The Lonely Bones

Watched The Lovely Bones with Yu Jie today at Cathay. I didn't know that if you pay by Nets from Mon-Thurs 24/7 it's $6 -.-

Honestly speaking, I can already assume that the novel is so much better than the movie itself, except for Stanley Tucci's acting as Harvey which was pretty good. If the story could have been told a lot more clearly, all the computer graphics of Susie's perceived "heaven" would probably make more sense than the TV advertisements they look like.

I'm sorry Yu Jie, I should've picked a better movie - at the end of the movie, and within the first 30 minutes or so when Susie entered the "in-between" heaven and earth I was already so afraid to speak up and risk hearing comments like "boring" or what not I didn't want to ask. I think we'd both need degrees in philosophy to fully understand the computer effects of the show haha.

We went to...PoMo....saw some great card trick displays at a nice card shop. I think I'll buy a black card mat someday. Ended off with dinner and dian xin at Plaza Singapura.

...thinking about personality clashes.

John 19:30

It is finished.

By myself.

Things have been pretty boring of late, and I've been re-playing Fatal Frame II to pass the time. Really wanted to play Fatal Frame 4; even though it's Wii-exclusive, the trailer looks amazing and the story as Shinto-ish and exotic as ever. Then I figured I couldn't play as well on a Wii.

Well, the holiday has also provided more than ample opportunity for reflection. I think, each time I take a train, bus, cycle (besides speeding) or walk alone, somehow or another, I would reflect upon something - be it of a certain person's actions, dressing, etc. or even something that I remember.

And today it was about being alone.

"No man is an island." - I'm sure many of us have heard of or know this phrase. Yet, I wonder how many of us out there are nonetheless, still islands, be it because of physical, psychological,social, etc. barriers.

Before JC1, I didn't really know what it was like to be REALLY alone. That didn't mean that I was the most social animal in class either. I had a few friends here and there, and at least I spoke with them regularly - at school or on MSN. Maris Stella for me had fond memories here and there. SJI's first two years were spent rather frivolously too; naively so maybe. At this point, I give credit to Bryan Lim and Marcus Sim. These were two friends of mine who I'd met while I was in the SJI Military Band - all 3 of us quit the band together, started up a Debating Society together, and as such, we hung out together a lot.

In Sec 3 and 4 - not counting the horrible first few months of Sec 3 - I did make several good friends too. But along came JC.

And that was when I realised how upsetting it could be to be alone.

The first 3-4 months of orientation was quite simply horrifying. Smsing my SJI friends had almost no effect because I found almost no people whom I could really relate to. I recall myself looking at my watch more than I did my surroundings, praying desperately for each horrible, terrible - terrible day of orientation to be over. Within my OG, unlike the frivolities of everyone else, I didn't associate at all unless I had to. Although there was a short surprise when an OG mate was Yu Jie's cousin, that proved fruitless to even damage the walls that had started to form in my mind. When my class was assigned, things were even worse. J1 was basically the most horrible year of my life in general - J2 wasn't much better too until the later half of the year.

Through all this, I learnt to adapt to being alone. Without dramaticising, I basically withdrew myself a lot. I can't possibly put everything I went through in here - my thoughts are effectively whirling right now haha - and so I'm not going to.

Two years of JC certainly transformed me. It was during these two years that I learnt to see life from the eyes of someone who was constantly alone, be it a depressed person or what not.
I began to speak a lot less, but I opened my eyes a lot more. Observing and perceiving rather than talking, I began to unconsciously withdraw myself from different kinds of social conversations or circles. I started to look and observe people more than I had ever done before, to perceive what was going on in a certain person's mind, guessing what he/she was feeling based on how that person acted or what he/she said. It's what really drew me to psychology in the end actually haha.

I don't know if I should even say "If only I were someone with social circles, constantly having many many friends and having fun.".

Strangely, upon reflecting now, I really don't think I could see myself becoming someone like that. Although I'm sure if I did, I would really have smiled and laughed a lot. Maybe I would've liked that.

Oh well :p

Multi-level Destruction

I'm sure everyone's heard of multi-level marketing. Not defacing any company in particular here - but, just an experience to share. It just rained and I'm bored as hell :p so I've decided to post my feelings on this. I'll try to keep things short.

