091107

a penny for your thoughts

can you assume the opinion of someone else to be your own by virtue of pure conviction of that person's point? for example, if you read in soccernet that a goal was brilliant, can you tell someone else ' yeah rooney scored. it was brilliant - he did this and that '

may i propose a cause of readily coming to terms with inflation as it is, without questioning the measures available to curb increasing inflation rates? i think it is expectations. if you expect prices to go up, you wont mind it actually going up. for example, there is a grain shortage hence anything that is flour-related should go up. when the prata uncle downstairs sheepishly told me that prata prices had to go up, i didnt mind. then i realised everything else will also go up because we have been made to believe it should be so.

i really love reading newspapers, the content is just so rich. in a non-related thought, i want to try newspaper delivery for awhile. i think its gonna be one great experience, the wee hours of singapore.

when will an individual ever escape and transcend the success-oriented mentality towards examinations' results? or is the nature of examinations unforgiving and forever damning should you fail to show that the process of learning was existent and bearing fruit?

i think radio ads or audio ads for that matter, are simply wonderful. to create a world of imagination through a limited amount of sources available to encourage interest. i think it is the same for those with a preference to read dracula over watching dracula.

i think the competition between schools to publish the best student-newspaper is underrated and under-publicized, despite having the backing of..well, the press itself. 200 over pages published in millions every day is no joke, do take the effort to let people appreciate your efforts!

they have genetically modified a mouse to be unafraid of cats because fear is merely an olfactory function that may be switched off. fear may be subsequently classically conditioned back into the mouse. if fear were to be a choice, it would be a very scary thing indeed.

forgive me for being ignorant but i think the responsibility of translators in the international court of justice is simply too great; respect.

i think im subconsciously avoiding my teachers in school during this exam period. im very afraid of letting them down, thinking of all the times ive been accorded the honour of one with 'potential'.

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261007

What Would Teck Beng Do?

it was a sad weekend for british sports fans. im not sure how i am to qualify to be an ardent rugby fan, but i can safely say i really appreciate the sport. i may not play it (as you all know im more suited for sumo wrestling) nor do i understand all the rules and organizational structure but i appreciate each movement, each space, each on-spot rationale and enjoy the well-versed commentary.

on the other hand, thanks to prelims, the 5 of us tfa have grown to have more understanding of F1 racing. having finally watched a grand prix in its entirety, i must congratulate the sport for having great coverage, however alienating in its technological framework. since the term sport in the 21st century has an unspoken requisite to appeal to the global audience, organization at an international level is directly related to appreciation and interest at a world-wide level. of course for newbies like me, the commentary is much appreciated.

the relevance of today's title, is dedicated to a teacher in my church. i cant call him a sundayschool teacher, because he is more than that. he is a husband, a son, a father, a church deacon, the church's choir conductor, a teacher of two disciple classes, an employee of the working world. he is also an ardent manchester united fan and spends much time trawling across causeways (no thanks to his workplace) and making sure his children have transport home. dont get me wrong, i know his human and has unseen flaws and unspoken regrets but there is something i greatly admire - his commitment to God.

there are many times where there is a blatantly-early-midnight-match-cannot-watch-nvm-got-this-7pm-one good manchester united match that he has the option to watch but he chooses not to, principally because he has a meeting to attend or a choir piece to prepare or daughters to fetch. its a simple outcome, not watching, but i assure you its not an easy process to decide.

when confronted with a horrible timing of the rugby world cup final (3am sunday morning), i was tempted to sleep at 8pm and wake up at 3 to watch it. its conceptually sound, i sleep enough for church and i get to watch a consecutive final (we didnt understand the magnitude of england winning over at timseow's house. i believe we were more interested if there was enough pasta to go around, idiot that i was.) my parents encourage me to witness for God and not watch it, my immediate question was ' who am i to witness to? who cares if i watch or dont watch anyway?' of course the obvious answer was God does. it doesnt matter if people think im stupid for missing it when i had a healthy plan to follow thru, God cares. at times i dont agree with some sacrifices i make because there is a way to go around it but i think teckbeng laoshi is a very good example of choosing not to take the comfortable way out because it is more pleasing to God not to do so. by then my second thought was that teckbeng laoshi would not have watched the match simply because the next day was a sunday.

