The Talk Project

Okay, will upload pictures later. But anyway, this (as usual) came about because I was annoyed with something. So this something this time round is that I don't like people, ncluding myself, to be in the public and not chatting to each other. Why is that so? Is it because people have to protect themselves against others to prevent overexposure of social interactions? (I forgot which famous guy said that, but I learn it in GP. Thanks Mr C.) Or is it because of the smartphone era where people are wedded to their mobile devices, playing games like Candy Crush, watching Korean dramas, listening to music and (in my case) watching iTunes U lectures? Or could it simply be a case of conformists refusing to change the status quo because they don't mind it?

Anyway, to try and get people talking on the MRT and bus and in parks and whatnot to avoid awkward silences, I came up with this project one night, meaning I gave form to it two days ago. So it's still just me but I'm going to try and recruit my friends. Friends, watch out. Hehe. I want to see if I can be a "hub", someone who can connect to many different friends and help create a wave from there. It's also a way to see the power of social media. 

So what I'd like people to do is this: 
Route 1. Get a "namecard"; be inspired enough by me/ someone else to go home, surf the net to find a jpeg to print/scan in the namecard thing and distribute them around as well.
Route 2. See people posting a weird card like thing on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and changing their profile pictures to a picture that says Talk. Get intrigued enough to read on. Get the courage to spread it around. Get even more courage to talk to others on the way home when there's nothing else o do but play games. 

Will it be successful? Will it be a passing fad? Is a passing fad all that I want? Is it what most people who've tried stuff like this want? Probably not. But don't we all try and then hope for the best? So, I hope for the best. Perhaps in a year's time a miracle may have happened and when I'm out from NS on the weekends I see people being really friendly to each other, regardless of trying to protect their sanity from too many social interactions blah blah. 

Dreams

Actually, I'm not doing much for NUS scholarships application and USP for now (...)
SIGH
I wonder why )))))):
These are two things I really want to get! USP because I want to study architecture and take on something similar to liberal arts. Scholarship because it offers me the option of USP. And well... Who doesn't want free money? Free hostel fees (for the most prestigious of them all); laptop allowance; yearly allowance; THE CHANCE TO GO OVERSEAS WAHHH FOR USP TOO; and no bond! It's a dream come true... but will the scholarship board want someone who doesn't have straight A's, who doesn't have a single leadership position due to multiple insecurities; who has low self esteem?

But then again, do dreams come true if we don't try? Am I not trying? I don't want to be this self anymore, this person who slacks, who theoreticises but doesn't carry out what he proposes. I don't want to be an armchair critic. I don't want to keep sleeping away my weekends (my sleep was 9+ hours long these past two days. So am awake now to type all this.). I want to actively seek out and be what I want to be. I'll seek out my uncle for advice. Heck, I'll make plans to go knock on people's doors and see if they are intrigued enough to help me. (So help, please. Hehehe.) And if I manage to snag USP and/or a NUS scholarship (any one that allows me to go for USP!) I will honestly cry. Because these are things which I've never ever wanted so very badly in my entire life (apart from a certain someone). So I'll fight for it. And hopefully I touch souls. I get to touch my dream.

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Anyway. Moving on. I'll be trying to do something extremely rudimentary tomorrow because I suddenly decided to do it after a rather long talk and a rather long day which hasn't resulted in much concrete action. Please, whoever is watching over me... Give me strength. Strength to change myself and to change others. (Hint: is mentioned in one of the posts below.)

**********************

Moving on on the moving on.

Yes.

To all the people out there in the world who actually somehow or rather chance upon my blog.

Do you have a dream? Or dreams?

Are you tryng to make them work?

Or do you think that you've seen it all, especially if you're an adult?

Especially Singaporeans... Are we, as a nation, keen to stay as a country with extremely high PISA scores but yet unwilling to translate into entrepreneurship? Are we satisfied with iron rice bowls? Do we not dream? Have we abandoned our dreams for the cold, hard reality that is so apparent to us?

