In Continuum.: June 2008

Scenic World

Monday, June 30, 2008

Scenic World

The lights go on, the lights go off
When things don't feel right
I lie down like a tired dog
Licking his wounds in the shade

When I feel alive
I try to imagine a careless life
A scenic world where the sunsets are all
Breathtaking.

Breathtaking.

From The Bottom Of My Eyeballs

From The Bottom Of My Eyeballs

Have you ever heard of somebody saying something like "I love you with all my heart", or "I thank you from the bottom of my heart"? You kind of hear it all the time, on soap operas, in cheesy love songs, in cheap romance novels, from your boyfriend for the umpteenth time. It gets a little sickening after some time doesn't it, as if saying those words are like putting a full stop to the end of a sentence. It just seems natural these days to say those words, or else you might be cheating, lying, or all of the above. But if you look into it, if you really look into it, what "heart", why "heart"? Everybody loves something or somebody else with all their heart, but who came up with the idea of using a heart to love a person when it is really your brain doing all the work anyway. The brain is completely under-rated here, and all the credit goes to the heart for no apparent reasons when all that goes there are really just deoxygenated blood. The heart is really a complex composition of cardiac muscles at the size of a fist, pumping blood to the rest of the body - and that's it. Something as intangible as love does not originate from there, and you certainly won't find a lot of thanks at the bottom of anybody's heart.

So yes, you tend to see a bunch of floating hearts during occasions like Valentine's Day, you get to see them plastered on the walls of shopping malls, printed on gift cards, drawn on love letters, and everywhere you see an animated heart on a day like that. There must have been somebody out there who decided that it'd be neat to represent the emotion of love with a body part, and somehow he chose the heart to represent it. I have never figured out why that person decided to choose a human heart in the first place, perhaps the word "heart" has a nice little ring to it. You are not going to hear somebody say "I love with you all my lungs" or "I thank you from the bottom of my liver". Lungs and livers are just not very romantic to begin with, although the word "heart" is no less scientific and technical in nature than all the other organs in our bodies. Somehow, the heart just works for all the lovers out there, and none of them has ever questioned why they say such things that really don't make any sense at all.

I have a friend who said that "love" is represented by the human heart because that is the part of our body that keeps us alive. Well, that just doesn't make any sense because every part of our body keeps us alive one way or another, perhaps just not as noticeable as the heart. They are, however, equally important as all the other organs, so what makes the heart more qualified to be representing love in the first place? We probably can't do without our kidneys, or our small intestines, or even our anus. Everything is there because they are there for a reason, they are not going to be there for decorations or because there's an empty space for your body to fill. That is why babies born without anuses are being drilled one literally, because it is an important part of the body. So what if the heart pumps blood around the body twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week, nothing works after a prolonged period of feces gathering inside your rectum, and everything subsequently shuts down afterwards. Even our anuses are important, so can I love you with all my anus too?

It's probably impolite, to love somebody with your anus. It's usually where you poop from, and it certainly does not smell very nice. To love somebody with that body part, although it is certainly vital to our survival, is just not very glamorous and poetic, at least not as poetic as a heart. So let's pick a cleaner body part, how about the eyes? The eyes are amazing things, in fact they are probably the most beautiful body part that we have, unless you want to take women's breasts into consideration. But not all breasts are beautiful, so I think eyeballs completely take the cake here (to where, you ask?). You don't hear people complaining about dirty eyes, and our eyes have the natural ability to clean themselves up when something gets in it. You start to tear uncontrollably, or blink as if you are trying to flirt. All these bodily functions make sure that your vision remains at 20/20 all the time without irritations, whatsoever. I'm pretty sure we have all looked into an eyeball before, like one of those high definition pictures of somebody else's eyeballs. Aren't those the most beautiful things in the world? It looks somewhat like a nebula somehow, something at the end of the galaxy. It's pretty amazing.

So can we love each other with all our eyeballs? We don't have food passing through our eyeballs like the stomach, or the small intestines, or the big intestines for that matter. Just imagine all the crap you get when you travel through your body, and you find yourself face to face with your breakfast, and maybe even the dinner from last night half digested in your stomach. It's a pretty repulsive sight, and I don't suppose love should be associated with something like that. It's just not graceful enough, and certainly strange to associate love with intestines. I mean, it'd be strange to draw a series of intestines on Valentine's Day cards for sure, and an anus would be pretty hard to draw since, under normal circumstances, no one has ever seen their own anuses. Heart just seems to be the natural choice, and it just seems like I am shooting myself in the toes now. The heart is somewhat symmetrical on both sides, with nice little curves at the top and a little tapered end at the bottom - how cute, like a rabbit or, a baby hedgehog. The heart just seems natural, so perhaps we should love each other with all our hearts after all, right?

No, not really. The brain is under-rated, like I said. It isn't even mentioned in a sensible and logical sentence like "You have been on my mind all the time". What is a mind anyway, what in the world is it? Some people say that it is something like your soul, something that exists with you but you cannot put a finger on it. I think the mind is a process, and the process is a part of the function of a little tofu-like organ called - our brain. The brain is really what makes everything work, and whether or not you love or hate a person is completely dependent on what your brain wants you to feel. If you like to smear peanut butter all over yourself and then dance naked in your kitchen when nobody is at home, that is really your brain doing the job and not your heart. The heart doesn't even think for itself, it is governed by the brain. In other words, the brain owns the heart, it's the boss of the body. You can't possibly love a person with your brain removed from your skull, because your brain registers the emotion and then tells you that you love that person. So you want to be with her, you want to touch her, and you want to feel her presence. The brain should be representing love, not hearts.

But of course, the word "brain" doesn't actually sound very nice either. It's too scientific, and it is usually used when you are either praising someone for his intelligence or degrading someone for his utter stupidity. Either way, you don't associate brains with love because, well, that guy that came up with the heart thing said so. So somebody came up with the beautiful euphemism for our brains, and that is "our minds". Then somebody else came up with the argument of the separation of the brain and the mind, and whether or not they are the same or completely different things. I do suppose in every basic psychology classes around the world, students are still arguing over this issue ever since it was first brought up. Either the brain or the mind, it certainly isn't going to be the heart to win out at the end of the day. The heart is, like I said, a pumping organ full of blood, and it is as important as all the other organs. Why should the other organs be discredited in the first place?

So the next time you decide to love somebody with all your heart, think about all the other organs in your body before you say it. Think about your bladder, or your ears, or even your spine if you want to. Everything makes as much, or as little, sense as the heart. Whoever that came up with the heart thing must have thought it funny to do so. He must have thought it to be interesting to conduct some kind of social experiment to see if anybody catches on to something as ridiculous as what he said. We all fell for his trick though, now everybody is loving with all their hearts and thanking people with the bottom of their hearts too. What is a heart anyway, nobody is ever going to give me an answer. And if you can, if you do have your own reasons as to why we use the heart to represent the love that we all share instead of any other organs, than I shall sincerely thank you - from the bottom of my eyeballs.

P.S. Did you know that 60000 eyeballs are thrashed every single year? That is how under-rated it is. Appreciate your eyeballs people, stop playing your PSPs in the dark.

That Birthday Thing

Sunday, June 29, 2008

That Birthday Thing

Perspectives about birthdays can vary greatly from country to country, from culture to culture. We've been brought up with a heavy influence from the western culture, everything from the birthday cake to the birthday candles and the birthday wishes - everything. It just seems more pleasant I suppose, a day in the year when you celebrate your birth into this wonderful and beautiful world of ours. Alright, if you didn't catch the sarcasm in that last sentence, I really meant the dreadful and insufferable world of ours, depending on the context. You hardly have the time to think about all the possible sufferings, however, when you are in line with the western way of celebrating birthdays. You invite a bunch of friends, a handful of relatives, and a pinch of relatives to your home, and the party ends when you cut the cake and, occasionally, when everybody is drunk. It really depends on which comes first, since the presence of drunken friends may very well end the party with the destruction of your living room, a brawl, or worse.

The Chinese seem to have a different view on birthdays. Instead of receiving gifts and greetings on your birthdays, the Chinese believe that you should be the one thanking your parents, especially your mother, for giving birth to you in the very first place. It may seem odd to most of us out there who have been so used to throwing great big parties for ourselves, giving excuses to invite all your friends into your home when you really could have been better off by holding a simple dinner at a fancy restaurant. It's something about the amount of pain your mother went through when she was giving birth to you, and that you should thank her for going through with the entire ordeal just to make sure you get your lazy bum out of her womb. Like many traditions around the world, such logic doesn't actually make any sense. In fact, if you are picky about things, like me, nothing does. Still, it really depends on how you want to look at your birthday and how you want to celebrate it. You can receive gifts and thank your mother at the very same time, or you can refuse the gifts and then forget about your mother altogether - then get drunk. It's really up to you, because it is your birthday and you can cry if you want to. I think it's a "party" in the context of the song, but who cares - it's my birthday.

