Friday, April 27, 2012

My parents lost their 红色蜻蜓 when I was born.

Thursday, April 26, 2012

I came home from work to find that my dad had emailed me this:

Incident One: A little boy died because surgeons found ants in his brain! Apparently this boy fell asleep with some sweets in his mouth or with some sweet stuff beside him. Ants soon got to him and some ants in fact crawled into his ear which somehow managed to go to his brain. When he woke up, he did not realize that ants had gone to his head. After that, he constantly complained about itchiness around his face. His mother brought him to a doctor, but the doctor could not figure out what was wrong with him. He took an X-ray of the boy and to his horror; he found a group of live ants in his skull. Since the ants were stil l alive, the doctor could not operate on him because the ants were constantly moving around. The boy finally died. So please be careful when leaving food stuff near your bed or when eating in bed. This might attract ants. Most importantly, NEVER you or your child eat sweets before going to bed. You or your child might attract ants while you are asleep.

Incident Two: Another similar incident happened in a hospital in Taiwan . This man was warded in the hospital and was constantly warned by the nurses not to leave food stuff by his bedside because there were ants around. He did not heed their advice. Ants finally got to him. His family members said that the man constantly complained about headaches. He died and a postmortem or autopsy was done on him. Doctors found a group of live ants in his head. Apparently, the ants had been eating bits of his brain. So friends, be tter be safe than sorry. Never leave food stuff beside your bed when you go to sleep.

Please forward this to your friends and relatives.

omfg ants are all around me. There was once, I found that ants were crawling between pages of my notebook although I was certain that I haven't stained it with foodstuff, and another time(s) when those strange creepy things appeared on my arm out of nowhere. I must be hosting a nest somewhere. Of all living species, I abhor ants the most. Do you think the chances of having an ant-infested brain is higher in diabetic people? I now wonder if it had been worth my attempts to save their lives in the past; I used to think that life was precious regardless of the size of animals, so I'd spare theirs. Now that they seem to be a bigger threat, I think I should revise my philosophy.
"All lives are precious, except for Ants'."

Someone should design a drug to kill living ants in people's heads. Go, pharmaceutical researchers!

Friday, April 20, 2012

"I don’t know if there is anything in the world uglier than a disillusioned idealist."
http://humanitarianjobs.wordpress.com/about/a-word-about-motivation-and-disillusionment/

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

I miss Jennifer a lot.

Chua says that my blog's like a black hole, and that she feels like she's sucked into an abyss when she comes over. I suppose it's because I find it most alluring to blog when I feel like I'm stuck in a rut.

Do you guys remember the June Holidays that used to pass by so quickly?

In those days, a month was only 4 weeks, and before any of your friends have even done ONE jianbao, about 2 weeks would have passed already. That would have been half the holiday gone.

Post-As isn't enjoyable at all.

A month feels like forever, if I were to exaggerate, and if I were to not, it feels like 2 years.

I need a good book;

A story that is a secret between the author and I.

Something quiet, low-profiled. Something sweet, something simple.

A straightforward story, a sincere tale.

Monday, April 16, 2012

It's the second time I'm posting while seated at the nus bus stop. Hopefully this'd become a habit haha. Just had architecture interview. My plain model was brought out once again, much to my embarrassment, and I had had to defend it. My interview panel had been running behind time so I was asked to be fast. With that in mind, I think I had sped through too much. Hadn't done justice to myself ):

I have more confidence for the ID interview than this, but still, I hope to go into Architecture.

"Is architecture your first choice, "

"yes"(meek smile)

" or did you go by elimination?"

"(WHAT?) Huh no, I really want to do architecture."

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Happy Birthday Pa:D

:| (this one being the default face at home when I'm :) )

Architecture aptitude test wasn't that great, because I hadn't had enough time to fully piece my model. Am hoping that my concept will pull me through at the interview! Really want to ace the interview!

Industrial design aptitude test and interview was awesome though! Although I regret not having articulated some of my ideas, I think I've done fairly well. The interviewers grilled me about why ID was my 3rd choice, and why pharmacy was my second, because they're such diffrerent fields haha. They said that I had displayed significant inclination towards design, and that I really have to think through pharmacy - if I would spend the rest of my life memorizing drug stuff. They also said nice stuff about my design aptitude. In my mind, my second choice is now ID hahaha. The power of approval does wonders.

Please please let me get into choice 1.

Am in a good mood now.

Friday, April 13, 2012

Oh my goodness, what am I to make of the pre-aptitude test task for arch?

I'm asked to reflect upon an article about Chinese philosophy, and that's fine on it's own because I'm into a bit of philosophy...but it's phrased in a weird, academic, and *intellectual manner.

