Christmas Day

Christmas is a time for reflection and renewal. For Christians the year's end has a special and familiar significance, but all faiths have their calendars, their signposts, which ask us to pause from time to time and think further than the hectic daily round. We do that as individuals, with our families, and as members of our local communities.

In the past, and even sometimes now I find it hard to believe that someone the older generation might have something useful to say to them. But I would say that my father has much to say to me. Indeed, his vigour and enjoyment of life is a great example of how to close the so-called generation gap. He has an extraordinary capacity to bring happiness into other people's lives. And his own vitality and warmth is returned to him by those whom he meets. This I'm partially convinced by.

Christmas is a good time for us to recognise all that whomever has done for us and to say a heartfelt thank you to each and every one of them.

Merry Christmas to All.

Mr I-Need-You-24/7

Easily noticeable, he exudes a minion-like behaviour around girlfriends. Recall the guy who calls his girlfriend 5 times in an hour (that's basically once every 10mins), he has developed an arched-back from carrying too many shopping bags, and is seemingly lacking his own social circle.

You may find this familiar:
Girlfriend: Why do you keep calling me! I'm doing my project!
He: Where are you? Why can't you tell me? Why can't I be there with you?
Girlfriend: Don't disturb me, I'm having menstrual cramps
He: I wanna be with you 24/7. You need tampons? I can run out to 7-11 and be back in 2 minutes.

Verdict: Well, if you're willing to tolerate a second 'shadow' in the form of the male species, and enjoy having a quasi-Nazi track your every move in exchange for a self-devoted serf, I salute you.
-by Aston Lim, UC Santa Barbara & Melissa Lee, NTU

The Rule of Three

Consider how this ancient law of proportion works for great speeches

Most speakers know about the importance of using “the Rule (or Law of Three”. Most are not aware where it came from.

People use this ancient mathematical law of proportion in ways they do not even think about. Abraham Lincoln learned it in his one-room schoolhouse. Eves Aristotle, in his Art of Rhetoric, referred to “three types of speeches” and “three forms of proof”, although he also divided ideas into two parts and four parts as well.

Lewis Carroll, in addition to writing the Alice in Wonderland stories, was a mathematician at Oxford and referred to The Rule of Three more than once in his writings. In his Mad Gardener’s Song, he writes:
“He though he saw a Garden-door
That opened with a key:
He looked again, and found it was
A double Rule of Three:
‘And all its mystery,’ he said
‘Is clear as day to me.’”
Later on, in The Hunting of the Snark, Carroll says:
“I have said it twice:
That alone should encourage the crew.
I have said it thrice:
What I tell you three times is true.”

Suffice to say, irrespective of its mathematical overtones, the number three is truly magical. Speech coaches insist that people can most easily remember something if it is said three different times.

Shakespeare used it (“Friends, Romans, Countrymen”), and so did Thomas Jefferson (“Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness”). US Marine Corp instructors teach that a marine should limit his or her attention to three tasks or goals.

And the Jay Lenos of the comedy world frequently follow this formula. The first comment names the topic, the second sets a pattern, and the third unexpectedly switches the pattern, which is funny.

So where has all this been leading us? Simply that focusing your message on no more than three significant points, and repeating them in different ways throughout your presentation, is certain to give your presentation the maximum impace. Using The Rule of Three is powerful!

In case the above seems over dogmatic, some authorities suggest that The Rule of Three is more commonly followed in Western culture and that “a rule of four” can be found to be typical in other cultures.

Dr Jerry Tarver, emeritus professor of speech communications at the University of Richmond and a noted speechwriting instructor, points out that there are many famous examples of “fours” and “twos” in famous declarations (Frank Delano Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms” and Churchill’s “blood, toil, tears and sweat”). A good example of “twos” is Patrick Henry’s famous “Give me liberty or give me death!”

Emerson’s dictum that “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds” is probably applicable her but we still think The Rule of Three is a powerful technique in fashioning memorable human communications. If it was good enough for Shakespeare, it is worth your while to give it a shot.

-when you are clear about the thress key points of your speech, it is easier to pack power into each point you want to make.

thinking and feeling together

i think too many times i’m just doing one and not the other. when i’m thinking, i’m just working and working and just doing stuff but not feeling about ow the people around me are doing, about whether i’m taking time to make friends..to cherish friends. when i’m feeling, i’m just beeing all emotional and feely and not taking action to curb those negative emo feelings/ride on the waves of the good feelings and making sth really good of them.
i need to do my thinking and my feeling together.

-

for now, the daily dose..
Mr Dollar Bill Arsonist
A regular at upmarket waterholes like Winebar and Qbar, he may be young, but he's loaded and disillusioned with the value of money. Used to lighting cigarettes with lit up dollar bills and with a wallet full of titanium credit cards, he's thinks money can buy you everything.

You may find this familiar:
Girlfriend: Oh no....I'm really worried about my grades...
He: How much do you want?
Girlfriend: Do you think God exists?
He: Seriously, how much do you want?

