this is an entry for me

Thursday, June 29, 2006

5am is UNTENABLE. i need sleep. lots and lots and lots of happy sleep. i'm too old for this. i would say too smart, also, except clearly i'm not.

smells are driving me nuts.

i think i've finally grown out of merlot.

c7676, stop shopping so damn much and come home!

 posted by zyn :: 4:52 AM :: 4 Comments :: permalink


--------------------------------------------------------::--------------------------------------------------------


of sheep and sin

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Nothing new, but this essay won me a book the other day, so I'm posting it here in lieu of a real entry.



Being the religious black sheep of your family - like I am - is not an easy thing.

For one, you get left out of all the familial rituals that revolve around church, prayer, and blind faith. That's why I'm stuck at home, alone, writing this essay on a Saturday afternoon while the rest of the sheep - I mean, my family - join their fellow members of the flock in that glorious weekly sacrament of shearing off the wool they have for brains.

Don't get me wrong. My family is made up of highly intelligent people who can hold their own in conversations about almost any topic ranging from George Eliot's best novel to the cutting-edge technologies in oncology. Our idea of relaxing over coffee consists of in-depth etymological discussions - we once nearly came to blows in the memorable 2001 Battle of the Vicious Circle/Cycle, in which my mother insisted that the phrase "vicious cycle" didn't exist, my siblings and I swore it did, and my father almost sprained an ankle trying to locate a dictionary in time to prevent bloodshed.

But add God to the equation and all good sense flies out our window, which is decorated with a little stained-glass portrait of the Virgin Mary smiling benignly at the rationality zooming past her.

I've long suspected that this logic vacuum in our house is cutting off the oxygen supply to the brains of my family members, which seems to be the only explanation for conversations such as the one I had with my mother last night.

"You should say grace before you eat your meals, you know," she remarked to me out of nowhere as I stuffed my face with chicken rice.

"Mmpforg," I said unintelligibly with my mouth full.

Correctly interpreting that as a less-than-ideally-polite way of saying "you've got to be kidding me", my mother continued: "Praying over your food will bless it so you won't get food poisoning in case that chicken rice was cooked with anger."

She was serious. I left the table and went hungry for the night.

Sometimes the manifestations of my family's faith are a bit creepier. Last week I came home to find a spanking new LCD TV occupying pride of place in our living room and my parents sitting on one of the sofas opposite it.

The room was strangely quiet and at first I thought my parents had been arguing about something, so I announced brightly: "I'm home! Are we all sitting around admiring our new TV, then?"

My chirpiness was greeted with complete silence. I looked closer and found, to my horror, that my parents were in the middle of praying the rosary in what looked like some devout attempt to bless the TV and welcome it into our God-loving home. Rattled to the core of my devil-worshipping soul, I fled upstairs to the pagan sanctity of my bedroom.

The thing is, I used to be a pious church-goer too. I can still recite, word-perfect, the Ten Commandments and the major Catholic prayers. I know the hymns, the names and order of the rites, the difference between consubstantiation and transubstantiation. But ask me what it all means and chances are I'll just roll my eyes.

I stopped attending mass in my first year at university. Initially it was because the weather was awful and I was lazy. But the less frequently I went, and the more people I talked to who questioned my faith, the harder it became to persuade myself to keep going to church.

My parents kicked up a huge fuss when I first declared my intention to stay home from church one fine Sunday morning. Now, after years of emotional blackmail and tantrum-laden impasses, we've reached an uneasy understanding. I get to skip church, but in return I have to endure long lectures on how God is so concerned over my spiritual well-being that He - along with my mother - is losing sleep and ending up with eye-bags that even caviar facials can't cure.

But religious tensions can make for entertaining conversations too. Occasionally, when I've been deprived of argumentative discussion for a few days, I will (admittedly unwisely) provoke my mother during dinner, much in the manner of a village idiot who, in an idle moment, pokes a pointy stick through the cardboard cage of a sleeping circus bear.

One night, after I'd been sick over a whole weekend and bereft of human company for a few days, I decided to bring up, at dinner, the Gospel of Judas - a topic treated with so much disdain by the Catholic Church that the mere mention of it is considered a faux pas on the level of referring to the Holy Spirit as "that ghost dude".

"So," I began cheerfully, "what's the Catholic Church's stance on the Gospel of Judas?"

My brother and father paused in the act of eating, forks raised halfway to their mouths, as my mother calmly replied, "Stance? What stance? There's no stance."

