Basket.

Well, that was a satisfying weekend.

I finally managed to find From Hell, and as a bonus, picked up Age of Bronze, Volume 2, as well. Both superb graphic novels, telling two enduring tales that have been endlessly retold and mythologised down the ages - the Whitechapel murders of Jack the Ripper (1888-89) and the story of the sack of Troy, first passed down to us by Homer in The Iliad nearly a millenium before the birth of Christ.

In From Hell, Eddie Campbell and Alan Moore choose the "royal conspiracy" theory - that the murders were committed on the orders of Queen Victoria, after Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence, laid with a prostitute and had an illegitimate child. To protect the dark truth from nation and empire, she ordered the royal physician, Sir William Gull, to eliminate the baby's mother and all who knew of the relationship. Inspector Abberline and a Victorian mystic investigate the case and nearly uncover the truth, but end up cynical, embittered old men in a health resort - while Gull takes brutality too far and is disowned by those for whom he committed such foul deeds.

That's the very simple sketch of it. A work of complex brilliance, From Hell is in my opinion Moore's best work after Watchmen.

Age of Bronze, on the other hand, is a retelling of the famous story of Troy's fall. Need I sketch it out again? Well, Trojan Prince Paris steals the wife of King Menelaus of Sparta, Helen - reportedly the fairest maiden in the known world. Menelaus, understandably displeased, seeks his brother's aid in getting his queen back. His brother, of course, is Agammemnon, high king of Achaea, who assembles a massive army and the proverbial "thousand ships" to help his brother out and along the way, eliminate a powerful geopolitical rival. The Greeks fail to break through for ten long years, until the pretend to withdraw and leave the, again, proverbial Trojan Horse as a gift. The Trojans fall for it and are slaughtered by the hiding Greek army. The end - only Aeneas manages to escape and goes on, in legend, to found Rome.

We've all heard the story countless times and seen the movie to boot, with its Hollywoodesque lack of canon. Yet Eric Shanower brings the story back to life in his retelling, fleshing out effectively characters as diverse as the impulsive Paris, the scheming Agammemnon, the cunning Odysseus, the majestic but ultimately tragic Priam, and the skilful but surly Achilles. I'm working to getting all seven volumes.

And to end the weekend, the Simpsons' Halloween special Marathon. These two days have been kind to me.

A tragedy happens. The victim is found to have been forced into suicide by poverty. People all over Singapore are touched by his tragic fate and the plight of his family, left broke with their sole breadwinner dead. Deciding to help the family as best as they can, Singaporeans gather a total of $300,000 dollars in donations, in the hope that the money will be used by the family to rebuild their lives and create for themselves the comfortable existence they hitherto had never led.

Perhaps proving the ancient wisdom that money is the root of all evil, this generous sum sparks lesser souls into insinuating that the family will not put the money to good use, is stingy and greedy for accepting such a large amount and that Singaporeans are stupid, gullible and naive to be taken in by their trickery.

Is it me, or is there more than a whiff of sour grapes in the air?

Honestly, people gave that money out of the kindness of their hearts. People from all walks of life: rich, middle-income, even those struggling to fill their rice-bowls like the deceased did. They gave the money voluntarily to a family that needed it, some with little regard for their own meagre existence, and for that they get called names? Just because some petty creature is jealous that it wasn't him or his family getting that kind of "windfall"?

The truth is we have no idea of the true situation this family is in - and thus we should not rush to judge them so harshly. Anyone who does is, honestly, just jealous. But I don't know - his wife lost a husband and his children will grow up without a father. Is losing your father or your husband so suddenly and in such a horrific manner worth $300,000 to you?

The second point is, of course, the money was given to them. As such, it is now theirs. Theirs to decide how to use. Does anyone tell you how to spend your money? Would you like it if anyone did? I'll wager you won't, but isn't that what you are doing when you assert that this family is just going to fritter away their "windfall"?

