To remind myself to read every once in a while.http://www.theamericanscholar.org/the-disadvantages-of-an-elite-education/Points I especially like.Before, after, and around the elite college classroom, a constellation of values is ceaselessly inculcated. As globalization sharpens economic insecurity, we are increasingly committing ourselves—as students, as parents, as a society—to a vast apparatus of educational advantage. With so many resources devoted to the business of elite academics and so many people scrambling for the limited space at the top of the ladder, it is worth asking what exactly it is you get in the end—what it is we all get, because the elite students of today, as their institutions never tire of reminding them, are the leaders of tomorrow.My education taught me to believe that people who didn’t go to an Ivy League or equivalent school weren’t worth talking to, regardless of their class. I was given the unmistakable message that such people were beneath me. We were “the best and the brightest,” as these places love to say, and everyone else was, well, something else: less good, less bright. I learned to give that little nod of understanding, that slightly sympathetic “Oh,” when people told me they went to a less prestigious college.I never learned that there are smart people who don’t go to elite colleges, often precisely for reasons of class. I never learned that there are smart people who don’t go to college at all.The existence of multiple forms of intelligence has become a commonplace, but however much elite universities like to sprinkle their incoming classes with a few actors or violinists, they select for and develop one form of intelligence: the analytic. While this is broadly true of all universities, elite schools, precisely because their students (and faculty, and administrators) possess this one form of intelligence to such a high degree, are more apt to ignore the value of others.But social intelligence and emotional intelligence and creative ability, to name just three other forms, are not distributed preferentially among the educational elite. The “best” are the brightest only in one narrow sense. One needs to wander away from the educational elite to begin to discover this.One of the great errors of an elite education, then, is that it teaches you to think that measures of intelligence and academic achievement are measures of value in some moral or metaphysical sense. But they’re not. Graduates of elite schools are not more valuable than stupid people, or talentless people, or even lazy people. Their pain does not hurt more. Their souls do not weigh more. If I were religious, I would say, God does not love them more. The political implications should be clear. As John Ruskin told an older elite, grabbing what you can get isn’t any less wicked when you grab it with the power of your brains than with the power of your fists. “Work must always be,” Ruskin says, “and captains of work must always be….[But] there is a wide difference between being captains…of work, and taking the profits of it.”Elite schools nurture excellence, but they also nurture what a former Yale graduate student I know calls “entitled mediocrity.” A is the mark of excellence; A- is the mark of entitled mediocrity. It’s another one of those metaphors, not so much a grade as a promise. It means, don’t worry, we’ll take care of you. You may not be all that good, but you’re good enough.When parents explain why they work so hard to give their children the best possible education, they invariably say it is because of the opportunities it opens up. But what of the opportunities it shuts down? An elite education gives you the chance to be rich—which is, after all, what we’re talking about—but it takes away the chance not to be. You can live comfortably in the United States as a schoolteacher, or a community organizer, or a civil rights lawyer, or an artist—that is, by any reasonable definition of comfort. You have to live in an ordinary house instead of an apartment in Manhattan or a mansion in L.A.; you have to drive a Honda instead of a BMW or a Hummer; you have to vacation in Florida instead of Barbados or Paris, but what are such losses when set against the opportunity to do work you believe in, work you’re suited for, work you love, every day of your life?You can live comfortably in the United States as a schoolteacher, or a community organizer, or a civil rights lawyer, or an artist—that is, by any reasonable definition of comfort. You have to live in an ordinary house instead of an apartment in Manhattan or a mansion in L.A.; you have to drive a Honda instead of a BMW or a Hummer; you have to vacation in Florida instead of Barbados or Paris, but what are such losses when set against the opportunity to do work you believe in, work you’re suited for, work you love, every day of your life?Because students from elite schools expect success, and expect it now. They have, by definition, never experienced anything else, and their sense of self has been built around their ability to succeed. The idea of not being successful terrifies them, disorients them, defeats them. They’ve been driven their whole lives by a fear of failure—often, in the first instance, by their parents’ fear of failure. The first time I blew a test, I walked out of the room feeling like I no longer knew who I was. The second time, it was easier; I had started to learn that failure isn’t the end of the world.But being an intellectual is not the same as being smart. Being an intellectual means more than doing your homework.If so few kids come to college understanding this, it is no wonder. They are products of a system that rarely asked them to think about something bigger than the next assignment. The system forgot to teach them, along the way to the prestige admissions and the lucrative jobs, that the most important achievements can’t be measured by a letter or a number or a name. It forgot that the true purpose of education is to make minds, not careers.Being an intellectual means, first of all, being passionate about ideas—and not just for the duration of a semester, for the sake of pleasing the teacher, or for getting a good grade. A friend who teaches at the University of Connecticut once complained