couldn’t resist

a letter from a student to someone.. (i kind of see “h-o-d-g-e” in the letter).. in the jc i should be going to.

fake the ongoing

i yt iro ir p convinced know never my one what to tell it has you

i don’t will been you know how be to you

i don’t me know has want to it tell

you no mA hard but me you

too is the how many

x matter same yt iro ir p i tell

where met never words have i your that

i don’t want tell heard because this

but is your you yet, i your want to day to

why depressed don’t to way never control will you

i don’t changed actions

i’m mA not feeling continue so

so times

like be i many understand wish betrayed i not yt iro ir p

betray down you are your the x times

or are you?

low on the reactivity series

blogging frequency is inversely proportionate to exam stress levels, or exam panic.

i think for me, it’s totally the other way round.

anyway, we got GOLD for syf central judging competion!

improvement from the silver we got 2 years back

actually, i don’t really feel much about the gold, it’s like.. neutral.

but still happy.

but i did hope that we achieve a gold with honours.

even though, realistically, it isn’t quite possible.

but still, i think we had the chance!

we didn’t play well for the first song.. (which we normally play beautifully.)

and we still achieved a GOLD!

doesn’t it mean it could have been possible for us to get gold with honours?

but oh wells, for the record,

none of the schools achieved a gold with honours.

not even *ahem*, ri.

i did expect them to get gold with honours.

and i could tell they were quite disappointed.

hahaha.

their playing was still very good, nonetheless.

ahs played well too..

i love their tremolo parts.

very neat, and very nice.

i thought they deserve a gold with honours!

but sadly, they didn’t get it.

anyway,

the conclusion?

we’re one of the best guitar ensembles!

haha.

ya right.

seriously, i think both ri and ahs played much better than us.

but still, we all got GOLD!

so yeah, good for us!

some of the schools screamed and cheered and cried when they got silver.

when the announcer said, “RI – Gold.”,

no reaction. no screaming, no nothing.

then the announcer said, “RGS – Gold.”,

no reaction. no screaming, no nothing.

can’t blame us.

we’re civilised people you see.

haha.

the weather is very hot. very very very hot.

elaborate follows

every one day you live, is one day closer to your death.

this is a paradox card.

i think it’s widely accepted that if one does not know about something, one will not desire for it. at this point, how i define the phrase “not know” is that you have no contact with that thing/issue/whatever at all, you do not even know that such a thing exist.

it’s like, assuming that you are in a 3rd world country and you have never seen or heard of such a thing called a “television” and basically, you will not even know of the existence of the television and much less, want it. the word doesn’t even exist in your vocabulary.

how can you want something that you not know?

anyway, moving on, from what i know of determinism, everything is pre-determined and humans have no free will. this is because every event has a cause and every cause has a cause too. so going on and on and on, you will reach a cause that you have no control over, like the birth of yourself. so, it can be concluded that everything is pre-determined.

so…

if one cannot want something that one does not know, how can humans seek freedom when they have never experienced it?

i was discussing this with js on the bus, but we didn’t get far. we didn’t conclude either. but i have not started philosophy lessons in school yet, whereas js has.. so she has a better understanding of determinism than i do.

the only thing i kind of caught was that..

if a God does exist, God knows what your choice will be, but God will not determine your decision.

it is like, i know what you will choose, but i did not make you choose what you are going to choose.

there’s a difference!

but i can’t really see the link, but there is a link. i think it is something along the lines that humans do have free will, because we do have a choice. that is why we will seek freedom.

okay, i remembered something else too.. we seek freedom possibly also because some people are more free than others, and so when we see that someone is more free than us, there is a need for us to seek freedom, so that we can be as free as that person.
(this argument is brought forth by js.)

but.. does that mean that the “most free” person in this world does not seek freedom? because the person would not know what it’s like to be “free-er” than him or herself.

but if this is true, then why did the first person break rules? because the person wanted freedom? but the person would not know what it is like be more free. how did they arrive at this concept?

one argument that i can think off hand, is probably because even though determinism might be true, these “pre-determined” events are disguised into choices that we think we actually make. in fact, this might be true because our concept of freedom is aligned with this disguise. thus, humans seek this “freedom” in façade.

