Welcome.

Okay new idea. Something that I had already discussed a little with Sundheep and Ash (cause we met on the train!)

We could have a portal for our school where people applying to universities can get people's opinion on their essays. This might save our college counsellors some work. There are really a few ways to do it, but all have to consider how sensitive people are in opening up to others about their essays, and plagarism. Two ways I thought of:

1) Do it peer to peer, within the level

Advantages: People might know you better, evaluate your essay better. Times might have changed, so getting someone who is in the know now can help.

Disadvantages: Obvious conflict of interests, people can actually use the site to "source for ideas" to use in their own essays. But then again, we are not really competing within our school are we (after all we only have 200 odd students per cohort). We are competing more with the other JCs in Singapore. That is unless, universities like to compare people with similar credentials.

2) Do it as an alumni thing

Advantages: more experienced perhaps? Less conflict of interests

Disadavantages: Don't really know who you are, opinions are not as personalised.

I personally prefer it as an alumni thing. It would give us something meaningful to do as alumni. But in terms of effectiveness, I am really not so sure. The bigger worry is if our alumni wants to do this at all!

Of course, there are much more details and planning that needs to go into this in order to make it work. I was considering some sort of semi-anonymity system. Am I right to think that people don't really care about remaining anonymous if you are evaluating the essay, but they do care if their essays are the ones being evaluated?

I find that I'm starting to like penning down my thoughts more often. I don't do it for people to read (although they are most welcome to give comments and start more discussions), I do it more to make me thinking more thorough and complete. I have many ideas in my head that just slip away just because I did not bother to put them to paper, which is such a waste.

Anyway, I just had a conversation with my dad and his close friend from Myanmar, my uncle Than Win. Talking to uncle TW made me realise how much our schools really don't teach. Have we ever come across the task of cleaning used lubricating oil from cars in our comfortable world here? I finally see that these are the 'practical things' my father was lamenting that we did not know how to do.

And it's not like uncle TW is only all about practical things, he even discusses with me about the Higgs Boson particle, about spirituality, about chemistry, basically about all kinds of things. When I asked him how he managed to remember facts that he learnt in school from the 70s, he gave some pretty interesting solutions.

One was that he constantly reminded himself of the facts, and whenever he has a new question he immediately acts and seeks out new information. So in that sense, he continuously builds upon his mountain of knowledge. This definitely requires some level of perseverance, and you can imagine the level he is at when he can recall facts from an entire textbook.

The second is more interactive and less methodical. He takes every opportunity to teach someone about something new, to constantly remind himself of the knowledge that he has obtained. I could feel that he was doing just that when he was talking to me about the Higgs Boson Particle. When I reflect back to myself, I now feel as though I have missed many opportunities to cement my learning because I dissed people off when they ask me about something. Like my sister for example, when she was studying for her O levels. We both could have benefited more if I had just adopted this 'teaching yet learning' attitude.

As an engineer, uncle TW has been telling me that I must "get that knowledge, then apply it". It doesn't really matter how you get that knowledge, heck there is an even wider category of knowledge than we are used to. What we normally define as knowledge now is mainly theoretical, perhaps about how many electrons there are in potassium and their orbitals. But what he has shown me is that knowing what crank size for an engine of so and so power by observing his environment on board a ship is also knowledge; being able to tell the carbon content in steel just by the colour of its spark is also knowledge. More often than not, knowledge for practical purposes is gained through more empirical and observational methods.

And to think that we think that we have seen the world if we travelled all around the Western world. I would think that we would learn much more if we go to places like Myanmar, to learn about their can-do attitude because of their having to survive in a much harsher world. I am certainly excited at the prospect of going to Myanmar this January before I enlist, to learn more about the practical side of life.

To have an opinion or not to have one. There are really so many dilemmas in life, if you have an opinion, you risk conforming to some set perspective, to be permanently prejudiced. On the other hand, not having an opinion just shows how one is wishy-washy, and it is really much less interesting if you don't have an opinion. Not having an opinion allows one to remain a sponge, to absorb all the information that is available.

I realise that I am really like that, I really don't have many opinions. Thinking about it, when Mariel asked me about how I thought of my time in council and stuff related to that, I was sort of making up opinions on the go, though they were still based on the information that I had.

When people have strong opinions, I feel as though I am inclined to accept those, especially if they are close friends. In fact, I end up impressed by them more than anything. It could be that I hate to judge things, which could be a good thing in the eyes of some, but it really that seems like a bad thing. Judging things or events accurately could make all the difference between success and failure.

