Life, Laughter and Everything Else

Have you been to Raffles Place MRT at 9:30 in the morning? It is a sight to behold. Scores of people, dressed immaculately, wearing some of the best brands that even a month of my NS pay would never be able to afford, exit the MRT and systematically make their way to the exits. Huge escalators run noisily with a distinct chug up into Raffles Place and the mass of bodies slowly and patiently separate into 2 man streams with their heads bowed down, not wanting to start their day with a misstep. The few rebels diverge from the main group and head to the staircase where the journey up, though more tiring, is certified fit by their health minded conscience. Once on top, the streams converge into a river and then diverge again into the different tunnels that lead to the different destinations, but to the same goal. A few lost souls pause at the junctions, aware of their goal, but unaware of their destination. But the river sidesteps these pebbles and continues flowing into the t...

Recently, I took part in a Technopreneurship programme organised within NUS. One of the guest lecturers, a man with quite a lot of credentials in this area, kept emphasising to the audience to go visit Silicon Valley and immerse ourselves in that culture. He said "Go to any cafe, any Starbucks and you will keep overhearing people who are sharing new ideas, discussing new developments. The atmosphere there is perfect for every entrepreneur. The conversations between people there, unlike in Singapore, do not dwell on where to get the cheapest plate of chicken rice". I am a local boy. Maybe not born here, but I have lived here long enough to be witness, victim and perpetrator of the most lengthy and pointless conversations. In short, if I am with people, most of the time is spent with me talking cock or with me spending time listening to people talk cock. In one of my earlier posts, I pointed out how this ability to perpetuate nonsense was quite important in making friends a...

There is this nature reserve near my house, a nature reserve with a rather steep running trail that I frequent with my friends when in the mood for some stern mental and physical challenge. Though I have always kept to the same trail ever since I started running there, usually because I did not have the time to be adventurous. Though today was different. With the expectations of academics 2 weeks behind me and no work due anytime soon (other than the dusty ceiling fan my father has been pestering me to clean for the past 3 weeks), time was for the first time this year unequivocally on my side. After my run on the usual trail, I was walking back when side trails that I barely noticed during my runs started to make their presence felt. With a tinge of curiosity, a touch of adventurousness and an abundance of time I took it. And one unknown trail led to another unknown trail. By the time, I came back into contact with some form of human civilisation, it was with a certain se...

If there is anything about myself that I am still to come to terms with, it is my astounding ability to waste time when there is a lot of it. During normal semester, I am perhaps the only guy out there who wakes up at 630am daily so that I can finish my round of meditation before going to school, who does his daily run once every 3 days and leads a life so disciplined that serving NS would actually be a step down in discipline. What I don't understand is that once the holidays start, all hell breaks lose. I have all the time to meditate and I deicide to push it to the next day. I borrow a whole lot of books and the only thing I do with them is renew them. And the goals I set for the holidays, they become but a reminder of what would have been. And now 3 more months of time lie in front of me. As expected, since the holidays began 3 days ago, the meditation has stopped and the books have been borrowed. And now I am going to set the goals.  Firstly, I want to take one last...

Only a man with too much time on his hands and maybe too little hope in his heart will ponder about his bucket list when in the prime of his life. A bucket list, for those who do not know, is a list of things that you want to do before you die. It originated from its more well known cousin 'to kick the bucket'. Me, I thought about it when I had neither much time in my hands nor any lack of hope in my heart. The thought was by all means intentional because what one wants to do before one dies is perhaps what one really wants to do in life, but never thought possible once life started 'doing' him. Though the greatest wonder about our world, despite all the efforts of every mathematician and scientist to model every possible event and outcome, is that one can never really predict what is going to happen tomorrow. It is this unpredictability and how we dealt with it that has both made men and broken others. And so when my friends asked me about what was in my bucket l...