Some people think that it is somewhat of an honor if you share your birthday with somebody famous, someone like Dalai Lama or Nelson Mandela, or somebody like that. Some may prefer to share their birthdays with celebrities, like Bono or maybe George Clooney. It is interesting to know that somewhere on the other side of the world, somebody famous is celebrating his or her birthday in the same time as yourself, it makes you think that they are celebrating for you too. Well, they are really not, they are just doing their own thing and you are doing yours, and that is really the end of that. I cannot be bothered with who shares my birthday when it comes to somebody famous, but I did a little research on it anyway. There is something disturbing when you know more people who died on your birthday than those who shares the same birthday as you - and the latter group of people aren't exactly too famous either. Let's see, I know Gary Busey and Colin Hay from the list of births, but I also know Edward Young, Katherine Hepburn, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and William Hickey died on 29th of June. So much for a birthday.

I am the type who prefers to keep my birthday a hush-hush unless I am being asked about it for whatever reasons. Filling up a registration form for a debit card, online forum membership, a lucky draw at the shopping mall, or to some random stranger on the street asking for a minute or two to answer their silly questions. These are the only occasions when I give my birthday out freely, although I cannot say the same about every other time. It is not shame that keeps my mouth shut, but it is just not a social norm to be announcing it to the world, unless you are rich enough to throw a big party every single year, and you need to make a list of guests six months before the actual birthday celebration. In that case, it does make a little more sense. Still, I have been the kind of person to keep things on the down low, simply because the birthday boy gets all the attention, and there are times when these attention are rather unwanted to begin with. That is especially true when you are turning nineteen in the army and you know the kind of horrific things your platoon mates are capable of if they find out that it is your birthday. I don't suppose anybody in my platoon back in those days knew my birthday, they are probably still oblivious to it. Seeing how the other people were treated, I guess my secrecy was for my own protections.

It involved buckets of cold water, bottles of snake powders, tubes of camouflaging cream, rolls of rope, many instances of full frontal nudity, and humiliation on an epic scale. Explicit details shall be left out of this blog entry for the younger readers, but it is not difficult to imagine the kind of chaos and confusion involved in birthday celebrations like that. To call it a "celebration" is really quite a strange expression, since you are really the one suffering while everybody else gets the time of their lives with camera cellphones and filming your ordeal at the same time. I was never part of the group of torturous people, neither was I the victim in any of those platoon-stripping frenzies. I made sure that I stayed away from everything, which also gave me a good reason to be immune to such humiliation. I remember this one time when Eugene Sin, my platoon officer from Hell, decided that it'd be funny to throw eggs and flour at one of my friends, who was never really part of the gang anyway. He bought the eggs and the flour, but it was funny how nobody was interested to be a part of his crime. The eggs ended up in our bowls of instant noodles, and that was the end of the story for that.

So, this birthday thing, it is my birthday today, the big two-two. I suppose it is a big thing, because you only get two identical numbers in your age so many times. Celebration isn't my thing, and I suppose I said the same thing last year when I turned twenty-one, when I officially became an adult so to speak. People threw parties, great big parties for their twenty-first, while I elected the way of staying at home by myself for the most part. Of course, buying books and other little things that I like has been a tradition of mine, but then the celebration does not go beyond that most of the time. This year hasn't been any different from the last, and I have been spending the better part of this weekend trying to find the bookworm inside of me that I have lost to school, and not to mention the frequent trips to the bookstore. I love bookstores by the way, most people don't like to visit that place in Singapore. The reading population is pretty low in Singapore, and I can probably find statistical evidences to proof that too. It is my haven in town, my refuge when the streets and the malls become too crowded. I run for the nearest bookstore because that is where most people stay away from.

I think the age of twenty-two is a good year, although 2008 hasn't been the kindest of years for me. The uneventfulness coupled with the lack of luck in any field has been quite a downer to say the least, but I guess there are aspects of it I should be very thankful for - the concert tickets I managed to purchase, for example. Anyway, it's just this expectation of sorts when you turn twenty one, the way everybody sees you as an adult and sort of expects you to be able to do everything and shed all that childish and naive thoughts you've had for the past twenty years. So you get this immense amount of pressure from your parents, from your relatives, from yourself, but mostly the society as a whole. I think twenty five is a rather pressurizing age too, because that is the kind of time people usually get into a serious relationship, when some people get married and might already have kids by that age. If you are single by the time you hit twenty five, there is this blind and subtle pressure from the people around you, and you cannot help but ask yourself what is wrong with you that is, in a way, deflecting people away. Twenty two is a comfortable age, you are far enough from twenty one to be free of responsibilities, and also young enough to ignore the responsibilities of a twenty five year old.

Some people put a lot of emphasis on birthday greetings from friends, and some people even take offense when one of them forgets or just completely ignore their birthdays, seeing it as a sign of negligence or simply cannot be bothered with you. It's strange how people place so much emphasis on a single day, and even stranger when you consider the measure of a friend through whether or not they bother to remember your birthdays or not. Presents are nice, money is nicer, greetings are fine, but then it's not like your life is going to be worse without any greetings in the first place. It is probably going to be like just an ordinary day, minus all the repetitive message tones you get throughout the day. Once in a while you get messages from people you hardly expected to get a message from - that's you Reina - and those messages are particularly touching. That is not to belittle all the other messages, but some are just extra nice, that's all. And as for those who didn't text me, so what? It doesn't really matter to me, I don't see you people as less of a friend or a person for that matter. They are just birthday greetings, and getting a hundred of those is not going to win you a prize. It is OK if you don't remember, it's not like I had some kind of publicity to promote it in the first place.

One thing that I am particular about though, and it is the fact that we should all be happy on our birthdays. We came out from the womb kicking and screaming, and most people are probably going to leave this world in the same way that we entered anyway. The last thing anybody would want to do is to be kicking and screaming on your birthday, when you started yourself out in this world in the very same way and fashion. I say put on a smile, be nice to people, be nicer to yourself. It is an excuse to pamper yourself, even if it is just an excuse. I bought myself more books, I sang aloud on my guitar, and I annoyed the hell out of my neighbors by playing in the dining room once more. But it is my birthday, and I want to be a happy person in this day. It only happens once every year anyway, so we can all be excused and be merry. This birthday thing is over-rated, but only if you place way too much emphasis. It's all about the four letter word people, it's all about K.I.S.S, and that is the acronym for "Keep It Simple, Stupid". Simplicity is everything on your birthday, and less is more. Be happy on your birthday, you owe it to yourself.

P.S. As you can see, my love for books is life-controlling.

The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards

The Border Trilogy by Cormac McCarthy

Mid-Point Retail Therapy/ Ultimate Wish list

Friday, June 27, 2008

Mid-Point Retail Therapy/ Ultimate Wish List

It's the halfway point of the semester, I think it is time for a little celebration and a little confetti to rain down upon our heads. It feels less like the halfway point, but more like the end of the semester somehow. With the two modules crammed up within six weeks is just not something that should be attempted by just anybody out there, the word "hectic" does not begin to describe what goes on in the classrooms on a day to day basis. The speed at which Jan goes through her materials is as good as the lot of us speed reading through the text and then picking out random sentences to highlight. It is a complete waste of time for the most part, but you cannot exactly blame Jan for that either. Nobody likes to squeeze fourteen odd chapters into six weeks, and it's not like she has a say in things anyway. So a dozen quizzes later, a series of assignments and exams and not to mention those group presentations, we are here at the halfway point before we embark on the second leg of the journey through the summer semester. Yes, the summer semester, while everybody else is having their summer breaks. It's discouraging at times, but then the thought of you studying while others are doing overtimes in those claustrophobic offices with no extra pay changes everything, really.

So tomorrow, or rather later today, is going to be the finals for my psychology module. It has gone by really quickly, perhaps a little too quickly considering the fact that Julie Bowker has been more than just a great lecturer, as if not enough good things have been said about her from the students anyway. Things have been going nice and smoothly so far, but it's not like we have not earned our rights to complain either. We are fatigued and we are frustrated, and we just want a mid-term break before we start everything all over again next week. The weekend is not going to be enough, it's going to feel like a brand new semester, I can wager that. Personally, my mind has been saturated with so much information about experimental designs, cultural imperialism, discursive imperialism, constructive repetitions, that I swear it has little room for anything else right now. The emotional rides aside, I think I need a breather somehow, and nothing is going to work better than retail therapy. And it is true, even guys need to splurge their money at times, I guess it's just the idea of not caring too much about the consequences that is so infinitely fun. Besides, my birthday is coming, what better reason to hang my head loose?

The following was typed 24 hours later after the above.

