Last December was a happy month. 4 of my friends got married. And I say I am happy for them because they are the engineer sort, which means while other people have more colourful lives, I think they are the steady down to earth sort of people who are easily satisfied, and are therefore the most likely to have long and fulfilling unions.
I am old enough to understand that the sturdiest and most enduring types of happiness are also the most "boring". I hope that I'm not jinxing them or anything.
I think that Capricorns are supposed to be happier when they grow old. (Up to a certain point because beyond a certain age life never gets better, which is why death is not always a tragedy - the real tragedy is the passing of time.) I think in a way this is a very optimistic view of things, that things get better when you grow older. It could be the very best thing of all.
Sunday, 30 December 2007
Saturday, 29 December 2007
Kafka
Kafka was one of my favourite authors. He is a very what you might call guai lan writer, and very funny if you are following what he's trying to do, a king of black comedy. His characters are always caught in psychological turmoil, and nightmarish situations. And he accomplishes this not by setting big obstacles in front of his characters, but putting them into situations which are by right fairly mild, but because of some inherent weakness of the character, he is unable to overcome them. He makes the main character feel very small and pathetic because they are defeated by relatively trivial things. They spend most of their time second guessing themselves, and undergoes existential dread, and struggle to reason their way out of the situation over and over again but none of this ever changes the fact that they are doomed. Kafka is one of the few authors with an adjective named after him: Kafka-esque.
I was in a Kafkaesque situation earlier today. I tried to get to a friend's house in a faraway housing estate, and had my handphone ran out of battery. At first I was really complacent about it. It had happened before that a handphone had conked out of me, and when I turned it back on, it appeared to have enough in reserve to at least show me that address. It didn't happen this time. But I thought, OK. Nokia chargers are quite common, and it should be fairly straightforward getting that stupid address out of the phone book.
It was not. The first person I asked, I noticed that she had a Nokia handphone. She refused to lend it to me, because she said that she was waiting for a call. Fair enough. Another person was a salesman, and he said that he didn't want to let anybody see his handphone. I guess it's true, it is difficult to allow a stranger to see your most personal belonging. The person in the handphone shop was very gracious and allowed me to put my SIM card into his Sony Eriksson because I knew from experience that if I were to put my SIM card into another Nokia phone I would be able to see my messages, and therefore the address. Unfortunately that trick didn't work for Sony Erikssons. There was somebody else who had a Nokia but the batteries didn't match. There were shops which had Nokia chargers but the new models all used the smalled plug. A security guard had a Nokia charger but it was the new type.
There were some other encounters where I could have been nicer, when I asked to borrow somebody's battery, and I asked him what kind of phone he had, feeling pretty sure that it was a Nokia. He said, his was a Samsung. I said, "Are you sure?" and then he whipped it out, saying, "Yes. A Samsung". That was quite embarrassing, even when you consider that every time I tried to explain my situation to people it was embarrassing.
Some people were nice, others were annoyed. Some were apologetic.
There was 1 encounter which almost made me blow my top. This guy had 1 handphone, exactly the same make as mine. I broke my rule to not ask somebody who was walking. (Till then I had only asked people who were either standing in a queue, or sitting down and waiting. This is the exact opposite of the water rule, which holds that when you want to drink water in the wild, you must always take your water from a source which is moving.) I asked him, fully aware that if he were to lend me his battery my problem would be solved. His response: sorry, I'm in a hurry. I asked him 3 times and got the same answer 3 times.
It was not the best I could do. I could have explained to him that it would require less than 1 minute of his time (which is probably true.) I could explain that if I were to borrow a battery it would not invade his privacy at all. I could explain that I would have wasted 2 hours commuting if I were to leave from the town centre empty handed.
But I'm not a person who likes to push too hard for favours, because no favour that you have to push very hard for is ever truly free. And I was getting worked up, it might have ended badly.
I noticed that the more shabbily a person is dressed, the more likely you will have a good response. The most polite people were an Indian labourer and the security guard. The least happy people were the people who manned stores. And I can imagine that they were thinking, I cannot ever grant favours like that because if I were to do so and word gets out there will be hell to pay.
I want to resist the temptation to be cynical about these things. I don't want to criticise them and say "you know, Singaporeans". And I don't think it's true that we are special at all. Maybe you can be cynical if life's been a little too comfy for you and you can afford it. People whose lives are on the line are more likely to instinctively know that they can't afford to be cynical. Hemingway wrote in "For Whom the Bell Tolls" about the "smell of death". You can't afford to be wearing the smell of death on you, no way.
I don't interact with people very much. I don't think I'd make a good salesman because I second guess myself too much. All salesmen will go through 100 people and get 99 rejections and 1 success. Good salespeople will rejoice over the 1 success and think to themselves that it vindicates the other 99 unsuccessful attempts. Bad salespeople will grumble that the 99 rejections make the enterprise not worth while at all. I belong to the second category unfortunately and I sometimes wonder if I have been too spoilt in my choice for a job, which is similar to a scientist who gets paid so long as he puts in a certain number of hours for his work. Even as I think that my evening has ended in failure in a way I'm glad for this experience and what it has taught me. It has not taught me much which is truly new but reminded me of some of the things I had previously learnt.
The other thing is that fate sort of makes up for my bad luck. Through searching for an energy source for my hp I bumped into Shingot and his wife. (No, sorry, Shingot doesn't use Nokias). We had dinner together, it was great, we caught up, asked him about his new job. I needed that because, frankly, asking for favours is very draining for me.
Naturally I didn't make it to my friend's party. I also had problems making it to the one that he threw last year. First I went on the wrong day, then when I turned up I was horribly late, even as I had a great time. This year I didn't even make it at all.
I was in a Kafkaesque situation earlier today. I tried to get to a friend's house in a faraway housing estate, and had my handphone ran out of battery. At first I was really complacent about it. It had happened before that a handphone had conked out of me, and when I turned it back on, it appeared to have enough in reserve to at least show me that address. It didn't happen this time. But I thought, OK. Nokia chargers are quite common, and it should be fairly straightforward getting that stupid address out of the phone book.
It was not. The first person I asked, I noticed that she had a Nokia handphone. She refused to lend it to me, because she said that she was waiting for a call. Fair enough. Another person was a salesman, and he said that he didn't want to let anybody see his handphone. I guess it's true, it is difficult to allow a stranger to see your most personal belonging. The person in the handphone shop was very gracious and allowed me to put my SIM card into his Sony Eriksson because I knew from experience that if I were to put my SIM card into another Nokia phone I would be able to see my messages, and therefore the address. Unfortunately that trick didn't work for Sony Erikssons. There was somebody else who had a Nokia but the batteries didn't match. There were shops which had Nokia chargers but the new models all used the smalled plug. A security guard had a Nokia charger but it was the new type.
There were some other encounters where I could have been nicer, when I asked to borrow somebody's battery, and I asked him what kind of phone he had, feeling pretty sure that it was a Nokia. He said, his was a Samsung. I said, "Are you sure?" and then he whipped it out, saying, "Yes. A Samsung". That was quite embarrassing, even when you consider that every time I tried to explain my situation to people it was embarrassing.
Some people were nice, others were annoyed. Some were apologetic.
There was 1 encounter which almost made me blow my top. This guy had 1 handphone, exactly the same make as mine. I broke my rule to not ask somebody who was walking. (Till then I had only asked people who were either standing in a queue, or sitting down and waiting. This is the exact opposite of the water rule, which holds that when you want to drink water in the wild, you must always take your water from a source which is moving.) I asked him, fully aware that if he were to lend me his battery my problem would be solved. His response: sorry, I'm in a hurry. I asked him 3 times and got the same answer 3 times.
It was not the best I could do. I could have explained to him that it would require less than 1 minute of his time (which is probably true.) I could explain that if I were to borrow a battery it would not invade his privacy at all. I could explain that I would have wasted 2 hours commuting if I were to leave from the town centre empty handed.
But I'm not a person who likes to push too hard for favours, because no favour that you have to push very hard for is ever truly free. And I was getting worked up, it might have ended badly.
I noticed that the more shabbily a person is dressed, the more likely you will have a good response. The most polite people were an Indian labourer and the security guard. The least happy people were the people who manned stores. And I can imagine that they were thinking, I cannot ever grant favours like that because if I were to do so and word gets out there will be hell to pay.
I want to resist the temptation to be cynical about these things. I don't want to criticise them and say "you know, Singaporeans". And I don't think it's true that we are special at all. Maybe you can be cynical if life's been a little too comfy for you and you can afford it. People whose lives are on the line are more likely to instinctively know that they can't afford to be cynical. Hemingway wrote in "For Whom the Bell Tolls" about the "smell of death". You can't afford to be wearing the smell of death on you, no way.
I don't interact with people very much. I don't think I'd make a good salesman because I second guess myself too much. All salesmen will go through 100 people and get 99 rejections and 1 success. Good salespeople will rejoice over the 1 success and think to themselves that it vindicates the other 99 unsuccessful attempts. Bad salespeople will grumble that the 99 rejections make the enterprise not worth while at all. I belong to the second category unfortunately and I sometimes wonder if I have been too spoilt in my choice for a job, which is similar to a scientist who gets paid so long as he puts in a certain number of hours for his work. Even as I think that my evening has ended in failure in a way I'm glad for this experience and what it has taught me. It has not taught me much which is truly new but reminded me of some of the things I had previously learnt.
The other thing is that fate sort of makes up for my bad luck. Through searching for an energy source for my hp I bumped into Shingot and his wife. (No, sorry, Shingot doesn't use Nokias). We had dinner together, it was great, we caught up, asked him about his new job. I needed that because, frankly, asking for favours is very draining for me.
Naturally I didn't make it to my friend's party. I also had problems making it to the one that he threw last year. First I went on the wrong day, then when I turned up I was horribly late, even as I had a great time. This year I didn't even make it at all.
Friday, 28 December 2007
Man City vs Blackburn Rovers
Goddamn. Lost money on betting football.
