I think therefore i am: Forward

Back awhile ago, for a time, there was a very different reason for blooging. I theorized that if i lost my mind, i would want to read my own blog to remember the person that i was, the person to become and return to.

That is of course, the wishes and desires of the person that i am now. Possibly the person who lost his mind, me, might think that the me that is now, is a monster with my liberal philosophies. Monster. My name on msn now, even though i hardly log in anymore, is “Monster”.

I call myself “Monster” because i realized that that might be how the majority of the people in society might view me. But that does not mean that i think i am a monster. I know my philosophies are rather liberal and not easily accepted. But i do not think they are wrong. I do in fact think of them as right, which is why i embrace them.

Regardless if i might become another person via way of losing my mind, the me that is now, for reasons not entirely selfless, and also reasons altruistic because i do believe that the philosophies that i embrace are right and that everyone should embrace them too, would wish for me to rediscover myself.

So i’m going to write a series of posts, which would contain information to reveal what goes on in my mind, under a new category ‘I Blog Therefre I Am’ which is, in a way, made for the purposes of achieving this goal. To allow me to rediscover myself should i lose my mind. Hopefully readers, if there are, who know me on a personal basis would point me to these posts should i ever be unfortunate, unfortunate from the perspective of me that is now, enough to lose my mind.

No love for me, not even in dreams

I blog, therefore i am. I had a weird dream. Well, not truly weird, but it has a touch of realism to it making it rather uncanny. In case there are those who watch my facebook and this defunct blog, the status i made there is not directly related to this dream. I was thinking about the dream which somehow, no idea how, led me to think of someone else. Not going to talk about that today. So.. here’s the dream:

The setting looked like a small japanese restaurant not unlike the one in Far East Plaza. It has a counter table that barricaded the chef at right angles. I arrived at the scene late, the party had already started. Bishan girl was hosting the party and was looking at me as i entered. Apparently, i had gate crashed, hence the look. Among the party guests were roughly equal portions of male and female whom i associated with SDU “love-seeking” people. Among them, was Yvonne’s groupie, KC, Donald, Chee Weng and possibly even Raffi. The order of names designates in descending clarity of their appearance in the dream. Yvonne wasn’t in the dream though.

Something to note is that Bishan girl and the Yvonne group has never met before (in real life), not to my knowledge.

Anyway, the party was over quickly enough. But one significant dream fact that i learned was that Bishan girl was a Christian. And that she didn’t like me, was perhaps because of what i put in my facebook page as religion; Atheist. Which isn’t it (in real life), atleast not anymore. If i remembered correctly, it should be Pastafarian; a Flying Spaghetti Monster order. Philosophy should be nihilism. I’ll check again one of these days.

On the way back, in the dream, KC, Bishan girl and i were in a sort of bus. KC said something to Bishan girl and she sang a song to him. A love song i believe that ended with the lyrics “我愛你”. Here the dream ends.

I’m not one to make much of a deal of dreams, but this dream did get me thinking. Perhaps a girl’s religious or even philosophical beliefs do play a significant part in whether i can accept/like her, more than how much i think it does.

Anyway, girls singing to me does melt my heart. So sad, she didn’t sing to me, lol.

It must be the rail claws rotting

It’s 2012 and here’s your very own atheistic pagan wishing you a happy and fruitful gregorian new year ahead. What a way it was to prepare for the start of a new year. MRT trains breaking down and trapping people. In accordance with my doom and gloom message, that since the mayan long count calendar runs out this year, it’s doomsday this year. MRT trains breaking down is only the beginning. The first of the thirteen signs.

This is the OSI reference model for data communications. Surprisingly, you can apply the model to alot of other things. Or we could look at other things as a data communication organism (this is mind boggling).

We could look at the MRT failure as a mechanical fault occuring in the physical layer. Or it could be higher up in the data link layer. Inefficiency in communication through a common langauge, as some claimed.

But could the root of the root of the problem be much higher up? Is our beloved Mr Lui, transport minister, to be held accountable? There is some discontinuity here though. The MRT is managed by SMRT, a private corporation. So.. how can this whole thing be linked to Mr Lui?

First of all, we must ask what exactly is the job of a transport minister. Is it to have his/her picture taken and splashed across the newspapers for taking the public transport two or three times in a year (that must be way much more frequent than what most ministers do)? Or be one of the first few to say something to the effect of, “Someone else is to take the blame. Let me get an independent auditor to straighten out the whole thing. And of course, to find out who that someone else might be.”

The trains might be managed by a private corporation. But this mrt train thing is still a public transport. If we still have not grasped the gravity of the situation, let just say this: the public transport system is a critical component of the Singapore economy. The public transport is the responsibility of the governement. Our government chose to use private corporations to operate and manage our public transport system.