So the psychology paper is done now, and it turned out to be somewhat decent. There is a certain fear when you finish a paper too fast, and you start to wonder to yourself if you did horribly bad or fantastically well. Either way, it is a risk that I do not want to take, and it certainly does not help with the mindset at all. You need a mindset to go splurging your money, you need a particular frame of mind for things like that. You cannot go out there into the wild with extra baggage, you tend to hesitate and it becomes difficult to carry yourself through. So I decided that what has been done was done, and there wasn't anything I could do about it anyway. I made up a mental list of things to buy and things to look out for, and the amount of money involved is pretty staggering. Either way, nothing was going to stop me today, until the disappointing grade started to come in.

It is one in the morning right now, and more than the physical fatigue, I am also tired of talking about how Jan hasn't been the same old Jan from Louisiana. She has changed a little in this semester, somehow a little less approachable and strange. It must be because of the rushed schedule, or the big lecture class, or maybe a combination of both. She hardly taught anything in class really, and the brief summary of the chapters certainly didn't help with our understanding at all. There are times when you start to wonder if you spent your money on the right institution, since the quality of the lecturers isn't really there in my opinion, for the most part. We have a lecturer who'd like the oral presentations to be four minutes long for each person in the group - that's hardly a pop song on the radio! It is little absurd things like that that pisses me off, and it is made worse by the fact that the presentation grade single-handedly tore my hopes and dreams down for this semester. I was on the right path to score a good A, until the group presentation grade came - yes, it is that bad.

So, a whole bunch of us decided to hang out in town today after the paper, and I suppose it has been a long time since I did anything half as exciting. There was Felicia, Joyce, Barney, Jeremy, Kevin, Sarah, Shi Ting and myself, the old gang really. It was nice of them to take me in, and it was fun hanging out again doing absolutely aimless stuff. I ended up being the only person buying my head off while everybody kind of followed for the most part. I felt a little guilt-ridden, but at the same time I couldn't be bothered about that feeling either. I was out there for myself, and I needed my pills - or books - as fast as possible. Despite the absolute hatred for the town on Fridays and not to mention the excruciating heat, we braved all the elements and survived the ordeal with a strange lunch on my part and a great hang out at Subway - my craving fulfilled indeed! Disappointing doesn't exactly begin to say what I feel about the grade, but at the same time I suppose I just have to dust the dirt off my shoulders, like everything else in my life right now. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed on my psychology paper today, and that Julie Bowker would somehow be kind enough to award me with an A that, I think, I rightfully deserve.

So, here's a list of things that I bought today and the things that I intend to get in the near future. It's all about money these days, and even that has become quite a dilemma for me when I reach to the back of my pants for the wallet. Temptations and more temptations, I only wish sometimes that I'd be able to run away to an island without those lures in life. Anyway, spending money did get my mind off those disappointing grades and my murderous thoughts, and hanging out with old friends again was especially fun indeed.

Ronin by Frank Miller.

I've been wanting to read this graphic novel for some time, and Frank Miller hasn't let me down in terms of his writing thus far - even Alan Moore has somehow let me down with his re-imagination of Wildcats. Anyway, it definitely is an interesting concept to blend elements of Japanese animations into an american graphic novel, and this is way ahead of its time when it was published in the 1980s. The book, so far, does seem to have a very heavy influence from both Japanese animations as well as Philip K. Dick books, something which I find to be a good thing in any medium. Philip K. Dick is a science fiction genius, and it doesn't get any better when you combine that with Frank Miller's awesome story telling abilities. It just occurred to me the other day while compiling a list of things to get my hands on that I actually haven't read one of his greatest masterpiece yet, and I guess it is on to the Sin City series next when I do save enough money to spend without guilt or restrains.

3X Carlin: An Orgy of George by George Carlin

As you may already know, one of my favorite comedians just died a couple of days ago. It is truly a great lost to the world of, not just comedy, but also the artistic world as a whole. He was more than a comedian, but he was a writer and a poet as well. I have two regrets in regards to his death, and they are: the fact that I didn't get to know about him sooner, and the fact that I never had the opportunity to attend one of his gigs. Anyway, I guess his legacy is going to live on in the DVDs and the books, which is why I decided to get my hands on this giant compilation monster. It is basically the compiled version of three of his more recent books, with a few pages of previously unpublished materials thrown in. I do enjoy his radical viewpoints, and the way he forces you to think and eases you into side-splitting laughter. This is one book you are never going to catch me reading in public places, because I wouldn't want to embarrass myself by laughing out loud. It was the last book in Borders today, and it came in a pretty hardcover slipcase! Well worth the money indeed, and the laughter to come!

P.S. I know the picture above is that of a calendar. I couldn't find a big enough picture of the book, so I guess I had to make do.

Tickets for the Death Cab for Cutie Concert

That's right, I woke up at nine in the morning today just to get my hands on the tickets for the upcoming concert. They are, after all, the so-called biggest indie band out there, and the fact that they canceled their gig in Malaysia just to come to Singapore because we offered them a better price is certainly going to cause an uproar in the music community here. So I knew I had to be there at nine in the morning just to get my tickets, and the Sistic website was very punctual about things - although their booking system was rather mind boggling on my part. I bought the tickets for myself and Ahmad, and the $128 seats are probably going to be close enough to the stage for me to fall into an absolute state of dream mode during the concert. I swear, if they play What Sarah Said and/or Title and Registration, I am going to scream and explode for all the good reasons. 12th of August just seems way too far away from where I am right now. I have thought of the question to ask Ben Gibbard if there is an autograph session after the concert, and I intend to get to the bottom of the question that hasn't been answered.

Wish List

I'm not big on wish lists, I don't usually get everything I want from that list. I think I have created a list some time last year as well, but most of the stuff never actually came true - Lego, anyone? It's somewhat like new year resolutions, they probably only last for a week or two after the first day of January before you just give up on yourself completely. They never stay long enough to come true anyway, but I figured there isn't a harm to create a future list for foreseeable retail therapy at the end of the summer semester.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

I've never read any of his books, but at least the story he crafted for No Country for Old Men got me incredibly intrigued. Books in regards to a dystopia-view of the future is always exciting, the way different authors have various interpretations and predictions. Ronin by Frank Miller had its own visualization of the future world, and Cormac McCarthy certainly has his own interpretations as well. I have read a few pages from No Country for Old Men, and I must say that his style of writing is very unique and different to say the very least. When it comes to books, I hardly ever hesitate really, and this books is definitely going to be a part of my collection in the near future - a future in which I hope to remain in status quo, and not in a state of dystopia.

Where The Light Is by John Mayer

Everybody should know, by now, just how much I respect this man as a musician, as a guitarist, and as a person. The last concert DVD he released was great, but it somehow felt underwhelming for the most part. It was just a collection of pop songs from his younger days, and it doesn't actually have a lot of "rewatchability" to be perfectly honest. So this time around, with more experiences under his belt and maturity, he is dishing out yet another live convert DVD that is going to include a solo acoustic set, a set with his Trio band, and another set with his full band. That is to say, three concerts for the price of one, and the evolution of John Mayer within the span of more than two hours. Where The Light Is is going to mark his return to what he does best, and that is to weave his lyrics seamlessly into his guitar riffs live on stage. I have been waiting for the release of this DVD ever since the announcement last December, and I must say that July 1st cannot come soon enough for me. I just hope that it is going to be released in Singapore on the same day, or I am going to explode - and bring HMV with me.

Apple Time Capsule

This may be a long shot, but it has been at the back of my head for a long time. I am a self-declared bitch of Apple, and anything produced by Apple has a lure to me that I cannot deny. For one, I do need something in my home to get rid of all the ethernet cables. Second of all, I do need an alternate storage device for the stuff that I have in my iMac, since it only has one hard drive - that'd also mean a complete clearance of files if something bad happens, knock on wood. Most of all, however, it is going to be pretty awesome to launch Time Machine on my iMac, the way the desktop disappears into the screen and reveals a series of cascading Finder windows in deep space - geek love! I'd expect myself to need some kind of storage device once I reach the States next year anyway, and the 120GB space inside the Macbook is certainly not going to be enough on the road. So, is it going to be the 500GB demon or the 1TB monster? The dilemma, the dilemma.

The Escapist

Thursday, June 26, 2008

The Escapist

And in the end

We lie awake

And we dream

Of making our escape.

The Doctor Who Knew Everything

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

The Doctor Who Knew Everything

Two Edwards wasn't the easiest class to deal with, and everybody knew that back in high school. We were infamous for a lot of things, things that always pushed the envelopes but never broke the rules. That was also why we always got away with things that plucked on the nerves of the discipline masters - and I said "masters" because there were at least three who paced the corridors of the schools with their canes at different hours of the day. That was how out-of-control the people from my school were, although they are much more tamed now like sedated monkeys. It has got something to do with the abolishing of affiliation from the primary school, which was also why the minimum PSLE score was raised by a whooping fifty points. All those troublemakers that got into my high school back then were barred from entering, and my batch just happened to be the last batch with all these so-called troublemakers. With a class like mine, we needed a group of teachers who were able to clench their iron fists around our necks. So day one of school in the year 2000, The Doctor came through the front doors of the classroom and silenced the class with his aura of arrogance and pride, despite the obvious lack of height.

