Transmissions

Invictus

2010-02-08T01:06:00.019+08:00

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

1st Jan, 2009

2009-01-01T16:41:00.002+08:00

Here are my resolutions for 2009.

Do things ahead of time. Be it starting on my homework early, turning in my spreadsheets as soon as possible or being punctual for appointments.
Explore the Bible from cover to cover. It had been disorienting being a Christian in the United States during an election year.
Do exceedingly well in school. I only have to keep myself from being complacent.
Work out more often. Run a marathon.
Do something crazy. Something along the lines of mastering Arabic, driving across the continental United States or appearing on the cover of Time magazine.

Apologies for the prolonged hiatus. Here's to a prosperous new year!

Testimony

2008-05-03T19:51:00.003+08:00

Delivered on Easter morning.

Brothers and sisters, this morning I present testimony of God’s grace given unto me.

While I was baptized before you today, I accepted Christ more than 3 years ago; while I accepted Christ more than 3 years ago, I came to know Him 9 years before then. In Jeremiah 18:6, God tells us “Behold, like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in My hand”. Looking back on those years, the fingerprints left by the Potter’s hands are evidently clear.

I came to know Christ (and Christianity) through an after-school program run by the 7th Day Adventists. I was introduced to hymns and Bible stories, and beyond that I came to know of a God with whom I can confide. That aside, it is the sincerity and fervor of my pastor’s prayers that I remember most distinctly. On hindsight, it was then that the seeds of my faith were sowed.

The following year, the program, as well as the church that supports it, had to relocate because the government had planned to build a subway through its premise. I was 11 when the church relocated. I did not relocate with the congregation because the new church was too far away. Even though I did not ask, I knew that my parents will be reluctant to drive me to the new church. My parents have yet to come to know Christ and at that time they were not supportive of me going to church.

So I did not attend another church for the next 7 years. But I recall running to God many times during that period, especially during times when I was confused, fearful and when I needed to confide. During that time, the problems in my parent’s marriage became more and more serious and I was depressed by how far they had been drifting apart. I felt especially sorry for my mother, who sacrificed for me again and again while my father was constantly away on business trips. Moreover, schooling in Singapore can be tough, and the education system can be very unforgiving to those who perform badly. Prior to major exams, it is not uncommon to hear stressed-out students applying physics to measure the acceleration and velocity of jumping off a building. During those times, God gave me tremendous comfort and assurance. I was convinced that no other teaching appealed to me more than the sincerity behind Christianity. But it took 9 years for me to accept Christ. Without the support of a church, I was neither convinced nor disciplined enough to act on my convictions. I know the few things that I was certain about and the many things that I have yet to find resolution, but it is tiring and frustrating to have a debate going on constantly at the back of my mind. Out of vanity and exasperation, I lose myself to the everyday, to schoolwork, to the activities in school, to getting along and moving on.

I received Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior on 12th December 2004. Retrospectively, it seems like a natural stop on that slow progression. In 11th grade, my classmate brought me to Bedok Methodist Church. I did not attend it regularly but I came to like the people. The Bible study teacher reminded me of many of the good things I remember about the people I had met during the after-school program. Again, the one thing that I remember most vividly from those early days at Bedok Methodist Church was the sincerity and humility with which my Bible study teacher brought her prayers to God. She prays beautifully, but that beauty transpires not from her coherence, but from her sincerity, her humility and from the gentleness of her faith.

After high school, like every male Singaporean, I enlisted with the military. Strangely, my daily walk with God was most consistent while I was in the army. It was most consistent because I was least distracted. Part of it had to do with feeling very forgotten. All my male friends were enduring the same experience in another camp somewhere. All my female friends had gone on to university. The environment was alien to me, I had to march everywhere and ask permission for everything. When every distraction was taken away from me, I found that all that I had is God. From my bed by the window, I prayed to Him every night. Through those prayers I came to appreciate life’s challenges differently; and I came to see pride and ambition, people and relationships in a new light.

Let me relate a story. STORY

I attended church camp at the end of that year that I enlisted. On the last night of the camp I answered the altar call. It was not that the sermon was particularly inspiring, and unlike all the people around me, my eyes were relatively dry. But I felt that it was right that I have to make an acceptance of having received Christ as my personal savior.

Baptism is in part a command from God. Baptism is also in part a symbol. And that symbolism is as much for me (who got baptized) as it is for you (who witnessed me affirming my faith).

So let there be two things that all of us can bring home from my testimony.

Firstly, the small things that we do for God do matter. When we outreach by doing community service, baking cookies, when we invite friends to cell group, to our church, you are sowing seeds in people’s lives. There is a good chance you will not see the seeds bear fruit but we can all take comfort in the knowledge that you played a role in the expansion of His Kingdom.

The second thing I want to say is that greatness comes in simple trappings. The divine majesty, the fullness of His grace is also manifested in simple, everyday, common, prosaic things. Not all of us will find in our testimonies the Road-To-Damascus Moment. Not all of us will hear a voice calling for us from behind the clouds. But who is to say that the way God found you is anything short of remarkable. There is nothing unremarkable about someone who has yet to know Christ walking into a cell group. There is nothing un-miraculous about a baby born into a God-loving family. If you have grown up in a church all your life, there is nothing un-miraculous about God-loving communities guiding young lives as they grow up. It is an open secret that the church is most crowded on Easter and Christmas. And if this is your first time in this church, this year, there is nothing un-miraculous about that.

On this, the most holiday day in the Christian calendar, just as Christ conquered death and lived again, let up renew that promise that He made in your heart. As Paul says “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things yet to come, neither height nor depth nor anything else in all creation shall separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord”.

That is also my conviction, and that is my hope and my prayer. I wish you a happy Easter. Thank you.

Easter

2008-03-27T09:58:00.006+08:00

Certificate of Baptism
This Certifies
That Quek Hon Ming
Born 3/7 1985
was
Baptized
in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit
on the 23 day of March in the year of our Lord 2008
At Pittsburgh Chinese Church
Rev. James R. Fullmer Pastor.

Friends, Romans...

2008-01-30T08:47:00.000+08:00

I was amused to find myself being anonymously nominated for president of the Singapore Student’s Association (SSA). I am not particularly close to my compatriots and, save for the dinners and shopping trips, I seldom show up for events organized by the SSA. I had the option of declining but I stayed on in the race, partly in the hope of adding another title to my resume (President Jan 2008- Jan 2009) and partly because the political junkie in me needed a good laugh.

My campaign speech was read by a friend of mine because I was on my way to a retreat organized by my fellowship.

My fellow countrymen,

By the time you hear this, I will be outside Pittsburgh on my way to a pre-arranged chalet. It isn’t a change of plans, it has been scheduled since last semester.

After the constitution was amended in 1993 to pave the way for an elected presidency, the ensuing elections was fought between a relatively unknown banker, Chua Kim Yoeh, and the then-deputy Prime Minister, Ong Teng Cheong. The open secret was that Chua had been arm-twisted into contesting the elections. The elected presidency needs an election. It requires a mandate. The elected requires at least the semblance of an election.

So, why am I running?

To prevent a walkover, so that there will be no Marine Parade, no Tanjong Pagar. The elected needs an election and everyone loves a fight. Everyone loves the fireworks of politics. And so I offer myself to give the eventual winner the seal of legitimacy. Indeed, this election is not for me to win, but instead it is for the incumbent Activities Manager to lose.
So, why am I running?

To be very honest, I have never thought about it. When Khoon Kiat told me that I’ve been nominated to be your president, it took me a few days to laugh it off. But apparently, according to Khoon Kiat, the one who nominated me was very serious.

So why should you vote for me? Why should you vote for someone who hardly shows up for SSA events, who didn’t show up for booth until the very last moment?

I really don’t know. I don’t think any of you hate me. After I started using Paypal for my phone-bills, I think even Zhiquan likes me. And I certainly don’t hate any of you.

But I think it is not extremely healthy when Singaporeans become so comfortable in the company of each other that they become uncomfortable in the company of people from other countries. It is unhealthy that we have chosen to move around in group formation. I feel uncomfortable when Team Singapore, when the Majulah Connection becomes some sort of tribal herd instinct. We’ve come to the U.S. just to feel like N.U.S.

How many of you, when applying for college, decided on an overseas education because you want to experience a new culture?

The thing is, I believe many of you have sold out, and took the easy route by staying within your comfort zones. We sold out those ambitions and dreams to see the world, to be comfortable in different cultures, and to share Singapore.
If I become your president, SSA will not be just a Singaporean support group. It will also be a Singaporean interest group where we welcome both foreign talent and fellow countrymen.

I will run things different. That is the least you can expect from someone who is hardly present at SSA events. There will be no ambitious plans to go to far away places to skydive or to sit on a rollercoaster. This can be done at the individual’s level. I rather save the money to organize meals where food will be subsidized. Sitting down for a meal is my cup-of-tea.

I will not encourage nor discourage Booth. It will be up to the freshman batch, not one person’s decision but everybody’s. I think Booth fractured our community last year, people didn’t dare to see each other for fear of being shot an arrow.

There will still be semester dinners, there will still be trips to Grove City, and there will still be Food Feste. But Chinese New Year dinner will be expanded, and a Singaporean Film Festival will be organized to share our culture with the campus community.

I am very proud of Singapore. On my blog and in my conversations, you will often hear me speak heartily about the government and about national service. This is because I believe there is so much to share.

Vote wisely. If someone tells you that he will upgrade your dorm, don’t believe him.

Vote wisely. Vote to share Singapore culture. Vote for an SSA that is both constructive and inclusive.

Down on Luck

2007-12-01T11:36:00.001+08:00

This can very well be a commentary of my grades this semester. Studied so hard but I've only got average grades to show for it.

If There're Seasons

2007-10-01T04:54:00.001+08:00

First Post in Slightly Less Than a Month

2007-10-01T04:27:00.000+08:00

One regret of mine from the summer just past is not being able to get tickets to “If There’re Seasons”. Friends who had caught the musical raved about it. Had I had a couple more weeks in Singapore I would definitely have gone to catch the show, even though only the most expensive tickets were left when I checked. “If There’re Seasons” is a musical based on works by Dr. Liang Wern Fu. I came to know about it from an interview with him by the Straits Times some time in early July. Strangely not yet a cultural medallion winner, Dr Liang was once the top student in NUS’ Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, and is now an associate professor at NTU’s Chinese studies department. A pioneer of the 新谣 movement, Dr Liang is the composer of songs such as 《细水长流》, 《恋之憩》，《写一首歌给你》，《历史考试前夕》and《陪我看日出》. These songs are some of the most representative of the 新谣 or 新加坡歌谣 movement. For the benefit of the uninitiated, Wikipedia defines 新谣 as a genre of songs that was particularly popular among Chinese school students in Singapore in the 1980s and 1990s. Intensely local and authentic, these songs are usually about life in the island country. 新谣 can be clearly identified by its distinctive style of clean acoustics, with a group of people singing and harmonizing together, usually accompanied by a guitar.

When I started writing blog entries in Chinese, some came to the conclusion that I have become something of a ‘cheenapok’. I’m not too sure what to make of it though. I took Chinese only till Secondary four because I was in the in Higher Chinese program. Looking back, being in the program turned me off learning the language. Even though I can construct model sentences and write essays with the appropriate sprinkling of choice phrases, idioms and proverbs, I was never really fluent. The texts that we had to read were obscure, and I was put off by the amount of memorizing. But it is not that I hate Chinese, in fact, there were a number of good-looking people in my Chinese tuition class. However, Faye Wong, Jay Chou and 新谣 probably taught me more Chinese than the Higher Chinese syllabus. 新谣’s lyrics are particularly 感人, genuine and 本土. Part of its charm lies in its honesty, humility and an earnest sincerity to 唱出心声. The lyrics are without pretense and most of them are beautiful in a poetic kind of way.

水的话

我是小溪源自山中
潺潺流过郁郁青葱

吐向大海鱼鸟与共
晨光一催漊漊升空

浮云一片飘南北西东
谁也不知我的行踪

轻轻化作烟雨朦胧
丝丝落在你的心中

词曲：梁文福

Summer School

2007-08-06T00:32:00.000+08:00

I had weighted the cost of spending my summer taking classes in CMU vis-à-vis attending summer school somewhere else. Though it dawned on me that it is cheaper taking classes in CMU (since the lease to my apartment starts at the beginning of summer), it was finding out that the particular her will be staying behind for research that eventually finalized my plans. Unfortunately, “Summer lovin’” remained a distant daydream.

