Me Singing A Whole New World Disney's Aladdin

OMG I'm endlessly fascinated by how he can do this. Now he sounds like a guy, next moment he's got a girl diva voice. WTF... that's pretty damn amazing. And he sounds damn good too. (same guy as Part of Your World video below)

Marie Digby - Stupid For You (Original Song)

I might just have a girl crush on this person.

It's not so much that her vocals are fantastic. Not really. In this video it seems as if she can't really reach the high notes. Some of her other vocals (see the rest of her videos) are better, some are worse. It's just the whole set-up, the flowers, the cute incident with the dog, she's got a nice laugh, shitloads of talent (I like the word shitloads, don't I?), and looks quite chio.

Ok I'm really distracted and tired and I need to do work!!!!!!!

Part of your world: guy-style (or is it?)

Oh man, the dissonance... the dissonance...

perfumes

Some of you might know I've recently gone into a perfume-crazy phase.

My problem is everyone seems to hate the perfumes I really like, so I don't really want to buy those darlings because I'm sensitive to peer pressure and could never wear them out. :( (Also, I don't have the money.)

Admittedly even I think I might wither under the onslaught of some of my favourites, like Sisley's Eau du Soir.

For all my raving, currently I have only a bottle of SJP's Lovely, and a few samples (Estee Lauder's [edit: I mean Elizabeth Arden - both are Mum's perfumes to my nose & I always get confused :P] Mediterranean, Lanvin's Rumeur).

I also sometimes steal Bvlgari Pour Homme, which I bought for my dad. Maybe I should go for more masculine perfumes?

So my current daily fare is Lovely, and while I like the scent and don't regret buying it, sometimes the fragrance just lacks a bit of something for me. It's a very comforting, pleasant fragrance (even then my sisters complain about the initial spicy scent) but still I'm looking for something... else. I've the same problem with Rumeur & Mediterranean. They're all easy to wear and nice to smell but... it's just that something else.

I think I'd very much like a bottle of Prada's Infusion d'Iris, if Santa would be so kind. I tested it one day, and my entire family recoiled in horror (why? I just don't understand it...). I didn't like it that much at first, but now I can't seem to forget it.

I also want to try out perfumes with incense notes. (I know! I'm strange! Enough already!) I've always (strangely) liked the smell of incense... Incense and smoke.

As well as tea-inspired/tea-based perfumes. L'Occitane has a white tea EDT that I quite like, and I would buy, except that they only come in big-ass bottles and cost about SGD80 each. Plus I suspect that it'll meet the same fate as my big-ass bottle of Lovely - nice to smell but lacks... something. I'd like a tea fragrance that's slightly bitter and not as sweet.

There're also certain types of perfumes that I really dislike. In a moment of folly I bought Anna Sui's Dolly Girl (it was on sale! and my first ever buy!), and it gave me such a headache that I promptly dumped the whole bottle on my sis. (That was a mistake too, cos she actually uses it, and I hate how our room smells when she sprays it.) I've already figured out which notes these are. They're the bright fruity notes... the citrusy ones, all grapefruit and stuff, plus a good dose of something horrendously sweet (I haven't figured out this part yet. Maybe it's just sugar). They're the olfactory version of someone (usually myself) screeching very loudly on the highest registers of the violin.

I also don't like perfumes that are overly vanilla-ish (ok, my nose isn't particularly discerning, so I think it should be the vanilla that does this, but it could be something else in the perfume altogether). The ones that are cloyingly sweet in a vanilla-ish kind of way. eg. Givenchy's Ange ou Demon.

And I don't like the 'fresh' perfumes... The ones that are all 'Aqua' this and that. Like Davidoff's Cool Water. I don't know why I don't like these. They just smell a bit like those SGD3.90 deodorants in Chamelon or something. Not good.

So on the eve of my french exam I'm sitting around meditating on perfumes. Urgh.

someone's blog

This has got to be one of the most beautiful blogs I've seen in a long time.

(And trust me, I see many blogs.)

Fred Astaire

I stumbled on this quite by accident (I wasn't surfing youtube! I swear! Certainly not for darling Fred!), and fell right back into love again. All that tapping just messes up my heart beat and gets me all hot and bothered... sigh...

Hilarity

Ok, I just had to blog this. I was following links and ended up at the Students' Honor Association, BYU, which is apparently a private religious university in the States (where else?).

*giggles* Ok... just check them out. Just check them out man. *waves you along while giggling*

Has pornography got you feeling cornered? Has it? If it has, just stare for 30secs at this entirely non-erotic anti-pornography poster. Seriously man, if you're going to have a poster about pornography, at least have scantily dressed women on them. How else are you going to get anyone's attention?

Oh wait. Perhaps you could tell people that PORNOGRAPHY with its sleezy filth, swoops over the earth like a horrible, engulfing tide. What delicious poetry! They've got some serious literary talent there, don't they?

And remember, you must keep a close watch on your roommates at all times. Do not be caught off guard. If your roommates should show signs of degeneration, Do Not Panic. Instead, approach cautiously and inform them in a calm and firm manner that you are obliged to Keep Them In Check, and that they are to cease their bad activities immediately. Or else you'll tell teacher. Cross your heart.

irritated

My current piece of work is irritating the hell out of me, and I'm on the verge of smashing my laptop into pieces. Close to half an hour and only 5mins done.

You have no idea how frustrating it is to sit here till my butt aches and listen to the same 5mins over and over and over. Argh.

I'm also well aware that I'm well on my way to failing that stupid French test. What drives me to register for the same test year after year when I absolutely hate studying for french? (Ok, so this is only the second year. Still.) I must hate myself dammit.

Also, LSB seems to take a perverse delight in provoking me these days. He's getting too damn cocky. Just you wait, my most cherished and beloved, I'll have my revenge when I next set eyes and claws and fangs on you.

Cold

I've been reading up on Singapore's history, and I really hate it. The stuff I've read just makes me feel cold and frightened. It's not that I didn't know about all this. I did, but in a general, abstract, and therefore non-threatening way. But the more I know about the details, the chillier Singapore feels.

I don't want anything to do with something so evil and disgusting. I'd prefer not to know any of this and be content with seeing only the Singapore that has been my home for more than 20 years. Singapore is a place where my friends and family are, a place where I think I'll be living for a long time. So I don't want to see that horrendous side of this place, and I don't want this home to be tainted by knowledge of all of those horrible things.

I'll never make it as a history student, will I? I don't want anything to do with politics, ever.

Sea Fever - John Ireland

Well, here's an alternative to the usual violin/pop/rock/jazz/animals. Beautiful rendition, paints lovely picture of grey seas and windswept rugged coasts.

Battle at Kruger

Oh man, this is high drama. Plus the ongoing commentary from safari tourists is hilarious (accents make me laugh). Yes, I experienced many moments of unbearable suspense.

Re: Cat Talking, Translation

Ah I get it, too many animal videos! But animal videos are cute! So cute! And the dubbing here is really good!

violin results

Ahahaha I finally dropped by my violin teacher's to get my Grade 8 results slip & cert.

The component that I felt most confident for was the horriblest! Damn I was sure I played that piece ok.

And my AURAL actually had close to full marks. My AURAL! When about 2 weeks before my exam, I couldn't identify the chords, couldn't sing the lower part, couldn't identify the watchacallit (see, I don't even know what I was supposed to identify). I can't believe my aural saved my ass lolz. I can't believe I actually got all my answers correct! That's some pretty amazing guesswork I did heh.

As expected, I flunked my scales. On the morning of my exam I was desperately trying to memorize the fingering for the scales. The surprise is that I actually got 10 marks for the scales. What are the 10 marks for? Failing to play in tune? Not smoothly playing a single scale? Apologising profusely throughout that component? Strictly speaking I should have gotten a big fat zero. Seriously, I didn't get a single scale right. It was all horrible. *kowtows to examiner for boundless mercy*

Anywayz. I'm just glad I survived the exam. More than glad. Amazed that I survived the exam. But in a glad way. Hehehe. And of course now the next stage of learning commences!

recoiling in disgust

This was my last comment in a discussion I had:

" Wow. I must say you left me speechless for a moment. I'm... flabbergasted.

On one hand, you say that you reject moral relativism, and would fight to uphold your moral values. On the other hand, you say that in this world justice is relative and some injustice is ok, provided conservatives are not at the receiving end of the injustice.

On one hand, you say that you will, given the chance, deprive certain individuals of equality and freedom. On the other hand, you say that this is tolerance and love.

On one hand you say you don't know enough to tell others what to do. On the other hand you say you know enough about the reality of this world to tell others what to do.

To be frank, the views you've espoused seem to me wrong on so many levels... they're contradictory, and more importantly, repulsive. So repulsive that I really don't understand how you can believe that your views are morally right. If our conscience is God-given, mine is obviously telling me something very different from yours.

