WE HAVE MOVED :D 3:23 PM

Gone to a new site with a way cooler user interface :D All new posts will be over there at www.spiky.co.nr, while the archives will stay here for the time being, until the people who make the blog software add support for data migration. CYA OVER THERE! :)

NCDCC Camp Reflections 11:51 PM

Where should I start.....

I guess I was disappointed. With someone. A fellow S/NCO. He knew that the camp dates had been shifted 1 week earlier well before the exams even started. But he didn’t tell anyone, not even any of us S/NCOs, until 1 day before the camp itself. By then he had created his own camp schedule without discussing it with any other S/NCO. He didn’t even have the courtesy to call at an appropriate time when he finally did, at 11:45 pm, two nights before the camp.

The year 2 NCOs should have been planning the camp. We all told them they would get to. The way this person just came along with his own schedule and using that instead would certainly have disappointed the year 2 NCOs greatly. That’s not even begging to describe the disappointment of those year 2s who were on the original list of NCOs, who were replaced with his list, again without prior discussion with other S/NCOs.

In fact the right to select the year 2 NCOs is that of the year 2 I/Cs. He was year 1 I/C and thus could not possibly have spent as much time with the year 2s as the year 2 I/Cs to properly get to know the year 2s.

Despite all this and the S/NCOs frank expression of our upset, he didn’t bother with an apology nor an explanation to the year 2 NCOs. Even the way he carried himself at our meetings, the tone with which he spoke in and the diction which he used, might have suggested a disregard for other people’s feelings.

Maybe that was the reason why we fell out as friends two and a half years ago.

Because he couldn’t care less about other people’s thoughts, other people’s opinions, other people’s feelings.

I did consider writing this addressed straight to him, with “you” instead of “him” being the word of choice in the text. But I didn’t, because I figured that it wouldn’t matter anymore anyway. Even if he bothered to read it, he’d just do what he did before, which is to print the whole thing out, find me in class, and tell me that he’s right and I’m wrong.

I’ve talked to him before, and we talked about how we felt about each other’s way of interacting with other people. When it got to talking about him, I’ve always told him about how many other people feel that he goes about stepping on everyone’s toes, and while what goes around might be somewhat exaggerated, I’m not inclined to believe that it is all untruths.

Right now I’ve already said everything I wanted to say about that to him. There’s nothing really left to say anymore. I don’t know whether he actually took me seriously and actually considered some of the viewpoints that were brought up. But anyway, it feels like now is the appropriate time for me to just wish him all the best in life, and walk out of his.

Of Musical Rocks 12:42 AM

Today was awesome :)

A Math Paper 2 today was the last exam paper :) After the paper, we celebrated Ms Ong's birthday outside the staff-room, and uhhh disturbing the Year 4 exam in the process XD After that, gonna go watch Cloudy with A Chance of Meatballs with Jon Tang, Saurabh and Ben Tay :D Ms Ong already watched the movie so we kinda had a conversation about it XD

Then after the birthday celebration we went to chase Ms Ho around the front porch of the school XD This is Ms Ho trying to get us to go home...

Rush home, shower, change. Head off to VivoCity to meet Jon Tang, Saurabh and Ben Tay...

After I got there I called Jon Tang to find out where we were meeting and he said they were opposite TANGS department Store. Uhh :) And then when I got there Jon Tang and Ben Tay jumped up on me from behind XD

So we walked to the cinema first so that Saurabh would have problems finding us. Uhh Jon Tang's idea. XD And then Saurabh called to ask where we are, and so Ben Tay said we were "outside Mini Toons". LOLZ XD

We wanted to go to the basement cos there was a lot of food to choose from there. Then Saurabh suggested walking through the car-park to get there cos we went down the wrong escalator into the car-park. We did that. And promptly got lost XD.

So we went back up and went to the basement the normal way XD

We had lunch at Subway, and then we quickly headed to the cinema cos Saurabh suggested going early to watch the movie trailers. Then when we got there all they showed was commercial advertisements, so that was pretty hilarious XD. BTW to Arul who wanted to know: 2012 shows starting 12 November.

Now, about the movie Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs. In a sentence, IT WAS SO FREAKING AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I thought it was a very meaningful movie :) On the outside it seems like some kiddie cartoon kind of show, but its actually a very thought provoking comment on love, self-identity, individuality versus conformity, and the prejudices of modern society :) It felt like a very thoughtful movie, one that prompts a kind of self reflection.

The plot was really original, and there were a couple of very moving scenes. Definitely a heck lot of funny ones :) Lots of hilarious jokes :) It was a really entertaining movie :D And the soundtrack fitted really well with the movie too :)

After the show we walked around VivoCity for a bit. Went into the National Geographic Store to look at interesting artifacts and make comments on how expensive the things were XD We went to PageONE where all the bookshelves were rotated at rather arbitrary angles...

And then we went to.............. TANGS Department Store!

Thus, the Photo of the Day,

After that we went to the roof-top where I uhh went into the kiddie splashing pools... Took some photos from in the middle of the pool, you can see the water at the bottom of the photo. Ben Tay has the photo of me in the pool XD...

And then we all sat down under the shade and breeze of one of those humungous air-con vents, listening to uhh a musical rock. See the green rock thingy in the middle of the picture? It was producing music. It played Canon in D while we were there plus some other funny piano piece XD...

It was quite a nice place to sit down and hand around :) Then we went to the pet shop, walked around a bit more, went to Harbourfront for a bit, before going home.

Anyway thanks Jon Tang, Saurabh and Ben Tay for a TOTALLY AWESOME afternoon, with all the hilarious conversations about everything under the sun :)

You guys totally made my day :)

Upset 10:08 AM

You know that feeling when nothing seems to go right?

Like how you know that you couldn’t have done any better but what you did was still bad anyway.....

Like knowing you tried your best but knowing that that that isn’t even enough...

That’s how things are looking like from where I am.

Pretty much every paper was messed up save for Language Arts and Biology. Even the papers that were apparently easy according to many other people like Chemistry and A Math’s I messed up too.

Its not like I’m lazy and couldn’t care less or anything. I did the past year papers weeks in advance. I read the textbook cover to cover. Where I miss lessons because of competition or whatever, I stay back after school to make up for it.

And then even so things still mess up.

Heck, even piano was screwed. I failed by 16 marks.

I really don’t know what to do right now or how I should be feeling. I know if I did my best I should be happy. But people don’t care whether its your best or not because all they care about is the absolute and not the relative.

And then its also upsetting that you know that because you did better before that people expect so much of you.

And then theres the people you’re supposed to be an example to, the people who look up to you. How do I explain myself to them.....

Things look pretty bleak right now.....

Right now I feel somewhat disappointed, a little confused, and really really sad.

Precipitate 10:43 PM

Lately stuff has been pretty much insane.

Which would kind of explain why nothing has been appearing here. Exam revision has been pretty frantic, leaving little time for anything else. Right now is the middle of exams and both Lang Arts papers, both Physics papers, C Maths 1 and IHS are already done. I think everything except Lang Arts was pretty screwed.

