Philo: Harm and Offense

"Harm is a one-way street, while offense runs both ways. You can be harmed against your will, but never offended against your will. That is a powerful distinction. And I urge you to consider the benefits of drawing it as often as necessary. You can maximise your ease by refusing to take offense, or maximise your dis-ease by seeking it at every possible turn.

You cannot be offended without your own consent."

But if the reaction is instantaneous and spontaneous, you're offended even if you decide rationally and calmly not to take offense. You just decide not to let it affect you, but you have been offended and that's unchangeable. right?

Philo confuses me.


I wish we could go back to where we started. When things were less complicated. And when we could talk freely, laugh without a care and trust wholeheartedly.

I miss that.
When we were friends, because I never once doubted that we weren't. I still don't.
So maybe you don't think so. I can't help that.


I hate farewells with a passion.
I've been saying goodbye to too many things I hold so dear in such a short span of time. It takes time for the realisation to hit. When it does, it's far too late to recreate one last perfect memory.

Announced the Tribune Exco 2010 today. It was, in a way, a closure for both the Sec 4s and the club, finally putting a fullstop to something that had actually ended some time ago. Again, not a perfect goodbye, one epic fail mistake, all the slip-ups that come with my impromptu speeches, loads of shrieking and quite a bit of nagging from me. Tribune must already be utterly sick of me. Try as I might though, I don't think I'll ever get sick of them. They're an adorable bunch. As imperfect as it might have been, I actually prefer it this way. We pulled it off in the strange way our batch always manages to, even with the massive slip-ups and klutzy mistakes we commit all the time. I'll miss us. I'll miss the clandestine Sec Four batch meetings to discuss (gossip) club affairs, the minor debates over impossibly insignificant matters, the serious ones that we almost always end up deviating from, the comfortable ribbing and laughter, the omg-we-screwed-things-up-majorly-time-to-freak-out moments and the shared sinking feeling that follows. I don't know if we did things right, but we certainly tried.

The new exco is able and ready to take over. I think we can entrust the club in these competent hands.

All the best to them and may Tribune continue to walk the WRITE path to great success.


I am officially very, very fed up with blogger and compatibility view. Can't post photos, videos, can't change text colour, can't do anything much. So that's that. No more blogger, I'm moving on to LJ since I already have an account anyway. But there's the issue of getting used to the new stuff there and exporting my posts there. Sigh, I'll handle that after the exams.

Tag replies
prisyong: HAHA sorry pris, I think I'm using lj. Unless you convince me.

leena: HI LEENA DEAR

mans: SO TRUE MANS, SO TRUE

nandita: LOVE YOU MORE <3

nandita: I've set mouse on it (: it's rather cute, really. Someday we shall compare old embarrassing blogposts.

prisyong: much, MUCH smaller than three, prissypoo


Friday night probably marked the official end of my NCC journey. I realise this post is rather late, and I realise I do this all the time. Blogging a few days after something of significance actually happens in my life. I tend to need quite a lot of time for the significance of an event to register in my brain, and to mull over what transpired and what did not.

ORD was far from perfect. But no matter what screw-ups there were, what went wrong, it was our official leave from the CCA. We could choose to remember how disastrous it turned out to be, or we could remember how we stood together in our no.3s for the last time on the netball courts as a platoon, how we responded as a whole to commands that were incomprehensible to us a mere 4 years ago. ORD was a strange affair, really, and I don't think I fully realised what it meant until it was over.

The Part Cs were such darlings. They sang individual songs for each of us and presented us with airplane models that must have taken weeks to put together. Such dears. It was also heartening and pretty depressing to see how each part bid farewell to their part seargeants. I hope all the depressed ones will remember that their PSes were, and always will be a major formative influence in their NCC journey and vice versa; an unchangeable fact, so take comfort in that and let them go. Hopefully, new batch helming the CCA is given a chance to show their mettle, because I definitely believe they have what it takes.

Life teaches you lessons in many strange ways. It is strange how NCCAIR's role in my life has evolved since I was a Part A struggling to complete pushups with the rest of the platoon, complaining incessantly about how it's pointless to coat collars with starch and make our boots reflective surfaces. All this has gradually become part and parcel of my NCC life and I've understood that these seemingly pointless tasks are a reflection of how I pride myself as a cadet of rgsnccair.

pla·toon (pl-tn)
n.
1. A subdivision of a company of troops consisting of two or more squads or sections and usually commanded by a lieutenant.
2. A group of people working, traveling, or assembled together: a platoon of firefighters; buses carrying platoons of tourists.
3. Sports A group of players within a team, especially a football team, that is trained and sent into or withdrawn from play as a unit: the defensive platoon.

Something I blogged at the start of the year:
"It is probably very true that sec 3 brought our platoon closer, and I'm really happy for that. I'm almost thankful for everything we've been through together, especially the tough times. We're a group of really distinct personalities and I know we have bonded in a way that is highly unique to our platoon. I can't describe it but I know it's different. It's something along the lines of getting used to each other, then getting attached to each other, and eventually realising that you find each other endearing at times, no matter how much you deny it."