Gosh. It's difficult for me to even articulate how I feel about your views... Your answers seem cold and depressing and harsh and evil to me, and I'm even quite afraid of you. I guess different eyes really see different worlds huh.

Nevertheless, thank you for your answers, and unless you have any response to my comments, I don't think I feel like flooding you with questions anymore."

Now what the topic of the debate was isn't important (suffice to say it was triggered by the Great Homosexuality Debate). I just need to fully express my feelings about this! Because even though my language was far from diplomatic in my comment, it is actually very restrained, as compared to how I really feel.

If I met this person, I would really recoil in horror from him. I don't want to have to shake his hand, don't want to touch him, don't want to have to breathe the same air as him. Because what he says is SO abhorrent to me, and because of his attitude. The way he carelessly flings these repulsive statements and still maintains his air of self-righteousness. In fact, a large part of the reason why I don't want to talk to him anymore is because I feel polluted even talking to him. I'm just so disgusted and repulsed and horrified and frightened of him that at the moment, it'd be best if I never spoke to him or heard about him again. I feel as if I've been wading in slime. I feel as if a cockroach or a snail just slithered over my legs. I just don't want to deal with something as abhorrent and incomprehensible as him ever again.

My emotional reaction to him is almost visceral. In the days of my cavemen ancestors did they have to deal with an opponent like him and therefore passed down genes that make me react to him the way I would react to someone licking up a big piece of snot? Major eewness. But I've got the feeling that somewhere down the road we'll rehash this argument again. Sigh. Eew. I've got the creepy crawlies. :(

Ah yes, I know how to describe it. It's as if I set out to hunt a wolf, something savage and dangerous, but natural and understandable and not evil. Then I discover I'm actually hunting a vampire, horrifying, disgusting, incomprehensible, evil. And I'm so scared I don't care about hunting it already. I just want to escape and hope it doesn't find me and forget vampires even exist and never have anything to do with it ever again. Yes. That describes it perfectly *cries*

Two crybabies

*dieded laughing again*

frustration

One reason why I can never have pretty nails is cos when you have pretty nails, you have longish nails, and longish nails don't allow you to pummel the keys on your piano with your full strength when you're feeling frustrated. In fact, not being able to bludgeon those keys to death with your full strength only makes you more frustrated, as the piece you're playing, already disfigured by lack of skill and disregard for art (due to frustration), becomes thoroughly unsatisfying.

And the reason I'm grouching here? Because there's no one at home for me to scratch their eyes out to express my deep, deep frustration.

Urgh.

derailed!

Haiyo, I keep forgetting to do what I want. What's the point of being unemployed if you don't do what you want to do?

So I'll hurry and finish up all this irritating work and studying, and then I can finally get down to: that damn philo thing that I started and mean to finish and my violin and various little other stuff that shall remain undisclosed for now.

Gizmo Flushes

*dies laughing*

Ok, that's a lot of cat videos huh. Sorry, I just need a kitten. A blur, stupid kitten. Right now.

cat plays sitar - day and night

This cat has the most grief-stricken/far distance gaze I've ever seen. It's totally like, I can still see my faithful men, spilling sweat and blood against the invaders. I can still hear the sounds of battle in the stillness of the night. I can still feel the rush of ten thousand men flying to their doom. Oh my homeland! My fatherland! Oh the music of the sitar recalls to me your rolling hills and sweet winds. Oh the music of the sitar recalls to me the fateful battle that ended it all. Oh my homeland, when shall I feel your warm soils beneath my paws again?*

*my interpretation of its gaze

Am I that boring?

I was waiting alone at the bus-stop when somebody's dog stuck its nose out from under the fence and rested its nose on the ledge. I got the feeling it had nothing to do on a weekday afternoon and decided to just watch the world pass by.

Such a sweet-faced little doggy, I thought to myself. I clucked at it and then I pretended to throw stuff at it. It looked at me wordlessly. I made my ezlink card disappear into my pocket and held my hands out in mock amazement. I hid behind the pillar and jumped out again. It turned away in disgust and disappeared from sight.

And then I thought to myself, damn, I didn't even get a picture of it. So I cooed and clucked, but it refused to appear. In the end I resorted to playing my handphone ringtone at maximum volume over and over, and sure enough, it came over to investigate and I got its picture. And after a while even my handphone failed to keep its interest and it disappeared yet again.

I think we, the two of us, we had a real connection. Yeah.

Munchkin

Omg tell me why it's so cute. Tell me! It's the not understanding that kills me...

la mode

Was taking the bus back from driving school (yes, update for all of you, I drove a car for the first time today and almost hit the accelerator instead of the brakes, but slammed my left foot down on the brakes just in time, which, the instructor promptly informed me, is an immediate fail during the test), when I overheard a young couple's conversation. (Don't you love long sentences?)

The doe-eyed nymphette was gaily planning her boyfriend's wardrobe for prom, polytechnic, and presumably, the rest of his life.

He has to wear blue (because she's wearing blue), with vertical stripes, and a white jacket (because everyone else will be wearing black), and white and silver Nike shoes (because she might be wearing silver shoes), and he can reuse those Nike shoes for polytechnic (he's not going to wear havanas is he?), and he has to wear all that - no arguments! - because she's been planning this for a long time, and hell, they're going to look better than all the other couples.

Dude, you're gonna look ridiculous.

This was especially funny for me in light of several recent conversations I've had.

* If above-mentioned girl or guy ever read this, oops, but you're a cute couple.

sigh...

major awwwness

Someone made and someone accepted a marriage proposal on Cuteoverload!!!!! That is just major awwwness!!!!!!!!!!!

And of course since Cuteoverload seems to be estrogen-dominated, readers were all excited and screamy haha. Me included, but I'm a lurker, so.

The marriage proposal's cute, but the screamy readers who (I gather) followed the story for hours were also cute lol. It's funny how something like that immediately tickles out a sense of community, and even a sense of communal history (i.e. 1st marriage proposal on the site).

random little bits

Lalala... bought a Ryuichi Sakomoto for 22 bucks yesterday at That CD Shop (as opposed to the average price of 60-70 bucks at HMV). My diversification seems to be coming along quite smoothly. Solo piano music, and most of it sounds as if it could be played at the ending of arty movies. Very easy to listen to, somewhat pleasant, but avoids the saccharine sweetness of many contemporary piano pieces.

Also re-bought my French Cafe de Flore CD after my friend lost it (ahem). I only liked and remembered one song in it, and was surprised after my first listen in 3? years that the rest was very sex-laden and bossa nova-ish/lounge-ish. Oh well, all in the name of diversification. Again, not hard to listen to, contains a Brigitte Bardot track, and my favourite track remains one of my favourite French songs.

Have been studying French... sigh. J'ai achete un Ryuichi Sakomoto pour vingt-deux dollars a Ce Magasin de CD hier (le moyen prix a HMV est 60-70 dollars). Ma diversification vient le long tout a fait bien. I got this last sentence from babel fish. *sigh* Eeks I give up. That's my french for today. Pls correct if you spot any mistakes.

Had re-heated brownie & scones (with marmalade) for breakfast at 2pm haha... With English Breakfast tea! Brownies weren't too bad, scones didn't live up to their venerable lineage.

Currently summarizing points on global economic institutions for tuition later. :(

My experiment with art

Ah, 5am in the morning and sick of work. That's precisely when most of us turn into artists. Behold my self-portraits! Sketched in pencil and then photographed using my lousy hp camera!

Those of you who have been through the horrendous mandatory art classes in secondary school with me might doubt my ability to draw anything apart from the evil eye and might therefore be skeptical of my ability to draw as complex and wonderful a being as myself. You'd be right. I er... traced these haha. (Gimme a break k.)

Hmmm there's nothing quite like drawing yourself as the first step in the journey of self-discovery. I never realised I look so Asian, or that my eyes are not as circular as my earlier self-portraits would have me believe. I berate my six year old self for such horrible delusions. Note to self: my eyes do not resemble cookies.

I'll have you know I drew some of you too, but decided I'd better not risk death threats by posting any of your pics.

And if anyone thinks I look better in these drawings than in real life, I say to you, [censored].

Oh yeah, and why I can suddenly post pictures? Turns out once I succumbed to the incessant requests of those poppy-uppy things to update some random thing or other, problem solved. Lesson learnt: don't be a stubborn ass and just click 'I agree'.

I love Mayday!

I really do! I love them so much!

As my darling LSB once charmingly put it, my voice is nothing special. So whenever I want to express myself I turn to the violin. And listening to Mayday songs always makes me want to play the violin. Such a dilemma! To play the violin I have to turn off the song; to continue listening, I can't play the violin! I haven't been able to resolve this yet! How?!?!?! How?!?!?! *panic*

My WTF Moment

Behold the glory of Celine Dion, the worst actress in what is possibly the worst MV in the world:



Yes, my WTF moment. Is this MV supposed to be comedy? Is it? If it is, it's really very painful comedy. And why does her face keep scrunching up like that? Or is it just the natural alignment of her features?