Anyway exams end on friday. 5 days more.

Some of us got away with not studying for final exam last year and still got pretty decent marks. But I guess that doesn’t work in Year 3. Not with the likes of having Bose, Kwang Pow, Kenneth Ong all at the same time.

Its quite ridiculous really, having to teach myself mole calculations and stoichometry, figure out malgudi days essay myself, and go learn the whole year’s C Math from the textbook, again, by myself. I don’t really see the point in attending lessons where I learn more by myself because some people don’t really put in any effort into teaching their lessons.

Anyway on a happy point, today is 10 October. Which means that its just one more month to go before the launch of Call of Duty 6: Modern Warfare 2 :)

Oh yeah and if you want to play against me in COD4 like during the holidays at the end of the year or something you can go to the About page to find my gamer tag :)

P.S. if anyone can find out Jon Tang’s COD4 gamer tag, can you please tell me? :D

muahahahaha...

Bits and Pieces 10:36 PM

The happenings of the last few weeks have pretty much been arriving in little fragments that are not really enough to have a blog post for each one. So today I will be doing what my last year class frequently finds me doing in Mrs Tee’s ePOD lessons. That is grouping my points together.

My grouping of points last year was actually quite funny cos every time I raise my hand to say something it begins with (let’s say I have three points to talk about) “I have 3 points to make...” And so on depending on how many points I grouped together. Eventually Noel succinctly stated to the whole class the effect of point grouping: “Allister can you stop grouping your points together because the only thing we remember after you’re done is your last point” XD

Thus ended the grouping of points.

Anyway lets go all the way back to the day after The Meeting (previous post), last last Wednesday. PIano practical exam. Fail. For sure. Because every piece had a ton of mistakes, and the scales got messed up real bad too. No need to wait for results already, I know when I’ve failed. A bit stupid in retrospect, that I took the exam knowing I didn’t have enough practice because I didn’t have the time to practice.

Thursday I borrowed OS X Snow Leopard Install DVD from someone. Thanks a million to that person :) Don’t wanna mention who here, later he gets bugged by lots of people XD

Friday was Year 1 First Aid at NCDCC which I was teaching. Then had to coordinate the practical test at the end of the day. At the end of it all I was dead tired, from running all over the place to make sure things go smoothly. Thanks to all the Year 3s who helped me out here :)

On the same day Ms Fiona Ho had to sort out the New South Wales Writing competition for both Year 3 and 4 into the various classes. The amount of entries were a stack of paper more than 40cm high. About 3/4 didn’t write their class down so she had to compare with the class lists and sort them one by one.

She was busy that day so me and some other people helped her to sort it out. Thanks so much people :) And thanks a million Nicholas for coming over from 3.9 during free period, and also taking over most of it when I had to attend to C Math work :) I would have died if not for you.

Wednesday of the next week after school we had NCDCC camp planning meeting. Year 2s are usually supposed to plan the year end camp, with the Year 3s kind of guiding them along. We were pretty much hands-off this year, and I think that was good. Tell people what to do but not how to do it and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.

Saturday was NCDCC Service Day, basically going around the HDB flats and surveying people on fire safety as well as giving out pamphlets. After we came back to school at about noon, I had lunch with Nicholas at Broadway. It was nice to be able to spend time with a friend to catch up on each other’s life :) Talked about all the funny things that happen in our class (Bose, Kwang Pow, etc. all the gossip XD)

Yups that’s what’s happened the past weeks.

The Meeting 8:05 AM

We had this S/NCO meeting after school.

The first part went quite okay. Discussing stuff like Service Day or attendance matters. Then the second part was about something that I figure everyone felt very strongly about, leadership approach. I think that was the most important part of the meeting, but the way someone acted got on my nerves.

Honestly I think you should know that a meeting is a civilized discussion, where we all sit down nicely and conduct ourselves professionally. It does not entail rudely interrupting other people when they are talking, frequently as and when you please. It also does not entail having the need to raise your voice and start shouting. That tends to give the impression that because you cannot get your point across with logic, you do it with volume.

In the end I moderated the meeting.

Firstly lets talk about the way you approached Year 1 foot-drill. You have enough people as it is to run your lesson. Everyone before you has done so with as much or less people. You ask for more people because you think it might make the lesson more efficient. The thing is, asking for a instructor cadet ratio of 1:1 is quite unreasonable, seeing as how you have 30+ cadets, and seeing as how we are still a small new CCA (in this school anyway).

We notify you that you cannot ask Year 2s to help you because they are very busy having to rush to finish foot-drill silver and rescue by the end of the year, and suggest you ask some Year 3s seeing as how they are freer. Then you go on and on about how they would not be able to teach, how they are unreliable, how they would not help at all.

Here’s what the problem was. You didn’t even give them a chance to prove themselves, and you were very judgmental, and are forming prejudices on no observations and evidence. You have absolutely no trust at all in your counterparts or anyone else for that matter. How on earth do you expect to run a CCA when you treat everyone else as idiots?

And then after you complain that the Year 3s won’t be helpful you then go on to complain that you don’t have enough manpower. Then you expect us to be able to solve that. Like what the hell?

Then the discussion moved on to the debate on leadership styles. It was the classic debate on dictatorial versus delegative/democratic leadership. You’ve tried a completely dictatorial approach from day 1. It has failed to work and only resulted in the Year 1 and 2s hating you and doing everything they can to rebel. So we ask you to consider a different approach, yet you don’t even give it a thought or consider trying.

People frequently confuse leadership with being a b**ch.

Forcing people to do stuff by yelling at them, terrifying them, or punishing them if they don’t listen, is rubbish leadership. Heck. It isn’t even leadership. Its intimidation and bullying. Leadership is when you are able to guide people and point them in the right direction because you’ve won their respect and trust. Its about motivating and empowering your people.

Its when people feel that you are approachable and are comfortable to bring their problems to you, because they have begun to trust that you can solve them. Why in the world are you trying to create barriers between you and your people? I have never felt the need to be formal, never felt the need to keep my distance from people I’m supposed to lead. Why have you?

You can’t lead by “talking down” at people, only by “talking to” people. You have to be “one with your people” to be able to lead them, and you’ll get nowhere with the “hierarchical” frame of mind, you’ll get nowhere thinking that you are “superior” to your people. The only way to lead is by treating everyone as your equal.

There is also a huge difference between being strict, and being fierce. You can be strict but you should not be fierce. You should keep a good standard and not allow people to cut corners etc, but you should not tekan people for mistakes. In other words, it is much better to just tell people what’s wrong and let them go fix it rather than tekan them.

The end product of leadership is not to create people that listen to you. That is a terribly simplistic and backward thinking frame of mind. The end product of leadership is to make sure your people will become outspoken, independent thinking people. People with their own opinions, people who will stand up for what they think.

You are there as a leader not to control people, but simply to give them a nudge in the right direction, and to let them figure out the rest. You are there not to command people, but only to guide them a little when they so need it.

