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Evil Genius

2009-06-18T02:55:00.001-07:00

What's worse then an evil genius who was caught? Answer: One who has not been caught. Just this afternoon, I was walking around PS when this lady approached me to sell me something. I thought it was charity to help ex-convicts fund their education or something. Turns out, when I took the pens from her, it was actually from some be a millionaire organization and the words "This is not a charitable organization." jumps out from the brochure of sorts. Immediately, I began to have a million thoughts running through my head. Some about money, some about the organization. To sum it up, I felt uncomfortable.

Then, afterwards, I started to think about everything when I finished my mission to obtain the yellow cloth. Why did I feel uncomfortable? Do I want to help ex-convicts? Yes I do. Then I reasoned that the non-charitable part of it must have been the main factor of unease. There was recollection of things that had been said to me in the past regarding such, incidents.

But what's wrong with it? There was once when a lady tried to sell us something. She was quite critically questioned by my companion that day. And it all sounded reasonable, the logic and all. She could be working somewhere with a proper job instead of selling such things.

It's like selling tissue paper, if you think about it. Those poor old men and women walking around selling tissue paper. If there was a choice; IF they were rich would they have to do that? Maybe they could get a job. But MAYBE they might never get one. And this goes for exconvicts as well. For all the yellow ribbon movement, the crux still falls on employers whether they want to hire them.

The record. That blackmark on your name follows you forever. Like they say, it is a second prison. Why? Why have such a record if it increases the likelihood of rejection, are bias against the exconvicts themselves. Everyone makes mistakes; how severely punished you are is another thing in itself. If exconvicts could, say, be talented enough to hold a high paying job or even pursue a college degree but all is thwarted by this blackmark, is it fair? If the worry is that one is educating a potential criminal, what about an evil genius who was never ever close to being caught. Isn't that even more scary?

And all the sociological stuff that I studied about class, deviance etc came to mind as well. Let's hope they do get another chance.

Beautiful Football

2009-05-28T05:00:00.001-07:00

No I am not going to start supporting Barcelona but it has been a long time since I have seen any team play like that, in a champions league final no less. I remembered the 1998/99 Bayern Munich outplaying Man U like that and that was what Barca did yesterday. Man U was left chasing air for most of the game and the way Barca strokes the ball around is just plain beauty; it was like a training session.

I had this fear before Barca scored the second goal to seal the match. It seemed like deja vu; like Man U was going to score 2 in injury time again and beat the better team. It was so sad that the classy Bayern lost that night when they were taunting, swaggering and laughing for 90mins before losing to 2 last grasp goals. And history looked like it was going to happen again. Fortunately, it did not and the better team won.

Which also had me realising nobody can have their way forever. I had an ominous feeling Man U was going to win, again. So ominous I decided to bet on a full time draw and I was glad I wasted my 10 dollars. My friend used to say this while playing Risk, "The dice rolls will even themselves out after awhile." And I think last night, the dice was evened out.

Football

2009-05-27T03:32:00.000-07:00

1-0 full time. I couldn't believe the ref has blew the whistle. I couldn't believe it was all going to end this way. I made a wish and it was supposed to come true! Surprise surprise it didn't. Then it dawned upon me, like Christmas did several years ago, that birthdays were just another day. The actual birthday would have been quite a significant day because it brought me to Earth but the subsequent ones were just probably a good, I don't know, dream? Hope? Prior to that, I was telling my mum my 21st birthday would probably be the last birthday I am celebrating but I guess cutting a cake and making a wish for my team was counted as well so I did celebrate a 22nd in the end....

Yes I am sad. After like what seemed an eternity staring at the screen, I could feel tears building up in my eyes. It is probably the first time I had ever felt sad watching a football game. My friend says I am a fair weathered fan when I abandoned Arseanl. Maybe but at this current moment, I happen to feel more for Newcastle that they have been relegated. And if anyone must label me, I should be called adverse-weather fan jumping from the most exciting team in the Premiership to the one of the worst teams in it. I am not feeling sore and I am not ranting but I just felt like writing about this whole episode.

Anyway, gonna be catching Barca vs Man Utd later tonight. Hopefully it'd be a great match with lotsa drama. Penalty-shootout would be cool ahha.