*'Intellectual' is, in the definition of Edward De Bono, pioneer of lateral-thinking, the art of making things seem more complex than they actually are by the use of jargon and difficult words.

I need a GP teacher, although it's impossible to get one at 3.07am on a random Thursday dated 13-Apr-2012.

By the way, I now understand the fundamental concept of Absurdism. Life is indeed meaningless and I've come to accept that. I would rather have stuck to my Absurd state though, because I was so much more motivated to accomplish stuff then.

Ultimately, life is meaningless because all it does is to maintain a birth-death cycle. It's about renewal. There is no Ultimate Truth to discover. It is but a process that is mandatory to all living creatures.

...but that doesn't mean I'll belittle it. Life is still precious, meaningful or not.

Life is precious because it is personalized and because it is a vessel in which our Selves can develop. I like to think of my Self as what my experiences have moulded me into. My Self is all my memories, all others' impressions of me, my mindset, perceptions, skills, personality etc.

okay enough blabbering. I have to stop myself from pouring out my incoherent rambles here. Time to find out what that archi article is about.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

so angry with myself. I really don't know what to do about it.

asked google, but it doesn't make me feel better. I want to shred my desk into wood shavings.

knsccbsmlscgccbccbccbcmffmfmfmfffff. cbl.

Recount:

Met Esther yesterday, and went to school today to see Mdm Arfah, mentor Mr Ethan Tay's sec2s, as well as to take my prep boards and to dismantle my A level installation in the Art studio today with Ms Teh's help. She taught me how to keep my work properly, and wrapped my pipes so nicely with some clingwrap thing that my rubbishly wrapped ones seemed out of place and extra rubbishly-wrapped. I also met Ms Ling, my sec2 history teacher(gosh sec2 was eons ago) during the mentoring session, and Ms Gao too, while I was scraping silicon off the floor. It's been a largely fruitful day. Exhausting though. Reached home at 8pm and slept till an hour ago (11pm). Woke up to see Usan's invitation to join ThinkQuest,...and missed it, because my reply had come too late. Am now doing random things like tallying my epayslip stuff.

Rant/start of a rant:

...Lord Chesterfield, I feel sorry that I had not taken heed of your well-intentioned advice.

Saturday, April 7, 2012

Just came back from breakfast with Jo.

Miraculously woke at 6:37am, almost 5 hours ahead of my usual wake-up time.

Phone had gone out of batt, so my alarms at 6:15am hadn't rung, and when I charged my phone while washing up/checking facebook, I saw Jo's text saying that she had had a feeling I had overslept:

Right on. I Had. By 7 whole minutes.

By the time I had reached our meeting place, it was already 6:48am.

Had our favourite breakfast at Coffee&Toast. Her highlight being the eggs, and mine being the tea. We chatted over stuff like D's new drama i.Rock, about class outings, about children(the twins at C&T were funny), I talked about the harry potter cast, we talked about jobs, she mentioned the guitar outing and about funny um, hahaha funny stuff.

Just like 老朋友s。The 六十多岁，会在周末一起下棋的老朋友。

It's been so long since I last had a game of Chinese chess.

In a while, I'm going to be 60. 30 might go by unnoticed. Time really waits for no man.

Then again, I don't need it to wait anyway. Why wait for me, when I don't intend to follow you. lol Time, you are so full of yourself.

I read an article on the most common regrets people habour before they pass away.

My dad email it to me before but I decided to search it up again yesterday.

If I were to live life thinking that I'd die soon, I would jobhop like nobody's business and star in a movie without worrying about fame and related troubles, then visit foreign countries and speak their language confidently even though I know nothing about it. Like if I were to go to Japan, I'd be all NIGOSAWAKINOMOJIMASHI instead of sumimasen, kono sakana wa ikura desuka? because I wouldn't care for their reply anyway. I'd just give them a large note and accept whatever change they return to me.

I'd do what people at teoheng/kbox in their last 5 minutes do:

value quantity over quality.

What we do at teoheng/kbox in the last 5 minutes: choose many songs and only sing until the first chorus, then go to the next song and sing a bit, then only choose songs without draggy opening stanzas.

What I'd do if I were to die soon: choose many activities that I think would be fun to try, and only do a bit of it before moving on. Like I'd take a hot air balloon ride(okay, let's pretend I haven't done this yet.) for only 10 minutes instead of the whole hour, so I wouldn't spend all my time relaxing and taking in the sight of all the hills of Capadocia, Turkey. I'd just look at some hills and then come down from the ride, drink half of the obligatory champaign, get my medal, and then head to Singapore to watch the second part of the King Lear play(after intermission). I'd wait on tables for a day, do admin work for another, then organize an event for the 3rd, do 2 hours of CIP on the 4th, do cosplay after that, ....

the one thing I wouldn't want to do would be to bungee jump off the Grand Canyon.

