In The Cold Light Of Day.

As devastating as it is to witness the riot unfold back home, it is even more upsetting to see the many speculative and often inflammatory posts/comments that have sprung up in its wake. Whether they involve derogatory remarks about the SPF or the "foreign imports" (probably one of the least of the many offensive terms out there).

It's hard to stomach Singaporeans' extreme (or at least extremely visible) xenophobia a mere 3/4 generations after our own forebears first arrived on these shores. It's sad that Singaporeans are so eager for a gahmen cock-up that they are willing to start pointing fingers at the national agencies taking the brunt of the events tonight, much (if not all) of it without any rational thought behind it at all.

Nothing but an aimless rage directed at whoever's "responsible" for all the problems Singapore faces today (the PAP, the government, the foreigners, take your pick there's more than enough targets these days).

And we're supposed to be the educated generation?

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I posted this a couple of minutes ago on facebook. Why did I do that? Possibly I was hoping to in some way affect some readers' mindsets, to restore a little sensibility and rationality to the roaring Internet today. But what was it actually? A little distance tells me that it was a knee-jerk reaction to the knee-jerk reactions of others. It was an angry retort to the angry people crowding my newsfeed. And this was done a couple of hours after the actual event.

I have to ask myself, had I been in Singapore, reacting to live updates, what would my reaction have been? Had I been sitting in a coffeeshop, in the midst of an anger slowly building up, would I have been a rational voice prescribing neutrality? I had the benefit of distance, of hearing bits and pieces as it drifted across social media, to formulate my response to a hot mess like this.

It is painful to witness my country go through a period like this from afar. It is painful also to consider that had I been home at this time I could very well have been part of the inflammatory legions seeking to exploit this for some insane.... political means? I'm not even sure, whatever government-bashing/foreign-talent-hating achieves I guess.

I am actually heartbroken. Confused, saddened, angry, frustrated, disappointed, a whole lot of emotions, but the weirdest of that lot has to be the heartbreak. Why? I am heartbroken because the nation that I have chosen to pledge my life in defence of has just witnessed its first riot in years, one that will do irreparable damage to the psyche of a nation just under 50 years old.

I am heartbroken because the chorus of rational, calming voices I half expected did not materialize, or they were crowded out all too easily by waves upon wave of speculation and inflammatory remarks, anti-foreigner sentiments given yet another opportunity to be proclaimed from the rooftops. It is like taking a hard look at one's self and realizing how deficient one truly is. That's what looking at our generation feels like, a generation that was primed to take a nation, the world, forward. But we ended up as a generation of complainers, of entitled blame-ascribing narrow-minded xenophobes who can't look inwards and think that maybe all this hate and bitterness they hold against these "foreign-talents" is one of the reasons they can't integrate into society? That even if we are arguably not the actual problem, we are contributing to it in so many ways which are intangible and unquantifiable? A generation of Singaporeans so full of ourselves we refuse to see how we might actually be a part of the problem, instead of the anti-establishment freedom-fighter human-rights-crusaders we so often seem to think we are.

One of my friends posted something like "Not Singapore, please.." and what a plaintive cry that is. One that I wholeheartedly agree with. But surely we knew the peace would not last? That no group of people, citizen or otherwise, is immune from the raging torrents of the mob mindset, that all it takes is an event capable of triggering it? Full-blooded citizens or not. Having served NS or not. Having had sons serve NS or not. That 50 years is in itself a remarkable achievement, but what do we do when something like this occurs? Point fingers at the government for a response not robust enough, not ready enough, for something it's not had to deal with in 50 years. I'm not defending wholesale what happened, complacency or whatever, but perhaps we have to consider the fact that we enjoyed stability for long enough to experience such complacency. I feel like the idealistic image I had in my mind of Singapore is being eroded now. The peace and stability I pledged to protect no longer actually there. The Singapore I decided to defend no longer the Singapore I thought it was.

What does being Singaporean mean after today? I realize this is quite a melodramatic statement to make but I really think that yes, this riot involving a few hundred people changes things. I wouldn't normally compare but an article on my newsfeed popped up the #hijabuppropet movement in Sweden, where Swedish women of all faiths have taken to wearing the hijab in solidarity with the Islam women who have increasingly become victims of Islamophobic assaults. Cut back to Singapore and you see a people lambasting the government for its lack of response, "why 20 minutes still no one??" etc. It's hard to not compare. I guess a riot is incomparable in so many ways with that, or with a bombing like the one at the Boston Marathon this year, but it seems more and more as if Singaporeans' capacity for good is being outshone by their incredible capacity for small-mindedness and petty behavior. "If this keeps up no work tmr!" "Finally we see the FTs true colours." How do you believe in a nation of such people?

I guess the question I have to ask myself is not "Why then should I still defend Singapore?" as easy as it may be to reach such a conclusion, but this: How can I, in whatever small way I may be capable of, help to mold Singapore into a country worth defending? Into the country I had in mind when I signed on that dotted line?

Because in the cold light of day, when the dust has settled, a few statistics will emerge. A handful killed. More injured, some of them police/SCDF personnel. A number arrested. A couple charged. Few months/years in prison. Et cetera. The numbers game, hard facts. But it will not tell the story. Of how the few hours of this one fateful night served to further polarize a nation reeling from a recent deluge of anti-foreigner sentiments. To fuel more violent xenophobic tendencies (taken to its extreme, although I hope dearly this never happens.) To fracture a racial and societal harmony that on the outside always seemed as if it would hold up.

That will be the untold story of the Little India Riot. But it could also be about how the indifferent majority saw the riot and decided that to not act here, now, possibly one of the most dramatic events in Singapore, would be taking our apathy too far. That to be bystanders after witnessing firsthand - not in our social studies textbooks - something historic, would be too much. Yes, we're probably not going to end up in the textbooks as history makers, but if we can in whatever small ways help to shape our nation's consciousness in the coming weeks, then we will have played our part. Maybe we can even help the next generation to read about the riot in their textbooks with eyes not of bitterness and resentment, but as a turning point, an example of how a nation decided collectively to pick itself up and to move on.

It's up to us to make that difference.

I Sea Change Within.

How easy has it become, to some of us, to start thinking that “Yes Lord, I am willing to serve You” but are unwilling to actually grow in the Lord? Yes Lord, I am happy serving in church, I am happy to be part of the Asian team, I am happy to be called a leader, but to grow in You? Oh no, no, please. I’m perfectly happy where I am now; please don’t ask me to grow any more. Isn’t serving regularly enough? I’m taking time out week after week to pray, to attend meetings, to talk to Your people! Surely that’s enough God; please don’t ask me to grow. If You love me You won’t ask this of me!

How easy has it become for us to become so afraid of what God has in store for us? Because we are so comfortable with where we are, with our current level of “spirituality”, with our current “faithfulness”, because we feel like we have achieved what God requires of us, that we have fulfilled a certain requirement, a certain Christian-ness. What comes next? A little part of us asks. The other parts, however, try desperately to ignore that question, to tell ourselves that that is irrelevant, that we’ve done enough, it’s so tiring! And succeed at doing so. We don’t want to confront the fact that we’re not quite there yet, that God still wants us to grow, that He wants us to draw yet closer to Him.

I play DotA all the time. Do I think God wants me to play it all day? Probably not. But I also ask myself, why would He not want me to play, to do something which I enjoy? Of course God wants me to enjoy life! And so I conveniently sidestep that uncomfortable first question, and find I am able to live with myself for spending hours on quite frankly, a meaningless game, which serves no purpose other than to while my time away and to frustrate and anger me. Even the enjoyment I derive from it serves only to get me more hooked onto it. But DotA is an easy example. It’s quite difficult to argue that it something desirable. It does, however, get difficult once we get to something like studying.

It’s quite hard to argue against studying. You reap what you sow, etc. But I think we have to stop in our tracks once in a while and ask ourselves this: How much of how hard I’m studying is truly necessary, and how much of it is because I’d rather trust in my own hands (minds) than in God? Not because I don’t trust God, of course, but what if..? What if He doesn’t pull through this time? What if He doesn’t want me to score well? I’d understand if God does but my parents… well no. I can’t take this risk. Or maybe some secret part of us wants to be able to claim some glory when we do well, so outwardly we might say “Thank God for my results!” but deep down we’re actually thinking “Yup, knew I could do this. I am smart and I can study.” Our flesh is always self-serving; it’s always craving for some glory, to boast in its own works. We have to be able to inspect ourselves and see whether we are doing what we’re doing to satisfy ourselves, because we’re trusting in our own efforts, instead of actually trusting God.

It’s the most important things to us that we find the hardest to entrust God with. God, take over my life! Except this one thing, cause it’s so important to me... You understand don’t You God? Just in case God doesn’t pull through this one time… Let me hold on to it just in case, it’s like having some form of insurance. I think everyone does that. Is it possible to trust God 100%? I’m not sure, frankly. I can’t say that I ever have. But I think what happens is that if we trust God with only 30% of what’s important to us, then He only has that 30% to work with. Maybe this explains why it’s the things which we hold dearest to our hearts, the things that we care most about, that sometimes feel as if God doesn’t care about.

It’s so easy to say, Let God and Let God, but how many of us are truly willing to let go of the things we hold most dear? I was just reading the Bible the other day about the rich young ruler who came across Jesus. We’ve read that story so many times it’s easy to discount this guy and just think, Oh the trappings of riches! That it’s just a story about money and possessions, which of course, as Christians we should be released from anyway, so whatever. But what do we consider the riches in our lives? Our family, friends, health, looks, smarts, studies etc.? Are we willing to give up any of these? I’m not saying God is asking us to, but if we ask ourselves this question and we come up negative, then what does this say? It says that we’re letting these things take precedence over God. God doesn’t want us to be rid of all these things which are important to us, because He knows that they are, but we have to realize when we allow them to take pole positions in our lives instead of putting God first.

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I kinda had these reflections a number of days back, after a series of rather illuminating (if also slightly painful) conversations I had with some of the only people I find myself able to talk about such things about. Not that I started out with the theme of "How easy" but a retrospective look over my life as I've lived it so far quite clearly tells me this: that I've so often managed to convince myself to take the "easy" way out.

