A work of the tablet

all right, beans and buns.... I need a breather, from all the thinking, and all the planning, and all the fish-smelling (yes, i still insist that i keep smelling something fishy going on around me...). So, much as I want to rant on the meaning of life and speak in cheemology english, I have decided that maybe I should just do sth else for a change.

A couple of tweaks to this picture (still looks pretty original) and viola!

Of course, as I iterate, i don't draw. Definitely, I can't be the author of this picture. This picture was borrowed from a doodle made on my tablet pc from Xam, and I just decided to touch up the lines a little to see how far it can go. Pretty neat, now that I think about it.... looks pretty professional if you stare from across the room and SQUINT. Then and again, this is what we always get to see in those comic shops thinking that they are the most professional pictures drawn. But I guess if you ever get to blow up a comic book to A2 size, then we'll get a what we call a comical nightmare.

0.o

On Engineering and Society (an excerpt)

The design centric programme, as I take to believe, aims to foster creativity and curiosity in the NUS engineering student. Such a programme would equip students to think holistically, critically and pragmatically; drawing knowledge from multiple disciplines, and then integrating them together with design as the primary focus.

Personally, I believe that the Design Centric Programme is rather noble, if not ingenious programme. I welcome it, and I too share in the ideals that it advocates. However I do not believe that such lofty aims would truly succeed in inculcating creativity and innovativeness of their students. You have noted that one of the possible reasons for such is the lack of willingness to change in mindset on the part of the students, and I agree to your point. After all, such idealistic change requires personal conviction and belief, and hence “it requires a strong will and great confidence in oneself”

Is it truly possible to inculcate values within an individual over a span of three or four years? Fundamental ethical values such as respecting each other take years to ‘sink into’ a child, and it is not truly realized until the child reasons it out to himself independently. Now, if such fundamental values already require years of inculcation before it may take effect, how more the values that ‘curiosity is good’, ‘creativity develops the individual’ and ‘design is the key to success’?

Moreover, to inculcate such a Design Centric ‘value’ would take more than just exposure time. Existing conflicting mindsets have to be torn down, or re-evaluated, for the student to truly believe and be independently innovative. We are aware that many students within the faculty study engineering merely “to get a certificate, a stable job, and be successful”. Also, the Asian value of “being safe than sorry” may result in students being reluctant to take risks and oppose the norm, thus hampering creativity and criticality in thought.

I have only considered the Design Centric Programme as a value today, but evidently we can already see the potential challenges it would be facing before such an aim becomes an achievement. Perhaps it would be ideal if such values were introduced at an earlier time (of education). Nevertheless, we should not despair in our attempts to continue inculcating these ideals into our current students of engineering. After all, learning (including values) never stops with age, and Rome was never built in a single day.

This is what the 7th Age was meant to be

I had a rather short but meaningful talk with my english tutor on monday. We were supposed to be conferencing about my second wrtiting assignment, but i guess the both of us just didn't want to talk about it.

"Do you read Bertrand Russell?" Sweet beans, I have been hoping someone would ask me this question for ages! "How do you think of his writings?" You serious about knowing? Finally someone else! "How do you think it compares to the teachings of Christ?" OMFG, that moderation between philosophy and theology! "I am glad that young people are thinking about such issues too, not many people in Singapore want to think as such" YOU BET, PROF!!!!

Then the conversation moved on to quotes of other poeple: "Its better to give up what you cannot keep, to gain what you cannot lose." vs. "What good is it for you to gain the whole world but lose your own self?".Project RN was implied throighout the whole conversation, the file lay innocently on the table, the supposedly investigated essay got stuck somewhere in it.

Finally, we still had to look through it. Okay, elaboration is cool, but for academic essays its still not the time to do so, but when it comes to masters thesis.... Master's Thesis?? I dun know if I can go that far man.....

"After all, life is a balance of elaborating what you wish to say to an infinity and what the poeple around you might want to hear. So there ought to be a balance in elaboration and summary"

Nostalgic. 15 mins up, nice talking to you again, meet up for coffee next week? cool. COOL.

