Oh no...Guess the one who ate/drank Gek's photo???
Friday, December 29, 2006
Sunday, December 10, 2006
Workathon
Gawd I am so tired.
been working non stop for 4 days... average get-home time is like 2-ish in the morning. haven't even had time to breathe over the weekend and tomorrow is the start of another week.
Decided to give myself a couple of hours off tonight to rest, and here I am .... to keep a tab on when fishy actually starts on that blog entry she's been talking about so much!
hahahahah - i can see she hasn't been keeping up with those promises... tsk tsk
fishy.... if you have too much to say do it in instalments lah!!!!!!
Or is the man in the house keeping you too busy ? hiak hiak... tell us and we will show him! ;p
been working non stop for 4 days... average get-home time is like 2-ish in the morning. haven't even had time to breathe over the weekend and tomorrow is the start of another week.
Decided to give myself a couple of hours off tonight to rest, and here I am .... to keep a tab on when fishy actually starts on that blog entry she's been talking about so much!
hahahahah - i can see she hasn't been keeping up with those promises... tsk tsk
fishy.... if you have too much to say do it in instalments lah!!!!!!
Or is the man in the house keeping you too busy ? hiak hiak... tell us and we will show him! ;p
Monday, November 13, 2006
The Thing with the Pole
I hate pole huggers.
And I'm not refering to sexy pole dancers who make a living spiralling around poles. It takes a damn lot of muscle power to do that and these ladies are just working their butts off to feed the family. They've got my respect.
By pole huggers, I mean inconsiderate people who literally HUG the MRT pole as if it was their other half, while helpless commuters (like me) are struggling sans pole , with a 30-ton laptop bag, files and tottering on high heels in a speeding train. How dangerous is that? Who knows I might just fall and crash onto the babbling toddler next to me.
"Mama!" cries the cute little thing before my laptop bag and me come crashing down like a ogre on the poor little angel's head.
The MRT Pole is public property, not your personal gigolo. And its only proper etiquette to put 5 fingers on the pole to to maintain your balance, and not wrap your entire anatomy around it. Man, get a grip.
Don't be a hindrance to public safety.
Hug your girlfriend, boyfriend, mum, dad, mail order bride, whoever u want. Don't hug the pole. It doesn't belong to you.
And I'm not refering to sexy pole dancers who make a living spiralling around poles. It takes a damn lot of muscle power to do that and these ladies are just working their butts off to feed the family. They've got my respect.
By pole huggers, I mean inconsiderate people who literally HUG the MRT pole as if it was their other half, while helpless commuters (like me) are struggling sans pole , with a 30-ton laptop bag, files and tottering on high heels in a speeding train. How dangerous is that? Who knows I might just fall and crash onto the babbling toddler next to me.
"Mama!" cries the cute little thing before my laptop bag and me come crashing down like a ogre on the poor little angel's head.
The MRT Pole is public property, not your personal gigolo. And its only proper etiquette to put 5 fingers on the pole to to maintain your balance, and not wrap your entire anatomy around it. Man, get a grip.
Don't be a hindrance to public safety.
Hug your girlfriend, boyfriend, mum, dad, mail order bride, whoever u want. Don't hug the pole. It doesn't belong to you.
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Wedding bands
http://www.ifc.com.hk/english/shop.aspx?id=1023
http://www.blogger.com/www.jsnet.com.hk
Hey gals, this is the shop I was talking abt in IFC... With lots of wedding bands choices...but apparently they also sell other jewellery, but all in the concept of love :)
Take a look
Monday, November 06, 2006
ah...the sweetest thing
Yesterday I went to a friend's wedding. Was the sweetest one I've ever been to......It was a simply elegant wedding on the rooftop garden of the Fullerton Hotel, held in the intimacy of 10 over tables.
The opening address was a heartwarming speech by the father of the bride. He thanked all the people who has taken care of his daughter in her 10 years in Singapore and also showered praises on his new son-in-law. Next he presented a poem composed by his mother, my fren's grandmother who is 80 years old and has travelled all the way to be here for the wedding. Next there was a clever couplet made by a relative as well.
Next came the most charming and romantic speeach I have ever heard in my life...
The groom spoke in his usual unassuming and sincere manner, saying how the wedding has been tiring, time consuming and such, but still so sweet and through this, they went through yet another experience that convince them them that they will be for each other for the rest of their lives.
Then he narrate the story how his gf used to ask him at the inception of the marriage, "we are so different, so do you think we can have a future together" He thought for the longest time, and finally he gave this analogy," when you are doing a jigsaw puzzle, you will find that you can never put 2 pieces together if they are exactly the same." Further, he also reckoned that they are only different in some ways, but united by a huge underlying similarity .
Next his gf narrate the tale of the proposal, on how the Eastern Europe backpacking trip had a greater significance than what she expected. She recounted with fondness on how the trip must have become very intolerable for the groom for half the jounrey had transpired and yet there was no suitable moment to unveil that Solitaire.
Then, that fateful morning, they embarked on a trekking trip up the mountains but soo realised thet they were lost. At that point in time, they were stuck int the middle of the mountain, where one looked up to see no peak and down to find retreating impossible. At that moment of desperation, it seems like there's little hope. However, miraculously, they managed to somehow find their way and at that moment.
At that time, tears of relief and thankfulness were rolling freely down the bride's face and of course our hero saw the moment and swiftly whipped out his Solitaire. And to recollect that special day, they actually engraved the date on the inside of the ring.
The bride then teased to say how the groom would subsequently relate the proposal to his frens in triumph on she was crying like a baby when he proposed, but one shd really know the context.
Next the mic was passed back to my fren who then finished up by saying how it was very fateful that they have met, in the sense that they might never have met if they had gone on the typical path since their provinces were 300 miles apart. At this juncture I notiecd that he was pausing at weird intervals and I was wondering why. Then I realised that he was actually so touched that he was weeping tears of joy.
The bride volunteered to continue the speech on his behalf but he kept saying that he could do it. Then he the bride teasingly remarked on how they discussed a few nights ago as to who would like to make the speech but the groom had offered to do it as he felt that her being the more emotional and rash one, she would probably not be able to do it without crying.
And finally he concluded the speeach by asking if we had noticed the classical piece that was played at the opening march. It was by one of their favourite composer. This composer, he explained, had written many love songs for the wife and this was their favourite piece. He then said that while he did not have the talent of his composer, he would like to do something for his wife too, which is to sing a native love song.
It was so touching a speech and song that soon after I heard the sniffs amongst the audience as well.
It was the sweetest wedding I've ever gone to. Who says one needs all that fancy outfits and swanky band? The purest love and the words from the heart surpass it all.
The opening address was a heartwarming speech by the father of the bride. He thanked all the people who has taken care of his daughter in her 10 years in Singapore and also showered praises on his new son-in-law. Next he presented a poem composed by his mother, my fren's grandmother who is 80 years old and has travelled all the way to be here for the wedding. Next there was a clever couplet made by a relative as well.
Next came the most charming and romantic speeach I have ever heard in my life...
The groom spoke in his usual unassuming and sincere manner, saying how the wedding has been tiring, time consuming and such, but still so sweet and through this, they went through yet another experience that convince them them that they will be for each other for the rest of their lives.
Then he narrate the story how his gf used to ask him at the inception of the marriage, "we are so different, so do you think we can have a future together" He thought for the longest time, and finally he gave this analogy," when you are doing a jigsaw puzzle, you will find that you can never put 2 pieces together if they are exactly the same." Further, he also reckoned that they are only different in some ways, but united by a huge underlying similarity .
Next his gf narrate the tale of the proposal, on how the Eastern Europe backpacking trip had a greater significance than what she expected. She recounted with fondness on how the trip must have become very intolerable for the groom for half the jounrey had transpired and yet there was no suitable moment to unveil that Solitaire.
Then, that fateful morning, they embarked on a trekking trip up the mountains but soo realised thet they were lost. At that point in time, they were stuck int the middle of the mountain, where one looked up to see no peak and down to find retreating impossible. At that moment of desperation, it seems like there's little hope. However, miraculously, they managed to somehow find their way and at that moment.
At that time, tears of relief and thankfulness were rolling freely down the bride's face and of course our hero saw the moment and swiftly whipped out his Solitaire. And to recollect that special day, they actually engraved the date on the inside of the ring.
The bride then teased to say how the groom would subsequently relate the proposal to his frens in triumph on she was crying like a baby when he proposed, but one shd really know the context.
Next the mic was passed back to my fren who then finished up by saying how it was very fateful that they have met, in the sense that they might never have met if they had gone on the typical path since their provinces were 300 miles apart. At this juncture I notiecd that he was pausing at weird intervals and I was wondering why. Then I realised that he was actually so touched that he was weeping tears of joy.
The bride volunteered to continue the speech on his behalf but he kept saying that he could do it. Then he the bride teasingly remarked on how they discussed a few nights ago as to who would like to make the speech but the groom had offered to do it as he felt that her being the more emotional and rash one, she would probably not be able to do it without crying.
And finally he concluded the speeach by asking if we had noticed the classical piece that was played at the opening march. It was by one of their favourite composer. This composer, he explained, had written many love songs for the wife and this was their favourite piece. He then said that while he did not have the talent of his composer, he would like to do something for his wife too, which is to sing a native love song.
It was so touching a speech and song that soon after I heard the sniffs amongst the audience as well.
It was the sweetest wedding I've ever gone to. Who says one needs all that fancy outfits and swanky band? The purest love and the words from the heart surpass it all.
Saturday, October 28, 2006
AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH
A MUST-WATCH ..... AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH
Most insightful show I've seen in a while. Ask all your firends and family along!!
http://www.climatecrisis.net/
"It's difficult to get a man to understand something if his salary depends on him not understanding it"
Most insightful show I've seen in a while. Ask all your firends and family along!!
http://www.climatecrisis.net/
Sunday, October 22, 2006
who invented the straw & why?
Last night as we are toasting to drinks and all, we were wondering who invented the straw and for hwat purposes.....various hypotheses were formed, but none were closed to this...so presenting....the origins fo straws..
1) The first straws
Straws made it possible to avoid drinking the sediment that was so prevalent in ancient beer and wine. Historians often credit the Egyptians with first using drinking straws to sip beer. Considering that beer has been around for thousands of years -- an Assyrian tablet has Noah stocking his ark with beer in 2,000 B.C. -- we can reasonably guess that the straw has been around for much of that time as well, and there is historical evidence to back this up. A 6,000-year-old Sumerian tablet shows ancient Sumerians enjoying a communal drink and sipping through a reed straw. Brewing was recorded in the written history of Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, and art from that time shows the ancients sipping through straws. There is evidence that the Babylonians used straws to drink beer as well. In the case of Babylonian royalty, beer was sipped through a golden straw that reached from the throne to a nearby container of the kingdom's finest.
For those who weren't Babylonian royalty, and most people in the ancient world weren't, there was a simpler and cheaper straw than gold tubes: reeds, tall grasses, and natural straw. Rye grass was often used. Though it has a narrow opening, this grain is stiff and hollow. These naturally growing straws were far from ideal, however. The grass wasn't always easy to come by, and it has a distinct taste that imposed badly on the drink.
2) The straws we see today
Thousands of years later, straw technology hadn't progressed at all. If Victorian-era drinkers wanted to slurp a cold julep through a narrow tube, they still used rye grass straws. It wasn't until 1890 that these problems were solved.
In 1888, Marvin Stone patented the spiral winding process to manufacture the first paper drinking straws. Stone was already a producer of paper cigarette holders. His idea was to make paper drinking straws.
Stone made his prototype straw by winding strips of paper around a pencil and gluing it together. He then experimented with paraffin-coated manila paper, so the straws would not become soggy while someone was drinking. Marvin Stone decided the ideal straw was 8 1/2-inches long with a diameter just wide enough to prevent things like lemon seeds from being lodged in the tube.
So here's the story of the straw........courtesy of Wikipedia & Daily Lush magazines
1) The first straws
Straws made it possible to avoid drinking the sediment that was so prevalent in ancient beer and wine. Historians often credit the Egyptians with first using drinking straws to sip beer. Considering that beer has been around for thousands of years -- an Assyrian tablet has Noah stocking his ark with beer in 2,000 B.C. -- we can reasonably guess that the straw has been around for much of that time as well, and there is historical evidence to back this up. A 6,000-year-old Sumerian tablet shows ancient Sumerians enjoying a communal drink and sipping through a reed straw. Brewing was recorded in the written history of Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, and art from that time shows the ancients sipping through straws. There is evidence that the Babylonians used straws to drink beer as well. In the case of Babylonian royalty, beer was sipped through a golden straw that reached from the throne to a nearby container of the kingdom's finest.
For those who weren't Babylonian royalty, and most people in the ancient world weren't, there was a simpler and cheaper straw than gold tubes: reeds, tall grasses, and natural straw. Rye grass was often used. Though it has a narrow opening, this grain is stiff and hollow. These naturally growing straws were far from ideal, however. The grass wasn't always easy to come by, and it has a distinct taste that imposed badly on the drink.
2) The straws we see today
Thousands of years later, straw technology hadn't progressed at all. If Victorian-era drinkers wanted to slurp a cold julep through a narrow tube, they still used rye grass straws. It wasn't until 1890 that these problems were solved.
In 1888, Marvin Stone patented the spiral winding process to manufacture the first paper drinking straws. Stone was already a producer of paper cigarette holders. His idea was to make paper drinking straws.
Stone made his prototype straw by winding strips of paper around a pencil and gluing it together. He then experimented with paraffin-coated manila paper, so the straws would not become soggy while someone was drinking. Marvin Stone decided the ideal straw was 8 1/2-inches long with a diameter just wide enough to prevent things like lemon seeds from being lodged in the tube.
So here's the story of the straw........courtesy of Wikipedia & Daily Lush magazines
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Real examples of Goodbyes for your reference..in case you need them
Option 1 - Short & Sincere
Dear All
Today is my last day with XXX. The past 2.5 years has been intense & challenging, however I have learnt a great deal from each and everyone of you. Thank you for teaching & sharing with me your knowledge, and making my time here a rewarding & memorable one.
Till our paths cross again, take care & wishing all of you all the best. Keep in touch. My e-mail: XXX
Option 2 - Thankful & Acknowledgmentful
Hi All,
Today is my last day at XXX. Extremely sad to be leaving you all. It has been a great learning experience and I have enjoyed every moment of it. How many can boast that they had once worked in the largest and most successful Financial Institution in the world. Thank you all so much.
I will miss all of you. Here at XX, I have never regarded anyone as colleagues but as friends. Thank you for all your love and care for this little bro here. Please keep in touch.
Really greatful to
Mr XXX for the wonderful opportunity. Thank You Sir.
My Boss Mr XX for all your patience, care and guidance. So glad to have a chance to work with you. Thank You so much.
My manager Ms 'good complexion, forever young' XXX for being my first teacher who is ever so patient with me. Really glad to have a chance to work with you.
Mr XXX, my xXX, for all your teachings on compliance! Will miss you.
Thank you all again.
Option 3 - Powerful
As today is my last day XXX of work at XXXX, I would like to take this opportunity to extend my sincere appreciation and thanks to all my dearest colleagues who have had shown care, concern, and support to me during my 3 years employment period.
My stay here has gained me many friends whom I will miss and it has given me a wealth of experience which will be beneficial to my career. Indeed, their great enthusiasm had inspired me to achieve above my performance expectation. Despite having to manage some constraints positively, I am glad to maintain my personal career record of constant achievement of every annual performance expectation. Thankfully, these years of working experiences were certainly made possible with the professionalism and teamwork of all my colleagues from every respective departments.
After much thought, I have decided to try to seek other, hopefully, better opportunities for advancement.
