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“All that we can see or seem is but a dream within a dream”
Edgar Allan Poe
You know you have been using the office internet com too much when you have this dream of….
- reaching the gate of a mlitary organisation (oxymoron coughs) and they let you in after you tell them the password is Password1.
You know you have been spending too much time lazing in bunk when you have this dream of….
- smoking several marlboros upon waking up, complete with the smell. (for the record, i do not do this at all)
You know you have been spending too much time with someone for food when you have this dream of….
-food still (but that was for falling asleep right after dinner)
I wonder what’s on the menu after a long day full of paperwork, emails, plus an exceptionally packed final hour of the day (AND week) — which was strangely satisfying. not to mention all the fluctuatingly wet weather and miserably damp socks/shoes — not satisfying/glam/cool at all.
***
@edgarallanpoe’s so-profound-it-doesnt-make-sense statement:
To tie in with the theme of the post: yeah, found that at work.
AND HEAVEN IS -
My reservations stem from needing to be like everyone else. The mere thought that i might end up as “just another one of them” irks me.
I think that was when I changed my mind last year to begin with….among other instances of crowds of people flooding in a certain direction, in a hollow grasping for the wind. (It was almost the moment they stopped, I thought it was okay again…upon some compelling persuasive-push of course) I guess I do care about what people think and general trends — they’re good indicators of what not to follow.
It really seems to be just this trivial but unpalatable thought — the rest are just excuses.
It’s boring being uncommon, average, normal. I wanna be spehshuh. I’m not asking for being better than everyone (of course I have no issue with that though, but those are just Bonus Points). I just don’t want to be swept away by the masses, with the masses. I just want different.
In case you’re wondering, I’m still straight. My post is too unpoetic to swing the other way. Hrm, funny if I weren’t though.
***
…except that Apple is now so common, its not different anymore. A Macbook is like being McDifferent. (oh yeah another instance of my irrational non-conformism: refusing to buy Apple just because everyone has one)
Okay bad picture, whatever. i should think that its fake. i hope.
“oooh, random chick in a nice fitting dress about to board the mrt…”
“and she sort of looks like…..waittttaminute ><”
- then you realise it was whoever you were supposed to meet
cheh.
***
and i am dissatisfied lack of high-definition facial visual memory. i’m probably better at remembering locations and what goes where.
this is what happens when you read biology on a sunday. I deserve like an awesome biology award for this:
Yeah sure, humankind started out from a common ancestor, like Adam and Eve — don’t ask me how some of their descendants ended up as apes though
“If you fail to plan, you plan to-” ohfuckoff.
I think scenario planning is quite full of holes actually — what with the looking toward to the horizon and non linear feedback loops.
We cannot possibly foresee what changes may happen. We can’t be certain that the circumstances remain static. We can’t be certain that our future selves, together with what we need and want, will be the same as they are today. Everything is temporal and the permutations are infinite. Scenario planning is thus a model built upon assumption upon assumption upon assumption. Probably worse off than a 12-sided rubic (i was going to call it a cube… but if its 12 sided, its not a cube)
We may well have a contingency plan, several even — but we never really know for certain what direction we’ll take till we reach the road itself. There’s always room for changing your steak to pasta before the waiter arrives…if he does.
oh wait, i bitched about this before. It’s not the content, its the angle and packaging that matters. and to put things in personal perspective, at least five times I have denied something, said i wouldn’t want it, but in the end-
probably more actually. in some perverse manner, one might even argue that disdain has been a rite of passage before knowing what i want. my other side gains a momentum through rebuttal. such fluidity scares me — but not as much as rigidity. then again, its natural — just a matter of how self-aware people are of it.
but some things at the core still haven’t changed…for now.
***
too many things been happening over the past few days and feels like its one damned thing after another, but i have an idea of how i can show i’m brilliant….in some future scenario, potentially, possibly, maybe.
These days i’m not sure if what i need is an anchor or a propeller in my life.
