A parade of thoughts

I must stay away from coffee. Coffee reacts with me in an abnormal way - my heart palpitates, my eyes feel pinched, my skin gets all tensed up. In the immediate aftermath, there are certainly the benefits of heightened awareness and perhaps a greater dose of inspiration (it has helped me come up with some good ideas for my book!). However, the boon soon fades away, leaving behind the unwanted currency of fatigue. Oh, but Ye Wei claims that JD's cafe sells awesome, one-of-a-kind coffee. Maybe I should go experiment and find out if it's unique indeed!

I need to find AWFUL-sounding songs. Anyone has some to recommend? Songs that will shriek into the walls of my ear-drums and make my soul shiver so that I will awake immediately? I realized that I have been using my favourite songs as my alarm in the mornings. And because of this, I have this tendency to want to finish listening to the whole song, immersing myself in the enchanting melodies... But the more I listen, the happier I feel, and the more I will tug my pillow closer to me... One thing leads to another, and soon there is no light, only darkness. And I am no longer awake.

That was what happened to me on Saturday! I set my alarm at 6am AND I WOKE UP AT 6! Only to fall asleep again. So I was slightly late for the AYC meeting, though I had to spend lots on taxi fare to ensure that I wasn't abhorrently late.

BB gathering was nice. The four dudes of the BB family have finally reunited after what seemed like a million years! The girls and the fantastic cake that they baked (read: the fantastic cake that they got Breadtalk to bake) were fantastic too (: haha and because Ye Wei and I were sitting damn far away, we used the mirrors in front of us to look at those sitting at the opposite end so we could talk more easily. Onlookers must have found it as amusing as we did.

Talking to Juan He about life, love and the universe is quite an interesting and amusing experience.

And I feel the urge to change my blog template again!

So that was yesterday. Quite an enjoyable day (:

Actually, I have been thinking about the topic of Infatuation vs Interest recently. Maybe I will write more about it soon, when I feel inspired. Anyway, just a snippet of my thoughts:

I guess most of us will think of infatuation as the red, syrupy haze that envelopes our minds and tints our thoughts towards the subject of interest, such that every little action appears to harbour hidden symbolisms and that every little reaction seems to suggest favourable intentions towards oneself. Yes, I totally agree with that description. What is wrong, however, is our belief that infatuation is a short-lived phenomenon, which it isn't always.

Meeting the Scouties soon! haha somehow when they talk about army stuff, it's never boring. Or maybe I am just prejudiced.

A parade of elephants.

A Murder of Thoughts

I have this feeling that I'm stuck in a limbo. Life has become too routine and dull - wake up, cycle, work, home, slack & sleep. It's like there's nothing to look forward to! True, there are the occasional meetings with friends that are held on weekends, but I much prefer them to be in sizable chunks rather than the assortment of various masses that they often are. Large groups are for entertainment; small groups are for intimacy. The next time I say "Long time no see/talk!" to you even though we have just met a few days back, perhaps you'll get what I mean.

Group meetings are like 'assurance' encounters, gatherings where you convey to certain friends the message that you hope the special friendships you share will last beyond the month, beyond the year. On the other hand, individual meetings are like 'intrigue' encounters, meetings where you really get to talk to the person - thus, getting to know the friend better, and allowing him or her the opportunity to know you beyond the surface too - and find yourself becoming interested to learn more.

I digressed. Anyway, I need a GOAL, a pursuit where I can leash my imagination on and unleash my energies for. It has to be something I really want to do, not something I am interested in doing. It has to be a 'hard' goal, not a 'soft' goal like learning to cook or waveboard.

Designing the website for AYC is interesting, but it's not enough. The only interesting part is when the designing part - the subsequent coding part is a torture. In fact, I find that designing is probably one of the best applications of problem-solving. On one hand, there are certain demands you have to deal with (like the site content), certain restrictions you have to work under (like your theme has to be aligned to the corporate colours), and certain ideals you have to adjust towards (like how the site should look like i.e. cartoonish, professional). On the other, you have to consider your personal arsenal of skills in areas such as graphic design, coding and animation. After this, you have to synthesize both of the individual parts to produce something that both your client and you like. Problem Provided + Skills = Answer!

And I digressed, again. Then again, there is no designed agenda for this post, just a collection of random thoughts and ideas. I guess I can start working on stuff like PSC essay for now while I think of a potential project to take up. Actually, I was thinking of writing a book, but somehow I feel that my thoughts get stifled, and my creativity oppressed, while I'm in the office. Or maybe I should just try my hand in tutoring since I have always been interested in teaching.

Ah well, the vagaries of the mind.

A murder of crows.

