Thinking

I have been thinking -

(...and nowadays, there really is a lot of time to think things through thoroughly. There are no other demands on my time, so I find that I can enter into elaborate constructs, simulations and assessments, without the fear of having to be interrupted halfway. Some people may say having too much time on your hands to think is a bad and frightening thing, because you never know what your consciousness and subconscious will throw up at you. Some people subscribe to the sweet silence of ignorance. That is wholly understandable; but I find that I need to know more than I need to feel content. As such, time to think is an empowerment for me, and not a liability. And anyway, surprises tend to show oneself the true boundaries of one's capabilities, and as such, the discoveries one comes across when thinking deeply are signposts pointing towards self-knowledge.

Though, perhaps, "thinking" is a rather crude approximation to use to describe what I go through. It isn't only, or even merely, intellectual analysis; I am aware that a purely intellectual experience and examination leaves out critical parts of an experience. Perhaps what I really mean is a fully conscious experience of a thing, on as many levels - intuitive, emotional, intellecutal, social - as one can be aware of. The term, I think, more accurately describes what I am looking for: reasons. And how these reasons can be found can be through intuition, intellectual enquiry, emotional feeling - any number of processes that we normally go through when we say we "experience" a thing. In other words, I am looking for why things happen as they do. For what reason do things fall into place as they do? What meaning can there be in the pattern? And the answers to this can be glimpsed through the multifarious and conscious ways to experience a thing.)

I have been thinking about the changes happening to my people, who have been away now for almost two years at university. Everyone changes; some people change a lot; a few change in ways that I had not expected, that I had not envisioned. Some people thrive; other people falter. Some people become even more wonderful; others give up their wonderful bits because they are too difficult to sustain. All make compromises, but some come out of it gaining, while others lose too cheaply. What is it about the environment over there, about the experience that they find themselves facing Elsewhere, that makes some of them reassess their priorities in certain ways? Why do certain things that used to seem beautiful and worthwhile suddenly seem superfluous or intolerable through the lens of Elsewhere?

More so this year, I think, I find that some of the people returning are significantly different from the people I expected to come back. It is disconcerting, to find out that you actually don't know what has happened over the last year, and cannot account for the slight but important shifts in perspective that have occurred. Shifts that point towards more substantial, more fundamental changes in a person. It is disconcerting to, on the one hand, continue to feel the old regard and admiration and friendship towards a person, but, on the other hand, to suspect that perhaps the reasons that these sentiments were originally based on may have been eroded away. One hopes that there are other reasons that can come in to justify the old sentiments, but the realignment, the setting onto new foundations, takes time.

And in the meantime? Here is the difference between indulgence and self-indulgence. It is an indulgence to continue an old sentiment when the old reasons for that sentiment are no longer present. It is indulgence to accept the changes in another person without first seeking to understand the reasons. Indulgence, in this sense, therefore is founded on a sort of sympathy and compassion. It is based on trust, trust that the indulgence will turn out to be the right choice, trust in the person that he will not let down the important things that lie between us. There is no question of forgiveness; that would really be over-dramatising the situation. There is nothing to forgive, for there has been no wrong committed; and even if there were, then the forgiveness is a natural given, based on what existed between us in the past.

Self-indulgence, though, is to expect people to act in a certain way, and then subsequently, self-indulgence is to regard these expectations as paramount and to use them to pass judgment on other people for not living up to them. Self-indulgence is to savour the feeling of righteous injustice, without seeking the reason of whether the injustice is really righteous, or even if there was an injustice. Self-indulgence is to feel without thinking, or to think without feeling. Self-indulgence is to refrain from acting, and to let circumstances wash over one unimpeded, with no reflection. Self-indulgence is also to act on circumstances based only on one's own interests, without considering the needs and wants of others.

The key, then, is to act indulgently without being unjust or condescending, and without being self-indulgent at heart. It is to act in a way that is worthy of the past and what it holds, and yet that is considerate of the present and open towards the future. It is to act in a way that does not do violence to shared things in the past (even if the shared things no longer exist), and yet does not demand ossification of the shared things. And all this requires a lot of careful thinking, to find the path forward. And so, I have been thinking.

But if there should ever come a time when I act self-indulgently, putting my own needs above those of others, or asserting myself over others for personal satisfaction, then I would be much obliged if you pointed it out right away. There are few things less worthwhile, more repugnant, than being self-indulgent.

Fortune

I've just gotten notification from Columbia Housing, confirming my accommodation for the coming year. I got my first choice, which is a single room in this building called Furnald. It's on the ninth level, right next to the lift, and though it's one of the smaller rooms available, it has an Eastward view, which I really look forward to enjoying each morning. And they also sent my mailing address at Columbia. It's a cheap thrill, I know - but it's an address on Broadway, ending with those magical words, "New York, NY". How many people can have an address like that?

Looking at it, and looking at my room assignment, I really cannot help but be totally awed by how things are working out. Getting into Columbia itself was already a long-shot. But getting into CUE as well, so that I can move in a week earlier and have more time to settle in, and getting my first-choice accommodation, and looking forward to constituting a double major in subjects that I actually want to do - all this combines into such a compelling, wonderful situation. And all this is a product of circumstances beyond my control. It is humbling; it is amazing. So amazing, in fact, that it is incredible (in the French sense, meaning to say unbelievable). Scary, even. I mean, do people's dreams and hopes really come true to such a great extent? I would really like to think so, but if not, then what have I done to deserve all this?

And while I look at pictures of Columbia online, and see the beautiful campus resplendent in the daytime and at night, it gives me a sort of vertiginous feeling to think that I may acutually be going there soon. I realise that, to a large extent, matriculating there is still pretty much inconceivable. I don't yet really believe this is happening for real. Could all this actually be happening?

*

Yesterday, went with Joel to see more Antonioni films at the museum. Watched The Outcry (Il Grido) and The Eclipse (L'Eclisse), the latter of which was apparently the last black-and-white film he made, and a somewhat loose sequel to The Night (La Notte). The films were, once again, breathtaking in their technical brilliance, and arresting in their message. All his characters, it seems, suffer from a surfeit of self-awareness, which prevents them from using the conventional tropes of communication, while not suggesting any effective alternative which can take the places of conventionality. And what we get are people that are extremely sensitive, but also extremely isolated, isolated by their inability to connect with each other. They know that the conventions are insufficient for them to accurately and truthfully express themselves, and they also know that their expressions of truth will not be comprehended and sympathised with by the other. And above all, their awareness of all this and of themselves compels them to try to achieve the latter no matter what. In their situation, connecton and truth are incompatible - and they must commit themselves to the latter, even if it means enduring a gnawing loneliness, a loneliness tha is pervasive and present even in the company of lovers.

And Antonioni also has a great eye for the possibilities of urban landscapes. His camera lens records scenes that are quotidian, that are encountered on a walk in the street, and that are therefore accessible to any city-dweller. But the scenes become so much more meaningful when he arranges them into his patterns; the superficial, inconsequential meanings that we encounter and discard on a daily basis are crystallised and purified in his lens, so that a passer-by's glance becomes poignant, and an overheard conversation portends deep implications. The last scene of The Eclipse is a superb example of this effect: the last seven minutes are made up only of scenes from a modern suburb of Rome, with people waiting for buses, acquainances or happenings. They are all waiting for something, staring off into the distance with expectation in their expressions; there is no dialogue. And you realise that these scenes that are being presented have appeared in the film before, as the setting for the rendezvous of a couple, except that now, the couple is nowhere to be seen. The scene ends with a crescendo of music that draws the anticipation out awfully, exquisitely - and that is all. A montage of modern architecture, construction sites, people and empty roads and skies, from which the feeling of anticipation is crystallised.

*

You know, there are some things that I will miss come August. On Friday night, met up with a long-lost friend from the days of CHS EDrama; I had forgotten how funny he was, and how easily he can disarm someone in a conversation. It was the easiest thing to play along, to join the conversation, even to reminisce, to some extent. And on Saturday night, went out with Joel after the films for a long talk on film, college, life, the universe - in other words, the usual stuff. Wandering along the wide boulevards along Prinsep Street in search of a cheap place to eat, it suddenly occurred to me that these things, these easy encounters based on a shared past, will become increasingly rarer as time goes by - indeed, as August passes.

Of course, things have always been changing. Things have already changed. I have already gone through two jobs; I have gone through an experience in the long wait in the Army that has profoundly affected me, but which I cannot explain fully to people who have not gone through it as well. And people have been changing, have acquired traits and behaviours that I had not thought them capable of. I always tend to remark on how some things don't change; but remember, that is only because constancy is so remarkable against a background of constant shifting.

