a sojourn, a path of mirrors...

六月的夏天。

2012-02-11T09:49:00.003Z

那时，你说的话，让我觉得我是你不能公开的秘密。然而，昨天你的好朋友却问我，为何房间里没有我们的合照。那刻我不知何从，只能装作不懂，抵赖到底。（其实，抽屉里有你的照片、桌上也有你写给我的明信片）感情没必要否认，但我却觉得好像是一种亏欠。或许，爱淡了，做什么 -- 说实话、撒谎 -- 都似乎于事无补。何必告诉她我的心底话，制造尴尬的局面？

不是伤心，也并非忧愁。只是觉得好像摆脱这一切，寻求另一种幸福。一种或许永远都不能在你身上找到的幸福。

雪诗。

2012-02-05T10:17:00.000Z

献丑了！

***

飘落的雪花
滴滴的斑白覆盖了平原
厚厚的洁白
悄悄埋藏了炽热的情怀
凝结的冰霜
锁住我们最美丽的时刻
东升的朝阳
却狠心溶释冻结的回忆

***

你好吗？

2012-01-31T02:01:00.002Z

Christian love.

2012-01-28T15:06:00.003Z

When a Christian falls in love with a non-Christian, I do not think that the first thing to do is to hide away from our love for that person. God put them on our paths for a reason and, while He does command us 'not to be yoked with unbelievers', that is not to say that we should actively run away from non-Christians or our romantic feelings for them.

By non-Christians, I mean people who have misunderstandings or inadequate knowledge of God. In other terms, that excludes committed atheists, anti-Christians and others who decide to judge faith with human rationality. It is an important distinction because the people that I am concerned with are individuals who are still amenable to knowledge of God and open to receiving Him. Therefore, my job is to bring and explicate the message of Christ to them, rather than to go away and let them be.

So, how should a Christian deal with his or her love for a non-Christian? To me, I do not believe in forcing a non-Christian to become Christian, just so she can enter a relationship with me. That is the same as putting the cart before the horse. Neither do I believe that my love for her alone is sufficient in bringing her to accept God, and I say that from personal observations of and discussions with my Christian friends who dated non-Christian girls. What I do advocate is that, as a Christian, I will do my best to bring the message of Christian salvation to her, discuss it with her and help her make sense of that message. The right thing to do is, therefore, to place God above myself and help correct her misunderstandings and/or address her misgivings about personal faith in God. Whether or not she becomes Christian (and thereby qualifies, in some sense of that word, as a potential partner) is besides the point. The starting point must be right and it cannot be the consummation of the romantic relationship that motivates faith in God.

I want her to understand that I am imperfect. We all know that for ourselves (you don't even need to be a Christian to realise that). Faith does not automatically make us perfect, as some are inclined to think so. All Christians make mistakes. But the difference is that we believe in a God who will grant us the courage to overcome those imperfections and renounce those sins, in the hope that we can become better persons. Sometimes, we harness that courage and succeed; at other times, we become spectacular failures. But that is not the point. The point is, we try. And we try really hard, amid the judgements of the world. That same attitude extends to our relationships with people around us, especially our loved ones. We want to be able to put Him at the centre of our relationships and be couples and families that glorify Him through our actions. That is really difficult for Christian couples and families and, needless to say, that must be worse for Christians who are in love with non-Christians. For, if one believes in spiritual sacrifice and adherence to His Word and the other does not share in that vision, how can the couple or family place Him at the centre of their relationship and be committed to the glorification of His name?

If you are Christian, love your non-Christian (if it happens to be that way); whether or not you enter a relationship with him/her is not something for me to dictate. If he/she does not become Christian, then, I think it is acceptable to leave with the knowledge that you have tried and that he/she knows the Christian love that you have provided and the Christian values that you cherish, at the very least.

冷战过后的第一句话。

2012-01-28T01:27:00.002Z

being the first to say something after the minor cold war does not mean that i am a weakling or clingy. it's just that i decide to treasure our relationship (or its prototypical form?) more than my pride (which is really not *that* small, given that i am a Leo i.e. aggressive and proud). we are not without flaws and, after talking to P, at least, i now know better what to expect, rather than getting caught off-guard the next time you decide to snap at me (maybe, girls and women are just generally prone to snapping.)

"i just need space right now."

2012-01-25T20:51:00.002Z

sorry that i have taken your space from you. but i hope we can move on really soon. it's just a wish - perhaps, it might have no chance of fulfillment. but i am somewhat optimistic that that isn't so and i still want to give us another try. (i mean, what is one more try after so many?)

快乐、乐观、外向的背后。。。

2012-01-25T01:55:00.002Z

隐藏的是内向和悲观。你以为整天嬉皮笑脸那么容易吗？我不是圣人，也不是一个能整天戴着面具，永远以微笑待人的人。我也有感情，是有血有肉的。

那句话，刺透了我的心。那句话，让我顿时间觉得我是一种累赘。那句话，让我哭了。哭出来的感觉，好像好久好久都没感受过。深呼吸，擦干了眼泪。。。

生活照旧。唯一不同的是，要告诉自己别再那么轻易跌入爱的陷阱了。多愁善感的我，总得学习在未来很长很长的时间里一个人生活。现在，就是学习开始的时刻。

让人深思的一番话。

2012-01-24T22:47:00.002Z

A: "I think I'm beginning to fall for another person. Can't help it, there are just too many girls out there and my girl's just too plain."

B: "Be contented. Yes, there are people who are greater than her. There are people who are more attractive, more intelligent, more caring and more fortunate. That's life - full of temptations. But don't be deceived by those things. Because didn't you ever realise that there are people who are also greater than you? Yet, she chose you."

B's words resonated with me because I felt exactly that way in the last few days. There will always be people who surpass the person I love in every objective metric ever devised. But love cannot be measured that way and I have to appreciate her for everything that she is - and is not. I feel sorry for myself for not having realised that earlier in life, which resulted in me getting a lot of emotional trouble. I just want to be chosen by her as well.

I feel tired. And I step back, realising that, maybe, my fatigue is not because of her. Perhaps, I am tired because I think too much of her reactions and my own lack of confidence (not the same as a lack of self-confidence). I ought to feel easier and more relaxed and give both of us some breathing space. I will. I promise. I am resisting the urge to be the persistent interrogator. I want to be there to support and listen to you.

If only I were to be chosen by you.

让时间流逝。

2012-01-23T14:14:00.002Z

尽量把时间表排得满满的。或许，这样我就不会太想你。累了，一觉睡醒，又是忙碌的一天。把空间归还于你，我也把握自己的时间。好的安排，还是坏的决定，只有时间能给予我们答案。

God works in ways we cannot see :)

2012-01-21T10:05:00.002Z

and so i was abruptly awakened by some alarm going off at three in the morning. then i checked my phone and you replied my thoughts on our apparent differences when travelling. and then we realised that we had been reading each other's intentions wrongly all that while in france and spain. when i thought i was giving you free rein, you yearned for my input and partnership, and my apparent passivity made you unconvinced that i would have made a strong partner. everything became lucid in the darkness of the wee hours. and suddenly, i had another chance and that all was not lost.

and then, i said that i still love you (i didn't want to say it there and then, but circumstances...). and you asked why any guy would still be interested in a girl so far away and (worse still) rejected him once before. i answered that, sometimes, it's just one of those silly and inexplicable things about liking someone that distance and rejection don't make the fondness any lesser. i know it's just stupid for anyone else who looks at the way i am behaving but, to me, that's my true, uncontrollable feelings, along with God's plan for me playing out. i trusted in God to show me who i really want to be with and He gave me an answer, which couldn't have been achieved without me waking up to that otherwise-irritating alarm ringing somewhere in college. and to think about it, isn't the relationship between me and her just like that between humans and God? :)

thank God for His grace and power to put me in her life, hopefully in the centre of it, so that i may be the light and that we can both eventually be a pair that honours Him.

on national leadership.

2012-01-17T11:19:00.005Z

so a friend says that:

1. ministers should be visionary,

2. permanent secretaries should be commanding leaders, and

3. both ministers and perm secs should be servant leaders.

well, i don't think any of those statements is particularly wrong. indeed, i think any state should strive towards such goals. however, i am less convinced that we are actually achieving those objectives. for one, i don't remember any of our leaders ever saying that those - vision, command and service -are the ideals that they are specifically aiming for. singapore's civil service aims to maintain "integrity, service and excellence". the reader might have realised that those are not trademarks of political acumen. rather, they are expected outcomes of effective administration. even if we do note the superficial overlap in the idea of 'service', we may make the following, very reasonable distinction: administrative service in the sense of serving the public-at-large through thorough policy formulation is very different from servant leadership, where one is expected to hear, ponder over and act with his heart and in all humility.

(on a side note, i also realised that my friend made no mention about members of parliament. but that is another story for another day...)

honestly.

2012-01-14T23:48:00.003Z

if i am judged by a fellow Christian by a single comment that i did not intend to be malicious, how should i feel? i admit that the comment could have been taken either way but i've made my case to say why i didn't think that her interpretation was right. but i shall not hold grudges, for it is partly my fault (for trying to be succinct and witty on twitter). i just hope that she won't see me as some callous, unfeeling hypocrite.

am i really a tsundere? i guess so. 外硬內軟, 有點像刺蝟. but i am not about to shed my coat of defence. one of the reasons is that i think i court controversy quite easily. we all know that it is only all too easy to subscribe to a well-delineated and convincingly argued perspective. like some of my friends (especially those who did KI), i prefer to take the counter-perspective and see how i can argue against an establishment. that is the only way to sharpen one's mind - through criticism and lateral thinking. another reason is that i want my close friends to be those who can get past the defensiveness and try to know me as the person inside, beyond the argumentative aggression and into the feelings that make me who i am. i don't want to waste time trying to understand people who won't (or, whom i think, not desiring to) make the effort to do the same for me.

on a side note, a friend said that hc people are generally defensive. i attributed it to the general atmosphere of distrust for people from our school and the relative hype that surrounds negative news related to hc. true/false? thoughts?

世界未末日。

2012-01-14T11:21:00.002Z

the point is not that the earth will end any time soon. indeed, a critical reader would know that we are at least a few thousand, if not, millions of years from a planet-wide catastrophe. the point is to live each day like your last and to treasure what you have. what's the point of fighting over the most trivial of issues when it's perfectly possible that we might just die the next day?

she's amazing. and so is her wonderful dad.

2012-01-13T17:36:00.003Z

truly amazing how someone who had not been given lessons in grammar and vocabulary can express herself so fluently.

truly inspiring to see a dad who's determined not to give up on his flesh and blood, no matter how flawed she appears to the world.

truly courageous of her to tell the world about her angst, her desires and, more importantly, all that she can be.

if only you believe in her.

people these days.

2012-01-13T17:05:00.002Z

i don't understand why people seem to place such a low premium on virginity these days. don't get me wrong, i don't think that virgins are losers or that people who lose their virginity at sixteen are (all) either loose or stupid. no, that is not what i am saying.

what i am making a point about is that many people now think that losing their virginity is a necessary process to becoming an adult. for example, an article that is going viral is the one on a woman with uterus didelphys and how she 'had to effectively lose her virginity twice'. note how that sentence was phrased. HAD TO. does one need to lose his/her virginity to prove that he/she is an adult? virginity and maturity of thought are completely distinct and i think it's a complete fallacy to think that losing one's virginity results in self-maturation in the physical and intellectual senses.

***

i'm so jaded to the point that, when people say that i post lots of interesting things on facebook, i have that instinctive thought that they are being sarcastic. perhaps, they are being genuine. but i can't tell! that's the terrible thing about the internet - to reduce one's identity to nothing more than an avatar and well-conceived (some say, cunningly deceptive) statements.

thing is, i find many things interesting and i really want to know what people think about those things. facebook works well for that purpose and i am just using it to that end. is it wrong? it might irritate you, but you can choose not to have me on your newsfeed. simple, right?

can't please everyone.

alone in my room.