Open wound – in an environment dominated by men, and in an attempt to appear less feminine, the reason given for not swimming is none other than an open wound.
only that and nothing more. period.
***
chee…..
The ultimate stage of not caring about what others think is when: you don’t care that you’re associated with all these shallow people who care a lot about what others think of them – and you still don’t care.
i don’t think i’ve reached that stage yet though.
***
A lot has happened over the past 48 hours — enough to write a few episodes of a sitcom but nothing sufficient to show why i am damn brilliant.
i’m going to be occupied writing something else till Monday.
In Malaysia, Watch Out for the Valentine’s Day Police
“Lovers in Malaysia beware: The Valentine’s Day police are on the way.
Parts of Muslim Malaysia have long been uneasy with the largely Christian Valentine’s Day holiday, which celebrates romance and, some say, certain sinful activities including various types of canoodling.“
Lol, canoodling. yes, because mindless fornication is really a Christian value. There seems to be incontrovertible evidence that the 257,411 births out of wedlock between 2000 and 2008 were a result of Valentine’s day. Indeed…indeed.
Interestingly, i have a friend who was labelled as “those christians” when he was going to miss a day of Chinese New Year visiting. He’s not a Christian. When in doubt, blame Christian values.
Actually, I do agree that love is a Christian value but: firstly, it’s not the romantic kind that valentine’s day is associated with; secondly, its not exclusive to the Christian dogma.
”Moral policing is against Islamic values and fundamental liberties, and it violates personal dignity and privacy, which is forbidden in the Quran” and in the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, said Yasmin Masidi, a program officer at Sisters In Islam.
Well, to be fair — at least there’s some moderate view.
But to truly truly make a fair statement: we must admit that we all make broad sweeping generalisations about other religions sometimes. we just don’t know another set of beliefs and practices well enough. To most non-muslims (a term a lot of us only associate with cookhouse food), we probably wouldn’t have even expected the sentiment that moral policing is against Islamic values. heck, i don’t think moral policing is against christian values.
***
I really do wonder if the police break into hotel rooms and carry out spot checks. The kinds that secondary school debates about prostitution mention…sometimes ><
“FREEZE! POLIS. “
“….but but we’re married…. ><”
Remember Muhammad Yunus? A key figure from the IB red book on developmental economics, with his grameen bank. So I picked up this book by him called “Creating a World Without Poverty” — again from my pile of under-priced books. Original price US$14, paid SG$7 at the supermarket book sale. It may seem that i have nothing better to do, but i’m in search of inspiration and ideas now.
His book is a practical extension of the Buddhist Economics I read about in ‘Small and Beautiful’ by EF Schumacher. I can’t quite remember by now — it was a year ago when I managed to throw it out in some engaging interview about the public sector…just because I read it at the armor camp a day before. It was something about how the poor constitute a large part of the population and hence provide a lot of business opportunities by reaching out to them. A coincidence of mutual benefit might well be the best way of helping the poor.
I still hold the belief that economics ought to have a human face, but at times I wonder if I’m being too idealistic. I’ll explain some other time on how I think I’ve gotten more practical, but also more idealistic — more ambitious, yet more satisfied over the past month.
I must admit that this idea was one of my tipping points in a certain decision-making: the alternative was to help rich companies go overseas and plainly get richer. I did consider that I’d still be dealing with filthy rich companies — but the local impact is greater.
But I digress. So I was expecting this uber idealistic guy trying to save the world, and my expectations were met. But what I did not foresee was his degree of incisive cynicism — that was, of course, what amused me the most.
On multilateral ‘elites’ like the World Bank:
“Unfortunately, in practice, the multilaterals have not achieved much in attaining their professed social goals either. Like governments, they are bureaucratic, conservative, slow-moving, and often self-serving. Like non-profit, they are chronically underfunded, difficult to rely upon, and often inconsistent in their policies. As a result, the hundreds of billions of dollars they have invested over the past several decades have been largely ineffective — especially when measured against the goal of alleviating problems like global poverty.”
that’s how you whack all three conventional alternatives in one paragraph.