It has been a great pleasure working with you .
May I wish everyone of you with great wealth, good health, much happiness and success in every endeavor.
Lets keep in touch, Adieu!!!
Option 4 - Sincere Thanks
Tommorrow will be my official last day ending my 7 years & 7 months career in this bank.
I will be back tomm afternoon to hand-over my stuffs.
It never easy to say “Good-Bye” to the nicest people that I have ever known in my career.
It is tough for me to make a decision to alight the train halfway without accompanying you all to the destination.
Trust me - Such decisions were never easy
Especially
I have spent my last 7 & half years with XXX .
Whatever is the pushed & pulled factor - it is for the family.
THANK YOU VERY MUCH for all the support and trust all of you have in me.
I have learned a lot from every one of you along the way as every one of you are special and talented in your own way.
Good Luck, all the best & take care!!
Dear All
Today is my last day with XXX. The past 2.5 years has been intense & challenging, however I have learnt a great deal from each and everyone of you. Thank you for teaching & sharing with me your knowledge, and making my time here a rewarding & memorable one.
Till our paths cross again, take care & wishing all of you all the best. Keep in touch. My e-mail: XXX
Option 2 - Thankful & Acknowledgmentful
Hi All,
Today is my last day at XXX. Extremely sad to be leaving you all. It has been a great learning experience and I have enjoyed every moment of it. How many can boast that they had once worked in the largest and most successful Financial Institution in the world. Thank you all so much.
I will miss all of you. Here at XX, I have never regarded anyone as colleagues but as friends. Thank you for all your love and care for this little bro here. Please keep in touch.
Really greatful to
Mr XXX for the wonderful opportunity. Thank You Sir.
My Boss Mr XX for all your patience, care and guidance. So glad to have a chance to work with you. Thank You so much.
My manager Ms 'good complexion, forever young' XXX for being my first teacher who is ever so patient with me. Really glad to have a chance to work with you.
Mr XXX, my xXX, for all your teachings on compliance! Will miss you.
Thank you all again.
Option 3 - Powerful
As today is my last day XXX of work at XXXX, I would like to take this opportunity to extend my sincere appreciation and thanks to all my dearest colleagues who have had shown care, concern, and support to me during my 3 years employment period.
My stay here has gained me many friends whom I will miss and it has given me a wealth of experience which will be beneficial to my career. Indeed, their great enthusiasm had inspired me to achieve above my performance expectation. Despite having to manage some constraints positively, I am glad to maintain my personal career record of constant achievement of every annual performance expectation. Thankfully, these years of working experiences were certainly made possible with the professionalism and teamwork of all my colleagues from every respective departments.
After much thought, I have decided to try to seek other, hopefully, better opportunities for advancement.
It has been a great pleasure working with you .
May I wish everyone of you with great wealth, good health, much happiness and success in every endeavor.
Lets keep in touch, Adieu!!!
Option 4 - Sincere Thanks
Tommorrow will be my official last day ending my 7 years & 7 months career in this bank.
I will be back tomm afternoon to hand-over my stuffs.
It never easy to say “Good-Bye” to the nicest people that I have ever known in my career.
It is tough for me to make a decision to alight the train halfway without accompanying you all to the destination.
Trust me - Such decisions were never easy
Especially
I have spent my last 7 & half years with XXX .
Whatever is the pushed & pulled factor - it is for the family.
THANK YOU VERY MUCH for all the support and trust all of you have in me.
I have learned a lot from every one of you along the way as every one of you are special and talented in your own way.
Good Luck, all the best & take care!!
Sunday, October 15, 2006
Life is Short
Fishy, it's time to welcome the new chapter in your life with open arms!!!! It's something you want very much to do isn't it? and we all feel very happy for you ;p *HUGZ*
no doubt we will all miss you and you will miss us too (you better, otherwise I will kick your little ass right NOW - *note how i managed to issue a threat and a compliment in the same breath?????? * hahahahahahaha ;p) but we're just 4 hours away yeah? go get skype or a cheap HK-SG phone card or something.. hehehe... it's time i dug my old webcam out of retirement too! ;p We can still keep in touch, gripe about work and bosses and pea-brained colleagues over a cuppa on two ends of the computer moniter WAT......And of course we will visit! ;)
Life is short babe, so when you get the chance, don't be afraid to do what you wanna do, and don't regret or feel sad :) there will always will be a give-and-take situation, so you just have to focus more on the good things that you will gain! :)
You'll always be in my thoughts
no doubt we will all miss you and you will miss us too (you better, otherwise I will kick your little ass right NOW - *note how i managed to issue a threat and a compliment in the same breath?????? * hahahahahahaha ;p) but we're just 4 hours away yeah? go get skype or a cheap HK-SG phone card or something.. hehehe... it's time i dug my old webcam out of retirement too! ;p We can still keep in touch, gripe about work and bosses and pea-brained colleagues over a cuppa on two ends of the computer moniter WAT......And of course we will visit! ;)
Life is short babe, so when you get the chance, don't be afraid to do what you wanna do, and don't regret or feel sad :) there will always will be a give-and-take situation, so you just have to focus more on the good things that you will gain! :)
You'll always be in my thoughts
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
mastercard
Diarrhoea - $29
Fever - $39
Cramps - $0.50
Siff neck - $45
Health - Priceless
That's why today I prayed for all's good health and safety.
Fever - $39
Cramps - $0.50
Siff neck - $45
Health - Priceless
That's why today I prayed for all's good health and safety.
The first shower after a long drought. And when it rains... it POURS
hahahah... i can't believe it... so many posts since Saturday!!!! (by the same.. *ah-hem* 2 ppl, nonetheless...)
am working at home how, so no time to look at all the posts yet. right knee hurting from all the abuse i heaped on it for the past 2 days (i only went on the treadmill for half an hour each morning, mind you). i hereby conclude that i am getting old (that, or my knee is undergoing some serious pre-mature aging)
*happy* got the mooncakes from fishy today!!!! can't wait to try 'em! hehehe.... can't wait for Sat as well, MAF + our little mooncake party!!
well... better get back to work, not much time left to bedtime.....
am working at home how, so no time to look at all the posts yet. right knee hurting from all the abuse i heaped on it for the past 2 days (i only went on the treadmill for half an hour each morning, mind you). i hereby conclude that i am getting old (that, or my knee is undergoing some serious pre-mature aging)
*happy* got the mooncakes from fishy today!!!! can't wait to try 'em! hehehe.... can't wait for Sat as well, MAF + our little mooncake party!!
well... better get back to work, not much time left to bedtime.....
The tipping point
I don't know why I'm still here, cos the night isn't that young anymore and so ain't I, but my mind is bright after an entire day of dizziness and nausea.
We are all taught by our well meaning parents since we were wee toddlers, the difference between right and wrong, evil and good.
Stealing is wrong. Giving is good. Beating people up is wrong. Unless its in self defence. (Though of course some would differ on this)
In many cases, the line between right and wrong is faint and blurred, leaving people befuddled in no man's land.
Since ancient times, punishment has been used as the "stick" to preventing immoral human beings from committing the most sacrigalous of crimes. (The Chinese have a very useful tool called the "teng tiao", of which I'm sure many of my naughty friends out here have fallen victim to)
We could therefore safely assume that state punishment is the biggest stick of all, and thus the government is sends the ultimate signal of what is right and wrong in the country.
For democratic countries, the governments are elected by the majority vote.
Hence, the laws of the country , the signal that shows what is right and wrong is chosen by the majority of the people in the country.
(The following example is purely hypotheical and has no political suggestions. Any resemblence to persons dead or alive is purely coincidental )
This country is made up of people A and people B, with A being the 99% majority.
What if the majority of the country are of people A and they elect a government that is bent on anihilating race B?
Would this make the anihilation of B right, since it was a decision by the majority?
What if this decision makes the majority -people A happy since there have been inter racial tensions brewing between the countries for eons?
Perhaps happines of the majority is the tipping point between right and wrong.
Assuming that most humans are selfish, they will make decisions based on how happy they will be.
Hence, if the majority of the people are happy with the decision, the decision will be made.
Is this the "right" way to draw the line between good and evil?
We are all taught by our well meaning parents since we were wee toddlers, the difference between right and wrong, evil and good.
Stealing is wrong. Giving is good. Beating people up is wrong. Unless its in self defence. (Though of course some would differ on this)
In many cases, the line between right and wrong is faint and blurred, leaving people befuddled in no man's land.
Since ancient times, punishment has been used as the "stick" to preventing immoral human beings from committing the most sacrigalous of crimes. (The Chinese have a very useful tool called the "teng tiao", of which I'm sure many of my naughty friends out here have fallen victim to)
We could therefore safely assume that state punishment is the biggest stick of all, and thus the government is sends the ultimate signal of what is right and wrong in the country.
For democratic countries, the governments are elected by the majority vote.
Hence, the laws of the country , the signal that shows what is right and wrong is chosen by the majority of the people in the country.
(The following example is purely hypotheical and has no political suggestions. Any resemblence to persons dead or alive is purely coincidental )
This country is made up of people A and people B, with A being the 99% majority.
What if the majority of the country are of people A and they elect a government that is bent on anihilating race B?
Would this make the anihilation of B right, since it was a decision by the majority?
What if this decision makes the majority -people A happy since there have been inter racial tensions brewing between the countries for eons?
Perhaps happines of the majority is the tipping point between right and wrong.
Assuming that most humans are selfish, they will make decisions based on how happy they will be.
Hence, if the majority of the people are happy with the decision, the decision will be made.
Is this the "right" way to draw the line between good and evil?
Monday, October 02, 2006
Musings
There are many types of people in this world. Some are beautiful, some are smart, some are atheletic, some are rich and some, just have it all. Those people with innate talent have it easier in life, because like bees to honey, these beings attract success and popularity. Some human beings, having tasted the sweetness of success and apparent adulation of fellow human beings around them feel they are a little more worthy than others, and thus have a right to judge them.
But we forget that we are all, homo sapiens, with flaws and virtues, fallible to errors and vulnerable to pain.
We all come into this world, naked and crying and we go into the light with nothing on our backs.
So what gives a person the right to cast the stone of disapproval when he himself is equally fallible to the same mortal fear, mistakes and hurt?
Some would argue that everyone's entitled to their own opinions and freedom of speech and expression makes the world a much more interesting place while keeping oppresion at bay.
But what good does it do when careless remarks breed resentment, cause hurt and fracture relationships?
You can point your finger in any direction you want, just stop when you poke and blind your neighbour's eyes.
Your right to flail your arms stop when you cause hurt to another person's body.
That's my take on it. Then again, what do I know? I'm a human bean after all.
But we forget that we are all, homo sapiens, with flaws and virtues, fallible to errors and vulnerable to pain.
We all come into this world, naked and crying and we go into the light with nothing on our backs.
So what gives a person the right to cast the stone of disapproval when he himself is equally fallible to the same mortal fear, mistakes and hurt?
Some would argue that everyone's entitled to their own opinions and freedom of speech and expression makes the world a much more interesting place while keeping oppresion at bay.
But what good does it do when careless remarks breed resentment, cause hurt and fracture relationships?
You can point your finger in any direction you want, just stop when you poke and blind your neighbour's eyes.
Your right to flail your arms stop when you cause hurt to another person's body.
That's my take on it. Then again, what do I know? I'm a human bean after all.
Sunday, October 01, 2006
What their old people do. Actually maybe we should have something like that in Singapore. I mean rather than staying cooped at home watching TV or trapped in the old folk's home, how nice if they could go to the park and do whatever they want, be it playing of cards, learning how to sing, listening to opera etc etc.
Pictures of the China Trip
As you can see, this is a day of maniac blogging to make up for all the lost time and to revive this space. As such, I have painstakingly copied some of the worthy articles extracted from the most recent book I have read.Hope you like them too.
Next I have enclosed a colourful montage of the narcissistic pictures taken during the Thailand and Beijing trip. Enjoy!!
Next I have enclosed a colourful montage of the narcissistic pictures taken during the Thailand and Beijing trip. Enjoy!!
The funny thing about human beings
A man asked my friend Jaime Cohen: 'What is the human being's funniest characteristic?"
Cohen said: ' Our contradictoriness. We are in such a hurry to grow up, and then we long for our lost childhood. We make ourselves ill earning money, and then spend all our money on getting well again. We think so much about the future that we neglect the present, and thus experience neither the present nor the future. We live as if we were never going to die, and die as if we had never lived.'
Extract from 'Like the moving river' by Paulo Coelho
So what do you think is the funniest abt human beans?
Cohen said: ' Our contradictoriness. We are in such a hurry to grow up, and then we long for our lost childhood. We make ourselves ill earning money, and then spend all our money on getting well again. We think so much about the future that we neglect the present, and thus experience neither the present nor the future. We live as if we were never going to die, and die as if we had never lived.'
Extract from 'Like the moving river' by Paulo Coelho
So what do you think is the funniest abt human beans?
Last Journey
The article is about an American woman, Vera Anderson, who spent all her life in Medford, Oregon. When she was getting on in years, she suffered a stroke which confined her to her room. This was a torment for it has always been her dream to travel the world. Before she make her final journey - the one from which we never return - she made a decision. She would travel the world after her death.
Ross, her son, went to the local notary public and retgistered his mother's will. When she died, she would like to be cremated. Nothing unusual about that. But the will went on to stipulate that hwe ashes were to be placed in 241 small barfs, which were to be sent to the heads of postal offices in the 50 American states , and to each of the 191 countires of the world, so that at least part of her body would end up visiting the places she had always dreamed about.
As soon as Vera died, Ross carried out her last wishes with all the respect anyone could hope in a son. With each remittance, he asked that his mother be given a decent funeral.
Everyone who received her ashes treated Ross's request with utter seriousness. In the four corners of the earth, a silent chain of solidarity was formed, in which sympathetic strangers organised the most diverse of ceremonies, depending on the place that the late Anderson would have liked to visit.
Thus, Vera's ashes were scattered in Lake Titicaca, in Bolivia, accordingly to the ancient traditions of the Aymara Indians; they were scattered on the river in front of the Royal Castle in Stockholm, Sweden, on the banks of the Chao Phraya in Thailand, in a Shinto temple in Japan, on the glaciers of Antarctica, in the Sahara desert. the sisters of charity in an orphanage in South America prayed for a week before scattering the ashes int he garden and then decided that Vera Anderson be considered a kind of guardian angel of the place.
Ross Anderson received phtos from the five continents, from all races and all cultures, showing men and women honouring his mother's last wishes.
When we see today's divided world, a world in which no one seems to care about anyone else, Vera Anderson's last journey fills us with hope that there is still respect, love and generosity in the souls of our fellow human beings, however far away they may be.
Ross, her son, went to the local notary public and retgistered his mother's will. When she died, she would like to be cremated. Nothing unusual about that. But the will went on to stipulate that hwe ashes were to be placed in 241 small barfs, which were to be sent to the heads of postal offices in the 50 American states , and to each of the 191 countires of the world, so that at least part of her body would end up visiting the places she had always dreamed about.
As soon as Vera died, Ross carried out her last wishes with all the respect anyone could hope in a son. With each remittance, he asked that his mother be given a decent funeral.
Everyone who received her ashes treated Ross's request with utter seriousness. In the four corners of the earth, a silent chain of solidarity was formed, in which sympathetic strangers organised the most diverse of ceremonies, depending on the place that the late Anderson would have liked to visit.
Thus, Vera's ashes were scattered in Lake Titicaca, in Bolivia, accordingly to the ancient traditions of the Aymara Indians; they were scattered on the river in front of the Royal Castle in Stockholm, Sweden, on the banks of the Chao Phraya in Thailand, in a Shinto temple in Japan, on the glaciers of Antarctica, in the Sahara desert. the sisters of charity in an orphanage in South America prayed for a week before scattering the ashes int he garden and then decided that Vera Anderson be considered a kind of guardian angel of the place.
