Busy these days. last Fri supposed to have a lot of activities but changed of mind to meet up with ZJ, ended up he called WD n CY for some HTHT so went home. Lousy day cuz it rained and ruin my night cycling plan, and thus i was phoneless bagless for the night.

Sat cell as usual, did a mini celebration but not as exaggerated as Serb's. After that went for Singing Festival at Parkway. The songs are so familiar, all that I know. Really great to have a good time singing though the rest was probably bored to death. Oh lucky Nick was enjoying himself too.

Sun wushu per normal, CL's bday so we do our usual "surprises" ahha. Then followed by bball, and then I give them the gifts (like finally after so long) and thats all. Rejected Serb and CH to have a rest on that day.

Mon we went for the interview and got in at once. I will be working with companies like Far East with a relatively high pay. I think I gonna like this job, probably try to pursue for Team Leader position.

It was also a lousy day, a couple of frankness of mine causes some unhappiness. Sigh. Ignorance is bliss, though knowing the truth give a better closure, but sometimes not knowing it would make the mind more optimist. Like the Taboo episodes on Death, Death rituals are the most exaggerated and elaborated ceremonies in many cultures, until the Western had Autopsy  which totally dont make sense to these culture that would consider it taboo to even look at the corpse again once the casket is closed. Some mysterious death are pitiful, but I dont know, would not knowing the cause of death brings more ease?

Just like the question in the Bucket List, would it be better for one to know the exact time of death?

Anyway, truth are actually subjective, subjective to a reason that one man understands it by experience and limited knowledge, thus it might not be the most accurate truth. 

Since man is incapable of reconciling mind and matter, he tends to confer some sort of entity on ideas because he cannot bear the notion that the purely abstract only exists in our brain.

There are..... no absolute truth......

Today I borrowed Paulo Coelho's Flowing Like A River. The first short collection I read was the pencil theory.

A pencil can produce many wonderful things, but still, it needed the hand to do so, the hand is like a pillar of support, like your family, friends and God.

A pencil can produce due to the lead, not the wood appearance, thus it is to remind us that ultimately, it is the inner self that is most important.

A pencil gets sharpened, in doing so it suffered, but it would increase its worth. Obstacles in our lives would only make us stronger.

A pencil can leave marks, be aware of all our actions and words, as its can make a difference.

A pencil could be erased, and corrected, we can still correct out mistakes and black marks in life, with the help of the eraser.

Sigh, I wonder what would my future be like. Somehow, I'm rather happy. Happy that some "crap" I talked is remembered by people around me. I'm also happy that things on my social circle is going alright. Well, A lvl is ending, gonna catch up with them soon in midst of all the projects frets. Seriously starting the hectic schedule and unknown source of frustration.

Today school as usual, then after that I went for the TpRawks talk on Media Comm, with 98.7 DJs Divian and Jacque, with guest appearance Dee Kosh. Well, cool experience, took a little photos, thats all, I mean media is a temporary thing, unless you want to have your face seen which I dont, since I want my private crazy life too. Then, we head down to PrizeStage Scape and caught 2 stuffed toys!!!! woots I can make it my living omg haha XD

Then, I met with the class 2 people, who generously offered me a tix for a preview of "Undefeated". I admit I almost slept, but managed to last through it all since the tix is free I should appreciate it, and most of all the effort the film maker gave for the documentary. It's a simple movie about "hopeless" people becoming champions, but I guess our non-football culture could not relate to it much.

What I like though is theme behind it, which is that "It is not about handling Success, but handling Failure". They loss barely at the end of the movie, but most of them achieved their dreams of getting into college, and conquered themselves. And one of it goes something like "When you do the right thing, everything will be alright". The story behind this quote is that one of them had a injury that he initially refused treatment. The coach insisted that he take break from football which he did and accepted treatment. In the end, he was offered football scholarship.

