Bad time management skills so I am now stuck doing last minute analysis and homework for tomorrow... While everyone else is out.

Here is the cat folder I recently got and used as conversation fodder with a 4-year-old kid:

We spoke in Malay and I kept trying to coax more out of her by making her talk about my cute file.

Ada banyak kucing.
A'ah ada banyak kucing! Lagi ada apa?
Ada kucing kecik tidur atas sudu. (Translation: got small cat sleep on spoon)

XD and the way she said it, so cute please, I feel like squeezing her.

Speaking of kids saying the cutest things, over dinner recently, I got Insyirah to feed me yoghurt, which she was super excited to do. Little girls are obsessed over mainly: princesses, glitter, and being a teacher/mother/big sister. So she was very psyched to get to spoon me yoghurt. And at each spoonful, she mutters, "I cut for you kay, I cut for you." What's there to cut, darling! hahaha. Which made me helpless at her cuteness. So I just said "Okay!" at each spoonful.

Back to work, and not spazzing.

A sign of the end of times: ignorant people who give opinion on the affairs of the community. Today, "we call them bloggers".

Ohhhh dear. Hahaha. Hmm, well, I do try not to blog about things I have no idea about. Because having been a blogger for a long time, I have come to realise that it is far too easy to go oops, what on earth was I saying! when you blabber on about things you are no expert on. Also, it helps to clarify when writing, like: hey, these are only my silly little ideas and I am quite possibly 110% wrong.

I have come to realise that everything is habit. It's like that well known phrase, You are what you do. (or is it, You are what you eat? both apply, maybe.) I recall reading somewhere that even worship is habit. You've just got to work at it until it becomes second nature and then it becomes an inseparable part of you. I think this is part of the reason why a small deed done consistently is preferred to sporadic bursts of big deeds. Because consistency builds character. It follows that love is habit too, then. I think that part of the reason we love our family so much is because they've been part of our lives and they're just part of our system now. And childhood friends, who might turn out quite despicably or differently from us but who we love anyway just because they've been there for years. (I do not speak from experience! :P only observation; e.g. Pi/Jin OOPS for being mean).

And... my brain just rolled out of topic because now I'm wondering if this gives validity to the ideas of behavioural conditioning in psychology. O.O We are all potentially Pavlov's dogs?

I think it's time to say goodnight before my brain rolls around too much.

I'm feeling the downward tug of the gloomies on my heart. In other words, I'm about to succumb to feeling upset; but then, I'm remembering what I've seen and heard this past two weeks at attachment and I feel like I shouldn't. (I mean, of course I shouldn't, period, but...) Being in the company of people who actually have something substantial to feel upset about helps puts things into perspective, no? So then I feel upset that I actually shouldn't feel upset! :\ haha, silly much.

But seriously. This past week I've been feeling thankful that I can speak and think and string thoughts together and actually make some sense of the world i.e. my brain is working a-okay (as far as I can tell, of course). I've also been thinking that... there's actually a lot of heartbreak that goes on in this world; and that I've been fairly well-protected thus far from feeling such intense pain, emotional or physical, Alhamdulillah. It scares me a lot, the prospect of such tribulations. God giveth, and God taketh away, right.

Feels like every conscious moment is a gift. Only we often forget.

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Away from emo-ness, I'm in trouble with my deadlines again! :\ mou. After almost 20 years of school :OOO, I still haven't gotten procrastination out of my system.

A TED video definitely worth watching! Jill Bolte, a brain scientist, has a stroke and learns how it actually feels like to lose her left brain and use the right one instead.

I can't believe I hadn't watched this until now!



Excitingz! Suddenly I am excited for more than a couple of movies including this, and X-men: First Class, with James McAvoy (!!!!), and of course GANTZ (going to catch hopefully this coming Tuesday, hooray).