“[Grameen bank and the World Bank are very different...] Grameen bank has always believed that if a borrower gets into trouble and cannot pay back her loan, it is our responsibility to help her. If we have a problem with out borrower, we tell ourselves that she is right — that we must have made some mistake in our policies or in our implementation of those policies. So we go back and fix outselves. We make our rules very flexible so that they can be adjusted to the requirements of the borrower” etc etc.
In short: ALL THE THINGS THE WORLD BANK DOESNT DO.
“It is quite different with the World Bank. IF you are lucky enough to be funded by them, they give you money. But they also give you ideas, expertise, training, plans, principles, and procedures. Your job is to follow the yellow lines, the green lines, and the red lines — to read the instructions at each step and obey them precisely. Yet, despite all this supervision, the projects don’t always work out as planned. And when this happens, it is the recipient countrythat usually seems to bear the blame and to suffer the consequences.”
On corporate social responsibility:
“For companies like these, CSR will always be a mere window dressing. In some cases, the same company that devotes a penny to CSR spends 99 cents on moneymaking projects that make social problems worse”
“If they were to accept reduced profits to promote social welfare, the owners would have reason to feel cheated and consider corporate social responsibility as corporate financial irresponsibility.”
The argument that CSR will always merely be a “window-dressing” is quite convincing.
And I like the way he ends chapter one by commenting on capitalism:
“Mainstream free-market theory suffers from a conceptualization failure, a failure to capture the essence of what it is to be human.”
As for his style, I was quite happy at his pellucid manner of writing — as compared to say, Amartya Sen’s verbose academic writing. I was quite convinced that this was a businessman writing, and businessmen write more clearly than academics — especially if they hired a journalist to help them a bit. But a wikipedia check contradicted this: the author was an economics professor.
Idealistic pragmatism — a sentiment that arises from cynicism at the failure of other solutions, leading to a realisation that a practical solution needs to be taken to fulfill an ideal. I actually foresee that a potential clash between my youthful ideals and realistic practical concerns at work — how i will grapple with it…is for the future to bother with.
So thats the rough idea. i’m interested in taking a look at his practical details — but not yet. The general idea is always more interesting than the actual implementation. I think I might want to revisit Small Is Beautiful soon.
****
ohhh, now i remember why the title sounds so familiar. beulah once anyhow threw the phrase “confluence of reality and fantasy” in some english prose commentary. i’ve no idea how the phrase had any relevance to the prose.
Among the accounts of early efforts to synthesize organisms in the laboratory is a recipe for making mice, given by the Belgian plant nutritionist Jean Baptiste van Helmont(1648).
“If you press a piece of underwear soiled with sweat together with some wheat in an open jar, after about 21 days the odor changes and the ferment. . . . changes the wheat into mice. But what is more remarkable is that the mice which came out of the wheat and underwear were not small mice, not even miniature adults or aborted mice, but adult mice emerge!”
***
LOL.
I think a lot of the history books written by westerners tend to trivialise the Chinese argument against railroads — what with disturbing the dragon breath that lies in the land or the ancestral spirits. Okay, they probably were true –at least among the credulous peasant population, but it excludes greater political and economic reasons. There is always a practical reason.
Three simple questions will elucidate this:
1. Who do you think will get arrowed to build the railroad? Surely not your western expatriates from a greater empire. Nor did China have the uniquely singapore idea of koping underpaid labour from its neighbouring countries.
2. How much do you think your railroad builder will be paid for the shitty job? If your nike factory worker is already paid peanuts presently, imagine how much your sweatshop worker cost then.
3. What else do you think the foreign imperialists will bring with them for their railroad territory? I mean, they need to like protect the area from ancestralist protesters and supervise the workers of inferior biology.
