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.

Hall Thoughts: Part 2 (Juggling Commitments)

There will always be issues in hall. I just thought I'd write them down and condense my opinions in one place. And like before, I will try my best not to generalize other people's opinions, using mainly facts or my own thoughts, because I think it's unfair not just to those I'm slandering but also to the ones I agree with.

I want to make it a 6-part series. No real reason on why the number 6. But so far, what I have in mind is something like this.

Part 1: Orientation (Done)
Part 2: Juggling Commitments and Time Management
Part 3: Leadership
Part 4: JCRC
Part 5: Undecided
Part 6: Undecided

I actually had a really good idea on what to write for the final part, but I forgot. Sorry. Anyway, it should look something like this.

Which reminds me, I have laundry to wash.

~~~

So right now is the CCA selection phase, as freshies are pulled here and there towards activities they themselves have no idea if they are interested yet. It's an annual cycle that parks itself right before serious lessons or assignments start so freshmen never really have a good handle on their craziness of their schedule until after the fact. And this is compounded by the fact that they actually have not started on their tutorials yet, giving them another false sense of "hey, I got this..."

Regardless of how much they think they got this, captains and chairpersons area always advised to select and retain more members that they think is necessary, because inevitably, the number starts to taper off once everyone gets into their midterms. I assume everyone reading this will understand why.

So why am I talking about this? Actually I don't believe there is anything wrong with this. It's just the way the world works today. If you find that this way of doing things is not right for you, you find another way of doing it. Some people truly do end up dropping out of their hall life because they cannot cope with so many commitments. But yet, if we really look deep and ask ourselves if we Can't do it, or we don't Want to do it, what answer do you expect to get? Then we go another level and ask, why is it that all these people around me and countless before have managed to juggle hall and school and remain excelling at both?

Juggling multiple commitments is not easy. You are constantly pulled in different directions by different factors. Why put yourself through this much angst of ANOTHER time-consuming activity. We do it because we enjoy being there. We enjoy the activities that we joined. At least, that's what it's like for me. There's nothing wrong with trying something out and realising it's not the right fit for you. I didn't find my 3 favourite CCAs on my first try. Neither did most of my peers. But what's important is that you give it a sincere try. It's meaningless to put your name to something that you aren't really interested in. There's no point joining 7 CCAs and attending less than half for each. There's no point signing up and saying you have no time. You will never ever have enough time for anything if you have that attitude. All of us struggle to find our own ways of juggling, but why did we put in that effort in the first place? Different people have different reasons. Some will say they want to test themselves. Others will say they want to accompany friends. At the end of the day, whatever reason they have for putting themselves through this, it was worth it to them.

And if you ever want to pull through and juggle hall alongside your many other commitments, you also need to find a reason that's worth it to you.

~~~

Never believe anyone for a minute that they have "no time". "No time" is the ultimate excuse right behind "I want to focus on my studies". I believe people are very simple. They will always be able to make time for the things they want to do.

Let me make a very simple analogy that everyone can relate to. Suppose you come back after a long, hard day. You're tired. You're hungry. You're probably also in need of a shower. Which one do you satisfy first? Sleep, Food or Bath? Everyone has a different priority. Sometimes, even the same person may do something different due to the circumstances. Sometimes, you may even end up not doing one of the 3 at all. Everyone has experienced one of those days where you end up so deadbeat tired you can literally sleep on the floor, even if you're hungry or dirty. And here's the kicker, even the super clean freaks do this as well. Those that cannot go without a shower, also have had days where they just crash somewhere without cleaning themselves. That's because in that moment, priority goes to sleep more so than his own neuroses. Everything boils down to priorities. Everyone can put aside certain things if they really want something. In this case, it happened to be sleep. It doesn't make him any less of a clean freak. It's just the circumstance.

So coming back to hall and commitments. I'm not making the argument here that people don't study or they don't prioritise academia. But what I am saying is that it's always possible to put those things to one side. And I'm not just pointing to books as a culprit. Sometimes people will say they need to go out with their girlfriends or friends or even another competing CCA. To me, life is really about how much you want to be present for. And I prioritise my life with that in the center. Eventually, if you miss out on something regularly enough, people will just assume you won't show up. By then, it wouldn't even matter if you had the right intentions.

Never believe someone who says he has no time until he starts sleeping less than 2 hours a day. I have been in that position and I was still able to find time for my friend's birthday BBQ. Would I do it for everyone I knew? Heck no. But some people are important enough for me to take out 4 hours of my time during a critical school period. Some people are worth it. Some things are worth it. Ultimately you have to be the judge and decide whether this moment is worth losing some sleep or study time over. Sleep is not precious. I can always sleep more some other day. But if I miss this moment, will I get another chance?

~~~

Knowing this means that you have to come to terms with the fact that people just aren't interested in what you want them to do. To deal with this, there are 2 approaches, make the environment worth that guy re-prioritizing or get rid of them. I regularly take the latter approach if I find someone not worth my time, even if it is at the expense of a higher workload. Because I feel the effort expended to woo him is simply not worth it.

As for me, I made it a point to be present for every RHOC meeting, event or activity. Because I knew it was important that I can and will do anything alongside my RHOCers. I made it a point to attend as many softball trainings as I could because I knew that I wanted to be good enough to play on the team based on my own merit. I made it a point to finish my Phoenix Press assignments on time, because it was something my friend truly believed in, and since my initial impetus is to help her; it only made sense to help her all the way. And last but not least, I made it a point to say yes every time a friend asked me out for an outing, because I knew whatever else I might have been doing instead will always be less meaningful than spending time with my friends.

School doesn't make any demands on my time, Because at the end of the day, I'm not going to remember the super helpful lecture or the amazing grades I got. All school does is make requests of my time, and I say yes pending my other commitments.

I want to end off by saying this. Figure out what you truly want to do with your life. Figure out what's worth sacrificing for. This post is not meant to teach you how to juggle hall and school. If hall is really not what you want to do with your time here, my sincerest suggestion is to find something worth spending your time on. Hall is simple another avenue for people to get together and do things. If you're not interested in that, then don't force yourself into loving it.

Hall Thoughts: Part 1 (Orientation)

Seeing as I have a little off time now, and the fact that I need to brush up on my writing for a bit, I thought I would take a shot at writing about some of the issues going on in hall.

It would seem appropriate to say here that I will try to avoid over-generalizing opinions of other people. I will mainly use either logic or my own personal opinion without trying to represent anyone else. I think that's fair for everyone when inevitably someone rages, they have someone to direct it towards.

Also, I'm waiting for my laundry to dry.

~~~

Let's start with my favourite topic! Orientation!

So by now I assume a good number of people have heard about our decision to disband RHOC. By that I mean, we will not be continuing our legacy that has lasted at least a good 20 years, and we will not be, as much as I can help it, interfering or advising the new batch of orientation committees.

There are a number of reasons for this, and people have started to question myself or my members about it. Most of them start with "Eh why nobody want to do RHOC anymore? You all cannot find successor ar?" I wish it was as simple as finding a successor.

To fully understand why, we have to backtrack way way back. All the way back to when RHOC lasted 3 weeks. I cannot imagine a RHOC that lasts 3 weeks. Neither can any of my contemporaries. But from what I understand, RHOC is this huge entity of fear, excitement, fun and mostly reactionary movement from clueless freshmen that stretches even into the school time. This RHOC would have incredible things, from typical orientation games, to an insane Cozy Bedroom tunnel constructed our of Comm Hall tables that stretched from our front porch to where T-lab is now, to a phoenix explosion so loud people once called Clementi Police to come down to investigate, to a Sentosa day that lasted from morning til the next day, to Block Orientation that actually made the freshies slide down the slope in every block, to IBG that actually had some competitiveness. What we have today, is simply a watered down version. Many of my predecessors could only dream of doing something as massive as this.

