Always good to know I've been eating healthy

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=healthNews&storyID=6095994

One very cool-looking restaurant

This is painful. All this work is starting to drive me insane. It's beginning to feel like school is in session. Wake up, surf a bit, then get down to work. Reminds me of struggling with an essay. Except this time, it's more than grades at stake. I really shouldn't have agreed to do this internship thing for my dad. I'm learning a lot, no doubt about it, but summer doesn't feel like a break at all. If I'm going to spend my summer working my arse off, I might as well have done summer school. Ah well, too late now. Next year, I'm going to have to find something else.

As background noise, I just tuned into a match between Newcastle and Aston Villa. The game isn't bad, but what really grabbed me was the tie Sir Bobby Robson is wearing. It's the same Kenneth Cole tie I bought and liked so much, but nobody seemed to agree. I'm not sure whether I should feel vindicated or mortified that a famous, highly respected septugenarian would approve of my sartorial tastes. One thing I've noticed, a lot of people still seem stuck on the cariation of the same colour in a suit that was so hot a few years back. Boring, I say. Stripes are the thing these days. Go have a look at the catwalks.

Also, Alan Shearer is looking very relaxed in the dugout. I sometimes wonder about a career where you can slip into a gentle retirement at the age of 33. When I'm 33, I better not be at the end of my career. Things should be heating up right about then. Unless, of course, my first choice of career works out. In case I never mentioned it, my first choice for a career would be to win a couple hundred million in a lottery, then become a jetsetting playboy. Well, maybe not the playboy bit, not my style. But lots of cool cars, clothes and a nice entourage would be good. The thought of working for it doesn't seem appealing, especially when you realise that it would take you until the age where you wouldn't enjoy it all that much to achieve it, if at all. Now, why couldn't I have been a brilliant sportsman in a popular sport instead of possessing as my sole talent the one thing that's in oversupply in the world these days? In case I never mentioned it, again, that's brains. Everybody has some degree of smarts, and having a bit more doesn't make life easier. If anything, it makes things harder. You know that there are so many more possibilities when you're smart, and that compels you to try to be better. Very tiring. In my case, it's worse, because there's so much I could do, but there are so many thoughts whizzing about in my head, all pushing me in different directions. If I were simpler, and could settle for a simple life, things would be straightforward. If I were not so much simpler, but just a bit, then I could just focus on being successful. Now that would be harder, but still straightforward. Instead, I don't really want to be very successful, but I want the rewards. The thing is that I have no motivation to be good at something. I don't see the point. I'm not going to go into that right now. Too much to tackle in my current frame of mind.

On a related note, I think this restaurant looks freakishly cool. I want to try it. Check it out.

http://www.trurestaurant.com

The link feature on blogger doesn't seem to work very well, and I'm not in the mood to tease out the workings of it, so there. Just follow the link, or paste it into your browser or something. Check out the photos of the food. If you don't feel compelled to try this restaurant after that, then there's something wrong with you. Maybe I should try Spring too, everyone seems to like it.

On another related note, my life is awfully irritating these days. Everyone seems to be getting on my nerves these days. I can understand how some things I do can be unpleasant, but it would be nice to be civil, at least. I generally always am. Just don't catch me when I'm not sober. I think I'm too nice to people though, then when I'm not in the mood to be, it becomes blown out of proportion. And please, whoever is reading this, don't assume this refers to you. It refers to someone, but I doubt she reads this, considering I've never given her this address. If you are reading this, then give me a break, yeah? It can happen that I'm simply too tired and irritated to be nice to you. I may be good, but Superman still has something on me. I think it's the way he wears his tights. I doubt I'd look good in skintight spandex.

Ugh, rambling like mad. I need to sleep.

Pause

This sucks. It's summer, and I'm spending all weekend in my apartment working because I'm behind schedule. Where have the idyllic summer days of youth gone? Oh yeah, I didn't get my allotment. Oh well. A few more weeks and I'll be back in that comfortably enclosed world of school, where there are no worries outside of a few controllable areas. Real life doesn't seem to agree with me. I'm beginning to see the appeal of staying in school forever. Maybe I'll do a couple of phDs or become a teacher or something. That sounds right.

Ah, back to work. The damn pizza delivery guy recognises my voice by now. It's beginning to feel like Max Palevsky. Trapped inside hammering away at my work, occasionally pausing to call for delivery. Can a person become nostalgic for something that happened 2 months ago? That shouldn't be allowed.