Just as my brother and father resumed shovelling food into their mouths with hungry relief, she continued: "The Judas thing isn't a gospel at all."

Delighted to smell blood in the air, I said, "Oh! Really! Then what is it?"

"It's just nonsense," my mother said dismissively. "It was left out of the Bible for a reason. The Bible is God's word. God decides what goes into it."

"So God sat down one day at his desk and compiled the Bible and stapled it and then, like, threw it down from heaven?" I asked in exaggerated puzzlement.

That got a reaction.

"Look," my mother said, "the Bible has a central theme of God's creation and goodness and you would know that if you went to church more often because you know what happens to people who don't go to church? They - "

But I never found out my fate-to-be because my brother chose at that point to fake his own death by choking on a tofu.

If self-amusement is a sin, I'll be laughing all the way to hell.

 posted by zyn :: 5:28 PM :: 3 Comments :: permalink


--------------------------------------------------------::--------------------------------------------------------


we will return after these messages

Sunday, June 25, 2006

I don't discriminate against guys in briefs, but I am exceedingly partial to those who wear boxers. They sexy, breezy, and very not momma's boy (huge turn off). I've been told they're not optimally comfortable, but hey, if girls can wear g-strings every day, guys can damn well wear boxers.

I'm not saying all girls think like me, but if you're not getting laid, it might be worth a shot. :) Start with these!


 posted by zyn :: 12:25 PM :: 8 Comments :: permalink


--------------------------------------------------------::--------------------------------------------------------


cranky

Saturday, June 24, 2006

I have to write 800 words on a topic of my choice by today. I am massively braincrippled. I don't know how to start, I don't know why this is so hard - and, worst of all, I don't know why I care so much. I even triple-booked myself tomorrow so I could clear today's schedule and just fucking finish this assignment already - but as usual I'm procrastinating with Grey's Anatomy in the background.

Last night I disillusioned someone. As I was doing it I felt rather bad, but also somewhat ruthlessly educational. It was an interestingly awful self-loathing-laden kind of self-righteousness, a bit like what I like to think villains in superhero movies must feel. I'm so inured to finer feelings that I tend to forget a lot of people still think with their hearts. Oh well. Just call me a mercenary bitch.

I hate it when people are kind, or considerate, or thoughtful, or anything sweet like that. That's always my undoing, when people notice things and buy me stuff or whatever. Everyone should just be nice and disinterested and self-centered, or there's a really big danger I will actually start, like, caring about them, and then everything goes to shit.

Argh.

 posted by zyn :: 3:17 PM :: 1 Comments :: permalink


--------------------------------------------------------::--------------------------------------------------------


speak good english lah

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

So after many many years of me ranting about the standard of English in Singapore to people who don't really care, it's finally become a National Issue. (Not my ranting, the English.) How do I know it's become a National Issue? Not because it's been hogging the headlines, or because a Minister has spoken on it, but because it's been accorded podcast status on the admirably imaginative mr brown show - which is now apparently sponsored by yearbook.com.sg, Singapore's latest pathetic attempt at emulating the success of other people.

I haven't been reading the papers for some time, but what I gather is there's been some concern over the awful language we pass off as English here. I can't quite confirm this because although that's what the articles appear to be talking about and what the Ministry of Education's latest measures - such as hiring "native" English speakers - appear to be implying, no one has actually come out to say so. In fact, everyone seems to be going out of their way to avoid saying it.

Take associate professor David Deterding from the National Institute of Education's English Language and Literature department for example. He apparently believes English standards have not fallen in Singapore, a claim he justifies with this completely bizarre statement:

"In the past, the few people who spoke English spoke it well because they mostly went to elite schools. Today, nearly everyone speaks English. It is inevitable that the overall standard is lower, because the majority do not go to elite schools. It is not logical to compare the standard of a small elite with that of a whole population."


The thing is, I kind of understand what he's saying, even though I think it's excruciatingly phrased. Standards of English have not fallen over time - they're just incomparably bad right here and right now.

But is that any surprise, given our language policy? Having forced native Hokkien/Teochew/Cantonese speakers to speak two foreign tongues - English and Mandarin - in schools since 1966 and having attempted to eradicate the everyday use of dialects, the government now seems illogically surprised at how no one appears to be able to speak any language well. (I'm leaving out Malays and Indians because there were fewer issues of identity/dialect there and also because I'm lazy.)

