Middle Ear Infection Sucks

I swear that I'm not that moody a person, and that each time I choose to update this by writing an article or two, it's only because I have something nasty to get out of my mind so that it can recover. Oh, and I swear that being half-deaf is the most annoying thing that one can feel.

And why is it that I'm now half-deaf? All thanks to the middle ear infection that I have had to deal with over the last week or so. It is pretty annoying, to say the least, having to deal with an infection that is invisible yet always makes its presence known through the general bunged-upness of the ear. And in my ``good'' ear too---there is no justice in the world, it seems. Anyway, yes, I've been dealing with the infection over the last week, drifting in and out of consciousness from the higher fevers that I had to deal with, and dealing with the ridiculous amount of foul-smelling and foul-tasting phlegm and mucus, the latter of which I learnt only a few days ago when I started to feel a bit better and found that my taste buds were no longer numbed up.

Damn thing was a sickly green goo that tasted most foul. Could have sworn it was the pus from the middle ear that was forcefully drained by me via the Eustachian tube---it was in a ridiculous amount of quantity too. Very vile experience that I hope never to repeat.

Well today is almost a week after I first started on the course of antibiotics, and I feel mostly fine. The fever had broke a couple of days back, the cough is much reduced, and the ridiculously foul-smelling/tasting discharge is also reduced. But there is still this damn tinnitus in my ear that is driving me crazy and that whole bunged up feeling still hasn't gone away completely.

A worthy question to ask is why do I even have this lousy infection in the first place? There is only one answer to this: a weakened constitution due to stress.

Stress. Stress is the cause of my downfall.

Sometimes I hate myself, hate myself for being so... strongly work-minded. Always thinking about how to do more in a better/efficient/cost-saving manner. Always pushing myself more and more, convincing myself that there is always work to be done, and that I should be a conscientious worker who is mindful of his overall productivity. And that's why I even returned to work on some projects even when I was on leave the last time, simply because they were not worked on often enough due to the sorry fact that I've been committed almost 140% of my work week's time.

And thanks to that, I fell ill. Twice. It's just that this time, it's a fairly serious one that will probably have long-term ramifications that I need to take care of.

Thankfully, this week I am on leave. Final-fucking-ly, I might add, though it probably came about two weeks too late---had I taken a break two weeks earlier, I'd probably not be so stressed to the point that an infection would break out and take me out for a week. But we all have perfect hindsight, and this is no exception.

One thing's for certain though, I'm not going to give a rat's ass about work for this whole week I'm on leave. I think I deserve at least this privilege considering everything that is said and done. Time to make sure that the ``leave'' I take is put to good use in recharging my batteries so that I don't go down like a house of cards in a gale. Everyone will thank me for that, I'm sure.

Thinking While Procrastinating

So, instead of working on my slides for a presentation that is due some time in the morning of tomorrow, I find myself thinking about really random things as I try to focus my thoughts on the order of presentation that I am striving to attain. And among all the random things that come to mind from being part sleep-deprived and part sick is this simple question: why am I always attracted to the ``weird'' girls, and not those that are, you know, more ``normal'' within the Singapore context?

It has been a suspicion of mine that I am somewhat gender blind, in the sense that I don't really seem to have an obsessive attraction to ``girly-girls'', or females who demonstrate typical ``female'' behaviour. While I know that I am attracted to the female aesthetic (i.e. the ``looks like female'' criterion), it is not always the case that I am attracted to a personality that seems to evoke the kinds of typical macho emotions. Put in a more simple way, I seem to have an attraction to females who look female, but have a personality that is on the strong side, to the point sometimes that if one were to transplant that personality into a male body, the resulting mix can be easily identified as a true blue male.

This observation is of course based on the fragmented reflections that I have been having with regards to this particular aspect of my life. The sad truth about this type of attraction is this, such females are usually fiercely independent and are thus less likely to be involved in a relationship. So unless I can find a female who is ``fiercely independent yet doesn't mind the company'' or if I can alter the kinds of taste I have, getting settled down with that special someone is just not going to happen.

Killing Me Softly with This Work

Okay, so this is a mostly unplanned entry (not that the other entries are any more planned), but I suppose I just feel like talking random things today.

I think as a whole I'm just getting very very tired about a lot of things. Everything seems to be coming in large droves, and at times, it does feel a little overwhelming, though it hasn't gotten to the point that I feel like crying for help yet. Perhaps I'm stronger than I thought I was, or maybe I'm just too much of a nut case to realise just how much pressure I really am under.

In times of great pressure, I am slowly finding that keeping to myself makes a whole lot of difference to the whole mechanics, partly because there is little time wastage in having to deal with people. With those precious minutes saved in dealing with people, I can actually start to apply the time to myself from a much better position, since I alone can dictate how the time should be spent on what activity, and not have to play ``nice'' and follow the crowd, which, more often than not, display a general lack of discipline with regards to how time is used.

Of course, being alone in most regards does strange things to the mind. You become more paranoid about things that happen around you, and you start to think of things that shouldn't have appeared in your mind at all---some might call this a delusion, and I am not about to debate on that. Delusional or not, I think I'm starting to feel the effects of having worked non-stop for six months.

Six months with hardly a break.

Six months.

To be precise, it is probably longer, since the last time I went on a week's leave, it was spent working on yet another work-related project. No wonder I'm fast going insane and weirder than usual.

*sigh*

Anyway, this time I've decided to get another week off for myself just to unwind and relax. It's just so hard to pick a week among the myriad of weeks to take time off for myself---there's always this meeting here, some deadline there, and everyone wants a bit of you everywhere you look. But I suppose enough is enough, and I probably need the break badly---I can't keep going on like this, or there won't be a me left very soon.

Maybe I will write more next time. For now, I suppose this little expulsion should suffice.

Happy Pi Day!

Oh, and happy Pi day!

Neverwinter Nights 2 Texture Bug

To work around the bug where all you can see are shadows and the ``sky'' in Neverwinter Nights 2, use ` to get to the console, and then type the following:

debugmode 1
sky 0
debugmode 0

This will switch off the sky box rendering and allow the normal textures to show. Don't worry, you don't really miss much by removing the sky box.

Late Night Musing

So today as I sat in front of Eileen, my new portable gaming rig, a thought came to mind---just what was it that drives people to do the crazy things that they do ever so often, and more importantly, why they sometimes end up turning away from the very thing that gave them the biggest pleasure in the first place to work on something that is, comparatively speaking, more mundane?

Of course, this thought came about through a few triggers. The biggest one was the story of Annabel Chong, which, if you haven't known by now, is about the infamous Singapore pornographic arts actress who did a massive gang bang film back in the day. She has since returned to a more mundane existence, stating for the record that ``Annabel Chong is dead, and in her place is the evil doppelganger''. But of course, sensational as this story is, there are more mundane stories that I have of the people around me that fall in roughly the same category of people who went through a massively crazy period before falling back into a mundane existence.

I suppose there are a few ways of looking at this phenomenon. One way that I found to be rather interesting is the perspective that everything that we do has a certain notion of a ``finite limit''---meaning there is only a finite amount of energies that we can devote to a certain task, and once this energy is gone, it will never return. In some senses, this is a rather accurate if unscientific way of thinking about things. It actually is an idea that is loosely paraphrased from an Aikido practitioner's saying of ``we only have a limited number of breakfalls that we can do in our life-time, so we should make good use of it''. But to the main point: we can sustain only a finite amount of interest in something, before the brain gets bored with the enterprise and moves on to something else. This means that for any activity that we may do that is not theoretically essential (like breathing, sleeping or eating for instance), we can only sustain a finite amount of interest and corresponding energy into the matter before we start to lose complete interest in it in the manner of a ``burn-out''.

Empirically speaking, it does seem like a sound perception---do too many of the things you like and it will end up being something that you hate. The question then is not whether this principle is correct in practice (we are taking it so a priori), but whether we can work around the principle to achieve an effect that appears to contradict the given notion.

Let me provide an example to illustrate this point. Suppose I am learning a new skill, say driving. Without loss of generality, we will assume that, based on the above-mentioned principle, I will have n hours of interest in driving for the entirety of my lifetime. These n hours are taken to be absolute---they assume that if I did nothing but drive, I would spend only n hours of them on driving in this life-time. There are two rather extreme ways of seeing this: I can choose to drive only a few hours in a week and end up stretching the perception of time to about n divided by the number of hours per week to claim an interest counted in weeks, or I can just keep driving during the 16+ hours that I am awake and claim differently. Both methods consume all the n hours eventually, but which is the better allocation of time?

To most people, it would actually make more sense to ``spread out'' the time, partly due to the fact that it is likely to be impossible to be working on the skill/activity non-stop, but partly because the activity needs to be stopped intermittently just to maintain some level of interest for the practitioner. Back to the Annabel story quoted above---why did she quit her glamorous job of being a pornographic actress to go into web development? Maybe she got sick of all the sex---one tends to have more intercourse when one is a pornographic actress I suppose, or maybe she is just sick of all the attention (for some loose definition of ``amount of attention one wants in a life time''). Either way, it got her thinking and snapping out of the crazy zone and moving on to something more mundane.