It started off with an eBay deal - I sold all my 500++ pokemon cards to this pokemon card trader who'd just moved on from the....enthralling years of NS. I sold everything to him for $28, not just because pokemon cards aren't in demand anymore - but more because I just wanted to economically dump them. Well, the thing is, after a few days we agreed to meet so I could sell him my 2 Starcraft CDs - apparently he was interested in old games too - and then, he asked me if I wanted a job, one that I could work even during NS. And so I said, why not take a took and see? After all, I've been bored and I wanted to save up some money as well. Thing is, he didn't tell me what he was doing exactly, and so with an earnest heart I went off to meet him yesterday - and got myself into quite the time-wasting trap.

I still didn't know what job it was exactly, right until he brought me to this large, tall commercial building. It was raining then too yesterday, and he called his higher-up to come down to introduce me to my job scope and what the job actually was.

Long story short, now I understand why he didn't want to tell me what he was doing right at the start - simply because I'd have said no. MLM - it's a concept that holds a certain degree of notoriety especially in Singapore.

And so, I was taken through nearly 2 AND A HALF HOURS of what the company did - notably, the higher-up kept on mentioning how a few young individuals in Singapore started earning five-figure salaries and having a continental car (BMW, Lexus, Rolls Royce, yadda yadda) once they joined the company.

"Our big boss drives a Lamborghini." he said.

What really cheesed me off was that, out of that 2 and a half hours of time he took explaining things to me, I daresay less than 30 minutes were used to explain my job scope. The rest of the time was used to glamourise his company's assets, holdings and achievements. He even had the gall to advertise nearly all his company's products (using newspaper articles and advertisements too) as if I was a consumer as well. And did I mention that he threw in (several times) long statements about the company's ambassadors as well?

And at the end of it all, he presented me with an application form to sign up to work. And when I said "I have to go back to think about it - this is a big step for me.", that Bvlgari-cufflink (yes, I did notice his physical wealth while reading his mind at the same time) wearing person kept on insisting that I sign the form and sign up.

"What have you got that's holding you back?"

"If you take even one or two days to think about it, you could end losing...(writes a five-figure sum) doing so!"

He even got one of his wealthy, successful colleagues to try to reason with me as to why I should sign up immediately. At this point I really want to thank God that that trainee wasn't as persistent as the higher-up - I noticed he kept, not trying to convince me, but humour me. His eyes kept looking around and he gave only respectful nods, without the slightest hint of sincerity of trying to convince me to come on board - thank God.

I stepped into the building at around 4pm, and left the building at 6.20pm - and hoo-hah, the higher-up actually took the courtesy of "escorting" me to the station, throwing in more of the company's astounding achievements as we walked.

Even though I sound like the time there was completely wasted, I did come out with a new measure of learnedness about MLM (and about this particular one based in Singapore). Solely by judging that one higher-up who wasted tons of saliva regurgitating whatever he memorised from his salesman notes, I've drawn some conclusions from this:

1) That higher-up alone utilised a variety of confidence tricks, whether he knew it or not. By consistently lauding his company's achievements, the number of continental cars his directors have, and the directors' (there were lots of them...73?) wealth and influential power, he tried to manipulate and exploit certain qualities that many people possess: Greed, Vanity, Naivete, Honesty (yes, not DIS-honesty). Also, by constantly asking the apparently divine questions:

a) "Don't you agree with me?"

b) "Which would you choose, the (positive answer) or (negative answer)?"

c) "Wouldn't you like to....."

he sought to indirectly control my train of thought through a progression of psychological manipulation.

2) Throughout the conversation, he threw me crappy stories and theories about how referring friends/relatives to their company and buying their products would allow them to experience renewed lifestyles, better health and what have you. The thing about MLMs is that they depend a lot on the concept of word-of-mouth. (It is after all the cheapest form of advertising.) For every product that you sell to a person you referred, you earn 5-10% in rebates of the product's direct sell price. My conclusion is this: Working in such a business in fact, diminishes a person's sense of honesty. Behind the veneer of promising health benefits and well-being, the central reason is Money. The very thing that drives these people to sell their products "for the good of mankind" is money. Logically, it doesn't sound wrong - after all, MLM people are indeed perfectly logical and economical (PUN INTENDED) people. But, for any sane student of psychology, it's obviously a cause for great concern.