2012-01-11T18:40:00.002Z

reconciled with the fact that i won't get together with anyone any time soon. truth be told, i really yearn to be in a relationship now. but it's not going to just be with anyone. not that anyone really notices me.

being alone in my room, struggling with biochemistry and philosophy, is some kind of pleasure. i don't mean it in as an intellectual reward. rather, i'm glad that i have some quiet time to read through what i did not have the chance to cover during the hectic michaelmas term. and i think i've managed to get a lot of recipes in order this winter break. perhaps, procrastinating to cook is a good choice and a boon to my domestic skill.

quote from somewhere.

2012-01-09T23:51:00.004Z

"What I like to say is that Mother Nature writes some things in pencil and some things in pen," she says. "Things written in pen you can't change. That's DNA. But things written in pencil you can. That's epigenetics."

(technically, one does not write in pen. it's called 'writing in ink'. and 'writing with a pencil'. but barring that bit of vocabulary nazism, it's a beautiful analogy of biology!)

confusion.

2012-01-06T11:04:00.001Z

so are you with or without a boyfriend?!?!?!?! pfffft.

lesson from photography.

2012-01-03T08:59:00.004Z

sometimes, we get so fixated with capturing the 'perfect' image that we forget about the subject before the lens and the true reasons for us desiring to freeze that moment in time. i admire those who go to the harsh, cold north, just to see the aurora borealis, without bringing their cameras. to them, it is the joy of witnessing something so spectacularly ephemeral that makes the experience worthwhile.

it's almost a story about life - so many good things pass so quickly, yet we are only concerned with the mundane and philosophically meaningless. let's learn to appreciate what we have, shall we?

有一天.

2011-12-15T22:36:00.002Z

今天我發現

自己已經對妳沒有了感覺

朋友之間的感情仍在

但是沒那麼渴望和妳在一起

沒那麼想知道妳的一切

即使現在

我也不以為然

妳將會是我美好回憶的一部份

我則成為妳曾經有過的愛慕者

我們各走各的

偶爾或許會重逢

敘敘舊

談談天

訴訴苦

但是將來的路

陪我們走下去的人

不會是彼此

情止於此.

logical asymmetry.

2011-12-13T12:43:00.003Z

that gay parents should raise psychologically unhealthy or gay children, and yet, heterosexual parents should raise psychologically healthy or heterosexual children? plenty of heterosexual couples have children who turn out to be gay and plenty of gay couples have heterosexual children. so why discriminate against gay couples?

i would like to think that...

2011-12-09T22:24:00.003Z

the fact that i can now refer to my crushes by their names, rather than their nicknames, means that i've truly matured in my understanding and handling of relationships.

那些年。

2011-12-08T12:06:00.000Z

浪漫只不过是‘幼稚’的别称。

christmas without you.

2011-12-06T12:46:00.004Z

take me before i leave

the scarf is lifted by the cold draft

the warmth of your fingers

languishes in my heart

i look forward

and down

half-wishing you would run up right behind me

to plant your head on my back

and fill your arms with my leaden heart

"hey!"

your voice seems further

you couldn't be behind me

nonetheless wishful

i return my gaze on you

there you were

with your lips obscured

locked, if i should care to remember for all its worth and pain

with someone i never knew

someone i hated that instant

i snapped back

trying to erase the image with the dirty snow at my feet

my feet and my prints

we shall disappear to that cottage house by the frozen lake

to be warmed by mulled wine

and the searing hurt of loss.

on a wonderful michaelmas holiday...

2011-12-06T08:47:00.003Z

we were making an emma version of monopoly at blantyre and then headed across parker's piece as a huge mob in the dark (in any case, we would have been the danger, rather than being dangerous). nice hk fusion dinner (the first and only one this term?!) with prahlad and ben tham (never realised that putting those two words together gives 'bentham', the last name of the great jeremy bentham), although clara couldn't join us...

the weather is freezing and most of the house/college is gone. but i think i'm handling this feeling of loneliness much better than last year. maybe because my room is like a massive thinking pod, outfitted with everything that i need - books, fridge, coffee machine, the computer that i am typing from this moment and the luscious golden rays of the winter sun dappled upon my curtains. maybe because i can finally cook my depression away and put my energies into things that nourish mind and body. maybe because God has given me a greater sense of contentment and a lesser sense of resentment of worldly things. or perhaps, it's a combination of everything that i have said so far.

to say the least, i enjoy being with myself. the quietness that affords intense thinking, the periods when i don't have obligations to friends or supervisors, the freedom to go wherever and whenever i want, the moments when i can stop and reflect on what has happened. it's not that i hate crowds or anything. it's just that being alone is a lot more fulfilling in itself. while it's not always productive e.g. my nine-hour sleep these days, it certainly feels more invigorating and gives me a greater sense of happiness.

perhaps, my dream job is to be a freelance writer, enjoying my espresso with a crema capped with cinnamon sugar, a simple omelette and fresh fruits for breakfast and light writing. like, now, in the comfy solitude of my room in east court.

(on a side-note, it's so quiet that i can hear my fingers slip from the espresso cup as i put it down. spooky hahaha!)

in the perfect world...

2011-11-28T13:51:00.002Z

everyone will get a christmas card...

everyone will do their work on time...

everyone will be happy to accommodate other people's mistakes...

everyone will be humble enough not to expect and explicitly say that they are going to emerge tops...

if everyone just thinks a little more for the ones around themselves.

oxbridge interviews.

2011-11-27T14:14:00.004Z

(there always seems to be something new i learn about this, despite mine being four years ago)

oxbridge interviews is meant to unsettle you (as though the sheer reputations of both schools are not sufficient for that purpose). i don't mean that they make you more nervous than you already are but that they try to make you a little dissatisfied with the way you know things. a prominent feature of the interviews is that they ask you a question that challenges you in many aspects. for example, "how do you know that california exists, if you have never been there before?" or "would you rather be an apple or a banana?" while these must surely be philosophical questions, they also pertain to things that we have never thought of thinking about. if one has not thought of such fundamental or seemingly meaningless questions, then one cannot have prepared answers to them and must therefore answer them as they come (in a nerve-wrecking setting). and i think that is the trademark of an oxbridge education, that we are taught to question things that never occurred to us or even have particular relevance to daily life. there is a certain creative scope that we are encouraged to explore and exploit. even now, there are few occasions when i get shushed for asking deep questions that have no immediate answers.

now, i place that in contrast to nus admissions. i'm not sure for medicine or law, but i remember being questioned by law-trained people for my nus global merit scholarship. to begin with, they were already the wrong people to be my interviewers. i was applying to do medicine, pharmacy, science and (a distant fourth choice,) law. why was i not interviewed by doctors/scientists? were they trying to test me and see how good i could get myself out of liabilities? i never saw the relevance of moral argumentation with people who could not understand my perspective and, in retrospect, appeared to be foisting their notions of morality and legality on me. in other words, they were trying to talk me out of a position, rather than guiding me into a position and proceeding to question my rationale for adopting that stand. and even if i did make it into nus with a bond-free scholarship, i don't think i would have thrived in that environment, where most people are concerned with knowing what's good and what's not necessary for an exam. i confess that i will always be less knowledgeable than my singaporean counterparts. but i don't doubt that my education has prepared me to be more critical than i would otherwise have been and to always take a closer look at things that many others would have taken granted of.

the culture of humility.

2011-11-24T09:35:00.003Z

when everyone seems to be so much smarter and no one speaks of achievements. the constant reminder that i'm just fish fry in a really large pond. je ne veux pas travailler.

***

i don't know if kids these days are pushing themselves a little too hard. by most standards, i think anywhere near 260 is a respectable score for the average child with one cca. it's not as if no good school exists for people below 260. maybe, sometimes, parents expect their children to be great at the age of 12 when the reality is that everyone progresses at different rates - some mature at 10, others at 18. having a high tee-score means nothing at the o- or a-levels and parents really should recognise that the system is built to provide multiple points for the recognition of talent. it's only because people tend to see the primary school exams as the make-or-break point that everything else seems to be irrelevant.

and so...

2011-11-21T13:58:00.006Z

i heard a crackling sound, something like styrofoam being crushed, just behind my head. i thought i was asleep. did something just happen? did some capillary in my brain just go off? have i just died? i opened my eyes, clamouring for a clear sight from an apparent slumber. i was half-expecting to see heaven, to see God. but no, no angels, no trumpeting, no men in flowing white garments, nothing at all. just the usual books and bihui's estate of condiments sitting there with a sliver of sunshine settling on them. i turned around - only to see my matriculation photo having fallen onto the wooden frame of the bed.

i was still alive. life goes on. but i thanked God for giving me another day to live a full life.

***

as of now, ~~five~~ SEVEN people like my fb comment about my 'turning into a woman' in terms of online spending habits... what the... lol. for the record, i bought an espresso machine (the table-top, high-pressure type) and a steamer/slow cooker/porridge maker/rice cooker. wanna improve my culinary skills! :D (the latter appliance was out of needs, i can't really stand eating bread as carbo for lunch or dinner...)

***

i've learnt to judge the merits of someone's arguments, independent of her character. good for me, i guess.

bathroom realisations.

2011-11-15T17:48:00.005Z

i realised that i was never quite the leader a lot of people thought me to be. sure, i was a worker and quite the one with the initiative. but is that all to leadership? was my stewardship seen as a quality that justified me taking on the responsibility of leadership?

first and foremost, a lot of people seem to confuse industry with leadership. surely, one might say, that if someone works hard towards a certain goal, he must believe in that purpose and has the capacity to lead people towards that same objective? i don't disagree that there are people who think that way because at times, i do have that sentiment. but the truth is, a lot of things that we do are purpose-driven, period. we don't actually do it because we want to inspire others or to bring people towards a common goal. all we want is to get the job done and move on, not take on responsibilities and encourage people to do the same thing that we have done.

second, does initiative translate to leadership? at times, it does, as in the case of a man taking the initiative to navigate and lead the lost to safe ground. but it is perhaps not too far-fetched to think that people take initiative because they want to solve the problem that afflicts others as well as themselves. in some sense, initiative has a selfish dimension. one might say that leadership involves some degree of selfishness and that selfishness is manifested in the hunger for power and the ability to dictate matters. that need for self-glorification is best served by initiative. but that notion of leadership is not one that i am concerned with or even the least interested in.

leadership, as i conceive it to be, is the ability to mobilise people towards a common objective, usually a higher aspiration, with complete selflessness. so, the difference between a manager and a leader is that one operates for selfish (let's remove the negative connotations associated with the adjective and take it as a neutral term) needs while one leads to bring people to something greater than themselves. the endpoint of good, true leadership is that the people should say to themselves, "we have made it." i am going to sound somewhat paradoxical but i think that there is no place for a leader in good leadership. at the end of the day, the leader should receive the least credit and should never be featured in a statement like "because of him, we have made it." a great leader works his magic from afar and within. (or maybe i am just being too idealistic - is there even 'complete selflessness'?)

i guess i also lack the relentless spirit of a leader when it comes to other people. when i read, i struggle and make great efforts to understand what i am reading. but i just don't do the same when it comes to non-intellectual pursuits. not that i don't care about other people or other things, but i grow so weary that i just want to be with my own mind (escapist?). it's tough having to constantly maintain other people's expectations of a leader and continually working in and for the benefits of those under your leadership. there are people who can do it well but i don't think i'm one of them.

that is why, while i might be a perpetually enthusiastic bumble bee, i don't think i can ever be the queen of the hive.

夢境.

2011-11-14T08:32:00.002Z

you looked at me intently and said, "you were right to have held on till now." there was the feeling of warmth being ushered onto my lips and i closed my eyes, savouring that moment of hard-earned victory...

only to be awakened by distant voices of inebriated brutes.

告訴自己不應如此執著,但總是還會不由自主的想你.難道,我這一生就注定要這樣過嗎?

it's quite a simple game.