But spending summer in Pittsburgh had not been too terrible. Actually, I had enough fun to give coming back to Singapore a tinge of sadness. I bought a bicycle, explored Pittsburgh, made new friends, got to know friends from the Asian Christians Fellowship better, led a group at Vacation Bible School, and learnt to cook. Online recipes helped make the latter surprisingly smooth-sailing save for one incident where the bee hoon became so dry that that the entire slab of noodles laid like a spongy rubber tire on my wok. In contrast to that initial misadventure, my other experiments in the kitchen turned out to be relatively successful. Thus far, I have also attempted Kung pao beef, stir-fried calamari, mango with glutinous rice and goreng-pisang (given a fusion twist by wrapping the banana in wanton skin instead of dipping it in flour).

I took one class over the summer and it turned out to be pretty easy, despite it being taught by a very anal grad student who pronounces ‘soft drinks’ as ‘softer drinks’, ‘strategy’ as ‘stra-tage’ and ‘competition’ as ‘compeeteeshin’. The class involved plenty of group work and it helped that I had very effective people in my group, which meant that we often managed to leave our assignments till the last minute and finish them satisfactorily. It also helped that there were plenty of bonus points and that we were not up against very strong competition. All in all, there was plenty of time for long dinners, potlucks, movie screenings, and cycling trips to the supermarket.

Kitchen essentials

卖膏药 ——　A Public Announcement

2007-07-19T14:06:00.000+08:00

Confluence is an annual global students' symposium, ministerial dialogue session and corporate networking fair held here in Singapore. Students from universities all over the world gather at this one-day event to discuss insights with executives from various industries.

The highlight includes a dialogue session with a government minister, an opportunity for the student audience and one of Singapore’s leaders to exchange questions and share perspectives. Throughout the day students will also be able to interact and network with representatives from some 18 employer organizations.

The theme for this year's Confluence is Globalization - Can Singapore Endure? It reflects Singapore’s status as a prominent player in the global arena, as well as the concerns and prospects that many Singaporeans may have in face of worldwide competition. A wide spectrum of ideas awaits to be addressed, ranging from corporate and industrial directions, to local and overseas employment, to anything that you feel significant for discussion.

Confluence 2007 presents three interactive forum seminars featuring speakers from finance, maritime, and technology industries. The keynote speaker for the ministerial dialogue session will be Dr Ng Eng Hen, Minister for Manpower and Second Minister for Defence.

The success of this event hinges on the enthusiastic and constructive participation by our guests. As such, we invite students and recent graduates to come air your views, or listen and analyse the opinions of fellow peers and panel members on topics that affect our future and that of Singapore, our home.

Admission is free and by invitation only. Please register online to receive your guest pass via post. Spaces are limited, so do register early!

Tienanmen

2007-06-05T03:25:00.000+08:00

Remarks by Zhao Ziyang, General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, at Tienanmen Square on May 19. 1989:

同学们，我们来得太晚了。对不起同学们了。你们说我们、批评我们，都是应该的。我这次来不是请你们原谅。我想说的是，现在同学们身体已经非常虚弱，绝食已经到了第七天，不能再这样下去了。绝食时间长了，对身体会造成难以弥补的损害，这是有生命危险的。现在最重要的是，希望尽快结束这次绝食。我知道，你们绝食是希望党和政府对你们所提出的问题给以最满意的答覆。我觉得，我们的对话渠道是畅通的，有些问题需要一个过程才能解决。比如你们提到的性质、责任问题，我觉得这些问题终究可以得到解决，终究可以取得一致的看法。但是，你们也应该知道，情况是很复杂的，需要有一个过程。你们不能在绝食已进入第七天的情况下，还坚持一定要得到满意答覆才停止绝食。

你们还年轻，来日方长，你们应该健康地活着，看到我们中国实现四化的那一天。你们不像我们，我们已经老了，无所谓了。国家和你们的父母培养你们上大学不容易呀！现在十几、二十几岁，就这样把生命牺牲掉哇！同学们能不能稍微理智地想一想。现在的情况已经非常严重，你们都知道，党和国家非常着急，整个社会都忧心如焚。另外，北京是首都，各方面情况一天天严重，这种情况不能再继续下去了，同学们都是好意，爲了我们国家好，但是这种情况发展下去，失去控制，会造成各方面的严重影响。

总之，我就是这麽一个心意。如果你们停止绝食，政府不会因此把对话的门关起来，绝不会！你们所提的问题，我们可以继续讨论。慢是慢了一些，但一些问题的认识正在逐步接近。我今天主要是看望一下同学们，同时说一说我们的心情，希望同学们冷静地想一想这个问题。这件事情在不理智的情况下，是很难想清楚的。大家都这麽一股劲，年轻人嚒，我们都是从年轻人过来的，我们也游过行，卧过轨，当时根本不想以后怎麽样。最后，我再次恳请同学们冷静地想一想今后的事。有很多事情总是可以解决的。希望你们早些结束绝食，谢谢同学们。

English translation taken from Wikipedia:

"Students, we came too late. We are sorry. You talk about us, criticize us, it is all necessary. The reason that I came here is not to ask you to forgive us. All I want to say is that students are getting very weak, it is the 7th day since you went on hunger strike, you can't continue like this. As the time goes on, it will damage your body in an unrepairable way, it could be very dangerous to your life. Now the most important thing is to end this strike. I know, your hunger strike is to hope that the Party and the government will give you a satisfying answer. I feel that our communication is open. Some of the problem can only be solved by certain procedures. For example, you have mentioned about the nature of the incident, the question of responsibility, I feel that those problems can be resolved eventually, we can reach a mutual agreement in the end. However, you should also know that the situation is very complicated, it is going to be a long process. You can't continue the hunger strike for the 7th day, and still insist for a satisfying answer before ending the hunger strike.

You are still young, there are still many days yet to come, you must live healthy, and see the day when China accomplishes the four modernizations. You are not like us, we are already old, it doesn't matter to us any more. It is not easy that this nation and your parents support you to study in colleges. Now you are all about early 20's, and want to sacrifice lives so easily, students, can't you think logically? Now the situation is very serious, you all know, the Party and the nation is very antsy, the whole society is very worried. Besides, Beijing is the capital, the situation is getting worse and worse from everywhere, this can not be continued. Students all have good will, and are for the good of our nation, but if this situation continues, loses control, it will cause serious consequences at many places.

In conclusion, I have only one wish. If you stop hunger strike, the government won't close the door for dialogue, never! The questions that you have raised, we can continue to discuss. Although it is a little slow, but we are reaching some agreement on some problems. Today I just want to see the students, and express our feelings. Hopefully students will think about this question calmly. This thing can not be sorted out clearly under illogical situations. You all have that strength, you are young after all. We were also young before, we protested, lied our bodies on the rail tracks, we never thought about what will happen in the future at that time. Finally, I beg the students once again, think about the future calmly. There are many things that can be solved. I hope that you will all end the hunger strike soon, thank you."

You Get What I Mean?

2007-05-21T08:39:00.000+08:00

In my previous entry, I had ended off with a request for prayers that God will grant opportunities to convict my heart and that of the particular her. The prayers had been effective, the opportunities presented themselves, and therefore I only have myself to blame for how terribly I messed up each and every one of them.

So it happened that the particular her and I were on a retreat after my microeconomics finals. The word ‘retreat’ is admittedly very odd, but I am using it so as not to give too much away. In any case, when I told my friends about the trip, those in the know beamed and said things to the effect of “great opportunity!”, “aren’t you excited?”, “why are you still having low morale?”. Frankly, I really had no idea what to make of it. On hindsight, it was perhaps not the best opportunity given the fact that there were so many people on the trip; but the expectation was definitely there, on both her part and mine, to thaw some of the ice that had formed since the rejection.

There are a thousand and one things I wanted to tell her but not a single word would come from my mouth. Indeed, it is an established theorem that there is a cruel inequality in John Nash’s mysterious equation (ref: previous entry): some guys can simply open their mouths and sweep damsels off their feet. They can charm the damsels and make them blush with sweet nothings while sincere words don’t receive a decent hearing. I can’t help but find the humiliating irony inherent in all of this: I was a debater in school (was Best Speaker on a couple of occasions), I was House captain, I had given presentations in front of the entire school, made speeches at model United Nations, but in front of her I was goofy, incoherent, awkward and pathetic. I was, actually, pathetic. Sometimes I rehearse in my head how I would tell her that I intend to earn her confidence, that she is so special and that our differences will only make a relationship more enduring; inevitably, I end up sounding like I’m giving a Nobel lecture or asking people to vote for me.

Again, this really is not an entry about my rejection; there is not enough angst or dejection for this to be thought of as such. Seeing how effective prayer had been, let this instead be another request for prayers that God will guide me to make her feel confidently secure and that it is part of His will to grant an enduring relationship.

I’ll be in Pittsburgh for classes and I won’t be back in Singapore till late June. Sadly, I can’t wait for classes to start because it seems like it is going to be an extremely boring and lonely summer.

I Wish I Were Your Derivative So I Can Lie Tangent To Your Curves

2007-05-14T04:17:00.000+08:00

Mark is a Computer Science, Discrete Mathematics and Logic major on a scholarship from A*STAR (for the non-Singaporean reader, A*STAR is a governmental institute that focuses on science, technology and research). Mark also has a reputation for being not quite normal. Feeling hungry prior to his midterm, Mark saved his meal block and ate the cover page of his test-paper. He calls himself a laptop and keeps a tree branch next to his bed for protection. During international freshmen’s orientation, Mark and I were in a conversation about Singlish and our national service experience with two friends we had just made; and then, he started giving a lecture on the lexicon and syntax of Singlish. I later apologized on behalf of my fellow countryman. Therefore, it was with great astonishment and more than a rude shock that the Facebook world came to learn that his status had been changed to: In a Relationship with Allyson Zhang.

In light of what happened at Virginia Tech, we should take every care to be more understanding and sensitive to those among us who are strange in certain ways. But beyond that, I have a genuine admiration for Mark committing to a relationship and for finding someone so suitable for him, just as overly geeky and just as weird. They are the perfect match, the Θ that gives his cosine value, the two curves of a hyperbola, the two bars of an equal sign. Maybe, Mark really had it all figured out. After all, John Nash did say “It’s only in the mysterious equations of love that any logical reason can be found”.

So, in many ways, Mark has my newfound respect. While he can inspire commitment, all I have done was to arouse insecurities in that particular her. I should have been more self-conscious and more sensitive. Pace the way things were going to give her more time, earn her confidence, be more humble and more down-to-earth. Frankly, and pathetically, I don’t have a good idea how it all came apart. But the pain of rejection made me so certain that she had been so special and that I really like her even though she deserves better.

I have always found it disconcerting how people can whine about breakups on their blogs or write for their cyber audience existentialist entries about their relationship woes. I follow these blogs with sadistic voyeurism and find humor in their melodrama. As far as possible, I try not to keep this blog too personal. Therefore, so that this entry will not be thought of as about me mopping over my rejection (this really isn’t), let this instead be a random post about that mysterious equation as well as a request for prayers that God will grant opportunities to convict our hearts.

Peanuts

2007-04-07T13:06:00.000+08:00

From Animal Farm by George Orwell

"Comrades!" he cried. "You do not imagine, I hope, that we pigs are doing this in a spirit of selfishness and privilege? Many of us actually dislike milk and apples. I dislike them myself. Our sole object in taking these things is to preserve our health. Milk and apples (this has been proved by Science, comrades) contain substances absolutely necessary to the well-being of a pig. We pigs are brainworkers. The whole management and organisation of this farm depend on us. Day and night we are watching over your welfare. It is for your sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples. Do you know what would happen if we pigs failed in our duty? Jones would come back! Yes, Jones would come back! Surely, comrades," cried Squealer almost pleadingly, skipping from side to side and whisking his tail, "surely there is no one among you who wants to see Jones come back?"

