Touched

On the way home today I saw a petite schoolgirl sharing with a busker a thing or two about the guitar, later on giving him a demonstration with the instrument. Related or not, that scene pulled more heartstrings than any charity shows I've watched so far.

21 years of solitude

The director who directed my last short play hasn't responded to the 2 emails I sent her a month or two ago. What's important in the emails is that I requested of her to send my thanks to the three actressess who, in my opinion, did a good job acting the play out. I mean, if I were an actor in a play I would really want to know what the playwright thought of my acting, perhaps on top of what the director would think. Unfortunately because of the director's inactivity, or disappearance into thin air, whichever is more appropriate, I feel like I got a hole in my life for the simple reason I cannot convey this simple message.

With the cool breeze against you and the empty orange-lit streets before you, sometimes I really wonder what's there not to like about staying out late.

I just had supper at a nearby kopitiam alone. Again. I don't know which one to emphasise more. Maybe they're equally unimportant.

The free market system does not produce equal results for all

A dilemma has plagued me ever since I started sleeping late. The dilemma is: should I allow my system to dictate its sleeping pattern naturally, or should I intervene.

The point of intervention is to align myself towards reality. In junior college I found myself gravitating naurally towards a 4hr sleep + 2hr nap cycle, which was detrimental to my concentration and sociability levels. I felt tired and generally reclusive during the day, and probably couldn't think, joke, or interact as much as I would have liked.

On the other hand, this was the sleeping pattern that managed to get things done, in large part due to the fact that I need a nap in order to feel refreshed enough to do my homework and study in the night. Eliminating the nap would go a long way in restoring a more normal sleeping cycle (maybe 11pm to 6am), but even with that amount of sleep I couldn't bring myself to do productive work the following night.

Another point of intervention has presented itself in recent times. And that is, simply put, to enjoy the day. Waking up early has this probably natural effect of making me feel good. At 8 in the morning I feel fresh and ready to read the papers while listening to morning programmes on the radio, I feel more inclined towards doing some exercise and some peaceful reading. Compare this to when I sleep at 3am and wake up at 11, where I would wake up feeling a bit fog-headed and where my first movement is to turn on the computer while brushing my teeth.

Throughout the years in junior college, army, and finally in a short 2-month work stint and the free months following and preceding it, I have to various extents intervened in my sleeping pattern and set limits to when I can fall asleep, how much I can nap, etc. But in all cases such intervention was not sustainable. I attribute this un-sustainability to the following reasons:

1) The weekend cycle ruins everything.

2) Sleeping early and waking up early is simply not natural for me. I like to stay up in the night, perhaps even more than I like the freshness of waking up early in the morning.

3) Lack of discipline, which is probably because of the above point, but if I had greater willpower I could probably have forced myself to submit to a sleep-early-wake-up-early regime.

4) Productivity. I study and write best after a nap. I do these well early in the morning too though, so maybe this isn't a very strong point.

5) Social behavior. It probably doesn't help that various people I know have no qualms sleeping late and waking up late. In a way they reinforce my tendency to sleep late, at the same time they reduce my guilt in doing so. If people can enjoy their lives and/or perform well while sleeping late, why should I sleep early?

With all these in mind, I am back to the free-market standard in recent times, as it has been for most periods of my life. It would probably take a strong doctrine to make a case for intervention again. That, or new flashes of inspirational motivation that seem to appear every now and then.

Tangentially related to this free-market/intervention dilemma is another dilemma of sorts, and that is: the dilemma of when to do work. Should I set personal deadlines and timetables to force myself to do work on a regular basis, or should I do work only when I feel like it? Historically, I have always favoured the former standard, that of intervention. Reason is simple: there are external deadlines to meet, and to meet those I got to set my own timetable. For example when writing a short story for a competition I like to divide the number of words required by the number of days I got (usually minus 2 or 3 days as procrastination buffer), and I will write that amount of words in a day. I can further divide the number of words in a day by the number of sessions I set for myself in that day, so that if I need to write 200 words a day, I would probably stipulate myself to write 100 words in the morning and 100 words in the night.

