3resilience

The top three irritating things encountered this weekend:

1. Females talking about NS as if they understand what it's like to be in it
2. People sending me an SMS to ask me to ask someone else something, rather than doing the logical thing and sending said person an SMS directly
3. People trying to guilt-trip me into an act of charity (especially those kids with the coupons to sell - whatever happened to good old flag days?)

Mmm...but that being said, I just had to get those off my chest. Indulge me in a little venting. But in actual fact, it has been quite a splendid weekend full of good food and good conversations. At this point in time, it would be sheer ingratitude to ask for more.

There's been a lot of talk of the future, of how going to university will open our minds up and blow our previous horizons sky high. Well - needless to say, I definitely hope that will actually come to pass, when August finally arrives. And don't get me wrong - it's fun to indulge in this kind of anticipatory projection, this make-believe exercise as you try to imagine the shape of something that you have no inkling of. But there is a difference, I am beginning to see, between idle speculation and concrete prediction, between speaking about the future from a position of unmitigated ignorance, and speaking about the future in terms of what you have experienced before. Lets put it in this way: there's a difference between anticipating the twist at the end of a hitherto unwatched movie, and reminding yourself to look out for the climax in a rewatching. And where I tend to speak in terms of what "might" happen, people who've already gone through it (or are currently going through it, for that matter) tend to speak in terms of what "will" happen. And that is somehow depressing - as if I am doomed to relive their lives, as if they are trying to relive their lives vicariously through me. There is an element of feeling cheated too, as if my future unknown experience is being hijacked from me, being colonised by the romanticisms and sentiments of another's memory. It's like having a movie ending spoilt for you, I guess.

What I like about the state I am in now is the total lack of expectations, in the sense that I have no bearing on the future experience at all, and so I can't even begin to imagine what it can be like, let alone what it should be like. All I have now are vague and idealised visions, as substantial and predictive as dreams. And this clean slate is good to cherish and to enjoy, because we are so rarely aware of our own ignorance and the possibilities that ignorance can open up to our imagination. And it is only natural that I am defensive of it against the encroachment of another's experience. I want - need - to think that what I will be going through is totally different and therefore special to myself.

Aaanyway, yesterday, over (well, actually, under the shadow of) a beer tower at Brewerkz, had a really enjoyable conversation with Llama, Ms. Ong, Joel, JY and Conan about Western supremacy and Orientalism in our mindsets, with reference to the skewing of information over the Tibet issue. Having substantive arguments like that, arguments that are based on ascertainable fact and a wide range of credible evidence, and involving people who are actually aware of the arguments and evidence and are therefore familiar enough with them to avoid arguing from a pulpit or in a vacuum, is rare enough these days. But yesterday, it was also a clever and witty conversation. It was serious and it was playful, substantive on an intellectual level but inconsequential on a personal level. A big part has to do with Llama and the way that he can swing to extremes without discomfiting you, the way that he can express an alien viewpoint and make it comprehensible. I need to learn that kind of expressiveness and openness, I think. It is a kind of compassionate sharpness, that can cut to the chase of the issue without cutting into the egos of the arguers. If only I could communicate like that...but usually I compromise on the former for fear of committing the latter.

You know, listening to Llama talk last night was like coming across an enlightenment moment in a good book. I am fortunate, too, in that my friends do suddenly throw up moments like that now and then, moments that effect paradigm shifts that totally redefine an argument and one's assessment of a set of circumstances. Here is where I get practice in flexing my perspectives, in this environment where no viewpoint is sacrosanct and subject to ruthless scrutiny and assessment, while our regard for each other is unquestionably protected from the same. It is refreshing, it is invigorating, when we talk thus.

And tonight, had dinner with my family and talked about school, the future and careers over dim sum at Jalan Besar. Education's a big thing at my place now, since my parents and myself are in it (and of course Marcus is in the system as a student), though, ironically, none of us are actually real teachers (I don't count myself as really teaching, because I don't think my kids need a real teacher in the sense that it is conceptualised in the Chinese High). Now, when we talk of an issue like student rights and school scandals, we have the rare privilege of having multiple perspectives, one from high-level management, one from the classroom and one from the student counsellor's office. It does give rise to the most interesting viewpoints, which are distilled out of and confirmed from these disparate experiences in the education system. But of course, it would be inopportune to talk about the details here.

On the way out of Jalan Besar on our way to drop Greg off at his camp, we drove through the crowded and clamorous streets of Little India, and I just wound down the window and stuck my phone out to snap some pictures. On the roadside, stalls had been set up selling spices, gourds, sides of meat and sundry items. The air was spiced with exhaust, Pakistani food and North Indian fare. Here, then, in the cramped side streets of Little India, as Ms. Ong has pointed out before, are the weekend past-times of a simpler sort. This is not to say that I don't enjoy it; on the contrary, I find that it's exhilarating, like coming across that moment of delight on my last night in Borneo in January again, this time in a strip of Singapore I had not encountered before. But I also have to say that my enjoyment of the situation is necessarily a bit fraudulent, because it looks quaint and delightful to me because I know that I am not compelled to enjoy this every weekend as my only viable form of recreation. The thing is not to delude yourself into thinking you sympathise with them, because doing so is something very dishonest to yourself and condescending to them, I think. Good-hearted though it may be, this claim of fellow-feeling cheapens the richness of the circumstances of something that you really cannot understand. So, I can't say that walking (or, actually, driving) through this crowd makes me feel for them; the most I can say is that it makes me want to feel for them, on some level.

And next wek, it's another week of frenzied lesson creation and marking. Am approaching the end of my compo-marking task, but have three classes worth of comprehension answers to deal with next week. After the pleasant surprises of the feature articles, marking the far less varied comprehensions will be quite a chore, I expect. But work demands its due attention. And on top of that, big things may be in the wind next week at school. We shall see what happens.