2011-11-01T09:58:00.004Z

it's not that i have disregard for publicly held cliches of certain figures. neither am i ignorant of such cliches. but i thought that, of all people, you would have been the one to be most judicious with your words and the person to reject plebeian thought.

perhaps i should illustrate my subject of disgruntlement. a friend posted such a status update, "... anyway I do believe in spiritual entities, just that I'm pretty agnostic whether it comes in the shape of the monotheistic white male 'lord' figure, or the rest of the gang". on first reading, it already feels offensive with its misrepresentation of Christ (and the seemingly derogatory reference to all other gods and deities). i'm pretty happy for an agnostic to just say that they are undecided as to whether their god/higher spiritual being is of a Christian, Islamic, Buddhist or polytheistic form. but to reduce Christ to such a monolithic description that hints at spiritual slavery is to take the cliche too far, not least because it deepens misunderstandings through (what appears to me as) a gross misinterpretation of Christ's image.

further, she qualifies her statement by saying that this cliche can be justifiably upheld because that is what some members of the public think of Christ. my question is, does she consider herself as a mere member of the public that requires recourse to such erroneous cliches? i cannot accept that a person who comes to cambridge on a publicly-funded scholarship should have no respect for such nuances of ideology and language. i cannot accept that a highly intelligent person like her should fall prey to philosophical misjudgements of the plebe. if she should just be like any other ordinary person, there is no need to ask deeply searching questions about theology, anthropology, philosophy and whatnots. she could simply lead the "unexamined life" of a simpleton, that life which Socrates himself would have scorned. the moment anyone should ask a philosophical question, he or she would have admitted him- or herself into the realm of intellectual thinking, distinct and separate from the thoughts of the unenlightened layman.

a counter-argument could have been to say that she was speaking on behalf of the greater agnostic community and that the cliche holds (i wouldn't know what agnostics collectively think of and agree upon). fair enough, but that was not a point that seemed to be made anywhere in her status update. besides, the update was made in relation to her timetable i.e. a personal affair. how could it possibly have implicated other agnostics-at-large?

(you should have seen how presumptuous and haughty she got at the end of the thread. no one in a civilised argument goes about accusing others of lacking self-awareness and common sense and presenting irrelevant content. couldn't be bothered to dismantle her arguments and resist her ad hominem attacks any more.)

History and Philosophy of Science.

2011-10-17T14:18:00.005+01:00

Many people seem to see this option as 'the easy way out' (the fact that most top performers shun the subject is probably because they see it as being neither relevant to science nor worth the £18000-a-year course at Cambridge) . What could be easier, one might say, when there are no practicals being organised and no 'hard' facts to commit to memory? And besides, it's a much easier timetable to manage, since one can organise most of the supervisions and practicals (for other subjects) into three or four days and keep the rest of it free.

Fact is, HPS is NOT a lightweight, compared to the science subjects. An essay is only 1500 words in length, but the readings needed to get me through it can take four to five hours, which is not any shorter than a practical session. The language is not mathematically defined and the philosophical distinctions drawn can be a lot more subtle than that in science. In essence, writing history and/or philosophy essays requires way more cross-referencing, clarification of terms and organisation of ideas than the typical undergraduate science essay.

And, despite what some have said to me, philosophical questioning and critical reflection of the past are NOT skills that you can pick up easily outside. Certainly, one can think of a million questions about science, its epistemology and ethics. But it's quite different to think of the question and a plausible solution and DEFEND the solution from competing or even contradictory arguments from some of the best academics in the field of HPS. It's the whole business of critical and lateral thinking that is beyond the purview of a pure-science education. Learning to criticise the logic of philosophical arguments and contemplating possible historical outcomes can translate to skills applicable in dissecting complex scientific arguments and evaluating the strength and coherence of the evidence. More importantly, it's an intellectual achievement to understand and criticise arguments with sharpness that your peers cannot measure up to.

So, please, don't belittle HPS. Because you know that you can't handle it, that you aren't willing to face up to the rigour and challenge of philosophical thinking.

iPhones.

2011-10-13T10:40:00.003+01:00

Now, I'm faced with reading either Pathology or Popper-versus-Positivism. Solution: procrastinate on this rainy Cambridge morning and type something that has been on my mind for a while. Something that has been bobbing in and out of my consciousness like a drowning man...

That is, my opinions of the iPhone and its 4S variant.

The world is separated into two factions - the people who adore iPhones and those who just refuse to get into that technological fad. I fall into the latter category and I have reasons for that.

1. For one, the iPhone is not really a phone. Rather, it is a portable media device with antennae (faulty ones at its inception, and it remains to be seen whether or not the 4S's double antennae are as splendid as they are touted to be). People buy iPhones for the apps (cutting virtual fruit with swipes on the screen, doing finger Dance Dance Revolution etc.) and the street cred. It's almost nothing to do with the performance or the dismal battery life that the iPhone is renowned for. It's fine if one uses the iPhone for apps that actually provide useful information, such as bus arrival times and directories and maps. But a lot of people don't actually do that, or even if they do, such apps actually make a much smaller proportion of the things installed on the device!

2. The iPhone makes fat thumbs a disability. This appears to be quite self-evident... But why do I use a Blackberry, then? Because the keys are not activated until I press them hard enough and fat thumbs don't get in the way as long as I direct the force properly. You could argue that the same principle can be applied to the iPhone. However, the Blackberry has a raised central surface that allows one to have more tactile control over which keys to depress forcefully. Which brings me to my next point...

3. Touchscreen technology is for lazy people; voice-recognition software is for SLOTHS. Seriously? It really takes laziness to a whole new level. Maybe Siri was developed because Americans have grown thumbs too fat to not depress two keys at the same time, even when the phone is held in the landscape view. The way user interface has progressed (or, I might even argue, retrogressed) reminds of human life portrayed in Wall-E, where morbidly obese people just slouch in their levitating chairs and control their lives through speech technology.

4. The consumer-unfriendliness and relative poor capacity for customisation of the iPhone. To begin with, an iPhone user has to get a micro SIM card to get his or her phone to work. What an insidious way to suck the consumer into the quicksand of Apple communications technology. Personally, I feel disgusted by such overt tactics to establish monopoly and will never sell my soul to such demands. Compared to the Blackberry and Android smartphones, the iPhone also offers much less user-defined control over phone settings and that can get in the way of people who truly want their phones to be workhorses (and not circus animals).

one of the best nights out i've ever had in london

2011-10-04T00:22:00.003+01:00

where gl said that she wanted a French Kiss (cheeky name for a handroll) and the cute Japanese waiter ignored her...

where ht asked the service staff if we could pay with NETS (rofl!)...

where we discovered a shop in SOHO selling mango specialties, such as mango creme brulee and mango cupcakes...

when we had our virgin experience being in SOHO's biggest sex shop...

what a night ;P

this defies the laws of thermodynamics.

2011-09-27T08:07:00.002+01:00

every cycle of packing and unpacking

order and entropy

implosion and explosion

the bags fill with clothes, foods and gifts

but the emotion never gets quite contained

they tear through the seams of the heart

those zippers that you can never really pull together

they spill to the ground

onto that soft snow that piles by the grimy roadside

clawing at the cobblestone

nails caked in the dust of the mundane

hoping that someday you would feel that tug, that feeling amiss

and guide your trembling muscle

back where you really belong

back where you will never unpack.

民以食為天，學生以食為先。

2011-09-21T09:46:00.004+01:00

一个人吃尽了山珍海味，最让人吃出幸福的佳肴，却是在家里简简单单烹煮出来的私房菜。在华中过了学生生涯整整六年的我，重返母校，当然不只是回去探望老师，也是为了再尝到昔日的美好滋味。

红碗（Red Bowl）面食：还记得中一的时候，面摊的卫生水准是挺差的，不时都会传出有人在食物里找到蟑螂、甲虫之类的恶心事件。可能就因为这样，中学的面摊摊主在我念高一的时候就换手了，至今生意还是做得挺好的、卫生水准也提高了许多。

记得高一的时候，我们总是在休息时间到中学部吃午餐，吃得最多次、最喜欢的，就是肉挫面（小 $1.80, 大 $2.30），也就是俗称的 bak chor mee。点吃的时候，最搞笑的是，各类面条都有它指定的号码，如：mee pok 一号、mee kia 二号。或许，现在的青少年连 mee pok 和 mee kia 都分不清了。。。现在面摊卖的肉挫面，也少了切片的蘑菇，和当年（说是当年，但只是五年前的事。。。）的版本倒是有了那么一点差别。面还是沥得有点太干、肉丸子仍然富有弹性、肉挫还是软绵绵的。滋味还是一样的美好、一样的让味蕾起舞。我本身倒是喜欢在面上撒上一两茶匙的小辣椒和大量的黑醋，吃起来可是别有一番风味：）

紫盘（Purple Plate）杂菜饭：这摊和绿盘（Green Plate）可是食堂里的“老字号”。我偏向于紫盘有很多原因。一、白饭很舍得给，而且白饭煮出来是软软的，很容易吸收配菜的酱汁。绿盘煮出来的白饭比较干、颗粒太过分明，比起紫盘的白饭，略为逊色。二、配料够油，却不会油腻。绿盘的配料虽然少油，但盐分倒是有点偏高。所以，得看你本身比较喜欢哪一种口味的配料：P （3 样菜 $2）

（黑椒炒鸡柳、苦瓜丝、豆芽、包菜）

an education.

2011-09-19T07:55:00.002+01:00

what is an education? some define it, albeit simplistically, as the transmission of knowledge from teacher to student. others go on to posit a more active role of education in shaping the way students think and engage their environments. there are also people who believe that an education should go beyond grades, to impart moral values and to teach our young the importance of social responsibility.

however, looking at our education system, it is apparent that tangible results define the success of a school's educational process. it's almost as if a school is being run like a corporation, or a factory that is only aiming to produce batches of straight-a students, capable of winning great accolades and being the movers and shakers of singapore and beyond. if a student performs poorly, the immediate response is not to ask if he has personal problems but to inquire to see if he has problems understanding the contents of the subject. teachers want everyone to move at the same academic pace, even if their abilities differ greatly. counselling is almost regarded as 'shrink treatment' or the perceived rehabilitation of a social misfit. what happened to the education where educators are genuinely interested in the holistic development of the child?

more importantly, what happened to the noble intentions of education? let's consider the education system in feudal china. schools were set up to enable children to learn reading and writing skills, as well as to develop their moral reasoning through the study of classics. the greater purpose of it was not to enable all the students to have the necessary knowledge to excel in the imperial examinations (which were a relatively recent invention, anyway); rather, educators wanted to give the young a chance to control their destinies, to have the opportunity to progress towards a greater lot in life and to live as moral, thinking individuals.

however, we ought to ask ourselves if the current education system is trying to achieve such outcomes at all. a school's success in education is now measured in terms of the number of awards, scholarship recipients and leaders in research, industry, government and whatnots. gone were the days when education was meant to be affective; now, we have an education that is too effective and so imbued with pragmatism and obsessed with the end that we have lost sight of education's purpose, which is to produce aspiring, caring and thoughtful individuals who can maintain the fabric of society and keep firm the foundations of the nation.

the greatest show on earth.

