Monday, February 28, 2011 nope. not gonna happen.
And the walls will stand, as long as my resolve is firm =)
I blogged @ | 10:31 PM
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Sunday, February 27, 2011
The constant struggle between being cautious to the point of paranoia and being careless by taking things for granted. Between overreacting and underreacting. My life is actually quite similar to that of a CPO.
I blogged @ | 12:00 AM
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Wednesday, February 23, 2011 note to self
its important to be an observer, because once you take a personal stance, you lose your objectiveness and all good judgement along with it. but its hard to not take a personal stance when its someone you care about :O It seems I'm also pretty counter-intuitive.
I blogged @ | 10:03 PM
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Monday, February 21, 2011
There's so much to catch up and improve on. For starters, it was horrifying to discover that my standard of GP has gone into free fall. The lack of a need to think critically and come up with creative arguments has degenerated my mind into a passive and lazy state. Add to that the sudden realization that there is a gap between writing GP essays and other essays (eg. scholarship essays, self-introduction, appeal letters)... my confidence in language proficiency has taken quite a hit =/ The presentation my group had to give today was also quite badly received... Too shallow... I'm good at arguing on my feet but really suck at doing research. So there's that, I need to read more and... shape my mind up! Then there's tkd... I can't keep saying I just became a blackbelt and expect people to forgive the low standards I'm performing at. I need to improve!
I blogged @ | 10:31 PM
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Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Gosh I'm exhausted... After three days of training I have a constant muscle ache in my arms and the ache in my left arm is starting to restrict my movements. Usually I'd prefer a natural recovery and refuse to use any external agents but I guess I'm really out of choices this time. Using Bengay (or anything similar to it) for the first time in my life now and its actually quite effective :D Just that the hot stinging feeling is kinda... stinging =/ Anyway there's been major progress for my academic and political pursuits! I've decided on the scholarship I'm going to take... PSC Teaching :O Sorry sempai ziyu! I really appreciate your advise and encouragement to go for the SPH scholarship, and you really made me reconsider my options. There are a number of reasons for the decision and I hope to record them down here today so that I will be able to remember why I chose this path years down the road. Reason one: Stability I wanna get married early! And for that, I need a stable job. This is probably one of the most forward-looking decisions I've ever made, considering I don't even have a girlfriend now. However, by now I know myself well enough to know that whoever it is that I marry, I will want to give my fullest attention to the person. As interesting and attractive as the SPH scholarship is right now, the nature of the job as a reporter will involve countless late nights spent in the office and a need to be overseas frequently. Put simply, I cannot afford that time. Reason two: Fear of art students =/ If I were to pursue an SPH scholarship, I would doubtless have to pursue a degree in journalism, english, literature, or something from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. I mean, yes, I have clear analytical skills and am fluent when it comes to argument, which explains my strength in GP. But to what extent would that be helpful? I would be competing with people who have studied the Arts since Sec 3. They would have had 4 years to lay the foundations while I'd be trying to learn something totally new. It scares me, having to pluck myself out of the scientific environment that I'm accustomed to and plant myself right in the heart of unfamilliar terrain. Reason three: it isn't just about me. The previous reason wouldn't have scared me much if it weren't for this third reason. I am fully confident in my ability to learn new things and my ability with words. That is to say, I am willing to put my abilities to test and venture into unfamilliar terrain. But this really isn't just about me. If I fail, my stability would be compromised, and my hopes to marry early would be dashed - which brings us back to the first reason. Reason four: PSC scholarship allows me to be closer to politics In other news, I've been accepted into Young PAP today. And I do wish to be able to bring politics and education together, to shape the Singaporean education system to become more sensitive to each individual's talents. For that, I determined that the best plan would be for me to gain some on the ground experience in teaching to better understand the weaknesses of the system, before heading into politics to suggest the changes. It is also well known that the PSC scholarship is closely linked to the government and provides opportunities to be in touch with key figures in the government. Opportunities I would like to have. So...yup, that's that. Please feel free to let me know any opinions or alternate point of views :D
I blogged @ | 9:39 PM
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Tuesday, February 15, 2011 dot.
Gosh. I really don't like to get into an argument. Cos everytime I win an argument, I destroy the relationship. And its beyond a shadow of doubt that I'd win. Everytime.
I blogged @ | 2:13 PM
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Tuesday, February 08, 2011
If something is to be sustained, it has to be sustainable without significant concious effort. I believe a relationship based on Trust always trumps one based on Love. Trust is consistent. It is something you can understand. It is stable, reassuring and its slowly built up. Love is volatile. It is inconsistent. It occurs randomly. It lacks the solid feel of trust. Most importantly, the stakes are too high for something so unstable
I blogged @ | 10:25 PM
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Sunday, February 06, 2011 Ideals and Reality.