DiaSpura

2007-03-27T13:09:00.000+08:00

I’m back in Pittsburgh. Took a drive with some friends over the weekend to attend DiaSpura, a speaker series and musical organized by the Singapore club at the University of Pennsylvania. Was quite surprised at the number of Singaporeans studying at Upenn; the number of full time students is not a lot, just about as many as Singaporean students here in CMU, but there is a very big number of exchange students from NUS and SMU. In many ways, it was touching to see so many Singaporeans coming together to reflect on the Singaporean identity and to think about Singaporean art/film. There’s so much local artistic talent that we just don't hear about in the Straits Times and in the local media.

The first keynote speaker was Prof Chan Heng Chee, our ambassador to the United States, who spoke about the many things we can be proud of about our country. Prof Chan is a noted academic and most people would have heard about her illustrious career in the Foreign Service; so I was more than a little relieved that parking woes and arriving nearly half an hour late for the event did not cause me to miss her speech. But perhaps because of the time constraint, I found that her speech did not quite cut into the issue of exploring the Singaporean identity. All of us would definitely have benefited from a discussion of the challenges that are shaping out government’s social policy. I am of the school that is prepared to accept the idea that given our vulnerabilities, certain freedoms cannot go unrestrained; so I was hoping that she would update our perceptions of the realities that confront Singapore and how these realities affect the social markers that the government draws. The audience was clearly eager for that level of intellectual engagement, so rehashing our country’s achievements did not impress me too much.

Meeting Dr. Francis Seow was definitely the highlight of the event. For the uninitiated to Singapore politics, Dr. Seow was a former Solicitor General, president of the Law Society, opposition candidate and now dissident in exile (definitely in a different league from Dr. Chee Soon Juan). He spoke slowly but in fine and polished English (a little too slow because the non-Singaporeans were nodding off). In fact, he spoke so slowly that he was only left with enough time to take one question. So, I sprung up my hand (was a rather cool moment), and asked him what cause he was fighting for (when he was incarcerated by the government, and when he stood for elections in 1988) and if that cause is still alive when he look at his audience of young Singaporeans. After I’ve finished my question, he boomed "for all of you..." (which drew some applause) and then he went on to relate several eyebrow-raising anecdotes about the workings of the Cabinet and the civil service. I spoke to him again while we were both waiting for the lift, and he was rather surprised I know about him running for elections in Eunos. Actually, a reason I had asked the second portion of my question (which he didn’t quite address) is the fact that I find it a pity most Singaporeans today have never heard about him and are apathetic to the politics of our government. Given a more opportune timing, it would definitely have been worthwhile to hear more about his side of the story.

With Dr. Francis Seow; Colin Goh from Singapore Dreaming is in the background.

Here is a link to excellent photos taken by MingWei while we were in Philadelphia.

Turning 22

2007-03-27T09:32:00.000+08:00

A long overdue post.

Last year, I spent my birthday in a machine-gun box on Jurong Island. When I told the private who was on duty with me that it was my birthday, he told me not to pull his leg. Many people make a big deal out of turning 21, but I passed it with the comfort of the knowledge that true liberation comes with the pink i/c, which was coming in only a couple of months. (For foreign readers, the ‘pink i/c’ refers to our national identity card. For the period of our national service, the identity card is kept with the military. Receiving the card marks the official end of our two years in the military.)

I ushered the first hours of my 22^nd birthday studying for my calculus test in the library (sigh, don’t talk about it). I went back there again in the morning and worked on math till around lunch time. Uncustomarily, I went for a swim in the evening. But there were signs of it throughout the day: Ray pulling Stanley aside at the basketball court, then whispering to David at the lift landing, and Alfred peeking into my room.

Was walking back to my dorm after checking out a torrent software in Ray’s room. I opened the door…and out came a plate of shaving cream…

My friends started streaming out from my room after that, which was a more pleasant surprise especially considering the number of them and the size of my room. The workload here in CMU can be quite overwhelming, so it was nice and a little touching to see those friends who had came over from their faraway dorms as well as those friends with a reputation for hibernating in their dorms to do homework. Other than the shaving cream (which I had a taste of thinking it was whipped cream), I am very thankful for the cake that Menglong had skipped econ lecture to buy, the gifts, the greetings from friends back home, the kind words in the cards, and especially the friendships that had made college life so far so meaningful. A heartfelt kum-siak to one and all.

The Andy Warhol Museum

2007-03-10T11:07:00.000+08:00

年夜思家

2007-02-18T16:30:00.000+08:00

刚从新加坡学生会主办的年夜晚会回来。晚会主办的还挺不赖，有火锅也有鱼生；除夕夜吃牛扒汉堡是过年最恐怖的方式之一。

鱼生由学生会准备当然比不上往年所吃惯的，但将就一点还可算是挺不赖。或许是因为今年的鱼生吃起来有点怪怪的，脑海不仅挂念起往年和家人共享年夜餐桌上的美味佳肴。就这样的，开始思故乡，惦念着家中的妈妈，想起在阿姨家捞鱼生，和父母逛花市，到亲戚家拜年。坦诚因为大家生活忙忙碌碌很少有机会和亲戚相聚，过年期间见面时难免会感到有点陌生，但能够在新年之际了解各自在往年的来龙去脉，这我想并非没有意义。

单独在异乡过年免不了会感到有点寂寞和孤独。虽然一生上的是英校，讲起中文来咬文嚼字，结结巴巴，但每当过年时不仅会被节日的喜气洋洋给感染。还记得小时候有一年爸爸因为在外公干有事在身赶不回来吃团圆饭，我当时是又气又怒。但长大又体会了不能回家过年的感受后，另有一份见解：免得了的话，又有谁会想在外孤单的过春节。虽然过年挂在嘴的不是”恭喜发财”就是”财源滚滚”, 我总认为最重要的还是合家团圆。

望春风

2007-02-18T05:46:00.000+08:00

Was talking to Kevin and Yvonne, two friends from Taiwan, about Singapore singers when I asked them about 望春风. I first came across the song in an entry on Colin Goh’s blog, somehow I had totally missed it when I was watching Singapore Dreaming. I asked my friends if it can actually be thought of as the unofficial national anthem of Taiwan, something like what Waltzing Matilda is to the Australians, and Yvonne said that people in Singapore must have a very strange perception of Taiwan.

However, the lyrics is indeed very nuanced. 独夜无伴守灯下，冷风对面吹. The loneliness of nightfall gives the song a somber beginning. More than a hint of resignation is perceptible in 十七八岁未出嫁, but the jadedness quickly gives way to something more playful, reminding us that the song is really about a young lady and her pining for a lover. 何时君来采，青春花当开, she asks. Touches like 心内弹琵琶 makes her innocence and guilelessness endearing. She is enamored, besotted and nervous about romance, she can’t hide her bashfulness nor her being smitten by 果然标致面肉白，咱家人子弟. Ultimately, she is angsted that her sweetheart doesn’t come. The song ends off with 听见外面有人来，开门该看觅/ 月娘笑阮憨大呆，被风骗不知, an allusion to 隔墙花影动，疑是玉人来 from the classical Chinese romance 西厢记.

The song came about in the early 1930s, even before the Kuomintang’s exodus from the Chinese mainland; Taiwan, or Formosa, was then under Japanese colonial rule. Till today, 望春风 is widely acknowledged as the emblematic product of the regeneration that was going on in the Taiwanese music scene. Her music was composed by 李临秋 and her lyrics written by 邓雨贤 at a time where film and broadcasting was taking off in Taiwan; and whereas the music scene used to be a motley mix of tribal hill-songs, folk music, instrumentals and operas of southern Chinese genres, with 望春风came a form that is distinctly Taiwanese and pop.

An MP3 of the song can be downloaded from Colin Goh and Woo Yenyen’s blog.
Here is a link to David Tao’s rendition of the song.

Happy Lunar New Year

2007-02-15T01:11:00.000+08:00

My computer can finally type in Chinese.

因为人在异乡，要在这给新加坡的亲朋戚友拜个早年。祝大家：心想事成，万事如意，在来临的猪年有个突破。

If your browser is not showing up the Chinese characters, do leave a tag.

Snow Day

2007-01-26T05:14:00.000+08:00

Winter Break

2007-01-18T06:17:00.000+08:00

The holidays had been really fun. When you ask people in the States how things have been going for them or how their classes are coming along, very often you’ll get a standard ‘great’ or ‘good’. So, a few of my friends didn’t really know what to say when, every now and then, they ask how I’ve been and I tell them very frankly that things have been quite terrible. My point is that I’m not exaggerating when I say that the holidays had been really fun. I ate so much and slept so much.

I also caught up with so many friends. Really grateful to Marisa for opening up her house on Christmas Eve; like every other year, her family prepared a wonderful Christmas spread. We played a game where we had words pasted on our backs and we have to guess them by asking yes/no questions. I pasted ‘Lim Chu Kang’ behind Celisa and I was surprised she managed to get it. (Lim Chu Kang is this area in the western part of Singapore that consists primarily of cemeteries, military training sites, a few farms and a university). For those of us outside Marisa’s family, Christmas Eve at her place can be something of a Lonely Hearts Central; and the fact that spending Christmas Eve at her place has become something of a tradition for me says something. Sarah couldn’t make it back this year; her parents gave her a call just before midnight and had us sing carols over the speaker-phone. Her mum was really excited to hear her, and after her parents spoke to her, the entire clan took turns at the phone. There’s something very funny and heartwarming watching that.

Played Cranium at Ivan and Chris See’s house on Christmas evening and on the public holiday after New Year’s Day. Somehow, I became very effective at the sculpting tasks, and my teammates managed to guess items such as ‘ice tray’, ‘cowboy boots’ and ‘Buddha’. Thankfully, we didn’t play any of those hand-slapping-action-reaction games at Chris’ house; when someone suggested that at Ivan’s place I excused myself for the toilet and then went to help finish the food. Little Caleb was a bundle of joy. Whenever he needed his dad’s company, he’ll imitate his mum calling his dad ‘darling, darling’. He’s becoming very coherent; with a little effort you can actually make out the words coming from in between those cute little cheeks. Very clearly, he’s starting to develop a very lovable personality.

I don’t think many people knew that I would be home for Christmas, so I was pleasantly surprised to receive quite a few cards and Christmas gifts. Hanging out with friends from church is undoubtedly one of the best things about going home. Laughing with Guonian and Jansen, sharing a ride with Colleen on Andrew’s car, breakfast at the airport, catching up with people from YAM and eating cockles with Amanda Hannah Bennett.

Singapore changed quite a bit despite the fact that I was only away for a little while. There is now a spectator stand between the Esplanade and the Sheares Bridge, and the axle for a Ferris-wheel has been erected on the other side of the bridge. Vivocity is now open for business. The National Museum is opened after years of revamp, but I couldn’t find time to go in to take a look. Centerpoint has an extension. The car parks on both sides of Specialist Shopping Center as well as the grass patch in between Wisma Atria and Wheelock have been turned into construction sites. The tunnel near Stanford Road is just about ready; it is pretty short and I wonder how much traveling time the tunnel is going to save. I still think that they shouldn’t have pulled down the old National Library. While driving through the area, I was talking to Bernie about the red brick building that stood where the tunnel is now located, the green space between City Hall and the National Museum on which SMU now sits, and the area near Istana Park where Cockpit Hotel used to be. Despite her short history, our country’s landscape has changed so much; and despite my youth I’ve been witness to the dramatic nature of that change.

So, again, I left Singapore with a heavy heart. Was really touched by Amanda’s little booklet and got a little depressed when the plane was taking off, then I fell asleep for the rest of the journey to Hongkong. From Hong Kong to Chicago, I read a little of 1 Samuel and Proverbs, watched The Queen (good) and The Last King of Scotland (so-so), and slept through most of the rest of the journey. From Chicago to Pittsburgh, I solved two Sudoku puzzles. My mind constantly returned to the book, the Encyclopedia of Chinese Overseas, which I had read during my last few days in Singapore. Essentially, the book is a survey of the experiences and histories of the various communities of emigrant Chinese that had taken root all over the world. The book studies the waves of migration, their social institutions, relations with the Chinese mainland and interactions with native cultures. Somehow it gives me a little comfort to see myself in their context. I suggested to Mummy that we make a trip to ShanTou during my summer vacation, but she said that most of the things I want to see have probably been destroyed by China’s modernization. She told me about the junk boats from China she had seen at Keppel Harbor; passengers slept in the open on the deck and within spaces marked out by chalk. Compared to our grandparents’ experiences, the journeys that we take today are so much easier, our partings so much less painful and our goodbyes so much more temporary.

