is there hope for... me, humanity, the world?

many think that these two animals are bought by my boyfriend for me. contrariwise, they aren't. My little brother, being a reserved child, is deeply acquainted with the little Pooh bear in the picture. Big sister me spotted Big Pooh, and together with my boyfriend, we brought the Big Pooh back home to my little brother. He was flabbergasted. "Ahhhh!!!!" He couldn't stop grinning. It has since become his new best friend. The Big Pooh's his girlfriend, and the little Pooh his little boy. He's only 12.

Lab report. Screwed because my extremely brilliant partner spilled the DNA over to the other lane. He airbrushed it away on photoshop. We scored an A for the report. All I did was to check the grammar. *grins* [An 'A' grade in NUS is extremely hard to get by the way.] I got to keep this photograph, the DNA fingerprint in which I argued on and on, "I'm dead sure there's ethidium bromide in it!" There isn't. There's only agar, and it isn't edible.

A slice of rainbow cake, compliments of my hostel neighbour. Being the extremely shy/asocial new addition to the block, I was not invited to any celebrations of birthdays. Not that I really care, actually. I was studying hard for my exams. Then came a knock at the door, and a slice of cake. It did cheer me up from my lulls of work, and for a split second, the world didn't look as dystopic as education has made it out to be.

I love this photograph. It's badly taken, i know. I took it during a visit to a nursing home with my boyfriend. I saw that possibly 80 year old man feeding his wife food. They didn't speak much, but the love in his eyes surpassed any words that the universe could describe. There she was, in the nursing home. Rain or shine, he would be there to visit. Almost brought tears to my eyes.

Gender stereotypes, seen in these little ten-year-olds. "Boys eat more what!' They were buzzing away. Truth is, I thought so, when I was 10, but now that I'm so much older, I realised boys only eat much more after puberty, not at such a tender age. Their fascination with almost everything strikes me. Little Einstein, a boy in the crowd of 39, answered every single question like reading a Britannica with a twinkling in his eyes. Plump girl got scolded by teacher, and started crying and withdrawing from the crowd. "The girl in yellow", the teacher said, "watch out for her." I thought she was a monster. She wasn't. She was a little autistic, and could not relate well to her peers. It's most unfortunate that children are "marked for destiny" at such a tender age. And equally unfortunate is that they would grow to be who the society expects of them. At least, according to Psych, a lousy capability paired with high hopes makes a child a "high ability kid" as opposed to a normal capability paired with low hopes.

This is the most epic photo of my life's collection. Snapped in Singapore, this photograph is a lift that's shut down. The paper writes, "The management didn't treat us like humans... [the rest I couldn't read cus it's too cursive]... B**tard!" It might not be a big deal, but because it's Singapore and I literally walked up the stairs with other residents of the block, I was quite startled that such a protest was launched. In Singapore, workers always do as told. In Singapore, there hasn't been a strike for more than half a century. In Singapore, the government believes in efficiency and protection of labour welfare. Is there a slice of population that we have forgotten, or the workers are being overly demanding? But anyway, I smiled to myself that something extraordinary has happened right before my eyes.

Is there hope? Of course! Agency vs structure. The world's a bizarre, yet dazzling place.

Insight from Christian Louboutin

In case you're as backward as I am in fashion, Christian Louboutin is a 47-year-old man. But his name is synonymous with shoes. And what's so special about his shoes?
1. It's synonymous with platform heels
2. This pair over here costs (only) USD999. There are more expensive ones, of course.
*3. Red soles

Whoever thought of red soles must have been... It's the last thing people think of. People don't even think soles should be seen, let alone remembered. Louboutin has branded himself for RED SOLES.

My first brush with Louboutin shoes happened when I was viewing "Marry the Night" MV by Lady Gaga. It really did not occur to me that these red soles are so famous.
Victoria Beckham ordered an 8-inch heel for her Royal Wedding.
When I was in Abu Dhabi, every other girl was wearing a 6-inch Louboutin. Under the black abaya (robe). And they have enough not to repeat the same pair for 2 weeks at least.

