact that he screwed up. That's the punishment he deserves. He should not have the luxury of having the thing off his chest.

On The Can 2

2009-08-27T12:38:00.001-07:00

School edition. Just finished tennis. Tennis at this speed and ferocity is way out of my league. It's a great learning experience though. I feel like I had only just begun playing tennis.

School gym rocks, they provide towels and a hot bath.

On the can

2009-08-22T22:09:00.001-07:00

I am blogging from the toilet bowl. Something that I have been wanting to do for quite awhile now. I find often have these crystallizing moments whilst on the can. I love my iPod touch.

Cusp of something

2009-08-05T09:04:00.001-07:00

So... you know the feeling you get when in a meeting room with your prof, and he ropes in another prof who specialises in hardcore quantitative social network analysis... to pick his brains, and they discuss things, and they build on each other's ideas.... and I know at some point, the there is an understanding in the room that we are at the cusp of something that probably no one else have thought of.... I scramble to play mental-catch-up... and finally eke out a coherent idea...

Corporate world is probably where this feeling goes to die.

Empirically Vindicated

2009-08-01T11:04:00.000-07:00

I thought my hunches merely painted a caricature but I guess I was empirically vindicated. A rare window emerged to allow me to see what I had hypothesized. I have to say my feelings are mixed to confirm what I suspected. It is just so much more apparent to me after I articulated it and sorted out what I thought was the problem. But hey, ALATAH.

Less than the sum of their parts

2009-08-01T10:17:00.000-07:00

Let A be a person of type A and his favourite activities A1, A2.. and so on

Let B be a person of type B and her favourite activities B1, B2.. and so on

If left to their own devices, A would pursue Ax{1...n} and B the equivalent.

100% of each person's time would be dedicated to activity Ax and Bx respectively. If A and B enter into a relationship, 50% of each person's time must be appropriated to common activities.

They can't come to a consensus on doing either A1 or B1.

There is C, a universal set of activities that can be considered the lowest common denomination, activities that a large cross section of the society can enjoy, but cannot truly be considered something truly worthwhile.

Instead of doing A1 or B1, they do C1.

Both enjoy the time together doing C1, but A1 or B1 would have brought new revelations to them that might have sparked inner joy and self-discovery beyond what other activities would have allowed them to.

He wants to watch that concert, she wants to go to that art exhibition - but they ended up watching that action-comedy box office hit, the title of which they will forget in a week. (Maybe thats why Singaporeans love the movies)

Repeated rounds of similar decision patterns condemn a couple to being less than who they could have been without each other. A full-fledged A or B person. They have become a stunted version of themselves, 50% of themselves being dedicated to C1, something merely meant to pass the time with another person.

Well as long as they are happy no?

But the saddest thing? An A or B with a C type person. That means an entirely happy person, together with a half happy person. There's just enough contentment in the dynamics to keep things where they are, only just, leaving the A or B to conform, to be just as happy as C. I'll try to enjoy what he enjoys, I'll try.

Movie List Fall' 09

2009-07-31T08:51:00.000-07:00

Funny People
500 Days of Summer
Away We Go
Bruno
Year One
Youth In Revolt
Post Grad
Whatever Works

As Long As They Are Happy

2009-07-21T06:21:00.000-07:00

So many zombie themselves into and out of states of temporal bliss.

How did they meet, they can't quite remember...
Were they friends of friends? Now his friends are hers, and hers his.
What does it matter.
Were there fireworks? Or did it amble into existence?
What does it matter. As long as they are happy.

She bursts out laughing during the scene.
He sits muted, like half the audience.
She doesn't watch those kinds of movies that much anymore,
she thinks it's part and parcel, that tastes recede
... she tells herself
But he's nice enough to come along. She likes that about him.
Compromise is good 'eh? As long as they are happy.

A thought popped into her mind,
a thought he probably wouldn't understand.
She keeps it in her back pocket, for a debate with someone else perhaps.
The weather, their work, gossip on friends, pop culture and all things pedestrian. Common ground is elusive. Still they laugh, sometimes.
He has his same silly way of making her laugh. She does it, maybe out of habit, but.... as long as they are happy....

She's glad she doesn't have to eat alone, or have to do much alone for that matter.
Sure there's occasional friction, but the familiarity and stability comforts her.... she's comfortable.
Why meddle with comfort? No one fits like a glove. He tries, he's sweet.
What does it matter. As long as they are happy.....

The Time Machine We Could All Be In Right Now

2009-07-15T09:16:00.000-07:00

I watched Before Sunset. He convinces Celia to drop off the train at Vienna for a day, asking her to imagine herself as a middle aged woman lamenting all the missed chances for romance. He told her to consider him as one of those missed chances, and she was now time travelling back to give herself one more shot at this - accept she was there now.

Having no human cognitive calibration of time yields weirdly amazing results.

Romanticising Time

2009-06-29T10:31:00.000-07:00

Time has been a weird concept for me. Passages like the one in the previous post romanticise Time in way I often imagine it to be.

One strong influence is Physics. Almost counter-intuitively, Time has been a tricky concept untamed by generations of Physicists. Time is not really constant across the universe, nor is it an entirely natural phenomenon - Physics says nothing about the direction of the arrow of time (entropy plays a part in making the course of things in nature irreversible). Time is a strange strange thing.

It has been quoted (I have forgotten who and its exact phrasing) that we should not fear death, nor overly grieve the passing of a loved one because in some plane or way we all exist now, since the boundaries between past, present and future are nebulous at best.It's just entropy manifesting as the illusion of time.

And the possibility we could traverse time is even more intriguing since time might merely be a point in physical space (just like travelling overseas to see your loved one?) Ok this part is almost all speculation, but I am just illustrating that time is rather befuddling, and if we try to see time as just a modifiable part of the calculus of what truly exists, we may all exist all the time (in this gigantic multi-dimensional space-cake). We just don't have a way to experience time the way we do with space.

So, I was further encourage to think about this since MJ died. He was so illustrious all those years ago but the latter part of his life was littered with such disappointments. But the mark he made on the world is so indelible that if we imagine hard enough, each time his music plays, we might just be able to forget Time exists, and we all exist together in that minuscule bit of infinity.