I see no fun in that. Why scare myself shitless over the feeling of near-death when I'd experience that in my last few waking moments.

I'd dress punk one day, princess another, freak afterwards, then gothic, then chinese, then ah lian, then elegant, and I'd dye my hair p...okay maybe I still wouldn't dye my hair. I like black hair and if I dye it it'd be just for the sake of trying for a change. Then I'd...

if I were really to die soon, I actually think I'd just do what I've always done.

I'd drag my sorry ass to work, head down to settle my will, inform my friends/acquaintances, resign about a week before my scheduled death, and in that week, slack like nobody's business at home, blog, watch pointless drama, read about philosophy and other nonsense, then bam, die.

far cry from the romantic pre-death itinerary I had planned for myself.

Besides, it wouldn't be about me. My death'd be somebody elses' event.

Death doesn't belong to the person who dies, because the person in question loses possession of it after he/she leaves the world. It's those who live on and remember, that will own my death.

When I die, my grandchildren can just dump me somewhere lah. I don't see the point of being cremated or buried. Leave me in an ulu bush so that when I become compost, I won't make a mess. I'd just become part of the soil. No need to dig in the ground, in case I decide to wake up or something.

I don't want to find out I'm not dead yet when I'm already 6 feet in the ground.

What a topic to go into after I've just had an incredible morning with Jo...but hey, at least I feel less crippled when I blog after having met her.

Before this, the way I blog had been the way I'd write a graded essay. Not in terms of the content/language, but more of the constipated writing I experience.

Especially in the first paragraph.

This post has been fluent so far. I type as I speak.

Okay I'm going off. byebye.

Friday, April 6, 2012

Mr. Ridiculously Photogenic

Zeddie Little from New York, 25 years old.

...definitely Prince Charming!

Had an impromptu outing with Weian today to the Singapore beach, just to leave our mundane lives for a while. Apparently we've been experiencing the same loss of identity issue since joining the workforce. The need to rediscover some social life reminiscent of our dhs days led to us having breakfast, getting stranded in a shelter(it rained once we reached the beach), sitting by the breakwaters, listening to westlife, walking miles and miles with suntan/sunblock(she and I respectively) on although it hadn't been sunny.

So she didn't get her tan, and I didn't get my...block.

Had been good though.

Last night I lay in bed and (jeez I'm hiccuping non-stop now. Been at it since the beach trip, though on and off lah) told God that I was lonely, as well as that worklife is devoid of compassion and friendship. Mine, at least. (/edit: okay thinking back, that's not true while I had worked as an admin temp). Then WeiAn's abrupt text came, and esther texted too, to ask me out. I was also reminded that I had the saturday morning to look forward to cos I'd be meeting Jo. What wonders, right? It's as though He had heard me. I may not have a religion, but I feel no less because of that. I believe in a force beyond our comprehension. Maybe that's what God's about?

It's been a good day.

Yay, Jo tomorrow.

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Absurdism

In philosophy, "The Absurd" refers to the conflict between the human tendency to seek value and meaning in life and the human inability to find any. In this context absurd does not mean "logically impossible," but rather "humanly impossible."^[1] The universe and the human mind do not each separately cause the Absurd, but rather, the Absurd arises by the contradictory nature of the two existing simultaneously. Absurdism, therefore, is a philosophical school of thought stating that the efforts of humanity to find inherent meaning will ultimately fail (and hence are absurd) because the sheer amount of information, including the vast unknown, makes certainty impossible. As a philosophy, absurdism also explores the fundamental nature of the Absurd and how individuals, once becoming conscious of the Absurd, should react to it.

-wiki

Okay I know I've just done something I've been told not do to since I first used the computer for school work: copied from wikipedia

First paragraph some more. Shame on me.

I just wanted to highlight that this is what has been running through my mind recently though.

Whenever I'm in one of those moods, I turn to 2 other blogs to read about their take on life, and I find my wiki. I'm not usually a big fan of wiki, because my teachers say it's evil, but it's really convenient. Besides, I remembered to credit my source (: albeit not in an academic and acceptable way.

As I type, Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake is playing. When the rhythm picks up, my typing naturally paces itself accordingly and I reckon I look like one of those maniac pianists.

About the finding meaning thing, urgh, it's troubling much. It like a battle between my consciousness and the force of nature, yknow. On one hand, I want to live my life knowing that every moment builds up to an absolute truth upon which I might discover at the end of my chores on Earth, but on the other, I want to slip into a comfortable routine and let distractions take away what philosophers might call my Authentic self. Most of the time, the latter occupies me.