He never allowed anybody to call him "mister", because he was a doctor - like a real doctor in a hospital who treated patients. For his sake, his name shall remain unknown, but I am sure my friends from high school probably knows who I am talking about. He was the kind of colleague you wouldn't want to have, and he always placed himself on a higher pedestal above everybody else. He was my chinese teacher, and his first appearance through the doors wasn't welcoming at all. He had a stack of books and papers in one hand and the free arm was folded behind his back, and the arm with the books and the papers joined the other arm once he placed them on the table at the corner of the classroom and remained that way for the next year or so. That was how he talked, with his arms folded to the back unless he needed to write something on the board or to point accusingly at a student for being a typical teenage idiot. He wasn't very tall, and most of the high school kids were already as tall, or taller, than him by the time we were fourteen years old. His padded leather shoes failed to make any differences, but his arrogance and his pride more than redeemed his lack in height.

He was a man that was full of pride, and he had a lot of those in everything that he was. He was proud to be a doctor, or a physician as he preferred to be known, and he was definitely proud to be a teacher as well. More than anything, however, he was proud to be a Chinese, and he'd go on and on about the glory of the Chinese people and the wondrous history that is unique to our race. There isn't anything wrong with being proud to be your own race, but the way he puts his pride across to the rest of the class never failed to make us cringe, like nails scratched over a bathroom sink. You know how it is when you hear a group of people singing some patriotic songs about the country, those cliche advertisement on the television when the national day is approaching. You cannot help but shutter at the thought of a hundred thousand people out there being proud of an intangible thing such as a country. What really is that, anyway? So, the doctor used to lecture us about why we should be proud to be a chinese just like him, and he'd say that while reciting a poetry from the textbook or looking out through the windows and into the crystal blue skies. He was dramatic, perhaps overly so - and this is coming from a drama club president, and that is saying a lot.

I am guessing he was secretly perverse, I am not entirely sure. After all, he was the same teacher that gave the class graphical details about castration in ancient China, how the eunuchs were forced to castrate because the kings back then didn't want them to have any affairs with their queens. Anyway, he kept telling us about the details with that glee on his face that it made us all feel sick, and he should count himself as lucky that none of us decided to sue his ass off for verbally harassing us with his perverse and twisted thoughts. He started telling us about cutting off testicles, or the penis itself, or the whole thing and then use a bamboo stick as some kind of substitute, or something. It was disturbing, and I'm sure we all felt our balls ache that afternoon in class.

I never actually understood his professional, how he claimed to be a physician practicing at a neighborhood hospital in Toa Payoh. On one hand he was a teacher at a high school, and the other he was a practicing physician? Something was very wrong there, but it's not like he bothered to explain it to us anyway. He was always promoting his hospital in class, and telling us that he'd give any student free treatments at his clinic if we encounter any forms of illnesses or stress from school work. It is nice to know that the teacher is going to take care of your physical welfare in one way, but the doctor left out the part about poking needles into your body to ease your pain. He was not just any kind of doctor per se, he was a certified chinese medicine physician, and he would not hesitate to stab a needle into the back of your neck if he had to. There were murmurs about him knowing black magic and kung fu amongst the students, and nobody doubted the secret abilities of this doctor. After all, his checkered shirt was already rolled down to his wrists, and nobody knew what he had hidden underneath those sleeves. We suspect thousands of needles hidden underneath, or perhaps some chinese herbs to drug the students into straight A churning machines. Either way, we didn't want to mess with him - until I did.

We had a chinese paper this one time, and I think it was the mid-terms or something like that. It was a major paper of course, and everybody wanted to do well. The top three in chinese for the class were always the same people: Mark, Anthony, or myself. We would switch positions, but there weren't a lot of possible permutations back then, because we were all equally good and equally bad at chinese. Anyway, the school decided that it'd be neat for the students to memorize definitions for individual words from the dictionary and then test them in the papers, and they actually made the effort to extract these words from a standard dictionary and then reprint them into a book for us to memorize. So the lot of us got the book for free months before the paper, and we were asked to memorize the definitions of the given words, one by one. It'd be absurd for anybody to memorize every single word of every single definition, but that was exactly what the school wanted - as ridiculous as it sounds. They wanted the students to remember every single word, and to regurgitate them in the exams. It was meant to be a try-out they say, to see if this new section in the paper would help the students understand the words better. Of course, when you require the students to just blindly feed themselves with definitions, they are only going to be brain cell killing whores.

So I did the paper according to my own definitions, but of course they didn't stray too far away from the original meaning. I mean, not to boast or anything, but my chinese was one of the best in class, no questions about that. When the papers were returned, my grades were certainly not up to my expectations, and certainly not up to the expectations from the rest of the class. Everybody tanked, including me, and I was really pissed off by it because that whole section with the definition memorizing was marked wrong with big giant crosses unique only to that doctor of ours. I walked up to the front of the class with my test paper in hand, and his gaze followed me as my shadow loomed up against his body. He was overwhelmed by my shadow and my raging anger, but his chin was perked up high and he was looking up at me from the top of his glasses, as if he couldn't be bothered with what I had to say - although he already knew.

I told him that my definitions were not very much different from the ones given in the book, and giving me zero for every single question was just completely absurd - I said so in chinese, of course. The entire class held their breaths, and I could hear the silence in between the pauses of our debate. He smelled funny, like old people, but worse. It was perhaps a strange brand of cologne mixed with some strange chinese herbs, or a blend of all of the above and tigers' testicles. If his lips weren't converged together to form a weird wrinkly pout, he'd have an odd smirk on his face couple with the word "schmuck" written all over his face in invisible ink. The latter was the look that he had when I presented my argument, saying that what I wrote in the paper was, in essence, no different from the standard that he used. He just smiled, that ridiculous smile, and he told me this," If your definitions are correct, then maybe you should write a dictionary and not be a student". I wanted to murder that midget son of a bitch right there and then, like put chalk through his nose and then force him to snort them up or something. I had all kinds of murderous and evil thoughts running through my head back then, and all I wanted to do was to throw him into a bed full of his acupuncture needles.

My defiance was short-lived, but then it spurted a series of minor chaos in classes that caused him to lose his cool. His hands weren't behind his back any longer, and he always had a handkerchief back then to wide away his cold sweat. I don't think he is teaching in my high school right now, he probably retreated into that neighborhood hospital of his, a hospital that looks more like a giant grotesque temple more than anything. I haven't heard from him for some time, and I am wondering why I am blogging about him as we speak. Perhaps it was how hateful he was, or the act of defiance in class that gave me my fifteen seconds of fame. Whatever it is, I hope that he is doing better with his doctoring profession than his failed teaching career, at any rate. At least being a doctor, he wouldn't have to pretend that he knew anything and everything in this world, even when his world really was filled with castrated testicles and bamboo sticks.

The Last King Of Scotland

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

The Last King Of Scotland

The Last King of Scotland was one of those movies that slipped off the radar for me because I was too busy checking out other movies that were nominated for the Oscars last year. It just slipped by my timetable last year and I really didn't have the time to watch it, and it's not like anybody heard of it back then anyway. Everybody was raving about Forest Whitaker's performance in this movie on one hand and Helen Mirren's performance in The Queen on the other. So I checked out the latter without watching this one, and one of the finest performance by an actor was sorely missed due to conflicting schedules. Anyway, so my sister hasn't been home to entertain my mother with her nonsense - I meant that in a good way - these days because she is on her graduation trip. So my mother and I planned to have movie marathons for the next couple of days, just sit at home and watch rented DVDs, one every night until she returns. We've watched The Fountain, Atonement, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly so far, and we just watched this movie after dinner today. It wasn't actually on the list of movies I wanted her to watch, but since No Country for Old Men and Lars and the Real Girl didn't have chinese subtitles when I rented them, I had to pick something that neither of us has watched before.

The Last King of Scotland begins with Nicholas Garrigan graduating from medical school, and he wants to achieve something in his life with his skills as a doctor. So he decided to head down to Uganda to help out with the locals, but mostly to experience the world and have fun anyway. Just as he was settling into his new working environment, his path crossed with the new president of Uganda, Idi Amin (Forest Whitaker), who took him in as his personal physician after Nicholas successfully treated his sprained wrist. Charmed by his charisma initially, Nicholas gladly took the job as the president's physician, and he gradually became his personal advisor and confidante as well. However, as the oppositions in the country started to revolt against the military government, Nicholas realized that the man that he grew to respect as a father figure really was a tyrant and a mass murderer.