but no one will ever know real freedom. or not?

once again,

if one cannot want something that one does not know, how can humans seek freedom when they have never experienced it?

put your life on the line

life is unfair.

my sister has 50 free sms-es from my uncle!

because my uncle started this sms programme all over the world or something.

and he gave my sis 50 credits to try out.

how come i don’t get any?!

life is unfair!

right.

who ever said it was anyway?

haha.

picked up

it was the cdc volunteer awards ceremony today

woke up real early to meet wy to watch a super short magic performance and prepare for our own performance! i was on time! it was quite a big improvement and i’m proud of myself for being on time! the beauty of being punctual and not making your friends irritated at you.

anyway, the magic performance was pretty good, learnt alot about performing styles and handling tips, and especially adaptability. haha, magicians are supposed to flexible and adaptable and everything!

after the super short magic performance, we went off to prepare for our own performance etc. not really much preparation, just more like practicing and everything, and i was reading a book i borrowed from the library – “Bill Severn’s Magic in Mind”. i don’t really think it’s a good book but whatever, just reading it for ideas and all, but obviously there won’t many ideas. but some of the effects are quite interesting.. and i tried some of the effects which i just read about on wy and sruthi, totally impromptu.. all of them worked, but some of them were seriously boring. oh wells.

what was totally fun was our own performance! haha. actually, because we got the funding from Central Singapore Community Development Council (CDC), we were asked or invited to perform during their ceremony. i mean, obviously we rejected at first since we’re not like professional magicians or anything but they insisted cause they wanted to showcase one of the innovative projects that is funded by the cdc. so yeah, we decided to do it.. cause there wasn’t like any way to back out.. but we told them that we had one condition, which was that we’re not going to do stage magic cause we’re hardly stage magicians.. no, i mean, we’re totally not stage magicians. so they agreed and planned for us to perform before the event, halfway through the event only for the “bigshots” and during the reception.

so yeah, before the event we were like totally unhappy, didn’t want to perform at all cause we were all feeling like super below standard and are just going to embarrass ourselves

haha, and worse still, when we started performing to the volunteers before the event, we were totally disturbed. because those volunteers who arrived early were mostly the old ladies and when we asked them if they wanted to watch some effects, they were like “no, thank you!” i mean.. we hardly get a “no, thank you!” reaction normally! sigh. but that was just a few of them, most of them were nice and watched us perform and were amazed! haha. even those who said “no, thank you!” originally started to watch us perform hahahaha. i performed for quite a number of people, even for someone from the singapore association for the deaf the man was really nice and interested in our performance!

did i mention that when wy tried to perform for two kids, they were totally like freaked out and you can see it written all over their face. the girl even started hyperventilating! i was totally shocked.. didn’t know whether to ask wy to stop or just continue. the girl was like “breathe in breathe out” very quickly. seriously scary.

then after a while, the ceremony started with Mayor Heng arriving and we were first up to perform. this was when tragedy struck. wy went up first to perform her rabbit effect and was kind of forced into a position where she had to perform for the whole group of audience! and from that point onwards i was scared already. because i was performing my three card monté which was an effect that i definitely cannot perform to such a big audience.

like hello? my cards are normal poker sized cards.. not visible about 100 metres away. or shorter, for that matter. oh wells.

anyway, wy did well but she didn’t go, “hello, am i performing for an audience or an oil painting?” hahaha! if she did that it would have been hilarious!

after her performance then it was my turn.. i told the audience that my effect is not meant for so many people to see and i would kind of only perform for the first row but i ended up performing for everybody! i was totally dumb sigh! it went quite well, but obvious, not many people saw the cards. sigh.. my three card monté!

sru’s dice prediction was quite fun too yep, after that short performance we went to the bottom level of the community centre to practice again.. and i continued reading my book. hehe. wy was trying some new effects on sruthi, which she already tried on me

hahaha, the exciting part was at 5! we went back up to the multi-purpose hall since reception time has started! when we entered, this girl.. daisy, i think. started to talk about some organization “High Five Alumni” who wanted us to do some performance or something, then i was telling them that we’re not really magicians, so it won’t be a good performance but they kept insisting that it was something unique and everything.. sigh!