Maybe it is best to form your own opinions and to keep an open mind to new ideas or information. Say if for some reason you detest some guy, you gotta know the exact reason why. Then if the person does something nice or good, you must be able to overcome your prejudice to change your opinion of people. Some say that a leopard never changes his spot, but most of our opinions are formed based on our judgment, or even those of others. So what if our judgment is wrong in the first place?

We should also consider how our opinions are formed. One of my dad's favorite topic seems to be how Singaporeans sometimes look down on Malaysians, saying how it is not safe there, people are corrupted there etc, AND therefore we should not go there. How much do we really know about this to judge things, to come to that conclusion? I don't believe that we would know what kind of crimes are prevalent there, or where it is concentrated. We won't even know how corruption would affect us, the common tourist, directly.

It seems that sometimes we take the opinions of some people and consider them sacred, consciously or not, then we make those opinions ours. I think in that case, seeing things and making judgments on your own is more important than anything.

HAHA time to revive my dead blog, though I am not sure hw many people will actually notice. But well, the point of a blog ain't exactly for people to read right?

One of the main reasons why I decided to post again is really because of the influence from my dad. I think that we don't express or share our ideas often enough, such that we limit the development of our minds. I am glad my that classmates, especially John and Sundheep, share interesting points of views that often challenge conventional thinking. For example, how Sundheep would fight for the rights of rich people when it is much more popular to fight on the side of the poor. And John, he is always questioning the rationale behind why we do things. I think the girls in my class can attest to that.

I don't know how much people actually care about the other things that happen in life, other than just about academics and the people that matter to them. Like how many people care deeply enough about class unity, school spirit and even patriotism that they would strive to make an impact, to change things for the better. A case in point is really my class, of which around half are foreigners. I am sure any socially aware classmate of mine can feel the gulf between them and us, the locals. But who has stepped up to take concrete action to integrate them with our social groups? I can remember myself trying to do that once, during the class chalet, where I had asked some of the foreigners to come help barbecue instead of just sitting around in their own groups.

That is definitely not sufficient, and I admit that I have not done enough too. My father actually suggested that someone should actually take up the role of the leader of the group of locals in our class and work together closely with the leader of the group of foreigners so that our groups can be more closely bonded. This would be way better than the few discrete efforts that we would have put up, but I doubt we have the motivation to make it work.

On the other hand, if someone whom we all respect recognises and takes on this problem seriously, there might be a chance that we would become more bonded as a class. The one person that I am thinking of is our mentor. I disagree with some of his actions because they show that he either doesn't bother to include the foreigners more, or he doesn't have the vision to create a more united class. When he was pleading with our class to buy tickets for the combined performing arts concert, he only arrowed at the Singaporeans, sparing the foreigners the guilt trip that we were put through. Won't this reinforce the idea that the foreigners don't need to care about school life or class unity?

But that is not to say that my mentor isn't a good and nice person. In fact, I really appreciate how he has handled our testimonials and personal statements. In expecting to develop leaders and thinkers however, exemplary role models must exist. Role models with a strong sense of justice, who display their idealism and personality vividly, will inspire many students to strive to emulate them. Being surrounded by people who are just decent, people who lack ambitions and ideas, will only influence us to be good, but not great, people. Now in integrating the foreigners with the rest of our class, who is our role model?

Some might deride me, saying that if I can think of all this, why don't I do it myself? I frequently find that in this kind of situations, I need to be enabled somehow, mostly by people agreeing and supporting me. It's really far from the ideal case where one steps up for whatever he believes in, but I guess that I am just not daring enough (yet). I wonder what the rest of my classmates think about this issue, but then again we are going to have our second last day as a class tomorrow.

Recently I was just looking through my gmail (which I hadn't in a long time) and found something really interesting and meaningful which my sister had sent to me. This might be a really dead blog but well, just in case I forget about the article I can always refer to it here!

Life and How to Survive It

I must say thank you to the faculty and staff of the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information for inviting me to give your convocation address. It's a wonderful honour and a privilege for me to speak here for ten minutes without fear of contradiction, defamation or retaliation. I say this as a Singaporean and more so as a husband.

My wife is a wonderful person and perfect in every way except one. She is the editor of a magazine. She corrects people for a living. She has honed her expert skills over a quarter of a century, mostly by practising at home during conversations between her and me.

On the other hand, I am a litigator. Essentially, I spend my day telling people how wrong they are. I make my living being disagreeable.