Based on the true story of Idi Amin after his military coup in Uganda, the film is actually an adaptation from a novel with the same name. Most of the events that occur in the film were actual events, but certain characters were fictional or altered for the sake of the story. Dr. Nicholas Garrigan never actually existed, but it was still interesting to see the life of this mad tyrant from the inside, and how Nicholas' wrong decisions led to even more wrong decisions being made. The Last King of Scotland was probably 2007's Hotel Rwanda because of how both of them brought attention to situations in Africa that the rest of the world have so easily overlooked. This time, however, it is about the man responsible for the death of 300,000 people in his own country, and also the man that fed his people to the crocodiles because there weren't enough time to dig graves for those people.

With that said, the film does take its time to tell the story in full. Initially, we are as innocent as Nicholas when it comes to our perspective of Amin. We see him as a charismatic leader, a promising one who swore to the development of Uganda and stuff like that. Anybody would have fell for his spell instantaneously, but then you only sink deeper as you get to know the man behind the curtain. Like Hotel Rwanda, this film did not use gruesome scenes to tell the horrors in Uganda, although there were a few graphic scenes that flashed on the screen for a few split seconds - it's definitely not a shot, however, you'd want to pause at, let me assure you. The horrors of the genocide in Uganda can be seen through the eyes of Amin, not because he was a victim but because that is where they originated from. Amin's charisma and charm quickly turned into carnage and revenge as more and more oppositions attempted to assassinate him. His ruthlessness, his mercilessness, and his paranoia begins to surface, and Nicholas is caught in the middle of this whole mess unwillingly.

Director Kevin Macdonald very wisely presented Nicholas to be a character that isn't very easy to like. I mean, he's the type of teenager too proud and too naive at the same time to know the realities of the world. Being a graduate from a medical school and coming from a rich family, it is easy to slip into that state especially when you have been sheltered for so long. Initially, you kind of resent his character, but then Amin's shadow over Nicholas definitely overshadows all his little sins. Forest Whitaker is petrifying as Idi Amin, and he is probably one of the scariest on screen villains ever presented. You fear him even when he is smiling at you, and you cannot help but see this demon stirring inside his head. I cannot imagine being around somebody like that, and Forest Whitaker did such a fine job in this film that you cannot help but worship his ability to transform out of his usual self in real life. That's the same character in Panic Room that chickened out on robbing the house, imagine that.

James McAvoy's character, as mentioned, isn't very likable. I have grown to like him as an actor, especially after his performance in Atonement. Interestingly, this film just feels somewhat like a prequel to Atonement in the sense that we have James McAvoy's character committing all these sins, and then we have the movie "Atonement" that skyrocketed him to worldwide fame. Anyway, as good as his performance was, nobody could beat Forest Whitaker. I'm not sure where he got that rage and anger from, but it sure scared the living daylight out of me when he stared into Nicholas' eyes just before he ordered him to be hung onto hooks by his skin - yeah, you read that right. I won't spoil anything here, but let's just say you'd want to look away if you are a fan of James McAvoy, it's not a pretty scene.

Despite the slow narrative towards the beginning of the film, the director managed to carry the movie all the way through with Whitaker's performance as well as a quick-moving story line. I haven't been so tensed up about a climax for a movie for a very long time, and you would too during the scene at the airport. I thought the editing was perfect, although the pacing was a little awkward at times throughout the movie. Anyway, a line in the film really hit it home for me, when a doctor said "Go back home and tell the world what happened here. They will believe you, because you are a white man", or something like that. It is true how the world sometimes neglect the continent and what is happening there because, well, the continent has little to offer to the rest of the world. It's all about the oil, and the money, and people would do anything to gain a share of them even if it means that you'd have to throw people into the rivers to feed crocodiles. More than just a frightful autobiography of Idi Amin in a way, this is a cautionary tale of what would happen when power overwhelms someone in the midst of chaos. Bloodshed ensues, and the worst part is when the world turns away completely.

8.5/10

George Carlin [1937-2008]

Monday, June 23, 2008

George Carlin [1937-2008]

For the one that saw the truth

in a world of lies.

For the one that gave me laughter

in the long hours of the night.

Rest in peace now,

my favorite comedian of all time.

“The most unfair thing about life is the way it ends. I mean, life is tough. It takes up a lot of your time. What do you get at the end of it? A Death! What’s that, a bonus? I think the life cycle is all backwards. You should die first, get it out of the way. Then you live in an old age home. You get kicked out when you’re too young, you get a gold watch, you go to work. You work forty years until you’re young enough to enjoy your retirement. You do drugs, alcohol, you party, you get ready for high school. You go to grade school, you become a kid, you play, you have no responsibilities, you become a little baby, you go back into the womb, you spend your last nine months floating…and you finish off as an orgasm!”

- George Carlin

Tilly & The Wall

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Tilly & The Wall

I don't know who they are or where this song came from. Whoever and wherever, this song is pretty awesome. This is a song I am willing to lose my sleep over, never mind the senseless lyrics and the nonsensical music video. Sometimes you just have to let your head hang loose for awhile.

Pot Kettle Black

Foggy Hills

Saturday, June 21, 2008

Foggy Hills

I grew up in a small sleepy village tucked away in between two crests of hills that rose from either side of the highway that ran in between like a scar. They red-tiled house, the warehouse filled with oil-barrels, and the old german that used to rule the front lawns of my home - the german shepherd. I lived in a little town called Turtle Hills before I came to Singapore, because people say that the formation of the hills reminds them of a giant turtle perched on the rocks. I have had many fond memories of that place in the past, I think I blogged about it a long time ago concerning my childhood days. It was really an industrial town, and my home was right in the middle of it because it was easier for my parents to deal with the business and the two children at home at the very same time. My house had three floors, with the first being the office while the other two being the living quarters, and most of my days as a young rebel were spent speeding around the house in the battery powered toy jeep, or the toy trains that my parents bought for me. Those are the kind of memories I have of Turtle Hills, but the same cannot be said for some people I know who moved to that place at the wrong time.

Strictly speaking, I have lost all contact between myself and any friends or acquaintances that I have met before high school. A couple of them are still on my MSN contact list, but they exist strictly in the form of a blue box that pops up in the bottom right hand corner of the screen every once in a while. It is as if we keep each other on our contact lists for the sake of doing so without the intentions of catching up with each other at all. It may be the fault of mine - it probably is anyway - for not trying to do so, but then I guess we have grown too old and too far apart for any catching up before we eat a mouthful of dirt. However, the friends that I have made since my childhood days in Taiwan are still, surprisingly, on my MSN contact list, and it is quite a wonder how I still talk to them every once in a while despite the obvious language barrier. That is not to say that they do not understand a word of english, and I a word of mandarin. You know how it is with languages, it is always easier to listen and understand rather than typing them out, and neither side was very good at doing so anyway. That was until I found out how to communicate in Chinese with my iMac, and I decided to give a pure-chinese conversation a shot last night.

It was three in the morning when my childhood friend Sarah came online. That isn't really her real name of course, but then that was her english name while we were young because it just seemed kind of cool to have one back then for one reason or the other. She was the big sister of the pack, always the one with the ideas and the commanding one. She was also the oldest of the group, and I've always looked up to her in a way as a little brother, since my old elder sister never gave too much thought for me in the past anyway. So, we've been talking every once in a while over the past few years, and I remember helping her out with her english because she wanted to apply for a job as an air stewardess. It's not like the air stewardess working for any Taiwanese airlines are very good at their english anyway, but it is a requirement for all of them to be able to speak the language, or at least read from a template at a reasonable speed and fluency. I wrote this self-introduction letter for her in which she sent me in Chinese, and then I had to coach her about some grammatical things that she obviously forgot since she stopped learning the language a long time ago. But she picked things up really fast, and she was always eager to learn more things - her enthusiasm since her childhood days never dwindled, apparently.

There was a problem, however, with her applications. She's a centimeter or two too short, and she is a little too old to be applying for the job as an air stewardess. She's always wanted to be one, though, and hasn't given up hopes even now. I don't suppose she is ever going to get the job, but it's not like I have told her about this either. It's just the whole issue with age, and how nobody is going to get any younger anyway. Her fighting spirit and enthusiasm has always been what drove me to respect this girl, even as a child. So she's been trying for that job for the longest time, and never for once has she been recruited before. More than it is a difficult job, the application is even tougher, with hundreds of applicants applying for the interviews at any one time, the chances of anybody getting the job is really little to none, not to mention the fact that she doesn't actually fit the bill either. So she has settled for a job as a sales specialist at Quantas, at least it is still a job remotely related to the airline industry anyway. It's not difficult to know such people in our society anyway, the kind that gave up their dreams just to settle in for a job that pays, a job that gives you the food that you eat. For every success stories out there, there are probably a thousand more dreams that went down the gutter, and my friend is just one of the many whose dreams as an air stewardess failed to take off from the runway.