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since santa doesnt exist and you do, i have come up with a christmas list for myself (allocative efficiency). i suspect i might get lynch for this thick-skinnedness but at least j would understand the productivity of such a scheme. the theme is things that would benefit koh tiang peng in army. if you want to get me anything ( yesplease ), i would like one of the following:

1.a good pocket daily devotional (basic necessity)
2. 2x spare batteries for nokia 6100 or 6300 (demand exceeds supply)
3. mp3 player. im gonna travel from pasir ris to bukit batok and back so many times, i'll go mad without music in my ears that doesnt belong to someone else's blaring phone (ipod preferred, consumer surplus)
4. books, you know what i like (key assumptions)
5. micro-fibre towel (those small towels that take in water without being too wet itself, much like a buffer)
6. a suscription to a publication, i.e. time (perfect knowledge)
7. the optimus prime toy not from toys r us (luxury goods)
8. a small christian song book
9. a cheap guitar (im all for the cliche of writing serenades while being confined on weekends)
10. a choir pianist for choir (read, weitsin)

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i was mad enough to go running today and i clocked a dismal timing of 13:11.
im gonna miss joyce cheering me on (while she slacks off and walks, haha)

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i am a fallen animal.
the other day at the singtel hello shop, i saw a buddhist nun in the queue behind me. my first condemned thought was ' wah she nun still can afford to upgrade phone meh? '
it turns out that she was merely checking out the pre-paid card and how it works etc. i was immediately ashamed and the spirit has touched me enough to share this here. i guess we judge so people so quickly and easily that we sometimes dont deserve to complain about how people misunderstand and take us for granted.

thank God for God.

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161007

Versus the Future

INFJs, making up an estimated 1% of all people, are the most rare type (males even more so). They are introspective, caring, sensitive, gentle and complex people that strive for peace and derive satisfaction from helping others. INFJs are highly intuitive, empathetic and dedicated listeners. These traits tend to act as a "tell me what's wrong" sign on their forehead, hence the nicknames Confidant, Counselor or Empath. INFJs are intensely private and deeply committed to their beliefs.

"INFJs are gentle, caring, complex and highly intuitive individuals. Artistic and creative, they live in a world of hidden meanings and possibilities. Only one percent of the population has an INFJ Personality Type, making it the most rare of all the types." - Portrait of an INFJ (The Personality Page)

"INFJs enjoy a greater clarity of perception of inner, unconscious processes than all but their INTJ cousins. Just as SP types commune with the object and "live in the here and now" of the physical world, INFJs readily grasp the hidden psychological stimuli behind the more observable dynamics of behavior and affect." - INFJ Profile (TypeLogic)

"creative, smart, focus on fantasy more than reality, attracted to sad things, fears doing the wrong thing, observer, avoidant..." - INFJ Jung Type Descriptions (similarminds.com)

"...desire to contribute to the welfare of others and genuinely enjoy helping their companions. Although Counsleors tend to be private, sensitive people, and are not generally visible leaders, they nevertheless work quite intensely with those close to them, quietly exerting their influence behind the scenes..." - The Portrait of the Counselor Idealist (Keirsey)

"INFJs tend to be devoted to what they believe in and seek work where their needs, values, and ideals can be deeply engaged. They move on the wave of their inspirations and are determined to see that their values are worked out in their lives. They will work toward their goals individually and, when needed, will put together a team of other highly dedicated people like themselves." - INFJ - The Mystic (Lifexplore)

true or false? if yes, im a rare male. should i be concerned? infj sounds very eye-power though.

INFJs are often happy with the following jobs:

*Actor
*Alternative Medicine
*Child Care Worker
* Child Development
* Chiropractor
* Church Worker
* Clergy
* Consultant
* Dentist
* Designer
* Doctor
* Educational Consultant
* Entrepreneur
* Human Resources
* Lawyer/Attorney
* Librarian
* Marketer
* Missionary
* Musician
* Photographer
* Psychiatrist
* Psychologist/Counselor
* Sales Representative
* Social Worker
* Teacher/Professor
* Trainer
* Writer

looks like i'll be employed somehow!