When I saw that story, I got really concerned, because I can see myself ending up like her, and no, I don't mean ending up as a gang-bang porn star. What I mean is that I can see myself ending up in the crazy zone doing really apeshit crazy stuff, and then suddenly quitting it all to do something more mundane. Actually, among many of my friends both past and present, it would appear that they are in a similar danger themselves of getting stuck accidentally in the crazy zone. Now, the problem is not the getting stuck in the crazy zone part (you're too crazy to realise it, but woe to those around you), but that the eventual ``crash'' out of the crazy zone will mean that you will never go back to that activity again. I can see how Annabel might have some distaste with her ``crazy zone'' life---that explains why she decided to kill off that personality. And in the case of my own circumstances, I can see myself foregoing research completely should I end up being in the crazy zone for research. That is one thing that I hope never to do, simply because I cannot just live with the mundane---it bores my mind to death and I end up vegetating and becoming exactly like the kinds of ignorant people that I have sworn that I will never be.

And that's why I try to maintain a healthy list of activities to keep me occupied. Previously, I call these activities the different ``facets'' of myself, but now I think they are merely activities that I, the central Ego, choose to do on my own time. There is a sense of consolidation of my fragmented psyche (a product over the last half a decade, I might add), with the general understanding that I need to keep all the activities sufficiently interesting so that I can keep things moving on well into old age and eventually towards my death.

It is not true that if one does not dedicate 100% of one's waking hours to the task that one is not passionate enough---there is a difference between passion and sustainable passion. Basing on the principle stated above, raw passion is like falling very deeply in love with someone, kissing/hugging/holding hands and doing all kinds of lovey dovey stuff in every possible mushy way---sure it's fun and invigorating, but what happens when one runs out of ideas on how to impress? Is it still love/passion? Sustainable passion, it seems, is something that comes in controlled waves---the fire is there, but it is not a bright explosion in the sky but the soft burning embers of a kindling flame, slowly but surely consuming both fuel and oxygen. A sustainable reaction may take longer on the get go, but it will definitely outlast anything that starts quickly and without foundation.

And that of course, brings us back to the sore topic that seems to plague me ever since I started writing in a semi-public manner---relationships, or specifically, romantic relationships. So the last part in the saga saw me getting pretty hurt from quite a few angles, and then deciding that I wasn't really ready for a relationship now, even though I seemed to be more ``experienced'' having gone through a couple of iterations or so. In a way, that position still holds, but based on the observations that I'm having, I am actually swinging further outfield on the whole let's-not-even-get-involved camp. You see, there is really little reason to be involved in a relationship that leads to marriage. I don't mind the companionship and all the other perks from a relationship, but marriage as a concept is something that is starting to make less and less sense the more we proceed through the social advancement.

I believe that I have argued about the purpose of marriage in another entry, but I am too lazy to look for it. I shall restate the argument here again: marriage is about the strategic union of economic or political powers---there is really little else to the matter. And since everyone is more or less more independent now than before, we find that the dependence factor that is prevalent in marriage is getting eroded away. The proof of this direction of change can be seen in the rising divorce rates in all the countries that have divorce as a legal cop-out from a ``failed'' marriage---if marriage were really something desirable, why then are the divorce rates on the rise? Are the married people learning something that they didn't know when they were still single?

Anyway, it is already getting late here as I write this entry, and given that I'm running some horrid cold from being up too late over a few nights, I think it is best if I retired to bed for now. But before I go, I leave behind this question for pondering:

Must the bulk of a country's population growth come from procreation of the ``natural citizens'' or should a country be thankful of population growth from any source?

Silence of the Laptop

You know it is wonky when I start to write in such a hurried manner at this time of the night on a week day evening.

``Drained'' probably doesn't quite start to explain the general affect that I am feeling these days. Over the past two to three weeks, I have started on an isolationist quest of sorts, removing myself steadily away from most of the semi-coerced social interactions. It is quite an interesting experiment, really. In the beginning, there was the entire feeling of discomfort, as though I had removed a large part of where my energies come from. But as time went by, I slowly cultivated that introvertedness within me that has been in hiding for a long while as I acted out the life that I was supposed to be leading, what with the whole extraversion nonsense.

Yet in the last three weeks or so, I've started to comprehend a new form of peace and quiet of the mind, where all I think of are work, geocaching, grad school and Aikido. The old distractions that seemed to plague me from the past seems to be rather subdued internally, and from that springs forth a new resolve that powers the introversion within.

Don't get me wrong, I've not really converted into a completely introverted character---that is just too impossible because I'm not some one dimensional person. What has really happened is that I have finally begun creating that bit of space for myself where I can start to actually calm down and examine cause and effect safe from the prying eyes and minds of the outsiders. While not as strong as the voices in my head before, there is at least a cognizance of what truly lies within my psyche from the perspective of my conscious mind.

It's a hard phenomenon to explain, really, partly because I lack the necessary processes and vocabulary to explain it. But the key aspect of it all is the restful nature that I'm feeling. Yes, I may be working longer hours than before, having reduced the ``lunch hour'' into something that is no longer than twenty minutes, but I seem to feel a little less stressed out, now that I have a little more control over myself.

Once upon a time, I used to not care too much about what others thought. Then I was taught to ``socialise'' and be more aware of the emotions of others. And now, having seen what kind of nonsense I had to put up with using that attitude, I have moderated that to something that is a little more cold than before, yet without a complete alienation of the people---they can still talk to me, but only if it is related to something that is required.

I think I'm finally starting to understand the concept of keeping my mouth shut, and speaking only when necessary.

Holding one's tongue takes discipline, the discipline to realise that there is no need to comment on everything that people say, the discipline to realise that there is no need to share knowledge that is not solicited, the discipline to realise that people are always, by nature, manipulative. But like many things in life, it starts off being hard, and as time progresses, becomes unexpectedly easier. And in this regard, being a weirdo does have its advantages after all.

Till next time.

对深夜的问

情为何物？人与人之间，非需要情不可？父子与母子情又如何解释？

人间为何那么多苦？人为何不知足？好人为何无好报？

我心为何打烊？爱为何不长久？结了婚为何又闹分离？爱情难道无法长久永恒？

天为何戏弄百姓？世界政治为何那么零乱？天灾又为什么有增加的趋势？

我为什么孤独一身而过？钱真得那么重要吗？我为何整天觉得自己笨手笨脚的？

我为什么又哭了？男人真的不可以落泪吗？

我是否疯了……

Mercy

I have been debating about writing this entry for quite a while now, but I suppose the feeling innate me to write something has prevailed after all. And so, a depressing entry awaits you, the intrepid reader (no more of that ``blogder'' nonsense).

This world has no such thing as mercy. The very essence of mercy is a human created concept, just like the ideas of justice and generosity. If the natural law were to be taken at its full implication, that if we are willing to sacrifice the anthropic principle for just a moment, then it is clear that in the ``natural world'', there is really no such thing as mercy.

Reality is often a very cruel place. ``Might is right'' is a concept that is universally upheld, even in the modern societies that pride themselves on their generally strong concepts of civil rights and fairness. The only difference of course lies in the very definition of what ``might'' means in the context. In the past, even before the rise of human civilisation, ``might'' translates to being the strongest, the fastest or the wittiest; now, it translates to meaning whoever has the stronger economical, political and ethical stands, in general descending order of importance.

Then what is mercy? Mercy can be seen as an escape mechanism that the lesser privileged can use to get out of the general ``might is right'' principle. The idea is that by appealling to ``mercy'', the weak/conquered can elicit a positive response from the strong/conqueror, and can thus obtain an overall positive outcome for themselves, i.e. the ability to get away from whatever they were stuck in. Unfortunately, in the modern world where people are sticklers for rules and the such, mercy may only be appealled to, but not necessarily given.

There is no mercy in this world.

望天

I tried looking for this version of the song online, but the best I had was by a different singer.His version is very different from what ​蔡辛娟 sang---I prefer her version better since there's that strong wistful feel that he seems to be lacking. The lyrics themselves are meaningful on their own too, something that seems quite ripe for the season.

《望天》⁠⁠——​蔡辛娟

那是我的多情
也是我的痴情
天晓得分离的苦
加在我的身上
是想你时的甜
是想你时的甜
你怨你变 我恋我颠
天知道终日的思念
化在云端难牵连
你怨你变 我恋我颠
天知道这样的思念
可是风筝断了线
哪儿是你的世界
该如何走进你的心田
为何看不到
我的山川我的岁月我的天
我的山川我的岁月我的天
哪儿是你的世界
该如何走进你的心田
为何看不到
我的山川我的岁月我的天
我的山川我的岁月我的天
那是我的多情
也是我的痴情
天晓得分离的苦
加在我的身上
是想你时的甜
是想你时的甜
你怨你变 我恋我颠
天知道终日的思念
化在云端难牵连
你怨你变 我恋我颠
天知道这样的思念
可是风筝断了线
哪儿是你的世界
该如何走进你的心田
为何看不到
我的山川我的岁月我的天
我的山川我的岁月我的天
哪儿是你的世界
该如何走进你的心田
为何看不到
我的山川我的岁月我的天
我的山川我的岁月我的天
哪儿是你的世界
该如何走进你的心田
为何看不到
我的山川我的岁月我的天
我的山川我的岁月我的天
哪儿是你的世界
该如何走进你的心田
为何看不到
我的山川我的岁月我的天
我的山川我的岁月我的天

Lyrics courtesy of www.kuwo.cn.

Memories

As I said, the only friend you can rely on is yourself, and in this case, your memories.

《他的名字叫回忆》⁠—​⁠—​千百惠

我有一个好伙伴
他的名字叫回忆
他是一个诚挚不变的朋友
不管黎明到黄昏
或是黑夜到白昼
常会为我捕捉往日的快乐
他是如此的执着
他是这样关心我
始终住在我心深处的角落
不论我走到哪里
他就跟我到哪里
让我一点也不觉得寂寞
每当别的朋友都离去
他却会自愿留在我身边
给我安慰填补我空虚
他是我最好的朋友回忆

Lyrics courtesy www.inkui.com.

