Comeback...all the way from New York! 1:21 pm

Pictures will follow in the next entry. Gotta sleep now la.

My fingers seem abit raw typing into a blog template. It has been eeeeeeeeons since I blogged.

Arrived in New York last night. Took a New York Cab from JFK into Brooklyn where I will be putting up for the next couple of weeks. Finally, after watching them on TV screens all these years, I was finally in a yellow cab on the other side of the screen, reality. Surreal I must say, when I saw the Manhattan skyline. "Wow" just escaped my mouth.

New York is different. Perhaps its the saying that is playing tricks on my subconscious, but I really think the grass is literally greener here.

After having lived and breathed (hence the blackened sinus) London for the past 2 months, I do have some basis of comparison. New York is different. Perhaps brighter, bigger, taller and more daunting; crossing streets in New York actually instills fear of being run down.

New York seems to embrace consumerism whilst London merely seems to give it a generous tap on the shoulder, typical of a reserved British sociability. In New York, there are stores selling things of things that people don't actually need, but want. New York creates desires you never knew you had. To put things in perspective, I spent the most of my afternoon in the NBC Experience Store browsing paraphernalia of "30 Rock", "Heroes", "The Office", "Friends"...as well as rummaging the Hershey's and MTV Store. I bought a Hiro Nakamura bobbing head figurine (Limited Edition).



Talk about buying what I don't actually need, but want.

Anyhow, I start work tomorrow. And my journey of New York continues. Despite getting lost on the subway, ending up in Harlem, I keep my eyes, mind and ears open to the smells (urgh!) and teeny bits New York has to offer.

Seeing things that I only saw in movies and TV, and heard in songs really made for a moving experience today. "...I'm in a New York state of Mind" -Billy Joel.


Uncle T

Back home...home? 8:27 pm

I just got back last night. There are so many things to do.

mails to clear (approximately 600-odd);
things to check out after the trip (history, design, freitag etc.);
of course, my 3 assignments due;
new year resolutions;
news to catch up on;
the list can and will go on...

The world moves too fast, too quick. At least my world does. Perhaps its about time management? No. This world incites speed and zooming-about. If only every night could be a Viennese one, and every morning a Swiss one, and every afternoon a Parisian one.

Dreams keeps our voids from cankering and being consumed by darker obsessions, so its okay to dream. I miss mee pok tah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wakao.

Back to laundry, then work. Hope I create the time to upload photos. But sometimes I ask why does today's web-ised world encourages the sharing of our lives, emotions and entirety with the world through blogs, online-statuses, facebooks etc. Can't really answer the question, so I'll allow myself to be led by the sweeping wind of societal norm. whee!

Uncle T

the morning randomness.... 6:22 pm

...scribbling on frozen windscreens...
...easter candles and Mass on a weekday...
...what a gentleman. not many of us left these days...
...christmas cards left on the parish table. waiting...
...wandering about the times when their white hair was black/brown...
...closing my eyes and images rushing in, forcing a smile...
...the sweet coincidence in His plans...

To school!

Uncle T

The Rediscovery of...... 6:35 am

I'm gonna discover; rediscover something that I once knew. I think the last time I truly felt it was....15,16? I'm gonna find it back now. It's somewhere....I just know it. Gotta find it.

Debate. One of the best ways to learn is debate, discuss, dispute. Ask questions. Ask questions of questions.

Some people deem it lonely. Solitude, perhaps? Amidst the cold. Was this not what I asked for?

You awake daily with the hope that you bump into a stranger, a book, a phrase, that will change your life forever. That hope is powerful.

Uncle T

Random spurts from the library 3:04 am

As usual, been ages since I've blogged. Funny that's how often I start entries these days.

In the library in week 1 of the holidays. Trying, which is the key verb, to do my assignments before I head off for a long, and costly, holiday this Sunday.

Do you not sometimes get the urge to tell the world how you feel inside? Perhaps those urges manifest today in terms of blogging. And mass school murders.

Filled with trepidation about this holiday. Nice, rosy things tend to upset; we often set too ridiculous expectations to such things; like holding an ice ball and hoping it would last forever. But on a happier note, the holiday would be with Yong :) Darling, let's have a splendid holiday! (considering the amount of money we are spending on it).

But I think first we have to see what we define as a "good holiday".

Miss my housemates. They are good people. Miss people back home.

Uncle T

Simple thank-yous 3:48 am

Such simple things that make you rethink your existence; how simple actions are not mere moments that should be lost in the dustbin of mundanity. So cheem, but if you think about it, rather true.

Watching fireworks from my window, with a few boxes of our own in the flat next door. Played regional floorball tournament last weekend, a day I've waited for close to 8 years to play a sport competitively.

You see? Simple things bring so much meaning, if only we, I, spend just a moment more beyond that moment of unconscious action to think about the act and the preceding journey that led you to that.

So cheem, but if you think about it, rather true.

Uncle T

Random Clouds 10:07 pm

I have not been updating my blog. Of late too, questions about people and social circles have cropped up. What is my blog for? Who reads?