And most amazingly of all, it was planned within a 3 month period when exams end in May til end July.

With that, I come to the first reason for ending RHOC; because it will always remain a sliver of what is an actually impressive package. When we RHOCers start planning, we always ask ourselves and our incoming committee members whether they want to maintain the traditional activities. Invariably we will say yes, because we look back at our seniors and marvel at the great job they have done and wonder if we will ever reach that same greatness. We have set our expectations based on the successes of the past and naturally, want to emulate that same success, either through direct imitation or through capturing the essence of the activity or the camp. The fundamental problem with that it's impossible for us to go back to "the good old days", because today's safety restrictions and expectations are much greater than they were before. It's easy to point the finger at OSA or even SCRC and accuse them of clamping down too harshly on the camp planners, but it turns out that this problem is simply a symptom of perceptions throughout the nation. Sentosa has banned both (unofficial) overnight stays as well as burning of campfires or BBQs. Parents are calling into Hall Office before the camp even begins. This is not the same world our seniors lived in 20 years ago. We couldn't get away with things even if we wanted to.

I do not see a future where the circumstances around RHOC start moving in the opposite direction, where we are encouraged or at least supported to go to the extent that our seniors did. I can only see our activities become more and more restricted. Since we place such a huge importance on continuity and legacy, it is only inevitable that RHOC becomes more and more watered down. This is perhaps one of the reasons why we always seem one step behind other faculty camps, or even RHEX in terms of genuinely fun activities, because we are tied down by both our and the hall residents' expectations of us to remain a "legacy", a legacy that they did not know have been eroding and eroding ever since an administrator first started paying attention to hall camps.

On a similar topic, we move on to reason number 2, the new generation of campers. The RHOC that we know today is based around the "1990s freshmen". They had different tastes, different preferences and most importantly different levels of tolerances. At that time, it wasn't unusual to see freshmen in actual confusion and frustration but yet still go through with something forced upon them. Pain was a powerful way of bonding people. I understood that very clearly when I was still wearing an NPCC uniform. It's sad to say but today's kids aren't like that. They have been pampered by parents throughout a good part of their lives and do not simply accept that they have to go through group suffering, choosing instead to just walk away. Last year, we had this "revolution" incident during the Big Ball Game, where some freshmen actually demanded their rights to not be treated terribly and wanted to just walk away. This year, I was so afraid of that happening en masse that I actually stationed more seniors at the ground floor and prepped them to "counsel" and reduce damage.

This may seem like a small problem, but its sinisterness lies in its deception. For every one such case where walking away is brought to our attention, regardless of how dramatic it was, 5 of them slip under our radar. Like most, I was never aware of the fact that so many people were walking away. It is only during my time as chairperson, that this really hit me right smack in the face. With PDPA seriously enforced this year, we had to directly collect information from freshmen, and it became starkly obvious that there was a serious number of people who were not even going to give the camp a chance, outrightly telling us that they are checking into hall but not attending the camp. And that is even before the camp has started! As camp coordinators, we can only focus our attention and actions on whoever is present, and if they are not present, we totally cannot do anything about it.

What I suspect is that future generations of freshmen will be less tolerant to the type of camp that we run. We are not as friendly, as approachable, or as "entry-level" as other camps. I think anyone who has attended RHOC understands that there is a level of strictness precisely because of the legacy that it carries. The trend that we have witnessed is that more and more freshmen are unwilling to put themselves through this, and more freshmen are willing to walk away back to their rooms, while the camp is happening right outside their rooms, if they find it unsatisfactory. This was an unimaginable circumstance to RHOCers 20 years ago, but this is something we constantly see today.

There will be some out there who will ask us to tone it down to cater to this ever- growing group. My problem is that this is already toned down and yet freshies are leaving before they ever reach the end. There is only so much I can do in this aspect of the camp because we have been here too long already. Our seniors have done too good a job to teaching us to think this way. I no longer know how to do a Big Ball Game that doesn't involve tekkaning people. In fact, I cannot even imagine someone less fierce conducting it. That is the extent to which I am , as Dr. Ho will put it, "in love with the plan." The way RHOC was set up and how it developed over the years has made it into this form that all of us have experienced. Whether as RHOCers, we like it or not, is irrelevant. But to fail to capture that essence is to do it injustice, at least for those of us who have understood the message that the seniors have passed down. I am both unwilling and unable to change RHOC into a form that can cater to this new generation of freshmen, the ones that run at the first sign of pain. And I know that this is a growing population, which will become larger as the years go by. It is simply a sign of the times. We must accept that. Everyone of us in the meeting room were asked to imagine a form of the Big Ball Game that doesn't alienate this group. None of us could do it. That is why I believe disbanding RHOC and setting up a new orientation programme from scratch is the ideal way to go, with as little assistance from present RHOCers as possible.

And then there are the problems that we never found a fix for. One thing that I don't suspect will change in our favour, at least in the next 5 years, is the hall vs faculty competition. There has been a constant competition for freshmen attention between these 2 groups ever since I stepped into hall. At least from what I observe, faculty events are either getting a lot more support, or way less oversight, because both the scale and the engagement is getting more and more ridiculous. There are fundamentally elements that act in their favour, most importantly, the prime timing of their FOPs as well as the undivided attention they get, seeing as there is no competition from outside bodies. Halls cannot act as early because the dates never come in soon enough. Students must always accept their course of choosing before they even think about coming into hall. And with that, there is a good solid month or 2 of attention on them. Furthermore, all their camps require applications, which means the interested campers self-select and get surrounded by other interested campers, creating a false impression that their entire faculty is filled with such people. Contrast that with the forced nature of hall and the cramped schedule of our orientation and its easy to see why the appeal of faculty is so strong. And with the problems I already mentioned above, the differences become even starker. I have contemplated this problem with RHOCers over the years and often we simply see it as another limitation that RHOC must endure. With OSA clamping down harder and harder on hall camps, not just ours, but other halls as well, along with seemingly little interference for the faculty ones, it just seems like a losing battle. I once joked that for a faculty camp, you can have zero programmes but enough OGLs and freshmen and everyone will still consider it a success. The success of a faculty has no dependence on neither the excellence of the execution or the competency of its coordinators. They literally, in all sense of the word, just need to get their freshmen and seniors to show up.

All these are things that are inevitable, and if we choose to force our way through, we will only prolong the inevitable. On the other hand, we can start to fix things that we can fix now. We have real problems in the hall right now. We can try to fix them.

For FOPs, meaning RHEX and RHOC, we have quite a lot of oversight from the SCRC. At least from my perspective, there is a serious disagreement between our agenda and what method we believe is the best way to achieve it. I think we want different things and when that becomes contested, people become frustrated. Take the never-ending angst fest that is RHEX. Nothing puts it quite into perspective as having 4 consecutive RHEX heads telling their successors that same thing; the job is not worth it. The SCRC has its own pressures from upper management. We understand that. But at the same time, we want to feel like our management has our back, that it's willing to support and guide us when they see the conviction we have in what we do. Now, we see a lot of shutting down and shrinking away instead.

I'm a pessimist. I don't assume things will turn out better just because I want it to. I see 2 options to end this conflict. Either the SCRC changes its perspective, which none of us believe will happen to a degree that we are satisfied with, or we change our perspective. I believe if you install a new group of people to run orientation, you will attract a new breed of people. Since this group of coordinators are new, they are more open to influence, and since this is a key event for hall, the SCRC will most likely have a hand in ensuring that this runs smoothly. If the influence from the SCRC is there, it is possible that the camp they run attracts the kind of people who agree with SCRC, because that's the nature of the camp. Take RHEX for an example, RHEX will always draw in people who like RHEX, and people who don't like RHEX either will get turned off and don't apply, or they will still apply and end up finding something they like about hall. This cycle repeats itself and it's not inconceivable that you attract people who have similar tastes. I think the same thing can be done regarding SCRC. The timing just takes more time to adjust because there is still a resistance to them present in hall.