But that doesn't mean that change becomes easier to accept. Easier to cope with, perhaps; one learns to isolate change, to manage it so that it disrupts one's life less. But not easier to accept. Sometimes, change is delightfully surprising; but always, there is a tinge of bitterness, that comes from the unilateral destruction of a shared thing. It may not be criminal, but it is still to be mourned. And, even as I look forward to August, a part of me is constantly and warily looking at the past, trying to see which parts will change, and which parts will be able to stay with me.

The Night

...and so, with the end of June comes the end of my tenure at URA.

It has been fun, after all. At the end of it, looking back over seven weeks of internship, I have to admit that it has been more helpful and more useful than I had originally expected. Like I said before, it has been fun, and it has been enriching, and beyond that, there is not a whole lot more that I can rightly ask of them. These people, I feel, will be good to work with, and that will make the work we do acceptably engaging. Thankfully, therefore, over the last seven weeks, I have come to feel that I can honestly say that the choice that I have made has been the right one. And, for the moment, that is enough.

Taking the bus down Robinson Road towards City Hall, I usually sit on the right side of the bus so that I can look at the traffic and the skyscrapers that front Shenton Way to the South. And yesterday, with the experience of seven weeks of URA behind me, suddenly I felt once again the kind of fascination and anticipation that I had felt so keenly two years ago, when I was fond of gazing at the skyline from the now-demolished outdoor theatre at the Esplanade. The buildings that we throw up into the sky, the mighty flanks and gleaming surfaces, are audacity itself; and somehow, they seem stretched and taut, filled with the tension of bridging the earth and the sky, of traversing the past and the future. Suddenly, it was once again clear that this place was full of potential, and that we stand upon the very brink of realising it. It is exhilarating, and it is invigorating.

And, in that moment, it became clear once again that this is the place that I will need to be, and that, seeing all this, you cannot rightly say no to it.

*

Yesterday evening, went to watch Michaelangelo Antonioni's The Night at the Museum. It is a breathtaking film, sumptuous in its sensations, profound in its connotations. There is a fantastic scene in the first part of the film, when the wife gets bored or exasperated of her writer husband's book-signing function, and decides to wander around Milan to pass the time. There are shots of her strolling along a street, tiny against the massive modern blocks of new Milan; there are moments when she pauses to stare at this or the other interesting denizen, only to hurry away when the subject of her study suddenly, sharply, stares back. She wanders into abandoned buildings huddled at the feet of crisp new blocks, touches the worn surfaces, feeling the plaster and the paint crumbling under her fingers. She encounters a child crying in a decrepit courtyard, a couple of men guffawing in midstride (which brings an irrepressible smile to her face), a man beating up another in a deserted field, another group of boys firing rockets into the afternoon air - in short, all the random and wonderful encounters that cities can offer one if one approaches them without any preconceptions.

And yet, while there is certainly wonderment, there is also a feeling of isolation, of being an outsider looking inwards surreptitiously. The couple observes the world around them while standing apart. The strangers on the street do not talk to them, except for the most mundane of transactional conversations. They can hardly talk to each other; they constantly ask each other to clarify what each is saying, and the other mostly replies noncommitally, either unable to find the correct words to express themselves, or unable to find the conviction to express themselves truthfully to the other in the first place.

But the ironic tension comes from their awareness of their own need to connect with the other, with someone else. They possess an acute self-consciousness of that need; and that self-consciousness prevents them from being satisfied with the quotidian sundry interactions that other people are content to use to satisfy that need. One gets the impression that they feel somewhat fraudulent when they resort to such a thing as small-talk in their search for a connection; and, being deprived of the ability to commit themselves completely to the comfort that lies in superficiality, they end up focusing on their aching isolation from each other. And so we have these two people, suffering from a surfeit of reflectiveness, trying and trying to find a way to shock themselves and each other into feeling some kind of genuine, unalloyed emotion, going so far as to skirt the borders of infidelity, and then finding themselves drawn to the other again, through forces that are both within and outside their will.

There is another good scene, when the wife speaks candidly to a younger girl who has become the husband's new romantic interest. She said something along the lines of how she had wanted to die that night, to fade into nonexistence. I don't quite remember the exact meaning of the lines, but I have the impression that she is saying that it would be better to not exist at all than to be forced to endure the lingering anguish of not feeling anything genuine. And she can't even bring herself to condemn the husband or the girl for their would-be tryst, because she can see so clearly where they are coming from, and cannot find anything culpable in what she sees as a natural impulse. And in a masterful move, the scene ends with the husband and the wife both kissing the girl goodbye, in one fell swoop throwing the film out of the orbit of the conventional.

I do find it hard to describe the film or its plot, because it is dense with meanings, and I am not sure which one is the most important one, and which can be discarded as less significant. But I will say this much: it is a film of sensations and of impressions. This is something that Antonioni is able to do masterfully; he is able to transmit meanings not so much through symbols and words and characters, but through the patterns that he creates between the symbols, words and characters. And in these patterns I find a messge that is compelling to me; in these patterns lie signposts that seem to point to a self-evident truth of living in full awareness of the world around you.

Temporal Telepathy

Once this is imported to Facebook, this will become the 100th note. The discrepancy between the number of posts here and the number of notes there is explained by several Facebook-exclusive posts, mostly consisting of multimedia tidbits for amusement and entertainment that I had been too lazy to work into actual posts. But the actual 100th journal entry is also eminently imminent; at this rate, it should come within the next two weeks. And so, this is what eight months of posting here can produce.

Online, you can post many more things, and there are more options for how you can record time and experience. There are the photos and Youtube, and the many, many ways that one can conjugate these with words. But still, it has been a really long time since I opened a paper journal with a pencil in my hand, and occasionally I do miss the intimacy between the page and my person. Certainly, there are certain things that I can't say here, certain ways of saying things that I can't use.

It's about the audience, I guess. One always writes to be read, even when one is writing in a private book. And when I write on paper, the intended audience is my future self. And because of that, I feel like I can get away with more frank, more incisive writing in there than here. One can never know what a reader will take away from the text, what meanings that he can extract from it. But when it comes to my future self, I like to think that I more completely understand his motivations and his mindset. And so, if writing here is like storytelling, then writing in actual journals is like telepathy across the barriers of time.

*

Met up with some more returnees yesterday over dinner at Tapas Tree at Clarke Quay. As usual, the food was good, and the company was wholesome. The conversation was a tad clumsy; I guess it's because some of us who are on the brink of departure were trying too hard to seem savvy, as if we had already been abroad for months.

And it was also not long before I noticed that everyone around that table was getting or can expect to get an overseas education. Every one around that table was departing after summer. This is rather rarefied company that I find myself in nowadays; whether or not that is for better or worse remains to be seen. But then again, having a bunch of friend who can go overseas to study is not a bad thing in and of itself, as long as one can keep one's sense of perspective amidst such plainly overachieving peers. Firstly, one must not begrudge others their happiness. Whether or not they may have deserved the chance in one's eyes, the fact is that they have the chance, and they should be held accountable not for the circumstances that placed them in this happy position, but for what they do with this opportunity from here on in. Envy and bitterness are poisonous - they ruin one's days; worse, they ruin the days of others who should not be blamed in this way.

And secondly - and more importantly, I think - one must not approach this opportunity as if it were an entitlement. Therein lies the seed of conceit. And anyway, it is so much more enjoyable to apporach it with a vague sense of incredulousness and amazement; it adds a certain edge to each day, doesn't it?

Anyway, on the way to the train station and home, one of my friends was talking about her first encounter with New York last winter. She said she didn't really fancy it, that it was much grimier in real life, and demoralisingly cold. But then, she said that New York has a tendency to amplify whatever you happen to be feeling at the moment. It's an intriguing though; maybe that's why people find the city so compelling, since it is a catalyst for their own psyches. It's also one of those revelations that fit in so well with one's mental image of a thing that one wonder why one did not think of it sooner.

*

Good news: the visa has been approved. Will be going down to collect it on Monday.

This morning, turned up at the Embassy just before eight to find the queue already about 30 people long. Apparently, everyone had the idea that applying for the earliest slot would result in the shortest waiting time. Fallacy of aggregation: go figure. Anyway, was looking rather dubiously at the queue (especially since their fiddling with their appointment confirmation letters had reminded me that I had neglected to print out my own), when suddenly a girl in the corner waved to me.

I thought it was a case of mistaken identity, but it turns out that she's from my senior class (which goes to show how close I was to the senior class), and she's on her way to Minnesota to be attached to a medical clinic there. So, we rather easily started to chat about our courses and plans for the next year, and to commiserate on the ridiculously laborious process of applying for a US visa. It rather nicely filled up the vacant moments in the process, the momets that lurk between clearing the guardhouse, making payment, being fingerprinted and finally being interviewed. The moments that would otherwise have distressingly been used to feed a growing sense of panic at not having brought my interview confirmation letter.

