The new outlet

I am now preparing to move permanently to a more user-friendly bloghost. 

New blog: blog.sliv.sg

Portfolio: www.sliv.sg

The Phone

I found the phone I truly needed. My wishlist:

1. Decent WiFi-enabled browsing experience
   
2. Great (not just decent) music/video experience
   
3. Third-party applications friendly OS
   
4. Intriguing interface
   
5. Corporate-friendly functionality, e.g., push email
   

And I truly found it.

iPhone 3G, selling for not more than S$275 from SingTel in a couple of months time. Argh I want!

The Photostream

The following is where we were recently lol.

Oh by the way, this is the ultimate shoe from Crocs, we believe its designed for oil barrel. At least the size explains so.

The Crisis: Prelude

Well, after the conversation today with fwen and fwen's friend, who is also my friend, who is already for 3 years, I will start my chronological account of the "Oil Barrel Crisis", starting tomorrow.

So stay tuned. Lol.

The Aspiration

I have came to a point in life, where I began to question the feasibility of things. Cynicism that lies within my genetic make-up, had contemptuously seemed to act up on me, and starting to surface in bits, bearing no tolerance over my optimistic doctrine to life, anymore.

It is this point in life, that I realise that the world is not beautiful, the propensity for the good to prevail over the evil is depleting, and many vexatious and invidious feelings are starting to pour out.

I loathe this society, which have lost her connectedness, her sincerity, and her warmth amongst the people.

The affability of people is becoming a non-existence. I had a presentiment that many of us, human beings, will degrade emotionally to a capacity of non-tolerance, that you rather not to be touched, not to have any feelings., not to condone any views that differ from our very own, because I no longer fancy the solicitousness of people., nor do I desire any sort of such tenderness in people.

I have became such a pessimist about our society, that I am beyond just being disenchanted or jaundiced - I find it a pity to spare more than a cent worth of attention to understand this society. We have no one to blame, but them, everybody out there, who are on the streets, in front of your computer screen, sitting at home, sleeping in the canals, walking in the International Space Station, running away from the police, or, destroying families that are decently trying to survive.

I aspire a day when life is less vulnerable, less susceptible to vices, so as to be resistant to the major abhorrence of this world.

I aspire a day when justice can toil upon the fuck shits of this society, whose most immediate affiliations are most questionable.

I aspire a day when a young brainless boy walks down the street, he will not be duped to believe that fear spans the world, but rather, understands perfectly that those fuck heads are nothing but cowardly phonies, who daringly, mulct our society of her righteousness and decency, because when they are alone, we will kill them.

I aspire a day when we are less vulnerable, when we all know that the compassionate society is a lie, not when faces with malevolent eyes walk amidst us.

And until that very day, we can only aspire.

The Desired Interface of Phones

This is a sudden spur of interest to blog about me knowledge on mobile phones, in IMM's McDonalds lol.

I must say, getting the Sony Ericsson P1i was probably me most anticipated purchase this year, whilst it was the NewUrbanMale bag for 2007. Well frankly, I didn't even considered the P1i previously; most of the forums I frequented had great impressions of the PDA phone, but as said, "PDA phone" - never really considered a PDA phone as quite affordable by meself.

Definitions

Just a few definitions before I gets on with filling you the onslaught of technical stuff (geeky stuff lol).

OS: Operating system, the backbone of anything related computer, e.g., Mac OS X, Windows.

PDA phone: Phones that, (a) sport a touch-screen interface, operated with a stylus or finger, (b) runs on an OS that permits installation of third-party applications, like on a desktop or laptop.

Symbian OS: An operating system for phones; owned by Sony Ericsson, Nokia and Motorola. Symbian OS requires an interface layer, like UIQ or S60.

iPhone OS: An operating system for Apple Inc. designed iPhone, only available to iPhone, probably the best interface out there currently.

Windows Mobile: An operating system for phones; by Microsoft, probably the worst interface out in the market currently.

UIQ: An interface layer for Symbian OS; owned by Sony Ericsson and Motorola.

S60: An interface layer for Symbian OS; owned by Nokia.

Firmware: The blood of the phone, very essential.

The interface

The most contentious nature embedded in me when getting a phone, is how toot I am on interfaces; I avoid phones with interfaces that are cmi. From 2004-2006, I tried Windows Mobile (a mobile phone operating system by Microsoft), which:

a: the interface was so laggy that sometimes, no user experience can be experienced,

b: interface looks like feces,

c: it was difficult to modify, or I was too new to the platform during those days.

Below are pictures of the interface I worked on in 2006 (pre-U 1).

^ Microsoft Windows Mobile 5 desktop (left), my first PDA phone, hp iPaq rw6828 (centre), inside the Windows interface (right). Butt ugly eh? I know lol.

I sold my hp rw6828 in September 2006, and bought a iPod 30GB instead (haha). Admittedly, I was using another PDA/smartphone before I got the rw6828 in June 2006 - Nokia 3250, which run on Symbian OS 9.1, S60 3rd edition.

That may sounds gibberish to you, Symbian OS is a major operating system for phones, that is run on most PDA/smartphone today, controlling 65% market share in the global phone OS , compared to 12% of Windows Mobile. Symbian OS runs on:

The only thing different between a Nokia and SE/Motorola Symbian phone, is that Nokia uses the S60 interface layer, while SE/Moto uses the UIQ interface layer, which looked entirely different.

^ Symbian OS 9.2, UIQ 3.1 (left - Motorola RIZR Z8), Symbian OS 9.1, S60 3rd edition (right - Nokia 3250)

The most significant similarity that struck between an UIQ and S60 device, is that when you receive documents via bluetooth, it will save right into your mail inbox, instead of your phone or flash memory. It will be a bitch if your friends decided to show their entire photo album of more than 50 files, all of which you will have to save into your phone painstakingly, one by one.