A congregation of thoughts

It's hard to keep resolutions because it's easy to break them. Rationalization is a powerful tool that we are oft to employ in great doses, overwhelming any previous inclinations through seemingly-reasonable excuses. And so I find myself here, breaking one of my resolutions for the coming 8 days as I seek to reward myself after a hard day at work.

Alright, the bad thing about work is the all-so-tangible office politics. Let us discount those insidious and often unseen stuff that may be going on in the background and, instead, talk about hardwired attitudes that irritate. Efficiency is a premium trait, but it is often undermined by the superficial. After all, working, or, rather, the act of being busy, has favourable connotations attached to it and makes a person appear to be hardworking. It looks good on the surface.

However, what if you can finish everything under your jobscope fast and efficiently? Do you not have the prerogative to delve into areas of personal interest? As much as the work-life balance is encouraged, the office seems to have no place for the equilibrium to be established. Due to certain conditioned mindsets, people tend to work along these treacherous fault lines, either to abuse it or to avoid getting abused. Hence, people become less caring of what they actually do than what they are perceived as doing. As much as I wish it would be different, it is often hard to bend reality to our ideals (especially if we are low-ranking and young NSF), and such societal mores are highly-resistent towards change anyway.

Next, the thing about friendships between guys and girls is that as close as a guy may be to a girl, the only way for these great friends to reach the level of almost-best-friend is to have both parties affirm each other about their lack of romantic interests towards the other party. Otherwise, there will always be the underlying sexual tension and whatnots wrecking havoc on the platonic relation.

Finally, we tend to confuse needs and wants. Our goals and pursuits often fall somewhere along the line separating the two. Getting what we want makes us truly happy - but getting what we need makes us truly satisfied.

The fog has lifted. The uncertainty that was is no longer. Where there used to be a destination in mind, the vision in the mindscape has gradually faded. Perhaps the distance to the location has been too discouraging, or perhaps its just a spell of fleeting fickleness that accompanies contemporary concerns, such as the bumpy road you are navigating through right now. You aren't really clear about much these days. As for now, you are content to be an aimless wanderer, taking yourself to wherever your heart tells you to go.

A congregation of people.

An assembly of thoughts

Neil Gaiman's Sandman has been a fascinating read thus far. The books I borrowed (and am borrowing) are a courtesy of my colleague, Xue Mei. I'm up to Book 5 and the assortment of plots and ideas continue to intrigue. Gaiman's work can be succinctly and appropriately summed up by a sentence written in one of the prefaces.

The Sandman, under the writerly direction of Gaiman, does its work delicately, proving in areas where, often, we might not even have suspected anything mythical lay. It explores always with an ironic cast to the lips. The eyes are narrowed. The approach is always skewed. Again and again, what it discovers shocks, chills, and catches at the heart.

Yup, that does a pretty good summation of the guy's work. He weaves his stories with socially-radical themes that challenge the reader to explore certain ideas he may have, and he often introduces issues which lie beneath the surface of our subconscious, awakening in us questions that used to be buried in oblivion.

I found a tidbit to chew on from the preface that resonates with a few strands of thoughts. Perhaps you may find it interesting as well.

We're talking about something deeper, that allows individuals to exist; we're talking about the hidden, shifting undersea reefs on which every individual stands - rocks that so rarely show clear above the tides of illusion and desire. That's the support we mean, and it always begins in something outside the self.

Nice (:

Anyway, work has become interesting of late. I have been involved in designing a Flash animation for the inaugural establishment of the Connexion.sg website, hence I have been trying to recall my rusty skills. To my pleasant surprise, I find that most of the techniques that I know of in the past can still be recalled :D As much as it is exciting, it is also extremely tiring and tedious. Most people probably do not recognize that for every completed piece of work/art lies a boulevard of broken drafts! haha that's probably why I got tired of web- and graphic-designing a while ago.

It's been a totally different experience though, and the main difference lies in the approval. I used to be the creater, editor, critique and approver of the projects, hence I usually do not have to be subjected to so much red tape and regulation as compared to now, where I have to seek the approval of the higher authorities. The flip side to it is that it provides a greater challenge, and does make me more open to different approaches. I think demands do that to you - they squeeze you dry, milk out new ideas, and push you to your limit, sometimes beyond it too. It's nice, in a way, to learn of diverging perspectives.

Sometimes, I find that we like to hole ourselves in those self-engineered sandcastles, burying our awareness under the cascading towers that often mask our obstinance as persistence. It is only when someone probs this supposed stronghold that the foundation of sediment begins to loosen, allowing our constructed illusion to fall apart and unveil the spectre of weakness and rigidness that were concealed, either subconsciously or consciously. We got to let the veneer of apparent competence be tested to know how far more we can reach, and find out how high up the new standards are.

Finally, here's a random thought:
Love doesn't preclude a relationship. It is but a consequence of it.

An assembly of toys.