Porridge

2009-05-21T23:15:00.000-07:00

They poked at the helplessly dead and helplessly black soy bean fish that was served on a modest plate made of porcelain. And still they attacked it relentlessly, mouthfuls at a time. When they weren't eating, they chatted and in all-too-routinely a manner and this adds on to their carelessness as they went on to attack the cabbage on yet another porcelain plate. And they ate, with the very routine, everyday porridge that they would have at the table everyday. And even more carelessly, they went for refills after refills as if the porridge never depletes like it usually does for when it usually does what it usually did on very routine days, such as this very day, a very unfortunate and wasteful and also very healthy portion of porridge would be served straight to the bin. Yet today, a meeting of several factors somehow factored in the possibility of the pot being dysfunctional; it had not served enough.

And this was much to the displeasure of the young one, who just awoken from deep slumber at this very moment, to be at this very moment very unfortunately informed that the pot was dysfunctional. Without a word, he strolled downstairs calmly, either out of lethargy of getting out of bed or it could be a ominous sign of the calm before the storm. He stared at the shiny, glorified looking pot. Taking of its lid, still very calmly, he stared once more into the pot. He thought briefly for a second, did an abstract mental estimation and concluded with near precision; the pot was dysfunctional. There was barely enough for the growing boy.

Angrily, he stomped upstairs perhaps to hide his disappointment of not having enough to eat. He decided to save his dignity to not eat at all for he was a proud character. He must have been disappointed, not by the having not enough to eat, but by the simple fact that he barely had enough to eat which made him really disappointed. Was he "left out"? That question could not be answered without certainty without a thorough interrogation which the young one would hostilely propel with a thunderous voice and an endless string of profanities that might well include an equally countless number of languages. Afterall, the first foreign words learned by most people are often profanities, it was not uncommon to speak in such a manner.

The cousin decided to take flight from this awkward situation and escaped out the front door of his own house. In fact, he wanted to escape so much he planned to have went out that front door before he even thought about walking out that door.

"See you there.", as he ended he online conversation, which preceded his thought to take flight from the situation. It made sense since computers move so fast now. One should definitely think faster than act, and act before the thought even materializes.

And in the torturous sun and the eternal 2min walk out to the bus stop, wholesale of images ran through his head. His brother was disappointed at negligence. His grandmother worried about a starving grandson and guilty of her own error in cooking just enough so much so she wanted to cook another plate of fried rice just for him. The brother seeing his whole bloody greedy and guilty glutton face in the mirror when he could have left enough in the fallible pot to advert this whole adversary. It pains his heart that nothing went wrong for it was all normal for the pot to not be infallible yet two of his loved ones are possibly feeling quite down over this. The young one actually loves porridge and the grandmother never more happy that everyone is full, happy and satisfied. Damn the pot.

Okay I found the video

2009-05-05T06:07:00.000-07:00

Alright, that's the link to the video I was talking about. Apparently I was severely inaccurate so you could probably view the whole video to actually see the whole argument.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8LnOjhCcH4

This is harder than I thought

2009-05-05T04:44:00.000-07:00

Okay, gg. Exams are finally over so I am officially resuming my duties as a blogwriter. I remembered talking bout writing a story but I realised it is like how difficult. Apparently, absence in constructing stories since secondary school has taken its toil. I officially struggled to even build up the environment in my story. Time for some reading up first. Of course I shall still try to update it with whatever cool stuff I can find. Since I have nothing better to do, let's get started on the first cool stuff I heard today. It's about a student and a philosophy prof arguing about religion.

"Do you believe in God?" the Prof started the thoughts running and briefly resumes with another question. "Look around. Is there evil in the world?"

One student replied, "Yes Sir, I believe in God."

After a long argument to prove his point, the Prof rekindled his interest in his initial question. "Do you still believe in God?"

And he answered, "Yes I still do, because I have faith." (I shall skip the prof's part to shorten the story.)

"Is there light and dark in this world? No there isn't. Darkness is the absence of light. Is there hot and cold? No again for cold is the absence of heat. So is there good and bad? Perhaps not for evil could well be the absence of goodness. And I have faith even though I haven seen God just like scientists have faith in Science. You believed in evolution but have you seen man evolve? No, yet you believe staunchly so don't you reflect the same faith in own belief? And believing in God is not whether I can see God but because believing in God with faith allows me to see everything else."