I've always gone for, maybe even made it a point to, self-reflection, introspection and all that jazz. And I can't say it's not worked, or that it's not been necessary. But bottling things up, occasionally letting fly in random blog posts perhaps, doesn't quite achieve the same things an actual conversation does. And I'm thankful for the people in my life who are willing to have those conversations with me. Dispensing advice to people is surprisingly cathartic, and many of the things you have chosen to suppress somehow get dealt with in some weird way as well.

Anyway it's well and truly December now, and it's come to my attention that I've got just about 6 months left of formal education? An insane thought if ever there was one. Maybe it's time for me to actually get educated, instead of bum about facebook etc. 4 essays beckon, but there ya go. Procrastination at its finest. There is this thing though, the past few weeks have witnessed kind of a sea change in me. At the risk of sounding uber-fanatic, what's been going on is me allowing more and more for God to be at the center of everything I do.

I'm more than aware of how far more I have yet to go, but I guess faith means that the large distance I can see doesn't matter, only my belief in my God, the belief that He wants me to change and that He will help me in effecting that change in my life. "All these things I have asked of you, but I will be with you also."

I suddenly have this thought that I've gotten almost all I've needed out of my overseas experience. I will not be too distraught at leaving for home in 6 months, I guess. Sure, I'll miss this place but I think the reasons for my being here have almost all been achieved now. Unless God has some incredible surprise left for me! Just last year I was hoping that I'd chosen a 4 year course instead, but facing the prospect of a return for good next year, I can say almost with certainty that probably the things I'd set out to achieve, to prove - to myself or to others I'm never quite sure which - I have managed to do. Whether I've done so successfully or not is quite another question, but what I'm trying poorly to say is that probably having one more year wouldn't make that much of a difference.

I'm looking forward to coming home. In fact, I'm almost ready to say that I'm ready to come home now. Maybe I'm not there yet, but I'm more ready than I ever was. To understand what home really means. To be embraced not just by the warmth of a better (not pulling any punches here sorry England) sun, but by the warmth of my family. As a better son.

Sonship is not a concept that I've ever felt a need to explore or examine very closely, and I'm not trying to glaze over any familial problems we've had over the years. I just have never felt that there was an issue there. Maybe in some ways it has affected my walk as a Christian, my relationship with my family? I'm not sure. Nor do I feel a blog post is the place for me to talk about it even if there was, there is this perverse sense of.. voyeurism maybe? attached to the very act of blogging, a very public act of sharing psuedo-private things, but more on this another time perhaps.

But I do feel like I am slowly but surely arriving at a better understanding of what sonship truly means. And do I hope that it will help me in my relationship with my parents? You bet. I know I came to the UK for a reason, that it wasn't just an idle dream that somehow managed to get fulfilled. There's something more behind it. And if it results in a better relationship with my family then I thank God for that. And a better relationship with my Father too. I'm currently reading a book called The Return of the Prodigal Son, loaned to me by a precious friend, and who knows, maybe when I'm done with it I'm gonna be even more crazily next-level with my sonship haha.

I realize this, and probably a few of my last posts might seem like quite a marked change in direction from before i.e. a reticence on matters of faith and God. (A sea change, if you will, but I cringe at the thought of using a good phrase twice in one post, if ever.) But what else is a blog for if not to document such changes in a person's life? I mean, just perusing my first few ever blog posts.. I can think of no greater shame.... It's not meant to be some populist platform with which I intend to launch some charm offensive, although I'm aware also that at times that's exactly what I tried to do sometimes. Who can say they're immune to the pressures of perception? But I treat this as my electronic diary, almost, although not nearly as private or close to my heart as an actual written (i.e. no one else should read or can decipher) diary. My most private musings, the really raw stuff, the most bitter of resentments, disappointments, the most ecstatic of hopes, dreams, those things I'd scarcely project to my admittedly limited audience. But I guess it's a way also for my friends, for people who actually care, to track my growth as well. Cause I don't often find myself in the business of sharing all that much, so maybe this is the only way my friends can find out how I'm actually doing, just about as honest as I'm ever going to be. Maybe. Some of my posts I actually specifically tailor to address/impress a particular person. Shameful display.. But I am what I am. Warts and all.

On the subject of "I am what I am" actually, I did have a couple of thoughts a couple weeks ago, after bel's visit, about the danger in such thinking, and it's about..

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The danger of modern science, explanations, and "Why so and so.." Psychology, biology, genetics, astrology. Nature or Nurture, what defines us? That's the wrong question to ask, really, cause it is God who defines us.

We seek to feel "better" about ourselves by subscribing to all these "comprehensive" theories which try to explain us, and in so doing, pigeonhole ourselves into these labels. Daddy issues. Childhood trauma. Second-child syndrome. Leo personality. Introvert. INFP. I'm not saying these things don't exist, or are wrong. But it absolves us of the need to change what we know to be wrong about ourselves, by giving us a cop-out, saying, I was born this way. Or, I was raised this way. Whichever side of that fence you sit on.

But that's a stupid fence. It is a fence that serves only to get in the way. So often we can't see past this stupid fence, and we keep returning to it, and we get stuck. But we can sidestep it by turning to God. He is the One who defines us, however Nature or Nurture decided to mold us. He created us, not these false gods. If we focus on Nature vs Nurture, we become entrenched on explanations for why we are, when God is trying to tell us who we are.
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I probably can go on more but I'm actually supposed to start on my essay anytime now. This is rich pickings, though, so much more about pseudo-psychology, the comfort in things like astrology, the feel-good tactics in so many of these.. hoaxes I want to say. False glimmers, helping to cover up the truths so many people are unwilling to confront. "Yep, musta failed that interview cause this week isn't a Libra's week!" Come on, get off of it now. As I said, rich pickings, and a topic that makes me quite angry if I ever stop to actually think about it.

Oka doka then, see ya'll.

No More November Rain, Please.

Well.. so November is coming to a close. How decidedly odd to consider that a mere 31 days from now, a new year will be upon us. I'm not sure I'm quite prepared to face 2014. Not that I'm unwilling to leave 2013 behind (too early for a reflection here aha) but the prospect of a year in which I graduate, leave Exeter behind, and embark on the next phase of my hopefully super long life-journey-epic, is not really one I'm ready to confront just yet. Real life beckons, work, responsibility, duty, and other terribly noble ideals.

Hopefully November Rain takes a page from Guns'n'Roses' books and stops existing once and for all. Dreary skies begone forevermore.

Hmm it's been quite a week, or however many days it's been since my last post. Things are looking up, or possibly I am finally looking up, for the first time in a really long while. If I ever have at all, which is kinda doubtful. But yes, I feel like I can hope again, without feeling the need to temper my expectations as I have done so often in recent years. Low expectation = no disappointment and all that empty rhetoric.

I finally feel as if I can let go of too many of these silly ideas and.. things of the past. Bitterness, disappointment, shame etc. Mind you, much of those have been directed at myself, not to anyone else out there, much less anyone who's reading this so please try not to think I've been secretly harbouring this insane anger and bitterness against you. So much of this has been self-directed, which isn't all that healthy I suspect. And I've only done so because of some twisted inner-logic which dictated that allowing myself to take the blame for everything wrong that's happened in my life makes me that much of a stronger person. That's assuming I manage to pull through, of course, but what was happening was that I was being consumed, drowned by my own negativity. I wasn't getting out of that stinking pit, no matter that had I done so I would have emerged stronger.

I guess I'm gonna have to start thinking of what the year 2013 has meant to me, and I have a niggling suspicion it's gonna be positive. Or at least slightly more positive than last year was. And.. I have to wake up for my 9am lecture tmr because I have made a Resolution to do so, and I shall. So goodnight folks, a blessedly short post, that most elusive of rarities!

It's Soul Business Not Show Business.

Okay so, this is going to be a confession of sorts. Or perhaps the makings of a resolution. What's been going down in my life is basically this: absolutely nothing. I freely admit I am a ridiculously horrible student. I've watched 3 seasons of Game of Thrones (read: truly incredible) and 1 of Breaking Bad. Today I woke up at 4pm and was hit by the realization that I am truly a wreck. I can't rightly say it was a sudden realization, cause it's not so much creeped up on me but smacked me in the head everytime I look out my window and realize the sun is shining in by the time I lay my head on my pillow to sleep every single day. But I've conveniently managed to ignore the sense of horror for almost 3 weeks now. I keep thinking that okay, maybe tomorrow I'm gonna change. But really, when you're waking up at 4pm with the sun already dimming, those sort of days aren't the kind where you're in the mood for change.

I managed to convince myself that the 9 months a year I spend in the UK in uni are basically my holidays, the super-lengthy calm before returning home to work every year. But this is my final year now, and really I can't afford to do this any more. Somehow when I'm home I wake myself up every morning at 5.30 to go to work but I spend every single day here just watching shows and playing games. What's the difference? And I guess it's this - duty. Back home I know I have a duty to go to work, that shit will go down if I'm not there. Here, my going or not doesn't quite seem to affect anyone at all. I don't go to lectures with my friends, or tutorials, we just happen to meet if we do. Nobody could care less whether or not I'm there, I owe it to no one but myself to go, and I have managed to fool myself into thinking I don't have to. It is colossal stupidity of the highest order.

But today I woke up and felt utterly horrified at myself, oh my god what am I doing?! So here is my simple resolve to be better. At everything. At life. Studies, family, friendships, cooking even.. At all the basic things. As a case in point when I cooked myself a meal, for the first time in a long time I prepared the ingredients properly instead of making it up on the fly, and making a hash of it usually. A terrible example, to be sure, but it hopefully conveys the sentiment of my wanting to do things properly now. To no longer half-ass every damn thing I do, as I am wont to. Just the other day I had this presentation which I mucked up horribly, much to the chagrin of my group mates probably. What a horrible sensation.