Also, stop going on about "They should...", "They should...". There are few "should"s in this world, and while I agree that it would be a very nice gesture for them to donate some to charities for the needy, no one has any right to say that they should do it. They are not obliged to. Perhaps their not doing so is not exactly morally correct, but people have done worse things. People do worse things everyday. It is a deeply amoral world, and before you get moralistic perhaps you ought to examine your own behaviour.

But I think, asking Singaporeans not to be judgemental, moralistic and self-righteous, is like asking fish to stay out of water.

You know, life really is a struggle.

On post-audit AAR today, I realised I was just about the only corporal to work so hard for this audit. Our NSF audit team was basically three members: one private with a long way to go (2008), a lance-corporal with a good amount of time left (mid-2007) and me... with one-and-a-half months to ORD, two weeks until I clear leave.

To round things off, I also got picked to take the knowledge test, which is next Tuesday. The SAF is certainly milking me for all I'm worth.

It was a fateful day in May when the powers-that-be manifested their heavy hand of fate within my Chief Clerk and got me made responsible for the audit recently transpired. It was to mark five months of battling tsunamis of paperwork, utterly baffling statistics from pasts far distant and, of course, completely unreasonable and/or stupid people. Somehow, it all ended well - and I certainly hope organisations out there have better ways of putting things together.

Life is, I suppose, forever a pair of scales; whenever we finish something, we weigh the sense of achievement and rewards tangible or intangible against the blood, sweat, toil, tears, frustration, pressure and mind-wounding fatigue. We feel good if the former outweighs all of the latter; we feel awful if it is vice-versa.

Usually, all I feel is exhaustion, and the end result is always anti-climactic. It's more relief than anything. It's like you have nothing left after putting your entire soul into it - and I have the tendency to do that.

We are always trying to maintain a balance, really. I try, but a lot of the time I really fail. It's not easy. How to put in enough effort and yet retain sufficient emotion for a suitably satisfying ending? How does one not appear a dreary pessimist yet not turn into an irritating sunshine optimist? How does one finely-tune one's friendships to keep as friends, enemies?

Speaking of friendships, I've found that I tend to make friends with so-called misfits - people removed from the usual social stage, interacting little with the general population. This is in no way denigrating them, because I know they are all wonderful people, or they wouldn't be my friends. But I just wonder. Could it be because I'm myself a misfit?

I also noticed that the friends I make tend to have most or all of the below characteristics:

- Short/violent temper (this is practically a MUST).
- Blunt and on occasion unnecessarily honest.
- Fertile and active... imagination.
- Gregarious.
- Intelligent and/or intellectual.
- Blinkered ie just as "sotong" or more so than I am.
- Quick-witted and sharp.
- Humorous (not that I would make friends with a person who can't tell a decent joke, of course)

Not that I'm complaining. I think such traits make people excellent companions, except maybe the short temper one... but that's the one I can't ever seem to avoid - to my detriment on the occasions when my mouth gets ahead of my mind.

Just an observation.

But back to misfits. Personally I didn't maintain a very large social circle until upper secondary. I tended to spend the time before that more or less keeping to myself and a few companions, reading book after book on peaceful afternoons in school and public libraries. For as far back as I can remember, one of my main hobbies has been reading. I can get quite lost in a book, although now I already read far, far, far less than I used to. I was a bit of a loner in those days, with me, my books and my small but close-knit circles.

Somehow I changed when I got to upper secondary. Perhaps something clicked in my mind, but I found more friends and kept to myself less. From then on I built the fairly extensive social network still in place today. Yet in many ways I think I still remain a loner - when meeting new people I seldom take the initiative, instead waiting for people to notice me. I also tend to place far too much emphasis on first impressions - once that goes bad the chances of ever knowing the person on a meaningful level are much reduced (conversely, of course, I have hit it off instantly with people). In addition, I have a disturbing tendency of allowing the conversation to ebb and flow all around as I sit and listen - leaving myself out, effectively. When I feel that I can't ever get into knowing a group of people, my response is to take out a good book and absorb myself in it.

