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Hell March II - Westwood
Die Waffen, legt an!!
The long awaited Red Alert 3!
First of all, let me congratulate the team that represented Singapore at the Olympics Table Tennis events which led to the acquisition of a Silver medal. No mean feat, in my opinion, when we are up against table tennis powerhouses China and Korea. This is a national pride, our grand moment. And celebrate it we should: our smart investment plans.
All the bickering over how our national players consist of foreigners that we bought, senseless. The world is doing it, and if you don't follow, you might as well quit. Because face it, the world is changing, and since money becames a carrot-on-a-stick, fuck it, buy more people over please. After all, how many local parents are willing to let their child neglect studies and throw their whole future into sports?
A new reason surfaced today that proved why foreigners are sometimes better than locals. Let me at this timely juncture thank our Table Tennis Association president, Ms Lee. Not only did she dismissed the team manager who was behind the Silver Medal after so many decades, the head coach, Mr Liu, may possibly face the same fate. A wise decision indeed, getting rid of the people BEHIND the Olympic success of Singapore, most wise indeed. Let me suggest other changes that you can make to our country's ageing infrastructure:
1. Top students from all national examinations must be denied entry to the best institutions, instead they should be sent for hard labour training.
2. While you're at it, may I suggest you fire the brilliant minds that taught these students.
3. Fire the government since they are the best people for the job.
4. Best employees of the months to come in all firms must have their pay lowered.
All these suggestions I have humbly suggested are in line with your current line-of-action. After all, aren't you getting rid of the best people for the job? Why not do it across the board too? If the sarcasm isn't obvious enough I suggest you stop reading in English and learn some other languages instead. I recommend Sanskrit. Consider this post a protest against the oh-so-wise and timely decision made by another local talent. Read the Sunday Times if you are still wondering what the heck I'm talking about.
Once again, I find myself in another rat race... Of course, it is necessary since Singapore is a meritocratic society, and qualifications count right? No. You're so fucking wrong. The examination system has undergone years, maybe eons, of painstaking finetuning. Yes much painstaking effort indeed. Painful on the part of the students. Why, you might ask. A fine question deserves the short and sweet answer: It's fucked. Comprendo senòr?
As time passes, students get smarter and the examinations begin to lose their viability. So when the cheers of students that aced the exams reaches a crescendo, the finetuning elements kick in to kill off the next batch of students. I have no problems with raising the bar over and over, but what really irks me is when silly, and almost retarded criteria are added. That would be a time-limit. True, the invigilators cannot sit and stare at you the whole friggin' day as you complete your paper. But what is happening now is the infuriating shortage of time that is killing students. You may have the knowledge and can probably ace the paper, but that oh-so-merry ticking of the clock cuts you off before your immense intelligence can be put to good use. I seriously doubt our future jobs require us to complete an essay or a calculation within ten minutes. Datelines are there, but they are relatively resonable and doable. Writing three essays, each with a shitload of pages, within an hour or two?
Time-limits are not the only irritating things that adorn this blasted system. Language is another major killing factor, and no I'm not talking about subjects centering on the analysis of a language. It's about how the idiotic questions are phrased with double-negatives and poor-phrasing leading to unclear meanings. How many times have you read a question and scratch your head wondering just what the fuck the examiner wants? Those are the situations I'm talking about.
So here I am once again, assimilating new and refreshing old knowledge about the inner-workings of organisms, the ancient-old art of counting now with GCs and fanciful equations, the chemical fundamentals of matter and the stupid things governments do to make you more productive(pay less, work more). And for what purpose? Curiosity? Future job security? Or living someone else's dream? None of the above. The Singapore examination system is about cramming tonnes of useless information, that you're not even the least interested in, into your brain and spit it out as fast as possible in the exam halls. Then they print a flimsy piece of paper with your name on it. After that, you go to university and then off to work. And then you wonder: just how the fuck does calculus and the myriad of enzymes you studied about fit into your job as a successful CEO?
On Erath, the countries regularly hold sporting events, to provide a meatgrinder so representatives from all countries can pound each other into the ground. The most popular, and most followed sporting event would be the Molypics. A tetra-yearly event, all countries participate in order to gain fame, glory, pay athletes, and mostly to waste taxpayers hard earned money.
