What is with the bloody weather?

I think it's time for a good rant. Let's see, what is available? How about education? Or rather the value of education. No no, how about the way people are judged based on their education?

It's a common enough lament, especially in Singapore, that people are too easily judged by the level of education they have received. I hear it all the time, that ITE, polytechnic, O Level graduates or whatever find themselves pigeonholed. In recent years, the university graduates have started to complain as well, that employers are unwilling to take them on for jobs requiring qualifications below what they hold. It seems unfair to insist that the O or A Levels are the ultimate arbiter of your ability to succeed in life. Some people have talents in other areas that are not quantified by the standardised examinations students are subjected to. Perhaps some people are better at music, or art, or drama, or sports, or any number of other areas not examinable by Cambridge. To dismiss these people as useless and less capable than the university graduate seems unfair.

Well, I personally think that's pretty much bullshit.

Education is a good measure of your abilities in particular applications, that is the aptitude for memorising things, for doing math, for composing words, and so on. If that is what the employer wants, then what else is he supposed to use as a measure? Your height? If I want to employ an accountant, I ask that the person I choose be good at accountancy. What does that entail? Good math skills, the ability to express himself clearly and professionally. What measures these things? Education.

You may claim that you were lazy earlier in school, and that's why your L1R5 was 43, not because you're dumb. Well, too bad for you. I didn't ask you to be a lazy student, did I? If you couldn't be bothered to work hard back then, why would I be convinced that you will work hard now? If you are motivated now, as opposed to before, you can always go and retake your O Levels, get your straight A's and expunge the record of 43 points, and nobody will ever have to know. If your talents lie in other areas, then go out and prove it. Don't sit there and complaint that nobody knows how smart you are, just not academically inclined. I can accept that you're not academically inclined, but you have to prove to me that you're smart. The usual avenue of proof, academics, obviously didn't work, so if you want to convince me, go find some other way of doing it. How? Not my problem. The burden of proof is not on me, employers or the government, it's on you. You cannot prove it? Then too bad.

Oh, one more thing. If you claim to be not academically inclined, but talented in art, music, sports or whatever, then GO BECOME AN ARTIST, MUSICIAN OR SPORTSMAN. Don't come and ask me to show you sympathy for not being good at something others are good at but refusing to do what you claim to be good at.

The way I see it, if you're good at hitting the books, it can mean one of three things about you. Either you're hardworking, smart, or hardworking and smart, in which case clap yourself on the back and go have a good career. If you're not, then either you're dumb, or your talents lie somewhere outside of academics. If you can't prove, or can't be bothered to prove the latter, then I'll just assume you're the former. In which case, you're probably lost in the snarl of language by now and need help deciphering it. Here's a tip for these people then, SCROLL UP.

Q & A

I think I need to start pulling the entries closer to myself. I have been looking at some of the recent posts, and they're starting to get snarled up in the complexities of stuff that has nothing to do with me. So I'll start by answering a loyal fan's question.

Girls. Nothing but trouble. Perpetually in need of care and maintenance, hard to please, impossible to read. Well, that's the general perception anyway. It is true that guys do treat girls differently from other males. It is inevitable, no matter the actual valuation of the girl's 'girl factor' in the fellow's mind.

Ok ok, let me explain this 'girl factor'. It's a terrible name, but it's a terrible time of night. When a guy meets a girl for the first time, he looks at her and instantly makes an initial assessment of her romantic potential. It is unavoidable, just the way we're built. Even if the answer is a resounding 'No! Not on my life!' sort of reaction, it is still an evaluation. Any guy will be able to, if he is honest, give you an instant answer on the romantic possibilities of most girls he knows, even if it is nothing more than a complete negative. It is rarely an undecided issue in his mind. There are those he directly desires, those he would be happy to accept if they were willing, those he might possibly consider if all else fails, and those he would not touch if the continuation of the species depended on it.

Ok, maybe it's just me, but I do think it's right.