2011-09-18T14:33:00.003+01:00

(if this offends you, it's only because you know that it is true - and you are right in the middle of it.)

the collective psychology of some intrigues me at times. i wonder what holds those people together. is it the geographical isolation? is it the zeal of the seniors? is it the dependency of the juniors? is it the community spirit that seemingly pervades any asian congregation? or is that last bit simply the a guise for the endemic reluctance to step out of one's comfort zone?

for one, i'm glad that there are very few singaporeans where i am. while i do not enjoy immediate access to a large support network, i have the freedom to make friends with the locals and non-singaporean asians, rather than falling back on a safety net of familiar faces. for those who live in environments with singaporeans aplenty, my question to you all is, why go nearly seven thousand miles away from home, only to end up associating with people of your kind most of the time? if one's purpose is solely for the pursuit of academic knowledge, i rest my case. but if one's motivation is to understand a foreign culture in addition to studies, i think such cloistered behaviour is a great impediment to the enjoyment of an overseas education.

next point is, some people do enjoy creating exclusive associations for themselves. perhaps, that is a natural consequence of living in an isolated area - you need those relationships to make the town function for everyone and to make the town something that people will envy you for. i'm glad that i am not a part of that, partly because i enjoy being a free spirit and not having duties to other people. if i do decide to do something for my friends, it will be entirely out of goodwill, rather than acting out of obligation. that is not to say that i am not civic-minded or totally aloof; i just see no reason being part of a group that serves their own selfish needs (i don't mean 'selfish' maliciously, but rather in the context of self-interest) and is based simply on superficial characteristics like geography and academic affiliation.

who can you trust?

2011-09-08T03:30:00.003+01:00

when a person you have known for more than half a decade

... decides to go back alone without informing the rest of us, when the intent of many others and myself was clearly shown some time ago.

... goes onto fb, only to 'like' things to do with her.

goodness. what a changed man.

annoyances.

2011-09-07T01:44:00.003+01:00

sometimes, i look at them and ask myself, "why do they even bother applying to cambridge, if all they care about doing is to associate with other singaporeans?" to me and possibly many other overseas students, cambridge is more than an intellectual exercise; it is also a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for us to meet people in a part of the world that we would never have met otherwise, to know people who will be the movers and shakers of the united kingdom and the world beyond their shores. yet, there are those who have had luck bestowed upon them, only to squander it in their little, cloistered gatherings, thinking naively that their little community would be the network to set them up for life. no doubt, that network will be useful when they get back to singapore. but what about in the future, if they decide to move out?

*apologies for my prior inconsistency in the use of terms that might have confused and offended one a many. the paragraph above has no relation to what i am saying below.

***

[afterthoughts are shown in bold and within these parentheses.]

i've never really explained why i decided against joining cumsa (the malaysian-singaporean association at cambridge). i thought that the reasons were glaringly obvious; the existence of an insignificant minority (non-members) suggests otherwise. perhaps, i should say why. [i'm not encouraging anyone to withdraw membership. rather, i am merely presenting my personal opinions for non-membership for anyone who is interested in self-reflection. indeed, before this whole blog-flagging issue, not many people read the stuff i wrote and i certainly was NOT aiming to influence any current cumsa affiliates.]

first, cumsa serves no real function, other than a social one. i'm more interested in an association that goes beyond organising pleasurable activities; i need it to fulfill a political function e.g. organising exchanges between the people in public service and the students, preparing students for election-related matters, having a more formal structure of governance within the association.

[fair enough, i can accept that the association functions primarily as a social networking platform and understand that the temasek society might fulfill that niche. while i prefer some degree of overlap, there will be those who prefer the status quo and that is absolutely fine with me. i will not expect any change for what is, ultimately, individual perception.]

second, the social role of cumsa is one that is lopsided. they concern themselves with happy events that allow them to indulge and enjoy themselves in one another's company. yet, when a cambridge-educated singaporean passed away, they said nary a word of condolence. neither did they pass that information on in the newsletter to get her friends to a service in memoriam. it's this lack of a deeper purpose and the objective of being personal that puts me off being part of the association.

finally, i can't help but be annoyed when people show authority, despite not having received a mandate. it's fine if one wants to help occasionally in the background i.e. be a saikang warrior. but if one should decide to be visible and work regularly towards an organisational aim, then he/she should really go get a post and get cracking in an official capacity. otherwise, i find it hard to place my trust in an association that is weak-willed and weakly binding.

[some might believe that having volunteers within the association is good and demonstrates the ability of the committee to rally for support. i don't disagree with that way of thinking. however, when a volunteer starts to make himself more visible than usual and appearing to be official when he is NOT (and sometimes, being privy to information that others may not have access to), i think the image of the association and the credibility of the office are not being properly portrayed and upheld, respectively. to take a strong example, can you imagine having president tony tan and tan cheng bock officiating at the same ceremony, even if the latter has a strong heart for public service? there is nothing wrong per se but clearly, protocol and propriety have been breached, and it is entirely within the power of the office-bearers to prevent such a thing from happening. ]

Bcc

2011-09-04T09:47:00.003+01:00

the next time you use said function, do think if it really makes email management a neater affair (of course it is, when you are the only person who can correspond), comes across as being more personal (i felt left out) and less of an infringement of personal privacy (anyone who tries hard enough can find out what he/she wants). at times, it can give the impression of shady dealings and build unnecessary barriers to free communication.

case closed - don't wanna think of this matter any more.

阿斗。

2011-09-03T15:26:00.002+01:00

人生中难免会遇到形形色色的人物，其中一款叫做“阿斗”，指的是一个软弱、经不起考验、不求上进、毫无主见的人。

中四那年，我为一群阿斗而自责、流泪，把他们的过错扛在双肩上，心里真的很痛苦。那是我领袖生涯中第一次的挫败。服役的第二年，我错信了一个不顾群体利益的阿斗。那时，我觉得难受，但也忍了、认了。大学的第一年，有一个阿斗，自己没有尽本分，也没有履行自己对群体的承诺，却胆敢放话，叫我不要假装道义、多管闲事。既然碰了钉子，我也懒得把精神放在无谓的争执上。成绩放榜，谁王谁寇，我们各自有了分晓。

想说的是，当一个人认命，宁愿做一个没有抱负的阿斗，我也不觉得这个人的堕落，有什么值得可惜。自己都不敢认错并求改进、不愿积极面对挑战，还要求别人施舍和怜悯？简单来说，那只不过是痴人说梦话，异想天开。

what i was thinking of...

2011-08-30T16:26:00.004+01:00

first, can having no culture, a result of clear ethnic boundaries, be a culture in itself? i must agree with mr yeo that it's not that singapore has no culture but that it's not one that can be easily defined or crystallised into a form that can be articulated. take for example the recent curry incident. the solidarity of singaporeans in recognising that a certain way of life must be defended certainly points to the existence of a proto-singaporean identity (or, as mr yeo alluded to in the example of lt. adnan, a proto-singaporean). while we can't say for sure what it is that binds us as a society or indeed as a singaporean community, what we can be sure is that we have a culture, albeit one that is a patchwork of traditions and customs, that sets us apart from our migrant friends.

what we then have to do is to, as mr yeo mentioned, embrace our newly minted citizens and their uniqueness but also ask of them to respect our cultural practices and try and assimilate into our community. it wasn't easy for our forebears and it won't be any easier for these new immigrants. but let's do what we can for one another.

second, can we expect political education to become part of our formal education system anytime soon? law minister shanmugam made that suggestion some time ago but it was an idea that was left to fade into obscurity. it's unsettling to hear that some of our best educated minds - including lawyers trained overseas - do not know of the existence of singapore's constitution. however, it is not unforgivable for the uk law students to think that way because the uk is a parliamentary monarchy with no clearly written constitution.

that said, as citizens of this country, how is it ever possible to understate the importance for our children to know how our country is governed? knowing how singapore is run, the way powers are separated between the legislature, executive and judiciary branches, the differences between major schools of political thought, or even how to mark your voting slip (haiz) can all be infinitely useful to a citizenry with greater political interest, compared to remarkably contrived programmes, such as civics and moral education and project work. the time is ripe with all that political hype. hopefully, someone in parliament moots this idea again...

moral of the story is...

2011-08-29T08:34:00.003+01:00

1. always cook the barley thoroughly before adding the beancurd skin...

2. canned, shelled gingkos don't have their embryos (for lack of a better word) removed. in other words, it's better to remove them from the raw seeds than to fiddle with the seeds when they are cooked and mushy inside.

***

she's kinda cute. but that's all i know about her. so i shan't do anything - just yet.

last days of attachment.

2011-08-25T16:17:00.002+01:00

presentation was all right, though explaining four experimental techniques without boring anyone was really very hard... i think even my boss thought it was too low-level to ask any questions after the entire presentation and wanted to head to the colbar for drinks!

on a slightly positive note, my in vitro transcription seemed to work! yay!!!

boy and girl.

2011-08-15T15:59:00.003+01:00

boy liked girl. boy told girl how he felt. girl rejected him. voice in boy told him that the girl was not right. boy's heart died. boy stopped feeling for her - or anyone at all.

boy sees girl again. girl seems visibly awkward. boy does not know what to say. boy says bye. girl waves and bids her farewell too. boy feels strange. he probably wants to tell her that he has moved on to nothing and no one. but he feels that the meeting was nothing more than a formality, a ritual to be repeated religiously, once a year. boy takes the further route to keep the distance from her.

boy steals a glance at her; girl does not turn in his direction. boy turns away, his back towards her, half-wishing she cared. "she doesn't", he convinces himself. his little heart beats a little faster for a second or two, before settling into its usual rhythm in the soft rumble of the train carriage.

boy loved girl. but their friendship was not meant to live much longer.

the message of helplessness.

2011-08-14T15:58:00.004+01:00

i attended my first ever class at church since my primary school days. i'm tempted to call it 'sunday school' because 'cell group' and 'bible study class' don't seem like very appropriate descriptors. but it's not the sort of sunday school that kids go to. so, never mind, let's just call it 'discussions'.

so, today's discussion was on prayer and our relationship and attitude towards God. i thought one very important point made about praying in the Christian faith was that, unlike in many other religions, praying to God does not involve a transaction between Him and us. think about the usual practices involving Chinese deities, where we make offerings and pray for good things like wealth, fortune, health and safety. we don't actually (or perhaps, usually) ask for forgiveness and clemency of our sins. indeed, God knows us and does not need to hear anything from us to know what sort of people we are. the reason why we pray to God is that we want to form a lasting relationship between Him and ourselves, that we don't hide behind our sins and pretend that everything is all right, that we want to live to be just, God-fearing and servants who exalt His name.

i remember someone (i think, Chen) who asked me how i became a Christian. i don't remember giving a particularly great answer beyond saying that it was 'a personal experience that i can't expect everyone to have and to be the same as mine'. so, here's another bit i would add to the reasons for my faith: God is there to help the helpless (i think most people actually share this feeling at one point or another). much as i want to believe that i am great and can do everything, i know i can't. there are a million things out there that i can control, but just as many, if not more, that i can't exercise my mortal powers over.

rather than leaving everything that's beyond me to settle into their own places in favour of me, i trust God to see the work and effort that i have made and to exercise His own control over things. whether or not matters turn out to my benefit is not really important to me. if things go fine, well and good; if things go wrong, i think God has a greater task for me and wants me to be put to the mettle. in the worst of scenarios, i believe that God, at the very least, is like a friend who lends His ears to me, for me to confide my deepest fears and the greatest and seemingly insurmountable problems, who then tells me to have courage and faith in what i am doing and, more importantly, to never lose hope and sight of my goals.

here's what c.s. lewis had to say about prayer: "I pray because I can't help myself. I pray because I'm helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time - waking and sleeping. It doesn't change God - it changes me."

i wonder what the world is coming to when...

2011-08-02T11:22:00.004+01:00

a university valedictorian uses the f-word in her speech. granted that it was made in good fun, should a solemn ceremony ever have profanities featured in it? as far as the speech was concerned, it felt like an attempt to present low-brow entertainment and draw on superficial common experiences. a valedictory speech should have some form of reflection (not necessarily so profound and esoteric that no one understands/feels the same) and a simple message, neither of which was present in that particular speech. yes, everyone had a great time hearing her politically incorrect speech, but ten years down the road, virtually no one will remember what she said (partially because her content was so devoid of substance and even the experiences she related were not exactly the sort that i would have considered as being important to the formation of long-lasting bonds within the class) except for the much-hyped f-word in the parting sentence.

so, why do it? just to earn some 'street cred'? honestly, it's a really sad way to get that. that said, those words cannot be taken back and we all should move on. but as we go forward, we ought to think what university education in singapore has done when even the so-called brightest (or, in charm's words, the most 'competent') students are not able to present a sophisticated, thoughtful and memorable speech.

the world over-thinks.

