The performance bonus

I don't write anymore. I don't know why. Maybe it is because nobody comes to this site anymore, except for Japanese spammers who fill my comments with characters I cannot understand. I don't think it really matters what I say, which paradoxically, gives me the freedom to say what I want.

I'm sad and frustrated today. The performance bonus is out. Personally, I'm happy because I got an unexpected sum of money that I can use to buy recliners for my parents, bright happy blue shoes for myself, a present for my -f. On the other hand, I'm upset because just as I got a good bonus, others got nothing at all. It's a double-edged sword. The deal is this: half will receive more than the normative bonus, half will receive less. Is the encouragement to the top half worth the discouragement faced by the bottom? It makes sense if the bottom half are all taking it easy on purpose because they value a proper work-life balance, but what gets to me is that the assessment system is not as fair or impartial as it makes itself out to be. What happens when the management chooses to see you in a particular light, refusing to see the effort you have put it, the improvements you have made, and the strengths that you have? What if the management chooses to nitpick, because after all, someone has to be that sacrificial one to have that failing grade? It upsets me, and I want vindication for a friend of mine.

I don't really know why some people have it easier than others. All my life I've been blessed. It's as if someone is paving the way in front of me, as if God is unreservedly pouring his blessings in my life. I did nothing to deserve this. Sometimes I worry that something terrible is going to happen because nobody deserves to be this blessed; yet, I always quickly think: No. It has nothing to do with me and everything to do with God's grace (and perhaps my parents' faith), so why shouldn't his blessings be full, unreserved, overflowing, undeserved?

So I got a performance bonus. But what I have performed, and curiously, who am I performing for? All I have done is what is to be expected of a teacher; all my friend has done is the same, but she got no bonus. What is it they are rewarding? Calibre? Favor? Certainly, not attitude nor results because she has both. It is befuddling. Ultimately, at the end of the day, I think it is important to look back at all our "performance"—all our efforts and achievements, and to say—it is simply our duty, and then to remember that we don't perform for our bosses or for our bonuses, but for the Most High God from whom all blessings flow, including the unspeakable blessing of the life and breath in our bones. Then, I think, we would do him proud.

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An apple in the hand

It's Friday. I just got done with the last class of my day. I'm happy and I'm tired and I'm frazzled and I'm spent. The long days in school are wearing me down. It's awful. I feel like I don't have time to think.

Yet, I'm happy. Last night I thought that happiness felt like holding an apple in the hand. It seems a somewhat oddball thing to say now, yet last night, it felt true. The feeling of the apple in the hand encapsulates my happiness.

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When Joshua left

When Joshua left, I wept. I went for a long run, paused on top of a flyover overlooking a busy expressway, and cried for a while.

I knew that his leaving meant that one possibility for my future would be forever closed: the socially-accepted, God-blessed option. He was someone really special to me — I had loved and admired him in way that I knew would never be repeated again with another boy and I was disappointed that I couldn't make both of us happy.

I met up with him this weekend. He looks the same. At some fundamental level, I still love him to bits. I hear from Ming that he bought a ring this trip to propose to his gf, and my heart twinges slightly with envy, but it is quickly taken over with gratitude and peace because he is finally happy. And I am happy too, because I finally have the guts to accept who and what I am.

So I must love from a quiet distance. Maybe in two or three years' time when there's a baby in tow and I have finally met his gf/ wife, I can be his sister again. Or maybe not. But it doesn't matter.

To love is a gift.

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Sex, flirting and teaching

I just watched "The History Boys". Remarkably, it was inspiring and shockingly erotic at the same time. Do the two go together? Is teaching the pushing of new boundaries, just as making out the exploring of territory? It was flirting by metaphors and the stunning use of language, poetry and dialogue played havoc on the mind, even as the action on the screen was decidedly NC(16).

I want to be like both Hector and Irwin. I want to recite poetry; I want to make them think. Yet I have Irwin's timidity and Hector's unfocused—that's a compound noun, like uncoffined, unkissed, unrejoicing, unconfessed, unembraced—wanderings. I want to know, beyond the learning objectives and the grammatical objects, exactly what I want to teach.

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1126.

The power to make decisions is not as important as the power to influence. Why do people get so heady over the first?

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So I cycled to Boon Lay

I'm very proud of myself. I made it to Boon Lay in 1hr and 13mins on my Flying Pigeon. I didn't cycle very fast or anything but I'm happy with the steady clip considering how terribly unfit I am right now.

You don't make it to Boon Lay on a Flying Pigeon without getting enlightened in some way. So here it is, as it fell into my head along the long stretch from Commonwealth Ave to Boon Lay Way:

Cycling to godforsaken Boon Lay doesn't make it any less godforsaken.

godforsaken boon lay is the equivalent of 鸟不生蛋的地方。(where birds don't lay their eggs)

Both are equally apt.

