social quirks

I was momentarily reminded of my old events company from a while back. They really should have taken more care of their employees. The way they handle their payments was met with much disdain. That, and they fail to see that it could haunt them somewhere down the road. What is to stop me from doing a Paul Revere? Dismiss the effects of 'by word of mouth' at your own risk; just think Facebook or Twitter.

'By word of mouth' branches into evil in the form of insurance agents as well. Nowadays I would just avoid picking up calls from local numbers. "Hi, this is so-and-so from I-Fleece-You.Inc. So-and-so gave me your number so I'd thought I would...". I felt rather disappointed when I knew that my number was given away by friends. The moment I picked up that call it crosses from social to market norms. There is nothing warm about that.


And yet, another episode of DUS(Disgruntled Ugly Singaporeans)
I get it and can certainly see that, it has been raining cats and dogs. Everybody wants to get onto the bus unscathed but that's not gonna happen. Still, whats the whole fucking point of pushing and pressing wet plastic bags behind my knees? If you yearn for human contact I would gladly offer a hug. Tsk, and you're a working class adult. I would have used your face as a windscreen wiper for the wet bus, really. And when you are on the bus, there are people who couldn't care what juts out of their bags, even if it is an unsheathed samurai sword. Reserving seats too, no nos. I saw this parody on channel 8, where the words 'chope' were part of the tissue paper packet design. A nice dig(I wanted to applaud but I had no audience) really, that would make people cringe. I've heard people justifying their rustic actions but its a whole load of bullshit actually. If a packet of tissue paper was accidentally left there, the seat's gonna be left vacant? A packet of tissue paper isn't even an obstacle and we should stop being soft. Just looking at the jarring picture below is visually offensive; I wouldn't want to hear the explaination.















The terror unleashed by the tissue paper packet.


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At the end of the day, at the end of every post, I realized that I have so much resent. The kind you'll never see in my face. With the amount of shit going on, it only serves to make death less menacing.

critical or not

It was the last economics lesson of the semester, and somehow the lecturer managed to spew out examples that were unheard of. And I realized, this gargantuan exposure we were supposed to have and acquire. Seriously lacking in the critical thinking skills department; we can't think out of the box. The lecturer asks a question and you could hear the deafening silence. There is stark difference between the way MIT or Oxford's business school conducts their lectures and, ours. Not to mention, the quality of graduates churned out. Sure, SMU might be a step in that direction, but the system's still green. After all, most of us are cut out to recite a textbook backwards.

Yes, backwards. We actually believe it works.

breaking away

Like I've mentioned in my previous post, we try to seek shortcuts at times. The thing about a curve, it is longer than a straight line. Something for thought.

The academic route is a helluva straight line, at least in sg. When exams loom, it towers and envelopes us. Because we're made and shaped to think that way(I'm not sure if it is a conducive environment to bring up your kids in). Personally, I'm against reproducing what I have learned on a piece of paper. How can regurgitating information be an education policy? Regrettably, that is also how we are appraised. Our grades reflect how the schooling body looks at us. I must wonder though, if the many that walk out with degrees and phds and such, have any hindsight at all. Try asking them questions and you might get a whimsical 'huh?'.

Well, to give some credit where it's due, this might also be the best way to nurture our ever small talent pool. People from the gifted stream, so I've heard, were taught* to be loyal to the country even before puberty. I call that mining for talents; you'll see that when you know how desperate they are to hold on to their scholars(contracts and bonds). People ain't all that blind, and the talent pool leaks when they leave.

* when you teach something to someone who's 6, you're brainwashing.

intangible goods

Every morning I see people chasing buses, like it's the last one out of this forsaken planet. It might be if they got fired should they be late for work. I think what they are chasing is not the bus but rather, time. Ever seeking to carve out a curve to something so damningly linear as time. To buck the trend, to get ahead.

