Oh so now they want me

I am going to NIE in my journey of leading, caring, and inspiring. I will not miss the vegetation surrounding my school (it's so ulu) as NTU has the same abundance of green growth. I will not miss teachers cos NIE has a wide variety of all types; in addition, the contract folks will also be going in with me.

It's the students I will miss. The demons who made my life hell for a bit until I grew to appreciate (and handle) them. That's to 4N2, 3N1, 3N2, 2EA, 2EB and the funky Language Arts Club people of SSS '09. And kudos to a special group of teachers, especially the EL HOD and EL senior teachers, for their guidance and inspiration.

I believe that contract teaching serves a purpose: to open my eyes into the real hard and gritty world of teaching in a neighbourhood school (however I would still have preferred to go NIE straight). The experience should set me in better stead for practicum and the rest of it.

Change of scenery (not much, still quite green) in January 2010. NIE here I come.

sojourn

The sojourner exudes a magnetic aura of courage and self-dependency. In today's world where inter-connectedness and network-edness is the norm, the drive to seek oneself in unfamiliar surroundings can be both exhilarating yet poetically sad. I feel like a sojourner sometimes, when things rush headlong into everything and amidst the clashing priorities of life, I wish for quiet peace. How many times have you thought of yourself? Defined yourself in ways that are not monetary, not status-based, not based on who people who know you perceive you to be?

Poets and critics often chart the emotional landscape of the sojourner with the physical landscape he traverses. When I take a step back I realise the same thing applies to me. In the hub-bub of school life and the buzz of a staff room, I am quite the misfit. Not that anyone can really perceive the off-kilter English teacher couched in his cubicle leafing through papers as the misfit. I speak when spoken to, smile when the occasion calls for it, and partake in the standard office practice of gossiping and bitching. Yet when the opportunity comes, I run, I withdraw. Currently I am hiding in an empty room behind the hall, in an obscure corner of school. What does my physical landscape say about myself then? I am trying to figure out too. Maybe really what I am doing is to place myself in a physical space occupied by only my person, a pool of peace and quiet surrounded by the bustle of a school; maybe that is my inner sojourn, to find myself amidst the social and relationship demands.

Great things are moving in my life. I can't pinpoint nor can I vaguely control any part of them. Little things that I find minor and senseless can come round to become big issues, similar to the butterfly effect, and affect me deeply.

That's my sojourn through life. The clashes, butterfly flaps of inconsequential stuff, the storms of huge proportions, and the exhilaration of ephemeral deeds. My sojourn through emotions, in marked contrast, consist of a quiet room I can write and think in, a room of one's own, for myself and for finding out who I am.

Crossing Thresholds

How much beating can one take? Sometimes allowing the best of a person to shine through to oneself, and accepting love and help from the significant other might well be the best articulation of love.

In other words, love can sometimes be receiving, instead of just giving. The act of shutting oneself up in a web of despair and self-imposed psychological injury can well be equated to partner betrayal. Why so? By making oneself inaccessible to feelings and goodwill from one's partner, one actively tries to be alone; in an act of transference of agency, one has the illusion that the other actively does not care or, in lay parlance, "you just don't understand." Maybe understanding in a relationship means less of understanding the other partner , but rather understanding one's own fears, mental habits and even incapacity to receive (throw down one's independence).

If one is adept at making psychological walls, does one blame the partner for not being able to smash through the walls, and thus get injured, or can one just be periodically happy with the abrupt "understanding" as the partner jumps up and down and his face appears for a split second above the wall only to disappear in a second? What happens when the wall is built too high, or that the jumper gets tired, or even if the jumper decides to smash through and gets crippled in the attempt?

They say sex is an act of physical intimacy unsurpassed by any other forms of touching. Perhaps then psychologically, the ability to ask for and to receive help without a sense of egoistic pride is the ultimate emotional version of intimacy, perhaps far less achievable than simple lovemaking.

I look to you now and seek to understand. I am the jumper and I will try to negotiate the wall.

Lucky Numbers 3, 9 and 34

Last night was the Teachers' Day (Belated) celebration for my school. Which was in the 3rd month of my teaching career. Which also fell on the (so high school!) 9th month anniversary of a interesting and meaning relationship.