2011-08-01T01:04:00.002+01:00

很庆幸还有一些朋友，对我始终如一，和亲戚几乎是没两样。至于其他的人，我也不抱有太大的期望。毕竟，期望越高，失望必然越大。何必去强求他人？看透了一切，就会领会到人生始终都是孤独的旅程，幸运的话，就会有人陪伴你走完全程。我想，我还算是挺幸福的。

如果你认为我别有企图，那我也无话可说。算是我们彼此都看错了对方吧。

just to...

2011-07-30T03:59:00.001+01:00

stayed till 8 pm to finish the extra bits of the experiment, just to prove that my method is better.

it's actually one of those days when the science excites me.

what do you want me to make of it?

2011-07-22T02:34:00.001+01:00

seriously, do you think i live to serve you alone? you're not a princess and you're not the person i love. so why should i care about you and your desires? i would much rather you tell me upfront that you don't want to have anything organised, instead of leaving me to scramble and form some plan, only to be let down by you.

divas -_-

***

saw dr lim eating alone and i was thinking to myself how lonely it would be at the top. i'm not a stranger to loneliness but that was because my best friends were not in cambridge and the people that i could confide in were all very far away. it's slightly better now that i have english friends to talk to, but there will always be some problems that only singaporeans would understand and where internet communication can never suffice. but i digress.

dr lim's loneliness appears to be one that results from being in the highest echelons of the organisation. i guess caucasians don't have a real issue with eating alone because they are brought up to be independent, whereas asians try to avoid being in such a situation for fear of being seen as anti-social or marginalised. perhaps, it's our natural (asian) tendency to have communal activity and a sense of 'togetherness'. taking newton's quote in a different context, standing on the shoulders of giants means that you are leaving your lilliputian friends on the ground (it's not a perfect metaphor, but let's not nitpick here and miss the point.) being in a position of power almost necessarily means that one becomes removed from his or her peers. indeed, that is critical for any leader who has to make moral decisions, even at the expense of people whom they know or love dearly. it's a sad thing but a real one nonetheless. perhaps, that is why people like eugene are so adamant on staying on the research track, rather than being in administration as well. it takes a scientist who has ambitions for public service to do both - how rare is that?

what one does not see.

2011-07-17T06:42:00.002+01:00

i think rosie huntington-whiteley's not too bad as the replacement for megan fox in transformers 3. i mean, we all knew that mf couldn't act, so why do so many people criticise rhw for her acting (or alleged lack thereof)? just because mf is hotter? perhaps, rhw is less curvaceous and has lips that are slightly out of proportion but she has such an awesome brit accent! i can't say much for others, but the anglophile in me goes into aural orgasm every time she speaks. i mean 'every time' very literally. it's an accent that i hear rarely even in cambridge and london, an accent that is so distinctively and seductively english - bubbly and optimistic with a sense of knowing and deliberate understating of herself.

ahhh, how lovely...

no wonder i thought rhw looked familiar. she was in a video commercial that i posted in april! :P

***

sometimes, i think about the previous generation and mine (or, rather, just me) and think about our differences. i'm not the sort who would celebrate magnificence and grandeur. it's nice to experience such decadence once in a while, but to live in a sprawling villa and drive a rolls royce is far from my conception of a 'successful' life. how meaningful is it to spend one's savings on such material gains, when all that can be better used on enriching one's life with experiences that last beyond the ephemeral?

a guide to travelling with your best friend(s).

2011-07-03T14:46:00.007+01:00

1. find out what he/she likes to do and plan it around those interests, along with your own. my travel companion wasn't very much into museums and art but rather, parks, landscapes and (generally) less erudite stuff. which meant that my itinerary wasn't the most exciting of things to her. on the other hand, i was all right with the more physically demanding activities that she had planned, such as trekking to the calanques in Marseille, and that was the best day of the trip. so, understand each other's expectations and agree beforehand on what you want to do - that makes for a much more fulfilling trip.

idyllic view of the mediterranean near the calanque de sugiton :)

2. don't bring cards. many a times, young singaporeans destroy their holidays with a seemingly innocuous deck of cards, when that time could have been used much more meaningfully onconversation, exploration etc. when we were at barceloneta beach, we spent two hours before sunset, just asking each other 'truth-or-chicken-out' (no point doing 'dares', since it was just the two of us) questions and having a mild sunbath. on the hour-long train ride to arles, we started asking each other to define difficult english words (or, words found in the standard english dictionary), in a style somewhat reminiscent of pictionary. i mean, what's so great about card games like bridge and poker (granted that we didn't have two other people *phew*) when there are so many opportunities to build your friendship and better understand your companion?

3. have a common fund. money can be a source of trouble and disagreement, so make sure that everyone knows and fulfills their financial responsibilities throughout the trip. we did it by having a little wallet where we made daily contributions. things that either of us wanted for personal use was paid for using cash outside that common fund. that solves the problem of having to wreck your brain over expenditure at the end of each day :)

4. don't attempt to make the holiday into a 'to-do' list. let's admit it (and please do not take offence), there will always be plebeians who are only interested in taking photos and really appreciating the history and/or beauty of the art, monument, landscape etc. as a traveller, i think it's a real shame to reduce a leisurely trip into an attraction-shopping list. again, it's important to find out what your companion(s) are interested in and plan an itinerary that makes the best use of time without taxing anyone. if that means waking up just before lunch and having only six hours of daylight for sightseeing, then plan for that. my companion and i only planned for a maximum of three attractions a day, and on some days e.g. the trip to the calanques in Marseille, we spent all our time, just lazing and enjoying the sights and sounds (oh the waters and sunset and people diving into the blue waters!)... point is, enjoy the process of getting there and the company that you are with, rather than forcing yourself into a hectic routine and leaving no space to breathe.

Samson.

2011-06-12T13:19:00.002+01:00

I was intending to go for brunch when Nick asked me to go to church. despite being surrounded by churches and the chapel being literally two minutes away, I had not been to a single service, often using work/rowing as the excuse. But today, things felt a little different and I just had the inexplicable urge to go to church - for the first time in my undergraduate life in Cambridge. And so, I did, along with Nick, James, Charlotte and Jeremy...

When we were at STAG, it didn't feel very much different from any other service in Singapore. As we moved on from prayers to songs, it began to feel emotional again and I could feel an inner warmth and welling of tears. I guess I haven't talked much to God and that moment in church was a sobering reminder of what I should have done all this while. The fact that I actually had such an urge right before the toughest fight on Tuesday... felt as if God did intend His work to be done through my friends. And it tied in very nicely about the story of Samson and the Philistines in the Book of Judges, which the sermon was based on. How God can be mercifully faithful to the worst of wrongdoers and prodigal sons, I should never understand. But His power and strength came through in the message delivered by the pastor and I felt renewed there and then, albeit a tad overwhelmed by His grace. But I suppose God works in the most subtle of ways and He is there to make sure that everything will be fine and that all we have to do is to hold faith in Him and ourselves to do the best that we can.

应该紧张吗？

2011-06-08T16:09:00.007+01:00

四年来第一次赴考，感觉很不一样。不晓得是不是因为知道自己已经尽力而为，所以不再去想自己的选择或答案是错的，还是明白了世界不会是完美的，所以不再执意追求一个不可能达到的境界。没错，我们做任何事都应该尽善尽美。不过，只要知道自己已经量力而为，问心无愧，一切就交由命运去安排/上帝去主宰，让自己松一口气，再作冲刺。

昨晚很想听的一首歌，可惜只能找到粤语版放在这里。。。

technicality and science.

2011-06-04T11:57:00.002+01:00

my supervisor said that i was being 'overly technical' with my answers and commented that 'the simplest is usually the best'. i don't deny that simple explanations are the best way to convey complex ideas, and most of the time, i do strive for clarity of structure and simplicity of ideas.

however, it perplexes me as to why technicalities should be avoided in scientific writing. just because i am writing an essay in 36 minutes (rather than a full-fledged paper over months) does not mean that i should forsake the use of precise terms, even if the lectures did not cover such material. experimental science is mostly about three things: quantification (i hate how people always refer to the act of quantifying variables as 'quantitation'), setup of controls and hypothesis-testing. without numbers and statistics, science would cease to exist. without proper physical referents on a set of skeletal bones, anatomy would cease to be. so, how can the study of primate and human evolution be complete without accurate, unambiguous descriptors? after all, we have moved on from pure ethnography, which was largely qualitative, to ethnology and pattern analysis, which are quantitative in nature. it makes sense more so now than before to be able to pinpoint the characters that we want to study and present in our writings.

it's a simple rule in writing...

2011-05-30T00:16:00.002+01:00

that anything that has to be read a second time is not written well enough.

what kind of logic is that?

2011-05-27T21:16:00.002+01:00

i wrote an email that was quite curtly phrased and targeted some people who were not completing work that all of us had agreed upon. within minutes, one classmate (who was guilty of the charge) replied that the supervisions were 'optional' and i have 'no right to dictate' what anyone should do. she went on to say that the 'primary aim' of the session was to discuss answers to the multiple-choice questions and that her reason for failing to turn out an essay plan was that she had other 'more urgent supervision work'.

if i were any less tactful, this would have been my response:

for one, excuse me, the workload wasn't something that i UNILATERALLY decided upon. it was a collective decision to do a certain set of multiple-choice questions AND an essay plan. if you have no essay plan to provide there and then (or, even after the session), it doesn't count as fulfilling your obligation to the group. the fact that you turned up meant that you were committing yourself, albeit not very fully, to the group and its expectations. so don't give me all that egocentric nonsense - if you want it, you jolly well work and cooperate for it.

and just because i am not the supervisor does not mean that i cannot have my say on the matter. i'm merely voicing a moral intuition that is not just held by myself but by others in the group who have done more. just because no one says it doesn't mean that everything is okay.

and if your sole intent was to check mcq answers, then you should have left after checking. why were you still there? all i can think of is that you were unabashed about taking other people's hard work without putting in your own.

AND EXCUSE ME, SO THE REST OF US ARE NOT STRESSED? if you even have a moment of sobriety to contemplate the matter, you will realise that the rest of us are just as pressured to work, precisely because the others in the group are putting in due effort. you aren't the only one with the weight of the Tompkins Table on your shoulder and you certainly aren't the only one dealing with peer pressure.

so, get your head around things and wake up from your stupor.

this is not how i saw it to be.

2011-05-26T22:00:00.002+01:00

times like these make me question my self-worth and why i am doing all this. is it because i just want to keep the scholarship? or am i just doing all this to prove to myself that i can do it? so what if i manage to get all the grades? i think i will be happy and fulfilled, having achieved everything that i set out to do, but that doesn't seem to be all that i can possibly get out of my education in cambridge.

it's not that i don't have friends here. it's not that the exam material is not challenging. it's not that i haven't been doing anything other than studying. it's just that there isn't someone that i can really just walk up to and speak my mind about everything (and i really mean everything). i wish i had a shoulder to cry on at times, i wish i could have someone to hug in silence, i wish i had my brother doing and saying stupid things to me, i wish i had a car to bring myself away from the crowds to some place with no one, i wish i had my buddies in singapore and london being right next to me.

of course, i know that's not possible, at least not over the next couple of weeks, when everything will only get worse. i just hope that i feel less negative as the days move by.

***

yy was telling me how much luck counts for in the cambridge exams. i couldn't agree more. sometimes, i think that one reason why i made it here was that i had the luck that more talented individuals did not possess. now, i have to live up to the expectations of every other singaporean in cambridge. or, am i living to my own unreasonable standards?

***

有时候真的想放弃了。已经很努力了，但是，为什么总是像在原地踏步？不明白，真的不明白。

so, our friendship amounts to nothing.