Snippets

Ah, I'm back in China, land of my forefathers, burgeoning opportunity, unrivalled vibrance, spitting on the streets, complete lack of decent service anywhere and heavily censored internet.

Ok, I'm tired of complaining about this country, so I won't do it right now. Had a remarkably surreal experience over the weekend here. I was in a music store, just flicking through the CDs and wondering how anyone made any profits from selling original discs at 12 RMB a piece when I heard a song being played over the speakers in the store. Now, I quite liked that song, and in fact have it on one of my more frequently listened to playlists. The only reason I actually noticed it though, was that it was a pretty old song, and as such, rarely gets any airtime either on radio or record stores. I silently commended the good taste of whoever it was who chose that song and moved on down the racks of music. The next song that came up was terribly familiar too. In fact, it was on the same playlist as the previous one in my computer.

Hmmm, coincidence then. I can live with that.

As the time wore on, each song that was played was on that same playlist on my computer. This was getting a bit odd. Soon, I was guessing which song would play next, and I realised that I was getting it right! Now, that's odd. Especially considering my playlists are usually on shuffle, so I was just randomly pulling up a song title from that playlist in my mind and guessing. I ended up sitting at the cafe next to the store and listening to the music being played from the record speakers for a couple of hours, guessing which songs would come up next. And I was getting them all right. Very freaky, actually.

Conclusion, I must be psychic. Next time, I'm going to spend some time hanging about places that sell lottery tickets. Or a roulette table.

On a separate note, I think I'm starting to look forward to starting school again. I might not so much if I were bumming all summer, but I'm not. The really upsetting thing is that I'm not even home this summer. Honestly, sometimes I don't care whether my time is spent productively. All I really want is to relax and enjoy my breaks. Running out of them. Next summer will be my last real holiday for a while. Several decades, actually. I will have to figure out how I'm going to spend that one. After all, if college is supposed to be the best time of my life, it's time to make that true.

Some people so desperately want to be successful, but I don't see them having the ability to be so. I think I have the ability. I am fantastically prepared to be a success in life. I have to give my family, teachers and all that their due. If I want, I can be very good at whatever I choose to do. Within reason, of course. Question is, are the things I have been preparing for all my life what I want? Tough question. The answer still eludes me. Shall I simply press ahead and be what I should be? Or shall I not? I can have what so many people want, but cannot have. I can have it, but do not really want it. Am I then ungrateful?

People think I'm arrogant, that I have an inflated opinion of myself. Perhaps I do. After all, I wouldn't know, would I? The thing is, I think I really am many things I say I am. The difference is my willingness to state it. And in a manner that does not indicate any enthusiasm to prove anything at all. I am what I am, and I am not ashamed of it. Nor am I ashamed of what I am not. I lie about many things, but I am open enough about my capabilities. And my flaws. The flaws are many, and I do not attempt to hide them or obscure them with talk or displays.

I avoid being overtly social for simple reasons. I am either interested, or I am not. If I am interested in the people on display, then I observe them. After all, I can hear myself talk anytime, but my opportunities to hear others speak are limited. I try to make as few assumptions about people as I can. I listen and form a series of conjectures from that. I know that is still pure conjecture, and unlikely to be even vaguely accurate. If I am not interested, then there is no reason to expend any energy to engage. I often say one of the most interesting persons I know is myself. The problem is that I find myself quite boring.

Sometimes, when I cross roads, it occurs to me that I might already be dead. That I am merely a ghost reliving his last moments. Why not, after all? The point of ghosts reliving their lifes is that they do not know that they are merely ghosts. So perhaps I am one too. Who knows? Certainly not I. Maybe I died of a heart attack minutes after I blogged this, and I only think I am doing this for the first time. I am occasionally tempted to find out. I guess this is what those personality test people mean when they say I am suicidal. I'm not, by the way. I just get curious on occasion. One of those things that flit through the mind when idle. After all, if there is an afterlife, why not get on with it? If there isn't, then what's the point? Catch 22. Inaccurate use of it, if you've read the book, but who cares?

Ugh, don't know where those random snippets came from. Maybe it is as a friend said, I become dangerously honest when I'm drunk. I am far from drunk, but I have been anything but dangerous. As for the honest part, I sometimes wonder.