Even when people begin talking to me, I tend to be hesitant and take a while to warm to them. Sometimes they give up before the while is over. Too bad, I suppose. But I do wonder sometimes how many potential friends I've lost that way. But worse than that is when there is simply nothing to be said - and when I try to fill the awkward silence, I only succeed in making it yet more awkward. You know the feeling.

What is more, I don't think I'm all that easy a person to get along with. I'm fairly easy-going, personally, but I tend to take offense at tiny, perceived slights; an undesirable habit I acknowledge and am trying to change. Also, my complete cynicism offends more than a few people. In addition, I always pass sardonic remarks during conversation, and some of these tend to have more bite than I intended. I don't blame people for being angry and offended; it's my fault because sometimes my mouth does get ahead of my mind. To round it all off, I'm incredibly vulgar in speech. It's not a good combination.

Despite it all, I somehow have friends, and a good number too. Here's to all of you - for taking the effort, and for putting up with me. Because I don't think I've ever dedicated a post to all my friends, new and old, who have been ever-so-important to me through times good and bad, here: this 550th post is for you all. Thank you for everything.

Despite several scares, I survived a tension-wracked day unscathed - with no weekend or public holiday overtime, I put together a decent audit result without any major faults. It is enough, and I can now rest easy after tying up a few loose-end scares.

At last I can prepare to leave, excepting the little test I have to take next week. The future beckons with deepening intensity.

In the news today: snobbish elitist bitch lacking education in proper punctuation posts angry rant responding to middle-aged white-collar worker's very real concern about the future of Singapore and the ability of the government to look after its citizens; as a result, said bitch's identity is published in Straits Times, said bitch is reprimanded by father, a Member of Parliament, receives counselling from school (which happens to be my alma mater; just as she asks why all the idiots have her surname, I must ask why all the idiots must come from my alma mater) and is forced to take down entire personal weblog.

So - whose side am I actually on?

Honestly speaking, what she said might have been naive, ignorant, insensitive and blatantly insulting, but if the powers that be continue to crush dissent in this manner, they cannot expect to have a vibrant, creative, open civil society.

After posting the above rant, she was subjected to personal attacks by hundreds of users over the Internet. Her views, motives, personality, education and even family connections were dissected and discussed and she was subject to much verbiage from all quarters. That in itself should have been punishment enough. There was absolutely no need for her school to intervene and for the entire affair to be published in the news media - or for her identity to be made public in the papers. An unnecesssary hassle for all, and an intrusion into her privacy and that of her family's.

What we should not forget is that she posted it on her own personal weblog - and though the argument goes that there ought not to be complete freedom of speech on the Internet (something I agree with absolutely), it was a personal reaction to another person's opinion. To avoid being sued for libel she could have put it in a less... colourful manner, but in essence that was what she felt. If one makes an opinion publicly, one should be prepared to be attacked for it, because there will be someone out there who disagrees with you and is not afraid to say so. If we stifle dissenting opinions, how is there going to be the "marketplace of ideas" the government so fervently wishes for?

Essentially she was crucified for expressing her personal opinion - something authority figures in Singapore have a disturbing tendency of doing. From the earlier flutter over students blogging undesirable comments on their teachers, to a certain-government-agency-which-I-shall-not-name's tendency to threaten lawsuits, to the MINDEF directive on blogging, systematic moves have been made by the powers that be to curb free expression of ideas and opinions. The government says it wants debate; if this keeps on it can only move further and further in the opposite direction.

For us to truly develop as a modern cvil society, we must ditch this mindset of suing the pants off every single joker who so much as looks us the wrong way. Accept that we are flawed, recognise that feedback cannot always be sterile and squeaky-clean and learn to laugh at ourselves a bit. While the First Amendment enshrines this attitude in the United States, Singapore continues to be bound by some of the strictest libel laws in the world; a fact completely incongruous with the government's stand that debate is good.