The dinner was held at Concorde Hotel, and as far as my school is concerned, it was a very domestic, hearty and quite warm affair (read: cheap, good, fun). The theme was "Starry starry night". I was "Justin Timberlake" for the night, as all participants are assigned temporary star names. I had Britney at my table, as well as the Beckhams. The fun that night was split into two parts. Firstly was of course the nice and fun people I've known, especially my fellow contract teachers, who never fail to gossip, complain, "lun" and "dong" all the humdrum in the life of a common teacher.

So here are the pictures (and teachers can be funky too):

The Nifty Nine. Between us we cover subjects such as English, Chinese, Maths, CPA, EBS, POA, PE, gangsterism, KTV, gossiping etc... From left to right, top first then bottom: Vernon, Wei Sin, Tony Leung, Terence, Zeying, Nellie, Adeline, Melissa and Shu Ling

Sexy duo: Chinese teacher and PE hunk


Ye Olde EL and Lit Dept: between us we handle like 1/4 of the school's EL classes.

Suppose to look pro and Englishy, like the teacher on the left.

All of us, minus one got something from the lucky draw: a rice cooker, NTUC vouchers and all that domestic stuff. And now for the second fun part:

Your's truly got the best prize of all.

Prize Number 34. Big water jug.

What Future?

I've always wondered what is the use-value of education.

Does use-value denote the monetary benefits brought on by certification in certain areas that leads on to better paying jobs? Or is the scholarly (and therefore smacks of the ivory tower) argument that education leads to the betterment of the person and builds character?

The truth i suppose (if every there is one), lies between these two polarities. Couple of interesting people I've met in my stint here. While some guys are real eye-openers, there are still some real life disappointments and potential disasters.

How can family money lead to the development of a brat (I have this pure brat in my class that the whole school hates)? Simply giving too much leads to a kid having to rely on the dad's influence and money for his life. Said kid models himself after his rags-to-riches dad, but falls terribly short. I've turned wise old man with my attempts to reach out to these people. I say things like, "The main question now is that whether you can be the man that your father became. In his time his words were filled with 'I WILL' like 'I will be rich someday'. When it comes to you, you say 'I don't have to', as in 'I don't have to earn my own keep'. One is admirable, the other despised".

Future is yet uncertain, but with my boss' assurance that she highly recommended me in a report to MOE, perhaps I can make it to NIE after all. But according to Andrew (who I met that same day as my report debrief with HOD), spaces are very limited because some contracts from the year before have not gone in yet. When can my income be stable enough that enough good things can be 'bought' into my life (I believe I have some character so never mind about development in that aspect hurhur)?

Exam time now. I've a feeling that I've sent some good people in to die. But as M said, I've done my best. I hope they do theirs.

Good luck to us all man.

Drama

Yes, I am in school when nearly all the other (contract) teachers have left.

I am a drama teacher in charge by the way, and we are doing a production. With 10 people (plus minus). How cool can that be? Perhaps I should just scrap the skit and have everyone do a monodrama. Stella Kon's Emily of Emerald Hill will do just fine. Or since having such a low-personnel production with fluctuating membership nearly equates to not having a point, maybe I should make the kids do some Godot stuff.

Ok I digress. Life has been quite eventful so far, with quality time spent during the one week holidays, and days off. Teaching is not a bed of roses. NIE folks have been complaining about the curriculum over at NIE, but contract teaching is like extended practicuum with little to zilch support. Commando Training for Teachers should be a better term, not contract teaching. Fai would agree.

I will just spend some time saying thanks to M for being around. Thank you! Things we do have been at the very least, damn interesting, if not downright screamingly good. With the upcoming LONG holiday, it is time again to have fun, to catch up and to feel like a student again!

Damn I need a freaking break. I wanna go HK!

Thoughts

Some people must have thought that I died and somehow reincarnated even.

But i am back. One month and a few days of contract teaching and i am still alive. Experience-wise, some of the wide-eyed idealistic stuff about teaching have been dispelled, much like the morning fog (incidentally the school i teach at has an abundance of fog, being close to a forest...).