Are there no auditors? How can LTA let such a thing happen? Are there no maintenance? As another blogger pointed out, did maintenance schedules scale with the increase in frequency of trains which resulted from the the need to serve an increase in (increasing) population which was due to some policies which at this point of time i do not need to remind ourselves who we voted for in the elections. And the population did increase amd and will continue to increase regardless of the capacity of our infrastructure. And in this case, our transport system.

Some would say that we should not point fingers at the upper management right now. The most important thing is to make sure that the trains are working again. Sure.. go ahead, and let others point their fingers at the guys at the lower levels of the hierarchy.

I only hope that Singaporeans have a good enough memory to remember this (trains breaking down fiasco) when the next round of elections come again.

The one all about cooking

A book i read had this to say. Go to a kindergarten class and ask who can dance. All the children would raise their hands. Go to a college and ask the same question and only a mere few would raise their hands. And even those who raise their hands would want to add qualifiers like, “Only to pop music” etc. The same goes for questions like who can sing, who can draw, and the like. The author wonders what went from between kindergarten and college.

I think the same thing happens with regard to cooking. People, especially those who don’t cook beyond recipes of instant noodles and eggs, would be quick, almost eager, to claim that they can’t cook. But that’s a whole lot of crap. Unless a person is missing arms or eyes or a kitchen, everyone can cook.

But of course, we know what they really mean is that they don’t know how to cook. Which really is based on a misunderstanding of what cooking is. Cooking is applying heat to a substance to cause chemical changes to the said substance. So you see, it’s not very difficult to cook. If we were trapped in a room of fire, we would cook.

Even if we don’t want to.

My rejoinder to such categorical statements would almost always be, “Nobody is born with knowledge of chopsticks usage.”.

What do we need to cook? I would say everyone who cooks, and continues to cook, would require two traits. The first would be patience. For cooking is all about waiting. Apply heat and wait for the food to turn into our opinion of cooked. Or more than cooked, which is usually not an appetizing conclusion. Even before the application of heat, there would be preparation of ingredients, the chopping up of stuff. And stuff.

Imagine chopping up an onion. And imagine that you need to feed a horde of twenty ravenous beasts and you need to chop forty onions. It would be a monotonous and repetitive activity. Something that you cannot achieve without patience. Because there is always an alternative to chopping onions and cooking. Everyone could buy cooked food.

The second trait would be resilience. Few would get their cooking right the first time round. So to cook, you need patience. And to continue cooking after a cooking disaster, you need resilience.

Back in Gippy, i watched a season of cooking show. I think it was Jamie’s Kitchen. There are only two scenes that i remember from the entire season. One scene was a restaurant opening or something like that and one of the guests was a food critic. The reason i remember that scene has more to do with politics in Singapore, as such it is not really relevant to this post.

The other scene was when a master chef told one of the most promising students to get him some basil. The student got for him parsley. The chef went to get some basil himself, along with a bunch of other herbs. He raised the basil infront of the student’s face and said, “This is basil. Now eat it.”

I thought the student was in deep trouble and was going to get fired. Or at the very least be humiliated. It was when the chef went on with the other herbs that i realized what was happening. “This is corriander. Now eat it. See what it tastes like.” and so on and so forth. It is not enough to know what a basil leaf looks like. A chef would need to know what flavors the herb brings to the dish for him/her to make informed decisions on his cooking.

What is significant about this scene? I think it’s important to cooking. To know how to cook well, one has to know how to taste food. In busy Singapore, few people actually know how to taste what they’re eating. It’s always, let’s gobble this up in the half hour we have for lunch. Additionally, we’ve been spoiled by the consistency of mass produced food. Who would bother to check if today’s packet of 3 in 1 coffee tastes any different from yesterday’s?

So you want to know how to cook better? My advice is to start savoring your food today. Look at it, smell it, touch it, and finally eat it.