Usability and the priced interface

Me first brush with a mobile phone that runs on an identifiable operating system, was the Motorola MPx200 (left), running Windows Smartphone 2002, in December 2004. I began a passion for mobile phone operating system, without any prior experience with a smartphone, or the OS platform. I call myself a "perfectionistic" graphic designer, since 2000, and that means that I am easily, an interface fanatic, and constantly tries to improve the graphical user interface (GUI) of computer systems around me. I tried replacing the default theme used in MPx200, and even tried to replace the boot image of the Windows OS in it lol.

It wasn't a practical chore to do; replacing the theme, which was a considerably difficult task in the archaic Windows Mobile system, did not bring about any significant advantages, it didn't improve the performance. But it was aesthetically approving, which matters the world for a graphic designer, erm, I mean perfectionist.

The first thing a new MPx200 user realise, is how user-unfriendly it is; a smartphone that runs on the priced Windows OS, was widely considered to be exclusive to full-fledged IT geeks, who have nothing better to do, other than plunging money on a phone, that is apparently nothing more different than an inferior Siemens phone. In 2005, my last year in secondary school, I spent most of time with me GCE O Level Art & Design coursework, me DSLR equipments, and the Moto MPx200 lol. No time was spared for me other academic studies at all. (Dumbass)

Running the Windows Smartphone 2002 means that I can install 3rd party applications on the phone, which realistically, was awfully lacking in 2004-2006, especially when Microsoft decided to be a bastard (since when they are not? After all, Windows was stolen from Apple Inc.), and release new OS versions that officially made my phone the most outdated shit on the market.

April 2006, I was a nooby student in Millennia Institute, on a fine occasion before arriving the depilated Toh Tuck Road Palace, I lost my MPx200 in SMRT 77A. It was the single worst experience, MPx200 being the phone that I wanted truly. But immediately, I began another journey on a different operating system platform: Symbian OS.

Symbian OS and the underlings

Symbian OS holds almost monopolistic powers (65% marketshare) in the mobile operating system market, extensively marketed by Nokia. I purchased the Nokia 3250 (left) in April 2006, which runs on Symbian OS 9.1, S60 3rd edition. Let me make it easy for you, on what the whole string of technical terms meant:

Symbian OS 9.1: Refers to the operating system that the phone runs;

S60 3rd edition: Refers to the interface that the Symbian OS uses; S60 is entirely owned by Nokia, so the interface became a signature of Nokia smartphones

User experience with Symbian OS was entirely different, for one, Symbian OS 9.1 is much more updated to interface technologies, and looked much more sleeker, compared to Windows Mobile. The down point about S60 interface is that, it looked pretty much like a generic Nokia device, just more customisable; it supported the installation of 3rd party applications.

While that's said, Symbian OS was far more stable than any other conventional operating system out there, partially because it was developed by the 3 major phone competitive rivals: Sony Ericsson, Motorola and Nokia.

Application installers are files with .sis acronym, so it was pretty straightforward; to install a new software on your Windows desktop, you double-click on the .exe file, so for Symbian OS, to install a new software, open up the .sis file. That's all. Unlike on the archaic Windows Mobile platform, this was straightforward, and that holds true even today, on most of new UIQ and S60 devices, like the Nokia N series and Sony Ericsson high-end devices.

The snag is, applications for Symbian OS was too lacking like nobody's business. Just before I was settled with Symbian, I received an irresistible opportunity: my new workplace offered me a Windows Mobile PDA phone - hp iPAQ rw6828.

Back to Windows Mobile

Actually, I was courting misery when I decided to go back to Windows with the iPAQ (left). The reason of the move, was because the iPAQ offered a better solution to push e-mail and corporate communications, which was obviously lacking in me Nokia 3250.

The iPAQ was a touch-screen device with no physical keypad at all, which made typing of SMSs and e-mail a freaking bite in the arse. Imagine having need to retrieve the stylus from the PDA constantly, just because I need to read some messages. It was physically impossible to use finger for text input, mainly because the archaic Windows Mobile 5 that it runs, had such an inferior interface, that every icons and buttons are so tiny, I can only use the stylus to tap on it, me fingers were too fat. (sad...)

As usual, I began almost immediately to find 3rd party applications to spice up the phone. It was probably just 2 weeks into using the phone, that I find meself using a PDA phone that was quite the slowest feces on earth. It was lagging constantly, perhaps the huge amount of apps I installed and the uncleared messages; it slows down me workpace considerably, that I decided to do a master reset.

Which I performed almost 5 times from June 2006 to September 2006 alone. Not only so, the device freezes frequently, especially during voice call or when the WiFi was activated. I received a free GPS bluetooth dongle to couple with the iPAQ, which enabled me to receive realtime GPS data. That was at times, quite inaccurate and unreliable. I was told by the device that I was in Johore, Malaysia, when I am standing outside Sheng Siong Supermarket of Woodlands Centre.

September 2006, I decided it was too much to tolerate, and sold the iPAQ and bought an iPod instead lol. Not like it was anything related, but because I was going to buy the MacBook Pro during that period, so push e-mail and other tools became less immediate to me, which I can use the Mac to retrieve via Wireless@SG whenever necessary.

Dumbstruck and persisting with Symbian OS

I returned back to using me Nokia 3250, which after all, is a reliable device that still serve me well today, after more than 2 years of wear and tear. For the entire span of September 2006 to May 2007, I was entirely reliant on the Symbian device.

May 2007, I received the Nokia N95. N95 was running on the Symbian OS 9.2, S60 release 3.1. I brought the N95 to Pre-University Seminar 2007 and NUS Singapore Model United Nations 2007, where I tested most of its capabilities: WiFi, push e-mail, corporate server communications and most of all, the messaging, telephony and photographic qualities. N95 was one the earliest 5 megapixel camera phone, which now, starts another contention for me to explain to you.