to me that his students don’t think for themselves. Well, I said, Yale students think for themselves, but only because they know we want them to. I’ve had many wonderful students at Yale and Columbia, bright, thoughtful, creative kids whom it’s been a pleasure to talk with and learn from. But most of them have seemed content to color within the lines that their education had marked out for them. Only a small minority have seen their education as part of a larger intellectual journey, have approached the work of the mind with a pilgrim soul.When elite universities boast that they teach their students how to think, they mean that they teach them the analytic and rhetorical skills necessary for success in law or medicine or science or business. But a humanistic education is supposed to mean something more than that, as universities still dimly feel. So when students get to college, they hear a couple of speeches telling them to ask the big questions, and when they graduate, they hear a couple more speeches telling them to ask the big questions. And in between, they spend four years taking courses that train them to ask the little questions—specialized courses, taught by specialized professors, aimed at specialized students. Indeed, that seems to be exactly what those schools want. There’s a reason elite schools speak of training leaders, not thinkers—holders of power, not its critics. It’s no wonder that the few students who are passionate about ideas find themselves feeling isolated and confused. I was talking with one of them last year about his interest in the German Romantic idea of bildung, the upbuilding of the soul. But, he said—he was a senior at the time—it’s hard to build your soul when everyone around you is trying to sell theirs.Yet there is a dimension of the intellectual life that lies above the passion for ideas, though so thoroughly has our culture been sanitized of it that it is hardly surprising if it was beyond the reach of even my most alert students. Since the idea of the intellectual emerged in the 18th century, it has had, at its core, a commitment to social transformation. Being an intellectual means thinking your way toward a vision of the good society and then trying to realize that vision by speaking truth to power. It means going into spiritual exile. It means foreswearing your allegiance, in lonely freedom, to God, to country, and to Yale. It takes more than just intellect; it takes imagination and courage. “I am not afraid to make a mistake,” Stephen Dedalus says, “even a great mistake, a lifelong mistake, and perhaps as long as eternity, too.”Long before they got to college, they turned themselves into world-class hoop-jumpers and teacher-pleasers, getting A’s in every class no matter how boring they found the teacher or how pointless the subject, racking up eight or 10 extracurricular activities no matter what else they wanted to do with their time. Some students end up at second-tier schools because they’re exactly like students at Harvard or Yale, only less gifted or driven. But others end up there because they have a more independent spirit. They didn’t get straight A’s because they couldn’t be bothered to give everything in every class. They concentrated on the ones that meant the most to them or on a single strong extracurricular passion or on projects that had nothing to do with school or even with looking good on a college application. Maybe they just sat in their room, reading a lot and writing in their journal. These are the kinds of kids who are likely, once they get to college, to be more interested in the human spirit than in school spirit, and to think about leaving college bearing questions, not resumés.The most elite schools have become places of a narrow and suffocating normalcy. Everyone feels pressure to maintain the kind of appearance—and affect—that go with achievement. (Dress for success, medicate for success.) I know from long experience as an adviser that not every Yale student is appropriate and well-adjusted, which is exactly why it worries me that so many of them act that way. The tyranny of the normal must be very heavy in their lives. One consequence is that those who can’t get with the program (and they tend to be students from poorer backgrounds) often polarize in the opposite direction, flying off into extremes of disaffection and self-destruction.There’s been much talk of late about the loss of privacy, but equally calamitous is its corollary, the loss of solitude. It used to be that you couldn’t always get together with your friends even when you wanted to. Now that students are in constant electronic contact, they never have trouble finding each other. But it’s not as if their compulsive sociability is enabling them to develop deep friendships. “To whom can I expose the urgency of my own passion?”: my student was in her friend’s room writing a paper, not having a heart-to-heart. She probably didn’t have the time; indeed, other students told me they found their peers too busy for intimacy.What happens when busyness and sociability leave no room for solitude? The ability to engage in introspection, I put it to my students that day, is the essential precondition for living an intellectual life, and the essential precondition for introspection is solitude. They took this in for a second, and then one of them said, with a dawning sense of self-awareness, “So are you saying that we’re all just, like, really excellent sheep?” Well, I don’t know. But I do know that the life of the mind is lived one mind at a time: one solitary, skeptical, resistant mind at a time. The best place to cultivate it is not within an educational system whose real purpose is to reproduce the class system.The last paragraph is so Kierkegaard.I shall hope to bear this article in mind. To teach my children that the world is much more than what the system will alow and that they can only be bounded by their minds. The school will teach them subjects, I will educate their minds, and hopefully they will then be equipped to best choose how it is moulded. So that financial success is not the only thing they pursue. Happiness in life cannot be merely a matter of dollars and cents.The only sense I want them to have plenty of is uncommon