The word I had in mind actually was this - Christ-like. I guess I've been a horrible representative of Jesus lately, in fact almost all the time I've spent in the UK. Lazing about, hiding under my duvet watching shows, I mean how ridiculous is that?! I guess my other resolution is to be done with my apologeticism for my faith. If something is really important to me, then surely I should be able to proclaim it however I want. And yet I find I censor and restrain myself in order that I may be.. I don't even know. More acceptable perhaps. I'm done with that too. I guess an appropriate term might be "people-pleasing" or simply the basic need to fit in. You know what, stuff that. My God is a good God, and I really shouldn't be ashamed to tell people that, but there it is. It's really hard to tell someone that, no matter how close I am to them.

It's probably borne out of some deep insecurity, or self-doubt, or God-doubt even, I don't even know. But the funny thing is that God doesn't care now, does He? Not about your flaws, your insecurities, your self-esteem issues. He takes you and He uses you. I had this image in my mind the other day of myself as an enraged teenager in a LAN-shop. And God knows there are plenty of those images floating around people's minds, cause I was one helluva angry kid. (Sorry anyone who's ever played DotA with me hahah) So get this: somehow God looked at this enraged child and decided, you know what, I'm going to send him to Uganda one day to teach kids there. I'm going to plant him into the children's ministry of some church in the UK in some city that at this point he's never even heard of before. I'm going to make him one of the team members of the Asian community in this church. How insane is that? I mean, really God?! What were You thinking! This pompous idiot who shouted at his closest friends just because they perhaps weren't as good at him at some video game?! (to be fair, it was quite hard to be as good as I was.... hahaha sry.) Anyone else would have crinkled their nose in distaste and discounted me as soon as they saw that side of me, but not my God. He is perfectly faithful even through our imperfections.

That is the thing though, I've always used that kind of thinking as some sort of crutch. Oh, if I laid in bed all day things would still work out to the good. That entire season of Twin Peaks was entirely in God's plan for my life. I mean, really?! Of course at some level I don't believe in that, cause I'm calling it right now, that's bullshit, but at the surface level where I find myself operating all too often, I find I am able to convince myself of that. Not sure about you but I kinda have this niggling suspicion that following in Christ's footsteps doesn't quite involve lazing around for 3 weeks in a row playing Final Fantasy and Smite.. But there you go. The incredible things I have managed to let myself think.

It's funny how I completely believe in God yet don't completely have faith in Him. How can I explain this.. Because complete faith is a massive risk isn't it? Knowing for sure that yes, He is there and He is real, beyond a shadow of a doubt, is one thing. Trusting him with my entire life? Another altogether. Because... what if He doesn't come through? What if for some reason it doesn't work out? Because complete faith opens you up to the possibility of complete disillusionment. At a cerebral level I know that's not going to happen, but at an existential level, am I really willing to chance everything? To be perfectly honest, up till today the answer has probably been a flat no. I'm not big on taking risks like that (see also: why up till now I've never had a girlfriend hahahaha).

I am afraid of God. By this I mean that I am afraid of what He has in store for me. It sounds pretty silly but I think at some level most people know what I mean. It's like I'm this pig and I'm perfectly happy wallowing in the mud and the squalor of my own choosing. Do you see what I mean? Yes, I know all this is bad for me.. but I am perfectly happy to be where I am! And so I choose to remain there, stagnant, in a shitty environment that I am familiar with. Hmm I'm sure I can explain this better. Maybe my pig metaphor is pretty shit.. I'm afraid of God's glory, what He wants me to grow to be, because I'm perfectly content where I am comfortable, even if it's a middling life of mediocrity. Please, please don't ask me to step out into God's plan for me. Leave me be.

I know I could be better, I could be more. But I don't want to be. I'm happy where I am, and isn't happiness all there is to pursue? I must admit, at some point that's what I led myself to believe, that happiness is all. I think that premise could quite easily have collapsed upon any serious crash-testing, for example, happiness at the expense of others? You know, quite simple hypothetical questions. So my answer now is Jesus, and I trust that in so doing happiness too will follow.

I guess at its core lies this: that we're all creatures of sin. And let's not deny it, sin is attractive. It's why I let my eyes wander, why I feel the urge to shout at someone when I'm angry, why I'm so content with where I am. It's what my flesh craves. Just chilling, hanging out under my covers with my Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones. It is hard to deny ourselves that, cause who can say that's not pleasurable? But that's not how we're meant to live, no matter how much we try to convince ourselves of that. And God knows how often I've successfully conned myself into thinking so. So I guess here for posterity shall lie this one resolution, that this will be the last time I get all self-aware and ashamed of my degradation.. Because I know if I really want to change, I can, not by my own strength but by my Saviour's. Really the question is only whether or not I want to.

Hmm okay guess I kinda ran out of steam here. Actually had quite a lot more on my mind but you guys are spared. For now. Moving on to other things which have happened, and good ones at that. Imagine Dragons was pretty darn sick, and I even met Sam there absolutely by chance, how impossible is that?! Hanging out with broko and sisteryu was pretty fun too, and finally had a taste of Betty's Tea Rooms at Harrogate! What a dream come true.. Watched Volcano Choirs with Aisyah the other day too, which was pretty decent although I did get a little miffed near the end at the self-indulgent banging of the drummer haha. There's just The Lumineers next Wednesday left, and then it's time for me to plan my december trip!

And as awkward as this is going to be, I have to share how my day was made. Even at 4pm and just having woken up, blearily glancing at my phone, I recognized immediately that this one message just made my day. Not gonna reproduce it here verbatim but it went along the lines of: "Dy!! Just wanted to tell you how pretty and cute (this-girl-who-will-forever-be-unnamed) is!!" Hahahahahahaha. What! I guess I have to be thankful that my friend thinks of me when she sees a pretty/cute girl ;-) I know you got my back yo! #truefriendshipindeed

Have to thank my man wongapong for introducing me to Milo Greene really. What an excellent band, have been listening to them for weeks on end now. And this one youtube playlist of What's The Matter, which featured on Grey's, so I managed to discover like millions of new songs, cause even though I've not actually gotten round to actually watching the show, I can tell you that they have some incredible music going on. Current soundworms being Adaline and NO, Keep Me High and Long Haul respectively, as well as Hit It by Miss Li. Dude, those songs are ridikz.

Oh yeah and one more thing. I made my decent meal in the afternoon and had the leftovers for supper. It's weird to only find out it was too spicy after you take a dump and realize your ass is on fire. Yep there we go. I call it as I see it. I'm not one to shy and flinch away from the hard truths. LKY can take a page out of my book anytime. Just not on the How Much Chili To Add page.

Oh and one more last final thing. I just wanted to say HOW MUCH I'M BEGINNING TO HATE STATEMENTS WHICH START WITH: That awkward moment when..... OH MY LORD PLS STOP ALREADY SOME OF YOU CLEARLY HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE WORD AWKWARD MEANS, AWKWARD MUCH? Also... I'm beginning to get a little put off by all those lists and things. I realize there is some value to some of them, but so many of them are so.. self-affirming I guess. And only because I just switched to facebook and saw the "17 signs sarcasm is your mother tongue of language style crap nonsense" (no that's not the actual title) and oh god the pomposity?! It actually got under my skin.. It's so full of people trying so hard to let others know that yeah bietches I be [sarcastic] [nice guy] [traveller] [toocoolforschool] [insert annoying image of self/what you secretly think you truly deep down are if anyone else would only have the eyes to see]. I get that some are amusing and yes I do enjoy some, especially the inspirational Places-to-go-things-to-see-food-to-try ones. But even as they occasionally inspire, more often I think they serve to demoralize by casting a very unflattering light and throwing into sharp relief our own inadequacies and sad, normal circumstances. Because no, you haven't learnt these 25 things before you were 25. Nor did you do these 18 things in your teens. Or have these 7 qualities that make you a geek/nerd/jock/champion/secretsuperhero. Or possess these 5 signs that you are truly happy. Or..

Oh dear lord I never knew I was so hateful and angry I'm going off to have a lie-down now bye.

What Does A Great White Shark Eat?

So I'm busy watching Parks and Rec (illegally streaming it of course)(at 1 am in the morning, in the middle of a school week, with two workshops i haven't prepared for tomorrow, and having to wake up at 7am, just sayin super saiyan, my life is a mess) and this question (the kind you have to answer before they allow you to continue) from one of the streaming sites pops up, WHAT DOES A GREAT WHITE SHARK EAT? What can I say, my jaw dropped and I panicked. I DON'T KNOW?! I mean, who does, srsly? And I thought that was it, condemned to a life of never knowing what that episode contained and having to plod off to sleep and wake up more refreshed/happy yada-yada all that crap. Of course it was a drop-down option bar thing with other options like turkey sandwich and stuff, so I did manage to get it right but still. What a bloody question eh?

Just gonna churn out a short update here cause my week has been utter bullcrapshit. No exaggeration. I did spend a great weekend away at Bangor with my excellent host shityu, but then I took a 7+ hour train ride back home and that did it for me, I think. Or at least I'm gonna pin it on that. I didn't go for any of my classes this week, missed one workshop even, and have basically lazed around all dayz. It is frankly awful. Did manage to muster up dinner for my homies so they don't starve, and I did just bake a lemon cake a couple hours ago, but I've spent the better part of my week sushi-ed in my duvet watching Community and Parks and Rec. Season 4 of Community was rather disappointing though, I must say, although I did have someone tell me that before so I probably went in more aware of its shortcomings than usual, but still. Meh. Still love Annie and Britta, but more Parks and Rec for me baby!

Otherwise, really not a whole lot I've done this week, and I feel pretty awful unfortunately. It's one thing to be aware of it, it's another to actually be able to do something about it. It kinda ties in with some thoughts I've been having lately which I will not elaborate on here, much to your relief probably, seeing as I do go on and on and on and on. Sometimes.

Bangor was cool even if I didn't get to scale Snowdon, we did make it probably 20% of the way up and that was pretty fun in and of itself so not really disappointed anyways, met Juli and had amazing phở which she made, and spent a pleasant day at the Conwy Food Fest just chilling out basically. A pretty good trip I'd say, huge props to shiyu for putting me up! (and putting up with me, and all my shit. Literally. #movingbowels)

Leaving tmr for Nottingham, coming back on Saturday. Was kinda reluctant to go really, cause I thought it'd mean losing an entire weekend again but I managed to schedule it such that I'd be back late Saturday night, so not too bad I guess. Imagine Dragon's the week after, so I will be having quite a hectic couple of weeks, and it kinda puts me in this horrible holiday mood as well. Bah. Never thought I'd see the day I feel miserable to be in this mood.

