Inaction is still an action

We live in our bubbles. There's really no denying it. I'm a very confrontational person, so I thrive on hashing our disagreements in a single moment as much as I can. And most of the time, I find that I'm alone in this. Most people prefer being in a state of flux, not drawing the line in the sand because that ironically fixes their position. And that state of flux more often than not, involves leaving things be, letting things take care of itself, and not doing anything on a personal level.

I absolutely detest that. Because I find it a very selfish act. The community as a whole, which sometimes can just be 2 people, do not move forward as a result of a conflict that has no confrontation and by extension, no resolution. I do not believe inaction is the right course in most causes as a result.

Above is one of the difficult philosophical questions, the trolley problem. A train is going along this train track with no brakes, on course to hit 5 people tied down. You, as an individual, can pull this lever to shift the train to another course, which has only a single person. Do you pull the lever? The train has nothing to do with you; you're not responsible for tying people down or removing the brakes on the train. You are just a bystander. But do you let 5 people die when you had the chance to do something about it.

Then what if you pull? Do you cause this innocent man to die who would otherwise have walked away harmless?

For me, I will always pull. Because if I can do something, doing nothing then becomes a choice. And doing nothing can have consequences.

In the USA, Trump was recently voted in to be the next president. As horrendous as that sounds, it does not sound as bad as the next sentence I'm going to type. 42% of eligible American voters didn't vote. In other words, about 70% of Americans were responsible for putting a man like that in the highest office in the land. No matter how messed up the system is, no matter how inconsequential you think your vote is, make a choice. The vote represents your voice in the nation. People who do not take part in the process do not have the right to complain about the president or any other federal decisions he made because they have forfeited their voice. The indecision has just as much a cost as any other decision.


http://www.cc.com/video-clips/m9ds7s/the-daily-show-with-trevor-noah-exclusive---tomi-lahren-extended-interview?xrs=synd_FBPAGE_20161201_692299924_The+Daily+Show_Video+with+Link&linkId=31796489

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fY9xGRZjUUI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyFzhjk0n4Q

In a debate or a discussion, we often fall into the trap of only hearing what we want to hear; more specifically, giving a free pass to people we agree with . Listen, I'm glad people are scrutinizing each others' arguments, I genuinely, truly am. But what I find unforgivable is the inability to pass that same depth of judgement onto themselves and the people they agree with.

Hopefully, I will have attached 2 different "sides" which react to the same 30min interview and notice that when they are defending, they often overwhelmingly and passionately cheer on when their side presents a correct point and only barely, superficially talk about their incorrect points, while doing the exact opposite for their opponent.

Here's the thing, I'm a consumer, this 30min interview gives me about maybe an hour of fun really digesting and thinking the points over in my head, but this rightfully belongs in the category of things I care about. Imagine if I don't care about this news in particular. I'm not going around to 2 different sides to collect information and finally make my own judgement. It's neither viable or acceptable to do so for news of actual facts.

I have my own opinions about both parties in this interview. It took a long time. I can't imagine doing the same for every issue of the day and I do not want to. Trust in information sources like the media is at an all-time low and we are retreating into our bubbles. This is a problem.

Happiness

In lieu of a much more pretentious title like bliss or whatever, here's a (hopefully) quick update on my life right now.

I'm happy.

Life is still difficult, in fact, it may even be a bit more difficult than last year. But in many ways, it's also a lot easier.

I'm sitting here right now in my girlfriend's room, typing this as she's doing her revision. I don't have the words to accurately describe my feelings for her. But I'm going to try.

This girl, oh my god this girl. When I hear her singing (which she only really does in the privacy of very few people), I catch myself smiling. She's not very good, as she will rightfully remind you. It reminds me of someone just enjoying the music for what it is, unlike some people (myself included) that sing for our ego.

When she kisses me, I get energized. When I hold her hand, my day gets from bad to good, or good to even better. The old reddit quote I always love seems apt here, "... like a warm, electric fence."

If I'm not spending the night with her, suddenly the bed feels so much emptier. I have never missed anyone as hard as I missed her, and we barely only spend 1 or 2 nights apart.

We just realised Qing Fei De Yi pretty much describes my journey with her. I don't think I can love someone this much. Hope I'm not jinxing it here.

See you next time.

On Change

As a student, change appears to move very quickly, and yet at the same time, not quickly enough. We are intelligent and acute enough to identify flaws, huge flaws especially, and yet never seem to act with any real deliberation.

I was inspired to write this after watching this video about NUS Rag and Flag day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2u-0uOPQQMo

It's a 25 minute long video but it's worth the watch, documenting the various issues that surround Rag and flag and its relevance.

