bitter long springs

(this is not a entry about the channel 8 drama)

the current channel 8 nine o’clock show is titled “rhythm of life/变奏曲”. at first glance from the trailers before the show started, it seemed just like one of the old school family/love drama plot that mediacorp scriptwriters never fail to come up with (what could i expect with the likes of elvin ng and co.) so i did not really follow the series closely. strange enough, my sister seems to enjoy the show very much such that she hand-twisted my dad into recording it (cause she doesn’t know how to operate the thing herself LOL), so now my family has enough recorded dramas to while our entire weekend away. (i think.)

but no, the scriptwriters surprised, or should i say, shocked me. they kind of took on the jay chou’s “secret/不能说的秘密” mega twist three-quarters through the show, except this time, the twist was that christopher lee’s character’s wish that he could return to 2 years back came true. well, he made this wish because in the original story, girl no.2 and guy no.3 died and guy no.2 became depressed because he killed guy no.3 in his duty as a policeman. girl no.1 and guy no.1 never did work out either. guy no.1 found out that girl no.2 loved him. guy no.1, 2, 3 are best buddies.

though this twist is really hardly the thing your primary school english teacher would ask you to write, i was intrigued enough to catch the episode immediately after his wish came through. i was not intrigued by the show, i was interested to know how the scriptwriter viewed the consequences of such a turning back of time. i do not know where the story currently stands now, because i did not watch like the last 2 episodes.

anyway, what was pretty interesting for me was that the scriptwriter saw that with the knowledge of the likely future, people would make changes to the past. for example, guy no.1 assumed that by saving girl no.2, none of the bad endings would ever happen. also, guy no.1, knowing that his efforts for girl no.1 would be futile, switched his attentions to girl no.2. i think it would be really easy to now accuse guy no.1 of commiting the fallacy of hypothesis contrary to fact, except for the fact that he can now find out what the consequences are of the “hypothesis”, i.e. there is no such argument ender like “you never know.” well, i think so because he thinks there will be a different outcome with a different action.

this kind of led me to realise that often, we are guided in our actions by “endings”. i was talking to nan during senior sports camp about like her final career path, which is to be a doctor, and i asked why. she told me that she had been really interested in medicine since young, and the path was clear for her because of the ending that she knew about, it being medicine. so this ending then guided her actions through life, such as by reading medical journals or doing well for her academics or possibly joining the raffles medical society or something.

i do admit that we usually (or should i say never) know what our “endings” are, oh yes besides death, but there are “endings” that we envision in life. these endings then guide our actions and decisions. people usually do not make decisions based on the here and the now, but rather through their “envisioned endings”. however, these endings do not necessarily have to be long term. they can be as far off as our future career in 50 years, or as immediate as whether you would want to enter into a relationship with someone now. 

now i think all these make perfect sense. but then again, these run contrary to what i believe, which is that we make decisions based on our feelings at that point of time and less upon reason. but then again, having an ending would change the way we feel, evident from guy no.1 loving girl no.1, and then loving girl no.2 at the point where he had knowledge that guy no.1 and girl no.1 will never work out, meaning that we are still guided by our feelings, i should think?

but now i wonder what it is like to be in a situation which will bring about your short-term envisioned ending (because short-term is more predictable) but yet you know it has zero probability of coming true. but the situation makes you happy – so would you remove yourself from this situation?

a good example, hm. let us say that the short-term envisioned ending is that you will be able to skate. assuming that this has zero probability of coming true because you have bad right-left foot coordination that cannot be improved with practice (you only realised that when you started to skate), but yet learning how to skate makes you happy. would you stop learning how to skate?

for me, i would not. i would continue to be in that situation because it makes me happy.

oh but i just realised, so is it a toss up between the happiness of being in the situation and the happiness gained if your envisioned ending materialises? 

let me out of the frightening space

today, i tried means and ways to get my bouncing ball to stop bouncing. i coaxed and cooed, i shouted and pointed, but all to no avail. the bouncing ball was really quite strange, it bounced and bounced, then it rolled for about 10 seconds before it started bouncing again. then it rolled around for 10 seconds. then it bounced again.

the bouncing was disturbing to my friends, so all i wanted my ball to do was to roll quietly beside me. you see, even though the ball was bouncing, it was still beside me. however, my friends just wanted my ball to be beside me without bouncing.

but the ball just did not want to stop bouncing.

the stick said, “throw the ball away! after some time, it will come back to you.”

but i didn’t understand, because that is not what i wanted to be done. my bouncing ball was already with me, why should i throw it away so that it will come back to me?

all i wanted it to do was to stop bouncing.

blink – it is going to be a long ride

sometimes i wonder if this sunrise is worth seeing.

chocolate high chocolate high chocolate high!

balloons kneel for me

and 1/2 hr of skating at 10.45 pm did not seem to do any good.

i think i feel slightly better,

but the gloom?

it is still all blanketed over me.

i can’t seem to shake it off,

but i don’t know how i acquired it either.

a pawn,

so goodnight my sweet.

stone’s throw away from my heart – it shatters.

