my blog is getting so mundane.

life has been ok but tonight is just one of those nights

emotional lockdown
straitjacket, behind bars
drive by and marvel but for heaven's sake, don't start reflecting 
prisons are meant for torturing and isolating seemingly 'terrible' things in society
so they come out beaten but submissive, broken but conforming

throwing my feelings in there
so they come out
anything, but this

WEIRD FEELING

I miss it. But I don't want it anymore. Tonight I exercised some amount of self-control and I applaud myself. I am being rational and mature and clear-headed, something I rarely am. My new motto for this semester: study hard, play hard

Meelo played poker with us.

I will update this space soon. My body clock is out of whack after days of training, and I am experiencing a rejuvenation of certain buried emotions I thought were put away for good. It feels weird.

the Nike Training Club app is finally available in the Singapore app store! i've wanted it for quite long, just to pretend like there's something that might motivate me to work out. anyway, i downloaded it and i think i'm going to try some of the workouts today. i'm just way too lazy... besides the plan is to study at night, so i'm going to take the day to workout. anyway i just like following workouts that tell me i'm working on a specific area, instead of doing random ass workouts that are like "overall" effects because there are some areas i'm okay with. if this is alright then i suppose i won't really have to do yoga... i just want to be healthy sigh

so some b.i.t.c.h in the library stole my phone from right under my nose. seriously, i looked away for 5 seconds and it was gone. and where did this happen? in school, in the library, in the printing room. stolen from me by a fellow student. ugh so disgruntled with the institution. there were 0 CCTV cameras in the printing room even though it's not the first time a theft has happened there. good job NUS... seriously... i was going to cry. i've never really felt so helpless before.

before you say, omg you probably just lost it, listen to this. i was with aarthi. the moment i realised my phone was gone i started looking around for it and aarthi immediately attempted to call it. the phone RANG FOR LIKE THREE SECONDS BEFORE SOMEONE KIAP-ED IT. the person kiap-ed the call. try to call again? phone is switched off. so yeah, it was definitely stolen... call me naive but i never believed my phone would ever get stolen. so i didn't have any of the features like Find my iPhone or find my friends or whatever the hell it is. ok yes it is 50% my fault that i can't recover my phone, but 50% the total fault of the moral failures of this girl who took it. if you ever read this, i don't know how, i would beseech you to look into your inner depths and find some sort of conscience enough to return my phone to the lost & found

be irreplaceable & no one will ever think it is okay to lose you

i had a fun day today. church, then a nap, then dinner with gus's family and then neh's birthday party. last night i played with coco and scratched her tummy. sam's family put buddy to sleep awhile ago because he was really old and had a tumor in his nose, so he was in pain. so since then coco has been lonely i think, poor dog. i hugged her really tight, i wonder if she knows that i know she's lonely

the weekend has been a long one, studying has been at a minimum, but i suppose i don't have to feel guilty about that just yet... but soon. otherwise, it was a good weekend. tomorrow it's back to school... sigh good luck everyone

'self-contradictory statements': statements which cannot be determined to be true or false, i.e. are both true and false, thus cannot be said to exist.

common self-contradictory statements: 'i am lying.'

if the statement is true, then you must be telling the truth, in which case, you cannot be lying, thus there is a contradiction. if the statement is false, then you are lying, in which case, what you are saying is true, and therefore, another contradiction. as a result, the statement 'i am lying' is a self-contradictory statement that makes no sense, is illogical and thus, is value/meaningless. clarification: you are not lying about an external subject. the statement is in relevance only to itself.

self-contradictory problems: there is a village in which there is a barber who only shaves those who do not shave themselves. that is his criteria. should he shave himself? (that is, the barber is included in this community)

two options: he does or he does not shave himself. if he shaves himself, then that contradicts with his criteria, of only shaving those who do not shave themselves. he cannot shave himself because he would be shaving himself. if he does not shave himself, then he fulfils his criteria to be shaved by the barber (himself), but the moment he shaves himself, we go back to the first contradiction. therefore, the statement is self-contradictory and the barber should not exist.

