Category Archives: Personal Life

Haven’t been blogging. I know. I was trying to type a Chinese article. It is supposedly about how my perception of Chinese Language change as I grew. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get my laptop (which contains the file) to hook online. Too bad, that will just stay in my laptop for now. In any case, I soon won’t be blogging because of the coming overseas camp. But when I am back, I probably be spamming a hell load of photos coupled with maybe 4 days long of blog entry – that is supposed to be posted when I am there.

I am going to Yunnan, and there is definitely no access to a computer, not to mention going online. Well, it isn’t that bad, because I am writing all the stuff (I want to type) down on some book or whatsoever I can find in the room of the motel. This is a great time for slacking.

Speaking of returning from Yunnan – going back to work, I thought I would be able to see our Third ‘Elected’ President of Singapore on the day of return, which is supposed to be a public holiday if there really is an election. Well, it turns out that I have met him – he is the same as the “Second Elected” one. No point being frustrated, it is alright anyway. In fact it is quite good that there is no need to wait for results and all these sort of stuff.

I haven’t been blogging politically-correct stuff. And on this eve of anniversary for our nation’s separation from Malaysia (Independance, in other words), I guess I should make some kind of exception. Or should I not? I think I should defend it at least a little. You know, Singapore is really a great place, I apologize for keeping up the top blogging habit – ranting. Singapore’s celebrating its 40th and it is a great time to slack off for a while before getting back to tests and exams (I’ve got an exam on this Friday).

Well, my desktop goes into its fourth year within this few days, and it is getting cranky by day. I just got it a new motherboard battery a few months back (I think it was March) and now its clock is not keeping up again. Then there is the dumb, faulty CD-rewriter drive that is giving me a whole lot of headache by dettaching it from the computer source as it please. To aid imagination of my problems, here’s the scenario: I wanna burn a disc, so I started Nero and such. I slipped in the CD, no problems so far. In fact, even after I clicked the ‘Burn’ button, and heard some zipping noises from the drive (which I usually do when it is burning a CD), there was no alert or whatsoever about a possible error that may occur. In any case, after the burn, an alert popped out, the whole computer hanged for a second or two, then zrrrr…. the drive goes dead – my disc still in it.

Meanwhile, the computer is still working fine, with the exception that you can no longer see the ‘CD Drive’ under the ‘My Computer’. That’s sad. And to get the drive back to its feet, I gotta restart the computer (which also means I have to reset my BIOS clock somehow, because of the weird-ness of my desktop). I have to get a new desktop, preferably one that comes with a SATA compatiable motherboard, and a 80GB ATA HDD, with at least Intel Pentium4 2.6GHz (my current one is a P4 1.8GHz one and it sux big time). But none of these until I finish mugging and backed up all my past years data. Over these years, I acculmulated at least 25 GB of nonsense and all these got to be squeezed into the ‘unburnable CDs’ I have bought. Now, how am I going to transfer all these file away…

I am not writing any more stuff on Social Mobility. They are a little too morbid. Perhaps that’s too strong a term. I’ll say that these posts appear terrible on a blog that belong to a person like Vib. I have decided to write a research paper on it instead. And I need all you guy’s help. Mib can provide me with the information on USA’s meritocracy, Terry can give me an overview of how scholars are selected in Malaysia and also information on their form of selective meritocracy. Leonard can provide any insightful perspective of the ‘other’ side of GEP and Mainstream Education. When I mean the ‘other side’, I mean the non media intervention kind.

As a biased person, I will need some really neutral views. And Bok can help me with that. He can give me an idea of how the system really works, in his perception and how the ‘rich’ stands to gain (or not). Even Jin, if you are reading, might like to tell me all you know about meritocracy in Singapore and how the societal trends are changing your perception of education and its role. If you think this is too chim, or you need me to translate to Singlish, I can do that in the comments box, perhaps when you ask. I am proficient in Chinese or Mandarin too, no problem if you need it in Chinese.

See, so many people can help. Not forgetting Wilson, who is, to a large extent, a powerful critic with too much of caustic-ity in his comments or rather criticism. But that’s good, Singapore needs this kind of people – the only bad part is that he don’t say it out loud to the people involved in the ‘big thing’. And also Jeremy, you can give me tonnes of your chimly worded insights. But make sure you go read up on Social Mobility first. I wonder if I have enough ‘experts’ on this field, considering the fact that I am being biased by getting only my friends. There are still many people out there waiting to say something about this. I hope to interview other people, from the recently changed name school called Hwa Chong Institute or something, and also the famous Raffles Institution. All these very cool school students can give good comments.

Everyone, shall contribute, and I shall be writing it. I have set the starting time of the research to be the end of my ‘O’ Levels. And I hope I can present it as a component of my research on Society when I get into Sociology or some related studies. Of course, people say there’s still National Service and all the nonsense. It doesn’t matter. Our country do have some resistance to change. That’s good, because that’s what makes old research papers valid till today, even if it is from a ‘historical perspective’.