So these are all the external reasons. There are also some internal ones. RHOC has a very serious demand on students' time. Everyone who has been through RHOC has had to sacrifice. They have had to sacrifice their vacation time and more importantly, they have had to sacrifice time making friends with freshies during the most optimum time. The demands on an undergraduate's time is getting greater and greater. Summer school, internship, IA, SEP, NOC, community projects, etc. The list goes on and on. I cannot bring myself to "coerce" somebody to carry on doing RHOC because at the end of the day, RHOC is just a camp. It's just a camp for 200-odd people who had so much fun with each other they won't remember what you gave up for them. I can't bring myself to make them give up the things that really matter for something as insignificant as a camp.

All I can do is present the options and let them decide themselves. Sometimes I even advise them to drop RHOC, because they would be sacrificing too much. I have already seen when students cannot juggle, and often they make the choice and have to live with it. I am proud that I come from a line of people who has kept up this legacy. I am proud of the people who have made this sacrifice alongside me. But at the same time, I can't help but wish my juniors didn't have to. That they could have had the time to spend making friends with freshmen. Because that's what I wanted.

In short, I hope you understand why we chose to disband. Do not reduce our rationales into "cuz nobody want to do lor" I think that's is really disrespectful of the agony we went through to make this decision. We really do hope for a better future. We gave up our chance to do it next year, so that others may do it better. This is a new opportunity for the hall. Maybe you can succeed where we have failed. Good luck.

4 moaning sessions

4 moaning sessions

~~~

So i had this girl who just dropped out of her tasked job in rhoc. dont worry she didnt go as far as to drop out of everything, thank goodness. but it was still jarring.

it was so jarring in fact i had to screenshot 15 pages of the chat log and send to my friend to help me analyse if i said anything stupid. i didn't. according to him anyway. the closest we got to anything going wrong was the fact that i pushed the fact that my experience was telling her not to do something that she wanted to do. apparently, saying that reminded my friend of when his boss used to "push" him around using experience as the excuse, but even he admits he was in the wrong for feeling like this, regardless of whether the boss was right or wrong.

maybe its a gen-y thing. maybe we've learnt to grow up needing to know the reason behind everything that we cant simply accept something is something because somebody said it is. we have to know why or we'll be mopey, pissed off or unmotivated.

~~~

i dont think i have even learnt the basics of how to communicate with people in nus.

a good while ago, i decided i wasn't going to chase after nus girls anymore. this came after i stopped focusing on one particular girl (i.e. she rejected me) and started focusing on everyone. it turns out i dont click well with anyone in this rung of society. i always say something stupid and the people here cant seem to brush it off and accept that someone as stupid as myself is breathing the same air as them. or i always say something hurtful and people here will hold it against me every time they have to utter a word in my presence. maybe i shouldn't say anything at all.

im used to being the underdog, surrounded by other underdogs, where success is not guaranteed, and if you get it, you are the fortunate one out of 100. but that doesn't matter to the underdogs, because they will still cheer you on, knowing that one of them is now going further than anyone ever expected, and be genuinely happy about it. not very different from how you cheer when your countrymen won a medal, even though you don't have any connection to it at all.

i dont belong in nus. she doesn't seem to agree with what i want to do.

i want to step down the ladder a few steps and hang out with people there. who are hopefully more like me than i care to admit, and click on a more basic level. i hope this is not a the grass is always greener on the other side scenario.

i stretched too far to get into nus anyway. i dont belong here.

i dont like the value system here. you are nothing if you have no value to someone else. it works like this in hall. it works like this in school. it works like this in administration. your opinion doesnt matter if you are not important to someone somewhere. you dont matter if you have no value.

i dont like people not being recognized or respected for the work they put in. when you get high enough and all responsibilities and tasks and titles and ranks seem to blend into one crazy mix, its easy to forget to acknowledge those that made your life easier. we have expectations of people but we never celebrate them, however horrid or fantastic of a job they did. we don't. we don't vilify the terrible leaders nor do we celebrate the good ones. we just let them go through the revolving door and watch another helpless sap realize what he's gotten himself into.

and people also regularly forget that the people under them need their support. they need to know that people appreciate their work. because this is not a job. there has never been an obligation to do this. i'm putting my free time to use here because i believe in something worthwhile, something greater than myself. and then you treat me like i'm just another worker here to get the job done and go home. for what? i don't even get to bring any bacon home, why should i do a job for you? we've forgotten what it means to aspire to something greater, and maybe, just maybe, we've lost a bit of humanity.

i guess i just dont like being here.

~~~

making mistakes is fine. whats complicated is knowing in advance someone under your charge will make a mistake, and letting them do it anyway.

this has happened a few times already over the past year. and i never know how to handle it. and i don't really have anyone to talk to because everyone here is a jerk and i hate them.

so it's strange watching a tragedy unfold exactly as how you've predicted it. and i guess i do have some responsibility in preventing such tragedies in the first place. but how far do you go? do you just dictate anything and everything that needs to be done? that's the role of a salaryman. that's not why i took this responsibility.

i have far greater motivations than merely dictating instructions to robots

~~~

i'm not happy with who or where i am now, but i think i'm comfortable here.

here's the logic behind it. i'm not happy with myself, because of poor self-confidence, bad experiences, whatever. i tell people about it, and inevitably, they will say i need to change who i am. but i will always be so vehemently against change that i even outright lie to them and say i'm happy with who i am now. i never am. so naturally, it leads to the fact that there must be something about the here and the now that i'm unwilling to change. maybe im too afraid of change. maybe i dont want to work myself hard in order to change. maybe i'm just lazy.

i don't like who i am or where i am now. but not enough to try to change.

maybe i'd just rather moan than actually try to become happy.

~~~

"the bigger picture"

When I was in secondary school, my friends in NPCC used to love use the term "brother".  like "eh brother" or "yi qi zuo la, wo men shi brother ma" [do it together la, we are brothers]

I've quickly learnt to discard the term from my vocabulary after I left sec 4.

It wasn't because I didn't believe that we were in fact, brothers, so to speak, but because I believed it too much. It became a reminder of that almost betrayal, not something that someone did intentionally, but a sort of social contract that both parties weren't aware of, but somehow he broke it.

I don't use it nowadays, except for people I don't particularly care about, but for some reason need something out of them,  like when I need a person-in-charge to close one eye while I use some facility.

I'm in university now, and there's another term I've grown to despise.

"The bigger picture"

There are 2 people I used to respect that use it as a way to justify their actions, but MY own opinion is that if that's your justification, it means you have not done your job as well as you should have. Because that term never comes out as anything other than an excuse, like I was lazy and couldn't be bothered. Except in this case, they did bother but in a way that produced a certain set of problems. My personal problem with this is that it doesn't necessarily come with a solution or even an implicit promise to get a better solution. It's just a way to shut people up. Because I wouldn't even be speaking to you about this if you hadn't overlooked it.

The first time I heard it, it really shattered my confidence. I thought I was in the wrong for thinking that much in detail, like I really shouldn't think that far ahead. But I've since spoke with those more experienced than myself and it seems more and more that for those I've asked anyway, there isn't really such a thing as asking too many questions. Someone at that stage of planning should be aware of all consideration, not just "the bigger picture", and if they've overlooked something, they, themselves, will try to work out a solution alone or with the person who raised the consideration.

So I've felt a bit better after that.

But even after speaking to other uninvolved friends about it, I still have that nagging doubt, because I can never adequately describe that things that I say or the questions that I ask, and they are never around to assess the situation without my biases since I'm explaining the situation to them after the fact.

So yeah, words and stuff.

~~~

As an aside, I've realized that we are most heavily influenced by our first experience with something. Like in RHOC, most of us are shaped by our experiences as secretaries in year 1, as opposed to anything else. And inevitably, most people will think that their year 1 is the best camp that they made happen.