In the world of photography, packing more megapixels to your camera does not make it a better camera than one with lesser megapixels. Megapixels just tells you how much imaging sensor elements there are on your camera. That said, a 5MP camera on N95 will definitely be inferior to me old 3MP Canon D30, because of the external capabilities that me DSLR is capable of: Mounting a different lens for different settings and purpose, mounting of an external flash unit for a pleasing capture, and definitely, mounting my DSLR on a tripod for a long-exposure shot, which is entirely impossible on the N95 5MP camera.

So the next time you get a camera phone, don't just get cheated by the number of megapixels, because if it's camera phone, chances are, the camera sucks. Surprisingly though, N95's camera was not that entirely bad at all. Below are some demonstration photos (click to enlarge):

So it performed rather well for me, just that, the slider etch was too shaky and flimsy, that I had no faith in it to withstand me rough handling. I decided to return it and go back with me Nokia 3250, again. Lol.

Petrified, angered, but at last, Sony Ericsson

In March 2008, I decided that I needed a replacement for me ageing Nokia 3250. The battery had swell up, housing depilated, it was due for retirement. But like I told you in the beginning of this post, I am such a toot that I can never find a good enough replacement for meself. June 2007, iPhone was released in United States, and I enshrined it as the only phone I will ever want.

I bought the iPod Touch 8GB with my lovely donkey Anita in February 2008 though lol. And soon enough, I was all too familiar with the iPhone OS and decided that I don't really need an iPhone per se, since the functionality are still pretty restricted and worst of all, iPhone is locked to carriers, which means, when it is launched in August here, chances are iPhone will be locked to SingTel, and feces, I just signed a 2 year contract with SingTel, which set me back till after NS. Shit heads.

March 2008, I signed a plan with M1 and got the Sony Ericsson W910i. W910i runs on a proprietary operating system, which essentially means, its locked, which meant that it was impossible to load 3rd party applications native to the OS, to install. It only supported Java apps, which are slow at times on this laggy device. Worst of all, it cannot display the agenda view on the home screen, which means I cannot see the list of appointments or tasks I have for the day. And that sucked alot, although the great Walkman Player and games apps on it compensated limitedly, that lost.

Interface on the W910i was however, the prettiest I had ever used. Everything was designed meticulously. This phone permits the use of Flash enabled themes with Flash lite! Which menus and home screen backgrounds are animated, and look absolutely superb, nothing like the boring all Nokia OS interface, or S60.

Although some of the shortcomings on this phone are fatal. The slider mechanism of W910 was too flimsy, giving the impression that the phone build quality was inferior. It was highly fashionable, but the build quality left much to be desired for. Now the fatal shortcoming: The slider design have serious flaw such as unsecured openings when the slider is up, allowing dust or water to settle inside the mainboard of the phone, causing stupid shits like erosion.

I sent me W910i for servicing in early May 2008, and the shit-filled accented service personnel told me that my W910i have severe erosion within the phone, and me warranty is voided. After just 2 months of usage! Worst of all, my peril was nothing to this service personnel, and he was so apathetic, that I signed the shit forms and left hastily.

UIQ, trust me, I enshrined it now

Just days before our half-year anniversary, my lovely donkey and I sold the W910i (lol), and on 19 May 2008, I was the happiest donkey on earth. It was the day we celebrated our half-year anniversary, and also, we bought the Sony Ericsson P1i (left)!

The P1i is a convergence device which marries the functionality of both a smartphone and PDA phone; it comes with a full-fledged touch-screen, and a full QWERTY keyboard, which what I always wanted. It runs on the Symbian OS 9.1, UIQ 3.0 interface. By 2008, there were plenty of 3rd party applications for Symbian OS, and no lack of free, open-source softwares to try out on the phone.

Something about P1i bothers me tremendously though. P1i that are sold in Singapore are Chinese-characters enabled, which meant that the firmware used had awful looking fonts. Fonts used in Chinese-characters enabled firmwares are in unicode, which means apart from being capable of displaying latin alphabets, it can display cyrillic alphabets (used in Russian), East Asian characters (Chinese, Japanese and Korean). Packing so many different alphabets and characters into the fonts sacrificed the aesthetic looks of the font: It was rough and pixelated. Below is an illustration.

So, its Sliv all over again lol. I set out to find the best way to work around this font (or typography) issue. I found out after days of endless searching and reading and studying the UIQ structure, that the only way to get smooth, anti-aliased fonts, is to flash the Singapore firmware in my P1i, to the World firmware, used in European states. It was a risky business, mainly it was not advisable for computer illiterate, due to the programming knowledge required, and difficulty curve of learning to flash a firmware.

And the result is:

I didn't stop there, I was unsatisfied by the default Sony Ericsson font, so I replaced it with Helvetica Neue Condensed (which is what you saw in the screenshot above). I installed GDesk, an open-source application for Symbian OS, to replace the generic homescreen. Let me show you what it does to my homescreen.

Now I am satisfied with the new interface, the screenshot of the homescreen of me P1i today (above right), show you the endless capabilities of a Symbian OS phone, except maybe limited only by your imaginations. I changed the icons, remove the Operator signature (SGP-M1-3GSM) and added a shortcut to SMS my lovely donkey, which is a picture of her at the top right corner lol.

Now that the transformation is complete, let me show you just 2 comparisons between the original UIQ 3 interface and the one I am using today:

So you shall conclude which is better eh. For me, what I have today is of course, still not enough. I am still hopeful that one day Sony Ericsson will wake up and provide us, P1i users, a new firmware with new operating system with new interface lol.

So this conclude me "brief" article on mobile phone operating system. I hope the analysis outlined help you to understand what Symbian OS, Windows Mobile and iPhone OS meant. Leave me a note if you wish to add on to what I have, or suggest any revision.