Fealty

Today, another thought struck me: fealty... feverish fervour for foolishness?

While it is an obvious alliteration, the ideas that come from its utterence is something that I have been pondering about for quite a while. ``Fealty'', to the uninitiated, is the idea of loyalty or faithfulness, while ``feverish fervour'' refers to the concept of being in a state of near blind support, without the inkling of doubt whatsoever. And ``foolishness'' of course refers to this entire concept as being something that is not really meaningful nor particularly rational by most counts.

So why the sudden alliterative mood? I was thinking a little about some of the things that I had been through, and it seems to me that many of the problems that I face consists of the problems with fealty, or rather, the idea of divided fealty---conflicting sources of loyalty that interplay with each other and tear the individual asunder with the issues on which choices are considered the most correct given the circumstances. Let's take some non-politically sensitive example to illustrate this point: suppose I like a particular peson, yet I still have some remnant emotions from the last relationship that didn't just go away. Is it considered being unloyal to my feelings to accept the new person?

Or for a more politically charged version, if you are working for a company, do you entrust your entire working ability towards getting your job done, or do you be loyal to your own beliefs and ensure that you do things in a more ``sustainable'' manner, at the cost of some supposed lost efficiency?

These are hard questions to answer, and it seems that many of the problems I face in life fall roughly into this category. I have been brought up from a young age to be mindful of the global optimum case---thinking from the perspective of the greater good, which may, at times, mean that one sacrifices the self to advance society in general. Once upon a time, when someone asked me if I were willing to die if a thousand could live, I would have no hesitation.

Now I have second thoughts.

I'm not sure if this is related to the development of my misanthropic tendencies from having realised that many people in the world are just plain dumb. From the principle of the greater good then, it casts a doubt as to whether one thousand supposedly dumb people are worth the sacrifice of one able-bodied person---I believe this is a question that has no simple answer. Thus, the fealty to the populace under such an extremist view seems to suggest that it is merely foolishness on the part of the person who is intending to make the sacrifice.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating that we all work towards a completely anarchist perspective where everyone is selfish. What I'm saying is that the idea of fealty itself needs more justification from the logos perspective, and that it is not always to the benefit of the self (nor of society) that people have blind fealty. An obvious case is with the recent highlighting of the extremists; no one can deny their fealty to their cause, be it religious or philosophical. But everyone can clearly see that in pursuing their fervour, they have left large swathes of society in shambles, and that cannot be a good thing.

Anyway, I think I've mumbled enough about this for now. Till the next random thought.

Why I Sleep Less Than Seven Hours Daily

And today I remember why I didn't really like sleeping seven hours.

Dreaming, in a certain sense, is a most wonderful thing to be had. It allows one to explore the subconscious, to experience things that do not occur that easily (if at all!) in real life, all with the innate safety of it being merely a figment of one's imagination.

It is also a great source of false hope, disappointment, and general malcontentment with life when one realises what one's life could be.

I have slept roughly seven hours on two separate occasions over the weekend, and in each time, I wake up the next day feeling shaken.

It's not so much as it involved supernatural spirits---I'm used to seeing that in my dreams, and usually I'm aware enough of the fact that I'm dreaming that I can will things to happen the way I want, but that it involved something that strikes a chord within myself.

You see, in each of the dreams, there was a girl involved, and each time, it ended with me being in tears.

I was dreaming that I had fallen in love with an arabian girl in my first night. Now almost two days later, I cannot really remember much, but suffice to say, it got me confused when I started thinking about the practicalities of the matter, like how she and I were supposed to be living together, with her entrenched strongly in her religion, and me not wanting to sacrifice my mostly independent mind to follow a religion [Ed: Read between the lines to understand what I'm talking about here.]. That prompted me to look up the said information when I woke up (the hell), and I found that it was impossible for her to leave her religion behind, not unless she wants to undergo the penalty of death.

Talking about taking a dream seriously.

In the next dream, the one that I just had nearly two hours ago, it seemed to be a conflated version of the the world of Pittsburgh I left behind and something that spawned out of Tekka Market. I was a tech-wiz in the dream, having some ability that I am currently unable to recall. Anyway, I ended up living with a bunch of people in the same apartment of sorts on the ground floor or something, and in the end, we all decided to leave it, for some reason. One of the girls who lived with us was my love interest in the dream, and we decided to head out together. Somehow it got to me taking her to visit my grandmother, who was some psychic located on the second floor of a shopping centre that seemed to follow the ambience of the local Tekka Market while having a layout similar to that of the Mall Atrium in Dead Centre of Left4Dead 2. Anyway, we went there after walking past some shophouses, including one which was a dojo for Aikido, and once we got there, she got really scared. It turns out that she could see spirits, and my grandmother's shop (paradoxically located one floor above the alteration shop below it with no other way up than from the stairs within the lower shop) was full of the spirits. In fact, it was so full that the floor space outside of the alteration shop itself was full of spirits. The girl got very scared, and we left, and then she left me. I found myself returning to this part of town that looked like a mix between something from Left4Dead 2 and Pittsburgh, with me walking about partly in the wilderness and partly within the town itself, at one point even boarding a bus like the one's I've seen in Pittsburgh, and sleeping in it. There was also a strange ship building exercise that wanted to build some boat doing some important stuff using some environmentally friendly process.

Of course I couldn't make head nor tail of what my dreams were talking about, since it is now two hours after I had awaken, which made it neigh impossible to remember correctly. Strangely though, each of these dreams involved me being romantically attached to some female, even though it were only for a short period of time. And when I woke up, I immediately thought of Mint for some reason, and that prompted me to wonder out loud on that infernal stalker tool: ``Is a relationship less real if it only lasted for that short period of time?''

So, is a relationship less real if it only lasted for that short period of time? Apparently from my perspective, that is hardly true---I'm still thinking about Mint, even though I'm pretty certain she isn't thinking about me. Sometimes, when I'm not paying attention, I find myself drifting in thought to Ida, though to be fair, it was more of fond memories than a strong sense of let's-get-back-togetherness. I suppose that thinking about the people you had known in a significant way in the past is part and parcel of being human, but sometimes it does get a little unnerving considering everything.

And that's the real reason why I don't like to sleep for long. I don't want to remember the dreams that present me an alternative reality that can be, at times, more real than the one I'm currently in, tempting me to just end this reality to seek the hopes and dreams that the other one raises.

The Tirade of the Twenty-Six

If you see this post, it means that I have aged by a year. Note that I have written this post about 2 days earlier, since I'm foreseeing that the things that I need to deal with over the next two days will probably preclude me from actually having the time to write an entry.

So, 26 years have passed since I first came to this planet. It can be said as a miracle, in a certain sense, due to the circumstances surrounding my eventual appearance on this earth. Then of course, there's the whole chunk of thing called life that I had to deal with, including having to fight off all those derogatory comments from the many strangers who think it is their god-given right to pinpoint and criticise things that they have little understanding about.

I suppose it is due to these largely negative experiences that I have learnt to not give a rat's ass to what people say, particularly when they trigger those warning flags that almost unambiguously label them as douchebags. But then again, based on my upbringing, I have somehow cultivated that philanthropic nature, so I end up in the most paradoxical position of a misanthropic humanist.

But why am I wasting precious writing time here bitching about those people? Let's talk about more happy things, since this is an anniversary in celebration of my birth.

I've long gotten myself a gift for my birthday; I just didn't think it appropriate to talk about it any earlier. It is probably the most expensive thing I have gotten myself, and the more I use it, the more I find it worth my while. I've gone ahead and gotten myself an Altus-Azumi concert flute (model number AZ3000). It's a lovely flute, whose headjoint and body are made of 95.8% ``Britannia'' silver, and whose lip plate and key work are made of 92.4% ``Sterling'' silver. The sound of my AZ3000 is really sweet---she reaches the high pitches without cracking, and it just sounds brighter than the budget flutes that I have been playing thus far. Of course she comes in French style (i.e. open holed), with a B-foot, offset G, split-E mechanism and gizmo key---these are all the very basic that I look for in a concert flute. The responsiveness of my AZ3000 is phenomenal; it has gotten to the point that I would just play sixteenth notes at high speed just to mess around with the quick reaction of the flute. I love instruments that are this nimble, since the numbleness provides the unparallelled ability to convery very subtle emotional cues via ornamentation---if the instrument is sluggish, then the ornamentation will not be easily articulated and thus the whole sound will be rather muddy and have a distinct lack of crispness and freshness that is so important. I expect the AZ3000 to serve me well in the years to come---a good concert flute (much like a good 笛子) can last for a very, very long time with good care and use. For anyone who is interested in getting one (and you happen to be in Singapore), contact The Flute Studio---they are the official distributors of the Altus-Azumi flute series.

Apart from the ``official'' gift that I got myself, I went into a splurge of some sort and bought other useful and semi-useful stuff. There's a student piccolo that I got (the Prelude PC710 Piccolo, a sub-company of the Conn-Selmer group) just to mess around with. Contrary to popular belief, I found that the piccolo was remarkably easy to play in tune, with a deviation of about 5 to 10 cents when playing to A4=442Hz. I attribute this to the fact that the 梆笛 is of a similar range as the piccolo, and that the necessary embouchre and lung power has already been trained for a long time, which makes it much easier for me than for someone who has been playing the concert flute all the while (the embouchre on the concert flute is much looser than that of the piccolo). In fact, I think it is for the same reason that I don't find the upper register of the concert flute that tough as compared to other concert flute players.