Ok ok, just to be fair, she does have a fantastic voice. Melodrama aside. Very funny melodrama aside. Very funny and corny melodrama aside. *chortles*

conceptual terrorism

This is just too funny.

Conceptual Terrorists Encase Sears Tower In Jell-O
CHICAGO—In what is being called the first conceptual terrorist attack on American soil, the landmark Sears Tower was encased in 18 million tons of strawberry gelatin early Monday morning, leaving thousands shocked, angry, and seriously confused.

"Your outdated ideas of what terrorism is have been challenged," an unidentified, disembodied voice announces following the video's first 45 minutes of random imagery set to minimalist techno music. "It is not your simple bourgeois notion of destructive explosions and weaponized biochemical agents. True terror lies in the futility of human existence."

Oh just kill me before I die of laughter.

Almost quarter-century

I debated whether to type this, then I was like, heck.

Somehow against all my expectations I'm what you could call blissfully happy. There's really nothing I lack. Well, I'm not high on money supply now, but then I never needed much money.

Sometimes I feel slightly bewildered because it's been so easy. I think I wandered through 24yrs wondering when exactly it is that life is supposed to become difficult, and somehow it just hasn't. I know I've been crazy/weary/sad/furious/a total wreck at some points, but for some reason it just hasn't been too bad. The usual suspects didn't get me. Not much trouble in the BGR area, no problem with family, all clear in academics, only a few disastrous exceptions to the relative calm in friendships, and career hasn't started so let's not count that in for now. In fact it's been so effortless that I often worry whether, untried as I am, I'll be able to manage when the going really starts to get tough. Ya, spoilt girl whining about getting everything too easily heh. I simply can't believe that it's been this easy so far. I hear your hate.

I'm so content that it feels like a golden period of my life, and I'm half-afraid to take the next step for fear of shattering what I have now. All my life I've felt lucky. The lot of you have told me so yourselves. I simply seem to scrape through just about everything. And I keep holding my breath waiting for my luck to run out. As of now I'm hoping my words don't jinx everything. *crosses fingers*

Anywayz, I just wanted to record that when I turned 24 I was really blissfully content. Somewhere down the line I kinda hope to remember how happy I was when I was 24.

So happy belated 24th!

You all love me. I know you do ;)

Fiction and Music

I fell into a book instead of sleep, and woke from the book a few minutes ago to realise that I'd made the wrong trip, and had landed in the wrong hour, the last discovery particularly alarming because I'd expected it to be 3am instead of 6.

(P.S. I'm particularly proud of above sentence. Pls convey your admiration to me at suitable time.)

I love Robin Hobb. Dammit. I'll explain my undying love some other post. When I can fully convey the depths of my affection without sleep deprivation interfering. Damn you, sleep deprivation.

It's been so long since I last indulged in fiction, and I'd forgotten how thoroughly oblivious to everything I can be once I start reading. I remember once when I was in primary school, my mum snatched an offending book out of my hands and threw it at the wall because I'd been ignoring the world for days due to my obsessive reading.

I say I 'indulge' in fiction not because non-fiction is a chore, but because fiction (or at least the non-arty/non-literature type of fiction + the popular non-fiction - damn it's so hard to define) is much easier to be entertained by than what we'd call serious non-fiction and 'literature'. It's so easy to sink into popular fiction because you don't have to work to appreciate it. Not saying that it's therefore inferior, no, I fully admire the authors I fully admire. It's just different, that's all. It's somewhat like the difference between non-popular classical music and popular music, including popular classical.

Damn these categorizations are hard.

I think that it takes effort to appreciate classical music - less effort as you become more familiar with it, but for someone the equivalent of a musical tabula rasa, pop music is obviously much easier. And songs (ie. music + lyrics) are much easier to understand than instrumental pieces because most people are more accustomed to communicating with words.

Perhaps there're some to whom appreciation of and communication through music comes much more easily. Not to me lar. I'm not very talented musically. Yes, I know I have 2 Grade 8s, but anyone with enough money and determination, or rather, enough inertia to continue learning once they've started could achieve the same. I'm not very good at music. I know my violin teacher is of the opinion (probably) that I can be taught, but it doesn't come naturally to me. Playing and appreciating music is much easier for me than listening to music. There're also times when I think I'm better at interpreting a score than realizing that interpretation, perhaps partly because I'm too lazy to practise. But actually, very often I view piano/violin practice in much the same way as some other person might view aerobics. I give my fingers something exciting and slightly strenuous to do while my thoughts are engaged elsewhere. The practices in which I view my playing as music are few and far between and very much treasured. But music is another indulgence of mine. Learning and playing music (even badly) makes me happy, and I pursue music purely for enjoyment's sake.

Ok where is this post going?

Oh, and people who read and/or collect Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series out of genuine appreciation or simply because you collected 4 books and it's getting a little draggy but hey, you figure you might as well collect the next because the series can't go on for many more volumes, and who would have guessed it's still not finished by the 11th installment: (ok mouthful) the author upped and died. And I know it's callous to care more about getting to the end of the damn series instead of the passing of a... well, very persistent and wordy person, but dammit I started reading the damn thing 10 years ago fully expecting to see an ending, which it now seems I'll be cheated of.

Yeah. I think I'm rambling. And contradicting myself. Should end here.

Somewhere over the rainbow

If you want happy stories you shouldn't study history.

The stats are tossed out so casually. 20 million dead here, another 100 thousand there, yet another 250 thousand in that, then another 28 million. I can't even visualize how many people 100 thousand is! And it doesn't end there.

I wonder how long it would take if you had to write a biography for each casualty of every 20th century war.

Doesn't anyone think these figures are staggering anymore?

I find it difficult to read history books on war because it's almost impossible for me to just read through without being floored by what I see as so many immense tragedies, tragedies beyond imagining, shoved into the confines of a tiny matter-of-fact book.

How can people just browse through these books without registering a thing?

LENA HORNE Sings Moon River

Argh that was - urgh I hate to say it - beautiful.

I need yet another CD. Sigh. My life is a series of unfulfilled CD wishes.

Playlist blues

If I am what I listen to, then I shouldn't be sitting in t-shirt and shorts in the sweltering heat of 11pm Singapore. I should probably be dressed in slinky cocktail dress, smudged mascara, tossing a few in my dimmed New York penthouse in the middle of the night, utterly destitute and desperate, thinking of my (various) failed relationship(s).

Here are a few high (hehehe) points in my playlist:

- Sorry seems to be the hardest word, Joe Cocker. You might think you don't know this song, but it goes What do I have to do to make you love me / What do I have to do to make you care... Yeah, you see.

- Till it happens to you, Corrine Bailey Rae. I used to hear those violins playing high strings like a symphony / Now they're gone away / Nobody wants to know the truth / Till their hearts' broken...

- How can you mend a broken heart, Michael Buble. How can you mend this broken man? / How can a loser ever win?

- The party's over, Nat King Cole. The party's over / It's time to call it a day / Now you must wake up, all dreams must end.

- Only the lonely, Frank Sinatra. And never let love go / For when it's gone you'll know the loneliness / The heartbreak only the lonely know.

Sigh. I want a penthouse.

miserableness

I hate being sick :( When I'm miserable I don't stop whining. I think I make a very lousy patient.

Channelling the blonde

Ya, sometimes I'm kinda bimbotic?

Me: I really wanna buy eye shadow... cos they're colourful and stuff.

Friend commented on the bimbotic-ness of above statement.

Same friend asked: So you really rejected XX company's job offer?
Me: Well... I said no, but actually I meant yes, and they should know that and contact me when I'm feeling better.

Hmmm maybe I was just channelling the female there.

I get a tremendous kick out of Cute Overload as well. I visit the damn site every single day. Strangely enough, I found a Soviet posters site today and I seem to get as much of a kick out of a poster featuring Castro & Khruschev as I would from smooshy puppies and kittens.

I also have an automatic perfume-shopping response that kicks in whenever I enter a departmental store. Hmmm.

Sometimes I think that the only way I know I'm not a bimbo is cos there's an inner voice, this really true, deep and intense voice that wails in despair everytime I act bimbotic. Like, really sadly it cries. Like the rain. Yeah. I like poetry.

Also, check out the huge controversy raging in the UK over the (in)appropriateness of kissing. I'm Asian, and that means there's only a small, select group that I kiss - my soft toys, my LSB, sometimes my mum if it's a big occasion, my soft toys. But I've totally been in that situation, and have been supremely uncomfortable. Kiss or handshake? How many kisses? How do I not cringe away from slurpy kisses? When will this hug end? How do I not get the cooties? Yeah, like, totally.

Men...

http://perfumesmellinthings.blogspot.com/2007/02/from-mouths-of-husbands-true-thoughts.html

I never really believed all the guy stereotypes you hear. But why does the evidence accumulate like this? Are all men truly like LSB? Is there no hope left?

