Hm

A state of inebriation last night created an excuse for a couple of tepid writings, the likes of which are presented here for individual amusement or appreciation, depending on how you look at them.

Interpresation

i can smell your hair
my eyes are closed and a blanket wraps me up

i can read your mind
down by the riverside with half-clear water

i can milk the cows
moo-moo is their complaint or their song of joy.

Untitled

This glass was unbreakable
Twenty minutes ago. Forgive
my carelessness,
in telling the truth,
unbreakable though it was,
is now shattered into pieces
the truth that is.

Haha, poetry. Terrible or beautiful, is it a formal art or just personal indulgence?

Hate the army, and more and more the government too

I thought of a cunning plan on the bus today. It's not a plan to take over the world, unfortunately, but it is in some sense more important than that. It is a plan to cut transportation costs.

Basically, a bus trip to school costs $1.28 on the EZlink card. It's 55c if you pay in coins. Well theoretically you are supposed to pay slightly more than $1.28 in coins, but usually no one bothers, and 55c is the cheapest one can go at this young adult age. The bad thing of such a scheme is that you need to have coins in your wallet all the time. But then again, I do have coins in my wallet most of the time.

Am I really so hard up for cash that I need to go to this extent to cheat the system? Not really. Under this scheme I can at most have a cost saving of $29.20 a month, which is a significant sum, but so is the trouble of ensuring I have the coins every time I go to school and back. But the point really is, one can go this way to cheat the system.

And after reading blogs like this, I think one really should. If not to save money, then at least in silent contempt of the government.

But nah, it's probably too troublesome a scheme, though the poor may really want to consider this. Unlike travelling to army camp when I was serving NS, where I can just sneak past the mrt gantries by pretending to tap the EZ link card. I did it because I felt that I was going to camp against my own will, and I don't pay to do things against my own will.

Some thoughts

Extremely unfit. Sometimes I wonder why my fitness level is always so poor.

Saw some camp people at school today. Dancing, cheering, playing games. I've never liked those things, and probably never will.

Update

Got a bit of time lately, going to spend it on Eve, which has been neglected by me of late. I'm going to leave my current corporation, quite a sad thing because I've been in it for more than 6 months, but they're moving along too slowly.

I've got decent skills and I'm sure many player-versus-player corporations would like me to join their ranks. Time to move on.

On similar products

Sometimes I feel like I'm smoking a cigarette when I'm drinking a bottle of yakult. I haven't smoked a cigarette before. But I think the two experiences are quite similar. Let me first describe a typical case of drinking yakult.

First, the cause. I usually drink yakult when I'm feeling stressed, bored, or pensive. I would like to also add, "any combination of the three", but I think those three states are mutually exclusive.

Second, the manner in which I drink it. Most of the times it would be when I'm on the computer. So maybe after 2 hours of thinking and writing an essay or a fictional work, I would think: Bah, I need a break. And then I would turn on iTunes, play some music, and go to the fridge to get the drink. I would then lean back on my chair, drink yakult, and listen to some music. A large number of times would also be when I've been reading quite a bit in my bedroom. As well as before going to work, or school. It's like there's something within me that goes: I think I'll go grab a bottle of yakult and enjoy it on my bed, while listening to the morning radio, for five minutes, just before I step out the door to the outside world.

Third, the feeling after I consume the product. Sometimes I feel a sense of satisfaction, sometimes I feel a sense of dread - it depends on what I have to do after I finish that moment of rest. If it's going to work for the rest of the day usually it's the latter. If it's going back to finish a piece of writing usually I feel better.

Now, just replace yakult with cigarettes and there you have it. The sentences would still sound the same.

You can replace yakult with a glass of milk - which I very often drink as well - and it'll still be a similar experience. Same goes for alcoholic beverages, though those usually come when I'm in a more pensive state. Point is, the mentalities when consuming such products are actually more similar to each other than we would initially think.

Sometimes, on the way back home or to somewhere, when the sky's grey and the weather's cold in a nice way, I would feel like getting a can of drink (usually the wang wang sweet milk, the childish one) so I can relax on a bench, drink it, and think about things. I could have been smoking a cigarette or drinking a can of beer for all I know. Health differences aside, they're all the same.

Down to earth

Three of five in my current project group drive a car. There has to be a term to describe affluent young adults.

But they're good people. Good in this context means: not snobbish, not ostentatious, not superficial. Each is actually very different from the other two, but together I think they represent a group of affluent young adults who are self-conscious. When I say self-conscious, I mean that they are more than aware of their own status, and they seek to distance themselves from it instead of identifying themselves as such and such.

Now this group of people are probably what one could term as the emergent bourgeoisie. They appreciate the simple things in life at the same time they have the finer things at their beck and call. They are not the archetypical holier-than-thou, head-in-clouds rich. On the other hand, they are like everyone of us. Only they've got a car, and probably some other things that we may at first-hand be envious of.

I took a lift home with the one with the convertible today. First time I sat in a car with no roof. You know, everytime I take a lift home with a friend or acquaintance who has a car, I think how nice it is to own one. It is because a car offers you something that public transport can never offer - and I don't mean convenience by the way, because valid arguments can be made as to how public transport is actually more convenient than private transport.

Rather, a car offers one privacy. You're in a small enclosed space. You have got some nice music on the sound system. You are, in a sense, disconnected from the outside world and plugged into the comfort of your own. This is one pro-car argument that I cannot, shall not, dispute.

Ah, you say. So deep down within him, the self-professed anti-car person actually wants a car. Haha, I say. No way. I am still firm in my stand. Give me $50, 000 any day and you'd catch me looking at auroras than driving a car. The former is, ultimately, a more private experience than the latter. Especially when you're all alone.

Well but let's not start day-dreaming now. I've got a project, an essay, one major writing assignment and 3 minor ones to clear within the week. Let's do this.

Hm but still must watch Prison Break and Lost later. Tehehe.

Short and Sweet 2008

I am quite pleased as to how my recent short play went. Thought it would go bad due to several reasons, but I think both director and actresses did a decent job. The director, in particular, took on the play herself - and this is what I like, because the touches she added were good. Got to send her an email on a job well done. Hope too we will collaborate in the future.

There is nothing sweeter than hearing an audience, in part or in whole, laugh. It is probably why I write plays.

Powerful

I am trying to reproduce some magical moments I felt when I watched The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Nothing in youtube accomplishes the task. They don't have the part where a particular song was played with a particular series of images.

There is such a scene with Half Nelson. Wasn't too impressed with the show overall, but this particular scene, with the music, won me over. If you didn't watch the show, you probably wouldn't feel it.

Fast reading is the norm

Just when I was getting a bit worried that I was surfing websites too fast:

http://www.useit.com/eyetracking/

http://www.poynterextra.org/eyetrack2004/main.htm