Running and running

One might wonder off and view the endless boundary of the clear blue sky. What defines the blurry line between illusion and reality? How the magnificent birds flying, soaring above the horizon. Place where dreams comes true. Well, it is not paradise, but it isn’t hell either.

If the time may come one day,

I would follow you through the 7 seas

For I alone

Might not be able to see through dusk

For

I’m running away,

Away,

Away from time.

I know I’m being silly

Running away from the present

To the future.

And at the unforeseen untold future,

Running away

Yet again from the present of the future

The past of the present.

Martime Museum

Sentosa, a tiny island at the south of Singapore. With much attractions, including Universal Studios Singapore, Images of Singapore, Underwater world and more, it is a island with much offerings. Recently, Sentosa just opened another new attraction, the Maritime Museum.

The entrance fees for students cost just $2 (UP$5). Let the pictures do the talking ((:

Some plants

Replica of a chinese junk

Chinese puppet show

DIY ship building

Part of the Vietnam exbit...their famous 'Sunflower Hats'

FInal product of the ship

Tearing the contents out

View outside the museum

Durex Adverts [NSFW]

Came across some of Durex print adverts on their condom products. Not sure the year, but it sure is pretty awesome and creative.

It’s intriguing how complex ideas can become reality

The first ever social cinema had arrived in Singapore. With this platform, viewers are able to share their thoughts and views on the shorts together. Create Tomorrow, a website to change your perception about engineering and to create a platform to provoke, fire and spark curiosity on your thoughts. And with Create Tomorrow’s first film fest, it certainly is serious onto changing one’s perception of engineering with 3 shorts to boot.

The first short film, Hi, I’m An Engineer helps sets the mood for subsequence films. The film is light-hearted and funny. The story revolves round Khai, a civil engineer on his first speed dating session. The first few women he met are sceptical on his job of being an engineer. Throughout the film, Khai clarified the misconceptions most people had about an engineer. His job scope is onto overseeing the construction of air-cons, and some of the projects he had undertaken includes the Helix Bridge as well as M.B.S (Marina Bay Sands). After numerous rounds, he grew discourage as the women wants their boyfriends to be a lawyer, with a high pay. Of course, Khai dismissed the perception that engineer are lowly paid with low career prospects. Thus Khai decided to change his occupation by introducing himself as a lawyer. Unknown to him, the women, Ling, too is a lawyer but she introduced herself as an artiste, where she paint things, people, canals, buildings, roads. And both clicked well when they say the same phrase at the same time. In all, with nice BGM and art direction, it is a nice movie. However, there is no dialogue at all, with just wordings floating round the video.

The second short film, Flight revolves round Jeremy whose father wanted him to become a pilot. Ever since he had completed his Basic Military Training (BMT) stint, his father had wanted him to sign on with the air force. But every time the question pops up, Jeremy seemed unhappy. His father too wanted to be a pilot. However circumstances prevails him to be one. Thus, he pinned his hopes on Jeremy. Jeremy had been selected for the air force, but kept the news to his dad. Upon confrontation, Jeremy revealed he wanted to build planes, and not fly them. With such a heavy theme, and the director, everything all sums up together.

The last short film, Building Dreams is a documentary about Ian, a computer engineer at LucasArts Singapore. Yup, it is again about engineering. It basically talks about his job scope, the fun of it, and also, some of the fun experiences he had about his job. Still remember he talked about his childhood days, when he hacked every game he had. Wow! And also, his job is quite fun.

In all, all 3 short films helps to clear misconception about engineers. So, to everybody, engineers can too, be as highly respected as lawyers or doctors. It can been seen Create Tomorrow tries extremely hard to bring in the content to us, but with more practises, it can be perfect.

Singlish? Or just Singaporeans?

Have one ever wonder, in this country just one degree north of the equator, what qualifies to be a true blue Singaporean?  Is it more of the physical appearance or the way we behave? Many had concluded with a vast majority of Singaporeans wear t-shirts with Bermudas (which lead many to conclude it being the national uniform).  However, in such terrible hot and humid weather, it seemed like the only logical option. One could not expect us to wear winter clothing right?

In addition to plain old fashion sense, what actually puts Singaporeans apart from other Asians? One would think Singaporeans appears to be well educated, elegant, and neat. But wait till one listens to us. Because we Singaporeans speaks in a unique manner. We’ve not a singular accent. Unlike our regional counterparts, we do not imitate either the American accent or English accent. Instead, we speak in a clearly, though at times too fast. It is easy to differentiate between our accent to that of the Hong Kong accent or Japanese accent. Reason being to that English is our official language and is being used to teach mathematics, science and even mandarin! Thus, this resonate for the missing accent.

