Saturday, September 30, 2006

O Capricious Mind of Mine

I find it really uncanny that my mood and general state of mind can be negative for a period of time, however long or momentous, due to either a culmination of factors or just one big factor like how SMU is wasting my time, effort and compromising my happiness; and yet switch to hints of positivity due to a single incident of which relevance to the current situation is peripheral. My situation is not alleviated but somehow that incident can actually induce me from being moody to being mildly happy.

One of the ridiculous things that has been bogging me down is the ridiculous fact that we're supposed to pair up for our political science term paper, but very very unfortunately, my partner who happens to be in yr 3 didn't get her bid for the course and I was left partnerless. After slcaking around for 2 wks, I was suddenly jolted by the fact that I still haven't got a partner when my prof reminded us that we're choosing our topics soon on a first come first served basis. Hence, the mad scramble began and I realized all the people I know had partners. Before I knew it, the topics were out and I was still hunting for my potential partner so I was delayed in choosing my choice topic, which was already snapped up by extremely 'on' groups, which pissed me off even further. However, today, my friend told me that there's a girl in my class that ain't got a partner too cos her partner bastarded her for his friend, leaving her partnerless. I was extremely apprehensive about it cos as you are fully aware, choosing a gd partner is extremely imperative in ensuring the success of your paper and general happiness during the course of work. I hadn't the slightest inkling on who this girl is - what if she's stupid? what if she's irritating? what if she's a stalker (ok that's a little extreme but possible)? What if she is smelly and has warts? So, I related my problem to my prof whom I happen to be on gd terms with and he replied my email saying that she seems like a nice girl, how he found out I don't know - perhaps he just made a wild judgement from her profile photo. Haha. So, I started considering her seriously and decided to snoop around friendster and try my luck finding out more about her. Ha... jackpot - she was from rgs, rj and apparently looks not bad at all. And she's single. Hahaha. So I called her after getting her number from my friend and we carried on an interesting conversation right from the start. Cool.

Although this incident does not seem to ameliorate the general shittiness of my current circumstances (although it solved a problem), I'm suddenly a happier person. This reminds me of the time when Kenneth was relating to me his betting adventures and he was facing an all-time low point in his life when he was screwing up his studies and everything; and winning that lump of cash would just make him damn happy and totally obviate his sad situation although it's totally irrelevant in alleviating his circumstances.
I've realized that these are the little shafts of light we must grasp and appreciate - little tenuous victories that we score along the way, but nonetheless are victories anyway. These are the little things that will make the ride a little less bumpy. Hopefully we all can discover our little victories along the way and make the most out of them.

Justin

The Light at the End

It’s gonna be a number of years before we see the light at the end of the tunnel, a few more for Luke.

What is education? Everyone has his/her own unique notions, preconceptions and biasness about this concept. But I don’t really give a shit what people think. In my opinion, education is the training, moulding and stocking-up of the human mind as well as heart to serve the individual in his life duties, responsibilities and continual integration and re-integration into social and familial life. In view of my sagacious and incontestable definition of education, is the education system doing me that favour? The answer is obvious and just to confirm it, it’s a no to a large extent.

In Singapore, we’re culturally and historically deficient. We’re consumed by authority, autocracy, subservience, extreme obeisance – in short, trammeled and fettered by the whole goddamned system. To make up for our deficiencies and elbow our way to global recognition, we have taken an unnatural and rapid path to success from the humble beginnings of a 3rd world British colony. The ramifications and by-products are obvious. We have developed a screwed-up culture of kiasuism, frenetic work paces, a rabid societal rat-race, and how would I dare leave out the general unfriendliness and lack of warmth in our citizens – with the extremely wise government having to resort to marketing Singapore with the 4 million smile which requires a whole separate entry for me to bitch about. Our general quality of life is lower than other developed nations, esp Europe. Choice is definitely something that is ridiculously lacking – just look at our political scene: we vote for the PAP not only because they’re good and serving us well, but really because our opposition is either under-powered, purely incompetent or downright retarded. Look at free speech. Look at our national service. Blah blah blah.