Let us look at the Stardate 80.80.80 Jeibing Molypics held in Nicha. The problem was that Nicha was having a minor internal problems in Betti. Betti wanted to break away from Nicha for stupid, insipid reasons like: the border around Betti looks like an asscrack. Yes it's that stupid. Nicha having being recognised as a sovereign country by the Failed Do-gooders (FD is somewhat similar to our UN, NOTE: SIMILAR NOT EQUAL) can and should do whatever it can to repress this uprising. And of course the friend of all countries, protector of the world, the supreme one and only United Hypocrites of Bullying Buttpudding(UHBB) will and, by their own sense of morality as warped as it is, had to scold Nicha for being unkind to its citizens. Yes it's the same UHBB that told the world to fuck off and let them abuse minority races and immigrants. In a totally unpolitical, totally fair move, many people protested against what Nicha was doing within it's borders, sovereign borders I might add. It will be totally acceptable since it's advice from Buttpudding, and the world seems to agree with Buttpudding. Even Phrance, an anti-UHBB country, agreed with UHBB that Nicha should let Betti breakaway, mostly assgas declaration from its newly elected, sexually-active president.
This situation does remind me of when UHBB advised the Shovert Union to grant freedom to its states. Look what happened to the Shovert Union? It broke up, and UHBB was saddened as it lost a big fat target for nukes and other non-devastating, just simply deadly weapons. Where else can it point its unimaginably and incredulously expensive and extravagent guns to? Nicha of course. With total disregard to rights to sovereignty, the government and the media continued to report on how cruel Nicha was treating the Bettians. Did I mention the unprovoked war UHBB is still fighting in Qira, killing people everyday? Bull-fucking-shit.
Let the Molypics begin! With a spectacular opening ceremony, Nicha started the 8002 Molypics held in its capital city, Jeibing. But spectacular was expected since Nicha dumped $60billion into this event. A total waste, UHBB says. Let's compare... Nicha spent a one-off $60b to bring the world together in the name of peace. UHBB spends $114b YEARLY to maintain its warmachine that has killed so many, and waged so many wars that it can be described as an obscenely rich industry. A little about economics and fiscal policies. While countries inject money into its economy to boost it, it can be injected in many forms. One is a direct injection, ie. subsidies and Make-you-happy packages. Another way that UHBB most favors is the conversion of people into money. Literally. By injecting money into its war industry, each person killed is a bullet that needs replacing. Imagine the millions they have murdered. Lucrative indeed. After you pass it through the multiplier process of course. But enough of this. The UHBB can do what it wants, only Nicha cannot. After all, this is called freedom, democracy and sovereignty.
When attacked on two points, Nicha didn't buckle. Not even close. Its people came closer together to hate those Cockasians bastards. Timely, I might add, and finally indeed. The morons have decided to rouse the insanely large, friggin Cockasian eating machine. Awesome move, dumbasses, most splendid indeed. So the Cocks had no choice but to band together and find fault with every single Molypics athlete that Nicha fields. From condescending commentary to media reports on how their athletes were underage. Guess the Cocks aren't as educated as they pose to be, especially on racial biological traits like average HEIGHT and rate of MATURATION. Of course Nichan female gymnasts look much younger than Cockasian females. It would have been obvious if those silly bastards pulled their heads out of their butts and actually observe that not every female inhabitant of Erath mature at the same rate. And Nichans are smaller in build and not as obscenely voluptious and 'disease-spreadingly' promiscuous at an early age. Talk about morality and cultural development. When Nicha beat them at multiple sporting events, they, being sore-assed losers, said how useless the gold medals Nicha collected, when those the Cockasian countries did win in were so much more valuable.
Oh well.
Wait, this situation on Erath, a planet far, far away, does seem familar doesn't it?
Ok, at long, long, loooong last, series I has ended! Moving onto series II!
The Chronicles of Pingasore II
Yes, it is finally back after a one, or two years break due to lack of inspiration or rather more of energy. My subspace communicator has been beeping with tonnes of hot juicy news that are, of course, totally unrelated to our current world. Yes I can hear your cynical sniggers already but let me state here once again:
- Chronicles of Pingasore has nothing to do with CJC, my current place of study, or Singapore, or Earth, or Sol our star system. It is in fact happenings on another world much similar to ours in a galaxy far, far away (think million parsecs) in an alternate, yet somewhat parallel to ours.
- No the names you see are not anagrams! They may seem familiar, but they are totally unrelated to us. Yes, you can trust me on that. Sure.
- This time, I am going to tone down on my, ahem, vocabulary, and provide more content(I hope... Zhi Ping ur seriously gonna have to help me on this)!
Wah now I know how the Camp Resilience Warden feels! Two camps in a row lol. Feels damn shiok to be able to study together again at my house, better than JE library seats, with that silly security guard. Haha Pasta Mania dinner was not bad but the next time we should eat cooked food lol, much better that way. I seriously hope that it was enjoyable for all!