I am often amazed by how much Nino can be kakkoi sometimes, haha! He's a tiny man, but gosh, he's sooooo smart and acts awesomely and somehow, he manages to be a convincing hero. And I really do think he could have been a real stud if he'd grown up with less of the video games and more of the baseball, maybe. (But then, he wouldn't be Nino, would he.) Haaaha, but point is, I really do get why JW loves him.

I'm wondering what the director does to reduce the height difference between Nino and MatsuKen, hahaahmm.

Celebrated Mother's Day today, at granny's place, and then attempted to have ice-cream some place, but everywhere was super-crowded, cannot tahan. (Seriously, is there a way to stop this country from becoming a megacity? I don't think I can bear the crowd. Please PAP, I BEG YOU. Be merciful dictators at least.) So we were thwarted and ended up eating chicken rice (good food nonetheless) later in the night. Next time, must remember to PLAN PROPERLY e.g. reserve seats at restaurants.

Was sitting at Baba Wok's dining table, and found The Bottom Line on Happiness by Clayton M. Christensen (a Harvard Business Management Professor, or stg of the sort) in Reader's Digest.

I like this bit:

People who are driven to excel have this unconscious propensity to underinvest in their families and overinvest in their careers, even though intimate and loving family relationships are the most powerful and enduring source of happiness.

So, have you made your mum happy this mother's day?

The lesson I learned is that it's easier to hold to your principles 100% of the time than it is to hold to them 98% of the time. If you give in to "just this once", based on a marginal cost analysis, as some of my former classmates did, you'll regret where you end up. You've got to define for yourself what you stand for and draw the line in a safe place.

I like this too because a lot of the time, I think people are floating around in their lives not knowing what they really want. Life has got to be built on solid rock (i.e. good principles unfailingly adhered to) if you don't want it to collapse halfway.

I didn't know Arashi's Blue was such a sad song! you would think the title had given it away. oh, so melancholic.

I want to see you, I want to see you.
It's not a dream, you are for real.
It's painful, It's painful.
That light blue blurs away.


full translation here.


Speaking of dreams: after a nap today (because we have a respite from placement just for this afternoon), I started thinking about dreams in general; a specific question bugged me. Where do the people in our dreams come from? I mean, aside from the people we do know who appear in dreams, sometimes there are these strangers who appear and with whom I sometimes have lengthy exchanges but I don't know who they are! And then I wake up and wonder how my mind conjures up these persons. I dreamt earlier of a pair of parents accosting me about their child and whether he had a (development) problem and I kept saying the wrong thing and making them panic, haha. I assume this has to do with one of the teachers suggesting earlier today that we assess one of the girls for real, but then oops, we remember we aren't supposed to, meh.

I think dreams are magical. Besides the fact that it must have some cognitive benefit in terms of the organization of thoughts and memories and even feelings, I like to believe that it has some unexplained connection to our soul or even larger collections of souls or telepathy or to a separate dimensional plane. (haha, a theory about our strange congruity of thoughts, Eunice?) Kinda like what Carl Jung seemed to hint at, although I've yet to fully understand the ideas he had proposed.

Anyway, Islamically, it has been said that dreams are 1/40th of prophecy, so that's why, you know, we have those special people who have premonitions or knowledge of the non-empirical sort. And we all have had those moments of whoa, deja vu. You go, oh, I dreamt this! as though dreaming of the future is  nothing much out of the ordinary. It reminds me that while a lot of the times our consciousness grounds us in the real sensory world, a lot of the things we experience are actually unconscious stuff that gets stored somewhere inside us, and because somehow they don't dominate our thoughts, we think they don't exist! But then, when something freeeaaakky happens, we're forced to think about it; we think, freeeaaaky. And then just move on with our lives.

Several interesting things today:

* Bumped into Mdm Yeo Lay, ex-physics teacher at my elder placement centre! Super-interesting exchange we had, where I even told her that I still keep the awesome green physics file from Sec 3. How tiny is the world, huh.