Anyhow, watched Coventry v. West Ham, my 3rd football game in this country :) Sadly, Coventry lost. That very night, I was moved by blind loyalty to cheer the side that obviously played better but lost, in my view, from the lack of the touch of quality.


I'm diseased. With a seemingly drawn out and nagging nigbigzitthwart that makes me ineffective, scared of facing reality and inefficient. Its making me ask silly questions too. I need to refocus, and re-centre. Its just that the core is currently a vacuum.





Uncle T

Description, no prescription. 6:45 pm

A unified, universal perversity,
Where social morality echoes through the
Empty chasm of mortal existence.

What fills it is that perversity;
The one we shun and denounce,
But which is closest to our tarnished souls.
Desire, lust, greed, fear, impatience, betrayal,
All which the religious is quickest to admonish.
Yet, the halo is often a social accessory
That is quick to come off in the confines of solitude;
Is it not easy to forget He/She is there.

O peversity that cankers.
Who to blame for it? The Fall?
Cannot be us, can it?
I want to banish it,
Yet it is I who willingly latches it onto my existence.
It hurts greatly trying to remove its tenticles.

Uncle T

How is it like to be a potato? 8:27 pm

How is it like to be a potato?
With people, cooperations and schoolkids alike, wanting you so bad?
With mothers enticing children to swallow greens with your presence?
With being confused for being a green when you're not?
When you wield the power to pump the tyre around the girth?
When you, after being processed thoroughly, are my favourite unhealthy snack?
How is it like, Potato, being so renowned?

Or should I even be asking you that?
When you are grown in one place, but harvested by people from the South?
When cooperations process you being your intrinsic self?
Should I ask Chemicals and Salt as they perhaps are the cosmetics of your barren self?
Or should the packaging which you are in after being pulped into chips?



Uncle T

My Own Blockbuster 6:50 pm

I don't reckon that it will be considered an epic. Ever.

Yet, it had it poignant moments, and moments which I hope will stay in that portion of my grey matter which governs my daily life, my daily choices.

As I sat in the cinema seat expecting a family comedy, there were two episodes in the movie that moved me:

1. When you pray for courage, does God give you courage? When you pray to bring your family closer, does he make your family closer, or does he give you the opportunity to love them more?

2. To change the world, you can't really do it in a single act, but by cumulating small "Acts of Random Kindness", you possibly can.

Funny to make a reference to Mother Teresa and a Hollywood flick in the same breadth, but the former's personal letters have recently been published, revealing that Mother Teresa indeed suffered till her very last breathe the torment of knowing God being there yet not feeling His presence, does tie in with the second episode of the movie that I found moving.

Very often, especially being fresh out of teens, it tends to get easily cynical and jaded, and things like "change the world" and "world peace" tends to snugly belong to the bosoms of Miss Universe candidates. But the movie reminded me that "to know that one life has breathed because you lived, this is to have succeeded" (R.W.Emerson), and I don't need to be the President of the US (okay fine, bad choice of benchmark) to benchmark world-changing success.

How often do we complain, us with religions, that the Divine does not answer our prayers, or so we think. I think He answers our prayers with many opportunities that are carefully hidden in the little crevices of daily life, however routine however extraordinary, and that episode in the movie thoroughly reminded me of that, enough for me to blog after so long.

It does not need to be an epic, a blockbuster by capitalist standards (box office sales), but simply that those episodes in the movie spoke to me, it is my blockbuster. The cynic may say those are carefully crafted moments in order to win over your epiphany-tear-jerking points. I say that through the script writers, the director, the actors and even the script itself, those episodes were indeed those crevices in life that we often miss that contains so much inight into life; my life in this case.

Morsels that turns into a banquet. 5 loaves and 2 fishes, for the 5000.

Its my blockbuster. Do you have one? Look beyond the popcorns perhaps the next time you pay your $7/$9.50. You may just find yours.

Uncle T

Youth Bulge Theory 2:05 pm

I stumbled upon an article today that gave an alternative perspective on the war in Afghanistan, using youth-bulge theories and demographics as a source of wars and violence in general. The article can be found at: http://opendemocracy.com/conflicts/democracy_terror/islamism_war_demographics_rage

It is not scriptures from holy books or poverty that drives the conflict in Afghanistan, the article says. Rather, it is the "youth bulge" that spurs this violence. In fact, poverty alleviation actually can actually fuel the violence, given the youth bulge condition present.

To better understand how poverty alleviation with the youth buldge condition actually fuels violence is to first understand youth bulge. Youth bulge theory posits that, based on the study of history, shows clearly that when 30% or more of a nation's male inhabitants are in the 15-29 age bracket, the result is chaos, violence and upheaval. This creates a huge pool of economically superfluous young men who, because of humanitarian aid, are not in hunger, fed, but out of jobs. To get those limited positions in society, they will fight for it, and for fed and able-bodied men with no jobs, starting and sustaining fights on the basis for survival is not hard to fathom.