I finally finished City of Small Blessings, and Heart of Darkness as well. In my mind I always thought of the film (which I only ever watched halfway) and it's Vietnam War context, but the book is actually set in such colonial-scramble-for-africa times. I do think having been to Africa I appreciate some of its context a bit more, also having read a couple of books recently, which for some reason have shed some hugely critical light on the European powers and colonialism at the turn of the 20th century. It's a pretty sordid mess, even the peaceable harmless seeming nations like.. Belgium I guess. Well, I guess they did screw up Rwanda pretty publicly, but still. The extent of it, and how Africa as a continent is still reeling from all the "civilizing" the allegedly good-intentioned powers, is pretty shocking.

Also bought two books while on the way back from Bangor, Fatherland and Dominion, for some reason both novels set in the alternate history of Germany having won WWII. And that is about it. Nothing to crow about, no good stories, no memorable moments, life-affirming experiences, nothing but everyday humdrum mundane activities and plain good old-fashioned lazing about. There is this movie The Art of Getting By but sometimes I guess just getting by doesn't cut it. It's frustrating, but that's a good sign. I think I read something recently about depression being the lack of desire for desire, or something like that, which does make sense.

So anyway, that's it, and have a great weekend guys.

Kleptomaniac's Dream.

That's what I'm calling my mega shopping bag. Probably none of you has ever seen me carrying it but I can tell you one thing, it is a grocery shopper's dream come true. Ever since I discovered Wilkinson offers a student discount (OF 15% NO LESS!!)#!) I've been going there much too often to be healthy.. for my manhood that is. I think I've become domesticated. I have just proudly returned from a shopping expedition where I bought a baking tray, a roasting tray, a wok, and some tea towels.. Well now.

But one other day as I was leaving one of the supermarkets I was stopped by one of the cashiers who sheepishly asked to take a look inside my bag. He probably thought he was being quite rude or something but on the inside I was thinking: What a fine young man! Doing his job with mettle and panache! Cause I could see that clearly, I looked pretty suspicious. It's so easy to slip things into this megabag, hence what I've christened it.

Been reading the (thus far) excellent City of Small Blessings by Simon Tay, and will hopefully proceed to complete it today cause I've decided not to let such a glorious day go to waste! Gonna hit the park later for some sun-on-boy action before I get all pasty again.

I also bought a lampshade the other day. A mother bleeding lampshade. What devious spirit hath possessed me so?? It is a gorgeous piece of work, handmade (because I am a total sucker for all such things, as I might have mentioned once or twice before) and the result of a little chat with the delightful maker of the Kitsch Attic one-off pieces, and learning about the new (I presume, if only because of an appalling assumption that it has to be cause I've never heard of it) and cool and environmentally conscious practice/trend of upcycling.

I'd like to think that most of the things I purchase has some sort of meaning or story behind them. (Not all of them, cause that would be atrociously pretentious.) Because, as I tried to explain one of my pricier purchases to my sister once, what are you willing to pay for if not for a certain human experience? Is that not the point (or at least one of the points) of art anyway? A connection; with somethings or someones, often in a surprising or unexpected way? So when I stumble upon a quaint little shop or something somewhere, and find myself in conversation with someone so completely apart (or foreign) to me, it is an unexpected connection, so I am willing to spend (sometimes exorbitant amounts of) money in order that I may have a keepsake of such connections.

Of course, there are the completely random things, like my 10 euro clock, or my cheap wall hanging, random postcards etc which happen to catch my fancy and I just like, and there's nothing deeper about that. But still, it soothes my aching soul (and ravaged wallet) to think that there is some meaning behind some of the things I buy. That they are not just random pieces of worthless junk I have a fetish for (okay I admit maybe to a little of that.)

I read this article about this 24 year old guy who's been to every single country in the world. Every single one of them. What in the world?! (and I guess he's the youngest and one of the only persons to be qualified to actually use that term.) It's pretty inspiring. And the way he got about it, from part-time jobs, hooking up with locals etc, it's truly admirable. But I was just thinking that some people collect countries the way they do badges. Oh, this list says I have to go to Paris before I die? Check. Cinque Terre one of the you-wouldn't-believe-it-exists-must-see-to-believe places to go? Check. Without any genuine interest, if you know what I mean, instead just leaning on other people's hype?


And because love battles
not only in its burning agricultures
but also in the mouth of men and women,
I will finish off by taking the path away
to those who between my chest and your fragrance
want to interpose their obscure plant.

About me, nothing worse
they will tell you, my love,
than what I told you.

I lived in the prairies
before I got to know you
and I did not wait love but I was
laying in wait for and I jumped on the rose.


Truly what would we be without the internet, I wonder. I stumbled upon this most sublime poem by Pablo Neruda through complete accidence (coincidence? more like incidence than coincidence I guess) which really makes you wonder how different life would be had we not have had so much information at our literal fingertips almost all our lives. I wikipedia-ed Pablo Neruda and found out he lived in Valparaiso, which sounded familiar so I googled and confirmed that yes, it was from the story of The Reluctant Fundamentalist. And the way sometimes we find answers to the questions we didn't even know we were asking. Well, I guess it's not just the internet that offers that, but anyhow.

I had this random thought about us millenials the other day. I'm not certain what exactly the proper definition for that term is but I'm gonna appropriate it and use it to mean us folks who grew up (or were forced to) at or around the turn of the new millenium. Probably including most of you reading this I assume. Weaned on a diet of TV and games as we were growing up, most likely (at the risk of over-simplifying and generalizing a whole host of people, which you'll notice in most commentaries on Gen Y or the Strawberry Generation, it is hard not to I guess). The world was pretty much our oysters, the world was our classroom, etc etc. I was just thinking about this the other day and I came up with this thought: That we are interested, but not interesting.

Do you think yourself an interesting person? What is it about you that is interesting? I tried to cough up something and came up rather empty-handed. I could go on at length about what interests me, but interesting? It is, of course, rather an exercise in futility cause I don't expect most people go about thinking what makes them interesting, or have (sensibly) too much humility not to. But is it our fascination in things that makes us fascinating as people? Possibly it is. But I was thinking of how likely it is that we have grown up to be a generation of vaguely interested, ultimately vapid people. Chock full of one-liners taken verbatim off of 9GAG, ever-ready with references to books and movies and TV series, in all their banality. A generation of reproducers (not in that sense. you know, the biological one) instead of producing anything of real value ourselves. Random Access Memory (also that awesome album by Daft Punk) as apt a term as any to describe us (and all our random references).

It is, of course, easy to condemn one's own generation, because it is a well-known fact that people oftentimes do take to self-indulgent self-bashing in order that they may feel better about themselves (that they are so self-aware perhaps) or whatever other reason they do. And it is easy for an older generation, perhaps even natural, to condemn a new generation of young punks, much in the way you'd deride your cui-looking/acting/pimply juniors in school. Usurpers, the lot of them. So perhaps alot of the flak that Gen Y receives is unwarranted, merely an echo of the bitterness and resentment of a fading generation, a generation long past its glorious heydays. But how much of it actually rings true?

Our lofty expectations. The way we cling on to that incredible belief that despite everything, everything's somehow gonna end up all right, because that's what we were brought up to believe (laying the blame on TV series and movies of course, in exactly the same way violence can be traced definitively to video games)(I'm not actually serious here.) That we are special and that we deserve better. That love will magically happen in random coffee shops around town. That it happens just like that, you just know, and requires no effort whatsoever. A generation of hopeless dreamers, if you will, except in this sense it is not "romantic", it is just sad.

Not that I'm knocking hopeless dreamers (oh that tired cliché), surely at some point most or all of us has identified with exactly that state, or still do even. The world needs its share of dreamers. But it needs its realists too. What I'm afraid of is that we have far too many of the former, and inexplicably, far too many of the latter too. 

Too many dreamers who will never see their beautiful dreams realized, who will wind up bitter and resentful and unable to fully grasp the providence of their realities. So keen on chasing down only the most beautiful of dreams they are unable to appreciate the smaller littler things life has to offer, the serendipity of minor occurrences.

Too many realists who see the world based solely on their own pragmatic views of it. Chasing the tangibles, going after only the definites and the unshakeables, like their 1st class degrees, the 5-digit salaries, all the while not realizing why exactly, or what exactly it is they are working for. Instead just vague ideas of stability and "progress", social mobility, and whatnot. Never asking the question: and then what? Or they do, and it's answered unfortunately by that black hole of an answer: More.

Okay so I kinda got caught up with yet another verbose (and pretentious, as the usage of the word verbose clearly demonstrates) post and the sun is going down and I am slowly getting chilled in my room so I really don't think I'm heading to the park now... Meh. Baking an apple cake tonight though, and was gonna do a baked rice too but I forgot to buy cheese while on my expedition just now sigh. Well, what do you know, even DomesticDe isn't perfect..

Lady Lamb the Beekeeper is my newest soundworm, and she seems so young too! Definitely not what I was associating with that voice. Okay then, see ya later guys.

Unique.

Tiny flickering lights in a million windows
The hopes and dreams of a million different people
But they do not hope and dream
The way I hope and dream
Surely?

What Comes With Opposable Thumbs.

Got like a million and four thousand stuff shoved away in random little drafts and notebooks all over the place, so I'll take this opportunity to clear them all out of the way. Will be pretty random, I expect, so hang on to your hats.


An old friend
Made new again
What machinations or monstrous mind
Can explain what one now finds?

From easy familiarity
To anonymity
Only we can unfriend
Unlove
Did this come with opposable thumbs?

The capacity to love
Hate
Two sides of a coin
Third series
Do we get to choose
Which side it lands
Which face it shows
Is it so easily flipped?

Just the twitch of ones fingers
In the blink of ones eyes
Do we fall in hate
So recklessly too?