Or if you need a sound test, throw it onto the wall before eating it.

~~~

What makes a cook great? In my opinion, it’s not how pretty one can make the food, nor now how tasty one can make the food, nor how exotic a reicpe one knows, nor how much food one can make in one go (it’s not easy to cook alot of food in one go). A great cook is one who knows what to do with leftovers.

For Christmas pot luck, i cooked a chilli onions nachos casserole. It looked great on youtube. But nobody wanted to eat it. There is this unspoken rule of ‘you take back your dish if it can’t be finished’. And there was alot of chilli to take home. I suggested to mom to fry noodles with it. She didn’t. Instead, she poured coconut milk, water, curry powder and turn it into a thick nachos curry paste. Yum.

And to date, she has no clear idea what was in the casserole (except that it has lots of chilli). She has called it names from pasta to pudding.

Gifts from the attic

Christmas. Gift exchange. Today, i remembered that there was a reason why i had opted out of this annual family activity, Chirstmas gift exchange, for the last couple years. One, i hate having to buy gifts. Two, i hate having to recieve gifts which i would put away in a corner to rot for eternity.

It turns out that the gift lottery had me giving to the cousin who was also going to give me a gift. I bought a wallet from The Wallet Shop, which was a real pinch in my no income savings. If i were to equate costs, i could say that i didn’t watch Wicked so i could buy the gift for my cousin. But of course, we don’t equate costs this way. Anyway, i got back a DvD which i would never in my life think to watch, but she bought it because she wanted to watch it herself. I could lend her my DvD -_-

Together with the DvD was an electric shaver. Another cousin said that electric shavers are better because.. it uses electricity. Maybe i should make sure i get her as my gift victim next year and give her an electric toothbrush.

There’s something about electric shavers that bug me. I’m not quite able to pin point what it is. But i’m pretty sure people shouldn’t give toiletry essentials as gifts. I sure as hell wouldn’t give friends body deordorant or mouth wash.

Or electric shavers and electric toothbrushes. Unless they told me they wanted one.

But i guess being family members, gift choices are lesser in variety. We can’t give lingerie and toys like dildos, vibrators etc. I remember getting red boxer shorts for my birthday back when i was in Gippy. And i thought it was a pair of normal shorts. Oh the embarassment..

What was wrong with giving traditional guy gifts? Like ties? I could use a tie. Or long sleeve shirts. I need long sleeve shirts for job interviews. I have zero long sleeve shirts right now if anyone thought to ask. All my shirts are broken. I don’t understand how, but they have holes where they are not supposed to be. I could have a book, i like reading. I could use a bicycle, mine was stolen, remember? I wouldn’t mind a diary for me to write in. I don’t mind vouchers, my running shoes is broken. Yes, holes. My life is plagued with holes that miraculously dot my stuff. I could use food. I always like food. Except sweets. Don’t get me non-chewable sweets.

I wished people gave me gifts according to my list. I really really wanted that Wicked CD.

I did check on what the cousin-in-laws and cousin-in-laws-to-be gave. The littler cousin got a water bottle and a shoe bag. It is funny. Coz she stopped playing badminton and stopped swimming. To be fair, i won’t know what to get for the littler cousin too. Maybe i would have gotten her the same wallet i gave today. Maybe, coz of relativity to her pocket money, she might be in a better position to appreciate it. [Edit: I should add for my reference the other c-in-law guy got Threadless t-shirt for a cousin.]

Got a gift from Yvonne too. Really she shouldn’t have. I was fine with just have dinner with the groupie. It was a card game of sorts. Some sort of old maid, heart attack combination. Not quite sure. Not the kind of game i would play. My kind of games is usually less physical. Well, it’s the thought that counts. Remind me to get her gifts next time.

Oh well, dissapointment would always be abound in random gifts. Not much i can do about it.

There is also a reason why i opted in to the gift exchange this year. It’s because of family bonding. This gift exchange thing is a family activity and to merely participate in it is an effort at family bonding. Family bonding is the reason for alot of the things i do during family gatherings. As in, i peform the actvity and recognize it as a family bonding activity. Like playing board games, or simply sitting beside the rebellious little cousin and youtube-surf with her.

Maybe it’s due to how i always look at things with an ice cold eye for costs and benefits analysis. But whatever the case, i do know that family bonding is more than just turning up for gatherings. It involves effort.

And that i have to take time off my computer and play with my nephew. It may be be simply repeatatively singing silly breakfast songs that i invent. It may be just running to the door and back to the mattress. Whatever it is, it’s about relationship building.

The atheistic pagan wishing you a happy Christmas

I blog, therefore i am.

I was on my way home from the supermarket, having filled my bag with ingredients for a casserole for tomorrow’s pot luck dinner. My mood was rather jolly because i bought stuff, it was Christmas eve, and i had a haircut. Along the way, some guy holding an ipad thingy stopped me saying it would only take a minute. Liars. It always takes more than one minute.

Even though i was in a jolly mood, my yellow lumpy bag was full and heavy, the jars of chilli in the yellow lumpy bag was in the correct position to jam into my lower back, altogether not a very pleasant experience, and he was a guy. So i declined but he insisted and he mentioned something about Christmas being pagan. Well.. the fish was hooked.

Seeing that i stopped, he showed me his ipad thingy, reading material with encyclopedia as sources, and explained that Christmas was a pagan holiday and that nowhere in the bible does it mention Christmas etc. etc. I nod along because i already know these things. I was rather impressed by his knowledge in theology; not many Christians realize that Christmas has pagan origins, and even lesser will accept this fact. I thought he was out to tell other Christians to stop celebrating Christmas or something.

“Winter solstice”, i said as a way of emulating interactivity in a conversation.

At this point, he, seemingly impressed by my saying what Christmas was about, stops and asks me what religion i was. I would have said Pastafarian. But somehow, i doubt that there are that many people who can even contemplate the possibility of worshipping pasta. He would probably think that i said Rastafarian or was trying to be a smartass or something. Hmm.. i should’ve told him about the beer volcano in FSM heaven.

Anyway i pointed at his ipad thingy and said that i am pagan. If i’m not going to be Pastafarian, i would be pagan, if i had to choose that is. And then he was like, “Oh.. so you’re against Christians?”. My opinion of him suddenly dropped to rock bottom. How in the world did this guy come to think that pagans are against Christians. So i told him i wasn’t. And he went like, “Do you believe in God?”. Which he asked several times and i replied several times. I guess he kind of got stumped by me not believing in God or gods for that matter.

I really should’ve asked, “Which god?”.

In the end, he got the idea and makes a rhetorical question, “Oh so you don’t believe in God, you’re an athiest?”. I reply “Yes.” and he was like, “Ok, thank you, bye bye.”.

What the hell..

He didn’t even tell me that Jesus loves me or that i’m going to his religion’s hell.

