If My Mind Had No Lid

It's funny how I blogged more when my laptop was away for her face lift, than now when she's perched on my desk acting all pouty because she fished around in my email and found evidence that I was considering a Mac.

Maybe it's because after you walk 15 minutes in the cold clutching tightly onto the fistful of dollars in your pocket, and after you fight with a dozen other insomniac students who are similarly deprived of laptops for a space in the com lab, you better bloody squeeze out something onto your blog.

Note to Self: when looking for a seat in a public, frequently-crowded com lab, do not pick the solitary computer at the very corner. It's empty for a reason. And the reasons begin with sticky keyboards. And chairs which are disturbingly moist.

Feeling a little light-headed now - I received my eviction notice in the mail today. Come May 31, I have the choice of quietly leaving this little cramped dingy room I affectionately call my Cramped Dingy Room, or staying and letting campus security escort me out forcibly. Time passes so fast!

I remember complaining about my dorm a lot when I first moved in. I found faults with the heating, the fish in the fridge that had a sell-by date of June '05, the showerhead that automatically aimed for your eyes everytime. But now, months later, on the cusp of leaving, I feel a strange emotional bond to this place.

So, lots of griping, dissatisfaction about how the pictures lied, then tolerance, then sadness when it is all over. Guess that's what marriage will be like.

Heading to DC again in 2 hours, taking the 3:45am bus. Daniel, Zhixiang and I are going to catch the NUS team in the Jessups - it strikes me how like other peeps in Europe are heading to all sorts of exotic places to experience great things (like fights with robbers), whilst we are headed to see people moot.

Don't get me wrong, I'm quite keen. It'll be a very rare and precious learning opportunity. Just saying. Er. So, if you're travelling around in Europe and seeing this, then, er, eat your heart out. Yeaaaa.

I've noticed the prevalent pet culture here in NYC for a long while. People tell me it's because the city is a lonesome place sometimes (oh the irony) and pets are faithful loving companions who don't demand a lot. Made me wonder if there are people who picked a pet, and then saw others and felt like they didn't love their first pet anymore.

You almost never hear of it happening, which makes it all the more strange given our collective track record when it comes to loving other people. I'll try shedding indiscriminately, cleaning unspeakable parts in public, and peeing excitedly at every tree, and then report if I've managed to isolate what separates pets from ex-girlfriends / ex-boyfriends.

Come to think of it, dogs must be pretty flummoxed whenever they go on walks. I mean, they don't know how long their owners plan to traipse around, and they've only got so much pee, and any self-respecting dog would want to mark as many trees as possible.

So when they come to a tree, do they simply just mark it with abandon, or do they think, waaiitt a minute, if I do this tree, I can't do that hydrant another 10 m down, but what if we take a different route, then I might miss out entirely, but what if...

No wonder why some dogs are highstrung all the time. There's a lot more going on in their heads than we give them credit for I guess.

Wow that was cathartic, being random on a blog. Got to go, bus to catch, moots to see!

Oh, To Be Amish

I've not had a good run-in with electronics recently.

First, my camera developed dust specks on the sensor. I tried to save the camera myself, thinking, how difficult can it be to open it up and clean the dust specks away, I'm not going to pay the shop $70 USD for that, they have to find other ways to cheat me of my hard-earned er pocket money.

30 agonizing minutes later, after I electrocuted myself on the circuit board and saw sparks fly (not in the usual good way I'm used to), I beat a hasty retreat. Twas a bitter defeat, for I had already removed Screws 01 through 11, but was unable to locate Screw No. Haha-You-Can't-Find-Me-Cause-You're-Not-Scientifically-Inclined.

I thought of my electrical-engineering friends, who would have easily flipped out the circuit board in a jiffy and avoided that nasty shock too. Then I thought of law and how it was so terribly helpful a degree in everyday life.

My streak continued. Last week, my laptop's fan started spinning louder than ever, and it wasn't even normal loud - I could hear it from outside my room with the door closed. I consulted another friend in law, and she told me to shut it down, let it rest for a while, and it would be fine by the next morning. Hmm. Law. I sense a trend.

Now I'm no electronics whiz, but I know enough about hardware to realize that if something fails once, it's going to fail again sooner or later. No amount of rest or TLC is going to restore it. Simply wishing that the problem would go away was not going to do a fig - I needed to get it fixed. Properly.

This time though, with the recent lessons from the Camera Incident fresh in my head, and a vow not to repeat the same costly mistakes, I was going to do things differently. I was going to open up my laptop... with rubber slippers on.

30 excruciating minutes later, after I broke a hinge and was left with only 12 out of the 14 screws I should have had (not in the usual sense too), I called it a day. Actually, I called it other unprintable names. I put it back together, switched it on and the fan was louder than ever.

I tried to look at the bright side of things, like how a friggin madman hadn't just rushed through my door during the entire sordid operation and stabbed me whilst I was deep in concetration. It made me feel a little better.

(An interesting thought occurred to me at this time - if I opened up a Macbook, what would its insides look like? Simpler and more intuitive than a PC's? Or would I find a smaller PC inside, running the whole system? What an understandable sham it would be. Shock shock, horror horror.)

Left with no alternative, I sent it in for repairs. During this trying period, a friend who's surely a devious Apple Witch in disguise attempted to induce me to the Dark Side and buy a Macbook. Why not, she said, when your PC laptop has failed you over and over again?

Her spell lasted long enough for me to find myself standing in the Den of Evil, the Apple fortress at 34th, bewildered and shaking with naked terror. Begone, I chanted, begone ye foul temptress! For shame! To ask me to consider nubile young pretty Macbooks while my sagging aging fugly Rei is fighting for her life this very instant!

(... I did caress a few Macbook Airs though, and briefly lost myself in fantasies of a different world, one where Rei and I never met, and I could have a Macbook without a hundred friends RUBBING IT IN that I should have got one from the start.)