我们的过去, 并不属于我们

I just had this random thought a long time ago that our pasts don't belong just to each of us alone, that we can't be so selfish as to think that all the time. That other people have a stake and play a part in our pasts too, and sometimes maybe we owe it to them to not covet our pasts like that. Not sure where this stemmed from but I think it was some reflection about my reticence and how I find it almost impossible to share anything about myself and my past at all.

An expert on being stubborn and full of pride. Was writing a letter to a friend when I stumbled upon this as quite the apt description of myself, if only because I wanted to warn her against being any of those.


Took for a twirl
Another girl
Told her that
She was his world
Another day
Another play
So says the art
of modern manliness.

You're eating alone
You look at your phone
It won't ring
No
It will not.

Scattered failings where doubt lurked. That when push comes to shove, you'd fold.

A mediocrity imposed on each of us. And yet within our personal, mediocre worlds, did not there spring forth decidedly unfutile acts, emotions?

A happiness contingent on others. Emotions not belonging just to me, nor my life, cause my emotions affect others too. Just the way other people affect me.

War is not war until a man on a hill says so. Fighting not-a-war.

If you could see me now.

Solitude with no purpose?
With no audience.
And end in itself.

Lost in a crowd
Looking for the meaning in art that no one knows.

Guns the great equalizer.

Foreign is to be apart.


Yep that's kinda all of my backlog. Ranging from reflections on re-acquainting myself with an old, old friend to snippets of self-doubt and ruminations on being alone (and your phone offers you no respite.) How soldiers can fight all they want but if the politicians decide that no, this does not qualify as war, then we'd be fighting nothing at all. That no one actually knows what they're looking for when they peruse the Arts, that we're all going at it blind. How so much of what we feel are our best faces, the most important people in our lives will never get to see. This straight from le Carre's Our Kind of Traitor, where one of the spies rues how his children will never appreciate fully what he does. How to be foreign is merely to be apart, and how easy it is for each of us to be foreigners in our own countries.

Ehm I shall end here actually, not quite in much of a mood to continue much further even if I could and want to elaborate on quite a lot of those few topics above. So many existential issues.. Pains of being human I guess, the price to pay for opposable thumbs. Well good night fellas!

Sweater Weather.

The Neighbourhood's Sweater Weather has been one of my favourite songs recently, which I discovered just before arriving on these dreary shores, since I have had nary the chance nor ability to do any discovering since, what with no WiFi and all UNTIL TODAY YAY!

I thought it was an apt song to bring into autumn (my favourite season as some of you may know) but it is scarcely true. As sad as it makes me to say this, I have to declare that this is parka weather instead. It's been raining every single day (or it sure feels like it has) since I've got back. Masigh.

Today I wore a shirt to class. This sounds like just about the most mundane and meaningless statement in the world. Or so I would have thought. Instead, what I got were comments like these. "Why are you wearing a shirt today?" "Did you run out of clothes?" "I thought you had some kind of wardrobe malfunction or something." DO YOU GUYS EVEN KNOW WHAT THE WORD FRIEND MEANS GUYS? I mean, how depressing is that?! Admittedly my wardrobe has needed a little sprucing up for a while now (incidentally I bought myself a fancy new plant flower shrub thing because spruce refers to some coniferous tree apparently) but frank astonishment I did not expect, not from people I had heretofore (what a lawyer I am) called "friends".

So. Been pretty busy these few weeks, largely with church related activities, and I am pleased to note that my first week at children's church went well and without injury nor tears nor mucus et al! (Wow totally didn't realize it at first but that's a phonetic pun right there. i.e. at all. Must be the Law and Literature module I'm doing, also a fantastic one!) Sure there were only 2 kids there but still it was a roaring success in my books! The adorablerestness kids of the whole world I assure you.

Been attending lectures with almost near perfect faithfulness (yes I just skipped my first lecture yesterday sigh. I am disappoint.) like the aforementioned Law and Lit as well as Forensic Speech, which are fascinating just on the strength of them being the minor modules which arise purely out of their own interest and are the professor's brainchildren I guess, the kinda things they themselves are passionate about, so it's been mighty good. Just attended a reading of Where The Wild Things Are which was fab, so I am only expecting greater and better things from here on out. Apparently saying things like greater and better is a linguistic tool called a doublet, and there's your random piece of education you never were expecting. The wonders of the internet hey.

And meeting friends and other people, not actually had much free time of late and what time I do I have spent on FFX. Didn't quite like the game initially but man am I hooked now. It really is quite bad.. Yuna looks terrible when not in CGI form though, i.e. normal gameplay, but ohwell I really shouldn't be trying to notice fictional characters should I?

Been reading City Of Small Blessings, the book kinonn kidnapped for weeks back in Singapore, which has been pretty good so far. Also finished this epic book called Sleepwalkers, a non-fiction account of the shenanigans that lead up to the First World War and changed forever the world, leading as it did to the Second World War etc etc. Really quite a fantastically researched and articulated narrative, and it's definitely going to add some colour and knowledge when I go and my Eastern European adventures this winter (I hope!) And Emeritus Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew's One Man's View of the World, which was good as well. The breadth of knowledge and insights that this one man has, it's not even funny man. For some reason it's cool to like LKY and it's cool to hate on the PAP too. Weird singaporeans. I guess it is hard to deny his influence, the same way I've probably never heard anyone complain about the late Dr Goh Keng Swee.

Cool in Singapore is really weird nowzadayz cause I just found the new Navy advert on youtube and it is pretty awesome, especially that tagline: We may be out of sight but you will always be on our minds. Or something like that. And just about 90% of the comments are from SGAG-gers (okay I might be wrong for taking that as the standard for "cool" cause most of those people make me want to gag.) who were lured there by the promise of a pretty female officer, and they're split between professing their unending ardour and desire for her, and deploring her upsetting unattractiveness. As my friend jess would surely say, kill me lah.

I do have a friend though, who seems rather ashamed of being Singaporean, or possibly just Singlish, and has this overwhelming sense that he wants to be British with the best of them. It's pretty disturbing really. Not that he doesn't like singapore or anything, it's just this sort of sense of inferiority. Which is kinda easy to fall into sometimes I guess. My uncle told me the first time I voyaged to Hong Kong at the tender young age of 14 that one of the key things he wanted to tell me was that: Never to feel inferior to anyone, especially Westerners. And I guess that extends to everything exterior as well. So I find it odd when I meet someone who does, a little.

I just had my wisdom tooth extraction a week before I was due to fly, which saddened me greatly cause I wanted to indulge in all da food before leaving. And I did! Because I suffered almost not at all from any pain or swelling at all, thank God! KTP Hospital is my new third home I think. The staff there are fantastic, and I am 159% pleased with my entire experience there. Visiting dentists has never been this painless.

Which leads me to this next question I shall pose the universe. Must all dentists possess fine eyes? I went to the medical centre in base (of all places) for my dental assessment (which I failed miserably apparently thanks to my wise but uglily grown tooth) and the first thing (indeed the only thing I could) I noticed was the dentists' eyes. If eyes could launch ships the way faces do (see: Helen of Troy) then surely she belongs rightly to a naval base. Okay I did notice the engagement ring too after, but those eyes! Haha that's been one of the things I've been meaning to say for a while now, because it was one of the bright spots of my stint back home (as lecherous as that sounds..)

Erm, have also done up my room so it looks a lot more presentable now than it did when I first arrived, which was quite an unmitigated disaster of a first encounter! Sparse, sad-looking, shelve-less, wires sticking out of walls. Managed to bum a (shaky) shelf off my street-mates (also the aforementioned jessica) so my room is at least serviceable now. As long as I don't rumble the floor too much and send all my books sprawling. For some reason I had like 30 books leftover from last year, which frankly is shocking given that I purposefully tried not to make any big purchases from amazon or bookdepository.. Well that number does include statute books and law revision texts, but they are so overwhelmingly in the minority I am ashamed even to mention them.

What else. My life does seem so sparse everytime I attempt to encapsulate it in words. But what do when life is average. As the Kaiser Chiefs say, #everythingisaveragenowadays. How they tried to charge 30 or 40 or even 50 plus for a performance at my uni is still baffling to me. I paid 50 for MUSE IN LONDON BUDDIES. Oh in other cool news heading up to Manc in november for Imagine Dragons, imagine that! Thinking if I should go for TNAF again cause it's just 2 days away.... Don't see why not really, unless I truly overspend which I am quite in danger of doing unfortunately. Too much going out and pizzas over the last few weeks, and not enough cooking sadly.. Have only cooked once since getting back although I do make the excuse that I have no idea how to use this gas oven..

Well that as they say, is that. Not quite got that much to say, so bye. (Probably my most parentheses filled post in months as well, although I'm not sure if they mean anything, or if this signifies anything in the greater scheme of things at all, or maybe it's just one of those meaningless observations which serve no purpose but to fill space and frustrate minds.)

In Defence Of;

I've actually got heaps I want to unload so I'll start off with the trivial before diving into the depths of my soul and consciousness and the human psyche and the meaning of life. Why not throw in the cure for cancer and the solution to world poverty while I'm at it? Jkz, just gonna ramble on about some of the more mundane things that have occupied me, and some of the other things which required a little more thought. Also my faith. So hold on to your socks, or just switch back to facebook or sth if you think I ramble like La Rambla! (Longest touristy road in Barcelona, cause I name-drop like it's hot.)

Well anyways, this past few weeks I have been rather busy, and yet not, in that weird way that is only possible to the crazy minds of human beings. By that I mean I am working, staying-in for duties, sailing, in general tiring myself out greatly in service to our nation (the nobility!) and yet I feel like I am unoccupied, that I have so much time that I am not spending in adequate fashion. I am ending work daily and wondering, huh, is dota all I have to look forward to? It is a terrible, terrible predicament to find oneself in on an everyday basis. Probably because some part of me actually relishes the idea of going home to dota asap.. Not even kidding.