But what interests me is that we seem to have different yardsticks by how we measure the success of each our our own experiences and why it is "justified" to be the best one. For example, I felt that my first year was the best because we managed to do something incredibly large in scale and hasn't been done in 10 years because of the difficulty, scale and actual human danger, but also that my batch were more independent and competent in their own areas to the point where you can trust them to get things done. On the other hand, I spoke with a senior once and she said her year was the best not because of reasons regarding execution or even the campers. She just said that it was the best because they were the most bonded and had the most fun as a group. For me, I would never consider that "success" other than a sort of consolation prize, but she truly believed that that particular bond outweighed whatever camp they actually made.

It's really interesting still though.

New Years 2015

I think my writing skills have seriously deteriorated. Anyway, time for new years' resolutions, because why not.

I only have 2 this year. And they don't really involve any real "goals" or milestones like going to the gym or whatever. They are:

1) No (LESS) swearing
2) No sympathy

Number 1 is not as straightforward as it seems. (Actually neither of them are straightforward.) So I've always been a pretty vulgar guy. But now it has come to the vulgarities make up more than half of my casual conversations, which limits the things I actually want to express verbally.

But knowing the type of person I am, I can't really "give up" something so intrinsic to my self-image. Especially since it's already 4th Jan and I've already caught myself slipping much more than I thought I would. I knew this needed to be an interesting thing, or else I would get bored of it very soon. So I came up with a more fun alternative. Instead of not saying the word fuck itself, I would replace it with  more kid-friendly swearing, like flip or fish (but not fish because even that sounds too kiddish). Here's the example I find to be the most appropriate.

I find this fun for some odd reason.

Here's the thing I think I need to clarify: I don't find swearing offensive. But I do feel that it has reached a level in my vocabulary where it is starting to replace other actually useful words. Which is why I'm toning it down a notch this year.

NUMBER 2.

This needs a bit of explanation. I have found myself, on multiple occasions, especially this past year, "making myself seem small" in an attempt to get more sympathy points. And it's quite a conscious, yet automatic response I seem to make, especially in school. I would say things like, "eh don't make my job harder leh" or just INTENTIONALLY lower my head and eyes a lot more in an obvious attempt to look weak. There are problems with this, of course. First, that it doesn't even actually work. Maybe one person in like 20+ attempts have come up to ask whether I'm fine, so I know that doesn't work. But more importantly, I apparently became a "senior" at some point and people start to put more weight in what I have to say. I only realized this when I kept making stupid jokes to this junior girl beside me (in the middle of a sort-of "crisis") and during debrief, she said I was being inappropriate and not solving the crisis since I was a senior. I NEVER connected the dots until pretty much 2014, which was weird.

I think that doing all those "shrinking" body language thing is ultimately detrimental, both to the self-image but also to the bigger overall picture. It (the mentality) shirks responsibility away from myself, and starts to seek out "I hope you get better"s and "Good try though"s.

So anyway, here are my 2 resolutions. I don't really know how to measure them.

In other news, I've been watching Wolf Children

It's a crying movie that will make you appreciate your mom a lot more. Especially that scene where she's hopping on the spot, struggling to decide whether to visit the doctor or the vet to cure her son who ate some silica gel. It's not a metaphor, the kids really are both wolves and humans. But if you can't get over the fact that she's pretty much super jesus who can do anything, then you probably shouldn't watch this.

Also this,

Summer Wars

It's basically the Digimon Movie (which I have sitting in my hard drive just WAITING to be watched) with a nice sounding female lead. It's entertaining and not very deep, which is kind of like the ultimate summer movie. It's why we watch Avengers anyway.

The 12 Year Lesson

When I was in primary 6, I took my PSLE papers and had decent results. If I remember correctly, I got 211, which by all means is not a terrible score.

I cried that night.

I had a friend then who wasn't the smartest person I knew, but he had his talents in other areas, specifically art. He sat in front of me in class and when I asked him about his score, he turned around and said 213. It felt weird and uncomfortable because it violated the status quo somewhat. I was supposed to be the book guy and he was supposed to be the art guy. It felt wrong.

Then I went home and checked the cut off points of the nearby secondary schools and found that I would always be a few points short of those schools. Maris Stella, North Vista, Nan Chiau, etc, alwasy just 2 or 3 or 4 points short. And that was where the disappointment really came in.

So after I came to my senses, I told my mum I would go to Holy Innocents' High, despite meeting the criteria for other marginally better, but ultimately too inconvenient schools. I told her that I would go back to the affiliated schools and become the best in that small school.

~

When I took my O Levels, I got 15. My target was at least 10. I also cried that night. I had to accept my fate that I would go into a JC that I had all but written off. The same school that I used to say "Go there might as well go poly."

I ended up breaking all my (and my teachers') expectations when I took my A levels.

~

Perhaps it is because of my upbringing and the people I grew up with, but I learnt that ambition is not the best quality for myself as a person. When I did so fantastically well in the As, that I thought I was on top of the world; that I should really challenge myself and enter Architecture. I really, for that one moment, thought I was invincible. Just because I got a couple of As. What you don't know is that living in a 3-mrt zone. when your whole world revolves around Kovan, Hougang, Sengkang, that impossibly disgustingly smart people exist. And not only that, they are capable and athletic and talented in all the areas that you can never hope to be.

But I hear what you are saying, "Other people's abilities shouldn't affect you as person." The problem is that they do. The system we exist in doesn't recognize individuals as uniquely abled, but as relative numbers in a scale. "You are only good to me if you are the most capable person available to me." And because of that I have been turned away multiple times in my university life.

I thought that when I entered the premier Uni in Singapore, I would be open to a world of opportunities. The problem is that I have always been at the bottom of that barrel. Suddenly I became a nobody, with no real skills to hold to my name. I've never been the most charming or the most sociable. I've never had sports or arts or music to stand behind. And now, what people used to remember me fondly of as that smart guy, suddenly became meaningless as I became surrounded by a bunch of other smart guys. I understand that my A level results was a fluke, both then and now, but I liked to hold it up as a reminder of my ability, as superficial or fragile as that might seem.

~

So after all that I've said, why does this matter? Grades aren't important. Ya, this isn't about grades. It's about happiness. 12 years after my PSLE posting, I have figured out that the best life decision I can make is always the convenient one, not the challenging one. When I ever get stuck about where to go in life, between what I'm good at or what I like the most. Always pick the one that I'm good at. Because you don't ever stop being good at it, but you never know if you will ever stop liking it that much. Be happy in that little bubble and be ignorant of what is out there. Because it's happier to be happy and stupid than to be sad and smart. Don't surround yourself with people who are too similar to you in ability, both the type and the level, because you become unremarkable, unnoticable and to a certain extent, unhelpful.

~

I have become such a bitter, cynical person that I sometimes wonder if entering Uni was ever the choice. I can't really openly trust someone any more, and it seems like a loss of innocence somewhat.

This youtube video

There are 2 tropes in film and TV I always find endearing: 1 is narration over the entire story and the other is when a person picks up something entirely new for the sake of trying to get his crush's attention.

When there's a narrator present, it changes of event after event after event happening to a very campfire-story like feel. A narrated story gets more depth because of the input by the narrator, usually in the form of a more experienced version of the main character or someone who witnessed the story. They can describe things like thoughts or foreshadowing in a more personal, conversational style.

But that's not what I liked about this video. There is this part where the girl picks up a skill to help her connect with the guy she likes, something that she never even knew about him before. That was the part where my facial expression changed from curious eyes, to awwww-smile.

I think the reason why I'm so attached to this is that I always put myself in the person's shoes, especially in shows where its not entirely fantastical like superhero movies or animals or whatever.