Before Sunset

2009-06-19T02:13:00.000-07:00

The story, the idea is that...
there's this guy.
And...
he's totally depressed!
I mean, his great dream was to be
a lover, an adventurer,
you know, riding motorcycles
through South America,
and instead he's sitting
at a marble table,
eating lobster,
and he's got a good job
and a beautiful wife, right.
You know, everything that he needs.
But that doesn't matter,
'cause what he wants
is to fight for meaning
You know, happiness is in the doing,
not in the...getting what you want.
So, he's sitting there,
and just at a second,
his little five year old daughter
hops up on the table.
And he knows that
she should get down
'cause she could get hurt,
but she's dancing to this
pop song,in a summer dress.
And he looks down, and all of a sudden,
he is sixteen.
And... his high school sweetheart
is dropping him off, at home.
And they've just lost their virginity,
and she loves him,
and the same song is
playing on the car radio,
and she climbs up and starts
dancing on the roof of the car.
And now,
now he's worried about her!
And she is beautiful, with a...
a facial expression
just like his daughters'.
In fact, you know, maybe that's
why he even likes her
You see, he knows he's not
remembering this dance,
he's there.
He's there in both
moments simultaneously.
And just like for an instance,
all his life is just folding into itself Sunset
and it's obvious to him
that time is a lie...
that's it's all happening all the time
and inside every moment
is another moment, all...
You know, happening simultaneously.
And, anyway, that's kind of
the idea... anyway

Life's Ponderables - Death and the Dead

2009-06-07T22:36:00.000-07:00

It's a little morbid. I think selflessness is less obvious sometimes. If I had to choose (in some inescapable scenario) who should die, me or my loved one, I might choose that my loved one dies. Loss is not felt by the dead. Death is of value only to the living. I could not imagine living life without those I love and I do not wish it upon them either. That's one argument. I think its an act of selflessness. But in most circumstances it would be cowardice. Mortality becomes less about yourself once you think about it, but about what and who you leave behind and in what manner. The dead don't care about death.

In Tokyo We Never Get Lost If We Never Know What We Are Looking For

2009-05-25T03:28:00.000-07:00

I loved Tokyo. The culture is unapologetically inaccessible, and we can only hope to observe it fleetingly and at times accidentally crash clumsily into it.

I'll just try to pencil down some stuff before I forget.

The ubiquity of salarymen - how all of them look kinda sad, and they span across entire working age range. They all look ready to snap and jump into the tracks or murder the next commuter. And the suits, and briefcases - I think they won't want to be caught dead without either of them. I wonder how much blank paper gets carried across Tokyo on a given day in those briefcases.

The crazy commute - Where people get packed into carriages cheek to jowl, and in the most non-chalant and civil manner you could expect of people being shoved can behave. The train system can seem confusing but getting used to it makes a brilliant way to travel, since it covers so much more than what a single monopoly can provide.

The quirkiness, and the accompanying indifference - People literally dont give a rat's ass about what crazy things you do as long as you dun physically perturb them. We saw this 30 plus year old man, with a DPR-Korea type haircut, take a out a children's playdoll at a maid-themed cafe. But what was weirder than a grown man playing with a doll, was how he quickly assembled a newly purchased smaller doll (like an excited kid) to place in the hand of the bigger doll. He asked one of the waitresses to hold it for a picture, and hardly spoke a word. This is Criminal Minds material folks. We saw eclectically dressed men dancing to a small-time all-girl pop group. Cosplay is only the mild tip of this weird cultural iceberg.

The niftiness of everything - They have some contraption to fight every minute irritance of daily life. Things that we grudgingly tolerate.

Time Smothers

2009-05-22T11:06:00.000-07:00

I guess I am no stranger to this. But letting go becomes easier when it already went on its own.

The Narrowness of Primal Competition

2009-04-16T21:19:00.000-07:00

There are 2 dimensions - the criteria of the win, and the scope of the competition. The narrowness of what is defined as success is a thoroughly debated subject in most contemporary asian societies, and I shall not waste time on it.

But who do we truly compete against? I believe with many things, man still has instincts that have not readjusted to new realities of the modern world. We really, with the world globalized, compete with millions of nameless and faceless people. But who do we compare ourselves against? Surely, it is the people around us. Yes, I admit it gives us some psychological boost to edge out our peers, but rationally it does not make much sense. People's performance have some sort of anchor point and a variance. If we should compare at all we should compare with only the best. People whose anchor points are clearly way above yours.

Comparing with people you know will statistically condemn you to be bogged down in comparing with a significant number of people who either always underperform, or perform unevenly compared to you - who in the long run are generally indistinguishable from you. Such comparisions will only give you the thrill of cheap wins, unnecessary disappointments, and a forestalling of real progress.

I think there was once a time where all competition was necessarily amongst a small community, and man developed primal instincts that overvalued petty little victories amongst a small of group of people - there was no concept of competition with people you did not know.

I think after a certain point in life, you'd have to start drawing your own waypoints on the map. You could always journey with the pack, at least then you will always be sure where you stand relative to them. But walk alone, or walk with the very best, you may end up further or just as far as the rest, but at least you did it breaking the mould.

Unification and TV Shows

2009-04-11T11:20:00.000-07:00

There is this weird parallelism. Smolin says in attempts of scientific unification, there may be a need to spin greater hypotheses and make bigger assumptions to make the new theory work. It is also how some TV shows go wrong trying to make the details fit together by creating a more and more incredulous story. Let's hope dollhouse does just fine.

Mind Blowing 1hr 20 minutes

2009-04-09T18:21:00.000-07:00

I have to record this down before I inevitably forget the feeling.

1000, Doherty Hall - 1500 hrs, Philosophy of Physics, A Lecture on Symmetry

- General Relativity

M => gT is true under most transformations, and even across non-intertial frames of reference aka it holds true under the force of gravity. BUT it says nothing about which are real constants hence M =>d*g d*T is also true. The 'hole argument'. So by convention we make certain assumptions about spacetime, but it seems may never be sure about the the geometry of spacetime.

We can never know about spacetime geometry? Is indeterminism that pervasive?

Symmetry in Quantum Mechanics - The imposing of symmetry on neutrino-like entangled particles subtly imposes the superposition across all particles? Thats crazy shit - can we not know anything independent of observation?

Losing Yourself

2009-03-26T08:25:00.000-07:00

Call it escalation of commitment, a term borrowed from the social sciences. But people, even the most ruthlessly rational kind, tend to favour a wrong path of their own choosing over a correct one. Because of shame? Ego? Fear of crashing failure? Or the tiniest hope that it would turn out fine? It could be many reasons but the outcome is the same - up to a certain breaking point, we would continue investing into the mistake we made.

But the scariest form of escalation of commitment is not monetary, not time or other sorts of physical resources - e.g. in a failing project. What is scary is that you could, eventually, after many minor psychological 'realignments', convince yourself via a multitude of reasons that the path you took was right. The worst outcome for me is that you could lull yourself into accepting a situation completely against your beliefs and principles. You become a stunted, warped version of who you have convinced yourself to become. Like a squirrel you save up the little bits of joy(which inevitably there will be) to sustain you against the erosive and fatiguing forces of dissonance. YOU could have been much better than THIS.