Scariness...

I've been watching scary anime... *cries* I really shouldn't have, but it's all cos I was bored doing LSB's stupid interview! *points accusing finger at LSB*

And then the 1st few episodes were full of suspense and mystery, I just couldn't stop watching because I Had To Find The Answers!

But the whole thing was just so full of gore! Like people being dismembered, disembowelled while conscious, stabbed, beaten to death etc! And people acting weirdly for no reason! And disappearing! And coming back to life after being murdered and buried!

I got so scared I kept MSNing people, who Promptly Ignored Me And Laughed At Me. Hmmpf! Well, if you ever get stalked by a cleaver-wielding psycho, don't come to me. I'll just ignore you and laugh at you too. Same goes for other psycho-stalker variations, eg. cannibalistic stalkers, gun-wielding, torture device-wielding, sinisterly-laughing, seemingly omniscient or omnipotent psychos. Oh, and I'm ignoring you even if all you have is a creepy feeling that you're being watched. Hah! Serves you all right!

I've also been watching animes with interesting formats. There's one where the episodes are broadcast in non-chronological order, so you get to see the 'last' episode somewhere in the middle, and the last episode broadcast is something that happens in the middle of the story. But somehow it all makes sense.

Current scary anime has main characters killing each other and dying violently and mysteriously, then coming back again in a slightly different world and dying/killing in different ways. Though again if you sit through it long enough, you get more clues in each 'arc' and then you finally understand the whole darn thing. It is tremendously satisfying to finally(!!!!!) understand what the hell just happened in the last 20+ episodes that you watched.

Argh last night was so scary, I scrambled into bed and under the covers, but struggled against sleep because... who knows what might happen if I fall asleep........ *sobz* I actually stayed awake through 6-7 tracks on my mp3. (yes, I was playing music to soothe my nerves, but I also had a long debate myself as to whether it was better to stop the music so I wouldn't miss any strange noises in the dark...)

But it's better tonight, because I finally understand what happened! yayness! It's still gross and sick, but I'm no longer (as) afraid!

Frank Sinatra - In The Wee Small Hours of the Morning

more dreams

Last night I dreamt that I was in a rowboat at this huge lake that looked like a swimming pool. And the water was swimming pool-clear, so I could see a HUGE crocodile - it was bigger than my boat! - lying at the bottom of the lake! And there were other crocodiles in the lake as well! And dolphins too! And the dolphins kept butting my boat wanting to play, but I was terrified I'd capsize, and I was terrified the huge crocodile at the bottom of the lake would notice and swim towards me...

Anywayz.

That dream reminded me of another dream I had some time ago. There was a huge lake in the hills behind my house, and there were people playing in it. I waded in with my clothes on, and when it got too deep I swam. And I went as far as I could till finally I'd left the noise behind. Floating in the water, I could only hear the wind and the leaves on the bank, and there was only water around me, and the sun was setting. It was so peaceful and calm, it was like an almost-nirvana experience. And it felt so cathartic to wade out to the middle of a lake in my clothes on a whim. I've never experienced anything like that in real life, so I'd dearly like to go back to that lake again.

Sighz.

Of course after that I realised that it was getting dark and most of the people had left the lake. So I waded out of the lake and made my miserable, drenched way home through the hills. Then I discovered that the paths were covered with little red, green and yellow snakes, and it was impossible to avoid stepping on them. So I squashed millions of those snakes and hoped to hell none of them would bite me. Urgh.

Argh! I just remembered another dream I had last night! A family went on a vacation to hell (literally), which looked like this huge dim underground city with escalators everywhere and (!!!!) an MRT system. Then they were tricked into eating something (a la Persephone) and couldn't leave the place. And there was stuff about time travel to undo the unfortunate ingestion, but no matter how they tried, they could manage to save the parents, but couldn't prevent the kid from eating the food! And it was really difficult, because they couldn't just go back and tell themselves not to eat (you can't meet your past self whilst time-travelling else the universe would collapse), so they had to try to prevent food from reaching their past selves without letting their past selves see them!

Maybe I should write a book based on these huh.

I have strange dreams.

My dreams last night included:

1. A blindfolded archery performance where the objective was not to shoot the apple on a person's head but to shoot the person's forehead. And amazingly enough, after each successful shot, the 'victim' pulls the arrow out of his dented forehead and smiles.

2. A big shopping mall which houses a night market with thousands of exotic small fish.

3. A museum set up by a vengeful actress to detail her turbulent marriage to some guy, and the museum was stocked with arcade games.

4. A small child who survived an explosion, but as a result, could only use 1 of her 5 senses at any one time.

5. A lizard that had been treated as a pet for so long, it started looking like a dog. It grew to poodle-size, grew fur, and had a tendency to bark, beg and wag its tail. However, it retained its lizard tail, albeit covered with fur, and we were always afraid its tail would drop off when it wagged too hard. It also liked to sit on people's shoulders.

The last nightmare I had was about vampires. They were attacking us, and you couldn't kill them except by thoroughly burning them. I was attacked in my house, and resorted to burning the vampires on the stove. It was so nightmarish. :( Pushing the screaming vampires on the stove and making sure they continued burning... And the vampire bodies waiting to be burnt kept stacking up beside me, and they kept waking up and trying to eat me. :(

We're all Anne Franks now.

I was reading the latest entry on riverbendblog.

How is it that a border no one can see or touch stands between car bombs, militias, death squads and… peace, safety? It’s difficult to believe- even now.

I sit here and write this and wonder why I can’t hear the explosions.I wonder at how the windows don’t rattle as the planes pass overhead. I’m trying to rid myself of the expectation that armed people in black will break through the door and into our lives. I’m trying to let my eyes grow accustomed to streets free of road blocks, hummers and pictures of Muqtada and the rest…

How is it that all of this lies a short car ride away?

While reading I couldn't shake the sense that I've read something like this before, a long time ago. Not the same, but similar. Then I realised.

another round!

LSB's been nice to me lately, so people, think nice thoughts of him!

Also, something's wrong. Dear world, I'm ungainfully unemployed. This means I'm supposed to be wondering what I'm supposed to do all day and tearing my hair out with boredom, thus leading to premature balding, thus prompting a job search to end my follicular frustrations. Do you follow my impeccable logic, world? However, something's wrong. I'm busy. And tired. So tired that I'm conking out on the sofa at 8pm (!!!!!) and waking at midnight. To work. To work!!!!! This is unheard of. And wrong. What's the point of being unemployed nowadays? What happened to my rights as an ungainfully unemployed person? I shall not let this rest, mark my words.

But dear world, if you really can't manage a proper unemployed life for me, I'll settle for an evil smooshy-faced kitten instead.

Let the people write their laws! : The democratic potential of the Internet

NZ police let public write laws
New Zealanders have been given the chance to write their own laws, with a new online tool launched by police.

virtual freedom

Burma cyber-dissidents crack censorship
Burma's bloggers are using the internet to beat censorship, and tell the world what is happening under the military junta's veil of secrecy.

Then again,

Burmese riot police attack monks

The latest is, I think, that tear gas has been used.

Well, what did you expect? It was sooner or later.

The hype a while ago was all about the ASEAN Charter and the human rights component, now it's all about monks in Burma. Either a watered down ASEAN Charter or (against all odds) a strong Charter that is largely ignored. The world's a sad place. :(

blah-ness

I took sleepy meds and waiting for them to kick in.

I found my old appointment card! From 1984! When I was a baby!

It was issued by the Royal Aberdeen Children's Hospital!

My doctor was called Dr White!

I had an appointment at 11.15am, 14 Mar 1984!

Hmmm I wonder what the appointment was for...

Funny thing is the card reads "Bring this card with you on every visit. NEVER destroy it."

Hehehe I wonder what they'd think if they knew my parents took those instructions literally. I wonder what they'd think if I flew over and made an appointment and brought that card along. I wonder who Dr White was, whether he's still there, and what my appointment was for. Maybe the hospital isn't even there anymore.

It's so exciting! I don't remember anything of my time in the UK, and every little relic of that long-ago life is kind of like the archaelogical find of the century to me.

When I first discovered Google Earth the first thing I did was to find the house my parents lived in when I was born.

.... ok medicine just kicked in.

Coming out

The 'coming out' letter of gay RI teacher Otto Fong is probably the most touching, courageous piece of writing I've read in a long time. One can only imagine the pressure he must feel now.

And in a little aside, by now it must be manifestly clear to all that making someone delete his blog post doesn't mean the article disappears. It's the Internet. Du-uh.

Sigh I'm unexpectedly free because stupid LSB cancelled on me.

China's Internet

Chinese web filtering 'erratic'

China's firewall that tries to sanitise web browsing is much more porous than previously thought, says a study.

The firewall was least effective when lots of Chinese web users were online.

