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Been getting home around 11 to midnight for the entire week.
It is quite paradoxical. The busier I get, the more I feel the need to further occupy myself – as if I’m in search for some meaning or distraction.
***
Work isn’t hard. Studying isn’t hard either. But both can be quite time consuming. And when you merge the two, it becomes this tedious monster – especially since I continue to juggle it with many other important priorities. It’s an interesting experiment which I’ll probably go into more detail some other time.
Right now, I am most probably relegating the examinations to a lower priority – mainly because I don’t see the utility in investing so much time in it. The main motivation that kept me going for more than a year has been the Sunk Cost mentality – which is damn strong in me – be it for relationships, work etc. If I have invested time/effort/money in something, and there is a possibility of success, even if it is turning shitty – I find it hard to simply give up. Now this isn’t rational (especially for the maker of the Effort-Results Curve, and I’ll probably need to find some way to overcome this eventually.
One way is to continue but with as little additional cost as possible. So right, for my upcoming examinations in May: I’ll start studying in May itself. This is an intense test. But it probably is better because:
1. I use less hours, which frees up time for my other priorities.
2. My overall duration spent (less than one month instead of two) is shorter. I spend one less month being sian.
3. The nature of the subject is such that a lot of it is short-term memory intensive. The earlier test has shown that I can put in a lot of effort remembering things, but they only stick for about a day or two. Everything is gone after a week.
4. Last minute work is an important life skill. Not always will there always be the luxury of time to prepare – furthermore, that is time-inefficient. I never really was a last minute worker, but more of the ‘start work early and just relax and incubate the few days before the paper’. I know I have no problem ‘playing stamina’ (like most asians), but I’m not sure if I can ‘play speed’. That said, I got by my mock exams in Feb with just one night of studying per paper. It might seem like I’m just wanting to skive (which is partly true), but testing myself for the heck of it might be a good idea.
When cornered with such a jampacked schedule, I should be compelled to perform efficiently. Otherwise I die lor – but at least I would have better spent my entire month of April 
More about my May schedule when May actually arrives. It’s actually quite a busy month.
Last Saturday was probably the last time I went to watch the j2s debate, and that’s when I got my card which I was supposed to get last December before I ran off to Korea. I had no bag then, and it was raining, so I didn’t take it.
snide remark: the girl on the right steals food from the girl on the left.
So cute right? You will notice a puzzling lack of unsightly brown blazers in this picture. I didn’t even realise when it was taken. 哲渊 (which I think is a very nice Chinese name for a guy!) makes quite a good stalker/private eye – I didn’t even know she brought a camera. I specially didn’t snap the other half of the card, which had me in a very unglam “fanning myself” position – that one I noticed the camera tho!! It is also this outfit which izzy has called my “eggplantness” – I made a special effort not to make a vulgar reply. I am also refraining from putting the picture of a GIANT EGGPLANT here…
And what did I do in exchange, and on my last chance to watch this team in action? Skip the next day of debates – something which I really quite regret, for all the exciting rounds that I missed out on and simply for not being there. It was hardly a rational decision – I’ve been trying to rationalise my decision, but I simply don’t know why I decided the way I did. It could probably all be traced to the messed up organizing of the competition and my overly high expectations from the day before. (Behavioral economics and irrationality 101, sigh. My level of irrationality is making me hold back my sexist prejudice.). One could say that my unfaithful call sign has so many meanings now, but we’ll save that for tomorrow or the day after.
I shall henceforth vent my resentment for my own actions on women right’s debates in general. (which is ironically, a VERY WOMAN thing to do)
But on a level of deeper contemplation, regret is indeed a shitty feeling. It is something which I have grappled with earlier this week – a very deep seated and long term regret, which I’m glad to say I managed to clear in a day thanks to the help and support of some. It is something similar to worry, but far worse to me. Worry looks to the future and its uncertainties, but worry eventually reaches a time when the uncertainty ceases. Regret, on the other hand, looks to the past and is already sealed. There’s a chance that your worry doesn’t come to pass, but there’s no chance that your regret will right itself.
Some say that we regret the things that we don’t do more than the things that we do. That may or may not be true. It precludes the scenario where a person chooses between two things. And counter-examples that come to mind include getting your girlfriend pregnant, spending a bomb on a useless overpriced item, hurting someone, and jumping into the pool with your phone.
But my view that has been shaped by the past few years is probably like this: be very careful about taking the easier and more convenient over what you might want more. If it’s worth it, keep waiting, keep hanging on, and keep working for it. But if you do pick one over the other, stick with it and don’t look back. Because even the thought of it may have disastrous outcomes.
