Insignificant babbling

There's no such thing as crying all out. Just crying and crying. Crying non-stop till you are so tired that you fell asleep. And life goes on the next morning. Suck it up. And move on.

There's no easy way out. Never was there any.

Be Hated

Don’t work. Be hated. Love someone.

Written by Adrian Tan, author of The Teenage Textbook (1988), was the guest-of-honour at a recent NTU convocation ceremony. This was his speech to the graduating class of 2008.

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I must say thank you to the faculty and staff of the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information for inviting me to give your convocation address. It’s a wonderful honour and a privilege for me to speak here for ten minutes without fear of contradiction, defamation or retaliation. I say this as a Singaporean and more so as a husband.

My wife is a wonderful person and perfect in every way except one. She is the editor of a magazine. She corrects people for a living. She has honed her expert skills over a quarter of a century, mostly by practising at home during conversations between her and me.

On the other hand, I am a litigator. Essentially, I spend my day telling people how wrong they are. I make my living being disagreeable.

Nevertheless, there is perfect harmony in our matrimonial home. That is because when an editor and a litigator have an argument, the one who triumphs is always the wife.

And so I want to start by giving one piece of advice to the men: when you’ve already won her heart, you don’t need to win every argument.

Marriage is considered one milestone of life. Some of you may already be married. Some of you may never be married. Some of you will be married. Some of you will enjoy the experience so much, you will be married many, many times. Good for you.

The next big milestone in your life is today: your graduation. The end of education. You’re done learning.

You’ve probably been told the big lie that “Learning is a lifelong process” and that therefore you will continue studying and taking masters’ degrees and doctorates and professorships and so on. You know the sort of people who tell you that? Teachers. Don’t you think there is some measure of conflict of interest? They are in the business of learning, after all. Where would they be without you? They need you to be repeat customers.

The good news is that they’re wrong.

The bad news is that you don’t need further education because your entire life is over. It is gone. That may come as a shock to some of you. You’re in your teens or early twenties. People may tell you that you will live to be 70, 80, 90 years old. That is your life expectancy.

I love that term: life expectancy. We all understand the term to mean the average life span of a group of people. But I’m here to talk about a bigger idea, which is what you expect from your life.

You may be very happy to know that Singapore is currently ranked as the country with the third highest life expectancy. We are behind Andorra and Japan, and tied with San Marino. It seems quite clear why people in those countries, and ours, live so long. We share one thing in common: our football teams are all hopeless. There’s very little danger of any of our citizens having their pulses raised by watching us play in the World Cup. Spectators are more likely to be lulled into a gentle and restful nap.

Singaporeans have a life expectancy of 81.8 years. Singapore men live to an average of 79.21 years, while Singapore women live more than five years longer, probably to take into account the additional time they need to spend in the bathroom.

So here you are, in your twenties, thinking that you’ll have another 40 years to go. Four decades in which to live long and prosper.

Bad news. Read the papers. There are people dropping dead when they’re 50, 40, 30 years old. Or quite possibly just after finishing their convocation. They would be very disappointed that they didn’t meet their life expectancy.

I’m here to tell you this. Forget about your life expectancy.

After all, it’s calculated based on an average. And you never, ever want to expect being average.

Revisit those expectations. You might be looking forward to working, falling in love, marrying, raising a family. You are told that, as graduates, you should expect to find a job paying so much, where your hours are so much, where your responsibilities are so much.

That is what is expected of you. And if you live up to it, it will be an awful waste.

If you expect that, you will be limiting yourself. You will be living your life according to boundaries set by average people. I have nothing against average people. But no one should aspire to be them. And you don’t need years of education by the best minds in Singapore to prepare you to be average.

What you should prepare for is mess. Life’s a mess. You are not entitled to expect anything from it. Life is not fair. Everything does not balance out in the end. Life happens, and you have no control over it. Good and bad things happen to you day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment. Your degree is a poor armour against fate.

Don’t expect anything. Erase all life expectancies. Just live. Your life is over as of today. At this point in time, you have grown as tall as you will ever be, you are physically the fittest you will ever be in your entire life and you are probably looking the best that you will ever look. This is as good as it gets. It is all downhill from here. Or up. No one knows.

What does this mean for you? It is good that your life is over.

Since your life is over, you are free. Let me tell you the many wonderful things that you can do when you are free.

The most important is this: do not work.

Work is anything that you are compelled to do. By its very nature, it is undesirable.

Work kills. The Japanese have a term “Karoshi”, which means death from overwork. That’s the most dramatic form of how work can kill. But it can also kill you in more subtle ways. If you work, then day by day, bit by bit, your soul is chipped away, disintegrating until there’s nothing left. A rock has been ground into sand and dust.