Then, to cap it all off, the earphones I bought just days ago started malfunctioning too, and all this despite me taking the very best care of it. I rushed back to the store first this time, but only because I lacked the tools to take it apart - the masochist in me definitely would have tried.

At this rate I'm going to have to stop personifying my electronics by giving them names, for then it would affect me a lot less when they do actually fail. But oh, what a joyless alternative that would be.

As The Dice Rolls

I watched the new movie 21 in theatres today, and it was... electrifying to observe how real professionals gamble.

21's a movie about a maths genius who gets roped into a card-counting team by his professor, and the whole lot sets out to break the casinos in Vegas. They played Blackjack, which, as it turns out, is also the game I set out to conquer during my jaunt there.

The movie made my jaw drop. It made me realize just how arrogant and ignorant I was to think that my simple plans and sub-JC maths could ever be enough to defeat the casinos. Let me illustrate the differences between him and I.

First off, the hero in 21 (let's just call him Giftedboy for short) had grand plans and noble intentions - he was trying to raise $300k to support himself through Med School. I was trying to raise $11 to pay my share of a parking ticket. And maybe score a $30 buffet dinner.

Secondly, Giftedboy was so good at maths that he corrected his MIT maths prof frequently, programmed for a robotics competition and knew all sorts of complex formula gibberish. At the table I had problems adding numbers up to see if I broke 21, and often made thoughtful "hmm" sounds just so that the other players would think I was strategizing.

Thirdly, they had a complete system of secret signals meant to tell each other which table was good to play at. We had our own system too, of course. If we said "@#*&$(" we meant that we were not very happy, whilst "Oh my lordy lord I'm getting probed from behind" meant that we were losing money.

I can't speak for my Spring Break Buddies, but the first sign that I should have stopped gambling came when the dealer, an Asian lady herself, started giving me impromptu lessons at the table. Our conversation went something like this:

She: So you want to hit? Or stay?
Me: Oh, of course. I want to stay.
She: Stay? You sure?
Me: Definitely.
She: Stay? Even when I've got a face card? You should hit!
Me: Oh, really? When you have a face card I should hit?
She: ... You are fake Asian boy.

It didn't help that upon following her advice I hit 21. Still, curses to the stereotype that Asians are good at maths and therefore by extension probability games like Blackjack.

But seriously, gambling was far more addictive than I imagined it to be. Sure, you read about the dangers in the papers and all, but when you're seated at the table, and it's your money on the line, everything changes.

Chances are that once you savor the sweet taste of victory, no matter how small, you'll be lured back in to play for more. The longer you play, the more alcohol you consume, the worse your game gets too.

It took an incredible amount of willpower to pull myself away from the table - there was this niggling voice at the back of my head that kept telling me my luck would have to change, all I needed was one big win to make it all back.

(In this case though, the niggling voice(s) belonged to my Spring Break Buddies. We aren't very good when it comes to supporting each other in the pursuit of respectable goals.)

Perhaps it's a good thing that my parents don't gamble, beyond the yearly tradition of the $100 Bonfire, where they plop down that princely sum in a bid to win the $5 million Toto.

(My brother and I always tell them they're better off giving us that $100 since we would be that much more inclined to take care of them when they are old, but my parents apparently place a lot of stock in being independent. Time will tell.)

I guess I'll never have the kind of luck or brains to ever make a living by gambling, but I acknowledge that the lure of easy money is going to be a temptation I'll spend years staving off. It never helps when you hear of other people getting rich quick, because everyone thinks, what if it were me?

Hopefully there'll always be nice Asian dealers to remind me of the shame I'm bringing to my race - that'll keep me away for sure.

Piece Of Mind

Normal people become more socially adept as they age. Experience teaches them to better express themselves, how to connect with others and integrate into society.

It seems I’ve got it all backwards. I was most socially adept in my kindergarten years, and from there on it all went downhill.

The precipitating event that led to the retardation of my social skills lies in a conversation my mother had with another parent, at a kindergarten concert we put up. It went something like this:

Parent: Oh, so which class is your son in? Sparkle Daisy, Fluffy Puppy or Unstoppable Murderous Executioner?
Mum: That last one, that’s the one.
Parent: What a coincidence! I’ve a son there too! Does your kid tell you about school? Is he happy there?
Mum: Why, yes he is! Is there cause for concern?
Parent: Well… my son says there’s a huge bully in class, and I was wondering if my son was being singled out or something.
Mum: Gasp! A bully? At so young an age? That’s terrible!
Parent: Wait! There he is! That’s the bully!

Of course, that was the moment I appeared on stage. And that was also the first of many instances to come when my mum would look away and pretend not to know her first-born son, otherwise known simply to her as the 8-Hour-Labour-Clot (I've peeked into her diary before).

And I wasn't even a classic bully in the sense that I resorted to strong-arm tactics to gain an overwhelming advantage over the weak! If memory serves me right, he had been the first to be rude and boorish, and I had simply demonstrated my equally robust vocabulary of bad words.

Of course, Mr. Left Fist and Mr. Right Fist had something to add in too. For emphasis. I think that's why the boy thought I was a bully. Pansy.

Most mothers refuse to believe their kids are anything short of angels, but my mother evidently went to a different parenting school. You little rascal, she told me that night, your dad and I are going to reform you. We’re going to teach you proper manners, and how to relate properly to people.

And those lessons were what screwed everything up for me.

You see, now I’m incapable of effectively communicating with anyone. I can’t bring myself to say directly what’s on my mind, and I take pains to be sensitive. I even have a personalized bush I bring around to flog during long conversations. Ok that sounds wrong.

It’s not that I lie, mind you. I'm still frank, and honest, but by the time I properly justify and qualify my statements everyone assumes I'm lying. But I maintain that it makes all the difference, as the following example shows:

Friend: Does this dress make me look fat?
What I Think: Yes it does.
Right Answer: It’s not a flattering dress for you. The way it’s cut, it doesn’t accentuate your body shape at all. You look plumper than you really are. Try others?
Wrong Answer: I don’t think it’s possible for you to drown.

