This is so true. I always remebered what my grandfather and grandmother said about them. They were brutal and utterly evil. But all of sudden, japan becomes this democractic "peace loving" nation (today, their navy and their air forces are the largest in asia), that possesses a so called, "self defence force". No weapon on earth is ever "self defence" in nature. Given the might of their blue water navy, it doesn't look self defence at all.
I always had to endure the senior japanese man whom I attended the airfix modelling course at a shoppping complex off Selegie road. He kept blowing that japanese forces were really doing good and they are really the real victims. Sometimes I just cannot bear to listen to his crap that I walked out of his shop to take a breather. His ideas are weird and crazy, but what was even more unbearable was the two local gundam/anime craze jokers that barked and cheer him on his stories and skewed opinions. Usually, they will end up whacking Chinese or Koreans.
Finally somebody from the US decided to speak up for a lost generation that were victimized. The US is the least expected place that I can think of to stand up for the wrongs that were done to my grandparents's generation and my own people.
As for me, more japanese anime? Nah! I believe in the years to come, we will do better. Already the Koreans films are so much well received by our local housewives and aunties than japanese ones.
These days, so many things happen that keep me on my toes and increase my tensions. Some challenges seems huge and troublesome, but these fires are really from the mind and can be half extinguished in the mind, before systematcially going on to put the real fire out, which by then, would have been half-strength.
I got some inspiration in the morning, and proceed to write a email which is really for my beloved one and myself. And even sent it via FutureMe to an undisclosed date in the future, less that I had forgotten the encouragement in the current and future sea of troubles.
Please be strong. Don't be weak in thinking and don't think weak of yourself, your capabilities, your determination, and your body and health state. The body is a powerful engine and your mind is a super strategist, and your spirit is from the Lord God.
Have a can-do attitude. A not-worry-about getting feet and hands dirty attitude. So what is there is sand in between the toes? A little water will eventually wash it away... so what is there is mud on the face or even into the mouth? It doesn't affect the soul and spirit. Aspire to take over and control things (eg, house, bill, relationships) and situations (eg, crisis, sickness, and different stages in life). Be the one that uses the hands to bake after thinking of baking. To do it after planning, to mould the dough, shape it, beat it, and then to put it in the oven. Never letting the hot parts of the oven frighten you or prevent you from doing so, and rather to conquer the oven. They are but, just external parts in the equations. You control everything. If you want to bake, just bake it irregardless of things and situations.
Adopt a positive outlook as it will changed everything and give every difficult situations with a new flavour. Turning yourself from a petty and narrow minded 3rd world country into a benevolent and generous superpower.
Wah, I haven't really written anything here since last august. In fact previous few posts were just anyhow linked stuff that I thought might be interesting. Still it is interesting to suddenly received comments here and there on some of the long long ago articles I had blogged.
Anyway had been busy doing and feeling puzzled over my current job. In Singapore, this little piece of rock with reclaimed soil around the central core, yo do nothing but work and think about work, and think about if tomorrow there is work for you or not. Why is that so? Cause lifestyle in the "rich" citystate of Singapore is only about a constant blur and furries of worry about debts and whether can you pay for debt later on, and can you pay about even more debts when you have your children in the future. The system seems to lock the people into it, much like the matrix. You are forcefully "born" into this little capsule designed for you, and then have the surrounding painted and render to stimulate you to... work more and then produce the next offspring to do exactly the same. After some time, one will just forget about the life out there, and be locked into the great system of system.
Well cut long talk short. This is by far the most stragnest job that I had ever held. Everybody seems to be doing absolutely...... nothing. Nothing worthwhile at all. Really. Orders are push down from some emperors of cheif enunch wannabes, and it gets circulated around everybody, with each one attaching more comments and enquiries to it. Task are never solved, things are never really done. I can't imagine how such an organisation will really survive (luckily this is not a private company). Every morning I went to work, I had to drag myself there, unmotivated, and still puzzled over what I am suppose to be doing, even though it is almost 2 years. since I started my contract with this place. I drag myself down to my work place to do.... absolutely nothing worthwhile, everyday.
But to be fair, once a while, something interesting comes along, but so far, most jobs can easily solved be in 1 weeks time in this place. Where I used to do on average 3 projects in one day in my previous workplaces, this is practically quite a good place to rot (if one prefers such jobs) for a while to - recharged the batteries; feed the horses; sharpen the blade; drink some tea and eat some pao at the local teashop; talk some cock to the management so that they will sing some song to their management; before riding out again with the golden or blue horde to try to take some more land.
Besides getting to experience "interesting" work scope, I seen amazingly fantastic dinosaur kind of people that probably won't last a week in the fast pacing industry outside. Well for one, I really feel that my boss operates like a slightly defective router. He simply collects a whole load of crappy data from the higher management, or the server, and distributes it without any form of processing to the guys below him, including myself. Most of the time, information is distorted (either purposefully or not) and dateline is distorted as well (this timeline kind of data I guarantee, is distorted purposely.... bringing the dateline forward to create buffer zone for covering of backside, etc etc...). After interfacing to people like my this manager boss, I think people working here and seeking to climb will eventually reach a finte state of IQ and EQ whereby the signal curve damps off, must like the inverse of the exponential curve, always approaching 1, but never reaching it. Using this small analogy, I think my bosses may eventually hit one in his skills, only when the x axis (showing time) hits infinity.