We all make mistakes. I made a hell lot of them when I first started. I still do. We all do.

The thing the rest of us took issue with was not so much the mistakes regarding the subject matter as it was your approach to the discussion of these. Throughout the discussion, it didn’t feel like you were taking any of our views seriously at all. It just felt like you dismissed our views without even properly considering them.

The important thing is not about whether or not we make mistakes. The important thing is whether or not we take the time to evaluate seriously the alternative viewpoints that other people have presented. We are all human, and thus subject to the “human condition”, where we will never be able to see thing from a wholly objective and unbiased perspective. It is therefore important that we consider perspectives opposite to our own such that our subjectiveness would have less profound impact on our judgements.

We are not asking you to agree completely with what we think.

We are only asking that you give it some thought.
________________________

I hope that you take me seriously this time and not treat this commentary as just another bunch of text which you can print out and show to everyone to somehow vindicate your argument that I write outrageous nonsense on this blog. Don’t let me down.

It Takes A Long Time To Grow Young 10:30 PM

This year’s birthday was a somewhat more quiet affair, yet it’s probably gonna be one of those that I’ll remember forever :)

To Joseph, I read what you wrote on your blog. That was really nice of you :) Thanks so much.

To Nicholas and Lucas, thank you so much for calling, that was very thoughtful :)

To Arul and Weilin from NCDCC, I got your SMSes, thanks :)

To all the people who wrote on my Facebook Wall, thanks for all of the birthday wishes :) I read every single one.

Uhh... I broke my “tradition” of having chocolate cake every year by having a coffee ice-cream cake this year :) Usually every year we have this big family dinner thingy, where we invite my cousin’s family, and all the other relatives if they are in Singapore. This year, some renovation was happening, and the whole place was noisy and dusty, so that didn’t happen this year.

I had my birthday this year on the fresco of the Au Petit Salut french restaurant on Dempsey Hill. We celebrated it a day earlier, yesterday. Just me, my bro, my mum, my dad. I liked it :) Probably the first time in a million years we have actually spent time together properly.

Today I went to Novena Square together with Daryl to study. We talked about a lot of stuff. I felt really happy on the way home. Its been so long since I’ve spent time together with a friend properly, without this or that interrupting. Thanks so much Daryl :)

Remember that friend that I lost touch with and found again? If not, read that post entitled “Life is startling, unpredictable. Amazing“. Sitting down with my bro and mum on Sunday, flipping though the yellowed pages of some ancient photo album of me and my bro as little kids, my mum found a photo of me and that friend at a previous birthday party.

That was 6 September 1997. Twelve years ago. I was three, he was five.

That night after everyone else had gone to sleep, alone by the light of the table lamp, I sat there looking at that photograph for a long time.

Sooner or later we all discover that the important moments in life are not the advertised ones, the big parties, the big events, nor great goals achieved. The real milestones are less prepossessing. They come to the door of memory unannounced, those fleeting moments shared with special people.

Like your amused expression when I was screaming excitedly in front of that birthday cake all those years ago. Like catching your grin and grinning back, frantically keeping kayaks in the pouring rain, not so many months ago.

Our lives are measured by these kind of moments.

Right now, I’m counting the days to the first Friday when school starts so I can look for you and show you that photograph :)

I watched the movie Up recently. I think the whole thing was about how you don’t need to go to otherworldly and exotic places to search for adventure, because life itself and all its little moments is already an adventure.

So I guess on this day I would like to thank my friends, each one of you, for making mine so amazing.

One Side of One Thousand 11:34 PM

I guess than even when I’ve lost every shred of my identity, every last piece of what makes me human, there are the few awesome people who will come and remind me of who I am, what I set out to do. Friends are the people who know the song of your heart, and sing it back to you when you’ve forgotten the tune.

You know who you are. I read what you wrote. I cried after I read it. That was really nice of you..... thanks so much for being there for me.....

To the few people who came to class just to see if I was ok, thanks for your care..... right then I really needed it......

You guys are awesome.....

Someone told me on the way home, that the stuff I worry about is just a small part of what is important. He said to stop caring so much, because after all these things, the rest is really up to you. Thanks for that.....
________________________

I guess one of the biggest things that we’ve talked about every time, was this issue of a facade. Hiding what I felt like it meant nothing when it meant everything. Coming to school every morning with a smile no matter how badly I was hurt, no matter how painful everything was. I don’t think I ever explained myself properly.

None of us ever did.

I’ll try. Forgive me if I fail. I guess some of us try to keep our personal and professional life separate. Don’t take this wrongly, it doesn’t mean I don’t make friends. It just means that I keep personal feelings out of school time and the countless meetings and projects. That no matter how desolate I feel inside, I don’t show anything, just so things don’t become complicated with emotion.

Part of it was because I acted on emotion instead of logic before, and the consequences were tragic. Stung and hurt, I didn’t think I had the courage to follow what I feel anymore.

Part of it was because of doing a lot of science research. Because as a scientist, its part of what you’re trained to do.

Emotions tend to affect experimental results. We’re trained to remove all traces of human emotion from our work, simply because science is supposed to be objective in nature. Science is uncompromising, precise, sterile. The lab hasn’t got space for emotion or feeling. Whatever we feel, its almost duty to hide it all away until we change out of our lab coats and exit the lab.

The philosophy lecture on science was quite accurate about that.

What tends to happen after that I guess, is that people tend to have unfair expectations of scientists. People expect us to be calm and composed in any situation, personal or professional, they expect us to be able to make sound and objective decisions every single time.

They forget that we feel too.

They forget that we can feel every single emotion and feeling that anyone else feels. They forget that we make mistakes too, because we sometimes follow our heart and not logic. They forget that we have to hide all that no matter how painful it is when in our professional capacity.

We laugh, we cry, we get angry, we love. We are people too.

I guess what all this has taught me, is never to take anyone at face value. When you meet someone, you only see one side of one thousand. In truth, we know very little about the people we meet, what they are like outside the situations we would normally meet them in.

I made that mistake once.

He’s two years older than me. In sec 1 I was whacked by him a lot in NCDCC. I was really scared of him and I tried to avoid him. If I saw him coming, I’d just kinda run away.

Fast-forward two years.

Far away from home, in a foreign country, dead tired from traveling the whole day, close to breaking point under the stress of competition..... he was the one who took care of me and did his best to look out for me.....

I guess what I’m trying to say, is that people are vibrant, dynamic. They are multi-faceted. There is so much that makes someone who they are. You probably can never fully know someone. The best you could do is try to think of how they might be like outside of the situations that you usually see that person.

I just want you to know that I’m more than the Alli you see in school everyday.

Learning Journey 10:57 PM

ACS won best opposition at Moot Parliament this year. You probably think I’m happy. Well I’m not. I’m very angry at GEP branch. They’re a screwed up bunch of cretins (the irony) and they’ve treated some people very unfairly. GEP branch, we’ve already made our opinions clear through the school. Get your act together and stop being such an embarrassment.