Next time when you buy a new mobile phone, go and research about the internal OS before you make a decision, enjoy!

The Anniversary of the Donkeys

I always believe in planning and executing, the only feasible manner I can conceive to control the events that transpire in my life. It have been a relentless need to stock check every inch of my life, so as to sustain that momentary satisfaction and assurance.

Recently, I find that chore pretty mundane, at this point of my life, when things should not be so precisely premeditated, as if life is not hectic enough to tire me out. I find that I fall sick more often now, and the usual 4 hours or less sleep time is no longer sufficient to drive 20 year old machineries; maybe it is due now that I should learn to de-stress, relax, review, and just spend more time doing nothing but enjoying. Perhaps it is that constant overdrive that sometimes, bore out the inner childishness, and maintaining such a mundane, hectic lifestyle, is no longer an imperative for a last year A level student.

And this revelation, was transpired to me by my lovely donkey, Anita, and without her, the past 6 months would have been an ordeal. I took stern remonstration with my prior lifestyle, and began to start cherishing little bits of the surrounding, as an integral, and undoubtedly, pleasant part of my daily manoeuvres. For the past 6 months, I loved someone, never before as passionate, as lovingly, as dearly.

On 19 May 2008, we celebrated our half-year anniversary. It was the single most joyous occasion of my life - yet. Your silly donkey (previously autistic, and who found out that nans are gay) today have became fully aware that love is not a sparsely notated screenplay, but an experience that should always be exhilarating, a sophisticated friendship that transcend beyond what a friends does; to love someone, is to commit and to undergo the transformation of character, because at every juncture in time, we learn to love each other deeper, more than just our physical appearance, more than the happy times we shared - our emotions, our troubles in life, tiny bits of individualistic behaviours, that define our personality, these are the things we have learnt to love.

My love for you is an unremitting judge of time, because I only want you in my life, and as I learn more about you and your family members, I took out my planner to draw a future that I can depict with the earnest of my creativity, writing fondly of we have came along in these months.

My life is now motivated, encouraged and love by you, and only you, because of you, I find more time to understand people around me, find more time to tolerate differing views, and most of all, finding more time to love you more each day.

Happy half-year anniversary, my lovely donkey, and forever in my life, I shall embed the love, warmth and care you have given me to my soul.

The Words

Feeling bored, so this was done. 

The Fashion of Rejects

Lol, I thought it was virtually impossible to find fashion outlet to get clothings for Ms Oil Barrel. Look no further, see what I found in IMM on Wednesday.

"I am the chair", fuck, if you're the oil barrel chair, then fucking say the correct thing. If I wasn't distracted by discussing the motion with Punitha, you would have been grilled and utterly humiliated in front of the Pre-U 1. Remember, that day of bitchyness, you're going to get them all back on you.

The General of Our Army

On the fifteenth day of third month, in the year two thousand and eight, The Federative Socialist Republic of Donkey (FSRD) proclaims the formation of her regular, professional armed forces, christened the FSRD Army, or abbreviated as the Donkey Republic Army (DRA).

The Donkey Republic Army is led by the Chairman of the Land Armed Service Presidium (DRA-LASP) Major General Eeyore Chua. 

Lol.

The Punkey

Here, in all his glory, His Royal Highness (HRH) Punky the First of the Chua. Lol, eeyores are what my lovely hugs to sleep, and so is this eeyore. I love my lovely who is my personal donkey, so am I to her.

The Donkey of My Life

I have a very special person in my life, someone whom I swore to devote to on 19 November 2007, someone who's always there for me whenever I needed her the most. 

She's the donkey of my life. Donkey have became synonymous with our love, and the title that represents the utmost affection and endearment, and no one except for ourselves, will be fashioned with this sacredness. Cos Anita Teo Ying Ying have became the person whom I live everyday for, for the worth of her love, and for the fulfilment in life that was opened to me after I love her.

The Sliv of today realised that mutual companionship is a bliss that is ought to the most fundamental domestic felicity, in life. Cos there is no point in time, that parallels the warmth and care received, than today when I am with my lovely donkey. 

Anita, today, when I fell into the inconsolable trance, you were there to console me and to cheer me up. I want the world to know how much of a bless I am to have you, and I will never hesitate to love her more. Sometimes I divulge in such intricate flowery language, that people find me verbose, but I say, its a form of expression that I attempted to convey to my lovely donkey, making up for the flaws inherent to the written language: unable to express the immediate warmth and richness in feelings. 

So everyday, I find myself more attached to you, more in love with you, because you, and our eeyores, are the only matters to my view of the world. So my lovely donkey, I swear upon the immeasurable expanse of this world, that not only will I make you more anti-FTs, and making you more narcissistic, which I am improving consistently, but also give you and warm you with my love, letting you feel like you're the most loved donkey in the world. 

And I shall seal this promise, forever with my devotion, honour and our love. 

The Epiphany

I think I struck epiphany today (again lol).

I was sunken in unrecoverable (pun intended) self-pity when walking alone back from Botak Jones at Bukit Batok to MI for Mdm Lee's lesson, that I feel enough of these emo crap, and get hold of my life. Guys hide their emotions, it's a given, guys are too egoistical to ever publicly show their emotions (except for Jon of course, who weep because he only got a B for Mathematics argh). The point is, I spent excessive time trying to please people, trying to appease people, that I lost track of how contented I should be with my life.

As a lone spectator, I witness many events that I can share my unbiased viewpoints. Of course, I wouldn't, to prevent myself from offending anyone unnecessarily. I therefore gets agitated easily when my expectations are not met, or I feel alienated for whatever reasons. The reason for my extreme sorrows today was a result of peer pressure and the acute lack of self-delusion. I should be satisfied with my current state of life, and be instrumental to bring about happiness and joy to the people immediate to my life.