On Earth, everyone is observing everything from their own perspective. There is no absolute truth. This was a quote I get from Life of Pi review. I think it is really true. Since we all live in a different world on the notion that we all have a different world view, the line between perceived and reality is really hard to differentiate. It was as if whatever we feel right "should" be the truth, and then we get supporters and it eventually becomes the truth. This is why sometimes psychologist claimed that when a liar speaks a lie frequent enough, he psycho himself into believing in it too.

"Animals in the wild lead lives of compulsion and necessity within an unforgiving social hierarchy in an environment where the supply of fear is high and the supply of food low and where territory must constantly be defended and parasites forever endured. What is the meaning of freedom in such a context? Animals in the wild are, in practice, free neither in space nor in time, nor in their personal relations." 

See the irony? That when we have free choice, we are tied down by all the needs and threats, and thus we are not free, but in captivity, in forced situation, we are actually free because we do not have any choice to make, which thus we have no frets, and no need of making choices, and thus we are free to create perspectives.

Then a friend asked me once more on Master Wu Gui's quote, "There are no accidents". So he asked me about my view. My view, is that there are major events which could be predestined, but the intensity of it is up to free will. I mean, there should be no justification that people are born murderers right? The societal forces are responsible for this individual to swerve into the murderer life. I dont think Judas is born just to betray right? After all there is still choice. Perhaps he had the choice to "betray" in a smaller scale, to the point where he could have back out during the Last Supper, and perhaps Jesus would still die but in a different way or by a different person or at least it is indirect?

I choose to believe that  we all have an ultimate choice for our minds. For example, maybe there is a purpose for someone to be in certain occupation, he can now choose to either accept it and use this skill into something better, or just suck thumb and que sera sera, wasting the purpose. After all, we'd never know which situations or circumstances are really misfortunes, 塞翁失马 焉知非福.

Today is a short post thus I shall end with some vocab.

prusten
the quietest tiger call, a puff through the nose used to express friendliness and harmless intentions

ineluctably
inescapably

diurnal
active in daytime

acuity
keenness of hearing, sight, or intellect

Overall, I went home from TedxYouth with adrenalin about my own dream, or rather to even find one first. I wrote there in the big board, that I dream, people would share the world they live in. You and I live in a different world, in a sense the perspective we take of the world around us is different. We all have our own sub-culture and a world view. I would like people to actually share how they perceive the world, their own individual culture, to others, for a comprehensive view of the world.

Dreams are what you wanna achieve, how is the goal. We should not be overly concern about how do we achieve the dream, but to eventually live the dream. This is where they say that failure contributed to success, because we should start with the end in mind, that we will all emerge victorious, with a pool of knowledge and experience.

Sometimes, failing is good too. By failures, we come back as a stronger competitor. Failing don’t just mean you lost the war, you merely lost a battle. And why did we lost the battle, sometimes it is wiser to step back first, to go forth a longer road. Should be quit our dreams or make big risks? Well it depends, sometimes, failure do not come from things going wrong, but right actions not taken. I don’t think we should turn away from dreams, but its completely alright to turn away from goals because we are inadequately prepared. Then find a solution to solve it.

Many Succeed MOMENTARILY, Some Succeed TEMPORARILY, and Few Succeed PERMENENTLY.

Great minds think of ideas, average minds, events, small minds, people. This does not mean that we are not people-centered or people-orientated. It just means that great minds think of ideas how to alleviate the problem with an idea, not just sympathy for the people or to raise awareness by events.

Of course, we shouldn’t forget to recognize the invisible warrior. UBUNTU, I am because we are, an individual or the choices made are products of societal forces, not just merely an individual’s free will. Lurther King is known for his Dream speech, but who actually scripted it? These people, are the everyday heroes, that chose conviction over recognition, to achieve his dreams. This is the way it should be! We all have the ability to make our society a better place.

Dream It. Live It. Share It. All the best for all the endeavors out there!!

TedxYouth

Jon Lee

Jon Lee is a 13 year old Victoria KartDriver with the dream of achieving F1. His message is basically to dare to dream, and have structured plan and discipline for that. Really inspiring for such an awesome feat at his tender age.