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Throwing off my sloth

Tomorrow is the day I throw off my days of sloth. At 5:30am sharp, I will take my Flying Pigeon and cycle from Keppel to Boon Lay. God help me.



You see the island? That's the whole of Singapore. The red line is what I will cycle.

Excuse me while I go pump my tyres and freak out.

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Back to square one

I am back to square one with this blog — I have no readers, no expectations to live up to, no alter-ego — its only me.

Which is kinda odd because I find that I can only write with a "reader" in mind. But it doesn't matter for now. Like I said, I'm back to square one. I can write for me for now. I kinda miss the camaradarie of my virtual friends, but it's ok. I've been gone a long time. It will take a while.

Since I've been gone, Facebook has gotten really big. And I think it has changed the blogosphere in many ways.

For one, Facebook has squashed the anonymity of blogging. Suddenly people realise that it is ridiculous to be juggling so many alter-egos; suddenly I know the real names of the people whose blogs I read. Suddenly it's okay to sign off with your real name.

Facebook has made blogging easy and entertaining.

Which is good in some ways and bad in others, which is the way most things in life goes. I don't think I could ever be comfortable using Facebook other than to keep in touch with my friends. I have too many aquaintances on it. Do I really want them to know me that well?

So I've twittered, I've facebooked, I've flickred, I've twitpiced, and now I'm back. I'm really a blogger at heart.

So I start again.

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Why Bejeweled Blitz is so Addictive

The only way I can get myself to stop playing Bejeweled Blitz is to hit Ctrl-W to close the window during the game. First I tell myself, "Last game", then I say, "Last game! This is the ABSOLUTELY last game," but no matter how many times I say it to myself, I always hit the "Play again" button, sometimes even before the stats come up so that I won't feel so guilty about it.

Bejewled Blitz is a one-minute repetitive game. Why in the world is it so horridly addictive?

First, I think there is this vicious cycle thing going. If I get a lousy score in your last game, I think, "What a lousy game! This one doesn't count." If I get a really good score (but not as high as my Top Score), I think, "Only this close to getting a higher Top Score! One more time won't hurt..." And even if I get a Top Score, I think, "I'm in the groove now! Maybe I can better my Top Score in the next game!" So no matter what score I get, it is never a score fit for a "last game".

Second, the fact is that you DO get better the more you play. After say 100 games, your eyes see the four-in-a-rows better than when you first started. So there is a sense of progress and personal improvement to keep you going. You can even see this "progress" within each playing session. After the first 10 consecutive games, you naturally get better, which makes it harder to stop when you're in the groove 'cos you know that tomorrow morning, it'll take more time to get you where you are. It's perfectly logical. :)

Third, it's hard to stop because of the fantastic sound effects. It is great for the ego to hear, "Good! Excellent! Fantastic Speed!" And it is so gratifying to hear the explosions of all the gems when you line it up well. It feels like you're doing productive work and you're getting praised for it at the same time. It makes you want to keep on playing...

Finally, good 'ole competition. Seeing your friend's name above yours in the list of Top Scorers when you know that just last week you were ahead by 20,000 points makes you want to keep on playing if only to beat her score. But after you beat her, there is the next person in front of you, and the next person after that... Once, I kept playing like this until I got a score of 388,000 and I was in position number 1... for only one day!

All in all, all this thinking about Bejewled Blitz makes me want to play the game, so....

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Soweto Gospel Choir

Yewie brought me to listen to the Soweto Gospel Choir perform at the Esplanade last night. It was beautiful. They danced and sang South African songs in Zulu, old Christian hymns, rousing gospel songs and beautiful Christmas carols. Their rendition of "Silent Night" was fantastic. I also liked the soul in their song "Hosanna, Hosanna". It sent a shiver down my spine. It was very inspiring. I must post the words:

Let the weak say, "I am strong." Let the poor say, "I am rich." Let the blind say, "I can see." It's what the Lord has done in me.

Hosanna, hosanna to the Lamb that was slain. Hosanna, hosanna, Jesus Christ died and rose again.

I love it that it says "what the Lord has done IN me" rather than "what the Lord has done FOR me." It really is a miracle, the marvelous work he has done in me...

Anyway, the South Africans have a terrific sense of rhythm. They performed all their pieces a capella, accompanied occasionally on the lila drums, which they played masterfully. They did this agile little dance where they touched their heads and then kicked their legs high. It was a colourful and rhythmic visual feast.

Halfway though the concert, I had two thoughts. First, I thought about the irony of an African choir singing songs about a Christian God to white people. When white people went to Africa, they often went as conquerors and crusaders. The pioneers in America wrote in their journals about how they wanted to "save" the uncivilised and lost indigenous people they met. In Conrad's Heart of Darkness, black people were seen as savages and cannibals, the entire continent being a "god-forsaken wilderness".

