Plato
i swear the world is being overrun by these people. [
Nick
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4:10 PM ] re⋅treat /rɪˈtrit/ [
Nick
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12:18 PM ] well i was pretty shaken after ending the conversation with a friend/teammate of mine... but i guess i let it pass that night because of the work i had to do... but the realisation of stuff kinda struck me the next day and that really killed my mood... [
Nick
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10:26 AM ] morning greetings from an estrogen filled raffles city... well... this entire place is SWARMING with females! don't get me wrong... i'm not here to look at chicks (not that there's any and that i would want to) or anything... but it's THE day Lou runs her 10km =P [
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7:43 AM ] (warning: disgusting pictures below. view at own risk!) [
Nick
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3:59 PM ] Dear Riley, [
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3:42 PM ] "I must say thank you to the faculty and staff of the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information for inviting me to give your convocation address. It’s a wonderful honour and a privilege for me to speak here for ten minutes without fear of contradiction, defamation or retaliation. I say this as a Singaporean and more so as a husband. [
Nick
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12:39 PM ] Items I've Consumed to Keep Myself Awake: [
Nick
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6:00 AM ] think i shall let off some steam in here while i wait for the file to upload... [
Nick
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12:41 AM ] Well... went to the doc today to complain of this niggling problem that I've been experiencing last week... "coincidentally", Lou didn't feel well too... so i guess today's an extended weekend for us =P [
Nick
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7:12 PM ] ok since i'm in the mood to blog... i shall type more tonight... but expect a lull of entries in the near future =P [
Nick
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8:11 PM ] [
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7:39 PM ]
first the idiot in the hyundai tucson on the road... then the idiot from the team... now the idiot from src who has no consideration for how other people think and feel.
not to mention the many idiots on the roads these days.
WHY?
–noun 1. the forced or strategic withdrawal of an army or an armed force before an enemy, or the withdrawing of a naval force from action.
2. the act of withdrawing, as into safety or privacy; retirement; seclusion.
3. a place of refuge, seclusion, or privacy: The library was his retreat. 4. an asylum, as for the insane.
5. a retirement or a period of retirement for religious exercises and meditation.
6. Military. a. a flag-lowering ceremony held at sunset on a military post.
b. the bugle call or drumbeat played at this ceremony.
7. the recession of a surface, as a wall or panel, from another surface beside it.
–verb (used without object)
8. to withdraw, retire, or draw back, esp. for shelter or seclusion.
9. to make a retreat: The army retreated.
10. to slope backward; recede: a retreating chin.
11. to draw or lead back.
i'm trying my best not to show it... sorry.
am i doing something wrong?
am i not helping them at all?
is my sacrifice going to be worth it?
so many questions going through my head which i cannot answer at all... so many doubts about my abilities and decisions that i cannot do anything about now... in short... i really felt like crap.
why would someone i regarded as a friend and a confidiante about matters regarding the team say something like that? instead of helping me out with the team, it's now a niggling thought at the back of my head: how many of them actually feel this way as well?
seeds of doubt planted will take root... and when they do... the results may be irreversible.
somehow i don't know what to do now.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
ah... yes yes. The much dreaded GE 10km run... for females only!
that more or less explains why the marina area is swarming with females... blergh... i feel like an endangered species here... but in any case... one major observation i made this morning =P
what are they doing in raffles city at 720am when their run is supposed to start at 730am?!
tsktsk... talk about punctuality =P maybe the organisers next year should buffer in a 1hr waiting time prior to the event =P
loooong weekend to enjoy... but blergh... got work to do... so in order to have more time playing... i shall adjourn to do my work while i can =P ciao!
Friday, October 24, 2008
well... another mishap on two wheels in less than a year... same scenario, along the same road but a different direction... geez.. how uncanny can it get?
i wonder why that #@!#!@ had to jam brake suddenly while accelerating into a road clear and devoid of traffic... and mind you... it wasn't that i was following very closely... if i had been i would have crashed into him... it's cos of him jamming suddenly that i had to step on the brakes suddenly as well... and as phantom riders would know... that damn bike is prone to skidding.
so it's like... i skidded and fell... and once again... that idiot just drove off... my dad reckons it's on purpose and i'm beginning to share the same sentiment... right... the headlight was bent, the rear tyre was kinda stuck... blergh.
after i fell... i thought of Lou first (sorry mum!) and luckily i'm ok to spend another day with her... it was damn freaky... the second thought was that "that's it! i'm not going to ride anymore!"
so yeah... i've called my mechanic and sold the bike... so i guess it's back to public transport for me again...
better to stay alive with cuckoo drivers on the road.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
First of all, i'm sorry.
