t.s. eliot:

"For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business."

#9: spending time with the very precious few people who actually do care about me.

ran into elwin c. (BONDED) at a Thing yesterday - elwin is one of those folks who keeps popping up at random moments in my life, and who i will no doubt bump into one day while bound north fleeing justice, or some such thing. he was, as always, solidly normal (digging through some old notes, i discovered that i once remarked, after finding out that he had gone through ocs, that i could "never imagine him leading [soldiers] into war, not because i believe him incapable of it, but because i could never see him as anything other than a person"). he is one of the few gep people to emerge from the programme personality unscathed, i would say -- or perhaps as some think there is an element of self-selection and the smattering of normal people -- elwin and yuexiang and andy, off the top of my head -- are the anomalies.

Currently reading:
The Frozen Deep - Wilkie Collins

the interns have left, which is as sure a sign as leaves turning that summer is dissolving into fall. we had a guest prof from wayne state U over this week to host some lectures and discussions for the aging group, so it was all commotion upstairs and relative quiet for our team. i shattered that quiet for myself midweek by discovering that i had used a formula in error when analysing the results for my experiment, and for a while it was recomputation and hair-tearing and e-mails to statisticians and the reviewers. this is when you get when you unleash ignorant people (i.e. myself) into academia.

and friday was the first of many goodbyes, to justin, over tequila shots, and game theory, and ruefulness that this country has such a death grip on the people it so purportedly loves. who was it who said that letting go was the key?

#7: the where in the world is carmen sandiego theme

#8: finishing a crossword, and getting it right.

the second half of the stimulus set is to be houses, hundreds and hundreds of houses, and all from singapore in case there are cultural differences in the way the asian brain perceives american architecture. i volunteered to do the driving, in part to get out of the office, in part because i had designs on motoring down to sunset way for durian ice cream (which i did). the daily scoop also had lychee martini on offer, but i wisely decided that nothing else either does, or should, interfere with the perfection that is frozen d24, and i was right. hk had bailey's, which was also excellent. i popped over next door in the hopes of buying a box of yam cake studded with tiny bits of lap cheong and topped with sliced chili padi and crispy fried shallots, but was foiled by a big sign on the door that said CLOSED ON MONDAYS. i will return.

we drove around sunset way, with S. popping out of the car every few meters on commando raids to snap photos of suitable facades, criteria for suitability including (a) no cars in the driveway, (b) no gates obstructing the view (c) no dogs (d) no humans (e) no vegetation etc. this was harder than it sounds. most houses in singapore have ridiculously short, virtually purposeless driveways, fronted by enormous obscuring gates. those we eliminated immediately. even at the places with long driveways, we had to get right up to the gate and take the photo between the bars in order to get a decent picture. also, despite us going around in the middle of a working day, more places than you can imagine violated (a) and (d); i.e. singaporeans have way. too. much. money.

down dunearn road, and into all the small side streets, where we got barked at by alsatians, schnauzers, a corgi, and 6.8 million golden retrievers. also a cantankerous pyjama-clad auntie who would not believe that we were with a research lab, even after being presented with identification, and who chased us halfway down the street threatening to call the police. a while later, we found ourselves making our way down yarwood avenue. you should take a walk there if you haven't -- it has lovely, palatial houses, and i would absolutely live in one of them (if they were in, say, roanoke). not so much because of the house -- small living areas i can abide -- but because having a yard to romp around in with dogs and family and friends should not be a luxury; everyone should have sprawling, open spaces where they can breathe, and read, and think, and live.


#6: Those days when I wake up and think: "Wow...I can do anything I want to do today." (Not that I even recall when last that happened).

one man's opinion

Minister of State for Education Lui Tuck Yew (on why S'porean "lit" should be included in the school syllabus):

"We can't deny the value and appeal of canonical texts. They're absolutely well-written, and generations of Singaporeans have grown up on those. But if you want to develop critical, analytical skills, you can't only be exposed to Wordsworth anad Shakespeare"

Discuss.


#5: Books and plays that are absolutely well-written.

at haagen dazs

(-- where the brother and i went last night after waiting in vain for a table at bakerzin. it's $4.50 for a single scoop and $6.70 for a double, prices i would pay for no flavour other than midnight cookies and cream, the only sin that justifies such extravagance.)

