a lorry came zooming past when i was crossing the green light. a few seconds earlier and i would have been hit. i was lucky i was in a zombie state
and anita mui died today
i'm surprised and glad that i'm not feeling more
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i love engrossing myself in the preparations before a trip
i like to think about what T-shirt and pants i should bring, how many i should bring, which stuff won't make me look so dull in my photos, what stuff i should bring but can't recall because that darned item lies stubbornly in the recesses of my mind
i like to walk lesiurely to the big NTUC Fairplace and purchase last-minute stuff, never mind that there are several minimarts near my house. i like to put my $1 coin into the slot and push a trolley and gaze longingly at the shelves packed full of groceries and household appliances and feel like i have all the time in the world. nothing else matters except that i get my stuff and all is nice and dainty and carefree
the world is so big. how can i traverse all its land in my lifetime?
Le A: all in good time, dude. all in good time
Le B: (speechless, on the verge of panicking)
as asked by the columnist in today's Straits Times
Fang also asked me recently whether i found 2003 to be a good year and my knee-jerk answer would be "honey, i did 2 YEP projects and spent 7 weeks abroad in 2002. it would have to be an exceptionally superb year for any other year to match up". i did a couple of memorable stuff this year but 2003 still way paled in comparison to 2002. i know it's unbecoming of me but i can't help living and reminiscing in my glorious past
so basically i was stumped by the question in bold but was reluctant to admit straight out that "while there were a couple of great stuff, unfortunately none stood out for me". i won't have my 23rd year of existance go to waste just like that
anyway, my stubbornness held out and i managed to think of two points and was delibrating which one i should choose:
1) visited thailand, malacca, taiwan (soon-to-be-accomplished). i'm travelling places without having to sign up for overseas community service projects! and i have friends whom i don't mind travelling with and who don't mind travelling with me!
2) volunteered for SADeaf and Metta Cattery. so aside from showing my face and doing very little work on several occasions, i didn't do anything of value actually but hey, i'm just starting out man. so i deserve to give myself plenty of leeway here
but i wasn't quite satisfied
until i went to bathe and inspiration hit me and now i'm convinced i have the best answer
the best thing i did this year was to feel good about myself
i'm more confident and less apologetic about the person i am. i have the guts to do what i wanna do and am not so affected by what others think
--i have decided digital photography isn't for me. i dig authenticity and i don't feel right about using Photoshop to touch up my pictures
--i don't wanna learn how to drive. i don't wanna fuss about the dream car i will be targetting. i don't mind remaining way ignorant about cars and their horse powers, something that the average Singaporean is adept with
--i get a bit unrationally irritated when we go shopping and you tell me that's not a nice cap/T-shirt/accessory and that i must be out of my mind to think i can put off that look. i mean, if i don't mind making fashion mistakes, then why should you?
--i respond with a "ya, i also think so" when people give a compliment on my nice cap/T-shirt/accessory/shoes. they usually laugh because they expect me, a typical Asian to decline politely and play myself down and are amused/uncomfortable/surprised with my atypical reaction. I just rather be shamefully honest rather than falsely modest.
--i feel more comfortable in silence. i don't feel the need for incessant small talk
--i would rather stay at home rather than to go out with aquaintances in an attempt to dissolve my loneliness. Solitude is becoming a great friend
i have learnt to trust my instincts more.
--i no longer doubt myself when i vaguely suspect other people are pissed with me.
--i can sometimes leave my assignments to the last minute and be assured that i will prevail
--i teach A level chemistry and trust that i will grow into this more demanding role of an A level tutor (being desperate for extra cash helps)
i'm starting to develop new interests instead of trying to fulfill adolescent dreams (i.e. sign lang, Jap).
--i would like to learn how to critique films/movies more professionally.
--i am reading travelogues, stuff that i would shun away in the past.
--i am now more disciplined in certain aspects--with keeping this online journal and diaries whenever i travel.