It's been two wonderful years that you've been here... i still remember the initial period when you were just a kitten... so little and such a timid little creature... it's probably cos you were so scared of human contact that we spent more attention on you... and look at you now... you can't seem to get off humans =P
i remember the days when you would chase wiley around... round and round my room you two would go... and oh... who can forget the bite mark you left on my laptop's lcd screen... were you irritated that i was playing a video of another cat?
i guess your real transformation came when wiley went missing... after that you seemed to clamour for more attention... was it the emptiness you felt after losing your brother?
you're so not like a usual cat... which cat greets their owners at the door? and how you would protest when i just walk in without without giving you a pat on the head =] it was on purpose boy... sorry if you felt neglected...
no matter what... you were a good cat... despite the weird calls you make to wake people up at night and at dawn... you weren't any trouble at all...
your eyes when you saw me leave still haunt me... i still remember you hugging me like a tree in fear when i was bringing you up to your new home... i could sense the fear in you when we switched off the lights to the room...
i hope your new owners treat you well boy... i'll miss you.
actually... i already do.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
My wife is a wonderful person and perfect in every way except one. She is the editor of a magazine. She corrects people for a living. She has honed her expert skills over a quarter of a century, mostly by practising at home during conversations between her and me.
On the other hand, I am a litigator. Essentially, I spend my day telling people how wrong they are. I make my living being disagreeable. Nevertheless, there is perfect harmony in our matrimonial home. That is because when an editor and a litigator have an argument, the one who triumphs is always the wife.
And so I want to start by giving one piece of advice to the men: when you’ve already won her heart, you don’t need to win every argument. Marriage is considered one milestone of life. Some of you may already be married. Some of you may never be married. Some of you will be married. Some of you will enjoy the experience so much, you will be married many, many times. Good for you.
The next big milestone in your life is today: your graduation. The end of education. You’re done learning.
You’ve probably been told the big lie that “Learning is a lifelong process” and that therefore you will continue studying and taking masters’ degrees and doctorates and professorships and so on. You know the sort of people who tell you that? Teachers. Don’t you think there is some measure of conflict of interest? They are in the business of learning, after all. Where would they be without you? They need you to be repeat customers.
The good news is that they’re wrong.
The bad news is that you don’t need further education because your entire life is over. It is gone. That may come as a shock to some of you. You’re in your teens or early twenties. People may tell you that you will live to be 70, 80, 90 years old. That is your life expectancy.
I love that term: life expectancy. We all understand the term to mean the average life span of a group of people. But I’m here to talk about a bigger idea, which is what you expect from your life.
You may be very happy to know that Singapore is currently ranked as the country with the third highest life expectancy. We are behind Andorra and Japan, and tied with San Marino. It seems quite clear why people in those countries, and ours, live so long. We share one thing in common: our football teams are all hopeless. There’s very little danger of any of our citizens having their pulses raised by watching us play in the World Cup. Spectators are more likely to be lulled into a gentle and restful nap.
Singaporeans have a life expectancy of 81.8 years. Singapore men live to an average of 79.21 years, while Singapore women live more than five years longer, probably to take into account the additional time they need to spend in the bathroom.
So here you are, in your twenties, thinking that you’ll have another 40 years to go. Four decades in which to live long and prosper.
Bad news. Read the papers. There are people dropping dead when they’re 50, 40, 30 years old. Or quite possibly just after finishing their convocation. They would be very disappointed that they didn’t meet their life expectancy.
I’m here to tell you this. Forget about your life expectancy.
After all, it’s calculated based on an average. And you never, ever want to expect being average.
Revisit those expectations. You might be looking forward to working, falling in love, marrying, raising a family. You are told that, as graduates, you should expect to find a job paying so much, where your hours are so much, where your responsibilities are so much.
That is what is expected of you. And if you live up to it, it will be an awful waste.
If you expect that, you will be limiting yourself. You will be living your life according to boundaries set by average people. I have nothing against average people. But no one should aspire to be them. And you don’t need years of education by the best minds in Singapore to prepare you to be average.What you should prepare for is mess. Life’s a mess. You are not entitled to expect anything from it. Life is not fair. Everything does not balance out in the end. Life happens, and you have no control over it.Good and bad things happen to you day by day, hour by hour, moment by> moment. Your degree is a poor armour against fate.
Don’t expect anything. Erase all life expectancies. Just live. Your life is over as of today. At this point in time, you have grown as tall as you will ever be, you are physically the fittest you will ever be in your entire life and you are probably looking the best that you will ever look. This is as good as it gets. It is all downhill from here. Or up. No one knows.
