bslc wk 4/other thoughts
this is not going to be an interesting post. it's an exploration of the thoughts that have been wreaking havoc on my poor numb mind over the last few weeks. no doubt they'll continue their rampage. c'est la vie.
-----
nothing really much that i can say, can i? had a navigation exercise this week which involved running about a random part of singapore (gypsy 1), IPPT on wednesday where i got silver for the first time (ran 9:40 and just 1 pullup and 4cm short of a gold! maintain plz)
booked out for 2 interviews, EDB final round on tues and URA final on wed. both slightly intimidating... especially the edb. i got grilled by 5 people on all kinds of stuff. business models, why i didn't apply to cambridge, how edb can help singaporean enterprise, ns... ura was tame by comparison. they didn't even ask me very much... it took just over 15 minutes and i crapped my way thru, basically. heh. stuff about how econs is really relevant to what ura is doing, applying economic theory to urban planning...
as i see it, the problem with edb is that it's a victim of its own success. true, it's been incredibly successful at attracting foreign investment, but the downside is that the labour and capital that could have been put to other uses - i.e. developing local enterprise - was instead diverted into MNCs (at least in the early years). basically what we've been doing for the most part is importing business models from MNCs (by getting them to set up their operations here) rather than creating and refining our own - and that in particular has damaged singaporeans' capacity to innovate, appetite for risk, and entrepreneurship. all these things - entrepreneurship, innovation - are vital drivers of self-sustaining economic growth... cf schumpeter's idea of creative destruction. unfortunately i wasn't able to explain this coherently enough to the edb panel; they didn't buy it, i guess. oh well, screwit heh.
-----
army is pretty much sian. my bunk and platoon mates are mostly ok, except for some smokers, jokers and idiots. childish behaviour, coughing and sneezing everywhere, gratuitous swearing - their vocabulary is disgustingly limited! it's either 'fuck' or 'chee bai' or a combination of the two. and i despise swearing for no reason. absolutely, vehemently detest it with every fibre in my body, every firing neuron in my brain, every ounce of my guts and every bit of my soul.
well aside from that i'm not debilitatingly (is there such a word?) depressed as often as i was in BMT, but most - scratch that; all - of my best friends are elsewhere, either in ocs or slacking their butts off in a random office job or waiting to downgrade. i do still feel so unmotivated that i lose the energy to do anything at all, but it's still controllable, not like in BMT.
and i've realised, most importantly, that doing your best is simply not equivalent to being the best. deceptively simple, almost self-evident, but it's not easy to understand that fully, and it's something i've missed it all my life. i used to think that if i couldn't be the best then it wasn't worth putting in the effort. that's simply not true; that only leaves room for greater and deeper regrets, room for more what-ifs. those what-ifs do come back to haunt me - what if i pushed myself harder physically? might have gotten into ocs there with the rest of the lot... being in sispec is still a matter of some regret but i'm living on despite it.
that realisation, the hugely life-affirming friendships that i enjoy, and of course the promise of post-ns life, uni and all it offers... these things keep me going.
-----
well ok my weekend was much more exciting than the past week. traipsing around the place on saturday afternoon, found a second-hand bookstore (4th floor, far east plaza) and got against the day by pynchon, a book by some latin american novelist whose name now escapes me, and zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance by prisig. promising reading. cool stuff for 31 bucks; the pynchon alone would have cost me more brand new - it's hardcover, first edition! if you're a bibliophile, go there to pick up stuff. i think he restocks sth like every 10th of the month - good thinking zh for asking about that!
i should get a restraining order banning me from all bookshops. it's crazy; i have stacks of books that are unread or only partially read... i'm slightly ashamed of myself. no time, no energy, no patience to get through them. 2 pynchons, one of them over a thousand pages long. suite francaise, of which i've only read the first 16 chapters. love in the time of cholera, of which i've finished 2/3 but have lost the plot (therefore necessitating a re-read). same goes for on the road. yes of course there's watchman! and there are many more i've forgotten. shite.
oh yes; chalet and cycling with cousins today. haven't cycled for years and years, insanely long, but surprisingly after a couple of ultra-malu false starts i survived just fine. adrenaline rush from speeding too. there's something about cycling... some je ne sais quoi. the wind in your hair (if you happen to have hair), blood gushing to your limbs and extremities kind of feeling.
well well. wish i could get into a slack 8-5 vocation in army... hopefully it's mdc after bslc. just hopefully.