Looks like many people are getting pissed with the changes at school. Somebody especially. But I won’t say who. You readers probably know him. Anyway, somebody is getting damn pissed off by all the terrible changes. First there is this new programme going on, next there’s forcing of people to purchase tickets for some extremely educational drama. Then comes some form of escalated security measures that has undoubtly brought in loads of profit to vehicle label printers. Finally, there’s this ridiculous performance put up by some ‘Gila’ class, which caused an emotion uproar in somebody.

Some values ought to be kept, and protected. Not kept in the trunks.

Whoever said this may seem old-fashioned and inflexible to those who have a clear idea of what I am talking about, but I believe this ‘somebody’ is worthy of our utmost repect for being principled. I would say, that it is really hard for a person, having lived through a time of glory and is full of pride, to realise suddenly, that the world has transformed. And it has really transformed to a stage deemed as ‘Evil’ in the past. But as we know, moral values sometimes do change. Or rather, the societal interpretation of values changes constantly.

We can’t have ‘student idols’ in schools, and appreciation of music is probably more inclined towards classical, though rock may be rather cool – in our terms. I see things changing, I can more or less accept it; though I can’t feel for this ‘somebody’, I can understand that to him, it is as though a fact, that he knew since he existed, just destroyed itself in front of him. It is scary. It is just like the time when you realised that lies are everywhere, all around us – previously, you got to know from your mother that lying is wrong.

But that is more gradual. It is like discovering how adults are even more imperfect that some kids even though we were taught to respect and listen to the adults as though they were the ‘perfect, all-knowing specie’. The things that ‘somebody’ is experiencing is sudden, fearsome. If I suddenly tell you that Earth is flat and not round and that Newton, and a whole lot of the others are seriously wrong, you may be scared out of our wits (though that’s science and you probably need some proof). For a supposed ‘fact’ that is of moralistic nature, it is hard to tell; there are somethings which are obviously wrong but they are still committed like there’s nothing wrong. Sad.

I rarely talk about things that happens in school, unlike Bingyuan. And for those people curious about they way he ‘encodes’ someone’s name, here a clue: Spell it backwards and you will get a clearly picture. Good try encrypting it! Yes, I am going to release some information on the projects I am working on. Currently, and as usual, there are to categories when I talk about my project. The first being school projects, and the second being personal ones.

School project will involve my two Pday projects. As all who have been reading my blog would know, I have been working on a film since the year began, and now, it is almost at the completed stage. Sometimes I really wonder if I really need that much time. Well, I think the time for conceptualising should be well spent, or your project will be as screwed as mine. In any case, I believe it wouldn’t be possible for me to have completed 2 projects if not for the fact that I set out to achieve that since last year, and that much of the time, the 2 projects’ converge at the same point, namely the same venue. I must say I have been lucky this year.

The Service Learning Project is expected to outshine other projects if we are able to present the project well enough. This time, we have added advantage because of a ‘secret weapon’ and currently, almost all members are working very hard to get the job done well. We have set out to achieve that much, and we shall get that much. We previously wanted only to be selected for GF, but now I thought that we should achieve something further, given the fact that this will be the last year we are participating in this competition. Bingyuan, if you are reading this, you should get what I mean.

The stuff that I am working on personally is actually a series of templates that I should be using for future projects. I plan to create at least 10 of them, probably at least 1 when the September Holidays comes and the rest during the Year-End Holidays. I believe I will need all these stuff in 2006 and probably wouldn’t have enough time to settle them then.

Another project is a short film that captures the naivety of students even at our age, it is entitled, “Disposing”. I have in mind the cast and this is going to be a hilarious one, but it won’t be long, and most importantly, I am still not sure if I would have the time to shoot, given the fact that exams extend all the way into the holidays. This film got potential to be expanded to discuss social issues.

I am also thinking of doing a script, on a one-entertainer style talk, that will be criticising some of our school’s stuff. But that’s not confirmed yet. It will be in chinese and I probably need some input from Mib. Currently, there hasn’t been much things to talk about given our apathetic nature and the focus with academic achievements. Talking about academic stuff, I haven’t been achieving lately, getting zi bei. I got to get some tips from Mib on this, he is always feeling so.

Was out yesterday night, for a simple dinner with my family, and also to get printer cartridges for my Canon Printer. We were at the bus stop, waiting for the bus to come when we saw 4 kids: 2 boys and 2 girls, playing around the bus stop. They suddenly came together when one of the boys said, “Let’s go to the bus stop!”

They crowded the boy. He said again, “Let’s race to the bus stop. Whoever first will become the…” Before he could finish, the other 3 kids ran towards the bus stop. Seeing this, he shouted, “the Rich Man!” and start running himself. When they were close to the bus stop, one of the girls commented, “Hey, how about the second, become what?” That, in our teenage’s world, can only constitute a single comment, “Dotz”.

On closer inspection, the children may not be that naive after all. They have learnt, in many ways, that the strongest, the fittest will probably be the most successful and there is almost no room for failures in our society. But as Singaporeans, they want to have something to lay back on, which is why they asked about the second placement. They know that not everyone can be leaders, no more than one man can be the richest or the most successful, because there can only be a single best. They wouldn’t mind getting a second place, they are still above others, after all.