sense.Then I can consider my work done, and Mel and me can go off to live our lives solely as a couple with some relieved responsibilties. Curiouser and curiouser.http://miyagi.sg/2006/07/as-regards-today/http://www.temasekreview.com/2009/05/22/why-botak-siews-decision-to-get-the-police-involved-throws-back-internet-freedom-by-a-good-10-to-15-years-a-study-in-stupidity/http://intelligentsingaporean.wordpress.com/2007/08/21/it%e2%80%99s-official-the-singapore-government-has-blasted-off-to-space/#more-900Just for curiousity's sake, but who are these dudes that comprise the "Brotherhood"?And what's the game? Places and property were mentioned so that must a playing field.Hackers, real traders, a mix most probably.Oh well, they're not mainstream and won't affect me much, but it does get my curiousity going with their Dune terminologies, sci-fi stuff, and Freemason hierachies. I wonder if any of them read CJ Cherryh. Heh.To pursue at another time. It's really random.I finally got off my lazy arse to put something down here as someone's stoked my ego. (See last post with one comment.)Instead of blogging about anything substantive and important to me, like politics, philosophy and my family and friends, I shall instead entertain myself with some of my random thoughts which will at least make me smile when I read them again, years on.Because sometimes, when I try to engage people in serious topics, it just riles me up. So I'd rather not have to deal with that today. Anecdotes are funnier.I was walking towards Millenia Walk from Bras Basah when it started to drizzle. I was then faced with picking up my pace and trying to get to the shelter of Suntec City before it really poured or getting myself a cup of coffee and wait out the rain. I decided on the latter.Barely a minute after I had sat down, the heavens really opened up and the drizzle rapidly progressed into a torrential downpour. And so I congratulated myself.Ogre A: That was a choice. I would've caught dead in that rain.Ogre B: A wise decision indeed, does that make me a wise man?Ogre A: Not really, but I am known as a wise guy.It cracked me up and I started giggling. Then I noted a guy next to me peering at me.On the way to work today, I thought about the phrase "a hail-mary pass." (I know Liverpool really suck right now.) The Brits have actually no right to use that phrase since they have the Church of England, and presumably do not recite the Hail Mary or use the rosary. It's a Catholic thing. Probably this started when the Protestants started trying to kill all the Catholics in their homes, who would have to fling their rosaries out of the window and hope no one finds it. And so no one can say definitively, "He's Catholic! Get him!"Sans rosary, one could easily pass off as an Anglican. Just proclaim loudly that the pope is a pretender and has no mandate from God. See? Easy peasy.And in other news, we found last week that my wife is expecting a boy. It's nice, like having a complete set of dining cutlery. It isn't essential, but nice to have nonetheless.Last but not least, I was humming Sinead O' Connors "Nothing compares to you" this morning, and it struck how it would equally apply to me. I would be devestated if my wife ever packed up and left, because nothing in this world really compares to what she means to me in my life. She is so much a part of it that it would be like losing a limb. Sometimes, it still strikes me as slight bizzare why some would contemplate divorce. Are they so patently unhappy with someone that they've married of their own choice?I could be just prudish, or really lucky. Maybe both.But really, I wouldn't trade my family for the world. Because it wouldn't be the same life without them, and I want my life as it is now. Heh, I feel herioc when my daughter comes crying to me and stops when I pick her up. When I hit the sheet each night with my wife knowing I've spent the day working so that we can me comfortable about our materials needs, and that I've spent thought and time thinking about how to satisfy their emotional and intellectual needs. I sometimes think about rushing out and making grand, bold gestures to show the world my ideals and how i really believe they'll make the world a better place. But then I don't trust the world enough to sacrfice that much mana.And so I just want to make things better for the little circle about me. All I want is stop that speeding bullet for the few that I care about. The rest of humanity can go and find their own shields.... See MoreAll I really want to is learn from the past, and try to make my family a happier family. Save the world? Do they want to be saved?I don't want my kids singing Tina Turner's "We don't need another hero"; with good reason to.So yes, I feel like a hero when I think of my family. :P I really haven't been able to spend as much time as I would liked to have spent with you neh.The family and all takes up time. So does your rushing about. Doesn't really leave all that much time to catch up and simply hang about. I don't really hanker for more time, but rather I'd like to just treasure, remember and enjoy what time we do spend.It's really good to see you again. And I'm really pleased to be able to show you how happy I am, especially with my family and kid(s).Well, I do sincerely wish you all the best and to quote Tim Gunn "Make it work!" I'm stuck at a coffeeshop while it's pouring cats and dogs. Times like these really start that smoky feeling. Thus far I am resisting it. Have toyed with the idea of buying a pack and then tossing it after two sticks, but that's stupid.Will this rain end soon? When people ask, "How's life?".They don't want to hear about how sedate life has been. About how things have taken on a comforting routine. About how one now snacks and then feels guilty about it but snacks anyway. Or thinks about smoking, but then eats a sweet or find something distracting to think about so that the preceding thought can be quickly brushed away, but then feels guilty for having thought about it and how one still keeps on thinking about it.How can one just stop thoughts? They form regardless of what you want. Just popping into existence. It's a question on whether you act on them. And therefore I consider the PSP and 3G