And even though I can logically reason out why this would be a terrible idea from the perspective of the crush, I still can't emotionally put myself in that position. In my mind, I KNOW and UNDERSTAND why this would be such a creep move, but I still can't help but root for the other person. Learning something new is very very hard and under ordinary circumstances, nobody would find the time or energy to do it. But when the motivation of simply getting someone's attention becomes the main focus, all the inertia and reluctance sort of melts away. You stop looking at this actually useful thing as a chore and simply look at it as another thing you do to get forward. It becomes this really sweet gesture, because unlike buying flowers or whatever, it actually takes hard work and time. Somebody is working hard for love. That is pretty much the definition of such shows.

Those we call leaders

I wasn't sure if it was the 2 hours of lying on the bed, or just hall-related anxiousness, but I started to think about my life. About those that made me who I am today.

And I find it quite hard to run away from my past in NPCC. In fact, it wouldn't be an unfair comment to say that everything I know today, everything that I am today is a result of those 4 years and the very impressive people who taught me what it meant to be a leader. Because even now, when I look at my achievements, and by extension, my failures, I see the unmistakable touch they had in my life, even 10+ years on. There were 4 people who impacted my life the most, because they ultimately shaped the idea of what a leader should be. Even after so many years, and so many other experiences in JC, army and Uni, I still see them as the example I want to follow. I still think back to the words that they said and the actions that they took to guide me now. 

I will always remember these stories, as a testament to how impressive they were. Maybe the words I'm about to write will not do the same for you, but being there did it for me. And it's always the small things that matter in the end, not the grand gesture or speeches on the podium, it's always the little things.

~You can always tell who is amazing at holding attention. We were at a captain's ball game outside of school and we were losing, even though we were one of the hot favourites. Half-time. Joey calls everyone around him, even though he was just there as a visitor. Supposedly he had some other duty at some game station but just came by to watch. Anyway, he's there when nobody expects, and he just asks everyone to squeeze around him. He doesn't talk very loudly, not the way he normally does anyway, but you can see everyone around just listening to him intently. He's not a very tall guy, but even the tallest bends down to listen, sweat dripping of his brow. That's what commanding respect looks like. You don't need the voice or the gesture or any other gimmick if you have their attention, their respect. 

~There was this once when we were nearing the end of sec 3. And it was a normal weekly training, not some camp or whatever. The officers and senior NCOs pulled the entire cohort to a classroom, where the tables and chairs were already moved to the side. We all sat on the ground, the lights were off and the windows were closed. So even though it was still day time, there was only little light shining through whichever window panel was already missing. Joey sat on the table with legs swinging off the ground, while the other seniors just sorted themselves around us, not really doing anything except wait. I particularly remember Jia Hao closing the door and standing beside it with arms folded, as if  to stop any of us from leaving. Then Joey spoke, "I'm going to address each and everyone of you all individually. So what I say to your squadmate beside you may not make sense to you. Everything I say or any of the others say will not leave this room." We've never had this kind of conversations before so it didn't really register in my head and he sounded off to each individual, one by one, starting from the back. Then it came to my turn and he said, "Shi Li Pai was never meant to separate you from the others, it was something we said to encourage them." The confusion of contextless information you are experiencing right now is the same as what I had experienced there on the spot. I was just so stunned that he moved on to the next individual. The reason I was shocked was because I never expected him or anyone to take notice of my passing remark, anyone to perhaps read my stupid blog. I was a nobody and I didn't expect anyone to pay attention. I was half-expecting him to say things like "you need to buck up and stand out more", more general stuff, not a remark like this. But what he said cut at the heart of how I felt exactly in my squad, that I wasn't one of the shi li pai. The very fact that someone outside my social circle, a superior to say the least, acknowledge my own insecurities meant a lot to me, even if I didn't know it at the time. That's why I cannot forget this story. Because he taught me to always take care of your guys, and that includes the little things, because they are a marker of much bigger things.

I don't even remember how I reacted after that. I think I was just too stunned to say anything

~I've always been a late bloomer back then. In a world where it is typical to leave school as a Staff Sergeant, second only to a Senior Inspector (but the whole school only can have 2), I have never even worn my Sergeant rank officially. And I remember exactly why that is because while I was technically promoted in sec 4, but I never had the chance to wear that during a parade, and never had a proper "promotion" parade, since my promotion came in the middle of nowhere. So I wasn't ever in a hurry to get the rank from Beach Rd anyway. And the reason I remember what my final rank was is because I had a friend help me buy it when she was passing by, because one of the more "show-face" type of parade was coming up and I wanted to wear it for the first time. Sure enough, I did the parade without it, and then after that, my friend say paiseh to me and pass me the rank from her pocket.

10+ years on and I still see myself unable to reach that "level", that "standard", that "shi li pai" that they were so many years ago. And I'm deeply ashamed, that after so many years, I still couldn't match up to, in other people's eyes, a standard that was on par with them all those years ago.

Sometimes, even today, I wish I could go back and ask them for advice for today's problems. For once, perhaps because nobody is left, I am given leadership positions. Something I struggle with internally because it feels like I don't have the right person to look up to today and ask for help. 

But regardless, 

I want to thank Joey, Jocelyn, Jia Hao and Hui Ying for showing me what leaders are supposed to be.

"I would rather have 10 people with the right attitude, than 40 who don't"

A Sobering Thought

I'm going to be the head of Raffles Hall Orientation Camp 15/16 (RHOC). Well, not technically, I will be co-chairing it with 2 other people, one of them won't even be staying in hall in the first place. This position is something that I've wanted for the past almost 2 years, and the system was recently altered from 1 main chairperson, with 1 or more vice-chair, to having 3 co-chair sharing the same authority.

It was never like this for a very simple reason, that the people need one person to look up to to make decisions, some of which can be urgent and require immediate attention. I personally do not agree with this, and have often thought about walking away. I don't think having 3 people to deliberate over issues makes us any better, than it would have with one person, and this week has proven that over and over again.

The reason, the very simple reason that we did this with my year is simply that we are incapable. Not one of us is capable of taking the lead role, for one reason or another. Every better candidate has either left, or is somehow caught up with his/her own personal matters. What's left is this loser standing there, the one they didn't even need to discuss anything about because he gave such a definitive answer to whether he was going to do RHOC for a 3rd year, the one that was going to be hanging around the cool kids no matter what happened. This guy. And I'm just incapable of leading it by myself, that we need a guy who has already left the hall to hold our hand.

I don't think anyone can mistake my attitude as being happy about this. And trust me when I say if the right person reads this, I would get so fucked. But I'm bitter for 2 reasons. One that the system is simply not good for anyone and two, that I haven't been able to prove my worth, not only to those outside our workgroup but those within as well.

It was very clear during that Tuesday conversation that I was not going to be a solo head. The situation was laid out very clearly, that higher ups will stop me (although who exactly I'm not sure, because that answer always seemed to be "self-censored"). It was either going to be 3 co-chairs or one main chair, the one who left hall. Yup, the one who left hall. So unconfident in me and the other girl that they were will to take the chance on a guy who made the active and conscious decision to leave hall. And throughout that conversation, we would keep coming up with situations and scenarios to defend our arguments, and it became increasingly clear, crystal clear, that in no situations would I ever end up as the main chair. Zero. I would simply be there to carry weight. And it pisses me off, even as I'm typing this, like one week later, confident that the bad feels had all but evaporated. It was really a sobering thought for the gears to slowly turn in my head and make that realisation. That this person (my senior) was constantly thinking with that assumption in mind. "Do you think he will listen to you all properly if you were only vice?", "Are you sure he won't outplay you all even if you make any kind of arrangements to see each other as equals?" These lines exemplify the underlying assumption that I'm talking about. Because none of the "he" in those situations were ever directed as me. All of those situations had us as vice in mind. Because there was zero chance that either one of us were going to be in that position, at least not in her mind.