Ideals. I'm a person who has an ideal image in mind for everything, acts in accordance to them, and is bounded too much by them. This obssession for ideals manifests itself in the way I expect myself and others to perform. The ideal guy. ideal girl. ideal partner. ideal relationship. ideal friend. ideal son. ideal musician. ideal blackbelt. ideal basketballer. ideal scholar. In these areas, this expectation makes sure I perform to a certain standard, certainly. They act as guidelines, as targets, as lighthouses, providing a clear direction in which I should progress. But it also does the opposite. The knowledge that these ideals exist, in addition to the fact that more often than not I fail spectacularly in trying to meet them, cripples my confidence and forces me to act more cautiously. I hide my weaknesses. I show only the parts which conforms to my ideals. And I'm starting to realise, this is constricting me in more ways than I can imagine. But there's a wild card that provides escape from this, and it is the realization that in Life, everything is free play. I call this "Reality". Reality is the realization that the world is not flat. That when it comes to dealing with Life and Humans, 1+2 is equals to 3, but its also not equals to 3 as long as you can come up with a creative enough reason to convince. Its the stage where ambiguous and intangible properties such as charisma, innovation, proactivity, flexibility, versatility, persuasiveness, empathy, maturity etc etc comes into play. What are you supposed to understand when someone tells you that they can "click" with you? What exactly is a "love-hate relationship"? What is "street-smart" and just how useful is it? How do you define whether a person is "mature", or whether he provides a "sense of security"? These are things you do not understand. You simply "get" it. In the Real world, Reality is everything, but its also one thing -- that nothing is definite. Reality can be uplifting in the sense that it gives us a chance to be creative and reinvent ourselves, making a break from a fixed set of Ideals. But Reality can also be daunting because it forces us to face the fact that we are seldom, if not never, adequate enough to fulfil our Ideals. Indeed, the common result of overdosage of Reality is the forsaking of Ideals.
Yet in my view, Ideals and Reality share a relationship similar to that between yin and yang. To quote from my previous post, they are "one of those qualities that is best meted out in proper dosages". Too much of Ideals draws clear and unforgiving lines onto the terrain, giving fixed, conventional and approved standards to follow, and these lines can be restrictive, stifling, even. But too much of Reality translates into the absence of lines on the map such that a sense of directionlessness starts to form. The key then, is balance. In this regard, I am without a doubt a bit off balance -- even now, I tend to lean towards the side of the Ideals.
I blogged @ | 6:40 PM
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Saturday, February 05, 2011 Sameness and familiarity and restlessness!
Chanced upon this while reading Different by Youngme Moon.This book is magical in how it captures the intangible so aptly and translate them into terms that we can actually grasp. Its like describing the mechanics of Life in scientific language. Language that we can make sense of. Here's an extract (among many ) which set me thinking: " When we are overwhelmed by discontinuity, we hunger for stability, which means that something as basic as a photograph here, an armchair there, can provide ballast to an otherwise unsettled psyche. When I was preparing my children to start kindergarten, their teacher, Mrs. Selman, recommended that we send them to school on their first day with some kind of counterwight -- a favorite stuffed animal, a blanket, a toy -- that would help anchor them as they entered the scary world of chalkboards and desks and cafeterias. What Mrs. Selman understood was that when we are overwhlelmed by change, a small token of familiarity can be comfort food for the soul. On the other hand, when our lives are saturated with sameness, the overall effect can be desensitizing; too much familiarity has an odd way of rendering things invisble. I have driven from my office to my house so many times that I can pull into my driveway with no recollection of the ride that got me there. I can walk through the front door of my home and the surroundings will barely register. Somehow, a lack of impression has turned into a lack of perception. This is the understated zen of familiarity : It doesn't so much provide pleasure as it removes provocation. Ellen Langer is a psychologist who has spent much of her career studying a phenomenon that she calls mindlessness. Mindlessness refers to our tendency to perform on autopilot, without thinking, and it's typically the result of "over-learning" -- of becoming so used to responding in a certain manner that we're not even aware that we're doing it anymore. When we act mindlessly, there is mental inertia even in the presence of physical motion. Langer probably wouldn't put it this way, but too much yin without enough yang can get a little mind-numbing. What this means is that sameness is one of those qualities that is best meted out in proper dosages. I will sometimes play this game with my students where I'll ask them to ignore their assigned seating and sit in a different spot for the day, just to shake things up; it's my way of rearranging the furniture to make the room feel fresh again. Mrs. Selman has her own version of this: By the end of every school year, her kindergarteners are so habituated to the daily routine that she'll take them on field trips, bring in classroom visitors, anything to counteract the doldrums. When it comes to the unity of opposites, in other words, it's all about the balance. Similarity is stasis; difference is motion. And if the two happen to exist in dyniamic equilibrium, everything is right in the world. We feel grounded, but we feel stimulated, too. We get our dosage of experientially bland carbohydrates, but not in quantities that wouldmake us lethargic. However, if too many days pass by without a trace of turbulence, that's when the listlessness starts to set in. We feel sluggish, we feel restless. And we find ourselves craving some strange fruit.
I blogged @ | 3:00 PM
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Friday, February 04, 2011
Something's off... but I can't seem to put a finger on what :O Its the source of the restlessness I've been feeling. What could it be? What is it that I subconciously know I'm doing wrong? I absolutely hate moments like this. Perhaps I've been being too intentionally unintentional.
I blogged @ | 9:52 PM
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