so after that, we started to perform for the guests at the reception area! i was performing the “blue card effect” for the Mayor and he was really cute! like.. hahaha, kept asking me to perform again and again when i told him that i can’t! then he pulled someone else over to make them watch the effect too. haha. i think the Mayor is so funny! anyway i continued to perform the simple card effects for them and weirdly, more and more people stood around to watch wy and sruthi were each performing for their own groups! haha.. then i told them that i need a surface to do “21″ and they were like.. quickly got me a table! “21″ effect was super good okay! when it ended they were all like “ah! i want to resign from my job!” then i performed other simple stuff that we taught the patients at the hospitals.. the audience reactions were super good! i love them!

anyway, yeah. all of us agreed that the audience was super nice today. i love the rush i get from performing. even though i’m not good like the real magicians, the ability to amaze people and make them laugh and smile just has this weird effect on me and it makes me super happy like you feel real and really appreciated. i’m sure the real magicians always get this kind of feeling and they should be always happy!

haha, the funny part was after we left, sruthi and i went to look for bubble tea and wy “ran away” cause she decided that her parents were there already and she did not want to go and look for bubble tea with us. i walked the whole street of toa payoh with sruthi and i couldn’t even find one bubble tea shop! sigh. so i ended up buying soya milk with pearls from mr. bean or whatever it’s called. and i went to look for my sis and her boyfriend’s family (no boyfriend) as they were going shopping at toa payoh.. i was super tired and bored after all that excitement and plus, woke up so early okay! so i didn’t really want to go shopping. and my sis decided to give me money to take taxi home myself.

when i was leaving, my sis called me back and said that she’s going to send me home. i was quite irritated i think, cause i didn’t want her to not go shopping with her boyfriend’s family and i just wanted to go home myself. i frowned alot. feeling guilty now, shouldn’t have done that. but at that time my mood was totally bored out because it was so hot and sticky and i was in the school pinafore! like 2 layers okay! bleh, so we decided to go to crystal jade restaurant to have dinner first. i ended up sitting at the table next to wy’s family! hahahaha! at first i didn’t even notice! wy was like “ziLin!!! what you doing here?!” hahaha! so coOl right?! i was totally shocked and so excited! haha. then we spent the dinner sitting next to each other and talking about today.. hehe.

therefore, i conclude and confirm that wy and i are sisters cause we’re fated to meet where ever we go! haha.

oh, and that reminds me that i have not bought her birthday present yet. sigh.

i was just wondering.. is mental magic boring?

childhood innocence

Numa Numa by Gary Brolsma

strangely, this video reminds me of childhood innocence..

the childhood innocence which tells you that you have the ability to do anything that you want

the childhood innocence which gives you courage to do anything you want

the childhood innocence which tells you you don’t have to care about anyone else

the childhood innocence which gives you opportunity to give it all out.

[ t h a n k s j s f o r t h e v i d e o ]

singingfish.com

“Yes! We have a family filter. No! It will not filter out your family.”

restricted by your own eyes

eth·no·cen·trism
n.

The tendency to evaluate other groups according to the values and standards of one’s own ethnic group, especially with the conviction that one’s own ethnic group is superior to the other groups.

Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

ethnocentrism.. we learned it in english class. it was somewhere close to this definition, but not quite. haha. what i learned was something more like, evaluating or judging people according to the values and standards that YOU yourself have, but sure, this would definitely be affected by your ethnic group, your culture, your personality and your upbringing.

i agree.

this is something that everyone does, it’s not possible for someone to not be ethnocentric. it is something that lies in everyone, so it’s not something that we should fault people by. the reason for this is simply, because we can only see through our own eyes. no matter how hard you try to put yourself into another person’s shoes, you will only become what you perceive that person as, which is still essentially looking through your own pair of eyes.

we can try to be less ethnocentric, but we cannot be totally not ethnocentric. it is a limitation of humans.

but of course, don’t worry. you can appear to be not ethnocentric to everyone else around you.

1. stop and think before making any comments.
2. learn more about the other cultures.

this would help us to be a tad more understanding about the things that others do which you might not understand.

but of course, you will still be ethnocentric on the inside

so, perception lies in your own eyes.

we are perhaps, restricted by our own eyes.