oN-US

For the last time, if you didn’t manage to go overseas and got “stuck” here and have to go to a local university, you’re really not going to die or lose out. Suck it up. It’s not the end of the world nor are the people in NUS stupid. Yes, some are, but not all. But if you come in determined to mope, you’ll never get anywhere then I’ll just say, “Serves you right”.

It all turns out for good anyway. I just hate it when people go on about how it’s better overseas: less stressful, smarter people, less spoonfed. You choose what you want to make of it.

I have brilliant profs and have found myself stretched. Yes, it’s stressful, but if you can’t deal with it now, when will you ever be able to? I’ve found good friends but you’ve got to look (as you would in any university).

So yes, so if you would stop looking down upon us who are staying in Singapore, it would be great.

On laughing out loud

I just realised while talking on MSN that lol actually looks like someone with their hands in the air

lol

Unsettled

There has been and continues to be much suffering in the world. Someone I know has just found out that her entire village was washed away in the recent flooding. She can’t get in touch with her family because all communication is down.

Sometimes I look at my life and wonder if it’s wrong for me to worry about my 7 essays. Sometimes I berate myself for living the lifestyle that I live. Sometimes I wonder if it’s just wrong. People have told me that I have been blessed and I should enjoy it rather than being ‘ungrateful’ and disowning it. But something still doesn’t sit right somewhere deep down inside.

Give Ris Low a Break

I just saw Ris Low going through another painful interview on Channelnewsasia. Now honestly, if she has bad english, move on. There’s no need to keep milking the story for all it’s worth. If anything, it just shows that Singaporeans get hung up about stupidly small things. It’s a beauty pageant, speaking does not come into the judging (otherwise the stupid answers given by some contestants would cause them to be thrown out).

About her criminal offence, yes, she committed one. But she’s served her time and what’s done is done. She’s out of the competition, but don’t we send sportsmen who have committed offences for sports tournaments? Furthermore, it seems rather hypocritical that we have this “Yellow Ribbon Project” in which we aim to rehabilitate ex offenders, but we can’t even accept someone who committed credit card fraud but keep making her answer for it even though the punishment has been meted out.

About her supposed exam cheating, if the school has made her retake it, why are we bringing it up again?

She’s 19. My goodness.

She’s causing more furor than Steve Chia did or Devan Nair ever did.

I think that this is like the AWARE episode, the media is just hyping things up. Surely there are more important things to report about rather than spending time harassing a girl?

Mighty is the Power of the Cross

Correspondence

Today, I just skimmed through some old emails ranging from November 2006 to March 2007. Some made me smile to see how far we’ve come and others were accompanied with a sense of disbelief and a brief flash of nostalgia. I’m sure if  I looked through my posts from that period, I’d feel the same way.

How life moves on.

This time next year, I’ll be on my own (physically anyway).

God-Shaped Hole

At a recent class on religion in the contemporary world, my classmates and I were discussing a reading regarding the concept of transhumanism, specifically speaking about how one day mankind will be able to upload our brains into a computer (as brains are “simply electric signals”) and thus, live forever in the computer though our physical bodies may pass away.

Strangely enough, everyone in the class was repulsed by it. There were expressions of horror and criticism, implying that they felt that a human could not simply be uploaded into a machine and remain the same, without losing a certain part of him or herself. It seemed to me that they (even though a lot of them are professed atheists) instinctively felt that there was more to mankind than what could be uploaded into a computer and some inexplicable value or characteristic that if one were to be uploaded, would not be present anymore, making the subject less “human”. If I were to further that logic, it would seem that their instinct would be to place a special value on humans, which implies a special purpose and value for our lives. If we have a special purpose and value, it would seem that we are created that way, somehow pointing the way to an “intelligent designer”.

Moreover, in another more recent religion class, we were discussing the idea of the Big Bang and chance evolution and how people have an innate desire to find order in chaos. Similarly, in my math class, we were discussing a similar situation, where humans seem to find patterns in what seems like chaos. Why do we do so? I don’t have an answer, but an inkling of one. And that can be found in Colossians 1:17 which says, “He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.“

Blink and You’re Gone

Quite a number of my friends have disappeared overseas since last year and a couple more are going to leave. Strange thing is, while they’re there, they just vanish from my life. I hear from them via FB, but to be honest, I’m not very good at this emailing, skyping or MSNing thing. So they keep in touch with people living in the same country (maybe it’s because they’re closer to them) but it just seems like we are “holiday friends”. But then again, I do that with a number of people who aren’t in NUS (whether overseas or here).

So if you’re reading this, hello, Holiday Friend. I hope you’re having fun. I’ll see you when you come back in December. We’ll meet up a couple of times and when you leave, lament about how much we miss each other. We’ll vow to keep in touch and then, we part ways and go back to our semester lives.

Compromise

I don’t know the biblical basis for compromise but everyone tells me that in our relationships and we disagree, we should come to a compromise if possible. But what happens when both are at extreme opposite ends? What happens when one has to give up a dream in order for the other to have theirs? Can no compromise be reached?

National Day Reflections

I’m sitting here and listening to National Day songs with the Primary School kids across the fence singing along, and not without a hint of nostalgia. The kids are now singing, “This is my country, this is my flag.”

I’m not a Singaporean by nationality. I’m British and a Singapore PR. Yet, because I’ve lived here all my life, I see myself as Singaporean. I always have. I’ve always sung the National Anthem and said the Pledge.

At the recent APRU Summer Programme held here in NUS, I felt this sense of nationalism more keenly than before.

“Reach out for the skies.” (They’re still singing though the music’s been turned off).

People asked me if I was Singaporean and I replied with “technically no, but I’m a Singaporean at heart.”

I was asked about what I thought about the PAP and I honestly said that I think that they’ve done a pretty amazing job considering the brief timeline that is Singapore’s history. Admittedly, civil liberties are not as recognised as many other developed nations. Still, as I explained Singapore’s history to a friend, I realised how much Singapore had gone through in the short 60 years since the end of WWII. I dislike it when people decry the work of Singaporean Leaders simply because we lack civil liberties. One does have to take a balanced view rather than making broad and sweeping generalisations.  On the issue of History, many Singaporeans are bored by what they see as state crafted history. Thankfully, I’ve had good teachers who taught me more about Singaporean History than is usually taught in the textbooks, whether for my EE or in university.

“Semua kita berseru” (rather apt when you’re hearing a group of children singing it in unison).

Some may argue that National Day is just propaganda. At its worst, it is brainwashing yet highly effective propaganda, just looking at the crowds at the National Day Parade will tell you that.  The organisers of the National Day Parade and the practises of National Day are masters at working emotions and pride. At the same time, I do think that Singaporeans are proud of their country. They may be apathetic, but I’ve seen Singaporeans defend their country when others scoff it (usually verbally).

Excuse this stream of consciousness post, but I’m just writing as it comes to me.

To me, this is home and there’s no place I’d rather be.