I believe change needs to move fast. You erase as much as you can while preserving the fundamental values that support the activity or tradition. And then you let strong surviving sentiments seep back in. Some people believe change takes time. They say that it's better to try things slowly, change it bit by bit until it looks different, and hopefully more respectable. I don't know which is better.

But there is a lot of "doublethink" involved in this kind of matters. When you know one side is wrong but cannot directly argue against it.

Founding Father

When I was having a chillout session during softball the other day, somebody said something that just started to rattle in my head for some reason.

My very good friend, who is an ex-softball captain, said "I'm the founding father of this team" in chinese. And that is pretty much 100% true. Its factuality is not what's making me turn this line over and over in my head. It's that it challenges a lot of the basic constructs I form my values around. To place it in context. He became the captain as a Year 2 student in Hall, back when only 4 people out of maybe 10 even wanted to stay on in softball. His first year in the team was terrible, with barely anyone showing up for training and a captain who didn't take anything seriously. So he took over, and one of the first things that happened, whether he consciously made the effort to or not, was a lot of his fellow year 2s joined, myself included. If I recall correctly, about 10 of us joined that year even though we were neither year 1s nor had any experience.

So what he said wasn't wrong. He was indeed the "founding father". We remember him as a good captain, but not because of his skill in softball or even in managing the sport. Simply because he was the one to set this all up.

This makes me uncomfortable (in a nice kind of way), because all my life, I thought you needed skill, experience or competency to be a good leader. You needed these things for people to look up to you. And more importantly, you needed these to do a good job. His success goes against all of that. The greatest gift he brought to the table is his good nature as a friend. He made it so that we WANTED to be a part of whatever he was doing, and not him begging us to join him, a typical position most new leaders are put in. 

So why does this make me uncomfortable, really? Part of my personal identity is modeled around this TV character, Dr. Gregory House, and to a certain extent, his primary inspiration, Detective Sherlock Holmes. The idea that being a good is all that matters, regardless of your (unpleasant) personality. I wanted to be so good that people couldn't "find fault" in me. So I often made competency a priority in my life. If I wasn't good at something, I wouldn't be a worthy partner to discuss with. If I didn't know something, I had little value.

But yet at the same time, I didn't see the world in only black and white. My nature is to be slow in reacting to people, especially if they don't give me a reason to. I want to give people second chances because others have also given it to me. I want to help others and bring them up to the same level, hopefully even transcending me. I couldn't really bring myself to hurt or harm people, especially for selfish reasons. All these sides of me, I considered soft, but at the same time, I could not bear to part with them. They are as much a part of my personality as everything else.

So I felt a need to form a "hard" exterior. I needed to look macho, or fearless or strong or whatever. Whatever it took to make me less vulnerable, less easy to take advantage of. I knew at the end of the day, I am a soft person. But I couldn't let the whole world know that. I became more accepting of judgmental eyes, and that has freed me up to be the "asshole" everyone else knows me by. Because I've stopped caring about what others think of me.

Do forgive me for using such a simple and over-generalising language like "hard and "soft".

This is not an easy burden to carry. Most of the times it doesn't bother me. But sometimes it hits like a freight train. A friend in BMT once asked me, why do you feel the need to be macho? I couldn't come up with an answer. The next day he asked me the same question. I still couldn't answer him. The third day he asked me again. That day I almost cried behind my platoon.

My friend's success at his post reflected a fundamental flaw in my personality, the very basis on which I formed my "character" to the outside world. Where I was "outside hard, inside soft", he was exactly the same inside as he was outside. He doesn't lie about disliking you, and he is sincere when he's helping you. He doesn't calculate or need reasons to help people, he just does, the same way he doesn't need reasons to dislike a person. He didn't need to be competent at his job to be successful. He didn't need to have "value" for us to want to be around him.

I don't think I can ever be this naked to the whole world. I think I need this "security blanket" when I face the world. Sometimes, I think about it really hard, and wonder if the hardness is the main reason for my unattractiveness to girls. Then I answer my own question by saying, what if they are even more unattracted to the softness inside.

An open letter regarding FOCs

An open letter regarding FOCs

For the longest time, I struggled to find the right words to address all this. I figured it would only be right to speak first to those that matter the most.

To Mummy & Papa,

I'm sure you would have read the recent news regarding NUS and the Freshmen Orientation Camps/Projects, and like any loving parent, you would no doubt be worried sick wondering if I am implicated in all this. I am at once embittered, angered, disappointed, saddened, unsure and apologetic. So to get all of this out of the way: Yes, I have participated in unapproved activities before. No, it was nothing like they describe in the papers. No, I have never done anything without a freshman's consent. Yes, we made sure nobody was hurt. No, The New Paper is not telling the whole truth. Yes, the stories are exaggerated. Yes, I am safe.