There is more to the 'girl factor' than just romantic potential, however. There is, for lack of a better term, how much the girl acts like a girl. Those who act like the classic girl, all pink and pretty and charming, generally get a better deal. At least in my case, I'm nicer to them, I take more care of them, I open doors, pull chairs, drive them home, buy them dinner and so on. Those who do not, well, not to say I'm not nice, but I am less overtly, I don't know, polite and pandering, I suppose. Do note that some privileges are extended to all females, no matter the lack of 'girl factor', such as taxi services, doors and the occasional covering of expenses. It's just a matter of degree, I suppose.

Alright then, let us look at the manipulation of male minds by the females of the species. I think it's generally fairly obvious that girls can and do play with the minds and libidos of guys a great deal. The slightest hint of the most remote possibility of sex, sexually-related activity, the promise of future sex, flirting, anything, will generally suffice to draw a male into the web of a girl, assuming the girl has sufficient 'girl factor' for that particular male, of course. I must admit that I personally have fallen into this trap on occasion, but I usually manage to extract myself by forcibly detaching my logical self from the sensual, libido-driven self. It is not simply a matter of suppressing or denying the sensual self, but of allowing these two personas to vie for primacy. If the logical self wins out, then too bad for the girl. Of course, the logical side seems to be pretty tough. Many are those who simply give in and become ensnared, then a great deal of angst and strife occurs. The only thing to be said is that the only way to look at all this without resentment is to think of it all as a game. Everything said or done is merely another move in the game. What is the point of the game? Ultimate satisfaction of whatever the deepest desire is, I suppose. I won't get into that today. Once it is accepted that it is all a game, then one can play as well. It is hardly unreasonable to engage the opposition rather than simply remaining on the receiving end.

Ok, I'm tired, so I'll leave off here. Anyway, all I can say is that I like girls. For all their quirks and faults, and the knowledge that it's evolutionary instinct compelling me, I like girls. And I'm sure most guys will agree.

Being surrounded by pink makes me feel all ... pink

Special episode today, all the way from an undisclosed location deep in the depths of the East.

Anyway, finally pulled my first all-nighter of the quarter, not a fun experience. Ah well, bound to happen eventually. Ok, what shall I waste my time and yours on today?

Alright, I have a request from a loyal fan, who is desperate to know my opinions on players. The word itself generally calls up images of sportsmen or video game freaks. Very strange, considering that these two categories of people may be considered extreme opposites of the various male stereotypes in the modern Western or Westernised society. One is the classic ideal of primitive competitiveness that recalls the very essence, as many continue to perceive it, of masculinity. The other is the more modern image of the worst excesses of the current technologically advanced age. Despite these two stereotypes being of almost exact opposites, they show up in the same thought and line of reasoning when one attempts to conceptualise a player.

Now, why would this be? The only answer I can provide, for those who are interested, is that both share a link in the modern consciousness to the idea of masculine competition. The sportsman expends his energies in the pursuit of some physical activity that has no practical purpose. The football player is completely unable to employ the skills he is so prized for in any activity that is of any profit in any other context beyond the narrow world of the sport. Sport itself is a curious phenomenon as the focus comes to be on the sustainability of sports in an industrialised world. The spectator becomes an essential part of professional sports. No longer is it possible for a person to sustain himself as a full-time professional sportsman without drawing on the economic resources of the masses. Personal sponsorship of sports is no longer popular or commonplace. The audience is necessary for a sport to continue to be played in any specialised context. So why would an audience participate in this relationship? After all, the audience finds itself paying often exorbitant amounts of money to sustain the professional sportsmen that they support. If sports are an expression of the competitive spirit inherent in many people, and especially the male, as is often assumed, why then would the audience not choose to physically participate in the sport, but rather prefers to sit back and observe others play the sport?

Many argue that it is a social bonding deal, that supporting a team offers a chance for social cohesion not usually openly available to the average member of society in his or her everyday life. Perhaps it is identification with the superior skills of the professionals on the field or court or whatever. The whole narcissistic attachment to the object thingy can be easily employed here, where the supporter is able to identify with a successful club and then claim rights to being recognised as part of that success. Where then would loyalty to a team arise from? If a professional sports team were to find itself in dire straits, whether in sporting, financial or any other terms, it is a common situation for the supporters to declare their loyalty to the team. Perhaps the loyalty to the team is another expression of the self's ability and willingness to display a capability to suppress the natural instinct to follow success, and thereby affirm his or her own suitability to exist as a member of a society that, as all societies do, demands sacrifices of its members.

