casino

taking over the singapore stupidity watch from my brother for a day, may i point people's attention to this and say that "[using] a smartcard system in which a person's income level, betting limits and playing time are coded on a chip" at a casino is one of the most bloody idiotic ideas i've ever heard of. why don't we just have betting chaperones who put you on a leash and walk you around? yen, please do me a favour and bop the head of the person who thought of this. thank you.

email

I've been cruelly informed by OIT that my Duke email address has to go bye-bye, so I'll soon be something at alumni.duke.edu. Stay tuned.

hey, nie people! (well, person.) i had lunch at the ntu canteen today after the madding crowd had thinned and it was actually rather decent. there's a japanese stall selling $3.50 dons of various kinds - i had the soft shell crab one, and it came, in a fairly generous portion, with lettuce and mashed potato and little crabby bits in it, hot. and there's also unagi don and tendon and so forth if you fancy those. worth waiting till 1:30 for!

during lunch, choonping lamented to me that they were given an alfian sa'at "poem" to analyse in class, one so devoid in meaning that reading it was like un-reading several good shakespearean sonnets. we decided (as we have several times in the past) that the sorry state of singaporean literature is due in large part to the existence of the creative arts programme and the fact that the writers who emerge from it are often as about as creative as dr. sbaitso. (ok, fine. there are some exceptions. *ducks accusing glares*)

coincidentally enough, i was on the mrt later on when this ri fella got on at bishan, fished a CAP notebook and pen out of his bag, and picked up writing what was obviously a short story/novella of some kind. incapable of minding my own business (as usual), i said hi, and told him that if he ever intended to write, he really ought to quit the CAP ASAP (heh).

why? he asked.

i told him.

oh, he said. well, i'm not in the CAP anyway. i went for a seminar and got this notebook free.

good for you, i said.

and he continued with his work, obviously convinced that i was some kind of a nutjob.

which is probably not far from the truth.

week 6

the boss has given me permission to quit next friday if i get the new job. i'm swooning with joy.

Thinking that Mass was at 0930 this morning, I arrived at St. Iggy's at 0925 only to find that I was actually 50 minutes early. Eternal optimist that I am, I read the mistake as an opportunity to spend a little extra time praying, and felt a lot better afterwards for having done that (as opposed to getting a coffee and reading the newspaper as is my usual wont).


One of the day's readings was particularly striking, and I'll reproduce it here in its entirety (Wow, quoting the Bible for a purpose other than irony. That must be a first on this blog.)

Hebrews 12: 5-13

And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees; And make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed.

Currently reading/just finished reading/etc.:
A Hat Full of Sky - The Inimitable Pratchett
A Short History of a Small Place - T.R. Pearson
Yellow Dog - Martin Amis

Before I run off to do the ironing, here's a big shout out and thank-you to Choonping for buying not one but two dinners for me this week because for him "it's not just the thought that counts" :)

Let it not be said that I only have negative things to say about work: after a meeting at the MOE yesterday we got an unofficial, self-declared half-day off, which was blessed relief after the three excruciating hours listening to the non-sequiturs of the MOE Director of Personnel. Went to Ghim Moh with two colleagues while considering how to commence the afternoon's gadding and mindlessly ordered hor fun which I had to pick all the chicken bits out of because it was Friday. Chatted, variously, about the state of the economy, Hendon Camp, good Italian restaurants in Singapore, Justea and expatriate teachers in junior college. The last made me feel like popping into RJC, what with it being around the corner at all, but decided not to because the last time I went the only teachers I saw were KLee and Evans, who apparently doesn't even remember me any more.

So I hopped on the MRT aimlessly, and it was about then that Von rescued me by replying to one of the many messages that I had sent to friends all around the universe saying that he was in Alexandra. Ah, I thought, the hated hospital, got off the train as it conveniently passed Redhill, got on the 33, landed up outside AH...when Von called me to say that he was heading towards Ghim Moh in a cab. By then, of course, it was threatening to pour, so Vaughn dropped off a friend, got in a different cab, and we ended up in Borders slightly damp and out about $15 between us.

(It turned out that Von was not in AH in any case, he was in Anchorpoint. Assumption is the mother etc.)

Anyway, I announced that I needed to buy ties and long-sleeved shirts for my interview next Monday (yes! I got it!) so we trotted off to Isetan and scared the salesgirl a little and Von said that it was better to do tailored shirts than buy $130 Alain Delons and also said a lot of things about cufflinks and such which I didn't understand. So we abandoned the department stores and headed for Far East Plaza where I picked a tailor shop sort of at random (well...not entirely at random...the reason I headed straight for the place I did was because I've had something made there before, once upon a very long time ago). Spent an unholy amount of time looking at fabrics and designs, Von giving me none-too-subtle instruction about which I should choose (only geriatrics wear silk! windowpanes are cool! pick collar A!), and after being slightly ripped off by the tailor (the price of one of the fabrics increased mysteriously from $65 to $70 in the space of a few breaths), I emerged with a chit receipt thing for two shirts - one white, one blue with little textured embossed squares, very subtle - which I will collect on Monday after work and before bridge.

After that was ties from Tangs, one mandarin with a black lattice pattern and the other deep crimson, and then in search of coffee because Von was "shopped out" (and pointing out all the silliest clothes to me - an undersized Celtics top and what can only be described as a diaphanous, sleeveless, $100 monostrosity). We lighted in Orchard Galilee, recapped Minz's free-main-course-redemption woes, got shushed by a very ugly man, had cappuccino (correctly spelled) and cheesecake, and talked, as always, about the horridly uncertain future.


Von says that he might start a blog, so people who know him please leave encouraging comments and such. It will, however, be very strange, and involve symbols that you must click on in a certain order before you can access entries, so don't ever expect to read anything off it. (Not to mention that fact that he says that nothing interesting ever happens to him, which is so patently untrue that it is eurtnu).

olympics

So the apple of the SSC's eye, Ronald Susilo, lost his quarter-final match while I was walking to Justin's house to play mahjong, and i thought it would be nice to put into perspective exactly how pathetic the state of singapore sport is in. I know what they say about lies damn lies, but let's think about the situation in terms of stats nonetheless.

What possible factors might correlate with how successful a country is in sport?

1) GDP per capita
Singapore is 27th in the world at US$24000, and (as everyone and his goldfish knows because they report it in every damn article on the Olympics that gets published here), we have one silver medal. More than half the countries in the top 25 list in GDP per capita are also top 25 in total Olympic medals over the past 100 years (USA, Sweden, France, Britain, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, Canada, Belgium, Australia, The Netherlands, Japan, Finland, Italy).

2) Incentives
I believe there was something in the papers about Singapore having the highest monetary incentive in the world for winning an Olympic medal (at $1 million bucks, is that a surprise?) So no disadvantage there.

3) Expenditure on sport
You can view that here. I don't know what that is in comparison with other countries, but whatever the case, it's substantial.

Well, OK, that's not so great. Maybe success at the Olympics is a function of population size. More people, more talent, right?

Sydney Olympics 2000, medals per 1 million people:

1. Bahamas: 6.78 (population 294,982; medals 2)
2. Barbados: 3.64 (population 274,540; medals 1)
3. Iceland: 3.62 (population 276,365; medals 1)
4. Australia: 3.03 (population 19,169,083; medals 58)
5. Cuba: 2.64 (population 11,096,395; medals 29)
5. Jamaica: 2.64 (population 2,652,689; medals 7)
6. Norway: 2.23 (population 4,481,162; medals 10)
7. Estonia (!!) 2.10 (population 1,431,471; medals 3)
8. Trinidad & Tobago: 1.70 (population 1,175,523; medals 2)
9. Hungary: 1.68 (population 10,138.844; medals 17)

So no real correlation there: 6 of the top 10 have significantly smaller populations than ours; Norway is about on par with us.

Where are we in context? In the overall rankings, we are joint 107th (also known as last), in the esteemed company of Burkina Faso, Ecuador, Zimbabwe, Ceylon, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Smyrna, Tonga, Vietnam, the Virgin Islands, Barbados, Bermuda, Djibouti, Guyana, Iraq, Kuwait, Kyrgystan, Macedonia, Niger, Sri Lanka and Thessalonika (wtf?). We have fewer medals than Mozambique, Suriname, Tanzania, Haiti, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Zambia, the Antilles, Panama, Qatar, Malaysia, Armenia and Cameroon, all of which have 2-3 medals.


