Anywhere Is

Music: Enya - Anywhere Is
Book: Tom Stoppard - The Real Inspector Hound

Toa Payoh has this shop that sells comic books. Or you can rent them for 80 cents and read it right there. I checked out the second level and stumbled upon what struck me as a modern-day opium den. Small, enclosed room, people sedated on comic books. Terrible.

Yet so appealing. When I approach 50 Im going to find myself a nice club/society, probably a reading group or a card-game group, and every weekend I'll plonk myself in a small cosy room, coffee on a side table, cards on the big one, quietly amusing individuals seated all around. Mmm.

My most clearly defined aim in life is to retire, with some grace and wealth and possibly some friends, to the countryside in Britain, maybe the US. A charming country manor would be nice--the cost could be split between those with me.

And every morning we would read the papers silently, sipping english tea by the french windows. And then we would have a game of cards before heading out for lunch; the manor would be in the countryside but at still a close distance to a small town. We would then head to one of the many bars in the town and have a drink or two. And we'd talk, and talk. Alternatively, a swim in a lake would be nice--I've always had that fantasy since Land Before Time. We then have Dinner. Dinner with jazz, Dinner at home beside a fireplace, anywhere would be nice. We'll then talk, or watch a show, or have a game of cards, or if a swim in the afternoon was not accomplished we could swim at night. I've always had a fantasy of swimming naked at night since..since dunno when.

Beautiful isnt it. And throughout this last stage of life, I'll be looking back, looking back at everyone, everything. Probably fly here and there to see people.

It's good to have a aim in life.

Deconstruct/Pschoanalyse maggi mee

Music: Travis - Quicksand
Book: Tom Stoppard - The Real Inspector Hound

Dont know why Quicksand didnt make it to Singles but it's good. It brings memories because I listened to it alot over the past year, but this is just a passing stage. I mean this is just the memory part of the poignant cycle. I mean...

Deconstruction theory (from what I grasp of it anyway) is so much more fun than psychoanalytic criticism.

My literature tutor did a little *psychoanalytic* reading on me not some time ago. She said, you have an external self and an internal self. Your external self seeks to blend in with the environment, but that's only because you wish to use it to your advantage. (No it didnt sound this harsh but I forgot what it was she said exactly) Your internal self is firm, unyielding.

The accuracy of this is, in a way, reinforced by the fact that she chose to talk about my self and the environment instead of picking out some other aspects, because the self and the environment is an issue that I have revolved around from the very start of my college days.

As a side note it gets highly entertaining when you substitute environment with an individual. You then get Self and Individual, where Individual is like Self in the sense that he or she are themselves like me in the Self-and-Environment arena. You then get a Self who is unyielding and subconsciously influencing Individual--who him/herself is doing the same thing. To reconciliate both sides completely would imply either strong conflict or a whole load of great time together.

After some thought I realised I am incapable of making good maggi mee. Maybe I should get a wife next time. Upon further consideration I'd rather have under/over cooked noodles.

-

Flamboyance, suaveness, invulnerability. They're all dying out on me. Never mind if you dont know what Im talking about; I behave differently with different groups of people, and such things take time to get to you.

I knew such a time would come but now that it's here I dont know what to do.

After some thought I realised the only strength I have is not having any glaring weakness.

Some random thoughts on beauty

Music: [Hotel Rwanda] - Million Voices
Book: Tom Stoppard - The Real Inspector Hound

In addition to "beauty is in the eyes of the beholder", we as humans very often only see value in other things (humans or otherwise) insofar as we yearn to hold that value ourselves. We borrow that more or less familiar God example: The God we picture him in our minds is a mere reflection of what we would like to see ourselves to be. Similarly, the beauty we see in say, a sleek soccer player or a sleek Sean Connery exists only to the extent we would like to see ourselves be like them.