It really does make a difference to go to the Embassy with someone else, especially when it's your first time, and especially as you pass through the guardhouse. After all, they built the place to look like a fortress on purpose. It may have really nice interiors and foliage, but the meaning of the crenellations running along the front is unmistakeable. That being said, though, once you're inside, the staff are rather courteous and helpful, pointing out what you may have done wrong in the application process, and doing everything they can to help you to set things right. It may have been the early hour, and the fact that the consular staff had not yet had time to become cranky and jaded, but I didn't see any of the much-vaunted American rudeness today, a fact for which I am grateful.

On the way out of the Embassy, ran into an old acquaintance from the RJGE days. Turns out this chap is on his way to Yale. Spent a few moments trading congratulations and encouragements, and I couldn't help feeling deeply satisfied that it was finally our turn to get this bit of paperwork done. It has been a moment two years in the making.

And after that, hurried back to work to attend this years' URA Scholarship ceremony. Managed to catch up with some of the colleagues and the interns, and to have a gander at the new batch of scholars. There were substantially more this year; almost twice as many as two years ago, I think. Certainly, the number of undergraduate scholarships has positively exploded. There was a guy who had a crew cut and had not yet found a university; I could not help but smile wryly at this latter-day manifestation of the situation I was in two years ago. And maybe it was because of the lack of a performance by the scholars, and maybe it also has to do with a certain measure of protectiveness of the organisation (what Lewis calls "corporate pride"), but I noticed that the scholars didn't seem so hyped up about the scholarship. A few looked none too pleased to be in this position. I hope it's just me; it seems inconceivable to me, how anyone can be dissatisfied with a scholarship; or rather, it seems inconceivable that someone who is dissatisfied with it can still allow himself to accept it.

There must come a point, I guess, when one accepts the circumstances that one is presented with. And that acceptance in turn enables constructive action. So, rather than exhausting your energies trying to change a situation that has gone out of your control, you instead devote them to the more productive initiative of making something useful and perhaps even pleasant out of what you have on hand. It's a useful trick, one of the surprisingly many tricks that Army taught me.

But anyway, with this paperwork done, the next step is to confirm accommodation with Columbia, receive the admission packet from the College and CUE, and finally, finally start thinking of planning to pack. I do apologise if my repetitive harping on the process building up to departure bores or distresses you; but I feel a need to savour this time as much as possible. I find myself standing on the edge of experience, and one is only innocent (or, to be more exact, ignorant) once. It is something to be enjoyed, especially when you can so clearly anticipate the dissolution of said ignorance.

Last Exile

Borrowed Last Exile from an old classmate again over the weekend, and have been rewatching the series, one episode every night. I don't watch much anime, honestly, and I can't say that I am an authority on the subject; however, this particular anime has proven to be far more enjoyable than I could have predicted.

The graphics are lovingly, delicately rendered; the hand-drawn bits reveal the mastery of the legendary anime studio Gonzo (CGI, though, is clumsily done, more so than you would expect from a Japanese studio). The series is pretty short as well, so I guess you could call this a "boutique" anime series - a collector's item. It's somewhat sci-fi, being set in a fictional past, a Victorian era which recalls the nobility and daring of a naval culture - except that all the action is relocated into the sky.

And that's the real clincher, I think: the wholesale relocation of the nostalgia and romance of naval tradition into the surprising context of aeronautics, a context that turns out to be more appropriate than one would first think to receive the said notions. There is a striking elegance in the great floating warships, the coat-tail-sporting and cloak-wearing crew that mans them, the sturdy and delicate architecture of the machinery of that era. There is also an uncanny innocence and guilelessness in how the characters live among such wonders as if it were the most natural thing in the world for them. And for them, all this really is taken for granted, and they would see our own ground-bound civilisation as quaint and disconcerting. It emphasises eloquently how adaptable people's perceptions are; it hints at the extent to which we can get used to anything.

And it sets things up nicely so that the arresting contrasts serve to outline the similarities even more starkly. The inversion of the familiar, the alienation of asumptions we take for granted in the physical, gravitationally-grounded world, the total removal of the very ground we daily take to symbolise solidity in our lives, all serve to highlight what does not change: the belief in higher ideals, nobility confounded in the face of an unfair world, and the source of happiness that lies in simplicity. The two main characters are deeply endearing to me, because they are so unassuming; and, being so unassuming, they ironically embody what I assume pure unadulterated goodness must manifest itself as in the real world.

So, if you have time, try to find this series and give it a gander. I daresay you will not regret it.

*

For lunch today, went out with URA colleagues to this great Korean restaurant in Chinatown (because my mentor is partial towards Korean food, and he was treating, along with other recently promoted personnel). It was a place where you had to take off your shoes and sit on a raised platform around a table. And to see said table laden with everything from small dishes of kimchi, shredded potato, beansprouts, long beans and kangkong, to large bowls of stew, bulgogi and the smoothest, tenderest chicken soup I've ever come across - to see all this was a happy sight.

Over lunch, through talking to them, I really got the sense that I had made, if not the right choice, then at least a choice I could eminently live with, in signing the bond. I realise that saying this may sound condescending to them, but I can't think of a plainer way to state the truth: these are honest people. Solid people. People with whom working would be a privilege, I feel. And indeed, people with whom I could not only work with, but also live with. Is it too presumptious, too premature to assert that I have found a way into a community by taking up this job? But from what I have been able to see, even if the job turns out to be crap in a few years' time, at least the people that I will get to meet and work with will make it worthwhile.

Oh, and the Royce' chocolates went down well, too! They deserve to be warmly recommended.

One of my colleagues handed me a present today as a send-off. It turned out to be an elegantly bound book, with, coincidentally, blank pages - the kind that is good for both sketching and writing. "Life is compared to a voyage," it says on the cover. "Promise yourself to be strong, that nothing can disturb your peace of mind. Look at the sunny side of everything, and make your optimism come true. Think only of the best, work only for the best, and expect only the best. Forget the mistakes of the past and press on the greater achievements of the future." As you can probably tell, it's a Japanese product, but I do appreciate the thought very much!

On the cover and the back is a sketch of Shakespeare and Co, the hallowed Parisian bookstore (Googling the shop reveals that there is an unaffiliated establishment of the same name in New York - but I guess that shouldn't come as such a surprise), and on every page are two quotes in French. Sometimes, how things work out is so uncanny - and, if one is lucky, the uncanniness is poetic rather than frightening.

*

Will be meeting more people who've returned tomorrow for dinner, one from London and the other from Detroit (or, to be more exact, Ann Arbor). Also, yet more people are due to come back this week, and I certainly look forward to that! However, I've also noticed that the desire to meet up again is not as urgent as last year. It is an unexpected development; I had not expected my perspective on these returns to change, even if the change is only so subtle. Joel had remarked about a similar feeling, and he had said that it was due to this summer being largely a repetition of the rituals of last summer. As the theory goes, we had gotten our fix of returns last year, so this year doesn't have the novelty factor anymore. But I think, on my part, it has more to do with the promise of my own departure in August. It has changed my perspective, I think, so that the promise of the future somewhat eclipses the promise of the present opportunities. It has made me more reckless with my various friendships and acquaintances than I would otherwise be, I reckon. It is a disturbing realisation; things should not be allowed to continue like this.

Looking forward, I wonder how my perspectives will change again. I mean, in the face of a new place, you have no references which you can use to judge what is important and what is not, and so you are forced, at least in your first few days, to take in everything that comes at you. It tends to be overwhelming. And I daresay my sense of perspective will not prove impervious to such an immersive disruption. In the face of new things, people change, and this much is inevitable. But I hope that at least I can control the change, or, barring that, that I can at least be aware of the change as it happens. I hope my sense of perspective has matured enough over the years to at least permit me that. But it would absolutely be presumptious to assume that this is necessarily true. It may even be self-destructive, serving to cut off a vital segment of experience. You are, after all, only an undergraduate once, and the experience is to be absorbed to the fullest. The only thing is to somehow find a way to do that without getting lost in the midst of it. Whether by holding on to morals, principles and that lot, or by committing philosophically to the vagaries of living completely in the moment - somewhere between the two lies the balance that I am looking for.

Gleam

The world is indeed a beautiful place.

If I time it right and leave the office just as the white light is starting to yellow, I can reach City Hall on foot just in time for the goldbursts. And what goldbursts they have been lately! Every day, knocking off work is not just a relief from a day of toil; but you also look forward to it to see what the sky will offer. And when I see such a riot of colours, I feel as if the world itself were in equilibrium, and that I am where I need to be. There is harmony between what the world can give and what I want to find in it.

*

Yesterday, got invited to an old friend's place for a de facto birthday party. We were treated to pot after pot of top-grade Chinese tea, supplemented at mealtimes with homemade potluck offerings (yes, that means I did cook; I can theoretically do stir fried noodles now, and thankfully it was well received, but I wouldn't push my luck too far) that ranged from devilled eggs with surprise fillings to a casserole of vegetables, portions of potato salad and, for dessert, watermelon-coloured agar-agar and a superb blueberry cheesecake. And on top of that, the gathering alternated between lazy conversation around the teapots and our host's rather eclectic taste in movies.