This is when I felt that I have been too angry most of the time. Too irrational to be of consoling to people that truly needed my assistance. I have been very authoritative, because deep down, I always delude myself that my way is the best, and when I enter Millennia Institute, I told myself to not ever repeat that mistake. Perhaps that is also why I find myself more attached to MI than any other institutions I was with. But what's worst, I never appreciated the fact that people immediate to me, at times, require my counselling.

I realised this mistake only now that, my sister, currently a secondary school student, need my affirmation more than anyone. Cos as brother, I have the moral obligation to counsel her in life, and to provide my assistance in my experience in academic life. Who is more fit than that? Definitely not my parents who are educated under the Dutch system, who are clueless about how the local system works.

So today I awaken to this calling: Stop being agitated and dismiss everything on the spot, rather, seek to understand why such an occurrence, and focus to resolve it.

The Provocation

Yasmin of 06A2, be warned, I witnessed how beneath contempt you are to Minyu today during Mr Lee's lesson, and what a totally disrespect for a friend who used to look up to you.

You're warned, one more provocation, I am retaliating. 

The Trivialisation

I was on my intriguing hunt for a nonya delight by the name of “Tago” for my lovely donkey, that in the midst, I witness in firsthand, a significant event that epitomise Woodlands on 23 March 2008: The hunt for Mas Selamat.

Definitively, what these events revealed is how Woodlands have developed into a lacklustre town that have in the past decade, condenses into a single episode of drama, that exemplify the spirit of ingenuity in the Singaporean industry, and how to fail miserably later. Woodlands have failed, unknowingly by her inhabitants, she had failed.

What is there in Woodlands? We have Causeway Point Shopping Centre, the largest suburban mall during its heyday; Woodlands Regional Bus Interchange, the first underground bus interchange, topped up with an elevated MRT station, which were very much the pride of SMRT back in 1997 during its inauguration.

Suffice to say, I’m not a native Woodlanders, but I dare say I qualify as one, on the basis of the grassroots knowledge I gathered in the short time I was here. During my immediate formative years, our family relocated from our semi-detached along Upper Thomson area to a spastically-decorated 5-room HDB flat we rented for a period of 10 years. I’ll not go into details as to why such a decision was made; while I’ll return habitually to Upper Thomson, I’d grew accustomed to the modus vivendi of the suburb.

I was there when Woodlands MRT Station opens to the public; I was probably the first few Singaporeans to enter Causeway Point; I was amongst the first students to read books collected in the Woodlands Regional Library, I was even there to witness the materialisation of the conceptual Singapore Sports School and Republic Polytechnic.

All these – happened within a decade, as part of the package Dr. Tony Tan promised residents in the region during the formation of the Sembawang GRC (1988). Yet looking at the events today, I can’t help but to disclaim all the firsts and grandeur that Woodlands once inspired to attain, that have seemingly diluted with the departure of the veteran and well-loved politician in 2006 from the GRC.

So the problem is, how are those establishments doing in Woodlands today? Woodlands MRT Station is depilating and fallen into the cruelty of going through aging, looking nothing like the luster it was 11 years ago. The bus interchange is over-crowded and seemed nothing more than a poorly-lit underground dump that buses are forced to pass through inevitably, today. The Sports School’s hype have expired as soon as there was any hype at all, other than producing outrightly snobbish students. I have extinguished all possible excuses that shown the school had benefited the town – at all. Republic Polytechnic embodies the worst of all polytechnics in Singapore, not that I am cruel, but this general perception is repeated in words of JC students, and of other polytechnics, working professionals – inclusive of my mother, taxi drivers, and even stall holders inside the eateries of RP.

I am not meticulous enough to discover the truth behind those hearsays, but as far as personal experience has it, RP students – generally female, had difficulties to understand what dress code for schooling ought to be. In my views, tank tops or any other form of revealing clothing are not offensive to the eye, and it is the right of choice of every RP students to wear whatever their little brains desired. But that’s just me. At the end of the day, the eyes of society will judge and make noises, not mine, at least not influential enough. I was told by a taxi driver last year while being late for school, that 3 RP students – 2 females and a male, had an intimate conversation quite loudly on the taxi, about masturbation.

Of course, as a conscience but hypocritical ‘A’ level student, I expresses my utter disgust upon hearing, to satisfy the “morally upright” taxi driver, plus, I don’t want to piss him off and end up being late for school.

That incident demonstrated how a clash of views between the mainstream, and the young and seemingly uneducated, is that this town is still desolate, and unable to accept the liberal ideas of the 3 RP students. Let’s not be hypocritical, I believe we all embraces the liberalism that the 3 RP students signifies, and we’ll probably be happier if our rights are not constantly being infringed by the so-called “morally righteousness” in the elder generations.

I have grew disgusted by the retardation in development of Woodlands, and I am probably very sick by the surrendering of our rights, in other to satisfy the status quo, which then led to the lack of progress in this destitute town. I want changes, and I want it fast, just fast enough before Woodlands becomes another Marsiling.

As to why I say the hunt for Mas Selamat was the inspiration of this entry, I visited Woodlands Town Centre along Woodlands Centre Road to hunt for “Tago”. What I witnessed was the total degeneration of the area that encompasses Woodlands Town Centre, a place where most Woodlanders visit, where the former Woodlands Bus Interchange was. Today, the economy there is entirely dependent on the Malaysians, and as the hunt for Mas Selamat intensifies, the jam at Woodlands Checkpoint too intensifies. So Malaysians no longer stop by Woodlands Town Centre, instead, joins the hazardous queue towards Woodlands Causeway.

Will Woodlands eventually be so trivialised, that our economy becomes dependent on others?

So I was trying to find “Tago” that I stepped upon the fact of Woodlands – a town that have perhaps stopped to progress.