There’s a common misconception that work is necessary. You will meet people working at miserable jobs. They tell you they are “making a living”. No, they’re not. They’re dying, frittering away their fast-extinguishing lives doing things which are, at best, meaningless and, at worst, harmful.

People will tell you that work ennobles you, that work lends you a certain dignity. Work makes you free. The slogan “Arbeit macht frei” was placed at the entrances to a number of Nazi concentration camps. Utter nonsense.

Do not waste the vast majority of your life doing something you hate so that you can spend the small remainder sliver of your life in modest comfort. You may never reach that end anyway.

Resist the temptation to get a job. Instead, play. Find something you enjoy doing. Do it. Over and over again. You will become good at it for two reasons: you like it, and you do it often. Soon, that will have value in itself.

I like arguing, and I love language. So, I became a litigator. I enjoy it and I would do it for free. If I didn’t do that, I would’ve been in some other type of work that still involved writing fiction – probably a sports journalist.

So what should you do? You will find your own niche. I don’t imagine you will need to look very hard. By this time in your life, you will have a very good idea of what you will want to do. In fact, I’ll go further and say the ideal situation would be that you will not be able to stop yourself pursuing your passions. By this time you should know what your obsessions are. If you enjoy showing off your knowledge and feeling superior, you might become a teacher.

Find that pursuit that will energise you, consume you, become an obsession. Each day, you must rise with a restless enthusiasm. If you don’t, you are working.

Most of you will end up in activities which involve communication. To those of you I have a second message: be wary of the truth. I’m not asking you to speak it, or write it, for there are times when it is dangerous or impossible to do those things. The truth has a great capacity to offend and injure, and you will find that the closer you are to someone, the more care you must take to disguise or even conceal the truth. Often, there is great virtue in being evasive, or equivocating. There is also great skill. Any child can blurt out the truth, without thought to the consequences. It takes great maturity to appreciate the value of silence.

In order to be wary of the truth, you must first know it. That requires great frankness to yourself. Never fool the person in the mirror.

I have told you that your life is over, that you should not work, and that you should avoid telling the truth. I now say this to you: be hated.

It’s not as easy as it sounds. Do you know anyone who hates you? Yet every great figure who has contributed to the human race has been hated, not just by one person, but often by a great many. That hatred is so strong it has caused those great figures to be shunned, abused, murdered and in one famous instance, nailed to a cross.

One does not have to be evil to be hated. In fact, it’s often the case that one is hated precisely because one is trying to do right by one’s own convictions. It is far too easy to be liked, one merely has to be accommodating and hold no strong convictions. Then one will gravitate towards the centre and settle into the average. That cannot be your role. There are a great many bad people in the world, and if you are not offending them, you must be bad yourself. Popularity is a sure sign that you are doing something wrong.

The other side of the coin is this: fall in love.

I didn’t say “be loved”. That requires too much compromise. If one changes one’s looks, personality and values, one can be loved by anyone.

Rather, I exhort you to love another human being. It may seem odd for me to tell you this. You may expect it to happen naturally, without deliberation. That is false. Modern society is anti-love. We’ve taken a microscope to everyone to bring out their flaws and shortcomings. It far easier to find a reason not to love someone, than otherwise. Rejection requires only one reason. Love requires complete acceptance. It is hard work – the only kind of work that I find palatable.

Loving someone has great benefits. There is admiration, learning, attraction and something which, for the want of a better word, we call happiness. In loving someone, we become inspired to better ourselves in every way. We learn the truth worthlessness of material things. We celebrate being human. Loving is good for the soul.

Loving someone is therefore very important, and it is also important to choose the right person. Despite popular culture, love doesn’t happen by chance, at first sight, across a crowded dance floor. It grows slowly, sinking roots first before branching and blossoming. It is not a silly weed, but a mighty tree that weathers every storm.
You will find, that when you have someone to love, that the face is less important than the brain, and the body is less important than the heart.

You will also find that it is no great tragedy if your love is not reciprocated. You are not doing it to be loved back. Its value is to inspire you.

Finally, you will find that there is no half-measure when it comes to loving someone. You either don’t, or you do with every cell in your body, completely and utterly, without reservation or apology. It consumes you, and you are reborn, all the better for it.

Don’t work. Avoid telling the truth. Be hated. Love someone.

From: http://halfhalf.posterous.com/dont-work-be-hated-love-someone

Chasing time

Some what feels like im continuously chasing time.

Monday to Friday, I'm rushin from classes to labs and vice versa. Then meals and home to grab whatever sleep I can get.

Friday night to sunday I'm chasing time to try to maximize whatever time I have left to revise my week's work and spending time with my love ones.
Tell me why, Time? Why are you constantly on a move? Can you stop for a moment and lemme catch some breath? I need some time for myself, some time for me to sleep without feeling guilty or so stressed up.

Whoever who says final year is when everything slows down and you get to enjoy your last bit of education, ought to get shot in the head!