"A lie can travel halfway the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes."

Calling the article a mischaracterization of NUS freshmen activities is an understatement. To be able to publish a story like this says a lot about the journalistic standards of Singapore and The New Paper. Before this saga, I was apathetic. Today I am embittered. The activities written in the paper are sensationalized, their lewdness exaggerated, their outrageousness maximized. The orange shirt push up photo you see as the cover has already appeared in the same paper a few years back under a similar title, and even more heinously, it's not even from NUS. The videos circulating around are either not from NUS or from years before, of which the organizers have already been disciplined for. All those currently implicated are absolutely innocent and I'm absolutely angered that they have been accused in the first place with no real evidence other than a possibly bitter freshman's "testimony"

As much as you condone these activities and these seniors for doing such unspeakable acts (once upon a time), these are the very same seniors that taught us to discern the right way of doing it and the wrong way of doing it. These are the very same seniors who taught us how to make mature decisions, how to not let your emotions or impulses get the better of you. The very same seniors taught me how to do all these things safely, both physically and mentally. The very same seniors taught me that we support our fellow man by building each other up, not tearing the enemies down. So no matter how tempting it may have been to characterize NUS seniors as perverse, understanding these nuances in the complex and often harsh reality of life made me a better and more holistic person today.

The road to adulthood is paved with stupidity. To pretend it is anything but is to live in denial. A denial that what feels like the whole of Singapore is going through. It seems ludicrous that plenty of "adults" that have gone through their own periods of drinking, partying and general stupidity can act high and mighty once their time was up. Let's not pretend that these students coming in are all angel fairies that need to be protected from the realities of "adult" life. We are adults. And we need to make our own stupid decisions too. They teach us to make better ones. So, No, I'm not sorry for not behaving according to your delusional worldview, and I'm not sorry if it offends your delicate sensibilities.

I am saddened for this current batch of freshmen and seniors because I know the road ahead will be tougher than it has ever been. From today onwards, there is an added level of paranoia, fear and uncertainty among all those who may have intended to step up like we once did. And by missing out on such experiences, they lose what made our NUS lives so enriching. Participating in any capacity in an FOC is thankless job, one that thousands upon thousands of seniors sign up for year after year. There is no compensation, no reward, no real reason to give up precious vacation time to come back to school for this. Yet, we do. We do, because we became a closer family through these camps. I have walked in the shoes of a freshman, an OGL, a camp organizer and a Project Director for orientation. I know that my outlook on life and society around me has been deeply shaped by these experiences, and I want to share these experiences with the incoming freshmen just as my seniors have done for me. Every time I walk out of my front door during summer vacation, it's for orientation. You know that. And I know you look me in the eyes every time and simply ask that I do not do anything stupid and stay safe. I assure you, because of my seniors, I KNOW I'm not doing anything stupid. 

To end off; To my brother, my cousins and all prospective freshmen who at some point will consider NUS as their institute of higher learning, I can only offer my sincerest apologies. The vocal minority has prevailed once again, and you must suffer the consequences for it. Maturity is not a given in any society, and pandering to the lowest denominator does not make us any stronger in any way. Hopefully, the journey that has brought you here has endowed you sufficiently to discern the right from the wrong, the truth from the half-truths. The same path that I took that so enriched my young adulthood will undoubtedly be unrecognizable from your own, but I wish you to become as intelligent, compassionate and wise as those who came before me. 

Vincit Omnia Veritas.

With Love,

Regrets

I've been thinking about my life quite a bit these days. Because Overwatch Beta got closed a few days ago to prepare for launch.

Also, my peers are all graduating.

This is something I've been meaning to write for a while now. And to prevent the flaming failure of my last series on hall stuff, I'm going to keep it, as much as possible, to one point per entry. So that at least, when you read, you get one small but complete picture, rather than going everywhere and not really making any solid conclusions.