What video games do is to infuse a sense and illusion of direct control and power over the professional sports team, or in fact any other larger social institution to which the gamer belongs. The obvious example is sports games, where the supporter of the team is able to play a direct role in boosting the fortunes of the team, and in fact allows an even closer identification with the team. Stepping away from the sports video games, it becomes clear that all video games do in fact provide the gamer with some sense of influence and power over the world he sees about himself that he is usually unable to exert a great deal of influence over. Generally, the video game persona is portrayed as someone with whom the player is able to make a primary identification with. That the easily identifiable persona is able to go on and succeed, presumably, at whatever the object of the game is, allows the player to satiate the lust for scompetition that most people do seem to experience but must suppress.

So while the sportsman is directly involved in the expression of the competitive drives of a large wath of the population, the video gamer serchs for an outlet for a more personal expression of the competitie drives experienced on an individual level, amplified by the overarching fabric of the larger group's collective drives.

Ok, I don't think that was quite what the loyal fan wanted from me, but I think that is really just too bad. My fingers hurt, and I'm tired of looking at the screen, so I'm going to stop any time now and look at something more interesting instead.

Filing

Some people have commented that this weblog seems pretentious, contrived, amateurish in its attempts to sound impressive and cheem.

This irritates me.

To all of those people who email or icq or whatever me telling me that it's all crap, well, I hate to tell you this, but this is actually what I think about. Yes, it's true. This is stuff I actually think about when I'm sitting on the toilet. For me, there is a differentiation of the mind into different segments, even within the conscious. There's a part running the front end, the conversations with people, the typing I'm doing now, the math homework or the essay due tomorrow, ok today. Then there's a bit that's always daydreaming. The leisure section, as it may be referred to, is the part that's perpetually going on flights of fancy, imagining and fantasising. Then there's a large chunk that's basically free. It is in this free bit that's where most of the stuff I babble about on this weblog comes from. And yes, multitasking is very possible in my head. No, I never run out of memory. Yes, I sometimes become confused when thoughts from multiple processes run into each other.

Anyway, when the free chunk of my brain comes to a conclusion about anything, it sort of files it away for future reference. It is to this section of filing that I turn to for my moments when I can devote my entire brain to something not designed for general consumption. Of course, the filing system is far from perfect, and sections of the stray musings are scattered throughout my mind, which, when brought to my attention, are generally shunted back to the free section of my mind for re-evaluation and filing.

So there is a continuous shuffle in my mind of the random musings. This weblog serves sometimes as a system of organising the already filed pieces. Which is why it takes me something like ten minutes to hammer out a 2000 word entry. The raw material is already processed and in storage, awaiting only sorting and shelving, which is done on the fly in the front desk end of the mind as I type on blogger.

Anyway, the point is that this is not meant to be cheem or confusing, or intentionally poseur in any way. I genuinely have these things floating about my head.

Making copies

This is not funny anymore. I'm sweating after having done precisely nothing all afternoon. Ah well, time to riff on some silly subject for a while.

Oh, a couple of posts ago, I mentioned something about the nature of individuality and the illumination given it by the complexity and inevitability of the life that is composed of near-infinite decisions. If everything we do is predetermined or at least previously scripted by ourselves, and subject to identical conditions, the paths of our lives will never diverge from a single, particular route, then there appears to be little existence of individuality and the self-determinism or freedom of choice that it affords us.