According to a paper I did last year and a lifetime ago, of the ethnic Chinese community in Singapore, Hokkien speakers have always been the predominant group. At the time of self-government, in 1957, Hokkien speakers accounted for 40.6 percent of the Chinese population in Singapore, compared to 22.5 percent Teochew speakers, 18.9 percent Cantonese speakers, and 14.9 percent speakers of Hainanese, Hakka, and other dialects. By 1970, the Hokkien community was the only one to have grown in proportion (to 42.4 percent, significantly larger than the Teochew and Cantonese speakers at 22.4 percent and 17 percent respectively).

To the linguist the mother tongue is "a language first learned by the speaker as a child." In this sense, Mandarin was never the mother tongue for any substantial portion of the population. In 1957, only 0.1 percent of Singapore Chinese claimed Mandarin as their mother tongue, whereas 30 percent claimed Hokkien, 17 percent Teochew, and 15.1 percent Cantonese as their mother tongues respectively.

Even in 1978, by which time the government's language policies had had sufficient opportunity to take effect, more people could understand Hokkien than any other Chinese dialect: 77.9 percent of the population claimed to understand Hokkien, 63.9 percent Mandarin, 63.2 percent Cantonese, and 59.7 percent Teochew. And in fact, also in 1978, a report on the Ministry of Education's policies "acknowledged that since 85 percent of Singaporean Chinese came from dialect-speaking homes, Mandarin had been wrongly dubbed as the mother tongue of the Chinese!" But "rather than leading to a reevaluation of the measures that were designed to homogenise the Chinese in the first place, this realisation led to intensified efforts to valorise Mandarin."

The official reasons given for the government's insistence on Mandarin for the whole Chinese community regardless of dialect group had, like every other official justification in Singapore, socioeconomic roots - i.e. the importance of China and China's own language policy, as well as the need to maintain the community's self-identification within a cultural context.

But there was also another reason. Bilingualism was implemented partly to categorise the numerous disparate ethnic groups into three superficially and artificially distinct racial types and to construct and impose a supra-ethnic national identity onto these races. Mandarin, then, was used to coalesce those categorised as Chinese and to foist upon them a factitious and unnatural uniformity through linguistic standardisation.

With people speaking different languages at home and in school and across generations, it's not difficult to picture how Singlish evolved. The rise of Singlish has been attributed to the need to fill the vernacular gap left by the eradication of Chinese dialects; and its widespread use has, perhaps more than any other factor, indicated the failure of compulsory bilingual education in the attempt to replace dialects with Mandarin.

Ironically - given that one of the objects of bilingualism was to replace clannish ties with a state-centric affinity - Singlish has come into its own as the strongest symbol of national identity among Singaporean youths today. An informal poll of 750 National University of Singapore undergraduates conducted in 2004 asked respondents what they considered to be "uniquely Singaporean" (ah, our favourite STB term). The most popular response was Singlish, followed by local food. Singlish has also inspired an amazing amount of linguistic research.

I don't know if Singaporeans would speak better English if they hadn't had to learn a mother tongue alongside it in addition to the dialect they were presumably already speaking at home. But I consider language to be one of Singapore's more spectacular domestic policy failures and it amuses me to see these damage control measures being taken now, when even people who speak good English - like me (or so I like to think) - take inordinate pride in saying "lah".

Although it would be really good for my blood pressure if people who can't string together a grammatical conversation in English stayed far far away from me.

 posted by zyn :: 10:35 PM :: 7 Comments :: permalink


--------------------------------------------------------::--------------------------------------------------------


back in jc

5 freaking a.m.

All the coffee in the world isn't going to be enough to save me tomorrow.

 posted by zyn :: 5:37 AM :: 0 Comments :: permalink


--------------------------------------------------------::--------------------------------------------------------


in sickness and self pity

Saturday, June 17, 2006

I'm sick. My skin hurts, my bones feel like glass, and my head is on fire. I blame my mahjong kakis, who refused to let me leave until 5.30 in the morning ("One more round lah! It's only 4am!"). But I ended up winning, so ha.

I didn't want to tell my parents I was sick though, because then they'd have ammunition to stop me playing midnight mahjong in the future. So even though I wisely cancelled all my other appointments today, I dragged myself out of bed to go out for dinner with my family.

Big mistake.

First, we went to this awful restaurant in Novena called The Vines Seafood and Steak Restaurant or something, which is basically Jack's Place with a different name, which makes it just one step up from Hans. The food is very cheap, because it's very mediocre. Okay lah it wasn't really awful, but my salmon wasn't fresh and I don't like unfresh fish. (I'm grumpy cos I'm sick.) The whole thing reminded me of those faux-atas Western-style restaurants we used to go to in secondary school or JC when we wanted to, like, celebrate an occasion too special for McDonald's. But the service was excellent. Not that I'd go back.