Of course the above ideas were from some nationalistic propoganda film — maybe the workers were actually well-paid under foreigners and received more than what they would have gotten outside of the sweat-shop….or at least, that’s what the foreign MNC public relations advertising (read: propoganda) portrays. It’s a clash of propoganda — and for the individual to select one.
I think its still largely due to Chinese laziness and the ‘don’t rock the boat’ mindset. No doubt, railroads bring with them economic development — but to the (overly) satisfied Chinese official trying to enjoy his tea, a railroad must be bloody annoying. And it is probably true that the Chinese official cared more about his peace and quiet during his afternoon nap than the exploitation of local workers. THAT is probably the real Chinese argument against railroads.
The rise of modern China story can be summed up as a lazy man being kicked out of his bed to go strive in the corpulate world — it’s for his own good, but he’s gonna be bloody pissed. (or “he’s gonna be bloody pissed, but it’s for his own good” — pick your preferred perspective)
****
but to say that railroads are an excuse to excavate treasure is sort of stretching it. my belief is that if western imperialists wanted to pillage treasure, they won’t really bother about an excuse.
hah, nationalist films are so fun. more about Shaolin soon.
There is this Russian saying, “a wet man does not fear rain.” I take it that the original un-mistranslated version was more akin to how a drunk man does not fear vodka (for vodka is water in Russian, or was it the other way round). Or how a man sentenced with the maximum penalty has the license to commit all the crimes in the world. If you’re in shit, you really might as well go all the way….a very Russian way of thinking. Such reasoning must have been the product of frigid winters, shitty gruel and anti-freeze as a substitute good for alcohol.
But I digress. The story goes that I was wearing my singlet, shorts and “running” shoes when it started pouring. Yes, I was dressed in that attire despite a. it being more than half a day after exercise time ended and b. not having exercised at all.
Normally I wouldn’t really give a toss about the rain…if i wore boots. But I was wearing my comfortably porous shoes that have accompanied me from sec three all the way till now. It is no surprise that whatever that makes the shoe water-proof is now non-existent and the soles are worn off, revealing the Chinese characters for right and left under the sole. Globalisation for the win.
The rain was truly torrential this time and i had two things in mind: 1) getting across back to my block – so that i could wash up, laze in bed, sleep, read the stuff i mass printed etc etc etc. I didn’t want to waste my life being stranded right opposite my block with nowhere to sit. 2) not get my shoes wet, so that i don’t have to walk home feeling like i peed in my socks.
So I broke into this nearby office to take a trash bag. Clean one of course. I was very proud of how I put my socks and shoes into the trash bag, and proceeded to cross the road bare footed. In the short fifteen to twenty seconds of crossing the road, the rain was heavy enough to drench my clothes from head to toe. When I finally reached my sheltered destination, there was a bunch of pansies who didn’t want to cross even though they were more dressed than me and wearing waterproof boots people who looked quite amused at my barefooted crossing.
That was when I realised that I should have put my underwear in the trash bag also. Smart (very smart actually), but not smart enough — who would have expected the rain to be that heavy?
In any case, it turns out that all the effort to ensure a dry walk home was futile. I even bothered double bagging my feet with socks, but it ended up soaked anyway after a few puddles on the walk home. Something needs to be done about my shoes that are as waterproof as slippers — but I am not very keen on replacing such an old pair of shoes with a new one.
****
‘Some day in the rain’ is also very different in tone from ‘someday in the rain’. One is an idealised picture. The other is the real shit that beats down upon you 4pm in the afternoon.
Indeed indeed, my water elemental character is able to take the shape of any container. I value my flexibility –physically, spiritually, mentally, morally even, being able to fit into multiple positions on the debate table and under it.
Looking back, I think I wasn’t entirely honest (to myself for one) when I said I had this strong interest in History. Those who were closer to me in the months leading up to september would know that i vacillated quite a fair bit…all the way to the end. My interests were really quite amorphous. I probably picked it just because it was the most general….or least ‘useful’. I have a problem with useful subjects — they probably teach you to be too rigid. How you learn is more important than what you learn. At the core, I think it was simply because it was the most convenient and most within my reach. History was more about convenience than interest.