What does this mean for you? It is good that your life is over.
Since your life is over, you are free. Let me tell you the many wonderful things that you can do when you are free.
The most important is this: do not work. Work is anything that you are compelled to do. By its very nature, it is undesirable.Work kills. The Japanese have a term “Karoshi”, which means death from overwork. That’s the most dramatic form of how work can kill. But it can also kill you in more subtle ways. If you work, then day by day, bit by bit, your soul is chipped away, disintegrating until there’s nothing left. A rock has been ground into sand and dust
There’s a common misconception that work is necessary. You will meet people working at miserable jobs. They tell you they are “making a living”. No, they’re not. They’re dying, frittering away their fast-extinguishing lives doing things which are, at best, meaningless and, at worst, harmful.
People will tell you that work ennobles you, that work lends you a certain dignity. Work makes you free. The slogan “Arbeit macht frei” was placed at the entrances to a number of Nazi concentration camps. Utter nonsense.
Do not waste the vast majority of your life doing something you hate so that you can spend the small remainder sliver of your life in modest comfort. You may never reach that end anyway.
Resist the temptation to get a job. Instead, play. Find something you enjoy doing. Do it. Over and over again. You will become good at it for two reasons: you like it, and you do it often. Soon, that will have value in itself.
I like arguing, and I love language. So, I became a litigator. I enjoy it and I would do it for free. If I didn’t do that, I would’ve been in some other type of work that still involved writing fiction - probably a sports journalist.
So what should you do? You will find your own niche. I don’t imagine you will need to look very hard. By this time in your life, you will have a very good idea of what you will want to do. In fact, I’ll go further and say the ideal situation would be that you will not be able to stop yourself pursuing your passions. By this time you should know what your obsessions are. If you enjoy showing off your knowledge and feeling superior, you might become a teacher.
Find that pursuit that will energise you, consume you, become an obsession. Each day, you must rise with a restless enthusiasm. If you don’t, you are working.
Most of you will end up in activities which involve communication. To those of you I have a second message: be wary of the truth. I’m not asking you to speak it, or write it, for there are times when it is dangerous or impossible to do those things. The truth has a great capacity to offend and injure, and you will find that the closer you are to someone, the more care you must take to disguise or even conceal the truth. Often, there is great virtue in being evasive, or equivocating. There is also great skill. Any child can blurt out the truth, without thought to the consequences. It takes great maturity to appreciate the value of silence.
In order to be wary of the truth, you must first know it. That requires great frankness to yourself. Never fool the person in the mirror.
I have told you that your life is over, that you should not work, and that you should avoid telling the truth. I now say this to you: be hated. It’s not as easy as it sounds. Do you know anyone who hates you? Yet every great figure who has contributed to the human race has been hated, not just by one person, but often by a great many. That hatred is so strong it has caused those great figures to be shunned, abused, murdered and in one famous instance, nailed to a cross.
One does not have to be evil to be hated. In fact, it’s often the case that one is hated precisely because one is trying to do right by one’s own convictions. It is far too easy to be liked, one merely has to be accommodating and hold no strong convictions. Then one will gravitate towards the centre and settle into the average. That cannot be your role. There are a great many bad people in the world, and if you are not offending them, you must be bad yourself. Popularity is a sure sign that you are doing something wrong.
The other side of the coin is this: fall in love. I didn’t say “be loved”. That requires too much compromise. If one changes one’s looks, personality and values, one can be loved by anyone.
Rather, I exhort you to love another human being. It may seem odd for me to tell you this. You may expect it to happen naturally, without deliberation. That is false. Modern society is anti-love. We’ve taken a microscope to everyone to bring out their flaws and shortcomings. It far easier to find a reason not to love someone, than otherwise. Rejection requires only one reason. Love requires complete acceptance. It is hard work - the only kind of work that I find palatable.
Loving someone has great benefits. There is admiration, learning, attraction and something which, for the want of a better word, we call happiness. In loving someone, we become inspired to better ourselves in every way. We learn the truth worthlessness of material things. We celebrate being human. Loving is good for the soul.
Loving someone is therefore very important, and it is also important to choose the right person. Despite popular culture, love doesn’t happen by chance, at first sight, across a crowded dance floor. It grows slowly, sinking roots first before branching and blossoming. It is not a silly weed, but a mighty tree that weathers every storm.
You will find, that when you have someone to love, that the face is less important than the brain, and the body is less important than the heart.