Life at Turtle Hills hasn't been easy for her, and the memories that she has gathered over the past six months have been anything but cheerful ones. The job doesn't pay well, the boss is from hell, and the long extra hours are not giving her time to breathe either. She feels robbed, she said, as we talked over the internet for the first time in a long time at three in the morning, and there was a sudden urge for me to fly back to Taiwan to check her out. It was a foolish thought, and the fact that I have school right now is probably going to make that thought impossible. Still, I would have if I haven't got anything to do right now - and no, my sister is probably not going to do anything about it despite the fact that she is in Taiwan. Six months at the same workplace and she is already feeling dejected and worthless, not so much because of the mundane nature of the job, but how her superiors do not appreciate her efforts and her attitude towards the job. I don't suppose I am in any position to judge whether or not she really failed to meet standards, or if he attitude was really not in accordance to the company's culture. Still, I don't suppose "being too happy" is a valid reason to blame someone for a rotten work attitude, when it really is anything but.

I've never known her to be the kind of person to settle down for the ordinary, as she was always the cheerful, happy-go-lucky one of the group. Sarah was the leader when the other five kids attempted to build a wooden house in the middle of a field, or when we decided to ride our bicycles out into the fields to break into new frontiers as we called it. She was always there, the kind of person you'd see in school actively participating in school events, always the one motivating others because that is what makes her feel alive - that is what makes her so unique and special. To accuse someone like that, to cut out a person's character and say that that is a flaw that you cannot tolerate, is like a death sentence somehow. I mean, that is the way that she is, and she has been that way for so many years ever since we've got to know each other. We've been hanging out since I was four years old, although I cannot say that we have grew up together in any way. It's just sad to see that the once innocent and lively person that I knew is now a sad and depressed sales specialist, who feels worthless and useless in the eyes of the company and her superiors. And there I was, a few months ago after our last conversation, thinking that nothing in this world was going to put her down - ever.

"This place is really foggy, isn't it?" she said, and I wasn't sure if she meant it literally. I do remember those cold winter mornings in Taiwan when I was younger, when the hill on the other side of the highway used to be covered in a thick layer of fog that covered the crests of the trees like Christmas tree decorations. She must have seen it in a different light though, she must have saw the fog like Halloween decorations instead, with monsters and giant spiders lurking in the woods, all of them with faces of her superiors baring their fangs and their claws. It must be hard living there alone, and the fact that it is in the middle of nowhere isn't helping either. I grew up there for a period of time, I know just how secluded that place can be. Aside from a few convenience store and a few temples, that place was pretty much filled with other industrial parks like the one she is working in now. It is a cheerless place, not somewhere you'd want to live fresh out of university and in the middle of your twenties. It is a place for roughed businessmen and old retired people - not her, not my friend, not Sarah.

So we go through school and we grumble about backstabbing classmates and taxing assignments, then we bitch about unreasonable sergeants and ridiculous officers from the army. Yet, it is a completely different gameplay once you are slapped with the label of being an "adult", and you are forced to be a part of the workforce. Like a long line of laborers working in front of a conveyor belt with mechanical parts being put together and then sent down the belt to the next employee. The image is almost like some communist country back in the fifties, or some totalitarian country that wants nothing but the lives of its own people taken away for the benefit of the country as a whole. I cannot imagine my own friend in a situation like that, although a sales specialist is a whole lot better than working at an assembly line. It is close enough anyway, and all she needs now is to have the courage to leave the job. I think she deserves better than this, whatever "this" is anyway. She needs the courage to know that a person's self-worth is not dependent on what others say, but rather in the things that he does. She has done too much in life to deserve a dead end job that is making her life completely miserable.

More than just being a friend on this side of the world giving her courage to let go of a life, I guess I was trying to give myself to same kind of courage when it is my chance to make the choice. It is not easy to just quit, to pack up your things in a box and leave like that. You have to think about the next job, or the next meal, or even the money for the bus ride home. It only takes two syllables to quit a job, but then it takes much more to get your life back on track afterwards. Most people are stuck in a job that they hate for the exact same reasons, for the fear of having a worse life than now. Still, there is always a choice in everything. Do you stay after normal working hours even though you don't have extra pay, or do you dust yourself off and leave at that time of the day despite everybody else trying to kiss the ass of the boss by staying late. Do you silently sit in front of the same desk for the rest of your life in a job that you hate with a passion or do you know when to pick up your things and start anew. I was watching an interview with a man who used to lived in Hawaii, and he was telling the interview what happened one day when he returned from work. His house was burned down because of a circuitry problem, and everything inside that house was gone. All he had was the wallet, the car that he was driving, the clothes that he was wearing, and nothing else. The life he knew was gone and turned into ashes. Still, he told the interviewer, he never felt more alive and free in his life than that one night he spent sleeping on the streets.

On The Tube

Thursday, June 19, 2008

On The Tube

My classmate from primary school became an overnight sensation when he was spotted on the evening news, along with the rest of his family for reasons that I can no longer remember. I vaguely remember my classmate and his two other brothers sitting on the doorstep of his house playing poker cards, doing tricks with them and stuff like that. It does sound somewhat like a dream that I had, but I can assure you that if it was indeed a dream, then somehow everybody in school had the very same one. I think the reporter interviewed his parents or something, and the brief glimpse of his family life sparked off quite a bit of chatter amongst the student body because, well, being on television used to be a very big thing. We were all children, and we all thought the television broadcast center to be some kind of sacred crowds where only the famous and the cool people would hang out. At least that was the perception we got from the television programs we watched while we were young, although we didn't actually know how it all worked. We probably didn't take into consider just how easy it was to be on television - you really only need to do something stupid or outrageous to be featured, anyway. Everybody remembers Michael Fay and the can of spray paint that skyrocketed him to instantaneous fame.

Being on television used to be a big deal, but being on television and be seen by your friends is an even bigger deal. It doesn't matter if you somehow get an hour interview with some reporter and nobody is there to see it. It's tricky to announce to your friends that you are on television in a way that won't make you seem too proud or desperate to be famous, but everybody wants to be in a public medium one way or another. It doesn't matter if you are going to be on television for an interview, for a crime, for an acting job, or for a mere few seconds behind the reporter holding up a peace sign or pointing the finger because it is being broadcast live, everybody wants their little time of fame on television somehow. I remember the first time I caught myself on television, and that was a completely coincidence by any standards. First of all, I wasn't aware that I was being shot by the camera on the streets, and secondly I certainly wasn't expecting myself to be watching the television at the exact moment when they showed that clip of random people walking down Orchard Road. I looked just like any other doofus on the streets, with a blank look and probably an even blanker mind. But that was a long time ago, and I was onscreen for a grand total of half a second before the camera panned elsewhere.

The second time I got featured on television wasn't very glamorous either, at least it didn't get the kind of attention my primary school classmate had when he was featured. It was Christmas, in 2005 or 2003, I really cannot remember which. I was in Taiwan at that time, and there was this Christmas Eve event held at a local community park that was going to be shown on television. It was an outdoors event in the middle of December, but the weather in the morning was rather warm for a winter day. My aunt and uncle drove the both of us to Taipei for this event, simply because my sister wanted to catch her favorite boy band do a gig at that time, and I was just there because she didn't have anybody to go with. This is me, going to an event with boy bands, so you can imagine just how agonized I was before the event even started. The event itself was punctuated with boring cultural dances, even more boring children performing some biblical story on stage, and the mayor at that time gave a speech in a white robe and little plastic angel wings too. The camera just floated around in front of us since we were in the first row, and the three hour event just ended up with my sister being really pumped up and excited about the boy band and I being grumpy and cold at the very same time.

You see, the temperature took a deathly plunge that night for some reason, and I wasn't wearing enough clothes to keep me warm that night. The cold winds blasted at my face in the middle of the park's theater, and I couldn't even hear my thoughts for the most part of the show. My sister urged us to go home as soon as possible that night because she wanted to check out the band on television, since it was supposed to be repeated on television three hours later in the night. We got home, turned on the television, and realized that we were on television for half the time the cameras panned to the audience, since we were right smack in the middle of the first row. There I was, in my thin sweater and hugging myself like a silly eskimo, and then a face of disgust and dread when the boy band did their thing on stage. I swear, that was probably one of the worst public performances ever, and it was even more confusing for the fact that all the young teenage girls - whom my sister was not at that time - were screaming and yelling like a bunch of crazy hyenas. There I was, thinking that the band couldn't get any worse on their studio records, they actually broke through rock bottom and gave us a completely different view of just how bad they could get.