Actually it occurred to me that teaching is more of a hands-on, down and dirty, visceral and volatile profession, unlike the lofty nature others attribute to it. The main point is always, I am guessing at this point of time, trying to balance student's interests, my own interest and what the system wants everyone to do, so as to ensure that in the end, the teacher does not go crazy, most students get their education and the system doesn't get screwed. The attrition rate is really quite amazing for teachers and students, but I guess one starfish saved is one starfish saved. Starting with myself.

The whirl of working life for me is always counterbalanced (read: work-life balance) with life with M. She has been the most amazing girlfriend ever. In case you guys are shocked and all (awed), yes i am happily and amazingly attached (for the past 9 months). I now have a good life to fight for and someone to fight by my side. So we are going to make it. Clearing hurdles is most fun right Missy M-nose?

So the crucial time I guess, will be these 2-3 years. And then once things go on track, life will be better. To those guys who are struggling as first time teachers/civil servants/other jobs, cheerios.

And those people who disappeared, the OG and A1 people, we'll be meeting soon ok. (during school hols and when my marking is done)

Graduation

I got some tertiary education in the end. Man was it hard.

But the show at the end was really quite entertaining! A flat-top hat with a bunch of hairs sticking out, a blue bath robe, and to top it up a pink hood; it all makes the sartorial me. Not.

But the show has to go on. And it did quite well. Here are the nonsensical/inspirational pictures with people that mattered, all through four years in NUS. As we cross over into the working world now people, remember. It's all a fight between them, N'US. *Bloop*

Starting the line-up with a few usual poses of inspiration:




And then along comes the company. Audrey and Liz, the twinned friends who made Profs Forman and Robbie's seminars random and fun. Comrade-in-arms.



The family:





What happens in the graduation hall or How i got my degree scroll from Dumbledore



The assorted folks that made uni cool:

Ling Choo from the Registrar's Office: i used to work for her as a Commencement Usher.

Kim An-gel, the girl who is not korean but looks like one

Prof Jane Nardin, repository of literary knowledge, great teacher-mentor, AND a fellow Jane Austen fan.

Da Gang. From A1 till now.

Yuen Mei from Lit

Gek Leng from the army

Sook Ching from NY

How fast time flies eh some would say. Today I met LY for brunch. We two are starting work next week and there was the usual droll comments about how working life will make us older and sadder and all the rest of it. But then there was the bright spark in both of our lives which make starting work a tad more important, special and rewarding. Both of us have something to work towards to with someone we can spend lives with. That much is rewarding.

"What is your passion?" might be a wrong question to ask isn't it? For me now it should be "who drives your passion?" And it is not a dirty pun. Think. Harder.

Wash Your Hands

Ya, Mr Brown has done it again.

This is a public service announcement: wash your body!



And ok so i'm guilty of some things mentioned in the video, eg nose digging and wipe on pole (eeyur), but come on la.

It's really a guy thing eh? So M don't you eeyur that much. You got a real GUY!

Well, as the day of oncoming work start-date comes looming, i guess it's high time to seek a "rethink" of financial life, and responsibility.

Call me schizo or overly cynical, but i on one hand find it hard not to express distaste for the splurger-girls and misdirected weak (old) guys (some will know who i am talking about) who have the cash nonetheless to aimlessly wave away situations in which the less rich will have problems with; on the other hand much as i value backbone and meaning in life, i realised without money, one does not even have a chance in this materialistic society. Dilemma galore.

I've written my two articles, and will get 100 bucks for them, and hopefully i get to write more. They call this, writing for a living.

Haha. If M and I need to get something more than this kind of money, we need to do better, and at the same time be just as happy. You think we can do it, M?

Chalet over weekend. Woh.

What is Going to Happen to My Resume

I realised my resume is going to be full of random, mutually-irrelevant BUT interesting stuff.

Like I am the adept in

1) food and beverages: Cedarpoint Fast Food Worker (USA credentials!), BBQ "Chef" of EZB (recently i got "promoted)

2) moulding people's future: private tutor for 2 kids, going on to 3 if ade's deal goes through, and of course aspiring teacher if they would let me go on after the contract.

3) writer? got a job writing articles and covering events for EZB's functions. Interested businesses please contact! I basically am amoral writer for hire. Working for money, so if you need any range of stuff from stuffy newsletters to mushy love letters, or even porny love stories, i'll give them a shot.