And that is reality, their simple game is a demonstration of the bigger society, everyone so involved in this ‘rat race’. It is, in some ways, nice to be the spectator, laughing at how foolish those people in the race are, sharing the joy and the sadness of those in there, like what typical philosophers do. They simply observe the world, around them.

And yes, I went there, yesterday (22 July). It was a totally crazy place. The Central ‘Lending Department’ is located in Basement 1 and it was crowded with a whole lot of people, at least thrice the number of shelves in the library. And yes, I guess just that section holds as much books as a typical community library do, much better than the previous National Library (Why, of course, they took so darn long to build it).

So you’ll probably be asking me, then what are the other floors for, especially when the library is a stand-alone building that is so tall? From my perspective, majority of the floors are redunant, probably built to prop up the Reference Section, which is the next place where books are present other than the Central Lending Section. And this section, is located on the 7th floor, exactly 7 storeys away from the previous section. Scary. In addition, this sections extends up to 13th floor, with book shelves standing side-by-side, in a less creative manner than NIE Library but definitely holding much more books. This section, dubbed ‘Lee Kong Chian Reference Library’, houses the largest collection of books in the social sciences aspects with regards to South East Asian Studies and would contribute very much to my personal research if it had opened earlier.

I took a photo from 4th storey, but I have no time to upload it now, so I probably be putting up sometime later. In any case, the photo isn’t very cool. Unfortunately, I was there at 8.40pm, exactly 20 minutes before they close, so I was unable to look through the huge building. And one warning, the elevators really sux big time. I waited darn long for the elevator to reach the storey I am on before realising that it was simply too packed to fit another being. To be fair, I got to mentioned that then was when everyone was going home, and hence, trying to go back to the first storey. Yah, I think that’s all.

这已是第三次了。之前还以为昊旻有多威风，竟被报章记者访问，但这几次的经验后，我认为还是别出风头为妙。做个平凡，普通的人还是比较好的。别问我到底是上了哪个报，也别想知道我的样子 – 我想也没人会想知道，知道了也没什么，我样子无论如何，比秉元差就对了。连伟豪跟我比起来都好多了。

其实这次的活动，本想也把秉元拉进来，但是被校方“拒绝”了。总之，受访非好事也。大家可要记得！

I know the NKF thing just got bigger after the ‘Peanuts’ Comment, which have been driving people nuts. Recently, you would notice that whenever you pass by an old coffeeshop, you’d hear people shouting, “Oei uncle! Roti-peanuts! Peanuts zhuay zhuay! Mai ka wa pang kaya hor!” (Non-Singaporean’s Translation: Uncle, give me bread with peanut butter. Make the layer of peanut butter as thick as possible. And don’t you dare give me Kaya!) Well, some people may not even know what is Kaya, I can’t help, there is no proper explanation for this ‘sauce’.

As I was saying, people are going crazy over peanuts, even the teachers are talking about it: “I think nowadays you go supermarket right, you will notice people picking peanuts one by one,” and another says, “Peanuts are cool, I’d like to earn peanuts too!” And best of all, the cynics are popping out everywhere. They are always beside you, but now, they emerge as the heros, the greatest and the noblest of all – a role they never had till now, and they’d say…

“See, I told you not to dump your money into that black hole. Where got every year collect money 3 times then can only last 3 years only? Come on man, why you so stupid?…”

“Exactly 2 weeks leh…2 weeks before the trial I email everyone and told them that dumb organ-isation was nonsense. You know the money go to who meh? Well, now you know, but no use crying…”

“You mean you give that caretaker of funds 150 bucks every year? What the? You dunno that a portion of the money get ‘donated’ to the telephone company meh? Oh god, you are damn lousy man!”

Who knows? These guys probably donated huge amounts of money for the past years and are saying all this to vent their frustration. Lucky for me, I maintain my stand: I only help the people in need directly, never in such means. Money is a good tool, but it is also a tempting one. Unfortunately, it is difficult to say you can survive without it, yet no one will ever say they have had enough of it. Oh yes, the situation now is a little different, people prefer gold taps and peanuts nowadays. Money is nothing.

Talking about peanuts, I used to like them a lot, but no longer. Don’t be mistaken, I didn’t withdraw from peanuts because of this incident – it was once when some of the crushed nuts stucked in my molar teeth, and really hurt my gums. Yea, that was stupid, I know that. But now that the craze is on, I think we should all go Peanuts! Or we probably will be deemed Nuts!

Yes. It is my turn to say something about the NKF thing. I wanted to title this post, ‘Want more jobs? Go charity!’, but unfortunately, I don’t like to see my topics too long and hence the title. Not having such post on your blog apparently signifies how shallow you are as a Singaporean. So I must not lose out, even to Mib, who is currently somewhere else.

Well, now you know, guys, if you need jobs, go set up some charity fund or a ‘non-profit’ organisation. Yes. You not only benefit yourself by providing an income for your family, you help other people in need, and most importantly, you will be able to satisfy people who donate to you. You need to have a board, of directors, of course, preferably those who are friendly with you. So if I am the CEO, I probably get Mib to be one of the Directors, and also Bok. That’s it, you can now start solving unemployment problems.