Perhaps I'm still young, still innocent, still naive enough to dream.

But while this lasts, while I am not yet jaded enough to resign myself to simply churning out run-of-the-mill designs as an arhcitect (hypothetical scenario), I encourage you, dear viewer, to take a few minutes and think. Have you left your dreams to fade and die? Why? Why not keep trying?

I, too, have dreams. Dreams of going overseas, to study with the best of the best. Dreams that were punctuated by me being less hardworking than I should have. Dreams that were torn asunder by my A level results. But should we continue crying for ever? (I know I mope a lot... Maybe it'll stop in a few months more to come. Heh.) Shouldn't we patch up our dreams and continue to surf the wind and see where we go? Isn't there always the question, "what if"? (In no reference to what I wrote to James Lee, Author of the Mr Midnight series, as a primary school kid.) What if we don't stop dreaming? What if we all decided to pluck up the courage to stop regretting? What if we decide to change?

How many people have I met who have dissuaded me from architecture? Yet what am I afraid of? What happens when dreams are realised but aren't what we make them out to be?

But if we never try, we never know. This is the biggest lesson that my grades have taught me.

Because I am not content to simply exist and then have my light snuffed out a few decades later. Why continue wasting our minutes, hours, days, months? Whatever age we are, do we not want to be the best that we can be? Learn as much as there is to learn? Take in the beauty of the world? Do we really want to blunder through life before hitting a mid-life crisis?

So for our own sakes, I feel that we should pluck up the courage to change ourselves and our environment.

I personally find this the hardest thing to do, ever. But yet, I must keep trying. And I hope everyone else does too.

 

Architecture

The title says it all, huh. Before I forget (again) I need to type this out. 

So, what do I dislike about the world? I'm pretty sure that there aren many, many rants about the stupid construction sites I've seen as I walked home in the past. The iron behemoths that belch smoke, that don't belong; the earth rent open and exposing a huge gash of red clay; the loss of magnificent trees and structures that evoke the kampungs of yesteryear.

So why not become an architect who tries his best to stop these kind of things from happening?

One person whom I admire is this guy, Ng Sek San, who incorporates an old shophouse into the new hotel and builds a glasshouse inside as the living quarters. He should be the person whom I saw in the newspapers last year, I guess... Perhaps I should be crazy and ask if they allow interns from Singapore over. Maybe sleep in the company and launder my own clothes. As long as I get to learn. And not do things like saving email. Meh. Anyway here's the link: http://www.seksan.com/ you won't regret clicking on it!

Also, I think there's a general percention among the Singapore architecture fraternity that landscape architecture is something that is below conventional architecture (and the professions as well). Just take a look at NUS's grade requirements to get into an M.Arch specialisation. Hah. Anyway, I recently read a manga called Hell's Kitchen where someone is enslaved by a demon who yearns to taste a 'true chef's soul' and hence hones him to become one. He enrolls in a cooking school where the cooking division think that the agriculture department is useless and vice versa; but in one of the chapters that concludes this arc, it is revealed that both are needed to produce an even more transcendental food; for example, rice may be cooked well, but of poor quality; rice may be of good quality but cooked badly by an inexperienced person. So, the synthesis - good rice procured and cooked by a good chef - would result in the best taste of all. Is it not the case that we often pick the good points, discard the bad and have some brainwave to continue innovating and moving forward? And is it not the case also that we often need different parts to work together harmoniously in order to produce a whole? Without the gums, the teeth are cold (Chinese idiom); we should learn from each other, not beat others down. The Hagelian dialectic (a quick search on Wikipedia tells me that Hegel had nothing much to do with it though! Sigh.) is so useful.

Introspective

The power of social networks is amazing. Let's just leave it at that. 'Guanxi' is not only relevant in China, but also applies to other countries as well.

