The underpass to the Esplanade has a mini-exhibition of some criminals' photos and some details about those criminals - what they had for their last meal, for example. That set me thinking: if I am a criminal sentenced to death, what statement can I possibly make with my last meal request. If I am a drug lord, I would probably want something that resembles drugs, so a bowl of white flour should do it. It will signal my unrepentance and disagreement with the law. If I am a political dissident fighting against an authoritarian regime I would probably request for a bowl of white rice, signalling purity; rice is a food for the masses too, so there would be some significance there. If I am convicted by the PAP, I would probably want a bowl of white rice mixed with black or brown rice. In that case white would symbolise the PAP and the coloured rice would symbolise how the PAP is tainted. Or maybe a bowl of white rice with some soya sauce, if just rice is too plain and hard to stomach. Then again, there would be more of an effect if one doesn't touch the meal at all, leaving it for the jailers to see.
It's Monday. School term's started. The 6-week break saw long stretches of inactivity punctuated by short periods of activity, as is usually the case with my holidays. Highlight of those 6 weeks would be a primary 6 reunion dinner at Swensons followed by a roundtable chit-chat session at some bar. Attendance was great, over half of 40 people, was great seeing everyone all so grown up and doing their own things, our form teacher turned up too, and in an old friend's words during the cab ride home, to see Ms Heng (the form teacher) after ten years is really something money can't buy. Trite yes, but only if you haven't experienced it. And yea -2009 marks our primary 6 tenth anniversary.
Resident class joker now a big-sized fellow. He was scared of injections in the past and now he's on his way to becoming a doctor. Classic. Form teacher brought our primary 6 class photograph too. Priceless.
All the alpha-males, the cool guys, didn't turn up. Not surprising - they probably can't be bothered with their past. Mildly disappointing though, because it's always interesting to see whether power relations in the past still hold after ten years, or if they don't, how the quieter people would deal with their presence. The basis of the alpha-males' position in the past was that they were in the in-clique. With that basis gone one would wonder whether they would still behave as though it were not gone or if they would defer to the peace-loving majority. More males are in higher education than females. Wonder if that's just a coincidence.
I remember my primary school classmates based on our seats in class. 4 columns of paired tables. I used to seat in the 2nd last row in the 2nd column from the right. The front half of the class would be occupied by the quieter ones. (Incidentally, a substantive portion who turned up for the reunion were from the quiet region) To my right would be the active region of hot chicks and males. That's where most of class noise gets generated.
My region could be seen as the esoteric region of outcasts both voluntary and not. To my left is a guy who played soccer with the cool males but who was sometimes ganged upon by them - always a lot of tension between him and the front figure of the male pack. Behind me is a guy who was more plump with small eyes and an abrasive attitude, the kind that always attract the most flak from the cool people. I was seated with a female who sometimes ran along with the popular females and who had her own small clique other times. I remember she used to call me childish. To my front would be a guy, Heng Wee, who once during class suddenly spurted a stream of water from his mouth high up toward the ceiling. He was, I think, playing with water in his mouth. I can never forget that.
After dinner we played truth or dare in some bar, though the game should be more aptly named truth or truth because no one ever does the dare. As you'd expect familiar sex-related questions were asked. I've never understood the meaning of the game because no one can enforce the rule of honesty, and if you really don't want to reveal certain stuffs, like for example whether one had slept with a boss or teacher for favours, you can just lie. The kind of truths that are put up are the truths that people don't mind telling. There was also general chit-chatting where we swap places now and then as though we were speed-dating; and there was once when we went round the table and everyone said green light or red light with regard to our relationship status, but I guess there's always got to be some structure when everyone wants to get to be updated with everyone else in a limited amount of time.
To be honest, it was strange meeting everyone again. A friend summarised the gathering perfectly: it's like making new friends out of old friends.
The other highlight of the holidays is a bout of stomach flu, where I vomitted in my own room and felt quite sick for two days. That was the second time I vomitted in my life. The first would be after drinking a glass of white wine, and after that incident I told myself not to consume alcohol again. It's a wretched feeling, vomitting, it feels as though your insides are coming out and you got no control over your movement.
That's for the past. Where do we go from here? I should be taking these modules this sem:
*Intro to Continental Philosophy
*Philosophy and Lit
*Intro to Playwriting
*Mass Media and Culture.
4 modules only, partly because I can afford to having done some work during the holidays in the past, and partly because I've got national service remedial training these few weeks. I view that as one module (though the time spent per week is closer to the weight of two), so I'm leaving out one academic module. People ask why I fail my fitness test, and my reply is life is like that. We can have people who smoke and don't work out and who still perform very well. And we live in societies and in societies there are bound to be systems that reward some individuals and penalise others. So in NUS for example you have people who spot essays trends and who memorise essays in anticipation of those trends and they get rewarded, sometimes at the expense of others.
But it is ok. Training would be over soon enough and then I'll have more free time. I still haven't recovered from last semester, so it would be good to have more free time this semester. I'm a slow person in a fast-moving society. Initial plan for the modules is to take Environment and Society and The Theatre Experience in place of two others above but they happen to have disagreeable stuff like projects and class debates so I dropped them in the last minute. I can't stand those stuff. I just can't. The list is not finalised yet, I'm still looking for other modules that may suit my taste better.
I got Facebook recently. After the novelty has worn off I'm struggling to find a reason to log into it. There is some overlap between that place and blogging so henceforth all light stuff will go on Facebook, heavier stuffs here. Example of light stuff: Went to catch so-and-so movie today. Example of heavier stuff: why I think there is no difference between Heaven and Hell if they exist, and lengthier summaries/updates of my life. Photographs of myself and other things that I'm not using words to complement will go on Facebook. In addition, some lunches will be declared from there and you just decide whether you want to turn up or not. I've always thought that the 2nd-best system of arrangement.
The best, in my opinion, is where all your friends live in a small town, and everyone has a rough idea of where everyone else is at any time. So if today you are feeling like hanging out with a certain group you know where they'd be. Or if you feel like eating certain food you know beforehand the company that's going to be there. And if you prefer to be alone you know where to go. There is still room for some randomness though because your friends won't always be at the same places at the same time like clockwork. If you want to eat with some people and they're not where they usually are they can leave a message with the cafe owner and he'd pass it on to you when you get there, and you decide whether you want to go to the new venue or just lunch alone at the usual place. In such a system, communication will occur without any technological medium, which is the way I like it.
Speaking of technology, here's a
female robot you can have sex with. With man's obsession with sex it's only a matter of time you'd have something like that. The interesting thing now is to see if this lady is the solution to rape, or if it'd reduce casual sex drastically. Of course we say that most males would probably still prefer raping or having casual sex with real people, but what if we make robots more and more life-like? Nah, probably still won't work, seeing how people still prefer natural breasts to synthetic ones. On the other hand, if a male has sex with a robot in the morning he'd probably feel less inclined to have a tryst at his workplace or go to a club at night.