There is another form of beauty that is much more confusing however. Is the beauty of a persuasive argument or the beauty of Stoppard's ingenuity in constructing The Real Inspector Hound, or even the beauty in seeing those fantastic 3D images now commonly found in the cinemas and in computer games really beauty? I dont think so. I personally find that beauty is used as a blanket term in such cases, a blanket term to express our appreciation in less than a full critical analysis. (The beauty of a persuasive argument lies in the fact that it managed to convince us, especially when we were set out to be convinced otherwise; the beauty of works like The Real Inspector Hound ostensibly lies in the fact that we respect the creator's ability to concoct such a structure that embodies intellectuality amongst other things [and this could be in turn be derived from the fact that we did not manage to think of what he thought of]; the beauty of graphics is present only because we have a subconsciousness that realises that the thing you see on the screen is so much like reality--without all the creases, metaphorical or otherwise--we are therefore not appreciating the beauty of the image per se but rather, the fact that the creator managed to create "reality")

From the above I would henceforth venture to say 1) beauty is just a crude representative word of numerous other cumbersome appraisals/concepts and 2) it is derived from what we have not thought of/what we have not done (and possibly, will not ever be able to do). The feeling of beauty we feel is therefore more a latent reaction of respect for accomplishing what we have not accomplished than it is a proactive feeling for the object at hand.

Post-Modernism

Music: [Hotel Rwanda]- Million Voices
Book: Eugene Ionesco- Rhinoceros

Two days break! It's been a long time since I've had a break of this sort, and Im referring to the upcoming saturday and sunday here. Where other teenagers might feel the urge to go out and stuff I am, just for this once, pleased that there are no plans this time round.

It's been a long month, january, a tiring one. Every single week, or perhaps every few days there would be something major to see to, a presentation a test, an assignment, dinners. By no means of a boast almost every single day was filled, including weekends. It isnt so much as it is physically demanding than it is mentally straining; as much as I survived essentially on a 2+4 sleeping schedule there were times where I thought like giving things up. I mean just imagine, day after day after day of doing work work and more work, with no end in sight; my mind screamed for some time out not to replenish self but to break that monotonous mental gridlock I find myself in.

The upcoming chi new year break would be good too. If it werent for the NUS thing i wouldve taken monday off; there is a high chance I'll take friday off. It is very important to take things off every now and then.

I've recently discovered that there are alot of feuds in my class, me being involved in one or two myself. Have you ever seen girl-girl feuds before? The kinds of division, the sort of awkward tension, it's laughable really.

Im entering a postmodern age, the reasons of which I wont cover here. Where previously in the modern age I held the value of non-adaptability (self-determination in a different context, if you like) the postmodern age recognizes that my classmates actually can be appreciative of myself. That isnt important, because the fact that we still remain on totally different realms ensure that we do not reconciliate on any level.

A more important recognition is the fact that our relationships are more long-term orientated than it is in the short term. I find myself thinking that hey actually you know, these (my classmates) are the people whom I'd meet up in the future, when we're all down our established careers. I daresay that for all the chummy chummy unity and closeness of other classes, it would eventually diminish, in part because they are born from teenage fun and ideals. On the other hand, and rather paradoxically, it is the very casual distancing that might lead to opportunities in the future. On the same note the very diversity that currently dis-unites us could very well serve to bring us together in the future. This is obtained from the presumption that when we all get out there, we're all going to go down different routes and take very different jobs. A reconciliation of relationships would then be possible--there's nothing to reconciliate or unite when everything is uniform.

It's hard to figure out why I am thinking this way but that is that. I do not deny this is very idealistic thinking. I myself am (currently) unable to offer any concrete logical proofs, Im not even convinced by what Im saying. But even if all those are refuted one thing is irrefutable: we have diversity where others have uniformity. How this would work out in the future I have only transient, irrational ideas.

The post-modernist also believes that no one is to be held at fault. What is held accountable is the lack of synergy between groups. We accept that we are this way and not that way, we also accept that this way cannot be reconciliated with that way. Essentially rather than being obssessed with the lack of unity, as might be the case in the modern age, we should lie back and appreciate the uniqueness in other groups and even the uniqueness of the class as a whole, and in the process of doing so, achieve a certain maturity of relationships.

How I wish they could and would think the same way as me but no, every day we're just going to show unhappy faces and stuff. (It is rather interesting to note that for all my apparent discontent they, and not me, are the ones who are going about displaying unhappiness)

Im pretty sure this new age would unlock many new theories and insights, we'll review them as we go along.

Dinosuar eggs

Music: [Hotel Rwanda]- Million Voices
Book: Eugene Ionesco- Rhinoceros

If you had thought Beckett was absurd enough check out this fellow. Check out, in particular, The leader.

One peaceful morning in school Mrs Leong Wen Choo, civics tutor for my class, msged me to go find her. I did in the first break that came along. She handed me a few pieces of paper, the first of which had the heading The Pennsylvania Governor's School for Global Entrepreneurship. Scholarship...4 weeks abroad...July...think through it...were the words that got through to me. One shouldnt attempt to think too much on a peaceful morning.