The simplest way to identify a Singaporean by their speech? The emphasis on certain words, such as the –th. Or the poor sentence structure in their conversations. Singlish? The leh, lah. Think that’s what singlish is all about? Nope. But rather, the immensely popular usage of verbs and adjectives before a noun. An example shall be free gift. A gift is something which is complimentary. Thus the word, free, is kind of redundant. Another example might be ‘to-something’. Like ‘I want to eat’. I want to eat. It might be simple English, but sounds weird, and unique right? Uniquely Singapore. And the usage of ‘can anot’ (or some uses can or cannot?) Just like if one is able to do something. It’s either a yes or a no. the same goes for the ‘can or cannot’, with ‘can anot’ simplify everything.

Before I end off, let’s share a poem, with pure singlish (which I’ve in my e-mail)

You write like that in exam you sure siao (crazy),

Teacher mark your paper sure Kee Siao (go crazy)

This type of standard can pass anot (can…anot) , you ask yourself

Wait, you confirm kenna (attain) last in class one.

Singlish terms are in BOLD.

Just in the poem, there lies numerous Singlish terminology which the average Singaporeans use for the nth times in a single day. Singlish, is actually a beautiful language, but is so often critised. Be it an identity, it truly is Uniquely Singapore.

Marking your territory

It is considered taboo to actually mark what’s mine, and what’s yours in an official manner. No matter where the place might be, including schools, workplace, homes, etc. Simply because of the potential perception one might give others based on this action alone. This seemly innocent, harmless and also trivia action could, in actual fact, lead to a whole lot of other unrelated events.  

Ever since ancient times, humans had all along tried to mark their objects and resources. Be it by drawing out the lands they think they owned on a map (lands are owned by the Earth, not governments), sending their armies to protect it or even shouting loudly with signs emphasis to any potential innocent trespassers that they are near ‘my’ land, my place, where I rule it.

Not forgetting, also there are some people who grew jealous of others with vast amounts of objects and land that they tried all their means to obtain them. And by ‘all means’ also too, include sacrificing their own life. This is by what now The Hague termed it ‘conflict of interest’. It is a phrase so easy to misuse, to get what you want officially, albeit via an unethical manner. This lead to wars after wars, renaming of empires, dynasty, country names like Roman Empire to the Ottoman-Empire, Czechoslovakia to the now Czech Republic and Slovakia. It thus can be concluded that now it is only human nature to be envious of others and thus be greedy, trying to get more land/resources from others.

And thus now, by trying to mark your territory officially is now deemed to be of having a hostile personality, which makes you anti-social, and not peace loving. Elaborating further, it means you have a problem with yourself and others. Other’s would be very mindful of your each and every movement.

However, being humans, each and everyone would still love to have a clear, but a non-official line of what’s mine and yours. By not labelling or telling others this is mine, but by brands and model. One fine example? Stationery. Stationery, although cheap, is a vital tool to mark your territory. For you see, having our stationery all over the place translate to owning the whole table (in a shared office). It also is a sign of your influence all over the workplace. And being humans, we are afraid of sharing and also using the wrong type of stationery. Thus, I use a MUJI pen to mark that it’s mine. Firstly, few people in my class uses MUJI products. Secondly, MUJI is a product which I love to use. Thirdly, I can’t imagine using other non-MUJI products. Give me a pilot pen anytime, and I shall throw it straight in your face on the floor.

Till now, using my own type of stationery and having others knowing that I uses such stationery will actually trigger some receptors in their brain, that I’m using MUJI and so, please do not use MUJI, unless you want to copy me. And be a copy-cat bitch who is such a slut, and without their own fixed opinion to even stationery choice. Fuck off.

When one hear of another using such brand of stationery, you would go compare if they uses the same brand. If positive, be friends together, so as to achieve a win-win situation where you two can use each other stuffs without conflict. Because I believe you had invest vast resources into being unique and use this type of stationery. Else, be creative to further distinct what’s yours. Like changing the pen tip colour to yellow. This means it is unique in the sense that it is not store-bought direct, and you had customised it completely.

Ultimately, at the end, please keep your stationery well, and not lose it. Then, you will not falsely accuse others of stealing your stationery. Like in my case, a parker pen.

Many years ago, I’m the only person using Parker Pen (till some copy-cats came along). Thus I did not make it a point to actually mark it is mine. One day, I lost my pen (which is so sad) and I tried searching for it in the classroom, but to no avail. Until a month later, I saw my pen in a fucker’s pencil case. I immediately snatch it away from the stupid fucker (I knew the fucker well that he’s too poor to even buy a pilot G2 pen, much less a Parker) and put it in my pencil case. Sure enough, the fucker did not make a fuss. Because if he report the theft, no one would believe him, since he’s so poor. I think he knew I took the pen back, because he gave me the death stare whenever I talk to him.

I realised why he would take the pen and use it for himself. Because I did not proclaim I’m using a Parker pen, thus, when I lose a pen, anybody could just shout across I’m too, using a Parker pen. Thus now, I make it a point that I’m using MUJI pens, thus, if they found any MUJI pen (or pens acting like MUJI), they would first, ask me if I lose any MUJI pen, before asking others. However silly this ‘strategy’ might sound, it sure is effective, into knowing your pens are safe and sound if you lose it in the classroom.