You will also find that it is no great tragedy if your love is not reciprocated. You are not doing it to be loved back. Its value is to inspire you.
Finally, you will find that there is no half-measure when it comes to loving someone. You either don’t, or you do with every cell in your body, completely and utterly, without reservation or apology. It consumes you, and you are reborn, all the better for it.
Don’t work. Avoid telling the truth. Be hated. Love someone.
You’re going to have a busy life. Thank goodness there’s no life expectancy."
-Adrian Tan-
1) Iced Kopi-C (1045pm)
2) Sparkling H-Two-O (2am)
3) Camel roasted peanuts (2am)
4) Water (at regular intervals)
Hmm... surprisingly i haven't consumed much =P
okies... time to catch a 1hr power sleep... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
well doesn't really help that i got a shitload of work due tmr... not that it's anyone fault... shouldn't have procrastinated so much when i had the time to do work... ugh... it's the familiar feeling of uni days when i had to stay awake with endless cups of tea (thus making me go to the toilet every once in 15mins)... the difference is... i'm no longer 21 or 22!
really should have skipped coacking/training just now... but somehow i'm glad i went... even if it means not sleeping tonight... suddenly feel a bit useless... hah.
and this stiff neck is adding to the frustration.
somehow i'm fearful of riding tmr (later)... don't know if i'll be awake enough to focus...
Monday, October 13, 2008
Anyways... the doc diagnosed that the pain might be from a muscle strain... but if it becomes more serious... the worst case scenario (as Baby predicted) could be a hernia... geez... from what i understood from the doc's mumbled words... apparently it's caused by a flaw in the muscle structure of a guy's body... but it's a very rare occurance... well i hope that's really the case for me then...
okies... back to the mountain of work that awaits me.. zzzzzzzzz.......
and there you'll be... in my heart always...
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
heard this pretty interesting story during mass last saturday... thought it might be quite meaningful... a mental reminder to myself that money is not everything and it shouldn't rule our lives... well... it's something that i sometimes wish i had more of so that i could give people i love a better life... but well... i shan't be greedy and just try to make do with what i have =]
anyway... here goes:
a 2 dollar-note and a 50-dollar note were sitting in a bag one day... and they started to have a conversation about they places they have been to... the 50-dollar note proudly exclaimed that he has been to many places: casinos and pubs in many exotic nations around the world, and that he had been in the hands of many rich and famous people. He had seen to much of the world and has been used for many important transactions. After boasting about his life, the 50-dollar note asked the 2-dollar note, "so where have you been yourself?" the 2-dollar note just replied, "oh... my life is pretty simple. i just go to church, then the market, then back to the church again."
following which the Celebrant proceeded to ask the assembly of people about what they have done with their money. Jokingly, he noted that the 50-dollar note was living a life of impurity and we need to save the note by giving him to the church as donations to make the note holy. But well... the main message was not to be too consumed by money and what money can or can not do. There are so many other things in life that we need to be concerned about...
righto... a great takeaway message to remind everyone that money is the root of all evils... and what's worse... the global economic slowdown is proving that point man... it's really worrying how a man-made concept (money) could actually backfire and burn the fingers of those who created and hoarded it...
depressing stuff aside... here's more... err... painful stuff? think i just strained a muscle or two in the groin area... and it was so bad after monday's run and tuesday's training that i had to limp... and my left leg actually gave way when i was walking down a flight of stairs... geez... indeed worrying... but what was actually more painful afterwards was the "treatment"... imagine freezing icepacks in that area... BRRRRRRRR.
okies gotta get back to work... think i exhausted my fingers already... woops!
thanks for taking care of me =]
Six months since that elusive "yes" that Lou made me wait for quite a while... and geez... time really flies! It really feels like yesterday that we first went out for our first lunch... and that was back in January!
Well we're not really the sort to celebrate each month with a bang but i guess 6 months is quite a milestone to remember =P Baby's now at TSH training... i'm just going to do my work here at macs while waiting for her so at least we can spend the remainder of the day together =P
Oh, that silly girl went to splurge on something that i would never have bought for myself... a pair of sandals that could probably feed a third-world country in terms of cost... geez... and what's more... she actually "faked" me on the day she went to buy it... sneaky sneaky! But nonetheless... thanks beeeeee! and oh, a word of thanks to Debbie as well who looked so stoned that day i swear she could fall asleep anytime =P
Six months may not be a very long time... but a journey of a thousand miles has to start somewhere eh? Here's looking forward to more milestones together =] Thanks for the wonderful 6 (+3) months you've given me =]
I love you baby!