However, in order not to appear as cold-blooeded killers fighting for themselves, many of these men take lofty stand-points to come across as "honourable executioners" of the elites. Hence, because of this adament inclinations to use religious rhetoric as a cover of their cause, an appeal to rational interpretations of religious scriptures will hardly dent their violent "fanaticism".

Looking at Afghanistan's "reservoir" of fighters coming from its burgeoning young males, greatly outnumbers the number of soldiers NATO can put on the frontlines. While the article does not provide any solution, it leaves me guessing what kind of solutions the West and other policy-makers may put forth in light of this demographic-driven war.

Any solutions to suggest?

Uncle T

........... 12:18 am

Orders kopi peng and duck noodles...

It is about 2 weeks since I have arrived back home. Well, back to work tomorrow. You know your life needs a booster when work is like army; the only thing you look forward to the whole day is book-out. It has not reached that for me. Not yet. Not when its merely 2 weeks on the job. Wrong. Job connotes paid labour. Training, learning is the word.

And learn I do indeed. So much to learn, something new everyday so long as you keep your mind open, and ears willing, one will grow wiser with everyday that you're one day closer to your final bed.

Watched Harry Potter today; nothing life changing after all the cinematic magic; just that dull thud of reality that my life can never be like Harry Potter's no matter how much I will it. Often known as fiction. Pure fiction.

"Thoughts shape words, words shape actions, actions shape habits, habits shape character, character shape destinies." Such wise words He offers when I ask Him for guidance. And this came from an email floating around my inbox today. Listen, and you will here His voice. Clear out the scepticism and nurture faith. Only then will we start to His whispers that were all along there.

Uncle T

Aiyoh..... 2:08 am

Orders saturated fats and unhealthy sedatives and comfort chocolates and...

Boy do I need exercise. Must. Will have to do. When I have time. Depends on the weather. Oh well.

Its the penultimate paper tomorrow. Essentially 2 papers away for this chapter to come to a close. It has been harrowing, trying, educating, humbling (along with many other -ing words).

Its logic tomorrow. And floorball afterwards! That one I can't wait for.

What goes on in my head? How do I think? What helps me think? What impedes my thinking efficiency? Can my thinking capacity be altered, expanded or made deeper? Things that I will have to think about.

The western liberal project, since Enlightenment, has promoted individualism. Liberal economics thinks along self-interested rational indivduals. Yet, I can't do that. Other people's interest continually invade my decision-making. Perhaps its because of the culture/ environment I was raised in. Perhaps its just me.

Other countries have charged Singapore, more specifically the government, for being undemocratic, possibly charges of authoritarianism. The reason for concern in levelling such charges, I assume beyond the need to find some country's sovereignty and probe at it, is the resulting oppression of individual liberty of Singaporeans.

True, there may be laws that "fine" us regularly, with a death penalty that would send the Aussies hopping. Yet, one can look at it from the standpoint that these laws provide rules that we know will be observed by other members of society, and thus makes social decisions easier to make, hence making us "free-er" from the problems of being fearful of other members of society acting in ways we may not expect. Sure, this is just a generalisation.

But also, by building our non-dependency on the government for welfare, the laws may actually makes us "free-er" compared to many welfare states in the West, where taking welfare payouts may make the individual dependent on the state, and therefore less free, contrary to the Western-default rhetoric.

Oh well, just muses. I'm only starting to appreciate all that I'm studying after the exams. Ha. Like how Dragonball may perpetuate a western superiority (haha. Guofeng say one!): when you power-up, your hair turn yellow (yellow ppl where got yellow hair?)

Uncle T

Its finally starting 6:58 am

My first major exams in 3 years. Its finally here. Its starting. I wonder what I take along, what I leave behind...

Amen.

Uncle T

The Clock and the streams of consciousness 4:53 am

The clock sits squarely above the partition line on the wall. I have been noticing the clock for some time now; when I first saw it today it had the hour hand at 10, and now, its at 10 again. But I was sure it moved, or has it?

Surely it has. It was bright outside, noisy inside (the library). Now its bright inside, and quiet everywhere (except for 'Top Banana' going on in the distance at the Union). It is quiet enough for me to hear the exams looming round the corner shelf, awaiting to come and go.

A tad bit nostalgic, not homesick. Miss makans with Daddy, and driving along our roads. You know, I actually have not left campus grounds for...some time now. The beauty, or pathetic sad-state, of being on a self-contained campus. But the Tocil Woods, with the ducklings, gooslings, make up for this isolation.

Back to studying I guess. Can't wait to have the exams over; to head over to Berlin, Reims, Stratford and home. Yet, don't want it to come (the exams I mean) because I'm afraid I won't appreciate the exhilaration of post-exams well enough; the holidays will pass me by like a whiff, and soon I will be back at a desk, possibly slaving over the unfinished work of someone who has had authority to give me work to do, and thereby easing their own workload. Ambivalent, that's what Ian loves to say. Perhaps I'm not ambivalent, rather torn, having myself being at both the polarities.

Come what may, so they say (who's they? who's we?). I'm starting to appreciate my course at university much more. Think it will be an exciting academic year ahead. But what is still left begging is what I'll be doing beyond academics. Who knows?


Uncle T