I looked at the odds for Man City vs Blackburn. Man City at 1.9 to win. Well Man City have a 100% record at home after 9 matches. And Blackburn are on a losing streak. So I thought it would be easy money.
Later on it occurred to me that I might have been more careful. Blackburn have a good fighting spirit, and I should at least cover it up with betting on a draw at 3.25. So I'd bet $10 on a win, and $5 on a draw. So either way I'd make a smaller profit. But I guess the outlets closed by the time I got off work.
So what happened during the match? Sven Goran Eriksson benches his 2 best players. Rolando Bianchi misses a sitter. Blackburn's 2nd goal is flagged for offside but the referee overrules him and awards it. The match ends 2-2. Fate is conspiring against me!!!
Kanina...
I looked at the odds for Man City vs Blackburn. Man City at 1.9 to win. Well Man City have a 100% record at home after 9 matches. And Blackburn are on a losing streak. So I thought it would be easy money.
Later on it occurred to me that I might have been more careful. Blackburn have a good fighting spirit, and I should at least cover it up with betting on a draw at 3.25. So I'd bet $10 on a win, and $5 on a draw. So either way I'd make a smaller profit. But I guess the outlets closed by the time I got off work.
So what happened during the match? Sven Goran Eriksson benches his 2 best players. Rolando Bianchi misses a sitter. Blackburn's 2nd goal is flagged for offside but the referee overrules him and awards it. The match ends 2-2. Fate is conspiring against me!!!
Kanina...
Thursday, 27 December 2007
Fabio Capello
So they've appointed Fabio Capello as coach. Suddenly there are quite a few people who have spoken out against a foreigner appointment: Gareth Southgate, Mark Hughes, Harry Redknapp, Steve Coppell. I wonder whether it's justified, or rather a lament that so few English coaches are highly regarded that a foreign one gets the job automatically, and with so little forethought.
You can't completely blame the FA for wanting to act quickly. The last time, 2 coaches slipped through the net. One was Scolari who saw what the English media was like, and made a dash for it. The other was Guus Hiddink, who apparently balked at having to sit for a written test. Now it's a little hard to take the second excuse very seriously, even though people in some quarters have held it up as yet another example of the FA's incompetence. I guess once you have a reputation for incompetence you also get blamed for a lot of things that may not be your fault. Hiddink could have turned the job down to work for Abramovich and Russia.
Jose Mourinho has been blowing hot and cold to the FA. He is one manipulative person, and he has suspect morals. Witness the time when he caused a referee to receive death threats from Chelsea fans. Or the time when he falsely accused the Reading medical team of not tending to his goalkeeper soon enough. He is a great coach, but my impression is that he wasn't 100% set on the England job, but rather was making statements through the press in order to enhance his chances of getting the job if he deemed it suitable, and at the same time trying to find out as much about the job as he could. Eventually he made excuses and left, not wanting to be a part of it.
So when the time came to grab Fabio Capello, I don't think it's fair to blame the FA for being hasty. Grab your man when it comes down to it. He might have hesitated, he might have changed his mind if they hesitated. There are plenty of downsides to the job. Like Eriksson said, all you need to do as England manager is to win every game, not get paid much, and not have a private life. And I think that while Sven is a decent manager, he is no extrovert, and may have had a lot of problems with the media which affected his concentration. And I guess that both these guys would have made pretty good England coaches: both specialise in ugly but effective football.
As for what attracts coaches to the England job, we know that some of the better England managers of the last 20 years have had a passion for the job: like Bobby Robson and Terry Venables. One big reason for Sven's unpopularity was his perceived lack of passion for the England team. The obvious downside of appointing a foreign coach is that you're never fully convinced of his passion for the job. Just before Guus Hiddink took the Real Madrid job, he asked his friend Johan Cryuff for an opinion. Cryuff said, "If they're offering the Madrid job, take it - it's a logical move. It doesn't matter that you don't get much time off. Just work, take the money, and then get out of there." So I wonder if Capello is coming into the job with a "take the money" kind of approach.
You can't completely blame the FA for wanting to act quickly. The last time, 2 coaches slipped through the net. One was Scolari who saw what the English media was like, and made a dash for it. The other was Guus Hiddink, who apparently balked at having to sit for a written test. Now it's a little hard to take the second excuse very seriously, even though people in some quarters have held it up as yet another example of the FA's incompetence. I guess once you have a reputation for incompetence you also get blamed for a lot of things that may not be your fault. Hiddink could have turned the job down to work for Abramovich and Russia.
Jose Mourinho has been blowing hot and cold to the FA. He is one manipulative person, and he has suspect morals. Witness the time when he caused a referee to receive death threats from Chelsea fans. Or the time when he falsely accused the Reading medical team of not tending to his goalkeeper soon enough. He is a great coach, but my impression is that he wasn't 100% set on the England job, but rather was making statements through the press in order to enhance his chances of getting the job if he deemed it suitable, and at the same time trying to find out as much about the job as he could. Eventually he made excuses and left, not wanting to be a part of it.
So when the time came to grab Fabio Capello, I don't think it's fair to blame the FA for being hasty. Grab your man when it comes down to it. He might have hesitated, he might have changed his mind if they hesitated. There are plenty of downsides to the job. Like Eriksson said, all you need to do as England manager is to win every game, not get paid much, and not have a private life. And I think that while Sven is a decent manager, he is no extrovert, and may have had a lot of problems with the media which affected his concentration. And I guess that both these guys would have made pretty good England coaches: both specialise in ugly but effective football.
As for what attracts coaches to the England job, we know that some of the better England managers of the last 20 years have had a passion for the job: like Bobby Robson and Terry Venables. One big reason for Sven's unpopularity was his perceived lack of passion for the England team. The obvious downside of appointing a foreign coach is that you're never fully convinced of his passion for the job. Just before Guus Hiddink took the Real Madrid job, he asked his friend Johan Cryuff for an opinion. Cryuff said, "If they're offering the Madrid job, take it - it's a logical move. It doesn't matter that you don't get much time off. Just work, take the money, and then get out of there." So I wonder if Capello is coming into the job with a "take the money" kind of approach.
Tuesday, 25 December 2007
24 hr McD's
I thought that one of my great discoveries is the reading habit. The thing about reading is that there is no way you can ever finish reading everything you want to read. Therefore it is very unlikely that you will get truly sick and tired of that habit. I can get tired of music, to be sure. Or if I play a sport enough it can get really boring.
And for me the best time to read is in the wee hours of the morning, something I blogged about 2 months ago (sorry my bad habit is to put blog posts in my drafts folder and then publish them when it's time). And whereas in my uni days I found that the undergrad library serves this purpose well (at least until 2am) and some student dorm common rooms are open all night, there wasn't any 24 hour places to hang out until McDonald's started operating 24 hour joints 1 year ago.
All these coffee joints, with their dimmed down lights and their kitschy decor, and their conception as a kind of a "lifestyle" place, where you didn't just buy coffee, but also comfort and a place to hang out for an hour or 2 or even more. I used to think they were something new until one day I saw somebody in Starbucks reclining on a sofa, cold drink in hand, doing nothing but staring dreamily at the ceiling, and then it hit me: the gourmet coffee joints are the new version of the opium den.
Now you know that it's a sign of the times that you have this sort of thing. Real Singaporeans, and I mean 20th century Singaporeans, the sort you had before the immigrant floodgates were opened at the turn of the century, aren't so crazy that they want to study stuff all night.
There are other places open all night, like nightclubs or brothels or stuff like that. But you know I'm more interested in places where I can read my books. I mean really. 24 hour joints of course make sense in HDB estates where there are so many people nearby that you can be assured of a steady flow of customers at all times of the day. Even if I don't get an astounding amount of reading done at that time of the day I do feel more alive then than normal. Don't ask me why.
Thing is, you sometimes get a lot of weirdos and freaks around. It's true. At McD's you are there for a clean environment (as opposed to my dusty bookshelf room). And I'm sure that there are a lot of senior citizens who turn up there like hanging out there much more than their dreary 3 room flats. They get free air con, it's less lonely than there. I don't mind saying this about them, even though it's plainly disrespectful because I would say exactly the same for myself.
Now it gets annoying when they are tramps. This is unfortunate, but McDonald's is a tramp magnet. I once visited a old friend in the states, and he was staying in a small town. He agreed to pick me up at the McDonald's but later on told me that it was a very dangerous place because a lot of loonies hang out there, and some murders were committed in the bathrooms of that place. Thank your lucky stars you're living in nice safe Singapore where this sort of shit doesn't take place. But you still get a lot of freaks and weirdos.
There are those people who don't really bathe when they have to. Then they will sit down there, without buying anything and enjoy... well I don't know what they're enjoying. I prefer to be reading a book.
There is this auntie who will just rummage through other people's leftovers and collect every plastic bag that she can lay her hands on. Is it possible to sell these things for money? Or is it a fetish? I don't really know. But it's a little painful to watch.
There are some 50 something old people who just go there, plonk themselves down at a table to sleep. I think they probably have homes, but I don't know why they think that sleeping at a table is more glamorous than sleeping in their own beds.
Then there was this Indian guy, extremely interesting. He was clearly a nutcase, belligerent. Spent the better part of 15 minutes hollering at the counter staff to clean up the 2 tables which constituted the smoker's corner. (Now I can understand that our well meaning gahment doesn't like ppl to smoke. But 2 tables out of 50? That's pretty sick.) Screaming Hokkien vulgarities at the top of his voice, and poor me seated 15 m away trying to enjoy his quality time with his book. Then proclaiming to everybody that he's a "Sinhalese from Sri Lanka, not an Indian". Whatever.
Then he still managed to get fresh with one of the Indian staff, young lady, plump but not ugly. And goodness knows how she put up with him. (Later on I found out that she knows elementary Mandarin. Pretty impressive.)
Seated at the next table from him is a middle aged woman, who was possibly a party animal maybe 20 years ago, maybe even a McDonald's kid. But looks like she got dealt a bad hand by life. Puffing on her cigarette all alone. Then the crazy indian guy sidles up to her, and starts sweet talking her. Incredibly she is susceptible to his charms, and soon starts staring shyly downwards, muttering stuff like "are you sure you like me? But nobody likes me". I don't know which of those 2 to be more exasperated with.