It's already known that self-censorship, not Chinese censorship technology, is what plays the major role in curtailing controversial discussions online. And if technology is least effective in its censorship when more people are using the Net, then what happens when increasing numbers start going online?

In the 15 Jun 2006 edition of the Economist, an article talks about how PRC propaganda has become less effective because of the Internet. I remember an example of this, something about people participating in an online poll to evaluate a government official's remarks.

I also remember posting a link on this blog about John Howard's Youtube video asking people to refrain from protesting at the recent APEC summit. Which is sort of funny? I don't know, it's just strange to think of a PM posting his own Youtube video alongside bored university students posting videos of themselves doing stupid things. (maybe it's a case of a paranoid PM posting a video of himself doing a stupid thing) It's almost irreverent, somehow. Or maybe I'm just stuck in the old Singaporean mindset of politics as a serious and dignified profession. Hmmm I need to immerse myself in talkingcock a bit more. Or maybe I need to focus on the image of the Taiwanese parliament. Or Bush Jr's face.

Wasn't I talking about China? I need to stop rambling. *yawnz*

Descartes and Spinoza

This is all LSB's fault. *blames boyfriend indiscriminately*

I've been reading:

- Roger Scruton's A Short History of Modern Philosophy: From Descartes to Wittgenstein, 2nd ed.
- Joan A. Price's Philosophy Through the Ages

I'm not a philo person, even though I must say I'm very attracted to philo books, largely because they tend to be on the extreme end of incomprehensible. I've studied some philosophers before, but largely in context of political thought or political ideology, hardly conducive to the mind-numbing finger-gnawing zen state I wish to achieve. My knowledge of philosophy is very very rudimentary.

So I've decided to study them philosophers a bit more systematically, starting with Descartes. I'm giving the ancients a wide berth because (and this is my own theory) they're so distant and difficult to relate to.

I've made it through Descartes & Spinoza, and for the sake of consolidation, have (largely) paraphrased what I have learnt below. I don't know if I've understood everything perfectly, and would appreciate (if any of you make it through) any corrections.

Ok *deep breath* let's do this before I get lazy.

Descartes

The starting point: take nothing for granted.

- What if an evil genius had deceived me into thinking what I think?
- If such a genius exists, then I don't know if this world is real, or if I am myself real.
- How can I know the truth? I cannot trust my senses. I can only trust the 'natural light of reason'.

'Cogito ergo sum.'

- What can I ascertain is necessarily true?
- To start with, the moment I think 'I exist', I must necessarily exist. The thought 'I exist' is self-verifying because I have to exist in order to think that thought.
- It is also necessarily true that I think. For even if I think that I don't think, in that very act of doubt, I am thinking.

Distinction between Body and Soul (Mind)

- I know that I exist as a thing that thinks.
- I find that every other thing about me can change except my ability to think. I cannot conceive of myself as not thinking, but my body can grow old, or I can lose a leg or my sight.
- Therefore my body is not of essence to me; my mind is my essence.
- Therefore I could conceivably exist (as a 'soul') after my body has ceased.
- Therefore, I am a substance which involves thinking; I endure through change. But my physical form is an attribute which can change without altering the substance.

God: The Cosmological Argument

- Something cannot come from nothing; more cannot come from less. Ideas are effects and have causes.
- I do not have perfect knowledge because I doubt. Therefore I am imperfect. Yet I have the idea of perfection (God).
- Where did my idea of perfection come from? My idea of perfection is an effect of something. There must be a cause of this idea of perfection.
- The idea of perfection cannot come from my imperfect self. The idea of perfection must come from perfection, i.e. God.

The Honest God

- Since God is perfect, and since intuitively, we know that deceit stems from imperfection, we know that God cannot be the evil genius we hypothesized earlier.
- Since God does not seek to deceive us, this means that if we use our reason and our senses (given to us by God for that very purpose) to their greatest ability, we will perceive the truth.

Objections to Descartes

The Existence of Error

- If God does not deceive, why does he allow the possibility of error?
- Descartes' answer: Error occurs when we choose to assent to an idea that is not the perceived through the 'natural light of reason'.
- Scruton: "Human error is therefore the necesary consequence of human freedom, and this seeming evil is part of a real and greater good." (33)

The Evil Genius Objection (The Cartesian circle)

- If the perfect God exists, then we know that our God-given faculty of reason will lead us to the truth. However, we only 'know' that the perfect God exists through our faculty of reason. Our conclusion that God exists depends on the reliability of our reason, which depends on God existing in the first place.

The Mind-Body Problem

- If the mind and body are separate, how do they interact with each other? How is it that the mind and body are joined in one person? ie. what is to prevent mind and body from going their own separate ways?
- Descartes: the soul is joined to the whole body through the pineal gland.
- But how can the non-physical mind be joined to the body through a physical gland? Doesn't this return to the question of how the mind can be connected to the physical body (or part of it)?

The First-Person Privilege

- Descartes assumes that while I cannot be sure of the world around me, I have a privileged knowledge of what I think and feel. My mind thinks exactly what it thinks it thinks. Is this necessarily true?

The Illusion of the Idea of Perfection

- Do we truly have an idea of perfection? Or do we merely have an idea of the 'extremely good' or 'extremely desirable'? What does perfection mean?

Spinoza

Substance

- Spinoza was a descendant of Descartes (who was in turn a descendant of Aristotle).
- Recall Descartes' arguments about 'substance'
- Spinoza argued that a substance is entirely self-contained. It depends on nothing outside itself for its existence; it is not caused by anything, but is its own cause.
- Therefore, only God is a substance, for God is his own cause (causa sui).

God: Thought and Extension

- Spinoza argues that God is a substance with infinite attributes, and all God's attributes are infinite. Hence all attributes are attributes of God's. These include the attributes of 'extension' in space (matter) and thought.
- While God might have attributes besides extension and thought, because we are finite, we can only know these two attributes of God.
- Because both thought and extension are attributes of God, we can comprehend God through thought and extension.

God and Nature

- When we comprehend God through extension, we understand him as 'Nature'. When we comprehend God through thought, we know him as 'God'. Because both thought and extension each constitute the essence of God, each "present[s] to the intellect a full and adequate [clearly & distinctly true] idea of what God is." (Scruton, 51)
- God and Nature are the same.

Solving Descartes' Mind-Body Problem

- Since thought and extension are both essences of God, there is no difference between them.
- Our finite minds are part of God's infinite thought, and our finite bodies are part of God's infinite extension.
- Thus we are but expressions of God.
- Thus my mind is the same as my body.
- I perceive my mind and body to be different only because the modes of thought and extension present me with different pictures. When I use the mode of thought to understand myself, I perceive myself as 'mind'; when I use the mode of extension, I perceive myself as 'body'.
- Scruton's analogy: "When I look at a picture I see physical objects: patches of pigment smeared on a canvas. And I can describe these objects so thoroughly as to account for the entire picture. ... the other thing I see: a stag hunt passing before a country house. This too I could describe so thoroughly as to give a complete account of the picture. But the two accounts are incommensurable... I cannot describe the lead hound as frantically pursuing a patch of ochre." (53)

The Problem of Free Will

- Since both thought and matter stem from the divine substance (God), everything happens not by chance but by necessity.
- Thoughts must relate to each other in a series of logical, necessary steps. (eg. mathematical proofs)
- Matter too, must relate to each other in a necessary sequence. Events follow each other ina necessary sequence.
- The implication for humans is that, being mere expressions of God, we too are the effects and not causes, as are our actions and thoughts. Since only God is able to 'cause', we are not able to cause anything, and therefore it would seem that we have no free will.
- If there is no freedom to act or think differently, the idea of morality collapses. To judge someone as good or bad, one must believe that that person could have caused himself to act differently.

Spinoza's Freedom

- Spinoza argues that the distinction between free/unfree is not the same as that between caused/uncaused.
- To react in an emotional way is to react passively because we endure emotions. When I am passive I am therefore not free.
- Since the mode of thought and the mode of extension correspond to each other, for every adequate idea (thought), there is an ideatum (extension).
- Thus it makes sense that a person who is more physically active has more adequate ideas of his behaviour and the causes of his behaviour.
- A free person is one who masters his emotions (passivity) and has adequate ideas about the world. He understands the world better, and thus understands God better.
- The free person who masters his passions understands the world and thus grows to love it. Since the world is God, he also loves God, not in a passive emotional way, but in an intellectual way.
- Thus the way to happiness and freedom is through the refinement of the intellect and the mastery of emotions.

I definitely died while trying to get through Spinoza. Sighz.

productive day!

I managed to wake at 9am!

I practised both the piano and the violin! The violin especially, since I fully expect to have to retake my Grade 8 exam.

Completed all the admin stuff I wanted to complete!

Bought mooncakes for LSB's family!

Ascertained that the CD I want can only be found at HMV for the exorbitant price of SGD35!