2011-05-06T11:23:00.003+01:00

despite my vigorous defence against your accusations, you chose to deliver the final blow and plunge that blade of scathing disdain into my heart, as if our friendship counted for nothing. and the next moment, you decided to take a different tone, as if nothing had happened.

i don't know if it is because K told you. even if he did, it won't change a thing. it's a matter of 'too little, too late'. if you thought that you could get away with being hurtful at one moment and then be apologetic the next, i'm sorry i can't take such a sudden about-turn of views.

i'm a person, your ex-classmate, your friend. i'm not a doll with no heart, a toy that you can rip into shreds and mend it with threads of patronising words.

fk i don't understand why i am wasting my time typing this and crying at the same time.

Why Killing Bin Laden Will Not Change Things, Except for The Worst.

2011-05-03T21:12:00.002+01:00

1. Killing him has only served to embolden other extremists and has probably also elevated him to the status of martyr. So, thank you, the world now has to embrace itself for possible reprisal attacks from vengeful factions. How is that helping matters?

2. CNN reports that, although he made a resistance, he was unarmed. So, Americans believe in killing unarmed persons? I thought they believe so deeply in the sanctity of life and the protection of basic human rights, which includes access to a fair trial. Once again, people can see for themselves the blatant and unabashed exercise of double standards. To say that the soldier fired at him out of self-defence is an untenable argument. Standard rules of engagement dictate that enough firepower be used to subdue a resisting target. And even so, the firer is not to discharge rounds at the head, but at the torso, with the aim of incapacitation. The fact that a 'double-tap' (two shots made in quick succession using the same sight) was made to OBL's head only goes to show that the intent was not to capture, but to annihilate.

3. Western media consistently use words like 'jihad' to characterise extremist factions. 'Jihad' has different meanings to various groups of Muslims and, to the moderate Muslims, it means 'spiritual struggle'. To use this word in a context that only serves to advance the terrorist agenda i.e. meaning 'holy war', is simply running counter-productive to the entire campaign against terrorism. We want to condemn the act of killing innocent people, not the religion, for every religion advocates peace, be it Islam or Christianity. If the Western world is merely looking to having another Crusade, this conflict will never end.

what to do next year...

2011-05-03T00:07:00.000+01:00

watersprite 2012, orienteering/shooting? :)

obl.

2011-05-02T18:50:00.002+01:00

honestly, it is horrifying to know that people can celebrate the death of a person. we are talking about a human life here and, no matter what a person has done, there's no moral imperative for us to celebrate his/her passing. yes, you can rejoice and heave a great sigh of relief but that does not amount to having a party to commemorate the incident. the behaviour of some people simply disgusts me to the core.

just because he had been involved in terrorist activities doesn't detract from the fact that he is a human being and he should have been accorded his rights to a free trial, according to international law and military conventions. i (and many other far less extreme people on this planet) do not have full knowledge of the encounter between himself and the navy seals and to take the words of the white house as a completely unbiased and truthful account of the incident is probably the least judicious of paths. if saddam had his legal rights, why not obl?

perhaps, i might seem apathetic and oblivious to the deaths of innocent civilians in the terrorist attacks. i'm not; i do believe that one has to be responsible for his actions if proven guilty by judicial means. but there is no trial and it all seems like some arbitrary execution and meting of 'justice'. is that what the word 'justice' means to the americans?

basic risotto #1.

2011-04-28T20:16:00.004+01:00

what happens when you absolutely don't feel like writing up the trashy anthropology notes, reading biochemistry notes and finishing martin's set supervision work :P

modified from jamie oliver's recipe...

1. used a rice cooker, instead of a pan.

2. used sainsbury's easy cook italian rice, instead of the usual arborio (sorry, not atas enough).

3. used olive butter in place of all fats recommended in his recipe. butter is definitely better but i have to say again that i don't wanna waste money and the olive butter that's still hanging around in my fridge...

4. used stock cubes and leftover maggi seasoning. works wonders, i think.

5. basically, i used a very truncated (read: experimental) procedure to prepare the dish:

i. cook the rice until it is fairly dry (can see the bubbles popping up on the surface of the rice like mini mines going off).

ii. add a knob of butter (i took it to mean 'one tablespoon'... olive oil won't kill, anyway.) to fry the rice slightly until lightly browned.

iii. add one glass of white wine to the rice and stir. continue heating until the smell of the alcohol is no longer very strong.

iv. once the rice has dried up into a stodgy mess (it should appear fairly creamy now), add a ladle (i had no ladle, so i used eight tablespoons' worth) of broth and stir the mixture.

v. repeat step iv three to four times until the rice grains are cooked through but still maintain their shape.

vi. remove the pot (i used a rice cooker, remember?) from heat and add a tablespoon of butter together with 30 grams of grated parmesan cheese (i added twice the amount, which is not a good idea on retrospect). stir until the butter and cheese are well-mixed into the rice.

vii. cover the pot with a lid and leave to stand for two minutes.

vii. serve immediately :)

please, singaporeans...

2011-04-27T15:49:00.004+01:00

i know i'm going to sound really hateful about some singaporeans here, but whatever, this is my space and i decide what i want to say.

seriously, if you indeed had an interest in the future of our country, you wouldn't be giving hypocritical excuses like 'registering too late', 'forgetting to register' and other variations of the same theme. i would much rather you be politically apathetic and go on enjoying your philistine lifestyles than to feign interest and talk rah-rah about electoral boundaries, party tricks, et cetera. guess what? no one is going to care about YOUR opinions because YOU didn't even have the pro-activeness to find out something as simple as election dates (when you probably had been fervently counting down the days to your return trip to Singapore and the wonderful char kway teow). were you waiting for YOUR country to tell YOU when to vote? if so, i really am quite sad for our generation of singaporeans, that there are actually such passive people who don't seem to take a stake in our country's governance. and honestly, so much for your expensive overseas education when the least you can manage is a lousy excuse of personal sloth to shirk your responsibility and relinquish your birth-right as a citizen.

shame on YOU.

all (i think) i really want...

2011-04-23T21:01:00.003+01:00

is to wake up on a lazy sunday morning, right next to you

and look into your face -

the soft cheeks

the short lashes

the plump lips...

to bounce out of the bed with excitement tingling at my toes

and waltz into the kitchen to fry some mushrooms and eggs and bacon for breakfast...

to have you rise from the sun-tanned sheets and take in thick wafts of the sizzling goodies...

to have you in my embrace and let my chin rest on your shoulder for those few moments in the day when nothing's said, nothing's done but bliss is felt between our hearts.

“每一个成功母鸭的背后，都有一只公鸭。”

2011-04-22T19:50:00.003+01:00

the title is actually true when you consider how much effort a female duck has to put in to raise a clutch of ducklings. drakes do virtually nothing except to contribute their protozoan input. yes, mothering sunday coming soon in singapore, right? time to show your love and appreciation :P

应该就那么简单。

2011-04-21T22:48:00.001+01:00

因为你在，所以一切才显得值得。迫不及待旅程的开始！

simple choreography, brilliant performance.

2011-04-16T12:12:00.003+01:00

shared by Xin Li at The Moose (our food blog!) :)

so it's not just me.

2011-04-14T07:38:00.002+01:00

So my feelings of helplessness and dejection at times are shared by other people (or, at least, certain people that I manage to elicit such confessions). C said that, every time he spent long hours working, he could feel himself slipping into insanity and depression. Which is why I can never understand how people can force themselves to work for so many hours alone and with such intense focus. Those people actually make me feel as though I'm not doing enough, when it is the inverse that is true. And that feeling of inadequacy fuels the relentless perfectionist in me and I work doubly hard, just to remain ahead in the game.

Which was why I broke down a week ago, slumping on the bed and attempting to lacrimate eyes that had been too weary of work, the world and the woes of this town called Cambridge - in vain. I could only manage a pathetic sob. It's infinitely more stressful than almost every other thing that I've done so far in my life. I don't even think work in the future could be even half as bad. Maybe I created too many challenges and questions (unanswerable by most of my supervisors) to myself and it's just plain unproductive and outright taxing for me to quibble over things that should only be answered in research, rather than being posted as exciting speculations in exam papers.

I guess I'm back to normal now, that normalcy partially restored by the resumption of copious caffeine intake and philosophical ruminations with C. Sometimes, I wonder if Cambridge students are generally philosophically naive, where card games, food, travel and studies are the only things that apparently matter to them. Other than a few individuals in Cambridge, I can't find anyone else who has the same sort of intellectual curiosity and/or self-admitted metaphysical uneasiness.

Am I in the wrong place?

failomics.

2011-04-06T23:01:00.005+01:00

有了你什么都不差。

2011-04-06T09:43:00.001+01:00

re-discovered this when i saw it on PS's wall:

"world's sexiest advert."

2011-04-05T10:20:00.001+01:00

Agent Provocateur - "Love Me Tender" in HD from Greg Williams on Vimeo.

what a lousy feeling.

2011-04-02T17:41:00.001+01:00

i haven't felt so lousy in donkey-months. essay is crap, revision is not happening very efficiently. what is going WRONG?! sigh.

七个小时之前。

2011-04-01T10:45:00.002+01:00

发现其实我们俩还没做好准备，没有投入感情的意念。先做朋友，是吧？

ducklings!

2011-04-01T00:24:00.001+01:00

Mallard ducklings in Chapman's Garden in Emma :)

the armchair biologist.

2011-03-29T18:27:00.002+01:00

(pardon the anthropomorphism; not trying to be scientific here!)

slugs have invaded my garlic pot - shall wait for them to grow bigger and start experiments to study the population genetics of hermaphrodite sex :P

for the first time, i saw mallard gang rape :D quite interesting because they weren't doing it in the water but in the hedges at the corner of the chapel... so i guess, forced copulation doesn't necessarily have to occur in the water! and there were several male mallards copulating with the poor female duck and she was making some pretty distressful noises :/ the male mallard that had the most time copulating with the female (probably because she had to guide his corkscrew-shaped penis through her oviducts) did so by placing his weight on her back and using his beak to pin down the nape of her neck. the other male ducks, having had their go at penetrating the female, circled the mating pair and started to peck her head. i wonder why... perhaps to distract her and prevent the male mallard from successfully fertilising her eggs?

political opposition.

2011-03-29T12:46:00.003+01:00

singaporeans should live in the uk for a few years. then they will realise how much better singapore is, in terms of governance and efficiency. yes, we may lack transparency at times and it is certainly justified of people to call for greater accountability. but to support the opposition merely to change the political regime? certainly, there are individuals in the opposition who are worth supporting because they do have the right vision i.e. the aim of improving singaporeans' lives. these are the politicians that i am willing to vote for, provided that their plans are sufficiently substantive and make a positive difference in terms of service to the country. those that i scorn and am wary of are the anarchists who create airy-fairy rhetoric with no real aim of helping singaporeans. those are the people who go on defaming ministers and lack self-control. yet, those are the people who are gathering more support from the masses because they speak to the constituents' hearts and not their minds.

why? is it a failure of our education? yes, our literacy rates are high and most people would have received a basic level of education. but does that mean that they can analyse things coolly and thoroughly? it's unfortunate that so-called educated people are calling for change without realising what the consequences are. to take a real example, consider the US and UK. because of the highly bipartisan nature of politics in both countries, it has been hard for any particular regime to consolidate policies and, as some political analysts have pointed out, the effectiveness of a policy in these countries are so short (only a few years, much less than a decade) that they do not have much impact if the ruling party is not re-elected in the next term. and again, it is unfortunate that many people in these countries believe too strongly in the mantra of change and do exactly that to undermine policies that have been set with long-term goals in mind. the issue here is the balance between efficiency and democracy, which i think many singaporeans are still not able to find and rationalise.

another key question is whether or not our opposition has the maturity to handle their relationship with the ruling party. an opposition is not there to provide pure political antagonism; rather, it has to present its independent and neutral viewpoint and exert its power in alignment with the people's wishes. in other words, it should work in partnership with the ruling party when the policies are sound and act as a counterbalance when the policies do not meet the needs of the population. sadly, some opposition members are only interested in furthering the agenda of their parties and not the interests of the people. and as mentioned earlier, there are those who make seditious remarks and aim to gain support through rhetoric. how can we support such characters who do not act in our interests truly? of course, it does not preclude the possibility that the ruling party has its own unsavoury figures, which is why i consider it important to have some sensible opposition politicians, capable of being true to their allegiances to the nation, in the government.

on alexandra wallace.