Let people say what they think; then let people who disagree punish them for their naivety. Or was it simply a slow news day?

Interestingly, her father expressed in the newspapers that he agreed with her stand. It seems that the bitch will never get out of her ivory tower now. Then again, such are the people who rule us and will rule us for once and the future.

Ever bought a $57.95, hard cover, 600-page book and completely forgotten about it? Well, now I have. Niall Ferguson's War of the World lay comatose behind my chair even as I looked for some way to spend a quiet day. I needed my mother to remind me about "some book you bought that time" (in Chinese). It's embarrassing.

I think I'm absent-minded and rather blinkered a lot of the time. I nearly lost my IC once because I put it in the book-borrowing machine at the library and forgot to pull it back out after I was done. Fortunately someone returned it half-an-hour later, just as I was on the way to lodge a police report. I can't take too many scares like that one. Also, I seem to take an inordinately long time to notice certain things; someone close could change their spectacles to a completely different colour and design and I can take something like two weeks before I realise it - thus being subjected to much eye-rolling derision.

My family sardonically likens the far-too-late surprise I always show to Columbus' sense of wonder on discovering a whole new continent. I deserve it.

Somewhat surprisingly, I am also extremely poor with dates. I cannot tell you offhand the date World War I officially began, and I once put the Anschluss in 1934. Most mortifying.

In any case, tdoay is a convenient public holiday I can spend with my "new" book, and a chance of a breather before the hopefully chimerical terror of tommorrow's audit. I can't help but feel that two years of blood, sweat and toil, first in the sodden, mosquito-infested outfields of Singapore then in the rather less uncomfortable but sometimes no less menacing atmosphere of the office, lead right up to this moment. But surely I'm exaggerating. Whatever happens, I'm gone within the next month. Hopefully Thailand will be a go, barring floods, because it's been six years since I last stepped off this island, Pulau Tekong and Pulau Bukom (yes, I did go there once) excepting.

I really need to see the world because Singapore isn't just the opening of a well through which one can only see the sky, it's a pinprick of light streaming through a boarded up, tinder-dry, watering hole.

A thoroughly exhausting week, not helped by the blanket of smog that cloaks and suffocates with sweltering intensity. 200 leave records, five days and I managed it, spotting errors, questioning the unverifiable and hunting down the mysteries of someone else's memory. My competence in these areas will be tested next week, hopefully not too sorely.

Was able to end the work week with a good steamboat dinner and a dose of alcohol that put my already wounded mind into a healing stupor. "One short sleepe past, we wake eternally..."

Wish me the best for days to come, just as I would you all.

So, I believe everyone has heard of this latest miserable excuse of an attempt by the ruling party to connect with an increasingly distant and surly younger generation.

Do I need to say it? It's an abject failure, as expected. But putting aside all else, it is quite simply a mind-numbingly boring read. Also I would expect the bright young things slated to take our rising republic on to a glorious blinding future to be able to write in better English.

Let us, for instance, take the first paragraph of the latest post:

"I drove pass the old “Nee Soon” village at Upper Thomson Road the other day on my way to a grassroots event in Canberra. The old Post Office buiding is the remaining structure left at the junction of Mandai road and Upper Thomson Road. It stood there in solitude amidst new residential developments. Memories of the old village with a busy market and the cinema by the market emerged and I can’t help to wonder whether are we developing too fast and demolishing our past too fast."

Look! It's a cure for insomnia. Honestly, where the fuck is the flow? It's just one sentence after another. Describing his childhood experiences. And memories. I can't help to wonder who taught him how to write. Who taught him such unbelievably lousy English.

See how amazingly annoying it is?

Well, it does ot get much better, and I will not sully my webspace by quoting more from that vapid, wholly mediocre, entirely unremarkable piece. Completely lacking style, substance and even the minimum requirement of decent, correct English, it is not something my ideal leader would write.

