my home is in empty spaces.

*stretches luxuriously* Last night's outing was fun, although certain objectives were not met. Never mind, there's always a next time, whenever that will be.

"A dense, artistic kind of imperfection stimulates your consciousness, keeps you alert. If I listen to some utterly perfect performance of an utterly perfect piece while I'm driving, I might want to close my eyes and die right then and there. But listening to the D major, I can feel the limits of what humans are capable of – that a certain type of perfection can only be realized through a limitless accumulation of the imperfect. And personally, I find that encouraging. Do you know what I'm getting at?"

"Sort of...."

"I'm sorry," Oshima says. "I tend to get carried away on the subject."


--- Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami

http://kitana.wordpress.com/2006/10/21/class-disconnect/
http://speranzanuova.blogspot.com/2006/10/meritocracy-elites-on-gifts-and.html
http://aaron-ng.info/blog/the-wee-shu-min-cyber-drama.html

and finally,

this. http://forums.delphiforums.com/sammyboymod/messages?msg=121090.1
To quote from there, "people shouldn't yaya papaya until they walk the walk".

"Not because I'm bitter from being only appreciated for being pretty, but because my assessment of my looks changes with my weight. (NO reassurance from y'all. I'm not fishing.) Since I know my looks will change, I value them as little when they're up as I do when they're down. Even if a good picture earns me a date, I hate that whole criteria."

- lifted from someone I don't know and never read, here.

Okay. Finally someone who thinks the same way I do, except that mine isn't weight, it's both hair length and amount of makeup worn.

Oh a short update on the CV pic that got taken a couple of Saturdays ago: it turned out fine.

What a clean and cultured place we have. by Yawning Bread.

(And the full essay here.)

I have greatly admired the comprehensiveness and clarity of Alex Au's writings ever since I began reading his works, and I do not dispute the truth of this one as well. Here is the only quote from the essay that I wish to discuss instead of gravely condemning outright with him:

"But trays notwithstanding, clearing your own table is not the done thing in Singapore. Menial labour is for others."

[continued Tues 17 Oct] Breaking the link of "clearing your own table" = "menial labour" (<- something derogatory), it really does depend on where I am. As pointed out by others in Mr. Au's Comments section, clearing your own table could reasonably be considered as depriving the elderly person who makes his/her way over slowly to do it of a job, depending on circumstances. That said, under all circumstances, I would clear my stuff in Raffles Place at lunch hour simply because I know that the cleaners cannot keep up with the pace and it would be tremendously horribly inconsiderate of me to not leave a clear space for the next person. However if at some other time and place I'm in a fast-food restaurant and I'm getting up with my tray to leave and happen to catch the eye of the elderly lady in service who smiles at me and says vehemently while slowly toddling over, "No need, no need, just put there, I will clear", then I won't clear my stuff.

Those are the extremes. If the abovementioned elderly lady had said exactly the same thing to me without giving any further sign of toddling over within the next few seconds, I would clear my own tray regardless. Not because her service is slow or anything (if any of you are thinking of criticizing this point), but simply that I can 100% guarantee the same result of a clear table with greater ease by doing it on my own.

Whinging and whining and intellectual endeavour are not mutually exclusive. So here goes.

I think I will always remember the way you looked that night. The way you built careful barriers around yourself and left them there all nonchalant. The way you said you would never care about what others thought of [] and by extension how you didn't expect people to care about you. The way you flicker like a candle flame in the wind. =) The way you'd say, if you were reading this, that you don't flicker.

The way you messaged me barely 24 hours later to say that you were weary and tired of fighting. And in all likelihood, the way you'd change your mind again, and claim perfect eternal immutability, and laugh at my bewildered human attempts to keep up.

I am what I am, and so are you. For me some part is bewildered human, and some part is something no one would want to face at the wrong end of a sword blade. And I think that my friends understand that all of me is me, that I am both bewildered human and efficient time-optimizing machine, that I am loved and that I love them.

[Edit, 15/10: As completely expected.]

Hello. I had planned to whinge and whine but my attention was caught by something on e pur si muove - Paul Krugman's article on The Myth of Asia’s Miracle: A Cautionary Fable. Not recent, I know, but more than worth a read.

Link via this.

Thank you for your hospitality WT.

----

On another note, I had no idea that what I was wearing was so .... seductive, until while standing on the sidewalk outside Funan waiting for Jax, Jax came up to me and said, "Can I solicit you??" with a waggle of his eyebrows. *laughs* You are funny, dear.

Perhaps I can wear this outfit to go clubbing sometime.

----

The haze has returned, and it is killing me to breathe it in.

Lifted from a blog I read sometimes - http://www.goodmagazine.com/issue001/Silverblatt_on_books Why some people dislike reading.