2011-03-24T14:11:00.003Z

(time to tear away from the boring Cells notes and procrastinate on the blog!)

to be honest, i actually found her observations to be quite true. i know of a lot of people who actually talk (i might have even done it once, just ONCE. i found it too embarrassing to do it a second time...)/ eat / sleep in the library, and yes, i haven't really seen caucasians doing extremely disruptive things here, other than the occasional whisper. i have to agree that some asians do not practise good manners but that could be due to 1. lack of proper guidance and etiquette education, and 2. culture mis-match, where such apparently disruptive behaviour might have been tolerated, or even seen as normal, back home.

it is also very true that many asians are very dependent on their families, though it would be incorrect to say that they "can't fend for themselves". to say the latter does indicate a lack of understanding of asian societal values, where family is central to a person's cultural identity. asian parents regard these interactions as important in helping their children grow and make great investments of time and money to ensure that outcome and prevent them from 'losing out'. studying in the united states does not necessarily mean that asian students have to give up their personal values for the more individualistic mindset of the american student.

accusations of racism also seem a bit far-fetched because she was pointing at a certain group of people in the library and "not her friends". of course, she might have seem a little disgruntled with massive influxes of asians "every year", but that feels more like xenophobia to me, rather than outright discrimination or belittling of asians. that is understandable because she might have been living in a fairly homogeneous environment all her life until university. the (assumed) fact that she has asian friends means that she's comfortable with having them around. and she appears to only be irritated by the actions of those people who are socially inept (at least, relative to the cultural norms of western society), which is justified.

preposterous.

2011-03-20T21:44:00.001Z

part II biology exams require you to make proper references in your HANDWRITTEN essays. WIN.

an idea to toy with.

2011-03-20T00:20:00.002Z

running from cambridge to london after the exams. that's a distance of 54.3 miles (86.88 kilometres).

it's finally the end of lent 2011.

2011-03-16T23:20:00.002Z

like i have said all this time, lent turned out to be such a drag that i couldn't bring myself to stay in the lab all the way till four. i wanted to get out, and even if it meant having no real purpose for a few hours and only ending up being on the bed like a cripple, i had to do it. this term has taken too great a toll on me and i just want everything to end quickly!

i was talking to yy about supervisors' comments, particularly one who said that i 'should contribute more often'. the thing is, i either understand completely or do not understand enough to question. and unfortunately, in the subject that i arguably know nearly as much as the supervisor (kudos to hc bio), my questions are almost invariably met with 'you don't need to know that', rather than 'interesting observation, i will find it out for you'. i mean, what is the point of the supervision, then? i felt all too often this term that i was going into supervisions only because i HAD to. it was a marked difference from michaelmas supervisions, where i suffered intellectual setbacks under the scrutiny of unbelievably hard but stimulating questions. now, i don't even find any challenge in the work, and honestly, when my supervisor made that remark, i was thinking to myself, "are you just trying to make your job easier by making use of my ability?"

i'm not being egoistic here but i really do think that i can be stretched further than this. prove to me that cambridge is really harder than anywhere else.

由衷地祝福你们！

2011-03-15T20:26:00.002Z

没想到，一转眼就已经过了五年。还记得五年前的我们，那次在御花园冒着雨拍摄的情景，最后还得赶回学校看演出。那一天的我们，成了知己和密友。虽然我们不时常说话（更别说是现在了），间接促使你把我当成“non-friend”看待，我们之间的友谊还是经受了考验 XD

写着写着，眼睛有点模糊了。。。真的为你找到YT（不会拼他的华文名字不是我的错，你没告诉我！）这样好的归宿感到高兴！在此，由衷地祝福你们！:')

i shall not write any further in chinese; your fiance confirm beat me at it one :P

what does 'relief' mean to you?

2011-03-14T08:32:00.003Z

my (singaporean) friend was lamenting how pathetic singapore seemed to the global community when it was made known that we were only sending an urban search-and-rescue team, as part of our tsunami relief efforts in japan. he was thinking that we should direct more resources e.g. blankets, food, tents, and money, to this humanitarian cause, rather than just sending a five-men dog squad and nothing much more than that.

while i certainly do agree that we should do more, there's a limit to what we can do. first and foremost, sending such humanitarian aid is in itself draining resources from our homeland defence and it is only sensible to send personnel not currently involved in homeland interests. in times of normalcy, these dog squads are used to detect smuggled humans, drugs and other contraband items. we need a certain number of them to man our checkpoints and it is certainly not easy to find squads that aren't actually doing anything. as with all humanitarian operations, plenty of planning goes into them and such logistic considerations must be made to keep ourselves from liabilities and yet still be able to lend a helping hand to our distressed ally.

second, search-and-rescue teams are not easy to train and are not, therefore, as 'cheap' as what most singaporeans are wont to think. SRTs undertake plenty of training and dog trainers are extremely well-trained professionals who have had to spend years just forming that trainer-dog relationship, essential to the function of the unit. furthermore, SRTs no longer only depend on dogs and we are using sophisticatedly designed search robots to handle some of the more treacherous post-tsunami landscapes, and i certainly do not think that our investment is any less than other countries which pledge money and everyday essentials.

finally, we want to avoid being in competition with the NGOs. The Red Cross has been receiving donations (which, I have no reason to believe, does not already include contributions made by singaporeans) and coordinating the resource distribution efforts. so why would we want to compete with them? it can certainly be said that we could send all the food and money to The Red Cross and let them do the job, and that inter-organisational competition is just a red herring that i'm throwing into this. but no, what i am saying is, we should be filling a niche that is not being occupied by anyone else because expertise and technology cannot be replaced by sheer quantities of physical relief items and i believe that we can deliver that said expertise and technology, given our past experience in the indonesian tsunami. it is only too easy a job to just donate money and food and blankets and clothes; it is a much greater moral responsibility to really place your troops in a place so badly stricken by disaster and say to our japanese friends that we will do our best to help you find your kin. that's singaporean aid for you - we are never pretentious about what we want and can give. and as an aside, do consider what 'relief' really means - is it solely the satisfaction of physical needs like hunger and cold, or does it also include the idea of comfort in the knowledge that your close ones are safe?

[further aside: so, why did we do more in aceh, compared to the japan scenario? quite simply, it's a matter of geopolitics. aceh, being so much closer than japan, was arguably easier to help because our naval vessels and aerial assets could reach aceh in a matter of hours or a few days. furthermore, voicing what political analysts might think and sounding a tad insensitive (no offence intended), indonesia's stability has an important role in the indirect assurance of singapore's long-term interests in the region i.e. financial investments, terrorism. while japan has many financial links to singapore, its geopolitics does not readily overlap with that of asean but rather with taiwan, china, russia and the united states. consequently, we see a systemic application of our political logic within that separate circle of powers. it is fair to assume that those said countries will have a greater stake in the aid and reconstruction of japan from this catastrophic event.]

they aren't quite... different?

2011-03-13T20:54:00.002Z

rubbing shoulders with the famous (think bill nighy and tom hollander) this weekend has made me realise that they aren't so different from us. bill's talk at the union about self-consciousness being an inseparable component of his acting was nothing short of inspiring. insecurities stemming from those unstoppable waves of self-consciousness were so recognisable. he's a truly amazing and humourous man and those two hours were really the best intellectual moments of my life in cambridge thus far.

i might just do watersprite next year again :P

what more can i ask for.

2011-03-12T15:02:00.002Z

the tortuously draggy week 8 of lent passed with one major event splashed across all forms of media. that's the earthquake in japan plus tsunami warnings in nations around the pacific ocean. so, to add to my jadedness, the disasters made me worried about my family members who were in japan, as well as my friends (including a very important one) on the west coast.

thankfully, all is fine and i'm not as worried about them as i was on friday. my mum even sent me an sms, saying that they were eating japanese food, when i was so darn anxious. the surreality of it. and i was so worried for m too.... it almost felt like deja vu and i don't want history to repeat itself. once is painful enough; i don't know how i can handle a second time (although my head just drifts towards negative thoughts all the time :/)...

and so these moments of anxiety brought me past the fact that i didn't get full marks for my assessed stats practical, relatively quickly. just last term, i lost half a mark and felt so terrible about myself for a couple of days. but now, the loss of an entire one mark barely made a dent in my mood. perhaps, i consider that minor loss of one mark being way insignificant, compared to the facts that my loved ones are safe and that things could have been a lot worse if not for God's graces.

in a sense, i've really learnt to be at peace with myself, with who i am and the values i stand for, after such a long time of being a recalcitrant perfectionist. there's only so much i can achieve and if i can't be the best, i can proudly say that i've done my best.

高山流水。

2011-03-10T20:51:00.004Z

俞瑞，字伯牙，战国时的音乐家，曾担任晋国的外交官。   俞伯牙从小就酷爱音乐，他的老师成连曾带着他到东海的蓬莱山，领略大自然的壮美神奇，使他从中悟出了音乐的真谛。他弹起琴来，琴声优美动听，犹如高山流水一般。虽然，有许多人赞美他的琴艺，但他却认为一直没有遇到真正能听懂他琴声的人。他一直在寻觅自己的知音。

有一年，俞伯牙奉晋王之命出使楚国。八月十五那天，他乘船来到了汉阳江口。遇风浪，停泊在一座小山下。晚上，风浪渐渐平息了下来，云开月出，景色十分迷人。望着空中的一轮明月，俞伯牙琴兴大发，拿出随身带来的琴，专心致志地弹了起来。他弹了一曲又一曲，正当他完全沉醉在优美的琴声之中的时候，猛然看到一个人在岸边一动不动地站着。俞伯牙吃了一惊，手下用力，“啪”的一声，琴弦被拨断了一根。俞伯牙正在猜测岸边的人为何而来，就听到那个人大声地对他说：“先生，您不要疑心，我是个打柴的，回家晚了，走到这里听到您在弹琴，觉得琴声绝妙，不由得站在这里听了起来。”

俞伯牙借着月光仔细一看，那个人身旁放着一担干柴，果然是个打柴的人。俞伯牙心想：一个打柴的樵夫，怎么会听懂我的琴呢？于是他就问：“你既然懂得琴声，那就请你说说看，我弹的是一首什么曲子？”   听了俞伯牙的问话，那打柴的人笑着回答：“先生，您刚才弹的是孔子赞叹弟子颜回的曲谱，只可惜，您弹到第四句的时候，琴弦断了。”

打柴人的回答一点不错，俞伯牙不禁大喜，忙邀请他上船来细谈。那打柴人看到俞伯牙弹的琴，便说：“这是瑶琴，！相传是伏羲氏造的。”接着他又把这瑶琴的来历说了出来。听了打柴人的这番讲述，俞伯牙心中不由得暗暗佩服。接着俞伯牙又为打柴人弹了几曲，请他辨识其中之意。当他弹奏的琴声雄壮高亢的时候，打柴人说：“这琴声，表达了高山的雄伟气势。”当琴声变得清新流畅时，打柴人说：“这后弹的琴声，表达的是无尽的流水。”   俞伯牙听了不禁惊喜万分，自己用琴声表达的心意，过去没人能听得懂，而眼前的这个樵夫，竟然听得明明白白。没想到，在这野岭之下，竟遇到自己久久寻觅不到的知音，于是他问明打柴人名叫钟子期，和他喝起酒来。俩人越谈越投机，相见恨晚，结拜为兄弟。约定来年的中秋再到这里相会。