3) One grounding statement the higher-up said when he introduced me to the company is:

"Nu ren cong tou dao jiao dou shi qian." (in Chinese)

"From top to bottom, a woman is money." (in English)

I was appalled when I heard this. While it's no secret that today's women are getting very excessively concerned about a lot of things in their lives (especially their physical selves, if you get my hint), this MLM sought to exploit this very negative trait of today's women's self-consciousness, allowing it to fester and infect women even more by providing solutions for these problems, sometimes at an allegedly cheap price. It's the same scenario as providing more and more cigarettes to chain smokers.

4) With regards to the bolded statement, I also began to have greater insight into the mind of this higher-up. When he said that statement, I wondered just to how great a degree HIS higher-ups have subverted and twisted his mind, distorting it and allowing him to believe that such twisted opinion is justified and correct, TO EXPLOIT.

I've got more reflections but I'm going to stop here because I think I'm boring people :p In any case, I'm glad I was even able to get out of that building. Phew.

The things that money and economics can do to people.

"Father And Mother, I Lack You"

"Mummy! Daddy! You're home!", the child said as he ran to hug them.

"What did you get for your Maths exam?"

The boy smiled and said, "I got 50..."

Mummy looks sternly at her son, her eyebrows narrowing almost immediately. Her face turns into a shade of red, as she hurls scolding after scolding at her 7-year old son. She refuses to give him any chance to explain his apparent laziness. As he tried to voice out his words, she slaps him and scolds him even more. Daddy brings a cane.

Welling with tears, the boy tries to mouth two words, when the rattan cane strikes his bottom hard, blow after blow. It leaves red marks. They continue shouting at him for about 5 minutes. Once the boy finds a few seconds of silence, with tears in his eyes, he mutters:

"...upon 50."

"Father And Mother, I Love You."

How can this basic explanation of the word "Family" be so lost nowadays?

Let's face it. No matter how much less incidents of parental abuse (whether direct or indirect) are reported nowadays in the paper - especially when the focus has been thrown on the IRs or Tiger Woods - families that harbour parental abuse still exist today.

And to all parents who are trying to stand up for themselves by making excuses such as "Oh, I'm concerned for my children's long-term welfare and academic future" and all that nonsense; well, you've just screwed them up big time. Don't try to make excuses for yourself. You've allowed (or are allowing) distinct, unadulterated, immaculate, unconditional parental love to be tainted by your own selfish, self-centered, or egocentric ideals.

In my opinion, true Love is unconditional. Parental love is therefore no exception. Loving your children more when they get better grades, and less when they get less exceptional ones, is a clear example that you're clearly not meant to be parents. Don't try to say that "Oh, actually deep down I love them very much"; even if you did feel that way as you delivered lash upon lash on your children, you're still dense enough not to realise that your children, especially younger ones, look more at what you DO to them, rather than what you INTENDED for them.

Young children are torn between how much you used to love and care for them when they were small, and the increasingly horrible ways that you treat them as they grow up to fit your ideals.

Some simply accept the ways that they are psychologically mistreated (no matter how seemingly mild) and suffer in pain.

Some "fortunate" ones are able to live up to their parents' expectations, and thus "earn" their parents' love and respect.

Some who try with their utmost might, eventually learn to accept the harsh truth that they'll never be able to fulfill their parents' expectations, which leads to them turning rebellious and cold towards their parents. Many adolescents fall into this category, which leads to what many adults call the phenomenon of "Teenage Rebellion".

....of course the list hasn't been exhausted but, eventually all these situations point to one thing: that Love becomes CONDITIONAL and is not given willingly and freely.

The family breaks up - bit by bit. As the years go by, a psychological gap between parents and children are created.

A gaping hole that lacks Love eventually worsens, becomes wider and infects the family from within.

Children steer clear of their parents (or even their siblings) and do not want to talk or be in contact with them as much as possible. The effect is that parents feel that their children are ungrateful and don't love them anymore, being constantly out of the house or locked up in their rooms.

