Gig Reviews:

Stasis 10: Curtain Call
Baybeats 08 Results
Flybar & Ronin
Valentine’s Letter and Juxtapose
Wake Up Your Weekend
Message from the local music scene, by Levan Wee

on judgement – a reflective post, thinking about the gossip and in-fighting in the scene, and an apology for participating in negative energy.

negative elements within the local music scene – frustration with musicians insulting and badmouthing each other instead of focusing on their own craft

RIP JBJ no commentary, just a thank you.

Taxi Fare Increases

Smoking/Sucidal Thoughts, Correlation does not imply Causation

2009

Paramore than Hayley– frustration with Hayley-mania overshadowing the actual band. (Short, simplistic post)

Adam Lambert’s Marketability as a Gay Man it’s good to be different.

Narcissism and having many online friends: bad? I didn’t think it was necessarily so.

Republic vs. Democracy commentary on a 28 minute video on MySpace about political structuers in the US. This was the video that first made me properly realize that “ultimate freedom” is no freedom at all, that we have to give up some freedoms to access greater ones. Interesting to note that the Founding Fathers of the US didn’t support a “pure” or “absolute” democracy.

The Unbearable Melancholy of Being – Written when I was thinking about what it’s like to feel down, rather than when I was actually down. Contemplative. Decided the solution was to direct attention outwards rather than inwards, to seek to serve others instead of wallowing in self-pity (however justified).

Religion isn’t just personal this was based on a discussion in SOFT’s forums. Describes my sense of discomfort with the way some people have no freedom of choice when it comes to religion.

Singapore: Good, Bad, Ugly – I wrote this in 2006 on sg_ljers, a livejournal community for Singaporeans. Expresses my frustration with the levels of social capital in Singapore- graciousness, support for local arts, overly mercenary approach to life.

Discuss the influence of celebrities on teenagers – an essay I wrote for English class in Secondary school. (2006). Celebrities can have positive or negative influences on teens. What’s important is that we teach teens to decide what’s best for themselves.

The Economics of Ignorance based on a discussion at Typology Central forums. Why do people love to make ignorant assumptions? Probably because it’s an easier way to live, and the incentive to do otherwise isn’t strong enough (for most people, in most circumstances.) Perhaps we could work on changing this. Revisit?

The Inadequacy of Critical Thinking Critical thinking is great, and too many people are terrible at it, but it is not enough. We also need lateral thinking, imagination, creative thinking.

Why I stopped reading Reflections about my journey from being a voracious reader, stopping, and going back again. The urge to learn and see. Revisit this.

On Soulmates Apparently one of the best things I’ve written- about how the idea of soulmates is actually limiting and relatively unromantic to the idea of building something together with someone you choose to be.

2010

confessions this was a response to a typologycentral thread. I describe how easily I am moved by climaxes in music, movies and art, and how easily I get nauseated, too.

advice-free pity don’t feed people’s self-pity too much. Don’t become the shoulder to cry on. Erhm… I’m not so sure if I still feel this way. A bit strongly worded, a bit too simplistic. Some people might be clinically depressed. I did say to be honest about your own limits, and that still holds.

2010

acknowledging inflated self worth this is a recurring issue for me.

justin bieber: hardworking but annoying and destined for douchebaggery in this post I become a presumptuous old man frustrated with the state of affairs today, and describe Bieber as destined to never put out anything of serious worth. He’s lasted long than I expected. We’ll see.

paramore thoughts about the band’s journey and my personal relationship with that.

Why JC students do not deserve priority over poly students. I was a JC student, and I do not feel in any way more deserving of a university place than a hardworking poly student. Let the admissions decide.

Incentives if a CEO spots someone on his staff who would be a better CEO than him, he should have the incentive to replace himself. Existing systems don’t really encourage this. Revisit this.

JC censors Valedictorian’s speech, and Maddy’s Speech. Was personally frustrated and upset with the bureaucracy and the moralizing of school administrators thinking they knew what was best or right.

Truth is seen, not heard. Something from 48 Laws that struck me hard. (Delete after revising)

 

wisdom of the infatuated me rationalizing my schoolboy crush on the idea of a girl that never existed anywhere other than in my mind

familar empty feeling this was a response to a friend’s livejournal post, which really hit me in the heart. I don’t feel like my response was adequate.

Why local music? response to a formspring.me question. Used home cooked food analogy.
“support all local music”- shortsighted? yes. (another formspring question)

 

Thoughts on virginity? be sex-positive, but also be sensible and thoughtful.

Love is alive it’s something you nurture and grow, not something you fall into. (Use for poached)

malays in the SAF formspring question. I admit I don’t know enough to give a significant response. Should revisit this.

political nature of SG’s mandatory death penalty I believe that we kill people primarily for political purposes. don’t know if it’s good or bad, but not too proud of it.

mrt graffiti and insecure foreign policy mild disgust and dismay at our knee-jerk “punish the bugger” mindset. wish we could afford to be more kind.

in poker as in life, develop the right mindset heh, at one point I was planning to do an entire series of blog posts based on poker. I sound like some self-help guru. ew.

hayley williams pictures and a thoughtful quote

improving life with small changes: daily tracking don’t always follow my own advice.

perfectionism as excuse I’m just afraid to confront myself, and to fail

growing pains – written to try and understand why I was getting so irritable all the time (at the time.)

bingeing and moderation enlightened hedonism means knowing when to stop

would you rather be rich and hate your job or poor and love it poor

on fearlessness and enemies beautiful quote about the setting-sun warrior’s POV, which I used to have and sometimes still do. Broadened my perspective on the range of possible outcomes to a given conflict.