Nevertheless, there is perfect harmony in our matrimonial home. That is because when an editor and a litigator have an argument, the one who triumphs is always the wife.

And so I want to start by giving one piece of advice to the men: when you've already won her heart, you don't need to win every argument.

Marriage is considered one milestone of life. Some of you may already be married. Some of you may never be married. Some of you will be married. Some of you will enjoy the experience so much, you will be married many, many times. Good for you.

The next big milestone in your life is today: your graduation. The end of education. You're done learning.

You've probably been told the big lie that "Learning is a lifelong process" and that therefore you will continue studying and taking masters' degrees and doctorates and professorships and so on. You know the sort of people who tell you that? Teachers. Don't you think there is some measure of conflict of interest? They are in the business of learning, after all. Where would they be without you? They need you to be repeat customers.

The good news is that they're wrong.

The bad news is that you don't need further education because your entire life is over. It is gone. That may come as a shock to some of you. You're in your teens or early twenties. People may tell you that you will live to be 70, 80, 90 years old. That is your life expectancy.

I love that term: life expectancy. We all understand the term to mean the average life span of a group of people. But I'm here to talk about a bigger idea, which is what you expect from your life.

You may be very happy to know that Singapore is currently ranked as the country with the third highest life expectancy. We are behind Andorra and Japan, and tied with San Marino. It seems quite clear why people in those countries, and ours, live so long. We share one thing in common: our football teams are all hopeless. There's very little danger of any of our citizens having their pulses raised by watching us play in the World Cup. Spectators are more likely to be lulled into a gentle and restful nap.

Singaporeans have a life expectancy of 81.8 years. Singapore men live to an average of 79.21 years, while Singapore women live more than five years longer, probably to take into account the additional time they need to spend in the bathroom.

So here you are, in your twenties, thinking that you'll have another 40 years to go. Four decades in which to live long and prosper.

Bad news. Read the papers. There are people dropping dead when they're 50, 40, 30 years old. Or quite possibly just after finishing their convocation. They would be very disappointed that they didn't meet their life expectancy.

I'm here to tell you this. Forget about your life expectancy.

After all, it's calculated based on an average. And you never, ever want to expect being average.

Revisit those expectations. You might be looking forward to working, falling in love, marrying, raising a family. You are told that, as graduates, you should expect to find a job paying so much, where your hours are so much, where your responsibilities are so much.

That is what is expected of you. And if you live up to it, it will be an awful waste.

If you expect that, you will be limiting yourself. You will be living your life according to boundaries set by average people. I have nothing against average people. But no one should aspire to be them. And you don't need years of education by the best minds in Singapore to prepare you to be average.

What you should prepare for is mess. Life's a mess. You are not entitled to expect anything from it. Life is not fair. Everything does not balance out in the end. Life happens, and you have no control over it. Good and bad things happen to you day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment. Your degree is a poor armour against fate.

Don't expect anything. Erase all life expectancies. Just live. Your life is over as of today. At this point in time, you have grown as tall as you will ever be, you are physically the fittest you will ever be in your entire life and you are probably looking the best that you will ever look. This is as good as it gets. It is all downhill from here. Or up. No one knows.

What does this mean for you? It is good that your life is over.

Since your life is over, you are free. Let me tell you the many wonderful things that you can do when you are free.

The most important is this: do not work.

Work is anything that you are compelled to do. By its very nature, it is undesirable.

Work kills. The Japanese have a term "Karoshi", which means death from overwork. That's the most dramatic form of how work can kill. But it can also kill you in more subtle ways. If you work, then day by day, bit by bit, your soul is chipped away, disintegrating until there's nothing left. A rock has been ground into sand and dust.

There's a common misconception that work is necessary. You will meet people working at miserable jobs. They tell you they are "making a living". No, they're not. They're dying, frittering away their fast-extinguishing lives doing things which are, at best, meaningless and, at worst, harmful.

People will tell you that work ennobles you, that work lends you a certain dignity. Work makes you free. The slogan "Arbeit macht frei" was placed at the entrances to a number of Nazi concentration camps. Utter nonsense.

Do not waste the vast majority of your life doing something you hate so that you can spend the small remainder sliver of your life in modest comfort. You may never reach that end anyway.

Resist the temptation to get a job. Instead, play. Find something you enjoy doing. Do it. Over and over again. You will become good at it for two reasons: you like it, and you do it often. Soon, that will have value in itself.