Remember Eirian? Well, some things have happened since I got her slightly more than 2 years back. First off, her e-ink display was starting to lose contrast, possibly due to aging/wear and tear. Secondly, the company that built her (iRex Technologies), is no longer doing the consumer business due to the delay caused by the FCC in certifying the DR800---iRex missed the holiday season and went belly-up due to cashflow problems (one story link can be found here). Talking about tough luck. Having said that, I found that the e-reader is something that I cannot seem to live without since it can fuel my bookworm nature without having to lug the associated kilogrammes worth of actual dead tree offerings. And I scouted about for Eirian's replacement. The iPad was obviously out of the equation; apart from the high price point, the display that it uses is hardly suitable for ``all terrain'' reading. Thankfully, Amazon had the Kindle DX, which satisfied the three conditions of an excellent e-reader: good contrast, large screen and long battery life. One click and some time later, I am the proud owner of Eirian II, a worthy successor of Eirian. Eirian II is not without her faults of course, but I think those faults are pretty minor considering everything else that she has. I will not go into a long narrative about the pros and cons of using a Kindle DX---I think that's what review sites are for.

Anyway, enough talk about the stuff I spent money on. Time to talk about more mundane issues. I think for this upcoming year (year 27, if you have been counting and/or not get sidetracked by what I have been saying thus far) I will be focusing even more deeply into myself. I'm already getting sick of having to deal with people as a whole, and I have found that I am losing what I know about myself---it is going to be a major year to remake myself for the next decade or so. Much has happened, as always, and I think that my current policy of isolationism is a sound one, since it gives me the space that I need to look deeper into myself and understand the forces that drive me to do what I do. Distractions of all sorts have to be culled away mercilessly---that is the law of the land, and is probably the best way to ensure that I have the most efficient way of handling things as possible. I'm not saying that I am abandoning my friends and going solo all the way, but that I will remove all those people who have either a negative or no impact on me from my life just to reduce the overall complexity. If I claim that I am in love with my mind, and that I am as misanthropic as I claim to be, then it would not matter if I excise the useless people that surround me.

Cold-hearted? Ruthless? I don't care. It's my life and my choice---if others can excise me from their lives when I prove to be ``not useful anymore'', why can't I do the same? I am still human after all, not some saint of some sort. I don't have to be popular with everyone---I just need to count when I need to count, other than that, why do I even bother wasting any effort? It is time to pull out that utilitarian hat that I have kept away for a while and to put it on, letting my rational side rule supreme once more.

J'ai besoin d'être plus grave et la conquête du monde à ma façon.

Oh, and happy birthday to me! =D

随风而逝

Something by Regina Zeng again:

随风而逝——曾庆瑜

走过春和冬 雨和风 花开和花落
我已经尝到这人生的痛
究竟要追求什么 能偿还什么
这一切我还在迷惑

梦已经太多 不可说 也不愿承诺
我终于看出你心里的忧
纵然有再多失落 不让泪滑落
让记忆陪自己去过

如今随风而逝 随风而逝
岁月 它编织着曲曲折折的梦
随风而逝 随风而逝
我又何需频频回首

梦已经太多 不可说 也不愿承诺
我终于看出你心里的忧
纵然有再多失落 不让泪滑落
让记忆随自己去过

如今随风而逝 随风而逝
岁月 它编织着曲曲折折的梦
随风而逝 随风而逝
我又何需频频回首

如今随风而逝 随风而逝
岁月 它编织着曲曲折折的梦
随风而逝 随风而逝
我又何需频频回首

我又何需频频回首

另一种回想

又是另一年的开始，而我自己也不知道前途如何。2010年的过去是充满着悲伤伤感的事件，而我又对2011年的期望也不是说很大。今天的我，心事重重，仿佛有解不开的心结。

不，我不是又有了感情上的问题——这是我已经下定决心不要去理睬它；凡是随缘吧。记得我曾经说过，“不在乎天长地久，只在乎曾经拥有”，但日子久了我才发现这是一个自欺欺人的谎言。这句话的含义，根本就和我的个人处事态度完全不符合，尤其是对于用情之类的事务。如果这句话为真，那么我又为何为以前所交过的女朋友而伤心掉泪，念念不忘呢？

我总觉得自己是属于用情比较深的人，也就因如此现在的我对爱情之类的东西都尽量的疏远些。这不是因为我害怕又受到伤害，而是因为我发现自己的心还没有到能够为一个人付出一切的痴心作风；换句话说，我本身认为自己对“爱情”的认识不够深。以前的我可能认为自己已成熟了，可以学上如何爱一个人了，但是现在的我发现事实是刚好相反的。也就这样，我对爱也不怀多大的希望。

事业上，我也有一些保留，因为最近实在是发生了太多能够打击我心情的事件。我其实是很想在这里发挥一下，但总认为这是个不大好的策略；或许以后我会有胆量把这些适于心情兜出来。说着说着，我也开始累了。我看今晚就写到此为止——可能以后我会在对这个题目在写一番。

Cruel?

As I was thinking about the various conversations over lunch/dinner yesterday that I had with some of my colleagues, a curious thing came to mind: what does it mean to be cruel? Put in another way, what does ``cruelty'' actually entail?

Pulling up a dictionary, I found the following definitions:

cruel

1. Causing pain or suffering
2. Having or showing a sadistic disregard for the pain or suffering of others

Okay, so to be cruel is to cause pain and suffering and clearly this is something that we should strive to avoid because we are all morally upright individuals, right? Right? Not to mention the fact also that we should not have any sadistic disregard for the pain and suffering of others.

Somehow it sounded a bit hollow to me. In the conversations that we had yesterday, there was reference to some of the rather cruel ways in which some people treat animals. No, I don't mean things like crushing cats or any of those completely useless nonsensical actions that some individual does for kicks and laughs, I am referring to a systematic and calculated treatment of animals. I say ``treatment'' instead of ``maltreatment'' because this is where I think the line blurs---there is a conflict of interest between looking out for the welfare of animals and looking out for the welfare of humans.

In many organisations that look towards the whole issue of animal cruelty, the general trend is to be selective about the battles that they fight; they will go for the ``high profile'' cases (those that make the most media impact) over anything that is ``low brow'', they will fight those who cannot defend themselves. Why do I make such allegations? It is a known fact that money is the chief levelling factor in the world, regardless of what one may be doing. In many cases of conflict, the side which has more money (and therefore more resources) will be the one who will win in the long run; money is just a more liquid form of asset and resources, and thus in a game of attrition (which is what all these battles are about anyway), they can always hold out the longest. But how does this sit with the assertion I made earlier about the conflict of interest between looking after animal welfare versus human welfare?

We have many people. We have nearly seven billion people on this planet. Less than a fifth of these people are living in wholly artificial environments that we call ``cities''. These city dwellers need to be fed, entertained and the like, and due to their ridiculous density, become a lucrative source of revenue for folks eking out a living. Now, foodwise there is an incentive for the food producers to capitalise heavily on this market, i.e. looking after the welfare of the humans. Because of this, we find that in many cases, conditions for animals bred for food (in captivity of course) suffer what we call ``cruel treatment''---it is a sacrifice of the animal's welfare for the welfare of that of the human (the producer earns money, and someone out there gets to eat their chicken). There is almost no compelling reason for the food producers to do otherwise, particularly if the alternative actions result in them using more resources for lesser yield.

And then there are some people who decry the whole idea of consuming animals. ``Eat only vegetables!'' they say, ``it is good for you!''. But as usual, they just turn a blind eye to the fact that eating meat is a valid type of natural food source; the standard argument against their rallying call is that if we humans were supposed to subsist on only vegetables, why would we have canine teeth, and more importantly, why would our appendix (the organ responsible for digesting cellulose) would become vestigial over generations?

Barring that, the tactics used by these groups are also at times very questionable; there is a strong malodour of hypocrisy. It is partly because of the myopic vision of these groups in advancing only their agenda, and partly because they have not realised that the support that allows living in the city have become so intertwined and connected that it becomes truly impossible to just isolate one small region which seemingly has problems and attack that one region only without respect to everything else. For example, there will be some groups who would be championing the humane treatment of dolphins and the like, but will conveniently forget the fact that people are eating fish everyday (fish is, in some cultures, not considered to be meat; it figures).

But back to the issue of being cruel. Economics has a lesson or two to tell us: supply and demand are interrelated concepts; where there is a large demand, supply will increase accordingly to meet up with demand, and if there is excess supply, suppliers will slash prices to make it more appealling to consumers, which will increase demand. Therefore, the only surefire way of tackling all these cruelty acts is to destroy the entire market: heckling only the suppliers or only the consumers will produce exactly no effect, the market itself needs to be destroyed so as to completely destroy the entire feedback cycle of supply and demand. But of course, once a group realises this and takes action in this direction, it will be labelled as ``anti-capitalism'' or worse, like ``anarchist''. And then nothing good will come out of it.

Ruminations Again

I'm either one troubled monkey or this is really a good day to be writing stuff. Three posts less than 12 hours between them---something must definitely be up.

So anyway, there's lots of doom and gloom about my life ever since last year, but I hope that it won't be the case this year. Things are going to kick into full gear very soon, and it may very well be the case that I get swept off my feet in keeping up with whatever I have to deal with.

But the year hasn't really begun well. Already I feel anything but completely refreshed---there seems to be a part of me that craves for company and yet there is a greater part of me that tells me to just suck it down and not whinge like a fool. It seems only like yesterday when I first packed my bags and headed out for study, with a group of almost like-minded compatriots, each to different parts of the world to partake in a little cultural exchange and most definitely to learn whatever we can, given the types of constraints that we had to deal with from the official front.