I’m not exactly the confrontational sort (I rarely lose my temper, but when I do…), and prefer to find diplomatic ways to solve things. Unfortunately, this lack of blunt candidness hampers me most when something irritates, even infuriates me.

For if I am unable to think of a good way to approach the issue, I’d toddle off and bottle it all up. More than once, this has resulted in my having to put up with things I’m not comfortable with, when all it would have taken was a frank word or two, to spare myself all the unnecessary angst.

But I’m learning, or should I say, unlearning many of the niceties my parents bade me learn.

Recently, on a few occasions when people went too far, I directly called out their bad behavior and made it clear I wasn't happy with them. I'm still hampered by concerns that I would destroy friendships if I said all that is on my mind, but I'm making hearty progress.

Hopefully, if all goes well, I'll be able to better communicate with my friends, feel less angsty, and also come across as more honest!

That has to be good, with so many birds with one stone, and without even resorting to the Fist Brothers.

On The Road

It's always unpleasant when you quarrel with a friend over a particularly thorny issue.

It's worse, however, when you simply bottle it up, swallow it, and try to forget the entire business.

In secondary school, I remember the day I walked into the teacher's room and found my classmate reading the journal I had just submitted to my teacher. It was a private journal, and the intrusion into my privacy was a stinging slap to the face.

Yet, instead of confronting him, I just turned around and walked away. I guess at that point whatever kinship I shared with him simply evaporated, taking with it any trust, affection and friendship. Nothing has changed, after all this time.

That particular bad habit of avoiding confrontation has stayed with me. On the few occasions I've ventured to openly confront a friend over a problem we have, my temper takes over and I find I'm no longer as charitable, kind or pleasant as I want to be.

For a long time this particular foreign relations policy seemed workable - cherish the friends who are true, be cordial to the ones who you aren't sure about.

But it isn't, and it's not hard to see why. Daryl asked me an innocent-enough question the other day, and instead of being frank and honest with him as an old friend deserves, I subconsciously doubted his intentions and raised my defenses sky-high.

I'm ashamed of myself for even questioning his motives.

My flame is flickering.

Appreciation

The other day on my way to school, I spotted this elderly couple from a distance, walking in my direction.

She was on a wheelchair, and he was behind her, pushing her along determinedly. Snow had already begun to fall these past few days, and as the flakes danced their descent down, I noticed that the gentleman didn't have gloves on.

Wow, I thought. Aren't his fingers freezing off from having to grip those wheelchair handles? My own hands were tightly bundled in the pockets of my overcoat, and still I could feel the chill.

Then, as I passed them, the lady wordlessly reached behind over her shoulder and laid her hand over his. I stopped just to watch them, until they turned the corner a few minutes later.

I think he didn't really mind the cold.

Green Thumb

Love, is like a plant.

You nurture it daily, with nutrients that it hungers for. Eventually, depending on the effort that you've put into it, it blooms, blossoms, bears fruit.

People don't dwell much upon it, but Hate, the twin that lurks in Love's shadow, is also like a plant.

You also have to nurture it daily, lest it withers away. Again, eventually, depending on the effort invested, it bears fruit too. The best cared-for plants yield the most succulent of fruits.

I've been thinking about it a lot, especially after Spiderman forgave the Sandman in his recent movie outing. It made a lot of sense then - why labor daily to feed venom (hurhur no pun intended) to this gnarly twisted plant that is Hate, when its fruits are bitter and vile?

Therefore, logically, there seems to be no reason for us to Hate anything. For Hate corrupts us, burdening us with its endless echoes of anger, chaining us to a past we do not need.

Alas, alas, nothing is as simple as it is in the movies. For while much romantic ink has been spilt to chronicle the wonders of the fruits of love, not a lot has been devoted to the fruits of Hate. Harry Potter, for example, continually espouses Love as the one defining mark of humanity.

But you may one day discover that the fruits of Hate are useful in their own way. For every single inedible blackened apple on my desk serves as a reminder of a painful lesson learnt, so that I need not convert my living quarters into a greenhouse.

Lucky Spiderman.

Conflict Resolution

I used to believe in Hong Kong dramas. I no longer do.

Goodness knows how many lives I've lived vicariously through them. I would be an ordinary schoolboy during the day, facing down challenges that even at their largest, would amount to no more than school exams or squabbles between friends.

But come the evenings, once at 7 pm and again at 9 pm, all that would change.

I would be a suave one-armed swordsman, brushing off a dozen doting lasses while waiting years for that one chick who’s my teacher, older than me and has issues with open communication. Or a struggling firefighter, or a doctor with a heart of gold, or a professional gambler. The list goes on.

And after absorbing years of life experience through that artificial sped-up process, I thought I knew all there was to know about inter-personal relationships. In particular, about how arguments between couples could be resolved.

As it turns out, nothing I learned from the dramas could prepare me for real life. The dramas only made things worse. Take, for instance, how I tried to apply a Hong Kong Drama Lesson (HKDL) when I got into a flaming argument with an ex.

At that point, she was a seething, raging beast, a veritable PMS-ing Medusa on a bad hair day who’d just missed a Mango sale. My instincts said ‘Run’, but I swallowed and kept the faith. After all, in almost 95% of the dramas I watched, there was one magic way to defuse her.

So I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and hugged her.

If the dramas were to be believed, she would struggle at first, but after 10 seconds she would calm down and cry in my embrace, and we would be fine again. Well, here’s a little mental log I kept of that 10 seconds.

2 Seconds – ‘Pain. I think she’s trying to wear out her nails on my back. Shall persevere.’
4 Seconds – ‘More Pain. I smell copper in the air, must be me bleeding. Cannot give up now.’
6 Seconds – ‘She’s screaming something into my ear, but I can’t really hear what on account of the Pain. It sounds like a swear word.’
8 Seconds – ‘Anytime now! She will melt, then tend lovingly to my wounds, which I plan to shrug off as Painless. I may have to lie.’
10 Seconds – ‘Just got Kneed In The Groin. Have. To. Give. Up. Now.’