Ross Anderson received phtos from the five continents, from all races and all cultures, showing men and women honouring his mother's last wishes.
When we see today's divided world, a world in which no one seems to care about anyone else, Vera Anderson's last journey fills us with hope that there is still respect, love and generosity in the souls of our fellow human beings, however far away they may be.
an excellent letter
Thank you, President Bush
Paulo Coelho
11 - 3 - 2003
From the world's most popular novelist, Paulo Coelho, an open letter of praise for President Bush.
Thank you, great leader George W. Bush.
Thank you for showing everyone what a danger Saddam Hussein represents. Many of us might otherwise have forgotten that he used chemical weapons against his own people, against the Kurds and against the Iranians. Hussein is a bloodthirsty dictator and one of the clearest expressions of evil in today’s world.
But this is not my only reason for thanking you. During the first two months of 2003, you have shown the world a great many other important things and, therefore, deserve my gratitude.
So, remembering a poem I learned as a child, I want to say thank you.
Thank you for showing everyone that the Turkish people and their parliament are not for sale, not even for 26 billion dollars.
Thank you for revealing to the world the gulf that exists between the decisions made by those in power and the wishes of the people. Thank you for making it clear that neither José María Aznar nor Tony Blair give the slightest weight to or show the slightest respect for the votes they received. Aznar is perfectly capable of ignoring the fact that 90% of Spaniards are against the war, and Blair is unmoved by the largest public demonstration to take place in England in the last thirty years.
Thank you for making it necessary for Tony Blair to go to the British parliament with a fabricated dossier written by a student ten years ago, and present this as ‘damning evidence collected by the British Secret Service’.
Thank you for allowing Colin Powell to make a complete fool of himself by showing the UN Security Council photos which, one week later, were publicly challenged by Hans Blix, the chief weapons inspector in Iraq.
Thank you for adopting your current position and thus ensuring that, at the plenary session, the French foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin’s anti-war speech was greeted with applause – something, as far as I know, that has only happened once before in the history of the UN, following a speech by Nelson Mandela.
Thank you too, because, after all your efforts to promote war, the normally divided Arab nations were, for the first time, at their meeting in Cairo during the last week in February, unanimous in their condemnation of any invasion.
Thank you for your rhetoric stating that ‘the UN now has a chance to demonstrate its relevance’, a statement which made even the most reluctant countries take up a position opposing any attack on Iraq.
Thank you for your foreign policy which provoked the British foreign secretary, Jack Straw, into declaring that in the 21st century, ‘a war can have a moral justification’, thus causing him to lose all credibility.
Thank you for trying to divide a Europe that is currently struggling for unification; this was a warning that will not go unheeded.
Thank you for having achieved something that very few have so far managed to do in this century: the bringing together of millions of people on all continents to fight for the same idea, even though that idea is opposed to yours.
Thank you for making us feel once more that though our words may not be heard, they are at least spoken – this will make us stronger in the future.
Thank you for ignoring us, for marginalising all those who oppose your decision, because the future of the Earth belongs to the excluded.
Thank you, because, without you, we would not have realised our own ability to mobilise. It may serve no purpose this time, but it will doubtless be useful later on.
Now that there seems no way of silencing the drums of war, I would like to say, as an ancient European king said to an invader: ‘May your morning be a beautiful one, may the sun shine on your soldiers’ armour, for in the afternoon, I will defeat you.’
Thank you for allowing us – an army of anonymous people filling the streets in an attempt to stop a process that is already underway – to know what it feels like to be powerless and to learn to grapple with that feeling and transform it.
So, enjoy your morning and whatever glory it may yet bring you.
Thank you for not listening to us and not taking us seriously, but know that we are listening to you and that we will not forget your words.
Thank you, great leader George W. Bush.
Thank you very much.
Paulo Coelho
11 - 3 - 2003
From the world's most popular novelist, Paulo Coelho, an open letter of praise for President Bush.
Thank you, great leader George W. Bush.
Thank you for showing everyone what a danger Saddam Hussein represents. Many of us might otherwise have forgotten that he used chemical weapons against his own people, against the Kurds and against the Iranians. Hussein is a bloodthirsty dictator and one of the clearest expressions of evil in today’s world.
But this is not my only reason for thanking you. During the first two months of 2003, you have shown the world a great many other important things and, therefore, deserve my gratitude.
So, remembering a poem I learned as a child, I want to say thank you.
Thank you for showing everyone that the Turkish people and their parliament are not for sale, not even for 26 billion dollars.
Thank you for revealing to the world the gulf that exists between the decisions made by those in power and the wishes of the people. Thank you for making it clear that neither José María Aznar nor Tony Blair give the slightest weight to or show the slightest respect for the votes they received. Aznar is perfectly capable of ignoring the fact that 90% of Spaniards are against the war, and Blair is unmoved by the largest public demonstration to take place in England in the last thirty years.
Thank you for making it necessary for Tony Blair to go to the British parliament with a fabricated dossier written by a student ten years ago, and present this as ‘damning evidence collected by the British Secret Service’.
Thank you for allowing Colin Powell to make a complete fool of himself by showing the UN Security Council photos which, one week later, were publicly challenged by Hans Blix, the chief weapons inspector in Iraq.
Thank you for adopting your current position and thus ensuring that, at the plenary session, the French foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin’s anti-war speech was greeted with applause – something, as far as I know, that has only happened once before in the history of the UN, following a speech by Nelson Mandela.
Thank you too, because, after all your efforts to promote war, the normally divided Arab nations were, for the first time, at their meeting in Cairo during the last week in February, unanimous in their condemnation of any invasion.
Thank you for your rhetoric stating that ‘the UN now has a chance to demonstrate its relevance’, a statement which made even the most reluctant countries take up a position opposing any attack on Iraq.
Thank you for your foreign policy which provoked the British foreign secretary, Jack Straw, into declaring that in the 21st century, ‘a war can have a moral justification’, thus causing him to lose all credibility.
Thank you for trying to divide a Europe that is currently struggling for unification; this was a warning that will not go unheeded.
Thank you for having achieved something that very few have so far managed to do in this century: the bringing together of millions of people on all continents to fight for the same idea, even though that idea is opposed to yours.
Thank you for making us feel once more that though our words may not be heard, they are at least spoken – this will make us stronger in the future.
Thank you for ignoring us, for marginalising all those who oppose your decision, because the future of the Earth belongs to the excluded.
Thank you, because, without you, we would not have realised our own ability to mobilise. It may serve no purpose this time, but it will doubtless be useful later on.
Now that there seems no way of silencing the drums of war, I would like to say, as an ancient European king said to an invader: ‘May your morning be a beautiful one, may the sun shine on your soldiers’ armour, for in the afternoon, I will defeat you.’
Thank you for allowing us – an army of anonymous people filling the streets in an attempt to stop a process that is already underway – to know what it feels like to be powerless and to learn to grapple with that feeling and transform it.
So, enjoy your morning and whatever glory it may yet bring you.
Thank you for not listening to us and not taking us seriously, but know that we are listening to you and that we will not forget your words.
Thank you, great leader George W. Bush.
Thank you very much.
Saturday, July 29, 2006
Somethings sweet n simple
I love you not because of who you are, but because of who I
am when I am
with you..
No man or woman is worth your tears, and the one who is,
won't make you
cry.
Just because someone doesn't love you the way you want them
to, doesn't mean they don't love you with all they have.
Maybe God wants us to meet a few wrong people before meeting the right
one, so that when we finally meet the person, we will know how to be grateful.
Don't try so hard, the best things come when you least expect them to.
am when I am
with you..
No man or woman is worth your tears, and the one who is,
won't make you
cry.
Just because someone doesn't love you the way you want them
to, doesn't mean they don't love you with all they have.
Maybe God wants us to meet a few wrong people before meeting the right
one, so that when we finally meet the person, we will know how to be grateful.
Don't try so hard, the best things come when you least expect them to.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
"Manure" (Believe it nor not?)
In the 16th and 17th centuries, everything had to be transported by ship. It was also before the invention of commercial fertilizer, so large shipments of manure were common. It was shipped dry, because in dry form it weighed a lot less than when wet, but once water (at sea) hit it, it not only became heavier, but the process of fermentation began again, of which a by-product is methane gas.
As the stuff was stored below decks in bundles you could see what would (and did) happen. Methane began to build up below decks and the first time someone came below at night with a lantern, BOOOOM!
Several ships were destroyed in this manner before it was determined just what was happening. After that, the bundles of manure were always stamped with the term "Ship High In Transit" on them, which meant the sailors should stow it high enough off the lower decks so that any water that came into the hold would not come in contact with this volatile cargo and start the production of methane.
Thus evolved the colloquialism for manure as we know it today having come down through the centuries.
You probably did not know the true history of this word. Neither did I - I always thought it was a golf term!
Source :- http://www.nauticalinstitute.ca/
Shipping Manure: By Albert Lee
In the 16th and 17th centuries, everything had to be transported by ship. It was also before the invention of commercial fertilizer, so large shipments of manure were common. It was shipped dry, because in dry form it weighed a lot less than when wet, but once water (at sea) hit it, it not only became heavier, but the process of fermentation began again, of which a by-product is methane gas.
As the stuff was stored below decks in bundles you could see what would (and did) happen. Methane began to build up below decks and the first time someone came below at night with a lantern, BOOOOM!
Several ships were destroyed in this manner before it was determined just what was happening. After that, the bundles of manure were always stamped with the term "Ship High In Transit" on them, which meant the sailors should stow it high enough off the lower decks so that any water that came into the hold would not come in contact with this volatile cargo and start the production of methane.
Thus evolved the colloquialism for manure as we know it today having come down through the centuries.
You probably did not know the true history of this word. Neither did I - I always thought it was a golf term!
Source :- http://www.nauticalinstitute.ca/
Shipping Manure: By Albert Lee
Sunday, July 02, 2006
Help is here!
Have you ever been stalked, watched or pursued relentlessly by a guy you've already rejected? Shudder nervously everytime your cellphone rings thinking that it might be him?
Fret no more!
The Creep Fixers are here!!
The following items are extremely effective in your quest to shake that creep off:
1) Fake Armpit Hair (comes in lengths of 30 cm, 2 meters and 10Metres. Currently only blond hairs are in stock, we'd be bringing in red, brown and white later on)
2)Vomit flavoured Mouthwash-human noses can detect your breath 10 meters away.
3)Long Rubber Sticks- You put this in your pants to create the illusion that you're not entirely female. (Apologies to those who take offence at our squemishness in using sexual terms. As this is a family friendly site, we try as far as possible not to lead any kids astray. )
4)Chest hair-These are authentic hairs from famous male celebrities: Brown: Jake Gyllenhaal and George Clooney. Blond: Heath Ledger. (Disclaimer: No celebrities were harmed during the process of procuring the hairs. )
5)Durian Scented Perfume: Perfume made from genuine D24 durians from Malaysia, tastes as good as it smells!
Call us!
You won't regret it!
Fret no more!
The Creep Fixers are here!!
The following items are extremely effective in your quest to shake that creep off:
1) Fake Armpit Hair (comes in lengths of 30 cm, 2 meters and 10Metres. Currently only blond hairs are in stock, we'd be bringing in red, brown and white later on)
2)Vomit flavoured Mouthwash-human noses can detect your breath 10 meters away.
3)Long Rubber Sticks- You put this in your pants to create the illusion that you're not entirely female. (Apologies to those who take offence at our squemishness in using sexual terms. As this is a family friendly site, we try as far as possible not to lead any kids astray. )
4)Chest hair-These are authentic hairs from famous male celebrities: Brown: Jake Gyllenhaal and George Clooney. Blond: Heath Ledger. (Disclaimer: No celebrities were harmed during the process of procuring the hairs. )
5)Durian Scented Perfume: Perfume made from genuine D24 durians from Malaysia, tastes as good as it smells!
Call us!
You won't regret it!
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Okie..this is the original (what a boy think)
為女朋友做的45件事~轉
1.向新朋友介紹女友時，請摟著她的腰，而不是站在一旁用手指點。
2.在街上遇見美女凝視時間不超過5秒，並迅速指出那位美女與她相比較的美中不足。
3.如果她做錯了事，心裏已經很難過，請主動承擔起你應該甚至不應該承擔的責任 。
4.聽女友話的男人才會有出息，所以，你要乖乖聽她的話。
5.她可以欺負你，但你絕對不可以欺負她，因為她雖然欺負你,但是每次有什麼好東西,她第一個想到的就是你!
6.要是她朝你哭,你要不厭其煩地哄她,直到她破涕為笑！
7.把她的照片貼在錢包，手機...一切經常看到的地方。
8.離開她絕對不超過十天以上。
9.在她的朋友面前，希望你可以表現得比平時更疼愛她和緊張她的樣子。
10.大男人不等於霸道。
11.溫柔不等於沒主見。
12.瀟灑不等於沒交代。
13..不要老是在我問她「去那裏比較好」，「吃什麼」等等的時候說"隨便"，這不等於是你在遷就她，只表示你沒有心思搭理她。
14.要經常對她說"我愛妳"，否則她會假設你不愛她。
15.永遠不要在公眾場合對她呼呼吼吼又或是撇下她一人。
16.她做錯事情的時候教訓她不要緊，最重要的是在那之後要哄她。
17.發脾氣時不要不理她，不要給時間她讓她冷靜，其實她完全不需要時間冷靜。
18.可以陪自己的朋友，但一定要重色輕友。
19.她看動畫片，你不但不准笑話她，還要跟她一起看。
20.在她想你時，擠出時間與她約會。
21.看她的眼神無比專注 。
22.說話的語氣情深意長 。
23.能做到客觀的得看到其他優秀的女孩，但主觀認為她才是最好的。
24.有女孩和你說話，你要拉著她的手，如果她恰巧不在旁邊，那麼請你跟她們保持距離。
25.過馬路的時候牽著她的手。
26.要懂得珍惜和她在一起的每分鐘
27.就算再忙，每天都不忘打一個問候的電話 。
28.要常常唱情歌給她聽。
29.兩個人都有發火的權利，但不能同一天,如果那一天她發火了，那你就不可以發火了。
30.女友生活中不順心，你要循循善誘、幫忙分析，提出建設性方案若干。
31.要非常愛你的女友---她，堅決擁護女友的決定，服從女友的領導。
32..留意其他女生不得超過5秒鐘，看同一女生累計不得超過5次
33.即使全世界的人都不相信她，你也要無條件相信她。因為她也會同樣對你。
34.她穿了好看的衣服，你要衷心讚美。
35.嚴禁在女士（3歲-80歲）面前耍貧，放電。若有違反，視情節嚴重程度，由女友從嚴、從快進行嚴厲打擊，任何人、任何形式的狡辯，抵賴都將按妨礙司法公正論處。
36.不抽煙。一經發現立即開除。
37.與女友吵架每次陳述不得超過3分鐘（含），音量不得超過20分貝（含）。
38.要加強鍛煉，強健身體,一口氣抱她上到五樓
39. 在她心情遭透，蠻橫發脾氣的時候，抱抱她，而不是和她理論。
40.希望不會出現手機沒電而她又沒有其他辦法聯繫到你的現象，如果能頻頻主動打電話告訴她「我想你了」並隨時彙報行蹤則更好。
41.她身上有很多缺點，她已經夠苦惱了，請不必隨時向她提醒。
42.女友不講理是撒嬌而不是撒野。
43.她所有的事情都好想跟你分享、雖然你不一定會明白但是希望你會裝做你在聽。
44.最重要的一點：要永遠認為女友是對的。因為，她是最愛你的。
45.聽某嘴，大富貴。
================================================
眾女生們...請問這是真的嗎??