What we are is essentially what we encounter. The conscious and unconscious decisions we make are up to the individual, but the choices the individual takes are dictated by the circumstances and experiences prior to the decision itself. Every tiny little thing affects who we are, and it is the aggregate of this that creates the person. Take two people of identical genetics, raise them in absolutely identical situations, as in every last detail, and consider if there can possibly in any difference between the two. It is a tricky and pretty much impossible to test question, as it is virtually impossible to provide an exactly identical environment for any two persons. In fact, even a near perfect simulation will suffice. Chances are, these two persons will turn out very similar, but will they be entirely similar? Will they be the same person, in effect? Say we take the exact same person and throw him in two parallel universes, but with varying circumstances, will the reactions, character, and so on, of the person be the same? Unlikely. It is like in an experiment, with all variables kept constant except for one, the results will vary. If all variables are kept the same, the results should be the same. Failure to achieve this is generally looked upon as a failure of the experimenter to produce sufficiently similar conditions. But if the same can be said of people, then what is the individual?

Why are you the person you are? Or rather, why are you, you? If there had been an identical twin, and he or she had been placed in your position, would that genetically identical person then be you? If so, then the concept of uniqueness that people like to attach themselves to has no meaning, for each individual has no existence except as a collection of the experiences and interactions he or she goes through. So each person is nothing more than a series of data, and if the data can be faithfully recreated, the person will be faithfully recreated. The awareness and consciousness of this recreated simulacrum would then be the original individual, not a recreation at all. At the same time, the original would also be the original. It would not be a matter of the two being indistinguishable, but of the two actually being the same individual. Recreate this a million times, you would have a million yous. Then what value do you have?

If there were a way to extract everything from your brain, all the data, and place it in a body exactly identical to yours, you would then be looking at yourself. Not a copy, but yourself. So there would be multiple pieces of your own individuality running about, and the loss of one or the other would have no consequence. If such a copy were to be made, then you yourself were to be eliminated from existence, would you continue to exist then? The continuous existence is interrupted, but immediately followed up seamlessly by another existence completely identical to the original, and the second is in fact the same as the first, then the existence can be said to be continuous as well.

The major argument against this would be the soul, but it is far too hot for me to continue right now, so I shall return to it later.

Sleeping too much is bad for your health

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=T0ZGSWYMVLZ5KCRBAEKSFFA?type=healthNews&storyID=4841922

You have got to be kidding me . . .

Chips

Sometimes I wonder about people my age who cannot quite seem to adjust to the world as an adult. I do not claim to be more mature or worldly than others, but this conclusion is occasionally inescapable to me.

As a child, the world is always gving far more to you than it receives from you. Everything is an entitlement. A child assumes that it is entitled to food, love, care, shelter, toys, television time, a warm bed and so on. When it does not receive any of these things, it wonders why it is being denied, and complains about its maltreatment. The unfairness of the world is evident when one is placed in comparison with others, who invariably have more of something than oneself. Of course, one's own advantages over others is always a blind spot.

A little later, the child starts to think that maybe the world needs something in exchange. Parents are doled out signs of affection, friends are given symbols of affirmation and respect, authority figures are shown token fear and admiration. The mechanics are fascinating, and the game is far more intricate than might be imagined. A child is perfectly capable of playing on the emotions of any adult. For example, a child is aware that the fiercest teacher is human, and thus vulnerable to assaults upon the heartstrings, so to speak. An apple, a card, the occasional inadvertent, completely intentional slip of the tongue revealing affection like to a family member; these are all tools used to garner affection and favour from a stern authoritarian. Setting aside the various games played thusly by children, and indeed all humans and animals, for that matter, let us proceed to my point for today.

As we move forward in life, many people fail to see that the world is not about an exchange. Dealing with others is not about whether we can receive something in return for something else. Certainly to some extent it is, but only as a subset of the larger method in which much of the world operates. Think about it. The way we assess the potential profit of any exchange is whether what we receive is worth more than what we give out. The question is considering the other side in the equation. The other side is similarly attempting to sous out the cost-benefit situation for itself. The crucial element here is that each side has little regard for the other's profit, only it's own. Life is not a zero-sum gain, where if one side profits, the other side necessarily loses. Of course this may sometimes be the case, but assuming an entirely voluntary transaction, this is not likely, as the losing side would simply back out. The concept is that so long as each side is able to obtain something it desires, the transaction can be successful. The situation need not be a profit maximising one for either side, nor for the entire system as a whole, but simply one that all parties can live with. In fact, there need not be an actual exchange for the transaction to be successful. A deal need not involve exchange of anything, but simply an arrangement where both sides gain something.

