results tomorrow, feel surprisingly relaxed and unconcerned.. is this good or bad. gonna check it in office.

in the office i have been teaching myself korean so i can sing along to k-pop songs. i should be practicing my french for september but i do shit like this instead. in any case today i saw korean words and was able to read it out: 감사함니다 i felt like this was something crazy that has happened to me lately. hangul is much easier to learn than chinese, because chinese characters are derived from pictures if you don't already know. i'm sure you've seen the picture of a tree --> 木, they look alike. but hangul has such a logical, rational and easy way of ascribing strokes to sounds so it's really easy. sentence structure and grammar and vocab eludes me still but i feel like knowing that i can read and write korean is a life achievement........ even though i don't understand anything haha

there is a lady in office who speaks english, chinese, french, japanese and spanish. she worked in tokyo for awhile. feel so jealous, wish i could speak that many languages, why did i give up on chinese. at least i hope after exchange i can become fairly fluent in french, that would make me so happy, then i can come back to nus and take korean for real. i heard japanese is really hard.

i am really sad the weekend is over. time is flying by so fast i'm afraid it's leaving me behind.

long pointless post

haven't blogged in a long time because of reasons i myself am not sure of. i think it is a combination of settling down into a boring but comfortable routine, one which requires little energy of me outside of work. at 5pm everyday i can feel my bones slackening and my posture droop considerably. i like what i do at work, i just don't like working, if that makes any sense. like, i would gladly do what i'm required to do but be free of the constraints of an office life. i don't like offices. i marvel at how everybody else never seem to tire. they sit at their desks with their eyes bright and alert at 5pm as they were at 10am. me, i just get restless and fidgety and sleepy. am unsure what this implies about my character. that i lack discipline? lack focus? perhaps an optimist will tell me that i am just some sort of 'free agent', that i need to work within looser boundaries, but personally i think i choose to believe that i am just lazy

in fact, i am only blogging right now because i'm restless and fidgety

that being said, i think i have contributed a lot to the project we are working on. i get to do more than i expected in any case. constantly there is a flow of information between my supervisor and i, and between us we get things done. of course i am starting to realize a lot of things: the perils of administrative inefficiency, the prima donna/diva attitudes of some 'famous' people committed to a 'good cause', the other side of an NGO, that is, beyond their single initiatives that occur relatively minimally throughout the year, the rest of the time is spent scraping for money to fund them. also i find that i disagree with several things within the organisation but of course i will never say, it is simply not my place, maybe if at the end i have to fill up a feedback form of some sort

wrt my lazy boring routine that dominates most of my days, i start to wonder if that is at all bad. should i be spending my time doing something more stimulating and productive? read some philosophy? discover some 'real' music? hang out with 'real' people? buy a poetry book? sometimes i wonder if there is any merit at all to being 'deep' or having multiple dimensions. i refuse to read sad books or sad movies because i don't see the need to engage in such extreme emotion when i can avoid it. not that i am ecstatically happy all the time, but i don't have to discover some raw, unknown pool of emotion within me. i feel i know all i have to, that i hate three things: loss, rejection and helplessness. i have read and watched enough of this to know what it will do to me when the time comes. it is the law of diminishing utility. once you are exposed to a certain thing, consequent exposure doesn't necessarily educate you more. for the same reason people have become desensitized to poverty in third world countries or environmental damage. in any case, in uni i have to read enough about 'problems' as it is, so what is wrong if i want to read a science fiction novel that is not analogous of some pertinent and deep aspect of the human condition, or watch a korean variety show that is purely for laughs? i don't see anything wrong

in any case i am not entirely sure what being exposed to all this raw emotion is supposed to teach, but at the end of it all i think it teaches nothing that i don't already know, except cynicism which does not emerge on top. i think i have become cynical enough myself with the considerably little exposure i've had to 'deep' things, but even if 'winning' does not triumph through the barrage of negative emotion, what does, i feel, is compassion, and love, and no matter how deeply i feel things have no meaning at any point, i will never stop feeling pain if others are in pain, and love when i can afford it. and if i have any sort of grasp on what life is supposed to be about i am most confident that it revolves around this: being aware that your air is also someone else's, but that it is not always fresh for them, or that you are one end of a see saw, waiting to lift someone else up, as much as you can

i feel my judgmental tendencies and selfish nature have been shaped and moulded by a certain demographic, a certain type of people that, ironically, in establishing themselves as the legitimate/'civilized' or 'correct'/'superior' personnel that have authority to make fun of others, engage in completely base and primitive behaviour vis-a-vis other people. if anything i've grown up surrounded by these people and become one of them myself. if anything i have learnt that i must disengage from such mindsets, and stop mistaking their opinions for my own

Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends. - Gandalf, LOTR 1 The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien 

When I read about the Ferrari accident, I can't even begin to say how angry I started to become. A stupid mistake by one stupid man in a stupid Ferrari -- killed himself, killed an innocent passenger, and after reading updates a few hours ago, killed the taxi driver who was doing nothing but his job. I can't even begin to say how much I feel the man driving the Ferrari deserved to die, deserved to go to hell for what he did, but I caught myself when I remembered the above quote, only because it surfaced again towards the end of The Two Towers, which I'm reading now. In a sense, of course, it's not up to me to say whether or not that man deserved to die. God has His plan for everyone. But it's just such a stark reminder that just simply being alive you are such a huge potential for hurting someone else. Some days I go through life thinking I don't mind hurting myself, dying, even, as long as nobody else, nobody who doesn't deserve it, is hurt. At the end of it, if I try to forget that there was a man who was responsible for it all, I just end up feeling helpless, back at square one, which is, I know that God has a plan for everyone. But why this plan, why does it have to be like this

 

Work is okay. More bearable than I thought it would be. Today I found out there's free coffee in the pantry so tomorrow I can stop falling asleep. Usually everybody walks to the nearby foodcourt for lunch, and I end up eating so so much because the mixed rice stall there has all my favourite dishes. I've got like 1 meat and 4 veggies which is way too much for the amount of rice they give, so I end up eating the ingredients on their own. Everybody is nice, mostly. The only thing I hate is waking up in the morning, but I don't mind riding the bus, or walking to the office, or doing work. I'd rather have more work actually.