In case you're wondering, that still holds true. I think the bond between a platoon is something highly unique to uniformed groups, something everyone else would find pretty difficult to fully comprehend. We're thrown together in the unlikeliest of situations; be it marching on all fours with hands in boots, standing at attention with eyes tearing from pespiration, frenziedly mopping entire classroom floors with the gusto of madwomen out to conquer the world, in the process killing a few forests with the number of wet tissue packets we devour. Our pioneer batch is truly unique. Flawed, eccentric, incompatible, neurotic, corny (incredibly) and high-strung. You'd think something would go awfully wrong when you throw a bunch of people like that together. But ultimately, somehow, we manage to coexist as a cohesive unit. And we complement each other... sort of.

I think that's what we tried to bring out in our NCC banner this year. Solidarity. A platoon is not a group of friends. It is not a group of people in a cca. It is (definitely) not a group of likeminded people. It goes beyond that. We're attached because of some strange, undefinable reason, through all sorts of trauma, love, loss, pride and pain we've experienced as a platoon. You know the saying, you can choose your friends but you can't choose your family? Well, you can't choose your platoonmates either, and in a way that makes us a little more like the family I know we are. We may have passed out from the cca, and we may technically not be a platoon anymore, but I know the spirit of being part of the air pioneer batch will always be with each of us.


Post Number 190
since Saturday, September 8, 2007 12:02 AM

We've come a long way haven't we.

I am getting rather fed up with blogger and IE 8 these days. What compatibility view pfft. Starting to acknowledge the appeal of livejournal and xanga, but I'm kinda attached to this blog. Maybe a change of skin would inject some life. We'll see if I can overcome the mind-numbing inertia of having to handle html or having to come up with a decent url. After the exams. Which are looming dangerously ahead.

There it goes again.
The sudden jolt of chill that accompanies every mention of the exams. Brrrrrrr.

And no it has nothing to do with my air-con being at an extremely non-economical and environmentally-devastating 16 degrees. Just to get the room to cool down quickly, see.

Chem SPA tomorrow, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Chemistry really doesn't take well to me. I generally repel chemical equations, compounds and anything to do with molecular mass.

Come to think of it, I repel a great many things. Next post: The many things in life I repel subconsciously (some more than others)


Sometimes, you don't realise you've lost something until it's long gone.

When the truth eventually dawned on me, I felt a little sorry for myself, a little regret at what I did or didn't do, a little bewildered at how it took me so long to notice. But the saddest truth is that I feel no urge to actively reclaim what I've lost.

I've learnt that some things, some changes are out of my control, try as I might to idealize the world around me and paint it it optimistic shades of the rainbow. What I take comfort in is that there will always be a few constants in my life, assurance that not everything intangible is as transient as the wind.

It was a fleeting moment of uncertainty, that moment of unspoken tension, silent self-reproach, indignance; made it all the more apparant to me.

I'm really glad I'm not alone in this, and I have you as my one constant this time.
You know who you are (:


http://tomorrow.sg/archives/2006/03/05/paved_with_good_intentions.html

PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS: How living in New York has illuminated for us the difference between the Singaporean Dream and the Singaporean PlanBy Colin Goh & Joyceln Woo Yen Yen

Colin Goh:
"I had always thought Singapore to be a model of diversity and cosmopolitan progress, but over countless milkshake-fueled discussions in East Village hangouts, I felt like the proverbial mountain tortoise. It was also the first time I began to question the path I was about to take. I was meeting people who were taking chances and simply following the dictates of their passion, whether it was art, dance or securities. I had studied law largely because it was often cited it as the next best thing after medicine, which I knew I’d be awful at. Besides, SM Lee was a lawyer. What better endorsement could a Singaporean have? Despite being a published cartoonist and writer by then, I never thought about a career in the arts. It was a completely nonexistent option.What was worse was that my parents never forced me into law. I just read their minds, I guess. Besides, all my friends seemed to be doing it too. It was the Singaporean Dream."

"It suddenly hit me that I was not embarking on real change at all. I was merely rearranging the furniture. Like a good little boy, I had made all the pragmatic, sensible decisions… and it was about to push me into the abyss. …It was then that I understood the difference between the Singaporean Dream and the Singaporean Plan. And what is the difference? I suppose the Dream has to be one of searching for peace and the liberty to conduct one’s life as one sees fit."

"I refuse to postpone my dreams any further, and shelve them under some misguided notion of pragmatism. How often was I told as a child by my elders, “wait till you grow up,” “wait till after exams”, “wait till after you graduate”. I do not desire to wait until I retire. I might not make it that far. I refuse to be a walking mid-life crisis in the making."

"The insidiousness is this: in adhering to the Singaporean Plan, I was acting pragmatically, but ultimately, dishonestly."

Joyceln:
"Scoring high marks in tests and exams have been found to be a top concern for students; the average 10 year-old has been found to spend 6 hours in school and up to 8 hours on homework and tuition each day, and, students have been reported to experience physical reactions such as diarrhoea and asthma attacks during or just before exams. Is this education, or child labor? Has scoring well in tests become the reason for tests themselves?"