(this, btw, was a fairly extended discussion which i condense for clarity:)

me: so can i get a double scoop and have you split them into 2 extra cups?
counter guy: sure!
[cashier then proceeds to try and charge me for 2 single scoops]
me: no, i don't want two single scoops, i want a double scoop in 2 cups.
cashier: i'm afraid we can't do that
me: well can i just get a double scoop and pay for an extra cup then?
cashier: i have to ask my manager.
me: you can even have the wafer back.
cashier: i have to ask my manager.
me: this is not that hard. i want you to sell me a double scoop and an extra cup (subtext: which costs you 0.24 cents to make)
cashier: i have to ask my manager.
[manager arrives]
me: i want to get two scoops, in two cups, and be charged for a double scoop
manager: i'm sorry, we can't do that.
me: well, that's ok, because now i'm not going to get any scoops. goodbye.

i really don't understand why this is such a constant problem in this damn country -- i mean, i'm not much of a businessman, but let's think about this for a second.

Option #1: Sell the customer what he wants at the same fucking inflated price you would have originally, minus the cost of a paper cup, or
Option #2: Make no money at all.

now, i know what i would choose, but who knows, maybe there's some top secret sales strategy they teach you in nus business school that the rest of us just don't know about.

From The Sea, John Banville:

'You live in the past,' she said.

I was about to give a sharp reply, but paused. She was right, after all. Life, authentic life, is supposed to be all struggle, unflagging action and affirmation, the will butting its blunt head against the world's wall, suchlike, but when I look back I see that the greater part of my energies was always given over to the simple search for shelter, for comfort, for, yes, I admit it, for cosiness. This is a surprising, not to say a shocking, realisation. Before, I saw myself as something of a buccaneer, facing all-comers with a cutlass in my teeth, but now I am compelled to acknowledge that this was a delusion. To be concealed, protected, guarded, that is all I have ever truly wanted, to burrow down into a place of womby warmth and cower there, hidden from the sky's indifferent gaze and the harsh air's damagings. That is why the past is such a retreat for me, I go there eagerly, rubbing my hands and shaking off the cold present and the colder future. And yet, what existence, really, does it have, the past? After all, it is only what the present was, once, the present that is gone, no more than that. And yet.

#4: Unexpected twists in conversations that lead one somewhere new, to the bizarre, or things hitherto unconsidered.

From The Sea, John Banville

She stood in the middle of the floor in her coat and scarf, hands on her hips, casting about her with a vexed expression. She was still handsome then, high of cheekbone, her skin translucent, paper-fine. I always admired in particular her Attic profile, the nose a line of carven ivory falling sheer from the brow.

'Do you know what it is?' she said with bitter vehemence. 'It's inappropriate, that's what it is.'

I looked aside quickly for fear my eyes would give me away; one's eyes are always those of someone else, the mad and desperate dwarf crouched within. I knew what she meant. This was not supposed to have befallen her. It was not supposed to have befallen us, we were not that kind of people. Misfortunes, illness, untimely death, these things happen to good folk, the humble ones, the salt of the earth, not to Anna, not to me. In the midst of the imperial progress that was our life together a grinning losel had stepped out of the cheering crowd and sketching a parody of a bow had handed my tragic queen the warrant of impeachment.

She put on a kettle of water to boil and fished in a pocket of her coat and brought out her spectacles and put them on, looping the string behind her neck. She began to weep, absent-mindedly, it might be, making no sound. I moved clumsily to embrace her but she drew back sharply.

'For heaven's sake don't fuss!' she snapped. 'I'm only dying, after all.'

The kettle came to the boil and switched itself off and the seething water inside it settled down grumpily. I marvelled, not for the first time, at the cruel complacency of ordinary things. But no, not cruel, not complacent, only indifferent, as how could they be otherwise? Henceforth I would have to address things as they are, not as I might imagine them, for this was a new version of reality. I took up the teapot and the tea, making them rattle - my hands were shaking - but she said no, she had changed her mind, it was brandy she wanted, brandy, and a cigarette, she who did not smike, and rarely drank. She gave me the dull glare of a defiant child, standing there by the table in her coat. Her tears had stopped. She took of her glasses and dropped them to hang below her throat on their string and rubbed at her eyes with the heels of her hands. I found the brandy bottle and tremblingly poured a measure into a tumbler, the bottle-neck and the rim of the glass chattering against each other like teeth. There were no cigarettes in the house, where was I to get cigarettes? She said it was no matter, she did not really want to smoke. The steel kettle shone, a slow furl of steam at its spout, vaguely suggestive of genie and lamp. Oh, grant me a wish, just the one.