-----
posting lyrics is a habit i should get rid of; it smacks of desperation and trying to find something to stuff in. on the other hand these things do have a knack of capturing just about what i want to say. and this is a song which struck me very much when i first heard it, and continues to do so even now. it's something slightly magical. and it's certainly not just about barcelona! so here goes:
Barcelona
I had this perfect dream
Un sueño me envolvió
This dream was me and you
Tal vez estás aquí
I want all the world to see
Un instinto me guiaba
A miracle sensation
My guide and inspiration
Now my dream is slowly coming true
The wind is a gentle breeze
Él me hablo de ti
The bells are ringing out
El canto vuela
They're calling us together
Guiding us forever
Wish my dream would never go away
Barcelona: It was the first time that we met
Barcelona: How can I forget
The moment that you stepped into the room you took my breath away
Barcelona: La música vibró
Barcelona: Y ella nos unió
And God willing we will meet again, someday.
Let the songs begin
Déjalo nacer
Let the music play
ahh-
Make the voices sing
Nace un gran amor
Start the celebration
Ven a mí
And cry- Grita-
Come alive- Vive-
And shake the foundations from the skies
Ah, ah, shaking all our lives -
Barcelona: Such a beautiful horizon
Barcelona: Like a jewel in the sun
Por ti seré gaviota de tu bella mar
Barcelona: Suenan las campanas
Barcelona: Abre tus puertas al mundo
If God is willing
If God is willing
If God is willing
Friends until the end
Viva - Barcelona!
- Queen/Freddie Mercury
-----
nothing really much that i can say, can i? had a navigation exercise this week which involved running about a random part of singapore (gypsy 1), IPPT on wednesday where i got silver for the first time (ran 9:40 and just 1 pullup and 4cm short of a gold! maintain plz)
booked out for 2 interviews, EDB final round on tues and URA final on wed. both slightly intimidating... especially the edb. i got grilled by 5 people on all kinds of stuff. business models, why i didn't apply to cambridge, how edb can help singaporean enterprise, ns... ura was tame by comparison. they didn't even ask me very much... it took just over 15 minutes and i crapped my way thru, basically. heh. stuff about how econs is really relevant to what ura is doing, applying economic theory to urban planning...
as i see it, the problem with edb is that it's a victim of its own success. true, it's been incredibly successful at attracting foreign investment, but the downside is that the labour and capital that could have been put to other uses - i.e. developing local enterprise - was instead diverted into MNCs (at least in the early years). basically what we've been doing for the most part is importing business models from MNCs (by getting them to set up their operations here) rather than creating and refining our own - and that in particular has damaged singaporeans' capacity to innovate, appetite for risk, and entrepreneurship. all these things - entrepreneurship, innovation - are vital drivers of self-sustaining economic growth... cf schumpeter's idea of creative destruction. unfortunately i wasn't able to explain this coherently enough to the edb panel; they didn't buy it, i guess. oh well, screwit heh.
-----
army is pretty much sian. my bunk and platoon mates are mostly ok, except for some smokers, jokers and idiots. childish behaviour, coughing and sneezing everywhere, gratuitous swearing - their vocabulary is disgustingly limited! it's either 'fuck' or 'chee bai' or a combination of the two. and i despise swearing for no reason. absolutely, vehemently detest it with every fibre in my body, every firing neuron in my brain, every ounce of my guts and every bit of my soul.
well aside from that i'm not debilitatingly (is there such a word?) depressed as often as i was in BMT, but most - scratch that; all - of my best friends are elsewhere, either in ocs or slacking their butts off in a random office job or waiting to downgrade. i do still feel so unmotivated that i lose the energy to do anything at all, but it's still controllable, not like in BMT.