'...but happy can already wat...." - Some Singaporean

Springbreak '09 II

2009-03-24T18:48:00.000-07:00

After the death-defying drive we made our way up Haleakala National Park, which is a volcanic crater - a lifeless, Mars-like valley with sands of dark red. Peering into the crater was humbling and slightly eerie. But the more important item on the laundry list was to watch the sunset at the summit, which was a pretty standard touristy thing to do.

20 mins up the windy roads and we were well above the clouds. It was another vulgarity-spewing moment as we stepped out of the car into freezing winds and ran to as far as the edge took us. It was out of this world, we couldn't see even a glimpse of the land below.

It might just be the best view I've seen in my life so far. It definitely is. I WILL see better ones in the future.

Reconsiderations

2009-03-23T21:11:00.000-07:00

I guess its true epiphanies come at the weirdest times. Mine can hardly be considered one, it was merely a rehash of an old mindset.

One of the most important lessons scorched into my synapses is that one should avoid being ruled by emotions. I have seen my fair share of self-destructive behaviour - people making impulsive decisions under duress, resulting in suboptimal decisions. Like science, these theories hold until something gives.

When your mind's completely gone, and you have to make an important (life-changing) decision, your rational faculties give in to the very same primal instincts that eventually breaks a torture victim. You grab on to anything that remotely seems non-hostile. Your minds only comprehends the relative - a dangerous path to take. Believe me I've seen that happen (not on 24), and being predisposed to inefficacious handling of crises, it is not surprising these weak-minded people continue to spin and weave new rationalities to delay the imminent pay-back of the bad life decision. Run, run, run - and finally they see themselves back where they started - in a maelstrom of negative emotions having to reconsider life once more because mistakes always find away back to haunt.

BUT but but. And perhaps I got this crystallizing thought from a chat about the unconscious mind with a psychology student researching on this topic. That regardless of the above, it should not scare you (nor me) from making emotional decisions. Borrowing from financial terminology, we should try to make such decisions only when there is limited downside and immense upside. You must also find yourself in a pretty decent state of mental health also. Your instincts are really powerful when they are not busy fighting off other sources of perturbations.

Springbreak 09, Hawaii

2009-03-16T07:28:00.000-07:00

The concept of springbreak is rather alien to SMU students. Instead of finishing up projects, people here drop everything to have fun, I mean everything. So I dropped everything and went to Hawaii with 16 others.

It was probably one of the best weeks I've ever had.

So before I forget I shall list out some memorable stuff. Driving all over, dangerously at times. The beaches, the breathtaking views. The warmth of the sun and coolness of the breeze. The monstrous waves and clear blue waters. The mountains, cliffs and fantastic sunsets. Black sand, blowholes, craters and sec school geography. Surfing, frisbeeing and Japanese babes. The strangely familiar food. The chillness of it all.

Hanauma Bay, first of many places that left me spewing vulgarities at just how breathtaking it really is - the photos hardly do justice. It's a crater with a collapsed sea-facing wall, and now its a beach. We rented snorkel gear (with fins!) and I have to say it beats Redang (too bleached) hands down.

Prior to Hanauma, we surfed in the morning and although it was a tiring experience I fully understand why its so addictive. The waves almost effortlessly propels you to shore (if you keep your balance), and in taming the wave you feel yourself in a cliched manner, 'become one' with it. Of course there is also the requisite staring of Jap bikini babes. In summary, it was a fantastic morning.

Driving was the only way to get around, and with the GPS, it's almost a like a video game. The drives were exactly how I imagined it would be. Completely relaxing, breezy, with excellent road trip music. The coastal routes provided views that made us brake suddenly around corners (sometimes at edges of cliffs) to get out and take pictures.

Talking about driving, I had the scariest driving experience of my still young driving life. Just for the sake of adventure we decided to take a coastal route that did not have well developed roads. Most people head back the way they came, but not us crazy idiots. For a harrowing stretch of about 45 min -1 hr, I drove at 15 mph along a 1 lane, gravel, cliffside road meant for 2 lane traffic. This meant one party had to reverse when there was oncoming traffic. A slip of the wheel meant certain death.

My passengers played car games.

More later

January 2009. Pittsburgh. PA

2009-01-30T20:35:00.000-08:00

I am cutting it pretty fine, but I shall try not to blog less than once a month. Life has been surprisingly normal. I say normal because I expected the harsh weather and distance from friends and family to take a huge toll.

It hasn't entirely hit me yet, this home-missing business. Sure I think about home every now and then, but maybe the hectic schedule, shitloads of Singaporeans, excellent TV programming, and daily webchats with my mum are counteracting whatever mental processes that are needed to wreck my state of normality. I guess with friends and family I have faith things should pick up where it left off despite the number of years apart, at least for friends, thats the only kind I make.

The weather? Pretty much what I expected. I've reached the point where any positive temperature range meant a warm day, an indication we could run around in t-shirts and shorts. The snow is still a mild irritance though, half melted snow is dirty and trudging through it saps most of your energy.

School is mostly what I imagined it to be. I wanted to go a school where I wouldn't just be phoning it in day after day, and for the most part, I did. I am extremely out of my depth but I would have to say Philosophy of Physics is my favourite course, I felt that affection even when I was registering for the course, and it didn't disappoint. Lesson after lesson I felt I learnt something fundamentally significant about either the physical universe or the human mind. They also have brilliant faculty here, and I must admit I am often drawn to the lectures - for the first time in 2 years, I think I am enjoying learning from school again.

It's also a great time to be in Pittsburgh - the Pittsburgh Steelers are going to the Superbowl! I knew it was a significant event in American culture and I guess i just lucked out to be in the very city where the Superbowl favourite, the Steelers are located. Football is HUGE in Pittsburgh and every Pittsburghese is born into Steelers fandom, not unlike religion. I dove right into sports culture, watching the Steelers overcome 2 tough playoffs to reach the Superbowl, and buying myself a Steelers scarf - Steelers merchandise is pretty much a required piece of clothing here.

Home, and Away

2008-12-27T07:30:00.000-08:00

My orientation has been rather in flux for the past few weeks. School's out. Research on the backburner. MOVED TO PASIR RIS. Preparing to fly to USA. Mentally I am not sure where I should settle. The best situation would be me having a good few weeks to train my mind on the long trip from home.

But I find myself unable to concentrate, Pittsburgh and CMU seem to be a blur for me. I constantly find myself worrying about the house, trying to fix this and drill that, trying to do as much as I can before I leave. Then there's Pasir Ris to get used to. Of course, people who know me know I practically grew up in Pasir Ris. And that is the point.