'Take off your coat, at least,' I said.

But why at least? What a business it is, the human discourse.

I gave her the glass of brandy and she stood holding it but did not drunk Light from the window behind me shone on the lenses of her spectacles where they hung at her collar bone, giving the eerie effect of another, miniature she standing close in front of her under her chin with eyes cast down. Abruptly she went slack and sat down heavily, extending her arms before her along the table in a strange, desperate-seeming gesture, as if in supplication to some unseen other seated opposite her in judgment. The tumbler in her hand knocked on the wood and splashed out half its contents. Helplessly, I contemplated her. For a giddy second the notion seized me that I would never again be able to think of another word to say to her, that we would go on like this, in agonised inarticulacy, to the end. I bent and kissed the pale patch on the crown of her head the size of a sixpence where the dark hair whorled. She turned to face up to me briefly with a black look.

'You smell of hospitals,' she said. 'That should be me.'

I took the tumbler from her hand and put it to my lips and drank at a draught what remained of the scorching brandy. I realised what the feeling was that had been besetting me since I had stepped that morning into the glassy glare of Mr Todd's consulting rooms. It was embarrassment. Anna felt it as well, I was sure of it. Embarrassment, yes, a panic-stricken sense of not knowing what to say, where to look, how to behave, and something else, too, that was not quite anger but a sort of surly annoyance, a surly resentment at the predicament in which we grimly found ourselves. It was as if a secret had been imparted to us so dirty, so nasty, that we could hardly bear to remain in one another's company yet were unable to break free, each knowing the foul thing that the other knew and bound together by that very knowledge. From this day forward all would be dissembling. There would be no other way to live with death.

Still Anna sat erect there at the table, fcacing away from me, her arms extended and hands lying inert with palms upturned as if for something to be dropped into them.

'Well?' she said without turning. 'What now?'

#3: Being useful, in ways big and small

because i don't often say how much i love toad

We spotted the ocean at the head of the trail
Where are we going, so far away?
And somebody told me that this is the place
Where everything's better, and everything's safe

Walk on the ocean
Step on the stones
Flesh becomes water
Wood becomes bone

And half an hour later we packed up our things
We said we'd send letters and all of those little things
And they knew we were lying but they smiled just the same
It seemed they'd already forgotten we'd came

Walk on the ocean
Step on the stones
Flesh becomes water
Wood becomes bone

Now we're back at the homestead
Where the air makes you choke
And the people don't know you
And trust is a joke
We don't even have pictures
Just memories to hold
That grow sweeter each season
As we slowly grow old

40 things that make me happy
#2: Being mentally 18.
Real jobs are overrated.

as we grow older, it becomes more and more apparent that our generation is not going to evolve into a facsimile of the last, that i am not going to become my father. this may seem a trivial statement, but when i was in school i always assumed that a switch turned on when you reached a certain age that made one act like an "adult" -- it's obvious now that there is no inflexion point, that our generation is capable of stretching in different ways, but never of holding dear the same things that our parents did. this is either distressing or an incredible relief depending on how you think about it. distressing because the goals of our parents - particularly growing up in the 60s and 70s - were attainable, whereas ours are either nebulous or ephemeral or both; a relief because we have nothing to live up to: by having a mutable benchmark for success, we also excuse every one of our failures.

i suppose this is nothing new for, say, americans - they've had generation gap issues arising from dramatically time-compressed changes in inter-generational opportunities for decades - but it is new for us, and i don't think that we cope as well with the disparity. maybe it's to do with having the whole confucian values story force-fed down our throats from young, but the people with whom i've discussed this seem far more fixated on the distress than the relief. on some level, they wish they did have the same desires as their parents, and balk at how easily realised these are. those not in the upper class are glad to be their father's second chance.

we are afraid to own up to our differences to ourselves, and yet we still carry the obvious and indelible marks of having grown up in a different world. i peruse the blogs of friends and acquaintances, some pushing 30, some married, and they cheerfully admit to playing WoW while pondering why their existence seems so dull and dreary. they're still waiting for the switch to flick on, while in the mean time the goalposts have moved, and the world is waiting for them to realise that.