A marvellous example is outsourcing, the hot new thing, well, ok, of the last 30 years or so. The firm finds that it is troublesome to maintain a particular area of operations, so it finds an external contractor. The firm knows that it could retain this area of operations and simply run it efficiently, thus saving money. This is obvious, as the contractor also needs to be making significant profit from this project, so the cost is certainly below the price charged by the contractor to whoever is paying. However, the firm saves the energy and time needed to maintain an area of operations, and the contractor gains a profitable project. Both sides gain, and the losses, while existing, are considered irrelevant relative to the benefits.

The idea is that not everybody is out to make maximum profit on everything. The world does not owe you anything, but neither do you owe it anything. Any exchange made can of course be engineered to be to your own maximum benefit, but it is hardly necessary to consider everybody else to be profit-maximising rationalists. In fact, if anything, the slightest benefit, with insignificant costs, is usually enough to attain agreement, especially if little effort is involved. There is no need to constantly try to work out an equation for every transaction, simply consider what you can live with, what the other parties are likely to be able to live with, and it will all work out. The crucial point is to remember that the world is not doing you a favour when you do something, nor are you doing them a favour, but it is also not a cold-blooded rational exchange. Don't bother with what the other party thinks you are getting out of the exchange, but on what the other party thinks it is getting, then work with that, retaining a personal minimum level beyond which you will simply walk away from the table. There is no need to go searching for bargaining chips, just look at what is available to you and keep it as an option.

What if . . . ?

Sometimes I wonder at myself, blogging on request? Ah well, here goes.

Ever wonder about possibilities? What ifs? Sure you have. Everybody has, at one point or another, wondered what might have been. It seems the only logical thing to do. Taking one path in life leads you to a particular destination, with a particular route, and it is only natural to wonder if the other routes might have been more scenic, less bumpy, more direct. We make innumerable decisions in every moment of our lives. Every decision affects the events that follow, and subsequently the nature and details of the decisions to follow. So the web of possibilities is near-infinite, and to ponder it seems somewhat pointless. Yet it is the obsession of humanity to attempt to simulate and theorise as to the alternatives. This would actually be pretty much impossible, as each decision affects the following choices in such minute and subtle ways that it would be futile to predict the outcome of pretty much anything with any degree of accuracy.

Let us use a simple example to illustrate. Say, if we were to go to a buffet and start selecting food. Afterward, we try to figure out how the individual selection of food might have differed if the initial choice of the first item on the plate had been different. Not such a ridiculously complicated task, it seems, certainly not as convoluted as an entire life. Ok, so the first item on the plate, instead of a chunk of beef, becomes a bowl of soup. Ignore the grammar. Simple, you say. So the rest of the food is simply pushed back by the capacity of the soup in the stomach. Not quite. What if the taste of the soup altered your appetite for the rest of the food. If it is a rich cream soup, you might not want such strong-tasting foods after, or conversely you might want to follow it up with equally strong flavours. if either is the case, how much is the change going to be? These are such nebulous and poorly defined ideas that they are essentially impossible to forecast with any accuracy. Imagine the web of changes as each item is added. Life is infinitely more complex and subject to external, uncontrolled shocks than a buffet, so if we cannot even handle the concept of predicting the course of a meal, what makes us think we can handle alternate lives?

Even if it were possible to project a rough simulacrum of an alternate life based on a changed decision, what would be the point? Every decision made in our lives is not truly a decision, for the choice made is the only possible choice. Allow me to explain. Each individual has a unique, or at least particular method of dealing with the world. This method, assuming nothing else changes, will never vary. So the exact same individual, with the exact same history, personality, physical presence, and so on, given a particular set of data, will always make the same choice without variation. It's a classic system. Keeping everything else constant, with one variable, how will the individual react to a change? It will never ever vary. Certainly we are all making choices and assessing the benefits and costs and all that in every decision we are called upon to make, but our reaction and final decision will always be the same. If it were different, we would not be the same people. Even apparently random things are not. The rolling of a die. A person rolls it in a particular way, and it interacts with all the external factors to produce a particular result. Now, if we could place this person back in time, with no memory of the displacement, and have him roll the die again, he or she would do it exactly the same way, since there is no reason for this person to do it any other way. Even the apparently random pauses, the tremble in the hand, the adjustment to the wind blowing, would all be exactly the same. So given the exact same external factors, the exact same person will produce the exact same result every single time.

