Just went to take a look at two other blogs, courtesy of some free time and no alcohol today. Loh's and Sherwin's. Last posts dated 5th nov and sometime in august, respectively. Well, I won't go so far as to say I miss army life and all that, but what I will say is that I miss the memory of the way people were back then.

Then again, logically speaking, memories are always missed. by default. I can barely say that I'm thrilled by the way some of us have turned out (for others who've always been that way, what can I say?). For one, Sherwin's a miserable drinker. So am I, I suppose, although I must add that I was at it for 1.5 hours before his grand arrival. Not so elegantly wasted eh.

So there they are - memories of what used to be. I kinda liked the many sleepy afternoons with the cool air in the bunk being blown around by the fan that's directly above me (and sherwin frequently requests to have lowered. how low, i wonder. low enough to scratch our noses? hahaha) immediately after the 3pm hot shower. natural water tank heating. somehow you wonder how the water can get so hot but the bunk remain cool.

It's pathetic how some relationships have went the last few months. It's so awkward between some of us who used to be the closest of friends, thanks to one happening or another. So this is what the "real world" does to people: scares us, degrades us to our primal instincts and leaves us deprived of the intangible, non-profitable (yes, isn't it?) aspects of life that are, without doubt, the very foundations of our relationships.

maybe it was the apparent hopelessness of the entire ns affair that left all the "oh i want to make some money for so and so purpose" thoughts all the way till the end of our.. sentence. and with our meagre possessions, some of us strove to make a fortune mountain out of a financial anthill, and attempted to make up with time, effort and all things intangible what we lacked in cash and more importantly, credibility and experience.

yes, if you ask me, it's something regrettable. not completely, but at least to some degree.

Alors

thought of the moment. Completely random, probably completely isolated. might not be another heh.

It's ironic that people value Money more than Time, even though the latter is the one that is irreplaceable, while the former is very much the reverse. It's a pity how people don't see beyond the glaring highlight of saving/earning lots and lots of money and realize the true cost, opportunity cost if you would, they're paying.

There're easier ways. Yes, you were right when you gave these lines:
"Let's talk about the risk factors. 1. Time; 2. Effort."

Risk, indeed. The biggest of which must be time. Having your time leveraged on for remuneration - that's probably the second saddest thing to selling your soul. Wouldn't cost much to throw in the effort as a free gift, while you're at it.

j'ai vu le commentaire de Zhiheng.. eh merci bcp, mon ami :s tes remarques sont si compliqué que j'ai pris au moins de 5 minutes pour les comprendre complètement..

while i take another few minutes to figure out what's in that really long comment, here's what i initially wanted to post. just for fun.

leverage? what leverage when you spend the bulk of your time defending (rather than deriving benefit from) the organization you're associated with?

compare that with perhaps, just perhaps, "oh yes, hi. enchanté. I'm from moët hennessy diageo singapore.. and you?"
now that's cool shit leverage. :)

champion ou champignon? c'est la question. :) vraiment, non. je plaisante.. haha.. à propos, j'ai changé la langue de Blogger à Français. Pour l'instant, cela est maniable. Un peu pénible quand je doit utiliser le dictionnaire mais, le plus grand défi est quand j'essaie d'éviter d'utiliser Babelfish.

alors, parce qu'il est si difficile de créer ce message complet (bien que il est très simple..), je le publierai et vais lire Tintin :) Objectif Lune! Apres ça (oui, j'ai preparé), je vais lire l'episode suivante, "On a marché sur la lune"..

au fait, n'importe quelles corrections sont l'accueil.. je sais que je suis mauvais à cela..

important, but not urgent.

first off, let's give my marketing manager, fanny, some credit for this wonderful if not completely all-encompassing system of classification :s no, it's not SWOT (as in, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats), although i believe it does come in a similar format of a big square cut into smaller quarters.
important and urgent, important but not urgent, urgent but not important and not urgent and not important ("then don't do la", says cynthia)

while that was totally pointless, i just had to put it up, for in itself is a tongue twister. important and urgent, important but not urgent, urgent but not important, not important and not urgent.
just like "les chausettes d'archi-duchesse sont seches et archi-seches." seriously, must try. it's worse than peter piper and the pickled pepper. literally, the socks of the arch duchess are dry and extra dry :s which reminds me of nature brut, extra brut, brut, sec, demi sec, doux..

that's it for the rambling. today's incendiary post was instigated by Anna (yes, the ac arts anna wang) after she stole my quote from the god delusion - it's got nothing directly related to the justifiability of the existence of religion; rather, the irritating nature of what we can safely term "lazy christians". Notice, then, that lazy christians are a subset (proper subset, actually) of christians in general, so if there's any one group to blame for the existence of the following incendiary opinion, please, hunt down those particular lazy people.