The urgency of finality manifested itself interestingly in this case. We were languid from tea, food and film, and certainly there wasn't the kind of impatience that you get from standing on the brink of tomorrow. It was a slow, well-spent Sunday. But the awareness that we may not get to do this again for years added a certain sharpness to the experience, so that every sensation was more acutely felt. One moves beyond gorging oneself on the present to savouring the moment.

He had told us to leave off bringing gifts, because he would feel uncomfortable receiving them, so in an ironic twist, I came away with a belated but beautifully crafted box instead, with the Arabic and Chinese characters for "book" intertwined together in an exquisite dance of meaning. I count it as the most beautiful homemade gift I've ever had the pleasure of receiving. It shall take centrestage in my new accommodations come August.

*

Today at work, spent the time filling up more forms, so that now I'm more or less poised to go for the Embassy interview, which I've scheduled on Thursday early in the morning. It is therapeutic to fill in forms, I find. There is a simple satisfaction in seeing the fields filling up with raw data - data that is straightforward, that can be found, gathered and presented clearly. I imagine harvesting an orchard has a similar sort of pleasure, although the intensity is doubtlessly different, as the pleasure is alloyed with so many other sensations in the field. Well - at least it is fulfilling, until I accidentally close the form and erase a day's work at one go.

Anyway, had to do an audit of all the countries I've ever visited in the past ten years to fill in one of the forms. It presents an interesting picture: I have been to Malaysia 13 times in the past 10 years, and at least once every other year. The next runner-up is Hong Kong, with three times in the past 10 years. In all I've gone abroad 22 times in the past 10 years (not counting the overseas exercises in Army), but I really haven't been to that many different places. It seems that I return more regularly to previously visited places more often than I had thought; I seem to place more emphasis on understanding a place deeply, than experiencing as many places as possible. What does that say about what I look for in travel? Maybe I'll think about it more one day.

*

Popped down to Suntec after work to buy some Royce' chocs. Heard that they were good, and my URA colleagues will be having a get-together lunch tomorrow, which makes it a good time to say thank-you for their help and immersion during this internship. It has been productive and enjoyable. It has also been insightful. I cannot rightly ask for more, I think. Anyway, so there I was, in the Royce' shop, looking at these innocuous boxes of chocolates. They did not look as flashy and high-class as Godiva or Leonidas chocs, and for less than $15 a box, they certainly don't seem so highbrow.

But once I tried the samples, the impression changed entirely. The creaminess and sweetness of the chocolates defy description. The Japanese makers of these fine sweets have really done themselves proud with these creations. And to top it all off, the service was warm and helpful, and you walk away from the counter with your boxes of chocs packed in an insulated bag with dry ice packs, and feeling as if you had cheated them. Suffice to say that I can't wait to unveil them over lunch tomorrow, if only so I can sink my teeth into another morsel of those chocs again!

*

A thought occurred to me as I was walking from my medical checkup at DBS Tower 2 to another clinic for a chest X-ray (it's standard procedure for scholars, apparently, to ensure that you are a sound investment and not defective in any way). Had been reading some guides put out by the USEIC on US culture, which had gone on at length about how Americans value individuality. Indivi-duality. There is irony there. A better poet would make more of it. But as I no longer have the discipline or patience to write poetry, maybe I'll take it up in a story one day.

*

And as always, August moves closer by the day. Parents are now trying to find a flight to join me in New York on the 25th, at the end of CUE and as the normal orientation starts. I am waiting for my appointment at the US Embassy on Thursday; finally, after years of passing it on the bus, I will actually have cause to step inside it. It is an exhilarating time, this; every day is suffused with anticipation. And it feels as if nothing can dampen this feeling, because from my perspective, anything that can conceivably happen in between now and August will pale in comparison with what August promises. I feel as if nothing can prevent me from enjoying this, the run-up to my own departure.

The First Departure

For the first time in two and a half years, I have completed a piece of expository writing.

It's a research paper done for the URA on the state of Singapore agriculture. Spent a good four weeks on it, from the initial project brief and research, to the bibliography compilation and proofreading. It felt good to be writing in that particular vernacular again: the precise use of language, the subtle but incisive turn of a phrase, the construction of arguments that are logically intact and also incorporate a certain degree of elegance. Reading some theses and papers for research, it felt like a sort of homecoming - a return to familiar ground.

In the end, the paper ballooned to far too many pages, and I found myself with the happy problem of cutting down the length to something that's readable. After all, this is not an academic but a practical context, and there are certain nuances that can be overlooked without compromising the usefulness of the information too substantially. Moreover, there is more of a chance for this paper to be implemented in real life, I think, than anything I may produce as part of my course. It creates a sense of empowerment that demands a matching level of quality of thought and expression.

After the complete compilation of the paper, took off from the office in preparation for dinner. Since I had about an hour to burn, I decided to take a walk through Ann Siang Hill Park, an interesting little back alleyway that I've seen before but never had the time to investigate. And I found streetscapes and scenery that took my breath away. Shophouses beautifully preserved, set amidst ludicrously lush greenery, with a liberal dose of that crucial shade of sunset gold. There is a certain bend in the path as it winds behind rows of shophouses that suddenly, stunningly frames Shenton Way (and principally the massive blue-glass facade of Capital Tower) with mature trees, plaster shophouse walls and a stunningly clear blue sky. Many photos were taken; the scenes were so captivating that they deserve to be made into a video. Which will happen someday, when I once again have time on my hands.

After a delightful walk, then, met up with an old colleague from CHS for dinner and then a slow round of drinks. Met this fellow on an alley wall next to the French bar that the URA folks brought me to last week. It was stunning to see such high-quality wall art in the central business district. I wonder which enforcement authority wisely and tastefully left this one alone. Anyway, we were talking of travelling, photography and writing. I have to say, it is very rare to meet someone who at least seems to be looking for the same things as I do when I travel. I mean, most of the time, it seems, people travel just to change the scenery; it takes a certain kind of boldness and sheer stupidity to really participate in the experience of a place, so that you are not just absorbing your surroundings but also actively shaping them or influencing them in some way.

Spent a good few hours indulging in that wanderlust, comparing notes and philosophies, and discussing what the wider world may have in store for us, what we can get as compared to what we can take. And it seems that sometimes, you can just take what you get, and it's enough. But when that isn't enough, you should still have the reserves of strength and ingenuity to make what you need out of the circumstances at hand.

*

More things have been moving on the university front. Flight's been confirmed, which gives me a concrete deadline to get everything done. As of now, I still need a correctly printed form to get a visa, and I have to get a medical checkup done. Housing allocations should also come out soon. And after all that is done, then basically all the major components needed for matriculation will have been taken care of. Yes, things are really moving forward in earnest now! Less than two months till August!

In some ways, I think, my departure is already in progress. My men from 6SIR will be reaching their ORD soon, and I am due to go back to attend their parade, after which I will most probably not encounter them for 4 years, although I sincerely hope I can end up in the same reservist unit as them. And as for the people on the brink of a new school term - well, they will also be moving on without me. These have been good, enjoyable runs that I will continue to carry with me for as long as I can foresee; but things move on. People move on. Pretty soon it will only be a matter of nostalgia. Some things don't change; I sincerely hope that some things won't change, because what we had back then was good, was solid. But most things will. So even while I hold the former hope, I must expect the latter. It is the rational conclusion.

*

And so, the first departure of the season has happened. A friend has left to return to her studies. For her, summer at home was short; but at least we still managed to catch up, before she was obliged to fly off once again. And anyway, no matter how painful or reluctantly received a departure of a friend is, I cannot rightly begrudge them their leaving. All this is as it should be. They are merely acting on the opportunities that they have received, opportunities that are well deserved. How can I rightly fault them for leaving to pursue such a good thing?

Due to a lousy bus connection (in almost five years, I haven't had to wait half an hour for a bus), I only managed to catch her just before she went into the transit area to explore and enjoy the new Terminal 3. So, there was hardly time to pass on a note, let alone enact the whole final conversation that I had envisioned. But, as it turned out, the final conversation was not necessary, since the meaning that needed to be conveyed was transmitted successfully after all. And if an elaborate way and a succinct way both can achieve the same result, then it is usually more elegant and dignified to choose the succinct way.

The architect of Terminal 3, I think, is a connoisseur of leave-taking. You can see very far in that terminal, and so you can follow the person you are sending off almost all the way to the gate, by standing on one of the two public pedestrian bridges that span the transit area. The Viewing Lounge of Terminal 3 is not meant for the viewing of airplanes, but of people; for the former, go to Terminal 1. There was this young family standing at one of the bridges looking down at the father, who was off on a business trip. The mother was on the phone with him, and the children were waving down, repeating "Bye bye daddy". Finally, the mother said that he would not be able to hear them - at which point, brother and sister combined forces to yell their salutation. It was a sweet moment. I can imagine the father being touched and mortified at the same time, but I doubt he would have had it otherwise.