It is a much sought after commodity after all, but how do you acquire something like that? "I need more time, more time!", one might say. The only way to do that is to perhaps, take some time off work and be one with the Bahamas. Because you sure as hell ain't getting more than 24hrs a day. Funny though, how the majority of us are made to taste life by doing something as repetitive and monotonous as work. Perhaps we ain't happy about what time has gotta say after robbing years of our youth or even adulthood. But we must be thankful, for it brought about some growth and perceptions that might have otherwise eluded us.

free fall

You know, when you've come to habour expectations, the build-up might be euphoric. The marvelous and sweet future you could see dangling right outside your window. Probably could not contemplate losing something as important as that. So you've thought.

But of course, citing Forrest Gump. That life is like a box of chocolates, as so adequately quoted by Tom Hanks. It's paradoxical huh, when you try to be so strong it just manifests your weaknesses. To self destruct, to self mutilate, or just the plain ol' bawl. I wish I could hurl the preconceived notion of 'men don't cry' right out of the window sometimes. To deny that emotion is to deny what makes us invariably human. Regrettably, we have a face for every place though, and that notion inevitably boomerangs back.

getting arithmetic with...

The source of most problems for men, can be effectively written as follow,

Function(Men) = Function(Money) + Function(Women)

Where money and women are bi-variate functions of men. Actually, that equation is effectively garbage but yea, I wouldn't deny the source of most of my problems. I wish I could communicate with you, but you're in a state of nonchalance. And that leaves this deep, dark empty space; all I have is an echo.

I'm contemplative as in to what I can achieve, really. This amount of time I have, nothing more, nothing less. Exactly one lifetime.

fuzzy and warped days

Sometimes, you could be all you want to be but, throw in the boundaries of morality and things become fuzzy and warped. Crossing over and not is the difference between potential problems and problems that can potentially be eliminated had you not. You know how some matters are not particularly resistant to the sands of time; they are trying and they erode.

I guess its only right to accept that someone people can just walk away, just like the way how some cannot. And how you could love someone so much until you can say you hate him, and be back there at the bat of an eyelid. Again, citing an overused cliche, time will tell. There has to be a point of time where someone decides that something has to be done. The time buffer is of course variable for every individual, but nevertheless scaling towards an eventual conclusion.

fathoming the irony

Why we persist in the irrational is at times beyond comprehension yet bizarrely predictable. I speak because I didn't buck the trend, and am regrettably mired in such. Such devastatingly complex emotions.

Gonna lift this whole chunk out of a book I was reading. I could fathom, as reading it struck peculiar notes in my very minute life. If only we could envision consequences, because we lack the capacity to do so at times, really. How we hate to see a door close on us and how we like our options; irrationality is inevitable.

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Dana, another student of mine, had a similar problem - but hers centered on two boyfriends. She could dedicate her energy and passion to a person she had met recently and, she hoped, build an enduring relationship with him. Or she could continue to put time and effort into a previous relationship that was dying. She clearly liked the new boyfriend better than the former one - yet she couldn't let the earlier relationship go. Meanwhile, her new boyfriend was getting restless. "Do you really want to risk losing the boy you love," I asked her, "for the remote possibility that you may discover - at some later date - that you love your former boyfriend more?" She shook her head "no," and broke into tears.*

What is it about options that is so difficult for us? Why do we feel compelled to keep as many doors open as possible, even at great expense? Why can't we simply commit ourselves?

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We glorify ourselves too much really. Coming together in unison, to celebrate the marvels of humanity's triumph. And yet, we are dwarfed by the likes of such.

continuity

It has invariably led to the start of my 3rd blog, this probable need for an avenue or space to ramble. Has it been a string of random events and accidents, leading to this point in time? The past few months have been a blur. Events jmubeld up lkie taht, and I lack the words to describe this apparent farce.

This inadequacy of mine, I must say, is costly and ultimately bearing as I walk the path of such. Not to mention, taxing to my friends whom have had the ill luck of hearing me bitch at times. It has inevitably taken precedence over matters such as exams. I try to do the right thing at times but I end up feeling less of a being. Well, they say the roadway to hell is paved with good intentions.

What can I say? You're half a world away.