Anyway, wouldn't it be cool if every person makes it a point to talk to just a single other person on the public transport? Well, I should probably start first, by giving this initiative a name - let's say, Talk Together (T.T) - and then trying it out for myself and giving others hand-drawn namecards. I may even be able to turn it into a money-spinner by selling the idea to the MRT dudes and doodads! Hohohoho. Just kidding. See, even my sentence structure has been oh-so-carefully crafted to make it seme like I regressed back into Secondary One. And if guys' brains mature later than girls' brains, how mentally old is a Sec One kid? Hmm. I recall being unable to recall much earlier than circa primary three but at least I was past my suicidal kiddy stage in lower sec, before I became emo for some strange reason in upper sec. Now I'm relatively happy (the sort of happiness that the not-so-smart enjoy, e.g. playing not-so-smart handphone games, reading manga and not reflecting on it) but with pretty low self esteem.

Anyway away from the deviation and trying to get back to a serious mode.
...
I forgot.
:D
Perhaps I have early-onset Alzheimer's.
This is a pretty scary thing because even the younger patients tend to be in their thirties.
Now I have coincidentally been listening to iTunes U lectures on Alzheimer's and it turns out to be a pretty fascinating subject. And anyway the hippocampus starts shrinking about 10-12 years before diagnosis so the brain is able to redirect and maintain cognitive function for quite a long time. Impressive.
But then again, my memory has always been characteristically bad, so I'll only start to really worry when I lose track of entire conversations. Currently it's more like I forget about washing the dishes a few tens of minutes after I tell myself to do them. I'm not hopeless yet... right?

Anyway, I have no idea what I just did apart from rattling on and on about an eclectic mix of my life. Prattling is actually pretty fun, but serves almost no point. We'll see how the next post fares.

Dam

Anyway, there will probably be a glut of posts soon. Because I have some thoughts that I've been wanting to share but didn't have the time to do so. Stuff that I want to talk about:

1. Posting almost-daily about new things that I've learnt. Because it really isn't too impossible to learn something new every day. So, a way to remember it would be through this.

2. Occasionally posts may come out where I'm exploring different personalities and lives. Just placing myself in others' shoes and seeing what short essay may come out from that. Been a long time in coming, still not arrived but will come soon.

3. A few suggestions about stuff. Like: Imagine there being a grassy field in the middle of the Central Business District. Actually, a tree-filled plain works too. But yes, a field with nothing on it but a door. Perhaps there is some form of jutting out of glass too but I haven't really fleshed it out yet. But the main point is, there is a flight of stairs leading down, into a small theatre space. Bookings can be done and it would be something of a Room of Everything (is that what it's called? The room where people need stuff from and is the HQ of DA.) and contain a grand piano, microphones, cables, lighting, control room, ... and people can come in to hide from the rain or sun for example and they enter a comfortable grotto with people spontaneously presenting their ideas, commenting, voicng out, singing, playing the piano, whatever. I think such a space would be fantastic in making us more outspoken, more liberal, more friendly.

4. Movie review on Cloud Atlas finally and Stephen Chow's Journey to the West. It turns out that he did something similar a number of years ago but I respect him for being able to reinvent, retain a certain song and make the story behind Sun Wukong's golden headband beyond romantic. I love the show. Really.

5. A little comment. I discovered on the Meyer-Briggs personality test/ MBTI test/ whatever you call it that I am an INFJ. Whatever that means, but I is for Introvert. Not surprising there, but I want to be an outspoken introvert, one who doesn't mind befriending people on the train and has the courage to do what he wants to do and the charisma to lead and influence people. Darn, do I want to be given the chance to lead. Let this introvert blossom and grow.

Death and Rebirth

I died.

My A level results were fairly crappy. It's not going to be something that will leave me soon but instead stays quietly and omipresent like a shadow. Or the sound of your own breathing.