And I still don’t actually know what I want for sure. But the process of something uncertain gradually taking shape is somewhat exciting.
So to be or not to be? I still think the best is – yet to be.
I always thought that students who were born at the start of the year had an edge over those who were born at the end of the year. That’s almost an entire year more of growth and maturity. At the age of 9, 10 and maybe even 12, such a gap could be unfair. It is hence unfair to place judgments on a child’s capability at that young an age. But even without this maturity gap, competing at the age of 12 is a system that favours early prodigies over late bloomers. Meritocracy before even a single strand of puberty sounds a bit of a joke.
Maybe it’s more reasonable to have a decisive examination at the age of 14. Yes, delay it by two years. There are two ways of doing this:
1. Genuinely spread out the pre-major exam period over the eight years. The purpose is not to create more exam trained robots, but to have more creativity and room for exploration. Perhaps even to have a childhood.
2. Push sec one and two syllabus to the two additional years before the major examination. If this already DAMN BLOODY CRAZY idea actually happens, method two is what all the parents will push for in this wave of kiasuism. the same parents that insist on having exams for p1s.
But think of it this way: two extra years of learning (read: exam preparation and tuition). And here’s the best part. When it comes to applying to foreign universities, the country can field all these 20 year olds with two years more of schooling against applicants from all the other schools. An advantage and competitive edge indeed. It’s like cheating, but cheating is a bad word. It’s legal cheating — like lying about the age of your youth athletes.
But my real suggestion: just teach some proper English and grammar in the extra two years. i’ve been learning more grammar in the past month than i have in my entire schooling journey. i was still writing history essays with grammar mistakes even last year. i was never (i repeat: NEVER) corrected in school for poor parallelism or a misplaced modifier. i probably can find my own grammar mistakes in this post….once i put on my SAT GOGGLES.
…
so the intention of my proposal is to give room for more creative development, if not a sturdier foundation in reading and writing.
what do i actually foresee happening? PRIMARY SCHOOL CALCULUS.
****
but seriously, what the fuck are TWO MISSING YEARS anyway. (its obvious what triggered this idea of mine)
I’m not easily satisfied.
I’m not satisfied with routine ritualism – on its own, without its deeper meanings.
I’m not satisfied with some guy trying to fear monger people with talk about hell and the end times. Okay sure, Revelations says “Behold I am coming soon.” But that’s been there for close to two millenniums. Divine procrastination or what. Frankly I think that matters of the afterlife and apocalypse are quite frivolous.
I’m not even satisfied with all the materialistic talk. Health and wealth is good. Prosperity is great. I love free blessings in fact. But I think its inane to declare that this year shall be one of “multiplication and promotasi” — on what basis i am unsure. What of last year and the year before? What about the next year?
And I’m not satisfied with listening to some guy give a motivational talk or a talk on how to live my life — do these people know the meaning of fruits or not?
I don’t care to know how man should behave. No doubt, morals are important, but anyone can offer morals — I want to learn about God. There is something greater — I want revelations. I want higher truths. I want spiritual understandings.
All else are petty tricks. Lesser people can go satisfy themselves with just such vacuous mass movements. I don’t understand why people go to church, especially if they feel no real edification. Is it to show face and be physically present because they feel an obligation to do so or a sense of moral guilt if they didn’t? As for me, I still haven’t found what I’m looking for. I can’t get no satisfaction.
****
I might have gotten more listening to Philosopher Jagger on a sunday morning.
I liked Boston. There was that nice lawyer TV series with a smug bastard for a main character. Two smug bastards actually. I was there for only less than a week, but I still retain some semblance of directional/geographical memory. I probably can make my way to the train station, lobster place and gyros place…not to mention the apple shop (by apple, I mean, the non-edible and expensive kind) and the list goes on. I amaze myself sometimes…and yet I can’t remember the faces of people I haven’t seen for several months. I probably will visit Boston eventually, when it’s convenient. (I was actually planning to at the end of last year, but unfortunate events, I had no mood by then.) okay, but no one cares that I went to Massachusetts to stuff my face.