* Went for NSP rally at Tampines tonight! I wasn't too surprised at any new speeches or what. But there was an excessive bashing of MBT, eheheh; I almost pity the dude.

* Suddenly feeling the workload pile up again, my shoulders ache almost physically, please. -.- Of course, waking up super-early this week to go to childcare centers at the other end of the island and spending hours in the train is not helping.

* And now, it is an (in my sister's slang) IRRITZ situation, because the faculty is dumping last minute (impossible-to-do-in-such-short-notice) assignments, because we only have this week with our test subjects whaaat. >:\ (And it is election week please, can chill or not!)

* Mother's Day preparations! :s

Goodnight, I must sleep, unfortunately.

KMN, so cuuuute, these kids.

Can ask me why I wear scarf some more, and whether can take off or not. ahak, high level questions! Then I tried to speak in Malay to one of them, but she responses in English though she seems to understand. (Die, takkan Melayu hilang di dunia? haha.)

When I go madrasah, I wear scarf! "Madrasah" pronounced merdrahseh, like mat salleh. Haaaaah. XD

Had a nice birthday weekend, starting Friday. (:

And today, met up with the birds and the first thought that crossed my mind when I finally caught sight of them: "Oh my god, we're so old." It's like, in my little brain, us is the us as always, and I'd expected to see tinier and less well-groomed girls being silly around the table; but then, the sight of three adult women kind of made me zone out for a bit. For real, haha. What with Shen Onn's nice jacket-y top that made her seem she'd just stepped out of her office; high-heels, highlighted hair, the air of we're-making-our-own-money-and-can-splurge (although Eunice would disagree with this!) and then talks of politics and more work stuffs.

Then again, it was only moments before the childishness began. -.- Maybe this is what they say by young/immature at heart.

Anyway, my presents!

The bookends I've been needing! My table needs a clean-up too, before the bookends can be used proper. And these books are the ones I always feel like flipping through now and then. Or whose quotes I've yet to store someplace.

The card. With silly stickers which are apparently becoming tradition.

Also, an owl flask! And the cat folders in the background.

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Embarking on another year of life: I want to build confidence, and as clear a conscience as I can. And to follow both my brain and my heart, Amin.

Been having assessment skills workshops and then counseling workshops, and the instructor said:

Accept that you're a human being.

Sometimes I, we, forget to do this.

Tonight, I ended up reading the constitution of PKMS (Singapore Malay National Organization), and the first listed aim is apparently:

Memperjuangkan dan mempertahankan sehingga terlaksananya hak kedudukan keistimewaan orang-orang Melayu dalam Singapura sebagaimana yang termaktub di dalam Perlembagaan Singapura.

or

To safeguard and work for the full implementation of the special rights of the Malays in Singapore as enunciated in the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore.

Errrm. ?!?!?! What has PKMS achieved so far, I ask you. In fact, how, in any way, have they attempted to assert Malay identity and roots in this country? (Other than my having religious classes when I was a blur little primary school kid, in that hot, stuffy, ancient building with the letters PKMS on its side, across from Masjid Darul Aman, I actually have not much contact with PKMS.) In fact, much the opposite has happened; somehow, we are today grappling with the confusing and strange possibility of teaching Malay as a foreign language. Omg, seriously, I don't understand; it's almost laughable.

And frak, because I am such a stickler for thoroughness, I went to look up The Constitution of The Republic of Singapore, and Part XIII, titled General Provision, says this:

Minorities and special position of Malays

152. —(1) It shall be the responsibility of the Government constantly to care for the interests of the racial and religious minorities in Singapore.

(2) The Government shall exercise its functions in such manner as to recognise the special position of the Malays, who are the indigenous people of Singapore, and accordingly it shall be the responsibility of the Government to protect, safeguard, support, foster and promote their political, educational, religious, economic, social and cultural interests and the Malay language.

!!!