And at the same time, this first departure of the season touched me deeply, because this time round, I can look forward to my own imminent departure as well. Under the flight to "London-Heath" flashed the information for SQ26, bound for "New York-JFK". Unfortunately, SQ26 was fully booked when I enquired, so I will not be flying SQ. Will not even be departing from Terminal 3. But, as I said earlier, and as I will doubtlessly be repeating ad nauseum from now on, the time is coming soon when I will be looking at another flight board that flashes "New York-JFK", and will realise, with a deep swooping feeling, that it refers to me.

Summertalk

It is not very often that you get a completely blue sky around these parts. Water reflects the sky; so maybe, to some extent, through some geological process, the sky reflects the land as well. In other countries, where the land is wide and open, the sky seems also to be vast, clear and pure. In Singapore, where everywhere you turn these days you seem to find congestion and crowd, the sky is also stuffed with the various cumuli and nimbi. So when the sky is clear, and the light is sharp as crystal, it is a moment to marvel at.

I was out the Sunday afternoon I took this picture, having gone into town for a Father's Day lunch, and then popped down to Orchard quickly to have a gander at Somethingood 2008. It has always struck me as amazing, how the Somethingood that we had started back in 2004 had persisted beyond our time. There was a Somethingood in '06, organised by one of the original committee members. Then Somethingood '07 came along, organised by a junior. And now, with this year's incarnation, it really seems as if Somethingood has outgrown the original team; it has gotten a measure of independent life.

This is, of course, gratifying, to have been part of something that has grown up by itself, despite all the difficulties that we initially faced. Nowadays, I daresay Somethingood has a bit of a brand name; an examination of their site reveals an impressive array of sponsors (including Harry's Bar!) and even an "Official Media" slot. But I am still partial to the original Somethingood, that was done with almost no outside support, and which we had to fight for almost every step of the way. Apparently, nothing speaks quite as loudly as a precendent, and for all that Somethingood has become (and some parts have really changed beyond recognition, and - dare I say it? - perhaps go contrary to the original spirit of the event), it is gratifying and humbling to think that it all depended on what we did four years ago.

*

Was doing my blogrounds just now, and realised how some of the posts written by my old students sound so sure of themselves. It is a certainty that is born of mastery of the material they have at their disposal, I guess. But it is important to realise that the material they have at their disposal right now is very restricted. Hell, the material I have at my disposal now is not nearly as wide as it could (should?) be. And once you realise that there may be other perspectives and evidence out there that you are simply not aware of, it becomes easier - indeed, necessary - to be more charitable and accommodating in one's opinions. An answer is only "definitive" from a set viewpoint. Change that viewpoint and you see the holes in the argument.

If the original resilience was still around, I'd probably be totally blown away by how much their writing style resembles my old jottings. And it does seem to be a trend that those with stronger linguistic capabilities tend to prescribe more than they describe; they try harder to establish arbitary patterns between their experiences, rather than just to record those experiences. But now that the original journal has been lost to the anonymous binary world of corrupt data, I find that what I miss most are the descriptions of life back then, rather than my analyses of the descriptions. For the patterns that you discerned in the past, the patterns that seemed so definitive, turn out to seem superfluous and shallow today. What you find yourself needing, then, are the facts, rather than the intellectual embellishments that you had constructed around them.

*

So, anyway. I want to record down the rest of the weekend, before more things happen and I run out of time to do so. On Sunday night, went out for dinner with an old friend. One of my oldest, most cherished friends, who had returned from sunny California for a month's vacation at home. Had a long, long conversation in a quaint stew restaurant in Siglap. It was deeply absorbing, and not least because it had been far too long since we had had the opportunity to talk face-to-face. After a while, I noticed that I was no longer paying attention to what was happening around us; but that was quickly followed by a feeling of delight, that I could be a part of such an engaging conversation that I did not are what was happening beyond our table.

From our little table, then, and through the steam of the bowls of stew and soup in between us, we surveyed the time that had elapsed since our last meeting, and tried to discern how things have worked out to this point. We live in a web of circumstances, and for all the choices we can make, there are many other factors that are outside our capabilities to affect. And how is one to tell whether a choice is decisive, except from hindsight? We look to the past, to try to understand it, in the hopes that such wisdom will give us a rubric with which we can read the patterns that have carried us through the past, to the present, and will continue to carry us into the future. We try to find some hints to make better decisions. But which decisions are more important than others? In the face of this ignorance, we can either treat every decision as critical, or treat every decision as inconsequential. Are these two approaches all that different? After all, maybe the important philosophical decision is to adopt and uphold a common standard to approach life.

Anyway, things work out as they will. I found myself being called upon to listen, and to offer what support I can. The fact of our friendship necessitated that I did as much; the duration of our friendship opened up many more ways for this to be accomplished. So I found myself sharing experiences and viewpoints that I would not consider divulging to other people at all; that I had not even considered divulging to another living soul, until the clear and present need for it appeared over dinner on Sunday. But after all, this is the least I could do. This is what trust entails. And it makes even the opportunity to place oneself at the whims of another seem like a privilege.

Some things change, then - but some things can stay the same, and indeed should stay the same. I have said it before, and I will say it again: I have had extremely good luck when it comes to my friends. And these relationships...for these to change, to degrade...it is unthinkable.

*

I am also happy to report that I have been able to narrow down my departure dates! I discovered on Monday morning that I had been accepted into the Columbia Urban Experience. By day, participants volunteer at various NGOs in the city, and by night, they step out onto the streets to enjoy all that New York has to offer. It is a chance to get to know the place and the people - and especially the people. It gives me, a stranger from the other side of the world, a head start before university orientation begins. Hopefully it will give me a chance to set down some social foundations over there, before real undergraduate life begins in earnest.

Happily, too, participating in CUE allows me to arrive one week earlier in New York! So now, I am definitely going to be there on the 17th of August. Am looking to leave on the 16th, but have been spending quite some time checking flight availability, and have run into quite a big snag. I'm settling for Cathay Pacific; hopefully, when URA books the flight, seats are still available. Nevertheless, this is yet another concrete step towards departure. August approaches in earnest now!

Anyway, have been in touch with CUE coordinators on whether I can arrive even earlier, so that I can get flights. It touches me that the leader of the organising committee took the trouble to respond personally to my query, and promised to ask Housing about giving me one extra night of accommodation. If this is the calibre of personalities that I can expect at Columbia (and from what I have seen over the last two years, there is cause to believe that this is so), then I daresay I will be having a lot of fun over there, starting August 17th!

*

And as I was writing, the I20 form for US visa application arrived in the mail. Time to arrange for that visa interview! Things are heating up!

Moonshine

It's been quite a long time since I last wrote, becuse I find that real life has suddenly gotten a lot more interesting. Now don't get me wrong - it wasn't boring before this. But the thing is that things have happened so fast over the weekend that it's been back-to-back for the most part, and that has overridden the need to record it all down, until now. Monday evening, in the wake of an awesome weekend. The kind of weekend that comes together by itself, then springs itself on you fully formed, so all you have to contribute to it is your enjoyment.

The least awesome thing, I find, is that I've gotten a new computer. It's a really nice piece of bling, and I'm really more than happy with my new machine. In fact, I've been looking forward to coming home all day long so that I can use it to write this entry! It's an Acer machine, one of the new Gemstone Blue models. It has a sixteen-inch screen (widescreen, so when you watch movies the picture fills up the whole screen) and an excellent sound system (2.1 speakers - yep, this baby has a built-in subwoofer). It has a cool touch panel by the side that controls the media outputs. It can connect wirelessly to the Internet, and it comes with enough ports that I can connect with every peripheral I own and still have some slots left over. And when I do connect everything I own, the processor's powerful enough to run everythin simultaneously at a speed that's faster than my old desktop compuer (just goes to show the age of my home computer systems, eh?). And to top it all off, it is sleek and glows in all th right places. It's a really pretty machine! I think I will have many years of productive work and play with this baby.

Also quite proud of the price I managed to get for the whole package. At $2000, it's the most expensive discretionary purchase that I've ever made. But it's already discounted by $400 (due to the PC Show), and it came with Microsoft Office thrown in. Instead of braving the crowds to buy this machine, though, I popped down to the Challenger outlet opposite my house, and picked it up there instead. The salesperson was really helpful and knowledgeable, and went out of his way (at least by Singaporean standards) to make sure that I knew all I could about the machine before I made up my mind. And for choosing to buy it from their store, they threw in Chinese Star 2006 and a mouse for free. The latter comes in useful, and the former - well, I'm not expecting to write in Chinese for four years, but since it's free, I'll just take it!