Things are more interesting when a British guy goes to USA and writes about each and every state. (or some Kazakh…who was actually British also) But not any British guy…
Drawing comparisons in his introduction:
“There is one phrase I probably heard more than any other on my travels: ‘Only in America!’
If you were to hear a Briton say ‘Tch! Only in Britain, eh?’ it would probably refer to something that was either predictable, miserable,oppressive,dull, bureaucratic, queuey, damp, spoil-sporty or incompetent — or a mixture of all those.”
Commenting on national history:
” The idea that the Puritans came to New England to avoid persecution is lodged firmly in the American psyche. Gore Vidal’s view that they came, ‘not to be free from persecution, but on the contrary, to be free to persecute’….Quakers, for example, were persecuted, suppressed, tortured and discriminated against in much of New England throughout the early years of the colonies. But I suppose the tortuous alteration of real history and the elevation of the Pilgrim Fathers to heroic status was important for America, which needed to create a vision of itself consonant with its lofty aims. I dare say Robin Hood was a greedy cut-throat and Boadicea a cruel tyrant — all nations twist history and cleanse their heroes in order to express an ideal to live up to.”
My newly baked knowledge of US history says thats how Rhode Island and Connecticut (New Haven soon after Hartford) were founded. The names may ring a bell. …dissenter colleges.
In conversation with a Salem witch:
” ‘The Christians went from persecuting us to scorning us for what they call superstition.’
I murmur sympathy, which is genuine. To me all religions are equally nonsensical and the idea that Christians, with their particular invisible friends, virgin births, immaculate conceptions and bread turning into flesh, could have the cheek to mock people like Laurie for being ‘superstitious’ is appalling humbug”
In conversation with a black, gay minister:
” ‘You’re obviously gay,’ I say to him. ‘But some people might be surprised to know that you are also openly black..no, hang on. I’ve got that the wrong way round.’
***
And that’s just one chapter.
Btw the book “Stephen Fry in America” is supposedly 8.99 pounds. I got it for 7SGD at some supermarket clearance sale, and chanced upon it at my pile of ”i bought at dirt cheap rates on impulse but haven’t had the time to go through” books.
I guess it wasn’t a good idea for supermarkets to sell books. For them, at least.
I have this friend who writes like those literature authors — beautiful flowing sentences, vivid imagery and a level of almost theatrical angst. (Digress a bit – I can’t really find the word to substitute ‘literature author’. “writes like those writers” sounds a bit spastic. ‘Literati’ misses the point. ‘playwright without the dialogue’ sounds nice but is actually quite vacuous…)
Of course, I mean the meaningful and understandable kind of literature (can’t really think of any good examples right now though) — not the abstract kind that we studied in school, which leaves a ”what the bloody hell is he saying” sentiment.
Then I realised that to write with overflowing emotion and angst, you need to have a pitiful lot of emotion and angst. You can’t make lemon juice without any lemons. (but the Chinese Industry might soon prove me wrong)
But really, I’m not too fond of all these…stuffs –Much prefer some debates to entertain me.
A Muslim man in Egypt killed his wife and then buried her with their infant baby and 8-year old daughter. The girls were buried alive!
He then reported to the police that an uncle killed the kids. 15 days later, another family member died. When they went to bury him, they found the 2 little girls under the sand – ALIVE!
The country is outraged over the incident, and the man will be executed.
The older girl was asked how she had survived. “A man wearing shiny white clothes, with bleeding wounds in his hands, came every day to feed us. He woke up my mom so she could nurse my sister,” she said.
She was interviewed on Egyptian national TV, by a veiled Muslim woman news anchor. She said on public TV, “This was none other than Jesus, because nobody else does things like this!”