Singapore Dreaming - I went to watch this with Fen and Chris and 5th Aunt, 'cos GV was having a '4 for the price of 3' promotion for this movie and it'd gotten some good reviews by word of mouth. I thought it sucked big-time, for the following reasons:

• the guy who supposedly came back from the States didn't show any States accent or mannerisms right from the moment he appeared on screen fresh from the airport at his mum's front gate. Instead throughout his job search and business plans he behaved like a particularly 'pok' Singaporean, and even had the nerve to take the attitude that "hey I went to the States! the States! Even though my university is someplace in Idaho they've never ever heard of, how dare these people not hire me".
  
  Well, to him I say, You see, if you have no edge in skills over any of the other applicants, nobody gives a flying f*** where you were educated. The paper only grants you the job interview, which you did get, even though you were from a university in Idaho that no one had ever heard of. Passing the interview then depends on something totally different - your skills and personality. Count your lucky stars you didn't acquire an immediate bad reputation in the industry, with that kind of attitude.
  
  So am I actually supposed to take this guy seriously as an example of the average States-educated Singaporean?

• Next, the song. While nice, it didn't leave much of an impact that resonated throughout the movie. And playing it again at the end was just trite, another layer of superficiality atop the already superficial portrayals of Singaporean misery.

• The Toto win. Can anybody say, deus ex machina, now? I lost all interest in the movie from this point onward. Which was about halfway through. I'd have been more fascinated if the characters had gone through some internal metamorphoses and personal development to set themselves more on the path to achieving their dreams, instead of this windfall situation.

• The constant references to condo-shopping and the accompanying put-downs of HDB housing. Like, hah! Would this not further reinforce those stereotypes?

• Overall, the movie's tendency to express the pathos of Singaporean life is not well-counterbalanced by our intrinsic capacity for self-awareness and for change, except for rare moments of bad comic timing such as when the mother finally "woke up her idea" and decided to do something for herself i.e. return to the place she felt most herself in, which happened to be her hometown.

The good moments:

• when the father had a heart attack and lay in the carpark as someone walked past unknowing. Great reference to the real-life SICC incident.
• when Irene saw Seng's nifty sports car
• all of Mei's screen time :-) every scene, every bit.
• the way they focused on the match of earrings, you-know-when
• Lim Yu-Beng's scene with the beer promoter in the kopitiam

Ah, I found out a few days ago that it will actually take 4 years of night and weekend classes to complete.

As per her request, Leona in da house! Woohoo! =D

Time to elaborate.

I have been accepted into a social work undergrad course, held locally near my workplace (both present and future) but jointly accredited by both NCSS and Monash University. It will take 2 years of night and weekend classes to complete.

I am going to be employed by a quasi-governmental organization (QGO), but am presently still employed in a private MNC company that was acquired in March by a larger MNC. The QGO has nicely agreed to wait for me for one month - about three weeks left now, actually. I suspect the QGO will have more consistent working hours than my present co as well, giving me plenty of time to get to my night classes on time.

I should probably insert a disclaimer somewhere on my blog of the usual "whatever I say here is not reflective of my employer's views, etc.".

Yesterday I passed my pre-employment medical checkup for the QGO and thus have no more hurdles to leap before getting employed by them.

Yesterday I also got a passport photo taken. All of you know that I am not at all photogenic, so time will tell if those photos are okay. I can only collect them next Sat.

Last Friday I had dinner with D and E at Borders bistro. The food was good but not really worth the price.... I also used up Joce's gift to buy The Blind Watchmaker - something I have never read but which is part of the common professional lexicon. I also got Albert Camus' The Plague because it was cheap.

Last Thursday was the first general meeting with Christine.

Last Wed night I stayed over at J's house, drank Coke, tried to read Blue Ocean Strategy which I have been trying to find time to read for the past 4 weeks, and promptly fell asleep. The morning after I was given a lift to work by her dad.

Last Wed noon Jax called me up to ask me out for lunch because he was feeling grumpy and wanted to wail.

I have completely forgotten what I did on Monday and Tuesday.

On Sunday I was recovering from the effects of one tequila shot, 1/3 jug of vodka-Ribena on the rocks, and one 500mL bottle of some 5% alc. lemon fizzy drink.

On Saturday night I was consuming the abovementioned. The tequila shot was a treat from my friend for the new job. While I was holding my head after that, she happily declared that she can drink 11 of those without problems. Bleah. :-)

The Wednesday before that I was extremely frustrated with WT, which carried over into the rest of the week and probably contributed to my wish to get quite drunk that Saturday.

Okay I can't remember the details of anything that happened before that Wednesday. Generally in the first 2 weeks of September I was running around settling my social work deg application and also harassing Jax to pieces. Something like that. Muaks darling.

Oh my birthday happened sometime during this month too. I remember it was a very good day.