phones to be boon of existence. Because, they are so effective at distracting me. So i stop thinking about how hungry I am and how I'd like to smoke. Because these thoughts occur to me while travelling. Once I've reached my destination, it's fine. I have people to talk to, stuff to do, lists to refer to and things going on about me.The stuff that bothers me ceases, because I have new stuff to bother myself with. Like "Why is this item's packaging torn? NABEI, which dumbfuck did this?!"Ah, life's like that. But generally, I'm really happy. And when one is happy, it's easier to let things slide.Tra la la. We have gotten back into the groove of cooking at home. In the weeks before this, we had chicken parmesan, attempted unleavened bread, and even as we speak, the wife is cooking spaghetti with tomato sauce and I will add some pork patties to it later.I hope to impress on the Nut that home cooked food is good and yummy. And that she will pick it up and learn how to cook as well. I have no worries about her loving food, since she will try anything at least once. And she will eat something that she likes on principle alone.The Nut now babbles alot and like to talk and interact with others. Her social skills are pretty impressive when she's in the mood.Now she's able to stand without support for a few seconds at a time. She has figured out how to climb the stairs, but not quite the proper way to descend them. I suppose it's different from how she is ably getting off sofas and beds by pushing herself off legs first.And it is funny to try and imagine what she could be saying when she is looking at you earnestly and saying " Bah Ba, Ga Gah, Ta!"She has also learnt how to growl and make noises right out of the The Exorcist. I can't decide whether she picked that up from the purring cats, Cookie Monster or Hugga Wugga. Maybe it's all three. Still In Love With My Wife.Marriage is an alliance between two kingdoms and not a merger. The fallacy that two can become one, I believe, has lead to the downfall and breakup of more than a few unions.And I am glad that I am in happy alliance so I try to remember that she is not me, so I should be more tolerant. She will do things and think things through in her own way, and thus far, it has served her well. There will be the occasional lapse, but then I too, make mistakes.So live and let live, since we still have a lot of living to do together.I look back at my past, and would not trade what I have now for all the promise that the past had whispered, not when I am really happy with the reality now. What of the happiness is fantasies? Just smoke blown away when I think of my family. I'm glad I'm not your friend...I know it's unkind, but I'm glad I'm not John Doe's friend, because John Doe has really ugly friends. I'm really sorry, but I have to tell the truth. What's worse is that they all seem so uninteresting. Doesn't make me better. All it does is show up what an arsehole I am, so too de loo!I'm still glad I'm not your friend. CRYPTIC JUICE...- The GPs made us take the Truth to see a GP about a GP that has no specific Dx and no Rx that is mandatory. And she can still wave bye bye when leaving for the clinic. She makes me laugh even when I'm annoyed.- OH is currently pissed at me for being unconcious. Oh, sighs.- Day 2 seems harder than Day 1. And there'll be no one to sponge off later since I'm not meeting anyone. Will go on a sugar binge and bounce off the walls of HF later, and make FT of HF buy me an expresso double; Indonesian beans of course. Will persist in feeling sleepy and irritable. - Sent out nasty email to aggrieved man who demanded, demanded that I sell him something for which I have already advised is sold out. Have resisted the urge to tell him that I will give birth to said item after a nine month gestation period. - And why are the roads so full of fucking idiots? The eternal question... From Starfish to Clamfish.I watched the Peanut flip over from her all encompassing Starfish position, in which she monopolises the space on her bed, to the Clamfish position, much like that adopted by a supplicant to the ancient Chinese Emperors, all without waking up.The fact that I have a daughter, who in doing all the things she does, brings us so much joy, worry, amusement and frustration, still never ceases to amaze me. How she has not just taken up space in our room but, has taken up so much space in our hearts and lives. She has just learnt the virtue of circumspection. Where in the past, she might hurl herself, without thought or regard, off a bed, sofa or the stairs, she now pauses at the edge and moves very gingerly, trying to get down. In fact, she has on a few occasions refused to try and get down, instead she would sit there and cry for attention, to get Daddy to carry her down. It used to be a little vexing and worrying about how she might end up with some injury should she persists in her kamikaze tactics for getting off higher ground. Now, I wonder if it is any good to have her lose that fearlessness. For with it, there comes a certain feeling that life is full of infinite possibilities. yes, even crawling off a 3 foot drop and getting away without a scratch. Now that she has learnt fear, I want to try to not let her be crippled by it. That one should be considerate and not let fear rule her life. That she will try and fail is a given. That she will try and try again to attain her own dreams in something I will try to inculcate.In all things, balance.We have been thinking about getting our own place for some time already. The recent exuberance in the property markets has now pushed back that plan. The optimistic sentiment is not really rational considering how may risk factors are still unresolved, and that the people talking up the market do have a vested interest in the climbing prices. However, i will not be rushing into deals that I believe to be over-valued.The masses never seem to learn their lessons. They still sway to the winds blown from the mouths of the few. That, I think is something that will never change. Because, quite frankly, I think that most of them would not agree or even think about the phrase "An unexamined life is not worth living."I know it's really condescending. It is. There is no denying