Regret is ultimately one’s own mindset. There’s really not much which can be done, apart from accepting the current reality, and learning from it. I’m glad that the most major in a while is over (for now at least). Such is life
***
Sometimes I wonder if Rodin’s The Thinker is really thinking about some deep concept. Or simply The Worrier, or The Regretter. Maybe all that is part and parcel of being a Thinker.
Or maybe, if you were to refer to my less glam and less chiseled pose above, he’s just going “SIAN, WHEN’S THE NEXT ROUND GOING TO START”
I think this guy described it quite well towards the end of 2010:
“You know that feeling — when that person whom you secretly liked for a long time actually wanted you as well — except this realisation comes only after you’ve completely moved on from something so unknown and uncertain. Such misfortune — it can only be a mindgame.
And the most perplexing thing is everything that went on in your head when you found out. You never expected the sentiments that you did actually feel. You try not to think about it but it comes back later as you are on the way home before you board the train and as you leave the station. Everything from a distant past comes back to you vividly — how it was so close, yet so far. How it was such a pity. A part of you demands to know why you didn’t have this knowledge beforehand – before you made a choice hastily. Another part of you is simply not sure whether you should have known at all. Probably better if you never didn’t find out. It would have never been part of your reality if it never reached your ears.
You look back into the past and try to recall the day you made a decision to move to a new place after much waiting, a difficult decision as you waited in ignorance. You cannot help but to ask yourself what if you knew then, what if you had more information then, where you can put your choices side-by-side? It was hard to be objective under a time constrain. Plus, how could you weigh the merits of your choices properly when one of the choices are already certain and the other is still ambiguous? It was a weighted debate. Then the scary question comes — had you known earlier, would you have made the same choice you did back then? A voice in your head tells you that you made your choice just because one was more certain, one came first and all you wanted was the security above anything else.
Your mind actually wanders far enough to see if there is even a glimmer of possibility that you could change your path back later on in life. Nope, not a chance. There is that overseas factor which is a bother and there simply is no time to.
The father would say that you don’t choose your destiny, your destiny choose you. If you had a choice, it wouldn’t be destiny anymore. The mother would beg to differ –the paths you choose decide your destiny. Both are right of course, but neither philosophical opinion actually helps you at all -_- Who knows what new things the future holds but God? What different endings may emerge based on different paths? What are the different results if we did things differently in the manner of alternative history? What the hell.
You don’t care to think about it and don’t dare to think about it.
After all, you’ve moved on and you’re very satisfied for now at least. You go through a barrage of reasons re-affirming your decision and they all outweigh those from the alternative ending. It’s almost the sour-grapes coping mentality that some of your ambitious peers have (i.e. not get something then say it was probably sour anyway) — but its quite different of course. Your subconscious and conscious mind are both biased, not wanting to be wrong or wanting in a hopeless situation anyway.
The fact of the matter is that you’ve picked your path and moved on already.You’re already happy and that’s all that matters. The grass is greenest and will continue to be the greenest on your side. Life goes on, as some broken recorder would say — you’re going to go home and sleep for the next day.
It’s all a metaphor, of course.
Or at least, it’d better be.”
***
And that guy told himself, “don’t do anything stupid. just don’t do anything stupid.”
For the past week or so at work, I’ve been reading up on public communications and crisis management. But anyway:
Consider this link first: http://horizonacademy.us/index.html
Not bad what. A private school that builds character. Its website has testimony videos from students who graduated. The quote on its main page is about respecting the student. Sounds like holistic development, and a place which could turn problematic children into better people.
But that’s like the girl with make-up. (Random interjection: of late, I’ve been wondering how some people look like without makeup. I’ve never actually seen people-I-know-without-makeup look good when they put on make up. Maybe jc girls take quite a number of years to learn how to do it properly or something)
Then look at this link: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Horizon-Academy/181273385345?sk=wall&filter=12
I’ve no idea why this facebook page hasn’t been shut down yet. It’s doing more harm to their institution.
It might also be interesting to note that quite a number of the testimony student videos exhibit signs of either lying or fear (not that I really believe in that body language thing. I think body language is too variable)
Here’s an interesting quote taken out of context:
my stay lasted 2 years. The day to day functioning of this facility is based on a very strict set of rules and regulations: you eat what they give you, do what they tell you (often just pointless things just to brand mindless submission in your brain), and believe what they tell you to believe.
Sounds familiar? but to be fair, we still had weekends and nights out.
The media should not be viewed as an obstacle to causes. Rather, it is like a potent weapon (OR A BIKINI) used to conceal, as well as to reveal.
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