Sliv
23 March 2008

The Donkelisation

Lol, the picture shall illustrate my lovely anita's skills in donkelisation.

The Final CIP

2008 - Last year in Mentallyscrewed Institute; last year doing mandatory Community service.

Here are the photos, enjoy: Slideshow

The Sunset I Missed

Too tied up with being fuming today that I forgot that the bloody past few days were excessively rainy! That means the skies are cleared up greatly, and now, sitting here in National Library 11th floor, looking out of the windows at the wondrous skyscape before my eyes, I just want to kill myself for opting not to bring my dSLR along. Argh!

Never mind. There will be another day. Before then, view some of my previous photographic works here: Click here for the abridged gallery!

Sliv, 15 March 2008.

The Repulsiveness of Conventional Wisdom

I find that it is most repulsive that my views and stances on issues are often left pendent because I am reserved due to conventional wisdom or due to the fear of repercussions. To date, it have perhaps became a norm for many individuals to make use of blog, particularly, blogger, to make explicit statements regarding their immediate views, or attempt to sway views of the general public, just by the mere words - nothing more than that.

So, while my faith in people listening to me have almost diminished completely, I will stick by this blog, at least a post per 2 days, to keep myself abreast of my mental structure. This is where I expect positivism, and not the ignorance and the nonchalance, which quite characterise the people I talked to as of late. Nonetheless, I must say my lovely donkey is also quite another outlet for me, but since I mention lovely, I don't think I want to burden her with my constant rants about things and things, existentialist issues for instance.

Let this be a declaration, once and for all. This blog shall function as both as a social commentary paste board for me, and as an outlet for me to speak of my views regarding certain contentious or current issues. Whether I receive critique, comment or rebuttals - I couldn't care less, because from now on, in this blog, my views are my views, and they are final, as far as I am concern. I will engage views sparring, I will take rebuttals from anyone, but at the end of the day, if you disagrees with whatever views I attempted to put through, or my interpretation on certain things, just bite the dust and get the hell out of this blog. 

I know, I know, be civil. I will, whenever I feels like it. If you think I am self-centred, and spare no consideration of the thoughts of others, too bad, 'cos this blog is about the only venue I allow people into my head, peeping into my true fantasies and contemplations. That does not stamp out that my views in reality are fictional. They are still my views - views of my reality.

So be a good boy/girl, differentiate well between BLOGGER SLIV and REAL SLIV.

Sliv, 15 March 2008.

The Day that Scarcely Tastes Like Feces/Waste

It feels like shit to walk around Orchard aimlessly with a heavy MacBook Pro, looking admiringly at the couples, and their stupendous display of affection; makes me nauseates. I lug around my heavy and definitely unsettled heart, partially made stupefacient by recent boredom, which incidentally, is the shittiest feeling a human being can ever feel.

And many people just can't get that 'lonely' concept right, because unlike yours truly here, they have "friends", notion of being populated with friends, which I desperately lacks of, and what these "friends" always do to me is to cast me away like I am a speck of dirt, and worthless to them.

F those couples who publicly exhibit their pretentious declaration of affection in front of me to flaunt their sense of belonging, while I wallow in self-pity, excessively drowned in the f-ed up feeling of having to walk alone in Orchard on an unnervingly humid Saturday afternoon.

I'm telling you this because nobody in this f-ing world seems to care about whatever I say, anymore. 'Cos in this f-ed up world, or more appropriately known as the modern shit, the f-ed notion of artistic gratification and intellectual deliberation is worthless. My statements are remembered or noticed by nobody.

Never mind, I'll live with that shit. 'Cos like in the words of my principal, I'm not unique, I'm just another result-producing, resource-hogging feces that Millennia Institute can't wait to hurl out. Not entirely his words, I paraphrased, something I learnt in GP lessons.

Maybe I'm less significant, correction: Millennia Institute can't wait to flick me out of the way. I am me, deal with it, I can't possibly change every single shit that signifies and individualises me. Me! Slivester Chua!

I am not that unique, but at least I will retain those shits that makes me myself. Call me a loser who self-pity, and maybe my problems are not as major as Africans suffering under poverty, well, I guess since I am the author of this blog, I call the shots, because other than my lovely donkey anita, no one seemed to care what I think at all. So you have no say at all.

Thank you for reading my rant, I feel better now. 

Sliv, 15 March 2008.

Résumé

Curriculum Vitae; finally got to work from the slacking: Résumé for 2007.

PDF: Click here to retrieve the abridged résumé

Extraordinary Disposition

In life, men learnt that the countenance of an individual do not usually accounts faithfully to his true feelings. The bestiality of man is well construed as not only for the thirst for blood, but through the competition for survival, brutality and murderous dispositions are just some of the many faces a man can transfigure into. These faces, or countenances, are everything a man is designed to conceive: Domination.

While another man learnt in hardship the sweetness of success and another man learnt in material prosperity the bitter of enslavement and fallacy; most man counteracts both elements of life by means of balance between betrayal and excellent sportsmanship. Failure brings disappointment, but in desperation, failures are success in the false countenance that represents success in another dimension; a leader who failed to convince his men to fight, will nonetheless still fight for his reputations. In an obscure viewpoint, this desperation for control is essentially the key to self-esteem. If the leader continues to fight, he is a failed leader, but a brave man nevertheless. If he decided to retreat, he is then a wise man, but cowardice will soon engulf his reputations, and he had failed overall.

So disposition is what defines our reputation, our standing, and our rights to raise our voices. If a man presents to you the disposition of a drunkard, and if he presents to you the behaviours of an idiot, he is all but a drunkard or an idiot. In the same obscure viewpoint, he shown you the disposition that you expected of an idiotic drunkard. Yet beneath the facade, he had his identity hidden from you. Such lies made these liars rather successful individuals. While they had failed utterly in life, they succeeded in deceiving you, and in these skirmishes, you had definitely lost.