Josiah Ng

I really liked what he has started. He is why I did the “While You Were Sleeping” initiative, which I really enjoyed though my motivation died down fast. He grew up being weird, but actually embraced this social stigma, and wore his “spandex” to be the everyday superhero.  Everyone is born for a purpose, like superhero, that if the abilities are not used, it becomes a fashion disaster, well, great power comes with great responsibility.

He also shared the UBUNTU culture, where a sociologist went to a tribe in Africa for an observation. The experiment is simple, it is simply rewarding the first child to reach the tree and back a bag of sweets. However, to his surprise, they ran for the bag of sweets hand in hand, on their motivation of UBUNTU - I am because you are. Having this in mind, he actually wanted to do something for Singapore culture, but initially flooded with the wrong questions of “who am I to do such thing”.

So my take is that, well, we must be mindful of such wrong questions. Many wrong questions are hindrance to fulfill our dreams. Question like “why as a nobody, should I do this?” or “why bother, Im a loser”, can really miss the opportunity to make a difference to the society.

Janice Wong

This speaker opens my appetite and my hunger to create art using food. She uses food as an expression to create interactive art, big scales of art, which would be constantly morphing as people consume the food used for the art. This is a really really interesting form of conceptualized art.

David Goh

What this speaker inspired me was his perspective of dreams, to actually focus on what you wanna achieve, not how, because if we fail to reach to a certain goal that contribute to our dreams, it don’t mean that the dream is gone, it just means that the method is not good, and simple take on another method, or to allocate more suitable human resource into it.

Joanne Kwok

Joanne Kwok teaches us to Settle to not Settle, which means to not be too happy in status quo, but reach out to dreams and passion, or reaching for ideal. She is now a creative director with a really cool card that could change colour by heat. She is the one that reminded is that it is no harm to be the nail that sticks out, that people would hammer down, because it will make the greatest dent, the greatest impact. Since young, she have been not choosing her life path, and ignored what she really wanted from life. Thus, after being in US, she was asked why to take on something she did not like. That made her feel that what you do should reflect what you are. Reminds me of work alienation hahas! Anyway, she eventually, after jumping here and there, joined the Yellow Octopus.

Kumaran Rassapan

He is a doctor that raised 30,000 for Hospital by climbing the Mount Everest. However, he shared about the concept about turning back. Society tends to deem people who turned their backs as quitters, cowards, and other social stigma. They brand success so highly that they do not understand the world they live in. For example, during the climb, he shared that an adult came down not reaching the summit, because he do not want his 2 sons to repeat a life without a father. In the contrary, a group of climbers came down after reaching the summit, with 7 fingers  amputated due to frostbites. He also shared that there are actually many ways to reach the summit, by hiring, by helicopter, or by climbing, and he believed that by climbing, we learn during the process, and that is actually true success.  

It’s the concept of conviction vs recognition too.

Krystal Choo

This speaker is really a convicted person. She successfully quit smoking, and started up the One Cent Movement. She believed that action is the key factor to change. She believed that success is personal, so it should not be something the society expects you to achieve. She tried delving into the events sector to improve her social confidence. She held on a strong believe that weakness is failing to Commit to your own goal. She feels that Failure is not caused by things going wrong, but Right Actions not taken. If everyone here choose to be better by 1%, collectively, this group will come out with greater feats that any 1 person could do 100%, small things do add up. SOME succeed because they are destined to, must MOST succeed because they are convicted to.

She also mentioned about a person with a dream of a lion chasing. So she would always run away from it, and probably got devoured when she collapse, and then wake up. So after consulting a lot, a pastor suggested her to turn around and ask the lion. So once, she actually turned around and asked, and her reply was “why are you running? I am your courage”.