And the prof was stumped.

PS: hopefully I can find the video instead of my inaccurate account.

School

2009-03-31T07:32:00.001-07:00

Tired of studying? Over and over we will hear it. In secondary school(thankfully I spent most of my time playing soccer) we heard of it. My cousin who's in secondary school now sighs once in a while and tells me,"studying sian..." Then in JC, who can forget the 10 thousand year series that we practiced, not forgetting the unlimited number of exam papers from other school. And now, dang dang dang, enter univeristy.....

It is a really big compound with significant amount of greenery and numerous concerte buildings. By definition, it is an institution of the highest learning level. With such a spacious architecture; with so much room to move around, to study and the many facilities to unwind after a hard day's work, all seems nice and well. But the nice exterior is a mere facade of the happenings within.

The tall unforgiving concrete is built to hide what it actually looks like inside. You see smiles all around, but how many people are forcing that smile and how many are crumbling under pressure. Inside the exterior, it is a boiling cauldron of hot molten. Everyday you feel the heat; not a comforting form of warmth but burning heat that makes you panic and sweat everyday. Everyday we consolidate what we learn, think about what we have not and do what we think we understand and what the lecturers expect us to know. Assignments are meant for learning; yet sadly, most of the time it is a mere product churned out fast enough to meet the assembly line deadline of this whole manufacture of students' work. Could you see such a side when all you see is the exterior facade that was the prominent feature during the openhouse? It is a cauldron, boiling and melting us down.

I have learnt more from discussions with my friends and professors then actually churning out those assignments. While I used to try to learn something from it, it had become more of a hindrance then a help. Tutorials are fine; in fact they are awesome. Yet the assignments.... And do let me rant somemore. Why should we be diversified? I have been diversified from primary school. It is time to specialise. You teach less, you learn more. So often, the beauty of everything we are learning is lost in the haste of finishing all the work and reading for modules you probably would not read again.

A czech guy told my friend when he went to Europe," Education, it is so overrated." Partly right, educating for the sake of doing it is overrated. However, the beauty of knowledge, feeling it and fully understanding can never be emphasised enough. Do away with the assembly line productions of essays, assignments and what's not. Like an essay, we need a focus. Cut away the excess, backspace it and show the brilliance of the little bit that you have. The most important thing is to learn, not to melt the students in this cauldron.

PS: This post is dedicated to CJ

Announcement

2009-03-28T06:27:00.000-07:00

Nope, I am not closing the blog down, yet. Anyway I suddenly had a brainwave that day to do something pretty cool so I hope it would work out awesome. I love writing about philosophy, society and human nature and the likes so I was thinking of working some of that into a story. Hope to get some ideas and words flowing and roll out something for you guys soon. And, hopefully, there would be additional ideas from the readers. Sounds fun, meanwhile work is in progress.....

IT Show

2009-03-15T05:25:00.000-07:00

I have so many overdue entries. Had a lot of inspiration last week to write but I did not have time to get down to it so I had to save them and continue later, now kind of later so here goes belated post number 1.....

Last week was the IT show, again, at Suntec City. It seems to have evaded the most hardcore of forum-surfers and ones who might find switching on the computer as the number one priority ahead of the lights upon entering a room. While they somehow managed to not read a thread regarding an upcoming IT show, my friends did stumble upon a thread that came after. I would suggest looking at the link first, it would save me plenty of words...

http://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/showthread.php?t=2302392

It was shocking. I thought CityLink was going even further underground when I saw the sight of it, first hand. Why? I agree Singapore is tech-savvy but this is madness. First thing I would want to point out is we have an IT show every 3 MONTHS. If we are capable of destroying something in 3mths, we deserve the loudest most sincere round of applause. If it's a mechanical fault, we deserve new brands in the market. If we are lagging behind, wait, how can you lag behind in tech gadgets when we are having the fair every 3 months? If we are just being Kaypoh and wanting to kuay sio(get warm; also means going after the crowd), we deserve to get kicked in the butt straight to Phuture.