Hence this leads me to my point. We lack choices even in something we choose: our education. I lack a choice in what I want to study in the degree I’m pursuing. And of course, lacking a choice in what I’m studying just doesn’t make sense. Doing senseless subjects like Communications that doesn’t teach me what I don’t already know and having a lecturer whom I think I can replace, Leadership/Teambuilding which is a ludicrous waste of time and serving no purpose vis-à-vis its own name, and of course, Statistics B which is B because I happen to be stuck in a course that is not A which implies fraternizing with a class full of F maths freaks. All these shithole modules are not gonna make me a better person or enhance my education. Yet I’m somehow I’m wasting countless hours doing them, with an opportunity cost of doing a whole lot more useful things that could benefit my future and further my happiness.

I’m having trouble visualizing the light at the end of the tunnel. I would like to think that we have to constantly try to detect the very tiny and negligible shafts of light peering through the tunnel we’re sojourning through. But the thing is, I’m getting disillusioned by the bumps, darkness, stench and impediments dotting the tunnel. What does the light at the end look like? I thought I had an idea of it. But I feel like I’m losing my ability to envision it. I hope it comes back.

Justin

Monday, September 18, 2006

The Ball

For those of you who didnt know, i went for the med ball on friday.. It was a great night and the haze of enjoyment and fun lingered on to the next morning... Dinner wasnt very good, but that wasnt the point anyway... Who needs dinner when you are coming up tops on games of pretend blackjack, have friends trying to bite each other, complaining of "tunnel vision" after drinking dilute cranberry rum, people stealing chocolate from other tables, and you get to ride in a bus with disco lights .. The bus took us over to a club called depot for the after party... Although the club only had a $1000 tab for the party, which was quickly exceeded, i continued to buy drinks till i was pleasantly high, after which came the dancefloor... Summer Rain is an awesome song.. hahaha.. a while later, we stumbled into a cab to head to another party... where we stayed till about 345 before deciding to go home... by the time i reached my place, it was 430... i was throughly tired, but feeling on top of the world.. all days should end like this... i have kept my descriptions brief because it would be impossible to recreate the transcendent atmosphere of the night... anyway, here are some photos from the night...

The Ball photos


Me and Melissa, Justin's favourite girl...















Me and Sudesh, a year 2 feeling good.. and by good, i mean high...













My gorgeous date, Celestine... Posted by Picasa














Celeste posing with my rose...hahahaa...

The Ball more photos




 Posted by Picasa

Friday, September 15, 2006

The Fortnight

Hello Amigos, I'm back from hell and am once again, raring to scorch and torch the chronology of theamigosparasiempre with inflamed online footprints that would hopefully put the highest order of Malike's charring bbq skills to shame, and leave more than a lasting impression on your minds. From my perspective, this most recent fortnight embodied a confluence of paradoxical emotions- glee and melancholy, involuntary apprehension and stillness, condescension and veneration, as well as raptures and the inexplicable but dreaded emptiness- which broke the constant hum of monotony in a tumultuous, yet pleasant manner. With many a nimble touch of my keyboard buttons, allow me to paint yall in nearly a thousand words, a depiction of events that added yet another dash of glowing orange to my predominantly grey backdrop.

To begin with, the abrupt torrential rain last Sunday marred our afternoon of soccer by forcing everyone into an undesirable, lengthy hiatus of intense restlessness as well as impatience. As expected, the minute the impending signs of subsiding manifested themselves, all hell broke loose in an unbridled fashion. Anyway, the flames within me towered into a conflagaration due to disrupted soccer that was compounded with a couple of extraneous factors. Consequently, this inferno exponentially increased my aggression factor and took my raging desire to score/tackle/injure to another level. Unfortunately, my team kena a highly adept and physically challenging opposition of Malays which never failed to pput the remainder of teams that were present, out of business. Basket man, I was constantly on the back pedal and on numerous occassions, I hadda resort to illegal bodychecks and other variations of foul play. Malicious tackles, spitting and even altercations were commonplace at that instant, and fortunately in spite of my punch-meriting fouls, I was elusive of the events that tainted the game. For the record, my intemperate rage melted into nothing but utter despair when our team kena kicked out at the death(just before nightfall) after defending so damn well for 1/2 an hr. basket man we were damn sway. Highly competitive individuals somehow accentuates the overall quality of the game i guess.