"Consider these 2 stories. Which is closer to yours?
You wake up everyday and work from Monday to Friday, and often, Saturday too. If you finish work early, you and your partner go to your parents’ place for dinner and see your child for a few hours. If you work late, you buy a packet of char kway teow from the hawker centre but eat it at home because it’s too warm to eat there. You’re not crazy about the job but you know that if you keep at it, you can afford a car in 3 years’ time, and in 5 years’ time, buy a condo close to the primary school you want to send your kid to. Your conversations with people are either for the purpose of networking, work, or for familial obligations you cannot avoid. On weekends, you play golf with your friends at your country club or watch a movie with your partner. Once a year, you go on a ten day vacation to New York, London, or Paris, and when your children are big enough, Disneyland.
Alternatively, you wake up and you have no idea what is going to happen today, tomorrow, 6 months or a year later. Ironically, because of this uncertainty, all possibilities exist for you. You can be the Prime Minister of Singapore, you can make a movie, you can cook a meal you have never cooked before, eat at a place you have never eaten before, you can color your hair red, you can skip instead of walk, you can volunteer at the school you have always wanted to volunteer at, you can write a book, or you can have a baby even though you don’t have a maid. You have conversations with people who set your heart palpitating and your mind on fire. Your weekday is not so different from your weekend because everyday you are thinking, creating, and more important, imagining."

"It is the Plan, which imposes a conclusion on you, and you work in order to make all the pieces fit. A Dream, on the other hand, carries you on its wings to worlds that your heart and mind have never known."


Last night, I was looking through the posts on my old blog. In other words, I was cringing in extreme mortification at my extremely strange Sec 1 self. Ugh.

It's really weird. I can identify the parts I absolutely detest and wish to forget, the parts I miss about myself and wish I were a little more like now, and also the parts I can still identify as very... me.

The language... oh gosh... the language. The incessant HAIR-RAISING 'haiizzz's, the funny little poems that I concocted (kinda miss that... wish I could still do that), the weird, completely insignificant stuff I used to blog about. No particular topic in mind, really, I'd just ramble on and on. The scary thing is that, I actually found it pretty entertaining reading it. And all those quips like 'Don't see the hole in the doughnut see the dough!". Wonder where all that optimism went to. Then there were the photos. Photos that I'd never, on my life, post today. On a public website about my life. Oh, the innocence of a young blogger.

As a sec four me looking at a sec one me I cringed a lot. At all the childish remarks, incoherent babbling, nonsensical and irrational train of thought, and the list goes on. And I also missed the old me a little, for being so much more spontaneous, less self-aware, more quirky. More than anything, I miss being much, much happier (not to mention being completely oblivious to the happiness I was in). And it's weird, but in a strange, sec one way, I guess the blogging is a little... endearing. A little.

An overall strange experience.

Someday, I'll look back at this post, reading through all my old posts on this blog. I'll probably be once again thinking, how immature, how incoherent, how melodramatic, how.... embarrassing. But you know what, we all grow and mature, and the way we think and write changes with every inch we grow, and every realisation that life throws at us.

And I'll end off with some stuff from the old blog, just for remembrance. This will be the first AND last time I'm quoting from my old blog.

Posted by miranda* at 10/08/2006 09:44:00 PM
"oh my oh my i cant wait for tomorrow! 1st day as a teen!

today was the day
that marked the official start
of my teenage years"

The Current Me says: PFFFTTT. You so didn't know what you were in for.

Posted by miranda* at 9/01/2006 11:57:00 PM

My anti-homework poem

I am,
On the verge,
Of breaking into hysterics.

I want to scream,
And shout and kick,
When I see my load of homework.

Oh yes, HOMEWORK,
The dreaded word,
8 letters of pure misfortune.

The agony, the pain
We students go through,
When fighting for survival.
(With homework aroundIts considerably hard
To even try staying alive).

I feel faint,
Yes, and dizzy
When I see my homework.

The dreaded,
The hated,
The rated.
(Its actually rated
The lowest on scale
Of level of entertainment).

Oh me, oh my,I guess I shall,
And truly must,
Go back to doing my homework.

Pretty funny, that. Wonder when and HOW I came up with it.
And here ends my post on remembering my not-so-distant past. Just imagine 20 years down the road.
Just in case you're wondering, the old blog's now locked. Surprise surprise.

To Future Me: Please don't cringe upon reading these posts, because this was once what you genuinely thought was worth writing about, and worth reading in retrospect. I hope you're proud of me.


Happy Birthday Singapore

Incredibly CUTEEE! Wonder if real babies were used or digitalized babies, which would be very disturbung indeed.


And listen to this it's a mrbrown podcast called your mother's army (:

And. I know these tag replies are kinda late but ohwell.

Junior: Junior who? SECRETIVE HUH.

Marge: Peach Yami Yogurt is LOVEEEEEEE

PrisYong: I MISS YOU YOU DODO HEAD. How's it like down under? BETTER COME BACK THIS YEAR!

Julian: HAHA TRUE, but I meant sunset not sunrise. I leave my house at 6 how to see sunrise.

Nan: IKR :D the babies are soooooo pinchable