Muslims believe Isa (Jesus) would do this, but the wounds mean He really was crucified, and it’s clear also that He is alive! But, it’s also clear that the child could not make up a story like this, and there is no way these children could have survived without a true miracle. Muslim leaders are going to have a hard time to figure out what to do with this, and the popularity of the movie Passion doesn’t help!
With Egypt at the centre of the media and education in the Middle East, you can be sure this story will spread. Christ is still turning the world upside down!
Please let this story be shared. The Lord says, “I will bless the person who puts his trust in me.” Jeremiah 17:7.
****
But there are four problems with this:
1) It’s not true — “Status: Totally unsubstantiated – Almost certainly false.” A google search for the testimony above leads to hoax slayers. com
2) The news can’t possibly spread: you seriously believe that A) this thing will appear on egyptian news even if it were real? B) the veiled newsreader would say such a thing even while it risks her getting stoned?
3) The story itself doesn’t make sense: so jesus can A) resurrect the mother temporarily to B) feed the kid amidst all the sand and gravel, but not C) just take the two kids out of the grave. Besides D) who fed the older girl anyway? Then again, mysterious ways la mysterious ways.
4) Why it matters – This was part of the (very underwhelming) message when I visited the church near my place. More about this some time soon.
***
One wonders whether lying to strengthen faith can be considered right by religious standards. It definitely isn’t by my standards. It’s a bit like seeing hoards of people jaywalk outside of church to the unstrategically faraway bus-stop. Okay, not really. I have less problems with jay walking or illegally downloading music — YOU WOULDNT DOWNLOAD A CAR.
Just a bit of problem with sanctimonious people.
My line of reasoning is very simple. Which would you rather:
Case 1-
1. Sleep and then wake up
2. Do shit that you dread and get tired
3. Do things you need and want to do AFTER you’re shack already. Productivity low.
Case 2-
1. Sleep and then wake up
2. Do the things you need and want to do first thing upon waking up (of course after some long lazing in bed — there’s no rush to get to work. no alarm clock is needed) Productivity high.
3. When you’re starting to get tired, then you go do that mechanical mindless shit that you dread.
And since the mindless mechanical stuff is fixed and beyond your control — you’re left to manipulate the other two factors.
My priorities are quite simple: 1. sleep 2. real work 3. fake (but more commonly known as-) work.
But all these happened rather naturally — i was just so shack after doing three days worth of work in a single day. I had no energy left to do anything that night — might as well just sleep. As a result, I have eaten two breakfasts today — one upon waking and another before going to work.
Three limitations stand in my way:
1. The occasional need to work late: PLAN GG. This is worsened if i had to stay in. Its hard to sleep unless everyone else does — not the case 7-8pm
2. Going out in the evenings: unless you want to get a rough idea of how i function at 2 to 3am of body clock. For sure, I have to meet people at night eventually…and by that i mean before midnight.
3. Circadian rhythm: the bastard, Joseph Circardia. supposedly the position of the sun, the amount of daylight etc etc will affect the sleep cycle and what stages of sleep i would have experienced. This might be quite nonsense — i spent quite a number of my afternoons sleeping. Plus, what about those people who do night shifts? I don’t really understand this bit of science. Maybe i’ll read up about it soon.
Did the plan work? Previously I slept from 7 to 1. 7 was probably a bit too early and 1 too. The wonderful part was that I didn’t use an alarm clock and could afford to laze in bed consciously for an hour. Seeing that I ended up needing to sleep three hours at work, I don’t think so. (it is also because of this that i have brushed my teeth four times today)
So perhaps I can shift the time to 8pm-3am (or whenever i wake up). At least this time will give me leeway to have dinner with people. 9 to 3 might be fine too, but seems a bit short.
In the meantime, I’ll try to stay awake till then….by writing a blog post.
*****
It was 3am in the morning before work. I was up contemplating life — wondering about contrasts that struck me. In the very pensive mood, I appreciated many things that I had.
It was then that I realised that the reason for my speedy recovery from one mishap to another was-
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