Parents exchange fewer and fewer, and fewer words with their children. They are no longer close to their children as they feel them distant. They decide that their children are ungrateful for not repaying their parents for raising them up, eventually deciding to give up on them.

I need not go into more specific details, but the crux of the matter is that, a family is destroyed. Wrecked. Terrorized from within.

Parental love can be something so powerful when it is untainted, immaculate and unconditional - it can be the strongest binding force that holds a family together no matter how separated they may be by difficult careers and strenuous times.

When parental love is touched by societal ideals and evils, it will be the most devastating force that stealthily and slowly weakens and eventually breaks familial ties.

So please, dear, dearest parents, if you brought your children into the world with even the slightest intention of raising them up into models of society or models of your own ideals, don't doom yourself and your children. Change your ways and STOP relying on your children to accomplish what you couldn't accomplish when you were young and ambitious, or force them to be people they don't want to be. Shun your excuses that children are naive and unbecoming without guidance that YOU deem as "proper".

Listen to their hearts, save them from whatever troubles them. Be their pillars of support no matter what trouble they get themselves into, or no matter what decisions they make. If they ask for advice, always temper it with love and a mind that supports them. Love them, be with them always and never, ever desert them.

To the parents of a certain family out there that I know possesses such rare, unconditional love within, continue to keep close to your children. I admire you both very, very much. If I ever have children myself, I promise to follow in your footsteps.

Flickers of happiness.

I was just wondering one morning about what makes us happy.

For some people, happiness comes from bouncing a dark orange ball, laced with black stripes, with people who are similarly like-minded. Scoring that don't-know-how-many-points goal or doing that slam dunk brings not just exhilaration or fellowship, but the simple notion of happiness - however ephemeral. Basketball's a great sport; it brings friends through fellowship, fun through (maybe) competition or simply throwing balls into the hoop, and sometimes times of reflection once a game's over.

For others, it's drinking a cup of perfectly milked and sweetened English Breakfast Tea, or a tisane of Peppermint - even eating alone maybe, though all amidst serene surroundings. Silence. Quiet. A gentle breeze that provides the last icing for a cool afternoon. I like moments like these myself - they provide much opportunity for random thought, reflection, pondering and thinking about life. If not, my inspiration would draw itself from watching people pass me by as I attempt to read their minds, figuring out from their actions and movements what lives and emotions lie behind that often ornate facade, as I try to psychologically peel the layers. (At this point, I just wanted to say don't get me wrong - there are people who indeed exercise truthful fronts, just that they're oh-so rare.)

Anyway, I'm not going to digress any further because typing on my laptop just can't match the speed of my full thoughts at all.

My point is, happiness, however short-lived or temporary, is precious. To the majority of people, they are often to caught up in running the rat race of life as they struggle to aspire, achieve and amplify all the physical things that they have. Moments of happiness are hard to come by for them, as their schedules are packed stiff with many other things that seem to matter so absolutely much. Their handphones consistently beep and buzz, and their inbox-es seem always to be full.

Try to make the best out of the happy moments that you have, be it in your childhood, adolescence or adulthood. Make a hobby out of card tricks however simple or difficult, go out with friends just for a walk and talk (You have no idea how much more powerful it means when two people are together than just one alone) or have fun thinking and talking about random things - and a bit of advice: Smile, try to free yourself, and think simple and child-like; don't let complex and difficult issues like competition cloud the very essence of happiness that is meant to be innocent, simple and memorable.

Fatal Frame III - The Tormented

Finished Fatal Frame II - Crimson Butterfly wayyy back....and after a LONGG time:

Just finished Fatal Frame III - The Tormented today! Haha I'm proud of myself. I left this game half-unplayed some years back and decided to come back to it since I had the time :)

That's the final boss - Reika Kuze the Tattooed Priestess. If you ask me she should get a serious haircut, a new hat, and some clothes. She was pretty hard to kill though - there was this point in time where she could one hit K.O. me -.- took me two tries to kill her too, "Blast" (special lens) Shot-ted her face with my camera and landed a Fatal Frame damage bonus as well.

The ending was pretty sweet and quite heart-rending, just like Fatal Frame II - nice graphics, nice hug, and nice ending.