I usually seek out McD's because I think that it is a nice quiet place. I try not to get put off by these weirdos (yes I am actually calling somebody else a weirdo) and I try not to be too condescending towards them but watching their antics is not really what I went there for, and people usually have to be better behaved for me to enjoy being in the same room as them.
It's past 4 by the time I leave, and I had just finished a half of "The Gatekeepers". I order breakfast, eat it, and then go home. I had intended to go jogging at 7 in the morning, but am fast asleep by 6:30 and end up waking up at 2 in the afternoon.
And for me the best time to read is in the wee hours of the morning, something I blogged about 2 months ago (sorry my bad habit is to put blog posts in my drafts folder and then publish them when it's time). And whereas in my uni days I found that the undergrad library serves this purpose well (at least until 2am) and some student dorm common rooms are open all night, there wasn't any 24 hour places to hang out until McDonald's started operating 24 hour joints 1 year ago.
All these coffee joints, with their dimmed down lights and their kitschy decor, and their conception as a kind of a "lifestyle" place, where you didn't just buy coffee, but also comfort and a place to hang out for an hour or 2 or even more. I used to think they were something new until one day I saw somebody in Starbucks reclining on a sofa, cold drink in hand, doing nothing but staring dreamily at the ceiling, and then it hit me: the gourmet coffee joints are the new version of the opium den.
Now you know that it's a sign of the times that you have this sort of thing. Real Singaporeans, and I mean 20th century Singaporeans, the sort you had before the immigrant floodgates were opened at the turn of the century, aren't so crazy that they want to study stuff all night.
There are other places open all night, like nightclubs or brothels or stuff like that. But you know I'm more interested in places where I can read my books. I mean really. 24 hour joints of course make sense in HDB estates where there are so many people nearby that you can be assured of a steady flow of customers at all times of the day. Even if I don't get an astounding amount of reading done at that time of the day I do feel more alive then than normal. Don't ask me why.
Thing is, you sometimes get a lot of weirdos and freaks around. It's true. At McD's you are there for a clean environment (as opposed to my dusty bookshelf room). And I'm sure that there are a lot of senior citizens who turn up there like hanging out there much more than their dreary 3 room flats. They get free air con, it's less lonely than there. I don't mind saying this about them, even though it's plainly disrespectful because I would say exactly the same for myself.
Now it gets annoying when they are tramps. This is unfortunate, but McDonald's is a tramp magnet. I once visited a old friend in the states, and he was staying in a small town. He agreed to pick me up at the McDonald's but later on told me that it was a very dangerous place because a lot of loonies hang out there, and some murders were committed in the bathrooms of that place. Thank your lucky stars you're living in nice safe Singapore where this sort of shit doesn't take place. But you still get a lot of freaks and weirdos.
There are those people who don't really bathe when they have to. Then they will sit down there, without buying anything and enjoy... well I don't know what they're enjoying. I prefer to be reading a book.
There is this auntie who will just rummage through other people's leftovers and collect every plastic bag that she can lay her hands on. Is it possible to sell these things for money? Or is it a fetish? I don't really know. But it's a little painful to watch.
There are some 50 something old people who just go there, plonk themselves down at a table to sleep. I think they probably have homes, but I don't know why they think that sleeping at a table is more glamorous than sleeping in their own beds.
Then there was this Indian guy, extremely interesting. He was clearly a nutcase, belligerent. Spent the better part of 15 minutes hollering at the counter staff to clean up the 2 tables which constituted the smoker's corner. (Now I can understand that our well meaning gahment doesn't like ppl to smoke. But 2 tables out of 50? That's pretty sick.) Screaming Hokkien vulgarities at the top of his voice, and poor me seated 15 m away trying to enjoy his quality time with his book. Then proclaiming to everybody that he's a "Sinhalese from Sri Lanka, not an Indian". Whatever.
Then he still managed to get fresh with one of the Indian staff, young lady, plump but not ugly. And goodness knows how she put up with him. (Later on I found out that she knows elementary Mandarin. Pretty impressive.)
Seated at the next table from him is a middle aged woman, who was possibly a party animal maybe 20 years ago, maybe even a McDonald's kid. But looks like she got dealt a bad hand by life. Puffing on her cigarette all alone. Then the crazy indian guy sidles up to her, and starts sweet talking her. Incredibly she is susceptible to his charms, and soon starts staring shyly downwards, muttering stuff like "are you sure you like me? But nobody likes me". I don't know which of those 2 to be more exasperated with.
I usually seek out McD's because I think that it is a nice quiet place. I try not to get put off by these weirdos (yes I am actually calling somebody else a weirdo) and I try not to be too condescending towards them but watching their antics is not really what I went there for, and people usually have to be better behaved for me to enjoy being in the same room as them.
It's past 4 by the time I leave, and I had just finished a half of "The Gatekeepers". I order breakfast, eat it, and then go home. I had intended to go jogging at 7 in the morning, but am fast asleep by 6:30 and end up waking up at 2 in the afternoon.
Friday, 21 December 2007
Alcohol
Had an extremely interesting conversation. So I was saying that the most I ever drank was 20 glasses in 1 night. But I don't know, I never kept count. But I happened to mention, first that I probably had 20 glasses one night, and no, I wasn't drunk enough to throw up.
I hadn't reckoned that I had just said this to somebody who said that he'd have 8 pints and then pass out. So suddenly it looked like I was bragging. One thing led to another, and before long, I was booked for a drinking competition sometime next month.
Now people who have seen both of us interact will know that he enjoys taking the piss out of me from time to time. And also I know that he hates getting beaten and is therefore extremely easy to wind up, almost like there was this big red button sticking out the side of his body that says "push me! push me!" but this time I swear I hadn't intended to wind him up. These things just happen.
I guess there are things that I could have chosen not to say, like this chance remark I made to somebody that I could do some project in 1 day, and then he got hopping mad and took me to task for it for weeks (but every time he had to remind me that I did say something like that.) I'm like, whoa, some people really do take my shit seriously. Or maybe I'm so think I don't get it at all.
Later on, somebody told me that I shouldn't have revised my estimate of 20 glasses down to 15, and make it sound like I was unsure. I wasn't sure about that, but now I wouldn't have agreed with him. Goddamn I didn't want the challenge at all, all I did was to mention something that happened to me one night.
Yes, I agreed at that time because I thought it would be interesting to see how far I could drink. It was very interesting being drunk. And there are things you should do when you're young. But that night was different. That night was a friend's stag party. That night I did it on a whim. Drinking for leisure is OK. Drinking a lot on a whim is OK.
Drinking for sport... it doesn't sound enjoyable. Somebody at that table mentioned, "don't worry, this is not a social experiment". I was like, how much more blatant do you want to make it? Or maybe there are some people out there who enjoy getting kidnapped by aliens and having rectal probes inserted into him, they volunteer to do that for fun but I'm not one of those.
I'm starting to realise that I might not enjoy this very much.
Then later on somebody asked me, are you going to back out. I said, "I can't back out, I haven't got the balls". Which is not strictly true, and sometimes I will say something ironic and funny just for the sake of it. But that set me thinking, how will I get out of this?
What do I stand to lose if I back out? All my manly honour. (In other words, nothing I particularly care about) Would it be fun to just wind them up over and over again, and then abruptly call it quits? I guess that's another possibility. Yet another one is that I could go and grovel at his feet and beg for mercy. I'm sure that would be good for milking a few laughs.
I still remember the time I jacked my friend off when I was drunk because I somehow thought it was funny. Poor guy was traumatised for a week after that.
When you think about it, I'm probably the only person who decides whether this thing goes on. The other guy's in for it, he can't really back out because he proposed it. I'm the only one here who has options.
Of course I'm still curious about how much stuff I could drink. But not that curious. The ability to metabolise alcohol is not something worth bragging about. I personally think that burping competitions are more significant. As for whether I'd enjoy winning this particular competition, I know I wouldn't. There's something about competition I don't entirely understand. To gamble with your ego at the cost of ruining your health is also something I don't entirely understand. There is something a little sad about all this. There is "friendly competition". I always thought that it is an oxymoron. I approach competition in the manner of an executioner who is sick and tired of hanging people but nevertheless still has to get up in the morning and keep carrying out orders.
What to do now? Decisions, decisions, decisions.
I hadn't reckoned that I had just said this to somebody who said that he'd have 8 pints and then pass out. So suddenly it looked like I was bragging. One thing led to another, and before long, I was booked for a drinking competition sometime next month.
Now people who have seen both of us interact will know that he enjoys taking the piss out of me from time to time. And also I know that he hates getting beaten and is therefore extremely easy to wind up, almost like there was this big red button sticking out the side of his body that says "push me! push me!" but this time I swear I hadn't intended to wind him up. These things just happen.
I guess there are things that I could have chosen not to say, like this chance remark I made to somebody that I could do some project in 1 day, and then he got hopping mad and took me to task for it for weeks (but every time he had to remind me that I did say something like that.) I'm like, whoa, some people really do take my shit seriously. Or maybe I'm so think I don't get it at all.
Later on, somebody told me that I shouldn't have revised my estimate of 20 glasses down to 15, and make it sound like I was unsure. I wasn't sure about that, but now I wouldn't have agreed with him. Goddamn I didn't want the challenge at all, all I did was to mention something that happened to me one night.
Yes, I agreed at that time because I thought it would be interesting to see how far I could drink. It was very interesting being drunk. And there are things you should do when you're young. But that night was different. That night was a friend's stag party. That night I did it on a whim. Drinking for leisure is OK. Drinking a lot on a whim is OK.
Drinking for sport... it doesn't sound enjoyable. Somebody at that table mentioned, "don't worry, this is not a social experiment". I was like, how much more blatant do you want to make it? Or maybe there are some people out there who enjoy getting kidnapped by aliens and having rectal probes inserted into him, they volunteer to do that for fun but I'm not one of those.
I'm starting to realise that I might not enjoy this very much.