Maybe I am being sensitive or panicky(I always feel that I am a kan cheong spider), but I feeeeel the slowness and sluggishness of of the working culture. A really high energy, siam-ing (avoiding), cc email to boss, kind of culture, where we take pride in being slow and yet never steady. Everyday at my office, I seen this particular "talent" from china drawing a incredible pay of 8k per month, doing pieces of work that requires 2 weeks for him, and 2 days for the typical freelancing polytechnic student.
..... .....
Anyway, I wrote quite a huge load of rubbish here...., because simply I don't know what else to write at this moment, apart from work. I will post more of my personal stuff there and will shift all my technical, design, and project management stuff over to www.workingtribe.com, where as expected, it had also been "neglected" for some time. Time to revive it then, and put up all my artworks. We'll see how it goes.
Thanks thanks for reading my this very long winded article. :) More to come .....
When the first series of Lemming hits the stall, basically every show PC in front of department stalls and computer stores in Sim Lim were ablaze with Lemmings on their.
Lemmings is such a simple game, easy to play, easy to figure out, and really satisfying when you finally put the tribe into the temple where they thank you and go onto the next level. On the other note, Lemmings is really easy to develop. With no AI (yes, Lemmings are dump), and 2D sprites graphics, any multi-media student worth his diploma or cert can do a Lemming clone using Flash and actionscript today.
However, what really helps in Lemmings gameplay is actually the ultra catchy background music. You simple CANNOT get it out of your head after a few hours of Lemmings. Every music tune is for a few levels, and each of them have their own way of making their way into your senses and emotions.
Here is a medley of Lemmings music tunes done by Xky Rauh. I found it on the Lemmings Universe site. I really love the first tune! I think it is for the first 5 levels if I am not wrong. This tune is really great for animation. I wonder if any company has any rights to the original Lemmings music.
Actually anybody can clear through the obstacles easily, but the pressure of limited time before the wall hits the players gives them pressure and actually affect their thinking.
Looking at the shapes, one does not need to position one's body to conform to its shape, but just to squeeze through the shape will do.
My favourite song, meaningful leh. Just let it play along as we go through the text.
Yar, it can be pretty difficult to live with a depressing person. Then again, we may have to get used to this fact, as I now realise that there are many who are living in this little red dot, that has some kind of depression, or a gloomy outlook in life. I had counseled many, in all forms and state of depression, and had successfully ignite some of their fire in their cold and forgotten stove, hopefully the fire will keep them warm throughout their life. For a person suffering from depression, everything seems to be gloomy and doom to end up in one final sad state, a sad nothing, and every issue seems to be a reason to cry on, or to be sad and take pity on oneself.
Depression basically sucks you dry, and leaves nothing behind except a distorted pair of spectacles, by which you will probably put it on after you had finally grow tired of crying and wiped that last burst of tears away. Then only to see a distorted pity patty sad world, with a great grey overcast sky and a lot of pricky grasses which you stepped on, and they make you cry again. That in a nutshell, is depression...
How do I know it? I had a period of unhealthy dose of all this before of course..., in the earlier part of my life that is. And a significantly long period that covers almost most of my teen years. Much damage had been done, with the greatest being... lost opportunities. That is, lost of the time (teen years) that should had been invested in building up oneself, and of course, to take up one-in-a-lifetime challenging endeavours (for example, entrepreneurship? flying? backpacking? etc etc).
But to date, I had managed to overcome it. One will never be able to overcome it unless one catches a glimpse of what is in life, or the purpose of life, or what life has to offer, or what you can offer to your own life. Well, be it though religion, or through self-learned principles of life. Depression can be cured by having a purpose in life. Huh! I'll say it again. Depression can be destroyed, or a better word will be, to render it useless (and thus no longer depressing anymore as you basically come to terms with it), when you know what you want to do with your life. Basically what you like your life to be. How it will be like. And what you want to see and experience in life itself, and how this may affect the people surrounding your life. Of course to MOST people in this little red dot, knowing what you really want is a task that is more difficult than the ERP system lowering their charges during peak hours. But then again, if you were to tied everything with symbols and analogies (I'll talk about analogies in the next few articles), nothing is really difficult. On a higher and simplified order, it is like the counter girl asking what flavour of ice-cream you want to go with your brownies.
"Sir we have mango, vanilla, chocolate chip, ... ".