Wish I could play Fatal Frame IV - Mask of the Lunar Eclipse but it's only on the Wii :(

Indifference

I'm not proud of my 'A' Level Results, nor am I disappointed. It's not because I'm being elitist - moreso that I'm not an ambitious person by nature. Well, I guess another explanation was that when I felt slightly proud of myself for doing well for 'O' Levels, the two self-centered patron saints of my life totally turned that around, used my good results against me and drove me into 2 years of generally recurring, depressive episodes.

I felt almost pure indifference when I got them back, really. Nothing of the wild, almost babaric emotions others displayed. Well, whatever. It's over. To hell with all the "I could've done better" and sobbing and regretting and all that bullcrap.

When I got my results I strode out of school and went for a quiet lunch (although it was sort of ruined because I forgot I couldn't pay with NETS and that the supposedly superb molten chocolate cake terribly disappointed me); the only things that I did were to sms my results to satisfy the hunger of the persistent parents and my siblings. One special note for my mother:

"No matter what it is, just let me know immediately." as if she'd accept "no matter what it is". The very next day just when I woke up she came into my room and asked crap questions about the 'D' I got. My dad the same. Oh, and did I mention my mom said she decided that she would have nothing to do with my uni course choice, because she didn't want to be blamed? Well, shortly after she tried to force the screws of medicine and law into my square train of thought.

To make things better, one of my maternal uncles called me, congratulated me in that academic tone, and told me that "it's difficult to make a good decision at this point in time" and to "keep my doors open". Then, he proceeded into long, poetic strings of advice with a bottom line for me to do - yes, medicine:

1) "You know, we usually fall sick on Saturdays and Sundays where doctors' clinics usually aren't open.....and so..."

2) "It would be good to have another doctor in the family"

3) "Your cousin also thought she didn't want to do medicine but now she's a family doctor"

and all that nonsense. It's no wonder my mom's the same. And it's no wonder my siblings turned out like that too. I'm not trying to be judgmental, but this is two generations (or more) of hereditary, academic, trains of thought.

It's a pity to them, I know, that they didn't have a more ambitious and aspiring child.

Don't look behind.

The power of Negativity

I was just playing 2 dota games with a close friend just now, and I felt something very horrible happen to me. In the first game, I kept losing and losing to him. Now anyone who knows me would know not to challenge me at dota because they'd be bored killing the same under-levelled fool over and over again, getting imba items and repeating the process tenfold. Well, this friend of mine's a pro, and naturally, I kept falling and falling.

I told myself, "Never mind, it's only a game nothing much, why bother?". Ironically, the horrifying thing (to me) was that my mind didn't tell me what my heart did. Well, my heart in its figurative sense. Literally though, my heart started to pump faster. I got angrier each time he killed me, each time he talked to me or taunted me even though they were friendly. Each time I died, I kept trying to tell myself that it didn't matter, but it didn't seem to help.

I could feel my mind summoning up negative emotions of all kinds relevant. Anger, vengeance, hatred even. It was as if my mind was forcing itself to focus a deadly portion of negativity towards this friend of mine, SOLELY because he was beating me at DOTA. It sounds silly I know. "You're just being a loser", you may think but truthfully, I was deathly afraid of how I was reacting to a simple game. Reacting to a friend winning me at a simple computer game with such negative energy that, if I could manifest within the minutes I felt them, would have blasted a hole through my wall out into the open. All this while, my heart was like an almost-unheard voice throughout this confusion, trying continuously and painstakingly to convince me otherwise while negative dark energy overwhelmed its cries.

Look, I'm trying not to be overly dramatic and insane-sounding; this was really what I felt. It was only after the second game when the tables turned over, when I killed him once, and again, and again, that everything started to soothe down. When I finally did calm down, I then started to feel afraid. I was able to reflect so much on what i felt just now that I was afraid of myself for who I am - some person who's apparently so powerfully adept at summoning up negative emotions. I was afraid.

Then I just felt like blogging it.