In conclusion? We suck.

minz objects to my entry and points out that it was shaun who brought up the topic of english multiple times, which is true, so just to make that clear.

dinner

now that this is over i can confess that it was some trepidation that i agreed to the whole affair, mostly because of previously-received advice that getting friends from different social circles in your life to mix is a uniquely bad idea. it was good, though, so perhaps the advice was not well given after all. or maybe some people just tend to have more schizophrenic lives than others whereas almost everyone i know can spell and punctuate and tell that the plural of vol-au-vent is not vol-au-vents.

since minz has neglected to mention it, i shall report that a lot of the conversation centered around her imminent foray into the world of grad school in english - booklists, theory, etc. - and it's funny how some people become grad school students, so readily immersing themselves in the role, while others just kind of go 'oh, yes, and by the way, i'm writing a thesis'. i mean, i almost never talk to shaun about chem, even though he's going to caltech to do 6 more years of it - although perhaps that is a bad example because i couldn't tell you what a van der waal's force was if it slapped me in the face. but you know what i mean.

i think that if i had decided to go to minnesota that's what would have happened to me - i would have become a walking encyclopedia of everything there is to know about schizophrenia (because that's what i do, i tend to drown in information once i have access to it). and when you're in the humanities and that happens, you become learned; when you're a science student, you just turn into a crashing bore. so, well, there's another post hoc reason as to why it was a good idea to turn down grad school. still going on about it after all these months.

anyway, the tea at brown box was really nice - i do like serangoon gardens even though it's so impossible for me to get to - and yes, we must go to pow sing because i'm all excited about nonya food now, even though i am broke.

so i have to rewrite this paper i submitted because apparently it is "too academic". which begs the question: why in hell is she hiring smart people? apparently all they want are sycophants, dumbclucks, and yes-men.

Interesting article about the Olympics.

i want to blog about things that are beautiful or interesting or poignant like water wheels in japan or running a marathon after recovering from a spontaneous pneumothorax or watching the sun rise over the serengeti.

week 5

Job 3: 1-26

After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. And Job said: "Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night which said, 'A man-child is conceived.' Let that day be darkness! May God above not seek it, nor light shine upon it. Let gloom and deep darkness claim it. Let clouds dwell upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it. That night--let thick darkness seize it! let it not rejoice among the days of the year, let it not come into the number of the months. Yea, let that night be barren; let no joyful cry be heard in it. Let those curse it who curse the day, who are skilled to rouse up Levi'athan. Let the stars of its dawn be dark; let it hope for light, but have none, nor see the eyelids of the morning; because it did not shut the doors of my mother's womb, nor hide trouble from my eyes. "Why did I not die at birth, come forth from the womb and expire? Why did the knees receive me? Or why the breasts, that I should suck? For then I should have lain down and been quiet; I should have slept; then I should have been at rest, with kings and counselors of the earth who rebuilt ruins for themselves, or with princes who had gold, who filled their houses with silver. Or why was I not as a hidden untimely birth, as infants that never see the light? There the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary are at rest. There the prisoners are at ease together; they hear not the voice of the taskmaster. The small and the great are there, and the slave is free from his master. "Why is light given to him that is in misery, and life to the bitter in soul, who long for death, but it comes not, and dig for it more than for hid treasures; who rejoice exceedingly, and are glad, when they find the grave? Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, whom God has hedged in? For my sighing comes as my bread, and my groanings are poured out like water. For the thing that I fear comes upon me, and what I dread befalls me. I am not at ease, nor am I quiet; I have no rest; but trouble comes."

heh

When you search for "class size" and "Finland" on PsycInfo, you get 13 hits, the last of which is:

Kujala, A.
Keski-ikaiset vieroksuvat ylipirteaa superohjaajaa
(Middle-aged people shun an over-energetic super aerobic instructor.)

Hehe.

the woman sitting opposite me is very strange. she has an infant son (or so i gather), and she makes phone calls to her maid (?) once or twice an hour to check on every last detail of the baby's life (has he had his bath? have you fed him? don't overfeed him! is he asleep? is he awake? is he still coughing?). slightly more disturbingly, she also makes calls about once a day to what i can only guess is a pediatrician or a child psychologist to talk about her son's "night terrors" (he wakes up in the night crying and screaming. having done a whatever degree in psychology i guess she has diagnosed him herself. don't all babies wake up crying, though?) from what i can tell of the conversations, i imagine that the professional on the other end keeps telling her not to worry and to "rub medicated oil" on the child or something, but she keeps calling him anyway. ("they're getting worse! is he going to die?") i don't know. if she's so concerned about him, shouldn't she be on maternity leave or something? i'm extremely puzzled.

Currently reading:
The Big Sleep - Raymond Chandler

week 4

Exodus 1: 7-14

But the descendants of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly; they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong; so that the land was filled with them. Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. And he said to his people, "Behold, the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and, if war befall us, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land." Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens; and they built for Pharaoh store-cities, Pithom and Ra-am'ses. But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad. And the Egyptians were in dread of the people of Israel. So they made the people of Israel serve with rigor, and made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and brick, and in all kinds of work in the field; in all their work they made them serve with rigor.

squeaky wheel, no grease

I refer with great dismay to the article ("Death at Bishan Station disrupts train services", July 29) and would like to express my severe disappointment at the complete insensitivity displayed by its writer.

Instead of focusing on the tragedy of the life that was lost, your reporter
chose to lead with the fact that train services were "disrupted for an hour". He blithely proceeds to close with a recap of the measures SMRT put into place to
deal with what he clearly perceives as a mere inconvenience to commuters.

Not that one needs to read the article to be incensed - its headline alone
shows your reporter's obliviousness to what is most obviously important: the
fact that a man is dead.

Your abysmal standards of journalism have done a great disservice to both
the victim's loved ones and the reputation of the Singapore media at large.

Mr. J___ L____


Dear Mr L____,

Thank you for your contribution to our Letters page. I regret to inform you that we are unable to publish it in our newspaper.
For your information, we receive a large number of letters every day from our readers. However, we are unable to publish all of them due to space constraints.
Please continue to send your views to us. We will do our best to accommodate them.
Once again, thank you for your interest in TODAY.

Peace!

Reavathi Sinnathamby
Today, MediaCorp Press
Newsdesk 1800 236 4888

Currently reading:
The Curious Incident of the Dog In the Night-Time - Mark Haddon. (Because I must. Thanks Jiahao)

interviewing

for the police force is as long-drawn out a process as auditioning for donald trump on the apprentice...and is significantly less fun to boot. i sat for a psychometric test last friday and have a presentation next week...all this to qualify for the final interview at the end of the month. one point for reality tv.

piscine

In a Chinese restaurant, some time last week, my dad orders (in English) the sweet-and-sour sliced garoupa. To our amusement, this order gets repeated to us as the "sly fish" - perhaps, one of the brothers muses, the crafty one in the tank that's the hardest to catch?

The real punchline, however, comes the following week in the NTUC when said brother espies what he announces must be a closely-related species...the kuning fish.

on stupidity

This story courtesy of Justin (his words, from an email):

"It's like this brilliant test, where some professor asked participants to guess a number from 1 to 100, and try to be closest to 2/3 of the mean number guessed by all participants. So this brilliant participant worked out that if numbers were randomly chosen from 1 to 100, the mean should be close to 50, and the answer closest to 33. However, that should be obvious to everyone, so the answer would be reduced to 2/3 of that, which is 22. It shouldn't stop there however, but be repeated ad inifinitum. He cleverly found the right answer of 0.

The professor revealed the results, where a sprinkling of people guessed 50 (or higher) [say hello to the brain dead], a few people had guessed 0, and the majority of people had guessed 33. Hence some person in the low twenties won, which was about the same as other times the professor had tried the experiment apparently.

It should be quite obvious to us both to have guessed 22. Why? We know only too well people are idiots, but let's give them some credit, in classes like that, people should usually be of above average intelligence. That means they have just about enough brains to go through step 1. "Hmm, random numbers from 1 to 100 should generate 50 as an average, and 2/3s of that is..." If you then take another step forward, knowing most participants (who aren't brain dead) would guess 33, you can easily guess 22. If you try to be clever, and reduce it "Logically, the answer should be 0, since it must repeat to infinity!", then you've made the very fatal assumption that people are absolutely rational, and put in the effort to think on more than a basic level. Thus outsmarting yourself. If you really thought things through (to make the guess of 22), you'd probably realise the braniacs and brain-dead should about balance each other out (as it apparently did), and thus not have to adjust your answer."

This is how I get through the days.

they're holding national day something-or-another rehearsals outside our door and blaring awful marching tunes over the PA system because CLEARLY this is the best way to allow people to concentrate on their work.

i'm going home.

gahmen

MOE guy: So your research says that small classes are better?
Us: Yes
MOE guy: And how small is small?
Us: 15 kids or so.
MOE guy: 15? We thought that small was 30.
Us: No. 30 is large.
MOE guy (deflated): Oh. (Pause) So can you do some research on why large classes are better?

Sigh.

desultory

Monday. Ate a digestive biscuit this morning. The PhD woman (the one who can’t write) has quit, so that’s some good news at least. Meanwhile, we’ve sort of run out of things to do. Our library accounts have not been activated yet, which means that we can’t borrow books, which means that our work has come to an effective standstill (we’ve extracted everything we can from the journals). Sitting, bored. Sleepy, as always. The queues in the canteen are really long. Reminder to self: try to avoid the lunch crowd.