Verdict: He does not take you seriously and assumes all relationships are developed on the basis of a monetary transaction. His so-called man-buddies are probably hangout out with him because he's loaded. When push comes to shove, you'll never know if he'll be around. However, unless you're a gold-digger whose sole life purpose can be fulfilled with material satisfaction, you go Girl!
-by Aston Lim, UC Santa Barbara & Melissa Lee, NTU

desperation

sometimes there’s just this desperation within you that is greater than your fears. and hopefully along with it comes a passion that’s bigger than your inhibitions and if things go well, along with it is also a fire that melts away all the bad stuff.
this feeling comes in short spurts at time to me but i wish it’d stay longer.then maybe i’d feel more compelled to do things that i’ve stopped doing, to feel things i’ve stopped feeling and to discipline myself to follow through these great big plans i have in my head. it’s scary to feel it but i need to, right now. now.

time capsule

i met zhen' ai today and its been so long since we last met. i kinda miss her badly, BADLY. by the way, thanks for the chocolates, bestie.

sometimes you miss someone quite a bit and you don’t realize it until you spend time with him/her again.
there were moments of silence between us - when we were just occupied with our own thoughts and pondering over what had just been said. then we’d just smile to ourselves or to each other and though at these times little was said out loud, we kind of knew what was going through each other’s minds. even if nothing was being connected in our brain’s nerve cells, we just enjoyed each other’s company. the physical presence just felt, hmm, say - assuring.

i kind of like this phrase. ronan keating warbles: you say it best, when you say nothing at all. i don’t think communication has to be verbal all the time. being able to be with someone and not say anything without feeling awkward or strange is a sort of indication of a matured friendship…

i just place today's happenings in the time capsule.

rain (part1)

rain.
it started raining the whole day since sunday.
no doubt its gloomy and depressing.
but,
really it ain't that bad, really.
i like the rain in the morning especially. you get to feel all cozy inside. of course it’d be nice if you could lay in bed, huddled under a humongous blanket hugging a bolster. and the air is all fresh and cool.
i thank God for the rain.

what you dream things would be

everyday i try to tell myself ‘this is your life, are you who you wanna be?’
many times i can’t say yes because there are simply too many imperfections within me that make it question if everything will really be how i dreamed it would be. one day, perhaps someday.
the song goes on ‘don’t close your eyes, this is your life, are you who you wanna be’.
well, yes, you shouldn’t close your eyes, whether is it in fear or out of fatigue.
you just gotta keep your eyes open, grin and bare it; the world won’t seem so daunting anymore and your dreams won’t be so far away. now i have to go on to more major victories and slowly make it to living a life where everything is what i dreamed (am dreaming) it to be.
keep your eyes open to the good, happy things…to the optimism of what can be.

three Bs

there are many things that i may not understand and even more things that i don’t even have knowledge of. but in any situation, i think the best thing is to stop trying to make sense of everything and just let someone bigger than yourself step in. slowly but surely after that, things will make connections in your head make sense.
today wasn’t supposed to be a good day, in fact, today was a sunday where i had many things to jeer about but somehow, i’m in a cheery mood. i think it’s all in the power of the mind, the same (bad) situation can happen to you but what happens to you on the inside really does depend on how your mind thinks.

just somehow, i AM feeling bigger, better and brighter today.

magical, charming, beautiful

magical and charming:
there is this something about christmas lights that is part magical and part charming.
that's why i love christmas. but somehow i still feel that christmas in town is so solemn, though i have my friends and family by my side.

beautiful:
there is this thing about waterbodies at night that makes them an extremely beautiful sight. perhaps it’s the string of lights from streetlamps that reflect off it or the shimmery reflections from random light lines. it’s just really nice. and with good company, you’d be like :) and of course i was :) too.

you know...

do you know?
perhaps.
maybe so,
maybe not.

you know when you bathe in the morning and the showerhead is above you and the water is running and you step into the bath area and you go under the water and the water is cold and the sensation of the freezing water when it hits your skin from head to toe…and SHOCKS THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS OUT OF YOU?!
yeah, i have a love-hate r/s with that feeling. it almost works as well as coffee.

try it. i thought it might work just as well for you like it did for me.

Judgment Day

The future has not been written. There is no fate but what we make for ourselves. I wish I could believe that. My name is J. Connor. They tried to murder me before I was born. When I was 13, they tried again. Machines from the future. Terminators. All my life, my mother told me the storm was coming. Judgment Day. The beginning of a war between man and machines. Three billion lives would vanish in an instant. I would lead what was left of the human race to ultimate victory.

It hasn’t happen. No bombs fell. Computers didn’t take control. We stopped judgment Day. I should feel safe…but I don’t… so I live off the grid. No phone, no address…no one and nothing can find me. I’ve erased all connections to the past. But as hard as I try…I can’t erase my dreams…my nightmares. I feel the weight of the future bearing down on me. A future I don’t want. So I keep running…as fast as I can. Anywhere. Nowhere.