I did participate in the Singapore Public Policy Challenge early August, which was an excellent experience. By complete chance I bumped into my friend whom I met in Lisboa earlier this year and spent a pleasant day with, although it was slightly awkward after cause I wasn't sure how to talk to her haha. Lawyers unite, apparently. Also met a cute girl I spoke to on the first day but was completely at a loss as to how to talk to her on subsequent encounters.. Totally squandering my 3d2n experience. Except for the challenge itself of course, 24 hours of policy crafting at the wonderful Intercontinental (those buffets..) and getting to see how the public service works. I must say I came away extremely impressed by the public service officers I met, they clearly have a handle on the Singaporean consciousness, our laymen concerns and worries, much in contrast to the public image of them. They are very self-aware (self being the government) and very capable, so I came away in the confidence that we have got ourselves excellent people dedicated to serving our nation.

Okay going to launch into a tangent about Singapore and patriotism, entirely unplanned believe you me you. Just finished reading a book titled Heartlands, by Daren V. L. Shiau which has to be one of the best Singaporean books out there. Unpretentious yet authentic, probably a pretty rare combination for local writers. Why? I think writers in general come from a certain upbringing, a certain socio-economic background (who'd let their kid write without some form of economic stability? certainly not prudent singaporeans.) and yet, conscious of the fact that they're Singaporean, they might try to inject singlish, drop food names etc, in an effort to sound "authentic". I'm not sure how the book would come across to a non-Singaporean, however, and it is impossible for me to divorce myself from my own Singaporeanness and try to consider it from an outsider's point of view. So I'm not sure how good a book it can be considered critically. All the knowing winks and nods to Singapore culture, the brevity only understood by us.

Also, how relatable the protaganist is, his frustrations and miscommunication with both the "upper" and "lower" classes, deeply middle-class as he is. A heartlander. I think so many of the little things that we only appreciate, entirely untranslatable to our (relatively) silver-spooned friends, that we cannot see how they do not understand. Oh yes, the proletariat predicament.

Is it uncool to be patriotic? I'm not sure, but there certainly seems to be a proliferation of government-bashing and the like in recent years. I've always toyed with the idea of one day migrating, but all of a sudden I have come to the conclusion that no, I never will. Kinda early in life to be declaring something like that, but it's the only thing that can make sense to me (at least at this point in time.) Of all things, it was a completely random line in Murakami's Hard Boiled Wonderland that made me come to such a resolution. One of the fringe characters said this: I have spent so much of my life defending this place it wouldn't make sense for me to leave. Or something along those lines.

Which made me consider hard. Why am I doing what I do? I am serving my country, defending its people. I cannot give a concise answer, but in short, I believe in my country. I believe in its ideals, I believe in the way of life here, and I feel it is worth protecting. If I've come to this conclusion (at the age of 19, it has to be said, and we all know about the impermanence of youth and its ideals) then I have to ask myself: If I were to leave, what would it be for? And the only reason I can come up with is this - for myself. If I have come to the conclusion that this country is one worth fighting for, my leaving it means that despite that, I will choose to forsake it, and that can only be entirely selfish. That's the meaning of selfish - to work for one's self - and that is the one thing that I have resolved not to be. Doesn't matter the pay that I'm getting (or not getting), the opportunities I might have (for the advancement of self) if I get to choose (and yes, at this point thankfully I do) I will choose not to be selfish.

Leaving would mean I invalidate a large portion of my life. I have chosen to defend this country, so if I choose to leave, it would make a large part of my life's work worthless. I'd have been a mercenary, if you will. That's not to say I'm definitely staying in the force, cause even if I do I can still choose to stand by my belief in our country, and contribute in whatever little way I can. But leaving the country cannot make any sense to me, not a country I have decided to dedicate some of the best years of my life to. That's why it's not just a job, much as I like to whine about it, it is at the very least a commitment. One that I've made consciously, knowing all it would entail.

That's why I'm puzzled sometimes meeting colleagues who have decided from the get-go that they're leaving the force. Does that not immediately rob whatever you're doing of any possible meaning? Knowing that it has no real impact on you, that it doesn't really matter in your picture? I guess for anyone out there as well, holding whatever jobs. Suddenly everything is just a stepping stone to wherever you think you're destined for, the contract length only a signpost for you to leave. Sigh why do I have so many quibbles with modern life.

Yesterday I got quite riled at a friend who was boastfully explaining how little he did during re-service, in the process cheapening an entire institute, the experiences of thousands of other (possibly) motivated men, and me. Of course I took it personally. Just the subject matter is fine, plenty of people chao keng in NS and after, and that's perfectly normal. But you want to make it a point of personal pride that your platoon is that much worse than everyone else's? You want to cheapen the efforts of your sergeants and officers? In order to feel that much perversely better of yourself? Tell me how that is not perverse. Being proud of your uselessness as a soldier, of the utter futility in training you and your platoon. Good job, you made a complete shit waste of 2 years of your life, + another 10 ICTs, I sure hope you are proud of that. I hate it when people don't have the awareness to at least appear slightly apologetic about the complete fuck-all they have done. Instead they treat it as some sort of badge of honour. Yes I am treating it as a personal affront, because I have made a certain commitment and I hope my friends can respect that. Instead you get so proud of yourself for doing nothing, you work in some private company for yourself, you feel so good about yourself by putting down others. It's all about yourself. At least have the guts to feel ashamed about that, instead of hiding behind some ridiculous fucking bravado which has no substance to it whatsoever. Empty vessels and volumes and all that I hope you learn to think before speaking. Pardon the vulgarities I'm trying to make a point, and I am incredibly pissed off too. Call yourself a friend, really. Who goes around dissing someone else's profession like that? I understand people have different experiences and resentment and bitterness but you wanna pull down an institution I have chosen to serve, really? Thank you for your friendship, but no thanks. Yes, this is an exercise in protecting my own self-esteem because of my profession, but it is also the complete anger that someone would try to put down the efforts of so many others in order to fulfill the stupid immature teenager's maxim that slacking = cool. Please, get a grip, grow up. You want to profess to the whole world that you're some big-shot grown up drawing a salary now, I say wake up your idea. You've got a whole lot more growing up to do.

Well, I'm not trying to say I don't slack, cause Lord knows I do that and in insane amounts. But I'm not proud of it, please don't anyone ever think that. I was proud of it at some point, but I was young and dumb. I can't take any pride in putting in no effort at all, in fact it's a huge issue with me now. I know, painfully, what the trade-offs are, so when I don't study I know I'm not going to do as well as I should. I know that that doesn't matter so much to me anymore, that I consciously choose to travel, to do other things, although that leaves me sort of in a bind now. I know that my not putting in any effort has caused me to squander much of my vaunted "potential", I know I might have been doing a whole lot better than I'm currently doing had I not wasted so much of said potential. Because waste I did, and waste it is. Let no one try to boast that despite slacking they have done well, that's just silly. It just means you could have done better, so what are you on about? I used to think that way, that hey, I know I could have done better so whatever. But what's the end result? The end result is no results, and that is immutable fact.

What other consequence? This: that I do not know how to try even if I wanted to. I have no prior experience of working hard for anything. So now, even if I wanted to try exceedingly hard to get my first class, I would not know how to go about doing so. It is possibly the dumbest thing you have ever heard of, but there it is. All these years of feeling self-satisfied and content with mediocrity has brought me this. I cannot paw my way out of my mediocrity because I do not know how to. Forgive the self-indulgent bashing, but believe me this is not self-pity in any form, it is a truth that I have been unwilling to confront ever since primary school, secondary, helped along by a string of decent results in major examinations here and there. It's done me no favours, as I am painfully aware of now. I know how this might present, the self-indulgent rant of someone who's had a damn good life and is now whining about precisely that good life. But what I'm trying to convey is this sense that I could have been that much more, not just for myself but for others too. Which is what one of my divisional officers in MIDS said to me once: that I could have done so much more for the batch than what I ultimately ended up doing. I could be making real contributions but all I'm doing is nothing. Purposefully nothing, at that.

So now I am afraid to put in any effort into anything, because I've never done so, and if I do and it doesn't bear fruit, I'll have nothing to fall back on. I have not thus far been prepared to expose myself like that, no.

I think I shall end here actually, gotta go out to collect my passport soon. This post is decidedly darker that I'd intended it to be so /endofunplannedrant I guess. Sorry once again for the vulgarities but if I intend this blog to be a collection of honest reflections (which I do) then I shouldn't mince my words, even if I know I will regret them 5mins later, which I kinda do now but oh well. Actually wanted to talk about so many other things, but this is what tangents are 4 (oh yeah I am cool with number puns like that.) By the way today will be a perfect day cause 16th of september consists of two perfect squares, 16/9 = 4²/3² how I am not a math major I will never know.. Good day fellas.

(A + B) / 2

This is pretty unfair. Just woke up after spending the night half in zouk and half in the rain, much to my sorrow! The unfairness being that I kind of find myself feeling slightly down, despite not getting high in the slightest last night! Meh. I did have fun though, first time going out with the gang since... probably that sucky night at supper club haha! Well happy bday (or graduation??) bel!

I guess it's also cause yesterday I was just contemplating my startling averageness. Contemplating only because while in the past I might have moped about or worried about it (it's not a topic new to me), the onset of age and I hope maturity means that I treat my normalcy with a certain amount of acceptance now.

95% of the world is average. Well, 90 maybe, or 80, if you consider that there are people who are below average. But most everyone you know, and meet, is average. It takes something truly special to not be average, which I realize I probably lack. I used to agonize over this lack, thinking: why aren't I special? (while thinking, secretly of course, that I somehow was. as all teenagers do, surely?) Decently intelligent, decent at sports, okay at school, sometimes humorous, etc. Not too shabby, but none too shiny either. But now I know that's perfectly fine, it's something that 95% of the world faces, and no one else is silly enough to whine about it either so.. We average people just have to accept that we're average and get on with our average lives. What does it matter that we're average? We'll still get our average jobs, fall in average loves, and finally die our average deaths. I've still got a life to live.

Possibly this sadness stems also from my IPPT yesterday!!!! The saddest performance of my life, and I blame prawn noodles. Didn't think I was gonna do my ippt so I ate, and hey presto 10mins after consumption I find myself starting (I jest, I mean acing) my stations. Then came 2.4. Then came the pain. Oh, the agony. I'm surprised Lilo didn't appear. (Oh yeah I just made the most random Lilo and Stitch reference ever.) Run was no go. 10:17mins of misery later and I find myself the sorrowful recipient of an IPPT SIGHVER. The shame. Hopefully I get to re-take my ippt sometime in the next few weeks haha, although if I still don't get gold I'm hardly likely to have another bowl of prawn noodles for a scapegoat..