Hours later, still curled up on the floor, I conducted a post mortem to figure out what went wrong. I narrowed it down to two possibilities – either the HKDL was fundamentally flawed, or I wasn’t being affectionate enough.

Hence, the next time she got mad again, I tried kissing her. It was only after I got most of my upper lip reattached that I grudgingly conceded that maybe the HKDL was the erroneous factor.

But that didn’t stop me. One flawed HKDL didn’t mean the rest were inapplicable, right?

For example, another HKDL dictates that when female friends storm off, you must engage in pursuit, with no regards to her requests for cool-off time / space. After all, in over 95% of dramas, men who failed to give chase would suffer loss of said female friend, or would later endure hours of nagging from random supporting characters.

Or the other HKDL, where women can take up to 40 episodes to dump the bastard boyfriend, but can get tired of their ‘boring’ nice boyfriends in less than 4 episodes? The conclusion, I thought, is that you must treat your girlfriends badly every once in a while.

Well, let’s just say that after a while, I learnt that HKDLs as theories were fun to contemplate, but suicidal to implement, especially with my history of rather violent female friends. (You know, the kind who savage you after losing at board games… and not the pleasant sort of savage, either.)

The upside to all this is that I soon accumulated a list of things not to do when trying to resolve an argument.

1. Don’t go to bed angry.
2. Don’t be sarcastic / hurtful / spiteful.
3. Don’t drag up old mistakes from years ago.
4. Don’t confuse issues, instead resolve them individually.
5. Persevere, but don’t force things.

These days I amuse myself by observing how couples resolve their quarrels, and I find that the ones who are happiest in the long-run are those who never bury problems. These couples may even bicker on a regular basis, but you’ll be surprised at how strong they can be.

Nobody likes confrontations, but at the very least, couples should always feel comfortable enough with each other to confront even the trickiest of issues.

Farewell then, my HKDL-reliant days. I guess there are some things we really cannot learn from TV.

Bad Boy Complex

He said it with the most solemn of faces. "I want to smoke," he said, "I want to wear bling. I want to treat her like dirt. I want to sulk in the corner and be Emoboy. I want to be baaad."

Heh. Helllooo, Bad Boy Complex (BBC). It's been a long time.

You’ve witnessed the BBC before, I’m sure? It's a curious affliction that most commonly descends upon poor broken-hearted boys. Overnight, they boldly strike out in wild new tangents, doing things they wouldn’t ever have dreamt of doing.

The assumption, of course, is that chicks dig the Bad Boys, preferring them to the ones who are too 乖.

Interestingly enough, observe enough BBC-sufferers, and you’ll find that they rebel in eerily similar ways. And if you’re a BBC-wannabe, and have no clue where to start, you’re in luck.

Welcome to Hanting’s BBC Guide For Good Boys.

Smoking

This is probably your first resort on your journey to being a Bad Boy, on account of smoking being relatively effortless to pick up. All you really need is money, a lot of breath mints, and a blatant disregard for gross pictures.

Now, we’re all aware of the health risks involved, so what’s an intelligent Bad Boy to do? Simple. The idea is to maximize every single stick. And to do this, you have to remember, it’s not about the smoking.

It’s about being seen smoking.

So, you need to practice at home. Find a wall you are comfortable leaning against, and try out various ways of holding your ciggy. I recommend the Lolling Two-Finger Grasp, where your ciggy is hanging precariously from your fingers.

And when you do smoke it, dreamily half-close your eyelids. Exhale slowly, and flick ash away in a devil-may-care way. Heck, you don’t even really need to smoke! Just light up, and gaze longingly at some faraway point.

When others ask why you’re letting the stick go to waste, reply with some cryptic nonsense, like “From the ashes we are all born, true?” or “They do deserve the pay rise, correct?” Then go back to your ciggy while they shower you with respect.

Bling

Now, bling’s a little harder. By ‘bling’ I mean clothes, accessories, piercings, the whole lot. Now, short of paying for a makeover, it is vital that you seek professional help from friends.

Because, seriously, if you’ve been a Good Boy all this while, you don’t know jack sh*t about bling. There is no way you will be able to pull it off on your own. Not only is it already hard to know how to accessorize fashionably, but you’re a guy too, and that makes it doubly hard.

So, be humble. Ask for help.

You see, the secret is this… the bling’s got to match you. You can’t just assume that what’s cool on 50 Cent looks good on you too. A good friend will most definitely tell you when you look cool, and when you look like the village idiot – after all, he’s going to have to worry about being seen in public with you.

Just never, ever ask for your mum’s input. Please. Just say no. Her perspective is skewed.

Do you want to be as attractive as your dad?

Tattoos

With tattoos we clearly enter hardcore BBC territory. For goodness’ sakes though, considering that for most people the BBC is but a stage in life, please get small tattoos. The era of the large, ostentatious tattoo is long over, unless you’re trying to escape from a prison facility, in which case it’s damn cool.

As you can expect, the tricky part is in the choice of the tattoo. Needless to say, “Mummy Power Forever”, anywhere, doesn’t cut it. Nor do random animals in various states of aggression. Cheeky ones don’t help too, you know, the kind that goes “If you can see this you’re a lucky woman” on your… nevermind.

Don’t forget, less can say more. Go for cryptic, tiny yet highly conspicuous tattoos. Things like “Blinded” on your eyelids, or “Empty” in a gothic font just above your heart.

So what does your tattoo say about you? It says that at one point, you were delirious or troubled enough to scar yourself with an indelible statement. It’s as intelligent as having a permanent nick for your MSN… you know you will lose the angst one day, yet you still want an everlasting mark of it.

And that, my brother, is what earns you your respect.

Summary

The pinnacle of the BBC lies not in any particular activity, but in the attitude you possess. The ideal you’re striving towards, is the caged tiger. At times you will be normal, sociable, functional, but at others you can be dark, conflicted, complex.

