In a manner of speaking I just want to say

I like her voice for some reason.

I think there are others

I was just watching a nature documentary and there was this scene where a few male whales were trying to force their genitals into a female whale's one. In our terms, that would be rape. We probably wouldn't criticise those whales commiting the act, but we would feel, at the very least, uncomfortable when a human tries to rape another human. It seems to me that our species has developed some sense of repulsion towards the act of forced fertilisation, for members of our own species only. Wonder why. My initial reaction would be to suggest that the act of rape is not wrong in itself; it is only wrong in our paradigm. This prompts the question of why it has come to be wrong in our paradigm, but I withhold my opinion on that.

Anyway, the team manager of the NUS chess team came down for a visit to the lower members gathering last night. I got into a late-night talk with him and a Canadian exchange student after the session. Now this Canadian guy is pretty interesting. He doesn't have a hp, he doesn't have a computer, and he tries to walk instead of taking public transportation where he can. The team manager, a Vietnamese, was quite shocked at this, and he was repeatedly exclaiming, how can you survive like thaaaat, woow through the conversation. The Canadian also pointed out that everytime he asks a local for directions, they would tend to supply him directions using public transport, to which he would say nono I want to walk I don't want to take the bus, and the locals would tend to reply, nono you should take the bus it's too far, etc.

The Vietnamese also said he likes to play chess but can't find time because of school work, because of school grades, and the Canadian suggested that while he should try his best for school work, it should never be the case that grades become not only a source of stress but also a reason not to pursue one's passions. The Vietnamese was actually quite shocked at this, which was pretty amusing to me because these days people always try to appear not obsessive about grades when actually deep down they really are, but now he's going the other way round, that is, freely displaying an obsession over grades. I think both are frank in their own views, but I'm more inclined to the Canadian's side and I wish more Singaporeans would be too. That is, we should always try our best for school work, but it should never be the case that grades become a source of stress as well as a reason not to pursue one's interests.

So what if one's interest is scoring good grades? To which I reply that this is usually trying to mask the obsession as an interest. If one has a genuine and fundamental (ie, non-instrumental) interest in scoring good grades though, then I probably would agree that you should go ahead and pursue this interest.

The Canadian also shared his experience of being robbed by a person with a gun and another with a knife while travelling. They took his possessions but he requested to have his journal and pen back and they gave the items to him, and after the robbers left he wrote in his journal about this experience of being robbed. Amusingly, the robbers passed by him again and saw him writing in his journal, wonder what they must have been thinking.

Sometimes I wish I can be a person who can give up his handphone and computer. If you talk to such people who don't have both or either, you realise there is a simplicity in their lives that words cannot fully express. But other times I don't see the need to. The main appeal of such an alternative lifestyle is that you can better immerse yourself into what we can vaguely call a spiritual life. Living without a handphone and a computer, playing the guitar to occupy your nights, walking around on foot, are just some ways to achieve that but I think there are others.

Around 2am when I left them, they were still talking and intended to play more chess too. The Vietnamese was saying he could beat the other blindfolded, I wonder if he really did. Dropped by a friend's hostel to stay for the night, that's one of the good things of having friends who stay on campus, though actually I wouldn't have minded walking home in the spirit of that Canadian guy.

Music Playlists

I venture to say that no two musical playlists of any two individuals are completely the same. This is probably because one's musical preferences are usually a reflection of one's character, and hackneyed though it may sound, no two characters are ever completely the same. I am willing to bet that no one I know has both songs Be True to Your School (The Beach Boys) and A Lack of Color (DCFC) on their playlist. Or Better Man (Robbie Williams) and Eat Yourself (Goldfrapp). Conversely, it is probably easy for you to quote two songs from your playlist and I don't have at least one of them.

But a playlist does more than reflect one's character. It reflects one's life history as well. If I hadn't been in the band for 4 years I wouldn't have gotten to know many symphonic pieces, including the one below. There are far better pieces but youtube has its limitations.



Sometimes makes me wonder if I would ever like the songs I do if I didn't have the experiences I had.

Ipod, Mosaic

Busy weekend. Went down to the IT show again to see the litter on the floor, my new iPod is called iPod Philosophy, not sure why I named her that but it just sounds easy and I usually don't like searching too much for a fanciful name. Today she accompanied me to school to an empty, dark and cheerless lecture theatre early in the morning and I told her that this is the kind of environment she has to learn to appreciate if she's going to be with me for any extended period of time, which in all likelihood she will be. In reply she played some lovely songs for me.