Tortured myself and the apple of my eye and pearl on my palm for a full half hour!

Read secondary literature on Descartes and finally got down to a more systematic study of the history of mental acrobatics!

Researched the UN Secretary-General so as to better spoonfeed my tuition kid!

Managed to listen to Sibelius Violin Concerto D minor!

Planned my schedule for tomorrow!

Damn, you know, usually I only get one of these done each day.

蔡琴 不了情 新不了情 蔡琴不了情2007經典歌曲香港演唱會

You've gotta admit, the older singers have that something extra.

spoilt brat

Argh I'm acquiring expensive tastes.

I've fallen in love with a perfume that costs $148 for the smallest bottle (30ml). Sure, Sisley's Eau du Soir might make people sneeze, and everyone else seems to hate the scent, but I really really like it. I've no idea why. It's something about how the scent lingers on... sighz.

And gone are the days when I think spending more than 30 on shoes is splurging. I spent 65 on a pair of rubber slippers! 65! Rubber slippers! 65! Rubber slippers! I could repeat that endlessly and it still wouldn't make sense to me. 65 (!) and rubber slippers (!) just don't go together.

And I bought a pair of painful heels for 90! 90! 90!

Shoe shopping now takes place at departmental stores. And I was *this* close to buying flats for 80 bucks today.

Help me! Maybe I should just get married and live off my poor sad husband :(

police monitor figurine protest

Mwahahaha stole these links from LSB's blog.

Anime figurine protesters meet real police

「ODEX倒す！！」: The Making Of

Our drill will thrust through the heavens!

Then again, the figurine protesters are really scary and have superpowers and all, so maybe the police were just erring on the side of caution hehehe...

Bianca Ryan from America's Got Talent

Youtube

Howard posts YouTube Apec appeal
Australian Prime Minister John Howard has posted a video on YouTube appealing to people not to join violent protests during the Apec summit in Sydney.

chanting

From Mark Kaplan's blog:

‘Song,’ of course, is associated also with expression; to sing is to utter or vocalise – a conscious articulation. Chaunt is something altogether more incantatory, mantric, rote-like. There is something properly mindless about chanting, hence its use in religion, ritual and magic – one cedes the initiative to a word or formula not yours. The momentum of the chant seems to overtake and then take in the individuals who began it. So too does the chant reverse the relation between ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ implied in ‘expression’. That is, whereas ‘expression’ is conceived as the inner made outer, something like a chant begins by emptying out the ‘wilfulness’ of expression in deference to some older word or doctrine.

Damn I wish I'd thought of that on my own.

And 'song' and 'chant' is the difference between the pop star on the stage and his screaming fans below. The pop star is quintessentially personality - personality magnified beyond the person. The pop star is more than the person. Whereas his fans give up their personality in imitation and worship. The pop star expresses personality, but his fans surrender theirs to the personality on-stage. The pop star sings (even if he sings badly), but his fans can only chant.

Does this make sense? Or is this because it's 630am and I've no idea where the night went?

War

At 2 in the morning I discovered hundreds of small, black larvae wriggling in the corner of my bathroom, and I got rid of them.

Afterwards, I made some amusing comparisons and composed a blog entry in my head. I would draw an interesting parallel between my ordeal and the effects of war on soldiers.

Oh it would be entertaining. I'd talk about how I'd gone from reluctantly executing a distasteful task to screaming war cries at the worms. I'd talk about how, instead of making the killing as clean as possible, I had resorted to chemical warfare to dislodge the stubborn ones, using the most dangerous liquid I could find in my bathroom, mouthwash. I'd even dub the mouthwash Agent Blue. I wondered what my boyfriend, who knows well how I hate killing things, would think, and I considered including a 'soldier returns to lover a different person' skit.

I'd make it all witty and humorous and entertaining. Then I thought, how easy it is to compare a war with the de-worming of my bathroom! And suddenly, I lost all appetite for humour.

where angels fear to tread

There's only one author whom I refuse to pick up again, not because my determination to read has been eroded by boredom or thwarted by difficult prose, but because I don't dare.

A few years ago, I picked up a collection of short stories by Tennessee Williams. Less than 100pgs in, I almost threw the book away, and I'd be a fool if I attempted again. I'll pick my battles thank you, and I'd like one without the emotional scars.

Damn he's good.

like my mum

Ho hum. I never knew how powerful this genes thing was. I'm exactly like my mum.

430am and I discover I forgot to dump the leftovers into the fridge, don't dare to keep them, so I'm trying to stuff myself with a plate of brinjal and a bowl of fish soup even though I'm not sure if that flavour is my mum's unique style of cooking that is almost a philosophy or just plain decompostion.

Hmmm that was a mouthful.

If I fall sick I'll feel really stupid. But it's just not in my genes to cold-bloodedly and deliberately dump a whole plate AND bowl (just think of that!) of food. Even if it's gone bad. Damn these genes.

Also, if LSB would like to inhabit the same world as me, breathe the same air, stroll in the same green fields, roll in the same hay etc, he might like to give me a wake-up call.

Itzhak Perlman (Schindler's List)

This one always gets me everytime. Does anyone else here love his violin?

Different worlds

me: violin exam's at 2pm on thurs, so i hav to practise getting up
early!

LSB: ... u n i, we hav different concepts of time

Someday I'll be part of your world.... *cries*

ASEAN Charter in the news

BBC: Asean agrees on landmark charter

Ministers from South-East Asian countries have reached agreement on a landmark draft charter.

The document gives the Association of South-East Asian Nations (Asean) a set of binding rules for the first time in the bloc's 40-year
existence.

The agreement comes after nearly two years of deliberations among members.

It includes a contentious provision to set up a commission monitoring human rights in the region - despite strong misgivings from some Asean
countries.

...

Diplomatic sources said Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam also had misgivings - fearing human rights probes could result in violations of the group's strict policy of non-interference in each others' affairs.

However the charter is seen as crucial for giving Asean - previously regarded as a mere talk shop - credibility and bargaining power on the world stage.

CNA: ASEAN ministers agree to set up human rights commission

Mr Yeo says: "If there was any disagreement, it's over the actual
language that we use in the Charter. In the end we decided that it's not really the establishment of the human rights body which should be the issue. It's what the body ought to do. That really involves drawing up the terms of reference which all of us can agree to and actually, planning it properly and giving it a life of its own."

Still, Mr Yeo points out that the ministers have also decided that certain things would be left to the leaders to decide.

He says: "The question arises as to how the leaders among themselves will settle disagreements at the highest level, and we as ministers could not be prescribing rules to the leaders because they are a Committee of
Peers. They must decide amongst themselves how to resolve the differences and according to rules they themselves must establish.

"We don't quite know what crisis we will go through in the future, what difficult problems we will face. It is for the leaders, in their own wisdom and depending on their own personal relationship, to work out methods to resolve the differences."

Hmmm. I wouldn't be quite so optimistic yet.

Should we tell Africa about the global economy?

In The Know: Is Our Wealth Hurting Africaâ??s Feelings?

The finest military in the world

US military pondered love not war The US military investigated building a "gay bomb", which would make enemy soldiers "sexually irresistible" to each other, government papers say. Other weapons that never saw the light of day include one to make soldiers obvious by their bad breath.

Tolkien and fingernail moon

Ok, I have resolutely put my copy of LOTR aside, so there won't be any long meandering quotes in this entry. Rest easy.

For years now I have spoken of the 'fingernail moon', the tiny bit of moon so named because it looks exactly like a sliver of white fingernail that's just been cut from the rest of said-nail. For some reason that description freaks my friends out. But I stick to it cos I think it's better than the other image such a moon calls to mind - the sly grin of some astral Cheschire cat. Now that's freaky.

And recently, in my nth reading of the LOTR, I discovered a line that would shake my being to its very foundations. So Tolkien wrote, "a New Moon as thin as a nail-paring."

Tolkien saw the same fingernail moon! He saw the same thing! He's totally my soul-mate, and at about 330am, I SMS-ed my incredibly wondrous discovery to my friend.

How could I not have seen that line before?

I worship Tolkien, I really do. Or rather, I worship his voice. It is often sad, often gentle. It tells a tale that's often cruel, sometimes violent, but it is never itself bitter or harsh. Sometimes it is majestic and splendid and heroic, as memorably, in The Silmarillion, but it is always beautiful. It is not a historian's voice, but a bard's voice, telling tales of faraway with both poetry and loving detail.

I am so in love with Tolkien. And my fingernail moon. Though who knows, perhaps there're hordes of people who've thought the same thought. I read somewhere (I forget where) that one of the principal joys in reading is discovering in someone else's mind what one has oft' thought but ne'er so well expressed. (Ok, I'm mixing up the forgotten quote with Pope's quote on wit if my memory serves me well. Which, presumably, it doesn't.)