But most importantly, never BBC allll the way. You have to be redeemable, flawed but still whole enough to be saved. For some inexplicable reason, there are girls who believe they can change wounded Bad Boys for the better, and will slavishly gravitate towards them.

Maybe it’s Nature’s way of improving the overall quality of the human gene pool, by making Bad Boys attractive only to certain girls. If so, heck, it’s not working fast enough.

But, dear BBC-wannabe, I hope for your sake that your BBC phase passes soon. I maintain that guys who subscribe to the BBC lifestyle are motivated by a nagging notion that they are imperfect in some way, and that for some reason their relatively clean-cut lifestyle is the problem.

You know that’s not true.

Enjoy your BBC phase while it lasts. I’m pretty sure that when the clouds clear and the angst passes, you’ll find that you’re still most comfortable in your own skin.

(One day, I will write about the Good Boy Complex. Because, if you think about it, if good boys want to be bad after they undergo a breakup, wouldn’t Bad Boys want to be good?

Being a Good Boy is not that easy, and deserves a full guide of its own. If you're in dire need though, a good start would be petting a kitten everyday, saying “please excuse me” instead of “kn*bc*b blind ah f*x”, and not downloading any more albino infant elephant bondage porn.)

Cryptic

I think the Era of the Unsophisticated Blog is well and truly over.

Just a few years back, blogs were backdoors into people's minds. Everyone splashed raw emotions candidly across their webpages, bouyed by the rush that full and frank disclosure brought. Blogs were public platforms that suddenly became accessible even to the layman, a rare commodity unleashed upon a hungry market.

All that changed as people gradually felt the ill-effects of putting their whole lives on the net. If you keep a blog, you would know what I mean. A myriad of things can happen... your pictures get pilfered and circulated, your posts cause misunderstandings, mere acquaintances start gaining access to your innermost thoughts and feelings.

That's why blogs are so different nowadays, at least amongst experienced users. Beyond the occasional objective record of an event, say a birthday party or a night out clubbing, it's really quite hard to figure out what any given blogger is really trying to say anymore.

Yes. It is with great satisfaction that I tell all of you, the ones who always accuse me of being overly cryptic, that you can hardly find a blog out there that's not cryptic anymore.

If you approach blog-reading the way you do literature, there are indeed tools available to enhance understanding. You need:

1. To know the blogger's background, especially of his recent history
2. To know his desired audience
3. To have read enough of his posts to recognize patterns and styles

Basically, no one has time to do any of that. So, in effect, I think the large majority of posts go misunderstood, and hardly ever achieve their desired effect.

This creates consequences:

1. You can't read into someone's posts with any degree of certainty anymore.
2. You can't weave hidden meanings and messages into your posts anymore, and hope that that special target audience will understand.
3. You must be very, very careful about what you write, lest it be taken out of context (I think my friend Tris will understand this, haha)

Don't be mistaken, I'm glad that blogs are unreliable channels of communication. Humans were never meant to interact this way. We're supposed to size each other up, observe the hundred and one tell-tale body language signals, then decide if someone is telling us the truth.

We're not supposed to hop on someone's blog and hope to uncover nuggets of feelings or intentions or motives neatly ensconced in a few cryptic references. That's really a recipe for disaster in most cases.

That being said... I like being cryptic. And drama, evidently. =)

Appreciation

The day is often a blender of events, emotions, happenings, feelings. Life speeds by so fast that I find myself only reacting, rushing to keep up with the pace.

Fortunately, it so happens that the night is perfect for reflection. For that's when the world, or most of it, goes to sleep, and things slow down just enough for me to think about things.

And I'm often surprised at how much perspectives change after a little reflection. Joyful moments lose a little shine when I suddenly spot considerations that weren't there before, while sombre segments become more palatable when I manage to identify silver linings.

Most days, like today, I sleep well too. For there is much to be thankful for, no matter how much it doesn't seem that way at first.

I'm thankful for friends who gleefully join me in burying time capsules in town, who give wake up calls so that I don't miss breakfast with them, who don't mind trekking halfway across the island for supper.

I'm thankful for the little miracles, like meeting supportive librarians who help you loan 40 books at a shot, or like inspiration flowing at the right time so that certain stories can be told they way they deserve, or like Havianas mysteriously snapping so that you have an opportunity to maybe further a friendship.

I'm thankful for discovering that a nature trail I was looking forward to was closed off, and yet having an enjoyable enough time that it didn't really matter.

Count your blessings often enough, and you'll find that there's not much to regret at all.

Old Pictures

You ever wonder why old pictures, or pictures for that matter, are important to you?

It's because people are forgetful creatures. Memories, the children born of the wedlock between events in our lives and our emotional reactions to them, eventually fade. Every once in a while, we will need solid, concrete pictorial proof of the past to recall things.

And, in a way, old friends are like old pictures.

Today I had dinner with an old friend. It didn't matter that the last time we actually sat and talked properly was more than a year ago. Conversation came easily, all embargoes between our channels of understanding lifted by the mutual trust we shared.

When I walked out of the restaurant, I had a spring in my step that wasn't there before. I felt like me, again.

Perhaps it had to do with the laughs we shared. It's always a joy to laugh unreservedly around people you know you can trust, knowing that you could do the silliest things and not be judged.

Perhaps it had to do with her kindly saying that I hadn't really changed much, that I might have weathered storms but fundamentally I was the same. I was touched that she remembered me that way, and that I was still the same person to her.

So thank you, for dinner today. It's great to know you are getting on so well, and that you've a most promising future ahead. Thank you too, in a way, for helping me remember the happy, carefree me I was a year ago, and for helping make me feel accepted.

Not all bits of the past are unpleasant ones, I guess.

Crisis Management

Recently, I did something that can best be summed up as not "thoroughly thought through".

You know the standard operating procedure. When an idea flashes by your mind, you're supposed to evaluate the consequences, and then sleep on it. If you still see things the same way a day later, a week later, then do it. Impulse is often hazardous!

