I have been away for awhile, largely due to some fear of facing up to the cyber world. I know this sounds crazy, and I don't wish to go into details, but the past few months have been, well, rather rocky I guess. It's not going to be easy getting over it, as much as how things wane with time. But I guess I've been getting along fine, with Dnd & the drammadicts (L). So, today breaks the month long hiatus with a really bonky and crazy post! Oh, and by the way, I suddenly realised that my url is so awfully childish! Goodness me! I'd better think up a coolio url, like vaudevillane(meg's) or incandescency(cab's) just to quote a few. HAHA so suggestions! Something befitting the cool me!
Okay so guess what! Today was so crazy! Meg and I went to the Lee Kong Chian library and treaded through a thousand over poems. Line by line, page by page, book by book.. I said "I don't get this!" more than ten times today! And there were so many people falling asleep on the couches! What's worse, was that we had to HAND COPY all the poems we chose! We even broke down several times while copying. It was the first time in my life that I had to correction tape the full stops I accidentally wrote because Meg said "MUST COPY WORD FOR WORD!" Then I told her if we aren't using the poems that I copied I'm going to be so pissed!
So anyway, meg and I both found this a pleasure to read amidst all the "foeval" and "anodic". We were like "WE NEED A DICTIONARY!" HAHA here goes!
a scroll painting
the mountains are hazy with timeless passivity sprawling monotonously in the left-hand corner while clouds diffuse and fill the entire top half before bumping daintily into a bright red parakeet perched suicide-like on a beautifully gnarled branch arched by the weight of fruit and one ripe peach hung a motionless inch from the gaping beak
here is transient beauty caught in permanence but of what avail is such perpetual unattainment?
i know the stupid bird can never eat the stupid peach
Arthur Yap
Isn't this how you feel about poetry sometimes? This definitely is how I feel about poetry soemtimes! Actually most poetry, except for sappy love poetry that makes you melt no matter what.
For Keith
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date: Monday, March 15, 2010 @ 11:56 PM
title: I can
6 Impossible things that are possible:
1. There is a potion that can make you shrink 2. There is a cake that can make you grow 3. Animals can talk 4. Cats can disappear 5. There is a place called Wonderland 6. I can slay the Jabberwocky
My father used to think of 6 impossible things before breakfast everyday. It's a good habit!
date: Saturday, February 6, 2010 @ 5:05 PM
title: D
DRAMA + DEBATE IN THE SAME WEEK =
LOTS OF PRAYER + STRESS + TEARS + ADRENALINE + MORE ADRENALINE + AN OVER EXCITED POUNDING HEART + BRUISES AND ABRASIONS + PLENTY OF SELF-DOUBT + TENSION + SLEEP LOSS
= VICTORY
= PICTURES + FLOWERS + HUGS + JAPANESE BEEF AND SILVER NOODLE THING + BEN & JERRY'S + FIGHTING FOR TREASURE IN B&JS + LOTS OF DANCING + WATCHING PEOPLE FAIL AT DANCING + WATCHING PEOPLE TRYING TO DO THE BODY WAVE AGAINST THE WALL
= DND + DRAMADDICTS
= (L)
Glory be to God!
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date: Saturday, January 30, 2010 @ 10:33 PM
title: Noosey
:D!
date: Friday, January 1, 2010 @ 12:28 AM
title: 2010!
SO, THIS IS THE FIRST POST OF THE YEAR!
BECAUSE OF THE OVER-LY JAMMED STARHUB NETWORK, HERE'S WISHING EVERYONE A MERRY BLESSED NEW YEAR! TAKE HEART IN THE LORD FOR HE IS GOOD!
Okay, so I'm not trying to be a cynic or a party-pooper but the fireworks went on for a whole 10 minutes! Copenhagen much? HAHAHAH
I'M REALLY PRAYING AND WISHING FOR THE BEST FOR THIS YEAR!
(L)
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date: Thursday, December 31, 2009 @ 9:51 PM
title: The last day I can Glee
I've always thought new year resolutions to be meaningless lip-service that people say to make themselves feel better from any possible personal vendetta. That instant gratification that, once the clock strikes twelve, they can start on a clean slate and forget about the awful horrors of the past year to start living their thought-to-be renewed happy life.
Not really happy thoughts huh?
But then again, everyone of us needs this vindication sometimes. Even I myself.
The term “mob mentality” is used to refer to unique behavioral characteristics which emerge when people are in large groups. It is sometimes used disparagingly, as the term “mob” typically conjures up an image of a disorganized, aggressive, panicked group of people. Social psychologists who study group behavior tend to prefer terms like “herd behavior” or “crowd hysteria.” The study of mob mentality is quite fascinating, and it is used to analyze situations which range from evacuations gone awry to the moment when demonstrations turn violent.
Resolutions for the new year? I might not keep to this, as we all know, these things are just part of tradition. Unchangeable tradition. So anyway, that aside, I hope I'll be able to be stronger next year, and find the renewed strength within myself. That I will not have the herd mentality and follow the crowd. I realised that the herd mentality is especially prevailent in sn, as much as they don't want to believe it haha. So there, breakout:D
And, this is a common prayer every night. I hope that I'll be able to trust in the Lord wholly, something that I fail to do many a times. to live my life in a more Godly manner.
So anyway, this last post of the year is to thank everyone that had made this year special in one way or another. Especially the dnd & drammadicts. Next year's gonna be tough, but hopefully we'll pull through yeah?