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for the record,

i failed chin ups, pushups and standing broad jump that day
i placed it as my last choice
i placed it as one that i am less aware about
i told the dude that im physically weak + unwilling, i want to book out more and that i want spend more time with joyce
i barely swim 50m with breaststroke
the dude told me my ncc background mattered very little
i didnt want it

but, i told God, 'have it your way'. and i guess He did/is.

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i really respect those sales executives at all the mobile shops. they stand all day, work all day, cannot take time off to slack because they are always on duty and they have to be more patient than the impatience of the entire queue throughout the day combined. the singtel guy who helped me had this radio dj voice and was polite throughout the exchange, plus points to an old dude who kept calling me sir.

i also saw this really filial sound. his parents were milling about the shop, obviously confused and he barged into the shop to help them queue up. he looked like he rushed from school and he didnt complain, helpfully translating explanations to his parents. now, i doubt any of us would be so willing to sacrifice time to help our parents run high-tech, futuristic how-you-want-me-to-say-leh kind of errands.

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tea.co.uk

141007

feel day

the mg girls sure had a field day. they were so absolutely sure that we ac guys, especially those from js, were going to be so heartbroken. i remember that particular time ni year5, i told the girls to snap out of their ' i miss mg ' simply because they were in a better place already haha. i remember last week where i insisted that i wont be too emotional about the last day of school because i believed that the cohort spirit will carry itself pass the physical boundaries of classrooms and lecture theatres.

well, i sit here corrected. i cannot really describe how gutted i feel, each time i recall a memory of my classroom experience. i cannot help but feel that the frenzy of photo-taking came abit late. a few sentences into this paragraphs and the ones beyond, girls will start having the last laugh. because the truth is, my time in school has meant so much to me, the part in me that used to want to pon on sleep deprived dawns is totally smothered and taken in by the huge part that is now a mere gaping hole, an intangible set of memories. the word pensieve is a great name for a place to store memories and rowling doesnt say if there are storage capacities; i'd probably take up one terabyte (the funny thing, i dont even feel like im exaggerating).

God has been truly merciful and loving in His providence of 4 wonderful years to me; it is as if the knots in my heart that i get from fondly remembering my time in acs is His' way of asking me to treasure them. 3.16 Habakkuk (one b, two k's) 4.16 Enoch 5.14 Corinthians 6.14 Joppa

embracing (habakkuk) a beautiful (joppa) walk with a loving God (corinthians, enoch) cheesy, superimposed but still fitting.

its sunday and im still brooding.

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cleared my firefox of old favourites, including wole soyinka home page, ee and ia look-ups..its amazing how far we've come now.

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i think the british national anthem is majestic and i support britain in almost every sport, talk about post-colonial influences.
jj must hate wilkinson even more now and the reason why i know that is because my mom watched 10 minutes of the france-england replay with me and already she dislikes him.

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wow, our pm speaks a sprinkle of russian.
and i seem to be the last to get an army letter.

290907

there are several reasons why i dont update regularly
1. my thoughts exceed my capacity to summarize succintly
2. i dont know how to say what i want to say
3. i wish ive a better layout so it'd be exciting to put content into it
4. im too opinionated and i need to cool down my passion in some views

i think ive outgrown msn, then again i dont think i have. in p6 (yupp thats maturity for you, jk), i did honestly wonder if one day i'd outgrow msn. the real background to this thought is less impressive; i was wondering if one day counter-strike would fade away from better games.

today, i had the luxury of having a morning off to run errands. what i did include

1. printing pictures
2. returning two dvds (wedding crashers and the prestige)
3. cutting my hair
4. practising piano
5. preparing for Bible study later
6. read the papers thoroughly

while cutting my hair i read 8 days (maiden experience of picking up an up-to-date magazine) and i chanced upon the band, rilo kiley. they sound interesting and i went back to youtube them and upon some wiki-ing, i realised their lead sang back-up for deathcabforcutie and thepostalservice. it was then that i found out the type of music that i enjoy most is indie-rock. also known as alternative rock, it is not really mainstream and is a status of an independent record label (whatever that means for their financial health). found another similar band, the elected and was thoroughly absorbed by their music! not sure about their lyrics yet, will update you again.