Somehow, I just really wish I had this 4 years ago, in Patrick Daly's Politics of Heritage class. To a question addressed in tutorial about the natives of Singapore, everyone was like (I shall never forget, as I recounted to Lin this morning), "Oh, Singapore is a country of immigrants. And before that we were a tiny fishing village, and the only people around Singapore were these people called Orang Laut." And there I was, in my seat, blood-rising at the sheer incredulity of the scene I was witnessing, waiting for just one soul to maybe, just maybe, speak some sense. But no. I was the only one who seemed to even consider that yes, historically-speaking at least, we are a Malay country. And then me, being the little volcano that I am, finally burst out, "The Orang Laut are the Malays!" Bloody hell, the name itself is in Malay, have a brain, why don't you. And just please, look at the region surrounding us: this IS a malay region. Look east, look north, look south, and even west.

Seriously, I wasn't and still am not, even advocating we have Malay privileges like we used to; all I wanted was hey, some respect and acknowledgement that the Malays are the natives. But no, even this was met with some sort of animosity when I was the sole "Malay" person (and some people would say I'm not even one, exactly) in that class who spoke for this fact; like I was some backward, weird person. And now, LOOK, the constitution clearly says so, but the people of course (and perhaps ministers?), generally, do not know.

Today, pleeeease lah. What special position of Malays! We are so special we are in danger of being labeled foreigners. O.O I don't know, you try explaining.

Because every time my sister throws something by BigBang at me, I like it even when I try not to:



The music video is always different and preeettty, and everyone is now becoming even more refined. (GD, why are you so cool without trying.) I feel like Big Bang seems like a valid Kpop group because they don't have uncountable people dancing together, ahahah, and they actually each look different! I like it when a group has member individuality; Arashi being best example.

Exam week will be done with soon, yatta.

All the people in my house are learning arabic. (Also, my aunt and her friend have Arabic lessons here too!) :s It's making me feel... guilty? left behind? threatened? I must find a way to buck up. There's this wall of Arabic grammar that hits you whilst learning, and if not enough effort is put in, and with excuses of lack of time and opportunity, you can get stuck at one position forever. Oh noes. I need to develop focus, seriously. Distractions (e.g. sappy korean dramas) = personal major challenge in life.

!!! Deep down, I'd always felt this; because it's not like we can prove evolution by encasing a pair of drosophilas separately to see if they evolve differently from the rest of the free-roaming drosophilas. And yet, everybody in the secular world seems to take the evolution of man as fact so unquestionably. Why is this. It is so puzzling.

The ninth chapter (The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. Ed. J.W. Burrow. London: Penguin Books, 1979, 291-317) made it clear, from what Darwin modestly calls the "great imperfection of the geological record" that the theory was not in principle falsifiable, though the possibility that some kind of evidence or another should be able in principle to disprove a theory is a condition (if we can believe logicians like Karl Popper) for it to be considered scientific. By its nature, fossil evidence of intermediate forms that could prove or disprove the theory remained unfound and unfindable. When I read this, it was not clear to me how such an theory could be called "scientific". 

If evolution is not scientific, then what is it? It seems to me that it is a human interpretation, an endeavor, an industry, a literature, based on what the American philosopher Charles Peirce called abductive reasoning, which functions in the following way: 

(1) Suprising fact A.
(2) If theory B were the case, then A would naturally follow.
(3) Therefore B.  

Here, (1) alone is certain, (2) is merely probable (as it explains the facts, though does not preclude other possible theories), while (3) has only the same probability as (2). If you want to see how ironclad the case for the evolution of man is, make a list of all the fossils discovered so far that "prove" the evolution of man from lower life forms, date them, and then ask yourself if abductive reasoning is not what urges it, and if it really precludes the possibility of quite a different (2) in place of the theory of evolution. 

From Nuh Keller's Evolution and Islam.

From another wonderful tumblr place here!

<3

My study week has commenced! And I wonder how on earth April came so fast. O.O I think I am discovering a new feeling called happy stress.