Currently reading:
Soul Mountain - Gao Xingjian

old acquaintances

Bumped randomly into Cheah Poh Teen today on the way to lunch – she’s not teaching in RI anymore but has been posted to the MOE (to do something or another which I didn’t catch). She remembers me, which is much more than can be said of a certain Mr. Evans who reportedly did not recall who I was even after my name was mentioned (harumph.) Also, a whole brigade of ex-Rafflesians who have all ended up in this part of the island for one reason or another – becoming teachers or engineers or what have you.

The image of ball bearings in a funnel comes to mind. You can start off with as much momentum as you like, even circle the lip of the funnel for quite a while, but in the end, gravity and centrifugal (centripetal? I don’t even know the difference any more) force will get you every time. Then, it’s down the chute and, well, you know the rest.

Currently reading:
Dusklands – J.M. Coetzee.

Writing is therapeutic. (Certainly, in the case of this blog, it’s cathartic as well, but that’s a whole different story.) It’s therapeutic in the way that arranging songs for my a cappella group was – it’s fun playing with lilt and cadence and trying to get everything to sound just right, mellifluous. It’s soothing to play with syntax and punctuation. (Which reminds me that Choonping tells me that he is getting formal grammar lessons from NIE. That would just spoil everything for me. Unlike the stereotypical male, I don’t believe in taking things apart to see how they work.) It’s not something I feel rabidly that I should get better at, because after a point, you don’t get “better” at writing the way you get “better” at bridge or lifting weights or DDR. (Thus, my dislike of the intrusion of the Reader, the admittance of the Other, because that’s when value rears its ugly head and compulsion and “perfectionism” – whatever that means in writing – appear.)

That, I suppose, is the joy in work at the moment. Even though I’ve no interest whatsoever in the material I’m reading, I can, at the very least, make my reports on it pleasing to eye and ear. (Have I mentioned the doctorate holder in our lab? Ugh! She’s in charge of the lion’s share of the writing, and the gobbledygook she comes up with makes me want to weep. I should reproduce more of it here some day.) Here, then, a call to arms. We must find happiness in the little things. We must write and add our quotient of beauty to a world bereft.

I'm not very sure why I stopped my "currently reading"s

Currently reading:
If I Die In A Combat Zone - Tim O'Brien

week 2

1.
even going home from nie is a trial. as choonping said, it dawns on you as you sit on the mrt that you have never before heard the train speak names like ‘chinese garden’ and ‘lakeside’. could we be any further west?

2.
glancing through a document written by one of the phd candidates in this group, i’m assailed by such marvels as “…scaffolding can really become beneficial only when the number of students are very less and can not be used in large classes.”

3.
not to mention that i have had a fever on and off for the last 4 days and really should not even be here, never mind having my eyes gouged out by sentences like the above.

4.
i show choonping to the place where i work, and he accompanies me as i punch holes in a stack of papers and bind them together. ‘fifteen years of education,’ i say, ‘and a degree in neuroscience, all leading up to this.’ ‘well,’ he replies, ‘at least you know exactly how your brain is degenerating as it happens.’ which is true.

5.
not that every teaching job is a dead poets’ society fairy tale thing either.

6.
i need to get out of here.

overcome with sleepiness

i have a job interview, though, with the police force. next friday. so there's some hope that i'll make it out of this dump soon. ish.

did anyone watch 'singapore's brainiest kid' last night? i know we're not supposed to laugh at little children, but this really cracked me up:

cheryl fox: what is the fruity nickname of new york city?
contestant (emphatically): the big banana!

hehe

I have to say, this is rather unfair. I think our batch got t-shirts.

broadband!

at work! on my laptop! suddenly this job is beginning to look a lot better. bit torrent here i come.

so what do i do here? research, mostly, trawling through databases for articles on this and that. writing annotated bibliographies/synopses/summaries. it's not the worst, i suppose, and the people here are friendly enough (the only other fresh grad happens to be an rj alumnus as well). the hours are flexible and reasonably short, and as i said, i'll get to see choonping for lunch as soon as he actually gets his ass to school and stops pontanging (sp?)

and people are right - blogging from work is a guilty pleasure that everyone should experience.

all roads lead to nie

- says choonping, and alas, it has yet again come to pass. i started yesterday as a temp in the psychological studies branch doing pointless research and getting paid an absolute pittance for it.

on the bright side:
- i guess that this propitiates my feelings of guilt over my idleness (though at what price?).
- choonping and eekia are there and there's nothing like shared suffering over lousy canteen food to lighten the load
- any salary from here on in is going to look good. and money, i suppose, is money.
- it's only for 2.5 months


on the not-so-bright side
- nie! jurong west! 3 hours of traveling every day!
- it feels yukky, and i'm sure it's is in some way damaging to my self-worth. 15 years of studying, and this.
- and other things. which i don't want to talk about now. i'll blog again later.

fast food

so i was in long john silver's on friday grabbing a quick dinner before bridge - ljs because friday is no-meat day for my catholic self. and i have to stand there squinting at the menu for several minutes before concluding that they have no (as in zero) value meals that don't have chicken in them. they have chicken fries salad and coke, chicken fish fries salad and coke, chicken fish shrimp fries salad and coke etc. but no fish fries and coke. and fish and fries on its own costs 5.50 and damnit i don't want to pay another 2 dollars for a drink that i wouldn't really want if the meal wasn't so salty to begin with and NOT get a salad in the bargain. so i ask the lady at the counter (who didn't really seem to understand english - but do i point that out to people? NO) if she can give me one of the chicken fish fries salad and coke meals but swap the chicken for fish. no. can i pay extra and swap the chicken for fish? no. is there any blasted way i can not get chicken in the meal? NO. so i end up with the fish and fries after all and get an extra slaw and i don't buy a drink on principle and imbibe instead at the scba water fountain. but hello. it's called long john silver's, people. pirates! the ocean! NOT SO MANY CHICKENS IN THE ATLANTIC THE LAST TIME I LOOKED.

fwiw

reading this , I'm reminded that I do rather dislike Alexandra Hospital - bad memories, I suppose, of interminable nights spending walking up and down the corridors, reading bad novels while waiting for dawn to come and duty to be over...

Went with a friend to the SAFTI MI library a couple of days ago (and I defy even the ardent library-hoppers to tell me that they’ve been there before). It was not just whimsy – I needed information on U.N. peacekeeping (particularly Singaporean involvement in) and I thought that that might be the most sensible place to go to find it. Arrived mid-afternoon on the 1-8-something and stepped out into drizzle and dampness. At the security checkpoint, there was a large sign announcing that visitors are not allowed to bring cameras/recording equipment/laptops etc. into the camp. I had my laptop but wasn’t about to give it up (I didn’t have the foresight to bring any other writing equipment or anything to take notes on), thus, in the spirit of pissing in the Army’s (figurative) eye, I clutched it to my bosom and brought it in anyway. (I can hear the sarcastic voices right now telling me what a rebel I am).

SAFTI was fairly deserted – just the odd corporal walking around and a clutch of majors on a coffee break in the canteen. Otherwise – wide open spaces, forlorn flags overlooking the parade square, military neatness with no one to appreciate it. The library is a non-descript two-story brick building, easily missed. It’s part of the NLB chain (no need to go back to return books!) but runs on a different borrowing system – you can check out four additional books in SAFTI on top of however many you’re entitled to normally. Finding that out was a nice surprise – I used to think that it had mostly reference books and whatever other important documents the SAF hoards, stuff that can't be borrowed. Also good to know was that it wasn’t a dreary, army-ish kind of place. It’s nicely lit, the furniture is new, and there are individual study carrels (ah, Perkins), all of which are enticements to stay. More importantly, the librarians are exceedingly helpful – one of them spent a good fifteen minutes hunting down a misshelved book for me. Props.

So I got everything I needed, and we had a little something in the canteen (horrendous) while waiting for the rain to die down a little, whereupon I went to play bridge and got scolded for a poor opening lead (which I didn’t think was so poor) among several other purported misdemeanours. And that was Monday.

unemployed as ever

I am discouraged by not being called for any interviews so far, but what is there to do but keep ones head held high and go on trying? The nasty thing, I suppose, is that the path towards self-despair is a little more direct for us, what with the good education and having suckled on the proverbial silver spoon. And in my particular case the temptation of course is to trot out the old jeremiads of Woe is Me Why Didn’t I Apply for a Scholarship/Accept the Place at Minnesota etc. But no, I shall desist.

After all, I guess I can’t complain about having all this free time. I peruse the Classifieds in the morning, send in an application when I can, then while away the afternoon with friends or just read/write over coffee and cake. Sooner or later, something good's bound to happen on the employment front. Nothing wrong with leaving tomorrow for tomorrow, right?

sigh

All Lovely Things, by Conrad Aiken

All lovely things will have an ending,
All lovely things will fade and die,
And youth, that's now so bravely spending,
Will beg a penny by and by.

Fine ladies soon are all forgotten,
And goldenrod is dust when dead,
The sweetest flesh and flowers are rotten
And cobwebs tent the brightest head.