So what does this mean for the individual? Well, quite a lot, actually. But I'm going to stop here. Been running low on sleep recently, and really need to stock up. I'll pick up again soon.

Enough for you, dear?

I'm impressed

You're Ulysses!

by James Joyce

Most people are convinced that you don't make any sense, but compared
to what else you could say, what you're saying now makes tons of sense. What people do
understand about you is your vulgarity, which has convinced people that you are at once
brilliant and repugnant. Meanwhile you are content to wander around aimlessly, taking in
the sights and sounds of the city. What you see is vast, almost limitless, and brings you
additional fame. When no one is looking, you dream of being a Greek folk hero.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Whims

Sometimes I wonder why I expend so much energy trying to be nice and accomodating to people. It really is quite tiring and occasionally painful. Yet it seems the natural thing to do. Does that mean I'm a nice guy? Nobody really seems to agree, so why should I bother? Perhaps I should simply give up and surrender to the suppressed impulses to simply be unpleasant. Maybe it is just me, but I have always had this desire to snap. There is a reason I become a little more violent when I drink a bit.

Ok, so that would land me in a lot of trouble. Forget it. What does bug me, and has been weighing down my mood recently, is the difficulty of doing anything in this school. Everything has to be a major production. At home, it was so easy to do things. If you wanted to go take a walk at night, just go. Here you worry about getting mugged and freezing to death. Go clubbing? Just go, even if you don't bother to take people with you, you're likely to meet people you know at wherever you go. Or just get drunk and everybody's your friend. At least you'll think so. Go out and get supper? Even without a car, in Singapore, just walk out and eat, entirely normal. Here it is impossible.

Maybe things aren't really that hard, but they only seem to be because it no longer seems normal to do things on your own. Go shopping downtown alone? Are you insane? No, normal enough back home. Not so here. Why is that? Why is there this compulsion to be social all the time now? It used to be I could actually enjoy a day with exactly zero interaction with people I knew. Now, facing the same few people every single day, I cannot seem to pull away. The ridiculousness is patent, yet it seems inescapable.

The only conclusion I can find is that living with another person in the same room is detrimental to any sense of independence one may possess. When I was younger, I shared a room with my brothers, and I was very stuck on people, whether it be them or my friends. Later, when I got my own room, I became a lot more introspective and solitary, not necessarily a bad development, mind you. I liked myself as a singular entity, without the cloying dependence on others for validation of one's own worth. Instead, I was able to enjoy what I liked without looking to others for acceptance or company. If there was a movie I wanted to watch that nobody else really did, a common enough occurence, I could simply head out and watch it on my own with no negative vibes whatsoever. I happily chilled with those wonderful books that people nowadays don't seem to read anymore, and that was a happy thing. Now, everything has to be catered to the preferences and whims of others. Ridiculous, I tell you. Of course, perhaps it is only coincidence that the changes in my character have followed the alterations in my rooming arrangements, but the general point remains, that I have become far too dependent on others for personal gratification than I would like or would consider to be healthy.

Perhaps I should simply decide to become more independent, to do what I want to rather than what others would like to. Compromises are not a good thing. It is possible that this is simply being stubborn and precious, but I think it is important to occasionally do what I want to without having to think about whether others would like to do it as well. Avoiding dilution of personal pleasure is crucial to maintaining a happy and content state of mind for myself.

One week

Instead of rambling on about some silly thought that has passed through my weary head, I think I shall simply do a little personal update of sorts.

