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Ahhhhhh, its the last PSLE paper for some of them. I know how it feels.. That momentous feeling that you're moving from one stage of life to another. Makes you feel all grown up for a brief moment in time. Then after some 12-score years of education, when there are no more milestones set down along the roadside to guide and measure your life's journey, you're suddenly released from the nurturing womb of childhood into the madness of working life and the turbulent waters of self-discovery.. That's when you realise how unprepared you are for the realities of life. But we are survivors, we will fight the good fight and find our path in the midst of the overwhelming crowd, just as long as we don't give up on life. Follow your heart.

 — at Kong Hwa School (Temporary Site)

Ahem.. *A moment of silence please..*
With effect from today, O'liver Photography will cease to exist as a photographic entity, having succumbed mentally to the debilitating effects of excessive strobographic exposures. Taking its place as the premier centre of excellence for high-brow, Faux Photography, we're announcing the establishment of Daniel Sia Photography. Charting the future course of this fledgling movement would be Mr Daniel Sia Sze Ming (or Daniel Sia for short). We sincerely regret any sentimental attachments to good 'ol Mr O'liver, but due to frequent misrepresentation of his good name as "Olive", "O'lly", "O'livia" and "O'illy", we have decided that a switch to Mr Daniel Sia (not DENIAL Sia) is a necessary act of prudence, hence we seek your fullest cooperation in this name-changing operation. Mr Daniel Sia wishes to thank everyone for the help and support rendered to good 'ol O'liver over the years and urges all to keep on liking and faving Mr Sia's works way, way, way into the future. 

Leaving you breathless (aka 没出息),
Mr Daniel Sia Sze Ming

Friend: "No life is lost to abortion because life starts at birth".. 

[It is another of those nights again, where, too much caffeine, and too much thoughts running amok are messing up that biological clock screaming out for sleep in my head. Perhaps it is the vermillion coloured sky reflecting the eerie red glow of the amber street lamps below, tossing random thoughts into connected trains of thought. But the outcome is still the same. I can't sleep on a night when sleep is needed the most. There's a morning shoot coming up in a few hours..]

[=,= ...Yet Another Sleepless Night...]

R & R: These are the cardinal rules of Mr Sia's code of conduct. Get familiar with them. They are the very first lesson that Mr Sia would drum into every student whom fate brought into his tutelage and also the most frequently used words when Mr Sia disciplines/counsels them.

Respect - Respect to self, respect towards fellow students, and respect towards your teachers. Respect make human beings stand apart from animals where only fear and submission to the hierarchy exists. It enables one from a higher position of power to defer to a less endowed individual. If character is the foundation of trustworthiness, then respect is the cement that holds the bridge together even when the other parts are found lacking. It gives honor to the weaker party and paves the way towards mutual cooperation and success.

I used to believe that respect had to be earned, not demanded. But army has taught us to respect the rank even when you cannot respect the person. There has to be basic respect or else order will crumble away. 

Responsibility: Number 1, you are responsible for your own homework and Number 2, Mr Sia is not responsible for your PSLE results. That responsibility is yours. I always remind them that Mr Sia is not going to sit in the exam hall to help them attempt their PSLE. It is a rule that I made up so that homework will be handed up in good working order and on time.. FAT HOPE! But it was still a good value to instill into them.

So, R & R: These are the cardinal rules of Mr Sia's idealogy. Every student's standard for behaviour. Mr Sia may (or more likely may not) live by them (sic) but they are what he would drum into every student. That is the privilege of being an adult and a teacher. The rules are for them and them only, it doesn't apply to the one who made the rules :P Happy reading, and a pleasant day ahead!

December 14, 2010

2 opposing thoughts kept nagging at me today. The first thought says that since George Town is today what Singapore was 25 years ago, it gathers that given the next 25 years, George Town will evolve to be like the Singapore of today. Yet the other thought argues that if George Town had not kept pace with Singapore over the last 25 years, would another 25 years make any difference to the development of George Town? I guess TIME is not a factor in the rate of social economic development. 

December 13, 2010

George Town, the present day equivalent of Singapore's Arab Street 25 years ago, is so reminiscent of the place (Arab Street) I had grown up in. I came here seeking adventure and fun, but being here brought an unexpected bonus of reconnecting with my childhood past, sights and scenes that I had been wondering for many years if it had all been my imagination or a dream. I feel like a time-traveller travelling back in time and I watch with anguish as these scenes of living history before me will vanish eventually with the passing sands of time, bulldozers of development, and the unmerciful tides of continuity and change; only to be replaced with the whitewashed tombs of present day Arab Street.