I moved twice in Pasir Ris. Had my primary school days there. Many of my important formative life experiences - yes the important ones!, seem to happen around Pasir Ris. It felt strange, like somehow I grew up and came back to where I began. I felt like Oliver in Liliput, in a mental sense. In a span of 5 days I saw at least 1 face a day I vague recall in and around the bus interchange area. As I rode the bus and bike commuting the past few days it conjured up memories and emotions that reminded me how retarded and immature I was, I could still remember the sounds of soccer balls slamming against the walls of several void decks and places I would hang out with friends those simple internetless days.

I find it strange having to come face to face with these images just days before flying off to Pittsburgh to start another, possibly harrowing, chapter of my life. Perhaps life is like all role playing fantasy games, you will be never too good or experienced for the next level - we will always be retarded and immature once we reach the next stage of life.

Win Some Lose Some

2008-12-12T09:35:00.000-08:00

12.12.08

It's been a mixed day. I had a great time KTV-ing in the afternoon. One thing struck when watching the '朋友‘ MTV for the nth time - it hardly had any girls in it. I wonder if camaraderie is essentially a male trait perhaps derived through evolution, through the need to cultivate trust and and non-sexual affection amongst a group of men - be it hunters or soldiers, where a relationship of a non-sexual nature has to be nurtured to ensure a man's commitment to the common cause. Just a thought, and I very much understand this bond. Of course girls are capable of it too, when they aren't busy being catty and bitchy.

Next, I watched what could be the best show of the year or a few years for me. I couldn't remember being this happy during a movie. Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist really knows how to bring the joy of false hope to every underdog watching it. The bright lights of night time New York and obscure indie music as the backdrop already had me sold. And the teen romance was predictably played out but the way of going about it was refreshingly awkward, and strays from the traditional rom-com pattern of dialogue.

But when I got back home, I realise some of my results stank. Stank like a corpse in sewage. I don't wanna go off on a rant here, but I am glad I am out of SMU, the place where grades are given arbtrarily at times and are a horrible reflection of 'academic' achievement at its best. Well luckily one single A+ allowed me to hang to the brink, but still at huge hit on my GPA. I guess I'll have to get used to the next level of laude. And so after the initial shock, I realised I hadn't had a proper dinner, and the demoralising news certainly made me want to binge a little. So down I went to buy some Mac.

It must be a sign from the gods perhaps, that right when I returned I was treated to a broadcast of a classic match between spurs and man u, - yes the 3 - 5 game with the comeback of the century. Well I shall read as much into it as I so please. Yes, the comeback of the century.

3 - 0 down at halftime and staring defeat in the face, man u turned it around in the classiest fashion. They do say form is temporary and class is permanent, and I hope the same rings true in other domains. Is this a sign? No, that is logically nonsense. But I like to think that it is.

Its a brand new day, and I cant wait for halftime to be over.

Prep Talk

2008-12-01T09:37:00.000-08:00

Funny. Phuket was 2006, so its been more than 2 years since the picture above. I am still not sick of the title of the blog, and it still means something at this stage of my life. Maybe it always will, unless of course god forbid there is a dark patch of my life ahead.

Ironically though, there probably isn't going to be much sun where I'm going and if the temperature stays positive I'll count it as a blessing.

Gladwell's Outliers concurred with my Management of People at Work module's literature, that Singaporeans have extremely low and perhaps the lowest tolerance for uncertainty. The LOWEST in fact, according to Gladwell. I feel almost embarrassed by that statistic, and it's a challenge I have posed myself time and time again - to be comfortable outside of the comfort zone.

My next phase is very much a leap of faith, unmitigated by any safety nets that others might have. I could stay and get 2 degrees for free, or I could pay 100k to get a Master's at the best school possible for this discipline and have a genuine shot at the big league - mingle with the best and reach at least the lower rungs of their echelon. However, consequences of choices I make do not fall merely on me. I thought I could handle uncertainty, but my tolerance is somewhat tempered when I have to consider consequences beyond me. At the worst of times, I feel a little selfish. But WTH, if Outliers were a reliable guide at all, I guess I'd have to overcome the traits that my social class, culture and race have tried to ingrain in me by brute force. I'd have to make my own luck on the way. So FUCK IT. I am going to do it and I'll deal with whatever shit that comes - fuck the typical Singaporean's tolerance for uncertainty. Fuck them and FUCK yeah

Nice try at a prep talk siu

突然好想你

2008-11-30T19:16:00.000-08:00

On one hand I love the lyrics, very emotive. But I wonder its a good or bad thing, or perhaps relief - that it conjures up little.

But boy do I enjoy this song!

Pettiness, Rationality

2008-11-11T08:05:00.000-08:00

I really don't think they are related. Maybe somehow they converge tangentially.
--
Pettiness. I often think of myself as being able to rise above the fray, but I am beginning to give myself exceptions here and there. This is not good. I hear myself wishing ill of people who otherwise might be, to others, people of good standing. Perhaps pettiness is a way of resolving bitterness that otherwise cannot be reasoned away - the FEELING of unjust rather than factually so. You provide yourself with frivolous justifications why the other person is worse off than he or she really is. You provide counterfactuals and hypotheticals that show the other person could have done better than reality suggests - that he or she is merely 'satisficing'. Perhaps in some parallel universe, unfortunately the string vibrated this way for your current sense of reality. Pettiness - merely temporal comfort.
--
Rationality is the bedrock on which all philosophies of human life, ethics, consciousness, morality, justice and other things of human value lie. Free will and the responsibility that comes with it is what makes us human. We have evolved from the times where a primitive urge can overpower the weaker, less developed part of the Neanderthal meant for rational thought. We are not reed in the wind nor should we be. If we can think it, we can decide it. Yet perhaps not all brains are made equal. Research has shown murderers, pedophiles and the whole lot of evildoers have a lesser developed upper brain, where primal urges can be squelched. I have seen my fair share of people retreating to instincts, emotions and most likely, hormones when caught in the headlights. Thats how people make suboptimal decisions - just hope it is not one with a long term consequence.

What about Breakfast at Tiffany's?

2008-10-04T06:16:00.000-07:00

This song keeps playing in my head. Its quite a sad song, at least to me. I actually can understand the pain of 2 dissimilar people - who might be in love, but the dissimilarities eventually make the relationship a chore, intractable. But it also brings me to something that has also been going through my head - that my future gf must understand the shows that I like. I think certain conversations with ppl, and the season premiere of How I Met You Mother kicked (where does-she-like-Star-Wars? question was asked) off my train of thought.