Then there was the fact that I'd completely underestimated how sick I was. I spent the whole dinner with my fiery head in my hands, so obviously wretched that the manager came over to offer me a Panadol (see, excellent service). But I hate to admit weakness, so I soldiered on eating and talking until I stood up and almost fainted. Turns out I have a temperature of 39.2, which I consider a perfectly respectable reason to stay in bed the whole weekend. Yay.

Panadol makes me rambly.

 posted by zyn :: 10:05 PM :: 2 Comments :: permalink


--------------------------------------------------------::--------------------------------------------------------


ethics

Monday, June 12, 2006

Thanks to my omniscient stat tracker, I discovered today that both the IDA and IPS are loyal readers of my blog. I am much flattered, especially since IPS has actually archived my blog! Under two separate headings, no less: "Journo Blogs" and "May 5 Blogs" (May 6 being polling day). I assume they are admiring my layout. In any case my political views are my own (and subject to frequent wild fluctuations) and I don't think I've said anything potentially defamatory or anything that contravenes my contract, so whatever lah.

Anyway since my anonymity has been compromised (ah who am I kidding, they probably knew from the first), I guess there's no point using half-hearted and honestly cringeworthy euphemisms like "lunch-talkie-things". Or attempting to pass my blog off as apolitical by raving about Gucci sales and hiding behind a fluffy design that's starting to get on my nerves. So a new layout is in the pipeline (yes, again, I know). I'm on course now and bored out of my skull and I kind of miss the original blackandwhite frenchy wine layout. We'll see.

Ok, so ethics. Ethics is something I've never really thought about with regard to my job (or, for that matter, life in general) even though it's arguably one of the most ethically contentious professions, I suppose. But today I realised that a lot of the things I would do reflexively - I think, given that these are mostly hypothetical situations - may not really be considered ethical to a majority of reasonable people. And there are many situations that don't necessarily have a clear right/wrong approach but what you would do in them really makes you think about the kind of person you are.

If you were a news photographer, for example. (All my examples are for photographers cos that's the context I discussed them in today.) What would you do in the following cases:


  1. You've been assigned to take a photo of some big shot unveiling some massive statue that flashes bright lights when the covering is pulled off. You arrive late, or you didn't get a clear shot, and you really wish they could do it again so you can shoot from a better angle this time. Do you ask them to restage the unveiling for you?

  2. You've been assigned to take photos of the carnage and devastation and general hell on earth in a war-torn country, say Iraq. You're walking around with your camera one day and you see a child pick up a gun that's lying on the ground and point it at another child. You know that's front-page-material shot but you fumble trying to get your camera out or your camera doesn't have film (or battery, for the technological pedants using digital SLRs) and you miss your moment when the child puts the gun down again. Do you ask the child to pick up the gun - or put it back in his hand - and reenact the scene?

  3. You have this great shot of a very famous, stately guy doing something rare and stupid like a little dance in the middle of the road. You're congratulating yourself on the picture when you realise that, caught up in the moment, you didn't see the lamppost behind him and now in the photo it's sticking up from his head and spoiling the whole picture. Do you manipulate the shot to rub it out?

  4. You're taking a photo of a very old politician walking down from a fairly high platform and as you're clicking away, the banister he's leaning on gives way and he falls, from a height that could very possibly break his bones or give him a heart attack. As he's going down, do you (a) take the picture; (b) forgo the picture and try and break his fall; (c) take the picture first and then help him up to ease your conscience?

  5. Similar case: you've received a tip-off to follow a mob that's gotten hold of a guy they're going to lynch. It's the latest in a series of racially-motivated cases in a highly-charged environment but all the previous killings have been very hush-hush and this is the first there will potentially be photographic evidence of. As they're beating him to death, do you (a) take the picture; (b) help the guy/go for help? I think this one cannot take picture first then help later cos he'd probably be dead by then.


I don't want to say what I would do because I think people would judge me based on that. Which is fair, but I don't want. Anyway, something to think about while I go off for my midnight drive. :)

 posted by zyn :: 11:25 PM :: 5 Comments :: permalink


--------------------------------------------------------::--------------------------------------------------------


no more chipmunk

Sunday, June 11, 2006

They FINALLY changed my byline pic!! Wooooooohoooooooo!!

 posted by zyn :: 10:39 AM :: 2 Comments :: permalink


--------------------------------------------------------::--------------------------------------------------------


filip filosofies

Saturday, June 10, 2006

I have a friend called Philip. Philip is, I think, a good friend, although I can't really be sure because he seizes every chance to put me in my place.