4) core revenue-generating credentials: i am a BA (Hons) in English Literature.

BA (Hons), so damn cool. The convocation's on 7 July. And the day after tomorrow i am getting the graduation gown, and of cos from that point onwards give me and friends a few brooms and we shall show you avant-garde Quidditch fashion.

In the other news, on Tues morning i had a most interesting bbq job.

The venue is 20 Havelock Road and it checked out to be Central Square Serviced Apartments, time from 11pm-2am. It sounded atas and i thought it was some crazy expat party (the bikini babes lounging at the poolside with crazy angmohs chilling with martinis kind).

It ended up even crazier. It's a party all right, but the unit number turned out to be a dirty ktv night club, commonly known as a lup sup bar. "Eve" was the customer and she turned out to be a hostess treating her jiemeis and lao bans to bbq food because it's her "18th Birthday". So i spent the night bbqing away in a small alley-like courtyard, and having an interesting time looking at dirty old men and flirty PRC hostesses, while sipping water from whiskey glasses. The conversations i had, i shall post later!

Didn't really like the job though, cos the prc singers demolished ah mei's songs. Nabei-r (cursed in authentic PRC qiao she).

M's visiting! I like random rendezvous. R & R.

Opposites and Binaries

After doing literature for so long, i should have very early on worked out the significance of binaries. Binaries are two opposing ideas that are united via their differences, in that one annuls the other but paradoxically requires the other to define itself.

Pursuing any binaristic relationship to the fullest one would eventually find out (to horror or to glee) that the two are the same, and the twain can and will meet. Two sides that do not face each other are but different sides of the same coin. This is what I have realised.

Opposites do attract. After a series of unfortunate events, i have sorted out this internal mess within myself much more than i thought myself to have done. How so? i agree to some views that i've become sadder (more Tony you think?), more cynical (again, short Tony-esque quips) and more calculative (YES i suck at maths, but emotional calculation ya?) So in the other news, i've met Melissa, ex-miss2eyesandasunflower and now the indomitable girl who wants a spiderman mask, "calls" aliens to kidnap her if i am not awake when she does, AND insists that there are crocodiles in Punggol Park. Sounds like a really bad coffee-cranberry ice-blend. But opposites yea? so we attract.

But the sorting out process through the years have led me to conclude that there are definitely two "pairs" of every character trait within a person. Prof Susan Ang will be glad (raises two fists and do a wringing action while saying "binaristic relationship" at staccato speed). Ok here goes the psycho-analytst in me: the dominant trait within a person is not dominant as in stronger but rather more apparent in lieu of the person's surroundings. The trick to why opposites attract lies more on complementarity than anything else. Like a poet when struck with hard times will discard emotionizing and take up farming, for example. But assumes he meets his opposite, the strong-willed peasant girl deploying female wiles to get hitched to anyone at all, somehow falls in love, then things will start to change. The poet will then slowly realise the peasant girl is more adept at growing things and he will start to show more of his poetic side and make peasant girl feel more like a beautiful Sapphic muse instead of a sow-feeder. And in the end both benefit from a settling of differences which makes them attracted to each other in the first place: the poet having learnt farming can and will help peasant girl in times of needs, and the peasant girl will become Sappho sometimes to aid in poet's writing. Thus then a relationship becomes really meaningful amid such an interplay and melding of qualities, traits, and strengths.

Opposites thus attract at first, and gradually binaries collapse into a comfortable mish-mash of understanding, in the best case scenarios. But inherent problems sometimes pop up. In order to make opposites in the first place, two persons within a relationship should have pretty independent egos that can evaluate and judge the traits of the other. However in the commitment phase after getting together, the couple ideally should let go of such independent boundaries and meld their egos. Some people who insist upon acting like when they are single often run into serious problems when things unfold. Insecurity perhaps, or more likely selfishness, will result in one listing out points of incompatibility with the other, bad habits and yadda yadda, in a bid to satisfy that ego and that sense of being. These faults may well be true, sometimes imaginary, but it just takes one reason to end it all. Egos need to meld before a relationship proceeds to a higher level.