Of course this "conquering" and superior point of view has been roundly criticised. African scholars and writers have striven for an African point of view, for example, Chinua Achebe in his novel Things Fall Apart. Achebe says that he would be "quite satisfied if [his] novels did no more than teach [his] readers that their past — with all its imperfections — was not one long night of savagery from which the first Europeans, acting on God’s behalf, delivered them.” In other words, Heart of Darkness right now is so not politically-correct. Yet, in spite of the unpopularity and unpleasantness of the Euro-centric point of view, here is a Christian African choir adopting the songs of faith as their own and encouraging the people who brought the faith to them, in spite of a certain academic regret? How ironic, and how amazing!

It was interesting also how the Soweto Gospel Choir would dance around for Zulu songs but stand still for European hymns, as if the culture dictates the style... but that's not the second thing I thought. The second thing I thought was that maybe I wouldn't mind being a very fat woman. I don't really know how to explain why except to say that fat women to me have heft. There were women of all shapes and sizes in the choir and frankly, I really liked the fat ones better. Maybe it was because the stage was too big? Who knows. My favourite was the fat one in pink.

So those were my two thoughts. They're singing again tonight at the Esplanade.

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Merry Christmas from Singapore!

This Christmas greeting from MCYS is so direct, it's hilarious. :)

http://www.mcys.gov.sg/mcdsfiles/download/xmas2009_1.html

Acronyms:

MCYS: Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports

ROM: Registry of Marriages

YOG: Youth Olympic Games

SDN: (beats me!)

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Hanwell in Hell, by Zadie Smith

In the author's note at the beginning of this collection, Zadie said that this short story "came to [her] all at once, as nothing [she has] ever written has before."

This story gives me a weird feeling that neither novel I've written ever has: I truly feel that Hanwell exists somehow. Hanwell seems real to me in a way that Archie and Alsana and Alex-Li and the rest never do; as if this story of mine has opened up a little gap in the world where Hanwell once existed and continues to exist, eternally meeting Clive Black in the back room of a bar and walking with him across that dark, wet residential square in Bristol.

In a way, I believe her 'cos Hanwell now exists for me too. The story lingers and stays with you, like this poignant line:

"We made people unhappy because we ourselves were made unhappy in irrevocable ways."

Yet, there is hope as Hanwell, the colour-blind dishwasher paints a room for his daughters, thinking that the violent red is a sunshine yellow. The book ends with this beautiful sentence:

"Not many men can hope red yellow."

Read it here.

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Singapore sinks

Irredeemable, Vol. 1, Mark Waid and Peter Krause

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My miracle-making dad

I thought my dad was just going to fry me an egg.. But he made me this!

Succulent brinjal and cherry tomatoes from the heights of Cameron Highlands, pan-fried minced meat and an almost runny egg.

He's a miracle-worker. He deserves sainthood.

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Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth, by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos Papadimitriou

This graphic novel is about the life and work of Bertrand Russell, a logician whose search for the foundations of Mathematics led to the formation of analytic philosophy. He is famous for the paradox he stumbled upon (known to us as Russell's paradox), which in layman terms goes something like this.

Of all the books in the world, there are those that are refer to themselves in the text (self-referential) and those that don't refer to themselves. If I were to compile a catalogue of all books that are NOT self-referential, would the catalogue contain an entry of itself?

Therein is the conundrum: if the catalogue were to list itself, then it is no longer not self-referential; but if it did not list itself, then it is not a catalogue of books that are not self-referential!

In Mathematical language, the catalogue is "the set of all the sets that are not members of themselves". Of course this seems kinda mind-boggling that a set could be a member of itself, but when you think of specific examples it is not so weird. For example, a set of all ideas is an idea and so the set would contain itself, but a set of all birds is not a bird and so it won't contain itself. (Of course the practical functions of sets in Mathematics befuddles me...)

This comic is thought-provoking. While this comic is about logic, philosophy and Mathematics, the authors are emphatic that it is not a "Dummy's guide to logic" in pictures; instead, they say that it is a story where logicians are the superheroes, or to be precise, a tragedy. This is a most interesting way of seeing itself because the book then becomes a reflection of the struggle of the protagonist — the struggle between reason and passion, logic and madness. It could be said that tragedy can only occur with paradox and conundrum, yet these are the very things that Bertrand spends his life's work trying to solve. Does he solve his own paradox? What is his personal resolution?

At the end, Russell felt like a failure. Ludwig Wittgenstein's clever sidestep of Russell's paradox in his "picture theory" (where the world is modeled by language), in addition to the Kurt Godel's devastating Incompleteness Theorems, which pretty much says that it is impossible to prove all arithmetic proofs, which was what Russell spent 20 years trying to do, meant the end of Russell's lifelong quest for the foundations.

Yet, there is transcendence. Russell doesn't succumb to his arch-enemy, madness (not for long, anyway), but he quotes his protege Ludwig Wittgenstein near the end of the comic: "All the facts of Science are not enough to understand the world's meaning". The comic ends with Athena's resolution of the dilemma in the old Greek myth "Oresteia", which is a grand way to end a paradoxical tragedy about logic.

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