It's really the nation's favourtite past-time. We have seen it when Kitty said Hello to us. We have seen countless everyday examples, sales especially. Do we really have so much to buy? Or maybe I am right about us being just very nosey people. I think the latter is very possible. Guilty of falling into this group of people myself, I used to visist every IT show with my friends just to "walk walk". And I bet most of them at the fair are doing the same; just look at their empty hands, except for the countless brochures that they are dying to hide it inside the bins immediately upon their exit. And the brochure point furthers my point; they just want to walk around and chase the crowd, if not the brochures would have been quite worthy of some time on their journey home.

Russell Peter made a joke about us. You know what Singaporeans like to do? They will try every piece of clothing and said, " It's okay." It is in his "Red white and yellow" and I should be roughly correct unless i really recalled it wrongly or had some false memory.....

Curiosity killed the cat and my aunt did mention the Suntec City escalators are not built to carry so many people. Maybe that's why they had to rebuilt that old one in front of Suntec. We need some crowd control here.

man utd

2009-03-15T04:25:00.000-07:00

Belated post number 2...........

The whistle blew and the score stood 1-4. Old Trafford was stunned. However, I am not using one whole entry to talk about the defeat nor am I going to analyse it. The purpose of this post is to talk about the fans.

Fair weathered fans? Heard of it? People might think Man Utd fans are one of the most loyal in the world(contesting with, ironically, Liverpool). However, one must consider that Man Utd has always been at the top. If one day Man Utd gets relegated, would you sink with them or would you go on to support someone else. Don't answer immediately Man U fans, think about it. Touch your heart and think. By going down, it meant you lose possibly all your best players. You might climb back up but you will struggle to get back to the top. Think about it.

The post-mortem of the match did not convince me of their loyalty. It was a sight of pure pragmatism, not passion or love. Nemanja Vidic had put up player of the year performances for the whole year and because he failed to control arguably the best striker in the world, Torres, he received widespread condemnation. Is this love?

Some might argue it is anger from the immense love for the club. They want the best for the club so when it fails to live up to expectations, they would curse and swear. Yes, note "live up to expectations". What if they don't, ever. Are they loved for their football? Or their success? Or they are loved, because they are loved. I believe, the true fan loves the club, because he loves the club, regardless. They can be top, bottom, left, right they don't bloody care. Yes, they do get angry but do they do not base their love purely on success. That is a true fan, so are you one?

I am in no position to comment on your loyalty and your loyalties might never be tested but I do believe some of the loudest cheerleaders might not be truly a red devil at heart. Good night.

Good and Bad

2009-03-12T06:03:00.000-07:00

"You may have idealized humanity but you have deformed it as well...." I grabbed this quote off my friend's facebook message because it caught my eye when I was browsing through facebook. Initially, I wanted to talk about humanity in general, but then I decided to talk about Good and Bad instead.

Whoever was being mentioned by my friend, was on one hand a model of perfection. Yet on the other hand, (assumed its a she) she dropped down to the very extreme end of imperfection, ugliness and deformity. Is this possible? How can someone be so good and so really bad? Let's draw upon a very simple example; Boy-Girl Relationships. Ah, the ever sweet romance of two people who are so in love with each other. They enjoy each other's company so much, parting in itself is a tragedy. And oh the presents, always intrinsically wrapped and given so much thought. Now skeptics of love will start laughing at this idealized model of BGR, and yes, they are very skeptically right. For I left out the quarrels that threatened to destroy the relationship. I forgot to mention the countless cases of adultery. I also very conveniently omitted dozen other really terrible things about love. It can get really ugly.... and in a way, from this everyday example, we do see a case of opposite extremes; some people like to call it a Love-Hate relationship.

Love and hate. Wait, aren't they really different? One is an embodiment of good; the other is the extreme opposite, bad. Philosophically, they are not that different. I'll try my best to illustrate what I felt was a really interesting point that my friend made and hopefully it works. If God is the greatest of all good, all the good in the world must have came from God. However, thinking about it on another extreme, where did evil come from? Everything must have came from somewhere and if God is the source of good, I am assuming God is also a source of everything else and by that, it includes evil. And since evil came from God and God is the greatest of all good, so maybe.... they are not so different after all?

And, we look back at love-hate relationships. While we hate the other party, we do actually love them at the same time. And maybe, just maybe, they are not that different after all.