So I think maybe in many cases memory serves as both a salve and a bridge for egos to rub against each other, rupture and then mix. Meeting someone and being with someone means a common sharing of personal memories up till the present, this is another phase of a relationship in it's initial stages. And the more one is with someone else the more one uncovers the partner's memories. And if two strands of history are similar, sharing is then easier, isn't it?

So to cut the already long crap, i was profoundly touched by a scene i saw one night after sending M home: an old couple in their 70s is making their way home. The guy is pushing his wife on a wheelchair and slowly hobbling his way up a slope. The two of them are chattering away. M quibbed later on that halfway down the road they will switch places. And maybe it's very possible for them to switch places. Albeit in a romantic mode, i assume that perhaps the couple has been together for so long, sharing memories, melding egos and creating a common shared set of experiences. Realistically i realised too that they probably went through freaking big shit through decades of being together. Therefore staying power--the desire to work it out and sustain a relationship-- is the final block to fit everything together.

Well i've started believing in aliens, and think of crocs every time a big ripple appears on Punggol Park's pond. But i am still myself, just at the same time part of someone else too!

Opposites-melding-common memories-bonding. Get it not?

hahaha oh ya and you make a great bbq under-study!

These Days

the writing hiatus has been attributed to many, many things happening in my life. for example, my trip to turkey.

I like to romp around foreign lands, but gradually after hauling ass to faraway lands, i've worked out a conclusion. That i like it best in asia, and specifically back home. i've agreed the longest time with what Tasslehoff Burrfoot (now you be read in the Dragonlance Trilogy by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman to know him) claims, that "all roads lead home". Little people may be meant to do little things, but as Tas has shown (again i draw on Dragonlance ideology, me being the fan boy that i am), sometimes it's the little things that count and it's the little things that may have the biggest impact.

And so i went roaming turkey with two other guys. So here are the pictures (the more interesting ones that is, the mundane ones are all on fb):



this grotto looking thing is the caravanserai of yore, a resting place for caravans

High and twirling. the dervishes. Below is a set of photographs taken from the middle part of Turkey, where people stay in caves and such.

Carpet making

Sunlight focused on a toilet. A veritable holy site.
Another holy site: the Aya Sofia

The necropolis

the dead walk again.Mein Kampf

Caesar is a good man

this is troy... there is really no one (nothing) else.


View of Istanbul from the hotel window.
ANZAC Cove, where Gallipoli was first fought over. Lost a few good men there. Those were the days.


Statue of me rescuing Liang when he tripped and fell on the ground. Broke his groin i heard.

Blue Mosque

The Roman Cistern

so much for epic journeys. I've always thought that different phases in life end not in a degree or any official stamp/certificate. different phases in my life are marked by events and relevations that reveal not so much about other people or life-outside-of-me (i begin to ramble), but rather on my internal thoughts and processes that have been developing quietly and unfolding discretely. In short, a phase ends when events or players in my life appear and reveals a part of me that i didn't know exist. More on that later. But thank you to you for being you.

thıs ıs ıt man. see the wrıtıng: the weırd letter `ı`? welcome to ıstanbul. the land of the weırd keyboards.

few more days to home! yay.

and everythıng wıll be ok. trıp ıs... tolerable. ı guess.

turkey, 22 may-4 june!

Now and Then

The trip across 4 years in NUS has been one of myriad emotions. Loss, gain, depression, mindless happiness, loneliness and camaderie--i like to think that in the end i got 2 degrees, one in english literature, and another in people. And its kinda cool when you think literature is both the conduit and a method towards reading people and experiences, while people are real life examples of texts, and this interweaving makes life, both fictional and "real", more interesting.

Real-life characters can be just as interesting as book characters as it were, and here goes the photo-journey of people who made my life interesting. Photos grabbed from FB and couple of people's cams (Audrey, Nadia, Shiva, Angel yadda).

The class folks from "Asia and the Victorians".

The Asia(n) and the Victorian. Liz noted the mimicry of the colonial master on the part of the Asian subject. Note the similarities in dressing and stance.Thus essentialism is called into question. This is evidence of how well Dr Forman instructed us in post-colonial theory and the extent to which i read Elleke Boehmer, Foucault, etc. Ha.



In-seminar antics.