As a representation of the barren social aspect of my life, I met with various people over the past week such as my former track and field teammates, 2 girls from my jc class and malik most recently. In all these 3 encounters, strange and interesting things happened. First of all, Hilary(track n field) was outlandishly havoc; On that day, she displayed spurts of insanity when she started slamming everyone around her and that includes me(though I disagree she was successful haha). Nevertheless, even if i were the object of slamming, i'd always welcome frivolous, cheerful banter that comes with a hint of persiflage with open arms. Oh and Hilary got fined bec she didn't pay for parking during the day HAHA! The best part was she thought she didn't have to pay for parking(this is the bigger joke). Yup, as always, I thoroughly enjoyed the company of my trackmates..nic, nic's gf, hil and yusheng!

In a similar fashion to getting stunned by Elvin with his illogical and disjointed comments, I was baffled by 2 of my former jc classmates cheryl and jacqueline. As though I'd been hit by a rock from behind, I was totally unprepared for this calamitous(but they were laughing!) event of photo taking or 'photo-whoring' in the parlance of the 21st century uptown girl. Apparently, I had been living under a giant rock because it was only through this eye opening happening after 21yrs of existence, did I realise that photo taking actually qualifies as an 'activity' among girls! Hell, i got slammed once more. Yeah in the fashion of Eminem dissing himself, I shall follow suit and air to my readers at large my embarassing weakness that I have no defence for- As some of you already know, I can't smile for the camera! And when I try to contort my muscles to produce one, I appear unnatural and some might say, constipated. Though I may not have a concrete defence against this weakness, I have a very plausible explanation that might mitigate further slamming; It inherently lies in the fact that I am unable to display a specific facial expression unless it's source- the rudimentary and genuine emotion- generates it. This means that I'm unable to smile unless I'm truly happy. Therefore, if you wanna take a picture with me in future and don't want me to sully the photograph, crack me up and i'll do my best to prolong that emotion :).

While Justin defines the aesthetics of the female species as Da Best and unfaillingly saves the best for last, I've decided to reserve the final portion of my protracted entry for the events which lead to my forthcoming university life. I met with the seniors as well as prospective Singaporeans headed to Bristol over tea at 'Flutes at The Fort' last Saturday. In that transient gathering of surprisingly limited interaction and therefore little perusal of their characters, I managed to arrive at a conclusion that they're a pretty decent bunch. The parochial selection of girls is still a major turn off, and hence faint hope silently resides in my heart that the Brits who constitute the bulk of the multitude come in visually pleasant shapes and sizes that perfectly mirror a cola bottle. Incidentally, as international exposure comes with numerous intellectual and emotional rewards, I'm intent on actively preventing myself from being sucked into this blackhole of the insular culture among Singaporeans by intermingling with people beyond the few that share the same nationality as I.

Despite feeling largely indifferent towards departure for quite a long while, I cannot say the same as of current. On one hand, I anticipate and embrace the new lease of life Bristol has to offer. Yet on the other, I find myself in combat against my natural inertia which is most significantly responsible for my reluctance to leave- theamigos, family, other friends and even the minute things such as my peculiar running route I take for granted on a daily basis. As u can see, the struggle to balance, let alone reconcile these 2 issues has become turbulent and I guess right now in my heart, they exist in disharmony and in an uneasy equilibrium.

UPDATE @ 1700 GMT +8.00! For informative sake, this is not a superfluous but the final paragraph that is being penned a havoc 12hours after the 2nd last because i fell asleep on my half-done job at 5am. Also, i've no choice but to conclude this entry of slightly more than a thousand words in retrospect since i'd pre-decided to end 'The Fortnight' like this- impetuously and hurriedly- as i capture the moment on an all time high. Howya doin' Amigos?
-Kenneth Wong