So this happened on Saturday afternoon. But like I said, this as the least remarkable thing to happen this weekend; it was a pleasant thing to buy this laptop, but after all, this was something pre-planned, and at the heart of it it's an administrative purchase in preparation for August. The unexpected thingsthat happened over the weekend are the things that, in my estimation, really mattered, both in how they were surprisingly fulfilling, and how they fit together with one another and with the wider pattern that has run through 2008 so far.

*

On Friday night, my mentor took me out for drinks with the folks from URA. This really shows the nature of work at URA, I think: the people are eminently pleasant and warm-hearted, but the work they do is really stressful, and they have too much of it, so when Friday comes around, all stops are off, and they take advantage of URA's strategic location next to Ann Siang Hill to hit the bars there. In this line of work, as in many things in life, you take your enjoyment when you can get it, and for URA, part of that comes from being at the centre of the gourmet's paradise made up of Maxwell Food Centre, the newly reopened Chinatown Point food centre, Amoy Street and Ann Siang Hill.

We went to a French outfit, a really classy place stuffed with spindly café chairs and squashy cushioned armchairs and sofas. The whole place was wood-panelled, with a handsome bar and a small, intimate liquor wall. It's a place that I wouldn't normally go to, especially on my shoestring budget now, but it is a really chic place that I enjoyed quite a lot, mainly because I didn't need to worry about the tab. But I did start to think that maybe I shouldn't take advantage of my mentor's hospitality so much - especially when, after a while, it seemed as if all the planners in URA were in the bar, clustered on stools, chairs and sofas around one tiny coffee table, each with a champagne flute, and the bubbly flowing as easily as the (French? Maybe from one of the old colonies...) waitress as she made sure no one's cup ran dry.

Everyone was either commiserating with me or congratulating me for signing the bond (and not necessarily in that particular order, too). Heh, perhaps that reaction was borne out of equal parts pity and jealously, because they all know what's in store for me when I come back to work in 2012, and more than a few of them also know what's in store for me when I go in August. They kept pointing out the age gap between me and them, and it is a tad disconcerting to hear twentysomethings pining for their "younger days". But I guess it really is unavoidable, this yearning for times that have passed. It's happened to me before, after all, only that I've so far had the very good fortune of having something to look forward to before long, which thus saves me from perpetual nostalgia. It certainly shows the awesomeness of what is to come, and also underscores its preciousness. The time we have is so limited, and what we have to do in the face of this is to spend it as wisely as possible. There is a special kind of pain associated with wasting time, and I fully intend not to fall into that trap in the next few years.

We were joined by two non-URA folks, too. One of them was a former scholar who broke his bond with URA to go work for an investment bank. I found the short conversation I had with him quite reassuring, actually, contrary to what one would normally expect. He said that he left URA because the money was better at the bank, which I took to mean that there was nothing inherently wrong with the job at URA, and that it was just a matter of pay. As such, it was, I guess, nothing personal. It means that there is nothing to dread in the job itself. That is the crux, I feel. Now that I've signed the bond, I really don't want to be forced to second-guess myself. I don't want to start dreading my eventual return. I want to look forward to it, just as I am able to look forward to August now. And if the most convincing reason to leave is just about the money, then I think I can handle that temptation.

The other dude was the husband of one of my colleagues, and apparently, he's studied Sociology before. Said that it would be really fun, but to beware of the academic nomenclature and the temptation to cloister oneself in an ivory tower built out of instrutable theory. And I quite agree - the whole point of sociology is to explain real people and real societies and how they behave, and it would be totally pointless to attempt to learn real sociology purely out of books. To get oneself entangled in the intricate linkages and relationships of real societies, to get down into the thick of things and not only observe, but participate - that is what I am anticipating with bated breath.

*

On Saturday evening, went out with Dad to Timbre2, the branch of the original Timbre, that's housed in the old governor's residence behind Victoria Concert Hall and right next to the white Stamford Raffles statue. There was a blues festival going on, and decided to get in on a bit of the action for this year's Arts Festival. For $50, we got a New-Orleans-themed buffet spread, a free drink and unlimited access to eight solid hours of blues music.

It really does make a huge difference to listen to the blues live. On audio recordings, you have no choice but to pay attention to the lyrics, which are sometimes uninspired and seem to be just there to fuctionally fill up the silence, and the melody, which can turn disorientingly from despondent to demented at the drop of a hat. When you're watching a live performance, however, you can watch the expressions of the musicians; you can read their postures, their bodies, and suddenly, the music is put into context, and it really means something. Now I think you can't just listen to the blues; the visual element is a vital dimension of the performance.

And how they performed. Bodies writhed around their respective instruments, sweat flowed freely under the floodlights, and - how can I put this? - their faces told the stories that they couldn't fit into their words or their riffs. They made their strings cry, and their keyboards howl, and their harmonicas wail. They weren't only playing a song; this was a performance, as real and as complete as any script-to-stage affair.

And it was good to just be out with my father. Until now, I find that he can still surprise me by demonstrating some ability that I never suspected he would have. If I enjoyed the performance, he would have been totally entranced, because he was enjoying it from an insider's perspective, just as I may enjoy a play from the insider's perspective I got from actually having been on stage. I was enjoying the magnificence of the performance; but he knows the ins and outs of making blues music, and I daresay he was enjoying it at a more detailed, intimate level.

And so the blues sounded out, through the goldburst and that magical moment at seven-oh-seven when twilight truly sets in, a moment that was so beautiful that it had me staring over my shoulder half the time, so I am sure some of the other audience members must have wondered why I paid good money to come to a blues concert so I could stare at the sky. It sounded through dinner, forcing me to stop eating so I could listen properly to the reverberating beats, and so I could look properly at the performers. It sounded all the way till 1am, when the performers came together for that mainstay of blues concerts, the end-of-the-times jamming session, and it was beautiful how the players from different bands and countries could simply come in and speak the same language flawlessly, and yet say totally different things to each other. It was a musical performance with the tightness and deep, precise inflections of poetry.

Partly, also, I think, my appreciation of the night was heightened by the knowledge that it is already the middle of June, and that with my visa documents in the mail and the bond signed, this is really the beginning of the end of the long wait. The things I do on a daily basis nowadays have taken on the tinge of finality, the urgency of non-repeatability. Moments are more precious because each moment could be the last time I am experiencing this for four years. And so, partly because I did not know whe I and my father would get the chance to do something like this again, there was a real desire to make this time count as much as I could.

But no matter what the motive, this was a good night, a worthwhile night. Beyond why I enjoyed it, there lies the fact that I enjoyed it. And sometimes, the ability to appreciate the fact of the matter is enough, and one lets the sleeping reasons lie.

And I haven't even started on Sunday, and what happened ths morning yet! But another time. There is work tomorrow, after all.

Glimpse

There's a proper storm going on outside now. Sky's a dusky red, and the lights of the blocks outside the window are blurred in the cascade. The water hisses and spits against the walls and the ground. There is a crisp, fresh smell in the air. The air is cool. And, when gusts course through the rain and carry it through the window in a fine biting mist, I perk up at the scent, and the feel. It may not be much of a visual or aural spectacle, but red-sky storms simply feel exciting.

Anyway. Just a quick note tonight, before I turn in. Tonight, met up with yet another returning friend, who is special for two reasons. Firstly, she was from the junior batch in HC Humanities. Secondly, she's now my senior at Columbia. She brought along a batchmate to dinner, and over Hainanese food at Purvis Street, we talked shop about Columbia life. Or at least, I basked in the sensation of them talking shop about Columbia life. I did try to ask them on as much as I could think of, but beyond the administrative details on immigration, enrolment and registering for courses, there was something that I did not know how to begin asking.

It concerns what it is like to live in New York and to study in Columbia. Even now, the notion is, to me, a mere fantasy. My ideas regarding it are made up of nothing but speculation, based on second-hand sources and my own hopes of what it should be like. In a sense, I nurture an idealised vision of New York, and I anticipate my arrival there because I want to confirm how right my fantastical notion is.

And, according to what the conversation brought up tonight, there is real reason to believe that the real New York will not disappoint. Of course, there are the predictable low points of undergraduate life: disagreeable hostel mates, forgettable classes, administrative hassles. These should be treated seriously in their own right; but that is not to say that they should be the primary focus of life there. On the other hand, though, they speak of orientation parties in the Met (even though Orientation itself is largely unremarkable), and orientation trips to an Ellis Island that had been booked for their exclusive use (although some of the uses the students put the isle to were less than savoury). I asked them half-jokingly about whether the undergraduate life myth of good friends lying on lush lawns spouting philosophy at the starry sky was true; they readily confirmed at least the "good friends lying on lush lawns" bit.