1.向新朋友介紹女友時，請摟著她的腰，而不是站在一旁用手指點。
2.在街上遇見美女凝視時間不超過5秒，並迅速指出那位美女與她相比較的美中不足。
3.如果她做錯了事，心裏已經很難過，請主動承擔起你應該甚至不應該承擔的責任 。
4.聽女友話的男人才會有出息，所以，你要乖乖聽她的話。
5.她可以欺負你，但你絕對不可以欺負她，因為她雖然欺負你,但是每次有什麼好東西,她第一個想到的就是你!
6.要是她朝你哭,你要不厭其煩地哄她,直到她破涕為笑！
7.把她的照片貼在錢包，手機...一切經常看到的地方。
8.離開她絕對不超過十天以上。
9.在她的朋友面前，希望你可以表現得比平時更疼愛她和緊張她的樣子。
10.大男人不等於霸道。
11.溫柔不等於沒主見。
12.瀟灑不等於沒交代。
13..不要老是在我問她「去那裏比較好」，「吃什麼」等等的時候說"隨便"，這不等於是你在遷就她，只表示你沒有心思搭理她。
14.要經常對她說"我愛妳"，否則她會假設你不愛她。
15.永遠不要在公眾場合對她呼呼吼吼又或是撇下她一人。
16.她做錯事情的時候教訓她不要緊，最重要的是在那之後要哄她。
17.發脾氣時不要不理她，不要給時間她讓她冷靜，其實她完全不需要時間冷靜。
18.可以陪自己的朋友，但一定要重色輕友。
19.她看動畫片，你不但不准笑話她，還要跟她一起看。
20.在她想你時，擠出時間與她約會。
21.看她的眼神無比專注 。
22.說話的語氣情深意長 。
23.能做到客觀的得看到其他優秀的女孩，但主觀認為她才是最好的。
24.有女孩和你說話，你要拉著她的手，如果她恰巧不在旁邊，那麼請你跟她們保持距離。
25.過馬路的時候牽著她的手。
26.要懂得珍惜和她在一起的每分鐘
27.就算再忙，每天都不忘打一個問候的電話 。
28.要常常唱情歌給她聽。
29.兩個人都有發火的權利，但不能同一天,如果那一天她發火了，那你就不可以發火了。
30.女友生活中不順心，你要循循善誘、幫忙分析，提出建設性方案若干。
31.要非常愛你的女友---她，堅決擁護女友的決定，服從女友的領導。
32..留意其他女生不得超過5秒鐘，看同一女生累計不得超過5次
33.即使全世界的人都不相信她，你也要無條件相信她。因為她也會同樣對你。
34.她穿了好看的衣服，你要衷心讚美。
35.嚴禁在女士（3歲-80歲）面前耍貧，放電。若有違反，視情節嚴重程度，由女友從嚴、從快進行嚴厲打擊，任何人、任何形式的狡辯，抵賴都將按妨礙司法公正論處。
36.不抽煙。一經發現立即開除。
37.與女友吵架每次陳述不得超過3分鐘（含），音量不得超過20分貝（含）。
38.要加強鍛煉，強健身體,一口氣抱她上到五樓
39. 在她心情遭透，蠻橫發脾氣的時候，抱抱她，而不是和她理論。
40.希望不會出現手機沒電而她又沒有其他辦法聯繫到你的現象，如果能頻頻主動打電話告訴她「我想你了」並隨時彙報行蹤則更好。
41.她身上有很多缺點，她已經夠苦惱了，請不必隨時向她提醒。
42.女友不講理是撒嬌而不是撒野。
43.她所有的事情都好想跟你分享、雖然你不一定會明白但是希望你會裝做你在聽。
44.最重要的一點：要永遠認為女友是對的。因為，她是最愛你的。
45.聽某嘴，大富貴。
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眾女生們...請問這是真的嗎??
Sunday, June 18, 2006
45 things you do for your boy
1. When introducing your boy to your friends, please hold his hand and not point him out from afar.2. Don't stare at other guys on the street for more than 5 seconds nor smile at them. Cute soccer players on TV are excused.
3. If he makes a mistake, tell him about it instead of leaving him guessing . (As we all know we will get angry if he guesses wrongly.)
4. Listen to him and "give him face" when in the company of friends.
5. Let me know that it's okie if you bully him, cox you are the only one who will mean him no real harm, and you are really trying to get his attention.
6. Show concern if he appears sad/troubled. But if he says he's fine, let him be. (He'll tell you when it's time). In the meanwhile, be specially sweet and attentive.
7. Keep his photo in your wallet, friendster, msn and everywhere visible.
It's a sign of adoring love (and also you are taken).
8.Don't leave him alone for more than 3 days. If he's sick, don't leave him alone for than 3 hours.
9. Be caring and sweet in the presence of his friends. Make him proud.
10. Allow him to show his chauvinistic side once in a while ( that can be really macho.)
11. Be gentle yet strong.
12. Be independent yet responsible (at least let him know when you are coming back at 3am.)
13. Make decisions when he leaves it up to you. (like where to eat and so forth.)
14. Tell him you love him.
15. Never kick up a fuss in public.
16. If in the wrong, do apologise. You'll be forgiven.
17. Try...try very hard to say what you mean. I.e. if you want him to call, at least avoid saying "Leave me alone."
18. Give him space to be with his friends. But remind him that you're the priority if he has to choose.
19. Learn to appreciate things he likes however alien it may sound - foreign movies, soccer , IT . . .
20. Date him.
21. Give him wholehearted attention when speaking to him, in person or over the phone.
22. Always speak to him in an adoringly fashion.
23. Never speak of your ex-boyfriends or other guys in a way that would make them appear more superior than him.
24. If other guys make their advances, you must hold his hand if he's with you. If he's not around, rule is to keep your distance.
25. Wait for him to hold your hand and help you cross the road safely.
26. Treasure every second with him.
27. However busy, give him a call at least once a day to show him you are thinking of him.
28. If you need to talk, but he is busy, go talk to your girl friends, blog or something.
29. If he has had a bad day, try not to bog him down with details of yours as well. After all, he's always the one who listens to your problems and gives you advice.
30. You might not know how to advise him when he tells you his problems but do your part to make his life easier by lessening your usual demands.
31. Love him.
32. Trust him.
33. Be faithful.
34. Praise him when he has done right things. Positive reinforcement.
35. Don't stop maintaining your appearance.
36. Don't smoke.
37. Don't take him for granted.
38. Don't fight and be angry with him for over 1 day and don't fight more than once a month.
39. Don't put on too much weight else it's difficult to ask him to carry you when your heels are hurting.
40. Try not to avoid more than 10 missed calls a day.
41. Buy something for him when you are on a shopping spree (and you've already bought 5 things for yourself).
42. Avoid comparing his shortcomings with your friend's boyfriends and highlight his strengths as often as possible.
43. Though you are always right, let him win once in a while.
44. Help him score points in front of your parents.
45. Always remember that he loves you.
So what do you think ladies?
Saturday, June 17, 2006
White Roses
Since young, I've always find it a challenge understanding why a wake needs to be held. Having grown up in a HDB environment, thereby having a fair exposure to chinese wakes only intensifies the mystery.
I can certainly recall my sentiments after a certain English/Literature lesson involving poems about death and such. I recalled telling myself and my peers that next time when it comes to my turn, regardless of my religion, please allow me to go in peace and spare me the priests and the chants, the smoke and the incense. Just give me some light jazz and white roses ...that should suffice.
As I grow up, I do hear a few varying suggestions. A funeral is not so much for the dead but for the living. To a certain extent I can imagine, the fact that your friends are there to give you the support. Still, to me, that can happen anywhere, not necessary at a wake.
So my conclusion is that a wake has to be for the dead.
But what good does it make when friends come to pay their last respects after they see the obitruary? Doesn't it make more sense if the obitruary comes on when you are still around, saying something like " To you my dear friends, I might be gone in a while. Unlike the normal obitruary, I would invite you to visit me when I am still around. Would be nice. Hope to see you. "
Think it would be hard for me to tell my parents that this is my game plan. Far too morbid and taboo I think. So thought I would share it here on the blog. At least there's some documentation of my wishes in future. However, pls do not be alarmed, this certainly does not constitute any suicidal inclination of such. Just wanted to be a control freak as per normal.
But seriously, the typical wake is too much hassle, too much noise...think going in peace should be taken literally in this sense.
So no mahjong and no big crowds, no hanging blankets and no noise please. Just give me my white roses and my favourite old school jazz. Even if a wake need to take place, pray put all my nicest pictures like an exhibition so I can be remembered in my finest moments and not that ugly IC photo yeah.
Friday, June 09, 2006
Happy Birthday Girl!!
Am so full that I cannot sleep. Maybe I will watch the opening match. Anyway, here are some pictures to commemorate the joyful occasion.Happy Birthday dear girl!!!
Friday, May 26, 2006
4 teeth less, and none the richer
A horrified friend recently proclaimed that I definitely have something against my teeth. oh well, maybe yes, maybe no, but since they got in the way and represented a threat they must be removed. Perhaps it's just that mine get in the way more often than others'.
8 little annoying individuals , all taken out *finally!*.
Not all at once of course, mind you, even I dare not dream of being so gungho. It 4 on the Tuesday that just passed, in addition to the 4 removed years ago to make way for my braces.
So here I am, and have been, at home for the last 4 days with my chipmunk face, refusing to step out of the house lest I scare little children to tears. hahahah. Didn't go to NDC in the end - I chickened out. Went to private dentist instead, which didn't cost that much more. But I think the dentist screwed up slightly with the LA on my right cheek, since it hurt when he tried to pull out my teeth on the right side even after the LA injections (since the jabs already hurt like mad, and mind you I felt every single one of those blasted jabs into my cheek and gums - there were a total of like, 5 per side?, the pulling shouldn't be hurting right???. Could also feel that he was using a lot of pressure again my jaw, like he was wrestling with my teeth. I was probably shaking after that, coz i could hear my teeth chattering against the metal equipment he was using to sew my gums up. Heh, I nearly decided to do the left side another day, but didn't, and thank goodness the left side was much less eventful than the right...
It's always a torture when dinner smells waft up to my room these last few days (because I know I can't eat any of it). But it's great when a creative dentist tells you that yoghurt and ice-cream and chocolate (i think) are nutritious (they are diary products after all) and there is no reason why I shouldn't be eating them at this time *whee!!!!*. Haha.. not the private dentist but one of the 3 I saw before. hahah, and best of all, Ed turned up at my house with ice cream, chocolate, boxes of Campbell soup, Vitagen and Meiji yoghurt the day I got my teeth taken out. Heh. I think I'm really easy to please man ;p
A liquid diet is a great way to lose weight, should try one day, you all... hahahah.
Anyway, heard about Andy's party, sorry I can't turn up (it's a vanity issue so pls forgive me ;P ). Hope you gals have fun, and see you all soon!
8 little annoying individuals , all taken out *finally!*.
Not all at once of course, mind you, even I dare not dream of being so gungho. It 4 on the Tuesday that just passed, in addition to the 4 removed years ago to make way for my braces.
So here I am, and have been, at home for the last 4 days with my chipmunk face, refusing to step out of the house lest I scare little children to tears. hahahah. Didn't go to NDC in the end - I chickened out. Went to private dentist instead, which didn't cost that much more. But I think the dentist screwed up slightly with the LA on my right cheek, since it hurt when he tried to pull out my teeth on the right side even after the LA injections (since the jabs already hurt like mad, and mind you I felt every single one of those blasted jabs into my cheek and gums - there were a total of like, 5 per side?, the pulling shouldn't be hurting right???. Could also feel that he was using a lot of pressure again my jaw, like he was wrestling with my teeth. I was probably shaking after that, coz i could hear my teeth chattering against the metal equipment he was using to sew my gums up. Heh, I nearly decided to do the left side another day, but didn't, and thank goodness the left side was much less eventful than the right...
It's always a torture when dinner smells waft up to my room these last few days (because I know I can't eat any of it). But it's great when a creative dentist tells you that yoghurt and ice-cream and chocolate (i think) are nutritious (they are diary products after all) and there is no reason why I shouldn't be eating them at this time *whee!!!!*. Haha.. not the private dentist but one of the 3 I saw before. hahah, and best of all, Ed turned up at my house with ice cream, chocolate, boxes of Campbell soup, Vitagen and Meiji yoghurt the day I got my teeth taken out. Heh. I think I'm really easy to please man ;p
A liquid diet is a great way to lose weight, should try one day, you all... hahahah.
Anyway, heard about Andy's party, sorry I can't turn up (it's a vanity issue so pls forgive me ;P ). Hope you gals have fun, and see you all soon!
Sunday, May 14, 2006
great music
Dear frens, this is great stuff. Go check it out
http://www.oebase.com/radio/band_radio.asp?bandClient=pinkmartini&band=Pink%20Martini%20Radio&color=darkRed
http://www.oebase.com/radio/band_radio.asp?bandClient=pinkmartini&band=Pink%20Martini%20Radio&color=darkRed
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
istanbul anyone???
got bitten by the travel bug once again and this time the craving is for exotic middleeaster/mediterrenean fare...
any takers? we will visit the land of ali baba, get our very own genies ( mine will have handsome dark brooding looks with deep aqua marine eyes, not too bluffy just lean), fly some magic carpets or just sing a whole new world again and again, smoke a shisa or two and our mot du jour would be "acrcadebra" (how do u spell this thing? or "open sesame"...
mid june will be good time or ???
any takers? we will visit the land of ali baba, get our very own genies ( mine will have handsome dark brooding looks with deep aqua marine eyes, not too bluffy just lean), fly some magic carpets or just sing a whole new world again and again, smoke a shisa or two and our mot du jour would be "acrcadebra" (how do u spell this thing? or "open sesame"...
mid june will be good time or ???
Thursday, April 20, 2006
what is the deal with democracy?
With the general elections coming, it seems to many that the elections is just a farce acted out to give a semblance of democracy and its most critical element; that of representation by elections. Cool young arm chair wannabe dissidents like myself start heated debates about how the PAP is just trying to drown out opposition voice, redrawing electoral boundaries to their advantage blah blah...cool young arm chair wannabes who talk this over a cup of $6.50 Starbucks frappe in the coolest part of town after work/school and the next day go back into the very same comfortable material life that have been created by the very governments that they criticise because due to them, we do not have freedom of press while maybe free speech really does a lot of good when u have nothing to eat.
So why bother with elections at all? Because the whole says that "democracy is good". The world? Perhaps our worldview is a little too narrow, the world does consist much more that just the Europeans and the Americans way of life. Things, mentality of other non western worlds that we have no clue about. Democracy, it becomes a word we repeat with no clue of whether it is right or wrong or good or bad. Iran is bad...why? Because they are not democratic, Singapore government is bad. Why? Because it does not have serious democratic elections. American, well that is a real example of good democracy...really? I do not know, I have not lived there. This is really not a post to deride democracy but guess it is a manifest of frustration of the senseless usage of democracy as a facade to hide real intentions or to manipulate poor idealists. Not only that but there are many fundamentals in ways of life, cultures, society where these fundamentals exist and I will term them as social "truths", u never question them or risk not fitting in. That’s the way of humans. I rest my case.