So, it was Christmas Eve and the television program was on the whole night. My face, the grumpy one, was on television for the entire Christmas Eve as well. I'm pretty sure those who caught sight of my face must have involuntarily killed some of their Christmas spirits. Either way, it was a cold night filled with horrible music, and every minute of it was caught on camera for me. Properly documented by expensive cameras and probably recorded and stashed in a giant vault in a television broadcast center somewhere, you are going to find a very unhappy person in a very happy crowd of teenage fans, trying to knife himself with an invisible sword. That was me, my longest feature on the television - how glamorous. I guess I just haven't had a lot of luck with the television crew over the years, with myself either looking like a doofus or a really pissed off person on Christmas Eve. It wasn't a great Christmas, but I thought the whole thing about me being caught on camera in that state was pretty amusing. I mean, my sister was completely oblivious to my state of unhappiness until she saw me on television. Or, maybe I spoke the words of so many other people in Taiwan who thought the same about that boy band. They probably went "That boy said what I wanted to say on national television!" OK, probably not.

Today, some crew from Channel News Asia came into our lecture theater for some filming during Julie Bowker's class, and everybody seemed so death quiet all of a sudden. Julie Bowker probably has the most authority over her classes out of all the lectures I have ever been to, but today the class was exceptionally well-behaved and silent for the most part. It was a little strange, but then I guess none of us wanted her to look bad on television with an out-of-controlled class anyway. So the crew sort of haunted the lecture theater like ghosts, walking around the crowd and around Julie Bowker like spirits of the dead, silently filming the classroom and the students typing away on their computers. It was bad enough that the camera was initially set up right in front of me, but I had to be wearing a black and white striped shirt today that screamed of attention on camera. Now everybody is going to see the doofus in a black and white striped shirt like some convict, typing away on his Macbook and pretending not to be bothered by his past television appearances. April next to me had a close up on her Macbook as well, and I only hoped that their camera wasn't good enough to capture pimples from far.

It must have been because of the film crew that Julie Bowker decided to dress nicely today, but I bet some people dressed up on purpose for sure. I guess it is an genetic thing to want to be on television, even if it is just a glimpse. It's just interesting to see yourself on the tube I suppose, although I haven't had a lot of experiences. I'd like my friends and family to watch that piece of news though, not so much because I am probably going to be in a few frames, but because of what I'd like them to know about the classes I am having and the lecturers that I am having. Of course, not to mention the fact that I am, in fact, studious in class - OK, maybe not. They disappeared through the back doors after about twenty minutes of filming, and Julie Bowker breathed a sigh of relief, obviously being a lot more tensed up before. It's probably not going to be on television until some time next week anyway, and it's probably going to feature about one minute of video out of that twenty they filmed. Anyway, this might be my best moments on television, out of the three times I have been filmed. It'd be like, I don't know, my first breakthrough or something, the first blockbuster. I am surely exaggerating things, but a man is allowed to dream.

In The Rich Man's World

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

In The Rich Man's World

My old drama instructor in high school wasn't the most fashionable person around. Nobody ever got to the bottom of the reason why he preferred to ostracize himself in the drama room all the way on the other side of the school, in a dark and dusty room and away from his colleagues. To me, he almost always felt like a man who was marooned on a deserted island for a decade, and hasn't been able to fit back into the society ever since his rescue from a makeshift sail boat. He never was very comfortable with people, not even with the students he was in charge of, and everything seemed just an inch or two out of place somehow. Locked up in his own little dungeon on the other side of the school, he had somehow transformed that dusty old storeroom into some kind of time capsule, with everything inside that room being a decade or two behind us. The props he had were probably too old for any contemporary stage plays, the posters on the walls were of movies that were half a century old, and even the music he used for our plays were way too geriatric for the interest of our audiences. Still, it's not like he changed his old stubborn mind for anybody, and he still went ahead with using the song "Money, Money, Money" by ABBA for one of our public performances, a song that I can almost sing backwards.

It was a public performance for some Earth Day event, and it was probably the silliest and the most corny script I know, about how corporate businessmen would do anything to get their hands on even more money at the expense of the environment, or something like that. While the story line didn't actually involve killer plants like M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening, it sure wasn't the most original script to involve businessmen choking on their own poisonous fumes towards the end of the play. Let's just say that I am not very proud of what we did, but at least we got it over and done with. I remember him choosing that horrendous song by ABBA, and the embarrassment written all over my face when it was played over the speakers at Bugis Junction. So what if they are the only successful band in the history of music to come out of Sweden, that song irritates the devil out of me. For some reason, however, those lyrics are the exact same words I have been thinking of these days on top of what I already have to deal with.

Money just seems to be the root of everything, don't you think. We have marriage based on money, happiness and sorrows, love and love loss, contentment and frustration, everything can be manipulated and traced back to money. Some people say that the more money you have, the more problems you have. Well, the poor may be contented with their lives, but it's not like they'd burn the first bag of money they find at their doorsteps either. This giant machine is operated and fueled by money, those green and blue and red and brown plastics you have in your wallet or stuffed in between your pillowcase. Sometimes they are intangible, like bank credits or numbers on cheques, but they are all there anyway, like water circulating this world that we live in. It is in the food that we eat, the water that we drink, and very soon we might have to pay for oxygen as well because we might just run out of it. Like, in half a century we might be ordering tanks of oxygens because our houses are going to be running low on them. They are going to be ordered like pizzas, or maybe some random Chinese food, and we are all going to walk around with tanks of oxygen with wheels underneath the carts.

Anyway, money has been quite a distraction in my life these days, and I haven't got the time to think about anything else, save for school work which is always a priority. A lady came upstairs to my home a few days ago, and she is supposedly in charge of the renovation upstairs which is coming to an end by the way - thankfully. She was asked by the management of the estate to check out the water leakage problem on the exterior walls outside my parents' bathroom, and something about the leakage causing a serious delay in the paint job that has been happening around the building for the past two months or so. Anyway, so apparently my unit and two other units above have the very same problems, and they are telling us that we need to knock away the entire bathroom just to put a layer of waterproof cement. Since the workers above are doing renovations at the same time, the management suggested them to do the bathrooms for us at a cheaper price, although the word "cheaper" really is an under-statement. A letter was dropped into the mailbox this morning in regards to the prices of the renovation, and apparently we are supposed to fork out $8000 for this water leakage problem, and not a single cent is going to be paid by them - that is not to mention the fact that my family just installed brand new toilet bowls and sinks.

My parents don't intend to pay, in fact they are going to offer the management $2000 just to leave us alone. It's just a little stain on the exterior walls anyway, and it's not like anybody is complaining about it. A subsidy would be nice, but it's not like people can be very kind and charitable these days. We all have monetary problems these days anyway, taking a cab can be the most horrifying traffic experience of your life aside from a road accident. Just looking at the meter is enough to make your head spin and your heart race, and it certainly isn't related to any romantic reasons, I can assure you. Gas is at a ridiculous price, and it is just ironic how we were promised $20 barrels of oil before the war, and now we are looking at $137 per barrel - whatever happened to that? Every mile driven on the roads is a nail to the coffin, and you just can't wait for the day when we can all pour our used cooking oil into our car engines and make it start as per normal. That, however, is not the only issue in my mind that has got to do with money either.

I have been thinking about moving back to Taiwan a lot these days, and that alone involves a lot of money even if you already have an apartment there waiting for you to occupy. You have to think about all the items in your house you want to bring back, and all the boxes you have to buy. Then you have to think about the money involved in moving these boxes into a container, onto a ship, across the sea, out of the ship, onto a truck, and then finally into your new home in a foreign country. That alone boggles anybody's minds, and then you have to think about what to do with all the things you are leaving behind, and the house itself and everything you have bought over the years. The problem is, you can't even just throw them away, like a ball of tissue you just used for your running nose. Once settled in Taiwan, I imagine spending another obscene amount of money on the basic necessities just to make things work out in the short term, and that alone is another money issue I am not even going to worry about right now.

Going to the States can be an experience worth having, but the idea of money comes creeping into your head and never fails to spoil your dream, like an accidental pregnancy. You have to think about the fact that modules there are three times more expensive than it is here, and all the textbooks and accommodations. Transport, food, more food, and entertainment...the list never ends really. As much as I'd like to leave this country right now and move over there for my studies, my wallet is only so deep and the bank is only so big. There are limited amount of money in this world, and certainly a lesser amount of money spared to my family. If only barter trade is allowed in this country, then I might trade some of the things I have at home for items that I really need. I wish for the world to operate with rocks and sea shells, and we can all be rich by picking them up at the beaches. It'd give people a reason to visit the beaches anyway, a reason to move out from our hermit shells and office space.