Come back, true love! Sweet youth, return!--
But time goes on, and will, unheeding,
Though hands will reach, and eyes will yearn,
And the wild days set true hearts bleeding.

Come back, true love! Sweet youth, remain!--
But goldenrod and daisies wither,
And over them blows autumn rain,
They pass, they pass, and know not whither.

grouse (3)

- in what is apparently going to be a long series.

I've always been a fervent supporter of the illegal downloading business, and newly-launched website Soundbuzz should convince law-abiding music lovers that I've been right all along. For a couple of months, I've been searching in vain on Kazaa for a particular Uncle Kracker song (Kazaa tends to be flooded with fake, non-working copies of Top 40 hits) - so when I heard about the $1.99 a track offers on Soundbuzz I figured why the hell not. I registered without too much fuss and managed to find the song in a couple of minutes - the only 2 good things I can say about the process. Once I had paid for the download, Netscape stopped cooperating with me, and I wrestled for a good hour with the system before figuring out that for some reason it only likes Internet Explorer. Fair enough - I switched browsers, completed the download, and realised unhappily that I had been given the file in .wma format. Which in itself would not be bad except that my iPod, thanks to Apple protectionism, only takes .mp3s and .wavs. So I try to convert the file and find, again to my great displeasure, that the song has some lock on it and can't be changed from its original format. Perfect. iTunes (the Apple music store) doesn't work outside of the States, and the other mp3 paysites out there don't offer the kind of music I like to listen to (Most of my downloads nowadays are alternative/a cappella/instrumental). Ergo, it's back to good old illegal file-sharing.

See, that's the thing. Music piracy continues to flourish because even when people try to be honest, they're thwarted every step of the way. I give the RIAA and their affiliates and their lawsuits two thumbs down. Boo. Booooo. Kazaa forever!

this morning

since we must deal with the pedestrian, i will give myself a cyber pat on the back for being good and starting up with the jogging again. in bermuda there was always one excuse or the other (rain, winds, gale-force winds, lazy, exhausted, homework, in-middle-of-good-book, etc.) and in beaufort i was a train wreck because of thinking of grad school. and then of course there was one month of being on holiday and 2 weeks of europe (during which, by the way, i actually lost ten pounds from walking six hours or more every day. ten pounds! does it show?) thus, with the exercise this morning and over the weekend, self-congratulation is most certainly in order.

[congratulates self]

on the bus ride home, i found myself in front of one of those television things (what are they called? i keep wanting to call them PortaTellies.) some tcs 8 drama was on - and i found to my surprise that camerawork has quite significantly improved since the lastime i tuned in to local television. it seems that the cameramen have learned the fine art of panning! and zooming in! and using filters that don't let in the entire spectrum of visible light! perhaps there is hope yet (and i'm not even being sarcastic).

grouse (2)

also, i think i should be given licence to give anyone who mocks my "accent" a big smack across the head. i mean, it's not like i go around asking singaporeans why they can't speak english.

grouse

i can tolerate (barely) people who use the phrase "quote unquote" in speech; however, i think it's fair to say that using it in print (with quotation marks surrounding the phrase after it, no less) is very very unacceptable.

still no broadband

Minz points out, and I readily agree, that our blogging suffers incredibly in Singapore by simple dint of the fact that we have to log on before posting an entry - on a 56k connection, all words dry up by the time we’ve actually made it to the page where we post. Whereas, while I was on a LAN, it was virtually thought-to-page, instantaneous. I have, over the course of the past few days, wanted to discuss NDP ticket distribution, job ads (again), manatees, the Half-Blood Prince and Hainanese pork chops, but have been continually bested by avolition, impatience and sloth. How?

qualifications

Have noted, in the course of perusing work ads, that almost all jobs for graduates ask for either honours degrees, or, in the case of civil service posts, "good" honours degrees. So, I ask the mother, what about the poor sods who only manage to eke out a passing GPA with a collection of 'C's and 'C-'s? The unconvincing answer is that "they must have other talents". Surely, however, people go to college precisely because they lack the aptitude for anything else - fixing a lightbulb, building a spaceship, going to war. Those who can't, study. Tjan tells me that non-honours grads get hired eventually, but they also get bled to death in the process (miserable starting salaries, etc.) - which fits a little more snugly into the bigger picture, but is also significantly more depressing (isn't the truth always?).

On the whole, however, I'm not feeling as bleak about my prospects as I thought I would. In the first place, there's always the back door, the escape hatch back into the world of academia where many think I will always belong. In the second, it has struck me that "career" is a concept to me both unfamiliar and unimportant. There are bigger things; there are other things. And I'm not saying that because a juicy scholarship and accelerated promotion to superscale salaries are sour grapes on the vine (although I'm sure that some will still scoff and call me a liar). There are Other Things. Que sera sera.

blackout

i admit, slightly shamefully, that i was happily illuminated and playing mahjong during last night's blackout. sympathies are extended to those who were hit. in any case, it could be worse. we could be living in california.

bad movie night

- was a weekly affair with rhythm and blue-ers/brownstonians in duke, and is something i thought i should resurrect in memory of knuth, whose wedding i most unfortunately can't attend. (sorry! anyone have $3000 or so to spare?) response from people i've brought it up to so far has been generally favorable, but i await a time when the house has slightly fewer people in it (i.e. when i can get the big television to myself for a night without the invasion of soccer-watching father or gamecube-playing siblings). notable screenings in the american version included:

- shark attack iii
- manos: hands of fate
and
- jesus christ, vampire hunter

all the ed woods will be done, of course, and the blob, and i have a semi-request for the buffy the vampire slayer movie which i am told is quite execrable. takers?

in woodlands library

with su-lin, after potato chunks and hot tea: found j.d. salinger's nine stories, which i picked up to confirm the answer to a question on an episode of jeopardy i had recently watched (character in the first story thinks it's a perfect day for this creature. what are bananafish? "jeopardy" is a hard word to spell.) out of curiosity, read the story, had rather bemused googly-eyed reaction to it, showed it to su-lin who also read it and was similarly stopped in her tracks. 'very 'o' level-like short story', i commented. 'like something from into the wind'. 'we did malgudi days' admitted su-lin. but i think everyone knows what i mean.

regret

-- rather rashly suggesting meatballs or lasagne for party next week - meat is tricky and people are finicky about it, and an outbreak of salmonella will not do at all. Cookies have been done to death and most other baking just shows up how absolutely hopeless I am with pastry. Apple crumble, perhaps? Or something with similar crust but fruit of choice? Or we could just imbibe enough that it doesn't matter what we eat?

Currently reading:
The Fourteen Sisters of Emilio Montez O'Brien - Oscar Hijuelos

Concurrently reading:
A Sport and A Pastime - James Salter

Erratum

I am told that a schwa is a vowel sound and not /sh/ as I previous believed. So many years of ignorance.

English

- is, as everyone knows, a most counterintuitive language in terms of grammar, spelling and pronunciation, something that could easily be rectified by borrowing some of the tricks of the Internet generation. For instance, ‘tmrw’ is, in my opinion, a far superior spelling of ‘tomorrow’, immediately getting rid of the misspelling ‘tommorow’ while remaining an obvious signifier of the word. No confusion with changing ‘how are you’ to ‘how r u’ either. Where there is ambiguity (e.g ‘hlo’ being either ‘halo’ or ‘hello’), the abbreviation should apply to either the more common word or the word that would more logically abbreviate that way (in this case ‘hello’). Vowels are overrated! Other changes: we need more letters. ‘sh’ is an inadequate replacement for the schwa…we should just have a schwa. Then we could spell words like ‘motion’ /mo?un/ and get rid of all the confusion of how to pronounce things. Same with /?/ and /?/ and the rest of them.

It could work. I don’t approve of things like ROFLMAO and AYBABTU, but honestly, some of this common usage shorthand really could be an improvement to the language if we look past our prejudices and notice the inefficiencies and archaism. Or I could just be completely out of my mind. It is late, and my poor brain is fuddled.

today

oh! says minz when she discovers that i have driven to lunch at queenstown, how exciting! now we can be spontaneous and go to jurong east library and have chicken tenders and potato wedges and see the verging room where teenagers verge. and although i put up the token resistance expected of me, my heart is not in it because i have been most injurious and disappointing in the recent incident involving d______ (that is not supposed to be discussed) and i suppose that i ought somehow to make up for it. so we go, and clementi road misbehaves a little by forcing me to turn right and plonking me rather unceremoniously in upper bukit timah but we make it in the end and are both pleased because neither of us have much spatial sense and yet arrived without too much fuss. and minz will no doubt report this as well in her blog except at far greater length and with wit and humour* so go and read that instead.

* yes, this is intentional. when in rome, etc.

quibble

if in america the show is called 'american idol'
and in canada the show is called 'canadian idol'
et cetera
why is it that in singapore the show is called 'singapore idol'?