Moral High Ground

After a pretty long week of attending interminable meetings and surviving a lot of entertaining at night, I have finally copped out and pleaded sick tonight. I actually do have a cold, so it's not as bad as it sounds. Haven't had a stuffed nose for a while now though, so I'm relishing the experience, strange as that may sound.

This is also the first night this week that I'm done with the night completely sober, no trace of alcohol consumption today at all. I think it's not such a good thing for me to drink then get home and sit in front of my computer. I seem to say, or type, very unbecoming things under such circumstances. I get into a fair deal of trouble that way. Quite aside from little things like firing off strange emails, I also have odd conversations where I explain the most extreme ways I think about certain things. My takes on any situation are many and varied, the most reasonable are those I express in a lucid and sober state of mind. It is only when I am inebriated that some of these other modes of thought are spoken or typed. I cannot honestly disclaim responsibility for the things I say when drunk, for even a drunk me is still me, just under a particular set of circumstances. I do think, however, that whatever I say must be seen in the light of being influenced by my mood at the time, which under the sway of alcohol, tends to a bit emotional, even over the smallest things. It is a simple matter for me to create something that fits exactly how I feel at the moment. That is why so many people think I am both capable of speaking off the cuff, and culpable of making a lot of smoke out of very little. The logic always works in some way, but the facts may not be present to support the logical process. Logic cuts in many directions, and choosing the one you desire is the key. In other words, if I ever offend you, or say and do something weird while I'm drunk, be ready and willing to listen to me while I'm sober before making a judgement. I will make one apology for drunk antics, but no more, for I am a fairly proud sort who cannot abide continual debasement. That would be asking too much. If you ever see me making repeated apologies, kick me hard in the head.

Strangely enough, I am actually looking forward to the start of the school year. It seems that the cold is far superior to the terrible heat and humidity in this city. Sweat is a terrible thing. The smell alone is enough to offend, much less the rashes I sometimes get from too much sweat. Life in school seems so simple compared to now. Then, all I had to worry about were essays and reading and finals. I didn't even have to work vaguely hard at all to make a pretty decent GPA. If I were on scholarship, I would be comfortably within the requirements for a Master's. Imagine if I were on a scholarship and under pressure to perform as well as I can for the imagined benefit of that extra 0.05 on my GPA. My god, I would be some sort of academic legend, I tell you. As it is, I'm coasting by and wondering if I should be working harder.

Does bring me to another point though. I have often wondered at how narrow the view of my fellow Singaporeans is. I mean, how can anyone honestly believe it's a good idea for the government to decimate the private sector? Come on. Or for the ministers to play musical chairs instead of specialising and building competence in their respective areas? In any MNC, it would be anathema for the Vice Presidents to simply swap jobs between themselves. There would inevitably be a loss of in-depth knowledge resulting from this system. Ok, how about the myth that Singapore GLCs are actually good at what they do? They really aren't, y'know. Capitaland is one of the major glamour GLCs in China, and it has been reduced to building new apartments next to successful Hong Kong or Taiwan properties to cash in. That is a very sad state of affairs. While I do not believe that civil servants and their ilk are necessarily poor entrepreneurs, I do think they are disadvantaged by the scholarship system. How can being contracted for 6 years be a good thing? Does the government really need so many smart, talented people? I really don't think so. These people are mostly wasted in their functions, being trapped in a system that rewards performing well in their own roles. It is like a huge multinational corporation, except without the profit incentive to alleviate problems of infighting. So these people of some degree of raw intelligence and ability do not get to test themselves in the world without the safety net of a system of promotion and superscales. It is near impossible for them to see beyond the limitations of the organisations that hire them.

Speaking of limitations of GLCs, why do Singaporeans think we are better than the rest of Asia? We really aren't. We don't have any real advantage over anybody. True, Singaporeans tend to be more cosmopolitan than many other Asians, but that is a fairly minor edge over China Chinese or Hongkongers in particular. We are far poorer business people than people from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand, Korea, Japan ... We have no edge in technology or processes over Japan, Korea, even China. Management systems we do have some knowledge of, but why would anyone buy that from us when the Europeans and American are dying to sell their expertise? I have seen the China civil servants at work, and they are far more diligent, enthusiastic, aggressive, savvy and capable than our own. Really, what do we have that others do not?