Baybeats 2010: “I went to Baybeats, on the first and third days. I liked catching bands like Postbox and Trella, but it was Hong Kong’s Modern Children that I fell in love with. They reminded me of what it is about live music that tugs at the heartstrings. I want to remember this feeling.”

Diminishing the smoking I’ve written many posts about quitting or trying to quit smoking. I still haven’t. But i’ll just leave the posts here as a reminder of my own fallibility and inconsistency.

Q&A Time me cheekily answering a bunch of rhetorical questions from a friend’s blog

What makes you happy but not others/would you lose memories or the chance to make new ones? some Q&A

candid assessment of my weaknesses i deceive myself, have bad work ethic and am nowhere nearly as perceptive as I like to think I am

[XKCD] A picture of all 786 planets to scale we should be a lot more excited than we are

how my mind works: mind explosion a word vomit before i started doing word vomits

Singaporean Education System: Not defined by govt alone. Not a very pleasurable experience. Outdated. Overly bureaucratic.

On Efficiency I want to be efficient, want to be productive. Still not there.

Falling sick sucks but illness is an opportunity to put your money where your mouth is, regarding stoicism.

Work hard? Me? But I’m Gifted! addressing my learnt lackadaisical attitude and my desire to appreciate the value of hard work.

Workout picture updates. Deleted because the pictures are gone

Changed my mind about routines used to hate them, then realized I have bad routines, and might as well use good ones to give me some freedom. this is consistent with and similar to no absolute absence of structure, no true anarchy.

how to deal with an existential crisis using buddha’s poisoned arrow analogy

Questions for you I remember I wrote this on pen and paper when I was feeling a certain “perseverance” feeling. REVISIT

Marginal Differences Change Your Life (Tony Robbins) a bit of self-helpy ness

Sex in the ACJC frustration with all the moral bullshit being brandished around over two girls making out in a school toilet. (One of the most popular posts on my blog, lol)

Ideas, purpose, excellence, progress: use blog as a crucible for ideas, use blog to keep track of life and empty thoughts into

snippets of memoirs thoughts about being a video game geek, musician etc

goals, routines, habits and hesitation : blog more, workout more, read more

Transcending domain specificity: talking about productivity again

Haze, Herd Mentality and Effective Solutions: Opening the second door, seeding the tip jar.

brain vomit: leaves this isn’t supposed to make sense

why I believe in people: I am a person, no better than anybody else. I believe in myself- so I have to believe in people.

What I learnt in 2010 whole bunch of stuff that I take for granted now

Resolutions for 2011 same for 2012 and 2013 really

3 kinds of problems: ordered, complex, chaotic. ordered and chaotic are easy, complex is hard.

workout paradigm shift: from 2-3 times a week to lighter daily workouts

Smile Experiment I practiced smiling more, and it made me happier and increased my positive interactions with others. Behaviour is contagious. Let’s all smile more.

How to Save Singapore this was one of my stunning failures where I completely screwed up and pissed off almost everybody who read it. I left it intact as a reminder to myself of how things can go wrong, and to the reader that we all make mistakes.

Personal Responsibility and Illness if you take care of yourself responsibly, you fall sick less, and impose/frustrate your loved ones less, too

Conditional Self-Esteem is a losing game. If you peg your self-worth to anything about yourself, you’re either not good enough, or you have to constantly struggle to be good enough. That struggle actually prevents you from doing your best work, because you’re so afraid of failure. One should be able to be happy and content while simultaneously failing and learning.

 

Going Meta blogging about blogging, and deciding that i’m going to focus more on myself. (In a “increased self-awareness” kind of way.)

Things I’d like to work on: Being more clear and organized as a thinker. I could delete this post.

Do yourself a favour this was a passive-aggressive message to a friend- take a little bit of trouble to be nicer to people, and the world will treat you better for it.

Now How? decided I’m not interested in academia, and that I want to be a problem solver, connecting academics and practitioners. I want to be useful to people in peddling information.

Lumberjack, Major and Conductor. Lumberjack sharpens his axe. Major works out to be at least as fit as half of his men. Conductor doesn’t make a sound (Ben Zander).

There Are No Bad Experiences I got some bashing for writing this, perhaps because I wasn’t clear in my expression. Revisit!

Last week of 2010 you have to climb the ladder before you can discard it; i’m not a happy-go-lucky guy, everybody is everything

Efficient Seat Distribution Here’s an idea to solve the bad distribution of seats: place the “burden” of interaction on the person who wants the seat. Remove unnecessary/awkward guessing games- if you want a seat, ask for it, kindly.

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These are my posts up until the end of 2010.

• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4