Hmm.

Some sort of conditioning - strange, it sounds - that makes one fall in love with these red soles. My point for the day is: something as inconspicuous yet conspicuous can make money. My class on conspicuous consumption (in Evolution) has not really addressed this.

These shoes are not vastly different from those in the market (unless you compare intricacies like detail, cut, etc). And red soles. Yet they have outcompeted every shoe company in 20 years to become one of the most prominent shoe brands.

Lessons from shoemakers:
1. Louboutin first painted those soles with red nail polish. Great ideas don't cost a bomb.
2. 9-year-old Ferragamo stayed up all night to make a pair of shoes for his sister, because his mother had no money to buy any. Hard work and dedication is always the way to go.

love (and politics)

Such were the two things that inspired this post today.

After tuition, I headed home and it felt really good to be back. Everyone was around; laughed at my little brother's increasingly oily face (he's starting puberty, and by talking about it I help him transit), at my father's listening to radio and youtube stuff (he seemed to pay such attention to every word I said to him, it's really nice) and my mother (who told me about her work and asked if I wanted food).

And I thought about Clarence, and how blessed I am, to have found a man who makes life a heaven on earth, in every sense. He understands me, cares for me, surprises me, listens to me... He asked if I wanted to go catch a movie with him. I haven't done that, mainly because my lack of interest does not justify my ticket purchase. And I was so surprised, that he asked, even when exams are looming. So adventurous, though he seemed so mundane at first sight.

I thought about being a teacher, and that vaguely reminded me of the previous guy I dated. "Just another HDB light," he sniggers. Being a teacher is all too normal, it's becoming the 80%, the mediocre. But Clarence shares such a powerful insight.

Would you rather be born into an upper-middle class family, do well in school, find the love of your life, get married, have kids, get promotion in work, get rich, grow old, and die at 70, have lots of people remembering you... or would you rather be...

a slum kid, who often got beaten, had only an illiterate mother, who fights his way up the rungs of his realm, gain respect, get into drugs and quit, grow up, start a small business and fund his own university education, fails in business, then having tried many times, succeeded, gain prominence and got into politics, got married to the girl he'd been chasing for 10 years, child dies, and finally become the president of the State, then have an illness which renders him crippled, but nonetheless he continued and impacted the world greatly?

Some would choose the latter, but most would choose the former. There's a difference between happiness, and fulfilment. A difference between having a good/happy life, and a meaningful one. I had felt ashamed to become a teacher despite really passionately liking the experience, because it makes me "just another HDB light". That was also another thing my previous church taught - being a light on the hill. It's a tall order and not everyone attains it. Having found Clarence, I really don't care what others are doing. I'd rather be a happy person, HDB or not, than have a meaningful life without the immense happiness. I just met a friend who kept joking that he'd be the next prime minister. He, however, has a love-life problem. My question to him was: What's the point of life if you, having become the Prime Minister, has a dysfunctional home?

Brings me to my next point. Home. And freedom. I posted a question to Clarence, asking what would he recommend a person who desires freedom but also wants to settle down.

Birds are symbols of freedom. I wonder who first came up with that. If there were no branches, no place for the birds to rest their weary wings, they may even regret having wings to fly with in the first place. Perhaps true freedom simply means having a place you can return to...

I didn't agree at first, thinking that it didn't address the question of freedom. But it's legit. And maybe he's right. Love, and freedom, need no logical-mathematical reasoning.

My school cut my hair?

This post is dedicated to Mr Lee Hee Fock, teacher, Jurong Junior College (Singapore). He was a wonderful teacher in leading Civil Defence Club, and a quirky math teacher who taught math in lots of Chinese. He was also famous for "Ah, 你没剪头发!" (You didn't cut your hair!) We all know he was the Discipline Master of Jurong JC for a long, ... long... time.

Should schools cut students' hair? What are the implications?