in the mean time, i realised my saturday is very much that of a teenager. you could say its self-gratifying (save the church commitments) and i took a moment to consider what i would be doing on a free saturday morning if i were an adult -

1. take my daughter to piano
2. repair my son's bike
3. talk to my neighbour about his potted plant
4. drive out for breakfast
5. settle bills
6. read the papers thoroughly

while coaxing my bowels in the toilet, i was really struck by the effort of newspaper agencies, or at least the straits times. their saturday edition alone commands so much content, from the burmese junta to the carbon cycle to cpf changes to a trace of psychiatry to measuring the pace of life in china. i really respect the life of journalists' 20-hour days and their life on the edge, meeting people and deadlines. that very same reason is why i am not willing to become a journalist; i appreciate the lull of saturday mornings and cannot bear to give it up.

it is precisely because i have friends who so selfless give themselves up for service that i felt like a hypocrite after thanking my friends during the council farewell dinner. there i was, busy being PR (despite telling myself not to sound like your everyday administrative drone) and thanking the bigshots and i had friends who took the time and effort to thank individuals who really helped the cause of council. there i realised, i havent really had the big heart that many people make me out to have. for people admire me for being able to sleep 7-8 hours a day, but the truth is i rather sleep than decently finish up a job that needs to be done. so there really isnt anything to be proud of.

at the same time, i gleaned alot of paraphrased but other-wise advice from others as well.

' everyone has crap in their lives. so why must you bring your own into theirs? just smile la! ' - mr. joseph wong

' true service is not about the fun, its about the pain. that is what makes service service ' - arthur

' everytime im down and out, i think about how mr. bongard is always up and running for the sake of the school, even though he was not from acs ' - arthur

270807

20LEGEND

jj is right, theres nothing better than youtube therapy of glory past after watching your beloved team suck for 4 consecutive matches. while modernists may argue that the game has closed down significantly with the dawn of effective sports science, fitness levels and technical intensity with respect to space (much like industrial revolution), it remains highly ironic that the next team we play has two of our best strike-partnerships in recent history. meanwhile, we have darren fletcher to back carlos tevez up.

so i remain transfixed in history and allow me to share with you

 

the greatest goalkeeper of all time; he made gay jerseys look manly.

 

coupled with a gay commentator with this historiographical example

 

and my favourite player of all time. infact, hes the reason why i would buy a norway jersey and why if theres one extremely useless present i would dearly love to receive, its a united jersey with 20 Solskjaer at the back.

 

along with a brilliant selfless act (of course, hes a cheat, destroyer of a game yadayadayada but he kissed only one badge in his career. and hes still gonna continue doing so)

enjoy.

110807

i believe

i dont know about you, but i love our cohort. the graduating class of 2007 is truly wonderful. of course every graduating batch will tell you that about themselves but i cannot help but feel that our teachers, through their labour of love and love-hate relationships depending on whether you pass up your assignments or not, somehow love us more than any other senior or junior class. by default, they have already invested more. it has come to the point where we can empathize with their schedules and demands, brave fronts and soft sides. it may due to maturity (i assure you its not an inevitable concept) but i feel that it is due to the fact that we're so in this project call IB together.

the charity cafe showed the school that with minimal publicity and maximum heart, profits can be a byproduct of fellowship. i think that random things that bring us together really bonds us well and this is why i urge everyone reading this not to pon the last 3 weeks of school at all because believe it or not, its the last time we can gather together for hours that overshadow all our other aspects of life.

i believe that fellowship can reach a pinnacle where anything can be fun. a prime example of that is the fact that many random games sprout out in classrooms, sometimes out of the nature of the sportsmen in the class but most of the time thats not the case. take .7, they developed a very sophisticated of dodgeball using the flicking of bottlecaps, complete with point system! ever since bridge became passe, hearts became the challenge but now, variations include pass bridge, contract hearts, draft bridge and the ever-favourite bastard taiti. my class had started off mocking bulletball, but became ardent fans of the game themselves, the horrors! not only that, we managed to create a game called rollerball, where its a 1v1 game ( due to space constraints ) and you try to play basketball using roller chairs and points are scored when you shoot the ball into the gap under three desks.