Meteor Sightings

2007-01-07T18:14:00.000+08:00

I was heading to FuLin YongTauFoo when I came across this banner which left me Laughing Out Loud.

Against the backdrop of a meteor-shower, the Right Honorable Member of Parliament wishes one and all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Fortunately, I was not driving when I saw the banner; the reflection from his shiny forehead (superimposed) would have caused me to lose control of the car.

What were they thinking when they bought their Photoshop project to the printer?

Someone was being very creative.

Belated Happy New Year

2007-01-05T16:15:00.000+08:00

In retrospect, 2006 had been a good year. At the beginning of 2005, with more than a year to go in the army, my only hope for the year ahead was that it will pass quickly. But 2006 had been different. I felt fairly certain at the start that the year can only be better than the one that just passed. It was a year of clear beginnings and definite endings. As 2006 progressed, the countdown to my ORD dwindled to two digits and then came to an end. Ops Bassinet, cleared my leave and then the pink I/C. Another countdown had been going on; but it was only when I had about a month left in Singapore that I realized the countdown was coming to an end. Met old friends and looked at familiar places with a dateline in mind; I did not start packing until the very last week. Beyond that college beckons.

Countdowns are meant to usher in new beginnings.

Here are my resolutions:

1. Make better decisions faster. Plan objectively.
2. Not to swear unnecessarily.
3. Swim, jog or go to the gym. Exercise more.
4. Pray more often.
5. Do something crazy. Something to the effect of running a marathon, swimming across the English Channel or taking part in Beauty and the Geek.
6. Listen more, and ask more questions.

Here’s wishing one and all a blessed and prosperous 2007.

Rain, rain, go away

2006-12-30T18:32:00.000+08:00

A handy reminder just in case the rain doesn’t stop:

[Genesis 6:15] This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high. [16] Make a roof for it and finish the ark to within 18 inches of the top. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks.

New York, New York

2006-12-18T00:33:00.000+08:00

Took a while getting around to post this entry. The past couple of weeks had been crazy; revising for exams, preparing my papers, turning into a hermit in the library and depriving myself of a lot of sleep. Retrospectively, my Thanksgiving trip New York City had been a good break from school and Pittsburgh.

View from outside my hotel.

Fifth Avenue. Clockwise from top-left: Christmas decorations in front of the Rockefeller Center, Saks at Fifth Avenue, picture of myself at Trump Towers, and the ultra-cool Apple Shop.

Times Square.

I am working wealth. This is worth all the late nights in the library poring over mind-numbing readings and programming codes.

The Metropolitan Museum is undoubtedly one of the largest museums in the world, with exhibits from nearly every known civilization and works from all the major art movements. I came out from the museum feeling physically tired from all the walking, drained from looking at one exhibit after another and regretting that I had not done more planning. The Impressionist collection impressed me the most, particularly their collection of Monet-s. On hindsight, I should have just focused on the paintings instead of trying to cover the entire museum.

Christine.

Honray. He planned our hotel and flight. I was impressed; he scoured the internet and found us tickets that are cheaper that what most people consider cheap. Thanks to him, the cost of the plane ticket and our 3 nights stay in the hotel is lesser than what most people have to pay for the flight alone. Prior to booking the hotel, he gave us a Google-Earth presentation of our various choices, and their distance from amenities and major landmarks. Every suggestion was also conscientiously Google-d.

Grand Central.

This was a nice surprise. I was milling around Madison Avenue waiting for my friends to come back to the apartment when I stumbled upon the Morgan Library and Museum. It has an impressive little collection that includes a copy of the Gutenberg Bible and several musical scores handwritten by Mozart. There was something very Godfather about his office; more than the prosperity of the House of Morgan, it conjures grand notion of ‘magnate’ and ‘titan’.

Spending the night at JFK after missing our flight.

Random Finds

2006-12-02T13:51:00.000+08:00

This is what college students with no life watch on boring Friday evenings, when it’s too windy outside to go anywhere:

Groovy.

I will post pictures from my thanksgiving trip to New York once I am done with my two major papers.

Russian Dolls

2006-11-30T03:53:00.000+08:00

Slightly adapted from the movie Les Poupees Russes

Xavier: When I think about all the girls I've known or desired, they're like a bunch of Russian dolls. We spend our lives playing the game, dying to know who'll be the last. The teeny-tiny one, hidden inside all the others. You can't get to her right away. You will have to follow the progression. You have to open them, one by one, wondering, "Is she the last?"

Ramblings of a Political Junkie

2006-11-12T05:23:00.000+08:00

Talked to my mum over the phone on Thursday morning and she asked about the mid-term elections going on over here.

Frankly, not much. Pennsylvania is staunchly Democrat; and prior to the elections, most people were having no doubt that the Democratic challenger is going to unseat the incumbent Republican senator. Other than a few campaign posters, decals and anti-Republican stickers, there is hardly any hint of an election going on. Here in Pittsburgh, you don’t find the excitement in the air that comes around once every four years; the buzz that comes along with garlanded men in white, Teochew rallies, the Bak-Chor-Mee man, Ling Howe Doong’s terrible hairdo, political debutantes trying too hard to be at home with hawkers, an opposition leader forgetting his forms and the Prime Minister smiling at you from every lamp-post.

At the risk of inviting accusations of me being a geek, I confess to being something of a political junkie: I read Chee Soon Juan’s Dare To Change in primary school; I attended my first political rally when I was 12; election night 1996/1997 was the first time my mum allowed me to stay up past bedtime (it was the night before the first day of school and the results for Cheng San GRC came in very late); I read LKY’s memoirs in secondary two; and I was one of those at the Worker’s Party rallies earlier this year.

Ironically, I have been hearing a lot more about Ah-Bian and Taiwan than Bush’s political woes. While the corruption going on in the Taiwanese presidency is nowhere near the level of countries such as Indonesia, it is ridiculous how a democratically elected leader can be so shameless in trying to milk the most out of his presidential perks. The political culture in Taiwan is also unlike anything we will find in most democracies.

Check out these two clips from Taiwanese news that had me Laughing Out Loud.

Singaporean Accent Study

2006-11-07T08:38:00.000+08:00

Saw this in my mailbox last week and I immediately replied to fix an appointment.

Students in the CMU ECE department are doing a study on Singaporean accents. We are paying students from Singapore $5.00 !!!!!!!!!! to read three brief sentences into a computer and would love for you to be a participant in our study. If interested we will be at:

Sunday, Nov. 5th [4pm-12am] ==>New House (Main Lounge)
Monday, Nov. 6th [6pm-10pm] ==>New House (Main Lounge)
Tuesday, Nov. 7th [6pm-10pm] ==>New House (Main Lounge)
Wednesday, Nov. 8th [6pm-10pm] ==>New House (Main Lounge)

Our email is chumphre@andrew.cmu.edu please feel free to contact us [w/ the time] if you will be participating. The study should take no more then 15-20mins. Hope to see you soon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Learnt from the person organizing the study that the point of her research is to find out how voice recognition systems, especially those used for commercial transactions over the phone, can be adapted to better meet the needs of people with distinctive accents.

Phil Collins- You Can't Hurry Love

2006-10-21T04:32:00.000+08:00

Check this out. It’s so catchy I can’t help shaking to the baseline.

I had dinner with chio-bu last evening. After seeing her off at the taxi stand, this song started to play in my head and I walked back to my dorm sprightfully, swinging my umbrella and with a spring in my step. The song always leaves me wondering if its central message is fundamentally cheerful and optimistic (as its tune suggests) or cheerless and resigned (as its lyrics can be interpreted to be suggesting). I am the sort who likes to plan and have a sense of what is to come, but very often we just have to accept that the vagaries of fate are a fact of life. For the moment, I like to think of the song as a cheerful reminder.

My mama said

You can't hurry love
No, you'll just have to wait

She said love don't come easy

But it's a game of give and take

You can't hurry love

No, you'll just have to wait

Just trust in a good time

No matter how long it takes

Shostakovich Centennial

2006-10-11T05:35:00.000+08:00

Friday evening is undoubtedly the highlight of my weekend. It was the Shostakovich centennial and I went downtown to catch the concert at Heinz Hall. Shostakovich is my favorite modern composer and I had been looking forward to the concert the whole of last week.

Heinz Hall is ornate, the architecture lavish and extravagant. The wealth of the tomato ketchup.

The tango from the first piece (The Bolt) was exciting but after that I got very irritated when the trumpet started sounding like wind rushing out of a deflated balloon.

I was not extremely impressed, but I had a lot of fun.

Literary Constipation, or History Papers Are Such Pain In the Ass

2006-10-11T04:59:00.000+08:00

I slept very well last night. I had three assignments due yesterday and the weekend had been tiring. The thing about assignments and homework in general is that they count towards the final grade. Furthermore, it is not uncommon that some of the writing assignments actually carry more weight than the exams.

I spent Saturday and Sunday working on my history paper. It was tiring not because I was writing and drafting away, but because I was suffering from a particularly terrible bout of verbal constipation. I brooded over my response for hours on end but still could not put together a decent paragraph. I worked on a point after leaving my laundry in the washing machine but the paragraph was still incoherent after my laundry came out from the dryer.

I started on the paper by working through the readings on Saturday afternoon, half the time having no idea what the authors were driving at. They beat around the bush and devote chapters to obscure examples. But just when I thought that I can get the gist of what they are trying to say by simply reading the chapters’ introduction and conclusion (worked very well for my previous response paper), some important points pop up in the middle.

I gave up and went for dinner, thinking that the break will help me find my muse.

I worked on it again after dinner, got nowhere, took a fitful nap, and woke up at 1am feeling neither refreshed nor rejuvenated. Not only did I get no where this time, I threw out half the points from my outline. I came up with ideas for some new ones, chatted on MSN and went to sleep. That was Sunday morning.

Not surprisingly, I had to try very hard to stay awake in church. To add to my feeling sian, chio-bu woke up late and couldn’t make it to the service. But things got better. The bowel movements returned to some semblance of normalcy. While I did not turn into such a wordsmith as to be able to purge like some of those school-children who kenna-ed gastric flu, I was a lot more productive. It was like a much-needed dose of fiber and laxative, there was an irrigation in the colons; I could even put together the conclusion to my paper while taking a shower. In many sense, my paper ended with a release and then a flush.

The first chorus from “Weird Al” Yankovic’s parody of Avril Lavigne’s ‘Complicated’ aptly serves as an ode to my history paper, “Why'd you have to go and make me so constipated/'Cause right now I'd do anything to get my bowels evacuated”.

Thai Coup

2006-09-28T12:18:00.001+08:00

I got this from readme, a satire magazine run by students from my school. Found it very cute.

Thai Coup

Thaksin, populist
Falls --- for government welfare;
A bloodless class war.

Handouts, free health care,
Democratic dictator,
Shinawatra weeps.

Bangkok demonstrates,
Center of Asian sex trade
And protest rallies.

Freedom, tasty rice
Ripples, not waves from Thai coup
With high heat level.

To United States,
A large non-NATO ally
Provides tranny hos

Bush condemns the coup;
To govern provisionally:
Boonyarakalin.

Singapore Food Fest

2006-09-26T22:10:00.000+08:00

Top 10 Memories from NS

2006-09-19T12:25:00.000+08:00

This is for Transmission’s international audience: ORD stands for Operationally Ready Date. ORD is, without a doubt, one of the most momentous and liberating events in the life of every male Singaporean. It marks the date the countdown ends, and we are finally discharged from 2 years of military service. In the words of the English hymn-writer Charles Wesley, ‘My chains fell off, and I was free’.

National Service is not a bad idea, but it is way too long.

Here are my Top 10 memories from my NS days.