that. I would shrug and tell you that's just the way the wafer crumbles. My opinion seem to make me look high and mighty when I am anything but. Nonetheless, it doesn't change my opinion nor your feeling towards them. I'll not let it upset me. So I'll still rudely, bluntly say what I feel here, because I can't say these things my pretend life playing other roles.It is ironic that so many miss the proverbial boat precisely because they fear missing that one boat. When other boats might've very well taken them to a sun drenched tropical coral island. Or it might not. You'll never know will you? That's not important. What is important is will you ever learn?I have to say that that I do admire the Peanut's stubborn nature. She is not one to give in or cower easily. She'd fight you, harass you and generally try every trick in her lttle book to get her way. I like that. And then prepare myself to counter her moves. It is, at the very least, engaging.I have to say that it's all quite brilliant how my life has turned out, and we'll hold hands and walk towards the shining future. Because I have hope, cats, love and am now armed with the Truth! The Next Generation.I have been accused of being condescending, cowardly, arrogant, selfish and intellectually masturbating by some. While I do not care to defend myself from these labels, since it is quite reasonable and conceivable that at some point in time, I would have been involved in actions that would merit those labels.What I would instead prefer to focus on, is what I want to do about the future. I still believe that you can make society better one person at a time. That is why my focus will be instead on bring up my own kids right, with a good value system. I can't save the world, but I can make it better for those who matter. So, I prefer to keep things to what is achievable. Keep the big dreams alive by growing the small successes. I was telling my better half this morning that Tweeter and Facebook updates would see less people posting on their blogspots.All those pithy one liners, clever remarks and quirky thoughts that can be abbreviated will now no longer be up on blogs. Blog entries will now be more substantial and be left for the indepth and wordier expressions. Which doesn't happen very often for me. I mean I still have these trains of thought but I do not commit them to word. I am guilty of using my blog less and updating my facebook status on a more frequent basis.Still, a blog is nice when I ahve something more to say than "TA DA!"Until next time. Tada! Sometimes, I find it hard to generate sympathy for the underdogs, because they don't actually strive to be anything other than underdogs.Whether due to culture, circumstance or plain bad luck, they seem to lack the drive to elevate themselves. And there are so many of them, it sometimes almost drives me to despair. This "we are mere peasants" complex. Bah.It's always easier when there is some hero in shining armour or some wuxia cool dude with long hair to fight your battles for you. I wouldn't mind it if everytime I become damn poor thing, some "hero" sticks up for me.Yes, you are a peasant. But you're alive. Either do something about it or continue being a peasant.Bad luck? Aye, the rich and famous have bad luck too. You gloat and laugh and have no sympathy for them either. Why do paparazzis work so hard?Then, I think that they all get what they deserve. Maybe that is why my characters are hard boiled. "You want to die? Fine. I'll send you along."If being alive is all about how you are more or less peasant and how much you suffer, you'd make for the perfect:a) Stoicb) Buddhistc) Nihilistd) Better off deadWhen there are so many of the weak, who does one protect?I could be politically correct and say and do all the PC things. Save the whales! Save the Democratic Republic of Congo! Save the world! My heart just is not in it.All I can honestly say is that I am so grateful how all that my life is because of how much worse it could have been.The peasants have their blessings and so do the nobles. As also, with misfortune. And so each is different, why make one side more deserving than the other?In the revolution, I actually felt sorry for Marie Antoinette. I don't think she deserved what she got. She had manners. Which is more what I can say for the masses.I can understand all the sympathy, feelings and good will generated for the "peasants". I have nothing personal against them. Though you have to really ask yourself. Truly, if you were born a samurai, a blue blood, a noble. Well trained and brought up in their world and their culture into a well bred example of your class, would you behave any differently?I believe that one feels for and supports the side that one belongs to. Why did the peasant aspire to be samurai if he thinks that they are all shitty little bastards. Be truly noble and stupid then, don't betray your principles. Be a peasant and let them oppress you. I think yes, the elites should be more compassionate, understanding, empathetic. That does not absolve the peasants from resolving their "victim" complex. Actually, I forgot to mention also that Catholics are big fans of suffering too. Yay for our insufferable lives. With "Thank yous" please. I have gotten sick of people asking me about the why cars are named differently. The Honda Jazz is known as the Fit in Japan. Oh, mental boh-liao-ness. I have been wanting to get some things off my chest for a while.Like how I saw a van belonging to Trinity Caskets. The slogan was "The Right Choice" and how I couldn't help myself but blurt out, "you're dead right about that!" in a most chippy fashion. Fortunately, no one was on hand to witness my callous remark. Although I most probably said it because no one was around.Thought about the serious matter of war and how those silly peace beatniks should go shoot themselves. War is not something to be taken lightly. Especially seeing how those who start the wars and send men out to die on their behalf, very seldom have to face the dangers that their own actions precipitated. Still, war can be inevitable and maybe even beneficial. Loss of life. Yes. It is a serious and saddening business. It is grim and should be generally avoided. But to avoid war at all