It's not that gut instinct is always wrong. In fact, it's often right. The problem is, gut instinct does not illuminate the best way you can go about doing something. It merely shows you the shortest, most obvious path to your objective.

This quick and dirty route, by its very nature, misses out on the finer nuances or considerations that any person with a positive EQ score would pick up on. Even if you think you're instinctively savvy, trust me, hindsight will put you in your place.

But life doesn't quite play out by the book, does it? Many times we find ourselves pressed to make the best choice in a limited time, or else face paralysis by indecision.

And you will inevitably make a mistake, or perhaps simply not make the best call about something. Then, voila! The mistake may even blossom into a full-blown Richter 8.0 Crisis.

I couldn't help but feel overwhelmed at first, for crises tend to do that. Initially, my mind did nothing but try to grapple with just how big the mess is, and I entertained a thousand useless questions like why did I do it that way and how could I not see a better choice.

But it got better the moment I cleanly excised all the emotional responses, and instead just focused on what I could do next. Given that the ogre of a Crisis had just hit puberty right before my eyes, what options were open to me, what possible courses of action might actually remedy the problem?

And then things got better.

This time around, I spent but an hour anguishing about the Crisis before I sprung into action. I'm improving, after all. One of the small graces in life, it seems.

Clarity

Tonight, was an important night for me. Very, very important.

Of course, different things are important to different people. Using a dash of olive oil instead of a splash may be inconsequential to the overstressed working mother trying to whip up a hasty dinner, but it is the world to the professional chef locked in the foremost culinary competition.

Yes?

Before tonight, the most dangerous, influential, perspective-wrenching movie I had watched was a little film starring Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke. I have, literally, multiple drafts trying to pin down the magic in that movie, trying my best to explain its effect on me.

It says a lot that up till this date, I have yet to publish one single post on it. There's... just too much to explain. Maybe one day I'll gain the faculties to do so, who knows.

And tonight, I had the sublime pleasure of watching another such movie like that. It's called Stranger Than Fiction.

I'm quite sure that if you watched it, chances are that you would march up to me and berate me for wasting 2 hours of your life. It was quirky, you would say. It was disjointed, poorly edited, flawed, preachy, unrealistic, or just plain dumb.

I would smile, in some small part because I have heard that all before, and it didn't change how important the movie was to me.

But I would smile largely because, there are others who understand.

Who Knows Best?

One of the more engaging cases we saw this week had all the elements of a classic Hong Kong gangster movie. It was a secret society trial, replete with harsh initiation rites, gang beatings, charismatic leaders and hapless victims.

The main differentiating factor though, was that the average age of the parties involved was 12, 13 years old.

At the trial's conclusion, the judge very sternly rebuked the kids, and forbade them from ever fraternizing with each other in school again. No meetings, no sitting together during recess, no hanging out after lessons. Nada. Zilch. A complete separation, break, split.

And that was what struck me the most.

See, the children were friends to begin with, even before the gang recruited them. They might still be friends now, even after the gang was dispersed.

But the court didn't care. The court, applying an objective standard, had decided that it was better for the children to stay apart, that it was in their best interests that they be separated, never to cross paths again. The standard was arguably a reasonable one, culled from years of academic research into the behavioural patterns of gang members, years of accumulated wisdom regarding child rearing, so on and so forth.

It didn't matter whether the children still wanted to be friends - the understanding was that they were too young or immature to decide what was best for themselves, and that society's neutral, passionless objective standard decried that they be isolated from one another.

Children grow up. We grow up too. Eventually.

Does a consensus distilled from the opinions of a thousand reasonable men always outperform an individual's own reasoned choice?

I wonder, is there ever a point when we are wise enough to choose our own paths, or will we always yield to society's collective wisdom?

Beating

I'm a Chinese dude. With conservative Chinese parents. Of course I was beaten when I was a kid.

As a child I was generally suicidal in the way I did things, being unable to, as my teacher put it, "think of the consequences beyond the next five minutes". I would run into glass walls, use my knees as brakes, jump happily into potholes. Pain was my constant, familiar companion.

So why did the beatings I received all those years ago, still manage to drive icy spikes of dread into my little heart? It couldn't be fear of the pain, right? You don't see Michael Jackson afraid of minor operations anymore, yes? Or JBJ afraid of minor parking fines, for that matter?

Now, years on, I understand why. It wasn't fear of the pain per se. It was a lethal cocktail of pain, shame in the knowledge you did wrong, and disappointing your parents. More on that later.

My parents got the beatings down to a fine art pretty fast too. They were complementary, that's why. My mum's the Good Cop, the nagger, the one who continually cajoles you until the wax drips out of your ears. She would threaten to hit me, but never could bring herself to. She was the one who would set me up for...

... the Bad Cop. My dad. The one who lurks in the background, doesn't speak much, who distractedly plays with Inquisitory Tools of Pain while you're trying to answer the Good Cop. And when he spanked me, it wasn't mere half-hearted Western-parent spanking... it was Golden Lotus Unfolding Palms Spanking. The Shaolin kind.

A typical Disciplinary Proceeding would thus unfold something like this:

Me: You're being unfair! It wasn't my fault!
Mum: Teng, please! We're doing this for your own good! Come, come listen to mummy...
Dad: *skulks in background*
Me: No, no! You tell me, what did I do wrong!
Mum: How many times have we told you, it's wrong to fight with your brother! You're older than him, you're supposed to take care of him!
Me: He bit me first!
Mum: He's a toddler! He doesn't know better!
Dad: *flicks a cane rhythmically against a table, hums "I Will Survive"*
Mum: You don't hit your friends right? So why hit your brother?
Me: 'Cause he's my brother! My friends would complain to their parents!
Mum: ... how disappointing. You leave me with no choice. Repent while you can, sinner!
Dad: *GOLDEN LOTUS UNFOLDING PALMS*

Of course, there were many times when I would think of retaliating. Just like the delinquents in movies, I would push my mother away, or something like that. But then I would think of my dad, and I would just whimper and give up. Heck, what did I have in my arsenal at that age, Raging Vengeful Rabbit Paw?