Now this may seem a bit counter-intuitive to some of you, for isn't the point of writing, creatively or otherwise, dependent on one's mood and inspiration? Well I agree it does, but this intervention system of mine has done well for me so far, in terms of getting things done. And by and large I have no problems of writing things with no prior inspiration - the very act of sitting at a desk and biting the end of my G2 pen is the mood and inspiration.

The problem comes when there are no external deadlines. Reading is the prime example of this. I haven't been doing much reading ever since I joined the army. In fact it's been at least 2 weeks since I borrowed One Hundred Years of Solitude and I'm still slightly less than three-quarters into it. This probably isn't very acceptable when a lot of peers in university read a lot more, a lot faster. Even discounting comparative standards, 2 weeks for a novel is quite atrocious - how am I going to read the world's beautiful literature and non-fiction texts at this rate?

And so the dilemma is whether to stipulate reading x pages a day or spend x hours a day reading, or to simply leave it to the free market and read only when I feel like it. The free market route is probably the more efficient one, in terms of maximising my utility. The very fact that I'm not reading but playing computer games or going out with friends means that I probably enjoy the last two activities more than the first. The time would come when I finally feel like reading, and when that comes, reading is probably the most productive and enjoyable activity I could do then.

This dilemma aside, one may wonder why the free market system for me necessarily means sleeping late and doing less work. This probably has to do with character. An intelligent and diligent person may find that the free market system would lead him to reading more and sleeping earlier - good for him then.

It is in such cases where we find talented individuals who have a pleasant, all-rounded life. They read a lot, they exercise a lot, they sleep early, they have a generally healthy lifestyle, maybe they play some computer games (and are good at it too), they have got a good social life, they reflect on life on occasion. Basically they have no chinks in their armour - they don't even need to debate between a free-market system and an intervention system because their free market system leads them, naturally, to accomplish what we normally think of as good. And this is, I believe, the fundamental unfairness in life: that the free market system leads some to achieve a good life, and others to accomplish nothing. You can't even say: as long as each is happy, who cares what is a good life and what is not, because they could be as happy if not happier than the rest of us.

A fish's last notes

Sometimes I feel like a small fish in a large pond. I hate the crowd. I can either kill more fishes or jump out of the pond.

- Excerpt from a fish's diary

Long way to go, fitness-wise

Managed to jog to my former junior college and back. Definitely an improvement from my normal exercise routine (or rather, non-routine), but still very far from marathon standards.

Thought of going in to the school to take a walk, but there was the security guard, and that's a pity because there are few places which are as beautiful as an empty school.

I really should be building up strength instead of improving my stamina. At this rate I'm going to become leaner than I already am. But I don't really fancy strength exercises, because they're mostly static activities.

Possible jogging destinations in the future include Sengkang, via Braddell and Serangoon, and NUS via Bukit Timah. Sengkang for the windy, open fields. NUS for, well, not really sure why I would want to jog there apart from my want to sit on one of the benches there at night, just by myself.

Sigh

The past chains your body to a dead weight. My heart sank upon bumping into an army acquaintance last night. It just sank.

Eve

New Alliance Forms in Southern Regions - IAC Engages Roaming
Gangreported by: ISD Clarity Brown 2008.07.03 20:03:18

A new alliance has recently formed in the southern reaches of the cluster. Members formerly of Triumvirate., Mercenary Coalition and Insurgency came together in response to an idea put forth by Darknesss, CEO of D00M. corporation, forming The Requiem.

INZi, CEO of one of the nine founding organizations, coracao ardente [CORA.] explained how they came together: "All the old Triumvirate. CEOs [have been] in a channel since Tri ended, and Darknesss was talking about creating a new alliance. We were interested and so I started to talk to Dark and the other corps involved and we became a founding member.

"Four Triumvirate. corps ([D00M.], [OMEN.], [CORA.], [R A]) three ex-Insurgency. corps ([CELES], [GAME], [NICE1]) and [BDCI] from Mercenary Coalition... The Triumvirate. corps had been in contact with a few Mercenary Coalition corporations earlier about another project and then Seleene wanted in on this one. The Insurgency corporations had approached/been approached by Darknesss about forming a new alliance, as he knew them from Tri's campaign in Branch.