So that is why the Singapore government tries to help our own companies expand beyond our shores. Wow, that sounded so cliched I could thump the table with it. Don't ask. Anyway, just taking China as an example, the services EDB provide are easily available, but more expensive and of inferior efficiency as compared to the local service companies. And us taxpayers support these scholars to do a job worse than the Chinese?

Ah, another gripe. Civil servants and employees of anything owned by the government are servants of the people. Really. They are not our bosses. If you're a PSC scholar, then you should be thinking of how to serve the interests of the country, not of yourself or the ministry or your bosses. People don't seem to get that. Citizens pay taxes to support the government. Every cent each civil servant is paid comes from the pockets of the citizens. So tell me why civil servants think they are above the citizens in the hierarchy of things.

On a related note, GLCs doing business in Singapore should not be making money! If you're owned by the government, then why on earth are you making profits? I agree that GLCs should be efficient and non loss-making, but if you're making profits, then you can stand to lower prices some. A prime example is Singtel. When the mobile phone market opened up a bit, the prices plummeted immediately. This means that the prices before were exorbitant. Why in the world are Singaporeans paying such high prices? To feed salaries? Preposterous. Why are civil servant salaries so high and perpetually rising anyway? We get a small rebound in the GDP, and immediately government salaries rise. Hello, unemployment didn't change. People are still out of jobs. Spend the money on something else. The classic argument of high salaries to prevent corruption doesn't work. If you're amoral enough to take a bribe because you're not lavishly paid, then I don't want you as my government servant anyway. This is even more so for politicians. If I must pay you millions just to keep you clean, then you're not trustworthy enough to lead my country. If you want high salaries because you want the money and feel you deserve it for the job you do, say so, and I'll happily pay you. Well, maybe not quite as much, if I could choose, but a goodly sum anyway. I'm a believer in compensation for effort and competence. Don't try to take the moral high ground here.

I'll rant about the other side of Singaporeans, the cynical, snooty types, another time. I'm sick, and need to nap a bit occasionally.

Lucid

I'm tired of this. I play hide and seek, grasping at straws, the ends of which seem forever lost to my reach. I have a multitude of flaws. No, that is inaccurate. I am nothing but my flaws. My pride, my coldness, my stubbornness, and so on, I cannot be bothered to list them all. It would take days. All these are me. I am nothing more or less than the sum of these. To call something a flaw implies the existence of something greater than the thing itself. I do not think there is anything of me to be called flawed. This is not a moan of complaint, or some admission of an inferiority complex. It is merely some degree of self-awareness. I do not try to convince myself of some imaginary merit I possess, but I do not blame myself for anything I do not. After all, I have problems enough without creating more in my head. I sometimes feel like I crash through life with no sense of direction, restraint, grace. Other times, I feel I have far too much restraint. Perhaps I should simply grab a shoulder and demand to be heard. That seems to work for creating a mess, why should it not for clearing one up? Explanations are my line of work, so to speak. I am good at rationalising everything, making it seem perfectly logical and understandable. But I do not even wish to explain now. All I want is to be heard when I am sober. If I am to demonstrate cruelty, let it be lucid. I find it hard to accept blame for something I am not conscious of. I sometimes claim to read people like books. Well, the question is, has anybody ever tried to read me? Oh, people look at the cover, sometimes consider the cover art, the printing of the jacket, the quality of the binding, the writing of the blurb. But has anyone ever tried to open the book and read? I think not. At most, the tome is placed upon a shelf for display. One of those books that make up a library. In itself it has no value. It is only kept for the way it complements and supports the other items within the library. I type and I type, talk and talk, but how much of that is real? There is little truth in my words. They are made up as I go, tailored to fit the situation, created to serve a purpose. I have few convictions, few beliefs. I envy those who truly believe in things. I am not aloof because I don't like to speak. I keep my distance because I both disdain and fear the reality and life that others hold within them. I am no moth to seek the flame of others, for I know that I wither in the heat. All that is left to me in the face of such fire is to keep orbiting at a safe distance, watching the flame. When such fire reaches out to me, I pull a cocoon of ice about myself, that my core is not destroyed, even as I sometimes allow the fire to envelop me. Melting the ice? That is too optimistic. None have the patience or the inclination to try. Accept me for who I am, they say. Well, if you don't even know who I am, but only the shield of ice, and make no attempt to penetrate it, then how can you accept this which you do not know? Hurt by the ice? Well, then do not seek out the weaknesses in the shield, for it is at the cracks that sharp edges exist. Keep to the smoothness of the surface, glide where so many others have been content to before. I am not inclined to be stained by the blood and tears of those who make no effort to delve. If you want to reach beneath that surface, then simply try, for I make no effort to keep others out, all I ask is genuine desire. And if there are none with that? Then too bad.

