Friday, May 25, 2007

calling for:
OLD SCHOOL BAGS.

if you have bags you wish
you never bought, but
can't bear to throw them away,
pls let them be homes to the
schoolbooks of the
kids in Tibet.
pls contact me if you
have stocks to clear,
i appreciate it! (FREE COLLECTION SERVICE!)

3:05 PM

Thursday, May 24, 2007

it'll be a couple of weeks more
before i fly to beautiful vietnam
on my first tourleading stint.
a tad nervous, but
plenty of excitement.
yes,
im on my way to walk the globe.
i will cover southeastasia- soon!
photos photos! :)

12:25 PM

Monday, May 21, 2007

somebody i read about
defined success as being able
to wake up each morning
and say these heartfelt words
to themselves:
damn, today's gonna be
another helluva brilliant day
and im so ready to kick major ass!

quite apt, isnt it?

i have to admit that
the closest i've ever been
to this
is feeling absolutely in awe
on sunday mornings realising
there is time for
guilt-free TV/reading.
the awe usually lasts a
grand total of about 3 seconds,
before i am jolted
into brutal reality that the
following day is a working day.

the concept is that
if i prep myself up for
a terrible day ahead,
preemt all possible
worst-case scenarios,
at least it would be
comforting to know that
it cant get any worse.

thats why i think its great
that people go to
church on sundays.
they put some sort of closure
to the previous week
and set a new perspective for
the coming week.
much unlike my sundays,
which are dreadful preludes
to the longdrawn workweek.

but in a sense
i fear the commitment of
church-going
when it eventually mutates into
another chore in my life that
robs me of time for guilt pleasures.
that's probably sinful,
but that's me- for now at least.

speaking of commitment
on the longterm.
my long overdued intention to
commit to a cause/home on
a regular, long-term basis.
ive never really gone pass the
stage of
research and liaising,
because somewhere along
the way of lacklustre replies,
i let it wait.

but recently while talking to
pauline (one of my favourite people),
i think we both decided
we wanted this to materialise.
in more ways then one,
it'll be an education for myself.
altho a part of me wonders how
much i can offer and how far i am
willing to bend backwards to
fit this commitment into my life,
i still wish for myself to
embark on something purposeful.

it'll be refreshing when
my life stop operating
merely on the
basis of convenience and
necessity.
it'll be beautiful if i come
to a point in my life
when i no longer have to
morbidly wish
to not need
to wake up the next morning
to face the tribulations of the
strange, strange world.

1:11 PM

Friday, May 18, 2007

SO

im settling for
nanyang business school.
it's not a dream,
hardly ever was,
but i'll let it grow on me.

my life was never about
straining to do the things
i wish i could;
i'd rather invest this lifetime
on trying
to make good,
the things i probably can.

goodbye to veterinary science
and your exorbitant pricetag,
down-under.

goodbye to psychology and
your need for
truly functional brains.
i don't think fass has room
for mediocrity,
and since im unlikely to
manage
to be cream of the crop,
i'd rather not risk the crossover.

yes, i accomplised Maths 9233,
i can accomplish anything in life.

10:34 PM

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

current read-
Thoughtful Guide to Faith
is for the frustrated non-believer
to make
sense of God-talk.

i can relate to that.
i try to be religious, but
practising seems to demand the
suspension of common
sense in many bizarre ways.
religion, or the intepretation
by Man, is
sometimes contradictory
and requires one to
discard the logic that we know.

not many people are,
or bother to be,
dogmatically militant atheists.
bulk of the world
are merely unconcerned about
getting spiritual
since it's just
not a sufficiently
imminent issue to consider.
to be on the safe side,
they opt to be open
to the concept of
the existence of a very powerful,
albeit invisible, superperson.

the fact that a substantial
proportion of the world
find religion worthwhile just
furthur baffles me:
why am i unable
to be part of this world?

like these people,
i too want some bearing
in this world of flux.

Christians have recommended
"saving myself by accepting Christ".
more probe into this advise
end with yet more
circular arguments and
dodged questions.

see
since a nonbeliever is not
capable of understanding in
full the idea of "saving oneself"
and certainly cannot
see how "accepting Christ" can do
the job, how are we expected
to be wholeheartedly convinced?
the concept that the biggest sin
(champions all other
breach of ethics)
is to deny the existence of God
is slightly difficult to digest.
which means a God-believing
murderer is more likely to have a
better life-after-death in comparison
to a fairly ethical nonbeliever.

prayer is also perculiar to
the Outsider.
for example,
Adoration and Supplication
i don't get.

firstly, does God need to be coaxed,
pleaded with, en masse,
to be alerted to the
needs of the people?
doesn't this contradict with the
apparent infinite value of each
individual?

secondly, it is just not polite
to give God an ultimatum,
ask for our wants and expect that
they be fulfiled.
its just not...nice.

thirdly, is the issue about
forgiveness.
in religion,
it is possible to wipe the
slate clean and start again.
it only takes repentance for a
Very Bad Person
to make it to heaven.
sounds like a impossibly good deal?

perhaps
i have wrongly judged the
situation merely from my point
of view.
God's abilities are probably
unimaginable to me, since
we are clearly in a very
different league.

nonetheless,
faith in moderation is surely
healthy and ultimately does help
one seek solace and strive
towards betterment.
we just hope there were more
logic in this so that
we could be part of this
really good campaign, too.