So, clearly, life in Columbia is not going to be totally hassle-free, or totally agreeable. But that, I think, is one part of what makes life there so attractive to me (at least at this moment). The duality that is present everywhere, the awesome and the awful side by side, that suffuses life in the city with an exquisite sort of tension, between what exists and what it can become - the tension between the present and its potential - that is the central attraction. It may not be a bed of roses, but that's the point: that is what makes the whole endeavour worthwhile.

And I do appreciate very much the opportunity to get some views from current students. Before, reading all the administrative material on Columbia's websites, it seemed as if even matriculating would be devilishly hard, like some intricate and therefore insurmountable task. Being able to speak to people who've actually done it and come out the other side safely and happily does set my worries into their proper perspective. And it also makes August seem much more real, and not only something that is achievable, but something that is really imminent.

One of them said that it is not for her to tell me what to expect; that part of the point is to go there and learn by trial and error. And that sticks with me now, due to the powers of insight that it demonstrates. These people, who've gone through Columbia's education for a year, have come back wise and content. This is not to say that they were not wise and content before; but even so, the possibility of the sustainment of these is something to be thankful for. And they and some other people have mentioned over the last few days that I am uncharacteristically cheerful about being bonded to URA. Well, I really have no reason not to be cheerful, I think. As I said before, one must accept the bond now as one of the circumstances in one's life and work with it, rather than bemoaning it. A condition may be unfair or unjust, but if second-guessing cannot change it productively, then don't second-guess. Work with it. I am glad that I still have the space to be cheerful. But what requires reflection, I think, is not that I am cheerful about it, but that such cheer is uncharacteristic. Why should this be so?

*

Walking back from the station, the rain was just starting to come down, intensifying with breathtaking force. It felt good to be walking in the brisk drizzle: it felt like I was really forging ahead through the circumstances around me towards that long-awaited goal in August. The realisation really started to sink in, that this was really happening, that all the buildup to this August was about to be justified by its culmination in the departure for New York. Finally. Finally.

I Have Been Trying to Write

I have been trying to write an essay to be posted on an online magazine for a bit more than a week now. Was invited by a well-placed friend to contribute, and have been playing with a few topics on and off each evening. It's easy to start writing; it's harder to carry on, because I find myself getting bogged down in abstraction and philosophising. I can feel my writing going beyond the complexities of the topics, to become complicating in its own right, and meaning becomes fuzzier and fluffier, until I can't bear to go on again.

I do think need plays a big part in my ability to write. If I feel strongly enough that I have to express a certain meaning, then the words and the techniques come more smoothly; or, at least, enough words come to make the subsequent editing worthwhile. While traveling, the need comes from having to record down as much of a transient experience as possible. The need also comes from a deadline. And, for a concerted period of four months in 2006, a need to escape my current circumstances propelled the steady filling of two paper journals that eventually gave birth to elsewhere. But nowadays, I am rather too caught up in the minutiae of preparing for August to feel the need to write something really substantial. Writer's block, then, takes this form for me: not a difficulty in finding words, but a difficulty in finding things compelling enough to write about.

Was reading some of my old work over the weekend, together with some of my old students' journals, and it occurs to me that at bottom, it is the idea, the meaning, that must take centre-stage in writing. The techniques one uses, no matter how brilliant, should not be the point of a piece of writing; in this sense, bad writing (bad poetry, especially) is bad to me because it is too showy, with too little substance to justify its use of elaborate techniques. And the author's presence in the writing should not take centre-stage either. Of course, the author's presence cannot be ignored, but he should be more like a guide standing at the side of the reader than an actor standing in front of him. Even in first-person narration, the author's personality should not be as central as the character's personality. This, I think, is the way to get beyond the self-consciousness and self-indulgence of an act of expression; the satisfaction of one's ego is inevitably part of the equation, but the good writer makes it only a minor part that is subordinate to a higher purpose of transmitting a meaning that is worth listening to.

*

Have been reading another C. S. Lewis book, Mere Christianity, over the last week. This one's said to be his best book, and certainly the book has very inspiring moments of true insight. I especially liked the way that Lewis explained the nature of the Holy Trinity. Let me try to recreate the argument. In a one-dimensional world, one can only draw a line. However, in a two-dimensional world, one can use a number of lines to draw a shape, like a square. And in a three-dimensional world, one can use a number of squares to create a solid, like a cube. And this gives an insight into how God can be a trinity and yet still remain one being. It is just a matter of perspective: on a lower dimension, one can only conceive of two-dimensional shapes. But there exists forms in higher dimensions that consist of the shapes conceived in two dimensions, arranged in forms that are inconceivable in two dimensions. The cube retains the characteristics of the square, but through combination, it acquires other, more complex characteristics that are unavailable to a square. Similarly, on a human level, God can be perceived in three forms; but that does not rule out the fact that He exists as one coherent being on some higher level that is inconceivable to us. And so, Lewis effectively accounts for one of the most confusing notions in Christianity with, literally, mathematical elegance.

But in this book, it is easier to poke holes in some of his arguments, I find. He makes an awful lot of fallacies of aggregation, for one, and he constructs a dichotomy between the Christian way and any other way that is at times too stark and, based on his evidence, unjustified (though that doesn't mean it isn't right, just that it isn't well substantiated). And there are some points I don't agree with. For instance, he (rather carelessly, I think) asserts that "it is impossible for Him to show Himself to a man whose whole mind and character are in the wrong condition". Rather than imposing limits on His omnipotence due to the defects of our language, I think Lewis should have said that God shows Himself to everyone fully; it is just that some of us are not as well equipped to perceive him as others. He always shows Himself to us; it's just that some of us can only see less of him, due to imperfections in ourselves.

And he also asserts that Morality is evidence of the existence of some supernatural being, because men know of a morality even if they choose not to obey it. People feel compelled to justify themselves when they lie because they know they should not lie. Immoral people know moral limits especially well because they frequently cross it. And so, Lewis asserts, since moral ideas seem universal, they must come from a higher power. However, I would argue that morality really is just a sociological phenomenon. Some ideas become morals because they prove to be beneficial to society as a whole, and morals adjust themselves over time to suit the circumstances. I believe that, left to itself, society will tend to become moral because morals are inherently defined to be good for society in some way. And while religion (not faith, religion) may provide us with a sort of cheat-code that allows us to fast-forward our moral development rather than wait for the painfully slow process of evolution, it does not provide something that people would not otherwise have in this respect. But it does point us at something that people would not otherwise have: a road to holiness. And that, I think, is the real purpose of faith (not religion, faith), is where faith comes in. Religion helps us to live better lives with the people and the world around us: faith enables us to prepare ourselves in this life to assume the mantle of holiness in the next.

And I am partial to The Four Loves because it really is so much more remarkably incisive. Part of this favourable impression is due, no doubt, to the degree of concordance with my own views that I interpret in this book, and part is also due to the context I was reading it in (in the streets of Georgetown and on the train back from Penang). But still, I think it is the better book because the reasoning is much more intricate and airtight, and while the book is not unimpeachable in its assertions, the effort Lewis put into it, which is evident in the pages to anyone with the ability to read English, is in its own right unimpeachable.

*

It would have happened sooner or later, and it happened on Saturday night. Went out with a couple of my old classmates to watch Sex and the City. My motivation for watching the show were simple: I wanted to scope out the setting for the movie. It was to form part of my preparations in the build-up to August. And certainly, the impression of New York that I got from the movie is nothing but enticing. Beautiful young (and not-so-young) things on beautiful streets, the very sidewalks humming with audacity and attitude.

But that was about it. The movie itself, in terms of its characterisation and plot, was eminently forgettable. This is one of those shows that appeals to a captive audience, namely the fans of the TV serial of the same name. If you liked the TV show, I daresay you'll love the movie to bits. But I fault it for not catering to the other portion of the population that doesn't swoon over cute coats and dinky shoes so much that they don't notice what the characters are saying or doing. If there is nothing in the film for us schmucks, then the advertising should say as much. If not, going to see this show with the sort of expectation you hold for a Harry Potter film, or even for Pirates of the Caribbean, is fatal to the experience.

I know, I know. I shouldn't fault it for being a chick flick. I have to give the movie that much credit: at least it doesn't pretend to be anything it isn't. But to hear a chorus of sighs and moans from the audience at every predictable plot development? And two and a half hours of soap and melodrama for someone who can't even stand to sit through an hour-long episode of a Channel 8 serial is a rather tall order. So let me clarify, before I get crucified by the fans of the movie (at least some of which, for better or worse, I am probably inflicting this entry upon - I apologise for the self-indulgence here): the movie is bad not so much because it is stupid, or shallow, or immoral, but much more because it simply does not click with my tastes.

*

Went out with my colleagues for lunch today, and where should they bring me but to the revamped Chinatown Point Food Centre? Some of you will remember, I trust, that the Temporary Chinatown Point Food Centre next to Outram MRT had become our replacement for Newton Circus, when the latter was gentrified and turned into a tourist attraction. Well, the stalls are now back in the new and improved Chinatown Point Food Centre, and it is simply glorious!