There are a number of themes I do want to touch on, hopefully I can cover everything.
Stuff like:
Architecture school, worth it?
The value of college, to a student
Does name and brand matter?
Personal growth over the last 4 years
What if?
Next steps

~~~

But today I'll talk about something that I share an unorthodox perspective on

"Regrets"

One of the questions people bring up, when I mention that I'm not happy at NUS, is whether I regret going to NUS. And that is a difficult question to answer for several reasons.

For me, regret mostly manifests itself as inaction, rather than action. I regret the things I chose not to do, or deliberately chose easier paths to do. But I seldomly regret hard decisions because no matter what, I would look back and say that was the only good decision given the information I had at that time. Like I put myself in particular decision-makers' heads and I don't blame them for doing controversial things, because I could see myself doing the exact same thing at that time.

Every time I hear someone say, I could only have succeeded because I did ABC or been through XYZ, I feel a little queasy. The main reason is that I see experiences as largely interchangeable. Unless there is something unique or overwhelmingly better at this particular school, I won't jump to conclusions and say I'm a smarter person because of NUS, because I don't see the value of NUS making me smarter COMPARED to other competitors. It's like if I get a scuba diving license, I would consider that pretty interchangeable between multiple diving schools. The one I experienced does not seem to have any unique value over the next.

On the other hand, I would, without question, say that SRJC has made me a better person. Because I can internalize the unique value that I would not have gotten elsewhere, namely the excellent teaching staff. To me I can proudly say that statement because it offers value over its nearest equivalent.

And I try to apply that across as many experiences as I can. And it sometimes does offend friends when I say that I might have made similar friends elsewhere and grown in a similar fashion. I have not had such life-altering experiences with most of them, that I feel that Person X or Person Y is truly special. And just to clarify, yes, there are friends I have life-altering experiences with. And they are truly the ones who shaped me into who I am. Whom I wouldn't be here without.

But to really really answer this question. I will say that I feel I have not reach the full maximum of my potential, and that the school and this environment has a very big part to play in that failure.

I can't say for sure, NTU would have been a better fit. Nor can I say NUS was the only culprit.

Because of NUS, I have become smarter, more thoughtful, more deliberate, more idealistic, more guarded, more reserved, more self-centered, more articulate and more cunning. But at the same time, would I have grown similarly somewhere else?

As I write this post, I have to re-examine regret as a concept. Perhaps another way to re-frame this question is whether "Have I become a lesser person than the one I set out to be?"

When I entered this particularly course, I knew I was going to be challenging myself. I don't remember if I was mature enough to accept that there were 2 possible outcomes. Either I was going to come out stronger, or I was going to be broken by the challenge.

But what I can say is, now more than ever, I feel weaker and more confused, even though I've truly known more than I ever have in my life.

So yes, I do feel I have not lived up to what I thought I could achieve. But do I "regret" choosing NUS?

Uatu, the worst Watcher in this reality

No, because it was the best option at the time. Without going through another lifetime, I cannot see what unique experiences NTU or SMU would have given me. I would only have regretted not choosing NUS.

Hall Thoughts: Part 5 (JCRC)

Part 1: Orientation (Done)
Part 2: Juggling Commitments and Time Management (Done)
Part 3: Inter Hall Games (IN PROGRESS)
Part 4: Points, Masterlists, and most importantly who "should" stay (NOT DONE)
Part 5: JCRC
Part 6: Leadership

Seeing as the open call for elects have already been released, I figured I should give some of my thoughts on the JCRC, Junior Common Room Committee. I know it's weird that I'm skipping ahead to part 5 when I haven't done the previous 2. But hey, reasons.

Like before, there are going to be over-generalizations as much as I can try to avoid them. Particularly, I will make a lot of effort to not generalize what I "think" other people think, but that does not mean I'm going to stray away from patterns that I notice which could be totally wrong or unfounded. There is a lot of misinformation around complex issues and Hall is no exception.

I suspect this will be the first piece that I'll post on facebook, so I'm totally prepared to face the backlash (Psst, I'm totally not.)

Anyway, this is what I think of the JCRC.

~~~

For those who are unaware, Junior Common Room Committee is the top of the food chain in tersm of student body groups in the hall system. To simplify it, it would be closest to the Student Council in other schools, although they do not take care of discipline or conduct issues. They pretty much act as a liaison between the SCRC (Senior Common blah blah blah, basically profs that stay in the halls and act as some sort of senior resident here) and the rest of the students.

Now that explanations are out of the way, here are my real thoughts. The JCRCs that I have experienced over the last 4 years have all fallen short of my expectations. This statement can be explained in 1 of 2 ways: either my expectations are too high, or they have been performing way below what should be a reasonable standard.

A lot of my issues with them tend to be leadership-based, so I will try to stay on topic and focus on issues that apply directly or primarily to JCRC members and the system they reside in.