Premise:

• Schools should warn students of hair checks a few days in advance to ensure they get their hair cut
• Students should be responsible to get their hair cut at their favourite barber
• If hair isn't cut, schools should ask student to call his/her parents, and pass the phone to the teacher to talk after the student is made to confess that he/she hasn't cut his/her hair and obeyed the school rules
• Schools should bring the student to the nearest barber to cut his/her hair - whether teachers should ask barber to cut it real short, the jury's out
  

No:

• Human rights will be observed.
• Singapore would slowly shift towards westernisation while abandoning its Confucian (respect your teachers') roots
• Management of discipline would become increasingly difficult, as this rule has been in place for a long time. Schools would have to look at all disciplinary rules and revamp the entire system again. Should students be punished for not doing their homework?
• There is also a sublimal question of whether the great divide between the lesser off and the better off would increase. Students like myself had learned discipline in schools, from teachers. And stuff that I had learned in school allowed me to rise in social ladder
• Scrapping the school rule would also acknowledge students' rights to a greater degree beyond what the Singapore society would wish to cope with. This would further increase teachers' woes of having to deal with students.
  

Special concessions to students who are parents' gems/babies?

• Should there be schools who market themselves as having students' welfare and interest at heart? If yes, is discipline part of having the students' future at heart?
• Should students be sent to international schools (SIngapore has plenty of them) just to avoid the hair-cut?
• Should schools allow long hair or coloured hair if parents write in to request for exceptions to be made?
• Has MOE done enough to assure parents that students are WELL taken care of?
  

More significant questions:

• Question on responsibility: Should a student, an adolescent, obey school rules, stop being mummy's boy and start understanding that life is full of rules and they are often unfair?
• Is progress always good? What about traditions which makes us who we are? If westernisation is the new norm, should we abandon the right to cut students' hair just to follow what is the new cool? When the new cool blows over, we forget who we were, and move on to the next new cool?

To students of the future: It's important to cut your hair because short hair is the acceptable norm of the society. Whether you venture into the arts industry is another matter. If you, as a student, gets an interview either for scholarship or job, turning up with a haircut not touching the collar or covering the eyebrows is crucial. The school is an institution. Colour your hair or keep it as long as you want (or even wear a wig, if you like) once you step out of the school compound, but when you're within its premise, obey its rules, or leave.

The price to pay for beauty

There is a price to pay for everything good. "You pay peanuts, you get monkeys."

As I was looking for inspiration to write, I discovered that after "how to be ... happy", the next search is "how to be... anorexic".

Actually, I personally think we live in an era where anorexia is cool. In fact, being slender, or toned, or busty, or anorexic, is considered desirable. One of the top 10 searches of Google 2010 is - how to lose weight. The fashion industry is getting a huge portion of ladies' income - anything from bags to clothes to jewellery to aesthetic surgeries.

It made me think about "opportunity costs".

All ladies want a perfect body, thanks to the mass media. Myself included. I was seriously thinking about being anorexia, and switching to a boiled veggies/fish diet with no carb. I probably won't die, but I won't function as well in class. There comes the big question - is it worth it?

Of course, keeping fit is well worth it to ensure performance in work, good health, and longevity. Quick solutions like slimming centres and cosmetic operations costs only money and proper maintenance. Then again, one should think twice whether these are truly necessary. To one, it might be a frivolous expenditure; to another, absolute necessity.

My braces was an absolute necessity. Anyone who knows me knows that I have a cheerful disposition, but before I had braces, I feared smiling, despite the fact that I actually feel happy most of the time. People told me I would never find a job with crooked teeth, and that I would scare bosses and boys away. That is a big deal. Having pleaded and denied of braces, I waited, and happily paid 1.5x more than what I might have paid in the past, just to do it private, and quick.

My point in this post is that - don't do anything because the society compels you to do it; do it only because you need it and it makes you happy.

Today is the day where I finally removed my braces, bleached my teeth, and did my first hair treatment