Understanding.
Haha it just dawned on me why I'm so silly sometimes. It's so easy to get caught up with doing something that you feel like doing and lose your sense of time and place.
I think I've spent too much time online. There's always the screen of the Internet to blog the unconscious physical motions. Its like the Shall We Dance guy. Sometimes u just do stuff unconsciously that looks terribly silly. Haha.. Well I guess that's me most of the time. But I guess realization is half the cure :D
I need to compartmentalize. I need to go full out now. I think after all that NS, it's just a natural reflex to hang a little loose, and shake it out a little. But if we're going to professionals in the future I guess I gotta start now. Save the inappropriate comments.
Sense of self. Sense of self. Release only when there's an outlet for release. Lead the double life. Even though our PDCP tutor insists the double life doesn't exist.
We'll see.
Fever
Fever in more ways than one. I really like the Don't Stop Me Now song. It's just bouncing around in my head but u can catch it here. It's by Queen, and I just love the whole feel of it. I want to soar! I can feel myself flying all over the stage and my fingers flying over the guitar.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdVdNnXiQTc&search=queen%20don%27t%20stop%20me%20now
Having great times with medicine choir. I think they're really the most wonderful bunch of people ever. Just singing together is so much pleasure. Although half the time I'm super tired cos I think I'm sick today, when I sing I try to be utmost serious.
And I just hate feeling sick and feverish. It gets better when I'm in the sun or when I walk around but then I just feel so absolutely lousy afterwards. So absolutely lousy. And then I think of the song and it gives me the strength to get up and actually do something.
Cos I got alot of things to do... And I don't know how to get it done. And everyone's enjoying their holidays. And urgh... I want to just sit somewhere with someone and talk. And just slack my holidays away.
And I just hate sitting with a big group and being forced to think up conversational topics. Ugh.. it's the part of the brain not used by me in ages! I don't know
tired to think about things to say. Shall write e-mails.
Institute of Ideas
Hey Jing! This is an amazing piece of architecture and work! Inspiring stuff for the float building coming on!
http://www.pingmag.jp/2006/04/14/luke-chandresinghe-successfully-dreaming-architecture/
Art
Hmm.. in search of the art missing from my life.
Was just thinking about Geraldine and how she's such a great art partner. Someone to go to art galleries and watch movies and plays with me, someone intelligent. I miss that.
And I miss Porshee too :D My dear photogmate who's going on a trip to Japan with me at the end of the year. I miss the photo outings and photoshoots and the photo reviews!
And I miss Yujing too! Missed those moments walking through MITA and Ang Mo Kio and the press photography. Miss Botanic Gardens! and the top of Shaw.
Did art bring us together? And is art what will keep us together?
It's interesting after knowing each other for so long how easily we can identify each other's styles. How I know what a "Geri" dress will look like, and what an "Yujing" top will look like and what a "Porshee" top will look like. How art is really about us, at the very core.
I don't know what my art will say. I was thinking all day about art while walking through Esplanade and listening to Queen (some brit band). There are really nice collages out there, done by this amazing headhunted art prodigy or something at 24, and he has his own style of image too.
I think my life is my own piece of art. My life is shaped by my own hand, done in my own style. It's so easy to live according to someone else's style. So easy to do a Picasso, or to do a Van Gogh. The examples are out there for people to copy. But perhaps a life lived like that isn't worth the paper it was written on. I want my life to be a pretty portrait of me, in my very own style.
And so I thought, what's my own style then? Shit I don't have a style! Well I haven't been doing much art myself, but this is a good chance to put my stamp on something. :D My own art.
Differences
Well the longer I'm in school, and in different kinds of schools at different times, it's interesting the predicaments I find myself in.
They're kind of the same but you never know if they're going to resolve the same way.
I don't know. It seems that there is always the initial smoothness in relationship, then some friction, then total nastiness, and then I need to exercise a bit of my power and then everything goes well.