Betrayal is the rudimentary basis for conjuring false disposition. For one, the man had every intention to lie, and coerce you into believing their false desperations. The truth beneath their false dispositions is the fact that explains their insecurity and true desperation for domination. Sportsmanship is the catalytic element that led you to believing their false disposition, because their sportsmanship and willingness to play by the rules, had enticed you into surrendering your trust to them. In a sense, prior to imposing the false disposition, they will first earn to gain your trust, before they breached that trust in a blink, and forgone all thoughts of respecting your rights as a confidant, friend, colleague, or family.

Surely they had second thoughts, but usually, of lesser importance than their immediate agenda: To deceive. They often question themselves the credibility of their feat, but often too console themselves that their deception is flawless. This is where their deception fails. This is also where their agenda becomes clear, but is also where a friendship, companionship, and trust, began to falter. Perhaps it was the shame of revealing the truth beneath their dispositions that prevented them from spilling, or the fear of rejection, that they kept tight control over the truth, and replace them with lies to ensure your information-hungry curiosity is fed.

But this disposition may also be their constructed fantasy of a better life. The world that they yearned to live in, contradicts the reality, so far that you felt utterly deceived. And this feeling of deception will then led you to the realisation that you shall not tolerate any deception, any further. This non-toleration kills more people, than any plagues that sweep the Earth, any war that engulfs the human race. It is also this phenomenon that beautiful lies of politicians began to suffer carnage, which we saw in Ukraine and Georgia, where revolutions against their past functionaries, began to show that they are not much better. The hypocrisy that usually signifies their incompetence is what pierces through their mirage of lies, that breaks them, and reveal the actuality to us.

This hypocrisy is what undermines their disposition. In history, we learnt of the hypocrisy of man. While the Americans find it most improper that the Soviet Union was aiding the ailing communist government in Afghanistan to fight insurgency, they made it most proper for them to enter the war against Iraq and Afghanistan, almost 20 years later, without a mandate from the United Nations. The masculine facade is all they had to sustain the disposition, which is bound to falter, given that they had lost all credibility in their accusations of unfriendly operations in both sovereign states.

So the next time you speak to person with questionable intention, seek to understand that particular disposition. It may be just another extraordinary disposition, that you will regret not knowing, much later.

In Mood for Crusading

I was once asked by an interlocutor of my annual debate with former secondary schoolmates that, “do you feel stigmatised by your weight, in both school and work?” I must say I shudder to contemplate the consequences of analysing that question! To be frank, I spent almost the entire length of my childhood being jeered at for my allegedly “slowness” due to my weight issues. Yet I am accustomed to believe that my “slowness” concealed an agile mind, because I dare to say, those who bullies and those who traumatises people with weight issues, are no better in their quality of life, than many of the overweight individuals.

Lets reflect. Overweight and obesity is certainly a paramount issue; there are more than enough studies out there that criminalise overweight persons. They perpetuated the idea of overweight = health problems. So generally, if such reports are published without aforementioned disclaimers, that the assumption of overweight = health problems is not universal, there exist many idiots and fuckers in the society that will generalise and immortalise that idea, considering that they are less advanced in mental development; these scenarios are more often than not, too common, even for Singapore.

Analysing these situations are not recommended for non-sufferers of the society’s irrational fear for overweight persons, because they lived in a bubble world that is shrouded in a misrepresented veil; the real society is just not as morally upright as we delude ourselves. I have seen many overweight persons being traumatised and ridiculed, and I had my fair share. Of course, there are lesser of such cases in pre-university, but the impact of one or two cases annually, is nonetheless, often disturbing, and is liable to inflict permanent emotional damage. There exist such irresponsible fuckheads, who perhaps, have no fucking mind of their own to contemplate the consequences of which their mouth can cause, that they inevitably, hurt so many people because of their lack of intelligence.

The premise of my argument is not to raise a war against such fuckheads. Rather, I am interested to defame the so-called “researchers”, who armed themselves with reports that are often than not, criminalising the overweight individuals. By virtue of their irresponsible reporting, they are working to the benefits of society’s most irrational fuckers, because it is exactly now, that these fuckers can further substantiate themselves, why they are targeting the overweight, or in their views, FAT people!

That is not all. One may casually comment that the fuckers I have above-mentioned may just be animals that possess the quality of being candour. What a fucking deception. What a fucking impetuous lie. And I believe they can lie much better to convince us, the allegedly fat people, that we are indeed the “weakest link”, the “outcast”, the “doodle-heads”. Of course, I am not holding the entire society responsible for the lacklustre acts of these fuckheads. I must attribute some self-righteous individuals who defended our rights. But what aggravate the situation is how some PARENTS, and certain teachers never, NEVER, at their own will, stand up for these traumatised kids.

Not to put too fine a point on the adults, one have to look at the greater society, where the problem originates. It is safe to say that Singapore is not as morally repugnant as other societies, but still, it warrants investigation into the matter, and formulate resolutions to arrest the problem. I am very thankful to say that the Health Promotion Board did their very best to help these overweight individuals to lose weight, and that many government schools have remarkable weight-loss programmes, attesting that a portion of the society-at-large does care.

Alas, that is far from sufficient. We have to do more, by contributing more to unveil the facts regarding the overweight individual’s quality of life, and to extricate the overweight individuals from discriminatory suppression, that will unleash their full potential. Because essentially, it is the fear of being stigmatised and discrimination, that stops them from displaying their true character, their full ability! Discriminations have for many years constructed a virtual wall that segregated these overweight persons, retarding their social development.