Also watched an amazing movie called Disconnect yesterday. (this despite my sister's lukewarm reception, which threw me for a loop.) But I'm sticking with my guns, and calling it here: One of the best movies this year for me for sure. Surprisingly.. male, however, now that I think about it. It is quite a masculine piece, actually. Funny how I've never thought about stuff like that until attending law school. Nonetheless, an excellent expose of the dark side of all this vaunted inter-connectivity, a cautionary tale for this day and age. And the theme of disconnect, between husband and wife, fathers and sons, nothing short of impressive.

Also spent about half a day watching the Capital Children's Choir and PS22 Choir, cause I am a youtube addict. And because they are insanely talented. And I have no life. Well..

I guess in other happenings, I tried to walk from Tiong Bahru to Clarke Quay cause I'm coolio, but I went mainstream and walked instead down the green line to outram park and thereafter to chinatown. Kind of directionally retarded, apparently. Did meet my sister for some Little India and Mustafa Center action, however, so all was not lost.

Also met yiying yesterday, which probably could have gone a lot worse considering we've not seen each other for.. 3 or 4 years now?! It's always nice meeting old friends. You get this little reassurance that, you know what, despite all these years, despite all the things you've done (or not done), the things you've been through, maybe a part of you remains the same after all. That maybe, you've managed to stay true to yourself in spite of what the world's inflicted on you all these years. We must have spent what, 5 hours at tiong bahru bakery? A fantastic little place, much more homely and relax-y than the raffles place one, and I've got a slight crush on that door.. Best door 2013.

How many more friends do you get to make in your life? Good friends, close friends, cherished friends. How many more friends will you lose to life? To careers, girl/boyfriends, marriage, family, migration, various other commitments (and thank god we do not yet worry about disease and death). Few and far between, real friends are. So anytime you get to reconnect with a friend, it is a happy thing! It doesn't even take much, just the willingness and some money for coffee really.

Which is also why I found myself in zouk for the second time in 2 weeks (shocking, I know.) last night, because friends matter.

Alright I'm ending here, I'm trying my bestestness to be more concise and short and sharp and to the point and not keep beating about the bush like a beater of bushes.

Just another one of your average posts.

"Thank You For Loving Us."

Happiness, too, is inevitable.

This, at least, is the opinion of one Albert Camus, incidentally the author of a book I read just recently called The Outsider, quite an interesting read, which I picked up in Jinja, Uganda, of all places. I got this quote off An Ordinary Man actually, Paul Rusesabagina the manager of Hotel Rwanda's own account of the events that happened and an exceptional read. His point being, it's easy for us to, when disaster/depravity strikes, fall into the depressing belief that you know what? This is the natural state of human beings after all. We are base animals etc.

But consider the word decency. When paired with the word 'human', it seemingly takes on new meaning. Human decency seems like such a scarce commodity nowsadays, or at least that's what some of us feel like we have no choice but to conclude. But what does the word decent on its own mean? It means okay. Average. Nothing exceptional. Decent means okay. Okay means normal. Human beings are normally decent. Why then is it so easy for us to discard this notion in the face of unnatural violence? "Reverting to our primal states." etc etc.

No. War is unnatural. So too is violence, and depravity. That's what the hotel manager was trying to put across. He was nothing but decent, in a country which had forgotten what decency meant. Courage? It does not take courage to do the decent thing, normal things, don't we do them everyday? That's what decent means, that's what normalcy means. He's trying to say that you do not have to be exceptionally courageous to do the right thing, we just have to be able to remember what "right" means.

This actually coincided quite neatly with the current course I'm undergoing, Military Leadership at SAF-NTU Academy. I shit you not, this is the only module I've ever gone through the reading list and prepared myself for lessons. I guess it's finally hit me this year what I've chosen to do as a vocation, as a profession. It behooves me to, as much as is possible at my current stage in the service, find out for myself what leadership actually means.

I was wondering what courage meant. I think too often we mix up daring into the concept, and we get everything muddled up. Daring is thrill-seeking, the search for exhilaration, it is a self-serving quality. It is superficial. It is saying, hey look, I can do this! I just did a bungee-jump! I sky-dived! It is not valuable. Certainly it does something for your self-confidence, your self-belief, but it is shallow. Courage is not. Courage is, or should be, selfless, or at least not entirely selfish.

Actually I'm not entirely sure. I think it takes courage to face up to your fears, of heights, of public speaking, or whatever. And yet that is something that is not immediately valuable to others/society either.. Oh well okay nevermind I'll have to refine my own definitions. But the question in my mind was, how can we tell that we are courageous? What acts of courage has life demanded of any of us?

I'm not trying to say that it does not. I think it takes courage for each person to go through each day, some more than others. The courage to carry on, the courage to face adversity, or even just a sadistic boss or a sarcastic colleague or whatever. Small acts of courage throughout the day. But great courage? Acts of daring do not count, so taking the Battlestar Galactica etc will not qualify. I'm not sure.

Anyway, just some thoughts I thought I'd put down. I've just uploaded all my photos from Uganda, and it's surprising how I'm actually feeling this sense of loss. It's like letting the world in on a precious secret. Not that I want it to be a secret, of course, if any single one of my photos can inspire someone to go to Uganda or anywhere else in the world to do or attempt to do some good, I think the wretchedly long hours and minutes it took me to upload all these pictures would be worth it. The power of social media, so often portrayed as negative, would have asserted itself in a positive way, and I would be extremely gladdened. And of course I do want that validation as well, that people in whatever superficial way, thoughtless way (just hitting 'like') approve or admire what I have done. Or even, dare I say it, delight in the pictorial evidence of what I have done, or hopefully inspire in them such intense envy that they decide they must do it for themselves.

And yet this sense of loss. Maybe it's the (irrational) belief that by not uploading the pictures I was holding on to them somehow. That because I kept telling myself I had to upload them I'd think of them more. Because there is this undercurrent of fear. It is hard to explain, and I am not skilled enough of a writer to adequately express in words what I feel in my heart. This is my attempt, which I actually wrote on my flight from Uganda back to London. Bear with me.

It is a peculiar heartbreak. In the sense that it's all very removed from oneself, detached. A sadness that doesn't seem to affect you very much at all. A broken heart which does not break you. Even while you expect it should, at some level even hoped that it would. But no, this is not a sadness that overwhelms. It is a sorrow that will not linger. It resides in one of those lesser visited regions of your mind, catalogued as one of those memories which only affect you when you choose to let it do.

When you return from some place you know has (or should have) changed your life, but whose details fade much too quickly, and this worries you, because that is the last thing you want to happen. It is alarming how seamlessly you fall back into your old ways; the trip that should have left such a deep impression on you leaves you instead unmarked, traces of it appearing only when you stumble upon certain pictures, or the odd snatch of conversation.

It is funny how you are worlds away, you may even have rapidly adapted to certain customs and mindsets, but immediately upon your return the familiarity of your old routines, the normalcy of having friends and family around you, just minutes away, takes over. And you're left wondering, "Is this it?"

Each of us has to deal with this particular, peculiar, sorrow in our own way. It is, paradoxically, not a matter of moving on but its inverse, that we are moving on far too quickly. "What does this say about me! Surely I cannot be so unfeeling!" Some of us may cry, Others, merely silent dismay. Some of us just feel this niggling sense that something feels wrong, just slightly troubled, but are unable to place it.

This quiet, distant heartbreak. Which does not make sense, so our brains do not make sense of it. A jumble of unelucidated feelings, untranslatable emotions.

Maybe it's the feeling that, now it's out there, I don't have to care about it any longer. It doesn't quite make sense but there it is. I've got a huge chunk of my notebook that I might want to put up here as well, so brace yourselves please. That's for next time, however.

Despite this fear that I might have left Uganda not in any way different, I know that I am. It has left its indelible impression on me, and I have been ineffably changed by my experiences there.

This, now, is my exhortation to you to go and do something. It did not take me much to go to Uganda, proximity and finances aside. It sounds so incredible, impossible, when you put it up in the air, when you consider it, but once you actually start doing it, it's incredibly easy. It does not have to be volunteering. It does not have to do with your ultimate purpose in life, however much or little you may know about that. It does not have to be anything at all. Just something.

Go and discover something, or rediscover something. Confirm something about yourself. Challenge something about yourself. I always thought I liked kids, and that I might be decent at handling them, but I never actually knew for sure, not until I went to Uganda and into the deep end of 400 primary schoolchildren. I fell in love with the children there, the country, and I loved that. I loved that I was falling in love with a country, with a people.

Go and fall in love with something, or find something to fall in love with. Go and be affected, impacted. You can't ever plan for everything. You can't say okay today there's gonna be a beautiful sunset that's gonna be so affecting. No, you just go for it and open your mind, open your heart, let life have its way with you. Let go of your stranglehold on your life.

One thing made the greatest impact on me, the words of a mother whose children I played with most nights as they lived right next to the lodge. And it was this: "Thank you for loving us."

Such a simple statement, and delivered so simply, but what a profound effect it had and still has on me. I didn't set out to love these children, nor did I realize (or at least had not consciously thought about it) I did until she thanked me for it. Yes, I did love these beautiful kids, whom I was gonna leave behind in just a couple of days. With this discovery of love came immediately sorrow and loss. How I relished that sorrow.

Why? To be perfectly honest, I'd begun to doubt my ability to love. Not to sound dramatic or anything but I've been on my own for a long while now. I have sought solitude, have enjoyed it, and have gotten used to it. I am comfortable now with being alone almost anywhere, in any setting. Sure, I wasn't always alone, in fact I largely wasn't, and yet essentially, in some sense I was. I spend about 2-3 months a year traveling and that mostly I do on my own, in foreign lands, no 3G no connection no nothing. Possibly I even wanted to be cut off, if only to prove to myself that I could be with no real consequence (is that not actually quite sad?) As a result, without ever really thinking about - I mean who does really, who sits down and ruminates hmmm am I capable of love? - I developed this doubt.