Now, almost a year and a half later, I find myself here alone, wandering the desert like the nomads of old. The cohort had moved on, while I had been left behind. It is not as though I had found enough similarities between them and I to feel any strong sense of sentimentality, but it remained to a certain degree that we were once walking along the same road. Except that now, our paths have diverged, and while most of them were still on the highway, I'm trekking through the tundra on the other side of the world.

I've always felt like an outside amongst them. That has been a consistent theme throughout my life---the outsider. Ronin. Masterless. Aloof. Some may call it the uniqueness that is my individuality, while sometimes I just call it being too damn weird for my own good. Anyway, I felt like an outsider amongst them, partly because of our differing ways, partly because of a little bit of inferiority complex. In my mind, it always seemed that everyone was in a better condition that I was, everyone seemed to be in the right place at the right time, while I always felt as though I were given a lot of raw chances, so raw that I had to carve out my own route. And at times, it does get very tiring to play catch up, just because I have to expand so much energy.

Well, it's the new year now. Maybe I don't have to worry about these things any more. Who knows?

Sleep...

Heh. Looks like it's double post Monday. No matter actually; it's my blog and thus I can choose when I want to write anything.

It just so happens that I'm in an angsty sort of mood today, wanting to rant and whine about more things.

So the new year just passed us by. All in all, it was quite a quiet event, since I basically just hung out with a close friend of mine and we just sat at a quiet little bar drinking small shots of crunking madness. But that aside, the entire new year just feels... empty.

Right, empty.

For some reason, I can't seem to muster enough energy and excitement for the coming of the new year; in fact all that I feel seems to be a lot of dread and fear to a large extent, as though there were just so many things that I cannot really handle on my own. It's a strange thought I'm sure, but I suppose many things are not quite as strange if they start happening to one.

Some days I think that I'm overworked. Some days I feel as though I am sort of burnt out, not physically, but mentally, what with having to juggle the myriad of things that require my undivided attention.

Some days I feel remarkably refreshed---unfortunately, those days have started to come in fewer and fewer bunches that I don't really understand why.

Anyway, I'm feeling rather sleepy again. Time for another shot of coffee, and then back to what I have to do once more. Till next time.

Inspiration for NaNoWriMo 2010

In a previous post I had promised to write down some of the thoughts and ideas that made Towards Cacophony the way it was.

Since this is a loose sequel for A Slice of Life with a Twist of Lemon, we see a return of some very familiar characters. The two protagonists of the previous novel are back, but this time they are about ten years older than they were, and are joining the university. As always, information here comes from my idea file as well as the novel proper---I have been rather slack in keeping tabs on my story development towards the end.

Heng Kar

The protagonist's protagonist. Just like last time, he is the ``true'' main character, the one whose mental processes are most visible to the reader. He is one half of the interweaving storylines, with an emphasis of the first person perspective. The Heng Kar of this novel is a little more reserved than before, and has gotten into Computer Science in a big way (doing it as a major in the university). He is still friends with Siew Wah, and often sees he latter as some form of mentor in all matters. At the conclusion of the last novel, Heng Kar and Kah Hao are good friends playing at the Chinese Orchestra at the community club. Things happened and they lost contact with each other in between, and an early part of the story was about how they went back to visit their old haunt and meet up with their old friends, most of whom are still there.

Kah Hao

Kah Hao is the third person protagonist with his own storyline. He studies in the same university as Heng Kar, but unlike the latter, he lives in the dormitories on campus and makes friends with some rather... odd characters. University Kah Hao draws upon my freshman year experience in CMU, exaggerated much of course for literary effect. In the last novel, Kah Hao was very music oriented, but in this loose sequel, I've chosen to make him less into music, as a form of reflecting on the loosely hidden aspect of National Service---I made him a health nut of sorts, the kind of person who has taken in the mythos of the soldier completely and axiomatically, yet without having that airheadedness that many seem to associate with the soldiering profession.

Tiffany

She had a small role back in A Slice of Life simply because I didn't want to confuse the already long storyline with a romantic love triangle angle (urgh, bad expression). But in this story, her sexuality and raw physical attraction gradually becomes the centrepoint of the story---we find that both protagonists are interested in her more overtly than before. No gratuous sex scene, obviously, but she does seem to have a preference for one of the two protagonists...

Moe and Linda

These two are easily my most favourite characters of the list. Moe is a reversed caricature of my old freshman roommate conflated with my own experience, while Linda is... well, Linda, the other third of our strange trio of crazies in the story. Based on the real-life adventures of two of my friends (part of a group of four crazies), this is a rather novellised version of some of the antics that have occurred. So, did all that I write in here really happen? That's up to those who know what happened to decide... (hint: this is fiction after all)

There are a variety of other minor characters, but they are probably too minor to be of any purpose. Siew Wah is still a part of the cast of course, and I actually planned a big side story involving him and his girl Melanie, but juggling three parallel storylines proved too much for my time-restricted mind to bear, and thus he ended up being relegated to a minor role as mentor to Heng Kar.

As for locations, there is hardly any connection to anything in real life, though to be honest, the universities that everyone of them hail from is a mash-up of places that I know; generally speaking, the universities are based on those that are in Singapore, with obvious tip offs in the form of distance (NTU), location (SMU), and quality (NUS). Of course, all these locations themselves are fictional, since each has an infusion of some of the things that I have seen back in my old alma mater. The bars and restaurants are really figments of my imagination based on some of the places that I had visited, so there's no real-life counterpart to compare with.

There is also a subtle thing about the chapter names chosen with regards to the roles/story---Heng Kar's chapters are titled with very mundane and practical terms, which roughly describe what is going on in that chapter, while the chapters involving Kah Hao are ironically named after musical terms, with the content reflective of the general feel of each musical term used. The naming convention is ironic because in this novel, it is Heng Kar who ends up being more musically inclined while Kah Hao becomes more involved with school life as opposed to music as a whole. The collision course between Kah Hao and Heng Kar had been planned a long time ago, and served as a nice place to form an ending. The voice in Heng Kar's head was unintentional---I was looking for something that could give him more inner dialogue and thus suggest that perhaps his interest in Tiffany was bordering upon that of the obsession, what with the talking voice in the head that is intrusive and unwanted.

The title itself is almost coincidental: my initial idea was to have the collision course between Heng Kar and Kah Hao to end with a big argument/fight (hence the cacophony), but when I started introducing the voice in Heng Kar's head, it seemed most natural to end it the way it did (and lead to the cacophony that we have been referring to all throughout the novel). While most definitely not the best way to end the novel, I'm quite satisfied at the overall effect that I have gotten.

So there you have it, the spoilers/inspirations that are behind Towards Cacophony. What are you waiting for, go download it from here and start reading! =D

Quick Summary

So, a quick summary of what I had written in 2010:

1. 113 poems posted here
2. 90 essays/rants posted here
3. 10 prose/stories posted here
4. 1 NaNoWriMo winning entry available here

And thus the grand total here is 214 articles, down from the 286 articles in 2009.

That's an average of 0.59 pieces of writing a day, compared to 0.78 last year. The general lack of writing is not really due to tardiness about my part, but that there are a lot of things that I cannot write about because it involves things related to work. And since I spend most of my time at work, that in itself is a large omission that leads to the general reduction in the amount of writing I do.

I have fixed the URLs to be more reflective of the sites that they are linked to, and have resurrected the old non-specific link to act as a direction board for all the material that I have just in case folks were still using the old URL in their hyperlinking system.

Compared to last year, there were much fewer emotional roller coasters. Ida is starting to become a passing memory, and my short stint with Mint is starting to get into the phase of being faded away into oblivion as time goes by. I have more or less not bothered myself too much about the whole relationship issue, and from that, have discovered a whole new avenue of inner peace. Work has picked up suddenly over the course of the last few months, with the intensity so high that I hardly can tell which day of the week I am in---time just passes ever so quickly.

I have more or less successfully excised myself from a few of the social groups that have been causing me more grief than happiness, a sort of tribute to one of Regina Brett's rules. That said, I highly encourage readers to look for the 45 rules that Regina came up with when she turned 45 (not 90, which was what the chain email said when I first received it)---those rules make a really good guideline on how best to live life.

In many ways, I found that 2010 was a year where I grew even more, being enlightened on more than one occasion about how the world works. Though the path ahead can be rather annoying, at least I have a better peace of mind, and can more or less sleep soundly should I actually have the chance to. These couple of weeks have been quite trying, what with the general festive occasions juxtaposed with the heavy theories that I need to read, understand and resynthesize as a part of some of the work that I am doing. Now that the end of year is officially gone and a new one has begun, it is almost as though a second wind were blowing through my very self and giving me the much needed impetus to forge on ahead.

But of course, in the process of aging and gradual enlightenment, one does start to realise that there are many uncertainties in life that needs to be looked into at some point, not necessarily in the present. Quoting somewhat indiscriminately from one of the films of the Matrix series, one truly ``cannot see beyond a decision that one does not truly understand''. The lack of understanding of a decision prevents the ability to at the ramifications and consequences of the choice that was taken---this is not cyberpunk bullshit but something that is rather rooted in reality. In AI terms, this can even be thought of as the horizon problem, where the particular AI algorithm is unable to provide a good solution because it is lying beyond the level in which it is allowed to search.