I'm getting used to this cycle of events really, but I still have deep misgivings towards exercising power. I have a deep rage in my heart that I never let known, never unleash. And when it comes out, I always do things that I end up regretting. I don't know. I don't like the feeling of being out of control for once. I don't like the hot flush, or the singlemindedness of the kill. But when it comes on, all that matters is doing the most damage.
I don't know. Just thinking about it scares me. Please don't let me have another reason to use it...
I think there are differences in the world. Every culture sees things differently, and even more so in the medical faculty. We have different backgrounds. We grew up differently. We see the world differently.
In my world, being attached is not the be all and end all of a person. We do talk to other people, we do go out with members of the opposite gender alone. It's not a taboo of any sort, but the foundation is built very clearly that it is just friendship or common interests.
In another world, apparently, the world only has guy and gals if a girl gets attached. Well good luck to them really.
In my world, getting a girlfriend is important as keeping the girlfriend.
In another world, maybe just saying they're attached is enough.
In my world, people fight for the girl they love.
In another world, I guess they just exchange angry smses.
In my world, nothing's more important than a good friend. Friends last longer than relationships anyway.
In another world, relationships are forever and you can throw all your friends away and live in a world of two people.
In my world, I guess I just realize the importance of being with the people you love, whether they be attached or not. Because I always regretted not getting to know Justina better, after she got attached. Because I don't want my friends to break up without a safety net from depression. I always thought I'd have time to know Justina better later as a person and I never did have that time in the end.
In another world, I guess the person's more like a property than anything else, with social circles and friendships that you can cut and rejoin at will to suit the circumstances of the moment. Friendships that are created because we're in the same class or hang out together.
The friendships I have are tested. And I'm proud of my friends because they are the most wonderful and dependable people around. They keep me straight when evil thoughts are occuring around me. They understand me, and where I come from, and we discuss our differences. I know who they are, what they believe, what they have problems with. And they are all different people, interesting, helpful, with friends of their own.
I really respect the idea of friendship. Relationships? Bah what's that.
Drunken Thoughts May 21 Sunday
Well I just got a moleskine, so I'm making a point of noting down my thoughts on it, and so sometimes I'll make blogposts that are just writings from my moleskine. This is the first of hopefully many.
Kevin mentioned yesterday over dinner that I'm too competitive, and that I gloat too much when I win. I think maybe that's true on 1v1, but during team sports, I think I do that to motivate my team.
Teamwork, choice of life partner, being attracted to someone but not finding anything interesting in her. Meeting someone that looked like ..., laughing heartlander.
Poison of choice today,
K. Hakushika Yamadanishiki
14% 300ml cold.
With unsalted fries from Macdonalds.
Numbness starts fromt he nose. Sweating develops, body temperature elevation (or perception?) Thinking of buying the Roland Micro Cube (which I bought and used for Liyana's gig) Increased sensation of sound and touch. Easier to focus, loss of inner superego. Connection established between subconscious and the world.
Wondering if constant hypertrophy of hepatic cells from alcohol ingestion will lead to decreased sensitivity to allergens. That said, does the immune system interface with the hepatic detoxification system in any way.
Sake loses fruity taste after 100 ml. Waste of good sake after that.
Chips are unhealthy not because the oil does not penetrate the first layer due to the formation of steam layer (can't find the name of this effect), but because when the fries cool, the same steam layer leaves a vacuum, sucking the oil back into the core of the fry.
I think <
> is interesting but not criminal enough. Too nice and too honest. Crooks only cheat those who have cheated other people.
200 ml of sake
How does the inner artist's sense of the human structure in art, relate to our biological understanding of it?
The lady at the Museum of Sydney was right about the moleskine notebook, it's perfect.
What does it feel like to be the only drunk person in the whole of Macdonalds? The drunk man that orders fries without salt and sauces because he's health conscious.
Is he any more reasonable than those who pison their hearts willingly with trans fats?
Are we more reasonable than anyone else at all? Why do we have to be reasonable?
"Ladies only" is possibly only a draw in Singapore. Anywhere else, ladies only will be a deal killer.
Why am I lucid even when I'm drunk? Why and I perceptive and even more so?
Actually sake feels a little like Listerine when you gargle with it.