Wonder why I got myself into this shit and if it's ever gonna be worth it.

2nd last semester is starting!!!

Internship extended. It ended.
My one month holiday started and ended as well. BKK trip went past rather quickly! Some yays and nays for the entire trip, I could only say going overseas with different cliques of ppl really takes some adapting! Going with my sisters, mom and w6 is the best of course! Different spending types, different places that we prefer to visit and all. I shall just let the photos do the job(; (INSTAGRAM is real good for Overseas trip! Beautifies and adjust your lighting instantly!)

Photos are not in order (I think!) cos all done using blogger on my phone during my long bus ride!

Below are some of the loot from my trip. Total weight is about 10kg?? Hehehe.. Managed to take alot of it on the plane with me!

dearest noobcake

from my dearest pabo. he folded the hearts painstakingly, and took so long to fill up this bottle with a message for me to read whenever im upset in the future. had yet to open it up and read..

made me cry when i received this gift. felt like an idiot. hahaha. even the "surprise" at barrage didnt make me cry at all. but this was kinda, actually seriously unexpected. thought we will just have a nice dinner at a cosy place, but nevertheless, he really planned it all out for me when i told him i want a sweet sweet "first date". heehee. of course our first date was sweet, but it was a causal day out that kind. but this "first date" really had lots of thoughts and efforts put in by him!

and of course his handmade card that really cracks me up when i received that. spot the grammer error:D my dear bf, always 99.9% near to perfection! blur and cute! hahahaha! same as the gf hor. good but not that good! and hope that will help us to complement each other.

thankyou for your presence in my life. there's no ups without any downs, and i will accept all that may come.

*head plays comes what mayyyyy*

erhhh. some fields near MAS?? love the nature feel and the grass at the bottom. i would love to lie on it and enjoy the sun though. but sg grass like abit dirty:/

A student asks a teacher, “What is love?” The teacher said, “In order to answer your question, go to the padi field and choose the biggest padi and come back. But the rule is: you can go through them only once and cannot turn back to pick.” The student went to the field, went through first row, saw one big padi, but he wonders… maybe there is a bigger one later. Then he saw another bigger one… but maybe there is a even bigger one waiting for him. Later, when he finished more than half of the padi field, he starts to realize that the padi is not as big as the previous one he saw, and he knows he has missed the biggest one, and regrets. So, he ended up going back to the teacher with an empty hand. The teacher told him, “…this is love… you keep looking for a better one, but when it’s too late, you realise you have already missed the person….” 

 “What is marriage then?” the student asked. The teacher said, “in order to answer your question, go to the corn field and choose the biggest corn and come back. But the rule is: you can go through them only once and cannot turn back to pick. “The student went to the corn field, and this time he is careful not to repeat the previous mistake; when he reaches the middle of the field, he picks one medium corn that he feels satisfied with, and goes back to the teacher. The teacher told him, “this time when you were looking for a corn…. you look for one that is just nice, and you have faith and believe this is the best one you get…. and this is marriage.”

Quote Willow

awww how sweet is that. im thankful for having such a nice boyfriend who could tolerate all my nonsense and foul moods and "easily zzzz-ing off" or my messy habits. really seriously thankful. thought i had missed that person of my life, but now i hope he is the person of my life. 

ALL IS WELL. 

"three idiots" the end scene is really a place i wish i could be at. and hopefully its not polluted/destroyed with the influx of tourists..

LIFE.

No ups and downs and it won't be called life.
I need my kaikai boy. Dogs are really such thereaputic creatures. Cuddles, sniffs and plops beside you.

MEE MAAAI TIME

Tumblring at a cafe alone after work. Feeling half moody half donch-know-what-I-should-do that kinda feeling. Because my plans are thwarted! Seriously dislike change of plans now. Set tmr as the deadline to submit my report and logbook to my prof when he comes for the second visit. But deeeennnn. My dumb report has a missing formula that went missing when it was printed. Now I can't bind my report, and tmr I can't submit.
Thank goodness I came over here to check through my report before binding it. ARRGGGGGGG. Thanks for my complacency. Not checking othe entire afternoon and offered to help
My friends do their work.
And I can't have the feeling of liberation until after that week! AND I GOTTA HEAD BACK TO ULU NTU just to submit this! Damn!
Don't feel like going home. Not sure why. Sick of the usual routines I guess. Shuttling between tuition at gombak and bedok home or going out with Keneh. Want some chill time on my own to organize my thoughts, and think of what had happened so far on my life.
These past few months seems to passed really fast. Ia ending soon, holiday gonna pass and end. And my final year is here to come. Getting into a relationship and all. How everyone wish they were in one, and when it happens, it just feel as normal as u didn't expect it to be. Much time and effort is needed to get to know the person well. Get to know what are our common expectations and all. Those sweet and normal moments. Seems foreign at first. But I just it just took a little getting-used to.
Thank god for my good adaptability skills.
Argh. Still staring at the dumb report in front of me. Whether I should heck and cut and paste the formula in tmr n hit my own deadline? But my conscience and self expectations doesn't seem to allow me to do it. Shit the perfectionist in me! Rarr!!