First and foremost, there is very little accountability on JCRC's shoulders. Sure, they are scrutinized to an absurd level before things even get started. But they seldomly need to take responsibility for their actions or their mistakes after the fact. We have seen a lot of under-the-table Masterlisters coming in and contributing nothing to hall. We have seen very disproportionate treatment of particular CCAs or groups of people. And we have also seen people being taken advantage on for being nice, usually those who give up their time for causes nobody else wants to do. As of 4 years, I've seen one case of repercussion on a member, and that is for a pretty extreme case. The milestone inconsistency from last year was never addressed. The milestones for gold and silver bandings were jacked up to pretty difficult levels in an effort to reduce inflation. Guess what, many groups actually pulled it off, but ended up given an unfair banding due to the same inflation issue. Many had to back their milestone documents up and email back in order to get their deserved banding or just accept a lower banding than what you were promised. It's pretty bullshit. Most still ended up getting lower than what they deserved, although I would say, a few did get higher than they should have. Keep this in mind as I talk about the subsequent issues.

The system breeds a certain level of self-serving-"ness". I've often heard about "elects-hunting", which is essentially peer pressuring a new guy into taking a job that has no volunteers for a relatively long amount of time. That practice is immensely stressful for the person involved, borderline unethical. And the part I disagree with the most is that they often just sweet talk their way in. See, the biggest concern most people have is the lack of time, either that they prefer to study and maintain their grades or they would rather keep doing their 3 or 4 activities. And you know it's incredibly bullshit when someone actually tells this naive, uninformed kid that you will confirm have time to pursue other things, and that JCRC won't take up that much time. How can you say that in the same breath as saying that you may have to give up a few CCAs in order to do JCRC? Everyone who has eyes knows that this is a time-consuming job. This is not an outlier case, it happens pretty much every year with every "potential" candidate. Don't start their task off with such a blatant lie.

Now, a lot of my peers add on to my rant and say "They don't understand what people on the ground are doing!" I don't quite agree. The analogy I like to use here is the PAP ministers. Unlike other countries, they often take up portfolios that they have little prior experience in and they operate so high above the chain of command that they cannot possibly understand every group of people under their charge. That is an essential limitation that I am willing to accept. Because leadership on that level requires very broad, abstract understanding of how to move forward on a big-picture level. I get it. What I'm not willing to accept on the other hand is the inconsistency. Inconsistency with different issues. Inconsistency with different people. Just the inability to be fair. The points thing comes to mind most frequently but I'm sure there are many more examples out there. Many things that we as hall residents do become reduced to tickmarks on a checklist and the human element is then lost. Effort is hard to quantify and as such, CCAs that rely on hard numbers usually win out, like bizcom or photographers, while groups like Dance or SMC. It's a lazy fallback when you don't know what to do and you've never really thought hard about this issue. The block/social comm is also another big issue of contention that I won't mention here less I overkill on this topic.

Most if not all the JCRCs I've witnessed has never gotten past the "keeping the ship afloat" phase. They usually just run the day-to-day and try to prevent everything from falling apart. I remember coming in as a freshmen and thinking that the amazing freedom and maturity of university students means that they would be able to really push things forward in an awesome or semi life-changing way. Things like RHEX fall under this category. Initiatives that serve to better the community in whole or in part. But I didn't manage to see this in my time here. I do see a bit of small initiatives here and there by CCA heads (like the Phoenix Press newsletters) that try to better the place. But I haven't really seen anything substantial by the most powerful among us. I don't even see the effort to move forward as a community. All I see is a lot of routine and a lot of lip service. The closest is the archival thing a few years ago, which while useful on paper, has yet to serve as a practically useful tool for incoming leaders. I don't even know if they have still been carrying on with this practice, because I know I haven't been asked to submit anything. At this point, you can't really look at them as leaders so much as liaison, and that's exactly my viewpoint for the later part of my years here. 

At the start of every election, the elects will often state why they wish to pursue this position. Often times you will hear about passion or making this place an even better one. What I've come to realize is that your intentions as a person no longer matters to me. I don't care if you are the most kind-hearted, genuine, sincere, trust-worthy, hard-working person on the planet. I just care about what you plan to do and whether you can do it. Because I've seen good people falter under the weight of the decisions they have had to make, the sacrifices that they have given. After 4 years here, I can't see this as a altruistic or morally right thing to do anymore, being a JCRC member/leader. All I see is another task that needs to be taken up by some poor shmuck with CAP to burn.

~~~

tl;dr Don't be a JCRC member unless you think it's going to help in your resume. Above are 4 reasons why it's a still a terrible idea.

Addendum: Unfortunately, due to length, I was unable to add my own suggestions or changes that can improve this system. But believe me when I say this is a systemic problem, meaning a good leader can come in and make everything sunshine and rainbows again, but it's still gonna collapse once he's gone and nobody good replaces him.