Went down to Mosaic for some free music, sat for 3 hours listening to some jazz fusion stuff. I'm not sure why I stayed so long. Maybe it was because looking at the artistes playing and enjoying their music is a pleasure in itself. Maybe because some part of me wanted to make sense of the seemingly incoherent music, and after that long a time listening to the saxophones and keyboard and guitars and percussion I think I must have acquired a taste for jazz. Anyway, there was this guy seated in front of me who, throughout one performance, was drumming his fingers and shaking his leg and head up and down and sideways. He looked as though he was enjoying the music tremendously, and looking at him made me marvel at how different people are, to have someone who enjoys the jazz fusion thing so much and to have me behind him trying to make sense of it all.

Sunday saw another trip to Mosaic again, this time for some free indie music, no much comments there. I would love to go down every evening this week but I've got a test this Thursday. Since when was a test more important than free music? I'm not sure. I'm not sure. But I should be down most days from Thursday to Sunday.

***

Recent mail circulated to students asking for donations to help some fellow undergraduate pay her medical bills made me agitated. This student suffers from a type of blood cancer that may cause her blood marrow to malfunction and may damage other organs as well. Her medical expenses are estimated to be around $400,000 and her family's monthly income is $400.

In the email there was mention of her being on the dean's list several times, as well as her being an active student leader. I wonder how this is relevant to a potential donor in the first place. The underlying meaning seems to be that this student is an outstanding one whose loss would be regretted.

There are some questions to ask here. Firstly, does that mean that the life of someone who is not on the dean's list, and not an active student leader, any less worth saving? Secondly, even if we take it that value to society is and should be a factor in our decision to help a person or not, why should being on the dean's list and being an active student leader be factored in into considering how much that person is valuable? In the first place I'm not even sure if being on the dean's list is a necessary or sufficient measure of one's intelligence, just as I'm not sure if being an active student leader is any indicator of one's moral character.

Besides, I believe there are many others both in and out of NUS that have led, and will continue leading, a life that has more pain and suffering than this student. In many of these cases a dollar spent helping them may be more cost-effective than every dollar spent helping this particular student. For $400,000 you can probably alleviate the problems of dozens of poor students who may be having their studies affected or who are suffering from severe illnesses, and still have leftover to improve the lives of dozens of handicapped people on the street. There are so many others out there who need help, if you want to help her, why not help the others? The only difference now is that her case is made known to us, but why should knowledge of one's case be any factor in considering how much to donate and to whom? If you wouldn't ordinarily donate $2 to the handicapped beggar on the street why donate to this student now? On the basis that she's on the dean's list? On the basis that she is young and promising? On the basis that an email was circulated to you?

Incidentally, this problem of knowledge is why I don't donate to beggars on the street. I may sympathise with the plight of a blind old woman selling tissue papers but there are so many others like her, why should I privilege her and not the others? My response is to not donate anything at all, to anyone. Now, you may think of that an irrational response, but allow me to point out that I feel worse when I donate to a random beggar than if I don't donate at all. I think of people whom I've left out, people who probably need that money more than that person does, and the only way out, for me at least, is to be consistent and not donate at all.

In the case of this NUS student, not only do I feel the need to not donate, I feel a strong sense of repulsion to the case. It smacks strongly of elitism and biased preferences.

Litter

Went to IT show, lots of people. In those large halls with lots of people I like to imagine what it would be like if the lights go out and everyone starts scrambling toward the exits. Lots of litter on the floor, contributed some too.

Watched Watchmen. Not very good. I will try to borrow the graphic novel to see if my criticisms follow through. There is a part where the blue Dr. asked, on Mars, how would an oil pipe and a shopping mall improve life. That is, life still continues with or without the human civilization, and it will still be very beautiful, and this is something I thought of on the way home. For the record, I would give it 2.5 stars.

Logic

Someone who was probably quite angry over a recent midterm test wrote a lengthy email to all students taking the module (which includes me), levelling some charges against the lecturer of the module as well as calling for a petition to 'systematically grade this module on a S/U basis'.

I find this debacle very interesting. Firstly it is unprecedented, at least for me. Secondly, this angry student wrote in sound English but failed to capitalise the subject header of the email. Why? How did someone who probably spent a while articulating his thoughts clearly fail to capitalise the subject header? I think it is very important that the subjects of emails be capitalised even when one is very angry. I mean what do you do when you open your nus outlook inbox and see an email with the subject 'irresponsibility, sadism and misrepresentation in the logic module'? I would think that it is irresponsible to not capitalise the first letters of those words and that it misrepresents the otherwise soundly written body, and sadly I can't think of a way to weave sadism into this sentence as well, because I think it would be quite a stretch to say that not capitalising the subject of one's email is sadistic.