Currently reading:
The Sea - John Banville

40 things that make me happy
#1: Coffee
Especially that very first taste in the morning, the sip that tells you that the night is over, and that makes the day possible.

racism

[over hummus and shawarma last night]
the brother: shouldn't it be "lightly row, lightly row, all the way from mexico"?

we are parking ourselves in the sgh lobby next week to take face shots of volunteers -- one face shot = one candy bar. it's not saving the whales or the amazonian rainforests, but drop by on wednesday if you're free and want to contribute to science.

the paper went in for peer review this afternoon. this made me much happier than i thought it would, not just because it's done (for the time being anyway), but because i feel that at last i've accomplished something in life that's not just getting an A on an exam -- this feels somehow real. it's ironic, i guess, that this satisfaction has been granted to me through academia, which many people would sniff at as being the most unreal pursuit in life, and once again i find myself taking stock to make sure that the feeling does not arise simply because i cannot successfully do anything else. those who can't do, teach; those who can't teach, do research. if you can't wrest the swings and see-saws away from the rich and handsome people, make your own playground. and in a sense, it's all my own personal playground from here on in, isn't it, all internal measures of success, quiet victories won where no one else can even tell triumph from defeat?

yet another DSA, this one an acquaintance from the army, re-appeared in my life this week (incidentally reaffirming my belief that stanford is, indeed, camazotz). his undergraduate thesis, which is being published in a peer-reviewed journal, involved exciting electron spins uwith laser beams, flipping them to a high-energy state, and measuring their subsequent relaxation time. this is apparently of vital interest to the computer industry -- controlling the spin/anti-spin configurations of electrons is the basis of building quantum computers (because there are only two possible energy states, these can function as the binary operators upon which all computer systems run. well, almost binary because the bits in a quantum computer can hold a superposition of the two states, which is the nifty part, but also another story for another day). IBM has already created a prototype of this -- a soup of 7 carbon-based atoms which has successfully factorised the number 15. a computer significantly larger than this (perhaps created using semi-conductor technology) would essentially be able to zip through online security systems decrypting previously-unhackable passwords in a matter of minutes and completely changing the landscape of information security as we know it. lovely. unfortunately, DSA the second will play no part in this revolution, because, like most capable singaporeans, he is BONDED, and will be shuffling papers in a small cubicle overlooking marina bay for the foreseeable future. this story is becoming all too familiar.

the conclusion, after extended consideration

nothing rhymes with purple

From Wiki, on Penn:

Penn's motto is based on a line from Horace’s Third Ode, quid leges sine moribus vanae proficiunt? ("of what avail empty laws without [good] mores?") From 1756 to 1898, the motto read Sine Moribus Vanae. When a wag pointed out that the motto could be translated as "Loose women without morals," the university quickly changed the motto to literae sine moribus vanae ("Letters without morals are useless"). In 1932, all elements of the seal were revised, and as part of the redesign it was decided that the new motto "mutilated" Horace, and it was changed to its present wording, Leges Sine Moribus Vanae ("Laws without morals [are] useless")

i dragged the usual suspects (minus addy) to a nearby nonya place for lunch yesterday, to the tunes of the typical complaints. (cp: why don't we ever meet at junction 8 for lunch? me: you mean aside from the fact that there's no actual food there?) the restaurant is new, which meant it did not have jy's mom's stamp of approval, but we took our chances anyway. over-ordered, but only a little -- ayam buah keluak (strange...darker and more viscous than the traditional variety, but they were v. generous with the nuts), otak (good bite), fried nonya zhang, terung goreng (texture just right -- the skin is always tricky), babi pongteh and sweet potato leaves. and, a little unnecessarily, i felt, dessert after: pulot hitam and a weird banana-gula melaka thing which even su-lin wouldn't eat. it was a little pricey ($14), but we did order a lot, and they have cheaper set meals that i may go back for at some point.

Currently reading:
The Assualt - Harry Mulisch