In essence it's some course for entrepreneur wannabes; not a full degree course but still some sort of certified, advanced placement program for high school students. It would be held at Lehigh University, Pennsylvania, USA. There's nothing prestigious about this whole thing, both the program and the university, but it IS a course for entreprenuers. Which means that, to quote directly from their files, "students are assigned to a real-world company where they will spend Monday afternoons working on a project and problem-solving for that organization. Students prepare a formal business plan and presentation for the company executives.", and they "meet global entreprenuers from major TNCs..", and "In small groups, students tour a variety of local companies and organizations, to observe entrepreneurship in action and meet with executives and employees."........

Right. I know it sounds all so typical and stuff but the key temptation for me, out of this entire package, is the fact that you're actually going abroad. You're going abroad to witness, first-hand, what life is like over there, how businesses work, you can get to see things from different perspectives, get to make some global friends.

We see a parallel of this in the NUS thing Im in now. The key thing Im gaining for myself from that course isnt academic knowledge/skills, but information, information to aid me in life-sized decisions Im going to make in the near future. Similarly, the course package for this overseas thingyi isnt of foremost importance; by committing myself there I would be able to make more informed choices in the future--like where to study or work, would the USA be a better choice than UK, and most important, the life experience (friends, experience of a different environment, etc) obtained.

I talked to VP2 on that very same afternoon. It is very important to discuss matters of such gravity in the afternoon. She told me she had shortlisted two other students besides me, and told me it would be good if I could go, presumably because it would benefit the college in various imperceptible ways (it's not like this kind of things get publicized or anything). I have got to admit here that I do feel a certain nationalist feeling within self--to have such attention, even if it's filtered attention (from the university over there to the local authorities over here to the college itself to the VP to me) as opposed to direct attention from the source itself. When I studied for 4 weeks last year I had no idea it would open such avenues for me (there are, incidentally, a couple other presently petty things that might receive mention in due time).

Unlike the NUS thing however, I must admit I dont feel any tendency to give in to the temptation of novelty, at least not immediately. Several reasons. The NUS thing is down HERE, in singapore. That thing is over THERE, dunno where. And that thing is right smack in July, meaning Im going to miss 4 weeks of lessons in a crucial period. Am I about to screw up my A levels the way O levels screwed me up just because I couldnt resist the temptation of gaining an arguably unique life experience for myself?

Serious thought is required here (unlike, again, the NUS thing, where being comfortably placed far away from November there was no real opportunity cost in going for it).

Already I can see some interesting arguments forming. A friend pointed out that even IF my A levels get sacrificed as a result I might still have whatever scholarhip thingyi they are giving. The issue here then would be weighing the cost of foregoing a potential avenue of "scholarships" (or at the very least, a decent certificate) versus the potentiality of their scholarship. A more encouraging thought would be that hey, the A levels might not get affected in the way I perceive it would. The primary issue here then would be weighing the probability and extent to which my A levels would get sacrificed versus the real benefits of the program.

A more encompassing line of thought would be the self-perceived intrinsic value I would obtain from this new life experience. The logic goes as follows: we (or at least, I) remember our happy childhood days more than we remember our results then. I mean look, how many of us bother holding a decent sec1/sec2 report card versus those times we spent playing a fool in class, those sunny afternoons spent gaying about with friends etc. Now project that on a larger-scale: years down the road, how many of us are going to hold fondly our O/A-level certificates the same way we would hold fondly our memories obtained from the life experiences we got from secondary school and college respectively? In this line of thought the fundamental belief is that ultimately, as some people always like to say time and time again, studies isnt everything, what matters most is that we have a good life.

Think I'll have to go discuss this with tutors and friends.

Totally unrelated to all that has been said, I notice there's no point indulging a friendship when you can't maintain it. All this while I've been talking and talking (and occasionally whining) about the lack of quality and quantity friendships in college. It gets rather refreshing, then, to think of it on the other end: when you've got too many friends. The only outcome that could come out of this would entail a sacrifice. Friends are indivisible goods. Surplus consumption (but in relation to who?) would by default result in a partial loss on another side.

To hell with economics. There's nothing we can do.

We're playing squash for PE. Sigh. Everything goes against you.