(because, the brother suggests, a metonymy of sorts operates with 'singapore' and 'singaporeans'; the country is the people and the people are the country - cf. 'we are singapore/we are singapore/we will stand together/hear the lion roar')
(or, they couldn't fit 'singaporean idol' onto the logo)

food

It’s kind of funny how Singaporeans are so opinionated about their food, how everyone seems so cocksure that they know where to find the “best” chicken rice/ char kway teow/ sambal stingray etc., particularly when half the time they’re dead wrong. Countless times I have been dragged along to obscure food centers in all corners of the island by friends dying to have me try various recommendations, and I am seldom impressed. Surely people realize by now that they don’t so much have “favorites” as “familiars”? I’m going to pick on Shaun here (apologies, but it’s just because this is the most recent example that springs to mind) – he and his mom quite passionately believe that the best chili crab in Singapore is to be had one of the restaurants along the ECP (I’ll leave it unnamed), the reason being that they are on good terms with the owner and get the dish as a special order - sans tomato sauce. No, that doesn’t make it the best chili crab, it just means that you happen to like it that way. Thus, while “best of” discussions have been fun, I have decided to refrain from them henceforth. That should save me a lot of dashed hopes.

but seriously

I have unpacked, my room has been returned to its proper order and things are looking rather more OK with the world. Two major transportation disasters transpired with my belongings: (1) a suitcase that apparently burst in transit and appeared bundled up in tape on the luggage collection belt, clothes and books spewing from it like leaking innards, and (2) my M-Bag, which similarly gave up the ghost and exploded somewhere on its journey over the Atlantic Ocean. The latter was the greater loss because several “keeping” books I had in it are now irredeemably bent and misshapen, including a rather nice hardcover Grapes Of Wrath which is now sitting under a stack of telephone books in the hopes that it may be restored. Other lesser casualties include The Little Prince, my American Sign Language dictionary and Bridge Odds for Practical Players by Kelsey and Glauert. Lesson learned: you get what you pay for.

In other news: (and I promise I will say this only once and no more), it is blastedly hot. Everyone says this upon return, and still, it loses none of its meaning. It’s hot! It’s ridiculously, murderously, impossibly hot!

Currently reading:
Galatea 2.2 – Richard Powers. Poach says that she didn’t really like it, but I suppose that having studied neuroscience I am obliged.

you know you’re back in singapore when…

… you see a sign which reads:

“Shoplifting is dangerous!
The police cannot help you!”

flame

"And to be a poet is a school thing, a skirt thing, a church thing. The weakness of the spiritual powers is proved in the childishness, the madness, drunkenness and despair of those martyrs. Orpheus moved stones and trees. But a poet can't perform a hysterectomy or send a vehicle out of the solar system. Miracle and power no longer belong tp him. So poets are loved, but loved because they just can't make it here. They exist to light up the enormity of the awful tangle and justify the cynicism of those who say, 'If I were not such a corrupt, unfeeling bastard, creep, thief, and vulture, I couldn't get through this either. Look at these good and tender and soft men, the best of us. They succumbed, poor loonies.'"

~ Saul Bellow

Singapore

and yes, i'm back.

i'm not going to post about europe, so i hope no one got their hopes up. as it is, i'm not entirely sure i want to continue writing here at all. i guess i'll give it a trial period and see how things go.

Currently reading:
Timbuktu - Paul Auster

Somewhat surprisingly, this is the only thing I've started reading since the last post besides half of Humboldt's Gift (Saul Bellow) and six pages of A Hat Full of Sky (Pratchett). Slightly ashamed.

and with that, i go for real

few things sadder than

- a once-furnished apartment now empty, a life squared and packed away into boxes, a home reduced to cardboard, bubble wrap, limbo.

harry potter

A little late to the party, perhaps, but for those who aren't yet aware, J.K. Rowling now has her own website. And, she teases about the next book.

blogging

Incidentally, I may or may not want to continue writing here once I return to Singapore. I’m a little afraid that all I’ll do is be dreary and moan about the weather and be generally boring; plus, the purpose of communicating with the parents and friends while overseas has been served. Anyway, I’ll think about it.

San Francisco, CA

-- like all other cities of note, has a very distinctive smell – pretzel salt and overnight grease, smut and smog, Vietnamese cooking and vagabond stink. Less menacing that Manhattan, San Francisco neither embraces nor harasses you; it is, as far as cities go, demure, confidently metropolitan. No need for flash or glamour, just quiet presence, gentle ushering. I enjoy making trips there – but only on my own, sans pressure and the urgent demands to go tearing from shop to shop, participants in a race to see as much as possible in the confines of the day. Rushing around is an insult to SF – but so is the casual stroll (more appropriate, perhaps, for pseudo-cities like Nowheresville, Ohio). Ones approach to SF must be moderate – midway between purposeful and apathetic, savoring its culture while respecting its urban-ness.

This jaunt was a little different from previous ones. Taboo purchases suddenly became justified by the fact that I’m leaving the U.S. for a while, (which of course makes every Banana Republic in the country strike up the “Buy Something From Me” cantata in sixteen-part harmony). Unfettered from thrift, the plundering began. (To save the parents from heartache, I won’t go into the particulars of all that I bought, although I will say that Circuit City had Return of The King on offer - so please, could members of my family not go and buy a $2 bootlegged copy from Johor Bahru like you did last time? Thank you.) Went up Market, down Powell, and then on to side streets with x-rated video stores standing hip to hip with Radio Shack and Urban Outfitters. Lunch was quiche and salad with a tasty vinaigrette, and there was reading (Mr Ives’ Christmas - Oscar Hijuelos) over cappuccino – a whole book from cover to cover! – which I may book blog about if I find the time.

That’s it for new U.S. cities – and that’s also almost it for new entries (for a bit). We’ll be leaving Shaun’s apartment on Friday and staying at his aunt’s for a couple of days before Paris and wherever else the winds take us. I’ll post short bits and pieces when I get the chance over the next couple of days, and then…well, I’ll have my laptop but who knows when and where we’ll find Internet access, so don’t nobody be holding their breath or nothing. Take it easy everyone.

faulkner

From his introduction to The Sound and The Fury

“…I have tried to escape and I have tried to indict. After five years, I look back at The Sound and The Fury and see that that was the turning point: in this book I did both at one time. When I began the book, I had no plan at all. I wasn’t even writing a book. Previous to it, I had written three novels, with progressively decreasing ease and pleasure, and reward or emolument. The third one was shopped about for three years during which I sent it from publisher to publisher with a kind of stubborn and fading hope of at least justifying the paper I had used and the time I had spent writing it. This hope must have died at last, because one day it suddenly seemed as if a door had clapped silently and forever to between me and all publishers’ addresses and booklists and I said to myself, Now I can write. Now I can just write.”

couplet

for some reason, suddenly recalled:

a little nonsense now and then
is cherished by the wisest men

is that lear?

lines

After 24 years of going to Mass, I have to say that there are 4 of them that consistently pull at something within me. (Exaggerating to say that it is upon these pronouncements that my whole faith turns? Possibly, though not by much.) In no particular order:

*"Look not on our sins, but on the faith of your Church"
A fancier way of saying that we're all human. Crusades, indulgences, Pius XII and the Holocaust, slavery, sex scandals, Galileo - it's enough to lead any Catholic to despair. Yet people miss the obvious thing: being religious isn't the same as being perfect or divine, it's about having faith - and well, we have plenty of that.

*"For the Kingdom, the Power and the Glory are Yours"
For very little reason other than the fact that it is a powerful oratorical line, the stresses all falling cleanly where they should be. Incidentally, I prefer this modern version to: "For thine is the Kingdom, the Power and the Glory"; the statement seems more majestic somehow when it leads up to the possessive pronoun; we know, when it comes, precisely what it is that is thine.

*"Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed."
Saying this gives me chills every time, this expression of tremendous humility in the face of infinite love. I don't even know what else to say about how it feels. Well - I do, but it's mildly sacrilegous - if you recall the scene at the end of Return of the King where Aragorn says that the hobbits bow to no one or some such and then you get the wide angle shot of the mass genuflection and something catches in your throat? Yeah, it feels something like that, just more.

*"May the Body and Blood of Christ bring us all to Everlasting Life"
The priest gets this line after he consecrates the Host. He's not required to say it out loud (I think) and many don't. I kind of feel they should. After all, what else is all of this about?

And those are the religious posts off my chest...for a while at least.

passage

-- with thanks to the mother for sending me this more than a year ago

From The Sacred Romance - Brent Curtis and John Eldredge

“Life, said Woody Allen, is divided between the horrible and the miserable. A cynical assessment, perhaps, but if we're honest we'll have to admit our journey is hardly along the primrose path. Pretending that life is easier or more blessed than it really is hinders our ability to walk with God and share him with others. Faith is not the same thing as denial. Blessings come, to be sure. But they tend to be infrequent, unpredictable, and transient. In the day-to-day pattern of things, our journey is shaped more often by dragons and nits - crises that shake us to the core and persistent troubles that threaten to nag us to death. Dragons and nits: Are they tragic events and random inconveniences, or are they part of the plot through which God redeems our heart in very personal ways?”

ipod (addendum)

By the way, I got the green.