Best part was everyone was mugging Chem and only me doing Bio! Maths finally done with stats though still shaky... should have listened more during lecture. Econs jump here and there done with International Trade, Externalities, Income and Employment, though if someone asks me now I seriously doubt I can remember. Bio onto the second round! By far the most revised subject lol, maybe cos of my interest. Read through, did the revision packages and making notes now. Chem is, ahem, not that good, with only inorganic and partial physical done.... Maybe I'm gonna try Raymond's 3 day Chem revision plan haha. Still got 8 days to mug my brains to hell, and I'm already feeling so stressed now that it's making me damn sleepy... and there's that headache.
Revision was pretty smooth with 4/9 immortals at my house. Break to watch Olympics swimming and basketball(C&C3: KW for 2 ppl, and I realised got some1 more sadistic than me!). The camp would have been better if we could study at the pool from 2pm to 7.30pm, but sadly it rained like wtf.... Dunno if this weekend still got YHATC or not lol. If have maybe this time kope the function room and mug in silence for 3hrs straight. People can complain their asses to hell, like others not already doing that.
Packing list:
Your notes
Stationery
Prepare for chilly night = NP-T and Track pants!
Rations lol
Seriously, studying alone is so friggin' boring not to mention sleepy as well. Just fixed 2 timers to my desktop, one countdown to incarceration and second one to prison break! Srsly looking foward to the second one... Oh yea and gratz to the Singapore Table Tennis team, finally one stupid silver medal lol. Brother Paul was saying about China having 1.3b people to choose from, like Singapore don't have 1.3b people to choose from.... just need a bit more admin ffs...
Okay, thanks to Jun Yong for this article, laughed like dunno wad. Its a speach by Adrian Tan, a litigation lawyer and author of The Teenage Textbook. It's a bit long but I enjoyed it, hope you do too.
By Adrian Tan:
I must say thank you to the faculty and staff of the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information for inviting me to give your convocation address. It's a wonderful honour and a privilege for me to speak here for ten minutes without fear of contradiction, defamation or retaliation. I say this as a Singaporean and more so as a husband.
My wife is a wonderful person and perfect in every way except one. She is the editor of a magazine. She corrects people for a living. She has honed her expert skills over a quarter of a century, mostly by practising at home during conversations between her and me.
On the other hand, I am a litigator. Essentially, I spend my day telling people how wrong they are. I make my living being disagreeable.
Nevertheless, there is perfect harmony in our matrimonial home. That is because when an editor and a litigator have an argument, the one who triumphs is always the wife.
And so I want to start by giving one piece of advice to the men: when you've already won her heart, you don't need to win every argument.
Marriage is considered one milestone of life. Some of you may already be married. Some of you may never be married. Some of you will be married. Some of you will enjoy the experience so much, you will be married many, many times. Good for you.
The next big milestone in your life is today: your graduation. The end of education. You're done learning.
You've probably been told the big lie that 'Learning is a lifelong process' and that therefore you will continue studying and taking masters' degrees and doctorates and professorships and so on. You know the sort of people who tell you that? Teachers. Don't you think there is some measure of conflict of interest? They are in the business of learning, after all. Where would they be without you? They need you to be repeat customers.
The good news is that they're wrong.
The bad news is that you don't need further education because your entire life is over. It is gone. That may come as a shock to some of you. You're in your teens or early twenties. People may tell you that you will live to be 70, 80, 90 years old. That is your life expectancy.
I love that term: life expectancy. We all understand the term to mean the average life span of a group of people. But I'm here to talk about a bigger idea, which is what you expect from your life.
You may be very happy to know that Singapore is currently ranked as the country with the third highest life expectancy. We are behind Andorra and Japan, and tied with San Marino. It seems quite clear why people in those countries, and ours, live so long. We share one thing in common: our football teams are all hopeless. There's very little danger of any of our citizens having their pulses raised by watching us play in the World Cup. Spectators are more likely to be lulled into a gentle and restful nap.
Singaporeans have a life expectancy of 81.8 years. Singapore men live to an average of 79.21 years, while Singapore women live more than five years longer, probably to take into account the additional time they need to spend in the bathroom.
So here you are, in your twenties, thinking that you'll have another 40 years to go. Four decades in which to live long and prosper.
Bad news. Read the papers. There are people dropping dead when they're 50, 40, 30 years old. Or quite possibly just after finishing their convocation. They would be very disappointed that they didn't meet their life expectancy.