There is a love-sick look on Shiva's face.

these are the wo(man) novelists. We are all great creative writers during the finals. From left to right: angel the pseudo-korean, amberley the fit, shiva va-va-voom, and huang yulong (no embellishment)


Angel (right), the pseudo-korean



Things we do outside school.





People often occur as being mysterious to me. Nothing holds constant in our existence, now even the people who flit in and out of my life are sometimes ephemeral. It is a constant struggle to keep people in, keep emotions in, reign in the bad, and hold the good. But with some people the struggle is worth it. With you the struggle is the ultimate means and ends to lifetime's contentment.

And i've learnt to discard bad things and people associated with them. 4years is a long time. I've learnt much. And now the journey goes on...

anyone lived in a pretty how town

anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn't he danced his did

Women and men(both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn't they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain

children guessed(but only a few
and down they forgot as up they grew
autumn winter spring summer)
that noone loved him more by more

when by now and tree by leaf
she laughed his joy she cried his grief
bird by snow and stir by still
anyone's any was all to her

someones married their everyones
laughed their cryings and did their dance
(sleep wake hope and then)they
said their nevers they slept their dream

stars rain sun moon
(and only the snow can begin to explain
how children are apt to forget to remember
with up so floating many bells down)

one day anyone died i guess
(and noone stooped to kiss his face)
busy folk buried them side by side
little by little and was by was

all by all and deep by deep
and more by more they dream their sleep
noone and anyone earth by april
wish by spirit and if by yes.

Women and men(both dong and ding)
summer autumn winter spring
reaped their sowing and went their came
sun moon stars rain

by e.e. cummings

Shit Has Hit the Fan, Dear Fellows

This is Adrian Tan's speech at the convocation of students (class of 2008) at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information (NTU).
Adrian Tan is a litigation partner at Drew & Napier LLC. (i cut it from a class mate's, Shiva, facebook thingy. It's very very true ok!)

LIFE AND HOW TO SURVIVE IT

I must say thank you to the faculty and staff of the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information for inviting me to give your convocation address.
It's a wonderful honour and a privilege for me to speak here for ten minutes without fear of contradiction, defamation or retaliation.
I say this as a Singaporean and more so as a husband.

My wife is a wonderful person and perfect in every way except one.
She is the editor of a magazine. She corrects people for a living.
She has honed her expert skills over a quarter of a century, mostly by practising at home during conversations between her and me.

On the other hand, I am a litigator.
Essentially, I spend my day telling people how wrong they are.
I make my living being disagreeable.

Nevertheless, there is perfect harmony in our matrimonial home.
That is because when an editor and a litigator have an argument, the one who triumphs is always the wife.

And so I want to start by giving one piece of advice to the men:
when you've already won her heart, you don't need to win every argument.

Marriage is considered one milestone of life.
Some of you may already be married.
Some of you may never be married.
Some of you will be married.
Some of you will enjoy the experience so much, you will be married many, many times. Good for you.

The next big milestone in your life is today: your graduation. The end of education. You're done learning.

You've probably been told the big lie that "Learning is a lifelong process"
and that therefore you will continue studying and taking masters' degrees and doctorates and professorships and so on.
You know the sort of people who tell you that? Teachers.
Don't you think there is some measure of conflict of interest?
They are in the business of learning, after all.
Where would they be without you? They need you to be repeat customers.

The good news is that they're wrong.

The bad news is that you don't need further education because your entire life is over. It is gone.
That may come as a shock to some of you. You're in your teens or early twenties.
People may tell you that you will live to be 70, 80, 90 years old. That is your life expectancy.

I love that term: life expectancy. We all understand the term to mean the average life span of a group of people.
But I'm here to talk about a bigger idea, which is what you expect from your life.

You may be very happy to know that Singapore is currently ranked as the country with the third highest life expectancy.
We are behind Andorra and Japan, and tied with San Marino. It seems quite clear why people in those countries, and ours, live so long.
We share one thing in common: our football teams are all hopeless.
There's very little danger of any of our citizens having their pulses raised by watching us play in the World Cup.
Spectators are more likely to be lulled into a gentle and restful nap.

Singaporeans have a life expectancy of 81.8 years.
Singapore men live to an average of 79.21 years, while Singapore women live more than five years longer, probably to take into account the additional time they need to spend in the bathroom.