1. Serving in the same company with the guys from my Bridging Pioneer Commanders Course (BPCC). From them, I learnt what RI and VJC can never teach me. It opened my eyes to the segments of Singapore beyond the society that I had been used to, and taught me to appreciate their humility, leadership, optimism and maturity.

2. My buddy during the BPCC, Eugene. I accidentally slammed a 550kg ramp on to the road while he was holding one end of it. The ram was pivoted when it fell, so he wasn’t hurt. However, he was stunned, shocked, petrified, terror-stricken and panic-stricken. Since then, we have had a rather comedic history of accidents that involved, among other things, rolling barbed wires and a bed that collapsed.

3. Speeding my boat through the waters off Northeast Singapore during sea navigation. Lights from the HDB flats that overlooked the sea, from the ports, the vessels and from all across the shore painted the night sky with a glow. Much have been said about how banal our landscape seems, each HDB flat being the crude carbon copy of another, but the view from my boat that night was amazing.

4. The night my rig’s drain plug came loose and my pontoon’s pumps were churning out a lot of water.
I had gotten someone to tighten the drain-plugs, but I did not do a check to ensure that they were in place and tight. This came just after Te Zhong’s 14-day SOL (Stoppages of Leave) for forgetting to put on his rig’s drain-plugs.
I was super worried. I was worried about sinking the rig, worried about not being able to de-launch the rig, and worried about being sent to DB (detention barracks). There was nothing I could have done, other than jumping into the water and snorkeling under the pontoon to tighten the drain-plugs. I prayed really hard throughout that night and thankfully the rig got back to the reservoir safely the next morning.

5. A group of us from 35SCE were sent to Pulau Tekong to work with a company of Construction Engineers to help them with the construction of a new campsite. A team of us took an entire morning to lay two bricks; we made more progress in the afternoon, but only to find that the measurements had been taken wrongly. Consequently, the wall was knocked down with a kick.
The Tekong Project was fun. A typical day went like this: 0800hrs, Company roll-call. – 0900hrs, arrive at worksite. – 0945hrs, after taking 45 minutes to put on our helmets and select our tools, we proceed to the worksite. Work involved plenty of observing. – 1100hrs, self-declared break. – 1200hrs, lunch. – 1245hrs, nap. – 1345hrs, work. – 1630hrs, self-declared break. – 1700hrs, work day ends. We board the lorry back to our air-conditioned bunks for dinner and a night of R&R.

6. Doing traffic marshalling at the late minister, S Rajaratnam’s funeral. A hush fell over the entire city when his cortège passed by. As I saluted the flag-draped coffin, something that struck me was how small his coffin looked. The smallness had nothing to do with size; it jarred against my impression of him as a member of the Old Guard, someone who had defined his times, shaped lives and made a huge positive difference.

7. Ops Bassinet. I was shifted to be stationed on Jurong Island every other two days. Protecting one of our country’s most vital installations involved sleeping in the bunk for 12 hours, followed by more sleep at the sentry posts. Someone told me that he could see a sleeping SAF soldier when he Google-earthed Jurong Island.

8. Not bathing for a week during Field Camp.

9. Was running a slight fever after Field Camp but was still made to leopard-crawl across the field because my rifle was not clean enough for the sergeant. His name is Sergeant Daryl, and I was from Hawk Company Platoon 1 (March 2004).

10. Mambo nights with platoon mates at a veritable Singapore institution. Navigating through the mass of bodies, executing fire movements and honing in on strategic objectives.

ORD loh

2006-09-10T06:25:00.000+08:00

Congratulations to all my ORD-ing course-mates from the 01/05 Bridging Pioneer Commander's Course.
Click the link to check out Te Zhong's tribute to Seletar Camp.

ORD loh.

Huat ah!

My Room

2006-09-04T03:45:00.000+08:00

I live in New House, room 301. For those of you who want to send some love over, my address is:
Carnegie Mellon University
SMC 3232,
5032 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15289- 3232
United States of America

First Week of School

2006-09-03T16:16:00.000+08:00

The first week of school did not turn out to be the jolt that I had expected from going back to school after nearly three years. There is quite a lot of homework and all of them count towards the final grade, but thankfully I have found a group of very conscientious friends to study with.

Wen is from Singapore and he lives two doors away. The other three are from Hong Kong. I wonder what my mum will think of me trying harder at Cantonese here in the States than I ever had attempting to speak to my grandmother. While studying with them, I also found out that ‘Hum-pah-lung’ and ‘Kan Cheong’ has Cantonese origins. News has traveled here that our Prime Minister said ‘mee siam mai hum’, that was what got me started on ‘Hum-pah-lung’.

I think I have unintentionally given my friends from Hong Kong a rather comedic impression of Singapore politics. It’s strange how many conversations start with small talk about politics, perhaps you just can’t help it when you are talking about Singapore. Ivy (a friend from Hong Kong) mentioned how they rarely talk about Tung Chee Hwa, and Kishore replied by explaining that in Singapore there is ‘a lot of government’. Perhaps it is the feeling that comes to everyone once they are out of a country that is as serious as Singapore, the need to laugh at the humor in the Four Million Smiles campaign, the bar-top dancing policy, PM Lee going to Zouk and MOS, National Day Parades and the GEMS (Go the Extra Mile for Service) campaign. You need space to realize the humor in all this and laugh it off (and what better way than to share the laugh with people from other countries).

Schoolwork is tough although a big part of the challenge lies in getting back to the studying mode after all that time in the army. I transferred out of my previous calculus course into a tougher one, and I had to go through all the calculus I had learnt in one night just to start on my homework; notes from JC came in very handy. I’ve cramped all my required humanities courses into this semester, so I’ve got quite a lot of readings; hope to get all the essays over and done with as soon as possible. My schedule is pretty okay, I’ve got lessons at 8.30am everyday but I don’t mind it since I prefer to start early and end early. Furthermore, I’ve got enough breaks in between to grab a bite or to do last minute work. Food here is horrible, it is either cold (uncooked) or too oily (cooked).

I’ll talk more about food in another post. Up to this point, everything is so far so good.

Everyone should check out Hossan Leong’s rendition of ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire’.

Convocation

2006-08-25T12:22:00.000+08:00

A Tale of Two Countries

2006-08-24T23:31:00.000+08:00

Was listening to the Prime Minister’s national day rally on channelnewsasia.com while replying to my mum’s email yesterday evening (she wrote an email to scold me for not writing to her). If not for talkingcock.com and mrbrown, I would not have come to know about the PM’s rally. I really don’t see why the press holdings should charge people (penniless students, in particular) for access to the Straits Times Interactive. SPH is after all the owner of Paragon and Mediacorp and they are one of Singapore’s most profitable companies. The Establishment really cannot blame people reading blogs for news when SPH is happily making people pay for the sole source of mainstream Singapore news online. Maybe I should write a complaint to the Straits Times forum, after all the Prime Minister was exhorting overseas Singaporeans to stay involved.

There are 11 Singaporeans in this year’s cohort; I’m not sure if that figure includes this guy who gave up his PR status when it was his time to enlist for NS. Singaporeans are not very difficult to spot: the military scholars walk around in their unit T-shirts, some of the rest are still wearing SAF-issue New Balance sneakers, and a number of us still go to sleep in army singlet.

For the first couple of days, I felt a little weird, a little out-of-sorts, a little repelled by the sticky-ness between fellow Singaporeans, even though I am probably the only one with a Singapore flag in his room. Actually, I’m still a little sensitive to it now. After all, one of the reasons all of us have chosen an overseas education for ourselves is exposure. It might have to do with the fact that I’m one of the few who are not on scholarship; perhaps it is because of this that I did not join a bunch of them for their breakfasts, dinners and the many meals they ate out together. But there is also something very weird, out-of-sorts and repelling when Team Singapore, when the Majulah Connection becomes some sort of tribal herd instinct.

However, in terms of sticky-ness, we are no where near the Koreans. They make up half the international students population, and that does not include Koreans raised in the United States. They stick to themselves and speak Korean. I left an Asian fraternity party a couple of days back because I felt like I have walked into the set of ‘Winter Sonata’. Very soon, the fraternities and sonorities will be replacing their Greek with Korean. In general (yes, I’m generalizing) the Asians raised in the United States are very pretty, they are very chio but also very hiao. It’s like they’re rushing off to some garden kimchi party 24/7.

Orientation is going on pretty okay so far, no tau-poks, mass dances or Eusoff- Hall-oleh-oleh-ah-ah. Mostly ice-breaker games and lectures about academics and student life. Meeting a lot of people these days and even though the school is not very big, it is still very tough trying to remember names and getting to know people beyond ‘Hello, my name is Robin’.

I just played the mrbrownshow for my roommate.

Email from Academic Advisor

2006-08-24T08:21:00.000+08:00

I did not even realize that I did not have a time slot with my academic advisor. Got an email from her earlier today:

Hi Robin,

I just wanted you to know that you can attend the advising session for students with the last name beginning with “R” tomorrow, during Academic Day. I just noticed that your last name does not have a place in the schedule, since there are no other H&SS students whose last name begins with a “Q.” The session you can attend will be held from 1-1:30 in Baker Hall 336B.

If you attend another one, it’s no big deal, but I just wanted you to know we didn’t forget you!
Best,
Emily

So nice... lah! As Amanda Hannah Bennett would say.

Going to School

2006-08-24T08:00:00.000+08:00

It is day 7 in Pittsburgh. Orientation for international students started 6 days ago. It has been 4 days since the start of orientation for the entire cohort. Mum returned to Singapore 3 days ago.

Choosing a school was a little like shooting in the dark for me. I based my decision on what people wrote about the school, on the strength of her program, her rankings and reputation, but I’ve never been to Carnegie Mellon before I enrolled.

I’ve never even been in Pittsburgh. When I told Judy that I will be going to school in Pittsburgh, she told me she had learnt about the city in geography. Pittsburgh was a textbook example of industrial pollution, environmental degeneration and urban planning gone wrong. But that was probably more than fifty years ago. This place was then the steel mill of America. I saw some of that industrialization when I took the clipper cruise up and down the rivers yesterday (part of orientation). The few factories that I saw don’t seem to be doing any harm to the environment, and there is something very old-world and proletarian about them that makes them very quaint at the same time. Downtown Pittsburgh is slightly smaller than Manhattan; you get the same amenities and the architecture share the same Art Deco and Art Moderne influences, but you don’t find the grime, the crowd, the urban dislocation and hustle and bustle over here. It isn’t a metropolis but there’s still a lot of commerce going on; buildings are a lot more spaced out compared to New York City and the streets are a lot cleaner.

Seeing the university for the first time was also relief. In terms of finding the right environment to study, I think I have made the right choice. The school is not extremely old but still very charming. Even the laboratories have a certain charm. It’s actually a good thing that the place is not too old. I don’t see what is so romantic about ivies creeping all over the school and having gargoyles stare down at you from every corner. In fact, I find that slightly hideous. Being not too old also makes the place less dreary, more cheerful, less depressing and less bleak. I really like the lush lawns, where in the evening you can find people playing Frisbee, practicing the bagpipe or just sitting around. The school is also not very big, but there is enough space between buildings to make sending someone back to her hall of residence ‘a walk to remember’.

First Post from Pittsburgh

2006-08-22T13:41:00.000+08:00

Sorry for taking such a long time to post this entry. I took awhile to get set up. Only managed to find an original version of Microsoft Office yesterday; somehow my new laptop could tell that I was trying to install a pirated version of the program (paiseh!). I can’t blog without Microsoft Word’s Spell-check function.

I am alive!

The journey here was uneventful, thankfully. Security was tight but it wasn’t a nuisance; and even though the Northwest Airline union had been threatening to strike, my mom and I, and our baggage, managed to arrive here safe and sound. Read 1 Samuels and played reversi on the in-flight entertainment system, but true to being a Combat Engineer, I slept through most of the 23 hour flight. Many thanks to all of you who have prayed for journey mercies.

I also want to thank all of you who were at the airport at 3am last Thursday morning to send me off. The timing was really ungodly. Thank you for your gifts, hugs, well-wishes and prayers. Many thanks also for all the emails, SMS-s and phone calls. I was really touched, moved and encouraged by your prayers and by some of the things you guys wrote, especially what Guonian had written in his card.