*continue blasting my music and tumblr my evening away!*

WE ARE HAPPY FAMILY!

had a short family staycation at Festive Hotel, RWS with sis fam, mom and keneh. the whole place seems so foreign and relaxing though we are still in sg! kudos to achieving that effect! celebrated mom's bday there with a dinner, and headover to hard rock cafe as the night is still young. as usual, kynan is the centre of attention, and maybe pj got some of the attention with some of his tipsy antics!

kynan and kayla really big nowww! been spending quite alot of time with them since im in IA. their innocence and nonsense can really create so much joy in your day, and of course make u feel like fainting cos you have no idea how to answer him. esp kynan teo!

 pretty girl girl! she's really cuddly and soft! (sounds like how i will describe kai but she's just so huggable!)

 some serious talk with him. mr big gor gor. 

 happy baby!

kynan teo! his proudest moment when he completed his favourite TRANSformer ride. kept correcting my pronunciation for "Transformers" kiddssss! but how he kept raving to his dad how optimus prime said he's a brave agent makes me laugh!

and of course, much thanks to my sisters and jie fus who made all these possible. this xiao mei here really enjoyed myself alot! Love my family to bittttsss! and can see how my old and greying dad enjoys sundays when our home is noisy and crowded. as compared to the weekday nights when he's so lonely at home with the greying kai.

IA gonna end soon. kinda feeling apprehensive. cos whats left is FYP, final year and i will be out in the workforce. not sure if im looking forward to it, but will just let nature takes its course! not even sure what i want to do in the future! and if i really wanna join MOE, then ive gotta endure another year of NIE? sure now?? i donch knowww!

Summer is...

finally changed a new skin. the old one is bleahh. with all the missing photos and all.

summer is... SERIOUSLY WARM!
having my normal doses of headaches when im stuck in a stuffy warm room. think its normal, so normal that i can still get things done and i guess im really made to live in singapore.
my dear girlie friends are all busy mugging for exams, and i really miss going out with the normal clique of friends. old habits die hard. and i really cant stand going out with new clique of friends cos its really tiring having to think of what to eat, what to do when we are out. pain in the ass and makes it even worst when everyone has different budget or more giam. but i guess this is like a normal process to having more friends? then i think i can make do with what i have(:

better chiong my ia report in office if i dont wish to bring it back to do! no more slacking or doing your routine stuff slowly! if not i have to chiong it when im home and cant hang out with the dear girls when their exams end!! planning in advance!

so far in place is a volunteering for a kids run with yours family:D dont need to have so much headache over which budget place for outing and can bond over quality time! wanna have our girls sleepover and mj session with pohpoh and kc. wanna go eat all the yummy food with those who are willing to pay for more!! went to eat saizeriya ristorante. sounds really damn atas some itallian restaurant. but the food sucks. maybe i ordered wrongly. but how can a plain pork bacon carbonara turns wrong i ask you. super bland and watery, and the service sucks and its noisy. i rather go to a normal fast food restaurant then go back there again. only plus point is that, i feel that the whole place looks like a diner dash place in our iphone games!:D oh yah, and the escargot taste pretty not bad. at least tasty enough. cant wait for korean food, jap buffet, thai food! all the yummy food with the yummy ppl:D think my taste buds spoilt rotten with all these food dates with them and my sisters:P but im not complaining! cos at least im not at all a mountain tortoise when im out dining.

looking forward to work tmr!!! cos im gonna chop chop start on the remaining parts of my IA report!! cant waitttt! and kinda sad that my IA is coming to an end. the people there is really nice and all. but i will def not go back there for perm job cos i cant stand having to wear pants for the next 3/4 of my life!!! i would rather be born a man, and not suffer the monthly cramps to wear pants! DUH! IA intern really good:D lots of free treats and the next one is at raffles marina for my dept lunch! heehee. good to be the youngest. be in the office and family:D overflowing love and i appreciate lots!

blog about my family staycation at rws soon!

What defines you

What defines you?
Your past: what you did when you were younger. What you did moulds you to be who you are. So should we go all out and do everything in fear of regrets in the future or refuse to do somethings cos you thought you may regret in the future.

Your present: your decision to say about your past and what others may think of you now.

Your future: you are doing things that you think may be good for your future, but how well can you predict your future is one thing. Most importantly, your character will also be what you think you are gonna be like in future.

More thoughts and less thoughts ain't good in anyway. I needa seek a balance. How fast my days are passing. How little time I've got and how difficult it is to manage. I believe I can do it, I just need to drop some things in my life.