I'm here to tell you this. Forget about your life expectancy.
After all, it's calculated based on an average. And you never, ever want to expect being average.
Revisit those expectations. You might be looking forward to working, falling in love, marrying, raising a family. You are told that, as graduates, you should expect to find a job paying so much, where your hours are so much, where your responsibilities are so much.
That is what is expected of you. And if you live up to it, it will be an awful waste.
If you expect that, you will be limiting yourself. You will be living your life according to boundaries set by average people. I have nothing against average people. But no one should aspire to be them. And you don't need years of education by the best minds in Singapore to prepare you to be average.
What you should prepare for is mess. Life's a mess. You are not entitled to expect anything from it. Life is not fair. Everything does not balance out in the end. Life happens, and you have no control over it. Good and bad things happen to you day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment. Your degree is a poor armour against fate.
Don't expect anything. Erase all life expectancies. Just live. Your life is over as of today. At this point in time, you have grown as tall as you will ever be, you are physically the fittest you will ever be in your entire life and you are probably looking the best that you will ever look. This is as good as it gets. It is all downhill from here. Or up. No one knows.
What does this mean for you? It is good that your life is over.
Since your life is over, you are free. Let me tell you the many wonderful things that you can do when you are free.
The most important is this: do not work.
Work is anything that you are compelled to do. By its very nature, it is undesirable.
Work kills. The Japanese have a term 'Karoshi', which means death from overwork. That's the most dramatic form of how work can kill. But it can also kill you in more subtle ways. If you work, then day by day, bit by bit, your soul is chipped away, disintegrating until there's nothing left. A rock has been ground into sand and dust.
There's a common misconception that work is necessary. You will meet people working at miserable jobs. They tell you they are 'making a living'. No, they're not. They're dying, frittering away their fast-extinguishing lives doing things which are, at best, meaningless and, at worst, harmful.
People will tell you that work ennobles you, that work lends you a certain dignity. Work makes you free. The slogan 'Arbeit macht frei' was placed at the entrances to a number of Nazi concentration camps. Utter nonsense.
Do not waste the vast majority of your life doing something you hate so that you can spend the small remainder sliver of your life in modest comfort. You may never reach that end anyway.
Resist the temptation to get a job. Instead, play. Find something you enjoy doing. Do it. Over and over again. You will become good at it for two reasons: you like it, and you do it often. Soon, that will have value in itself.
I like arguing, and I love language. So, I became a litigator. I enjoy it and I would do it for free. If I didn't do that, I would've been in some other type of work that still involved writing fiction ? probably a sports journalist.
So what should you do? You will find your own niche. I don't imagine you will need to look very hard. By this time in your life, you will have a very good idea of what you will want to do. In fact, I'll go further and say the ideal situation would be that you will not be able to stop yourself pursuing your passions. By this time you should know what your obsessions are. If you enjoy showing off your knowledge and feeling superior, you might become a teacher.
Find that pursuit that will energise you, consume you, become an obsession. Each day, you must rise with a restless enthusiasm. If you don't, you are working.
Most of you will end up in activities which involve communication. To those of you I have a second message: be wary of the truth. I'm not asking you to speak it, or write it, for there are times when it is dangerous or impossible to do those things. The truth has a great capacity to offend and injure, and you will find that the closer you are to someone, the more care you must take to disguise or even conceal the truth. Often, there is great virtue in being evasive, or equivocating. There is also great skill. Any child can blurt out the truth, without thought to the consequences. It takes great maturity to appreciate the value of silence.
In order to be wary of the truth, you must first know it. That requires great frankness to yourself. Never fool the person in the mirror.
I have told you that your life is over, that you should not work, and that you should avoid telling the truth. I now say this to you: be hated.
It's not as easy as it sounds. Do you know anyone who hates you? Yet every great figure who has contributed to the human race has been hated, not just by one person, but often by a great many. That hatred is so strong it has caused those great figures to be shunned, abused, murdered and in one famous instance, nailed to a cross.
One does not have to be evil to be hated. In fact, it's often the case that one is hated precisely because one is trying to do right by one's own convictions. It is far too easy to be liked, one merely has to be accommodating and hold no strong convictions. Then one will gravitate towards the centre and settle into the average. That cannot be your role. There are a great many bad people in the world, and if you are not offending them, you must be bad yourself. Popularity is a sure sign that you are doing something wrong.
The other side of the coin is this: fall in love.
I didn't say 'be loved'. That requires too much compromise. If one changes one's looks, personality and values, one can be loved by anyone.
