Kevin Low

I told myself to cover this, but somehow I forgot, probably because I was trying not to be too serious on my blog. Mr Wee departed from this world on 2 May 2005. It wasn’t sudden for his family, but it was, for Singapore. His departure have very much reminded us of his wonderful contributions to this little island country. It has been 12 years since he stepped down from his post as president of Singapore in 1993.

He was the president when I was born, and until I was at the age of 4, entering nusery. As an infant, I hardly have any recollections about this president, known for his kindness. He was a reporter before he became the president; he never really stepped into politics. I guess being a reporter really helps you see the world, and probably the guiding principles for a man is formulated this way, through one’s job.

After his death, we raised the flag only to half-mast for 3 days, as a sign of respect. It was almost the same situation as president Ong’s death. People all over Singapore went into the Istana to pay their respect to Mr Wee – a demonstration of his popularity and the respect he has earned from the people.

I wouldn’t be talking about death. Instead, I think the point to this story is life. How you live. Whether you choose to accomodate with everything, accept and tolerate the suffering, then relish the achievements that you get after you finally slogged hard enough to be recognised. Or perhaps some would prefer to make their lives worse by resisting the hardwork, and riot against the authority, then get punished. Maybe you are none of the above – you are one who don’t give a damn about whatever happens to others, you simply pass a day after another, following the general trend and crowd, and remain in the ‘masses’.

Everyone in this world is like a basin of water. Each of us is a molecule of water. We have several options: 1) We sway with the crowd and take the shape of the container, 2) You waste all the potential energy you have got and freeze, isolating yourself from others and become a passive molecule, 3) You gather the kinetic and potential energy others waste, and gain enough energy to break away from the rest of the liquid particles, becoming a gas molecule, part of the whole collection of water vapour, free from the grasp of the intermolecular forces.

I am not initiating a chemistry lesson or whatsoever. I am trying to illustrate the options one have got. In fact, there is more than 3 options. You might even like to try breaking yourself apart, forming an oxygen and 2 hydrogen to benefit other molecules in some way. The possibilities are infinite, you just have to embrace it.

Why would I actually want to write something about when I have no idea what it actually is and why it exist? This time, it isn’t really about sport, it is about our school, a little gathering that everyone had. Because of the sensitivity of the issue to certain people, it is not appropriate to spell everything out.

Anyway, everything is almost like the past years, people come, sit down, some went of running, some went to the steps and chat. We are not allowed to leave the premises as usual, but we are allowed to relax, and heck care about whatever seemingly competitive activity the people down there are engaging. The school knows how lame the whole thing is and why students have tried countless means to escape in the past years. This year, even before the event, we have been warned. This warning isn’t entirely good, nor bad; it just caused the attendance to drop very much because everyone thought it was meaningless to go there and anyway, no one marks the attendance.

In a situation when someone does marks the attendance, they must be students are hence, there is a little biasness again. So far, I have never seen bribery but it is true that there is usually jeering occurring because certain monitors or chairman are being too inflexible.

There is more than 2000 people there if I am not wrong. Mistakes arises when there are less honest people than I expect. And the whole atmostphere is rather relax. The lame marching and carrying of flag is gone and the whole event becomes less solemn. Even as the National Anthem was sung, students are smiling and giggling – this probably never happened before. There is no Milo truck or free drinks today and some of the students are taking the opportunity to raise funds for their councils by selling drinks at normal prices. While some dumb students cheered, others were busy talking about how the economy works, what nuclear fusion is and telling stories of certain movies.

My friend used to say that for this particular annual event, a sub-event is the great escape from school, back home. Reasons for doing so includes not being able to justify their presence for the event, not wanting to squeeze with sweaty students in the bus stops and the buses and also for fun, to challenge their skills of slacking. This year, for some reasons, people have given up playing hide and seek with the NPCCs, looking out for the disciplinary master, and camping in the toilet to wait for a good time to sneak out of the compound. It is as though the students have lost their fighting spirit and the love for challenges. The over-control of us have resutled in apathy and cynicism toward the changing of the path one is going to take.