Thirdly, I find this interesting too because of the strong language used:

...Some of us have part-time jobs. Some of our parents are retrenched. We take on student loans to support professors by taking their modules. If they teach us, we will learn and study hard. If they don't teach us and can't even answer the questions they set, what do they expect us to do?...

...The philosophy department has lied to us, failed to teach us, and given us the wrong directions during the midterm test...

...They are causing unnecessary stress in us, at a time when the economic crisis is robbing our parents of their jobs, robbing us of our career prospects and causing some NTU student to stab a professor before committing suicide. We base our choice of electives on the module description and past year papers, and they've lied to us when they are supposed to be the bastion of truth.

It is also interesting to observe that while such sentences are coolly expressed, others are not. For example in an earlier paragraph some words are capitalised in WHOLE, like that, which is not just inconsistent in terms of writing style but also reflects an inconsistency in the writer's temperament. While such a technique may be employed in literary writings it should be noted that a petition email is in no way part of the literary genre, and that it is quite disconcerting to see THAT in a formal email.

Fourthly, it is interesting how he signed off as 'fellow cheated logic student'. He/she is making the assumption that other people feel cheated too, probably to make him or herself feel better.

Anyway, I think this angry student probably alienated a number of supporters with his proposed course of action. Little wonder in a later email he/she added that alternatives would be considered.

It's also interesting how as I was reading the email and related ones I assumed that the writer must be a male. Did you subconsciously make that assumption as well? If so, why do we automatically assume people who write such things are males?

What am I going to do now? To be honest, I feel tempted to put my name down because I would like to gain more details and possibly sit in the discussion sessions with the deanery, for no other reason than to satisfy my curiosity. But that would be doing something against my conscience. I cannot put my name to something I do not sincerely support. For all my cynicism about ethical principles I cannot bring myself to do it, even though I rationally think that I can further my interests in doing so. I think that one's name, one's signature, has a sacred value I cannot quite specify now, which is incidentally why I did not give my real signature in pledging my cause for the nation, or whatever we were compelled to sign our names against, during national service; and which is why I wouldn't put my name to this petition even though I got a burning interest in observing how things are going to unfold.

We may want to note that, paradoxically, people who are opposed to the petition may actually want to sign the petition because it allows them greater access to the ongoing discussions which puts you in a better place to defend the lecturer, the test, and the module in general. People who sign the petition are those who would tend to be on the offensive, so if they are the people who get to talk to the deanery then there is a certain bias there.

Then again I can always weigh in on the other side by sending an email to the deanery. I think that's what I'm going to do. For the record, some of the accusations against the lecturer are not unreasonable. Overall though I think he's a good guy and things are pretty decent and I actually enjoyed the test because it was quite interesting. The first few questions, for example, involved analysing the following argument:

If I believe in God and God exists, then I will go to heaven. If I believe in God and God doesn't exist, then at least no harm is done. Therefore, if I believe in God then either I will go to heaven or at least no harm is done.

Good

I read a short and beautiful prose piece today. I enjoyed it very much, I wonder how many more young and talented Singaporean writers there are lying around undiscovered. I sincerely hope she continues writing, we need people like her.

I wish I can share it with you but it's probably not very nice since I don't know her that well.

Creative work

Went for a small-scale event yesterday, there was this amatuer performer who did a very nice rendition of Leona Lewis' song Better in Time, wonder why you don't find such performers in Singapore Idol.

I always feel a sense of pleasure whenever I see a non-professional artiste perform his or her art, in part because it motivates me to do my own writing, in larger part because I can just imagine that artiste in his or her own room composing and above all enjoying that beautiful piece of music or creative work. Just the person and the work, just the person and the work.

Side observation (Do correct me if I'm wrong): All competitive writers I know do not have, or do not intend to have, a humanities degree. In other words, no one I know who is pursuing a literature or philosophy major, writes competitively. There is, of course, nothing wrong with that; in fact I think it's encouraging to find that people from all sorts of other disciplines take up writing, be it as a hobby, a serious interest or a passion.

Side observation: I'm very poor at natural deduction, it's going to screw my midterm up the wrong way.

Side observation: I feel pleased whenever I encounter someone else who creates and enjoys his or her own creative work. Er actually this is a main observation.