Conversations with Philip often fall into one of three categories. The first is what I like to call the you-are-not-special-okay category, which goes like this:

Me:
Wah Saturday also have to go to work, damn sian.

Philip:
Sian sian sian, everyone also sian. Think you so special ah? You are NOT, okay?


Then there is the there-is-no-excuse-for-your-stupidity category, which usually sounds like this:

Me:
Never mind lah, I shall just treat this failure as a learning experience.

Philip:
Learning experience what learning experience. There is NO SUCH THING as a learning experience. It's just a mistake! You made a mistake! Call it a mistake!


And, lastly, the I-know-better-than-you-because-I-am-better-than-you category, like what happened today to inspire this entry:

Me:
I think I have a crush on this guy leh. How?

Philip:
Aiyah you don't have a crush lah, you just think you do. You think that it's about time for you to develop a crush so you go out and find someone to have a crush on. Anyway you can have crush meh? You got heart meh?


As I said, not sure whether Philip is a good friend or not. But he say got buy present for me from overseas, so maybe I will keep him for a while lah.

 posted by zyn :: 5:00 PM :: 3 Comments :: permalink


--------------------------------------------------------::--------------------------------------------------------


nobody said it was easy

Friday, June 09, 2006

It's 1am and I can barely keep my eyes open because I've been at work since 10am. I really need to sleep but I have to finish this assignment by tonight; there's another one waiting tomorrow amid a slew of appointments and I have the sinking feeling I've double-booked. I need to eat because when I sit up abruptly the world starts dancing. I want to log on and fight some horde. I also want to finish watching Arrested Development and the second half of the Prison Break season finale. And I really want to repaint my nails.

Sometimes I wonder what the hell I'm doing and why the hell I'm doing it. Do I really want this? How much am I prepared to sacrifice for it? Is it really worth all the trouble in the end?

For work, so far, the answer has always been yes.

For the other thing - I'm not sure I dare take the risk. Already I fear I've overplayed my hand. Too much is at stake, and too much is nebulous. And this is too cryptic and melodramatic and will annoy people, so I shall stop here and get back to bloody work.

I miss college life.

 posted by zyn :: 1:16 AM :: 0 Comments :: permalink


--------------------------------------------------------::--------------------------------------------------------


notes to self

Thursday, June 08, 2006

in the classic tradition of someone else. Too tired to write in full sentences.

  1. No more lunch-talkie-things for SunTimes. Really. Really really really.

    (sigh I will have to take that back)

  2. Birkenstocks = ponchos for feet. Hideous but comfortable

  3. Gucci sales suck. There's a reason why the bags on sale are on sale. Just go Furla instead

  4. When my braces come off, these are the things I want to eat: apples, burgers, chicken wings, frozen classic dark TimTams

  5. Wearing red really works for mahjong! The more discreet the better - wear red top win only $20 but wear red underwear can win $35. Hahaha

  6. Three cups of caffeine a day is a very not good idea

  7. When karaokeing, sing things like jay chou's jie kou and wuyuetian's ya guan FIRST, not at the end of three hours when you're starting to croak

  8. ALWAYS stay in the movie theatre until the credits have stopped rolling, otherwise have to rewatch things like X3

  9. Stop taking on undead spellcasters two levels higher without a healing potion. Mortal strike so what, still need 30 rage points

  10. Get a new type. There just aren't that many tall, single, straight nerdy guys out there, despite everything boss says

  11. Stop discussing love life with boss. Might as well rent bullhorn. :P j/k

  12. Buy backup ipod. Gym very boring

  13. Buy street directory

  14. Buy watch that works

  15. Buy new cellphone that can actually upload photos onto computer (yes current one is that primitive)

  16. Buy fathers' day present. Die, sure forget one

  17. Stop buying so much stuff. Pay credit card bills instead

  18. Find someone tech-savvy to help with The Wicked level 32

  19. Find someone to watch Good Night, And Good Luck/L'Enfant with, if they're still showing. Also, Cars and Over The Hedge are very fresh, stop seeing cartoons no up

  20. Blog lists are really cheapskate. Be ashamed of yourself.

 posted by zyn :: 12:25 PM :: 5 Comments :: permalink


--------------------------------------------------------::--------------------------------------------------------