I like arguing, and I love language. So, I became a litigator. I enjoy it and I would do it for free. If I didn't do that, I would've been in some other type of work that still involved writing fiction – probably a sports journalist.

So what should you do? You will find your own niche. I don't imagine you will need to look very hard. By this time in your life, you will have a very good idea of what you will want to do. In fact, I'll go further and say the ideal situation would be that you will not be able to stop yourself pursuing your passions. By this time you should know what your obsessions are. If you enjoy showing off your knowledge and feeling superior, you might become a teacher.

Find that pursuit that will energise you, consume you, become an obsession. Each day, you must rise with a restless enthusiasm. If you don't, you are working.

Most of you will end up in activities which involve communication. To those of you I have a second message: be wary of the truth. I'm not asking you to speak it, or write it, for there are times when it is dangerous or impossible to do those things. The truth has a great capacity to offend and injure, and you will find that the closer you are to someone, the more care you must take to disguise or even conceal the truth. Often, there is great virtue in being evasive, or equivocating. There is also great skill. Any child can blurt out the truth, without thought to the consequences. It takes great maturity to appreciate the value of silence.

In order to be wary of the truth, you must first know it. That requires great frankness to yourself. Never fool the person in the mirror.

I have told you that your life is over, that you should not work, and that you should avoid telling the truthr. I now say this to you: be hated.

It's not as easy as it sounds. Do you know anyone who hates you? Yet every great figure who has contributed to the human race has been hated, not just by one person, but often by a great many. That hatred is so strong it has caused those great figures to be shunned, abused, murdered and in one famous instance, nailed to a cross.

One does not have to be evil to be hated. In fact, it's often the case that one is hated precisely because one is trying to do right by one's own convictions. It is far too easy to be liked, one merely has to be accommodating and hold no strong convictions. Then one will gravitate towards the centre and settle into the average. That cannot be your role. There are a great many bad people in the world, and if you are not offending them, you must be bad yourself. Popularity is a sure sign that you are doing something wrong.

The other side of the coin is this: fall in love.

I didn't say "be loved". That requires too much compromise. If one changes one's looks, personality and values, one can be loved by anyone.

Rather, I exhort you to love another human being. It may seem odd for me to tell you this. You may expect it to happen naturally, without deliberation. That is false. Modern society is anti-love. We've taken a microscope to everyone to bring out their flaws and shortcomings. It far easier to find a reason not to love someone, than otherwise. Rejection requires only one reason. Love requires complete acceptance. It is hard work – the only kind of work that I find palatable.

Loving someone has great benefits. There is admiration, learning, attraction and something which, for the want of a better word, we call happiness. In loving someone, we become inspired to better ourselves in every way. We learn the truth worthlessness of material things. We celebrate being human. Loving is good for the soul.

Loving someone is therefore very important, and it is also important to choose the right person. Despite popular culture, love doesn't happen by chance, at first sight, across a crowded dance floor. It grows slowly, sinking roots first before branching and blossoming. It is not a silly weed, but a mighty tree that weathers every storm.

You will find, that when you have someone to love, that the face is less important than the brain, and the body is less important than the heart.

You will also find that it is no great tragedy if your love is not reciprocated. You are not doing it to be loved back. Its value is to inspire you.

Finally, you will find that there is no half-measure when it comes to loving someone. You either don't, or you do with every cell in your body, completely and utterly, without reservation or apology. It consumes you, and you are reborn, all the better for it.

Don't work. Avoid telling the truth. Be hated. Love someone.

You're going to have a busy life. Thank goodness there's no life expectancy.

By Adrian Tan

Hope you guys found it meaningful too!

Hah! I'm back after a long hiatus! Well, the main reason why I'm posting right now is that I'm super relived that I have just survived 2 5 days 4 nights camps, one being OBS and the other being the super xiong NPC ( National Patrol Camp). Wasn't really too simple surviving both of them- there were times where I felt really desparate for the camps to end- but I'm gald I went for both camps.

First, I was in OBS group 1, and I really did not expect it to be as fun as it turned out to be, cause most of my closer friends were in group 2,  but hell, it sure was fun! All the trekking, kayaking and rock climbing really bonded people together. One word which would describe anyone who survived OBS was perseverence, cause if one was not determined, he or she would be the first to drop their bags and refuse to do anything. I was really gald that none of us in the watch gave up or anything, cause that would simply mean that the others in the watch had more to do! Well, I am not going to talk about OBS in detail as it has been a really long time since I went for it. 