Of course, his compatriots are equally incapable of expressing themselves in ways that might actually arouse a modicum of interest in readers. Every single entry is something of what we would call in Chinese "liu shui zhang" - a toneless description of one's life from dawn to dusk without variety or colour. Their pitiful attempts to be reflective from time to time only serve to make things worse, due to their utter lack of talent and complete absence of any flair in their writing. Important lesson any good writer must learn, which they manifestly did not: DO NOT FUCKING USE METAPHORS IF YOU CAN'T MAKE ANY GOOD ONES.

Again, here the government assumes that this world functions by magic. Oh look, we are losing the support of the young! Really, well, what's hot among them these days - blogs, of course! Let us begin a blog and ask some of our younger members who are still of an entirely different generation and lack any writing talent whatsoever to update this BLOG and I'm sure the youngsters will love it! Well, sounds like a great idea to me, I mean once we start this BLOG it's going to run like sorcery and get them all on our side.

Look, I wish life was that simple. It is a very Singaporean blog in a few respects though: 1) The english and 2) Most Singaporeans really can't write.

So good work PAP!

Right... for some reason Tag-Board.com is out of business. New tag board is up though. Go wild.


300

I've never seen a movie trailer this good since... um, ever. Based on Frank Miller's eponymous graphic novel (which I have never, ever had the good fortune to locate), it tells the story of one of the most famous last stands in history: that of the Spartans at Thermopylae.

The Spartans, of course, need little introduction. Some of the most fearsome warriors that ever drew breath, their legacy lives on today in our language: "spartan", meaning austere, and "laconic" (from Laconia, the region of Greece where ancient Sparta was located), describing dry wit. A nation of professional soldiers, every Spartan, male and female, was trained from infancy to be inhumanly fit; and every single male was trained never to retreat, never to surrender, and as the trailer states, that death in battle was the greatest glory.

This is, of course, given that one survived the selection at birth.

And so it came to be that in the summer of 480 BC astride the pass of Thermopylae, Spartan King Leonidas faced Persian King of Kings Xerxes and his army of 250,000 (modern estimates; Herodotus gives an impossible 5 million) with eight thousand hoplites from the united city-states of Hellas, including the soon-to-be famous Three Hundred. The Greco-Persian Wars were by then nearly two decades old, dating from Hellenic aid to Persia's revolting Ionian colonies in the Ionian Revolt of 499-494 BC. Xerxes' predecessor Darius attempted to avenge himself at Marathon in 490 BC, but his landing force was crushed and a famous foot-race born. Ten years on, Xerxes had assembled possibly the mightiest army yet seen to avenge his father's defeat.

For two days the greatly-outnumbered Greeks held off the massive Persian host; truly an army of a hundred nations. The formidable Greek phalanx was simply unbreakable; a familiar story that would be repeated down the ages until Alexander of Macedon. Even Xerxes' elite Immortals could not break the stout defence. In the end, it was treachery that ended the brave Greek stand, as a local shepherd, Ephialtes, agreed to lead the Persians into a separate path that would enable them to outflank the pass of Thermopylae.

When Leonidas, received the news, he dismissed all his allies and prepared to stand fast with his 300-strong agema and their assorted servants, shield bearers and camp followers. A force of 700 Thespians elected to stay with him - these camp followers and Thespians are the unsung heroes of the battle, almost never remembered in history as also having fought and died at Thermopylae. Thousands of Persians were to die before this tiny force was finally overwhelmed.

Xerxes went on to take and sack Athens, but then suffered decisive defeat at Salamis, another of the most famous battles in history and one of the few truly decisive naval engagements (other examples being Actium and Lepanto). Forced the end the invasion by the destruction of his fleet, the King of Kings returned across the Hellespont, leaving Mardonius with a large army in Greece to complete the conquest. This force was to meet annihilation the very next year at Plataea, where the Spartan commander Pausanias left yet another worthy quote: "Behold the folly of the Persian, who forsook such splendour to plunder such poverty." - as he gazed around the tent of his dead Persian counterpart.