But I must clarify that she does not need to be already watching the show, the important thing is that she gets it when she watches it. Thats how a seemingly superficial criteria can be a more meaningful and slightly stricter one.

Here's a great acapella version that alludes to the actual movie with a snippet of Moon River

Neglect

2008-09-09T04:27:00.000-07:00

Currently maintaining another blog for my Comms module on digital media. BRB

Everything about Everything else

2008-08-31T06:32:00.000-07:00

I don't want to be a mechanical extension of the corporate machine, at least I try hard not to be. Perhaps its my recent obsession with metaphysics and philosophy that reaffirmed my current academic philosophy - to learn everything about everything else. I seek universal constants, constants across disciplines. When Kant spoke on ethics, he did not merely enumerate a list of dos and don'ts - he proposed a set of meta-ethical principles on which to build ethical rules on. The further you reduce, the more similarities come up across disciplines.

So there are essentially 2 ways to navigate through academic disciplines. You could recede further back into theory or go deep into the vocational. I prefer stepping back into theory. While the obvious drawback is its distance from reality, from the proper wielding of theory however, one is able to logically extend towards at least a few other vocations, but same cannot be said when the positions are reversed. I love transcendental knowledge. So to Business-Times-reading, hand-shaking, name-card-exchanging, stocks-discussing, suit-wearing, finance obsessed students, I say, congratulations on steaming ahead through what you will probably learn eventually for the rest of your intellectual prime. For the rest, I say, learn everything you can about everything else.

Dishwashing DJ

2008-08-18T06:24:00.000-07:00

Here are 2 songs from today's dish-washing playlist which were songs I really liked back then, I decided to play them while washing dishes today

The first is a classic from Blessed Union of Souls

Love the harmonica riff at the end of the bridge to bits!!!!

And another familiar tune by Nine Days

Oh the days of non emo pop-rock.....

Ramblings from HK

2008-08-08T03:28:00.000-07:00

Education is as important or more so than in Singapore it seems. The day I arrived, the equivalent of the O'levels results were released to strangely much media attention. There were stories of unlikely triumphs, wunderkinds, and sobbing failures. The entertainment news had celebrities reminiscing their secondary school days and giving hollow encouragement to those who fail to make the grade - who incidentally have to move on to vocational or private schools to further their education, not unlike Singapore.

The one alternative is to repeat the year. Sounds straight forward enough, until you factor in the pitiful amount of vacancies left. Which leads me to the next item - the level 8 typhoon (a full immobolization of HK). Struck by the fear of imminent failure in life, parents and students queued outside schools that still had some vacancies left for the new academic year. Unfortunately for them, mother nature seemed to compound the misery of the failed students by a tumultuous cocktail of 200kmh winds and torrents of rain, the combination of both renders an umbrella as useless as a bare twig. So there were the huddled masses, shivering and dripping wet, shouting back at the police who advised them to leave. Moral of the story - Study hard and don't be a fuck up so your parents don't need to squat out in the open in a level 8 typhoon; which I guess could be metaphorical in some ways.

So for 2 days I lived at my aunt's house with 5 other people. Now I think I just might have a theory to a nagging question: Why is there so many people on the street at all times of the day and do they even have a destination? Just 2 days and I found I'd rather be on the street wandering than at home. Problem solved.

Standing Still

2008-07-28T08:03:00.000-07:00

After all these years, you expect people to change. Yet it is not always for the better. Some people have moved farther ahead, some stood still, and some took some steps back. I often imagine what some would have been like, given the potential in their younger years.

Yes, I am hardly in a position to judge I think. The views I express are merely from where I stand which relatively could be in front of a few but far behind many. Yet who am I to judge? We often, at times when we conclude our heated discourse, exclaim "as long as he/she is happy"... Do we hope to merely console ourselves? Our do we truly believe our existence is better off? Like with all intractable quagmires of the world, the answers always lie in the grey. Its both and its neither.

Yet still I stand here looking at them, some I care about, and some who merely exist as fleeting memory. But its all a great learning experience. I admit, I do watch sappy TV shows that speak about life and love, with plotlines wrought with dysfunction, self-destruction and unhealthy life habits. But it was always fiction to me until I started seeing things in my life that corroborated the screenwriters' version of life albeit in a more abstract and milder way. People live like this! I am sure I am guilty of at least one of those.

The important thing is to break the cycle and be cognizant of the habits that have brought you to where you are. Yet, given what some have done as a peripheral effect of their flaw, I might be guilty of sometimes allowing my conceit linger a little.

7 things

2008-07-23T06:31:00.000-07:00

--------
Don't judge me. I like this song, so teenagey.

The Wackness

2008-07-21T23:49:00.000-07:00

Thanks to bittorrent I was able to watch the Sundance screener of a film I had been waiting for - The Wackness. And I wasn't disappointed. A coming of age story of struggling protagonists set to the backdrop of music from 1994. Everyone can find something they will identify with. It wouldn't blow everyone away, but it did enough for me - the odd mix of weariness and resignation with a sliver of hope around the corner.

Travel Related

2008-07-15T07:43:00.000-07:00

Theme Song: Jason Mraz's 'I'm Yours'

The song almost urges the listener to go on a road trip with the top down, the sun in your eyes, and the wind in your hair.

Out of sheer boredom I bought '8 Days' to read for the commute home. There was a piece about Jason Mraz, describing him as very much the free spirit that his music portrays. For about a year, he walked out into the wilderness (I guess at some point literally), to find who he was again after his initial success.

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If there was anyone I wanted to be in the world, it would have to be Ian Wright. For the last few weeks I have finally been able to sit and watch television as it should be watched. I have sat and watched weekly episodes of shows that I normally would have time for. Possibly one of my favourite shows in the world is Globe Trekker (or what used to be known as Lonely Planet). Every episode leaves me humbled by the magnitude of experiences the world has to offer.

Last week he went Mozambique to get dunked in the Indian ocean by traditional exorcists. Okay a little extreme. But in the latest episode, he went to Seychelles, an archipelago off the east coast of Africa. And at the ends of the islands lies La Digue, an eden-like place with pristine beaches (voted best in the world).

I let this be a little reminder of something I have yet to see.

Why Travel

2008-07-08T09:29:00.000-07:00

I stumbled upon a list of the best travel quotes. Below is the quote ranked no.1.

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.” - Mark Twain

I do admire great writers for eloquence that crystallizes something meant to be enigmatic, so succinctly. And therein lies exactly the reason why I want to travel. Having alien cultures thrown at your face will either destroy or reaffirm some of your most internalized beliefs.

I liked this one as well.