Then later on somebody asked me, are you going to back out. I said, "I can't back out, I haven't got the balls". Which is not strictly true, and sometimes I will say something ironic and funny just for the sake of it. But that set me thinking, how will I get out of this?
What do I stand to lose if I back out? All my manly honour. (In other words, nothing I particularly care about) Would it be fun to just wind them up over and over again, and then abruptly call it quits? I guess that's another possibility. Yet another one is that I could go and grovel at his feet and beg for mercy. I'm sure that would be good for milking a few laughs.
I still remember the time I jacked my friend off when I was drunk because I somehow thought it was funny. Poor guy was traumatised for a week after that.
When you think about it, I'm probably the only person who decides whether this thing goes on. The other guy's in for it, he can't really back out because he proposed it. I'm the only one here who has options.
Of course I'm still curious about how much stuff I could drink. But not that curious. The ability to metabolise alcohol is not something worth bragging about. I personally think that burping competitions are more significant. As for whether I'd enjoy winning this particular competition, I know I wouldn't. There's something about competition I don't entirely understand. To gamble with your ego at the cost of ruining your health is also something I don't entirely understand. There is something a little sad about all this. There is "friendly competition". I always thought that it is an oxymoron. I approach competition in the manner of an executioner who is sick and tired of hanging people but nevertheless still has to get up in the morning and keep carrying out orders.
What to do now? Decisions, decisions, decisions.
Thursday, 20 December 2007
Extreme investigative journalism part 1
Regular readers of mine would know that while I read a lot of books (actually not a lot, but more than 50 a year). Some people might think that non-fiction is quite dry, but it all depends on what you’d find interesting. I think maybe one reason I never really tried very hard to be an “interesting” person is because I can make some really “boring” things look really interesting to myself. Like formidable thick history tomes, obscure maths theories, even if I would draw the line at long meandering philosophical arguments.
But there are instances of extreme investigative journalism, where the author actually has been in extraordinary situations and gives a first person account of the event, and sometimes this can make the book as interesting as fiction, even though it is still non-fiction. In non-fiction, you can’t really put words into other people’s mouths, you can’t say what they are thinking (although you can speculate), you can will things to happen if they don’t happen. But the story can still be interesting.
One fairly famous example is a white man who went through a skin colouring operation to turn himself into a black man, in order to step into his shoes and learn what it was like to suffer the form of racial prejudice that they did. This was during the 60s, the civil rights era, where racial attitudes were, if not more prevalent, then at least more overt than it is today.
1. Islamist
This is the account of a British Muslim and his involvement with various Islamist groups in Britain. He talks about how they recruited him as a young boy, and planted ideas into his head about how they would create a new caliphate that would unite all the Arab countries under 1 Islamic government. (Islamism means not only Islam, but the formation of Islamic governments).
It’s a very interesting book, because it shows that a lot of organisations in the UK which are purportedly just “Islamic” are actually Islamist, support overthrow of Islamist governments, and maybe even 1 or 2 have affiliations to terrorist organisations. They are usually as well organised as the Communist parties of old were.
Reading the book I saw more than a few parallels between militant Islam and communism. Both of them dedicate themselves to the overthrow of governments and the founding of theocratic state. (Communism will deny that it is a religion, but on hindsight it is becoming more and more apparent than it is one in all but name.) Both of them exploit the liberal attitudes of liberal democratic countries, and work on stirring up people to be indignant at inequalities perpetuated in Western / Capitalist societies. Both of them demand unquestioned dedication and have very heavy elements of study groups which indoctrinate their followers with the party’s orthodoxy which they want to propagate. The tactics of battling police, distributing propaganda and fighting rival organisations are also similar.
We see the author conflicted between various interpretations of Islam and eventually he realises that these “Islamists” do not really follow the true spirit of Islam. After witnessing a murder at an Islamist event, he decides to leave the Islamist organisations.
He visits Syria, which he considers to be a fairly moderate Islamic society, and likes it. Although he finds, to his great consternation that he is more British than Syrian, he finds that Islam there is more permissive, and they do not require that the woman wears a hijab all the time. This would be in great contrast with the Bush administration’s standpoint that Syria is a grave threat to Middle Eastern peace.
However it is different in Saudi Arabia. Over there are enclaves where all the foreigners gather, and inside these enclaves life resembles a holiday resort, and you will get the permissiveness you find in most expatriate communities in most countries. Step outside there and then you will find that there is a caste system, where in some really wretched parts of the town, it is much worse than the infamous inner cities of American urban centres. There is a very uneasy alliance between the fundamentalist Wahabbism and the Saudi royal family, because the latter is quite close to the American government.
The author comes across as an earnest person, which is why he was so pious in the first place. What is surprising is how many otherwise polite and decent people would turn to Islamism – you usually have the image of terrorists as barbarous hate filled monsters, but some of them are just otherwise good decent people, or at least they bother to be polite and congenial, and they are just convinced that they are doing the right thing. This book should be a warning that the problems of radical Islam are probably underestimated in various parts of Europe today.
2. A long way gone
Another book making waves is the memoirs of a child soldier. Ishmael Bael was born in Sierra Leone, and, I’m guessing, probably had a fairly privileged childhood where his father was working for an American company, and he gets to learn English and listen to rap music and Bob Marley. However around the time he is 13 years old, anti-government rebels storm his village, and go on a rampage of murder and looting. Very early in his life, he is separated from his home, and has to fend for himself.
Some of the things he does is harmless, but there are a lot of close shaves, where he narrowly flees with his life with bullets flying all around him. He sometimes has to steal food, even from children. Many times he is mistaken for a rebel soldier, and gets captured by villagers, and miraculously manages to escape without being lynched or flogged. He is unflinching in describing the horrors visited upon villages set upon by the rebels: houses burnt down, food stolen, crops destroyed, women raped, people killed. That sort of stuff.
After being a wanderer for a very long period of time (and having to bear the heartbreak of seeing some of his fellow comrades die) he stumbles upon a village where the government recruits child soldiers. There he is trained to be a child soldier, and is a part of a deadly force where he is high on cocaine a lot of the time and thinks of nothing but taking over the next village and killing plenty of rebels. At first he just says “2 years pass by in a blur”, but later on the memories of what he had to endure, and murders he had to commit, surface. Conducting summary executions. Practicing how to slit throats properly (on real people of course.) He doesn’t talk about raping his victims but I wouldn’t be surprised if it did happen.
Later on, with the conflict winding down, he is sent to Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown, for his rehabilitation, and trying to make him acclimatise to normal society. He’s quite lucky in this regard, finding an attractive nurse who takes an interest in his case, finding a long lost relative, a proper family, and even becoming an envoy to the United Nations for the purpose of highlighting his plight (and of those thousands similar to himself) to the rest of the world. (Of course he has some sarcastic words for officers in the American embassy who ask him to produce a bank account to show that they will return to Africa when the trip is over. Those idiots need to read this book.)
Ishmael Bael is a very lucky person. Not only did he survive his ordeal when probably more than 90% of those who have gone through what he did didn’t, he also got to relocate to the USA and attend Oberlin College and become a bestselling author. But it is truly remarkable that this book got written at all. (I read some reviews of this book which lamented that it didn’t have more literary merit. Please, it is enough that this book uses clear prose and presents a gripping and important story.) I thought that all I would ever hear about child soldiers would be through an article in the Economist or something. I wouldn’t have thought that one of them would actually be educated enough to write a fine book of his own experiences.
Part 2 to follow.
But there are instances of extreme investigative journalism, where the author actually has been in extraordinary situations and gives a first person account of the event, and sometimes this can make the book as interesting as fiction, even though it is still non-fiction. In non-fiction, you can’t really put words into other people’s mouths, you can’t say what they are thinking (although you can speculate), you can will things to happen if they don’t happen. But the story can still be interesting.
One fairly famous example is a white man who went through a skin colouring operation to turn himself into a black man, in order to step into his shoes and learn what it was like to suffer the form of racial prejudice that they did. This was during the 60s, the civil rights era, where racial attitudes were, if not more prevalent, then at least more overt than it is today.
1. Islamist
This is the account of a British Muslim and his involvement with various Islamist groups in Britain. He talks about how they recruited him as a young boy, and planted ideas into his head about how they would create a new caliphate that would unite all the Arab countries under 1 Islamic government. (Islamism means not only Islam, but the formation of Islamic governments).
It’s a very interesting book, because it shows that a lot of organisations in the UK which are purportedly just “Islamic” are actually Islamist, support overthrow of Islamist governments, and maybe even 1 or 2 have affiliations to terrorist organisations. They are usually as well organised as the Communist parties of old were.
Reading the book I saw more than a few parallels between militant Islam and communism. Both of them dedicate themselves to the overthrow of governments and the founding of theocratic state. (Communism will deny that it is a religion, but on hindsight it is becoming more and more apparent than it is one in all but name.) Both of them exploit the liberal attitudes of liberal democratic countries, and work on stirring up people to be indignant at inequalities perpetuated in Western / Capitalist societies. Both of them demand unquestioned dedication and have very heavy elements of study groups which indoctrinate their followers with the party’s orthodoxy which they want to propagate. The tactics of battling police, distributing propaganda and fighting rival organisations are also similar.
We see the author conflicted between various interpretations of Islam and eventually he realises that these “Islamists” do not really follow the true spirit of Islam. After witnessing a murder at an Islamist event, he decides to leave the Islamist organisations.
He visits Syria, which he considers to be a fairly moderate Islamic society, and likes it. Although he finds, to his great consternation that he is more British than Syrian, he finds that Islam there is more permissive, and they do not require that the woman wears a hijab all the time. This would be in great contrast with the Bush administration’s standpoint that Syria is a grave threat to Middle Eastern peace.
However it is different in Saudi Arabia. Over there are enclaves where all the foreigners gather, and inside these enclaves life resembles a holiday resort, and you will get the permissiveness you find in most expatriate communities in most countries. Step outside there and then you will find that there is a caste system, where in some really wretched parts of the town, it is much worse than the infamous inner cities of American urban centres. There is a very uneasy alliance between the fundamentalist Wahabbism and the Saudi royal family, because the latter is quite close to the American government.