seems like forever since i last met wy and js. (:

i think it is hard enough to find a friend who is really at the same frequency as you, much harder to find two of them! i know it is hard to expect that our friendship will continue to be the same even after many years, especially since i will be leaving and stuff, but it struck me today that we have really known each other for a long time. cause the cousin js used to talk about who always fails math exams in primary school has already turned 14 and has a girlfriend! anyway so i was counting, and realised that we have already known each other more than 6 years. wy, being the realistic one, said on js’ blog that ”no friends are immune from distance over time” (anyway i realised she might actually be saying “no friends are immune from speed” which is totally what the heck?) and i, being the forever idealistic one, just went “noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo”. but of course i am not dumb so i know it may actually be true. but then again, nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. i will be back so we will stay close!  

right anyway as usual we were talking about all sorts of weird things that people do not talk about when they hang out with their friends, such as acrobatic acts by transsexuals, inflation in hell, chemical reactions when a black cat jumps over a dead body etc. the other time we were at choa chu kang lot 1, we actually got into a debate over the need for tuition at mcdonald’s and then the guy on the other side was like staring at us.

ah anyway so today we were talking about the different designs in toilets, like why male toilets have open urinals while female toilets have cubicles.and then wy mentioned that male toilets have cubicles too, just that they use it for big business only. so i came to a realisation that the designs of the 2 toilets have nothing to do with whether males are less modest, but it actually all boils to the physiology. basically, when you do your thing, if you need to remove your pants, then you will have to do it in a cubicle. so you see, females have to remove their pants when they do both things, so naturally female toilets employ the cubicle system. as for males, they only have to remove their pants in one of the 2 things, so naturally male toilets would employ both systems, so that there is more space for more things to be going on.

exactly.

finally finished. all part of a plan, as i expected.

June 2008 ARC/Pathlight Enrichment Programs

hello dears! time of the year again.

http://autism.org.sg/enrichment/images/arc-enrichment_jun_08.pdf

please click on the link to view the enrichment programs that ARC is organising for this june holidays, and if you are keen to volunteer – email me at me.zilin[at]gmail.com, and i will get back to you with regards to the details i need!

this is an invitation to you to share my passion. (:

meteorite hit

yesterday was chin nam (otherwise known as o k k)’s birthday. i forgot. i felt guilty and then i went to say “OH MY GOD” and “argh” to him.

so anyway it suddenly struck me that i usually forget my friends’ birthdays not because i do not care, but there is actually a better explanation for it. of course, well, there are those that i do not care, but then, who cares?

because i know that if anyone asks me when chin nam’s birthday is (or wy or js for that matter), i will definitely be able to say, “it’s 5th of may!” related to this would be cause vd’s birthday is 3rd of march (i haven’t talked to him in ages), my sis and her bf’s anniversary is 6th of june, and my bro’s gf birthday is 7th of july.

so it is very strange that i never seem to make the connections that it is my friend’s birthday today. it is certainly not because i did not know yesterday was 5th of may. as a support teacher who spends almost all the time in the classroom, it is impossible not to know the date.

and then i realised, it is most likely that when chin nam’s birthday was recorded in my brain, it was recorded as ”chin nam – 5th may” and not “5th may – chin nam”. i think this slight difference made a huge difference! cause in the former, i remember that “chin nam’s birthday is on the 5th of may” – which makes sense as i will be able to answer anyone who asks. the fact that i did not remember in the form “on the 5th of may, it is chin nam’s birthday” would explain why when i saw that the date is 5th of may, it did not strike me that it is chin nam’s birthday.

i think it makes lots of sense.

i really feel like an idiot. i sat at the chair, wondering why i could be so stupid. i was asked to be there, but i really did not know what for. to be a character to complete the image? might as well get a cardboard cut-out. at least it would not feel like it was there to be one.

bathing ape

shoot.

friendster always leaves me feeling dirty.

the strains of the violin

it would come as a surprise to my aquaintances (and not a surprise to my close friends) that i was only invited to my first birthday party when i was primary five. no, i am not referring to those birthday parties where the entire class is invited, but the parties where only a select group of people are invited. i guess i was never the popular kid.

the awareness of this situation only struck me when i was primary four. on that day, one of my classmates was giving out invites to her birthday party. her birthday party was not the kind where the whole class is invited, and needless to say, i was not invited. i was just sitting at the bench where my class was supposed to sit before assembly, watching her give out the invites. (i think there were less than 10. comfort, comfort.) she gave and gave, until she was left with the one for one of the guys in our class. uhm after a conversation that i could not hear, she went back to her bag and took out her correction tape. then she blanko-ed the name on the invite, looked around, and then filled in another name. i assumed the guy rejected her.

this process continued a number of times, i.e. she was rejected quite a number of times, and eventually she came to me with the invite with my name on it (there were layers of correction tape under it!) and asked if i would like to go to her birthday party.

i said no.

okay i was not mean or anything, cause i know my mum would not want me to go anyway. but i guess i also had the thought, “… i’m obviously not someone she wants to invite, so why go?”

well i admit it, i do not like being second fiddle. who does? at primary four, i thought that situation was ridiculous, and now at 19, i still think it is. the feeling of being a substitute, it is just not nice. it is always something that nags at the back of your mind, that another person more important has said no, and you have been called in to take the place. it makes one feel unimportant i guess.

sometimes i wonder why i even bother.

anyway writing this entry made me realise that i am making some of my friends feel this way. on msn, i am often too busy trying to talk to people whom i want to talk to, and my friends who really want to talk to me are basically just playing second fiddle to the people i want to talk to.

it is hard.

i should just try to talk to people who really want to talk to me and not bother those who don’t.