To that friend who has been so torn and so hurt because of all of this... I’m so sorry for everything that happened. It was never once your fault. There’s nothing more that you could have done. Please don’t blame yourself for any of this.....

If ever you need me..... I’ll be waiting for your call.
________________________

Somewhere last week, in the bleak, cold thunderstorm of never ending work, pressure, anxiety, trouble, worry, pain, finally I snapped. I didn’t anymore have the strength to carry on, I didn’t anymore have the will to live.

I locked myself in the bathroom. The tears flowed, as I held a small vial of medicine which was labelled to have lethal consequences when overdosed. I held in my hand many times the maximum dosage of that medicine, debating in my head whether or not I should just do it, as I cried my eyes out. To end it all right then, would have been so easy.

That single desperate hour, is the worst kind of hell I’ve ever felt. I’ve never felt so wretched, so alone, so desolate. Life is difficult, painful, unforgiving. Death is peaceful, easy.

I didn’t do it. I knew I was gonna miss someone when I’m at the some other place you go when you die. I knew he would miss me too. I put the poison back. I’m not sure if that was the right thing to have done.

It had to come to this, because for that hour at least, life had lost all meaning. I think I knew what was missing.

Its true that the Singaporean education system does produce good grades. Its true that academically its a success. Its true that it excels in any measurable criteria.

But it fails in what is immeasurable.

Learning shouldn’t be something that is dreaded, something that is to be terrified of. Unfortunately that’s the way it seems here. Just take a look at the endless amount of homework, projects etc. that have to be finished by students who are in school before sunrise, and home long after dusk.

Our education system produces great academic results. Unfortunately it also produces students who end up hating learning, who end up stressed, tired, angry, who are pushed to the point of trying to end their lives. Hatred. Anger. Suicide. Death.

They call that a “world-class” education system.

Learning should have been fun, enjoyable. Something that I could have looked forward too. The reality is that it isn’t. Because this education stole from me, and stole from every single child, the joy of learning.

I don’t think that’s something you could give back.

We have today as a result of this education, people who are brilliant at memorizing things, people who’s brains contain a great amount of knowledge. But these same people are unenthusiastic about learning, unimaginative, stagnant, boring.

Therein lies our biggest failure.

A Time Machine and Ms Fiona Ho 11:46 PM

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: TOMORROW IS JONATHAN TANG'S BIRTHDAY. IT IS VERY IMPORTANT AND URGENT THAT YOU TELL AS MANY PEOPLE ABOUT IT. PLEASE TWEET THIS AND FACEBOOK THIS. AND TRY TO FIND CHERYL TOO. SHE NEEDS TO ATTEND THE BIRTHDAY. APPARENTLY SHE'S FROM ST. NICK'S.

________________________

Here's the PHOto I promised you guys XD FHO looks quite different from now right? :P Took it today when she wasn't looking :) Click for full size.

Today's Lang Arts B was epic XD So many jokes. And Saurabh and Jon Tang did the computer crash screenshot trick (take a screenshot of a BSOD screen and put it in the powerpoint) with the powerpoint he and Saurabh were presenting. Then we all doodled all sorts of stuff like a Ms Ho caricature on the slides while annotating. And we, especially Joshua and Richard, framed the poem in a highly sexual context XD

Daryl tried to "fix" Ms Ho's laptop after the computer crash screenshot trick, by shaking it upside down. Then later Jem fell off his chair, so in the confusion I did a real computer crash, unnoticed. And so the lesson ended XD

This is something I took during chemistry with Nico, cos he sits next to me during chem...

Isn't it nice :)

Acid-Base titration and molar concentration analysis using phenolphthalein. This is the solution at neutralization endpoint without regular stirring.

Isn't it amazing that for every natural phenomena no matter how big or how small or how breath-taking, behind it lies a simple, elegant scientific explanation.

That's why science is ever so fascinating.

Read the Announcement 11:53 PM

Uh.... excuse me, I need to make an announcement.

To: ACS(I) Year 1 NCDCC Cadets
Re: Total Defence Presentation

Kindly note that in lieu of there not being NCDCC last Friday the 21st of August, the submission deadline for your total defence presentations has been extended to this Thursday the 27th of August. Please email your presentations to either Jonathan Tang (jontang94@yahoo.com) or me (allisterlow@me.com).

Thanks :)
________________________

Ok, moving on. I was sick on Thursday, so I didn’t go to school, which meant I missed the chemistry test. Whoops. So I settled that with Mr Peter Tan on friday, and he did the “Aiyah! What to do?”. I’m probably doing the test on Monday or Tuesday. Mr Tan seems way more stressed than usual (which is already very stressed) these few weeks. Oh dear.

IHS presentation was also on Friday. I was quite upset with the actions of one of my group members. I’m not gonna say who. Along the way, in the duration of the project, I don’t mind jokes or messing around, but there are certain periods of time where this is not appropriate. Especially on presentation day itself. Everyone else was frantically preparing and you were preoccupied with messing up the computer.

You’ve helped us tremendously in the duration of our research, so please make sure that the inappropriateness mentioned above doesn’t happen in future.

I was also extremely upset with Swapnil Kumar. My team delivered our presentation on a Mac, so there was the presenter display feature, which is a kind of tele-prompter thing. This means that although the primary display (projector) showed our presentation as per normal, the laptop screen showed the slides as well as speaker’s notes, timers, and the next slide. These miscellaneous items do not appear on the primary display.

That’s how we could remember all those phrases with literary value, speak fluently, and not appear to be holding note paper or cue cards.

Now Swapnil, having speaker’s notes on the computer and referring to them is not cheating. It should not have escaped your brilliant mind that other teams where using speaker’s notes in the form of cue-cards and paper. I do not appreciate your running up to the front of the class, interrupting when I was about to speak, and yelling about my speaker’s notes. That was unprofessional.

I understand the concepts of academic rivalry, and the fact that we constantly try to better one another in various aspects. But we do this in mature ways by elevating the standard of our work. We do not do this in childish ways such as screaming and shouting. Please do not do such things in future.

Anyway we got 15/15 for the presentation. On a side note, one of my team members was very loud about it. Yeah, I know we are all super happy :) I am too. But try to think about other groups who didn’t do as well ok? :) It comes across as boastful to make so much noise.