“People travel to faraway places to watch, in fascination, the kind of people they ignore at home.” - Dagobert D. Runes

Growing up in our own culture, we have an ingrained set of beliefs and values - some of which are universally justified, some are greyish, some are your own, and some are uniquely idiosyncratic of that culture. I guess the mechanism of culture shock forces you to realize, that as fellow human beings we may possess the same biological wiring, yet 2 tribes of men can have totally opposing beliefs - and both are felt at rather visceral levels no less.

In the course of things, we'll realise how similar and dissimilar man is. I enjoy it more when there's dissimilarity, when we can finally lift the blindsiding that clouds our judgement on similar issues, developed from years of exposure to a single cultural system. We humans are prone to biases, its how our puny mind tries to make sense of the world.

Sidenote: I enjoyed the many jokes regarding the daily lives of the vietnamese i have to admit. Some were smart, some were plain crude. But the key thing for me is that to even begin cracking some of the jokes, we are forced to acknowledge and unknowingly internalise the daily livelihood of the vietnamese folk. And to pull jokes off, there also exists a value judgement that is necessary for the satirising the object of the joke. That illuminates, albeit in a crude way, some of the controversial and negative issues we find in other's culture. Satire is quite a brilliant tool, off-putting and illuminating at the same time. The important thing is all the joking around forces us to internalise observations we would not normally give a second glance to as regular tourists. haha.

A Bit on Vietnam

2008-06-30T00:06:00.000-07:00

If there's one thing I find fascinating about Vietnam, it is how life seems to spill out into the streets, making it a truly living, breathing place.

The incessant horning, the smell of hot garbage, the bumper to bumper traffic, the friendly folk sitting on plastic stools drinking jasmine tea at seemingly all hours of the workday, the streetside vendors that sell everything from pirated books and handbags to fresh produce. Just crossing the road as tons of moving metal pass within mere inches almost amalgamates the traveler with the city; traffic, both human and vehicular, negiotate right of way with a mix of daring and graciousness, rules are made on the spot. Homes extend their living spaces in the day to become food stalls. Young people actually sit in parks to chat, not stare at each other. Modern commercial buildings share fences with dilapidated ones. Communism tries to creep into everyday life but it hardly shows.
Halong bay was worthy of its place in Patricia Schultz's "1000 places to see before you die" list. I always enjoy places that humbles you. I do admire the boat women that peddle snacks and drinks from ferry to ferry though, the heat is intense and the work, back breaking.

Things are Lining Up, Finally

2008-06-14T08:09:00.000-07:00

Ok, so here it is. I am going to the USA. But before I talk about where I'm going, I want to reflect upon how I got here.

Words cannot describe how fervently I have dreamt about this since my somewhat intellectual renaissance. Things happened in the recent past that drove me to seek solace in other realms of gratification. I threw myself at seeking new experiences, and each driving on to seek the next. The rest of the world can call it sour grapes, but I never had a shred of doubt that having my own time these past few years have defined me far more than the rest of the previous years combined.

Lily from How I Met Your Mother once said, "I need to find out who I am outside of us.." to her long time boyfriend before she left him before the wedding.

Thats what I have been doing, and doing consciously. To find out who I am without my life revolving about something any bigger then myself.

It may not count for a lot, but I am glad I have the time to:

- To be a devoted follower of American TV Shows - Friends, The Office, Scrubs, 30 Rock, How I Met Your Mother, Chuck, The Big Bang Theory, 2 and a Half Men, Criminal Minds, House, Grey's...
- To be a part of the 18-35 year old American demographic that religiously follow Stewart and Colbert on the Daily Show and the Colbert Report, learning more about the world and American politics through the truthful eyes of satire
- To read books about maths, physics, the universe, sociology, social psychology, entropy, economics, complex networks, systems theory, programming...... to learn of universal principles that transcend most disciplines, and fall in love with books all over again
- To read TIME, watch CNN, BBC, ChannelnewsAsia, Travel and Living, Discovery... and remind me about my place in the world
- To go to each new major art exhibition at SAM, other exhibitions at National Musuem, and the occasional photo exhibit.. and see the world through the other perspectives, and evoke emotions and thoughts that I previously never had
- To be up to date with BOTH Chinese pop and English pop (I suspect that is rare).... because I love music
- To do over and above the norm for my academic career - working hard, doing research, going for guest lectures and auditing interesting courses for no credit (all of which perhaps played a part in me going the CMU)
- To wash the dishes everyday and ponder through the behaviours (good or bad) of people around me.. and learn lessons myself
- To find out what I exactly want to get out of my career, and life.. and through other people, what I don't want as well
- To realise I can't live without playing and watching soccer
- To realise the importance of family and friends
- To realise I love good food... because food is culture you can eat
- To realise what I crave are not specific experiences, but any new experiences
- To pursue any new thing on a whim

Its non-exhaustive, but you get the drift. Unless one is extremely lucky, it is usually hard to find a other half who would not significantly hamper your search for yourself. So its true. There is another person outside of a relationship. I think the list would have been easily halved if I didn't have the time I have. When you don't know who you are, I realised the best way is just to throw yourself at alien experiences time and again until something sticks. And for that, you need time and experiences that you can call your own.

And so now, I know in my heart of hearts this is what I want. I want to interact with the best and brightest. I want to feel the little nervousness you get when you experience culture shock. I want to be lost in the middle of no where. I want to be forced to rely on my instincts. I don't want to fail, but I want to know I can. I want to be in over my head with each new challenge. I want my comfort zone to eventually be outside the comfort zone. I want the fire in my belly.

And so now, regardless of the debt I might incur or the cloud of probabilities that lie ahead, I know I want this.

Deconstruction 1

2008-06-09T07:33:00.000-07:00

A social science professor, who once lectured at our Management of People at Work class, shared his experience of an instance of cultural friction between his wife, who is Indian, and him a born and bred American. He recalls, but I forgot the details, how sometimes the wife may say something that completely passes him by. Cue your own imaginative sequence where a matriarchal Indian housewife speaks in varied and slightly sarcastic tones to a oblivious American man.

The differences between high and low context during conversation, he said, arises from the disparity of depth whereby the message that the speaker wants to convey resides in the language. Simply put, the sentence 'Have you taken out the garbage?' could mean really mean different things when said by different people. On one end, it could mean 'Have you taken out the garbage'? On the other it could mean 'You and I know the garbage is still there, so take it out!" A misinterpretation may be lethal at times.

It certainly makes for fantastic comedy sequences. However, I hardly see a place for it in real life. Yes, perhaps in ancient Asian civilisations, where respect for the hierarchy meant on could only perform their politicking with some verbal skulduggery. Its certainly a tone much reserved for soap operas and mafia shows. Otherwise, it is serious impediment to constructive discussion.