Servant leadership isn't the best form of leadership. Leadership historically meant you left you left your authority and name to your subordinates when you die. In servant leadership, the greater control you gain from being in close contact with your subordinates is offset by their decrease in productivity and loyalty when you are no longer with them.
Religion isn't a servant leadership, but a big brother kind of leadership after all. One will endure even after the passing of the founders.
Leadership is after all about demonstrating that the people will be better off sticking to you than being with someone else.
300 ml.
Love thoughts
Well I just stumbled on Joachim's blog.. and he seems to be looking for happiness. Well happiness and comfort are two different things. I hope he finds comfort in my opinions, although he might not be happy.
What brings a couple together? I used to believe love was the answer, someone told me commitment was the answer. I tried both, but it never really worked out. Love too transient, commitment too contrived. God made the world so big so that you could choose one other, and stay with her forever? Please! I believe commitment is the big lie, the great perpetuator of misery in people today. It is a lie because there is no happiness in holding two unhappy people together. People seek happiness, people seek pleasure. It is natural to want for such things.
I believe a couple who stays together does so because they're a team. A team is something that works together, strategizes together, fails and succeeds together. It doesn't matter how much more talented or how unequal the economic, sociological backgrounds may be. A successful team covers their weaknesses and maximizes their strengths. If one partner has a propensity to stray, he may find someone who may cover that weakness of his, or teach him how to overcome that weakness. That is a successful team. And that's my idea of a good couple. Click is everything.
Hmm I kinda agree with joachim's idea of a perfect partner, but I must add, it's not always about what you do for each other that makes the relationship perfect, but the space as well. A team covers all ground. A good team may not need to communicate verbally much, but they may know who will take which ball. But also, a good team doesn't stick together like glue, but spreads out to occupy the shared space. Space is also essential in a great team, and a great relationship.
I think all relationships start with a natural curiousity with that other person. Some people you may know for a year or years and that natural curiosity never arises. Sometimes that natural curiosity arises, but there is no way to find out the answers that you seek from that person. Sometimes your curiosity finds you answers why no.
I don't believe in a God, even though I use the concept and some others from the Bible and Buddhism freely. Men are born into a cage known as the body, and all the mind wants is to be set free from the limitations of our body. We dream, we fly, we swim, we dive, we have sex, we take drugs, we take medicine, we invent tools, we go for surgeries, we think and philosophize. We are born into a jail that will take us an eternity to be free. But before we become free, all our actions arise from the seeking of temporary reprieves from our jail.
You may do the thought experiment and trace back so why so where so how did we arise. How something should arise out of nothing. But nothing is only a mental concept. Find me nothing. Show me nothing. Nothing doesn't exist. Things that exist cannot arise from things that do not exist. Thus, we could not have arose from nothing. Therefore, there must always have been something. What it is, we'll find out eventually.
Hmm Updates!
Well Astee will be leaving us for Imperial College in 4 months time, to pursue her destiny in Chemistry. I'll miss her really madly. It's kinda the last of my really good friends in Singapore. Somehow I'm sure we'll still keep in contact, but kinda wonder about my circle of friends getting smaller and smaller each time a plane leaves for the UK/US.
We've been having communication courses, and it's really interesting when i drew out my circle of friends, how much they share common interests and weirdness. Like we're all out of the box people, with our interest in art and science and music and photography, and how we just defy to me a logical sort of grouping. I don't know how we became so close, because they all came from diverse places, and Fate just shoved them my way and my hands were open just in time. It's so hard to get to know someone in Singapore, yet it seemed to be so easy to get to know these particular people. Your friends are after all, the people you manage to get to know isn't it?
Anyway I just came back from the Australia trip and it was kinda fruitful. Just being out of the country itself and talking to Aussies relaxed me and rejuvenated me. Aussies speak slowly and are warm and helpful and service oriented (most of them) and they really made my stay great. I learnt so much about communication between people, and why they value it so much. But this is all becoming kinda pointformish when in my mind it's a beautiful continumn of experiences and serendiptious philosophizing.