~~~

So.. the poignant issue, which the guy drove at but never arrived at because i was an atheist and therefore not worth the time to chat with: should a Christian celebrate (in church) Christmas considering that Christmas has pagan origins.

My answer would be why not? Let me draw a parallel here and take a look at Buddhism and Taoism. What we have in Singapore are cultural Buddhists, where people look to buddhas, notable buddhas include Guanyin, as gods and goddesses, read buddhist scriptures and perform taoist rites of worship to both buddhas and taoist deities. Religions, like organisms, like organizations, like lots of things, do evolve too. And they must if they wish to spread to other countries and culture. And in those days, the best way to spread was through assimilation.

One of my favorite one liners of wisdom is this, “Christians are as Christians do.” (you can always replace the subject with something else). If Christians want to celebrate Christmas in churches and think of it as celebrating the birth of Christ, then let them do it. Saying that Christmas has pagan origins is exactly just that. Origins. It doesn’t mean that Christmas cannot be co-opted as a Christian holiday (from the Christian’s persepective), or as a secular holiday.

In short, just like you don’t have to be a German to celebrate Oktoberfest, you don’t have to be a pagan to celebrate Christmas.

Here’s wishing you a very happy Christmas this weekend.

From your very own atheistic pagan.

Sad thoughts again

I was watching season 1 of some comedy on youtube earlier. When i finished i was surfing around and i clicked on some suggested video links on youtube. I ended up watching the final scene of Friends’ final season, the bit where the friends were in Monica’s apartment empty of furniture. It was the last time they were in the apartment and they were all leaving their keys behind on the kitchen counter.

I find that bit utterly heart wrenching. Partly because Friends is such a long series, ranging over ten seasons; i became rather attached to the characters. I remember that when i finally did finish watching the last season, i think i was a little depressed. It was over like so suddenly. The day of entertaining mirth from watching the series was suddenly over and there’s was a distinct feeling of having nothing to do.

This marriage thingy, a union of two persons, seem to break up more people then it unites. Friends who become married, are not unlike the last scene in Friends; there’ll be less time to spend with friends as time becomes devoted to spouse, children.

Anyway, i am suddenly reminded of what Ooi said in KL, at sis YyY’s wedding dinner. The table i was at consisted of mostly Malaysians. He said (referring to the table of Malaysians), “We all live in KL, very close to each other, but hardly meet up at all.”. Though i’m not sure why his words keep ringing in my head. It simply does. I guess distance in relationships are not measured by proximity.

Anyway, my thoughts drifted again after thinking about what Ooi said. Friends’ last scene was not unlike the time when i was in Gippy when i was among the last to leave the campus hostel. Almost everyone had left and the place was mostly empty and the only thing that was loud was the silence. I’m someone who likes the quietness of the wee hours of morning, so it’s quite unusual for me to be unsettled by the empty campus dormitories.

Then my thoughts drifted again. This time it was my last day in Gippy. I was leaving earlier than almost everyone else. Somehow, it felt like i was like.. ditching people behind. That i didn’t stay longer was like.. a kind of betrayal somehow. Yep, it feels bleak to leave last, and feels traitorous to be among the few earliest to leave.

I’ve no idea how these thoughts relate to each other, but that’s roughly the order which i thought about them. Ok, that’s about all, ciao.