--

think i have tweeted this or something before, maybe. that motivation comes from everywhere and anywhere. even if the source of it is something bad, for example, the desire to beat someone you hate at something, rather than the relatively purer cause of wanting to do your best. is there a difference? i don't think so. sometimes i feel i can only draw motivation from the former source, which makes me wonder if i cannot draw it from the latter because i am overly content with doing an average job or because i am afraid i will not do well

a lot of stuff about singapore online lately -- aaron tan/faded holy soldier saga, andersen cooper expressing incredulity at singapore making the list of top 5 coolest nationalities, random youtube "fights" and so on. most of it bad, as in, giving off a bad impression of singapore and singaporeans. but i feel that foreigners getting these impressions are greatly mistaken, that they are unaware of a very unique singaporean attitude, mindset, humor, etc, while we, on the other hand, are highly aware of the western counterpart due to great exposure on television, radio, internet and so on. because of that singaporeans are attuned to what westerners' intentions are, have quite a clear picture on western society and its pros and cons, so on and so forth, while westerners have almost zero information on us.

so it comes down to this. does it matter that they think singapore is a heartless, cruel, childhood-crushing, money-minded, selfish, corporate, homogenously populated economic monster? i used to think: no. i've always thought singaporeans are quite like hobbits in the shire, content with being ignored by the larger folk of middle-earth. in the same way, i always thought that we are safe on our tiny island, it doesn't matter if people don't know who we are. all the better, no pre-conceived notions other than the typical asian stereotype. better than "AMERICAN: STUPID" "FRENCH: SMELLY" "BRITISH: BAD TEETH" etc, right? but now, it seems, things are changing. singaporeans are being called racist, bad at english, childhood deprived, robots, 'uncool' -- all not without reason. now, does it matter? i don't know. probably not. i have met french people who smell like roses and brits with impossibly straight teeth. of course, some of the smartest people on earth are americans. stereotypes are called stereotypes for a reason. they generalize and categorize without consideration and accuracy. as singaporeans i think we know who we are, whatever opinions we have, and so we jump to defend ourselves. this nation-bashing is something new, considering we've been relatively unknown to large parts of the world until the advent of the Internet (i speak outside the realms of the politically informed worldwide). the pros, i guess, is that everytime somebody tries to bring a group down, they only grow that much stronger, right? is that why americans are so patriotic? because everyone hates them haha. maybe. if singapore can learn anything from america, it would probably be this: how to love your country no matter how fucked up it is. all the recent "crises" with the MRT and the floods (which, in all honesty, relative to syria or libya or egypt or sudan or even philippines, thailand, etc are the most trivial of tragedies), i think, are putting society through the ringer, and for that, i am grateful

today i learnt something, that people always say, don't judge a book by its cover. that sometimes someone might seem really unfriendly, bitchy, cold, etc but there's more to them than that. but people rarely say it is of the opposite: someone might seem really friendly, warm, kind, etc but they're really just. not. all this time i always looked at a certain group of people and thought, my god, they're so mature, they're so cool, they're so smart, etc, they've got all their lives figure out. come to find that they're no better people than i am, that my envy is ill founded, that they're not at all the people you would think they are. funny right? but i feel relieved, in a way, knowing that well, no one's perfect... most people, not even close

things that are unfixable:

poverty
prostitution
my air-con

i will never judge prostitutes for what they do because most of them (you don't know who) have sad, hopeless backgrounds, forced into the sex trade for reasons most of us in singapore will never even be able to imagine might apply to ourselves. i always think, i can't stand people who care so much about money, but i only say that because i have money. i'm very ambivalent towards prostitution, i feel like, the men, so disgusting, so despicable, paying girls as young as 18 to pleasure them, probably knowing that they would rather be anywhere in the world than giving a stranger a blowjob. but on the other hand, if this endless supply of perverts were to vanish, so many girls and women would be penniless, homeless, on the streets with starving children, etc. that is probably the worst situation i suppose, having to choose between morality/dignity and survival. i cannot say for sure that i would rather starve and die than fuck a stranger. even if i would rather starve, what if i had a kid? siblings? who cannot fend for themselves? then what?