So why am I here? After all this bs, why am I still taking this job as co-chair? Because it meant we could buy time. My senior said that this system, at least for now, is just to get past the current oversight so we can move on to more important things, we could change it later when people are looking down so much. But honestly, I had no confidence in ever changing the system. I just needed a reason to hang on. I knew we weren't buying time. I knew we weren't going to change back to the 1 chair system unless some accident happens. I knew. But at that moment, I just needed a reason to walk out of that room. In my room, I had honestly entertained the thought of outplaying the others, to undersell the other 2's contributions and commitment and to become the only one hanging around that people would look to for advice, and all other dirty bullshit that comes with tactics like this. But I'm not going to do it. I can't justify it to myself. This wasn't worth compromising my morals. As much as I want this, for myself to be the chair, I couldn't make peace with those actions if I did them.

And what's worse is that I know other people do it and they can sleep at night just fine, because to them it's not morally wrong, it's just giving selective information. And I'm not like that. I have put myself in the line of fire for choosing to believe people are mature enough to handle the truth. I have been heavily criticised for saying things that people themselves wished they could hear more often. And I wasn't even using the usual mean asshole tone of voice that I normally use.

Something that I've learnt, even in this short 1 week tenure, is this idea that you can no longer represent "just" yourself in any conversation any more, that as someone with some title, it's always about the other side. That you have to look at them as an individual with personal commitments and personal feelings, but they get some leeway to look at you as something outside of a human person. I can't ever really use this line that I always seem to use any more: "eh guys, just cooperate with me la, I very tired already." Because I can't be tired any more, I have to do this, this job thing, and the worse part is that I never even realised that I had taken on that mantle or that people's perspective of me changed until someone texted me "am I supposed to comfort you".

Yup, this is the real world.

This is the world I signed up for.


~~~

Sometimes, people will care enough to ask me why I still want to stay here. Sometimes, maybe like once, and ironically, it's never the people in my own workgroup. Just random people that I happen to share my sob story with. RHOC is the only thing in my life that I have ever committed out of principle before. In the past, and I'm sure it's true with most people, we stick with things we don't want to do because we knew that we would go through it with our friends, and that they would suffer if we just walked out. And it was like that for me as well, for everything except RHOC. At the end of my first year in RHOC, I couldn't even ask myself who were my friends in the end. There was no one I talked to seriously about staying a second time, and likewise no one really approached me to get a totally honest answer. Just, "eh you staying anot?" "Dunno leh, see how next year lor" type of conversation. So I didn't gain any real friends at the end of RHOC. Even the week before RHOC started, I was seriously considering quitting the camp. Imagine this, walking away 1 week before everything you have worked for for one whole year. That was how lonely it felt, when I was making that decision in my head.

I say I stayed out of principle. And it was because I really respected the "guts" that we had during the first year. That we were willing to not just propose crazy "possibly get expelled" level of stuff, but also carry them through seriously. I really respect people who pull through, and they don't say such stuff for shits and giggles. That's why I stayed for my first year. Because it felt like we were pushing an envelope nobody else was, not even for the rest of the school. And it was really something I could be proud of, even when people outside our workgroup couldn't really see the significance of it. It wasn't for the recognition, it was simply for going through with something that crazy.

But the reason I wanted to be head is a bit more personal. All my life, I have worked in camps. All 4 years of secondary school in NPCC and OBS, only to have the final, most climactic role as leaders during the NCO camp in sec 4 taken away because the principal said we needed to study more and suspended all CCAs for us. Then came SRJC and student council, where I did nothing more that "safety officer", basically cycling around to make sure people aren't lost. It felt really strange to be in that role because it felt so out of place with the rest of the camp. So for a good 6 years, I have been moving forward to a place that just keeps getting shifted away from me. I wanted to be head because it would validate everything I have done outside school for those 6 years. I needed a way to close that chapter and say, ok, now I've done it all. I have made use of what I learnt and done the job I was preparing for all this while. Even if it was something as meaningless as an orientation camp. I want to at least do a good job for that. I want to not let all those people who have touched my life down. I don't want to let myself down.

That's me being selfish. This is something I want to do for my own sake.

~~~~~~

I also know that I would get fucked for airing my honest opinion on such a platform. I'm not going to seek and draw attention to it. Anyone who comes here is deciding to read on their own accord and if that changes your opinion of me, then I don't know what to say. I'm not going to pretend to be some hero or some punkass. This is what I think, and I'm not even going into detail about what I think about specific people. If this changes your opinion of me, then so be it. Do whatever you want with this information. I don't like to hide behind false assumptions and if exposing my own flaws makes you think less of me, imagine what others aren't telling you. I hope that in time, I can live in a community where I'm not afraid of revealing my flaws. I hate hiding. I prefer talking. Makes more friends that way.

---

There's actually been a post about Facebook that I've had on my screen for the last 4 days. I just don't know why I don't want to post it yet. But I'm sure I'm not gonna post it any time soon because it feels incomplete.

The "point" of travelling

Over the past 3 years, I've been on 3 big trips, with a few small ones scattered in the middle.

I've been to Western Europe for 6 weeks,

Taiwan for roughly 10 days

and most recently, Israel for almost one month.

I've always been a slow traveller; I like to take my time and soak up the place without knowing anything except what I can eat and where I can sleep. 

The "objective" of each trip, or travelling in general has evolved and become more nuanced, complicated over the years.

People

A big part of travelling for me is always to live the lives of the "natives". Because I value different opinions, I like to understand the social and cultural make-up of different groups of people and figure out where they come from. It's fun to be Sherlock and "solve" the big mystery of why the Netherlands is so bicycle-friendly (because their land is extremely flat and there was once a oil shortage so severe they resorted to improving infrastructure instead), but the real fun begins when they take you completely by surprise (like the fact that Israel is actually extremely gay-friendly, even in super-conservative Jerusalem).

A consequence of this desire is a natural avoidance of "hostel patrons", the people who sit around in the hostel dining room or lounge all day and chat up whomever is around. I find it naturally weird to speak to a Japanese in Thailand because the conversation usually moves in 2 directions, 

either 

"Have you seen XYZ monument?"

"Oh yes, I have!"

"Then have you seen ABC park?"

and so on and so forth. Tourists speaking to other tourists is like kids comparing answers after they leave the exam hall.

Or they will compare adventures, which just becomes a dick measuring contest. I'm interested in the country I'm going, not the visitors of said country.

Place

Some places don't really need people. We don't need to know the individuals of a place to know that place. Sometimes a place is either so full of people with similar stories or so devoid of people in the first place that you can just sit somewhere and admire.

Taiwan is one of those places. Taipei, the city itself, doesn't need individuals to explain itself. The signages, traffic, buildings, roads, crowds, kids, parks all paint a picture that doesn't need a narrator. It's very much a system in and of itself. One that I find myself calling Singapore+20, as in how cities develop without any particular direction; perhaps one that Singapore might look like in 20 years time if there was no concerted effort to push it in one direction or the other (e.g. transport hub, or bio-research hub or whatever).

The rest of Taiwan, on the other hand, is what we wished we had, sprawling mountains and rivers and seas. Again, one that doesn't need much narration. Although I have to admit, it'd be nice to have a human voice to guide this side of Taiwan.

~

On the other hand, we have Israel. The ironic thing here is that although I've spent considerably more time in Israel than Taiwan, I feel like I understand Taiwan a lot more, at least Taipei. 

There could be a lot of reasons for this. We have a very serious agenda in Israel, with Mada and whatnot. I've also had to travel with a much bigger group of people (15), which could make travelling a bit cumbersome. Most of the itinerary has also been planned for the Israel trip, compared to Taiwan, which only really had 3 or 4 major points we planned for and nothing much else. 

I've met a considerable number of Israelis, but the more I meet, the more I'm convinced that I know too little about this place. I think it speaks a lot more about the complexity of Israel than anything else.