and i've realised, most importantly, that doing your best is simply not equivalent to being the best. deceptively simple, almost self-evident, but it's not easy to understand that fully, and it's something i've missed it all my life. i used to think that if i couldn't be the best then it wasn't worth putting in the effort. that's simply not true; that only leaves room for greater and deeper regrets, room for more what-ifs. those what-ifs do come back to haunt me - what if i pushed myself harder physically? might have gotten into ocs there with the rest of the lot... being in sispec is still a matter of some regret but i'm living on despite it.
that realisation, the hugely life-affirming friendships that i enjoy, and of course the promise of post-ns life, uni and all it offers... these things keep me going.
-----
well ok my weekend was much more exciting than the past week. traipsing around the place on saturday afternoon, found a second-hand bookstore (4th floor, far east plaza) and got against the day by pynchon, a book by some latin american novelist whose name now escapes me, and zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance by prisig. promising reading. cool stuff for 31 bucks; the pynchon alone would have cost me more brand new - it's hardcover, first edition! if you're a bibliophile, go there to pick up stuff. i think he restocks sth like every 10th of the month - good thinking zh for asking about that!
i should get a restraining order banning me from all bookshops. it's crazy; i have stacks of books that are unread or only partially read... i'm slightly ashamed of myself. no time, no energy, no patience to get through them. 2 pynchons, one of them over a thousand pages long. suite francaise, of which i've only read the first 16 chapters. love in the time of cholera, of which i've finished 2/3 but have lost the plot (therefore necessitating a re-read). same goes for on the road. yes of course there's watchman! and there are many more i've forgotten. shite.
oh yes; chalet and cycling with cousins today. haven't cycled for years and years, insanely long, but surprisingly after a couple of ultra-malu false starts i survived just fine. adrenaline rush from speeding too. there's something about cycling... some je ne sais quoi. the wind in your hair (if you happen to have hair), blood gushing to your limbs and extremities kind of feeling.
well well. wish i could get into a slack 8-5 vocation in army... hopefully it's mdc after bslc. just hopefully.
-----
posting lyrics is a habit i should get rid of; it smacks of desperation and trying to find something to stuff in. on the other hand these things do have a knack of capturing just about what i want to say. and this is a song which struck me very much when i first heard it, and continues to do so even now. it's something slightly magical. and it's certainly not just about barcelona! so here goes:
Barcelona
I had this perfect dream
Un sueño me envolvió
This dream was me and you
Tal vez estás aquí
I want all the world to see
Un instinto me guiaba
A miracle sensation
My guide and inspiration
Now my dream is slowly coming true
The wind is a gentle breeze
Él me hablo de ti
The bells are ringing out
El canto vuela
They're calling us together
Guiding us forever
Wish my dream would never go away
Barcelona: It was the first time that we met
Barcelona: How can I forget
The moment that you stepped into the room you took my breath away
Barcelona: La música vibró
Barcelona: Y ella nos unió
And God willing we will meet again, someday.
Let the songs begin
Déjalo nacer
Let the music play
ahh-
Make the voices sing
Nace un gran amor
Start the celebration
Ven a mí
And cry- Grita-
Come alive- Vive-
And shake the foundations from the skies
Ah, ah, shaking all our lives -
Barcelona: Such a beautiful horizon
Barcelona: Like a jewel in the sun
Por ti seré gaviota de tu bella mar
Barcelona: Suenan las campanas
Barcelona: Abre tus puertas al mundo
If God is willing
If God is willing
If God is willing
Friends until the end
Viva - Barcelona!
- Queen/Freddie Mercury
Labels: Everything, Life
posted by Unknown at
9:14 pm
3 Comments:
This comment has been removed by the author.
felicitations on yale! thats damn good stuffff!:) -thumbs up -manman
you're listening to queen! rock music! i did not know you do :D
(btw your classical music is VERY useful at work, i sit next to this lady who has an unfortunate tendency to giggle like this: HEEHEEHEE (verbatim) and she does health stories, which means we often get an earful about...diseased body parts, so i'm like lemme drown this out with cultured music! woohoo.)
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home