This mother did not know any of this, of course, but her frank openness and sincerity caught me completely by surprise, for which I am immensely thankful. She followed that by saying: "God has blessed you. You love children." which broke my heart. Most children there do not get to see their fathers very often because of working hours/locations, which could be hours away from home. And there are so many of them, anywhere from 3 to 10 or more per family, that I think many of these children grow up without really knowing what it is like to be loved. Any attention you pay to them, physical touch, the simplest of games like letting them hang on your arm or lifting them up into the air, any of these could make their days. I was relieved to know that this mother did not resent me in the slightest for, without asking for any permission at all, playing with her kids on an almost daily basis, but instead seemed to like me as well.

So this is it - go out and do something. When I was having fun with those kids, that was exactly what I had in mind - having fun, but this was an act of love to them. By saying those simple, profound words to me, without probably meaning to this mother managed to deeply affect me in a way that few other statements ever have, or ever will. It does not take much to make a difference in someone else's life. Anything will do.

With that, I'm out.

Of Faith; Leaps.

Sup guys. Not sure if you know this but I don't get nervous much. Whether on dates (I jest, I never go on dates.) or just before a bledy land law paper that I barely studied 10 hours for, just the day before, or collecting results, or public speaking, I'm not usually one to get all that jittery. The occasional plate finals, maybe.

But I am pretty darn excited right now. I'm not sure if I'm just excited or really nervous as well. In just about 24 hours, I will arrive in Uganda, where I will stay for the next 26 days. I have no idea what to expect cause I (sort of) purposefully didn't do any research at all. I'm getting the chills just thinking about it. More often than not, before a big trip or anything momentous, instead of excitement I feel this certain sense of detachment, mostly cause I think my brain can't handle the enormity of things. This time though, the heady mixture of anticipation and trepidation seems to have got me.

Just halfway done with uploading my photos from my Spain/Portugal trip, shame I didn't manage to upload them all! Um, yeah. Gotta go real soon. Well, have fun you guys, wherever you are, and I might see you guys in just about a month when I'm finally back in Singapore! I do miss home.

Not to rub it in, but I will be having the experience of a lifetime, of this I am 100% sure. This trip I leave to God, everything about it. What it's going to do to me, what I'm going to do for others, everything, I entrust with Him. This time, I will trust in Him completely.

This trip I dedicate to my God, the one I'm usually so reluctant to talk about for some reason or another. The God who has never let me down, who has brought me where I am, who has guided my feet and kept me safe all over the world, who has wrought miracles out of my mistakes, who has been perfectly faithful despite my imperfect faith, who has been my ever-present help in times of trouble.

Thank you Jesus, for You are Immanuel - God with us.

Thank you too, reader, for reading all the way to the end of the post (often not an easy thing to do I suspect) and have a pleasant week ahead and be of good cheer! Fare thee well!

The Hipsterhood Of The Ironic Pantsuits.

I am strangely hooked onto the song Kelly by When Saints Go Machine. I don't even know what music it is they're classified under. Electro-something perhaps. I just discovered that I can cheat Spotify by creating a new account under a different email, since I somehow managed to use up my 10 hours on my facebook-linked one. Thank goodness for webplayer, or I wouldn't have even thought of creating another account!

A confession to make. I may have just taken hipsterhood too far. Referred to also as The Hipsterhood of the Ironic Pantsuits (HIP). If you don't know I'm referring to Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, then you're clearly not cool enough for me, and are automatically disqualified from any discussion of HIP stuff. Indie4windeath2mainstream. I am not serious, of course, another hallmark of hipsters being the 400 layers of irony slathered across every single statement and action..

Okay didn't mean to launch into a discussion of hipsterhood, but what I wanted to bring up was my reaction to my last played song on Spotify (the one which appeared on my facebook.) It was Please Don't Leave Me by P!nk. By no means a shabby song, in fact I love that song and P!nk for her immense badassery, but I thought: What would anyone looking at that think?! Way too mainstream.. Well not like I gasped in horror or anything like that, but the thought flitted across my mind. And that's when I came to the awful realization that my hips have extended way too far.

I suddenly remember another occasion which I'd been meaning to write about but forgot about it in the slew of sundry occurrences of everyday life. I tore my elephant coin pouch. Which I really liked, actually. I bought it in an ironic gesture, cause I'd been searching over Christmas for a uber cool looking leather pouch [which I'd lost somehow. things apparently hate me but I hate them too cause everything's a thing, therefore (wish I could do that 3 dot thing which signifies therefore) things are mainstream] but couldn't find one, so when I stumbled upon a cache of cheap looking coin pouches in London at like 80pence each, I couldn't help but buy it. Then I tore it, and thought: should I buy a replacement? Followed by the thought: but that wouldn't be ironic anymore... would it?! Which leads me to my current predicament. Well, not predicament per se cause I know I'm replacing that pouch, but situation. I almost convinced myself not to buy something I liked (I've developed some affection for my elephant) just because it wouldn't be truly ironic. Oh god. That's when you know shit has gone down.

Hipsters will try to tell you they don't care what the world thinks, but they're probably lying. Hipsterhood now has become all about how much you appear to not care what the world thinks, because you care just that much. At its heart the me-centric mentality and consciousness which permeates this generation (and possibly the one preceding, and probably all the ones succeeding) and defines it. Why should anyone care what anyone else thinks about what they like, or not like? Because we like to believe that other people out there actually give a hoot about our self-conscious Likes and Dislikes, when in fact they probably don't.

Suddenly, essay on hips instead of studying for paper. Huh. But there's just been this confluence of events which have occasioned this rant on hipsterhood, I don't even know why. I do believe I am a bit of a hipster, but am reluctant to declare myself as such because of all the connotations of the term. Which is pretty ridiculous, to be honest, but that's how it appears to be. "But true hipsters don't care if other people call them hipsters or not." Which once again feeds into the cycle of caring/not caring I guess.

It's the shows I'm watching too.. brilliant shows all of them! For example Jeff in Community, one of April's lines in Parks and Rec, and of all things some commentator in a DotA video. NO JUDGEMENT PLS.....?!?! Then again go ahead and judge me for all it's worth.... even I have to admit that's a pretty poor source. Just about as appalling as it gets. Now don't tell ANYONE that I spend half my free time watching DotA videos thanks you. Random lines on hipsterhood/irony coupled with this one (or a couple) article I read online on the ironic sub-culture that's evolved in the past few decades or so, which sparked off this completely random (and probably irrelevant sorry) litany on HIPs.

It's just something I sometimes wanna rant about (I've done so recently), all this self-defeating irony so prevalent today. The fatal error being that we don't recognize it as being self-defeating at all, instead we view it as the "cool" thing to do, we're a better/more accomplished/next level hipster because we are ironic as heck. We don't realize that all this layered irony forms a deposit (I know, my metallurgy is pretty next level too) over the truth, and we cease to be able to be honest anymore. Taken to it's extreme, of course, but it does seem to me to be the road we're heading down. I think irony as a matter of course is perfectly normal, in fact humorous and somewhat desirable at times, but it might go too far, too soon.

I guess that's about the end of unplanned rant (/endrant). I've got a paper in just about 2 and a half hours so I suspect this is my brain seeking out any opportunity at distracting itself it can find.. lashing out at poor hapless irony and HIP just because it's at hand and at the forefront of my mind (I blame Parks and Recreation that damn winner show. Rashida Jones new crush.) Can't be arsed to be worried about this paper, although it is law of landfills and therefore absolutely shitty (I've been re-using this pun 3 times now, my brain is pretty dead make no mistake.) Que Sera et al, eh? Or as my half/permanently starved stomach would incite my fingers to type, Kueh Sara Sara (Lee). Oh god need pound cakes kueh lapis kueh tutu kueh bangkit kueh simi. I share the psychopath's dream of putting Sara Lee in my freezer. What a glorious sensation...Singapore in exactly a month's time awwwyeah!!

NOT in any way trying to establish (or re-affirm cause we all know the truth) my hipsterhood, but I'm going to list here the music I've been listening to lately. It's for posterity's sake, and only cause Spotify has no history function :'( and I've been discovering new and pleasant music at an incredible rate. Anna Schulze, Walk The Moon, Young The Giant, When Saints Go Machine. Just in case I forget, which I probably will. It's always sad to be hooked onto a particular artiste but completely forget about it in a couple weeks or months, especially if there's this one song/line which you totally feel. The connection went thusly - Grouplove - Walk The Moon - Young The Giant - The Soldier Thread - Anna Schulze. When Saints Go Machine I discovered off stereogum, cause they mentioned Danish and after Mew, I can't deny anything Danish. Least of all Danish COOKIES HUNGER SUSTENANCE LIFE. I'm not actually hungry, to be honest, I just have all these food references in my head dying to get out.

Close Your Eyes and Count to Ten another of my current favourites. AhhhhWoooOOOooOOooo! Gosh, pleasing on so many levels. And Empire of the Sun's new single - Alive! They have insane hooks and beats, and incidentally the weirdest videos ever. Have I ever mentioned David Lynch's Twin Peaks, a series from 1990? Despite not the best quality videos, I'm really enjoying the series. The characters do seem very Lynch-ian, and an absolute joy to watch. And Lara Flynn Boyle, whoa! Only wanted to watch the show cause of a song called Laura Palmer's Prom by You Say Party! We Say Die! (only a decently awesome band name) which is quite a good by-product of hours of trawling through youtube/obscure band references. I am useful after all! Or not, cause it's yet another 50 hours extra of staring at my computer screen. Oh wellz.

Okay I guess this is kind of it, 2 hours more of desperate last-ditch studying to go, so all the best me I guess. Hasta la vista bebes.

P.S On a totally unrelated note I just wanted to state my intense frustration with this ONE BLEDY WHITE INDIVIDUAL sticking out of my luscious black hair. #noracist but srsly.... I possess not the requisite dexterity of hand nor sufficiently unretarded hand-eye co-ordination to pluck it out myself. Soon a silver-haired silver-tongued devil will emerge from this husk of a brain-drained student. Me, btw, in case any one had any doubts. This is my official excuse for being too distracted to study hard for my paper. White supremacists.