In fact, given another opportunity, I would probably go back to that region to make better sense of it. Like, it feels like I'm not satisfied with that place the way I am with Taiwan and Europe (well, most of europe anyway, I'll probably head back to Holland to visit friends and maybe Germany to satisfy my curiosity)  Probably not on my own coin though.

Actually I brought up Israel because I wanted to talk more about the hit-and-hit nature of the trip more than anything else.The way I described to a friend was hit-hit-hit-hit-hit-hit-hit-hit-hit-hit-hit-airport style of travelling. I find this way to be most unappealing, because it reduces the spirit of a country down to its biggest and sometimes more tourist-trappy locations. I find that time is a necessary component of understanding because we don't always know the right questions to ask. Time is that element that brings about coincidences and mistakes and spontaneous situations; things that do not translate well into a guidebook or a internet review website.

~

A friend once recalled that through our travels we don't necessarily know more the places we are in, but we do know more about ourselves.

There is a lot of truth from that. And experience taught me that more than anything. Perhaps over the next few weeks or months or whatever I'll jot down my thoughts on personal growth.

Some things stewing around in my brain soup::

Asking the right questions (not really travel-related)

Being lonely in a group; why some days feel lonelier than others

Observing MADA

Singaporean girls and why i can't even

Expectations in relationships from a relationship-less guy (al's story)

Labels in conversations

The last 3 were things from the most recent trip, SO DON'T BLAME ME, I DON'T USUALLY TALK ABOUT GIRLY FEELY GLSKDJLSKDJOWIJE

Not today though.

Compromise, Ideal,and Perfect

This is 2 years in review.

I will probably focus more on school stuff, over hall stuff, or even family and relationship stuff, because there isn't the time to talk about those, but you may see some cross-overs here and there. Because life's like that. Nothing's mutually exclusive.

That's a really interesting thought to think about. When I started school, like many people before me, I had this mentality that I was going to focus on school and then just pick up the other parts of my life during the holidays. Everything seemed to be planned out nicely; I would focus on just getting schoolwork done, then either go on holidays to unwind or commit to Orientation camp committee during the 3-month summer break so that I could remain in hall, which is what I really needed to just even be on track to finish schoolwork on time. That sounded like a solid plan.

But what they don't tell you is that you will end up picking up pieces.

Time passes by very quickly when you're in a studio. It feels like every moment is dragged on when you're inside, but as soon as you leave, you see people moving on without you. Every time vacation rolls around and then I find out X and Y have done this and A is going to retire or whatever. It shakes me at the core to fully comprehend that people are moving on, and they are moving on whether I'm in their lives or not.

2 years in, and I still haven't found this elusive thing called "work-life balance"

I made the "mistake" of committing to the wrong thing in my first year. Like I said, I compartmentalized my life into school time, followed by hall time, followed by NS and overseas time, followed by orientation camp time and then back to school. The problem with that is that other people "socialise" throughout this entire period, but I've managed to break them up into chunks, often with too much intensity and not spread out enough. My family went through a brief period of bad times during my year 1 and it was the first time I broke down as a result of stress. I just huddled with my dog at the stairs and cried for a good while, and then once more a day later when my parents probed me after realizing something was wrong. I'm not really ashamed that I broke down even though I don't really discuss it with people outside my circle of trust. (that circle is extremely small.) Suffice it to say, it wasn't one big reason, like a close family member passing away, but a series of small events that converged at the same time and the fact that they happened almost successively (or at least the time that I was informed of them). I remember the exact reason I broke down the first time was because after a hard 3 days at the studio, I thought I would be able to rest my mind and body, only to realize that there were in fact more problems at home that I just hadn't been aware of. It's like something snatching away your chair just before you sat down when you've been walking for miles and miles. It makes you feel totally helpless and just stunned that you couldn't even rest properly.

Then I made the mistake of forgetting I need to rest in year 2. I remember talking with my supervisor at my part-time job about my availability over the next few months, and it slowly drifted toward the direction of how I handled my time. I have never been this exhausted over such an extended period of time and yet this is the semester where I have slept the most throughout. It is true that I have actually done more deeds this sem than any other, possibly in my life, but I have come to the conclusion that I do not have the stamina, both physical and mental, to keep going at this pace. When I was 18, I roomed with this RJC kid during an inter-JC conference. I peeked at his desktop and it happened to be his monthly schedule and it is packed with colours. This is the first time I've resorted to using google calendar, and when I look back at the stuff I've done, my mind takes a mental sigh of relief and panic at the same time, because it's still intimidating today.

I hope it's not too late to "repair" my relationships with peers. Both in school, hall and outside. Too many friendships have ended in "we just drifted away" and I thank whatever god or gods that are watching over me that I remember to take the time to appreciate my circle of trust. Those 3 misfits are the only people I have poured out to more than anyone else and I owe them so much more than they owe me. The strange thing about all 3 is that those friendships are built almost exclusively as we were leaving each other's presences. They were built as we left school, rather than when we were in it. Maybe it's the absence that reminds us of each others' importance. I don't have the same level of trust with anyone in hall currently, and it's definitely not something that you can force.


I've done all in this sem that I can think of. I've made the most of the opportunities that hall has presented me at this current time. I've tried working for actual money when just a mere 12 months ago, I thought it would have been impossible. I've picked myself up after a terrible interim crit to make something of it, and become sufficiently proud of it to include it in my RIBA portfolio. And I couldn't have done this without my peers and mentors. But all of these remain very professional relationships. I won't ever forget the help and guidance they have rendered me, but they are, at its core, a relationship of necessity. I'm not going to walk into someone's room and spill out my guts in the middle of the night because I don't have that type of friend here on campus. And vice versa, nobody's going to come into my room with anything other than work-related stuff to discuss. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but I do know that it's a thing that's missing in my life and I can't judge that which I have no experience in.

~

I started this post thinking that I would write about the inadequacy of architectural education. Now, I seem to just be lamenting the losses that I never knew I signed up for when I accepted this course.

I don't know how much I regret, or if I do regret anything at all. I just seem to be at this crossroads where I don't really know what is the right thing to do moving forward.

Not proud to be singaporean

So there's news of this girl going around that she said (into a mic, in front of the media and press) that she's not proud to be Singaporean.

Here's her "defence"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydANJ5qLHG4&feature=youtu.be

I'm not really here to argue her points, because the only thing that really really rattled my brain (other than the actual main point that I'm going to talk about later) is, Is Australia's Minimum Wage really $20/hour. Because we're working at $7 or $8 per hour and Small/ Medium firm employers are already struggling to make ends meet.

Anyway, aside from that, I want to talk about convincing people. All my education has trained me to tear apart arguments and pick at them in bits and pieces as well as as a whole to figure out if they are actually making sense. Usually that aspect of picking things apart alone will be enough to convince me whether someone is really making a solid point or just talking bullshit. But recently, I've been more and more exposed to (or just suddenly aware of) people sounding "immature" while simultaneously making a good point. Now, when I say "immature", I don't necessarily mean sounding naive or childish (even though that certainly fits into the category), I mean more like they reveal aspects of their personality that either turns off me or a certain part of their audience or just sound like they have a reason or agenda to convince me of a certain thing.

This video has a few solid points, no doubt. But something, not exactly her "fuck you" attitude (which I normally respect), seems to be holding me back from fully embracing her ideas and going "Hell Yeah!!"

Here's a way to sort of visualize what I'm talking about. Imagine there is a sliding scale where the left means I'm completely unconvinced and the right being the opposite. But instead of a standard one-marker scale, there are 2 markers connected by a string. Typically, a good communicator would make good points (not necessarily ones that I agree with, just ones that sound well-rounded or well-argued) would push 1 marker to the right while leaving the other without moving, thus leaving the string slack, easily convincing me of what he's saying. The opposite would be a terrible person making stupid or racist remarks, which pushes 1 marker to the left without really making any good attempts at arguing and leaving the other marker not moving.Again, the string is slack and I'm easily convinced that this guy is a retard.