Nevertheless, if any of you have looked at a moon and thought it looked like a sliver of fingernail, I welcome you to join ma' man, Tolkien and myself in a somewhat strange community, whose diverse and dispersed members have shared at least one thought.

What the...

I pick up my cell. A lady asks for Elaine in an accent I identify as my friend's fake secretary voice. She's pulled that fake accent on me before, so I gloat and think to myself 'Not this time, you evil friend!'

'Yes, what is this?' I try my best to convey that I am so sick of this, and haven't you anything better to do?

'I am XX from XX bank.'

Oh oh...

'Do you have a moment now?'

I start to waver. 'Er, not really.' Still trying to sound gruff, just in case it's really my friend.

'Ok, I'll call back in the evening. Thanks.'

Oh shit.

Repeat to self a hundred times: My friends are too old to prank call me. My friends are waaaaay too old to prank call me. Dammit we're on the threshold of middle age already! Argh.

$100 laptops

'$100 laptop' production begins
Five years after the concept was first proposed, the so-called $100 laptop is poised to go into mass production. Hardware suppliers have been given the green light to ramp-up production of all of the components needed to build millions of the low-cost machines.

When cats attack

5sf - The American Beauty Experiment, Pts. 1-3

This is totally true. Totally.

Jeszcze Polska nie zginela! (Poland has not yet perished!)

Polish spirit

The Poles have got money and markets out of the EU. But they haven't got an apology. Some Germans feel that without their friendship and aid Poland wouldn't have been allowed in the club so soon. Maybe. But a long-lost brother has returned to the family home, still simmering about a past upset, when the rest of the family has made up and forgotten long ago.

A Star's Tale

As we know, many stars live far far away in the sky. If you look out your window, you will find the star whose story we are about to tell. It is the one twinkling in the top left-hand corner of your window-sky.

This star is a very old, lonely star, and has gazed down upon this earth for longer than any of us can imagine. The star remembers a time when there were no humans; it also remembers when it started to see the two-legged humans. The star recalls an age - a long one - in which darkness meant sleep and rest for humans. It recalls the recent birth of many human stars that shine as brightly as the stars in the sky, and remembers that as the human stars grew in numbers, the humans also started to wake in the night, and no longer slept as long or as often. Instead, in the light of the human stars, the humans laughed and wept and worked and danced with wild abandon. Sometimes the humans also gazed back at the star. The longer the star looked upon the distant and strange humans, the more it grew to love them, for love often grows out of memory, and the star had a long memory indeed.

However, when the sun rises each morning, its bright rays blind the star and the star can see no more, save for a brief instant in the grey light of the dawn, when it gazes its last upon the humans till night arrives again. Each dawn the star glimpses a little of the sort of life humans lead in the day - a girl packing her bag for school, a night watchman glancing at his watch, eager to be home, a bakery alive with delicious smells, roads increasingly crowded with vehicles bringing humans to places that remain unknown to the star.

As the star's love for the humans grew, so did its desire to understand the humans. What did humans do in the day, the star wondered. Why does the schoolgirl bring home sheets of paper that make her so unhappy? What family does the night watchman have? Why does the freshly baked bread disappear everyday? Where do humans go to in the day? The star loved the humans, but it never really knew them, and this made the star sad. It envied the sun, and hated it, and wished that somehow, day could come without the sun's rays, so that it could finally see its beloved humans in the day.

But the laws of nature are not like the laws of humans, which can be broken and paid for in prison-years, or even human lives. Nor are the laws of nature like the laws of children's fairy-tales. In children's fairy-tales love always triumphs, and while unfortunate events do occur, sadness is never eternal. The laws of nature cannot be broken and they care not for love or sad stars, so everyday the sun rises, and everyday the star is blinded. Hence, everyday, the star sheds tears of stardust that streak across the sky like fireworks, and the star lives in an eternity of loneliness, always loving but never knowing.

If some evening, while looking out your window, you spot that star in the top left-hand corner, stand on your toes and stretch your arm as far out of your window as you can, and wiggle your fingers. For while stars live far far away in the sky, every little bit closes the distance between stars and humans. And who knows? If you stretch far enough, you might just touch a lonely star.

Oh justice!

My layman understanding of matters of justice and law. Most of the extracts below (italicised) taken from NYT "In Steps Big and Small, Supreme Court Moved Right":

Fully a third of the court’s decisions, more than in any recent term, were decided by 5-to-4 margins. Most of those, 19 of 24, were decided along ideological lines...

Once again proving that Justice is not blind, but it certainly wears blinkers.

In its most important patent ruling in years, the court tilted away from patent owners and made it easier to find that a patent had been improperly issued for an invention that was “obvious” and therefore undeserving of patent protection.

Finally. The list of patented 'inventions' in the US is a bit too long methinks.

The court made it easier for prosecutors in death penalty cases to remove potential jurors who express ambivalence about the death penalty. Writing for the 5-to-4 majority, Justice Kennedy said appeals courts must defer to a trial judge’s decision on whether a potential juror would be able to overcome qualms about capital punishment and be open to voting to impose a death sentence. The dissenters, in an opinion by Justice Stevens that Justices Souter, Ginsburg and Breyer also joined, said this set the disqualification bar too low and would skew juries toward those most likely to vote for death.

Hmmm... On one hand a person who is, in principle, opposed to the death penalty has no place in a jury deciding whether a defendant should receive the death penalty. On the other hand, we're talking about ambivalence towards the death penalty. My gut feeling is that any person who is violently opposed to the death penalty would be disqualified without much controversy. So the question is whether this results in a tendency to disqualify those who merely feel hanging someone is distasteful (which is, I must add, the proper and normal human reaction), meaning that you end up with the probability of having a jury of rednecks who're too ready to bay for blood. (Yes yes... stereotypes! I admit!) I tend to lean liberal on the death penalty, and therefore the prospect of a jury of rednecks terrifies me. You see what secondary school Lit does to you? (I'm looking at you, Harper Lee.) I don't really know much about law (have I mentioned this already?), so I guess the answer might be obvious to the brilliant legal minds out there already. Ah well.

A deadline for filing a federal appeal could not be excused by the fact that a federal judge had given an inmate’s lawyer the wrong date, the court held in a 5 to 4 opinion by Justice Thomas.

This sucks. The poor guy is penalised because the federal judge screwed up? Punishing innocents for mistakes/crimes that are not their own sucks big-time.

Unfortunately that happens in Singapore too. I've talked a lot about the case of Amara Tochi elsewhere, so I won't say too much about this again. Suffice to say that he was put to death (killed, murdered) for bringing drugs into Singapore, even though he (almost certainly) didn't know that they were drugs. And it's not a case of a judge ruling overly harshly, or a mistake made in the sentencing (even though that would also suck). It's just the way it works in Singapore. I would encourage you to look at the section on the trial if you follow the link to the Wiki article.

What is justice and what is the law? Sometimes if you think about it, the divergence between the two is chilling.

Randoms

I hate going out in the day because the weather is too darn warm. These days I slap on sunblock on my hand, wear gloves, grab a thermometer, stick it outside my window. Is it less than 28C? Yes? Ok, now my foot can venture tentatively out my door. And EVEN if it's less than 28, if the floor burns my foot, the foot retreats. No suicidal battles to be fought with the weather!

So I tend to get home late-ish. And I don't mind really, because the sun is a Bad Bad Thing, and mid-year nights are so clear, and if you haven't noticed (people never do), the moon has been gorgeous.

BUT the one thing that is bad about getting home late is the wildlife at my place. I'm convinced it's bat mating season because at night, bats - nay, a swarm of bats has been circling crazily mere inches above the ground, and more importantly, blocking my way home! Horror! Horror!

a goblin's tale

I'm in a strange mood today, perhaps partly because I read Robert Anton Wilson's Schrodinger's Cat trilogy in one sitting without really understanding many of the references and becoming practically delirious by the end of the 3 books.

(I'm beginning to think that the sound of words is sufficient enjoyment, even without understanding of the content. Why else was I hooked on the trilogy for the better part of today when I'd already lost track of the multiple characters in the multiple plots in multiple universes smothered in multiple references?)

(Is the pure aesthetic of poetry words without content?)

It could also be because the weather is swear-wordedly warm and the mechanical hum of my laptop is irritating me and threatening to give me a headache.

I also feel an overwhelming urge to speak in italics. Which I might or might not indulge in later in this post. Let's keep you in suspense for now.

And as always, stories surface and then drown in my mind, unconnected and unthoughtof, and then resurface again. One that has been on my mind for a long time is a tale of a goblin.

I don't see the point of writing a story about a goblin since everyone knows that goblins are at best secondary characters, and are never successful in the roles that really matter - Nordic heroes or Byronic heroes or Shakespearen heroes or even vampires. Some authors have maintained that even the smallest of creatures (like hobbits) can matter, but the truth is - and we're not talking about fiction here - the smallest of creatures seldom matter in significant ways.