Enough rambling.

Asking too much

Sigh, everything seems to be falling apart these last few days. I get drunk and do something not too bright, I lose motivation and momentum for my work, and now I just stood up a friend I haven't seen for almost a year simply because I was too occupied to remember.

I'm tired of playing at charades and masquerades. Maybe that showed. Strange feeling of a complete loss of enthusiasm for something I once felt so strongly for. Perhaps it was only the product of the particular circumstances of the time. Perhaps I am simply weary of warping my self to fit a role. After all, if we give up what we are, there is no longer a point. When you sharpen a point, turn it inwards and present yourself to be stabbed or spared, but the designated judge chooses instead to turn away, not even bothering to make the effort to pass judgment, what can be thought? Am I worth so little that my words, my actions are not even passable amusement?

Ah, what am I saying? Melodramatic melancholia does not suit me. Little enough does. I have often wondered why I am never quite at ease. I always feel as if there is something not quite right, something needing adjustment, some ill-fitting suit resting upon my shoulders. Nothing I do seems quite right. There is something more I need, but I cannot even crave it, for I know not what it is. Seeking it out is impossible, for there are no clues, no indication of its existence in the first place. What am I then, if there is always something missing, but I cannot even miss it? How do you miss something that does not exist? Has never existed? Is it possible to miss such a thing if it has existed in your mind, your dreams? I do not know if one can miss a dream.

I see two holes in the wing of a butterfly, and I wonder at the portent. The dust the lost parts have crumbled into are scattered in the box. Is the vacuum incomplete? Are the wings destined to only last so long as all hold their breaths? The slightest leak, disturbance, anomaly, will break everything down. Is that it? If so, am I foolish to think I might preserve whatever remains, though it be dust in the end? The dust may be little more than what it is, but the memory of what the dust used to be can linger. Perhaps I am silly to think so. Perhaps the dust came about because of the need to scatter them. Holding onto them only prevents their fulfilment. I have seen the dust of others scatter in the winds, what makes this pile different? Simply because I once wanted more of it does not mean I am not content with what it is. I am resigned to its transformation from the wings of an insect to specks of dust. It appears I have little choice in the matter. An alcohol-stained finger touched the wings, and they crumble. It is done, and apparently there is no undoing it. Well, if so, I should salvage what I can of the situation. I can only make myself abject for so long. There is a limit, a threshold that goes beyond being far lower than that of other. The threshold does not even exist. I have forced one into being in this case, and it has cost me. Since nothing has come of it, I shall now cut my losses and let it frost over. Ah, you cannot know the cost of this, for you have never listened. What do you know about me? All too little. There seems nothing for me to cling onto here. I do not, cannot blame for the lack of knowledge, but I do and can for the lack of effort. Without the thought of striving for something, the reality can rarely be accomplished. I do not claim success, but I do claim effort. Wasted though. If that is all that is, I need not reach for a retiring hand. Delving is wasted on that which does not reach back. Going through the motions is something I do professionally, and is something I recognise. If I see it, shall I not denounce it? If I feel it, shall I not reject it? If I am mistaken, shall I not be corrected? If that is too much to ask, then so is everything else.

Oh dear ...

Ok, I think alcohol really is bad for me. The worst of me comes out when I'm inebriated. I do think that when a person is drunk, what is spoken is either complete nonsense or the truth. But what is the truth? That truth is only the truth at that moment. Opinions and thoughts expressed may be honest, but they are of a sodden mind. This is hardly an excuse, for when I recall or look back on these, I can see how they form. Though they may lack the clarity of sobriety, they remain the products of the same mind. So no excuses, only admission of guilt. And a plea for understanding of how such things happen.

Lottery

Lotteries are often derided as the worst form of gambling. The odds are stacked against you to the extent that it is nigh on impossible for any particular gambler to ever win anything.

Ok. forget it, I'm exhausted. I don't know why, but I am. So I'll complete this entry some other time.