Sparta's history after that is less glorious; falling out with one-time ally Athens, the two powers fought in the lengthy and ruinous Peloponnesian War (431 - 404 BC). Sparta won and briefly held hegemon over Greece, but a falling native birth rate and continued desultory warfare undermined its power. The myth of Spartan invincibility was finally broken at Leuctra (371 BC) by the brilliant Theban statesman and general Epaminondas. Soon after, Philip of Macedon was to end Greek independence - and soon after that, his son Alexander was to end the Persian Achaemenid Empire.

In conclusion, I can't wait for this movie to come to Singapore.

It is October and normally I'll be saying the year is closing. But not to me, it isn't, not this year. Somehow the year I hoped so fervently would be a better year than an awful 2005 has somehow turned out to be worse.

I'm living life like a walking corpse. Every day I get up at the same time in the same way to do the same morning routine before going downstairs on the same flight of stairs to draw the same key and open the same office to see the same people, face the same frustrations, get stung by the same insults and feel that same feeling of wretchedness. There doesn't seem to be anything left for me anymore - except all my dear friends, of course. I think they keep me going. Otherwise, I eat for the sake of eating, because I hardly have any appetite anymore and sleep for the sake of sleeping, because the only thing that seems to get me a restful night these days is either alcohol or severe sleep deprivation or both. I do my work because it's there, do things for people because they are there and they ask, earn money for the sake of earning money, go places because that's where my legs mechanically lead me. I even post here for the sake of posting. The only thing I seem to do anymore because I actually like it is read.

I don't even think much anymore, unless I have to. Every day a spider headache stretches the nerves of my brain, filling with the rhythmic pulsing of blood, so loud. I hear instructions only vaguely and I always drift off as the world ebbs and flows around me, ever-changing and forcing adaptation. Every day I seem to face an uphill slope like none I've ever faced, and the difference now is that it seems to get steeper and steeper and steeper...

I really can't take this sort of life for much longer. I console myself with friends, but then I think of how fragile human relationships really are. People can be friends one day and simply stop speaking to each other the next, the thread of their shared experiences and memories snapping like a reed in the wind. Simply to keep one's head above water in this world demands so much calculation, and you can still fail. In fact, most of the time you will.

In a world like this, all I really want to do is hide. Stop working, stop juggling all those words and papers and orders that are really not worth a jot to me, stop putting in effort in the office. To just forget everything. But of course, I can't. Reality is painful. But if I carry on for much longer I'm really going to crack, and I can feel it. All the frustrations, snubs, foolish impulses, injustices, unreason, hatreds new and ancient being held back with increasing difficulty by the dam of my mind are going to burst out into a torrent of self-destruction. I feel it coming and I hope I can stop it, but I probably can't. It'll overtake me and I really don't know what is going to happen.

I thought it would be a better year. I wanted it to be one. I never wanted anything so badly in my life. And still I didn't get it. The last time I cracked was, significantly, New Year's Eve 2005. I cracked then because I wanted 2006 to be a good year, a peaceful year, so, so, so, so, so, so badly. It just has not been that, and I think I'm going to crack again.

I think my health is truly shot, both physically and mentally. I started the week with a horrendous coughing fit that is still going on, headaches pinch my brain every day and I can't even breathe properly with a clogged throat. But the worst thing is I don't give a fuck about it. I just keep going and I don't care how it's going to damage me. I can't remember the last time I had a real appetite for food or the last time I slept well without "help". Fatigue robs me of any real inclination towards doing the work I need to do, the work I'm increasingly being pressured to do, and juggling everyday the responsibilities of two people is getting increasingly difficult. I feel a complete lack of motivation to carry on, although everyone keeps reminding me of "two months left". I think my job is honestly killing me. I feel like just throwing everything down and leaving.