costs? Sometimes, you value life, that of your loved ones and all. You can call it selfishness, but I'd much rather slash the fucker threatening my wife than watch him end my reason to live. Life without a reason is not very much. Enough reason for me to kill others and to die myself. War is a very serious matter, make no mistake, I understand that.Though to say that one has to avoid conflict and politics totally is bullshit. War is political. Humanity is political. Your so called humaneness is not my way. I can't stop you. Life is not so black and white. I could be wrong. I could be very wrong. The blood of wars writ our histories and long will it continue. I'm no warmonger, but neither do I choose to deceive myself that there is a better way. More expedient perhaps, not necessarily better. Diplomacy should be the first option, but failing that, one should never rule out war as a political tool. The lives of soldiers and civilians to be mere numbers on the desks of newscasters and politicians. That is the reality.Nothing great and glory, other than to survive and protect your loved ones. That's all. Grim? Yes. Become a peace beatnik? No. Life is never a cakewalk, not even if you're Paris Hilton. She has her problems too. Is she happier than I am? I don't think so. I do believe I am happier and much more blessed than she is, with her millions and the glamour.And on that note, I wonder why Foxcrime has stopped showing Dexter. I want to watch Season 3, you goons.Oh yes, I've got Sims 3 and it rocks! The preparation time for a DM is spent more on planning. The game mechanics don't really factor in so much unless the Dm has to plan for spell casting and magic. Other than that, I didn't see how the simplification of rules would shorten my planning time dramatically. I still have to match ECLs, set the random encounter level, do my faction ratings, pick appropriate monsters and copy their stats onto my notes for the session. 4th ed game mechanics also allow for special abilities which the DM has to take note of.Also, if the thief can rock at killing things, why should he travel with a party? What happens to the specialist enchanter who feebleminds all the oh-so-tough barbarians? 4th ed just caused pen and paper games to lose the flavour. Might as well just play WoW. That's why we're sticking to 3.5 which is a vast improvment on 2nd ed rules. I think 4th ed is a step in the wrong direction.As for the image of 3rd ed being super complicated, I have had players, eg my wife, who have not read a single page of the rulebook playing it happily. There's me, Ian and Siew who pore over sourcebooks and errata rules posted on the official sites. It is actually as complicated as you want it to be. Nobody is going to stop you from playing a pure barbarian where all you need to keep track of are HP, rage left and damage dealt. Very easy to play.4th ed loses the things where wizards can do a lot more than just becoming a wand with two legs.4th ed does not have skills which flesh out the character and add to the role playing aspect. A ranger with tumble ranks for example, like Drizzt Do'Urden.My quibble with 4th ed is that people seem to travel in a party just so they can kill more things together, not because the fighter would become paralysed from a trap, the wizard killed by ogres and the rogue running away from orcs. They need each other because the they have a skillset that is so different and work very differently in combat.Anyway, it is good to know that you're playing PnP games and enjoying yourself. That is the most important thing to all these games, that you have fun.Cheerio. Just a while back, the psycho ex decided to snipe on me using the Facebook page of a friend.She went:you sound like someone i used to date. some brainless chap who likes to spell his name in odd ways.So being the pacifistic and peace loving beatnik that I am, I decided not to reply.But then I couldn't help myself and I cam back with what I think is a really clever reply.So I went:One should always forgive the brainless for their transgressions. As the good book says, "Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment, and cast lots." Luke 23:34And we all must most fervently believe in the good book or be cast into the ever burning fires of eternal torment. Believe and you shall be saved!...Whee!That day I was quite on form with other witticisms as well.Just one of those good days to savour when you grow old. :P The Good LifeI like to spoil and indulge myself every once in a while. It need not necessarily be fine dining, satisfying my fetish for branded goods or anything over the top. It can just a modanyaki even when I'm not really hungry, or a cup of tea at some coffeeshop while I read.The point is that one should enjoy life. I know I can't speak for those below the poverty line. I cannot begin to comprehend how their life must be like. Frankly it horrifies and scares me how it can be just a struggle to live day by day, and not even have a whiff of the finer things in life. It would be hypocritical to say that I can understand them when I very honestly cannot.I reckon it would be hard to enjoy and be happy when one cannot even make ends meet to cover basic needs. Maslow's hierarchy of needs still apply.Still, the majority of Singaporeans do have the financial capability to enjoy the finer things in life once in a while, albeit a long while, but one should still appreciate a well brewed cup of coffee, or some fine hand made chocolate from Laurent Bernard. Pay a little bit more for that nice pan seared chicken thigh as opposed to the usual breast meat dropped in dirty oil.Reward the service staff with a tip if the service has been up to scratch, take your time to savour the experience. I've only had one fantastic meal in front of the Coliseum but that memory will stay with me for the rest of my life. And it will never stop cheering me up. Me, my wife, great service, and much fun and love. Her birthday celebrated in a place whose history I have always celebrated in my secret worship of Hellenistic culture, in a city whose growth is based very much on Hellenic culture. Two loves sharing time and space.Which brings me to another point, enjoyment should be shared and spread to achieve maximum happiness. I