After school, I went for Ms Ong’s A Math lesson in the library as a result of my one week of absence from school. I have been enlightened. Thanks so much! :) On the way, saw Ms Ho in one of the library rooms doing IOC or something. Me and Ben Tay stood outside and kept waving for uhh... a while. The look on her face was hilarious XD

Then after that I had to finish the POD homework from the week I was away. And we found Ms Ho in another room doing something else. So we waved again for uhh..... a while. And then we decided to sit on the chairs facing the room. Her expression was soooo funny XD Eventually I think she couldn’t take it so she ran away and left the room :P

The after school me and my bro and mum and dad went to a barbecue housewarming party of one of my mum’s colleagues. It was fun :)

Looking forward to Science Research Challenge exco meeting on Monday :) If you have any interesting science experiments that you know of, kindly leave a comment, because we are in the process of brainstorming for some, for an event that we are starting :) The rest is classified data so I will not describe what that “event” is about :)

So Much for Religious Harmony 10:42 PM

400 Unique Individual Readers. And Counting.

That’s the readership of Spiky.co.nr. :D So here’s a GIGANTIC thank you to everyone :)
________________________

Uhh...... it seems I am now in Science Research Challenge Executive Committee. Had a short meet up with Liu Yang last week. I naturally asked how he found out about me, since I really haven’t met him before. Apparently my name gets around.

Anyway, today I got an email saying Daniel Lim and Nicholas Ngiam are in too :)

Looking forward to the first meeting :D In the meantime, ideas for next year’s LIfe Sciences Symposium are welcome :)

Art lesson was fun today. We were kinda messing around in the art room while waiting for our canvasses to dry. Messing around meaning disturbing Adi. Heheh.

This morning and yesterday’s was the school’s religious emphasis week.

I was distraught.

As you might know, I am atheistic, specifically anti-theistic. That means I explicitly believe that no god exists. I was profoundly upset that we were not given the option to not attend religious emphasis week. I was profoundly upset that they were more or less trying to convert us to Christians. Try to imagine how unnerving that is.

I was also profoundly upset with the terribly polarized and one-sided perspective that was presented during the speech. The speech consisted of sharply criticizing the book entitled “The God Delusion”, what might be considered a book of the atheistic arguments and reasoning. What happened to respecting the beliefs of others in the name of preserving the religious harmony in Singapore?

What I am presenting here is not about the arguments for an against the existence of a god. That is immaterial. What I am presenting here is the way that the pastor has treated other religions and beliefs. That is with absolute scorn, disrespect and contempt.

It is all well and good to believe in what one wants to believe in. It is not all well and good to go about deriding the beliefs of others. It is this total disregard for the opinions of others, this ardent self-righteousness, that has brought upon the world many issues of great concern.

For such blithe disregard of other beliefs and philosophy to happen here, in a good school, in Singapore, leaves me gravely disturbed.

Life is startling, unpredictable. Amazing. 11:40 PM

Have you ever wondered, what it might be like.....

To make a friend when you were just a little kid, so small, so long ago. To have gone to each other’s houses for one another’s birthday party. Mucking around, running after, chasing each other, making lots of noise, doing all the stuff that little kids do.

Then life gets too busy, we go our separate ways. To have tried to keep in contact. For things to get in the way. To have life tear us apart. To forget each other.

To grow up.

And then to find each other again, in the same secondary school, so different yet so the same as what we were before. Getting the funny feeling, that lasted just a flicker of a second, that we’ve seen each other before, but not really able to put our finger on it.

To have our parents tell us about all we did together last time. When we were too small to remember anything. To have a tiny, miniscule, microscopic fragment of those memories left.

To make friends all over again.

I know now what that feels like. It feels amazing. It feels as if life has found new meaning.

It takes your breath away.

And I guess that the only thing that this proves is, even though life sometimes can get rough, gloomy, so bleak.....

Life is still so startling, so unpredictable. So amazing. Life is one crazy ride, and you’ll never know where it might take you.

So laugh you heart out. Dance in the rain. Cherish the moment. Ignore all the pain. Love like you’ve never been hurt. Forgive and forget. Life is too short to be living with regrets. Live your life like there’s no tomorrow.

Because no matter what, life is.....

Beautiful.

Incredible !ndia | Thoughts 12:00 AM

We got back from the tour and changed and got ready to go to the airport.

Just before we left, Daniel asked me whether I wanted to go take our poster back, since the school wasn't keeping them and was taking them down already. I remember running down the antique, white, empty corridors of City Montessori School, something I won't get to see again until 2011.

I remember bursting straight into the poster room trying to find our poster and collage, and turning around to see Daniel in the doorway.

We decided not to bring home the collage since it couldn't be rolled up because of the sticks. But we took home the butterflies.

We left lucknow 7:30 p.m. to begin our long journey home.

And I guess all the time in between, the quiet flight, the transit time in Delhi, I spent looking back upon the past six days. Thinking about how I had given absolutely no thought at all when I signed the registration forms, and to then have embarked on a TOTALLY AWESOME six days of my life.

My biggest take-away wasn't the incredible culture of India nor was it wasn't the competition.

The fact we didn't win doesn't matter to me at all. We, every single one of us, finished the fight without a single regret or tear. Because each of us knew that we did more than our best, knew that we exceeded ourselves. Because we knew that whatever we did was better than anything we had done during the so many practices and trainings.

And because of that, no matter what the results are like, they don't matter one single bit.

Throughout these six days, the one single thing that has left footprints on the stuff that makes me who I am, is the friends we made.

Not just with the other international participants. Among ourselves too.

Stuff like sitting in the IB lab with Nicholas, Daniel and Mervyn until late in the afternoon, cutting out stacks and stacks of stuff for the poster and collage. Stuff like me emoing the night after the results, and looking up to find Nicholas' smiling face telling me to cheer up. Stuff like our little plan to be deliberately late for functions because we were upset with always being made to wait so long for things to start even though we were asked to be punctual.

Stuff like all the jokes and things we said to each other along the way. Stuff like all the little ways we looked out for each other.

Stuff like all the fleeting moments we shared together.

Those are the things that mean the world to me. Things I could never forget. Things that will stick with me for the rest of my life.

THANK YOU SO MUCH TO DANIEL, NICHOLAS, GUO YANG, TONG NHAT DUONG, ANMOL, MERVYN FOR GIVING ME AN UNFORGETTABLE, TOTALLY AWESOME 6 DAYS OF MY LIFE. ITS BEEN AN AWESOME JOURNEY WITH YOU GUYS AND YOU GUYS ROCK! :D

We were dead tired, throughout the long journey home in the middle of the night. Dragging ourselves through the transit terminal in the airport. We hardly spoke. But you can sit in silence next to a friend all evening, and walk away feeling it was the best conversation that you've ever had.

And that's how I felt.

The plane left India 12:45 a.m. and as I looked out of the window, peering at this exciting new world which I had so briefly explored, contemplating my return in 2 years time for the next Festival of Biotech....

I knew it won't be the same.

Not without you guys.

Incredible !ndia | Day 6 11:44 PM

We were leaving in the evening, so we still had a bit of time. So we went along with the mini-tour thingy which the school organized. That started with a tree planting session.....

These are the bright orange flowers which I was talking about earlier.

Then they tried to go to the botanical gardens. But they didn't check the opening time, so it was closed when we got there, and wouldn't open for another hour or so. By today we were quite upset with their punctuality.

Especially when they ask the teams to appear on time for talks and stuff like that, but take forever to get started.

So they took us to the shopping centre instead. Not much lah, cos no time, because we had to go back by 2 p.m. for some of the teams who had to leave at about 4 p.m.