Daily routine has become: work, Gus picks me up at 5pm, we go home and watch running man, sleep. To be honest I enjoy it, such a slothful, boring routine, but I like just slumping into bed once I'm home and watching a show that makes me laugh. Hoping to save lots of money over the next two months!!! I'm really quite thankful that God gave me this internship. I feel like I would regret not doing anything for these three months. On the other hand, it means life got significantly more boring --> have nothing to blog about.

Haven't posted in awhile. Exams ended on Wednesday at 3pm, by 11pm we were at Butter, and then Zouk, and then Butter again for Kpop night on Thursday.

Post-exam things that make me happy: listening to Big Bang, watching Running Man, curling up with my Kindle, sleeping in, sleeping late, sleeping in general.

Work starts on Monday. Already my holiday is ending... don't know how I'm supposed to enjoy more reckless, hedonistic nights anymore. All my friends are also flying off soon, for exchange/summer school/work & travel, it sucks.

Recently I've been listening to K-pop, and before you judge me, let me hypothesize what kind of taste in music 'you' have: probably listened to Death Cab a lot when you were younger, nowadays you're very into Florence + the Machine, or Girls or Gotye, Mumford & Sons, have albums of solid oldies: the Beatles, Eagles, Led Zeppelin maybe. Probably you have tons of artists in your iPod that most people have never heard of, you probably went to Laneway to watch Laura Marling or something, but memorized all the songs in the week right before, need really deep lyrics and hate nonsense pop songs that just have lyrics that rhyme but are poetically pathetic

I was like that before, I think, at one point I thought of my taste in music as really good. I didn't go to Laneway or anything but I knew a few songs that were considered 'real music' in today's world. Then I listened to K-pop and I really liked it, and I put it down to two reasons: 1) it's really catchy, it's really good music production, the beats, the synthesizers, the melodies aren't in any way sub-par to artists like LMFAO 2) I don't understand Korean, so I don't know what they're singing about which helps, because sometimes when lyrics are really lame I get turned off by the whole song. So I'm pretty sure the lyrics are lame, but because I don't understand them, I can just enjoy it.

But it doesn't mean I like any of the bands I previously enjoyed before any less. Of course not. I'm still a huge Beatles fan and I'll always be. Liking K-pop doesn't diminish that fact. I still like Mumford & Sons, I still like Gotye. So just because someone listens to K-pop doesn't make them any more "cheena" or less worth having as a friend. That's just judgmental. I think on some level I used to do it, but not anymore of course, I've realized that your music taste doesn't always define who you are as a person. I fucking hate lady Gaga but I know so many friends who love her, and it shouldn't make me want to be friends with them any less.

Plus it's just really fun. I'm glad that Asian music is making a breakthrough especially into the Western markets. I've always been quite disgruntled by the level of Westernization in Singapore... granted K-pop does take its foundations from Western pop, but that it's promulgated by Asians, sung in an Asian language... it's something Asians should be proud of, instead of being exactly like what a narrow-minded Westernized, 'high cultured' Singaporean would be: judging the people who listen to K-pop and defining them immediately as people that you will never get along with because 'we don't have common interests'.

That's what I've learnt anyway. I'm not like a hardcore K-pop fangirl, but I love listening to their music, it mkaes me feel happy and makes me feel like dancing, so why not? So I won't judge anyone who listens to Gaga, or Bieber, or whatever music I personally consider bullshit anymore. It's ok if they listen to it, and I'll find out who they are beyond what music they put in their iPods. That's all

Um last night I stayed up until 6am studying math
 Still struggling, am not made for numbers, feel like crying mostly
 Have to get a C so I can s/u the mod, if I don't get a C I don't know what to do

 Two papers down, lots more to go

 In the afternoon I received an email titled 'Internship'
 I got it, not the one I went for an interview for, this one was a surprise interview on the phone.
I was caught off guard but I also know they aren't keen to take interns.
 It makes me think I won't be doing anything very substantive.
 9-5 for two months, it makes me feel uncomfortable.
 Also, I read that bosses like to dig stuff up on their employees, I think I might lock up my blog for a bit.

Also, I just want to say.
I used to think, ok people who like to brag about academic achievements, I guess if I was them I'd be really happy too, seems like legit behaviour
But after achieving some degree of academic 'success' myself I realised that it is very easy not to talk about it, and not to brag, even if it is the first and only time I have achieved such things
Which makes me wonder why other people have to brag so much
I know this post is basically me talking about it, but this is the last time I mention it, and I only mention it wrt the bigger context of the question, why some people cannot be humble, is it because academics are excessively constitute a large part of our confidence structure
It's just one of those questions