By the time Skynet became self-aware…it had spread into millions of computer servers across the planet. Ordinary computers in office buildings, dorm rooms—everywhere. It was software and cyberspace. There was no system core. It could not be shut down. The attack began at 6:18 P. M., just as he said it would. Judgment Day. The day that human race was nearly destroyed …by the weapons they’d built to protect themselves. I should have realized our destiny was never to stop Judgment Day. It was merely to survive it…together. The Terminator knew. He tried to tell us…but I didn’t want to hear it. Maybe the future has been written. I don’t know. All I know is what the Terminator taught me: Never stop fighting. And I never will. The battle has just begun.

go with the flow

spending one day at home is the greatest luxury i can have right now. stepping outside of my family’s humble abode often means i have got work to do and i’ve to speak more than i wish to. at work, i appreciate even more the ability to be laid back and just…’go with the flow’. so i think, my mom angst was more of a blessing than a curse. just for yesterday at least.

right now, i'm feeling so sinful. just when i'm suppose to mug, im facing the laptop watching some warflick. rarrhhh

nothing more than faith

yes, despite all the nonsense and emo-ness that college has managed to conjure up, i’m still keeping the faith that there’s a happy and fruitful ending for all of us. although it is a tad unfair to blame everything on the college, it does seem that people did try their darnest to get into my course of study just to find themselves more unhappy than ever. is it the stress? the projects? the peer pressure? the CTs? or just the elitist group of people?
personally, i find myself very happy in school. perhaps because i do not push myself to the limits and thus have less of my character and personalilty tested in the past half a year. maybe because I don’t lay my pens on the book 24/7. sometimes it breaks my heart and optimism to see the people around me breaking down and not being able to handle the worries that college years throw at us but there isn’t much i can do, except to keep the faith and to pray.

way of life

there are many things that i may not understand and even more things that i don't even have knowledge of. but in any situation, i think the best thing is to stop trying to make sense of everything and just let someone bigger than yourself step in. slowly but surely after that, things will make connections in your head; make sense.

ok that's just today..i'm going to complete my work and mug if i can till the sun comes up tomorrow morning and i collapse from exhaustion.
rarrhhh

the morning rain

i slept at 9pm last night and was supposed to wake up 30 minutes later to mug till 1am at least but well, i just woke up half an hour ago and here i am blogging.
it’s raining outside. I’m feeling extremely extremely cold. i guess that’s the reason why my parents keep telling me that i’m supposed to wear proper pyjamas to sleep and not just t-shirts and shorts.
rarrrhhh.
i like the rain in the morning. you get to feel all cozy inside. of course it’d be nice if you could lay in bed, huddled under a humongous blanket hugging a bolster but since i’ve slept for 9 hours already, being huddled in front of the laptop ain’t that bad either.
i could talk about exams or CTs and how it don’t count for anything except to promote you to year2 but well, i’m not about to discourage myself further from hitting the books. Not for now at least. alright so lets just say I’m studying for knowledge.
but deep down inside, i know that exams aren’t everything.

all about love

love isn’t centered around emotion. it is, in fact, centered around you and your will.
so the cliche of falling in and out of love isn’t that true after all. love isn’t an emotion (or rather, it really isn’t based on an emotion) love is a choice. so a relationship doesn’t work out just 'cos you fall out of love with someone. love is a decision, your desicion. and when you’ve made it, you also concurrently make a commitment to your decision. you don't fall out of love. you just simply choose to stop committing yourself further into the choice that you made.
i promise that when i choose to love. i’ll stick to it. i will.

the path i choose to walk

there are many times when we just simply get tired of doing things. for me at least. getting things right…or at least trying to. how to do you explain something that felt so right and that that ended up in flames?
look, i think. it’s the same with everything we've set our minds on. relationships (with man and with any other things), studying for exams etc. we're always subconsciously asking, ‘should i give up or not? do or don't?’ why not just throw in the towel and do something else? something simpler and less exhausting?
sometimes i question myself if it does pay to be different? 'cos if it isn’t, i'd just let myself be like every other soul. just go with the flow, and be with the crowd. even though you’re in the ‘right’ crowd of people and different, you just somehow feel like you don’t belong. at times, you just wish that people love you even more or even pay that extra bit of second noticing your differences. but sometimes they just make you feel inferior and want to sink into the earth's core, hoping to just disappear by the next time they blink their eyes.
oh well, that was pure blathering.
at the end of the day, i'll still choose to believe that there’s light at the end of the tunnel. though it may seem weak and lost right now, but if i just believe and continue to walk towards it, i’m going to come out basking in the full glory of it.
so, would you care to take the step with me?

Sleep - an evil thing

Sleep is an evil thing
really it is…it deprives you of alot alot of time but deprivation of sleep leaves you useless and mindless.

rarrhh

several thoughts running through my head but i do not have the tenacity nor do i have the rigour to spout it all out in proper words and sentences. perhaps one day when i’m able to translate the images and connections that my brain’s neurons are making, i’ll be able to give others an insight to what in the world i'm thinking.
now, i need to get some sleep and mug and mug and MUUUUG.

mug, MUG!

i need to study my notes. yet i think to myself that i still have time. no i don't have *enough* time. there are so many sets of notes to read, tutorials to go through.
gah..rarrhhh
no worries, i can still wake up early tomorrow, just to mug mug mug…whoooo.