So here you are, in your twenties, thinking that you'll have another 40 years to go.
Four decades in which to live long and prosper.

Bad news. Read the papers. There are people dropping dead when they're 50, 40, 30 years old.
Or quite possibly just after finishing their convocation.
They would be very disappointed that they didn't meet their life expectancy.

I'm here to tell you this.
Forget about your life expectancy.

After all, it's calculated based on an average.
And you never, ever want to expect being average.

Revisit those expectations. You might be looking forward to working, falling in love, marrying, raising a family.
You are told that, as graduates,
you should expect to find a job paying so much, where your hours are so much, where your responsibilities are so much.

That is what is expected of you.
And if you live up to it, it will be an awful waste.

If you expect that, you will be limiting yourself. You will be living your life according to boundaries set by average people.
I have nothing against average people. But no one should aspire to be them.

And you don't need years of education by the best minds in Singapore to prepare you to be average.

What you should prepare for is mess. Life's a mess. You are not entitled to expect anything from it.
Life is not fair. Everything does not balance out in the end. Life happens, and you have no control over it.
Good and bad things happen to you day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment.
Your degree is a poor armour against fate.

Don't expect anything. Erase all life expectancies.
Just live. Your life is over as of today.
At this point in time, you have grown as tall as you will ever be, you are physically the fittest you will ever be in your entire life and you are probably looking the best that you will ever look.
This is as good as it gets. It is all downhill from here. Or up. No one knows.

What does this mean for you?
It is good that your life is over.

Since your life is over, you are free.
Let me tell you the many wonderful things that you can do when you are free.

The most important is this: do not work.

Work is anything that you are compelled to do.
By its very nature, it is undesirable.

Work kills.
The Japanese have a term "Karoshi", which means death from overwork.
That's the most dramatic form of how work can kill. But it can also kill you in more subtle ways.
If you work, then day by day, bit by bit, your soul is chipped away, disintegrating until there's nothing left.
A rock has been ground into sand and dust.

There's a common misconception that work is necessary.
You will meet people working at miserable jobs.
They tell you they are "making a living". No, they're not.
They're dying, frittering away their fast-extinguishing lives doing things which are, at best, meaningless and, at worst, harmful.

People will tell you that work ennobles you, that work lends you a certain dignity. Work makes you free.
The slogan "Arbeit macht frei" was placed at the entrances to a number of Nazi concentration camps.
Utter nonsense.

Do not waste the vast majority of your life doing something you hate so that you can spend the small remainder sliver of your life in modest comfort.
You may never reach that end anyway.

Resist the temptation to get a job. Instead, play.
Find something you enjoy doing. Do it. Over and over again.
You will become good at it for two reasons: you like it, and you do it often.
Soon, that will have value in itself.

I like arguing, and I love language. So, I became a litigator.
I enjoy it and I would do it for free.
If I didn't do that, I would've been in some other type of work that still involved writing fiction - probably a sports journalist.


So what should you do?
You will find your own niche. I don't imagine you will need to look very hard.
By this time in your life, you will have a very good idea of what you will want to do.
In fact, I'll go further and say the ideal situation would be that you will not be able to stop yourself pursuing your passions.
By this time you should know what your obsessions are.
If you enjoy showing off your knowledge and feeling superior, you might become a teacher.

Find that pursuit that will energise you, consume you, become an obsession.

Each day, you must rise with a restless enthusiasm.
If you don't, you are working.

Most of you will end up in activities which involve communication.
To those of you I have a second message: be wary of the truth.
I'm not asking you to speak it, or write it, for there are times when it is dangerous or impossible to do those things.
The truth has a great capacity to offend and injure, and you will find that the closer you are to someone, the more care you must take to disguise or even conceal the truth.
Often, there is great virtue in being evasive, or equivocating.
There is also great skill.
Any child can blurt out the truth, without thought to the consequences.
It takes great maturity to appreciate the value of silence.

In order to be wary of the truth, you must first know it.
That requires great frankness to yourself. Never fool the person in the mirror.

I have told you that your life is over, that you should not work, and that you should avoid telling the truth.
I now say this to you: be hated.