feel pleased when I bring friends and family to yet another great makan place. I feel happy when a box of good chocolate is given to someone else. In fact, if I like them enough, I'd even foot the bill, since I won't be doing it all the time. Why, because happiness is best shared out. It's less fun to have a pot of Italian expresso all by yourself, but much nicer to share that pot with a like minded companion.There is the misperception that one should be rich or atas in order to enjoy the finer things in life. Not so. A meal at a good French restaurant might cost you $400.00 for two. Don't buy that Toto or 4D, smoke less, don't take cabs, and you might have enough to do this once every two years, but what a kick you will get.So be nice, to yourself and those around you. Remember that accumulating wealth, and then not spending it, isn't very fun.And then share that happinesss, don't be a teaspoon. A sensible exhortation. Although how many of us listen to sense?http://wayangparty.com/?p=8616 We went to Laurent Bernard at Wessex Village and had a great time. And I have nothing more to say. Happiness and contentment leaves one with few words. Anger and melancholy does seem more inspiring to prose.Oh well, you win some, you lose some. I am glad we decided to have a baby.You know, one should forget all that crap from MCYS (that's the acronym for Ministry of Community Development, Youth & Sports. Oh, how Singaporeans love acronyms.). Ignore the goverment's exhortations on how it'll make you happy. One hsould blithely pretend that the Government did not say all that crap about how we need more human fuel for our economy's growth.Because one should have a baby when one is good and ready. There should be an awareness that it can bring joy and happiness, but it can also bring grief and quarrels. If your baby has come in situations where you are not ready, my personal inclination is to keep it and work around it, but I am no one to tell others what to do.I am grateful for any financial or otherwise help from the Ministry, but I do object to seeing a child as another cog in the wheel in the juggernaut that is Singapore Inc. For that matter, I also diagree with bringing this overload of foreign youngster to grease our economic machine but that's another matter.The baby has brought joy to us and to our families. They delight in her expressions of glee, her loud yakking, and her inchorent gurgles. It astounds me to see how she cannot seem to basic stuff and how quickly she starts learning. I do hope she picks up on Mummy and Daddy's linguistic capabilities. Presently, she seems to have more PR skills than the both of us combined.I am really glad that the Truth has come into our lives.I know it's corny, but what Whitney Houston sang about reminds me that the children are our future. And I will try to teach them well. Bizzaro...In Stuttgart, Germany, a court judge must decide on a case of honorable intentions in a situation where a man hired his neighbor to get his wife pregnant.It seems that Demetrius Soupolos, 29, and his former beauty queen wife, Traute, wanted a child badly, but Demetrius was told by a doctor that he was sterile.So, Soupolos, after calming his wife’s protests, hired his neighbor, Frank Maus, 34, to impregnate her. Since Maus was already married and the father of two children, plus looked very much like Soupolos to boot, the plan seemed good.Soupolos paid Maus $2,500 for the job and for three evenings a week for the next six months, Maus tried desperately, a total of 72 different times, to impregnate Traute.When his own wife objected, he explained, "I don’t like this any more than you. I’m simply doing it for the money. Try and understand."When Traute failed to get pregnant after six months, however, Soupolos was not understanding and insisted that Maus have a medical examination, which he did.The doctor’s announcement that Maus was also sterile shocked everyone except his wife, who was forced to confess that Maus was not the real father of their two children.Now Soupolos is suing Maus for breach of contract in an effort to get his money back, but Maus refuses to give it up because he said he did not guarantee conception, but only that he would give an honest effort. Currently reading the works of P.G. WodehouseRead in its context, this line cracked me up.'I ran across Mary at the Academy last week, and her eyes went through me like a couple of bullets through a pat pf butter. And as they came out the other side, and I limped off to piece myself together again, there occurred to me the epitaph which, when I am no more, I intend to have inscribed on my tombstone. It was this:"He was a man who acted from the best motives. There is one born every minute." '-P. G. Wodehouse"Absent Treatment" For the uncontented, you could have it all and not have enough. For the contented, having enough is you having it all.What's your contentment level? Hehehe.Visionary PhilosopherYour IQ Score is: 140Your mind's strengths allow you to think ahead of the game — to imagine or anticipate what should come next in just about any situation. Because you're equally skilled in the numerical and verbal universes of the brain, you can draw from multiple sources of information to come up with great ideas.The timelessness of your vision and the balance between your various skills are what make you a Visionary Philosopher. In addition to your strengths in math and linguistics, you have a knack for matching and anticipating patterns. These skills and your uncanny ability to detect the underlying blueprint of most of life's situations add to your Visionary Philosopher mind.Two philosophers who share the same combination of skills you possess are Plato and Benedict Spinoza. Spinoza had insight into how things worked in the world. He could envision a future based on the patterns he saw in life, and used mathematical logic as a structure within which to present his philosophical arguments. With that base he was able to use logic to formulate his theories. Borrowing from his linguistic strengths he wrote eloquent texts and, therefore, was able to bring his philosophical ideas and structure to the rest of the world. His story exemplifies the talents that are present in the Visionary Philosopher