The author comes across as an earnest person, which is why he was so pious in the first place. What is surprising is how many otherwise polite and decent people would turn to Islamism – you usually have the image of terrorists as barbarous hate filled monsters, but some of them are just otherwise good decent people, or at least they bother to be polite and congenial, and they are just convinced that they are doing the right thing. This book should be a warning that the problems of radical Islam are probably underestimated in various parts of Europe today.
2. A long way gone
Another book making waves is the memoirs of a child soldier. Ishmael Bael was born in Sierra Leone, and, I’m guessing, probably had a fairly privileged childhood where his father was working for an American company, and he gets to learn English and listen to rap music and Bob Marley. However around the time he is 13 years old, anti-government rebels storm his village, and go on a rampage of murder and looting. Very early in his life, he is separated from his home, and has to fend for himself.
Some of the things he does is harmless, but there are a lot of close shaves, where he narrowly flees with his life with bullets flying all around him. He sometimes has to steal food, even from children. Many times he is mistaken for a rebel soldier, and gets captured by villagers, and miraculously manages to escape without being lynched or flogged. He is unflinching in describing the horrors visited upon villages set upon by the rebels: houses burnt down, food stolen, crops destroyed, women raped, people killed. That sort of stuff.
After being a wanderer for a very long period of time (and having to bear the heartbreak of seeing some of his fellow comrades die) he stumbles upon a village where the government recruits child soldiers. There he is trained to be a child soldier, and is a part of a deadly force where he is high on cocaine a lot of the time and thinks of nothing but taking over the next village and killing plenty of rebels. At first he just says “2 years pass by in a blur”, but later on the memories of what he had to endure, and murders he had to commit, surface. Conducting summary executions. Practicing how to slit throats properly (on real people of course.) He doesn’t talk about raping his victims but I wouldn’t be surprised if it did happen.
Later on, with the conflict winding down, he is sent to Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown, for his rehabilitation, and trying to make him acclimatise to normal society. He’s quite lucky in this regard, finding an attractive nurse who takes an interest in his case, finding a long lost relative, a proper family, and even becoming an envoy to the United Nations for the purpose of highlighting his plight (and of those thousands similar to himself) to the rest of the world. (Of course he has some sarcastic words for officers in the American embassy who ask him to produce a bank account to show that they will return to Africa when the trip is over. Those idiots need to read this book.)
Ishmael Bael is a very lucky person. Not only did he survive his ordeal when probably more than 90% of those who have gone through what he did didn’t, he also got to relocate to the USA and attend Oberlin College and become a bestselling author. But it is truly remarkable that this book got written at all. (I read some reviews of this book which lamented that it didn’t have more literary merit. Please, it is enough that this book uses clear prose and presents a gripping and important story.) I thought that all I would ever hear about child soldiers would be through an article in the Economist or something. I wouldn’t have thought that one of them would actually be educated enough to write a fine book of his own experiences.
Part 2 to follow.
Sunday, 16 December 2007
Tabloid Morality
I don’t usually like to read tabloid reporters. A few days ago the Shin Min papers had a large picture of Lin Qingxia in a bikini 25 years ago. Now, you may wonder, who could complain about that? Speaking as a person who reached puberty around the same time that they started airing advertisements of her as a “spokesman” for Lux body wash, and having pictures of her on TV frolicking around in the bathtub, I thought it was a wonderful thing.
But the headlines were this: she never married Qin Han, who was her co-star and 1 of the most handsome Taiwanese guys 20 years ago. And that is because Qin Han was then married to a wife who told him: you can divorce me and marry any woman you want other than Lin Qingxia. Otherwise I will mess up your wedding and commit suicide at your ceremony. I was like, damn. It was bottom of the barrel stuff. Bringing up shit that is of no contemporary relevance (except for the wonderful bikini photos), and poking into other peoples’ private business is not nice.
However there were some stories that I thought that were good calls, and you got to give the tabloid reporters some credit for stirring up moral outrage where it is due. One of them was the case of petrol thieves. Of car owners, owing to the high price of petrol, pumping gas, and speeding off whenever they feel like it. It highlighted the ugly behaviour of these motorists (technically they are thieves and therefore criminals) and I like to think that this reduced the number of petrol thieves in the short term. But it also highlighted the plight of the petrol pump attendants - apparently the oil companies were deducting the cost of the stolen petrol from their already meagre salaries. This is really alarming, although when you think about it, there has to be some form of disincentive for them against allowing petrol theft to happen. And there’s the bad PR for the oil companies so they got to think about whether or not they appear to be too inhumane.
Then there was this other story of this teacher who walked out of the supermarket with goods without paying for them. Apparently he was completely distraught about being caught. He pleaded for clemency towards the police man who refused to give it to him. First, let’s not judge whether he was telling the truth, that he really forgot to pay. Forgetting to pay is not the same as shoplifting, although you could say that whether the person tried to hide the goods is a pretty good test to distinguish.
The thing is that teachers are really held accountable to higher moral standards than anybody else. They exist in a different universe from other people because they are appraised by children, rather than adults. Adults will already have understood moral grayness and in some ways can be more flexible than children. The simple fact is that his career as a teacher was over. And that’s one reason why I will never be a teacher of secondary schools or below. Because I can never stop swearing. I won’t mind trying to be a lecturer, where I don’t have to think so hard about holding my tongue.
The thing is that he told the policeman that his job as a teacher was stressful and the policeman was stupid enough to question that. He obviously does not read the papers or blogs. Every blog I have read tells me that teaching is a stressful and overworked profession, even though they may not be as underpaid as they always was.
But the headlines were this: she never married Qin Han, who was her co-star and 1 of the most handsome Taiwanese guys 20 years ago. And that is because Qin Han was then married to a wife who told him: you can divorce me and marry any woman you want other than Lin Qingxia. Otherwise I will mess up your wedding and commit suicide at your ceremony. I was like, damn. It was bottom of the barrel stuff. Bringing up shit that is of no contemporary relevance (except for the wonderful bikini photos), and poking into other peoples’ private business is not nice.
However there were some stories that I thought that were good calls, and you got to give the tabloid reporters some credit for stirring up moral outrage where it is due. One of them was the case of petrol thieves. Of car owners, owing to the high price of petrol, pumping gas, and speeding off whenever they feel like it. It highlighted the ugly behaviour of these motorists (technically they are thieves and therefore criminals) and I like to think that this reduced the number of petrol thieves in the short term. But it also highlighted the plight of the petrol pump attendants - apparently the oil companies were deducting the cost of the stolen petrol from their already meagre salaries. This is really alarming, although when you think about it, there has to be some form of disincentive for them against allowing petrol theft to happen. And there’s the bad PR for the oil companies so they got to think about whether or not they appear to be too inhumane.
Then there was this other story of this teacher who walked out of the supermarket with goods without paying for them. Apparently he was completely distraught about being caught. He pleaded for clemency towards the police man who refused to give it to him. First, let’s not judge whether he was telling the truth, that he really forgot to pay. Forgetting to pay is not the same as shoplifting, although you could say that whether the person tried to hide the goods is a pretty good test to distinguish.
The thing is that teachers are really held accountable to higher moral standards than anybody else. They exist in a different universe from other people because they are appraised by children, rather than adults. Adults will already have understood moral grayness and in some ways can be more flexible than children. The simple fact is that his career as a teacher was over. And that’s one reason why I will never be a teacher of secondary schools or below. Because I can never stop swearing. I won’t mind trying to be a lecturer, where I don’t have to think so hard about holding my tongue.
The thing is that he told the policeman that his job as a teacher was stressful and the policeman was stupid enough to question that. He obviously does not read the papers or blogs. Every blog I have read tells me that teaching is a stressful and overworked profession, even though they may not be as underpaid as they always was.
Wednesday, 12 December 2007
Gatekeepers
I’m reading a really compelling book called “The Gatekeepers” which traces a year in the life of an admissions officer for a college, Wesleyan. It is very interesting that the dean of admissions (the boss of the admissions officer who is the central figure of this book) used to come from the college that I attended, and oversaw the admissions process that granted me a place in the college that I graduated from. I remember the sticking the stamps of the huge bulky packages that would find their way to admissions offices in 5 different colleges across the states. (And by some quirk of fate, I would spend 3 years living in 2 different apartments, both across the road from that admissions office.)
Naturally this book does not mention the numerous admin fuck ups that plagued my admissions procedure, (their losing my cheque was one in a series). Eventually I would end up enrolling in that college. Why was this? There were 3 colleges that I really wanted to get into. I was only accepted for 1, and it was the last college that I sent my application forms for. By that time, and only by that time had I learnt how to write a good application essay. In retrospect, with good essays, I stood a good chance of getting into 1 of the other 2 colleges. And possibly gotten to know 1 of my colleagues a little earlier.
They say that a person’s success in life is not determined so much by the college that one enters into, but by the best college one applies to. I guess there are self esteem issues at play. Well I didn’t bother applying to Harvard, MIT, Princeton or Yale. The 3 main colleges I applied to are, in retrospect, very good colleges, but if self confidence is really so important, I have something to be worried about.
In retrospect, none of the 5 colleges I applied to are located in large cities. (My sister went to a college in a large city but in the end she says it made no difference: she didn’t have time to hang out downtown much.)
But for a little while it was quite gratifying to know that people were sweating just trying to get into a place like Wesleyan, when I know that I did succeed in getting into a place that was at least as selective as Wesleyan. And I know that I have had a leg up, a lot of people supporting me up till the time I went into college, whereas a lot of people from more disadvantaged backgrounds really had to sweat their way through high school / JC compared to me.
(But let’s put it another way: affirmative action means that it’s more difficult for Asians to get in. Unless there are other college policies at work that benefit Singaporeans.)
After reading the book I realized that if I had tried to apply to my sister’s university (one of the colleges listed above, which I had considered too high for me to reach) I would have had a very good chance of getting in, because in the book they described how far they were able to relax their entrance criteria for a person whose sibling was in that university. My sister had told me so. Well I got into a fairly decent uni on my own, and I was fairly happy about that.