And believe me, not many of these segregated persons will eventually walk out of such social apartheid to realise that their future is in fact, brighter than many others! We, the intellectually more competent individuals (I can’t help but feel that I am perpetuating social biases as well, erm...), must step out of conventional wisdom, and assume that the society is going down a steep slope of moral repugnance, and we must, metaphorically, help them to apply their brakes, and shift their gear to Neutral or Reverse, before they hit the red lights or kena speed camera.

That is enough said. I will crap further another time.

Saturday, and asking, Are we not all Asians?

Are we not all Asians?


“The distinction between the sovereign states of Asia, are so wide-ranging, that no one truly understands what is the underlying similarities between Asian states, apart from the word, Asia.” I told that to an acquaintance once, and he responded with a rather apparent astonishment, that led me to realise how little we Asians understand of Asia. These distinction, is no longer trivial, because these differences are what differentiated our believes and conceptual understanding of cultures within Asia, that we, modern Asians, considered “foreign”.

The Singaporean society have long been known to posses the intriguing characteristic of being able to be further differentiated into 4 major communities: Chinese, Malay, Pan-Indian and Eurasian, yet a Singaporean should well understand that the true Singaporean society is most likely one that is cosmopolitan, which warrants further differentiation of the society into other communal groupings. The truth is, even within these major communities, there are further differentiation, so trivial that to a non-Asian, it seemed rather redundant.

I am myself, attributed for such confusion, because most of the time, I am perplexed by my ancestry. Not due to any sense of ancestral repulsion, but rather the origins of my parents are of no distinctive communal groupings. In so realising, while we have always maintained our dialect group being Teochew, there is still degree of underlying cultural secrecy, that are not perceptible to our eyes.

I attended government secondary school, and in them you are assured to be given the opportunity to meet students from multiple communal groupings. Views can at times be disparate, but nonetheless, in the midst of dissimilarity, these students often find themselves entwined in friendly relationships, that is unheard of in other cosmopolitan society. Yes, racialism do exist, but at such ridiculous scant quantities, that it all seemed insignificant.

So once in 2003, as usual, I assign myself to be complicated into a nonsensical discussion of which intellectual level was awfully lacking. There was a negligible sense of social discourse, intriguingly, as though there is a spatter of political correctness in that particular discussion. I was asked, “So you Teochew right? They speak very funny one leh.” Well, there is cultural parochialism even within a community that is so closely knitted. Such intolerance surprises me; to differentiate the identity of a Teochew and a Hokkien, is comparable to identify the difference between oxygen and nitrogen by the sense of smell.

I have since moved on, and becoming more devoted to my Teochew heritage, to an extent of chauvinism. By 2004 though, I have became quite disillusioned over the learning of the Chinese language, and for the sake of my fledging handling of the English language, I forgo the former. By 2006, I have attained the status of being an ultimate “banana”, an overly utilised term that have the effect to ridicule an Asian person, who rejected one’s culture for the Westerners. I watch BBC World everyday on cable; communicate only in English when in school and on the Internet; I even owned an iPod that contains no lesser than 2000 tunes that are either English, German, French or Russian, and none in Asian languages that is intelligible to me.

Surely, I am pleased with my “development”. However, one thing that truly bothers me was, why my acquaintance, even my best friends, cannot abandon for a while the Asian languages and music. March 2006, I struck an epiphany. I realised that not only I betrayed my true heritage, I chose to be disloyal to a community that contributed so much for the development of the Singaporean society, and invest upon one that have done little for the advancement of Singapore. I realised the importance to embrace one’s culture, because one without such true calling, is nothing but a chameleon that hopes desperately to blend into surrounding.

Surprisingly, a chameleon survives. One that harps upon the cultural difference, and worked to amplifies such differences, will not survive. It is such revelation, like the one that I experienced, move Asians further away from globalisation. Kuwait is an Asian country, but I bet you that a Singaporean will only recognise the fact that they are human beings, as the only similarity both state shares (not considering that the Singaporean you ask may be a Muslim).

It is the heterogeneous nature of the Asian cultures, that forced us into the path of protectionism, becoming less tolerant of cultures we perceive as “foreign”. Why make such distinctions, while we are supposed to work towards a greater Asian continent? It is also this disparate nature of our cultures, that gave communities outside of Asia to exploit such circumstances. The situation is not unusual, inasmuch as the Asian continent being so unpredictable.

Internal quibbles, distrust and denying culture assimilation, made us Asians, the most favourable target of exploitation, because to the eyes of foreign communities, it is the prime period to seize whatever they desire, while we crumble in our own quarrels. For instance, the Iraqi war was fought by my Asians against Asians! And in Afghanistan, had not the Korean hostage crisis unravel the fact that Asians will no longer respect Asians?

Ironically, one can always reason that Asians have never respected Asians. In 1997, while our dear neighbour Indonesia was in the midst of total economic collapse, had not racial intolerant killed many non-native Indonesians? In the Second World War, had not the Japanese betrayed all Asians, in its expansionist attempt to swallow Asia, and killing an astronomical amount of Chinese?

So call the Asian community an idealism, it still nonetheless, is a topic that remind us, how different we are making ourselves, and not how different we have always used to be. A Chinese and an Iraqi are never too similar - the language we speak, the culture we live in, and the beliefs we had. Yet, the fact that we all live in a continent, spells the fact that we ought to find a solution that will contain all the difference, and capitalise upon such an advantage we shared: The oil abundance in Southwestern Asia, the unexploited reserves of labour in Southeast Asia, and the soaring economies of East Asia. All these can attribute to the rise of Asia.

This century should not be solely that of China, but of Asia. Because for once, we are equipped with the ability to speak amiably to another, the reach to technologies that enable us to understand the cultural differences, and the means to make assimilation possible. A cosmopolitan Asia that is less protectionist, will capacitate the consolidated rise of Asia, and only then, will China truly rise, because a powerful East Asia and a weak Southwestern Asia, still reflects quite badly of Asia as a whole.

I hope you find this read worthy.