"A people without memory are in danger of losing their soul"

Further thoughts..
I used to join in the legions of critics decrying the Singapore Government's action of 'restoring' the heritage-rich sites like Chinatown and Arab Street through forced-evictions and meager compensations as cultural murder. But now that I have personally witnessed the state of dilapidation and social emigration that George Town is experiencing, I have come to realize that physical decay would still have gone on unabated, with or without Government intervention. Think about it, why would anyone want to carry on a hard life in slummy streets while there are better living conditions elsewhere? There is no stopping social development and progress. Like Singapore's heritage sites, what George Town needs most now is new blood in the form of young businesses and urban residences that will transform the area and give it a new coat of paint and a brand new cultural heritage. We simply cannot hold on to the past.

The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery.

Scene where Yu Kyung asks Manager Han for the reason to her transfer to Maintenance Department.

Scene where Grandma punished Tak Gu after he was wrongfully accused of stealing a mechanical pencil.

Grandma: You feel you have been wrongfully accused?
                 Are you angry?
                 There's going to be more of this kind of things occurring in the future.
                 Other people will accuse you of something that you didn't do.
                 Even your kindness might get twisted by evil intentions.
                 There are people who will treat you well, but there are more who will want to strike you
                 down.
                 Whenever you face such incidents, you will feel unfairly treated and angry.
                 However, anger cannot solve any problem. Your fists are useless in your future.
Tak Gu:     You can't always be angry, and you can't always use our fists? What should I do then?
Grandma: You must not be shaken.
                 If you really didn't lie, then you shouldn't be shaken even one bit.
                 It doesn't matter if it was a misunderstanding or a set up.
                 You need to stand firm.
                 The truth will come out eventually.
Tak Gu:     I really didn't steal it.
Grandma: Okay, I know.
Tak Gu:     But why did you only punish me?
Grandma: You still don't understand yet?
                 I wasn't punishing you, I was teaching you.
                 If I helped you, then you might get further isolated in this family.
                 You should learn to bear things on your own and conquer things by yourself.
                 I'm teaching you this right now.
                 Do you understand?

http://www.wat.tv/video/kingofbakingkimtakgoo03-2zf6z_2zf5v_.html

There is no feedback in my current job. No telling whether what you/re doing is right, no telling whether what you're doing is on course-or off-course. Was asked to write proposals after proposals but the only feedback I've ever received is "I've only briefly read through" or more often than not, the documents were only being read in front of me when we are actually seated in a meeting discussing the very report! And even then there's no telling if the proposal that I've spent days to craft out is relevant or not, or if the ideas were useful or not. The only impression I can assume is that it is being thrown out the window and I don't even know if that is a valid assumption at all. So the crap continues day in day out and I'm not even doing any real job.

Quotes gathered from all over..

Posted here because I couldn't post it on FB, Enjoy!

Day 1 at The Foundry: "I want to lao bak sai!!!" Keep calm, keep calm..

"It felt like I had landed on a hot LZ. The battle is already underway, battleplans are rapidly unfolding, objectives are already being met. I have to get my bearings and quickly join in the battle. My fight cannot fail."

Very stressed with the magnitude and scope of the whole project. The whole project is like a massive American M1A1 Abrams main-battle tank on the move and in the thick of the action, firing its depleted uranium anti-tank shells, and I'm the newbie foot soldier running alongside trying to board it..... T.T Hope the training in the Lord and past experiences and the never-say-die attitude that I possess will carry me through.

Day 2 at The Foundry: Waah.. 没想到.. Two of my job descriptions at The Foundry is to sing... T.T and to serve drinks -.-!!!

Yesterday, went to learn the songs for our core values, every month one department has to go up during the CEO address and sing. Today, signed up for a course called 'Orientation to Serving Your Guests'. Covers catering of food all the way to serving etiquette. And qian qian today had to attend a director's meeting with a group of contractors.. no brownie points for guessing who's the one volunteering to serve the drinks and wash all 20-odd glasses........ -.-

Day 3 at The Foundry: Swee!! I have a CEO who embraces work-life balance, such a culture shock!! I'm lurving it!!

Survived the CEO address and the singing, in particular. Today is a day of going back to school. Revisiting words once used by an ancient alien race: Superior, inferior, anterior, posterior, median, medial, lateral, superficial, deep, cephalad, caudad, ventral, dorsal, preaxial, postaxial, pronation, supination, ................... ARRRrGH! *Cerebral Necrosis* (aka Brain dead!!)