Fortunately, the airline provided very thick serviettes.

Farewell

2006-08-17T00:45:00.000+08:00

Later today, I will be leaving for the United States to begin my tertiary studies at Carnegie Mellon University. I intend to pursue a course in economics, and perhaps (hopefully) another major in computational finance or businesses administration.

I leave our island home with a spirit of thanksgiving and a heavy heart.

A heavy heart because it will be a long long time before I see Singapore again. And a spirit of thanksgiving because, despite all her ‘warts and blemishes’, this place has been my home for the past 21 years; it has given me my friends, as well as the memories and experiences that has shaped me as a person. This is home, truly.

I have never thought it’ll be this hard. I traveled alone to Europe and Australia when I was 18. A tertiary education abroad has always been what I want for myself and what my parents want for me. I thought I have been well-conditioned for this. When a friend of mine was leaving to further her studies, I lamely tried to comfort her by telling her how our planet is shrinking because of globalization and information technology.

In the past few weeks, the everyday has become less commonplace. Even laying the table for my mum is no longer the chore that it once was. There is a tinge of sadness to it; actually, more than a tinge. I will miss her, this home that she has single-handedly sustained and the way things are. Help me pray for her, that she will come to know the loving God and that, despite the distance between us, we can be joined in obedience to Him.

Leaving is hardest because of all the friendships God has blessed me with and because the memories that we shared are so sweet. All these memories are part of me now. I will always remember going to school with you and skipping lectures together; going through BPCC as your course-mate and slacking away in our bunk; being your CG mate and going for lunch with you after 1030am service. I will remember how you laugh at the way I play pool and giggle at the way I make a speech, and I will also remember laughing at how terrified you got during that horror movie. I will never forget driving you all over Singapore and you driving me to Church every Sunday morning. I will remember you laughing at how much I enjoy strange seafood and how I think of myself as the Pope.

If the customs authorities allow, I will ziplock each and everyone one of you, squeeze you into my baggage and bring you along with me to Pennsylvania. Keep your blogs updated. Keep in touch via email, msn and skype.

I love all of you and will miss all of you.

Robin

Mundane Ramblings

2006-08-16T17:41:00.000+08:00

Here’s how last week, my last full week in Singapore, went:

Monday: Visited my primary school in the morning. Checked out Dempsey Road (Item 6) in the evening, that place is so secluded that it is more ‘chilling’ than ‘chill-out’. Changed plans and went to Geylang for dinner.

Tuesday: National Day eve. Dinner with Bernie at China Square. Caught the fireworks display put up by Team Singapore from the Esplanade bridge.

Wednesday: National Day. Bought camera at Peninsular Plaza. Visited the philatelic museum and the national museum. Lunch at Aunt’s place. Watched the NDP. Nights out with my army mates at a veritable Singaporean institution.

Thursday: Road trip followed by dinner with RI classmates. In some sense, item 4 can be checked because the restaurant we went to did have a view of our skyline. Unfortunately, the view was pretty far away from where we were sitting.

Friday: Slacked at home. Rented ‘Russian Dolls’ from Videoezy. Ate cockles.

Saturday: Breakfast at Tanjong Pagar food center. YAM. Watched fireworks put up by the French team from the Padang; I was super impressed. Had dinner at Laguna.

Sunday: Church. Lunch with YAMmers at Raffles City. Dinner at China Square with ex-classmate. Bought CD at the old parliament house.

Flight Details

2006-08-14T18:03:00.000+08:00

Date: Thursday, August 17
Departs: Singapore- Changi, Singapore (SIN) at 6:00AM
Flight: NW 6
Arrives: Tokyo- Narita, Japan (NRT) at 2:25PM
Class of Service: Economy Class (B)
Flight Duration: 7 hours 25 minutes
Miles: 3311
Meal Service: Breakfast
Aircraft: Airbus A330-200

Date: Thursday, August 17
Departs: Tokyo- Narita, Japan (NRT) at 3:40PMFlight: NW 20
Arrives: Minneapolis/ St. Paul-Int’l, MN (MSP) at 12:40PM
Class of Service: Economy Class (B)Flight Duration: 11 hours
Miles: 5953
Meal Service: Dinner
Aircraft: Boeing 747-400

Date: Thursday, August 17
Departs: Minneapolis/ St. Paul-Int’l, MN (MSP) at 3:10PM
Flight: NW 4775
Arrives: Pittsburgh, PA (PIT) at 6:16PMClass of Service: Economy Class (B)
Flight Duration: 2 hours 6 minutes
Miles: 725
Meal Service: None
Aircraft: CJ8

Road trip

2006-08-11T19:06:00.000+08:00

Took a drive around ‘My Island Home’ (I find Kaira Gong a little skinny) with the GreenCow yesterday. Drove to many places I have never been to but have always been curious about, and many places I had passed by as a NSF sitting at the back of a tonner. It has been an extremely long time since I visited some of the places; they’ve changed over the years but thankfully they’re still recognizable.

Here’s a summary of the itinerary:

Orchard Road - Scotts Road - RGS - Shangri-la – Orchard Road – Grange Road – Kim Seng. Pass a veritable Singaporean institution. - Tanjong Pagar – AYE – Queenstown – Lunch at Tanjong Pagar Railway Station – West Coast Park – National University of Singapore – Biopolis. Impressive. – Jurong Town – Singapore Science Center. Still plenty of fun after so many years. – Jalan Bahar – Home Team Academy – Keat Hong Camp – Tengeh Air Base – Garden of Remembrance – Lim Chu Kang Cemeteries – Ama Keng – Sungei Gedong Camp – Neo Tew – BBC broadcasting station. Took a wrong turn and ended up seeing more antennas than I had intended to. – Sungei Buloh Nature Reserve. Entrance fee is $1, but the park ‘ranger’ is really nice. – Kranji – Mandai – Upper Thomson – SLE – Seletar Camp – TPE – Changi – Hendon Camp – Changi Village – Selarang Camp – Changi Museum – Changi Prisons – Tampines – U-turned back to Old Bedok Road – ECP – Suntec - Marina Square for dinner with old classmates.

I have become a much better driver after yesterday and now I can vouch that the Toyota Vios is an extremely fuel-efficient car.

Item 2 on my list of the Top-Ten things I intend to do before leaving Singapore is checked.

National Day

2006-08-09T22:22:00.000+08:00

National Day is a public holiday; you don’t have to pay to use public car-parks.

Went to Peninsular Plaza with my mum in the morning to get a new camera. We managed to get one that is very operational at quite a huge discount (more than a hundred dollars off the usual retail price), but since we seldom have to spend on electronics I came out from the store feeling a little kek-sim and a little chek-ak. My mum got paranoid after the camera I brought along for my exchange turned out strange pictures and she has been insisting on me getting a new one before I leave for the States. My current Akira camera is a showroom set which I got for free. Even though it periodically loses some of its functions, I don’t mind it too much. Most of the functions usually work after I switch the camera on and off a couple of times. And although I sometimes have to do a lot of adjustments just to take a picture, I like playing with the many functions.

On our way back to the car-park, we passed by the stamp museum. The colonial postbox outside the museum caught my mum’s eye and we went in to take a look. Found out that museum admission is free because it’s National Day, and since parking is also free, we toured the place a little more. Wanted to visit the Freemason Lodge and the National Archives (free exhibition), unfortunately, the former is restricted to members and the latter is closed on public holidays.

Took a swing to the National Museum. The place is still under renovation but there is one ongoing exhibition, ‘Stylo Mylo: A Selection of Men’s Fashion in Singapore’, and admission is free. I found the exhibits rather gaudy and hideous, but I like what they have been doing to revamp the place. The new coat of white and grey is a refreshing facelift, and the glass and marble integrates the old façade with the newer extensions. The architecture is grand but not imposing, stately but not inhibiting. I find it very sleek.

In some sense, items 8 and 10 on my list are checked.

Thanks to free parking, this morning had truly been Uniquely Singapore.

Visiting Rosyth

2006-08-08T12:35:00.000+08:00

Item 9 on the list of the Top Ten things I intend to do before leaving Singapore: Visit Rosyth School.

It has been nearly a decade (9 years) since I left my primary school and many things have changed during that time. The school itself has changed. The Rosyth that I went to was a pre-Independence building along Parry Avenue. It was a very simple place, but there was a quaintness to the utilitarian features. It can even be described as having a rustic charm. Many of the window grills, pipes, fences, gates and rafters had corroded but were still functional. In the old Rosyth, you get a lot more sunlight, fresh air and greenery. We shared a huge field with Parry School. Creepers sneak into classrooms and the huge trees become guerilla hideouts for boys playing catching after school. From the fourth floor, you get a very good view of the entire area. I had always found that view very uplifting. The one who designed the new school seems to be fantasizing about architectural awards when he was planning the building. He poured everything he learnt from Architecture school into the blueprints. You have stairways and walkways that extend from and cut across each other. You have columns that extend to walls, and walls with openings cut into them as part of a Zen-ish matrix. If not for some URA restriction or MOE regulation, the architect would have added glass pyramids, Grecian columns and Oxfordian spires. In the main academic building, classrooms surround leafy nature; you will find a seamless flow of lines, from concrete to water, interconnecting the space. The new school has a canteen and an open-air basketball court on the fourth storey, a multi-purpose hall somewhere higher up, it has a lift, a heritage center, spiral staircases and CCTV cameras.

I can’t recognize most of the teachers but I am surprised that the few whom I recognize still remember me, without having to go into chicken-and-duck questions to backtrack our memories. Was really surprised that Mrs. Irene-can’t-remember-her-last-name still remembers me. She taught me for only one year, when I was in primary one. Mrs. Tan-can’t-remember-her-first-name still recalls my name. I remotely, vaguely remember her teaching me maths. Mdm Norlela still recalls my show-and-tell item (I talked about my fighting fish, very random). My primary 3 form teacher is Mr. Raymond Bong. My class is probably the worst that he had taught; nearly all of us flunked our exams and all except two went to below average classes the year after. 9 years later, he readily identifies my class after our chief prankster. So, felt pretty happy when he invited me into the class to speak to his students. Spoke to Ms Katherine Tan for quite awhile. Amongst all my teachers in Rosyth, she is the one whom I have the fondest memories of. She is approachable and has plenty of common sense. She pushed us hard but not too hard; she allowed us to be children.

The school population today is twice that of my JC. The students go to exotic places for field trips. They learn the er-hu for music lessons. When I was in primary school, I learnt the banal recorder. I could never get a hang of that instrument, and music lessons soon became acting classes for me. We didn’t have internet access. Now, the school has internet clusters along the walkways. They have an Innovation Center. They have murals explaining the different parts of a cell. These days, teachers are a lot prettier.

Item 9; checked.

Stuff that school horror stories are made of.

More security than the Louvre.

Things I Intend to Do Before Leaving Singapore.

2006-07-31T18:27:00.000+08:00

Here is my list of the Top-Ten things I intend to do before I leave Singapore:

1. Picnic at the steps of City Hall.
Had an unforgettable evening there many years back, but she would not even reply my SMSs now.

2. Take a drive around the island.
Especially to Changi, Jurong, Sungei Gedong, Kranji, Mandai, Seletar, Tanjong Pagar, and the areas that will be turned into the Integrated Resorts when I am away.

3. Take a jog through the civic district.
I intend to cover the areas around the Singapore River, the CBD, City Hall and Chinatown. An exciting alternative would be to cycle through the civic district at night.

4. Dinner at somewhere with a view of the skyline.

5. Catch a cheap, low-budget, Singaporean production at the Esplanade.
The Singapore Theatre Festival is coming up, but the tickets don’t look cheap.

6. Chill at Rochester Park, Dempsey Road, Club Street and Clark Quay.
People have raved about Rochester and Dempsey, and I have read about them in blogs, magazines and the newspapers. But, somehow, I have never been there.

7. Take a jog through Hougang and Potong Pasir.
Home(s) of the Brave.

8. Do something kiam-siak.
I’m not referring to the parking-coupon kinda kiam-siak, but something really kiam.

9. Visit Rosyth School.
My primary school. I can’t remember the last time I went back.

10. Celebrate National Day.
Perhaps by burning a compilation CD of all our nicer National Day theme songs. Last year’s song by Taufik and Rui En will definitely not be included.