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And I didn't think it would be C.S. Lewis to say this, but so true. : ( Women, take care of yourselves.

A society in which conjugal infidelity is tolerated must always be in the long run a society adverse to women. Women, whatever a few male songs and satires may say to the contrary, are more naturally monogamous than men; it is a biological necessity. Where promiscuity prevails, they will therefore always be more often the victims than the culprits. Also, domestic happiness is more necessary to them than to us. And the quality by which they most easily hold a man, their beauty, decreases every year after they have come to maturity, but this does not happen to those qualities of personality — women don’t really care twopence about our looks — by which we hold women. Thus in the ruthless war of promiscuity women are at a double disadvantage. They play for higher stakes and are also more likely to lose. I have no sympathy with moralists who frown at the increasing crudity of female provocativeness. These signs of desperate competition fill me with pity.

C.S. Lewis in We Have No “Right to Happiness”  (awesome read, btw!)

“God enjoins you to treat women well, for they are your mothers, daughters, and aunts.” - Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)

source

I know I sound nutso about this, but how is it that this girl seems to get more gorgeous by the day?!? I want to be like this also! Who says that a girl's beauty peaks at 17??? This is proof! Haha, I cannot forget the time long ago when Lin and me were chatting and I laughed like crazy when she went, shrugging her shoulders and giving her we-should-give-up-face, "That's it, lah. That's it." -- we're past 17, it's all downhill from here. Heheheee. XD



Haiyoh, Maki why you so pretty.

We are approaching the peak of mugging season, but as always, I find myself digging up stuff on anything but the required syllabus.

For instance, this upcoming elections. Being finally old enough, I can technically vote, but... I feel clueless. While, yes, I have a general idea of things, it still feels like a cloze-passage situation with large gaps in knowledge. For example, just how many parties are there? Who are these people and what exactly will they end up doing on my behalf??? I don't have a big picture understanding of things O.O and I am appalled by myself! How to make wise decisions about voting? Cannot just blindly vote against PAP, which is what my fiery pro-opposition elders keep recapitulating.

Also, it doesn't help that our media monopoly gives one-sided stories i.e. PAP candidates. (Read: onesingaporean's Straits Times, you not embarrassed meh?) How much do I have to dig to really find out about things? :\

Why aren't we generally more politically aware? I do not want to be an apathetic citizen! Maybe I don't have the right politically-minded friends, but it seems like all we're concerned about are acing exams and money-making endeavours and having micro-concerns about our livelihoods. Our minds should be broadened. (And... my thoughts lead me back to our PAP-schooled mindsets, meh. Homeschooling is really looking to be more and more a preferable alternative.)

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Something else before I go: a documentary (shared by Ain) on the 2008 Gaza Incursion, and the amazing kids who survive the ordeal. How it is that they're so young and yet, so brave. Hard times really shape strength and character, I think. And maybe, children, like Gatto says, stop acting like children if you let them be adults.

This post is testimony to my lack of priorities, seeing as how I have a test tomorrow, and I haven't exactly memorised everything I need to. I feel the information leaking out of my ears, ohdear.

Anyways, today, I was thinking that maybe, it's true: kindred spirits migrate toward each other. (:

Had a long discussion this afternoon (again despite looming test tomorrow and therefore putting into question my priorities) about everything under the sun, but then we got really fired up about education, and I want to share this (which I learnt about from Shaykh Hamza, of course, hoho, who else.):

John Taylor Gatto's Against School: How Public Education Cripples Our Kids and Why, at Challenging The Myths of Modern Schooling.

"Mandatory education serves children only incidentally; its real purpose is to turn them into servants. Don't let your own have their childhoods extended, not even for a day. If David Farragut could take command of a captured British warship as a pre-teen, if Thomas Edison could publish a broadsheet at the age of twelve, if Ben Franklin could apprentice himself to a printer at the same age (then put himself through a course of study that would choke a Yale senior today), there's no telling what your own kids could do."

oops.