Getting to the more technical definition however, there is a place for high contexts, and its important in situations where the implicit knowledge expedites or smooths over the otherwise inefficient conversation. So the key thing here is not high or low context, its what exactly it is implying that determines the value judgement. If someone utters a medical lingo, or skips a few steps in logic in a discussion of a technical problem, you may be assumed to be a part of an in-group that is privy to this knowledge and knowhow. Thats good. However there are times where the implication is a wayward jump in reason, perhaps suggesting that the message recipient is duty bound, subservient, or other negative connotations.

Like the American prof, sometimes high context comments pass people by when the implicit knowledge is alien or unrecognized by them. So be straight, honest, and used high contexts only when the implicit assertion is a good one.

The Girl I Currently Deem The Hottest

2008-06-06T20:51:00.000-07:00

If youth, rebelliousness, and spunk sounded like anything, it would be the sound of Hayley Williams voice.

Romanticism

2008-05-19T07:52:00.000-07:00

Being cerebral, logical and analytical doesn't need to tamper with romanticism. Overthinking often leads one to the slippery slope of cynicism, it's usually tempting and a sanctuary for escapism. But cynicism is an immature disposition. I wonder why so many my age seem 'jaded' with the world. How can one base their fatalistic outlook on the little experience that they have? We haven't been truly tested, not in this vanilla world that we live in.

Unnecessarily cerebral I may be, I still have a good dose of romanticism.

Decisions Decisions

2008-05-14T07:31:00.001-07:00

I can't believe I spent SGD$342 at a click of a button. Who knew the GMAT was that expensive. The GMAT, doorway to executive education - a test that costs peanuts to actual executives. The exorbitance urges me to study like fuck for this test.

The purpose of this test is two pronged. It would be my ticket to either the Masters in IT and Business from SMU, or Masters in IT from CMU (Carnegie Mellon).

But amidst the confusing cloud of decision variables, this is what I know:

I MUST do well for the GMAT test.
I already have provisional entry into the SMU Masters programme. Yay. Or not.
If comparing only by ratios, I would like to be in the CMU progamme a BILLION times more than the SMU one. Therein lies my hesitance to accept the SMU one which needs a reply by June 15th. BIG PROBLEM #1 !
The school has not replied regarding the CMU position.
The CMU progamme costs at least SGD$150K.
I so far have only one scholarship interview with UOB bank for the CMU scholarship. While it went well, uni students are at an disadvantage. Also, if I get it, I have to spend 4 yrs working banking-IT in a local bank, if I don't get it, I have to fork out SGD$150K. Question: is 4 yrs of the prime of my life in a secure banking-IT job == SGD$150k + a ??probability?? to go to my dream job (Google or Yahoo)? BIG PROBLEM #2! I would give up a lot to work somewhere I want - can I take that debt? Thats a huge risk.

Would I rather be moderately rich and doing something I am not happy with - Banking-IT + SMU Masters or $150k in debt and probably doing what I love? - Web Company + CMU Masters? I really don't know.

What I do know is many people inadvertently, through either herd mentality or ill judgment wonder into a place where they don't want to be, and to pass each day they find little things to hold on to, to justify, to rationalise. So many unknowns now. But perhaps I must do the selfish thing to break the vicious cycle of prioritising communal sustenance over personal joy. Perhaps my father, my father's father and every father before him all had a chance to chase their dreams but they discount it a little each time they had to make a important life decision. Each decision point, a little bit more of themselves gets taken away, and they meld into the pragmatic, patriarchal form that always foreshadowed their future. I want to be selfish, or individualistic, yet there is this foreboding sense that I am subservient to history and culture. Ah the story of the westernised asian boy. Being rich solves everything doesn't it.

Rain VS Colbert

2008-05-06T03:56:00.000-07:00

This is one of my favourite programmes in the US and finally things have come to a boil! A long running fake feud between Stephen Colbert and Rain resulted in a dance off! Let me catch you up. Its the funniest thing ever.

1st Part

2nd Part

3rd Part SHOWDOWN!!

My Thoughts Exactly

2008-05-05T07:57:00.000-07:00

Recently I stumbled upon an article titled "The Art of Not Being Offended". I knew immediately what the article was about to talk about because that is my philosophy to how one should view each set of human interactions. However, I could never put it quite as well as I should, otherwise I would have written the article myself.

"In order to truly be a master of this art, one must be able to see that every statement, action and reaction of another human being is the sum result of their total life experience to date. In other words, the majority of people in our world say and do what they do from their own set of fears, conclusions, defenses and attempts to survive. Most of it, even when aimed directly at us, has nothing to do with us. Usually, it has more to do with all the other times, and in particular the first few times, that this person experienced a similar situation, usually when they were young.

Yes, this is psychodynamic. But let’s face it, we live in a world where psychodynamics are what make the world go around...."

No idea what the last line means, but thats the paragraph I want to share. Its the same reason why, when I am overseas, I sometimes enjoy seemingly bad service or unfriendly attitudes, because that response is very often culturally significant, and I get a kick out of learning about it.

Yet, this should not mean we let every indiscretion past us as we watch lamely. This philosophy still allows for a full onslaught of vengeance - if we can reasonably partition out the 'damaged' part of the offending party's environmental, childhood, and other psychosocial effects, and also find the party capable of cognizant restraint, the motivation can then be said to be far outside of what can be considered environmentally affected, then we can truly conclude a person's offense is truly deliberate and disgraceful. Of course, a lot hinges on being cognizant, thats why ignorant people stay in the sorry state you find them for such a long, long time.

In summary, seeing the whole picture vindicates many offenses to some extent but makes whatever that remains more severe.

I like this philosophy. It's not merely a reactive one. If you constantly have the whole picture in mind, you proactively pre-empt situations borne out of inevitable convergence.

Here We Go

2008-05-05T06:13:00.000-07:00

I read somewhere that to really kickstart a research project, we should try to document the primordial cloud of thoughts that fleeting ideas seem to escape from. Blogging is one effective medium.

The project is FYP. I must build something.

What do I want, in general? I want a fairly good mix of the experimental, academic, and some practicality. Nothing purely commercial or stale. Must hopefully marry a theoretical concept to something untouched by the concept.

Target entity to apply new concepts - Web 2.0? - Facebook? OpenSocial?

Write an API to visualise, distill, simulate, project -produce useful information?

APIs to use? - Social graph?

Concepts to use? - Complex network(boring), Entropy(Crazy), Optimisations, Competitive Intelligent Agents(Self organisation?), Game Theory?