But children learn fast. Did not Sun Tzi once say, "What you cannot beat defeat head-on, you run the hell away from"? I soon learnt to recognize the signs, and before my parents could tag-team me I would go ballistic, zipping all over the house screaming bloody murder. Oh the glory days... I was faster and more unpredictable than a headless chicken with a firecracker up its egg-laying chute!

Of course, I knew I was going to get the same beating at the end, but heck, I had to have them earn it. Plus, the pre-emptive release of endorphins always made things easier to bear.

Which is why I'm always shocked when friends tell me they've never been caned / spanked / slapped by their parents before. It's the same shock AC* boys get when they head to Uni and find that other people are well-adjusted and pleasant and nice. Growing up in a world where physical punishment was a very real consequence indeed, I can't imagine how other kids could learn without a decent amount of corporal punishment.

It all boils down to the two main schools of thought regarding disciplining kids. On one extreme we have the modern Western teachings, which exhort reasoning with children and guiding them towards understanding the import of their actions. Children are goaded with incentives / disincentives, but never physical punishment.

On the other extreme, we have the Asian Kung-Fu teachings. Here, you may reason, you may persuade, you may cajole, but there will be a beating. If you need further elaboration, just watch Russell Peters.

In my opinion, the approach you adopt depends on the kid you have. I've observed that younger, immature kids can't reason for nuts (see above as to how I justified beating my brother over my friends), and it's fruitless trying to reason with them. What's the point in spending hours persuading a petulant 6 year-old anorexic-to-be that she needs her nutrition?

Yet, once the child develops a semblance of a functional self-aware brain, then reasoning is crucial. Beating drives home very clear boundaries, but when explanations and guidance are absent for too long, the child's moral growth is stunted, and lacks the necessary nuance.

And once the child develops a conscience, you can retire the canes and the secret Kung Fu manuals. You've been through it yourself. You're initially all defensive when your parents berate you over something, but slowly you begin to see the whole picture, and eventually you know you're wrong. And all without a beating, too.

I'm not saying that without beating you can never teach a kid well. I'm saying chances are higher that with a lil' harsh love you can guide them faster, earlier. So if by chance you're around 4 - 8 years old, and reading this, and have never been beaten before, please ask your parents to beat you.

Just don't say it with a wink in your eyes. I don't know about your parents, but if I did that to my conservative Chinese parents... whoaaaaa, mama.

Diet III

See, girls diet.

We all know that. And they diet for an amazing host of reasons which actually do sound reasonable, once you have the reasons chanted to you ad nauseum for hours on end.

(Think of it as your body’s natural survival instincts. There's a point when your will to argue back just withers, and one by one your brain cells die, and you just nod and agree. It's better than expending all your energy in a futile exercise)

What, you think naggy mothers pop out of nowhere? They have to cut their teeth somewhere too, you know.

But what surprised me was this. Guys. Diet. TOO.

And for the same reasons! For wanting to feel attractive, for wanting to fit into their clothes, for wanting to look good. Some do it for health reasons, but even then, there are healthier ways to get healthy (yes I have poor vocab, deal with it).

Just to be very clear, I’m not talking about Eating-The-Right-Food-Groups Dieting, but Today-Shall-Be-A-Water-Only-Day Dieting. There’s an objective line which I figure isn’t that hard to spot.

I’m surprised because I thought that girls are judged by their appearances, overwhelmingly more so than guys are, and therefore they are justified in a warped sort of way. But guys?

Of course, this doesn’t mean that guys should just flip off personal grooming and let their bodies go to ruin. Urgh. Let’s just say that if you diet, you better bloody know why you’re dieting.

So, in the quest towards beneficial dieting, some myths need to be debunked.

First, girls don’t really want us for the way our bodies are sculptured. True, if we all looked like Homer Simpson the only thing we’ll be turning on at night are our PS3s. But see, that’s only the first stage of attraction.

I mean, girls want us for so much more! They do, eventually, ascribe far greater weight to the other qualities we possess, like the way we are sensitive to their needs or how we keep them feeling secure.

Just ask the girls. Could they really live with a Greek God who had no other redeeming qualities they wanted? Sure, you’ll have something hunky to keep you company at night, but how much understanding can his six perfect abs give you? How much meaningful conversation can you get out of a pair of bursting pecs?

You: Sigh, darling, I had such a bad day today.
Pecs: *wiggle*
You: My boss picked on me, my colleagues backstabbed me, and I spoilt the photocopier. Please, say something to make the pain go away…
Pecs: *wiggle wiggle*

Second, everyone needs a little meat on them. Looking thin and lanky is not necessarily attractive! The key isn’t in exactly how thin or fat you are. The key is in looking healthy, exuberant, radiant. It’s how healthy an image you project that matters.

It’s almost an evolutionary trait, prizing healthiness over thinness. How do you think husbands still manage to summon so much love for their pregnant wives (aside from the threats of hormone-induced violence) ? You’ve seen that magical glow some pregnant women have, despite their… slight increase in size.

Overly-thin people just look fragile, wouldn’t you agree? People worry about being classified as ‘bak bak’, or fleshy, but in truth the most attractive people out there are reasonably meaty. If you starved yourself just so you could proudly exhibit your protruding hip bones or rib cage, trust me, people would look at you and feel instinctively that something was not quite right.

So, to my guy friends out there, diet because you want a balanced intake of food. Diet because it’s healthy for you. Please don’t diet simply because you think it makes you look hotter, more attractive.

I can’t deny that physical attraction does matter, but the effort you put into dieting can also be channeled into making yourself a more complete, attractive individual, yes?

And to show my commitment to my beliefs, I shall don a dark cape and assume the identity of Food Man. And wherever I find a guy who diets for dubious reasons, I will tempt you.