So I don't see the point of writing a story about a goblin.

Nevertheless.

This goblin was small, even for a goblin, and was born in a goblin village, which was ruled by Authority. Authority came dressed in a pink lace dress. The other goblin inhabitants of the village disliked Authority in principle, and went about discreetly defying Authority as best they could.

One day, Authority left the village, instructing the goblin inhabitants to behave themselves. The Majority of the goblin inhabitants formed a Group, and while the individual goblins disliked Authority, the Group claimed to uphold Authority's rule, and in fact, became Authority itself (except without the pink lace dress).

The Authority-Group decided to enforce all of Authority's rules. The rules that they enforced included those rules that individual members of the Authority-Group used to break when Authority was around. As a result of the Authority-Group, the enforcement of Authority's rules was much stricter and harsher than it used to be, when Authority was around. Many goblins were drowned or burnt at the stake for the smallest of transgressions.

When Authority finally returned to the village, the Authority-Group reported all its enforcement actions to Authority, and Authority was well-pleased. The Authority-Group then disbanded, and previous members of the Authority-Group continued their discreet defiance of Authority, seeing no contradiction in their actions.

The non-hero who is our goblin played no significant part in these happenings (as tends to be the case with the smallest creatures), but was deeply troubled by the inconsistencies he saw. The goblin decided that a Group was a strange and complex entity that was more than the sum of its individual goblins. The goblin decided that he was afraid of Groups because Groups were motivated by chaotic, unpredictable impulses and an unyielding logic of their own. Groups, he thought, were impossible to understand, and dangerous.

The goblin went on to do many other things in his life. However, as I've said before, they are not very significant. Goblins are very insignificant creatures. Goblins, like humans, are never heroes, even though heroes are sometimes disguised as humans or goblins. But that is not very important.

Strawberry marshmallows to you too!

My butt hurts very much because in an uncharacteristic burst of courage, I've been cycling (well, wobbling and squealing and just stopping short of running over people) these 2 days. If you were at ECP yesterday and you heard someone screaming 'my butt hurts' non-stop it was probably me. It's like confetti. You scatter the 'my butt hurts' as you cycle down the road, and some of it inevitably lands on the heads of innocent passers-by. Now and then you punctuate the confetti-scattering with little bits of 'sorry! didn't mean to almost run you over!' or 'help! I'm losing control of my bike!' or 'get out of my way I don't know how to ring this bell!' or 'don't cycle so close to me or I'll die!'

Oooh strawberry marshmallows... I love strawberry marshmallows. They could represent so many things. Strawberry marshmallows represent 'hello' and 'goodbye' and 'how do you do' and 'I never want to see you again'. Strawberry marshmallows are vulnerability, the feminine ideal, violence, soap operas, the earth, the essence of essence (like the mistress of the mistress or the son of the son). In fact, life-which-is-like-a-box-of-chocolates is like strawberry marshmallows. But only like strawberry marshmallows with strawberry jam filling and not the ones with yucky strawberry cream filling. Because marshmallows with strawberry cream filling don't represent anything except hello kitty and lawyers, and everyone knows that hello kitty and lawyers are not really part of life except in hell, and life in hell is nothing like life-which-is-like-a-box-of-chocolates. (Has anyone noticed how difficult it is to type with hyphens? Not that hyphens aren't pleasant creatures. Just difficult. Maybe it's a phase.) Strange isn't it, how chocolate is sinful but not hellish? But we were talking about strawberry marshmallows. Lollipops though - I don't need to say what lollipops represent, because lollipops mean different things to different people. Lollipops are subjective. On the other hand, strawberry marshmallows represent everything to everyone. Especially life-which-is-like-a-box-of-chocolates. Strawberry marshmallows are transcendental. I like strawberry marshmallows. (but not the ones with the strawberry cream filling.)

humour

My friends used to stare at me when I laughed out loud while studying.

From the BBC: "The [American] president is only allowed to serve two terms in office. He spends most of his first term trying to get re-elected and most of his second being described as a lame duck. No wonder they give him the shiny plane and the armoured limos. There have to be some perks to this job."

Isn't that funny? It's not just me right?

And

Politicians sign new climate pact
Leading international politicians have reached a new agreement on tackling climate change, at a Washington summit.

It's always sort of difficult not to feel optimistic when you get such news. Of course it's a non-binding agreement blah blah blah, but as the constructivists would say 'Non-binding? Pfft. Who cares?'

(Between, yes, I'm one of those who watched that Captain Planet show when I was young, and can still remember the song.)

Cas Haley Blows Americas Got Talent Away

Damn.

Paul sings Nessun Dorma high quality video/sound

OMG he's better than the girl.

Six year old Connie Talbot performs on Britain's Got Talent

OMG.

Dramatic Look

Amusement & Insecurity

After my last post, someone was concerned enough to refer me to a counsellor. While the thought and concern are very appreciated, I don't think I need a counsellor just yet. Give me some time. :P

Also, given that the post was about why the Marxist revolution never occured, and posited that counselling (or 'self-help' and therapy in general) was part of the reason, it was pretty amusing. A post claiming to be a 'radical critique' of (and hence resistance to) this 'hegemony' that is buttressed partially by modern counselling eliciited almost immediately an invitation to counselling...

Omg it's just too precious.

I also got a comment about that post being uber-cheem and impossible for normal people to understand.

My initial reaction: Are you trying to be sarcastic? Am I not normal? Why do you say I'm not normal? Do you think I'm trying to act cheem? I'm normal!

My 2nd train of thought: Why do I care what people think? What makes me think he thinks I act cheem? What makes me think he was being sarcastic? Is it because I'm so insecure that I feel the need to blend in with the rest? Do I need to feel accepted? Why am I acting like an angsty teenager? I thought I left all that behind! I'm an adult! All grown up! Why am I so insecure? Me? Insecure? Of course not!

My 3rd thought: I can't believe I'm being insecure about being insecure.

There you have it. The nutcase who is the author of this blog.

Spectres of Marx

There's a voice in my head that won't stop. I wish it would go away because it disturbs me even while amusing. It doesn't allow me to feel any sense of achievement, and it screams when I try to find comfort in a group. It haunts me and forbids rest... like a spectre.

--------------------------------------------

Let us go back to a hypothetical fief in the dark Middle Ages and look at 2 scenarios.

Scenario A:

A peasant works in the fields every day without rest. He is impoverished, his wife is ailing, he has lost 4 children to disease already, and his last remaining child is starving. He is unhappy because really, there is no reason to be happy. He looks at the privileges enjoyed by his lord and feels that the world is unfair.

The peasant asks his lord, "Why is it that I have to work so long and hard and you don't? I am unhappy."

The lord kicks him away.

The peasant organizes a rebellion, and even though he and many others are killed, they lend impetus to a movement that, a long time later, results in a better life for people like him.

Scenario B:

A peasant works in the fields every day without rest. He is impoverished, his wife is ailing, he has lost 4 children to disease already, and his last remaining child is starving. He is unhappy because really, there is no reason to be happy. He looks at the privileges enjoyed by his lord and feels that the world is unfair.

The peasant asks his lord, "Why is it that I have to work so long and hard and you don't? I am unhappy."

The lord tells him, "I can sense that you're dissatisfied. I cannot change the system for you, but let me refer you to a counsellor."

The counsellor is a good one, who genuinely cares for the peasant, and empathizes with him.

At the end of the session, the peasant says to the counsellor, "Life is hard, but you have made me feel better simply because you have listened to me. I have thought calmly and rationally about what I can do about my problems, and because I know there's a listening ear for me, now I feel as if I have the strength to go on."

So the peasant returns to the fields, and life goes on.

Poem for my sister

I was clearing some of my old stuff today (and there's a lot of that). Some day I shall type out some of the more embarrassing writing from my teenage years. Absolutely excruciating. I've been wondering all day whether to burn those old diaries. *shudder* At one point I dropped the offending diary and buried my face in my hands because... oh the agony! Such agony! How could I ever EVER have written something like that?

Haha.

I also discovered this poem I wrote for my youngest sis about 8-9yrs ago, and while it's no masterpiece (no false modesty here heh), it does remind me of how she was as a little kid lolz.

[Youngest sis] is a little maiden
Of about 5 or 6;
She's all the experience and certainty
That comes with age.
Mummy belongs to her, no doubt,
And Daddy does as well.
Jie jie's a slight nuisance,
But kor kor's mean as hell.
The only one who's a bit of fun
Is [2nd sis], but only when she's around.
The sun and the moon and the stars in the sky,
Doggy and bear-bear and charming lullabies
Belong to Her,
Our Queen of the World.
But she is young and pretty and dances too,
She prefers to be Princess, thank you.

2005.09.08 康熙来了 阿信 原來的我+一場遊戲一場夢+軋車+志明與春嬌

KAWAII ASHIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I LOVE ASHIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!