I guess the nicest part was just looking out of the window of the bus and getting a fleeting glimpse on what India is like.

Incredible !ndia | Day 5 3:28 PM

Not much today. Had to sit through Mr Jagdish Ghandi's terribly boring talk on world peace and the following talk by a scientist because Mervyn's turn-coat was quite early, and we didn't want to miss it.

For a turn-coat presentation you have to present one side of the debate, then "turn-coat" and debate against yourself for the remaining time.

Debating against the argument.....

After "turning-coat".....

Lunch, then the closing ceremony, starting with a feedback session with all the other teams, where we all share our thoughts on the whole event. Then more cultural performances.

Then the results of the competitions.

We didn't win in any category :( Only got an honorable mention for poster category, but that was all :(

Upsetting that their idea of good visual design is the kind of stuff that V.K. Satiyam might make. So I guess they have a very different idea of what is good and bad.

Oh well :(

Jordan won overall, followed by some Indian girls' school.

Here's a photo after the whole event ended.... :)

The frantic exchanging of email addresses, phone numbers, Facebook IDs, small gifts promptly ensued :) Some teams were leaving the next morning.

Incredible !ndia | Day 4 3:01 PM

Once again, we ponned Mr Jagdish Ghandi's terribly boring speech on world peace. Remember the huge chart the other day? Well he explains one quarter of it every morning. Hearing about world peace, religion being one, etc. once is all well and good, but to hear it so many times make one feel unwell.

We were all also quite sick of their time management skills, asking people to be on time and then making people wait. And also having to sit through long endless ethical arguments between professor and student, so we more or less ponned the most of the talks today. Ahem.

We came back just for the various competitions. Starting with me and Anmol going for the powerpoint competition. Where on the way we found the school's Guinness certificate.


Then Nicholas went to deliver his seminar with the virus model hat (which I think was Mervyn's idea :D ). Which we had been teasing him about for just about the whole trip XP. Mervyn is on the left, Nicholas is wearing the virus model hat. Its supposed to show the surface proteins of the virus.

We were like "remember to wear the hat for the seminar ok?". The look of "come on, do I really have to?" kind of resignation on Nicholas' face was so funny :P


Me and Anmol didn't get to watch the seminar cos we were still doing our powerpoint. Then later on Daniel and Anmol went to do the collage. Here's our entry.....


Then was dinner.

All of us had done our competitions already, except for Mervyn who had turn-coat tomorrow.

Over the course of the past few days, in our spare time, we kinda played SPORE and COD4 on my laptop. Nicholas lost his appetite after watching one of us play SPORE. He was like "you mean you kill the other animal then you eat it? oh my goodness....." The expression he had was so funny XD

Incredible !ndia | Day 3 12:54 PM

Had breakfast, then the day started with a talk on the philosophy of City Montessori School by Mr Jagdish Ghandi. The philosophy begins to feel like some kind of cult. They believe that "religion is one" and that the various religions are different manifestations of a single god.

And so they have this "prayer" which they invented. Which doesn't seem to refer to any standard religion. In fact, it seems they are trying to invent their own religion/cult. And did I mention Jagdish Ghandi is long-winded?

This chart describes the school philosophy, note the size of the chart, and the size of the text. When they gave out printed brochures of it, they had to print on A3 paper because it would be unreadable otherwise.


Anyway, Mr Jagdish Ghandi was terribly boring, and we were all very happy to move on to the next part, where the people lighted the lamp.....


Then a talk on "Concepts of Biotechnology" By Prof. D. Balasubramanian. It was a good talk for an introduction on biotechnology.

Then me and Tong Nhat Duong had to leave for our poster making competition, and Guo Yang and Mervyn had to go for the written round of the quiz, followed by Guo Yang's debate.

I was extremely annoyed with them about the poster competition, because they said that no pasting of cutouts was allowed, and neither was having reference pictures to draw from, rules that were never stated in print anywhere, nor made known verbally before the competition began.

My entry (materials used: 2 felt tip markers).....


Made it back to the auditorium just in time to see Guo Yang debate. By the end of the day, Guo Yang had this fan club of people who thought that he had been extremely charming during the debate XD He was the only debater that smiled and did not start yelling into the microphone.....


We had lunch after the debates, and decided to pon the next talk since we were tired of trying to decipher what the speakers were trying to say because of their really thick accent. And the fact that it is considered good public speaking skills in India to yell into the microphone.

Anyway, later on Daniel and Nicholas went to present the website. Boy were we relieved that it could run on their ancient computers :)

There was tea and coffee after the website presentation, but both were so sweet that one only tasted the sugar and not the tea leaves or caffeine. It seems this is the way these beverages are made here.

Mervyn was very sad about the quiz round :( Cos Anmol said that Mervyn and Guo Yang got into the next round of the quiz. But they didn't, cos Anmol misheard. So he kinda got his hopes up for nothing :(

Dinner was quite an epic disaster because they were so behind time that the buses which were supposed to take us to another City Montessori School campus for dinner all left, so most of the teams had dinner in their rooms, eating the food that they brought along.

Incredible !ndia | Day 2 12:58 AM

The culture of some places is quiet, muted, discreet. Elegant. India's is unabashed, unrestrained, loud. Incredible. Its there that bright garish colors, flamboyant costumes and dances, and the omnipresent road honking is right at home.

Over there its a polite thing to honk the car because it is apparently important that it notifies others of your presence.

Anyway, today is the official opening of the Festival of Biotech. We went around exploring the school right after breakfast (which was nan, rice, other Indian food, and lots of curry.) And they put lots and lots of inspirational quotes on the walls everywhere.


The ACS team :) From left: Anmol, Tong Nhat Duong, Guo Yang, Mervyn, Nicholas, Mr Goh, Alo (a student from City Montessori School), Me, Daniel.

We were one of two teams representing Singapore. The other was Global Indian International School. Which, well, doesn't consist of Singaporeans. 14 Countries attended, with the likes of Russia, Japan, Jordan, Germany, Sri Lanka, Nepal etc.


The See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Say No Evil monkeys XD Btw, Mervyn is in year 5, so you can infer which Chinese zodiac he's born in, which somehow makes the picture come together nicely.

Me and Mervyn.....


More of the school (which by the way contains a convention centre, a park, owns two radio channels, and holds the Guinness world record for the largest school by student population at 22,612 in the year 1999)...


The event started with a series of (might I say terribly boring?) videos about the school. Its not that the school has not history. It has a rich and fascinating history and has come very far. But the producers didn't really know the meaning of being concise.

We sat in the first few rows, which consisted of sofas (muahahahaha).....


Thank goodness we could escape for a while because we had to settle the competitions that Guo Yang was taking part in, because two of them clashed.

When we came back to the convention centre, the videos were almost over :D. Next was the interactive session with the, as they put it, "galaxy of eminent scientists". Oh do they misuse the English language. But in fairness to them, they had a huge number of scientists among the likes of chiefs of eye institutes, crop/biotech associations, and numerous other research institutes, and I guess that's what they were trying to describe.