That's it, if some circa 19-21 year old dudette is gonna talk like that to me, I am so going to marry her for life.

Quickly Grow up, dudettes. LOL to that.

For the fools

Listen, all those who have ears.

The following excerpt may sound direct and slightly offensive to some, and if it is it should be. Otherwise, dun mind this excerpt at all- afterall, I do not wish to impose anything to anyone, unless they wish to not be.

It seems that much have passed since the last post of Project RN(T). 6 months have passed with many transitions of lifestyles and mindsets. We are all somehow going back to this world of- whatever it is. We're bogged down by it, we're directly involved in its workings, and we cannot escape to retrospect as we could once do.

So socialization dominates socialogical workings. Group beliefs over personal philosophy, and examinations over the aims of education. We whine, we die, and we try to integrate our personalities into what the world has to offer. This process was long and painful; some parts fit in easily, and we acquaint like before. Some we just made do, and mugged mindlessly along with its requirements. Yet nearly everything fitted, as long as we don't try to integrate our identities from Jan 2009 onwards to the time we meet them.

Yes, everything is fun and games until someone gets serious. Life is no more than one big joke until some fish decides to stop clowning around and do something productive for a change. Nobody wants to hear the bad news- nobody wants to hear of reason, nobody wants to hear of the truth.

The living best? I am enjoying myself.
The meaning of life? I make my own meaning.
The beauty of living? Just fuck it.

Who cares about these damn questions? I am here, I am living, and I am happy. Oh yah, not to say I think I am beautiful too.... To me, this is the good life. And this is the true way to live, whats wrong? Who are you to tell me what is and what isnt? I determine everything. I am god of my own universe, fuck off.

Fools.

You say you are happy, but I say you ain't really happy. You are only just as happy as you attempt to prove me wrong. Do you even know what happiness is? Just an act of self gratification? Then you might as well live a life of continuous masturbation to indulge your senses. Why not? Am I being too extreme? If you think so now, then where do you want to draw the happiness line?

Success, you work to strive for real success. What is success? you don't know, so you set arbitrary standards and goals to quantify success. Success comes with fame and authority and wealth and health and happiness... okay, maybe not happiness, because happiness cannot be defined. What is fame? What is wealth? An means to exert control and gratification? Would a life of being in control and being 'good' warrant meaning? Would a life with 352 facebook contacts make you feel loved? No. If it did, then why do you strive for the 353rd friend? If a hundred marks warrents you the smartest person around, then why are you still slogging on in education?

Why do you pursue a goal with an ever-shifting goalpost? Is this your meaning of life? If it is, then why do you die ultimately? Yo don't know how to answer, you say this question is full of nonsense, then you argue that the meaning of life is subjective.

Idiot. The meaning of life was for you to find out, since you were after all, created. You didn't kick yourself out of non-existence, and even your identity was not created by yourself, but rather influenced by others. Nothing truly belongs to you, apart from your ego. Your so-called freedom is no more than a egoistic sham. And don't give me the subjectivity bullshit if you don't know what it's truly about. If everything is subjective and authority is objective, then who gives you the right to be live on this earth?

Don't fuck around with concepts you cant keep, fools, if you denounce philosophy without understanding of it. What difference is that between an sick-ass who rejects medicine before even taking it? He might as well not live to say that life is meaningless.

It is alright to suscribe to your own beliefs, but do not ever denounce the beliefs of others around you if you do not wish to be imposed upon. if they are fallible, then something is indeed wrong. If you don't have a philosophy in life, then its time to get one.

Aesthetics is only skin deep, and physical beauty is temporary. Materialistic objects perish eventually, this is reality. Much much more real and eternal than your mindless slog for an A in this and that module.
Or a trivial conversation to be forgotten the day after, or a strive for an honours that will be forgotten 5 years after you graduate. Many intelligent men live, and many more rich men die- but only the legacy of the truly successful lives on. And among those remembered, whom of which were busniessmen or people with a thousand facebook contacts?

Grow up fools. You've got a long way to go. Meanwhile, listen. and be still.