Currently reading:
The Sound and The Fury - William Faulkner
~ I have a feeling that interspersing classics with crapola is probably not a very good reading habit, but what to do? I need to find some writing that is the equivalent of sorbet, something to cleanse the palette in between books by writers of vastly different calibers.

ipod (part 2), a.k.a. the real point

Warning:
This bit, though the main point, is still rather trivial.

(6)
So anyway, the Ipod Mini, for those of you who aren't familiar with the product, comes in 5 different colors: blue, green, pink, silver and gold. They're all very nice shades: no gaudy flamingo pink or off-putting bile green. Rather than describe them all, just go take a look at them here

Now, the question, of course, once I had found an amicable seller, was what color I wanted. My first inclination was towards the blue. Blue, in general, suits me, and as far as accessorizing goes, it matches well with my Palm Zire and with colors in general. The more I looked at it, though, the less I liked it - it kind of reminds one of a toy (or worse still, the Nokia 2100/3100. Ugh.) The gold (which is really more like champagne), was very appealing, though it may possibly be perceived as quite obiang in some circles. Silver...feh. Too much like any other gadget out there (and again, easily mistakable for a handphone). Pink, as the Monty Python guys would say, is way out.

I wasn't very sold on the green at first, but the longer I stared at the brochure, the more enticing it seemed. It was kind of summery, not too overstated, but something clearly unique. The thought that Su-Lin would be pleased crossed my mind. I thought about it. I thought about it some more. I e-mailed they guy to ask him what colors he had, and he told me that he only had blue, green and silver left. Scratched out gold. Still hated the silver, so was left with blue and green.

Looked at the blue. Looked at the green. Looked at the blue. Looked at the green. Composed an e-mail to say that I wanted the blue, then deleted it and looked at the blue and the green some more. Blue. Green. Green. Blue. One fish two fish red fish blue fish. Went for a walk to admire the kaleidoscope of colors that exist in the world besides baby blue and apple green and then arrived home and contemplated the decision again.

Anyway, I'm sure you're heartily sick of this by now, so LONG STORY SHORT...I realize from this and other recent events that I am horribly, painfully indecisive. I never really realized that before. I always assumed that my tendency to pass the buck was because I was easy-going, but no! in actuality, I just can't make up my bloody mind. It's bad! And although I appreciate the Heaney and the Voight and all the people who try to justify procrastination and vacillation, this is something that must be stopped. Now. Can one make resolutions in the middle of the year?

ipod (part 1)

warning:
this entry is long and boring and probably not worth your while

(-2)

~~ some months ago
me: you know mom, if you're thinking of a graduation gift/birthday present, i've been eyeing the apple ipods for quite a while now.
(later)
me: although, you know, if you feel it's too expensive or anything, that's ok, i understand.
(later still)
me: but surprise me.

(-1)

~~ graduation day
no gift in evidence; instead, a card with a sufficiency of money within

(0)

(a) which, if you think in economic terms, actually maximises ones utility by putting one right on the consumption possibilities curve. did i get that right? it's been a long time since a level econ.

(b) in psychological terms, however, it places one in an immediate dilemma. choice breeds uncertainty! perhaps the parents did not, for some reason, intend for one to have an ipod. perhaps this is a subtle form of discouragement. an advocation of frugality. the card gives no indication of how the money is to be spent, no apology (for example: 'did not have time to go shopping'/'unsure of what model to buy'), nothing.

(c) j_____, i said to myself, you are overthinking things again.

(1)

~~ 11 days ago, California
trying to figure out what configuration of things to get. the 15GB model? comes without dock/carrying case/remote. 20GB? kind of expensive, and of the three extra things i only really need the case. none of them come with a usb cable. the numbers keep adding up.

(2)

~~ 9 days ago
shaun informs me that if we buy the thing in the berkeley store we get a 10% discount. we troop over there. the salesman gives me the pitch, and the wallet is halfway out the pocket before the proverbial spoke in the wheel makes its appearance. shaun starts asking about the ipod mini (4GB). the salesman shows us his. it is tiny, lighter than a handphone, and (although i hate the word) positively chic. if it were a drink, it would be a mimosa. two sips of it in a tiny glass flute. if it were an actor, it would have the body of michael anderson and the head of matthew broderick. if it were an analogy, it would be neither of the previous two, because they were indescribably bad.


(3)

~~ next 7 days
telephone calls:
circuit city
radio shack
every damn mac store within 100 miles of berkeley CA

online searches:
apple
amazon
half
cnet.shopper
ebay

etc.

an ever-broadening hunt reveals:
no stock of ipod minis! anwyhere! in the continental united states!
(which has been the case for 2 months now)
(save for sketchy second-hand sellers obviously out to scam the inexperienced, and those who have jacked up the price to completely unaffordable levels)
(apparently, apple severly underestimated demand and are running one of the biggest backlogs in the history of manufacturing)

(4)

oh well, i think, i guess i'll just stick with the white 15GB model after all.

(5)

~~yesterday
by pure luck, find a seller on half.com who was actually coming to berkeley (and selling at a price only slightly above retail value). shake (online) on the deal.

which brings me to the real point.

coffee

In Such A Long Journey, one of Mistry's characters makes the comment (and I must paraphrase because I'm too lazy to look up the actual quotation) that tea is a beverage consumed not merely for its flavor but for the status it confers upon one of observer. This remark was made in the context of tea-drinking at an Indian railway station, but it is, I think, more generally true as well. Having a cup of tea (or coffee) in front of one while sitting at a cafe is a statement. It's as if one has a large placard on the table: "I'm not going anywhere for a while." (and the secondary message: "Please don't disturb me, my cuppa is my companion".) I guess that's why a good mug of coffee is so essential to me when I want to spend an afternoon reading. Yes, it's a stimulant, but it also helps to shut out the rest of everything, reduce the universe to me, my book, and my brew.

Sadly, the charm is not failsafe; I was interrupted mid-chapter today by a very unlikely pair - acquaintances from Duke who graduated last year and are now in the Psych department in Berkeley working on their PhDs. How they spotted me while driving by I will never know, but long story short, it looks like I'll have to get a meal or something with them tomorrow out of politeness. I suppose I shouldn't be so grudging about it - they are nice people - it's just that seeing them reminds me of Durham, and insufficient time has passed for me to want to be nostalgic about North Carolina. I don't know whether this makes sense but clean breaks are important to me, at least initially. No sense in leaving bits of the past trailing behind you when you're trying to get on with life.

by the way

- not that i enjoy tootling my own horn, but i am teochew and spell immaculately

(punctuation, on the other hand, gets me every time)

get rich quick

this will make no sense to almost everyone, but it has to be said. i walked into ‘games of berkeley’ this afternoon and lo and behold! urza’s saga packs are retailing at us$11.99 a pop. they were sing$4.00 when they first came out (and I actually bought them at that price), so I make that a 500% markup. the friendly man at the counter confirmed that 11.99 is indeed market value due to a combination of factors - limited print run, popularity and speculation. a subtle plan involving judicious repacking, superglue and ebay comes to mind.

the choonping

well, we've all linked to his page, so i suppose i must do my bit. welcome, choonping, to the world of spilling your guts in public and regretting it profoundly afterward. of putting yourself at the mercy of people who will tear your grammar, spelling, style and personal dignity to shreds.

to all who do not know choonping: feel free to drop in, but keep your fingers well away from the cage. he bites.

moniker

there is just something wrong with naming an indian restaurant "naan and curry". it's almost like going out of your way to proclaim your own unspecialness.

Currently reading:
Jitterbug Perfume - Tom Robbins
- it was Clay who recommended this to me, I remember now. I bet it's rubbish. If anyone knows this to be fact, please warn me off before it's too late.

ugh

there was a time (long ago) when i labored under the misapprehension that someone who augured bad fortune was a “harbringer”. this seemed to make logical sense, what with the word “bring” comfortably nestled among those extra letters, and the word meaning what it does. anyway, I was put in my place by my betters, and figured that that was the end of the story for that particular word. until today, when I discovered that “harbinger” can be either a noun or a transitive verb (as in “john was ever the one to harbinger bad tidings.”), and the worms spilled forth from the can anew. harbinger as a verb? so having done so in the past is to have “harbingered”? and in the continuous form, are you harbingering? (my spell check seems to approve of both of these words so I suppose so.) it’s ugliness all around, but the alternative, I guess, is far worse: harbinge as a verb is just plain wrong, and harbinging sounds like a group of cantonese people feasting on prawns. (god help me, I’m channeling tjan.)

bookstore

browsing in a well-stocked bookstore is, without doubt, one of life’s great pleasures
i could spend days in the regulator, or black oak books
weeks
at the same time though, one can’t help but feel a wistful sadness while perusing the ceiling-high shelves
because:
among the thousands and thousands of volumes of display
most of them i will never read
almost all of them i will never own
missing out on good stuff (superlative stuff!) is inevitable
it’s kind of like that old game show, supermarket sweep
except that life is the supermarket
the produce are the books
and god is dale winton, holding you back as you bob excitedly at the start line
and when he says you can go, you burst into activity, dashing, swerving, careering through the aisles
and it’s all free, and you can take whatever you want
once it’s in your cart, it’s yours!
until the whistle blows anyway
mania! grabbing! elbows!
and meanwhile, dale is there on the sidelines, smiling and smiling as your time runs down
don’t miss out on the turkeys, he’ll say
or: j_____ just dashed right past the bonus item…and didn’t pick it up!
and, just as you’re getting warmed up, the buzzer goes, and you have to limp back to the checkout counter
no turkeys
no ben and jerry’s chunky monkey ice cream (now dioxin-free!)
and all the stuff you bloody regret picking up.

st. mary magdalene's

- is in northern Berkeley, up Milvia Street, an unpretentious white building that blends in well with the residences neighboring it. It is the fifth parish I've attended Mass in this year - and probably the church in which I've felt the least at home. Largely, I think, because the service I attended was pitched at kids (mostly third graders who had just had their first Communion yesterday).