Now for NPC, I was not really looking forward to this camp, cause I had the tiring OBS before it, and I was not sure whether we were going there to compete or to disgrace ourselves. Let me talk a little about our team first. We basically had 4 year 1s, 1 year 2, 2 year 3s and 1 year 4, so it was a pretty inexperienced team. We did as much as we could to train the year 1s in all the knots etc, but there was only so much that we could train them. Some were also not really willing to go for the camp and kept complaining, which brought morale to dangerously low levels at times. But still, the training really helped, and together with all the support from other scouts and our scout leaders in training and logistics, we made it through the NPC.

For one, I did not expect our campsite to be as good as it turned out to be. It was cozy and had all that we needed, including a basin so we need not head to the toilet just to wash our hands before dinner etc. Our structures were all quite stable and above my expectations.  Our kitchen shed helped shelter us from rain or shine. One stupid thing was that we did not know that the tap water was drinkable, so we kept boiling water to drink. Our camp cook was Zhang Yao, who helped us notch the best camp cook in the whole camp!

Our pioneering structure was the one I was the most worried about. In comparison to others, it was kinda small and not really complicated. Initially it was just a frame to hold up a game board, but through some improvision we managed to make the structure look nicer, but still it was not really good. If anything would cause us to lose some awards, it would be this. 

So came the campfire which we would know how well we fared for the camp. We watched all the skits from the different schools and those particularly memorable were from Catholic High(Scout man!) and ACSI (Poem/Rap). After all the skits and songs, it was time for the award presentation. Through all the hard work of the scouts and scout leaders as well as the kind weather (it did not really rain) we achieved what we set out for- a sliver award! We were already delirous about getting a sliver award, but as if to add the icing on top of the cake(a really huge icing), we got the best newcomer patrol for the camp! Say hi to a brand new Wenger Swiss Army Knife!

This has certainly been a meaningful few weeks for me. Although I was totally worn out (slept from 11 plus at night to 3 in the afternoon), I'm really gald I've been through the highs and lows of each camp. Those few days would certainly hold a special place in my heart for I have really learnt alot! Thanks to all those who have gone to the camps with me and made them memorable!

Hi all, i shall revive my blog for a short quiz, cause I just had to find out what the quiz questions were... Curiosity really killed the cat.

1) No idea man.. Maybe Kay Wee?

2)Jaryl hahaha since P4

3)My dog.. Joking la, I like the way I'm now.

4)My dog is very concerned about other's welfare.(We treat her so well)

5)Terry hahaha especially in class, but not as much now

6)Stuart haha

7)were? I bet it must be Xavier, you know which one I'm talking about

8)Shirong

9) Myself

10) My maid, she just loves babies

11)Everyone writes this: Mona

12)Jesscia Alba (she popped into my mind cause Terry didn't know who she was)

13)Coach Krishor hahahaha

14)Terry, sibei manly. Joking la, Russell is the best.

15)Stuart hahahaha, you never know it might be one of his weird fantasies

16)Stuart is so mature that he has all these fantasies

17)Timothy la hahaha

18)No idea

19)Tat Wai

20)Kyle

21)Ahmed, I still remember the snail

22)No idea

23)Mr Ho hahhaha

24)From what I've seen happening to others, Andre

25)HA!

26)HA!

27)My dog is pretty loyal to my family.

28)Nah, avoid it!

29) O.o

30) I have never liked doing quizes, and it doesn't look like I'm gonna change anytime soon!

Eh hi all again. I think I might have been conned, conned by the most crafty person I have ever met in blogging again today.... :O hahahaha. Aiya it was debra to whom I made a promise to mention in a blog post if I ever did blog, and I made a serious mistake yesterday by blogging again! Ah nevermind, well she asked me to mention something positive about her, and I know I'm kinda defeating the purpose by mentioning that she asked me to do that, but well, :D. Overall, debra is kinda of a nice girl la, nice to talk to her about stupid stuff and bitch about some stupid stuff too. Well she used to be the one I always asked about homework but now since we're different class now I cant do that anymore. I remember there was once me and chong were like doing jobweek in her estate and we wanted to rest a little while and wait for the rain to stop. Well, we then smsed her and she didn't want to let us in at first. Well after that she was nice enough to let us go in then somemore give us some food and drinks. Her maid cooked some noodles for us and I must say that I'm thankful. Well we left after that and a while more we needed to use a toilet.. so guess what, it was damn awkward but when nature calls, you gotta do what a man's gotta do. So I guess it was really nice of her to let us in and all that stuff. A really belated thanks!