Yeah :D (L)
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date: Tuesday, December 29, 2009 @ 8:36 PM
title: Diend
I simply love the puns in Glee, and the songs and mashups. Glee's probably the BEST musical I've ever watched, considering the only other one is hsm, which in my opinion shouldn't even be considered a musical. Awesome songs much! :D
And Mockingbird has a surprisingly good ending. I wouldn't say I enjoyed reading the book, but the ending was worth it. One of the best endings I've ever encoutered. But Harper Lee's style is too looong for my liking.
Neighbours bring food with death and flowers with sickness and little things in between. Boo was our neighbour. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good-luck pennies, and our lives. But neighbours give in return. We never put back into the tree what we took out of it: we had given him nothing, and it made me sad.
The book's actually filled with plenty of dark humour, come to think of it. Don't you think?
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date: Friday, December 25, 2009 @ 11:34 PM
title: It's all about You!
MERRY BEARY VERY LOVEY MURVY BLESSY BLESSED CHRISTMAS!
Well, so this christmas feels a little weird, emotion unexplainable, but oh well, I'm thankful for service today. It gave me hope, in countless ways (: It was the first time I saw his tears in church, it was inexplicable joy and solace.
Christmas is all about Christ Jesus. It isn't about the presents or wine or dine or songs, it's all about HIM. HIS sacrfice for US. So I'm thankful Jesus. Please mould me in your image and help me be a humble servant in Your Kingdom. And please create more miracles :D Amen
He had to die so we could live; He was stripped so we could be clothed in righteousness; He suffered, so we wouldn't.
Happy Birthday Jesus
date: Sunday, December 20, 2009 @ 8:49 PM
title: Doo-de-dee-doo-dah
I officially crown reading as the best and only diplomatic solution to boredom.
Teesh, I rest my case.
date: Saturday, December 19, 2009 @ 10:06 PM
title:
Singapore’s Highly Paid Officials Get Richer
SINGAPORE, April 9 — How much money does it take to keep a government minister in Singapore happy?
The government says a million dollars is not enough, and on Monday it announced a 60 percent increase in ministers’ salaries, to an average of $1.9 million Singapore dollars, or about $1.3 million, by next year.
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s pay will jump to about $2 million — five times the $400,000 earned by President Bush.
In this nation where the bottom line truly is the bottom line, the argument goes, you have to pay to get them and you have to pay to keep them clean.
“If we don’t do that, in the long term the government system will slowly crumble and collapse,” Defense Minister Teo Chee Hean told reporters last month. “Corruption will set in, and we will become like many other countries, and face the problems that many other countries face,” The Straits Times, Singapore’s largest-circulation newspaper, quoted him as saying.
In announcing the pay increases on Monday, Mr. Teo, who also oversees the civil service, said: “We don’t want pay to be the reason for people to join us. But we also don’t want pay to be the reason for them not to join us, or to leave after joining us.”
Singapore’s pay system was created in 1994 by the nation’s founding prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew. It pegged the salaries of government ministers and top civil servants to the money they might earn at the top of the private sector.
Under that formula, ministers are to be paid two-thirds of the median of the top eight earners in each of six professions: accounting, law, banking, engineering, multinational companies and local manufacturing.
There has been no public sign of discontent among the men and women who run Singapore, but last month the prime minister noted that they were earning just 55 percent of that benchmark. Hence the raise for the three dozen men and women who run Singapore. Defending the system against an unusual public yelp of pain, Mr. Lee, whose title is minister mentor, painted a horrifying picture of a Singapore governed by ministers who earn no more than ministers elsewhere.
“Your apartment will be worth a fraction of what it is,” he said. “Your jobs will be in peril, your security will be at risk, and our women will become maids in other people’s countries.” It is true that Singapore has one of the most efficient and corruption-free governments in the world. Transparency International, a private monitoring agency, recently listed it as the fifth most corruption-free nation of 163 surveyed.
It is Asia’s second-richest country after Japan, with a gross domestic product per capita of about $31,000. The first Prime Minister Lee said it could well afford to pay its leaders top dollar. The average Singaporean earns roughly $3,000 a month, and the government has voiced concern over a widening gap between rich and poor. The ministers’ pay was approved three months before the sales tax is to be increased by 2 percent.
Talk of the pay raise drew criticism here that included letters to newspapers and an online petition that has more than 800 signatures.
“I am sure Enron and Worldcom paid more than top dollar for their top executives, and look where their companies are now — six feet under,” Mohamad Rosle Ahmad wrote to the editor of The Straits Times.
The elder Mr. Lee said naysayers needed a reality check. “I say you have no sense of proportion; you don’t know what life is about,” he said.
“The cure to all this talk is really a good dose of incompetent government,” he added. “You get that alternative, and you’ll never put Singapore together again.”
The Straits Times quoted him as saying his current salary as minister mentor was about $1.8 million.
Some Singaporeans suggested that other motivations should also come into play for government jobs.
“What about other redeeming intangibles such as honor and sense of duty, dedication, passion and commitment, loyalty and service?” asked Hussin Mutalib, a political science professor at the National University of Singapore, in a Straits Times online forum.
Catherine Lim, a prominent writer, suggested in an essay that Singapore needed a little more heart to go along with its hard head. “To see a potential prime minister as no different from a potential top lawyer, and likely to be enticed by the same stupendous salary, would be to blur the lines between two very different domains,” she wrote.
The minister mentor brushed aside such concerns. “Those are admirable sentiments,” he said. “But we live in a real world.”
Oops, that was so 2007!
Stripped from wiki: Lee Hsien Loong currently earns an annual salary of S$3,870,000 (US$ 2,856,930 ), an increase of 25% from S$3,091,200 (US$2,037,168), making him the highest paid head of government in the world. In comparison, the President of the United States earns a salary of US$400,000. The new salary of S$3.8 million took effect in January 2008.