So why bother with elections at all? Because the whole says that "democracy is good". The world? Perhaps our worldview is a little too narrow, the world does consist much more that just the Europeans and the Americans way of life. Things, mentality of other non western worlds that we have no clue about. Democracy, it becomes a word we repeat with no clue of whether it is right or wrong or good or bad. Iran is bad...why? Because they are not democratic, Singapore government is bad. Why? Because it does not have serious democratic elections. American, well that is a real example of good democracy...really? I do not know, I have not lived there. This is really not a post to deride democracy but guess it is a manifest of frustration of the senseless usage of democracy as a facade to hide real intentions or to manipulate poor idealists. Not only that but there are many fundamentals in ways of life, cultures, society where these fundamentals exist and I will term them as social "truths", u never question them or risk not fitting in. That’s the way of humans. I rest my case.
Friday, April 14, 2006
I was reminded
Thanks to Gis' invitation to the premiere (to be an usher), I was reminded of the show I was reminding myself to watch out for - Singapore Dreaming. I first saw it on the website tackingcock.com and I was particularly curious to see what it was all about... is it going to be something like True talkingcock style or is it going to be more like the local Jack Neo movies? And guess the main reason for my interest is because one of the directors was my sec sch teacher.
As I went to the movie website, my attn was brought to the article that inspired the show - Paved with good intentioms. I read it and it all came back to me ... how I was inspired by it when I read it a few years back. Hence, have decided to share it with you my dear frens.
If you have no time, you could simply skip to the words highlighted in purple, think it sums up the article very well and very simply. But I strongly recommend that all should read it.
I saw on news some interviews with 10 men on the street. They were asked the question, "how concerned are you with the elections?" Not surprisingly, none expressed much interest. Some tried hard to think of a politically correct and not-so-nonchalent answer ... " as long as the gahmen takes care of us .... think abt our welfare" .. The compere rounded up the show by saying perhaps we would feel more interest from the younger voters nearer to the elections. I suspect this is what you get from a Plan isn't it?
In an interview with some school kids, one girl brought up " I think/some people think the party is quite arrogant" . The response came back "if we were arrogant, would we be talking to you now?"
Stark contrast to the above ... however, after more of such forums, I wonder - will she become more like a planner or a dreamer?
As I went to the movie website, my attn was brought to the article that inspired the show - Paved with good intentioms. I read it and it all came back to me ... how I was inspired by it when I read it a few years back. Hence, have decided to share it with you my dear frens.
If you have no time, you could simply skip to the words highlighted in purple, think it sums up the article very well and very simply. But I strongly recommend that all should read it.
I saw on news some interviews with 10 men on the street. They were asked the question, "how concerned are you with the elections?" Not surprisingly, none expressed much interest. Some tried hard to think of a politically correct and not-so-nonchalent answer ... " as long as the gahmen takes care of us .... think abt our welfare" .. The compere rounded up the show by saying perhaps we would feel more interest from the younger voters nearer to the elections. I suspect this is what you get from a Plan isn't it?
In an interview with some school kids, one girl brought up " I think/some people think the party is quite arrogant" . The response came back "if we were arrogant, would we be talking to you now?"
Stark contrast to the above ... however, after more of such forums, I wonder - will she become more like a planner or a dreamer?
Singapore Dreaming
The following essay was written for Singaporeans Exposed: Navigating the Ins and Outs of Globalisation (published to commemorate the 10th Anniversary of the Singapore International Foundation, 2001, Landmark Books)
PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS:How living in New York has illuminated for us the difference between the Singaporean Dream and the Singaporean PlanBy Colin Goh & Joyceln Woo Yen Yen
Former lawyer turned writer/cartoonist Colin Goh and educator Joyceln Woo are married and have been living in New York for the past three years.
COLIN & JOYCELN: We fell in love and in June 1998, we got married - true Singaporean style. The studio photography, the clothes, church, the dinner and the hundred of guests that we had never met before. What happened to us after that was not so typically Singaporean. Here are our stories.
JOYCELN: As a child, I could never sleep the night before the first day of school. The night before my first day of teaching was no different. I didn’t know what to expect but I knew that I was going to help kids learn, be the best teacher, and make a difference.
At my first staff meeting, the principal screened an image familiar to all new schoolteachers - the Prism. Like a magical crystal ball, the Prism told many things. It could predict how well students entering secondary school with 4 subjects at PSLE would do for the ‘O’ levels. With the Prism, we could evaluate each student’s potential grade in literature based on his/her PSLE grades and then tell if our school had “added value” to the child’s education.
Looking into the Prism, the principal announced that while she was concerned about the various aspects of development - Intellectual, Aesthetic, Moral, and Physical - “This year, our school will focus on the Intellectual.” By this, she meant that as teachers, we should all ensure that we stretched the potential of the students so that they performed “better than expected” at the ‘O’ levels. I noticed in the subsequent years that we never decided to focus on any other aspect of development. There was never an Aesthetic, Moral or Physical year.
The conversations in the staff room educated me considerably about the concerns of teachers.
“Oh, I heard you bought the new condo in Bukit Batok, that’s a good investment…”
“So which piano school are you sending your child to now?”
“Do you want to go buy diamonds with us, we are going to buy diamonds this afternoon.”
In my naïveté, this came as a shock. Why weren’t teachers talking about helping students learn or improving instruction?
And when they WERE talking about improving instruction, it was invariably:
“So what questions do you think will come out for this year’s ‘O’ levels?”
“Yes! Yes! I spotted the right questions!”
“You have to make sure your students write 5 ‘compositions’ and do 5 ‘comprehensions’ this semester.”
And when questions were asked, the answer was inevitably “Can’t change. That’s what the principal wants to see.”
The culture in the staff room was a mix of different groups:
· the Tai-Tais, women who had married well-off husbands, and who admired, respected and competed with each other for their Ferragamo shoes and Louis Vuitton bags.
· the few unmarried men who were mothered by the Tai-Tais as they were regarded as “good” men (i.e. hardworking and honest) but ironically insufficiently compelling marriage material (for why on earth would a functioning, virile, desirable man become a teacher?).
· the married men who usually lived in HDB flats (unlike the Tai-Tais and their non-teacher husbands), who generally kept to themselves.
· the older single women who were diligent in ensuring that all forms are handed in on time and helping students who need extra help get the preferred grades. They were usually more conservatively (and cheaply) dressed, and did not generally interact socially with the Tai-Tais.
· the expatriate teachers who were generally avoided by the other teachers and not expected to do very much because they either could not be trusted to do the work, were too difficult to communicate with, or were too troublesome to work with. And when they got together, they made plain their disdain for Singapore and its school system of which they were a part. Stereotypical as it may sound, those I’d met had invariably come to Singapore either to heal from a broken marriage (in which case, getting involved with a local woman usually came with the package), or had fled an unsuccessful career so they could return home and say, “I spent a few years in the Orient.”
· And the young teachers, bright-eyed and bushytailed, who believed they could make a difference, and who usually started out immensely popular with the students. They organized extra activities which they were not required to do, sat with students for long hours when they had problems, and generally tried to innovate with teaching. The Tai-Tais usually tried to matchmake the young single female teachers with single men they knew, but never the single male teachers. Seasoned teachers generally sat back and placed bets on when the neophytes would eventually burn out.
I didn’t know a single lazy teacher - everyone was extremely hardworking, taking work home, often physically running around as they hurried to different parts of the school. The teachers hardly had time to rest and reflect. It was as if we had been trained to work hard, but not to think.
What unites Secondary 4 teachers is the common goal of ensuring their students score well in the ‘O’ levels - preferably better in the subject that they teach rather than in another subject. Success is defined largely in terms of how many As produced in their class.
I remember one year distinctly - the school had done well in history and the Sec 4 history teacher was jumping up and down in glee, like she had won a war. On the other hand, the students hadn’t done as well in literature and the teacher was walking around with her head down, wishing that the bulletin board with the results didn’t place the teacher’s name next to the results of each class. While everyone congratulated the history teacher on doing well in spotting the right questions, we all didn’t know what to say to the literature teacher. We sort of patted her shoulder as if someone had died.
And for non-Sec 4 teachers, our overriding concern was assigning the required number of tests and exercises and grading them. Each semester, all our students had to submit binders containing their completed and graded assignments. And each semester, the teachers would spend several days of class time ensuring that the students had everything in place, as the submission of completed binders were a factor in a teacher’s evaluation. The binders would disappear for months because it would take the Head of Department that long to go through the binders and count how many assignments had been completed. It didn’t seem to matter if the teacher had taken 5 minutes to grade each composition or 30 minutes to make sure that the students received meaningful feedback. What was important was that the assignments were there.
I felt both angry and guilty that my idealism constantly came up against so many artificial obstacles. I felt that the obsession with bookkeeping and papering over any mistakes, real or perceived, allowed neither time nor space for innovation. Further, the mania to deliver standardized results trumped the notion of harnessing individual potential, of the teachers and the students.Worse, I felt I could not raise these issues. There was a culture of silence.
My experiences are not about bad principals or teachers in particular. It is about ways of being and seeing that represent to me, the Singapore legacy that I have inherited. The principals and teachers that I talked about are not to blame individually - it is just so difficult to be and to see otherwise in the busy-ness, routines, and duties of our everyday lives.
I decided to leave to pursue graduate studies. Teacher education in Singapore is tilted more to the vocational than the intellectual and I wanted the space, time and knowledge to help me articulate and frame what I was thinking and feeling. On a more pragmatic level, I knew that nobody took the feelings of groundling teachers seriously and that people would probably listen to me more if I had a doctorate. I was disappointed, but still hopeful.
COLIN: I remember my first visit to New York. I had just graduated in law from University College London, and had several months before I was scheduled to take the English bar exams. Where most of my friends had chosen to do attachments with Singaporean law firms with the prudent aim of acclimatizing themselves with the career-to-come, I was paralysed with a single, terrible thought: "These are the last few months I'll ever have to indulge my youthful passions."
In an impulsive moment, and much to my parents’ annoyance, I blew every last cent I had and wangled myself a place in a cartooning course at Manhattan's School of Visual Art. I had been cartooning for The New Paper for several years by then (my comic strip The Concrete Jungle continues to run in their august pages), but had no formal training.
I chose Manhattan because it was supposed to be the cynosure of the creative world, and most important of all, where Marvel and DC Comics had their headquarters. Where else would one study cartooning but in Spiderman's territory?
Those few months were the most mind-blowing of my life. By day, I was either sequestered in a musty studio sketching Brazilian women or wandering the varied New York neighbourhoods. By night, I hung out with the other residents of the international hostel I was staying at - a diverse crowd of students from Argentina to Kazakhstan and everywhere in between. I had always thought Singapore to be a model of diversity and cosmopolitan progress, but over countless milkshake-fueled discussions in East Village hangouts, I felt like the proverbial mountain tortoise.
It was also the first time I began to question the path I was about to take. I was meeting people who were taking chances and simply following the dictates of their passion, whether it was art, dance or securities.
I had studied law largely because it was often cited it as the next best thing after medicine, which I knew I'd be awful at. Besides, SM Lee was a lawyer. What better endorsement could a Singaporean have? Despite being a published cartoonist and writer by then, I never thought about a career in the arts. It was a completely nonexistent option.
What was worse was that my parents never forced me into law. I just read their minds, I guess. Besides, all my friends seemed to be doing it too. It was the Singaporean Dream.
I also remember in my first year in law school, my parents telling me about SM Lee's now seminal "If I were an undergraduate" speech, where he told JC students that were he a student now, he would not study law; he would be an engineer, join the civil service, then obtain an MBA and thereafter enter the private sector. SM Lee had switched from Coke to Pepsi. There was a New Dream.
For a moment, I thought, well, if I'm yesterday’s man, I might as well deviate from the path altogether. However, that year, the Singapore government decided it had too many lawyers and restricted the number of recognized overseas law schools. A rumour began spreading amongst the legal undergrad community that it wouldn't be long before they didn't recognize British qualifications altogether. We had to hurry and enter the Singapore workforce as soon as possible, before we were shut out. (As we now know, the rumour was unfounded, and Singapore now admits it needs more lawyers.)
Nevertheless, out of prudence, I shelved any thought of changing fields and became a barrister, then an advocate and solicitor of the Supreme Court of Singapore.
I joined a large law firm, again largely because it was commonly believed that it was good to bloody oneself in the trenches of the giants. I practiced shipping law, again an extremely prudent choice, what with our being the world's busiest port. Further, it was perceived as exciting because shipping lawyers often had to go out to sea to arrest ships. (In truth, arresting ships is not vastly different from what loansharks do when they hang pig's heads on debtors' doors.)
I had a decent, almost enviable, income. I had to keep telling myself that, because the lifestyle was neither decent nor enviable.Clients called me at 2 am in the morning. The High Court Registry nicknamed me "Mr. 5 O'Clock" because I regularly filed papers right under the guillotine, never of my own volition. My only pleasure was catching up on industry gossip while waiting in line to argue before the court registrars. There was not a single Chinese New Year holiday where I would not find myself in the office. My parents only caught fleeting glimpses of me early in the morning when I rushed to work, or late at night, when I stumbled in, surly and mentally exhausted. I saw Joyceln, then simply my girlfriend, for a few precious, stolen hours on Sundays.
But I had the job, and more important, the income. They brought me a measure of social acceptability. Parents' friends would nod approvingly, non-lawyer friends would remark how much lower their salaries were. I made enough to afford membership in a club I never had time to step into, and for season parking in town. I had credit cards and designer ties. I could share war stories about work that might have seemed glamourous to non-lawyer friends, weaned as they were on a diet of Ally McBeal. I was in the secure embrace of the Singaporean Dream.
My epiphany came as I was descending the gangway of a very large oil tanker. At a height of ten storeys or more, the gangway abruptly slipped its moorings and fell several feet. I found myself in mid air for several terrifying seconds. Luckily the crew managed to secure it again. As I retrieved my dropped manhood, I saw bits of the vessel fall into the sea below. If I had not held tight to the chains, I would be dead.
When I told my colleagues about it, no one batted an eyelid. It was simply one of the hazards of the job, like the long hours and the symbolic fellating of clients. Some even quipped, "Who says law isn't exciting?" But working late that night in the stale air of my office, surrounded by musty documents and lit by the sickly iridescence of my computer monitor, I knew I had to get out.My brush with death made me reflect on my life, as I suppose all encounters with the reaper must do. I realized I was unhappy. Not weeping-and-gnashing-of-teeth unhappy, just that dull ache of uninspiration. Yet, on paper, I should have been completely content.
My conviction was reinforced when I passed my boss's office and saw her toiling away. Much more senior, she was still keeping the crazy hours of a junior lawyer. She had a brilliant mind, equity in a giant and prestigious firm and a sizeable income, but I realized that I didn't aspire to her lifestyle. And she was by no means unique. If I did not aspire to be my boss, then what was the point? My life stretched before my eyes, and I did not want to take another step in its direction.
I then made a classic Singaporean evaluation: if I'm going to suffer, then by god, I'll suffer for more money. I figured American lawyers make the most money, so that's where I'll go. I decided the fastest way to do this would be to do a one year Master’s degree, preferably in an Ivy League university, since it would provide me ingress into the American market.
I spoke to Joyceln, and told her that the only place I wanted to go was New York, because I wanted to recapture a little of that energy I had felt years ago. Despite some reservations (New York has a not wholly undeserved reputation), we both applied to Columbia University, New York’s only Ivy League university. Miraculously, we were both accepted.
We quit our jobs, got married, emptied our bank accounts and left immediately.
JOYCELN: When applying to do my doctorate at Columbia's famous Teachers College, I spoke to several professors at the only education institution in Singapore to find out about possible financial support. I had intended to study curriculum and technology, and felt my experience teaching as well as a stint designing educational software in an IT firm would be valuable.
However, the door was abruptly slammed in my face when I was told over the phone, "If you are not in computer science, and not a first class graduate, there is nothing we need to talk about."