--i don't mind doing introspective thinking--i once aspired to be an "eat, drink and be merry" kinda guy
i think i'm a better friend. i try to be assertive in reaching out more to people
and so i shall end here, satisfied that i have pretty much summed up 2003 and yep, feeling good about myself *grinz*
went to elicit data from hearing-impaired parents last Sun.
there was this three-year-old Eddie that i kinda noticed because i suspected he might be autistic.
there was this blank look about him that made me wonder.
and he looked lost in his own world--when i tried to talk to him, his eyes didn't engage mine
a horrible thing to think of another human being?
anyway, somehow got to play around with Eddie.
taught him to voice the word "blue" and its equivalent sign
taught him to voice "yellow"
taught him to voice half the alphabet (his attention span was quite short) and their equivalent signs
my Good Deed for that day.
i think i have an intriguing and legitimate issue on my hands.
based on my observation those two days, toddlers of hearing-impaired parents are indeed somewhat backward with regards to communication skills as compared to their hearing counterparts of hearing parents
but i am not competent enough to capture that phenomenon. sigh.
how can we reach out to these children?
would we have the energy to do so in the first place?
i hope every little bit helps--that Eddie would find it easier to learn the alphabet because of this kor-kor's feeble efforts
i would like to be unflappable but i don't think that's a goal i can achieve soon. i always get caught up in the moment and get myself all riled up.
yet i was telling a friend today (she's into Buddhism) that i wanna feel extremely, because only then will i deem myself as having lived.
got so affected by the following incident that i wrote an email to my hons class...havent imposed upon others' email boxes in that way for a long time, i think
***********************************************
hmm, today was my first day of eliciting data from hearing-impaired
parents..so i arrived at NACLI, in which a KODA camp was held.
i distributed my lang background questionnaires. while i was prepared that
some parents might not understand written English, i didn't expect that they
didn't even understand the local variety of sign lang (SEE) either. i
thought being exposed to the hearing-impaired community, somehow everyone
would more or less learn how to communicate in sign lang
these parents use Home Signs when communicating to their children
was a tad depressing for me when i realised the severity of the situation.
can you imagine going through your whole life, not able to communicate your
feelings/thoughts to anyone else except your immediate family? you don't
belong anywhere in this world, no one can reach out to you--it must be
darned sucky always feeling alone. and you may not even enjoy solitude,
because being deprived of lang skills, you don't even have the requisite
vocab to conceptualise whatever thoughts you may have
it drove home how lucky i am and how much i take stuff for granted. cliched
maybe, but we all need to take time out to give thanks for the little
blessings we enjoy in life--in this case, the ability to think, to
conceptualise, to interact with a fellow human being, to feel connected, to
make enemies even
sorry, just got to get this off my system. and i thought you guys might
understand this better since you all are EL majors. besides, so many of you
are future teachers-to-be, so in the case that you encounter a hearing child
with deaf parents while you are teaching, perhaps you will remember this
pesky email by kaile and be in a better position to help...*grins*
to do before this year runs out: to sort out all my photos.
My viet photos and negatives are all over the place for instance and i havent helped Fang develop the photos she would want yet! and it has been one year liaoz...so scary, my procrastinator attitude...!
you must help me stick to this resolution ah! nag me persistently every time we meet up...
excellent 2-days-1-night Malacca trip. good food, good shopping, good sight-seeing, great conversation, good rest. i really couldn't have asked for more from a trip.
went to the recruitment seminar by Security and Intelligence Division (SID) with joanna, jenny and sarizah. turned out that quite a couple of my hons classmates went also.
i really surprised myself cos normally, i wouldn't even consider to go for such sessions reeking of propaganda. i guess i was curious about how the personnel would go about soliciting their future employees
turned out that the session exceeded my expectations. the conversations with the vocational representatives were rather intimate and informative. given the sensitive nature of their jobs, i felt that they have shared unreservedly whatever they could so as to provide us with not-so-patronising insights on the realities of working in SID.
but it has to be said that i'm a person who is easily satisfied. some of my classmates may beg to differ.
okie, this paragraph is expressed in a self-congratulatory, am-i-not-the-greatest tone. i fancy that i have the makings of a fine journalist. once or twice, i asked questions (admittedly trivial but nonetheless important in my humble point of view) and this gal whom i didn't really like didn't see the point and promptly stated why this was so. the representative sprang to my defence (okay, exaggerating here) and her subsequent answers to my questions showed that she understood where i was coming from. i don't have any evidence to back up my following claim but i fancy that she would think of my questions as relevant and not brainless.
got to know jenny a lot better becos she shared stuff that has been troubling her. i say, this's a wrong strategic move on her part (half said in jest, half said seriously) becos jenny and i have only had the opportunity to talk in an occasion prior to yesterday's.