Kuik Shiao-Yin

She is the founder of the Thought Collective, the School for Thought and Food for Thought. She shared how the magazine she designed, being thrown away, could make a difference a random girl whose father was coincidentally the KarangGuni Man, who collected these magazines. She reminded me that small things in life would mean a difference to others. She reminded me how simple greetings and chats could prevent suicides and depression, how a teacher’s words could impact a student for life and other incredible impacts on small trivial effort.

Georgina Chan

She is the most entertaining speaker so far. She got her proposal “I have no money, I have no job, I have no ring, but I love you, will you marry me?, she said “walao siao…. But I said yes, because I believe you” Anyway, so a series of random accidental events led her becoming an accidental photographer. Initially, she did not believe in herself to operate the camera, but came to accept it eventually. Thus, she shared “Believe in yourself, and the accidental things that happen to you, because there is always a purpose”.

Then, she wrote a book, and then coincidentally stumbled across a newspaper article of DBS big shot being a avid bird watcher, and requested him to come for her book launch on 9am. Strangely, he actually came, because he wanted to know the “lady who had the AUDACITY to call him at 9am for a booking that very evening”.

Btw, she shared that the National Bird is actually the Crimson Sunbird.

Daniel Wong

He is the writer of the “Happy Student”.  His simple takeaway for us is that Copernicus is right. Copernicus claimed that the Earth revolves about the sun, when the society thinks otherwise. What is means is to actually focus on making a difference to the community or society, and not for ourselves. He also shared that what most matters is the VALUE of the dream, not the PROBABILITY of the SUCCESS in terms of books sold.

Kan Lume

He seems to be more popular speaker. He shared that: Many Succeed MOMENTARILY, Some Succeed TEMPORARILY, and Few Succeed PERMENENTLY.

“To put is still more plainly: the desire for security and the feeling of insecurity are the same thing. To hold your breath is to lose your breath. A society based on the quest for security is nothing but a breath-retention contest in which everyone is as taut as a drum and as purple as a beet.” 
― Alan Wilson Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity

I think many times, Jealousy is indeed, invariably, a symptom of neurotic Insecurity. Though a little jealousy is healthy in a rs where it means how much the other means to you, but in a sense it might goads you to immense yourself in the insecurity deeper. I admit, as my level of self confidence and self esteem gets lower, the more insecure I feel and jealousy would seep in. However, it dont affect me much since I dont have any bgr, so its alright.

Anyway, back to topic, yea, sometimes, I feel that insecurity could be brought about upon yourself. Due to the overwhelming insecurities, the person will not be objective, the person will tend to love oneself more than the partner. In a sense, this person, lets assume is a "he", would start to evaluate her whether she is suitable for him, so he would place his own happiness and pleasure on the deciding factor whether the rs would be successful. Yet, on the process, this person would forget that both sides need to understand and compromise for each other in a rs, and also oblivion to what she had "secretly" done for the person, or what extend had she tried to get into his world. Somehow, I find this unfair, but then again, who am I to mind the matters. I dont have experience, neither will I have one any soon, so basically I think my viewpoint could be flawed and biased. Welcome anyone to share their opinion, just comment.

Anyway, found an article on common issues in relationship other than communication:

1) Jealousy - Afraid to lose
2) Attachment - no trust n self confidence
3) Domination - taxing on one n no mutual understanding
4) Selfish - Egocentric to own needs, oblivion to the efforts the other party put in
5) No time - Misplaced priorities
6) Too much time - no space for individual growth n creation of expression
7) Picking faults - Ignorance and no tolerance

source: http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/7-common-reasons-relationships-fail/

Today I finally finished my scrapbook. Due to the hardwork ive put in, I gave myself a gigantic treat of wawawa, 35 bucks spent. Well, then got a good chat too.

Sometimes, as much as I know that a person's choice do not only consist of individual free will, but mostly due to the societal forces around, I would think that somehow there are things that are meant to go a certain way. Today I know someone better, the person sinks rather deep in rs already, I was really expecting someone like me, casual about the other "half". As the person explained that he thinks a little jealousy is healthy in a rs, I thought about the song "guo huo", where the lyrics mentioned about one party giving too much freedom to the other that they started to drift.