People seem to feature strongly in 2010. Folks who made my blood boil are having fewer occasions of doing so due to the above-mentioned excision, while I have also strengthened some of the bonds that I had with some of my oldest friends. Everyone seems to be suffering from various problems---sometimes when I empathise with them, I feel indignant about them having to deal with all the nonsense. But I suppose these are just issues that everyone have to deal with at some point in life.

So 2010 is over, and 2011 is now. There are still a few rough edges that need dealing with, but I do have a good feeling for this year, no matter how small it is.

Towards a better future!

Crimbo Season

And so ends another Christmas, which to me, is just like any other day. Mostly.

I'm starting to get really apathetic towards most of the holidays that I am facing. To me, these holidays are just days in which I can spend on catching up on sleep, an enterprise that seems to be getting more and more relevant as time goes by, in spite of the various assurances that this would not be the case.

Perhaps my priorities are placed in the wrong places?

But yes, Christmas. Originally a celebration by the faithful for the birth of their saviour, it has been turned into the biggest mass consumerism event of the entire year. Yes, mass consumerism---the whole ``you should be getting gifts for, oh let's see... everyone?'' kind of perspective that retailers are trying to sell to the people. Bombarded with information that suggests that should one ``not get what one wants for Christmas means something is wrong'', people are subtly suggested to actually spend more during this time period than ever.

And it doesn't really take a genius to realise that.

Surprisingly, I find myself mildly affected by the entire scam perpetuated by the retailers into convincing us that we ought to get some things that we may not really need. But then again, it is likely because of a whole host of other reasons that make me spend just that bit more than usual. Not that I am complaining much (I am still complaining)---there's this intoxicating air that keeps pressuring the self unconsciously to just keep spending.

Anyway, enough of these mumbo jumbo. I need to head off and do more stuff that will relate to the future. Till next time, as always.

Awesomeness Day

You know how some days you just feel like crap, and some days you just feel completely awesome?

Well, today is one of those days. I am actually feeling awesome, even without having imbibed any caffeine (which I still ended up doing anyway just in case things go awry). It's a strange form of empowerment to feel awesome, especially during times where more often than not, one feels anything but.

But that said, it is likely to just be the calm before the storm, but let's just keep all the pessimistic thoughts at bay for now, right?

So another week is rapidly passing, and soon we will be in the year of 2011, where things are guaranteed to be much more complicated, among other things. But that's for another time for me to mumble about.

Anyway, I should best make use of this awesomeness and get even more work done.

Continuous Sleep

It's a Sunday.

What's so special about this day, you might wonder. Nothing really, except that I spent most of the day sleeping in, recovering from the sleep debt that I had incurred over the last few weeks.

It's a most strange thing though, to be sleeping for so many hours at a stretch. My mind feels as though it has been living in the dream world more often than in the real world, what with the whole experience of continuous dreaming. That's right, I actually have the ability to dream in a manner where each dream is continuous with the previous. There's also the ability to dream the same dream many times across time, where each time I get more and more control over what occurs, but I suppose that's a story for another time.

So anyway, continuous dreaming. I woke up this morning feeling rather woozy in the head---it might be that I have been running around fighting monsters just a little bit too much, or that gravity has been acting on my head in a direction that is too orthogonal to what it is used to for more than two-thirds of the day. But one thing is for certain though: I do feel a little more refreshed than before in spite of the wooziness.

Anyway, time for my sleep once more, and off to work I go in the morning.

Looking Back...

It is sort of a strange thing to realise that a year has passed on by once again. This is the second year that I am spending in Singapore after my undergraduate stint, and to a large degree it would seem to be the case that I have more or less fallen into the pattern of life here once again, this time from the perspective of the part-time student who doubles as a full-time researcher. Life is not great, but it is still manageable, with careful prioritisation of the activities that I might want to engage in considering the limited amount of time I have and the limited amount of energy I can bring about to get things done.

It's a truly strange season though, this time of the year. I believe that I was probably feeling something similar at this time of the year last year, but at a level that is probably a couple of magnitudes lower now than in the past, since, to be fair, I was in a rather heartbroken state last time, whereas for now, I'm just in a generally disaffected type of emotion. I'm slowly training myself to not worry about all the things that make me sad/depressed, but like always, the theory is often easier to come up with than the practical implementation of the ideas that surround the issue.

It is not that I have given up completely on love, but that I have come to the rather unsettling conclusion that it is not the right time now. The conclusion is unsettling because on the one hand I might actually try to convince myself that the whole business of love and relationships should not be pursued during this rather limited time period that I am facing, but on the other hand, my emotions seem to be doing anything but. No, I've not fallen in love with anyone just yet, having learnt my lesson about the pitfalls of ``falling'' in love, but there's always this missing feeling of some sort that is within me, as though all the activities that I have been engaged in are not doing anything that is helping me keep my mind away from all these things that keep creeping up on me. I'm not really sure how best to describe the entire circumstance, but this is probably the best way that I can say about things for now.

Life seems to always be a consistent uphill struggle for me, or at least, it seems to be the case. Most people are probably happy to get by with whatever job they could get their hands on with the degree/diploma that they might have, but somehow that doesn't seem to be the optimising function that I'm running on---again we find that I'm taking the path of most resistance, and in many ways, am suffering greatly from the choice. It's not so much that things are impossible to handle (that's simply untrue), but that there's just so much of it that everything adds up really quickly. Time commitment issues are among the worst---at this stage, I'm probably overcommitted in time by at least 40% over what I'm supposed to be working, and there is no such thing as an over-time pay that can be claimed. It's a very tiring thing to keep running forwards at full power all the time, losing sleep and other implements that may actually make the job easier in the long run. Am I just a whiney person on this regard? I wouldn't think so, because I have all the evidence to show otherwise.

*sigh*

I'm not exactly bitter over things now, but I'm really just disappointed with myself; I keep having the feeling that I am unable to put in my best in all the things that I have gotten involved with in one way or another, and that feeling of disappointment is probably more depressing than the fact that I am committing to nearly 140% of my 47-hour work week. Being disappointed in the self is much worse than anything else in the world for the simple reason that it impinges on a very fundamental aspect of the ego: the self-confidence.

Self-confidence is a self-reinforcing concept/property of every normal person. If you do something that you are confident of doing and succeed, your confidence in the matter will increase. Conversely, if you are not confident of doing something and you have failed, then your confidence would have shattered. But in the case where you just keep getting hit with failures to meet one's expectations, there will come a point in time where the self-confidence just keeps reeling back from the high levels of negative reinforcement that one was indeed incapable in some sense of the word.

I just hope that my self-confidence hasn't taken such a blow yet.

NaNoWriMo 2010! Official Winner!

54,206 words later, I am done. Proved to be a little harder than last year, because I had to compress all my writing in the first half of the month and I couldn't do much for the second half due to all the work commitments. As usual, grab the manuscript from my domain. I'll fill in more details here some time in the future when I have a little more time on my hands.

Rant

I suppose it has probably gotten to the time in life where one is starting to get more ``boring'' as a general rule of thumb, because I find that I have less and less interesting things that I really want to talk about over here, or even on my other blog. I'm a little less pensieve than before, partly because there's just so much that needs to be done that I have little time to be worrying about other things that might be affecting me, this being November and all. Oh and the fact that every day, in effect, I am mostly working on things alone, just me with my machines in my cubicle, wondering about why something wasn't working in the way that one would think ought to work, only to end the work day with a few queries still left in the mind that needs some more investigation once I reach home.

I have been told by many people about how they can read the various research papers on the buses and the other public transport---I'm not that super to be able to do that. One thing is that I am afflicted by motion sickness, so actually reading anything on any moving vehicle is probably going to cause more grief than anything else. Couple that with the fact that I absolutely adore annotating the text I'm reading, it means the the three hours that I use each day travelling to and fro work are effectively ``dead'' time that I cannot use to do all these readings.

Maybe it is a good thing for me, in a certain sense. Already I'm feeling the effects of being overworked---my mind has been drifting all over the place, sleep has been rather fitful, appetite has been low, irritability has gone up, and I'm seriously starting to look forward to the weekends. This cannot be a good thing considering all that had happened---I've always thought that I was a workaholic, yet now, when faced with the harsh realities of an effective over-commitment of time, it feels as though I'm not as I thought I once was; I was still human with silly human requirements after all. Like sleep and its friends.

I was assured back in my undergraduate years that once I was done with undergrad, life will not be any more hectic. Then, just like now, I knew that it was a lie; it is hardly the case that things will get better over time. If one were lucky, the status quo is maintained and there will hardly be anything that is sworth worrying about any more. But of course, the thing is that in real-life out of that of academia, work is never-ending---everything is ``in the book'' and while you might have access to your ``cheat sheets'' all the time, the fact that you need to consistently be applying all these ideas at least nine-and-a-half hours a day means that at the end of one work day, the sheer feeling of lackadaisicality is just hard ignore.

I supose there is no one else to blame but myself. In many ways, it might be the case that I have been thinking too highly about myself, always setting goals that are so high and hard that most people think that it is sheer folly to even consider, let alone trying to work towards them. Always a need to prove myself, always a need to show something. Maybe one day I will learn how to overcome this character flaw and figure out how to take things a little easier so as to leave myself with some time to actually do the whole ``be alive'' bit as opposed to being a cog in the entire machine.

I started on this post with hardly any true direction---I think this truly qualifies as a rant of some sort. Maybe some day I will get to look back on this, reflect on it, and then learn to laugh if off.

용서 못해 (I Cannot Forgive)

It seems that even I am not completely immune to what goes on in society. Anywhere, here's something I've been hooked on to for the last few days:A very catchy hook; can't resist. Also, the lyrics are rather saddening too...