School's out, fun's in, but so are the teachers, so its not my fault that I cannot make any appointment calls yet. But I still managed to find something useful to do =D. Revamping the webpage on the LJs portal! Rule number 3 in JAMs, when you have nothing to do, act busy! Hope to finish updating the site by tomorrow!

-----Sleep Time Lo-----

It is 2 am, the belly's growling and I hoped it is not going to be my 30th trip to the toilet. True enough, the growling grew louder as I untwisted the plastic seal that kept the loaf of Gardenia bread fresh within its plastic cover - mmmm, hunger. I tore off the brown sides and fed them into the waiting mouth and started chewing. I always liked my bread plain - 原滋原味, just the way it is. And I recalled that simple demonstration that a speaker delivered, that revolutionized the way I looked at plain white bread forever....

*   *   *   *   *   *

It was time for tea-break, and the speaker motioned to several trays of sandwiches wrapped in aluminum foil. On some of them were written "Peanut Butter", others "Egg and Ham", and yet on others were written "Tuna", "Kaya" and so on. So everyone was given the spread of their choice only with the request that to be fair, we do not start unwrapping the sandwich until everyone had gotten theirs. When all had received theirs, the speaker gave the cue and we gleefully unwrapped our peanut butter/egg and ham/tuna/kaya sandwich only to feel significantly cheated when we saw only 2 blank slices of bread in our hands!

Speaker smiled apologetically and said it was because of the economic crisis and the organizers couldn't afford the bread spreads.. NOT! He said he wanted to demonstrate something to us. First, from one of the slices, we're to tear a quadrant off and put it into our mouths. We're not to swallow, but to keep chewing it until the speaker tells us otherwise. As we chewed I began to recognize a taste that I had seldom encountered, a kind of buttery sweetness that was the bread's original flavor and I began to like it.

After we swallowed, our next instruction is to take the remaining 1 and 3-quarter slices, fold them in half over each other, fold it over in half again, and then squeeze everything into our mouths. Everything. Then we're to chew as hard as we can. It was the most miserable exercise in a long while - I haven't yet been enlisted into the Army back then. The sweet-buttery taste became bile-like and the jaws seemed to cramp in repulsion. It was only after a horrendous effort that I managed to mow it down to size. Some female participants didn't fare so well and created quite a mess with the bread and some extra..

*   *   *   *   *   *

Speaker explains: In summary, our life is just like the bread. It has a taste of its own. So often we would smear jam, sandwich it with tuna, dip it in coffee and occasionally roll it around a sausage or two. But the taste of bread is not made up of these things! In other words, bread is defined by its own constituents, and not by these external toppings. Just like in life, we often pursue titles, riches and accolades, but we often neglect the human that we all essentially are. Yes, being able to operate a computer or to drive a car may make living more tasteful, or having a degree may make living easier, BUT without all these, we still are able to live, to breathe, to relate! Just like bread, without jam is still edible, oftentimes we tend to measure ourselves by what we have or what we can get, and end up feeling depressed or like a failure when these things elude us. If we can all distinguish the 'living' from the 'getting', we would spare ourselves the agony of failure or defeat, because life, or living, has TO GO ON! Start, by enjoying who YOU are!

I can't remember the summary for the second demonstration (the one about chewing the 1 and 3-quarter slices of bread), but its something about biting off too much out of life than you can manage that you lose the taste of living and drudgery sets in.

Anyway, it's the first lesson that has always been vivid in my mind and pretty much defined the simplistic way I view life - that I am who I am. Eating bread has never been the same for me again. 

(Yawnz, 4am.. I wonder why inspiration always come in the middle of the night.)

What is a career? Or rather, what kind of destination should my career lead me to or towards? What should I expect out of my career?

My expectation at the end of my career is to be financially self-sufficient, living a carefree life. I don't want to be bogged down by poverty, insurmountable debt and penniless living.

I love the clouds tonight. It made the sky look so far, far away, and the earth so huge, engulfing the smallness of me, impressing upon me the finitude of my own existence. It was depressing, yet comforting at the same time - depressing that so many things are out of my control; yet there's a snug comfort that I'm a part of something big, that Someone's watching over me. Its been a year to that day, I will NEVER forget that day and the 2 months that followed, neither will I forgive. (Yah right.. maybe, but..) Life just goes on, revolving with the daily progress of time, oblivious to the needs of the individual, oblivious to his petty existence, insignificant is his pain. Trudging towards the hope of a better tomorrow, and an end to his pain.