Conversations...

with you

For once, my computer did not display the HARDDISK FAILURE IMMINENT message... how pleased I am...

Not pleased with however, is how I have this pimple on my nose. Feels so irritating! Don't dare to go near it. Feels as though my nose is being held hostage. "Don't touch me or else...I'll spread all over your face and cause terrible terrible anguish"

Then again, it does indicate something - that the previous outbreak about 2 weeks back had nothing to do with this pore cleaning wash I had been trying out because I haven't been using it since and yet I've got the outbreak again. Wonder what's the matter with my face.

I still feel full. Had this great dinner with ol' Vanz at the Meridian Hotel Foodcourt. The Korean BBQ place. Their sweet and sour soups are GREAT! Vanz had this fish fillet stuff that was really a lot of fish for the money...

Before that there had been quite a downpour. Welcome relief from the bush fires. And a free wash for my car back at home. All this while I was engrossed in a car magazine at Borders.

Top Gear... a BBC magazine... good quality stuff. Now that's real stuff written by petrol heads WITH journalistic training. They've got worthwhile opinion articles, amusing puns on celebrity motor-industry people and cars that only a die-hard will appreciate, and serious reviews. And with an inquisitive realism that is searching, a style that is not afraid to air their views and yet at the same time profoundly engaging and open-minded.

And then theres the local car mags... oh well... their realism is that they usually review cars that will ever sell in Singapore... the either really cheap or really ego-enhancing. They've got their own comment articles too. Unfortunately, what I can't stand is how most of their reviews read like the promotional brochure you'd get from the showroom. Just listing and emphasizing the new bangs and whistles they probably got in the press kit. As if a car was just the sum of its parts.

As you would have guessed, I finally left the car at home today. Will try to do that at least once a week. I know you guys will shoot me, but it's actually very liberating! I get to read on the train. Don't have to stare at the road and watch out for people. It's like trading half an hour of intense focus and interaction with other eccentric high speed elements on tarmac for one hour of absorption into the reality of a Russian author's consciousness.

But on the way from school to Orchard I was actually falling asleep (!) Not being at the wheel typically frees me to fulfill one of my innermost desires... haha

I've just described some of the events of my day in a non-linear fashion. How was yours?

with Prof Benj

It's really interesting how things seem to come together, which is a privilege only people who study breadth rather than depth get... did somebody sneer "jack of all trades"?

Social engineering... social conditioning... scary airy fairy terms? Well the reality is that there is some truth in it. Of course, even tribals are subject to these things as well. It's just that what studying these phenomena helps us realise that we ourselves or not as 'free' or 'independent' as we like to think ourselves - yes, us 'modern' people too. We're just as conditioned as those medievals that we like to laugh at. And since it's something we grow up with we don't see it... we just think our outlook and mindset is normal, because we already are conditioned.

with JR

Had conversation with JR over lunch. Told him about the Russian author I was reading, and the knicks and knacks of reading a translated book. Then he talked about this Bohemian author he appreciates very much. And the painful realisms of modern pragmatic expression. JR has this amazing stance of objectivity which is such a gift. Kinda like the person to go to when there are conflicting interests. Very accomodating and seriously able to see both sides of the coin in that essence.

with JR and Jan

This one was over lunch too. It was back to that classic about the usefulness of human behaviour research (aka social science). I have had irreversible damage done to me by my brother. How believable is social science? Is it worthwhile? Or placating the human weakness for answers. We all agreed that overdependence and manipulation on 'answers' given by social science is dangerous. But that's the way the world is. And the powers that be will gladly use whatever advances their vested agenda. Do we really need to be facilitating them with such fodder? Its the 'free world's propaganda'... wholesale belief in ideas that aren't exactly true. Either that or shuffling from one 'fact' to another.

with Tiff

Have had several early morning breakfast conversations with her by now. It's the car owners' club haha. Most recent one was the one about V-day. Some insights into her mindset and her beliefs on several things. We have similar outlooks on the important issues in life.

That ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. - Romans 15:6

Talked about some of our life situations and peeves.

with Winson

Started off on a similar note about V-day. V-day pressures. Continued on to the tsunami. And I ended up telling him of my Calvinistic doctines. The absolute power of God in all things that happen. Omnipotent. After all, if we say that God is selectively accurate about what He claims to be, don't we make Him a liar?

It sounds crude, but basically we still are, 'free', but not in the independent sense.

with brother

The intellectual high of my week. The role of hard science in human life. Science is amoral. But why pursued relentlessly? Am I Thomas Malthus?

I agree science has great potential to solve lots of problems.

"But science was not meant to solve the problem of good and evil."

He blames it on the distribution and application of it, science itself is neutral.

It's not science's fault that Africa still starves. It's politics. After all those centuries of triumphant progress in science, we're still the same. The poor are still with us.

Why can't we just meet the problem straight on rather than go in one big circle pretending its a matter of technological advancement?

We can't. It's the collective fallen human nature. Life on earth was never meant to be fair. Only just. Science is the physical version of the opiate of the masses.

with other brother

Why are you doing your homework in front of that dumb 9pm TCS 8 drama serial again? Why did you leave the computer on while watching TV?

*Stuffs bread spread with some red thing in it into my mouth*

The strawberry jam you made in school as part of your homework tastes like... strawberry. Almost. No thanks. Too healthy for me.

*Promptly strangles me*
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For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother. - Mark 3:35

Amen