If I were to give myself a few more spaces on the list, I intend to do the following:

11. Go Sentosa.

12. Picnic at Botanical Gardens.

13. Eat lots of Singaporean food.
Singaporeans overseas often talk about their laksa and chicken rice with fondness. And even though our ministers like to use the food-court, and rojak, to describe the diversity of our multiracial society, food somehow doesn’t rank highly on my list. Perhaps the craving will come later.

Miss Universe

2006-07-29T09:23:00.000+08:00

Was talking to Te Zhong and Wylyn about the Miss Universe pageant yesterday.

There must be some sort of right-wing conspiracy going on in Hollywood. At the Academy Awards last year, a dull and incoherent movie (I can’t even recall the name) beat Brokeback Mountain to Best Picture and Lee Ang was given a face-saving Oscar for Best Director. On Monday, the American dominion of Puerto Rico pipped Japan to the Miss Universe title, and the latter was given a token award for Best National Costume. I’ve got no idea how that can be justified. Ms Japan (Kurara Chibana) looks way better, way less plastic (spastic); she has a nice smile and she looks way better on the catwalk. She spoke in three languages during the two Question and Answer rounds and in the second round her reply is clearly the best amongst all the finalists. Unlike many of the other contestants, she has a personality. Furthermore, she looks a lot healthier and a lot more cheerful.

After Australia in 2004 and Canada in 2005, giving the title to Puerto Rico this time round is a throw back to the days where Miss Universe judges seem to have a fetish for surgically enhanced, nose-at-just-the-right-angles, mouth-just-wide-enough (their standard is really wide), eyes-at-just-the-right-distance-apart, neck-at-just-the-right-length, cheekbones-at-just-the-right-position-relative-to-jaw, good-looking-in-a-stereotypical-way, gibberish, “world peace”, Hispanics (usually Venezuelans). They are mannequins! Just go take a look at Miss Puerto Rico. Perhaps the only difference between her and her early predecessors is that she actually looks kinda sickly, in an ET sort of way.

Singapore’s outing was typically uneventful. By the looks of it, I don’t think this Miss Singapore will make it as NCMP. If I remember correctly, during the Miss Singapore pageant she was asked for the song that best describes her. Her answer was ‘Don’t Cha’, either that or she said she loves her mother.

Temping

2006-07-29T08:38:00.000+08:00

Took up a temp job this week. It wasn’t too bad; the pay is decent, the people are okay and I’ve got a room to myself with a nice view of the port. Work involves sorting through piles after piles of expired contracts, verifying the details of the contracts against a list and searching for missing contracts. It is extremely boring.

My work space.

Working.

Check out this link, it is a motion picture by (and about) an extremely bored Singaporean office-worker.

Connecting the dots, humility, the Beatitudes

2006-07-25T15:47:00.000+08:00

Feedback from church friends is usually tempered with a good dose of the Fruit of the Spirit, but I think the time of sharing with the Frontliners went pretty okay. I had thought that reading from a script might not be too bad an idea since I wanted, above all, the points (not a story or a joke or an anecdote) to stick. Thank God most people managed to hang on despite the early Sunday morning, and get the three points I was driving at. Watched and read a number of sermons online when I was preparing for the sharing, and one verse kept popping up “On the contrary, we speak as men approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel. We are not trying to please men but God, who tests our hearts. (1 Thessalonians 2: 4)” I think God is trying to say “No need for theatrics to get the points across. Just keep it simple and clear”. Anyway, since everyone was expecting me to tell funny stories, not being too informal might just be refreshing. Strangely, it still managed to induce some giggling.

Was a little worried initially about how far I should push my point on leaving our comfort zones to reach out. I said “The day we forget our purpose to bring hearts to Jesus, the miracle of the Frontliners ministry will stop.” Thankfully, Auntie Shermeen did not take it up when she spoke to me later. No one fell asleep, I am relieved.

Preparing for tomorrow's sharing

2006-07-22T14:30:00.000+08:00

You know you're in deep shit when you need more than one Bible. Feeling super unprepared.

76 -101

2006-07-21T09:44:00.000+08:00

I am two days away from sharing at Frontliners, but I’ve got no idea what to say. Judy is asking me for my outline, but I’ve got nothing to show her.

Top 5 All-Time Favorite Hymns

2006-07-19T07:33:00.000+08:00

If not for Frontliners, I’ll be a regular at the 1730 service. Here are my Top 5 all-time favorite hymns:

1. How Great Thou Art
When you listen to hymns like this, you wonder what all the fuss to do with contemporary Christian music is about. I like the Elvis Presley rendition best. According to the BBC music magazine, HGTA tops a poll as the UK’s favorite hymn. The Chinese version is not bad too.
O Lord my God! When I in awesome wonder
Consider all the worlds Thy hands have made,
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,
Thy power throughout the universe displayed:

2. When I Survey the Wondrous Cross
I believe this hymn comes in several versions. It seems that the original lyrics penned by Isaac Watts in 1707 does not include a chorus. In my opinion, the chorus is an excellent addition.
See from His head, His hands, His feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down!
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?

3. Be Thou My Vision
Go check out the Jars of Clay rendition.
Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise,
Thou mine Inheritance, now and always:
Thou and Thou only, first in my heart,
High King of Heaven, my Treasure Thou art

4. Because He Lives
I had not sung or heard this song for a long time, approximately 9 years, after the first church I attended closed down. Strangely, the tune of the chorus came back to me when I was retaking the SAT II Subject tests.
And then one day, I'll cross the river,
I'll fight life's final war with pain;
And then, as death gives way to vict'ry,
I'll see the lights of glory and I'll know He lives!

5. A tie between Great is Thy Faithfulness, And Can it Be That I Should Gain and O Come, O Come Emmanuel.
GITF will be at No.5 its own if not for how the chorus jars against the stanzas.
Summer and winter and springtime and harvest,
Sun, moon and stars in their courses above
Join with all nature in manifold witness
To Thy great faithfulness, mercy and love.

For Hire

2006-07-12T11:54:00.000+08:00

Thought this is an interesting picture from the Great Depression. Please contact me if you have openings for temporary or part-time jobs/work assignments.

I am Singaporean

2006-07-06T23:49:00.000+08:00

Here’s my tribute to the Molson beer "I am Canadian" commercial:

The address of my blog says rabbi-robin, but I’m not a Jew. It started out as a joke from school.

It wasn’t easy getting me into primary school. My parents had to ballot; thankfully, I have relatives who live in that area. I was a prefect, but I was nearly sacked for putting a pail on my classmate’s head. In primary five, NKF gave me an award for being one of their top fund-raisers. I was not from the best class. My form teacher said that she will eat her shoe if I make it to RI. From then on, I’ve never dared to challenge anyone that way.

I had wanted to be a sport-man, but realized I started the sport too late. My fellow countryman won gold for body-building at the Asian Games. A week later, writers to the ST Forum questioned if body-building is a sport.

I enjoyed NS. For five months, I worked 8 to 5. For another five months, I was an attached-out personnel. I was a Combat Engineer. I can fall asleep in nearly every terrain. My batch of commander trainees set the record for the number of training accidents. My company is not as operational, but they are fun-loving people.

My pay in army was around $680, before Mess fee, Hair-cut fee, Pioneer, Army News and Safra membership. I’ve never cut my hair in camp.

My country is in the tropics, but I can’t stand the heat.

I read the Straits Times daily. My favorite section is Urban, followed by Life and DigitalLife. On Sundays, I look forward to Colin Goh’s column. I don’t see why we have to pay to read Straits Times Interactive. I am not a football fan but I believe that the World Cup Channel should be free.

I missed the Progress Package because I was born three months too late. Consequently, I could not be trusted to vote. I live in the GRC where the Suicide Six tried to unseat the Prime Minister. I would have voted for PAP if I was allowed to vote. If I live in Aljunied I would have voted for WP.

I have the national flag ironed onto my backpack.

I went to a school where the uniform is the same as that of the ruling party’s. I had wanted to be a civil servant, but I’ve come to realize that Singapore is bigger than her government.

My name is Robin Quek. And I’m a Singaporean. So say we all. So say we all. So say we all.

Missing Kathmandu

2006-07-04T19:14:00.000+08:00

These testimonies of God's blessings in Kathmandu have become my desktop background.

I have written an article about the trip for the Frontliner magazine, will post it here closer to the date of publication.

P Plate

2006-07-02T00:50:00.000+08:00

And here’s how it went…

I woke up the day before with a minor bout of diarrhea, and because of that I was nearly 25 minutes late for the warm-up. Took a drive through the circuit; I did 5 out of the 6 static stations and that was all for warm-up.

Through a lottery, I was assigned Route 8 and a certain Ong to be my tester. A battery of static tests (directional change followed by slope, parallel parking, perpendicular park, S-course and finally crank-course), a ten-minute drive and 16 demerit points later, I passed. Finally.

Give me your tired, your poor...

2006-06-08T22:04:00.000+08:00

From Godfather II. Young Vito Corleone has fled Sicily, from the local mafia who had murdered his entire family.

CUT TO: Vito, on board the “The Moshulu”, looking at the Statue of Liberty.
Inside Ellis Island Immigration Station.
CUT TO: Immigration official inspects Vito's eyes and uses a chalk to write an encircled X on him.
CUT TO: All the immigrants are waiting inside the immigration hall. A man is playing a violin as everyone is talking in different languages.
CUT TO: Immigrants trying to explain themselves to customs officers at the customs counter. CAMERA pans along the counter.
…
[VITO walks up.]
CUSTOMS OFFICER: What is your name? Come on son, what is your name?
TRANSLATOR: ["What is your name?" in Italian. Then, looking at the tag on Vito's coat] Vito Andolini from Corleone.
CUSTOMS OFFICER: Corleone -- Vito Corleone. Okay, over there. Next --
…
CUT TO: A doctor inspects Vito's chest with a stethoscope.
DOCTOR (to NURSE): Tell him he has small pox, quarantine three months.
NURSE (translating for VITO): [In Italian, something like "you have small pox and will be quarantined for three months at Ellis Island"]
…
[The future Don Corleone is placed in a room. He looks out the window at the Statue of Liberty, places his suitcase on the bunk, sits and then starts to sing.]

Applying for a US visa is an extremely bureaucratic, frustrating, irritating and time-consuming process. There are thousands of instructions, to be found in a hundred different places, and just as many hidden adminstrative costs. Went to the embassy early this morning, but because of some missing forms my visa application was Gomez-ed even before I get to meet the immigration officer. Then spent a big part of the rest of the day putting the additional paperwork in order. Bo-bian, I don’t intend to try anything funny; the embassy has got more CCTVs than the Elections Department.

At the foot of the Statue of Liberty, there is a plaque that has come to symbolize the statue's universal message of hope and freedom for immigrants coming to America and people seeking freedom around the world. It reads:

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless,
tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

Bloody hell, of course ‘tired’ and ‘yearning to breathe free’ lah! So much paperwork! Wonder who is not ‘poor’ after paying all the hidden costs.

Postscript: Some forms have got very interesting questions. Here are some examples:

Have you ever unlawfully distributed or sold a controlled substance, or been prostitute or procurer for prostitutes?

Have you ever participated in persecutions directed by the Nazi government of Germany; or have you ever participated in genocide?

List all Professional, Social and Charitable Organization to Which You Belong (Belonged) or Contribute (Contributed) or with Which You Work (Have Worked).
Singapore Armed Forces, Bedok Methodist Church

Do You Have Any Specialized Skills or Training, Including Firearms, Explosive, Nuclear, Biological or Chemical Experience?
Yes. Mandatory National Service

Have You Ever Been in an Armed Conflict, Either as a Participant or Victim?

ORD loh!

2006-06-07T18:15:00.000+08:00

From the ORD dinner last saturday

Global Day of Prayer

2006-06-05T23:07:00.000+08:00

I was half thinking of giving the Global Day of Prayer a miss when I woke up yesterday, but I’m really glad to have gone for it. It is a testimony of God’s almighty love to see so many people of different backgrounds, churches and denominations come together to exalt ‘How Great Thou Art’.