I will scoff at your Vegetables-Only Diet. I will point out every single KFC and BK we pass by, and I will recite their latest menu additions. I will recount intimate accounts of when I last had a fantastic, wholesome, sinful meal. I will moannn and shake uncontrollably whenever we see a Kinder Bueno commercial.

I will not stop, until I see you happily eating again.

For I am Food Man.

* You can find my other posts on Diets here and here. =)

No Need For Words

We sat in the public gallery of the courtroom, all 12 of us Legal Service interns. We knew it was a criminal trial for charges of drug trafficking, but we couldn't help feeling a little bit detached.

After all, hadn't we already seen enough of these cases in our textbooks? Hadn't we already plowed through the arguments for and against the death penalty, in relation to Singaporean drug trafficking charges? Hadn't we already seen it all?

So there we were, insulated against cold, harsh reality. We were detached observers, mere spectators.

Until the accused came in. And started gesturing to his family in sign language. The thick panes of glass between them may have inhibited sound and distorted sight, but they did nothing to stem the torrents of understanding that flowed in those moments.

Fingers trailing down his cheeks, furrowed brows, a quick shake of the head. Don't cry for me. Whatever you do don't cry. A thumbs up, a tentative, manic grin. Of course I'm fine, why would I not be fine?

Open palms, nonchalent shrugs, undulating shoulders. I won't know what will happen, how could I? Why worry now? Chin tilted upwards, raised eyebrows, head jerking in their direction. Is mother fine? Is grandma fine? Are you two boys ok?

A crooked index finger. A quick draw across the neck. But still, still that cheerful, weary, belaboured smile. I will hang. I know I will. But life goes on, right? Don't be sad for me.

I tried hard to concentrate on the legal arguments being bandied around. But this wasn't a textbook case anymore. There was no court reporter here to excise all the cancerous emotions and reduce the proceedings to black print upon white paper. It was real.

In time I guess I will be desensitized, and I will learn to focus only on the arguments before me. But I hope that time will be a long time in coming.

Letter To The Past

Dear Hanting of so-long-ago,

My my, it's not been one year since you wrote that letter, but a full seven years. Seven years, seven years of growth, of experience, of observing how the world ticks.

Remember back in Primary Three, when you thought kissing led to babies? ... Ok in a way kissing does lead to babies, just not directly, argh you know what I mean. And when you discovered the truth you laughed so hard at Primary-Three-Hanting?

Well, in a way, I also couldn't help laughing when I read what you wrote, Sec-Four-Hanting. It's not that I am being condescending... it's just slightly amusing to imagine your eyes shining with bright, wild-eyed idealism as you penned your thoughts back in Jan 2000.

I wish I could reveal all that lies ahead of you, so that you may avoid the pitfalls, and fully treasure the fleeting flashes of happiness that pass you by. But we both know we can't do that. You won't learn as much, will you?

What I can do, is to provide the merest glimpses into what you will become.

You will learn how to fully cherish your friends, family and loved ones. I know it’s a constant struggle for you, seeking the best way to provide for them, but take heart. You will be proud someday at the way you reach out to them.

Yet, you will not remain unscathed forever. Disappointments may tattoo their dalliances with you on the canvas of your soul, but you will be glad for the lessons they bring. Take heart too! Bitterness and anger will never take root for long, for though you may be damaged, you still are whole.

The rest is for you to discover. Exciting, ain't it?

Letter To The Future

Back in Sec 4 our tutor made us write letters to ourselves. At the beginning of the year, we were to detail the personal growth we wanted to experience, the goals we wanted to attain, by the end of the year.

Our tutor would collect the letters, and mail them back to us after we graduated. It would be a good way for us to chart our progress through life, he said.

And this was what I wrote:

"Dear fat-shit, haha, I bet you've forgetten about this. But Mr. Indra hasn't, so here you are, with what you wrote back in Jan 2000.

I wonder how you are now, really. Did your O's go well? Did you finally manage to pass Maths? Haha, did you manage to improve at carrom, or win anything at Nationals?

It's mind-boggling, trying to predict what would happen 365 days later. The possibilities are just endless... but you and I both know, aside from these practical achievements, there are more important things at stake.

How are you, as a person? Do you still stand for the values I stand for now?

Have you managed to reach out to your parents and brother? I know it's difficult to, and it's terribly easy to lead a life separate from theirs, but don't. Any friction you've experienced so far is merely the result of them trying to weave you into their lives, trying to share their experiences with you. I have to write this to remind you, because you tend to forget all this sometimes.

Do you still give your friends your all? Are you still investing the energy and time into keeping your friendships alive and well? No man's an island, and you know you have the propensity to keep to yourself at times... but don't. You've already learnt that friends enrich the world, so don't backtrack now. If you have no idea how valuable they all, all the more you should not easily discount them.

Have you gotten attached? Haha, have you broken up, for that matter? I have no idea what falling in or out of love feels like, but right now I know if I'm attached, I would really bend over backwards to give her my all. She's precious, so never take her for granted... always trust her, always be open with her. If she lets you down, please don't change because of her. Someone else is waiting for you, someone else who wants you the way you are. You know that.

Continue to improve, Hanting. Be the person you want to be. Be open with people, caring, sensitive, funny, thoughtful, engaging. You like it too, don't you, when you help make people smile? Take pride in being able to avoid the common mistakes other people fall into. Go out there and make every day memorable, for you and the people around you!

You have a duty to bring happiness and meaning to the people around you, because it is already so easy to sow discord and cynicism for life... If ever you feel lost and unsure of what to do, pretend Ms. Gan's still here, and just imagine what she would advise you to do. She was usually right.

I hope, from the bottom of my heart, that you are smiling as you are reading all this. If not, then remember that one year ago you were me, with all this idealism and conviction to save the world your way.

Whether or not this letter serves as a mere milestone to mark your journey, or a signpost to guide you back to the path, I just want to say... I can't wait to read this myself again one day. I want to know what I've become."