Perhaps spurred by anger, I worked like a demon at Teachers College and earned several academic awards, including a doctoral research fellowship which covered both tuition and a stipend, and came unencumbered by any bond, moral or otherwise. The myopia with which I had been treated had ironically turned out to be a blessing.
I even met with our Education Minister when he visited Teachers College. Of the questions he asked me, two stood out: "When are you going back to Singapore?" and "When are you going to have babies?" It hit me that I had never spoken to the Minister when I was teaching in Singapore. I wondered: am I valuable to the country only after I leave?
COLIN: Armed with a Masters from Columbia Law School and the grandiose title of "Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar" which Columbia had over-generously bestowed upon me, and having passed the New York bar exams, I knocked on the doors of some of the largest law firms in the world.
I recall one battery of interviews being carried out in a large hotel, where prospective lawyers would shuttle in and out of the rooms, each occupied by interviewers from the firms.
A fellow prospector asked me, "Which other profession requires you to shuttle from hotel room to hotel room?"
"Prostitution," I remarked, and we both laughed.
It proved a prophetic statement, for when touring the offices of prospective firms, instead of feeling pumped, I felt horrified by the all-too familiar office layout, the mounds of paper spilling onto the floor, the designer suits thrown over the backs of chairs.The last straw came when a partner of one Midtown firm patted me on the back and said, "I think you'd be perfect to help work on our port project out in Saudi Arabia!"
It suddenly hit me that I was not embarking on real change at all. I was merely rearranging the furniture. Like a good little boy, I had made all the pragmatic, sensible decisions… and it was about to push me into the abyss. I was still trying to achieve the Singaporean Dream, except overseas, and on a larger scale. Well, not exactly…
It was then that I understood the difference between the Singaporean Dream and the Singaporean Plan. And what is the difference?I suppose the Dream has to be one of searching for peace and the liberty to conduct one's life as one sees fit.
That's probably what my ancestors sought when they left China: the governments of the Ming and Manchu were ruthlessly restrictive of cross-border commerce, the lifeblood of my ethnic Hokkien and Teochew forbears.
And no doubt it was the Dream, fueled by hard work and courage, that has made Singapore the indisputable commercial success it is today.
And our story is a wonderful one: the Little Island That Could.
However, invariably once people attain success, they start to canonize the steps they took to achievement. This is how Dreams become Plans, and how one hegemony replaces another: the search for peace and liberty becomes get into a good school, then a good university, then a stable job, then buy property and stock. The problem is, then what?
There is nothing inherently unique about the Singaporean Dream. The American Dream of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is substantially the same. (And especially in the upper middle class, the American Dream is fast becoming a Plan too: prep school, Ivy League, Wall Street.)
But what to me gives America more hope is that they still celebrate mavericks; they may never find happiness, but their liberty to pursue it is sacred.
My experience in Singapore was, however, very different. There were always people telling you what and how you should do things, and imposing penalties for deviation. There were 'right' schools, 'right' professions, 'right' strategies.
Of course there are those who would argue that ultimately, the choice is one’s own and that there is nothing to prevent one from doing what he or she wants in Singapore. After all, isn’t it one’s fault for caving in to peer pressure? I would humbly submit that while theoretically true, such an argument betrays an ignorance of the combined workings of hegemony and power.
The issue is how expansive the reigning ideology is. In Singapore, the dominant view is to do whatever works (whatever that may be, and regardless of who it worked for). In New York (I won't pretend that America is homogeneous), the prevailing view is that everyone should find what makes him or herself unique, and capitalize on that.
Manhattan is smaller than Singapore, yet there is space for both Wall Street Wizards and Alphabet City Shamans to coexist. Despite occasional border skirmishes, there is recognition that the city would be a lot poorer if everyone marched to the same drum.An overly romantic myth? Perhaps. But that such a myth could persist in a hostile and cynical environment like New York, was encouraging to me. And anyway, the 'fulfillment' promised by the Singapore Plan was equally illusory. In a competition of myths, I chose the one that gave the most latitude to one's passions over the one that indulged one's fears.
JOYCELN: I think the most striking thing about New York is that so many people here are in transition. They don’t know where they are going to be or what they are going to be doing in 6 months’ time. But they are all working towards their individual dreams, in their own individual way, and not according to some mandated blueprint or destination.
The receptionist in my building is also an actor. I recently met a waitress who was a graduate student in philosophy. I have classmates who are not only still at work, but who also shoot films whenever they can.
Until New York, I didn’t know I could be poor and still volunteer to help others who are more needy than me - not tomorrow, or next year, or when my income reaches a certain level, but today.
I now tutor the children in my neighborhood who need help but can't afford to pay. I didn’t know how great it feels to be able to write, and express my anger, worries, and joys. I didn't know that if I am dissatisfied by policies, I can get together with others to express it.
Just last week, there was a public school that was boycotting a state-mandated test because the test was taking away precious instructional time. What a novel idea! I didn’t know I was not alone, that there are other Singaporeans who think like I do, who want to make a difference but who are afraid and are so used to being silent.
COLIN: The insidiousness is this: in adhering to the Singaporean Plan, I was acting pragmatically, but ultimately, dishonestly.
As late as the interlude between pupilage and practice, I had written a play that was performed for the Singapore Arts Festival Fringe, for which the British Council had sponsored me to attend the Royal Court Theatre in London's prestigious theatre school. Further, throughout my years of practice, I also managed to continue cartooning The Concrete Jungle. While I enjoyed writing and drawing, never for a second did I think this might be a career. Worse, I felt compelled to downgrade their importance in my life. First was money, then pleasure. It was simply un-Singaporean to think one could get pleasure without money, or that working should be pleasurable.
But now I refuse to postpone my dreams any further, and shelve them under some misguided notion of pragmatism. How often was I told as a child by my elders, "wait till you grow up," "wait till after exams", "wait till after you graduate". I do not desire to wait until I retire. I might not make it that far. I refuse to be a walking mid-life crisis in the making.
But living one's dreams is difficult because it is a lone undertaking. There is no such thing as shared dreams; they are personal creatures. And while my peers are making partner and buying cars, I live in rented student accommodation and scatter my work to the ocean of publications, hoping for a bite. Thus far, I have only been published a couple of times, far from being enough to pay the rent. Yet I do not feel despair. Trite as it may sound, I recognize that life is about the journey, and not the destination.
JOYCELN: In Singapore, a considerable amount of talk in education has been about continuing to be competitive in the global marketplace. Singapore seems to have done well in this respect - we have consistently come in first in the International Math and Science Study.
But in tandem with the fear of losing out on notional global competitiveness is the willingness of many educators, policy-makers, and parents to "train" the young to delay their dreams, desires and play for a future goal, to "wait till after you finish your homework," to "wait till after the exams" while at the same time plying them with material bribes.
On the global front, it is ironic that the US is trying to emphasize academic standards while Japan, who also finished in the top ranks of the International Math and Science Study, is trying to cut down on the curriculum to allow more time for play. Both cite global competitiveness as their reason for doing so. One wonders as a country, whether we are listening to the everyday experiences of our own children, parents and teachers, or simply responding to some speculative construction of what is needed to be competitive.
Can anyone say for sure what's needed? Only a few months ago, countries cried out for schools to produce more dotcommers. A look at the rollercoaster line that is the NASDAQ should be cause for circumspection.
There are signs that children in Singapore are straining under this ethos. Recent newspapers reports have reported that parents are spending an inordinate amount of money and time to send their children for after-school tuition so that they can achieve better results; scoring high marks in tests and exams have been found to be a top concern for students; the average 10 year-old has been found to spend 6 hours in school and up to 8 hours on homework and tuition each day, and, students have been reported to experience physical reactions such as diarrhoea and asthma attacks during or just before exams. Is this education, or child labor? Has scoring well in tests become the reason for tests themselves? How do teachers, parents, and teachers begin to imagine our lives differently?
COLIN: I think it is important not to wholly discredit the Singapore Plan. It worked for some and may yet work for others. However, it is also true that the road to hell is paved with good intentions and that it is always an error to confuse what is with what ought to be.
JOYCELN: Consider these 2 stories. Which is closer to yours?
You wake up everyday and work from Monday to Friday, and often, Saturday too. If you finish work early, you and your partner go to your parents’ place for dinner and see your child for a few hours. If you work late, you buy a packet of char kway teow from the hawker centre but eat it at home because it’s too warm to eat there. You’re not crazy about the job but you know that if you keep at it, you can afford a car in 3 years’ time, and in 5 years’ time, buy a condo close to the primary school you want to send your kid to. Your conversations with people are either for the purpose of networking, work, or for familial obligations you cannot avoid. On weekends, you play golf with your friends at your country club or watch a movie with your partner. Once a year, you go on a ten day vacation to New York, London, or Paris, and when your children are big enough, Disneyland.
Alternatively, you wake up and you have no idea what is going to happen today, tomorrow, 6 months or a year later. Ironically, because of this uncertainty, all possibilities exist for you. You can be the Prime Minister of Singapore, you can make a movie, you can cook a meal you have never cooked before, eat at a place you have never eaten before, you can color your hair red, you can skip instead of walk, you can volunteer at the school you have always wanted to volunteer at, you can write a book, or you can have a baby even though you don’t have a maid. You have conversations with people who set your heart palpitating and your mind on fire. Your weekday is not so different from your weekend because everyday you are thinking, creating, and more important, imagining.
Most of us recognize the first story and its pursuit of the 5 Cs of “cash, condo, car, country club, credit card.” It is the Plan, which imposes a conclusion on you, and you work in order to make all the pieces fit. A bus stop advertisement I saw recently said it best: "We spend all our youth chasing money, and when we attain it, we spend all our money chasing youth."
A Dream, on the other hand, carries you on its wings to worlds that your heart and mind have never known.
COLIN: My fault was accepting that the Plan would naturally work for me. One doesn’t have to accept a legacy one inherits. I was complicit in my unhappiness. I did not question enough, whether it was my elders, the government, newspapers, consultants, whatever. I foolishly let others make up my mind for me. I rather fear I am not alone in this folly.
If there is any blame to be laid, it is the upholding of a compliant, unquestioning culture; that some people should never be challenged because of age, status or whatever. It is not solely the establishment's fault; all political parties are entitled to play politics. But it is wholly our fault for not fighting for what we believe in.
COLIN & JOYCELN: Criticism and disagreement is not treason, and our words emanate as much from our dissatisfaction with, as our love for Singapore. We simply believe that we are more than our legacy. This is the dream of immigrants everywhere, whether they arrive in Singapore or on Ellis Island.
PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS:How living in New York has illuminated for us the difference between the Singaporean Dream and the Singaporean PlanBy Colin Goh & Joyceln Woo Yen Yen
Former lawyer turned writer/cartoonist Colin Goh and educator Joyceln Woo are married and have been living in New York for the past three years.
COLIN & JOYCELN: We fell in love and in June 1998, we got married - true Singaporean style. The studio photography, the clothes, church, the dinner and the hundred of guests that we had never met before. What happened to us after that was not so typically Singaporean. Here are our stories.
JOYCELN: As a child, I could never sleep the night before the first day of school. The night before my first day of teaching was no different. I didn’t know what to expect but I knew that I was going to help kids learn, be the best teacher, and make a difference.
At my first staff meeting, the principal screened an image familiar to all new schoolteachers - the Prism. Like a magical crystal ball, the Prism told many things. It could predict how well students entering secondary school with 4 subjects at PSLE would do for the ‘O’ levels. With the Prism, we could evaluate each student’s potential grade in literature based on his/her PSLE grades and then tell if our school had “added value” to the child’s education.
Looking into the Prism, the principal announced that while she was concerned about the various aspects of development - Intellectual, Aesthetic, Moral, and Physical - “This year, our school will focus on the Intellectual.” By this, she meant that as teachers, we should all ensure that we stretched the potential of the students so that they performed “better than expected” at the ‘O’ levels. I noticed in the subsequent years that we never decided to focus on any other aspect of development. There was never an Aesthetic, Moral or Physical year.
The conversations in the staff room educated me considerably about the concerns of teachers.
“Oh, I heard you bought the new condo in Bukit Batok, that’s a good investment…”
“So which piano school are you sending your child to now?”
“Do you want to go buy diamonds with us, we are going to buy diamonds this afternoon.”
In my naïveté, this came as a shock. Why weren’t teachers talking about helping students learn or improving instruction?
And when they WERE talking about improving instruction, it was invariably:
“So what questions do you think will come out for this year’s ‘O’ levels?”
“Yes! Yes! I spotted the right questions!”
“You have to make sure your students write 5 ‘compositions’ and do 5 ‘comprehensions’ this semester.”
And when questions were asked, the answer was inevitably “Can’t change. That’s what the principal wants to see.”
The culture in the staff room was a mix of different groups:
· the Tai-Tais, women who had married well-off husbands, and who admired, respected and competed with each other for their Ferragamo shoes and Louis Vuitton bags.
· the few unmarried men who were mothered by the Tai-Tais as they were regarded as “good” men (i.e. hardworking and honest) but ironically insufficiently compelling marriage material (for why on earth would a functioning, virile, desirable man become a teacher?).
· the married men who usually lived in HDB flats (unlike the Tai-Tais and their non-teacher husbands), who generally kept to themselves.
· the older single women who were diligent in ensuring that all forms are handed in on time and helping students who need extra help get the preferred grades. They were usually more conservatively (and cheaply) dressed, and did not generally interact socially with the Tai-Tais.
· the expatriate teachers who were generally avoided by the other teachers and not expected to do very much because they either could not be trusted to do the work, were too difficult to communicate with, or were too troublesome to work with. And when they got together, they made plain their disdain for Singapore and its school system of which they were a part. Stereotypical as it may sound, those I’d met had invariably come to Singapore either to heal from a broken marriage (in which case, getting involved with a local woman usually came with the package), or had fled an unsuccessful career so they could return home and say, “I spent a few years in the Orient.”
· And the young teachers, bright-eyed and bushytailed, who believed they could make a difference, and who usually started out immensely popular with the students. They organized extra activities which they were not required to do, sat with students for long hours when they had problems, and generally tried to innovate with teaching. The Tai-Tais usually tried to matchmake the young single female teachers with single men they knew, but never the single male teachers. Seasoned teachers generally sat back and placed bets on when the neophytes would eventually burn out.
I didn’t know a single lazy teacher - everyone was extremely hardworking, taking work home, often physically running around as they hurried to different parts of the school. The teachers hardly had time to rest and reflect. It was as if we had been trained to work hard, but not to think.
What unites Secondary 4 teachers is the common goal of ensuring their students score well in the ‘O’ levels - preferably better in the subject that they teach rather than in another subject. Success is defined largely in terms of how many As produced in their class.
I remember one year distinctly - the school had done well in history and the Sec 4 history teacher was jumping up and down in glee, like she had won a war. On the other hand, the students hadn’t done as well in literature and the teacher was walking around with her head down, wishing that the bulletin board with the results didn’t place the teacher’s name next to the results of each class. While everyone congratulated the history teacher on doing well in spotting the right questions, we all didn’t know what to say to the literature teacher. We sort of patted her shoulder as if someone had died.
And for non-Sec 4 teachers, our overriding concern was assigning the required number of tests and exercises and grading them. Each semester, all our students had to submit binders containing their completed and graded assignments. And each semester, the teachers would spend several days of class time ensuring that the students had everything in place, as the submission of completed binders were a factor in a teacher’s evaluation. The binders would disappear for months because it would take the Head of Department that long to go through the binders and count how many assignments had been completed. It didn’t seem to matter if the teacher had taken 5 minutes to grade each composition or 30 minutes to make sure that the students received meaningful feedback. What was important was that the assignments were there.