stayed awake for 48 hours the other day to readjust my body clock. crashed at 8pm andw oke up at 4am. tonight: sleeping at 1ish and hoping i don't wake up any time before 8. long day. in the morning i went to eat breakfast by myself at the book cafe, which was pleasant because it was empty so i had my pick of seats. i curled up in a two seater sofa and ordered an eggs benedict with a cappuccino, then read while i ate. it was a nice place to chill. they have shelves stacked with books that you can take to read while you patronize the cafe. then to neh's house, then ly's house, then to toh guan, then back to ly's house for dinner. they cooked dinner while i slept outside, haha readjusting working (Y) in any case i'm a domestic failure..

lots of things i actually want to get done, like start on my readings, do expenses tracking, fix my ibanking issue... but first i am going to get some sleep because i feel like little invisible ninjas are dragging my eyelids down with stones, goodnight

downloaded "From Beirut to Jerusalem" by Thomas Friedman in preparation for PS2255
LOTR the two towers officially on hiatus
next four days will be spent either preparing for school or meeting up with people, anything to get me off the computer, off my bed, back into some sort of reasonable and acceptable school-ish routine.
i have also decided to stop bringing my laptop to school, it hinders productivity in ways you don't even notice

breaks in school:
tuesday after 12
wednesday after 12 on odd weeks
whole of thursday
alternate fridays

sole priority during these 'breaks' given to:
webcasting math module
finishing readings before lectures
extra readings or research for essays
internship research

i feel like i'm putting too much on myself, but also i also feel like if i trust myself and really try my best, i'll be alright. and if i really am alright, i think that will just be a huge stepping stone for me in my self-confidence, however cheesy and lame that sounds. not that i have issues being confident around people but doubting my capabilities when it comes to several areas is a problem i have. so if i am alright, if i prove to myself i can do it, then that'd be amazing.

on the other hand, if i'm not alright, i don't really know what's going to happen.

covent garden, portobello market

covent garden: possibly my favourite place in all of london (all that i've managed to visit anyway). unbelievably charming, aesthetically pleasing. it has a feeling of isolation, feels like everyone there has stepped into a different world. nicest of shops, littlest of cafés. crowded, sometimes, but overall i think it has a special appeal to every different person. a marked difference from oxford st, piccadilly or sloane st, i think it's a little like walking into a bubble right in the heart of london. the colourful building mashed together: neal's yard. a tiny triangle lodged somewhere in covent garden, organic restaurants and herbal medicine shops. i also love the shop selling all things west end. on both visits i picked up piano scores for musicals i watched prior to the visit (wicked & les miz respectively).

Dress Circle
57/59 Monmouth Street, Covent Garden, London WC2H 9DG
020 7240 2227

portobello market: no mushrooms. there are tons of famous markets in london, among which lots of them are food markets. portobello on the other hand is a antiques/vintage market! they sell old maps, old trinkets, old knick-knacks, old cutlery and kitchenware, old sports gear, old cameras, old jewellery, old books, old posters, old bags. anything old they sell it, or they'll reproduce it, but i find most of the sellers are always honest about the product's authenticity. they also sell random things. that's where Gus picked up his manchester united sign and had to lug it all day long. also there are several buskers! who doesn't love buskers. a wicked charlie chaplin lookalike who shot me a cheeky smile. the double bass of a 3 man jazz band. it was cold and the wind was biting quite badly that day, but you also have some food stalls selling fresh vegetables, piping hot burgers and franks. i had a nutella crepe! the famous hummingbird bakery also has a stall there.

288 Portobello Road
London W10, United Kingdom
020 7229 8354

combined all the videos i took into one. might be boring. there's a lot of soccer in it.



london from siyichen on Vimeo.