Monday, July 27, 2009.

a belated post, maybe just to wake this blog up, i dunno. did this on the mrt as the incident happened, and as such it isn't very nice to read lah. some post of substance should come soon.

A few days back, i was on the mrt. a civic-minded commuter (by the looks of it, he should be in a tertiary institute/poly? His ez-link card was orange.) decided to either be kind/anal/civic-minded and told 2 people who were drinking on the MRT to stop drinking and keep their drinks.

Of course, being Singaporeans (which must necessarily include a whole tablespoon of pride within it) the 2 poor/inconsiderate commuters caught in the deed of drinking on the MRT took offense at him. A young girl (about my age) shot him pointed looks, while another man just turned away and refused to look at him.

And he continues, without shame or worry, to stare and be SMRT’s new Big Brother.

Evidently this shows Singapore at its finest.

One can view this incident differently depending on the type of society one is in - which goes to say, how one views this shows the level of maturity the society is.

Both customers looked affronted (and honestly, so did I), and evidently this implied that Singaporeans simply thought that that man was being kaypo and poking his nose into others’ affairs.

How others would view it: That man was just being considerate. Given that SMRT changed its stance on food and drinks on trains, it was a kind and considerate act to save those 2 people $30 from fines. But evidently both of them did not take it very nicely, and felt it as an intrusion into their privacy, i.e. he was being extremely kaypo.

The standard rebut: MYOB.

Well, this IS Singapore. I’m a skeptic; I don’t deny that, and I’d proudly wear a cardboard claiming I’m one. And of course, I don’t believe Singaporeans change in this aspect. From the 60s, till the new millennium, and onwards, Singaporeans will continue to wear their pride on their sleeves till eternity.

Do you see people, worried for the cleanliness of the trains in Singapore? And everyday you see complaint letters in the ST Forum, deriding the state of trains in Singapore and claiming that train operators do not do a satisfactory job. This goes to illustrate that Singaporeans have a VERY VIVID imagination. They know the concept of ‘perfection’, but fail to understand HOW to get there. Indeed, idealists, not realists.

This is Singapore, a bunch of spoilt brats who dream of but never reach perfection.

And I’m proud to be one.

Labels: Life

{ 1:37 PM }

Tuesday, July 21, 2009.

i finally went against my own policy. i had to take the previous post back. but i do so for a reason - after all that has happened, that post cannot deserve to stay there any longer. it is just wrong i guess. thanks anyway for your concern, all of you =D

being sick half-sucks. i'm the type who prefers to go out and have fun and not stay at home, though slacking at home with a dysfunctional brain is quite fun at times. my brain's rotting from the outside and inside; i hope everyone recovers fast =D

Labels: Life

{ 7:14 PM }

Tuesday, July 14, 2009.

sometimes, you really wish you could reverse the clock.

doesn't matter how, why. just going back in time. when you didn't make that mistake.

now it's done. i can never make up for it anyway.

sorrys don't matter anymore right? even if you mean them. even if as you type each 'sorry' you feel tears welling up in your eyes.

a genuine wish to want to make up for everything.

sorry.

Labels: Life

{ 11:09 PM }

Friday, July 10, 2009.

it's convenient and easy to say that everything in life can be properly split and differentiated into a few categories, all mutually exclusive to one another (otherwise known in set notation as A-intersect-B equals to zero).

that, however, is a very naïve thought (though i confess i sometimes wish life could be simplified as such), and especially so in the case of standard differences.

basically.

i do not deny that there are the elite amongst the elite within the community. this is a natural phenomena in life - the presence of a creme de la creme (screw the weird slope-y things on them) in any field, the bell-shaped curve of any normal distribution (sorry for the maff. unintentional i promise.)

they get nurtured. and sadly. the problems start arising.

take the GEP for instance. Smuggled out from normal school in Pri 4, they (i will remain objective and not refer to myself in any way) were groomed, hidden from the rest of the world, fed with multivitamins and speshul powars, and subsequently turned into mutated cyber-robots, ready to serve the country and use their ultimate brain juices to obliterate the rest of the world into mush.

Or that's what people thought. (though there is a degree of truth to whatever mentioned above)

and as such, geppers were treated with scorn. avoided like the plague, shunned as if brain juice leaked out from the dermis, they basically were treated as DIFFERENT individuals. people who were WEIRD, SPESHUL and ABNORMAL.

this cannot be solely attributed to the non-geppers. having been TAUGHT, explicitly or implicitly, that they were different, geppers also share similar mindsets, that they are SPESHUL and ABNORMAL, a 'cut above the rest', that they are mutants and viral breeds.

let's go back to my preamble about differentiated groups. what GEP did was to demarkate the borders between DAMN SMART and NOT DAMN SMART people. however, it failed (by no fault of anyone for that matter) to account for the people near the cutoff boundary.

as such, most people (at least I believe so) are of GEP calibre. rephrased, it means that the TRUE mutated people number much less.

which means, for the large majority of people concerned, people in special education programmes by and large aren't REALLY different from the other people. perceived differences make ALL the difference, which to a certain extent annoys me.

ultimately, what's the difference between an RA person and a non-RA person? mutated oversized brain? special drugs? how do you tell the difference between a HP and a non-HP student?

there people go, ostracizing and ill-treating (to a certain degree) people from 'special programmes', which DOES irk me to a certain extent. ultimately, we are ALL humans, and as such there should really be no special way we treat people from different 'stratas'.

which brings me to another point - how people treat others from 'lower' 'stratas'.

somehow, it's nearly impossible for people who believe highly of themselves to make friends with people LOWER in status. it's demeaning for them, highly impossible for themselves to drop to someone else's level, and somehow very embarrassing.

which is something i cannot stand.

perceived differences make a big BIG impact on society eh.

Labels: Life

{ 10:06 PM }

Wednesday, July 8, 2009.

a couple of stuff just joined forces and caused me to feel down.

not surprisingly, i'm not down cause of myself.

Labels: friends, Life

{ 9:36 PM }

Sunday, July 5, 2009.

sorry to people out there who have been waiting for some semi-decent post for eons.

so here i go! =D

cts just ended, but that's another matter altogether. never mind =D

3 things that crossed my mind quite recently -

1. it's quite pointless and aimless, to be floundering out there without a teacher. i'm learning stuff all by myself, without any guidance or a LISTENING ear for that matter (my ears, i believe, are badly trained.)

and thus it's QUITE painful, cause i'm completely lost. how to improve, how to know if i have improved, how to keep on becoming better, i have little idea.

and as such i just try new pieces, perhaps out of my ability, just to show that i'm learning. but am i learning the right way? i have ABSOLUTELY no idea, which sucks.

the only consolation - i'm learning/playing pieces i love. which makes it very enjoyable, indeed.

2. i may have completely changed. i guess, i suddenly think a lot more? but i've touched on that countless times, so it's boring to go through the same routine again.

3. when i enter the army, am i better off introducing myself as someone from bishan sec and bishan jc? the stigma associated with that sir thomas stamford guy, it's not something to be proud about at times.

a senior yesterday introduced himself as being from bishan jc. his rationale was that it most probably hurts less compared to introducing yourself as someone from the big R.

is it lonely to be at the top? very, indeed.

that's all for now, before i satisfy my craving for hokkaido food =D

Labels: Life, Music

{ 5:20 PM }