Things to do: Browse APIs, Platforms

Estelle feat. Kanye West - American Boy

2008-05-04T00:35:00.000-07:00

Nice Photo

2008-05-03T07:12:00.000-07:00

What a fantastic crowd to be in.. see the name list

Good Feeling - Violent Femmes

2008-04-30T05:56:00.000-07:00

Marshmallow and Lilypad's song.. haha... weirdly..sweet

Dinner At the Peak, Scalability and Complexity

2008-04-29T08:35:00.000-07:00

the Peak, or 山顶茶餐厅 at Tampines North? CC, is a pretty fine place for HK cuisine, accredited by none other than my dad - a harsh critic of the state of HK-ish cuisine in Singapore.

Given how satisfied we were with the standard there, we were growing increasingly worried that after the refurbishment customer numbers had dwindled, possibly a symptom of collapse. HK Cafes are fickle establishments. That problem seem to have been averted - possibly by word of mouth, since the signboard had never been up since the refurbishment. My last visit was vastly different from my previous ones. Whereas previously they could spare a member of the staff to open doors for customers, the influx of customers prompted the kitchen staff to compensate for the waitering staff being spread thin.

So we placed our orders. It was somewhat heartening to see the staff busy, and the place noisy and boisterous like a HK cafe should be. But there was a problem. A problem I has spotted before. Each dish or drink seemed to be served by a distinct waitering staff. subsequent problems include mix up of orders, double - instructions, and flustering. This would work during off peak hours - ad hoc waitering. However, this problem becomes more pronounced when the number of customers are scaled up. This is a classic scalability problem that exists in computing, transport planning and other optimisation problems.

If each waitress was assigned to a zone, it would ensure a maximum waiting staff of 1 for each table.

No. Of Waitress-Table Relationships = No. Of Tables

If every waitress was assigned to every table, each table would have the total number of waiting staff.

No. Of Waitress-Table Relationships = No. Of Tables x No. Of Waitresses

Complexity is constant in the first case, and linear in the second.

But there are other factors of course. This is what I think about, inadvertently, sometimes.

Why Am I Friends with Barney?

2008-04-27T00:31:00.000-07:00

In one episode, Ted ponders why he was ever friends with Barney. He takes him on a crazy trip to Philly, gets detained at the airport, goes to a lousy party, and licks the Liberty Bell. But importantly, here's his conclusion - While Barney may never show him where he's headed, he shows him where he doesn't want to be... or something to that effect.

In life, we often bump into people we go "I don't wanna end up like him", and whilst we are eager to avoid them, they are an important instrument for personal growth. Knowing who you don't wanna be takes you a step closer to who you want to be. Of course facing them every day is tiresome, even so, we need them around. Like how we need to get sick once in a while, how can can't eat completely clean food all the time. It's my philosophy to culture as well - the more you jolt yourself with alien and foreign experiences, the more you are sure of your own, and at the same time more accommodating of others. Interesting this seems to be a common theme for so many forms of interactions.

We're Half-Way There

2008-04-20T19:41:00.000-07:00

Ok, finally. After a working through the night on my research paper, its all over - Year 2. Perhaps I've been writing too much this sem, just didn't have the time or energy to condense my thoughts, let alone have the urge to pen them.

So the best thing to have happened to me the last few weeks of the sem was 'How I Met Your Mother', if every generation could claim one show as their own, this would be it. I love Friends too, make no mistake about that. Somehow I identify with the smart and funny guy whose inability to 'play the game' at times means lost chances. I love how well he puts across the fact that if only they got past the awkwardness, he'll make a good husband, father (which is the case for lots of hardworking nerds ). But thats reel life - he gets the girl.

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There is so much people can blog about, yet surprisingly little is conveyed.

I am always troubled by the need to be cognizant. How much introspection is too much? I always remind myself of the context of all situations requiring my response, and it tampers my reactions somewhat. I look at possibles biases that I may lull myself into believing, I look at the statistics, I look at the the whole detailed picture, and sometimes, its confusing. Sometimes, instincts serve us much better.

It is also because of the awareness of the big picture, and my incessant need to question my own actions that have led to a fascinating conclusion.

In SMU, students pride themselves in their individualism, flare, vibrance. All of which usually reflects in the fluff they accumulate on their resume. People fall over each other trying to be the director, president, or chairman of trivial things - stationery supply perhaps, who knows. People take on roles they don't want to embellish their record. But here's the kicker - What is individualism if people don't dare to do anything that doesn't appear on a resume and begrudgingly take on trivial responsibilities with important sounding titles? Isn't it against the very essence of having individual flare?

Its sad, and admittedly brilliant, that SMU take what used to be organic to a student, and somehow managed to incentivize it such that everything is inflated beyond its actual value.

When you do something you believe in with no extrinsic motivator, you are driven by nothing but your passion alone. When a school or in general cases community incentivizes a particular behavior, people without the intrinsic motivation become as driven as the people driven by individual passion alone. How now can we tell these people apart? We can't, at least not on paper. Although, spending some time with these ambitious clowns often sheds light on these disgusting behaviors.

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2008-04-16T18:51:00.000-07:00

Inside Joke

2008-03-09T05:41:00.000-07:00

So the other day I was listening to 'Baby Love' by Nicole Scherzinger. I told my brother I liked the song by Nicole Shrodinger, we laughed. It didn't need explanation. You really kinda need to know enough about pop culture AND quantum physics to enjoy the joke. Ha ha

Cute Song, Sweet but not Mushy

2008-03-07T18:51:00.000-08:00

I like both of them

Escalation of Commitment

2008-03-06T05:24:00.000-08:00

is a intuitive concept to us. We know how, but sometimes we don't know why. The whole Iraq thing is one of the best examples around. The prof constantly mentions relationships as an example... where someone in a failing relationship says... "its been 10 yrs, it would be a waste to let it just fall apart" Taking that line, by the gut we feel it sounds right. It seem to do. But immediately if you step back an put some logic into it, it hardly follows as an argument. People put more effort into something thats failing for quite a number of hypothesized reasons. I like one of them the best. Its called gambler's fallacy, a term I knew of before but never really associated it to decision-making literature. People in losing situations tell themselves they have to win eventually, so they keep betting. The more they lose, the more motivation have to continue... hoping for a huge pay off, they escalate their commitment. Read it up.

He Is What I Want to Be

2008-02-24T06:44:00.000-08:00

Let me elaborate so that I remember why as well.

I want to go a lot of places, and I want to have fun in my own way. Why just stand and take pictures when you can dance badly at place you've never been? In some way, you make that moment yours. Of course, dancing badly is only one person's way.