Thursday, September 07, 2006

In Lust We Thrust

Ok man, once again I'm compelled by my fellow amigos as well as my moral conscience to add in yet another entry for the entertainment and updating of all of you lusty lads out there.
So far, school's been quite a ride - it's a convergence of good and evil, passion and disdain. I'm pretty dissed with the 2 modules that exist in the form of communications and leadership/teambuilding. They ain't telling me what I don't already know for comms which pisses me off cos I'm sitting in class wasting my time with a bunch of mostly fools save for a few and 'learning' things I know naturally at the back of my hand ince I was in nappies. Haha apologies for the exaggeration but thats my point. Leadership/teambuilding is just a pure waste of precious time with lessons on leadership and teambuilding interspursed with our community project planning when the final goal of the module is to execute a community project that we're suppose to plan for during these couple of months. This in my wise opinion, is a lousy exuse for the morally-scrupled SMU brimming with moral rectiude and compassion to make an impression on the community at large and foist community service hours on us for free. Lo and behold, once again they ain't teaching me anything abt leadership and teambuilding I don't already know and if anything I should grab everyone of these fools, including the well-meaning profs, by their artificially-bleached-white collars and haul them off to the deep of the pasir labar jungles and teach them a thing or 2 abt leadership and teambuilding OCS style.
Moving away from that, I have to say that I'm thoroughly enjoying my sociology and political science modules that have served to fuel my inherent interests in these disciplines and despite the volumnious and heavy readings, I must say that I'm enjoying myself. My Dutch prof for pol science is a really cool albeit slightly eccentric dude who vaguely resembles Kane the wrestler. Haha. He's like bloody knowledgeable and is one of those bona fide, unorthodox self-made academics who never went through the conventional academic system but instead self-taught himself most of the way through a ridiculous amount of reading and grit. I'm absolutely inspired by him and hope that I can come close to if not surpass that level of knowledge, enlightenment and coolness he possesses.
Now, lets move on the aesthetical portion of the entry - as always, I unfailingly save the best for last - the icing on the cake as some may say. After 2 weeks in SMU, I would have been an utter failure if I hadn't soaked in the sights and sounds and had the chance to lick and get a taste of some candy. I've seen my fair share of hot chicks and apparently, many are from business. Hence, I'm at a severe disadvantage as im not in business and don't share classes with many of them. However, I'm definitely not giving up hope and I'm sure that the merciful hands of Fate and Chance will contain enough largesse within the next 4 yrs to bestow me with fortuitous opportunities to procure the lion's share of the candy. Well, so far, there're currently 2 lasses that are within the sphere of interest. One is the ex-vj girl and the other the girl whom she was talking to whom I mentioned earlier in the jackpot entry. By some funny coincidence, the former stays at tanah merah and the latter lives less than a 5 min walk away from me. The 3 of us plus another 2 girls and a guy had lunch on wed at a thai place at cityhall and we had fun talking cock over lunch man. Apparently, the second girl has a sunny personality and she and I are getting along pretty well. Hence, yesterday I seized the opportunity to casually mention as an off-hand remark that we can meet for lunch someday cos both of us are free on thurs, and she said yeah sure we could meet for supper anytime too since we live so near each other. Haha. Sounds like a mini jackpot with 20 coins dropping out.
So, that's it for now from my side and looking forward to hearing more varsity tales.

Justin

Sunday, September 03, 2006

The Night of

Hello Amigos! I'm finally back from Calista's birthday celebrations yet still pretty distant from being sloshed despite taking slighty more than 10 glasses of mixtures. As I hadn't injected a single drip of alcohol into my bloodstream for nearly 2 months, I strode into the club apprehensively, bearing in mind that I might fall victim to the snare that has consumed Elvin- Getting fully intoxicated on a mere teaspoon. Unsuspectingly and inadvertantly(like real lar!), glasses of booze readily flowed through my parched throat and furnished my mental state with a surreal haze. Generally, I'm glad to have met the few who were present to share the joy of Calista's birthday and incidentally, had the opportunity to talk to this girl for the briefest of moments despite she being unable to remember me. Melia you were right about the incredibly low and remote probability of this occurance, but when u read this, shut up! HAHA. That's all you needa know and for the record, this encounter leads to nowhere. Goodnight! Oh on a totally unrelated note, I just wanna study law and see my long term future in aviation. Yo Ho Yo Ho.. a PILOTs life for me!
-Kenneth Wong