When I read about some person who had such a good academic and ECA record that all the unis were going after her, I thought about my sister who actually went to the States to visit 3 of the unis before deciding. 2 of them were “out of reach” for me, and 1 of them had rejected my application.
When I saw their thought processes, I often wondered what I could have done to enhance my application chances. And what I would do if I were to apply to graduate school one day. I was a little worried that the admissions officer just managed to piece together a person’s personality based on what’s in that brown envelope (as well as letters from teachers.)
After I graduated, I started reading laymen books about the stuff I had studied in college just to give myself some perspective. And sometimes I thought about the major decisions that I made while I was in college, and wondered if I would still make them today. I think about the things that I think were mistakes, but I’m often open minded (or wishy washy enough) to explain them away, and doubt again, that they really were mistakes. Should I have specialized more? Should I have done stuff that would have made getting into grad school easier? Should I have done things that would have benefited my career more?
And the other thing was, the admissions officer has to make a snap decision (probably around 25 decisions per day) about who to admit and who not to. I’m thinking about the sorting hat at Hogwart’s. I think that getting in is one small part of the equation. The more important question, of course, is – did you get the best of your time at your college? I would definitely have done with more extroversion, more talking to people and reaching out, more sharing information. Aside from that? What did my sister think? She told me, shortly after I graduated, “they wouldn’t have had reason to regret allowing you in. You tried so many different things.” I guess I would accept that.
People sometimes do think of me as an insufferable stuck up asshole but things like this will haunt me: did I deserve going to the college I went to? Did I deserve the job that I obtained? And I will admit that the answer to both of these questions is not "YES!" but rather "yes but....". And there is a third question: did I deserve these things more than a lot of people who didn't get them? My answer is no.
I’m a very shady, murky character. I don’t even think I know myself that well. I described myself as a forest. I could pull a rabbit out of my hat and surprise people. I do that on a fairly consistent basis. I think of myself as mother earth, placid most of the time until I get pissed off. Full of nooks and crannies, full of surprises. Rich and variegated.
So why on earth was I willing to part with a book like that, especially for free, on bookmooch? I don’t know. But I only have a few days to finish reading it, so that’s what I’m going to do.
Naturally this book does not mention the numerous admin fuck ups that plagued my admissions procedure, (their losing my cheque was one in a series). Eventually I would end up enrolling in that college. Why was this? There were 3 colleges that I really wanted to get into. I was only accepted for 1, and it was the last college that I sent my application forms for. By that time, and only by that time had I learnt how to write a good application essay. In retrospect, with good essays, I stood a good chance of getting into 1 of the other 2 colleges. And possibly gotten to know 1 of my colleagues a little earlier.
They say that a person’s success in life is not determined so much by the college that one enters into, but by the best college one applies to. I guess there are self esteem issues at play. Well I didn’t bother applying to Harvard, MIT, Princeton or Yale. The 3 main colleges I applied to are, in retrospect, very good colleges, but if self confidence is really so important, I have something to be worried about.
In retrospect, none of the 5 colleges I applied to are located in large cities. (My sister went to a college in a large city but in the end she says it made no difference: she didn’t have time to hang out downtown much.)
But for a little while it was quite gratifying to know that people were sweating just trying to get into a place like Wesleyan, when I know that I did succeed in getting into a place that was at least as selective as Wesleyan. And I know that I have had a leg up, a lot of people supporting me up till the time I went into college, whereas a lot of people from more disadvantaged backgrounds really had to sweat their way through high school / JC compared to me.
(But let’s put it another way: affirmative action means that it’s more difficult for Asians to get in. Unless there are other college policies at work that benefit Singaporeans.)
After reading the book I realized that if I had tried to apply to my sister’s university (one of the colleges listed above, which I had considered too high for me to reach) I would have had a very good chance of getting in, because in the book they described how far they were able to relax their entrance criteria for a person whose sibling was in that university. My sister had told me so. Well I got into a fairly decent uni on my own, and I was fairly happy about that.
When I read about some person who had such a good academic and ECA record that all the unis were going after her, I thought about my sister who actually went to the States to visit 3 of the unis before deciding. 2 of them were “out of reach” for me, and 1 of them had rejected my application.
When I saw their thought processes, I often wondered what I could have done to enhance my application chances. And what I would do if I were to apply to graduate school one day. I was a little worried that the admissions officer just managed to piece together a person’s personality based on what’s in that brown envelope (as well as letters from teachers.)
After I graduated, I started reading laymen books about the stuff I had studied in college just to give myself some perspective. And sometimes I thought about the major decisions that I made while I was in college, and wondered if I would still make them today. I think about the things that I think were mistakes, but I’m often open minded (or wishy washy enough) to explain them away, and doubt again, that they really were mistakes. Should I have specialized more? Should I have done stuff that would have made getting into grad school easier? Should I have done things that would have benefited my career more?
And the other thing was, the admissions officer has to make a snap decision (probably around 25 decisions per day) about who to admit and who not to. I’m thinking about the sorting hat at Hogwart’s. I think that getting in is one small part of the equation. The more important question, of course, is – did you get the best of your time at your college? I would definitely have done with more extroversion, more talking to people and reaching out, more sharing information. Aside from that? What did my sister think? She told me, shortly after I graduated, “they wouldn’t have had reason to regret allowing you in. You tried so many different things.” I guess I would accept that.
People sometimes do think of me as an insufferable stuck up asshole but things like this will haunt me: did I deserve going to the college I went to? Did I deserve the job that I obtained? And I will admit that the answer to both of these questions is not "YES!" but rather "yes but....". And there is a third question: did I deserve these things more than a lot of people who didn't get them? My answer is no.
I’m a very shady, murky character. I don’t even think I know myself that well. I described myself as a forest. I could pull a rabbit out of my hat and surprise people. I do that on a fairly consistent basis. I think of myself as mother earth, placid most of the time until I get pissed off. Full of nooks and crannies, full of surprises. Rich and variegated.
So why on earth was I willing to part with a book like that, especially for free, on bookmooch? I don’t know. But I only have a few days to finish reading it, so that’s what I’m going to do.
Sunday, 9 December 2007
Newcomer award
I heard that Tang Wei won the Newcomer Award at the Golden Horse Awards this year for her role in "Lust, Caution". Well naturally, since she was coming and coming and coming. Hur hur hur.
Friday, 7 December 2007
Wee Small Hours
You could call me a night person. There’s something I like about the night that gives you a few hours to do just what you want. I’ve always been more able to concentrate on things in the nighttime. There’s more focus, less people to meet, less people to deal with.
I think about all the stuff I did in the wee hours of the morning. 2 of the better plays I wrote. When I was in college, and sometimes pulling all nighters to get my stuff done. How I read “The Great Gatsby” until 3 in the morning and almost failed a chemistry exam the next day.
A few of my favourite movies have to do with the night. Like they have to do with a lot of journeys that take place in the night. “Crimson Gold”, about a pizza delivery man driven to rage by social inequality, takes place at night. He visits a few fairly wealthy places, and ponders, like the film maker wants his audience to do likewise, about what the delivery man sees.
There is “Collateral”, a film by Michael Mann, who is one of my favourite film makers today. In it, Tom Cruise holds Jamie Foxx hostage while he goes on a killing spree. Night is also about struggle. The night that Jamie Foxx had to get through as a hostage was a struggle, but also fairly meditative, because he gets on with Tom Cruise and talks about his life and plans. Manages to kill him (Tom Cruise) by dawn, symbolising the triumph of daylight, but what follows would probably be another dreary day driving a taxi. The characters in Michael Mann’s films, a reviewer has pointed out, are survivors, not winners. They struggle to get by, and then struggle to get by some more.
The atmosphere is broody, almost unreal. Both are loners, one a hired killer who can’t talk to that many people, and the other a taxi driver who spends most of the time driving around alone in the cab. Both are also wanderers who don’t stay in the same place for long. So even though one is black and the other white, and even though one is much richer than the other, they have a lot in common.
The night is a lonely, isolated place, where most people are asleep. There was once when I was walking through a new town when everybody was asleep. Did a quick calculation: if a block of flats had 1000 occupants each, and you had a few hundred blocks, then it was a few hundred thousand in each town. There was so much potential and capacity for life in the blocks I walked past, but all of them were asleep. And like they say, “sleep is the cousin of death”. It’s a minor concession you make with death every day until the real thing takes you away for good. So I was thinking, all that life, and nothing being done right now. Anyway, one of the appeals of keeping late hours is that you’re using some time that other people are spending sleeping, doing nothing. It’s like finding a dollar bill on the ground, except of course you need to pay it back later.
The night is meditative. When you’re up all night, maybe you’re thinking about big decisions, and maybe you’d have reached a conclusion by dawn. Like the Buddha’s enlightenment took place at dawn, after he spent all night trying to figure out why humans everywhere always live in shit.
Another film which features the night is “Nights of Cabiria”, a famous Fellini film, possibly one of my favourites. It is about the resilience of an aging prostitute which suffers setback after setback. When you see a lot of things at night, there is definitely an allusion to dreaming. She sees a person who delivers food to the poor, maybe a burlesque performance at a theatre. All these images (especially the way that Fellini shoots them, if you’re familiar with his style) have a dreamlike quality about them, because she could well have been seeing them in a dream.
Then there is Antonioni’s “la Notte”, where the night parallels the cloud that has descended over the relationship between a man and his wife.
The night has a way of framing many of the events that take place, a way of cooly distancing yourself away from things. It has a way of making you conscious that you are seeing something, but from a detached distance. When you are in a cinema, it is an artificial night too, because it’s meant to tune out all the distractions and focus you upon the visions on the screen. It’s the film maker’s way of telling you that you have to interpret them as metaphors, rather than literally, which is how you’d interpret things in a dream. The night is existential. During the daytime your attention is focused on many things that you can see before you, but during the night you don't have these things to distract you from the really big and vast questions: who am I? Why am I here? Why am I always so busy and there's nothing more for me to give? These are questions that are asked at night.