Money, however, isn't the biggest worry for some. My grandmother is 94 years old this year - bless her! Money has never been the problem for this woman because of an interesting rule in the household. Gambling is allowed only if it is done amongst family members, and the winner has to give her a share of the money won because, well, she's the oldest and the wisest. In that way, money comes in constantly, and that is not to mention the fact that her sons, including my father, sends her money on a monthly basis. Money never stops coming in for this old lady, but she has other things to worry about in her life. As some of you may already know, my cousin was diagnosed with liver cancer and was dying in the hospital a couple of weeks ago. Well, he died yesterday night at ten, two weeks earlier than the doctors predicted. I suppose when death is at hand, it becomes the chief issue on anybody's minds. My grandmother received the news of her grandson's death, and she was fetched to the hospital by my uncle - don't you just hate English kinship terms by the way? They don't ever tell you which uncle you are talking about.

Anyway, I guess for someone like her, it must be difficult to realize that you have outlived even your grandchildren. It must be a strange feeling, something not a lot of people can understand save for that old lady. She shed a few tears in the hospital according to my father, but she was bouncing out of it as soon as it was all over. I guess at that age, money really isn't the problem anymore, but the possibility of death around every turn even if it doesn't necessarily have to happen to yourself. I guess when you are that old, you just sort of look life in a different light, and you just see that death is really what makes us human, more than anything really. As much as money is a part of our lives, it can never touch how definite and how absolute death is. You just have to have an opened mind, like my grandmother, the way she wiped away her tears and then complained about my father being stupid for taking the smallest chicken drumstick from the fridge that she saved for him. I love my grandmother, although I don't and can't show it from all the way around here. I guess, if nothing else, knowing my family back home may be a better reason to leave this island, more than anything really. In the mean time, in this rich man's world, it's all about money, money, and more money. Damn.

August 12th , 2008

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

August 12th, 2008

It's real.

They are coming.

Guess who?

All The Monkey Business

Monday, June 16, 2008

All The Monkey Business

Saturday was Monkey Business Day. In your mind right now, you must be conjuring up an image of myself negotiating with the zookeeper to buy a couple of monkeys for my circus act, or perhaps I am illegally smuggling orangutans into Singapore from Papau New Guinea. Either way, I am sorry to tell you that you guessed it wrong, there wasn't any monkey buying business to be made and no orangutans to be smuggled over the weekend, but just the fact that I was toyed around like one on Saturday morning that gave rise to the title of this entry that you read above. Let's begin by telling you that there was a technical mobilization planned on Saturday morning, and I was told by my friends that I might have to go back. Because of that, however, I actually woke up every half an hour to check whether or not I missed a phone call or a text message, and the fact that I slept at five the night before sure didn't help with the grumpiness that I experienced. That is the way it works anyway, the army wants to know that if Malaysia decides to invade the country, they'd be able to wake you up at any time of the day and then activate you to some military camp in the middle of nowhere to fight the invaders. Theoretically speaking, it is supposed to work of course. Not on Saturday morning though, it was not the way that it happened.

The beauty of an ordinary Saturday morning was punctured by a phone call from a guy whose name I didn't catch, and a phone reception so bad that I heard his voice only in blurry breaks. I caught my name in the midst of the auditory chaos, the word "mobilized", the word "four hours", and the words "by three". That was more than enough for me to jump out of my bed and curse at the heavens for a couple of times - although it isn't directly responsible for the ruining of that beautiful weekend morning. I made a few phone calls afterwards, to Kenneth from camp and Jonathan, then to a few other platoon mates that didn't pick up the phone for whatever reasons. Anyway, so the first thing that I did was to dash into the storeroom to dig out the old uniforms I tucked away in a giant plastic bag, thinking at that time that I wouldn't be needing those repulsive wardrobe and equipments any longer. I ended up in my old bedroom rolling up the sleeves of my old uniform and then talking to Kenneth on the phone at the very same time. I've grown rusty at rolling those sleeves, I used to be able to do it real quick. Standing in front of the mirror, I could hardly recognize myself, dressed up all in green and like the old self back in the army - with longer hair and more worry.

Then it was the equipments I had to worry about. From underneath the layers of dust, I managed to drag out the old duffle bag and the bag of clothes, then I started ticking off the items that I managed to salvage from the wreckage that laid out before my eyes. Two sets of uniforms, two sets of underwear, two sets of green socks, PT shoes, slippers, soap, shaving kit, boot laces, batteries, torch, toiletries, and a whole lot of other useless things in our day to day standards. My helmet, despite the perfume and the entire week of sunning when I passed out from the army, still smelled like toes and rotten apples. I started thinking about all the times I spent wearing that helmet, sleeping on the helmet, sitting on the helmet, being hit by the helmet, and that other time when I risked my life retrieving the helmet when it rolled off my head and down the side of a cliff. Those were the days, I thought, days that I didn't necessary want to relive all over again. But there I was, stuffing everything into my bag and trying to talk to Kenneth on the phone all over again. Apparently he checked with the superiors, and they said that I didn't need to go back. He checked again and he said the same thing, which caused me to fall into this dilemma.

So this is what happened. There was a mystery man A that called mystery man B, and this mystery man B was the one that woke me up in the morning. Since Kenneth told me that I didn't need to go back, I called mystery man B, who directed me to mystery man A, who happens to be my secondary school classmate Jonathan Chia - what are the odds? On one hand, I could have spent a hell lot of money on cab fare just to travel to this camp in Pasir Ris that is in the middle of nowhere. You can literally see Johor from that camp, at least that is what my friend said, and the closest bus stop is three kilometers away. The thought of forking out the cab fare itself is staggering, not to mention the fact that I would have been forking out the cab fare with all the bulky equipments. On the other hand, I could have just ignored the whole mobilization and then just sleep the rest of the morning away. Of course, that'd also entail an AWOL slapped on my ass, as if the whole misunderstanding of not turning up in camp on Monday because of my deferment wasn't enough. Apparently, the records in camp wasn't updated, and everybody in camp thought I fled my duties or something like that. I received a couple of phone calls on Monday alone telling me that I was about to be charged as AWOL, and their excitement was dwindled after I told them about my deferment success. Insert a loud "Aw" here.

Therefore, I chose the second option. I chose not to go back to camp and see what happens from then on, and it was a little foolish to be walking around the house in my army uniform for the entire morning just waiting for things to happen. In the end, the uniform became stifling and the socks were prickly for some reason. I ended up telling the boys in camp that I wasn't going back, and they could bring my ass to court for all I cared. OK, I didn't say that, but that would have been pretty cool to say. I told them that I wasn't going back, and that was the end of the phone conversation. Still, I was pretty frustrated the whole morning after being toyed around like that. I had to go back, I didn't have to go back, I had to go back again, then I didn't have to go back again. The equipments went in and out of the bag several times that it brought back memories of the past that involved a certain officer and the entire company packing and unpacking in the pouring rain. This is a perfect example of how bad the system is really, the way that information can never be passed down without it being distorted or just completely lost. Don't ever play the game of Chinese Whispers with anybody from the army, you are going to lose very badly.

Just imagine a war happening tomorrow, operation Shock and Awe from Malaysia. A bunch of men in military uniforms panic, and then they start making different phone calls to a thousand other servicemen out there. Some are telling people to come back while others are saying maybe you should just stay at home and pray for your life. I remember making a pact with my friends back in those days while we were all trapped in the vehicle because of heavy rain. We started talking about the possibility of an actual war occurring, and what we would do when it happens. We managed to tell Martin, our driver, to turn back and then drive us all home in the M-113. The fact is that we'd much rather die with our loved ones at home, than in the dirt trying to kill our enemies. They say that the Malaysian army can be easily trumped by ours, but then I am sure just blowing a few wires in the power stations would be enough to immobilize the entire Singaporean army. Anyway, that is probably what is going to happen anyway, and it doesn't matter if we are going to be prosecuted when the war ends. Family first, family always first.

So yes, all the monkey business in the measure of a Saturday morning. It sure wasn't fun, but then I realized that I really missed the life in the army, and the friends that I made in there. It is true that life really sucked in there, but then it sucked so bad that it became good, especially with all the people around you taking in the same bullshit on a daily basis. None of the politics, just a bunch of guys in the same building, trying to get through this ordeal together. A part of me wanted to meet them, in fact the most part of me wanted to. But then a military camp is not like a shopping mall, you don't walk in just because you want to meet a friend or two. That's not how it works anyway, especially not these days. Still, I miss those days, whatever "those days" really means.

In Continuum.

Scenic World

From The Bottom Of My Eyeballs

That Birthday Thing

Mid-Point Retail Therapy/ Ultimate Wish list

The Escapist

The Doctor Who Knew Everything

The Last King Of Scotland

George Carlin [1937-2008]

Tilly & The Wall

Foggy Hills

On The Tube

In The Rich Man's World

August 12th , 2008

All The Monkey Business

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