So how do you decide on this? You basically imagine the taste of mango flavour, vanilla flavour, etc, ice-cream melting in your mouth, and then extrapolating that to the feeling that comes with it, and then, you tell the girl what you want. Walah! You just made a decision. That is the same as choosing a purpose for your life style. And of course, flavours can change with the seasons. Even though you maybe choosing vanilla flavour all your life, you may switch to try a new flavour halfway down your life, say when you suddenly discovered rum 'n raisin, or get introduced or psycho-ed to some revolutionary new flavour of lifestyle, maybe some curry flavour ice-cream (Why not? there is wasabi flavour right?)
Ah! By you can then argue that this is you and your own battle... right? Yes, of course. Settling your own issue, on your own terms, and in your own time frame, is certainly much easier.
But to constantly be with a person that has depression? Or worse, a person that is stricken with the well of depression for so long that he or she had already forgotten the colour of the evening sky... Believe me it is not worth the experience. It drains you of everything that you believed and hoped in, and it pissed on every fire that you light to keep warm in the darkness.
Living and trying to help a person with depression is really a depressing and emotionally demanding task. It is worse than losing something dear in your life. Anyway, me and my wife just lost our 6 weeks child. It was a difficult experience and leaves me in a great state of puzzle and sorry for most of the time. Don't know whether to cry or to think of explanations. Anyway I do feel better after hiding in the toilet and cry over the lost, during those draining periods of time.
Arrrhh.. I shall not end with a gloomy ending. These recent few posts seems to be rather gloomy in nature... and this blog should be refreshing raindrops in a warm summer mid-day.
How do you then overcome this? Or how should I go about helping and providing emotional first aid to such a person, especially when all means of consoling and problem source tracing had all been performed and the person is still choosing to wallow in that pity patty sad state of his or her? Well, I'm not a psychiatrist, and am certainly too drained to be a counselor anymore. But I will still forked out my common sense and say, there is no way I can help. There is no way a person can help a sufferer apart from providing physical, emotional, and spiritual care and support to the sufferer. It is up to the person to see his or her follies, and picked himself or herself up, and MAKE a decision to understand himself or herself better, so as to be able to start tracing to the source of the depression. The sufferer can choose to continue to wallow in a muddy pool or self pity and tears, or to bravely do a recapped and review of his or her life, much like that of an anti-virus scanner, to catch and quarantined those suspected area of his/her life for removal latter. Only by making a decision to understand and an effort to try, and at the same time, accepting the support from people who are there to help, can the person improves and understand more on his or her situation, and then later... figure out life, and much latter, to recall and laughed at his/her once depressing state.
This article is so unlike the other articles in this blog. This is a negative piece, as I am feeling so low now.
These few weeks had been so difficult for me. So many people trying to heap abuses in my direction. Not verbal abuses, not physical abuses, but mental and emotional abuses. Uncaring thoughts, insensitive meanings, selfish purposes, all trying to swallow and trap me into a bag of darkness of guilt and selfish expectations. Expectations to serve and to pleased endlessly, and nothing else. Supported by tongue that judge and cuts, and calculated insensitive eye that moves and track, purposely shut to not see the hurt that is caused. Just because they came from broken places, and therefore are broken today, seeks to impose their brokenness on others.
What more is needed? I felt as if I had been bled dry, and still being squeezed for more. I was once an overcomer, a fighter and high soarer. A care giver, a supported. A counsellor that provides a listening ear to the needy and low, and actively aids and provide advice. How much had gone by. I had even lost the One that I love and worship...
The Bible had put it as :
Proverbs 30:14-16 (New International Version)
14 those whose teeth are swords and whose jaws are set with knives to devour the poor from the earth, the needy from among mankind.
15 "The leech has two daughters. 'Give! Give!' they cry. "There are three things that are never satisfied, four that never say, 'Enough!':
16 the grave, [a] the barren womb, land, which is never satisfied with water, and fire, which never says, 'Enough!'
This is a fast pace world that is changing at almost an average of every 3 days. Goals changed, hence, battle plans will change. When plans change, past decisions and responses will change as well. And this will cause the once well thought-out resource allocation plans to become obsolete and be subjected to diversion or change. Hence a cooperative and co-existence spirit is the most important of all. A Spirit of Trust and Belief is enriching and can help to overcome the most difficult of battle.
Where is my angel that had once, built me up and trust in me. The one who quickly laughs when I fall, so that I will not see the pain,... and instead dwell in the uttered words of confidence and healing. Seeking to build me up and thus feeling happy just for it.
The angel had gone away.
But still... my motto is still set at :
Proverbs 24:27 (New International Version)
Finish your outdoor work and get your fields ready; after that, build your house.
Summer Raindrops, as the name implies, its like the passing rain brought in by the warm summer wind. Drawned in by the countless hairs on the roots of the evergreen ferns, shrubs, and trees. The cooling raindrops brings relief, and nourishes the ground and gets it ready for another stage, in another summer day.
Smell the grasses, turn upright the overturned beetle, gaze at the waterfall from the clouds, feel the mist from the hills, listen to the rustle of the twin trees on the hill, touch the heart of the person, cradle the girl that I loved.