I think its rather unfair though, that people nowadays do not try to savage rs and always turn to the break up door without hesitating much. As in, sometimes communication can be corrected and conflicts minimized if both are willing to accept their flaws and agree upon a common ground. But guess they have too much similarities, both insecure, easily jealous, and stubborn. Seriously, how to expect things will turn out if keep building walls.

Well, again I would insist on my point that I would not liek to rely on virtual tools and social media to keep in touch but rather allow each other space for our lives to have more diversity and topics when we 2 meet again. Perspective.

Anyway, then in class I was busy fb-ing another person, this person is rather sad, being betrayed again and again. Thus my Fb post:

Introverts are really vulnerable, first they bottled up their emotions and problems and stuffs, next they trust easily to whoever comes to them, and they will be extremely extrovert to the person when the wall breaks like how big dams do. Meaning is as if the dam breaks, and everything about the person will be revealed. This is vulnerable because the chance of getting hurt by untrustworthy ppl is high compared to extroverts who either open and not afraid of him being a read like a book, or those passive introoverts that only select few close ones but know alot of people. Lastly is pretentious introverts where they pretend to be introvert to "open" up to people. A strategy of getting ppl to talk to.

I do find myself a weird person, really I think I dont fit in anywhere, poor chad, but oh well, at least I know there are always the few that I could rely on, and blog, and in fact, everything is changing, nothing too surprising. Well, miss those sem 1 times of cards and songs and fun, but these are history now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nn5k4snG3rA&feature=relmfu

The above Ted Talk is talking about 3 types of digital lies. For example, the common lies we always make is "I'm on my way", "My battery flat out" and "I got to go". These could be seen as a form of excuses, and buffers, but it actually maintains relationships. The virtual world allowed us to be connected at all times, and thus its actually good to give both parties some space.

- Ppl lie subtly due to the permanence and search-ability of internet that made us lie to a lesser extent.
- Word analysis showed ppl who fake tend to use "I" more often cuz the real would describe it more spacial rather than putting yourself into it. Also, true reviews would less state the hotel name, and the activities they are doing, and high verbs and adverbs used.
- Then, online lying would set a record online, which is thus we might be able to see who are we better from these archives

Years of friendship can't last a misunderstanding, love can't last forever, trust nobody for the world is full of lies. What has the world become.

Diogenes of Sinope

So unlucky today, went for baby full month but never get to see baby, then took cab down from Punggol to blackbox missed the musical, wanted to catch movie but counter give wrong title, took bus the uncle go wrong way, 21 bus break down.... The now almost police case for witnessing family violence...... What a day....

Well, but anyway Ah Boys to Men isnt as nice as expected. I really expected more from Jack Neo, but I guess this lays a foundation for a better show for part 2 XD just like what Harry Potter did. Look forward for that. When CH asked me for it, I thought not to ask the cell to save their money, in the end the couple watched it, YJ and his gf watched it too, and we watched, and the one that wanted to watch badly didnt get to watch!!! So sad!!!!!! but funny!!!!!!!!! hhahahah!!!!!!!!!

Well, another week is gone, I should really celebrate, its a full steam engine ahead, with projects and assignments due, lessons to catch up, depavali to celebrate. JYJY Kaya!!

Lots of happening this week.

On wed, I attended Friend's Grandma Wake, all the way at dairy farm area.
It really got me thinking how short life is. I remembered about the 2 flower pots that dropped inches away from me. Then I think to myself, how successful am I? I have to judge myself by the number of people that I positively influenced, "measure yourself by the people who measure themselves by you". So how many positive influences have I really make? Perhaps this is why depression is so common nowadays, people think alot, and act alot, too many masks, that people often see situations in a very pessimistic point of view.