Lazy - the entire idea encapsulated in this fable of sorts I heard:
once, there was this farmer who was immensely pious, details of such behavior I have no ability to describe. one day, there came a flood in his village, and the government ordered an evacuation due to the threat to villagers' lives. Rescue vehicles went to pick villagers up but when one stopped in front of the house of this particular farmer, he goes "no, don't worry. God will save me". Despite the pleadings of the rescuers, he desisted. Days later, flood waters covered the entire first floor of his house. A rescue boat came along outside his second floor window where he was hiding from the waters and offered to rescue him - again, "My god will save me - don't worry!"; a week later, he's found taking refuge on the roof of his house, with everything below submerged. A rescue helicopter comes along and offers to pick him up "Sir, you have to leave or you'll die!" again, "Don't worry about me - God will save me!" Eventually, of course, he dies (causes of which are irrelevant), and assuming, for fictional purposes, the existence of spirits, he turns into a very angry ghost. One day, he meets God, and questions him "I believed so firmly in you, but when I was in need, WHY DIDN'T YOU COME AND SAVE ME?!"
God tells him "I tried to save you, but you refused. First, I sent the rescue vehicles; then I sent the boat; then, I sent the helicopter. All three times, you refused my help. How can you say, then, that I didn't save you?"

the point, essentially, is that there're so many incidents where people do have the chance to take control of their lives; instead, making a false claim to "faith" and in an occurrence of divine intervention in a self-conceived stereotypical form (i.e. light from the sky, angels coming down and picking you up vs. angels in blue riding in cars, boats and helicopters) as a reason to be effectively (rather, ineffectively) lazy and wait for things to happen.

If anything, I'd think that the central purpose of religion associates itself with the human mentality - in times of difficulty, we have the ability to go against natural circumstances and be proactive against the conditions that prevent us from progressing. It's what makes us human, and even objectively, based on the idea that religion in itself is a human construct, there can be no benefits from believing in the existence of divine beings who set standards of morality and performance for us to meet. It's all in the process of raising the bar for human evolution and progress - while the actual bar may not exist, believing that it does lets us know that we've failed when we hit it (supposedly) and we've succeeded when we've crossed it - hence the idea that the sky's the limit.

here's my take on religion and belief - it should be our impetus for further, accelerated progress; divine purpose is very well the intangible manifestation of the cumulative effect of long periods of rumination into a seemingly illogical but emotionally acceptable decision. After all, people make emotional decisions and fill it up with logical substantiations; logic is secondary, and when we find that no logic can explain what we've decided on, at least we've got the entire notion of divine purpose/calling to back it up. and it's perfectly fine. for them, at least.

damn you lazy christians. you give the entire bunch a bad name - god gave you an existence so that you could make the most out of it in a allocatively, if not socially, efficient manner. by being lazy and waiting for things to happen, you throw nothing but insult back at the hand that fed you. thankfully, you're a minority. better remain that way.

whee - finally got this off my chest. feels good :) sounds familiar? think prison break.

just for the fun of it :)

La première loi de Newton déclare qu'un objet reste dans son état de reste ou de mouvement à une ligne droite à moins que ne suivi par une force externe.
La deuxième loi de Newton déclare que le taux de changement de vitesse linéaire d'un système est directement proportionnel à la force externe nette y agissant et la direction de changement est dans la direction de la force externe nette.
La troisième loi de Newton déclare que quand l'objet A exerce une force F sur l'objet B, l'objet B exerce une force-F, de l'étendue égale, mais la direction opposée, sur l'objet A.

and physics, for a moment, became 100x cooler. just for that little while.

a tidy disappearing act

for most people, less the few that either live with me, live near me or work with me, that's what it's been. poof. not into thin air, thankfully.

so things have been going on, despite the lack of visual evidence. for one, the decision's out. to UCL we, or rather just I, will go. let's try that in french. À Londre j'irai. heh aside from the ucl decision, i will return to L'Alliance Française on monday and see if i actually passed that horrendously pulled-off test last friday. merci to alvin (oh, i didn't introduce him? ah yes, i didn't. obviously. Alvin Natanael Kumarga or something like that. bizarre name, marginally less bizarre than the fact that he looks uncannily like LUCAS LI haha. seriously.) for doing the je suis desolé, mais tu ne me donne pas ton numéro téléphone thingy haha. let's hope we pass and get pascal again for the next class.

let's see, what else. oh yes, the moët hennessy internship. well it's been good working with pierre, celia and fanny. and marie and esther, naturally - thank you for even the opportunity. like they say, it's not WHAT you know but WHO you know that counts in this (i hesitate to say "brave" but well) brave new world. many flutes of champagne have gone down, well appreciated I must add. the maisons will be proud if they knew. i hope.

and for the guys, well, let's just say the thing that i finally realized moved my decision to the many other opportunities (seriously, be fair! we had a good one, but there're others that're equally good, if not better. really.) was chester's story about the man who wanted god to save him in the most bizarre and obvious manner. let's just say i take the opportunities that come by as they come by - certainly ain't hoping to strike toto or something by virtue of a ticket i find on the bus. plus, in jason's words - long term, no? i'll cya guys, maybe not so soon again, but certainly in the future. don't commit me to anything, for goodness' sake.

alors. that seems to be most of it. seriously, you can't expect me to write a post just for the sole purpose of telling people what i've been up to right. i came here with a purpose heh. i need the experiences of previous batches of london bound individuals - packing lists, if you still have them, envoyez-les-moi, s'il vous plait. as with the other important and essential information you may have. in fact, either important OR essential. I know i've been playing the "yea, it's important, but it sure ain't essential" phrase a little too often for my own good, but this time, it's OR. mathematically, anything that touches those 2 categories.

c'est tout. simple, non? :) merci beaucoup! il me semble que ce n'est pas très facile.. mais.. :s