Initial Capitalisation in Vim

To change the words to be of initial caps, first get to the beginning of the word, then type gUl. To continue for other words, just use w to get to the next word, and . to repeat the action.

Tip from here.

The Pariah

I am the Pariah, the Ishmael of the microcosm that I was once a member of. Amongst peers, I am peerless, not because of my irrefutable ability, but because I was a non-conformist. I yearn the closeness of a fellow human being, but abhor the vulnerabilities that come with the association. I wish to be loved, but have forgotten what is like to love. I am the abomination of humankind, the very essence of what it is to be an outcast.

Each time when I thought I was a part of a group, circumstances would always show otherwise. The world I live in is a constricting cube of norms, not all of them understandable, not all of them comprehensible. As the months turn into years, the more I live in this world, the more I wish I never lived.

Many a time, the will to live had deserted me, yet somehow I was denied the sweetness of death by factors all encompassing, as though it were my karmic retribution to be in constant suffering. Surrounded by the temptations of a thousand hedonistic practices, lured by the seduction of the evil twin sisters of the muse, I struggle past each day trying to be oblivious to all that is occurring around, with my steadfast holding of the small spark of determination that stems from my life quest of seeking knowledge.

But with each passing day, I find the winds of change increasing in intensity, and at times, that spark that I hold so dearly to seemed all but vanquished, raising my hopes that my piteous existence would be snuffed out once and for all, only to have them dashed like waves upon rocks, with the spark enfeebled but hardly dead. Oh woe it is to be living the life of the unliving!

My rational intellect was torn asunder from aeons past, through the three times of silliness I led myself into, the same three times where I exposed my heart and all to the cruelties that made the world. And thrice I exposed, thrice I did fall, hard each time, from the uncaring stabs from those I thought cared the most. A year of construction had commenced since the last defeat, and slowly but sadly, the fortress was built anew, with nary a thought for any save for myself.

Me. Myself. I!

The fortress that held the castle of the heart is now desolate of the once warm springs of love and emotion. In the throne of Eros now sits the Dark Lord who ruled the land of the unliving, poisoning the ventricles of the beating heart with spite and rage that burned the blood into a boiling mass of chaos. Gone are the compassion and empathy, gone are the feelings of comfort. Welcome to the despair, to the blackness, to the pure feeling of suffering. Such is the lot of my life.

As I sit here fulminating from the recesses of my soul, I wonder when will my karma of suffering finally end.

Dealing With Light Tarnish

If you have some metal stuff with light tarnish, consider using toothpaste as a light abrasive to bring back the shine.

Statistics for NaNoWriMo

Some useful tools for NaNoWriMo:

1. Use http://www.nanowrimo.org/NanowrimoUtils/NanowrimoGraph/yourid.png for a nice breakdown chart.
2. Link to http://www.nanowrimo.org/NanowrimoUtils/ProgressReport/yourid.html for the detailed numerical breakdown. See this for my own breakdown.

Material partially from here.

[Ed: Forget these links for now... there's something wrong with the hosting side on NaNoWriMo. Just use the standard widgets for everything.]

NaNoWriMo 2010

And so it begins again. Current working title is ``Towards Cacophony'' with a tentative genre of ``Young Adult & Youth''.

Track my progress over here (it's the same link as before).

Gurgle Burgle

I know this sounds clichéd, but time really does pass in a blink of an eye, especially when there are lots to be done. Work has been plentiful and is reaching the stage where it is actually beginning to be intellectually fulfilling, not that it wasn't so earlier, it's just that right about now, it does feel more fulfilling than before. In some senses, knowing the direction that I am taking does have a way of providing the self-confidence that I so desperately need.

But of course, at times I'm still highly hesitant and doubtful about what I am doing. Goes with the job I suppose. Life is full of unpredictable elements, and no matter how prepared one is, the best state that one can ever be is to be consoled by the fact that one has at one's disposal resources that one believes will cover the eventualities that one has thought of. The general lack of imagination of humankind in this regard often means that in spite of the very best planning and preparation, there is still a possibility of getting caught unawares.

Anyway, digressions again... I ought to remind myself to quit writing blog entries so late at night. True, the mind is most free from the normal confines of reality at this time, but at the same time, there is a distinct lack of coherence that is ever-present.

Let's try this again.
------
The last two weeks have had a strange effect on me. Ever since I had that stress fracture on my fibula from a rather overzealous and overambitious plan for running (what? that plan overzealous?), I have been mostly confined indoors. Hell, I've even had to stop my Aikido training for this month (and most likely the next also) so that the fracture will heal over.

Folks who seemingly cared for me have asked me time and time again to have it checked out by a doctor, but I know better than that. It's only a stress fracture, nothing too serious, and the best thing that I can do for it is to just rest it well. Casts are not going to be useful in this case at all, and there will be the whole expense associated with the diagnostics required to confirm what I already know from day eight onwards. Not that I find the concern annoying... I'm just not used to being cared for by folks that way.

So with two more evenings of the week freed up temporarily, I suddenly find myself with time that I can spend on introspection, which is at times a refreshing process. I like introspecting, it is sort of my way of getting some therapeutic effect through the whole ``thinking it through'' process. Of course, many of these thoughts are only for my consumption, and so I will not even allude to them here.

Okay, I've exhausted my words for the day. Next time.

Mucking with enumerate

To alter the starting number for any enumerate counter, use the following

\setcounter{enumi}{n-1}

where n is the starting number you want your list to show.

Note that there are enumi, enumii, enumiii and enumiv to handle the four-level nested enumerate environment.

Underlining Package for LaTeX

If you want to use underlining (standard or wavy) or strikethroughs in LaTeX, consider adding

\usepackage[normalem]{ulem}

to your LaTeX source file. This opens up the following useful commands:

Command	Description
\uline{foo}	Underlines foo
\uuline{foo}	Double underlines foo
\uwave{foo}	Underlines foo with a wavy line
\sout{foo}	Strikesout foo
\xout{foo}	Crosses out foo with `/'

And don't forget that you can use \emph{foo} to obtain an italicised version of foo.

These are preferable over \underline{foo} and {\em foo} because they can handle the edge cases of spanning multiple lines (for underlining) and the space correction after italicisation (for the emphasis component).

Self-Interest and Altruism

Once upon a time, when I was much younger and full of ideals, when I was mostly segregated from the rabblement that comprised individuals too haughty about their ways to listen to or even pay attention to someone who looked a little different from them, I believed in altruism. From the many levels of education that I was receiving in those days, my conviction towards altruism was strong, wilfully sacrificing myself should the situation arise if the overall benefits were to outweight the costs of self-sacrifice; in some ways, this is the very definition of utilitarianism since it weighs the value of the outcome given the cost of the action.

But as time went by, my disillusionment with the world grew, and slowly but surely, I found myself starting to believe less and less in altruism. In fact, I would say that the events that occurred scantly a year ago are probably what triggered my general lack of belief that altruism is a worthy goal to pursue, for the simple reason that people are not morally rational. I think I'm beginning to understand what the sages were trying to say when they proclaimed that each generation of society was on a spiral of destruction, with each successive generation falling ever lower compared to the last. And as an observer, I have started to see this occurring even as we speak. And the strange thing is, I can see myself as being a contributor to the entire fiasco.

Self-interest and altruism seem to be polar opposites of each other---it is hard to be acting in a way that is consistent with both self-interest and altruism. Granted, one may operate in a way that aligns most of one's self-interest with altruism, but in most cases, this is merely a facade. Altruism is an idealism that attempts to reconcile the actions of the leaders with the welfare of the people---it is a means of showing why a leader does what he/she does by putting the actions into a new light that it is somehow helping the greater good. But are the actions' intent really for the greater good, or is it a by-product of careful engineering on the presentation of the actions? That is one question that few would dare to answer, simply because the intent of any action can only be deduced, and the deduction is probabilistically true at best, since it is hard for anyone to actually understand the innate circumstance that governed the cause of action of any one person.

So is self-interest incompatible with altruism? That is a question that is plaguing me for the better part of the year. As I have noted earlier, I began with the thought that I would be willing to do anything for the greater good. But I have been shown that my assertions were not demonstrated in the real world, and slowly but surely I find myself working from the perspective of self-interest more than anything else. To a large degree then I find that self-interest is incompatible with altruism, since the intent from which the actions they spawn are polar opposites.

[Ed: This started out as a rant on Oct 03, but by now I have no idea where I wanted to go with it, so I'm just leaving this half-completed monstrosity online.]

Seriously, Your Kind Extinct Liao...

Mm. Just the right time to be writing things once more I suppose. But what shall I talk about today?

The thing about writing a personal blog such as this one under the kinds of NDA requirements that I have with regards to my job means that I can't really talk about the things that happen to me during the 12+ hours that I spend at my workplace, not unless I want the proverbial fine-toothed comb to be run over my posts each time I hit the ``publish'' button. As noted, this can be a substantial amount of time we are talking about here, and thus my posts tend to gravitate towards things that I do outside of work, which can be reduced to probably just a couple of paragraphs or so.

Thankfully, I don't run a blog that is so popular that I have to worry about readership rates and things like that. So at the very least, I have some level of freedom in what I want to talk about here and how I go about doing it, while, of course, observing some prudence in judiciously applying self-censorship to keep the hound dogs at bay.

But of course, what I have said so far is mostly drivel. Now for some fun stuff.

