Always a joy
discovered a wonderful writer today! It is always a joy!! Isabel Allende writes really beautifully. She brought tears to my eyes through simple and magical tales about sellers of words, simple saints... *Sigh.
Did something crazy yeserday!
It originally felt like a really adventurous idea so I though yeah, should exlpore the unknown corners of NUS. But then in hindsight, I think I was F***ing crazy! Maybe I thought treking in one of the strange jungles surrounding NUS sounded romantic. It was crazy! I clearly wasn't thinking.. And my stupidity only struck me now that I have woken up, slept on it. NOw, I'm in disbelief. To highlight how stupid I was I can give you guys more evidence of it (if you still need any)
a) I wore white pants
b) I didn't wear treking shoes, I wore sneakers
c) I brought a big backpack which kept getting caught in branches
d) I got someone crazy enough to agree with me to go exploring.
e) I haven't climbed Bk Timah (with proper trails)and decides to jump the gun go trekking in a trekless 'jungle'.
f) I climbed steep slopes on frictionless shoes not meant for climbing.
Conclusion: I'm just glad I survived in one piece. Next time I have such crazy ideas, I must consult people with sense and experience first!!!!
today
Some thoughts today, it's always the people around you who counts. Thankful for friends I've made.
Hey people who came down to support me today, thanks! It means alot to me! People who didn't it's ok, there'll be more chances in the future!! You guys mean alot to me, even if I forget this sometimes!
V day for singles
V day- Very Ordinary day
V day- Vexing day
V day- Valentines day is today?
V day- enVy day/they
V day- t.V just like everyDAY.
V day- catastroph-V day
V day- uV rays on a hot Day
V day- Vacant stares the whole day
V day- Viewing other couples day
V day- Very free day
V day- VVork like every Day
Taking random stabs
Good god, 'I not stupid too' is soooo melodrama. I don't know. I heard people sobbing, blowing noses in the theatre. I'm rather clueless. It is a bit over the top man.... what was Jack Neo thinking? Someone died in the show. NOt only that, he died in a melodramatic fall, with one of those touching hospital scenes.... I liked 'I not stupid". What the hell happened to the sequel? It is like watching one of the channel 8 dramas compressed in 2 hours on a big screen.... I do really want to be kind to our local cinema scene, but, oh... I can't do it.
I am so thankful I'm graduating soon. For one thing, Chunhui, you're absolutely right, University students love theoretical stuff. I don't hate it, sometimes, theories are so interesting, they fracture things we take for granted and give great insights. BUT, I'm so sick of all the talking, arguing. It is all quite pointlessly circular-going-nowhere. And it is scary the way people go on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on about such stuff. I don't know, I actually find it more and more revolting at level 3 modules, when theories get thrown all over the place. Sometimes "a cigar is just a cigar". Sometimes, there is nothing deep behind, things just are like that. I wonder if people can become numbed and blinded by theories. So that the world becomes an analytical object to be mentally dissected. How much spontaneity and direct, impulsive responses get killed in process of rigorous theorizing? Sometimes, unmediated experience is far richer than any theoretical approach. I'm so tired of always writing essays, looking at books, analysing theories... Complaining aside, I really think that there is something lacking in my learning experiences. It seems a little too lope-sided. I think alot of the richest experiences shape not just what you think, it becomes a part of you.. It permeates one's being, not just work your brain. Personally, the most enriching experiences for me are more spiritual than mental. Often, I wonder if philosophers are not failed spiritual thinkers. When pondering on questions about 'being' and meaning of existence,maybe religious experience can give one experience of flying above the confines of mental rationality. And this is perhaps, the very leap beyond mental frameworks and rationality that 'thinkers' cannot jump beyond. Afterall, thinking is only one way of experiencing the world. Maybe alot of pple adhere to the dictum ' I think therefore I am." I wonder if it is not: "I think, feel, love, breathe, drink, sing, hear, move, dream, hope and I am."
Snapshots: seconds in between
Interesting fact: Did you know, The camera is as tempermental as the sky?
An example/evidence/experience as to why my blog is so aptly titled
Today, I heard the mrt driver singing. It sounded like someone's singing in bathroom. Some malay song. I didn't dare laugh. It was so loud I heard it through the door. Cool.
Hi Li!
Hey Li, what's up? You sound stressed.. Something unhappy over work? Wanna catch up over supper? My treat? My tag board is crazy. And my blog is strange. they deleted one of my entries...
It was there one day and gone the next. dunno what happened. Maybe it got scuked into the cyberspace blackhole... Or someone stole it.
Hey Li, never hear from you so long.. how's life?
monsters of the system.
The above is not really a question. More of a thought actually. I wonder if being in a chute-like education system has made me such a one. I hope not! But I catch myself being inflexible at times. Holding onto strange notions that if there's any way up and out in the world, 'knowledge' knowledge. Recently stumbled onto one of my fellow school mate's thoughts, a stout champion for education system as something toward excellence. Even meritocratic! No way loh.. education, no matter how you dress it up is not meritocratic. (in my opinion at least) Maybe I sound like another Jack Neo.. But really, education systems which are inflexible and only emphasize certain types of skills at the expense of others (like our own one)creates certain kinds of peolpe with certain mindsets. At times, good. But mostly, I think we have a train-rail mind -one track. Not only that, I catch myself thinking like an Mrt at times. Only thinking about where I will end up. Destination. destination. If I keep thinking like that, I'm just going to miss out on the journey itself- Focusing too much on where every step is going to get me.
This gets worse especially since I'm drawing near to graduation. It's not that I can't stand people giving me a worried "what are you going to do?", (yar, I don't like that) but more of how I catch myself being a tad pissed when I tell them a honest reply that "I don't know". I really don't have it all planned. Next 5, 10, 20 years of my life is not scribbled on some paper. It's a mystery as much as it is for anyone else. I think we should be sceptical of anyone who claims to know where they'll end up 5 years from now. But I realized I don't question that! How has that become some kind of unspoken virtue? To sound certain of one's goals when life is a complete mystery and we never where we'll end up the next day. (even possibly under a grave stone, not to be cynical) Maybe it is not a singapore thing, but maybe it's an Asian thing.. or maybe it's a global thing.. I don't know.
All I know is that, I don't really want to be stuck in this kind of mindset. I want to be free (if that is not too idealistic to our cycnical minds: thanks to all that tertiary level questionings)... I hope i never become one of those crazy parents hankering after their children to study or DIE. study-the only road to success..
Maybe the next time someone asks me what do I plan to be in the future, I should give them that as an answer. It will definitely not be any better or worse of than any other thinkable answer.