Rather, I exhort you to love another human being. It may seem odd for me to tell you this. You may expect it to happen naturally, without deliberation. That is false. Modern society is anti-love. We've taken a microscope to everyone to bring out their flaws and shortcomings. It far easier to find a reason not to love someone, than otherwise. Rejection requires only one reason. Love requires complete acceptance. It is hard work ? the only kind of work that I find palatable.
Loving someone has great benefits. There is admiration, learning, attraction and something which, for the want of a better word, we call happiness. In loving someone, we become inspired to better ourselves in every way. We learn the truth worthlessness of material things. We celebrate being human. Loving is good for the soul.
Loving someone is therefore very important, and it is also important to choose the right person. Despite popular culture, love doesn't happen by chance, at first sight, across a crowded dance floor. It grows slowly, sinking roots first before branching and blossoming. It is not a silly weed, but a mighty tree that weathers every storm.
You will find, that when you have someone to love, that the face is less important than the brain, and the body is less important than the heart.
You will also find that it is no great tragedy if your love is not reciprocated. You are not doing it to be loved back. Its value is to inspire you.
Finally, you will find that there is no half-measure when it comes to loving someone. You either don't, or you do with every cell in your body, completely and utterly, without reservation or apology. It consumes you, and you are reborn, all the better for it.
Don't work. Avoid telling the truth. Be hated. Love someone.
You're going to have a busy life. Thank goodness there's no life expectancy.
Yes it has been a while since I've updated this blog... Busy screaming at noobs who cannot listen to instructions in WoW. I dare say it's worst than scolding errant cadets. Well lemme recount some of the events since a 1 year break from this.
1. There was CC Com 08 which ended a week before my birthday and I forgot to check my email and do an AAR for it. Clocked close to 100hrs for HQ service, so any CIs wan share share can ask me, more than enough!
2. Then there was my birthday which celebrates an accident 18 years ago.
3. Oh yes and there was mid-years with a D U U U 4H2s score.... And I had to tank through a 'tea' session with my doug THE BROTHER.......
4. Shooting CCA went well, national team 2nd, s-zone team 2nd and indiv 3rd, came in behind my teammate by 1 pt. That guy seriously has an arrogance that even my team captain cannot tolerate.... Goodluck to my juniors stuck with him.
5. And then there's ROD, the most looked-foward to day and saddest day too. The incoming NCOs really screwed it up this time round. OC didn't present the gifts. Super-long delay, which ate up all the time for Eric's slideshow. Goes to show how much the organisers really appreciate the works of the Officers and TOs.
6. ROD was followed by YhSC hehe. Like ATC, 3D2N at my house studying and relaxing a bit before the final spurt to our prelims. To those who are having their prelims today till next week, all the best! Have confidence, eat right, sleep early, don't do last minute cramming or you'll forget more than you will learn.
Ok that sorta sums it all up and we have caught up with the present. And about ROD and the 'study camp', I still remember that conversation I had with Kee Ann during our CIBTC, about trying to bring up their drill standards so that we can introduce a precision/fancy drill team. Sadly, things didn't go as well as it should with cadets resisting our motivation. Even with the immortals trying to use positive motivation, the cadet's interest level is just so low. It has improved but still not enough. I can't say how disappointed I am in them. I remember myself going through all those shit with my squad and enjoyed them. My class tutor told us today that the friends we make in JC will last a long time. I think the friends that I made from RVNP will last even longer. I just regret not having spent more time with my juniors during my NCO term, they seem quite a merry bunch too.
The study camp was pretty fun and effective too, thanks guys, I finally learnt that a normal distribution is anything but normal, and basically cleared all my doubts over maths. Haha and Eric left early on Sunday morning; we studied at the poolside and, ahem, studied many other things too (score=6.5 to 7). Oh yea and we watched NDP together and spotted Sir Alex and possibly Chun Wee too! And that's the long weekend I had.
Today during SD programme we had those touchy feely feedback session where we write about one another. So many people wrote about how I was very helpful and also so very very lame =D. Well I don't really remember much about helping others, perhaps it really is natural... There were also comments on how i can tell a joke, lame or not, with a straight face. It takes practice, much practice! There were some people who chose to not write anything because they simply did not like my temperament. Well all I can say is that I forgive you, isn't that what your religion taught you to do? I've never directed my ire towards my friends in full blast. I can be a very very nasty person, but always in defence of my friends. And this is why I always come out with all the lame stuff, if not I would have been consumed long ago by my darker half. I know I cannot please everyone I meet, so there, a minor deviation in statistics.
Oh yes there is that testimonial that I must write....