Harlequin's Victory Ace

The Harlequin's Ace has brought him a royal flush. Le Magnifique. To those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, there are some secrets left unsaid :)

Fatal Fatality

As a rather avid fan of horror games, I played through two installments of the series Fatal Frame some years back before I went into jc, namely the second and third. Fatal Frame II notably, has been regarded as one of the scariest games in the world thus far. For those of you out there who don't know Fatal Frame, it's a Japanese horror game where basically, you are against an entire horde (an entire village) of ghosts, and your only weapon is a camera which has an exorcism effect when used on them. Think it's lame? Go try it out :)

I was watching some gameplay videos on youtube - where random people obviously (or deliberately) unprepared played through the game with all the lights off, and as such, provided for some funny screams whenever they got "ghosted".

Yet, amidst all this, I couldn't help but wander off into my own little thought circle of life.

The protagonist runs around in manors belonging to strange families, winding through tens of secret passages into unknown, unfamiliar places. She's afraid, scared, tormented even at certain points in the game. One camera. Versus scores of ghosts. No wonder she's afraid - even moreso than the players.

How many of us out there have ever felt that way? That we're living in complete, pitch darkness, feeling so terrible, so useless at times where we simply feel ourselves not well equipped to handle this dark reality that seems to overwhelm us. For those of us out there who've got wide social circles throughout their lives, I dare to say that you've never. Forget the crap about break-ups that seem so crippling to the heart, or that 4 'A's that you didn't get for that important exam that you've stuck your entire life to with a pin.

For those who know what I'm talking about, then you've experienced it as much as I have at one time or another. And we know it's scary, and it chips away at us. We see people out there whom we know have been born into seemingly perfect circumstances - a family that loves them, scores of friends who surround them, comfortable wealth that accompanies them, and a generic aura of content that exists around them.

Envious? I know what you mean - I once felt that way too. Envious of people who, by grace or by luck, are able to live in the very same "village" that we too reside in, only that it's bathed in the complete brilliance of light. They prance and twirl around, while we are left with a "camera", forced to fight so many negativities, "ghosts" that haunt our lives day and night - ghosts that hurt us, that cripple us or even kill us.

We seem trapped by the strings of Fate, destined to die an early and miserable death, without the fulfillment or happiness that others out there have. Trapped. Enshrined in a deathtrap, unable to escape. We cry, feel upset for long periods of time, and see life in monochrome.

Yet, you know, amidst all that Pandora had to throw around at us, she unknowingly gave us a gift too - Empathy.

I really do feel that we're able to empathise a lot more than others, sometimes on such a transcendent level. I don't really know how to explain it myself - but perhaps we've shut up so much and learnt more to observe things around us, sometimes with such a sharp clarity that our minds now become so receptive to emotions that we can even identify with them on a much higher level than the other party in question. And it's simply because we've been stabbed in the heart before.

Well, in any case, know that you can escape this. If you haven't thought about it yet, imagine having tens (or hundreds if you can) of glow-in-the-dark ghost shapes pasted around your room with the lights off. Now, turn the lights on.

It's simple - find that switch and flick it.

I know it's hard, and for your information it's not always that easy to find that switch. Don't think it's always pasted on a wall. But please, never stop looking for it, okay? You'll find it.

Each time we find something in our lives - be it God, a new friend, a new positive hobby, a stuffed toy that helps us reminisce warm memories or a book that we decide to act upon - we make one step closer to that switch that seems so invisible to us. Conversely, every moment that we spend mulling things over and over and over and......over, we ensnare ourselves to a spot, mentally unable to move, trapping ourselves.

So go out there, and find it. I know it's hard, and I know all odds are against you, but have hope - it's there, waiting for you to find it. Waiting for the chance to be discovered. If you're religious, pray about it, and BELIEVE in your own prayers.

For those of you who've found your switches, take heart that you have, and also that you've experienced what it's like to be in the dark - because you'll be able to in your own small way, help others to find their own individual switches. And you can be next to them when they do, pointing and laughing at the glow-in-the-dark, foolish twits that they once feared so much.

For those who've been living in sunny villages and feeling the warm breezes of life all along, it's just their good luck and blessing that when they first opened their eyes into this world, the lights were already on.

Oh, and for those of you who don't know Fatal Frame, here's a little something that might interest you. Don't forget to turn the lights off first:

Hello?

Hi everyone; whoever's out there I've started a blog.

And that's my first blog post.