This is a perfect demonstration and the best explanation of why a revolution is impossible. Somehow, it is already taking place, individually. Students have cease being good boys or girls and decided to do only what they think was right. The school compromise sometimes, but also impose certain unreasonable rules, making the hatred even more bitter. Now it has reach a stage of no return. The relationship between the school and the students is dying soon.

It is only until extremely recent when I realised that the term ‘Goodbye’, which is used in parting or bidding farewell is actually derived from a statement, ‘God be with you’. Though some may argue that it has some links with the greeting, ‘Good Day’, continuing the greetings with the word, ‘Good’. Strictly speaking, the greeting, ‘Goodbye’, should have nothing to do with the other greetings such as ‘Good Morning’, ‘Good Afternoon’ or ‘Good Night’.

It is not known how the word, ‘God’, in the statement has transformed into the term, ‘Good’. But for the ‘Bye’, it is still rather sensible. ‘Be with you’ is orginally contracted into ‘B-we-yeu’ (Note, this is the sound, no such spelling in the course of history. This applies for the rest of the so-called contractions), and then to ‘B-weu’, combining the sounds of ‘with’ and ‘you’ because they are somewhat similar. Ultimately, it became spelled as ‘Bye’. Paradoxically, ‘Bye’ means ‘Be With You’. And hence, when you say ‘bye’ to a friend or whoever you are parting from, you are saying that you are with him. Therefore, the word, ‘Good’ is essential in making the greeting meaningful and sincere.

This is partly the reason why in Chinese Language, there is no such greeting as ‘Goodbye’, which is some form of temporary farewell. In Mandarin, ‘See you’ is used instead. But it doesn’t seem to make sense all the time, for example, when you are on the phone with someone overseas; it doesn’t sound sensible to say ‘See you’. Well, that’s my opinion, others may beg to differ.

And for those who have been somewhat vulgar, I am sure you have no idea what the term, ‘Damn’ means. In modern context, there is some idea of ‘condemn’ but its usage is not exactly so. When you say ‘Damn you’, you are telling the person (in Middle English), “Death to thy soul”, which somehow means ‘Go and die’, in the more formal sense.

I agree absolutely with someone else’s view on blogging and why some guys’ blog should just be eliminated (not die, because a blog isn’t living). However, there are simply too many flaws in his line of arguement that I have to add on some more stuff and also disprove some of them.

Firstly, a personal opinion is that the term ‘blog’ has come about rather natural with the modern usage. This word doubles as both a noun (blog, meaning a web-log) and a verb (blogging, the act of logging on the online diary), just like many other words from by students in Singapore, and perhaps everywhere else. Examples includes ‘Don’t Issac’ (Nothing to do with Newton or gravity), ‘Very Haomib’ (Something to do with Mib). Of course, it is rather true that it have been overused in other context, and even misused or ‘badly-punned’, as Mib may have suggested by posting that dumb article on his blog.

With regards to how blogs, with special emphasis on Movabletype blogs, choke the search list of google, I have no doubts and agree fully with how blogs are wasting space on google’s search list. Google probably wants to have a new option for people searching – a checkbox that indicates that you are searching for weblogs or perhaps a radio button for some other sites online. Or even better, a totally separate search engines that search on blogs only.

It is a matter of fact that blogs exist to fulfill the pursuit of journalism for most blogger who failed to be professional journalist. Of course, the rest may be columnist-wannbes without the qualifications to do that. These people are just like you and Mib, undoubtly innocent, have some anti-government sentiments, have ridiculous thoughts about how you can change the world, and not realistic at all. But like Mib, or even me, we hold on to this hope, that someone out there, probably one who shares our thoughts, sees the entry and would respond to it positively or even be inspired to express the view himself.

This is so even for crap-bloggers such as Wap. It is the thought and the self-opinion that matters, not what others think. One man’s food may be another man’s poison, a man’s blog maybe the other’s crap. Nonetheless, there would be someone to appreciate the thought, even if it is just a single person. A blog also presents a different persona from the one in real life. For a person like Ruiyang (this is not real name, he is commonly known by screen name, ‘Jew’ or ‘Jew1’), a quiet boy in class with a tinch of interest for History disappears behind a computer as a blogger, at his blog, dubbed ‘Nameless Until Further Notice’, voicing extreme political and anti-government views.