The food centre is squashed into the space between several housing and office blocks, which means that it branches off at surprising places, so that by following a line of stalls, you are led round and round through the whole precinct. It doesn't take long to realise the sheer scale of the food options that are presented to you. And if you liked what you found at the temporary food centre, the permanent food centre will blow you away! And it's only across the road from the other legendary food centre at Maxwell! Heh, I simply have to get the word out to my old buddies and classmates.

*

And before the next segment, let me do some explanation. Over the weekend, I applied for an optional pre-Orientation orientation at Columbia that would allow me to move in early, get to know some people and explore the city one week before the actual start date of term. The programme is competitive, and admits only a select few freshmen, so I had to write five admission-type essays as part of the application process. One of the questions was "If you could be a cartoon character, who would you be and why?"

After I got over the initial cringe factor and decided to be a good sport, I did some research. Clearly, I would have to choose something pre-millennium, because most of the stuff coming out of animation studios nowadays is either CGI (and thus, I think, not really cartoons) or really bad (stupid). And in the course of my Googling, what should I find but this:

Now, tell me that this doesn't bring back memories! If it really doesn't bring back memories, you have my condolences, and I recommend you borrow Darkwing Duck, Batman or Tale Spin from the library or Gramophone. Some of these cartoons had totally slipped my mind, until I saw their opening sequences again (who remembers Gargoyles and Freakazoid? or such evergreen classics as The Tick?): and then the emotions came flooding back. Watching these openings was really cathartic for me, one of the few true catharses of this year.

Things to point out: firstly, notice how the Batman opening uses instruments rather than sound effects to emphasise violent actions. And how speed and motion are used in the Superman opening to bring out the strength and tenderness in the main character. And listen to the lyrics of the theme songs - they're pure gold! And many more besides. Some of these old cartoons were really ingenious in how they could deploy stunning techniques to tell a good story, in the pre-CGI era. And I think, partly because it was pre-CGI, cartoonists were forced to have a good story to tell, because they couldn't cover up poor plots with cool graphics. The latest offerings out of Disney and Nickelodeon, I feel, give too much weight to the techniques to the detriment of the storylines. And as a result of the proliferation and saturation of these new age cartoons, kids these days really don't know what they're missing.

Heh, and as for my answer to the question: I daresay you'll never guess!

Developments

I feel better now.

This morning passed easily enough. Was still busy with my literature review on a project that my mentor is interested in, and in the time between finding a website and collecting the printout , in the time it takes to walk the five or so steps between my workstation to the printer, I would have moments of vertigo as I considered the task before me. Knowing that I was going to make the decision, knowing my choice, does not make the choice any less significant. The only way to swallow the unease is to get it over with.

During the lunch hour, before my appointment to sign the deed, I suddenly felt an urge to walk, as fast and as far as possible. And so, speeding out of the URA Centre, I made my way eastwards towards the river. I actually made it, within fifteen minutes, to Raffles Place, on the way wending through the lunch-hour crowd and the traffic, both struggling past the construction sites and digs scattered throughout the city. Passed quite a few potential spots for lunch, but quickly abandoned them for the crowds and because they were too close to URA's offices. I was, I guess, trying to lose myself in the rush; or, more exactly, I had somewhere to get to fast, and I was walking urgently so I could find out where I was actually headed. But the surprising thing was, just by randomly walking through town, I bumped into an old Army comrade and an old classmate. How odd that, at this moment, such meetings would suddenly transpire. That old acquaintances would surface from amidst the patterns of flowing faces.

*

After the signing (there was no real formality, just a brief explanation of the terms, and pens flashing over paper), I got the opportunity to crash UPOP, an orientation programme for new URA colleagues to introduce them to URA's work and each other. Though I was not supposed to actually attend (I had asked previously, but they had not previously granted permission), I got in today because they were going for a "site visit", which I think is a rather unfortunately dour euphemism for "field trip".

When I first joined the group of them, there were a few disturbing moments of pre-Frexprog detachment and queasiness. It's like you're on the outside looking in, wanting to join in, but finding that you're unable to bring yourself to reach out. They struck me as, well, young. Even the ones that were older than me seemed young. In the way they talked and behaved. It reminded me, rather disconcertingly, of my pre-Frexprog self, who viewed such antics with condescension, even disdain. It underlined how much my perspective had changed since JC, and how much I had to relearn in order to be able to play the game again less self-consciously.

However, such concerns were quickly suppressed. After a point, you really have to simply take a leap of faith and reach out to other people, and you take it from there in order to form a connection. Seeing these games as childish is in itself childish; the perspective of past experience demands tolerance and open-mindedness. Met some interesting people there; those who had been posted from other agencies, those who just came out of school, those who were already old hands at URA and who were there to show us the ropes. There was this particular guy, who demonstrated a breathtaking range of knowledge about the city. Here are some of the anecdotes he told us, as he took us on a bumboat ride down the River, and then walked us through the civic district:

Esplanade Bridge was completed on the eve of the Asian Financial Crisis. Feng Shui masters were quick to point out that building the bridge had been a mistake, because the bridge looked like an obstruction to the river, which had always brought Singapore prosperity. Moreover, the pontoons that held up the bridge looked like the capsized hulls of boats, since they were designed to withstand waves coming up the river. On a related note, when Liang Court (the one with Novotel in it, at the northern end of Clarke Quay) was first constructed, Feng Shui masters recommended it be clad in orange; since Fort Canning Hill was like a dragon, a strong building was needed to keep its influence away from the river - a building with the colour of a tiger.

The organisation that saved the Merlion from obscurity wasn't STB, nor the businesses around the river, but URA. Everyone else had, by then, lost interest in it.

The completion of the Ritz Carlton at Marina Centre (that big ugly grey building) drove home to the politicians for the first time the importance of urban design, because, at one fell swoop, it obstructed the view of the city skyline from the Sears Bridge if you're entering downtown from the airport.

Originally, when David Marshall was made the Chief Minister of the self-governing Singapore, he refused to conform to the Western dress code of Parliament, turning up for sessions in a short-sleeved shirt, khaki shorts and slippers. Consequently, the governor refused to assign him an office in the Parliament building. So, he set up a desk and chair in an alcove underneath the grand stairway (somewhat like Harry Potter's room), until the governor gave in out of pity or irritation.

The clock tower at Victoria Concert Hall used to appear frequently in Singapore-made films (from the era of P. Ramlee). When it rang, it used to sound the chimes of Big Ben. There used to be a crown at the tower's summit, but it was removed in a fit of post-colonial restoration.

And my personal favourite:

Since the Singapore River is about to be dammed up by the Marina Barrage to form our island's newest reservoir (turning our last little brook into our newest pond), PUB has decided to phase out the old diesel-engine bumboats and river taxis, for fear of contamination to the water. The replacement electric boats are constructed in ersatz-style, in that they look like the original but lack the original's kick (they are, for one, almost totally silent). So, one of the boat companies, thinking that the smell of diesel is part of the character of the bumboat business, decided to partner with a polytechnic to produce a diesel-flavoured perfume to be deployed on all boats.

The last time I went down the river on a bumboat, it was with Florent and Jes during Frexprog almost seven years ago. That time, I had been telling them anecdotes about the developments around the river; but my knowledge back then hardly holds a candle to this chap's savviness. And it strikes me that, before this month is out, all the diesel-engine craft that used to ply the waters will be gone. Their last stronghold is the Changi-Ubin route, which is hardly secure either. I think they are something that I will, really, miss.

But what really stood out on the trip was how intimately URA's planners and architects know the city, and how much of themselves they have put into making it a splendid place to live, work and play in. One of the planners spoke of how she had fought against the developers to keep the promenade in front of The Central (above Clarke Quay MRT Station) free from outdoor eating areas, so that the public could come directly up to the water. And how, every time she passes that area now, she looks at the people sitting at the water's edge with a sense of satisfaction.

Ultimately, that, I think, is the kind of thing that I want to be able to say at the end of my time with URA. That is what I want to get out of the experience; a chance to make a material impact on this city, a physical contribution that will make a real difference to real people, even if they don't perceive the difference.

*

Well, as for the signing itself, it went off without a hitch. There was a bit of discomfort seeing the thick stacks of legalese in front of me, and I could feel my grip of the pen falter at some points. But the HR personnel were courteous and open, and we bantered easily, without a hint of awkwardness. I guess all parties have been waiting so long for this moment that it has been bled of all its anticipatory uncomfortability. And it also helped that there were familiar faces at the table: an old family friend and, of course, my parents.

During the lunch hour, I had wandered the city myself, trying to lose my anxieties in its pulse. And it occurred to me how many of the important decisions of my life have been preceded by moments of solitude, that create the impression that I am facing the difficult choices alone. But when the crunch time comes, it always turns out that I am not standing alone.