even in church, pointless and mindless mass games can create great memories that cannot be duplicated thru other bodies of gatherings. we developed this game called ultimate pingpong, where any number of players can play, as long as you hold a bat in your hand. basically you run in a uni-directional circle around the table, taking turns to hit the ball. points are scored when you fail to return the ball according to conventional rules and players that accumulate 10 points are out of the game. its a cumulative process so you can end up with 3 players with respective scores of 7, 2 and 9. you can also sabo others by serving trickily or smashing a return or save others by returning an easy ball because that way, you sabo the person after you as the returning player may choose to go for a smash =P

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ive suggestions on how to improve history DRQ and english IOC. if they sound naive to you, i apologise in advance.

for history DRQ, instead of analyzing 5 sources and answering questions based on them, why not construct a historical intepretation of an event, complete with analysis and justification with 30 given sources? say you have 1 hr and you must use only 6 sources to portray an incident in a particular manner that is convincing and historically sound?

for english IOC, instead of giving us poets and selected poems of theirs, why not give us poets and demand that we study their style? this way, on the day itself, we choose poems that were not pre-set before. thus it would be graded in a stricter fashion than unseen poetry since we have background knowledge of the poets but graded less stringently than the IOC we have now?

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recently, i received a slice of humble pie in an envelope. the civil service college psychometric college tells me that my IQ is below par than that of 'high-calibre JC students'. previously, i have always prided myself on my IQ, thinking that i am smarter than most people. well now i have come to terms to the fact that the time for hardwork is here, intelligent will fail me because i wasnt born to be 100% brilliant. in other words, i owe all my academic brilliance to God and i wont ever rely on myself again, for fear of hubris. in fact, i read lear in the toilet now, do my math homework dilligently and will rely on God for wisdom, never on myself again. the funny part is that im always enjoying the exam period, never in anxiety because i simply hand everything to God. learning has always appealed to me and i will never get bored of knowledge.

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during one of the econs lesson, i find myself extremely drawn to economic development. as much as i was outraged by the inevitable beauracratic inefficiences of international bodies to aid countries in economic development, my heart goes out to the banana farmers, the coffee-bean harvesters and the unfortunate juxtaposition of machete against machines. i think working for fairtrade beats working at imf or the worldbank any day, the satisfaction of helping a farmer be able to pay for education for his children is simply humbling!

i wonder if theres any degree in development economics that doesnt require HL math.

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i cried watching a scene in 300. might seem as a joke to you, but i thought the part where leonidas' last thoughts were ' my queen, my lady, my wife '. shrug, sweet for a boneslashingasundering warrior.

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the anglo-chinese school (independent) philharmonic orchestra (haha, i bet i get hits on google searches) is so good, i propose an experiment.
1. take a recording of them, of any decent quality is good enough
2. convince 92.4FM to take part in our experiment
3. get them to play the recording of ACphil
4. get them to say its from the chicago philharmonic orchestra or some brilliant orchestra
5. check for astute feedback ( if any ) that is able to discern the difference

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the english premier league is finally back; my withdrawal symptoms was so bad, i enjoyed the scrappy affair of sunderland vs spurs because it was rather amusing to watch roy keane take pride in united rejects whom he ironically condemned. btw sunderland won with a 93rd min chopra goal after he got on in the 73rd min. doesnt it remind you of glory days? also, sam allardyce taking on bolton in his first game in charge of newcastle. more amazingly is the trend that clubs now buy 2 or 3 players off another single club. like how bolton bought two off aston villa and another club buying two off westham?

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yesterday, after 55 mins, i teleported from boonlay to tampines. after that, i realised only one person can coax that effort out of me and wah, the rewards were handsome! i bought one polo tee and one short sleeve shirt for $22 at metro closing down sale! at the same time, i wonder how department stores earn money? collecting rent from brands who set up corners?