In the most famous scene of "Rebel Without a Cause", James Dean is inside a planetarium, literally facing the void. Set side by side with the documentary which narrates the creation of the universe, he realises that his whole life pales into insignificance when placed besides this. It is probably the point where the notion of "teenage angst" (highly existential in nature) entered popular culture.
I will at some point blog at length about 24 hour McDonald's joints. But it's become some of my favourite past times to go there, either buy a coffee or a large coke, and plonk myself in front of a book for 2-3 hours. It's remarkable how easy it is to get your reading done, even with the late night music blaring in your ears at that point.
Then, what of the dawn that breaks? I normally find that for all nighters the hour of 5 o'clock is the most difficult because that's when I fall asleep. Usually if I make it through there, then I can catch the sunrise, and retire at say 8 or 9.
I will remember my SISPEC graduation ceremony, because that was the day I earned my stripes. People have described it to me before, but I guess it was still interesting. We left the camp, and then we marched up elephant hill. Then as the dawn breaks, they give you your stripes. It's very cliched, but when it's the culmination of 2-3 months of a miserable existence learning how to fight in a jungle it probably means something.
The half marathon, which I had already blogged about, is also the night turning into day. It is dawn when you start out, and you get the full blast of the sun when you end. It's almost the triumph of light over darkness, of perseverance over lethargy. But I am a night person, and I also feel that with the dawn a spell is broken.
I watched "Crimson Gold" at the Singapore International Film Fest a few years ago (haven't been going down for a couple of years) and I was late for "Crimson Gold", although I knew what happened in the opening scene. The structure of the movie is that there is a dramatic opening scene, and the rest of the movie is all about the events that lead up to that scene.
Thanks to the wonders of youtube, you can now see the opening scene, one of the great cinema moments of recent memory.
I think about all the stuff I did in the wee hours of the morning. 2 of the better plays I wrote. When I was in college, and sometimes pulling all nighters to get my stuff done. How I read “The Great Gatsby” until 3 in the morning and almost failed a chemistry exam the next day.
A few of my favourite movies have to do with the night. Like they have to do with a lot of journeys that take place in the night. “Crimson Gold”, about a pizza delivery man driven to rage by social inequality, takes place at night. He visits a few fairly wealthy places, and ponders, like the film maker wants his audience to do likewise, about what the delivery man sees.
There is “Collateral”, a film by Michael Mann, who is one of my favourite film makers today. In it, Tom Cruise holds Jamie Foxx hostage while he goes on a killing spree. Night is also about struggle. The night that Jamie Foxx had to get through as a hostage was a struggle, but also fairly meditative, because he gets on with Tom Cruise and talks about his life and plans. Manages to kill him (Tom Cruise) by dawn, symbolising the triumph of daylight, but what follows would probably be another dreary day driving a taxi. The characters in Michael Mann’s films, a reviewer has pointed out, are survivors, not winners. They struggle to get by, and then struggle to get by some more.
The atmosphere is broody, almost unreal. Both are loners, one a hired killer who can’t talk to that many people, and the other a taxi driver who spends most of the time driving around alone in the cab. Both are also wanderers who don’t stay in the same place for long. So even though one is black and the other white, and even though one is much richer than the other, they have a lot in common.
The night is a lonely, isolated place, where most people are asleep. There was once when I was walking through a new town when everybody was asleep. Did a quick calculation: if a block of flats had 1000 occupants each, and you had a few hundred blocks, then it was a few hundred thousand in each town. There was so much potential and capacity for life in the blocks I walked past, but all of them were asleep. And like they say, “sleep is the cousin of death”. It’s a minor concession you make with death every day until the real thing takes you away for good. So I was thinking, all that life, and nothing being done right now. Anyway, one of the appeals of keeping late hours is that you’re using some time that other people are spending sleeping, doing nothing. It’s like finding a dollar bill on the ground, except of course you need to pay it back later.
The night is meditative. When you’re up all night, maybe you’re thinking about big decisions, and maybe you’d have reached a conclusion by dawn. Like the Buddha’s enlightenment took place at dawn, after he spent all night trying to figure out why humans everywhere always live in shit.
Another film which features the night is “Nights of Cabiria”, a famous Fellini film, possibly one of my favourites. It is about the resilience of an aging prostitute which suffers setback after setback. When you see a lot of things at night, there is definitely an allusion to dreaming. She sees a person who delivers food to the poor, maybe a burlesque performance at a theatre. All these images (especially the way that Fellini shoots them, if you’re familiar with his style) have a dreamlike quality about them, because she could well have been seeing them in a dream.
Then there is Antonioni’s “la Notte”, where the night parallels the cloud that has descended over the relationship between a man and his wife.
The night has a way of framing many of the events that take place, a way of cooly distancing yourself away from things. It has a way of making you conscious that you are seeing something, but from a detached distance. When you are in a cinema, it is an artificial night too, because it’s meant to tune out all the distractions and focus you upon the visions on the screen. It’s the film maker’s way of telling you that you have to interpret them as metaphors, rather than literally, which is how you’d interpret things in a dream. The night is existential. During the daytime your attention is focused on many things that you can see before you, but during the night you don't have these things to distract you from the really big and vast questions: who am I? Why am I here? Why am I always so busy and there's nothing more for me to give? These are questions that are asked at night.
In the most famous scene of "Rebel Without a Cause", James Dean is inside a planetarium, literally facing the void. Set side by side with the documentary which narrates the creation of the universe, he realises that his whole life pales into insignificance when placed besides this. It is probably the point where the notion of "teenage angst" (highly existential in nature) entered popular culture.
I will at some point blog at length about 24 hour McDonald's joints. But it's become some of my favourite past times to go there, either buy a coffee or a large coke, and plonk myself in front of a book for 2-3 hours. It's remarkable how easy it is to get your reading done, even with the late night music blaring in your ears at that point.
Then, what of the dawn that breaks? I normally find that for all nighters the hour of 5 o'clock is the most difficult because that's when I fall asleep. Usually if I make it through there, then I can catch the sunrise, and retire at say 8 or 9.
I will remember my SISPEC graduation ceremony, because that was the day I earned my stripes. People have described it to me before, but I guess it was still interesting. We left the camp, and then we marched up elephant hill. Then as the dawn breaks, they give you your stripes. It's very cliched, but when it's the culmination of 2-3 months of a miserable existence learning how to fight in a jungle it probably means something.
The half marathon, which I had already blogged about, is also the night turning into day. It is dawn when you start out, and you get the full blast of the sun when you end. It's almost the triumph of light over darkness, of perseverance over lethargy. But I am a night person, and I also feel that with the dawn a spell is broken.
I watched "Crimson Gold" at the Singapore International Film Fest a few years ago (haven't been going down for a couple of years) and I was late for "Crimson Gold", although I knew what happened in the opening scene. The structure of the movie is that there is a dramatic opening scene, and the rest of the movie is all about the events that lead up to that scene.
Thanks to the wonders of youtube, you can now see the opening scene, one of the great cinema moments of recent memory.
Streams of logic
I've always thought that a maths proof and writing a song were around the same thing. There is logical progression, every line must flow smoothly from 1 line to the next. If there is a logical inconsistency, the whole thing falls apart. The nicest bits are when there's a leap of logic, such as when you're introducing a new idea in a proof and things go forward almost by magic, or when you're modulating to a new key or springing some other musical surprise.
There are differences, of course. In maths, something's either right or wrong. In music, there is a continuum between a good phrase and a bad phrase to put into the music. In maths anything is OK as long as you solve the problem. In music, you don't even know what is the problem to solve. It must make musical sense, but even that is ill defined, and also 1 man's meat is another man's poison. Actually there are problems to solve in music. Like when you write a section in music called a bridge that connects 2 parts of a song together it's called a bridge. Then you know that things must flow through both ends of the bridge smoothly.
Why are music and maths so similar? I once thought about what maths really means, when I got to higher levels and it became more abstract and not only about numbers anymore. We had funny little monsters like groups and rings, function spaces, even things like properties. It was then that I reckoned that maths is really about patterns and logic. Well music is also about patterns and logic. More patterns, actually.
People will inevitably get offended when I suggest that there's nothing more to music than a stream of numbers. Well nowadays even the great works of art can be digitised, and after that, it's just a stream of numbers in your jpeg file. So why shouldn't I say that notes are streams of numbers? There is this persistent insistence that maths does not have anything to do with the human soul. No, the organ most associated with your emotions - the heart - is also the most rhythmic and also the most mathematical of all your organs. (Except when you're humping somebody, that's also rhythmic. Aha - sex, one of your most emotional activities, is also rhythmic.) Yes it is possible to say that maths can be divorced from your human emotions, but you can't divorce unless you were married all along.
Is music a linear medium, then? Does it follow a linear narrative? I don't know. Sometimes it can be circular. It is a very unusual form of art in the sense that a lot of elements are juxtaposed, and interact with each other, when you have counterpoint and all that stuff, but I guess in a way it is merely more extreme than other stuff like painting where you can have a lot of stuff layered on top of each other, or novels when you're trying to keep track of 4 or 5 plot lines in your head simultaneously.
In soundtracks and operas, some snippets of tunes (we call them motifs and themes) can be used to call up certain situations in order to achieve emotional effects. It is a weaker form of a flashback in a linear narrative, although it also reminds one of more simple allusions. Like in "Lust Caution", near the end of the show they showed a short flashback of Tang Wei wandering around lost on a stage, while her comrades, pulling the strings from the circle seats, call out to her.
There are differences, of course. In maths, something's either right or wrong. In music, there is a continuum between a good phrase and a bad phrase to put into the music. In maths anything is OK as long as you solve the problem. In music, you don't even know what is the problem to solve. It must make musical sense, but even that is ill defined, and also 1 man's meat is another man's poison. Actually there are problems to solve in music. Like when you write a section in music called a bridge that connects 2 parts of a song together it's called a bridge. Then you know that things must flow through both ends of the bridge smoothly.