Well I guess one of the main issues in my life that was resolved with this trip is that of my own censorship. I was at Kino over Queen Victoria Galleria where they had this shelf of books banned by various groups in America. Judy Blume (one of those writers handling teenage issues) edited and wrote a foreword about the sort of censorship that parents are imposing on books through pressure on schools because they didn't agree with the content in the book or that their children be exposed to such undesirable material at a young age. It affects writers, because they wrote such things in their books because they thought it was a critical issue affecting children, that it was important to raise disscussion of such issues between children and parents, between people in society. Instead, some parents prefer to sweep such discussions under the carpet and pretend the issues never existed in real life. The dilemma facing such writers is simply thus. Do I write based on my artistic vision, and characterization, and tell it like it is, or do I censor what i write and go for the lowest denominator, something that everyone in society will have no problems with. When writing childrens' books especially, do I risk offending someone and not having my message sent? Or do I write for everyone, make boatloads of money and not send any message at all? Eventually, the fear, is not that the books are censored, but that the censorship occurs in the authors mind, and the issues that are closest to our hearts are buried under heavy self-censorship.
I've been under that same self-imposed censorship for quite a while, and it took me a few history digs to see what I've been missing out. In the past, I would think about issues and not fear to write about how I felt. But somehow, this brashness and boldness has died with time into a sort of conformist stance. Do I risk getting myself ostracized because I am different? Because I think differently, or see things differently? Or have friends in different circles that I try my best to keep up with? Self censorship just made me lose out on so many interesting experiences I may have had. So many people I may have met or gotten to know or even understand and have disscussions about. Who wins in censorship? No one except the lowest denominator!
This is juxtaposed brilliantly by Sherry's reading of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, which happened to be on that same list of 100 banned books. In Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, I saw in his comments that the battle between knowledge and insanity is analogous to the battle between efficiency and creativity, mechanization and craftsmanship. But there is an axis missing between the two extremes of knowledge and insanity. If there is selected misinformation, (e.g censorship) or incomplete information available to us, can we said to bave free will and choice if we have incomplete knowledge of our choices and their consequences? How does this then tie in with religious free will or societal free will? Are we really free if we are misinformed about the choices we may have, and the consequence of our actions?
I went to the Museum of Sydney and the Museum of Contemporary Art as part of my wanderings. Looked at self portraits, portraits of people, people exposing themselves to the camera literally and figuratively. What is the point of all this really? What is the point of all art? Why do people fight for, and die for art? What good does it do for someone to expose himself, flaws and all for a voyeuristic audience only interested in your own self destruction so they have something to think about, or something pretty to hang on your wall. Is art simply to expose yourself and your perception of who you are as a human? Oftentimes artists hide behind a powerful facade of ideological terminology, but really, they speak about who they are, what do they fear, and what do they hope to accomplish. Nothing's easy, but deciding to shed your armour and expose your most sensitive and vulnerable parts must be one of the hardest things of all.
On the issue of mechanization and craftsmanship. I visited the Hunter Valley, place of a few large mechanized vineyards, and some smaller boutique ones. And the issue of picking grapes comes up. On the smaller holdings, skilled workers are employed to cut the grapes off the branches, and thus earn the label handpicked. On the larger holdings, mechanical grape harvesters are used that flick the grapes off the bushes, kinda like how a large storm would rattle the grapes and cause them to fall off on their own. And so the smaller boutiques were saying that hand picking is superior in so many ways, because of the camaraderie it provides, and because the workers all know intimately how the grapes are growing and can produce the best wines from them, and provide great advice on wines. Well sure, there are tangible qualities and intangible benefits of boutique wine production, (and the wines do taste pretty good) but how do you export the intangible quality of products like good service and camaraderie and all that. Craftsmanship production of items is bound to fail because your intangibles cannot be exported. Those who manage to export these intangibles (brands like Rolex watches), are hardly handcrafted in the first place.
So it's been a kinda fruitful trip :D I'll talk about other things when I think of them :D Right now it's kinda late and I don't have much more brainpower but I'll try to answer some of Joachim's issues, or at least my view on them.