And boy was the interactive session funny. In their culture, its okay to interrupt each other, and it was hilarious watching some of the students arguing with the scientists. And it was so funny to see both the student and scientist try to speak at the same time, and interrupting each other.

After that we had to attend the press conference along with another photo taking session with more of the bright orange flower garland thingy. And it was hilarious, because they couldn't find the Singapore teams, even though we were there. We were like "here cannot find, on map also cannot find little red dot" XD

Then lunch, then slack until 5 p.m. when we had to go attend the official opening ceremony and introduction of the teams.

There was a moot world parliament. Yes, the Indians want to abolish the United Nations and establish their own "world parliament", and they were going on and on about Article 51 of the Indian constitution and how it was the only way to world peace. LOL

The the gust of honor arrived, who was A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, one of India's former presidents. After he arrived, no one bothered listing to the speaker on stage because they were all busy snapping picture of A.P.J.


This was taken when A.P.J. went on stage to speak. He's at the podium, and standing to his right in white is Mr Jagdish Ghandi, founder-manager of City Montessori School.

Then A.P.J. opened the Festival of Biotech. And they had this enormous rotating DNA model...


Then was the cultural performances (they have great misconceptions about the national costumes of numerous countries.....), mostly dancing etc. And lastly the introduction of the teams, going on stage with our school flags (which felt awesome), and oh my goodness even more photographs XD

Dinner was at their swimming pool.

Incredible !ndia | Day 1 11:58 PM

8 a.m., and I'm already at Changi Airport Terminal 2.

Feeling nervous about the competition, excited to soon be exploring the wildly different world and its striking culture that is Incredible !ndia. I'm heading to Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh (India's most populous state) to attend the 1st International Festival of Biotechnology, hosted by the City Montessori School.

I'm going with Nicholas Ngiam, Low Guo Yang, Tong Nhat Duong, Mervyn Lim, Anmol Khurana, Daniel Lim and Mr Goh Yan Yih.

The first person I meet is Nicholas. Eventually, everyone gets here and we check in without hassle but highly amused by the weight of some of our luggage XD. Our art materials alone for the poster and collage was over 7 kg. Someone had a bag almost 40 kg. We were mostly bringing lots of bottled water. And food too. XD

By 9:40 a.m., we were at gate E3 waiting to board. Mervyn, Guo Yang, Nicholas and Daniel were playing bridge out of boredom XD.


We were flying by Air India. Mervyn took a couple of picture on the plane before the stewardess came along and said no electronic devices during takeoff/landing etc. Mervyn was like "everywhere I go I get owned one XP...". Took off at 10:05 a.m. on the dot.

There was this thing that we had on the airplane lunch which looked very much like a soup. Apparently it was sweet, and apparently it was Indian dessert.

Ever seen Ricola in a can? Guo Yang brought...


Arrived in New Delhi 1:35 p.m. India time which is 2.5 hrs behind Singapore. The airport is unmodern, and we got off onto the tarmac. There was a 4 hr transit. The security guards there all have (what is probably and AK-74) automatic rifles slung across their backs. Unnerving.


We met Anmol's parents and his sister, who stay in Delhi. And we spent the transit time talking to them, munching snacks, and playing phone games, e.g. SPORE, Paper toss, Bubble-wrap.


From left: Nicholas, Daniel, Guo Yang :) This was at the airport, waiting for our connecting flight, which was at another terminal. Oh yeah, and the airport seems to have this "prepaid taxi" thingy. Lolz

On the way to the other terminal by the airport shuttle, we saw what is the taxi in India. The thingy behind the two people is the taxi.


We got to ride the airport buggy at the other terminal :D


This is the boarding pass for our domestic flight...


Boarded the flight from Delhi to Lucknow on the tarmac again. Learned a new word from one of Anmol's Indian magazines. The article was talking about how yuppies were over, and how now was the age of the "scuppies", the socially conscious urban professionals. Lolz


We arrived late in the evening, maybe about 7 p.m. The airport is small. We were welcomed very warmly by the people from City Montessori School (and uhh the weather too. Its very hot.) They did the whole Indian bright orange flower garland thingy. Along with a red carpet and a photo taking session. From left: Guo Yang, Anmol.


The school is quite near the airport. Here's what it looks like at night right when we arrived.


Dinner (oh my goodness, so many different kinds of curries in one sitting.) then play a bit of COD4 with Daniel, on my laptop, then sleep :)

Out of Office 12:32 AM

I will be away from Singapore from 2 August, 10:05 AM to 8 Aug, 8:35 AM. I’m attending the 1st International Festival of Biotechnology, in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India :)

I can only answer emails and publish articles here pending availability of internet connection over there. Sorry :(

You can always call or SMS my phone, and I’ll be happy to answer :)

They call it a festival, but its more like a competition. Thanks so much to all the people who wished me good luck! :)

The Printer 11:52 PM

Okay. I’m just about ready to throw the printer at the wall. Its an Epson R310 inkjet. Don’t buy Epson. Ever. Its horrible. This is my third Epson printer to have issues.

The first one decided one day to just print out pages after pages of cryptographic wingdings for the rest of its existence. The second and third ones decided to enhance all the printouts by adding stripes of the precise chromatic opposite color all over the place.

So my IHS project has the appearance of a terribly amateur print work.

Time to get a color laser. That is not Epson.

Oh, and did I mention I also ran out of paper? Meaning I can’t prepare anything at all for next week’s 1st International Festival of Biotechnology in India. I am leaving Singapore Sunday 10 am.

Great. Just great. Snapping under the stress of preparing for an overseas competition, with less than a weeks rest after A* NSC, trying to finish all my projects before I leave, and the printer breaks down, and I run out of paper.

And then Ms Ho comes chasing me for a commentary which I wasn’t even in class to write.

What an absolute disaster. I shall place this series of unfortunate events away from the portion of my mind that demarcates my consciousness.

I was out of class for most of the day preparing for IFB India, but I came back later because the lab technician had to go for lunch, and can’t trust us alone in the lab. So I was back in class for Language Arts A and PC lesson.

Both of which were rubbish. Waste my time. Better off preparing for IFB India in the library. Lang Arts A entailed Bose demonstrating one of her verbose and mundane ramblings about a subject matter which doesn’t exactly make sense to anyone.

PC entailed “someone” experiencing what is known as post-menstrual syndrome. Essentially screaming at everyone. Look. I freaking don’t care what happened with your year 4 class earlier on okay? (deduced from your conversation with Ms Ho) It speaks terribly of you as a teacher, leader and person if you take your anger out on other people.

I understand we are all human, we all get angry. We sometimes are curt and abrupt with other people, but today was a demonstration of utter lack of self-control. You are the last person I expected to act so unprofessionally.

I am disappointed.
________________________

Some thoughts, more controversy. Again this isn’t meant to upset anyone, its just what I feel and you are more than welcome to disagree.