The weekend finally rolls around. Mildly painful week, with lots of classes, buying of lots of stuff and very little sleep. It almost seems impossible that I, of all persons, would end up sitting in on random classes just to poke around a bit. Of course, I seem to have settled on the safest choices in the end. Until a little distraction popped up. I looked through my college catalog a couple of days back and listed out the classes I would like to at least try while I'm sitting in a university with decent social sciences departments. Turns out that if I want these classes, it looks like I'll be here for 5 years instead of 3. Very sad. Finally crashed into a quarter life crisis of sorts, the bit where I actually wonder seriously whether the direction I've chosen and have been following for the past 15 years or so is what I really want to do. So I'm gonna hopscotch around a couple more interesting classes next week, might end up auditing a few or something.

On a lighter note, the weekend is here! Ok, so that note has been played before, but a little more zest can't hurt. Ok, so finally hit the Sears Tower and did a little touristy thing while I'm in Chicago. I think I've been forgetting that I'm here partly as a tourist as well. I'm supposed to be out experiencing stuff, not cooped up studying or talking to students all the time. Of course, it seems that I still end up talking to students, but it's all good. I had better make this quarter more interesting, or I will be somewhat upset. So it's better classes and more fun stuff. Lucky things seem to be working out in that direction. Found an Italian restaurant with excellent appetisers, but unimpressive pasta. Can't seem to recall the name, but it claims to be the oldest one in Chicago. Italian Village or something like that. Well, I'm not sure I would want to go back anyway, considering the seriously unremarkable entrees. Ah well. Oh, and more karaoke, which wasn't so great this time cos the throat was a bit painful, and it hurt a bit to sing, which precluded me from doing too much torture of the others this time round.

Interesting selection of films at the doc this quarter, lots of anime, even some hentai, which is an odd sort of thing to be showing in a school cinema, but hey, what do I care? Watched Ghost in the Shell on a big screen for the first time, and it was cool. Lots of people seemed hung up on the voice acting and weren't focused on the plot devices and references though. Laughter is almost disrespectful, but I guess it's their problem.

Hauled a ton of vcds and a bunch of movies and stuff on my computer back from home this break. Unfortunately this seems to have left me gasping for time to watch everything, which is impossible. Let's see, 4 anime series, a good half dozen movies or so, oh yes, and a 40 episode drama serial. At least the drama is good stuff, though I don't know when I'm going to be able to finish it, considering I've plowed through a grand total of 8 episodes in one fairly obsessive week with very little work.

Looks good enough for me, gotta wake up sort of early tomorrow, so I figure a little nap is in order now.

Prawn Mee

This whole insomnia thing has ceased to be funny. It is unnatural for me to be awake at 5am and unable to get back to sleep when I have no work to do. Ah well, an opportunity to get in a bit of rambling here anyway.

Recently, I found out that I did not get my first choice for my application for a study abroad programme next year, and got my second choice instead. That's right, no Rome in autumn, I'm headed to Paris in spring instead. When I learnt that I failed to obtain my first choice, I was pretty upset. Now, I am long past the stage where I bawl and hit things when I'm upset, at least I hope so, but it is usually fairly obvious when I am not happy. So people asked me whether I really wanted to go to Rome that much more than Paris. Upon a bit of reflection, the answer was no. I did prefer Rome, which was the original reason for picking it in the first place, but it was a close call for me on my application. I would probably have been quite happy putting down Paris as my first choice instead. So if Paris is a close substitute for Rome, why would I be upset? The only reason that came to me was that there was an element of rejection involved in the affair.