Distance

2009-03-09T05:15:00.000-07:00

Do you remember the times when you were younger? What did you look forward to everyday? What do you say or do when you finally see your parents after a day's work? Some would run towards them, hugging them tightly. Some would exclaim loudly, "Mummy! Daddy!" But what about now? Do you still do that?

I have always stayed with my grandparents since young, or at least when I had any conscience recollections. Every friday night, I would go back to my parents' house for the weekend. That was what I looked forward to for the entire week; to go back and spend a weekend with my parents. I would then have wonderful suppers, shopping and my lego castles. I remembered making mother's day and father's day cards, putting in my utmost effort and thought. It was nothing impressive, but it always brings across the messages so well.

Roll on 10years or maybe more, I am 22. I am in university now, so much older and with so much more experience yet comparing certain traits of childhood, I have become a shadow of a man. I used to love going back; now I do not even want to go to my parents' house. I used to make cards for them to tell them how much they mean; now it takes considerable effort just to greet them. For people so close, I see them roughly once a week; yet I don't even miss them. And going through so many years of schooling and learning how to communicate and write, I have forgotten how to express my love towards them. Or maybe, I have forgotten love itself.....

For my longest standing fan

2009-03-08T07:38:00.001-07:00

Back when I was still back at the old blogsite, which was back in jc days, this fan has already made his presence felt.

"Leet entry. Updates please."

When it went into its unfortunate closure, he was devastated.

"WHY? It was a good read, I loved reading it."

And when this new blog came along, he was inevitably there to read it, again.

So, just for him, I'm having this entry tonight....

Coming back from my match, I very excited messaged my friend on msn(he said I am so fair, I look like my white shirt. That's wrong; I am actually turning transparent.)

"EH, I think I have become 1% farker."

10mins later, I realised the mistake.

"OH SHIT, no I have become 1% fairer."

of course, what I wanted to type was, " I have become 1% darker." -.- self-pwn.

It put up a fight....

2009-03-06T23:07:00.000-08:00

Alas the resistance has been broken. After several months of valiant defending against the unstoppable sheer force of the massive juggernaut, the proud structure has finally reached its limit. A thunderous crack, very much like those that accompanied the storms that seemed to be terrorizing Singapore, echoed throughout the room as an ugly crack started tearing down vertically on its usually radiant blue surface. I turned to look at the damage that has been done. Oh poor blue chair, although you put up a real fight, in the end laziness and the sheer force of a proud combined total of 61kg is going to inevitably destroy you. I promptly decided, immediately, to log into centris to ask for maintenance to replace this fallen warrior.... Can they get me a chair, double quick time?

Sons of Singapore

2009-03-06T00:41:00.000-08:00

That morning, I was having my breakfast when I overheard a conversation by two uncles....

" Wah, nowadays the singaporean children cannot la. They are so spoilt, whole day only know how to enjoy."

"ya lor, and look at the china kids in Singapore, so hardworking. Ours sit in front of the com whole day and play game. Sooner or later, the chinese kids are going to displace them from their jobs. Sure lose one."

I don't know what came over me, but I wanted to walk over and tell them, " I am a son of singapore."

Patriotism. I used to laugh really hard at this word. Recalling the first time I reached Tekong, I saw a poster reading(if i rememebered right), "This mud on my face is soil, our soil." It had no effect then for all I see is just another poster, with some words and a soldier with mud on his face. Yet, thinking back, they were such strong words.

In chinese, we call a nation "tu guo" or in direct translation, "soil country". And such a short phrase could actually pack so much emotions. The mud on your face; it is not dirt, or dust or anything else but it is soil, soil from your country. In our context, this mud is the soil of singapore. Impressive? Not really, it is just mud. But think about it, if one day you lost your nation, when this soil is no longer yours, would you think better of it? I am picturing myself, holding the warm soil from our own lands, holding it hard and having the best feeling in the world; that the ground I am standing on is my home, my land.

And perhaps, it was only when I overheard this conversation, that I understood how it felt to have someone criticising something you love. Maybe most of us inherently love the country but we just do not realise it? I used to question whether I like my country. There were times I convinced myself Singapore is at least decent enough to stay in. But that is an understatement; I only want to stay here.....

So uncle, maybe deep down you love singapore that is why you are disappointed at the way the next generation is coming up. Don't worry, we're still children of singapore.