It's not as easy as it sounds. Do you know anyone who hates you?
Yet every great figure who has contributed to the human race has been hated, not just by one person, but often by a great many.
That hatred is so strong it has caused those great figures to be shunned, abused, murdered and in one famous instance, nailed to a cross.

One does not have to be evil to be hated.
In fact, it's often the case that one is hated precisely because one is trying to do right by one's own convictions.
It is far too easy to be liked, one merely has to be accommodating and hold no strong convictions.
Then one will gravitate towards the centre and settle into the average.
That cannot be your role.
There are a great many bad people in the world, and if you are not offending them, you must be bad yourself.
Popularity is a sure sign that you are doing something wrong.

The other side of the coin is this: fall in love.

I didn't say "be loved".
That requires too much compromise.
If one changes one's looks, personality and values, one can be loved by anyone.

Rather, I exhort you to love another human being.
It may seem odd for me to tell you this.
You may expect it to happen naturally, without deliberation. That is false.

Modern society is anti-love. We've taken a microscope to everyone to bring out their flaws and shortcomings.
It far easier to find a reason not to love someone, than otherwise.
Rejection requires only one reason. Love requires complete acceptance.
It is hard work - the only kind of work that I find palatable.

Loving someone has great benefits.
There is admiration, learning, attraction and something which, for the want of a better word, we call happiness.
In loving someone, we become inspired to better ourselves in every way.
We learn the true worthlessness of material things.
We celebrate being human.
Loving is good for the soul.

Loving someone is therefore very important, and it is also important to choose the right person.
Despite popular culture, love doesn't happen by chance, at first sight, across a crowded dance floor.
It grows slowly, sinking roots first before branching and blossoming.
It is not a silly weed, but a mighty tree that weathers every storm.

You will find, that when you have someone to love, that the face is less important than the brain, and the body is less important than the heart.

You will also find that it is no great tragedy if your love is not reciprocated.
You are not doing it to be loved back.
Its value is to inspire you.

Finally, you will find that there is no half-measure when it comes to loving someone.
You either don't, or you do with every cell in your body, completely and utterly, without reservation or apology.
It consumes you, and you are reborn, all the better for it.

Don't work. Avoid telling the truth. Be hated. Love someone.

You're going to have a busy life.
Thank goodness there's no life expectancy.

Susan Boyle and the Triumph of the Everyman

I have often viewed society in a cynical way, in that our society often privileges the beautiful, the rich and the knowledgeable.

And I have been proven right most of the time.

I view myself as the typical middle-class, the everyman. I am from neighbourhood schools, not from a rich background, from a middling junior college, graduating with middling grades from a university full of scholars and articulate people. I've seen how the rich and famous behave, while some are impeccable, many of those I've seen fall short of even the most lax of criteria. Rich petty boys, selfish elite schoolers, airheads, and even rich nice uncles with no sense of direction. Sometimes a little bit of deprivation allows for the drive to improve, dreams to fulfill and a life to be created.

Some of us everyfolk develop a victimization complex, and I am guilty of that sometimes. It is a coping mechanism in a world like this.

But I believe every everyman has his or her outstanding traits that do not really get discovered.

Embedding is disabled but click HERE to find out what I am talking about. This clip is about Susan Boyle.

Note the scoffing faces, the cynicism and the mockery of the glamour people, the rich, pretty and famous. The bastards.

And note that the triumph of Susan Boyle is not about the way she sang, but the way she proved those people wrong; that money, looks and youth are but ephemeral. Humility and an easy approach to confidence is the only thing that differentiates them from her.

And that, I tell myself, is what I stand for. And if I have character, I will look good, feel better and ultimately do well. I will work on that. With you, together we build.

Catherine: "I do not understand you."
Henry: "Then we are on very unequal terms, for I understand you perfectly well."
Catherine: "Me? Yes; I cannot speak well enough to be unintelligible."

(taken from Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey)

We all work too hard to achieve that kind of deep knowledge that we think the world judges as successful knowledge. To this end perhaps we have succeeded way beyond our hopes: good education, high paying jobs, flashy lifestyles, and things to buy. But who is to know that simple, understandable speech, frank and sincere conversations, and simple personal relationships with each other are what we realise later on as even more important than the material stuff we spend a lifetime chasing?

Don't let it be too late.
There is always hope.