I injured my leg recently from being too gung-ho in the warm-up round for my 10km in 30+week campaign. On the one hand, the chiropractor (or was it the osteopath?) said it was just my bashing of my muscles without proper warm-up before running, but on the other hand, I have that nagging suspicion that a hairline fracture involving the fibula is at work, but lacking any X-rays and first hand information on how a hairline fracture feels like, I can't say more. Actually, on the topic of hairline fracture, I think I had suffered one before a long time ago when I was in secondary school, when I was still rather naive about the world and was being rather altruistic, but that's another story for another time.

Right, injured leg. Because of that, it was annoying to keep standing on it, and so I decided to not take the public transport home. That meant that I had to wait till at least 8pm before I could hail a cab, because of all the extra surcharges from using taxis during the peak period (I believe it is a surcharge of about 15% on top of the meter fare, which is just plain nasty when you need to commute from one end of the island to the next). And so I stayed back in office to clear up some stuff for tomorrow and counted down the time.

Again I think I'm saying a little too much without getting to the main point.

So I managed to get a cab, and told the driver my home address so that he can take me there. And, you know, being a cab driver and all, we had a conversation of sorts.

``Got a route you want to take?'' He asked.

``Not really. Pick any one that works for you. As long as I get back home, I'm fine,'' I replied.

``Eh, you should know the route better what. Just give me a route lah, not all drivers know how to get to the places that the customer want leh.''

``Well... start from Farrer Road then go via Upper Serangoon?''

``Okay.''

And then the conversation drifted towards claiming for cab fare.

``Wah, so late then you go home. Can claim right?'' He asked

``Should be, but I'm too lazy,'' I replied, a little tired from the day's work.

``Wah lau, you are crazy. Most people will want to claim when they leave past 8pm already.''

``Yeah, but I don't usually do this; only once in a long time. It's not that big a deal... just need to eat less for the next few days since I need to lose some weight after all.''

``Ooo ngia borh, you need to lose weight? Can claim don't want to claim? Sure or not... very rich is it?''

``Not really. Just find that the paperwork for claiming is just too much effort for something that I do only once in a long long while. Seriously, I need to lose some weight after all.''

``Man, people like you, extinct already!''

And of course the conversation went on and on for the thirty odd minutes ride back home. At one point though, he started talking about girls.

``So, you're not married right?''

``Nah... not married.''

``Then got girlfriend already?''

``Nope.''

``Wah! Singapore has so many more girls than guys, and you cannot find a girlfriend, a bit malu right?''

``Nah... it's their loss if they can't see me for who I am.''

``Wah lau, your kind really extinct man. You're what, thirty plus years old?''

``Huh? No way... I'm not even twenty-six yet!''

``Orh, no wonder. Your parents haven't nagged at you?''

``These kinds of things, they should know better. What's yours will be yours, what's not yours will never be yours even if you try to force the issue.''

``Seriously, your kind extinct liao...''

And that was the more interesting excerpts from the ride. I know that I mentioned something about cab driver conversations before, but I've not really caught up on that for quite a while as seen by the dates, and so here it is: a more interesting conversation.

Maybe that's why sometimes I'd rather take the cab than take the public transport...

Love Takes Time

Sometime I chanced upon:

Something a little different, but still from the wistful singer domain.

*sigh*

Run 10km After 30+ Weeks

Strange to be mumbling here once more I suppose, considering that I don't really have much to say in terms of what is going on in life now. Things are moving at a rather quiet but fast pace, and at times I do feel mildly overwhelmed. As usual, most of life revolves around this little thing called work, and thus fall into the ``I should probably not talk about them too much'' territory. On to other topics then.

What's new? So I have an idea. I wanted to train myself progressively so that I can consistently run 10km. And the time duration I set myself is about 30 weeks. That's right, I'm attempting to run 10km consistently within a time period that is slightly longer than half a year. I'm not sure if I can do it, for a variety of reasons, the foremost of which is that I am not exactly the fittest person to begin with, having sat out of physical education and physical training for the last 16+ years. But I have a simple programme, involving interval training and gradual distance increments scaled linealry (less aggressive) that will hopefully allow me to achieve my goal.

Of course the intensity cannot be too high. Recall that I'm still doing my usual twice a week sessions of Aikido. If I were to go on a more aggressive schedule, I'm sure that my muscles wouldn't be too pleased with that.

The goal is just to run 10km consistently---it is not to achieve a certain speed constraint that I would want for the run. I know that my mean running speed is notoriously bad (roughly 8.2km/h, which is about 2km/h slower than the usual speed that people use).

Hopefully I will be successful with this programme. Till next time...

Friday Night Musings?

The local time is Friday late night/Saturday early morning. The only person awake in the household is me alone.

Obviously it is a time for yet another rant about the world. And boy do I have a lot to rant about this time.

So in the last couple of weeks I probably met more people that I have met in the last couple of months, and read more books for recreational reading than in the last couple of months also. Actually saying ``books'' is kind of a misnomer, since I only read one book sporadically over the last couple of weeks. It was, strangely enough, a concise description of philosophy through the use of jokes.

Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar is a nice romp through the immensely complicated world of philosophy, one that I find myself returning to on vacation time and time again. Unlike most philosophy books, whose authors always take themselves too seriously, Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar stays on the thin line between comedy and seriousness, using humour as a means of driving home a key understanding of the particular ideals that are associated with a particular branch of philosophy. It's an awesome book for a light read for those of us who can't separate our Heidegger and our Nietzsche, or get wholly existential about the lack thereof knowledge of the oft [mis-]quoted philosophers. I would love to take credit for discovering this book, but the truth is Joanne was the one who recommended it to me. A good read for those who want to have a sufficiently interesting yet pithy survey of philosophical thoughts up to the end of the twentieth century.

Urgh, I would write more, but I think I'm really drained for the day. So until next time.

Late Night Keyboard Mashing

I suppose it is a strange feeling when I start to review the visitor logs for the websites that are under my control. Most of the visitors here are from folks who were looking for lyrics of some sort here and there, while of course there are the loyal few who keep following the blogs to discover my hijinks in this life time.

And then there are the visitors from some weird SEO link farm.

Compared to nearly four years ago, this is a drastic drop in the level of interest in people in looking at the things that I am willing to share. I'm not complaining much, and in some sense, it could be a blessing in disguise given my overall direction towards an isolationist/misanthropic policy.

It is only during the few moments of weakness (like when I'm tired or for some reason unable to sustain the necessary neurotransmitter cocktail that promotes happiness) that I am suddenly reminded of my mortality and relative unimportance in the greater scheme of things, up to and including the operation of the world.

To the loyal few who keep coming back to check on what's going on in my fast-becoming uneventful life, I thank you and hopefully there will be a day that I can meet you in real life once more, if we have been separated for some period of time.

------

I began this blog a few years back as a means of letting out steam in the ways that poems cannot, and it has seen me survive what is possibly the five most confusing years of my life thus far. I suppose that it is still fulfilling its purpose even today, and for that I am really glad this was one of the bandwagons that I decided to hop on nearly half a decade ago.

This blog has seen me through my epic failures in life, some of my triumphs and successes, and importantly through the moments in life when I had serious doubts on many things.

For many people, they seek solace and wisdom through their religion, but for me, I find it most cathartic to just talk about it, either on paper on in a blog like this. It is not so much that I need advice---often that is not the intent when I hastily put together a blog post such as this one. Somehow, having the words appearing in clear on the screen has a certain formal feel to it, allowing an almost retrospective style of thinking through things as I re-read and review what I just wrote to have a sense of what I was going to say.

No, I'm not implying I'm wise. I'm just extolling a little on the virtues of keeping a blog like this one.

In other news, I was recently introduced to Girl Genius. I think it is an awesome comic, because of the premise that the story is set in, as well as the rather cool art work and storyline. As you would have realised from the long list of web comics on the right panel of this blog's main page, I am an avid follower of web comics. Web comics have a certain calming effect on me---the surrealism they exude sometimes are a constant reminder that life itself is not always that serious, and that we should all learn how to laugh about something, anything. Maybe this is a release of the repression that I had to go through when I was younger, raised through a rather strict discipline. But of course, that is merely an academic exercise that is not worth expositing upon.

On yet another rather tangential topic, my social circle is fast shrinking like the aftermath of an aged star collapsing into a black hole. Sure, the sphere itself is shrinking, but the density (and thus intensity) of those who remain are increasing a little so I think there's nothing terribly wrong with things.

But then again, it's not necessary to be popular with everyone, right?

Closure Snafu In Python

Python does not support closures. To use the value of a variable within a lambda expression, rebind the value to a locally defined variable. For instance

accept_set = set([1,2,3])
f = (lambda x, s=accept_set: x in s)
accept_set = set([4,5,6])
print filter(f,range(1,7))

will work as expected from a functional language (i.e. output [1, 2, 3]). But do it without that rebinding

accept_set = set([1,2,3])
f = (lambda x: x in accept_set)
accept_set = set([4,5,6])
print filter(f,range(1,7))

will yield [4, 5, 6] instead.

This is due to Python using pass by reference, and looking up values at run-time. Also, the lack of closures in general.

You Plebians...

It's really sad that even though my poetry blog was the first one I started, and the one that conveys my emotions and thoughts in the most succinct way, people seem to be more interested in hearing me rant like a maniac here.

1リットルの涙 always has a way of making me more sensitive to the essence of human nature. In short, it tends to make me more human in that short period of time that I would ever want to admit in real life. A tear-jerker? Perhaps, but being reminded that I am not the most unfortunate person on the planet has some way of comforting myself, that whatever comes my way cannot be as bad as what some people have to deal with on a daily basis.

Sigh.

I suppose I should stop now, it is late, and it will be a long day ahead.