But of course I can't do that. I have responsibilities and I would disappoint a lot of people. I've never liked to disappoint people, especially the undeserving. I've always carried on as best as I could with a smile and some dry humour. But I'm finding it harder and harder to do so. Forget "crack", I'm probably going to crumble instead. Crumble into a useless heap and lose everything I ever built myself up for all these past two decades.

Increasingly disinterested, misanthropic and feeling victimised by fate are what I'm feeling now. I don't think I've felt this low for so long a period of time before. It worries me whenever I find it within myself to care. Usually I don't.

Anyone who thinks they can help, I need it.

It's not often I admit that.

About the previous post - It wasn't me and I can't exactly explain right here. If you're a good enough sleuth though, you'll know where to investigate and find out more.

Anyway, had a great reunion with my good old classmates from RI - four years after graduation and we're still meeting up somewhat regularly; I think it's something of an achievement. They surprised me with a cake, and I didn't get smashed this time around. Maybe because it was an ice-cream cake and hard as fucking rock. Very nice, however:





Note the unbelievably huge and sharp knife.

It then took...





... me...





... FOUR attempts before I finally...





... managed to...





... blow out the bloody candles!





It was then another struggle to cut the cake...








In the end we managed though. Happy group photo:





Another shot of that really impressive knife:





On the bus with Zhongwei (left) and Winston later:





Sidenote for the night: Oishi pizza is really odd. Unagi and leek pizza has to be one of the weirdest things I've ever eaten. That was also the third time this week I went Japanese. God, I'm really being influenced.

Anyway, many thanks to all my wonderful ex-classmates for taking the effort to commemorate my birth, and special thanks to Winston for your sweet, sweet card and truly priceless gift. And don't call me old, your own birthday is coming really quickly, good friend of mine!

It's truly been an October to remember so far.

Sin City...
This whole week has been really wrong...

but the wrong felt SO right!!!! totally enjoyed it...

haha... bunk now machiam sin city...

And so I turn 20, uncertain and feeling oddly empty of hope even as a cast-iron ending approaches with gathering speed.

Anyway, my thanks goes out to all who managed to remember, and to all my dear colleagues for the cake and (yet another) utterly useless but rather cute gift. No cake in the face this time but I got pranked anyway. It's fine, because friends are there to prank and be pranked. It's one of their main purposes.

My special thanks to Kenneth and Melvin, the presumed masterminds of it all. You two are wonderful - and so is everyone who bothered to come down and laugh at me together.

Till next year, then.

On the cusp of 20 and I still wonder at the Chinese. It seems as though four thousand years of cut-throat imperial politics has left its permanent genetic imprint on the Chinese race. Chinese extended families, as you might know, tend to be dynasties riven by years of bad blood, half-remembered disputes and simple dislike for one another. Beneath the mask of civility everyone puts on when they need to is a hotbed of gossip and intrigue - and trying not to appear rude is positively an art. How long, for example, ought one politely decline a gift before accepting, such that one does not appear to be dissatisfied with it nor appear to be greedy for it? Such subtleties exercise my mind.

But perhaps back to that "cusp of 20" part. It's three more days, and I thought last year that I would be happy to see it. I failed to foresee that I would be mired in endless and greatly annoying piles of work, exarcebated by unexpected technical failures, with deteriorating relations with colleagues contributing to the general sense of hopelessness. Of course, it's not like I'm not used to that feeling by now, but I just wonder: is it so difficult for those who chart my fate to just give me a nice, quiet year just every now and then? Is it that much easier to fling a spanner into my works and laugh as I scrabble for it among the gears of my mind?

I got a fortune cookie today. My first ever, because Singapore isn't big on them. The cheap, random piece of paper within told me that I was a lucky person who could turn success into failure. I tore it into a million little pieces, and I think I made it far too significant by doing so.