I felt both angry and guilty that my idealism constantly came up against so many artificial obstacles. I felt that the obsession with bookkeeping and papering over any mistakes, real or perceived, allowed neither time nor space for innovation. Further, the mania to deliver standardized results trumped the notion of harnessing individual potential, of the teachers and the students.Worse, I felt I could not raise these issues. There was a culture of silence.
My experiences are not about bad principals or teachers in particular. It is about ways of being and seeing that represent to me, the Singapore legacy that I have inherited. The principals and teachers that I talked about are not to blame individually - it is just so difficult to be and to see otherwise in the busy-ness, routines, and duties of our everyday lives.
I decided to leave to pursue graduate studies. Teacher education in Singapore is tilted more to the vocational than the intellectual and I wanted the space, time and knowledge to help me articulate and frame what I was thinking and feeling. On a more pragmatic level, I knew that nobody took the feelings of groundling teachers seriously and that people would probably listen to me more if I had a doctorate. I was disappointed, but still hopeful.
COLIN: I remember my first visit to New York. I had just graduated in law from University College London, and had several months before I was scheduled to take the English bar exams. Where most of my friends had chosen to do attachments with Singaporean law firms with the prudent aim of acclimatizing themselves with the career-to-come, I was paralysed with a single, terrible thought: "These are the last few months I'll ever have to indulge my youthful passions."
In an impulsive moment, and much to my parents’ annoyance, I blew every last cent I had and wangled myself a place in a cartooning course at Manhattan's School of Visual Art. I had been cartooning for The New Paper for several years by then (my comic strip The Concrete Jungle continues to run in their august pages), but had no formal training.
I chose Manhattan because it was supposed to be the cynosure of the creative world, and most important of all, where Marvel and DC Comics had their headquarters. Where else would one study cartooning but in Spiderman's territory?
Those few months were the most mind-blowing of my life. By day, I was either sequestered in a musty studio sketching Brazilian women or wandering the varied New York neighbourhoods. By night, I hung out with the other residents of the international hostel I was staying at - a diverse crowd of students from Argentina to Kazakhstan and everywhere in between. I had always thought Singapore to be a model of diversity and cosmopolitan progress, but over countless milkshake-fueled discussions in East Village hangouts, I felt like the proverbial mountain tortoise.
It was also the first time I began to question the path I was about to take. I was meeting people who were taking chances and simply following the dictates of their passion, whether it was art, dance or securities.
I had studied law largely because it was often cited it as the next best thing after medicine, which I knew I'd be awful at. Besides, SM Lee was a lawyer. What better endorsement could a Singaporean have? Despite being a published cartoonist and writer by then, I never thought about a career in the arts. It was a completely nonexistent option.
What was worse was that my parents never forced me into law. I just read their minds, I guess. Besides, all my friends seemed to be doing it too. It was the Singaporean Dream.
I also remember in my first year in law school, my parents telling me about SM Lee's now seminal "If I were an undergraduate" speech, where he told JC students that were he a student now, he would not study law; he would be an engineer, join the civil service, then obtain an MBA and thereafter enter the private sector. SM Lee had switched from Coke to Pepsi. There was a New Dream.
For a moment, I thought, well, if I'm yesterday’s man, I might as well deviate from the path altogether. However, that year, the Singapore government decided it had too many lawyers and restricted the number of recognized overseas law schools. A rumour began spreading amongst the legal undergrad community that it wouldn't be long before they didn't recognize British qualifications altogether. We had to hurry and enter the Singapore workforce as soon as possible, before we were shut out. (As we now know, the rumour was unfounded, and Singapore now admits it needs more lawyers.)
Nevertheless, out of prudence, I shelved any thought of changing fields and became a barrister, then an advocate and solicitor of the Supreme Court of Singapore.
I joined a large law firm, again largely because it was commonly believed that it was good to bloody oneself in the trenches of the giants. I practiced shipping law, again an extremely prudent choice, what with our being the world's busiest port. Further, it was perceived as exciting because shipping lawyers often had to go out to sea to arrest ships. (In truth, arresting ships is not vastly different from what loansharks do when they hang pig's heads on debtors' doors.)
I had a decent, almost enviable, income. I had to keep telling myself that, because the lifestyle was neither decent nor enviable.Clients called me at 2 am in the morning. The High Court Registry nicknamed me "Mr. 5 O'Clock" because I regularly filed papers right under the guillotine, never of my own volition. My only pleasure was catching up on industry gossip while waiting in line to argue before the court registrars. There was not a single Chinese New Year holiday where I would not find myself in the office. My parents only caught fleeting glimpses of me early in the morning when I rushed to work, or late at night, when I stumbled in, surly and mentally exhausted. I saw Joyceln, then simply my girlfriend, for a few precious, stolen hours on Sundays.
But I had the job, and more important, the income. They brought me a measure of social acceptability. Parents' friends would nod approvingly, non-lawyer friends would remark how much lower their salaries were. I made enough to afford membership in a club I never had time to step into, and for season parking in town. I had credit cards and designer ties. I could share war stories about work that might have seemed glamourous to non-lawyer friends, weaned as they were on a diet of Ally McBeal. I was in the secure embrace of the Singaporean Dream.
My epiphany came as I was descending the gangway of a very large oil tanker. At a height of ten storeys or more, the gangway abruptly slipped its moorings and fell several feet. I found myself in mid air for several terrifying seconds. Luckily the crew managed to secure it again. As I retrieved my dropped manhood, I saw bits of the vessel fall into the sea below. If I had not held tight to the chains, I would be dead.
When I told my colleagues about it, no one batted an eyelid. It was simply one of the hazards of the job, like the long hours and the symbolic fellating of clients. Some even quipped, "Who says law isn't exciting?" But working late that night in the stale air of my office, surrounded by musty documents and lit by the sickly iridescence of my computer monitor, I knew I had to get out.My brush with death made me reflect on my life, as I suppose all encounters with the reaper must do. I realized I was unhappy. Not weeping-and-gnashing-of-teeth unhappy, just that dull ache of uninspiration. Yet, on paper, I should have been completely content.
My conviction was reinforced when I passed my boss's office and saw her toiling away. Much more senior, she was still keeping the crazy hours of a junior lawyer. She had a brilliant mind, equity in a giant and prestigious firm and a sizeable income, but I realized that I didn't aspire to her lifestyle. And she was by no means unique. If I did not aspire to be my boss, then what was the point? My life stretched before my eyes, and I did not want to take another step in its direction.
I then made a classic Singaporean evaluation: if I'm going to suffer, then by god, I'll suffer for more money. I figured American lawyers make the most money, so that's where I'll go. I decided the fastest way to do this would be to do a one year Master’s degree, preferably in an Ivy League university, since it would provide me ingress into the American market.
I spoke to Joyceln, and told her that the only place I wanted to go was New York, because I wanted to recapture a little of that energy I had felt years ago. Despite some reservations (New York has a not wholly undeserved reputation), we both applied to Columbia University, New York’s only Ivy League university. Miraculously, we were both accepted.
We quit our jobs, got married, emptied our bank accounts and left immediately.
JOYCELN: When applying to do my doctorate at Columbia's famous Teachers College, I spoke to several professors at the only education institution in Singapore to find out about possible financial support. I had intended to study curriculum and technology, and felt my experience teaching as well as a stint designing educational software in an IT firm would be valuable.
However, the door was abruptly slammed in my face when I was told over the phone, "If you are not in computer science, and not a first class graduate, there is nothing we need to talk about."
Perhaps spurred by anger, I worked like a demon at Teachers College and earned several academic awards, including a doctoral research fellowship which covered both tuition and a stipend, and came unencumbered by any bond, moral or otherwise. The myopia with which I had been treated had ironically turned out to be a blessing.
I even met with our Education Minister when he visited Teachers College. Of the questions he asked me, two stood out: "When are you going back to Singapore?" and "When are you going to have babies?" It hit me that I had never spoken to the Minister when I was teaching in Singapore. I wondered: am I valuable to the country only after I leave?
COLIN: Armed with a Masters from Columbia Law School and the grandiose title of "Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar" which Columbia had over-generously bestowed upon me, and having passed the New York bar exams, I knocked on the doors of some of the largest law firms in the world.
I recall one battery of interviews being carried out in a large hotel, where prospective lawyers would shuttle in and out of the rooms, each occupied by interviewers from the firms.
A fellow prospector asked me, "Which other profession requires you to shuttle from hotel room to hotel room?"
"Prostitution," I remarked, and we both laughed.
It proved a prophetic statement, for when touring the offices of prospective firms, instead of feeling pumped, I felt horrified by the all-too familiar office layout, the mounds of paper spilling onto the floor, the designer suits thrown over the backs of chairs.The last straw came when a partner of one Midtown firm patted me on the back and said, "I think you'd be perfect to help work on our port project out in Saudi Arabia!"
It suddenly hit me that I was not embarking on real change at all. I was merely rearranging the furniture. Like a good little boy, I had made all the pragmatic, sensible decisions… and it was about to push me into the abyss. I was still trying to achieve the Singaporean Dream, except overseas, and on a larger scale. Well, not exactly…
It was then that I understood the difference between the Singaporean Dream and the Singaporean Plan. And what is the difference?I suppose the Dream has to be one of searching for peace and the liberty to conduct one's life as one sees fit.
That's probably what my ancestors sought when they left China: the governments of the Ming and Manchu were ruthlessly restrictive of cross-border commerce, the lifeblood of my ethnic Hokkien and Teochew forbears.
And no doubt it was the Dream, fueled by hard work and courage, that has made Singapore the indisputable commercial success it is today.
And our story is a wonderful one: the Little Island That Could.
However, invariably once people attain success, they start to canonize the steps they took to achievement. This is how Dreams become Plans, and how one hegemony replaces another: the search for peace and liberty becomes get into a good school, then a good university, then a stable job, then buy property and stock. The problem is, then what?
There is nothing inherently unique about the Singaporean Dream. The American Dream of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is substantially the same. (And especially in the upper middle class, the American Dream is fast becoming a Plan too: prep school, Ivy League, Wall Street.)
But what to me gives America more hope is that they still celebrate mavericks; they may never find happiness, but their liberty to pursue it is sacred.
My experience in Singapore was, however, very different. There were always people telling you what and how you should do things, and imposing penalties for deviation. There were 'right' schools, 'right' professions, 'right' strategies.
Of course there are those who would argue that ultimately, the choice is one’s own and that there is nothing to prevent one from doing what he or she wants in Singapore. After all, isn’t it one’s fault for caving in to peer pressure? I would humbly submit that while theoretically true, such an argument betrays an ignorance of the combined workings of hegemony and power.
The issue is how expansive the reigning ideology is. In Singapore, the dominant view is to do whatever works (whatever that may be, and regardless of who it worked for). In New York (I won't pretend that America is homogeneous), the prevailing view is that everyone should find what makes him or herself unique, and capitalize on that.
Manhattan is smaller than Singapore, yet there is space for both Wall Street Wizards and Alphabet City Shamans to coexist. Despite occasional border skirmishes, there is recognition that the city would be a lot poorer if everyone marched to the same drum.An overly romantic myth? Perhaps. But that such a myth could persist in a hostile and cynical environment like New York, was encouraging to me. And anyway, the 'fulfillment' promised by the Singapore Plan was equally illusory. In a competition of myths, I chose the one that gave the most latitude to one's passions over the one that indulged one's fears.
JOYCELN: I think the most striking thing about New York is that so many people here are in transition. They don’t know where they are going to be or what they are going to be doing in 6 months’ time. But they are all working towards their individual dreams, in their own individual way, and not according to some mandated blueprint or destination.
The receptionist in my building is also an actor. I recently met a waitress who was a graduate student in philosophy. I have classmates who are not only still at work, but who also shoot films whenever they can.
Until New York, I didn’t know I could be poor and still volunteer to help others who are more needy than me - not tomorrow, or next year, or when my income reaches a certain level, but today.
I now tutor the children in my neighborhood who need help but can't afford to pay. I didn’t know how great it feels to be able to write, and express my anger, worries, and joys. I didn't know that if I am dissatisfied by policies, I can get together with others to express it.
Just last week, there was a public school that was boycotting a state-mandated test because the test was taking away precious instructional time. What a novel idea! I didn’t know I was not alone, that there are other Singaporeans who think like I do, who want to make a difference but who are afraid and are so used to being silent.
COLIN: The insidiousness is this: in adhering to the Singaporean Plan, I was acting pragmatically, but ultimately, dishonestly.
As late as the interlude between pupilage and practice, I had written a play that was performed for the Singapore Arts Festival Fringe, for which the British Council had sponsored me to attend the Royal Court Theatre in London's prestigious theatre school. Further, throughout my years of practice, I also managed to continue cartooning The Concrete Jungle. While I enjoyed writing and drawing, never for a second did I think this might be a career. Worse, I felt compelled to downgrade their importance in my life. First was money, then pleasure. It was simply un-Singaporean to think one could get pleasure without money, or that working should be pleasurable.
But now I refuse to postpone my dreams any further, and shelve them under some misguided notion of pragmatism. How often was I told as a child by my elders, "wait till you grow up," "wait till after exams", "wait till after you graduate". I do not desire to wait until I retire. I might not make it that far. I refuse to be a walking mid-life crisis in the making.
But living one's dreams is difficult because it is a lone undertaking. There is no such thing as shared dreams; they are personal creatures. And while my peers are making partner and buying cars, I live in rented student accommodation and scatter my work to the ocean of publications, hoping for a bite. Thus far, I have only been published a couple of times, far from being enough to pay the rent. Yet I do not feel despair. Trite as it may sound, I recognize that life is about the journey, and not the destination.
JOYCELN: In Singapore, a considerable amount of talk in education has been about continuing to be competitive in the global marketplace. Singapore seems to have done well in this respect - we have consistently come in first in the International Math and Science Study.
But in tandem with the fear of losing out on notional global competitiveness is the willingness of many educators, policy-makers, and parents to "train" the young to delay their dreams, desires and play for a future goal, to "wait till after you finish your homework," to "wait till after the exams" while at the same time plying them with material bribes.
On the global front, it is ironic that the US is trying to emphasize academic standards while Japan, who also finished in the top ranks of the International Math and Science Study, is trying to cut down on the curriculum to allow more time for play. Both cite global competitiveness as their reason for doing so. One wonders as a country, whether we are listening to the everyday experiences of our own children, parents and teachers, or simply responding to some speculative construction of what is needed to be competitive.
Can anyone say for sure what's needed? Only a few months ago, countries cried out for schools to produce more dotcommers. A look at the rollercoaster line that is the NASDAQ should be cause for circumspection.
There are signs that children in Singapore are straining under this ethos. Recent newspapers reports have reported that parents are spending an inordinate amount of money and time to send their children for after-school tuition so that they can achieve better results; scoring high marks in tests and exams have been found to be a top concern for students; the average 10 year-old has been found to spend 6 hours in school and up to 8 hours on homework and tuition each day, and, students have been reported to experience physical reactions such as diarrhoea and asthma attacks during or just before exams. Is this education, or child labor? Has scoring well in tests become the reason for tests themselves? How do teachers, parents, and teachers begin to imagine our lives differently?
COLIN: I think it is important not to wholly discredit the Singapore Plan. It worked for some and may yet work for others. However, it is also true that the road to hell is paved with good intentions and that it is always an error to confuse what is with what ought to be.
JOYCELN: Consider these 2 stories. Which is closer to yours?
You wake up everyday and work from Monday to Friday, and often, Saturday too. If you finish work early, you and your partner go to your parents’ place for dinner and see your child for a few hours. If you work late, you buy a packet of char kway teow from the hawker centre but eat it at home because it’s too warm to eat there. You’re not crazy about the job but you know that if you keep at it, you can afford a car in 3 years’ time, and in 5 years’ time, buy a condo close to the primary school you want to send your kid to. Your conversations with people are either for the purpose of networking, work, or for familial obligations you cannot avoid. On weekends, you play golf with your friends at your country club or watch a movie with your partner. Once a year, you go on a ten day vacation to New York, London, or Paris, and when your children are big enough, Disneyland.