I don’t believe in the concepts of “country” and “race”, for all of us 6 billion people in the world are the same species. The DNA of any two people living today is at least 99% percent similar, a figure validated by numerous scientific studies. So then what is this big hullaballoo about our geographic territory or the way we look?

Okay. Granted the whole world can’t be one big happy family because there are a bunch of sick, twisted people, e.g. terrorists, extremists, communist leaders, etc.

Most of everyone in the world wants the same thing. Peace and happiness. So does it really matter which continent we live in? Why can’t we move forward together as a human race? Instead of individually country by country. Isn’t that rather selfish?

Isn’t it sad that this concept of geographical and racial divisions is preventing meaningful and purposeful discussion and dialogue on an international basis? Read the news to see what I mean.

I guess I am an idealist. A very naive idealist.

So I won’t fight for a country.

But I’ll fight for a cause.

I’m considering environmental or political activism. Maybe I’ll join Greenpeace. Or Reporters Sans Frontiers.

Its where I might make the most difference.
________________________

I’ll be out of class for about the whole day again preparing for IFB India. Sorry guys :(

Identity 10:39 PM

What I’m gonna say soon will be quite outrageous to some people. Please don’t get upset about it, because its just an opinion, just what I feel. Its not meant to be a personal thing to some people, and I’m not saying that you are wrong. Don’t take what comes next as the pure truth because its very opiated and biased. This is just what I feel.

Prepare for controversy.

I don’t like the NDP songs. At all. They are way, way, way too nationalistic. Corny lyrics and tacky soundtracks also. I won’t label it as propaganda, because that would be a very extremist way of looking at things, but I think you’ll get what I mean.

I find it sad that people resort to these kind of things to evoke patriotism.

I don’t think that’s right. Patriotism should come naturally from the heart. It doesn’t come from signing songs written around a glorified impression of the subject matter. It should be about the things we do to make our world a better place. Things like social or political activism, being an advocate for something like climate change.

Its disappointing that people need cheesy songs and government marketing campaigns to tell them that. Shouldn’t we already know what we need to do to make a positive difference? Do we have to be told how, by lovely advertisements and marketing campaigns?

Why is it we have to be reminded how to be proud of our country? Take a leaf out of Japan’s book. I still remember there was this shopkeeper, who upon seeing a dead leaf fall from a tree onto the pavement of a neighboring shop, promptly went over to put it in the dustbin. The people there are so polite to each other. They are concerned about stuff that extends beyond the individual.

They don’t need all these tacky songs to give them a sense of ownership of their country.

They have a very strong sense of cultural identity, an identity that is really theirs truly, something that is honestly collected together, and is genuine. Their identity is not the result of pretty speeches on the need to “forge a national identity”. Its the result of what the people did themselves.

Something spontaneous.

No point having an identity if its been carefully engineered by marketing agencies. That’s just deceiving oneself.

Besides, I think the notion of “forging an identity” is incorrect in itself. How can one manufacture your identity? Your are who you are, and nothing that you can ever do is going to change that fact. You cannot escape your true identity.

Your identity is not made. It is not created. It is not forged.

It is discovered.

All this fuss about forging an identity has distracted us from the more meaningful purpose of discovering what our true identity is. What is the point of an identity that doesn’t reflect who we are?

Maybe its time that we discard the notion of “tolerating” different races too. That is erroneous too. We should not be tolerating differences. We should be accepting them and welcoming them with open arms. Our differences are what makes us a more powerful people. Our diversity is priceless human capital.

To talk as if our differences were a problem is stupidity in its purest form.

Because its our differences that are the solution.

Its time for us to forget about engineering our identity. Its time for us to start finding and discovering it. The little things we see, hear, smell, touch, feel everyday, our slangs, way of doing things, our people, our differences, are our identity. Our identity is already all around us, its already part of us.

All we need to do, is to open our eyes and see.

Defeat 10:11 PM

We lost A* NSC, trailing RI by 16 points.

I’m sorry for letting you guys down. Especially those people who sacrificed so much and supported me every step of the way no matter what. Especially my team mates. Thanks so much for everything you guys did, and I’m sorry I couldn’t have done better.

I tried my best. I’m sorry that my best wasn’t good enough.

16 points behind. Totally just crashed out. Even if we didn’t stand a chance, which I don’t believe was ever the case, defeat by such a big margin is so hard to accept.

Right now I don’t have the courage or strength to do IF Biotech India. I shouldn’t even be on the team. I shouldn’t even be secretary of biology research. I shouldn’t even be in 3.8

And even if IF Biotech India goes well as planned, that is not gonna change anything.

Its my fault. I lost my cool with people more than a few times. I argued, and didn’t listen. I didn’t try to make compromises. I was so damn arrogant, and so inattentive. I was unprofessional too. I let my feelings and emotion get in the way of sense and logic.

I’m sorry I’ve been such an awful friend to have.

A Losing War 9:43 PM

Do note that this is not referring directly to the disagreement with Dean and Swapnil, but is a generalization and reflection of recent events. That conflict has been settled :) Thanks Dean and Swapnil
________________________

Lost like a leaf in a hurricane.

Confused by all that happened, confused by the consequences of all that I tried to do. Left without anything else around to point the way. Trying my best to make things better, but making things worse in reality.

I go school everyday with a scripted smile and a staged identity, hiding everything that I feel because thats what everyone else has done. Substituting raw emotion with politically correct content under the pretext of professionalism.

Looking around me knowing that the expressions contradict the emotions. Wondering what is the purpose of this masquerade party if we already know what each other feel. We know we lied to each other, yet we still deceive ourselves with a illusion that was never real.

The truth about how we feel is right in our face, but we act as if it wasn’t there. Is it because we can’t accept reality, or is it because we feel like we are letting our guard down when we show others how we feel in a world where don’t know who to trust. In a world where bitter rivals pretend to be your friends and backstab you at the last moment.

To have allowed my real emotions to flash briefly, disillusioned by the facade of other people’s apparent personality. Because it was something that I never believed in. Driven by the willpower to redefine the status quo.

And then only to realize that the consequences were conflicts and arguments of cataclysmic proportions. Conflicts that hurt people. Including myself. To be left feeling so angry, so desolate, so bitter. Thinking about it and longing for revenge so badly, never wanting anything else so much.

Knowing that you’ll have to move on someday. But realizing that by doing so, acting as if you couldn’t care less in front of other people, but locking yourself in your room when you get home and crying your eyes out, that people are just gonna take advantage of and walk all over you.

Kicked to the side bleeding, wondering if being who you are, showing yourself as you are, was the right thing to do, in a world where its the good guys that die in the ending.

Couldn’t it be that our repulsion to expressing our emotions, our self, our identity as they are, trying to pretend to feel, be, someone we are not. Treating our life as a performance, this world a stage, and the people we know an audience, that this could be the spores of human misunderstanding and conflict?

Could it be, that all we needed to solve every problem humanity is facing today, was just a bit of innocence?