Why are music and maths so similar? I once thought about what maths really means, when I got to higher levels and it became more abstract and not only about numbers anymore. We had funny little monsters like groups and rings, function spaces, even things like properties. It was then that I reckoned that maths is really about patterns and logic. Well music is also about patterns and logic. More patterns, actually.
People will inevitably get offended when I suggest that there's nothing more to music than a stream of numbers. Well nowadays even the great works of art can be digitised, and after that, it's just a stream of numbers in your jpeg file. So why shouldn't I say that notes are streams of numbers? There is this persistent insistence that maths does not have anything to do with the human soul. No, the organ most associated with your emotions - the heart - is also the most rhythmic and also the most mathematical of all your organs. (Except when you're humping somebody, that's also rhythmic. Aha - sex, one of your most emotional activities, is also rhythmic.) Yes it is possible to say that maths can be divorced from your human emotions, but you can't divorce unless you were married all along.
Is music a linear medium, then? Does it follow a linear narrative? I don't know. Sometimes it can be circular. It is a very unusual form of art in the sense that a lot of elements are juxtaposed, and interact with each other, when you have counterpoint and all that stuff, but I guess in a way it is merely more extreme than other stuff like painting where you can have a lot of stuff layered on top of each other, or novels when you're trying to keep track of 4 or 5 plot lines in your head simultaneously.
In soundtracks and operas, some snippets of tunes (we call them motifs and themes) can be used to call up certain situations in order to achieve emotional effects. It is a weaker form of a flashback in a linear narrative, although it also reminds one of more simple allusions. Like in "Lust Caution", near the end of the show they showed a short flashback of Tang Wei wandering around lost on a stage, while her comrades, pulling the strings from the circle seats, call out to her.
Tuesday, 4 December 2007
Half Marathon
Half marathon was over. Did what I did to prepare for it, with those long runs every weekend. (Started at 3km, then 5, 7, 10 and finally 15k) Went to do carbo loading before the race. (Prior to that, most of my runs were on a nearly empty stomach.) One thing about carbo loading, though - it gives you an incredible amount of crap. I wasn't used to eating that much, and after the run I had to find somewhere to release. When I was done, my eyes widened as I hadn't seen so much crap in my life. I was so full of shit.
Thought that it would be a quiet affair, with me driving down to that place. But I guess my parents wanted to bask in my reflected glory. So after the race I met them, showed them the medal, we took pictures.
The race itself went smoothly. Lots of people everywhere, but the lanes were mostly wide enough, until we got to the Nicoll highway part, where it always seemed as though too many lanes were allocated for the opposite direction. So I usually ran on the other side, and played cat and mouse with the marshals who were pleading with me to stick to my own lane. Not much eye candy, I'm afraid. Maybe I was too distracted during the real run, or maybe I was just unlucky.
Favourite part of the run was going out of Marina South and running down Robinson Road, like the whole place was just cordoned off and reserved for me. (It was.) I felt like a Mongol entering a Chinese city. Run took 2h 30min roughly, better than the 2h 40min I thought I'd do. I guess the strategy of not completely expending my energy early on but run steadily paid off.
Except that I'm on ICT now and just had to do my IPPT 2 days after my half marathon. Just realised that I neglected training for my sit ups and chin ups for my half marathon but luckily I scraped passes in all these events.
I thought I'd give myself some time to be happy with my timing. But some other guy from my company did the full marathon in 4h 10min. Now that is some crazy shit, because I'd have to run sub 2h for a half marathon in order to assure myself that I can make that timing for a full marathon. Guess he's in a completely different league from me.
Now why would I do a half marathon? My old friend told me he never saw me as a distance runner. And frankly I'm not. I highly suspect that most of the people who do the marathon just walk much of the way, and consider themselves to have done it. (If any of you out there is reading this - sorry.) Which is the reason why I'm faster than half of them.
And if you believe that the finishing times are spread out on a Gaussian curve, it means that if I run the median speed and keep it that way throughout the race, I'm always in the most crowded part of the race.
So I tell people that the reason is that I know 6-7 people at work who have done either full of half marathons, and I just wanted to keep up with the Joneses. It wasn't that difficult in the end. But now I got to make the big decision whether or not to do the full marathon. Now that's a lot of time running, and this time I'd have to do 30km endurance tests every week to at least assure myself I'm going to have some decent timing for the full marathon. Or I could just go 40km on my own and then say "fuck the marathon" because I did it already. It's not impossible, because I have the build for running long distance. (skinny, long legs)
I think this marathon is like going to church. Or arriving at Mecca. And shingot did talk about how he had this great emotional feeling at the start of the race. I guess I also had that to a smaller extent. When I started running 10km runs with my jogging buddies I had that feeling too, but it wears away after a while. I think halfway through the 21km run I had a great feeling (especially the Robinson Road part). But after that comes the grit and endurance part, not so bad because this is only a half marathon and you don't know what the full thing is like. And when you're done there is this "is this it?" feeling. Or maybe not.
Well I think next year I will not be running the half marathon. I will either be running the full marathon, or nothing. The only reason why I would run this half marathon again is if I should decide to do a full marathon somewhere else and use this half marathon as a warm up. (At this point I looked up wikipedia for the list of marathon races and found that some sick fuck put in the Bataan Death March as a marathon event.)
There are a lot of reason tags. I didn't get one. I didn't know if I have to buy one. There's a lot of mushy stuff written on them so I usually have to avert my eyes when coming close to them. Stuff like "wait for me honey". "We're getting married on blah blah blah". "I know that I can do it". My reason, if I had to write one would either be "I'm the man" or "it's good for my ego" or "I want to ogle at all the hot chicks here". Or if I wanted to pay tribute to one of the oldest counterculture magazines in Singapore, "Before I Get Old".
Didn't see Nat (full) there, or Shingot (half) or the new guy at work (half). I was with Mao (a uni friend) and Sniper for the first half hour, until I decided I had to go take a pee break in the bushes. But that's OK, thanks to them I found the right pace. I suspect the reason is that both of them are faster than me and I was slowing them down. Anyway I checked their times (sorry guys but on the internet nothing is really private) and found that being a mere 15 mins faster than me means that instead of being faster than 50% of the participants, you are faster than 75% of them.
Thought that it would be a quiet affair, with me driving down to that place. But I guess my parents wanted to bask in my reflected glory. So after the race I met them, showed them the medal, we took pictures.
The race itself went smoothly. Lots of people everywhere, but the lanes were mostly wide enough, until we got to the Nicoll highway part, where it always seemed as though too many lanes were allocated for the opposite direction. So I usually ran on the other side, and played cat and mouse with the marshals who were pleading with me to stick to my own lane. Not much eye candy, I'm afraid. Maybe I was too distracted during the real run, or maybe I was just unlucky.
Favourite part of the run was going out of Marina South and running down Robinson Road, like the whole place was just cordoned off and reserved for me. (It was.) I felt like a Mongol entering a Chinese city. Run took 2h 30min roughly, better than the 2h 40min I thought I'd do. I guess the strategy of not completely expending my energy early on but run steadily paid off.
Except that I'm on ICT now and just had to do my IPPT 2 days after my half marathon. Just realised that I neglected training for my sit ups and chin ups for my half marathon but luckily I scraped passes in all these events.
I thought I'd give myself some time to be happy with my timing. But some other guy from my company did the full marathon in 4h 10min. Now that is some crazy shit, because I'd have to run sub 2h for a half marathon in order to assure myself that I can make that timing for a full marathon. Guess he's in a completely different league from me.
Now why would I do a half marathon? My old friend told me he never saw me as a distance runner. And frankly I'm not. I highly suspect that most of the people who do the marathon just walk much of the way, and consider themselves to have done it. (If any of you out there is reading this - sorry.) Which is the reason why I'm faster than half of them.
And if you believe that the finishing times are spread out on a Gaussian curve, it means that if I run the median speed and keep it that way throughout the race, I'm always in the most crowded part of the race.
So I tell people that the reason is that I know 6-7 people at work who have done either full of half marathons, and I just wanted to keep up with the Joneses. It wasn't that difficult in the end. But now I got to make the big decision whether or not to do the full marathon. Now that's a lot of time running, and this time I'd have to do 30km endurance tests every week to at least assure myself I'm going to have some decent timing for the full marathon. Or I could just go 40km on my own and then say "fuck the marathon" because I did it already. It's not impossible, because I have the build for running long distance. (skinny, long legs)
I think this marathon is like going to church. Or arriving at Mecca. And shingot did talk about how he had this great emotional feeling at the start of the race. I guess I also had that to a smaller extent. When I started running 10km runs with my jogging buddies I had that feeling too, but it wears away after a while. I think halfway through the 21km run I had a great feeling (especially the Robinson Road part). But after that comes the grit and endurance part, not so bad because this is only a half marathon and you don't know what the full thing is like. And when you're done there is this "is this it?" feeling. Or maybe not.
Well I think next year I will not be running the half marathon. I will either be running the full marathon, or nothing. The only reason why I would run this half marathon again is if I should decide to do a full marathon somewhere else and use this half marathon as a warm up. (At this point I looked up wikipedia for the list of marathon races and found that some sick fuck put in the Bataan Death March as a marathon event.)
There are a lot of reason tags. I didn't get one. I didn't know if I have to buy one. There's a lot of mushy stuff written on them so I usually have to avert my eyes when coming close to them. Stuff like "wait for me honey". "We're getting married on blah blah blah". "I know that I can do it". My reason, if I had to write one would either be "I'm the man" or "it's good for my ego" or "I want to ogle at all the hot chicks here". Or if I wanted to pay tribute to one of the oldest counterculture magazines in Singapore, "Before I Get Old".
Didn't see Nat (full) there, or Shingot (half) or the new guy at work (half). I was with Mao (a uni friend) and Sniper for the first half hour, until I decided I had to go take a pee break in the bushes. But that's OK, thanks to them I found the right pace. I suspect the reason is that both of them are faster than me and I was slowing them down. Anyway I checked their times (sorry guys but on the internet nothing is really private) and found that being a mere 15 mins faster than me means that instead of being faster than 50% of the participants, you are faster than 75% of them.
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