"er, u trust us so much. u not scared i will go n spread the news around meh?" i asked. (joanna was around too)
"no lah...." she then paused, "oh ya hor, u r very the ba gua. i asked jennifer n she said she wont see u as prospect cos u so ba gua!"
i reassured her that her secrets would be safe with me.
i think people always feel compelled to talk, to share, to express what's inside their minds even to acquaintances who happen to know the fuller story and are willing to listen.
and yes, i am ba gua! i would much rather prefer to know all the dirt on what has been going on even if it means that i am subsequently burdened by the fact that i have to keep all these juicy stuff to myself and can't spread the gossip around
but somehow yesterday's mini class-outing made me feel that hey, all is not lost and perhaps, if fate and luck permit, i will gain a couple of friends whom i will keep in touch with after my final yr in NUS.
later went out with aida to catch up on his recent happenings. also tried out this horrrigble ramen place at Far East Plaza basement.
happened to see thomas, zhongquan and yongxian, kids from Sec 5/1, the class i was attached to for my school immersion programme last yr. zhongquan looks quite handsome with contact lens!
had a great 3/4-min chat with them. nice to know a bit of what they have been up to after anderson sec. nice to know they seem quite happy with their choices of poly courses. nice that they bothered to ask about how i have been doing, even if one takes the cynical view and says that they are just politely interested. nice to draw the inference that they don't seem to think that life's a bitch and a drag, even if the inference is based on my intuitions--which is of course highly dubious since i only talked to them for 3/4 mins. nice to know that they still keep in touch and that their friendships aren't as frail as i feared, even though really, whether they remember one another after sec sch is none of my business
had a good 3/4-min chat with shanshan too. nice to see how she can be formally dressed! but i didn't feel as shiok! cos hey, i would be seeing her this sunday for my song signing carolling session.
i hereby declare that 1st Dec 2003 was a day in which my faith in friendship was rejuvenated and nurtured to high high intensity!! :P
i felt so shiok! after my pragmatics module. i havent felt that i have done my best for a paper in a long time, not even in the practice-10-yr-series-sure-get-distinction days of "O" and "A" levels. i don't think there's any way in which the quality of my answers can be improved.
it's so sickening how we always perceive the worth of our performance during exams in terms of the actual grades we would get in the end.
it's far easier to get excellent grades for some stoopid assignment that you couldnt care less about than to derive lots of satisfaction and pride from an assignment that you felt that much of your potential is achieved. and regardless of the grade i would receive from my second assignment, i have always maintained that the satisfaction i have derived would be enough to sustain me and keep me contented.
am i hypocritical in proclaiming that i don't give a darn about grades and refuse to be honest about my ambitions? or just sadly deluded and naive and idealistic?
okay, it's hard to practice what i preach at this stage because during this semester, i have gotten top-notch grades for the assignments that i have enjoyed (gasp!) doing.
don't even ask me about my days in sci fac. during those days, i was a walking zombie, just hoping that time would pass much much faster and i could fuck off and move on to something else
i guess i shall see...exam results released on 18th dec...
p/s: i spotted at least a half question correctly in 2 other EL modules. there's a high success rate--3 out of 4 EL modules!
william, my JC classmate, lazed throughout his entire two yrs in AJ. he half-heartedly studied during the crunch time for the "A". he wrote 6 pages on elasticity of demand for his Econs paper because he was adamant that he should strive for perfection for at least that question.
really dumb behaviour. william has always held radical, non-conventional views of the world around him but how can he willingly and consciously dig a shithole during the all-mighty "A" and throw himself into it?
to relate back to my other 2 modules, well, i spent too much time on the Question i had spotted and didn't have enough time to develop my other question more fully.
i understand how william was thinking and feeling then. because darn it, it's not like i can spot questions correctly during exams and heaven forbid me if i don't spend more time trying to prepare a more substantial answer. if this means that my answer for the other question is horribly superficial and hence this sort of behaviour would hurt my chances of getting an overall good grade, then so be it.
yes, i am overgeneralizing but it's quite scary to think that i may be 5 years behind william in terms of emotional maturity