Was a pity we couldn’t fill the entire stadium, but I’m pretty sure the crowd that was there yesterday can rival the Worker’s Party rally at Hougang. Sometimes we find that ‘personal encounter’ amidst the multitudes.

Having the city skyline as the backdrop gave added significance to praying for the country. Perhaps because of our multi-religious/ ‘unity in diversity’ credo we tend to disassociate the idea of prayer from ‘nation-building’. Maybe it is also because we want to save ourselves from sounding like a Ms Universe contestant talking about World Peace or a congressman on Capitol Hill going ‘God Bless America’. In accordance with His purpose, God has made this our home. And the concept of home becomes more than a notion from Establishment-Speak whenever we sense that stirring when we look at that skyline. We have a unique set of needs, plenty to pray about and plenty of work to do for the expansion of His kingdom.

Psalms 127 tells us "Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard in vain".

Thought about the Sermon on the Mount as I was seeing this.

Lion's Trail

2006-05-30T18:13:00.000+08:00

Went back to camp yesterday to settle my clearance forms. Basically, it entails getting signatures from a whole bunch of people. Despite having to bribe one or two of them, the process was surprisingly smooth. It might have to do with the fact that the new CSM, Staff Maverick, demands the entire company to be at this beck and call, so a lot of the signatures that I needed were in company-line. Can see that he is quite an asshole, got to put up with his grunting just to get his signature. I mean, who in the right mind will call himself Maverick? Imagine naming your son Ninja Lim, Hero Quek or Champion Tan. Such a clown.

Got coerced into taking part in a national education tour. Essentially, the Admin Spec wanted me to go for the tour in exchange for his signature. I didn’t put up much of a resistance, partly because I had no plans for the rest of the day, partly because I would get a free ride down to the city and partly because the NE cynic in me wanted to have a good laugh.

Meet our tour guide, Mr. Motor-Mouth. He started talking when the bus left the parade square and except for a short break on the journey to Changi, Mr. Motor-Mouth could not stop talking.

At the Changi Museum, Mr. Motor-Mouth talked and talked and talked. He continued talking all the way to Waterloo Street and could not stop himself even after we got to the Singapore River. He spent 20 minutes talking about trade in the old days, industries and the commerce that went on over at the Boat Quay side of the river. He even had things to say about Feng Shui; basically, he attributed our country’s success (a point he harped on with as much zest as an NDP announcer) to the fact that the Singapore River resembles a fish. Just when we though he was done, Mr. Motor-Mouth went “And on this side of the river…” Wah Piang!

Naturally, the group of Meridian JC students who were posing in front of the Raffles statue with their teacher stole our attention.

We went for a tour of the new Supreme Court before rounding off with a trip around the Padang. Must say that while the flying-saucer is a hideous addition to our skyline, I was impressed with the interior. Might very well be what Frank Lloyd Wright would have done, with glass (in place of wood) and a 21st century twist. I like how neat it looks. It is functional, and at the same time it conveys a modern grandeur. NE tour guides should avoid lame remarks like ‘all the glass symbolize the transparency of our justice system’. We were really quite impressed, so don’t spoil it by adding corny symbolisms.

We were also alittle pissed off when we requested to explore the Court of Appeal and viewing gallery, but was turned down because Mr. Motor-Mouth says we don’t have the time. We would have had the time had he not went on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on....

Postscript:

From the Supreme Court. Queen's Counsel Wong reviewing the evidence with the Prosecution's star witness.

Mobilization

2006-05-30T17:42:00.000+08:00

At 10am on Sunday morning, I received an SMS:

Fr: Mindef
This is an urgent message from MINDEF, please call 64479447 to
listen to your message. For any enquiries, please call 1800-3676767.

The SMS came right at the end of my care-group meeting, and it got the boys really excited (after all, they are not the ones being recalled). They crowded around my phone, dialed the number to access the message and put it on loudspeaker mode. I knew it was coming; the night before and on the morning itself, there were rumors of an activation and rumors of those rumors. Ironically, one of the last to report back to camp was the one who circulated the ‘insider’s info’.

Dhana, my raft commander, called a little while later and told me he intended to snatch the early bird’s special: the raft that reports back before 1130hrs gets to book out first.

Turned out to be quite an amazing race. After dilly-dallying in church for nearly an hour (you see, I’ve gotten quite used to my soon to be civilian/NSman status), getting my vaccination for the Nepal trip and saying hello to one and all, I got on to a taxi only around 11am. Then again, not that I could have helped it since so many of the taxis that passed by were carrying passengers.

On the taxi, I folded my No.4 and wore my green socks. I put on my camp pass even though camp was still some distance away. I paid the fare even before the taxi came to a stop, and then I ran, and ran, and ran. Was left beyond any doubt of how unfit I’ve become when some of the guys along the way easily outpaced me; then again, I didn’t have too much time to think about all that then.

Ran to the bunk, put on my green fatigue and ran to the auditorium even before my pants were done and the laces on my boots tied. One of my gutters was missing, so, just stuffed my pants into my socks.

Joined the queue, and scanned my card.

1128hrs

Dhana was a nervous-wreck until then. Joel, who had happily decided to take a bus from Tampines and ended up running all the way from the outer guard house clocked in at 1127.

Signed in at company-line and went to shake hands with OC.

Free Trade

2006-05-24T18:45:00.000+08:00

From Economic Sophism by Frederic Bastiat

From the Manufacturers of Candles, Tapers, Lanterns, Candlesticks, Street Lamps, Snuffers, and Extinguishers and from the Producers of Oil, Tallow, Resin, Alcohol, and Generally of Everything Connected with Lighting to the Honorable Members of the Chamber of Deputies.

Gentlemen,
We are suffering from the ruinous competition of a foreign rival who apparently works under conditions so far superior to our own for the production of light, that he is flooding the domestic market with it at an incredibly low price…. This rival… is none other than the sun….
We ask you to be so good as to pass a law requiring the closing of all windows, dormers, skylights, inside and outside shutters, curtains, casements, bull’s-eyes, deadlights and blinds; in short, all openings, holes, chinks, and fissures….
If you shut off as much as possible all access to natural light and thereby create a need for artificial light, what industry in France will not ultimately be encouraged? ...

Bastiat also sarcastically suggested that France double its need for jobs by chopping off everyone's right hand.

Saccharine-sweet

2006-05-24T18:23:00.000+08:00

Been struggling since yesterday with this book I bought recently. Trying really hard to grasp the author’s arguments and his very academic sense of humor. I’m not halfway through, but I’ve already skipped chapters and I’m about to give up. Affirms what Khoon Kiat said, 2 years in NS left us incapable of coherent thought.

This is distressing since school is about 2 months away. I need to feel smart.

It is embarrassing that I sometimes read saccharine-sweet to pander my intellectual vanity. Once your window opens to the pink, a voyeuristic curiosity compels you to pore through the entries. Law undergraduate by day and by her computer one part art patron, two parts princess, two parts goddess, four parts Sylvia Plath, five parts Paris Hilton, and seven parts Hello Kitty. In twenty years, this blog may well be the online version of Prestige or Singapore Tatlers. Inside you will find exclusive scoops on her legal battles against Paragon, Daniel Yam, Adonis Beauty, Reds Hairdressing as well as Toni & Guy. An expert on the fine prints of discount vouchers and retail membership, she is truly in a class of her own in the fields of litigation and corporate law. In it, you will also find the evolution of modern legalese: “fantabulous”, “*sob~”, “muacks”, “raaaaaar”, “sugarlinks” and “bestie”. Indeed, Pink is the new Black.

*Sob*, I’m feeling extremely dumb.

Enrollment Paperwork

2006-05-18T22:22:00.000+08:00

Spent the day working through all the enrollment paperwork, but have yet to finish most of it. My table is covered with forms: Housing Application & License Agreement, Meal Plan Enrollment Form, Parent Information Form, ID Card Application, PlaidCa$h Enrollment Application, College Credit Advisement Form, Interfaith Council Card, Medical History Report, Admissions Research Questionnaire, etc, etc.

The campus doesn’t look very big but it seems that they’ve got a lot of halls and apartments. Need to find out more about the housing options, I don’t intend to gomez those forms and end up living in some construction site.

More paperwork coming up next week as I go back to camp to settle my clearance form. Sigh, a total of 25 signatures to collect. From OC to Recall NCO, to PC, PS, CSM, Ops Spec, Armourer… . Very long list.

Anyway, here’s a link to a page by the Elections Department, containing some specimen forms and certificates required to run in our presidential and parliamentary elections. They don’t include the application forms required to apply for those certificates.

Another link. From a talkingcock.com website: NUS to Launch Minor in Form Filling for Political Science Majors

It began because it is difficult to say goodbye.

2006-05-17T16:48:00.000+08:00

In 1984, George Orwell wrote:

For whom, it suddenly occurred to him to wonder, was he writing this diary? For the future, for the unborn. … For the first time the magnitude of what he had undertaken came home to him. How could you communicate with the future? It was of its nature impossible. Either the future would resemble the present, in which case it would not listen to him: or it would be different from it, and his predicament would be meaningless.

It felt weird when I went back to camp last Sunday and Eugene said that this might be the very last time I’ll be sleeping on the bed above his. It felt weird when Yirong wished me all the best and asked for my ORD treat. And it felt weird when ZhaoKai asked about my college and career plans. Each time, I added that I’ll be back in camp before and on May 30.

One countdown reaches its finishing while the end looms for another countdown; but this time I’ll be leaving a lot more behind. I’ve always wanted to go overseas for university but it was only when my first acceptance letter came in that the weight of leaving Singapore for 4 years or more sunk in. It feels weird because whenever the committee makes plans for the Young Adults Ministry, they talk about me as if I come along with an expiry date.

Transmissions is for friends and the people who have been part of my life.

Transmissions started because it is difficult to say goodbye.

First Post

2006-05-15T23:59:00.000+08:00

Was at the old parliament house two nights ago to catch Tan PinPin’s Singapore Gaga. What better way to begin Transmissions than with a post about the movie.

Singapore Gaga is essentially a very sincere presentation/montage of the different frequencies that fill our aural landscape.

The idea of transmitting and frequency is most literal in the vignette where a few uncles and aunties were making news broadcasts in various dialects from a lonely recording room (Hokkien, Cantonese, Teochew, Hainanese, Hakka and Hockchew). They are the last of their kind, transmitting the remnant voices which have been given a concessionary existence after the Speak Mandarin Campaign wiped out dialects from the mainstream media. There is a refreshing quality to hearing the news (in this case, Father Kang has been made to serve time) read in standard/polished dialect; a heartland sing-songy eloquence, elocutionary in a clannish way. Ever wondered why they’ve always fielded a Teochew candidate to face Low Thia Khiang in Hougang? Or why Hole-Gang doesn’t go down as well as Aw-Gung?

The movie engages us by re-tuning our sensory receivers to the frequencies that we had chosen to ignore and now subconsciously reject. Like the Ah-pek busker stomping his clogs and playing the harmonica at Raffles Place station, and the wheelchair-bound hawker’s ‘one dollar, one dollar’ tissue paper ditty. (The latter is a Christian. She sings hymns too, ‘Jesus songs’.)

For better or for worse, our sensory receivers have been tuned by society and the Establishment. James Gomez, Strong Mandate, First World Government just to cite a few examples of this tuning. Yet that Singaporean-ness, still speaks to us. The scene where Khoo Swee Chiow scaled the inflatable Mt Everest *goodness* amid cheering from an entire stadium seems strangely alienating. For all the conditioning by the Establishment on the foreign talent policy and what it means to be Singaporean, the song in the next scene strikes a cord immediately. It goes:

Wasted days and wasted nights
I have left for you behind
For you don’t belong to me
Your heart belongs to somebody else

Why should I keep loving you
When I know that you’re not true
And why should I call your name
When you’re to blame for making me blue

The film has no narration, but the director’s point is clear. When one of the dialect newscasters was asked if anyone listens to his broadcasts, he said "It is a privilege to read in a dialect few speak anymore, we are the last generation and I will continue to do it until they ask me to stop". It is difficult not to sense the dignation with which each of these voices transmits their frequencies, yet in their own ways each of them is still yearning for acceptance into our receiver range.