Alternatively, you wake up and you have no idea what is going to happen today, tomorrow, 6 months or a year later. Ironically, because of this uncertainty, all possibilities exist for you. You can be the Prime Minister of Singapore, you can make a movie, you can cook a meal you have never cooked before, eat at a place you have never eaten before, you can color your hair red, you can skip instead of walk, you can volunteer at the school you have always wanted to volunteer at, you can write a book, or you can have a baby even though you don’t have a maid. You have conversations with people who set your heart palpitating and your mind on fire. Your weekday is not so different from your weekend because everyday you are thinking, creating, and more important, imagining.
Most of us recognize the first story and its pursuit of the 5 Cs of “cash, condo, car, country club, credit card.” It is the Plan, which imposes a conclusion on you, and you work in order to make all the pieces fit. A bus stop advertisement I saw recently said it best: "We spend all our youth chasing money, and when we attain it, we spend all our money chasing youth."
A Dream, on the other hand, carries you on its wings to worlds that your heart and mind have never known.
COLIN: My fault was accepting that the Plan would naturally work for me. One doesn’t have to accept a legacy one inherits. I was complicit in my unhappiness. I did not question enough, whether it was my elders, the government, newspapers, consultants, whatever. I foolishly let others make up my mind for me. I rather fear I am not alone in this folly.
If there is any blame to be laid, it is the upholding of a compliant, unquestioning culture; that some people should never be challenged because of age, status or whatever. It is not solely the establishment's fault; all political parties are entitled to play politics. But it is wholly our fault for not fighting for what we believe in.
COLIN & JOYCELN: Criticism and disagreement is not treason, and our words emanate as much from our dissatisfaction with, as our love for Singapore. We simply believe that we are more than our legacy. This is the dream of immigrants everywhere, whether they arrive in Singapore or on Ellis Island.
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
sports day
for someone so busy and so lack of sleep, I am blogging quite a bit.
anyhow, there is a chance i will be back this june/july for an internship posting. not confirmed the bank as yet but will be in singapore (about 99% sure) and all of a sudden a strange sadness descend upon me, a heavy feeling that I cannot shake. After these intense 5 months here, this place, this life has grown to be a part of me. Life is SIngapore seemed like a distant dream... but to see all of you again will be a big bonus.
Anyway we had sports day just this sat. was great fun and for a while everyone put our mountain of deadlines at the back of our heads. Here's some of my classmates...and me ...
anyhow, there is a chance i will be back this june/july for an internship posting. not confirmed the bank as yet but will be in singapore (about 99% sure) and all of a sudden a strange sadness descend upon me, a heavy feeling that I cannot shake. After these intense 5 months here, this place, this life has grown to be a part of me. Life is SIngapore seemed like a distant dream... but to see all of you again will be a big bonus.
Anyway we had sports day just this sat. was great fun and for a while everyone put our mountain of deadlines at the back of our heads. Here's some of my classmates...and me ...
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
How important is it to have opposition win some seats
far away from home, i have taken to reading the straits times online regularly and now the main news are of the upcoming general elections, what struck me was that almost all ( or maybe in fact all) the news regarding GE were about the PAP? Does that hint that the newspaper is a little bias in this sense or that our opposition party are not making use of the media enough to get themseleves notices besides capturing headlines by being sued to bankruptcy by u know whos.
What really made me took notice was how bent the PAP is on winning back the only 2 seats that we have represented by the opposition. SM even said he will be the "resource person" for the Potong Pasir GC and hint that it will be easier for upgrading now if the consituency votes PAP. I fear we are going to become a truly single party nation very soon.
THis then raise the question, how important it is to have opposition? I have encountered many times people here who commented that SIngapore is a dictatorship...often i laugh to myself and in typical Asian manner conclude that these western do not know anything. But really before we make such statements as these, we will have then to reask ourselves how much we know about the Westerns? But i digress. But this is the image we project to those in te general, that and the notorious chewing gum law, but also our amazing ability in turning around our little nation from a thrid world nothing to a first class city in less than 50 years. For this I have to give credit to our enlightened leaders. So what if we have a so called dictatorship when this has proved to work for us as a nation? I am watching how this election will turn out. :-)
What really made me took notice was how bent the PAP is on winning back the only 2 seats that we have represented by the opposition. SM even said he will be the "resource person" for the Potong Pasir GC and hint that it will be easier for upgrading now if the consituency votes PAP. I fear we are going to become a truly single party nation very soon.
THis then raise the question, how important it is to have opposition? I have encountered many times people here who commented that SIngapore is a dictatorship...often i laugh to myself and in typical Asian manner conclude that these western do not know anything. But really before we make such statements as these, we will have then to reask ourselves how much we know about the Westerns? But i digress. But this is the image we project to those in te general, that and the notorious chewing gum law, but also our amazing ability in turning around our little nation from a thrid world nothing to a first class city in less than 50 years. For this I have to give credit to our enlightened leaders. So what if we have a so called dictatorship when this has proved to work for us as a nation? I am watching how this election will turn out. :-)
Monday, March 27, 2006
My tribute to that yellow daffodil
it was that early daffodil, lone in full blossom, yellow petals becokoning to anyone who notices it. Months of bareness and melancholic winter over and spring emerges slowly, shy like a little girl peering from under her white blanket...
Saturday, March 18, 2006
all the world's a stage...and the men and women merely players
i am starting to feel like I am stuck in a big farce....its all abt image and playing the game right in this place and the rebellious side in me is starting to surface; to just not play the game right...
but really why compromise myself? I guess being young still, there is no excuse yet to get jaded about politics and playing games cos the fittest survives.
Positive people dont let it drag them down but see how they can play it best wihtout compromising their own values.
well okay just needed to rant and say this place sucks but I am going to build my own little sunshine corner and be the positive person....
but really why compromise myself? I guess being young still, there is no excuse yet to get jaded about politics and playing games cos the fittest survives.
Positive people dont let it drag them down but see how they can play it best wihtout compromising their own values.
well okay just needed to rant and say this place sucks but I am going to build my own little sunshine corner and be the positive person....
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Who has my books?
Hi ladies... where's my "Tuesdays with Morrie" and "Monkey business"? Can whoever's holding onto them kindly drop me a sms .. coz I need them back. :) Thanks
Thursday, March 09, 2006
Movie last night
Hey gals, as i said.. i went to watch Munich last night ... until 12.30am!! But at least it was really really good... a very heavy and interesting movie ...
family vs country
Jews vs Muslim
Mossad vs CIA vs KGB
Jew vs Jew
Brotherhood, love, betrayal, withdrawal syndrome, sympathy, love of mankind
Fatherhood, family, single, adultery, temptation
For God vs For self....
Over 1 yr period....
all within just one show.... love it....
and did i mention i went to GV gold class... it felt just like my bed, with blanket provided ...zzzz
family vs country
Jews vs Muslim
Mossad vs CIA vs KGB
Jew vs Jew
Brotherhood, love, betrayal, withdrawal syndrome, sympathy, love of mankind
Fatherhood, family, single, adultery, temptation
For God vs For self....
Over 1 yr period....
all within just one show.... love it....
and did i mention i went to GV gold class... it felt just like my bed, with blanket provided ...zzzz
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
what's going on
Things to keep in mind to blog about:
1) Maid ran away
2) Madza got crashed into
3) Back injuries due to accident
4) Got a replacement car for the damanaged Mazda, but my sister got into accident as well and crashed the car. Yes, 2 accidents in 1 day.
5) Phobia to drive and to travel in cars...
6) Overcame phobia to drive and yes, I've starting to drive alone again...
7) Someone wrote "Bitch" on my office chair.
8) Relationship with "Peahen" has never been better.
9) A good talk with my boss at Bar None.
10) My first client meeting today, which i nearly couldn't go coz someone decide to go on MC for 2 days - which i think is on purpose.
CJ asked me the other day if i have watched matchpoint, crash or munich? No, No, No... so much things, so much work... so much stress ...ok, I'm going to watch Munich tonight... i deserve a treat for myself.
1) Maid ran away
2) Madza got crashed into
3) Back injuries due to accident
4) Got a replacement car for the damanaged Mazda, but my sister got into accident as well and crashed the car. Yes, 2 accidents in 1 day.
5) Phobia to drive and to travel in cars...
6) Overcame phobia to drive and yes, I've starting to drive alone again...
7) Someone wrote "Bitch" on my office chair.
8) Relationship with "Peahen" has never been better.
9) A good talk with my boss at Bar None.
10) My first client meeting today, which i nearly couldn't go coz someone decide to go on MC for 2 days - which i think is on purpose.
CJ asked me the other day if i have watched matchpoint, crash or munich? No, No, No... so much things, so much work... so much stress ...ok, I'm going to watch Munich tonight... i deserve a treat for myself.
Friday, March 03, 2006
Thursday, March 02, 2006
"A" level results just came out, and it is deja vu all over again. My sis didn't do well enough to get a scholarship to go abroad though she wanted it so much.... just like I did... once. She pretty much scared my mum out of her wits when she called home and could only cry. She's better now, thank goodness, but I got the sinking feeling that she hasn't given up.
An office right in the middle of Manhattan you say, fishy? That's what dreams are made up of, I agree. I couldn't help having to stay put in little ol' Singapore, But at least I did my best to make the best out of the situation...and it made things a LOT better to be able to visit Ed in US to stay, travel, drive through the entire length of the country. He had what I didn't, but I got to share in the joy of what made being abroad exciting.
It's just easier to leave things to fate, but if fate decides to disagree with us, it would be a bitter pill to swallow.
The firm announced retention (100%) yesterday, and I will be doing Projects. Yet another secretary gave me an incredulous look today, like i just chose to send myself to the gallows. Few ppl had good things to say about Projects, but I shall leave it to Fate. I have come to a point where I am sick and tired of thinking, considering and re-considering. Nike says just do it. I think it is good advise - I'm young after all. Hard work and stress won't kill me. At most I'll look for some place else to go if I decide its not worth the grief.
We'll just see what hand Fate deals me.
An office right in the middle of Manhattan you say, fishy? That's what dreams are made up of, I agree. I couldn't help having to stay put in little ol' Singapore, But at least I did my best to make the best out of the situation...and it made things a LOT better to be able to visit Ed in US to stay, travel, drive through the entire length of the country. He had what I didn't, but I got to share in the joy of what made being abroad exciting.
It's just easier to leave things to fate, but if fate decides to disagree with us, it would be a bitter pill to swallow.
The firm announced retention (100%) yesterday, and I will be doing Projects. Yet another secretary gave me an incredulous look today, like i just chose to send myself to the gallows. Few ppl had good things to say about Projects, but I shall leave it to Fate. I have come to a point where I am sick and tired of thinking, considering and re-considering. Nike says just do it. I think it is good advise - I'm young after all. Hard work and stress won't kill me. At most I'll look for some place else to go if I decide its not worth the grief.
We'll just see what hand Fate deals me.
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
tiredness and fatigue.....is that a normal way to live our youth?
Balance is such an evasive concept, it is extremely delicate and totally subjective.
I thought hard work was an Asian concept *take this statement with a pinch of salt* but well here too in welfare states Contiental Europe, they do about the same to you. We are being worked like dogs literally, one assignment after another... intially i was overwhelmed and went to class looking like the perfect version of living zombie. Complaining was like the favourite past time of my classmates. But really how does that help??? It just piles on the negativity.
Instead of having work control me, I am gonna take control of work itself. It is a matter of attitude and good time management plus setting priorities right.
I thought hard work was an Asian concept *take this statement with a pinch of salt* but well here too in welfare states Contiental Europe, they do about the same to you. We are being worked like dogs literally, one assignment after another... intially i was overwhelmed and went to class looking like the perfect version of living zombie. Complaining was like the favourite past time of my classmates. But really how does that help??? It just piles on the negativity.
Instead of having work control me, I am gonna take control of work itself. It is a matter of attitude and good time management plus setting priorities right.
Monday, February 20, 2006
It's me
Think I might have disappeared for far too long..hence, I'm back again.
Work's getting busier and busier and things just keep multiplying like nobody's business. But guess it's fulfilling when you know you are kinda of like making a difference.
Anyway, as work exerts its toil, it also suggests that one day I might lose my love to a girl who has time to go back to prepare dinner and perhaps most of my friends cox I cannot attend most of the gatherings or appear too tired when I do manage to attend. Some say absence makes the heart grow fonder. In this case, does it apply?
And when does one draw the line between work and play?
Anyway, just some mindless rattle for the fried brain.
See you soon my dear friends.
Work's getting busier and busier and things just keep multiplying like nobody's business. But guess it's fulfilling when you know you are kinda of like making a difference.
Anyway, as work exerts its toil, it also suggests that one day I might lose my love to a girl who has time to go back to prepare dinner and perhaps most of my friends cox I cannot attend most of the gatherings or appear too tired when I do manage to attend. Some say absence makes the heart grow fonder. In this case, does it apply?
And when does one draw the line between work and play?
Anyway, just some mindless rattle for the fried brain.
See you soon my dear friends.
Sunday, February 19, 2006
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Greetings from outer space
hey gals,
quick hi to all before I rush off to school, kinda felt the immense need to make my virtual presence.
Happy Valentine to all...but actually the more important thing about this day is that it is the birthday of one of my very good friend. That is the true meaning of 14th Feb to me
and to miss sha sha
Happy Birthday
and to miss fishy
i got ur sms , sorry I have not made the effort to contact you. Believe me it is crazy here, my days are spent doing real meaningful stuff like assignments and preparing for presentations.
Before i toddle down to school, enjoy ur holiday plans...i am envious and seriously craving for spring, summer and beach fun.
Miss u all!
quick hi to all before I rush off to school, kinda felt the immense need to make my virtual presence.
Happy Valentine to all...but actually the more important thing about this day is that it is the birthday of one of my very good friend. That is the true meaning of 14th Feb to me
and to miss sha sha
Happy Birthday
and to miss fishy
i got ur sms , sorry I have not made the effort to contact you. Believe me it is crazy here, my days are spent doing real meaningful stuff like assignments and preparing for presentations.
Before i toddle down to school, enjoy ur holiday plans...i am envious and seriously craving for spring, summer and beach fun.
Miss u all!
Monday, February 13, 2006
Dilemma
Tomorrow I may make a life changing decision - well, it will at least change the next year of my life. If I decide one way, weekends may no longer exist. I may start being on call 24/7. And I may not be able to get time off for our precious trip...Will you guys blame me?
Seriously I don't know whether the job satisfaction will be there although the work is interesting.... heck, half the time I am too pumped up to realize anything else. And the stress is like I have never come across before.
I am not sure whether I will be strong enough for it seriously. It's one of those times when you choose whether or not to put yourself in a do-or-die situation, or opt for the relatively unknown.
I must like the work, I'm told. But I don't know whether the interest is fleeting. One week of it and I am panting from exertion. What if one year of it takes 10 years off my life?? Should I take the leap?
Seriously I don't know whether the job satisfaction will be there although the work is interesting.... heck, half the time I am too pumped up to realize anything else. And the stress is like I have never come across before.
I am not sure whether I will be strong enough for it seriously. It's one of those times when you choose whether or not to put yourself in a do-or-die situation, or opt for the relatively unknown.
I must like the work, I'm told. But I don't know whether the interest is fleeting. One week of it and I am panting from exertion. What if one year of it takes 10 years off my life?? Should I take the leap?
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