In all honestly, I am desperate now. After all the wake-up calls, fate/God/etc decided to give me a slap in the face. So I am jumping into architecture (hopefully), with no knowledge of the arts whatsoever, no music theory background, no drawing or painterly experiences, a less than ideal academic background, zero - absolutely zero - leadership. So many regrets. Even now, after I've held my resolve, my heart wavers. Should I enter architecture, knowing full well the future that awaits? Can I design good buildings? Am I even working hard? I must keep flogging myself with a mental whip - castigate my lazy self into shape. From the Open Yale psychology course (a little outdated at 2007, sadly...), that's my "it" and "superego" at work. I am two persons, one trying to slack as much as he possibly can and the other trying to make up for eighteen years' worth of wasting time.

My grades honestly make me sad. It doesn't matter if it's a true reflection of myself, that I'm still a good person, blah blah. I should be able to do anything I set myself to do. Yet my English grammar remained weak; my Chinese remained a B; my econs grade remained... well, unbelievably bad. Why? Why am I giving scholarship boards and universities a reason to flat out throw my applications in the bin? Why am I disadvantaging myself? Why am I resting while the world is working hard?

I don't believe that I'm being too hard on myself. But I wish for this to be the final time I need a reminder when I fail at something big. It's so painful... too painful to repeat again. It is living with the knowledge of the full extent of your sins being exposed to yourself. It is having a knife twisted in you when others who you know have worked hard get their overseas offers and scholarships, thinking: will anybody still want me? Just a person who is full of regret, head filled with nothing and possessing nothing more than a fierce desire to better himself, day by day; trying to transcend the husk of being a (very, very lowly) mortal. It is a case of the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak...

So many people whom I've let down, but most of all myself.

And so I shall continue plodding on, as if I had disobedient legs which I must manually, labouriously lift and carry forward... Screaming out for help in my head, and wishing fervently that someone - anyone - would listen, and oblige.

Perhaps I should have disregarded my own heart and simply tried for a leadership position? I know I would have gotten something and things may be so different now. Yet at that instant, my consiousness sneered at me for being materalistic. Oh, my brain... My brain, in which inhabits so many different me's. Can the good one please always win out? The one that says he'll have the self-discipline to study and read the papers and apply to scholarships and universities and train for NS before sleeping? Only then can I truly start to progress.... only then will I be on my way to a place in life when I can finally say that I can stop being hardworking and enjoy my last few moments slacking before leaving the world.

Arbitrary

I came up with something during my night of baking a chocolate cake but unfortunately, I've forgotten it.

My life is sometimes just so random. Yet all the same, it's quite boring.

Said chocolate cake gave me a sore throat which hasn't recovered since Thursday morning (it's Sunday night now). I suppose it was my mistake to eat a spoonful of chocolate ganache (i.e. mostly melted chocolate and some other sinful thing) in a bid to waste lesser money. Heh. Then I cooked steak, and tonight was pork chop and rice. Rice was too hard though. Oops. Baking and cooking is fun, but its toll on my pocket is not so fun. I'm relatively broke as of now. And you get to realise how sinful most western foods are. Western, because I've not cooked anything else for now. Shall attempt Chinese or some other Asian thing soon.

Anyway, while cycling with friends one day, I realised that if Singapore would have lesser people staying in it in the future (regardless of the Government's current plan to increase population size - mine is long term), it's because we have diverted too much from nature. Imagine, a city where most nature is manufactured and simply aartificial. Then compare it to another place - it could be anywhere in the world - but the parks run mostly free; the sand is natural; the trees aren't imported; the river isn't fake or made into a sad little canal. I'd choose the latter any time. Sometimes, in the race towards extra greenery or anything else to tout being cosmopolitan, or trying to increase the population and neglecting every other side effect, we Singaporeans inadvertently shoot ourselves in the foot. This replacing of natural grassland and woods with buildings and concrete can be said to have happened for most cities around the world, in fact. And it can be compared to a human progressively getting new metal parts and turning into a cyborg. While the overarching idea is ostensibly for progress while preserving culture, we may, in retrospect, suddenly find that we are not who we once were. So where's the culture that we speak so proudly of? Or has it silently vanished into the background while we were focused on developing everything else? Was it really there in the first place?