Today during ILP, we had to do a role play, and the scenario is a arrogant presenter that has no patience. Since we had limited time for it, I decided to impromptu about it and overlooked person A's opinions. Furthermore, during the seemingly funny role play, I "rebuked" person A to shut up. I said very exaggerated remarks like "go back to pri sch". After the role play, he was rather sad.

Some funny stuffs I said was "just like this water bottle, the supplier is temasek poly, the demand is you, cuz you dont drink you die, though you are better off dead" haha.

The classmates have excellent actors too, there's one with the blur auntie, the bo chup trainer, the depressed elderly. They are all pro actors really.

Then since our Ah Boys to Men plan is ruined, we decided to go 511 for supper, and drank and chilled. It was a really good gathering, the most heartwarming sentence said was when a friend said that he had more friends now than sec, he mentioned about 2 of them, then another one, and a new one. He refered me as the new one. I really feel like giving him a hug but I shall skip that. It was nice though chatting about our problems. Generally I find class 2 boys are more "manly" in terms of mind of their own. They are smart ppl that came here due to their failed maths. Lots of laughter, and most of all I found another guy that could match my knowledge and exposure to oldies!!! Lucky me. I really look forward to work with this group, and the exercise segment of the ILP. Short but buy sem, with many due dates to follow. Anyway, it was 1am, luckily weide lent me his bike and Im now at Jor house.

A week just passed. Sigh, it was all great except the part where I was unable to attend the i-Secrets talk, about cyber crime and sexuality. As such, I shall email them for the recording and materials, as I think it is a critical issue. With the convenience of the world wide web and advancement of technology, there create alot of platforms for vulnerable, insecure and curious kids to access to porns and practice them to the extend school girls strip for their "boyfriends". And guys, being lustful and incapable of self control, tend to hoax preys into their entertainment source, especially with charms and abs.

As an article states,
In particular the change in values wrought by the Internet. Underage prostitution, online pimping, teacher-student affairs, schoolgirls filming themselves in the nude, etc are on the rise!
http://therealsingapore.com/content/very-different-era-lee-hsien-loong-manage

Really, to do private stuffs alone is acceptable, but to degrade girls into such acts is really inhumane. I tend to lean into this belief, but the society I see now would pull me into believing they brought the trouble upon themselves. Sigh. Many western influenced teens are behaving like sluts and whores.

Speaking of that, I went to the Comedy Asia : Kings & Queens 3, and one of the epic joke was that he like "horfun" in geylang. So I was like, "really? geylang not well known for durian meh?", then he explained, there are "whores" and its really "fun"......... HAHAHAHAHAHA

Another issue I want to raise is to decriminalize suicide attempts.

The psychology behind these irrational acts are probably due to pressure and insecurities. Especially with media and current social trends, vulnerable teens would be more at risk of attempting suicide based on the monkey-see-monkey-do logic. As such it is not wise to criminalize attempted suicide because it denies the chance for them to have a second chance after their rash decisions. Though by making suicide a crime might scare certain people from attempting, I believe teens in that situation would not even think of surviving the suicide attempt. Thus at that state, they would not be thinking anymore. On one sociology video on suicide, statistics have shown that almost all the survivors of attempted suicide regretted their decision the moment they jump. Rather, there should be more social workers helping these lost sheeps. Many of these victims are pressured by society and felt that they have been a disappointment  As such they forgot the ties they have to the people around them, all the emotions and memories, and even the impact, that a large percentage of people that witness their loved ones suicide would choose to suicide as well. Therefore, the society must learn to be sensitive to people at risk.

Speaking of that, society should learn how to be tactful as well. Teens nowadays are a bunch of arrogant cunts who always act tough and big, only to shrink like a timid mouse when the real tigers come. Their conversation are full of foul words and attitudes that provokes anger and power play. They are quick to scold people stupid and dumb as if they are Einsteins. Also, the kind of attitude that initially "begs" people for companion, then diss them with phrases like "then dont go lorh", as if they are independent and do not need social companions, dumb people really.

Lastly, I would like to speak about an elderly couple whom I spent a day with in my next post soon.