When I don't work, I have nothing to do and I dwell on my lack of purpose. When I do work, however, I still feel like my existence has no value because I do things that support the current worldly conditions. In no way have I changed the world. I'm just a part of this whole cycle, where people are born and raised, and then they in turn give birth and raise their kids to keep the cycle going. It's as though there is no way that the world can change because the system cannot disintegrate. Society wouldn't let it. See, we seem to have a need for equilibrium. We counter almost any change that occurs because of our ontological anxiety towards the unknown: "who knows what might happen if we...?"

It's kind of like this photo. Okay, maybe not.

...more like this. It's like we're all in that car, and we try so hard to stay like that because any change, any slight movement, might either send us hurling through the air and into the deadly waters, or it might also bring us back to safety on land, where we can find comfort and perhaps drive someplace else to go see Florida's sunrise, but being natural pessimists, our emphasis is on the possibility of falling into the waters, so we're desperate to stay as we are. I would suppose that's why whenever there is any deviation from the norm, say in the economy, we'd go into panic. The same goes for worrying over a fall in birth rates, a rise in sea level, our spaghetti becoming too soggy, and our hm, grades fluctuating.

...

hur.

Well, that aside, I would like to mention that if the world is simply a projection from my mind, I'm probably not a very imaginative person. My world's kind of a bore.

I'd also like to point out that I hate sharing towels, and that I used to be an INFP but I'm not sure now because I feel so out of touch with myself.

Oh, and that there's a Kyushu fair at Tampines Mall.

I want to go to school/university now. Life is easy when you're encouraged to think of stuff that yknow, have usually been thought of before, and when you don't have to take shit from anyone, or to anticipate any, if people seem too nice to you now, ha.

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

I went into the kitchen for a sandwich just now.

The wholemeal bread was lying atop the microwave. I removed 2 slices from the loaf and held them between my lips so as to free my hands. Then I shook the limp loaf to join the top slice of bread, which I always skip, to the other slices that sport white fluffy sides. While my hands busied with that, my eyes scanned the counter for some peanut butter. The jar was propped against a selection of kitchen appliances and other condiments, and oh, the spread has expired since last year.

I couldn't put the 2 slices of bread back into the flimsy plastic wrap since they have been in my mouth, so I tried fix the situation by scouring the fridge for something else to complement the bread. Thinking that milk might not, for some reason, cut it, I opted for some green bean soup instead. Sometimes, the choices that I make are so bad that I cannot bring myself to explain them.

I went to the library just now to flip through some books about buildings. The materials that I had had were interesting enough, but the library atmosphere gets to me. I can't help but feel drowsy.

All the 'I's in this post seem so conspicuous. There's something wrong with me. I can't communicate.

ret·i·cent/ˈretəsənt/

Adjective:

Not revealing one's thoughts or feelings readily.

Synonyms:

taciturn - reserved - silent - uncommunicative

I like this word.

I am no longer capable of long posts. This kind of troubles me. I want to be articulate but nowadays I can't get seem to get the right words out of my head. All my thoughts are jumbled. It's back to the whole 'rearrange the words to make a complete sentence' thing again.

Hello, Primary 4 English.

Oh, while reading about ontological anxiety and existentialism, I came across an article that explained why immortality isn't all that great. The article mentioned a phenomenon that we can probably relate to: As we grow older, time passes more quickly.

Yes, right? It had taken me forever to turn from a primary 3 kid to a primary 5 kid, but senior high had only lasted a fraction of a second. Okay, forgive the exaggeration, but you know what I mean right?

According to the article, that's because as we grow older, a unit of time represents less of our entire life, so we perceive it as having passed more quickly.

In another moment, I'd be 60, and I'd be a resentful old woman because 60 years' too short for me to have found and fulfilled my dream. 19 hadn't been enough.

My parents would be old. I would live in fear that any moment then, someone would pass away. Perhaps me.

Wait a minute, I already worry that.

My attempt at a long post stops here.

Bye.

No one is simple at the age of 19.

In 19 years, one would have experienced ontological anxiety, bouts of superficiality, regrets, dilemmas, as well as have had their esteem challenged by all the falsifiable goals that have been, well, falsified.

How can a Self that has dappled in these thoughts be anything but complex?

I understand how birth can reproduce a biologically functioning organism, but what I really want to know is how Life begins. How does one produce a thinking unit that can experience and create, as well as has free-will?

Under the guise of university course applications, I have set myself up for a career.

How scary.

Drakon

get one from cbox!