Rejection is something I do not handle particularly well. I positively detest not getting what I set out to obtain, whatever it is, no matter how insignificant or how well everything else turns out. The very idea that there is something I want, but cannot have is repulsive, to say the least. Spoilt child? Not quite. I am perfectly aware that some things that require effort, and I am perfectly willing to put in effort to obtain what I want, to a certain extent. There is a weighing off of the costs and benefits of such things. Is obtaining what I want worth the effort to obtain it? Personal effort is not, contrary to popular belief, worthless in the sense of the cost to oneself. Inconvenience to oneself is worth something in terms of enjoyment, leisure, and of course, money. I have spoken to some hawkers in Singapore who tell me they open their stalls at 3.30 am every morning to cater to the construction worker crowds. What is odd about this is that they sell maybe 10 bowls of prawn noodles to this crowd every day. This is before the usual breakfast crowd which starts after maybe 6.30 am. So the 3 hours of sleep sacrificed every morning are compensated for by $20, even disregarding the costs of business. Between the two people, this works out to $3.33 per hour per person. Assuming this to be overtime hours, that is $2.22 per hour per person at the normal rate. So their time is worth only $2.22 per hour? They really should go off and work at McDonald's or something in that case. Far more worth it.

Before I start to get lambasted for being unsympathetic to the working classes and not understanding how difficult it is to make money and all that, think about it. I can see how the extra $20 per day can be crucial to their lifestyle or even continued subsistence. I can see how they feel compelled to endeavour to squeeze as much money out of their lives as possible. I am familiar with that mode of thinking, not personally, but familiar nonetheless. What is not acceptable to me is the utter disregard for the basic rules of life, that is that the cost of an action must be balanced out by the benefit, or the particular course of action should be abandoned as soon as possible. Instead of sacrificing hours of sleep at $3.33 per hour, why do they not simply try raising the prices by a miniscule amount or reducing it by a tiny bit, or be nicer to their customers, or go moonlight in a McDonald's. Seriously, sub-minimum wage is really quite a terrible way of increasing income.

Anyway, prawn noodle hawkers aside, I weigh off everything in my life very carefully. Every step is calculated to bring me to my ultimate goal in life, enjoyment. I work in school not to excel for excellence's sake, but to open a path to wealth, which is a cornerstone of my conception of enjoying life. Similarly, I slack off within those bounds not simply to slake my thirst for sloth, but as part of the overall equation of enjoyment. Everything goes towards a total tally of enjoyment versus effort. To maximise the ratio, a careful balance must be maintained. I will not do something as silly as single-mindedly pursuing a career or family or anything like that without realising that all these are but means to the ends of personal utility. I shall avoid discussing this now, no mood. So onto pride.

Pride is a central part of my character. Much of what I do is about pride, not so much pride in what I do or in those around me or something as banal as that, but rather a personal belief that I am good enough to compete with anyone on an equal footing. By equal footing I mean similar background, education, effort, and all that. Given the same conditions, I am absolutely certain I can do as well and probably better than pretty much anyone in anything. Arrogance? Let us see what this means before bandying it about. That all-knowing source of all college information, Dictionary.com, declares arrogance to be the act of making undue claims in an overbearing manner. I can only assume that 'undue' refers to the perspective of the person making the claims. But I honestly do not see this claim as being inaccurate. Beware of letting confidence and arrogance become mixed up. Was Alexander the Great arrogant when he set out to conquer the known world? Or simply confident in his own abilities? Touchy and laden as a word such as arrogance is, set it aside.

Modesty is terribly overrated as a virtue. Why on earth would anybody try to be modest? Is modesty not nothing more than a misrepresentation of the self to others in an effort to shape their perceptions of the self? Hypocrisy is not something I prize in others. Always tell me what you think of yourself honestly, or I shall take you at your word and treat you as the less worthy person you make yourself out to be.

Anyway, the point is that I believe I was qualified for the application to Rome. Certainly as much so as for Paris. So considering this, the only reason I can conceive of for not obtaining the slot for Rome is that someone read my essay and transcript, and decided that I was less intelligent, less capable, less worthy than 25 or 30 other applicants. Not at all acceptable. I do not believe that to be true, or even possible. So what upset me was not missing out on Rome, which is also not good, I suppose, but that someone adjudged me to be less than what I am, or certainly what I perceive myself to be. So is that person mistaken, am I guilty of poor representation of myself, or am I simply mistaken on my valuation of myself? Worth a great deal of ruminating, but probably not now. Perhaps later.

Ah well, perhaps Paris will be fun. I shall never quite know which would have been the better for me. Hmmm, yet another subject worth a spiel, but not one for today.