This video does something different. The good points that she makes pushes it easily to the right, but her tiny bit of attitude and her lots of bits of arrogance pushes the other marker to the left. Thus the string becomes tight and has a lot of tension. Now, I'm uneasy one way or the other.

I just find this interesting because it made me think about communication like that.

Here's a sport thing.

So here's a thing that popped up on my newsfeed recently

SEA Games Surprise wins - A wake-up call

The quick summary for those who decide not to read: Lots of SEA games wins this year, many of which unexpected (both in type of sports and players). Spotlight is thrown onto (allegedly) poor funding of various sports, unless you are popular, like soccer and badminton. It then goes on to talk about the Foreign Sports Talents scheme and the its supposed value and impact on our athletes, both projected and actual.

Now here's my take:

First of all, the article itself is obviously written by a local person; there are a lot of traces of bias which can turn people off, especially if they don't agree with you. However, acknowledging that, I do agree with what he/she is trying to say, perhaps just needing to tone down and be a bit more objective.

The bureaucracy of our sports organizations, much like every other one in our very "efficient" culture, is and has always been very results-oriented. I don't know if this speaks to our maturity as a nation but I feel that as more and more people speak up about the "cold" way of doing and managing such large scale organizations, it seems that at least people are starting to question the old way of doing things.

We have always been a very economics-based society. We set a goal and we try to accomplish it. In the past, we decided that we needed money, so we pursued education in math and science at the expense of the local art scene. At some point, we decided to be a transport hub, so Changi Airport and our various trading ports got huge (Incredibly huge!) upgrades, the cost of which is not very clear right now. Now (or at least a few years ago), we have decided that we wanted to win more medals, so we imported athletes. Bear in mind that if you were a politician who made the plan to help us get more medals, we have actually succeeded quite remarkably. The problem is, as always, an oversight of the human cost. These are often costs that do not bear any significant economic value on a spreadsheet but nonetheless have an impact on society. The struggle of the arts scene stand testimony to that fact. And perhaps what's worse is that as a politician, it's a cost I'm will to bear because 1) I'm not losing any money and 2) I'm not losing any voters.

The foreign athletes issue is also brought up. As angry and resentful as I could be, I'm actually much more tired than anything else. The writer actually seems a bit young to me as a result of this, because this line of reasoning and more importantly, this chain of events is something that has been happening throughout Singapore for the last who-knows-how-many years, in just about every facet of Singaporean life, from education to employment. Every time the foreign workers  issue is brought up, it's always the same "oh they will help bring us to a higher level" or some other overused excuse that just seems lazy now that it's almost 2014. And everyday, locals will lose out to foreigners because the entirety of our society cannot compete with the best of the another's, those of which our government is actively trying to woo. At the end of the day, I'm just tired that my government is more easily impressed by the number of gold medals that "we" won as opposed to the person who won that medal.

That is not just a sports analogy.

Big problems, Small problems

At what point is a problem big enough to matter?

When can I rant about something without feeling guilty about it?

Like, is there an absolute scale or some relative scale?

like if some close family member passed away then I would be within my rights and also the social context to grieve semi-openly.

but if I were sitting beside someone whose entire family was kidnapped and murdered, then I would feel bad about ranting, ON TOP of me already feeling bad about the thing that happened.

Of course the scale is a bit insane so it's sort of easy to say that both persons are not "discouraged" to rant because of the absolute horror of what happened to either of them.

My situation (which seems to happen quite a lot over the few years) is that a lot of my problems often feel insignificant because they are often internalized. As in, they are often things that seem to be only in my head, like maybe I assume people judge me or I'm overanalyzing what people are doing, or I'm anticipating rejection and just lists and lists of things like that.

Because it's easy to talk about things that actually have happened. I can give you an example that isn't so close to home so I don't feel uncomfortable talking about it. Let's say I screwed up a presentation and I'm in a terrible mood. It's very easy to explain that things that went wrong, like for example, I wasn't able to finalize my design until only 1 hour left so I had to rush out the production, meaning I had no time to prepare myself to talk. Then at the same time, the tutor decided to randomize the name list, so instead of the 5th or 6th speaker which I expected, I suddenly became first with no warning. So I went up to the front and said everything I could pull out of my brain, resulting in a very disorganized experience for the listeners because they don't know what's inside my head. The tutor said that she was disappointed because there was a lot of potential in the product but the explanation was too off.

These are things that are "easy" to say because there are very clear things that happened or there are very clear cause-and-effect things going on (randomize name list -> suddenly first -> too kan chiong to say anything coherently)

What's difficult to say is the before, in between and after. The thoughts that happen in your head. Because there isn't anything to "tie them down" and link to something, the problem feels like its all in your head. It feels insignificant, as if someone can just say: "just don't think so negatively la"

I'll expand on the previous scenario to give a sense of what I'm talking about. At this point, I need to remind you that this didn't happened but it's "in line" with the problems I try to describe about in my head. The word disappointing will linger in my head. I will think about the times when it felt so promising to finally be able to do something somewhat deserving of a good grade; or even at least praise, which so seldomly befalls this dumb person. Then I'll start thinking about what could have been or even why I'm so dumb to do this instead of that. Is it because I'm really that terrible or just that I'm surrounded by people who are so much more talented my work just looks like primary school beside theirs. Then I'll think about getting maybe a B- or C+, which will definitely severely hamper my chance of going on Exchange Program, because that's the only thing I care about regarding my studies. I'll think about the hordes and hordes of people who are so much smarter than me on paper that they get a free ride without an interview, Then I'll remember that I actually failed interviews before so maybe it's not that i suck on paper, but face-to-face too. Because that would make a lot of sense since I've never made a good impression on people before. Now, I'm just so overly focused on the POSSIBILITY of being shot down that I start to think about other things that I could get shot down for, like not being able to get the jersey and play softball in hall. Or that time I failed the interview to go for overseas CIP, or the time this girl rejected me for another guy and so on and so forth.

Imagine in that scenario, the screwing up of the presentation is not the shit part. I don't really know how to describe it because it feels like its not "real". None of my "problems" feel real. I'm not in despair because I failed my PSLE, I'm in despair because I might not get into where I want to go. Does that even make any sense??

And on top of that, trying to hold everything together because you don't know who you can be vulnerable with and not be judged and have their perception of you change overnight. My mum has told me before that I'm the kind of guy who will store and store everything inside until it bursts one day. Now the bubble is still building up; it just feels weird not telling someone.

P.S. Sometimes I really wish someone will discover this blog and then sms me out of the blue and ask "are you ok?" and then I'll say "no la why you ask". It's just one of my fantasies I guess.

P.P.S I didn't start this post thinking I'll go so personal into this, just maybe like an intellectual exercise at the start then everything started leaking out.

Why do you care about architecture?

"Why do you care about architecture?"

I think it's a genuinely, absurdly difficult question to answer.

I can tell you why I care (or at least should care more) about any other pursuit like physics, space exploration, medicine or even freaking video games. But I cannot come up with a convincing answer for architecture.

I can tell you why we should care about building properly. About the necessity of providing quality buildings for work and play. But not architecture specifically.

I think sports and music are sort of in this category of barely relevant but I assume that I'm simply not involved in it enough to give you a good reason. I mean I can give a good reason for video games, something society deems just as frivolous, if not more so, simply because it's a medium and a subject matter I'm deeply involved in, at least as a consumer and an observer. So it is possible to argue that given enough immersion in perhaps music, someone could give a impersonal response.

But not architecture. Almost a year and a half and I still don't quite get why people care about architecture specifically. Why is the design of buildings important to people? Why should it? Because not caring about it makes life hard? That's not a reason to do something. That's a reason not to do the opposite. That's like saying you should eat more veggies because eating Macs everyday is bad for you. That's just a reason not to eat Macs.

I think perhaps on a more enlightened note, what if this is not a question that needs an answer?