Still, it was not terrible - for a start, the celebrant seemed genuinely happy to be there, unlike some priests who sulk their way through Mass and read their sermon in monotones off one side of an 8.5 by 11. The choir was passable, joyous even, although I still maintain that if you know you can't sing in parts you shouldn't try.

And then there was the Q & A during the sermon:

(the gospel, of course, was from john: " peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.")

Priest: So, children, what kind of things give you peace?
Girl in third row: Playing
Priest: Playing, good, anyone else?
Another girl: Sleeping
(Heh. I approve.)
Priest: Sleeping. What else can give us peace?
Precocious boy right at the front: Money!

*
Then there was the homeless lady with long straggly hair who, as she passed me in the aisle on the way to receive the Eucharist, leaned over and asked if I could spare her some change. Stunned, I instinctively refused (almost always do, according to the give a man a fish philosophy), and then felt bad because I was in church, and then felt angry because she probably knew that and was trying to use the location to guilt people out of their money.

(My feelings were somewhat assuaged when I saw her guzzling half of the chalice of wine before high-tailing it out the back door).

*
Attending church in all these different places has been good in giving me perspective, refreshing me, shaking me out of the rut one gets into by attending the same service in the same church for months, years. Mass in Stella Maris (in Bermuda) was (for want of a better word), earthy - not in the sense that it was crude, but rather that it was atavistic, truer to the original Mass than its contemporary form (though not in Latin). St. Egbert's (Beaufort) was a parish of great spirit and joy, infected, I suppose, by the verve of the Bible Belters. And St. Mary Magdalene...well, it sort of defies description at the moment, but we shall see. One more week here. No more children's Masses for me, though.

service, bad

thought i had seen the last of racism in restaurants, but our server in the seafood restaurant we just came back from (which shall remain unnamed) was definitely One Of Those. rude and inattentive (while swooning and fawning over the caucasians at the next table); did not name the specials; did not give us extra butter when asked; did not ask us how our meal was; flung dishes at us, etc. his tip: one green penny. we were going to give him singapore coins but none of us had any.

self-policing

"one of those books that everyone seems to love but i" or "one of those books that everyone but i seems to love"? both, i think, are technically right, but the latter runs into the problem of the verb jarring because it disagrees with the proximal pronoun. shaun asserts that the latter syntax is more correct, but it seems yukky to me. i don't know.

may 13/14

bored, walked down to the berkeley public library yesterday to see what i could see. bored because: only books in current possession are history of the world (just read), wuthering heights (just read), penelope fitzgerald's the blue flower (presented to me by minz but i've put off reading it because the blurb just doesn't sound appealing for some reason) and shaun's copy (for class) of to the lighthouse which is one of those books that everyone seems to love but i. thus, no books; thus, staring at white walls and ceilings with unhappy cogitations past, present and future; thus, the need to get out, wherever out may be.

plus point of library:
25 cent paperbacks

minus point of library:
most of these paperbacks being old jeffrey deavers or about breastfeeding.

further unhappiness upon discovery that only californian residents can apply for library cards (admittedly, the temptation to abscond would have been great), but what can you do about it? browsing, emerged with a couple of old john irvings, jitterbug perfume (tom robbins), recommended by someone (forget who) in the past few months, and the things they carried (tim o'brien) which i think minz blogged about at some point in the not-too-distant past. started on the o'brien and was about 2/3 done when most unceremoniously chased out by fierce asian-american librarians because the place was closing.

finished o'brien today in barnes and noble - surprisingly impressed with it overall. was not what i expected it to be (i.e. along the lines of norman mailer/james jones etc.) very meta-; the bits where he talks about stories and war literature are, i suppose, what make the book. and, in a way, clarify the genre, and to a certain extent, all writing. take our blogs: how much of what we write is true? so much of what i say is made up it's not even funny. stories, as o'brien points out, objectify experience, but in order for them to do so, we have to fudge the details. fabricate, obfuscate, take artistic liberties, condense, change names to protect the innocent.

i mean, honesty is hard and lying is convenient for the purposes of narrative and blogs are more fun if they're bits and pieces of a story so really, why not?

anyway i digress. library. vast and varied collection, but as i said, check-out service only available to californian residents and distinct lack of decent places in the library itself to read. most comfortable location: three grimy armchairs, vacant because the vagrants of berkeley use them in turn as napping spots during the day. further minus point: no coffee. coffee a must when reading, particularly for long stretches at a time.

conclusion: barnes and noble better hangout. update: pressganged shaun into checking books out from the school library, thus relieved from woolf in the evening (for now).

Currently reading:
Such A Long Journey - Rohinton Mistry

barnes

Remember this bit in History of the World?

“’We must love one another or die,’ wrote W.H. Auden, bringing from E.M. Forster the declaration: ‘Because he once wrote “We must love one another or die,” he can command me to follow him’. Auden, however, was dissatisfied with this famous line from ‘September 1, 1939’. That’s a damned lie!” he commented. ‘We must die anyway.’ So when reprinting the poem he altered the line to the more logical ‘We must love one another and die.’ Later he suppressed it altogether.

Ah, Auden.

stanford

- is by far one of the most picturesque campuses in the United States of America. Had I known, I would have applied to go there. Alas, all I can do now is visit once in a while and admire The Oval and the Mediterranean architecture from the vantage point of visitor, perfuming the air with sighs as is my wont.

drowning

Have you ever had the experience where you confide in someone because you think it will make you feel better, and for a while after it does, but then you kind of realize that it has only brought you to a state where you feel like your heart is coming out of your chest and your head is being pressed in a vise and every breath you take feels like it’s a mixture of lime and chlorine? No? Never mind then.

disclaimer

ok, here we go again. i have said this before, but this time i shall make myself eminently clear, since making this blog public seems to have visited grief on all of us in some way shape or form.

1) things written on this blog are NOT about you. unless:
a) your name is in the entry
b) the entry is unambiguously about an event of which you were a participant
c) the entry links to a page created by you or about you

2) like the hippies of yore, i am all about the love. i only sound bitter because the world often snows me under with unkindnesses and bad chinese food.

3) if you leave a snarky/caustic comment on my comments board, you are fair game for my sniping back at you.

so can we please get along? i believe in free speech as much as the next person and i don't want to have to shed tears of blood and tear away my flesh every time i write an entry because i have to consider the myriad ways i might be delivering a crushing blow to your ego. if you have been given the url to this page, i think that you are in some measure a special person to me, and it matters to me that you're not hurt, especially not by me.

i know what it's like to hurt.

so please please please IT'S NOT ABOUT YOU

in transit

Berkeley, CA

Self-proclaimed "Durham's Best" taxicabs sent us a vehicle that broke down halfway to the airport leaving us (Mom, Mike, I) stranded unhappily on the highway for nearly half an hour waiting for a replacement. In consequence, my mom and brother arrived at the terminal with little time to spare and were eventually thwarted by queues that snaked out of the building. They missed their original flight (10:30 a.m.) and the next one (12:45, full), and the one after that because of an administrative cock-up on the part of the UA receptionist. We're United behind you indeed. I ended up leaving before them (although my flight was originally 6 hours after theirs), and one can only hope that they're now in New York at the time of this writing.

Myself, I'm in Shaun's apartment, being bullied around mercilessly as usual (don't touch this; don't do that etc.) The good(?) news is that there will be blogging per normal, probably in copious amounts seeing as I am going to be abandoned to myself quite a bit, for the next few days at least.

Currently reading:
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

graduation, thoughts

(1)
And so it ends

(2)
As T.S. Eliot famously said:

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.