"None of the previous alliance leaders fancied stepping up to a supreme leadership position so [our command structure] is more of a council at the moment, involving all the CEOs. I'm sure it will evolve over time as people get involved more."

Currently listed as having 256 members, the alliance may seem small compared to some in neighbouring regions, but the alliance has drawn attention for two main reasons: power in the supercapital arena, with at least three known titans and a considerable number of motherships, and the combat experience residing in its member corporations.

"Most people will know we have currently three Titans that have been used in combat, one from each respective alliance (BDCI's, OMEN's and Game's). Motherships, I have no idea about, to be honest. Real capital power is in Dreadnought and Titan numbers these days anyway, so to see those full numbers we'll have to wait till our first operation to know.

"We're currently based in Curse, setting up and melding as an alliance. We have a lot of different styles and procedures from our previous alliances, so we need to work together to iron out the problems that may arise. We won't be sitting still for long and only the future will tell you who our target(s) and success with that will be.

"We're roaming across most of the southern areas. The two entities who we've had "medium" size engagements with are TCF [Tau Ceti Federation] and IAC [Interstellar Alcohol Conglomerate]. TCF attempted to bait some of our super capitals yesterday and ended up hotdropping about 25 caps and jump bridging in 15 Heavy Interdictors onto 20 assorted support. We've had a few nano and battleship fights with them as well.
 "IAC have been bringing out a lot of numbers when we've been roaming into their space and we have had a lot of fun engaging them."

The Battle of F4R2-QThe Requiem have had multiple engagements with IAC in Catch, including one on the 27th lasting over 4 hours and causing losses estimated at over 1 billion isk to either side.

Yrigoyen of IAC was present for a large part of the engagement, and described it thus: "The first recorded engangement with the Requiem hostile fleet was at 03:14 followed by small engagements in various systems in the JZV cluster until 05:45. By this time the IAC fleet was comparable in size to the Requiem fleet with more battleships and carrier support against Requiem's fast Tech 2 fleet.

"The fight moved from the F4R2-Q station to various spots around the station... as both fleets warped around attempting to engage or disengage. The fast-moving nature of the battle saw heavy IAC ships isolated at some moments while at other times Requiem ships were caught in optimal range of the defenders and killed with concentrated fire.

"The last major loss for IAC was a Cyclone at 06:28 after which Requiem lost a Claymore, Vagabond and Ishtar. Last casualty was a Requiem trailing scout in a Cheetah on the 1P- gate. Due to losses or pilots leaving the F4R2-Q system we faced a significantly smaller force in the last phase of the engagement."

Yrigoyen, however, claims this is all in a day's work for IAC, despite some of the more notorious names among their enemies.
"Requiem is one of the many alliances hostile to us to have taken residence up in Curse, there is nothing new here for IAC."
He was keen, however, to see one member of his corporation recognised for exemplary service:
"Please mention the excellent salvaging efforts of my fellow corporation member, Apple Boy, that allowed a lot of losses to be replaced."

The above content is all player-driven and you can never find such gameplay in any other MMO.

Political science class

Today in political science tutorial, the tutor formed us into a circle and said he would go off to one corner and not look at us discuss, and that was what he really did.

I find this amusing because, well, do people really believe the ruling party would put in place crony political science professors, or bug the rooms and lecture theatres? Do they really believe there are officers who linger around kopitiams and tail you to your house the moment they hear PAP and sucks in the same sentence? Do they really believe the Leegime has eyes and ears everywhere?

Well whether the lack of the tutor's physical presence in the circle helped or not, I found the discussion very engaging. I think it's quite heartening to know that there are young people out there who not only distrust singapore politics, but who support, or justify, their distrust with good reasons. In other words, we are apathetic by choice, not apathetic by nature. There is a big difference, insofar as the former is justified in a non-arbitrary manner.

Was quite interesting to hear good arguments for and against a citizen's involvement in politics as well. Quote of the day: not playing politics is in itself playing politics already. Joke of the day: one part of Singaporean culture is to go JB to pump petrol.