intellectual type.Whatever you decide to do in life, you've got a powerful mix of skills and insight that can be applied in a wide variety of ways. You can expand your mind to understand a situation. Your strong balance of math and verbal skills will help you explain things to others.For example, if you were on an archaeological dig and discovered an object, you could probably use your deductive powers to figure out not only what the object was but also how it was used.Given your ability to put things together, you are more than capable of inventing a life plan that is in synch with your perspective on how things were, how they are, and how they might be one day. I have plenty of idle thoughts floating about about the garbage pile I like to call my mind. One of which is my secret ambition to be Dictator of Singapore. Why?Because I do believe that I can make life better.Anyway, it's all grand posturing and empty talk. Though I'd really like to push for Philosophy to be taught as a compulsory subject. To be ranked alongside Literature and History, as well as the languages to being above Mathematics and Science. After all, maths and science can be arguably considered outshoots of classical philosophy.It'll teach our young ones to think for themselves, rather than knowing things by rote or taking it on faith that the teacher is always right. (Which they aren't. I wish they'd just admit so.)It should be taught at the secondary school level and the final examination questions could be as follows:In not less than 1000 words, answer this.Year 1: What would you do if you were made Dictator of Singapore?Year 2: What would you do if you were made Dictator South East Asia?Year 3: What would you do if you were made Dictator of the World?Year 4: So who died and made you God?Completely rhetorical questions. I'd agree with that. Except for the Dictator of Singapore bit, but your surname has got be the right one.The point is to get them thinking. Even the fluffy answers revolving about world peace or saving the polar bears, sharks, or delicious cattle would have to put down the whys, hows and wherefores.Give them an outlet to express something for what they believe in. It'll be a change from a society that believes in nothing and does nothing. In an environment without fear, after all, there is hardly a wrong answer to the above question. One could even answer that one would do nothing, and that the greatest power comes from not having to wield it, since everything's fine just the way it is. I'd even give an A to the clever chap who would put down an essay detailing why he'd ban such stupid questions in an exam.And then you grade them based on the strengths of their argument. Not just by one teacher though. Preferably five teachers, for which you award the average points.I know it all sounds very idealistic, but where does one start without ideals?And some smart aleck would say, "If Darwin is to be believed, we all start from pondscum."And when you look at it that way, that's one hell of a ride that humanity has undertaken. What's not to be impressed?So much for ideals. It is sometimes quite disconcerting to realise how much my life has changed in 5 years.It is really annoying to know how intolerant people are of opinions that do not coincide with their won. How some people just cannot accept that another individual's world view could be different from their own cherished perceptions. Since everyone seems to believe themselves to be the right one and the rest are wrong.And you know what's even more annoying than that?When they try to convince you of their righteousness.I mean I do that, but I do try to give the other party the chance to explain their point of view. I can push my point in an aggressive overbearing manner, but in the end, I truly do believe that the choice is yours.I often remind myself that the only constant is change, and try to keep my own mind open.So political correctness sucks to me, because we're all just tiptoeing around the issue. So instead of being racist, and admitting it. (Look there are cultural, genetic and etc etc differences between races, ethnic groups and nationalities. Not liking these differences is not something that can be enforced through a mindwipe or something. It's stupid to deny this.) We now have to resort to being PC, so we're racist but we won't admit it. Denial and repression is great for psychiatrists and psychologists, but not so good for your guilt levels.Frankly, I am racist. We all are. Only to differing extents and degrees. Doesn't mean that I'll write off everyone from any particular race, just that I do unconciously impose stereotypes onto them. The thing is that I will give anyone a chance to defy that stereotype and change my mind about them accordingly. For example, I think that the Gauls are a particularly galling race, especially when it comes to their perceived superiority in cuisine, thought and human rights. So far, I have only met zero persons who conform to this set of racist stereotyping.So far, we have decided that I am racist. In future, we will examine how I am also a sexist, mysogynist and masochistic, and how all these make me a bad bad ogre, because I must be evil, since I am politically wrong.Well, at least I am living the authentic life in my own way.So fuck off, politically correct, hypocitical savants of numbing existence. Liverpool 4 Real Madrid 0; Manchester United 1 Liverpool 4.I have to say this. What a week. It's almost unreal. Looking forward to watching soccer together with the Peanut in future.Went to see The tales of Hoffman (Les contes d'Hoffmann) , enacted by the SRT. i have to say that it was a little disappointing. They really didn't impress with the Barcarolle (Belle nuit, ô nuit d'amour). I would have been alright if they had dished out the rest sloenly and then really hit me with this aria.But they didn't.But having said that, frankly, they didn't ask for sky high ticket prices either. So I guess it's fair.The bass playing Lindorf impressed me as well at the soprano singing the part of Olympia. In my opinion, the two best singers, although the tenor playing Hoffamn wasn't bad either. I must say that the part of the Muse went to an under-performing soprano.Still all in all, not a bad evening.