(3)
Which, in a way, is a comforting thought, although who knows how applicable it is in the world as we know it. People nowadays don’t see college as a time of exploration. It has definable start and end points - matriculation and commencement – and everything in between is filler, a way to get to the prize. Or it is other things: an overpriced library subscription, a passport to inebriation, take your pick. The process is no longer as important, as long as you reach the finish line in the end.

(4)
And after all that, the finish line is “commencement”. The end is where we start from (Eliot again).

(5)
The actual ceremony takes place in Wallace Wade stadium in the baking heat. Graduation garb and the summer weather don’t go well together; I am, of course, in black from head to toe – black mortarboard, black gown, black shoes – absorbing all wavelengths of light on the visible spectrum and wishing they would get on with it. They give out each class of degree separately and there are approximately eight million of them. Madeleine Albright speaks. I find the contrast between her and our Convocation speaker, Maya Angelou, vaguely amusing. On arrival, a poet – be idealistic, dream, learn; and when it is time to go, an honored politician – be useful and productive and for heaven’s sake don’t fuck up the rest of your life.

(6)
Betsy and Knuth seem shocked to hear that I’m not going directly on to grad school after the endless discussions we’ve had about it over the past year. They try to hide it, but of course it’s in their expressions, clear as anything. I trot out my well-rehearsed speech about the decision being “the best thing for me at this time”, a speech that I will no doubt have to give ten thousand more times in the next few months.

(7)
Everyone talks about the time when it “hits” them. It wasn’t during the ceremony for me, not was it when I was saying goodbye to my friends. Rather, it happened on Monday morning, just after sun-up, when I walked through Duke Hospital to Main West for the last time in quest of an Internet connection and a bagel. Then it hit me: this is it. No more Duke Hospital, no more West Campus, no more sunning ourselves on the quad. No more late night Dillo runs or early morning cups of French vanilla.

And I think: wow, it really is over.

break

due to circumstances (i.e. no connection, parents), will probably be unable to blog for a while

next entry probably from the other side of the continent. monday? maybe.

take care all

friends

- is, despite what anyone might say about it, really Our Generation's show, one of the programmes that got us started on television, and it is sad to see it end. Beyond humor/entertainment/etc., I'm kind of glad that S'pore started airing it in its early days because it's given me immediate common ground with most Americans, is often one of the few matching threads in our growing-up experiences, and has helped me break the ice with people on innumerable occasions. (Friends facilitating friendships. Geddit? Wokka wokka.) Episodes get linked to memories - Chandler and Monica's wedding reminds me of my first days at Duke, the recent thanksgiving episodes recall spending time over the break on an empty campus with the folks who always stay behind - Karen, Siyin, Anu, the crazy Language Dorm guys. Farther back in the past, I associate Ross and Rachel's "we were on a break" arc with RJC, reading spoiler scripts in that novelty shop in Holland V (forget the name), daydreaming in class while Rollins read us Gulliver's Travels from cover to cover.

I'm a nostalgia freak, and though I hate playing into the hands of the media, with this show they have me where they want me. Everyone needs mental hooks on which to hang their important memories, and somehow, these have become some of mine.

so there

to those who say i'm eternally critical of others: i tipped the waitress at breakfast an extra 50c because she was interesting and talked about her experience at cornell studying textiles without being insipid or pretentious and because the home fries were really good as was the biscuit.

packing

suitcases: unliftable

things that do not fit into suitcases:
- wall posters, 36" x 28", three
- "Tubey" Amazing Race bag, yellow
- yearbooks, hardcover (thick and heavy), two
- leather shoes, black, very uncomfortable
- tailored jacket
- Gap winter coat
- box of random assorted junk - glass swan paperweight, Beanie Baby dog, shotglasses from all over the place, Spring Chicken, photo frames, etc.

hot and bothered

for the sake of organization, titles

what it says

genetics

over coffee and cake, we discuss the human genome project

why, asks one my friends, do people still carry around the notion that a genome is a program for building an organism? the metaphor doesn't hold - all humans, for instance, have the same set of genes but come out entirely different based on environment, promoters, activation of transcription factors etc. if anything the genome is a suggestion. a nudge in the right direction.

because, we conclude, the arts people need some romanticized notion of what's going on so that books like jurassic park and can be written and films like godsend can be made and bad art exhibitions with copper wire double helices and vials of human blood can be put on display.

and now, i await the indignation.

midget

There's a midget on the new season of The Amazing Race! I'm highly amused.

books, buying

Dilemma: I would like to have personal copies of -
- a complete set of Ishiguros (A Pale View Of Hills; The Unconsoled; The Remains of the Day; An Artist of The Floating World. Have I missed any? I already have When We Were Orphans at home)
- Life of Pi
- The Power and The Glory

- all of which I have read but know that I will want to re-read at some point in the (hopefully near) future, and most of which can be had new from half.com at 99 cents (plus shipping). The problem is that I'll have to have them sent over to California and will then be forced to lug them all over Europe, unless Shaun's mom will kindly acquiesce to bringing them back with her (awkward to ask. Are you reading this Dax?). Poor planning as usual. Isn't this such a Minz problem? I recall her complaining about something similar before visiting here.

Currently (re-)reading:
A History of The World in 10.5 Chapters - Julian Barnes. Von made me read this back in the salad days of Low Seng Eng and $2.50 ban mian and I've been through it about once every 2 or 3 years since then. I like it muy much.

errata

Reading over that last long entry, I realize that I quite dislike some of what I have said. Are retractions possible in blogland? I feel rather loath to take it all down - nescit vox missa reverti and all that.

Also, one should use expressions correctly if one wants to use them at all.

Waiting for wonderful smelling sponge cake to come of the oven so that we can start on homemade tiramisu. Made with real Grand Marnier and mascarpone cheese, and almost with cognac as well except that it was rather too expensive.

What makes a bad book? Evans (I think) once told us that bad books are those in which everything happens for the purpose of plot, that any development of character, theme, mood etc. is incidental and subordinate to the Story. The Hollywood Syndrome, if you will, where "if there is a gun hanging on the wall in the first act, it must fire in the last." [Anton Chekhov] I wonder sometimes if this isn't just snobbishness (snobbery?), because while it's true that a lot of bad books fit this mold, what of classic hard-boiled American fiction, Dashiel Hammett, Raymond Chandler, James Cain et al.? Not to mention top tier SF writers who produce largely plot-driven books which critics would still consider objectively "good".

I ask because I feel like I was on shaky ground last night in a conversation about Dan Brown, specifically the fact that one of my friends is rather inexplicably on her second round through his books. Was one round of the vapidness (vapidity?) insufficient? Or am I just not allowed to offer an objective opinion that his books are bad because she thinks that they're the best things since Marble Slab Creamery? No matter how much hair-pulling you engage in, there's always the brick wall of "but I like it", and all you can do is bite your tongue and pray that people will experience enlightenment like Saul on the Damascan Road.

I freely admit that in some subjects (specifically: books, TV, movies) I'm awfully hardnosed, but surely one has to have conviction in some matters; if you stand for nothing you will fall for everything, etc. What I need is some kind of Grand High Authority, a catalog that I can flip through. It will have the following categories:

1) Books that you May Read Once, and Quickly, perhaps when No Other Books are Available, and Never Again
2) Books that you May Read if You are Stranded On A Desert Island with No Other Reading Material Available and Even Then Think Twice
3) Books that you Should Under No Circumstances Touch With a Ten Foot Pole
4) Books that Should Never Have Been Written and Whose Authors Should Be Roasted Over A Slow Fire for Inflicting Such Dreck on Humanity

etc.

Was clearing out my hotmail box when I found this contribution from a Raffles Voices alumnus. It reminds me of a cappella warm ups (and it's tricky to get them in time so they harmonize exactly)!

Over dinner last night, we mused over dubbing Han with a Christian name, and someone suggested Cole, so he could be ColeHaan like the shoes. We also pondered why Americans actually manage to say his name right (rhyming with barn as opposed to van) and decide that they probably would not have before Harrison Ford was Han Solo in Star Wars and everyone took to that pronounciation.

That was moderately uninteresting.

Anyway, we returned to his apartment at around 10 to get a party started - a farewell cum birthday party which Han threw in honor of himself, even buying his own cake. That's one way to make sure no one forgets your birthday. Other lesser contributions mostly came from Karen, and consisted of everything that had accumulated in her refrigerator over the course of the past two semesters, including: exceedingly moldy gruyere, garlic and feta cheese dip, 6 boxes of Table Water (half-eaten), a box of Familia Swiss Muesli (no added sugar) and several questionable oranges (a la Monica's on last week's Friends, which was the second last one and which no one in Singapore has seen yet neener neener). Han broke out the umpteen cans of Busch Light which have been sitting in his own refrigerator since before I left for Xmas break and practically begged us to drink them. (No one did). After that: gin and tonics, gin rummy, South Indian techno tracks, faux-Cosmopolitans, and finally falling into bed at 3:30 in the morning when the last of the crowd had drifted away to get a few hours shuteye before early flights to places distant.

And so begins the series of goodbyes. I don't think I'll cry, but if I do, I'm not going to admit it.