10:44 PM

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

driving, i swear,
is the pinnacle of
adulthood-
along with taxpaying and
procreating.
its like some sort of a freakin'
milestone in life,
an affirmation from the
traffic police in singapore that
you are adult enough to function
an automobile.

my grandma introduces my sister
to absolute strangers (in hokkien) :
this is my grand-daughter.
she can drive.

i can't believe the highlight
of my sister's 2 decades' of
exsitence is her ability to
drive.
anw
folks have been urging me
to go for lessons, but
everytime i imagine
the perpetual puking
owing to motion sickness,
and the need to park a car,
i just think its not a very
good idea.

to help me make a decision,
i have been analysing the roads,
surveying the odds of killing
pedestrians/getting myself killed
etc.
according to dad,
if i drive at 50KM/h
nothing fatal will possibly occur.
according to sis,
if i drive at 50KM/h
i am a hazard on the highway.

i toyed with the idea
of riding a scooter-
not a bike-
just
a good ol sissy vespa.
but it would really be an
ugly, tragic sight
when the rain decides to come.

cars are also, not green.
they are high-maintanence and
thirst for petrol every other day.
they also need to be parked,
yes, parked.
i consider
parking to be
nearly the ultimate of human
intelligence ( only second to math) .
cars cannot be stopped anywhere on
the streets, they need
to be parked in lots.
u have to position your titanic
piece of metal into a
chickenshit-narrow lil lot bordered
with somebody else's car or
a darned slab of pillar.
if you find yourself in a
(god forbid) basement carpark,
you not only have to spiral your piece
of metal upwards/downwards,
you also need to focus very hard on
not slamming it into the wall
that is usually
only some micrometers away
from you.

must life be more stressful
than it already is???

12:42 PM

Thursday, May 10, 2007

now that im slowly
being forced into adulthood,
it has become important to
me that i
i take my citizenship in
this world seriously.

i hoax my nearly-cynical self
into
hallucinating about
covering all of our planet
in this lifetime, yknow,
experience world beyond
this red dot.
it sounds all grossly idealistic,
but still
its exciting to imgaine
how, half way across the world,
people are capable living lives
unlike mine.

much like in the film
Motorcycle Diaries
where
a medicine undergrad and a biochemist
leave home in Buenos Aires
to embark on
a roadtrip across South America.
enroute
they encounter the injustice
and exploitation of mine workers
from the
lower rungs of society,
the stigma and the discrimination
while volunteering at a leper colony,
and
the rigidity of the Catholic Church
and its stubborn dogma that eventually
appears to compromise compassion.

"Let the world change you,
and you can change the world."

life nearly always leaves
us burned out..
but perhaps if we step out of
our comfort zone to educate
ourselves about our world
it may be easier to detach from
the personal discontentment,
bitter grudge we hold for
one another.
then again,
who's asking to be a revoluntionist?
all i want is a modest existence..
and a chance to maximize the experience
in just one lifetime.

im saying, perhaps.

12:14 AM

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

i screwed up quite majorly.

due to some visa procedure
hiccup at the embassy
and negligence on my part,
a passenger got deported from
Russia to Singapore on
the return SQ flight.
15 hrs of long haul flight, 2hrs of
trauma at the immigration,
another 15hrs flight back to Singapore.

Russian immigration is notoriously
stringent, and they
will deny even the most harmless looking
old lady entry if the paperwork does
not entitle her to.

to add to the dramatic effect,
the poor old lady has a heart condition and
amidst the distress, needed her
medication which immigration officers
callously disallowed.
she was understandably traumatised and
"has been crying nonstop since".

but the best part of this whole situation
is that her daughter's a lawyer and
she has threatened to sue.

i can't believe the deep shit
i am in.
guilt is not the favourite emotion.
its not only
the monetary compensation
that my company will have to bear,
its a label of "inefficiency and substandardness"
that i have put on my company's name.
the distress of the old lady and
her family (immigration officers
are not the most goodnatured of
people in a setting like Russia).
and in situations where sorry
is really not enough,
i guess the punishment is a
heavy, guiltridden heart.

damn, i live true to
my name.
i sin indeed.

9:52 AM