和钟子期洒泪而别后第二年中秋，俞伯牙如约来到了汉阳江口，可是他等啊等啊，怎么也不见钟子期来赴约，于是他便弹起琴来召唤这位知音，可是又过了好久，还是不见人来。第二天，俞伯牙向一位老人打听钟子期的下落，老人告诉他，钟子期已不幸染病去世了。临终前，他留下遗言，要把坟墓修在江边，到八月十五相会时，好听俞伯牙的琴声。

听了老人的话，俞伯牙万分悲痛，他来到钟子期的坟前，凄楚地弹起了古曲《高山流水》。弹罢，他挑断了琴弦，长叹了一声，把心爱的瑶琴在青石上摔了个粉碎。他悲伤地说：我唯一的知音已不在人世了，这琴还弹给谁听呢？”   两位“知音”的友谊感动了后人，人们在他们相遇的地方，筑起了一座古琴台。直至今天，人们还常用“知音”来形容朋友之间的情谊。

没想到，莫名其妙的哭了。真的觉得，剑桥不是一个会让我留恋的地方，因为知音不在这里。为何我要对你们奢望友谊？明明知道自己跟你们不一样，却硬要和你们搭上关系，何苦呢？大学的朋友，不是真正的朋友。对你们而言，我或许只不过是一个不起眼、不值得你去认识的人。我认命了，算了。反正，强求不会让你我快乐，我就先行告别了。

尘埃落定。

2011-03-08T14:17:00.002Z

m said it quite right and succinctly that "humans cannot be relied on to be reliable". no matter what plans a person has, it only takes the other player(s) to screw it up and the planner only gets a sucker's payoff (lo and behold, game theory!). so, be a little more rational (and that doesn't even necessitate knowledge of probability) - you are better off acting for yourself!

which brings up a point on why singaporeans tend to be apathetic, compared to the brits. athena and i were talking about democracy versus efficiency and noticing how western democracies eschew efficiency for the advancement of political rhetoric. we tend to value making pragmatic decisions and not spend a vast amount of time trying to guess (and second-guess) what other people are going. to draw an analogy between the actions of ordinary singaporeans and the ruling party, the pap doesn't spend excessive amounts of time and energy on obliterating the opposition; rather, those resources are diverted to improving infrastructure and the civil service. while it might not have gone well in all aspects, it has made progress on some fronts. on the other hand, brits like to talk all day (i mean that quite literally in the context of balloting) about their plans and intended political manipulations and yet, when it comes to the crunch, they only grind to a halt, realising that their plan would never succeed.

as a sweet ending, i've gotten a desired room in east court, complete with hobs, quiet surroundings and nearby computer rooms and laundry. honestly, do you think i care the least about the warkworth cracks? those who got what they had always wanted, good for you. those who didn't, go enjoy your sucker's payoff. it might be a long while before you can enjoy any sweets at all.

tonight's gonna be a good night...

2011-03-05T23:54:00.003Z

like m, i was quite disappointed that our friends had gone ahead with their own plans without telling us, especially when we already had arrangements for tonight. it can't be that difficult letting us know that you can't make it, right? perhaps, they didn't think of us being significant enough to have that knowledge and, in some sense, i think i know which friends are truer than others. and even if some people might have questionable allegiances, at least, they are responsible and that is really all that i ask for.

having said that, the three of us had a really good conversation that straddled politics, sports, qr and films over pasta and beer. it was unprecedented fun and i think it was nice not having such a large group for once and having a boy-ish talk over everything under the (nearly non-existent english) sun :)

the red queen hypothesis.

2011-03-03T23:23:00.003Z

sometimes, i wonder if my thoughts are too mature or that they only seem mature because everyone else seems to be immature. my concerns seem very pragmatic - money, time, family, studies, love (with the aim of having a long and stable relationship) - when most people are still reveling in their dreams, not quite sure what they want with life or an education at cambridge, other than the next jagerbomb the night after.

i'm also unsure of allegiances. i can't say that the people i mix with are absolutely comfortable with me around and i can't claim to be entirely comfortable with them, either. unfortunately, that's to my disadvantage, since i'm the minority. for that matter, i can't claim to trust all the singaporeans, too. am i being too wary of everyone?

to tell the truth, i feel that i'm becoming a little over-competitive, more than i ever was in hc. that's probably because i have a scholarship to guard and i really am quite daunted by the work ethic of some friends. it feels as if there's only a very small margin for error (somewhat like the sort of inane statistics i do now) and it doesn't help that i DO know people who didn't manage to meet the requirements. and with the sort of things that i'm studying now, i feel helpless at times because i'm not catching up with others quick enough. or, maybe they are just putting up a front? i don't know; i'm killing myself with paranoia.

really need these two weeks to pass more quickly, and then, i can have some time to myself, to rebuild my mind from the shambles.

King's-Emma-Fitz.

2011-02-27T23:55:00.002Z

today's swap at emma had a nice dessert of pistachio cheesecake :) main course of (medium rare T.T) beef steak in a berry jus was a bit of a disappointment and the starter was just an ordinary puree of leek (or something veggie).

i particularly enjoyed the dinner conversations with daniel from fitz, who reminded me of bertie in the king's speech. he's a czech and it was kinda funny having a conversation while trying to understand what he was saying, although he was very engaging and fairly excited :) it wasn't easy to get beyond the stammer but i must say i really did learn to be more patient and it's rewarding to have a new friend, after putting in the effort to be a good host!

but what was perhaps more surprising was the very long conversation that i had with a king's girl and her friend from sciences po. i think it was because we all had something in common, that is, having spent a fraction of our lives in singapore, and so, we had much to talk about in the king's bar. it's odd that i should find all these people whom i find very nice to talk to all outside emma :/ but oh well, we will meet again in this small, little town, so auld lang syne!

the best way to get over a woman is to turn her into literature.

2011-02-23T00:28:00.003Z

just watched (500) days of summer and i must say that i have quite a lot in common with tom now. not such a good thing. if i were him, i would have been totally devastated and just pulled my hand away in the last scene of them together. it hurts too much to be so close and yet not be part of her.

damn the romantic angst.

poetry in cyberspace.

2011-02-21T20:23:00.002Z

once again, drawing my mind away from work, i wandered in the open fields of cyberspace, reading a blog and feeling the english chill against my calves. it was a. chong's blog and the last entry was written slightly less than a year ago. the places don't seem as unfamiliar as before but the feelings she evokes in those words are still as raw... and eerily resonant as ever.

why do my words never seem to transcend.

please...

2011-02-20T21:12:00.003Z

stop being so moralistic.

stop your grandiose dreams of everlasting friendship and unyielding loyalty.

think for a second or two, in my shoes.

then again, i'm a size 8 - don't think you can ever fit in them, walking debilitating miles, one after the other.

knowledge.

2011-02-20T19:05:00.002Z

can be immensely empowering but also terribly overwhelming.

i don't understand why i have to know that

is it because

you desire me

or that

you think i'm important enough

close enough

to be privy to such details

i don't know

i don't fully understand

but perhaps that's what you really need

a receptacle of secrets

that never lets loose

those little serpents

but because of what you said

her thoughts become a little more amenable

to my logic

that proposition might no longer seem

a thought untenable

why scientists should GET LIVES.

2011-02-20T13:47:00.004Z

(This was posted in response to a link DQ posted on Facebook, which was about a Caltech PI addressing a subordinate for having a questionable work ethic - not working on weekday evenings and weekends, and taking vacations.)

There's a reason why Nobel Prize winners in science don't usually come from China and most other Asian countries, with notable exceptions being Taiwan and Japan. Industry does not necessarily equate to making breakthroughs, although it is probably likely that you can increase citation counts through mere hard work.

Breakthroughs, or what history usually calls 'fortuitous discoveries', are really the results of 51% hard work and 49% 'luck'. Hard work brings you to a point where you have all the data that you need and absolutely no way of making sense of that apparent chaos. Then, 'luck' comes into play.

Without the 'luck' of having a life outside the lab, our lives would be much less enriched and I would argue that that breeds a myopic understanding of our science. It deprives us of the ability to appreciate life, robs us of well-deserved rest, and most importantly, impedes our ability to communicate.

Now, the last part is a bit tenuous and I should explain it. Having a life outside the lab means that you have a social life, which further implies that you have friends and family to talk to and have meaningful conversations. While many scientists (perhaps, those at Caltech) might not recognise it, such social interactions do prepare us for the presentations and grant proposals that we have to make in the course of our careers. What better way to hone these communication skills by talking to real people? Surely, staring at microscopes and sexing mice all day can't achieve those goals.

Opponents could argue that scientists have adequate interactions with other like-minded individuals within the laboratory setting and do not need extra time outside working hours to have meaningful social activity. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Why would we want to mix with people who already have the same belief systems as us? In the spirit of science, we should be open-minded and receptive to new and potentially unpalatable ideas by others, especially non-scientists, and make necessary modifications to our understanding for science to progress.

Next, being passionate about things that do not relate directly to work can benefit and rejuvenate our science. For example, spending some time baking could well go some way in training our procedural skills. like mixing flour and sugar in precise proportions and modifying pre-heating times. Managing different dishes - preparation, cooking, presentation and all - hones our ability to execute multiple tasks and that can go a long way in laboratory management, when we do get to PI level. On a more whimsical note, Kary Mullis once said that he discovered the idea of PCR while driving along the highway in his open-top car after a surfing session (I hope I remembered the details correctly.). Mind you, that's a Nobel Prize-winning innovation. And Kekule obviously didn't dream of benzene's structure while toiling away at his reflux apparatus.

All too often, hardworking people end up being counter-productive because they engross themselves in problem-solving. Great, but it doesn't create that many new problems for others. The best scientists are those who not just solve all or most of the existing problems at one fell sweep but also introduce a whole new paradigm that challenges the mere mortals and stimulates the formulation of newer, more exciting questions. In other words, greatness lies in the ability to create reality, rather than to contend with it.

Eat that, Caltech.

不知道的事。

2011-02-15T17:51:00.002Z

她的好朋友，知道她的旅行计划，但是，她知道我的参与吗？怎么感觉她有点鬼鬼祟祟。

疑心太重了。别想了，到头来只是困惑。还是少知道，来得好。

hypocrites of the educated and (usually) rich kind.

2011-02-15T13:41:00.003Z

i was reading the twitter feed on the proposed hike in tuition fees for the university. what struck me wasn't the fact that people were reacting adversely to the news with protests and what-nots. i was taken aback, perhaps even appalled, that those people are the very same individuals who do not find their own spending habits more a cause of concern.

every day, i can see people drinking themselves silly and clubbing themselves tired at the joints. and this month, we have a massive frenzy over the booking of may ball tickets, which can cost anything upwards of £100. june events cost £60 or so. and there are the more indulgent ones, who desire to attend as many of such post-exam events as possible, as far as their coffers can take them.

and they do all these without battling their eyelids. yet, when the tuition fees are raised by 50% (that's just for uk students in cam; i haven't even gotten to the self-supporting overseas students), they organise protests to make an ill-justified case.

i'm not saying the government is right in cutting university budgets but, at this point, with decreased governmental funding, it is only to be expected that the university raises fees to make up for the difference and that can only be through the acquisition of private funding. we may not like it, but it is the cruel reality.

so, rather than wallowing in despair and grunting of the imminent financial hardship, why don't they just learn to live a little more modestly and QUIT WHINING? if their grandparents could do it during the world wars, surely this little bit of austerity can be coped with?

跨过勇气的界限。

2011-02-15T08:09:00.003Z

喜欢一个人的勇气，从何而来？

就是在你决定

把友谊作为赌注的那一刻

骰子停止滚动的那一刹

心宛如被绞得血肉模糊

它还在跳动吗

还是

跳得更快

更频繁

脑子里总是有着你的身影

在想

她在想我吗

还是

她的心已插上翅翼

飞往远方的湿地

销声匿迹

留下心碎

请你做出抉择

将未来填空

至少

那时我知道

是该全心投入

或者不屑。