okay as my last post indicated, i reached a new stage of enlightenment and can understand all the spiritual stuff better.

i hate all those connotations normally associated with spirituality, the saccharine "love", the humble, super-nice monk, with all those retarded restrictions of no meat no sex or whatever desires

its all about being happy, living a life where you feel alive, exciting, peaceful, where you can feel that life is a gift and not the dreary, boring and dry misery you have for your life

a really enlightened person will make you feel like he is damn cool because its the people who are 100% themselves all the time who we are damn cool. in our world now, hardly anyone is 100% themselves, but to just be 30 or 40% of yourself, you will be perceived as a cool person. when i say cool i don't mean popular or look good, i mean that people recognize you have a personality that is very much your own, a solidity and security that people and circumstances can't shake, a sense of confidence and self-assuredness that makes everyone else comfortable around you and where life is based on your rules, not other people's rules.





our lives start off brilliantly when we're babies, our real selves untouched by the sick and insane society that surrounds us. we smile and laugh and play at everything at every moment. the goodness in us glows through us so everyone, even those that usually rigidly withdrawn in their unhappiness and tensed up can rest and relax, smile and enjoy the presence of the baby.

the shit starts to happen when you're told what is right and what is wrong, what you should do and what you shouldn't do

we think this is education, be it moral or social, but it isn't. when you tell a kid that stealing is bad, you don't change his conscience, his personality, his innate nature. all you do is put a rule inside his head that he must abide at all costs. but is stealing really bad? how about stealing when you need to feed your starving family? its not wrong at all. its not a 'lesser" evil. stealing simply isn't wrong. stealing is neutral. it depends on the circumstances. can you imagine how stupid you'd look like if during ww2, you denounced a person who stole enemy supplies as a thief and a scroundrel?

you don't tell your kid "look, i'm your parent, i'm always right, listen to me and shut the fuck up and sit down" that's a recipe for unhappiness and dysfunction as every teenager knows but its treated as "normal" and "understandable" in this crazy society. you are not always right, often you are wrong, often your experiences color your judgements which are often wrong.

it gets worse and worse when you go "exams are important", "you must do well for exams". absolute rubbish. once you do that, then you create a polarity between unimportant and important. exams are important, anything else unrelated to exams is not important.

once you have that mindset, whenever you're not doing something related to your exams, you beat yourself up going 'this is such a waste of time, i'm not being productive," blahblahblah. when you're playing, you keep thinking omg i should stop playing, my exams are important ladidadida. and then when you sit for your exams, if you score well, well you feel relieved but if you score badly. you go AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH . this is how people become very unhappy.

you can substitute the "exams are important" rule for almost anything in your life that makes you feel unhappy. the "i need a gf" rule, the "i need to be happy" rule, the "i need a car" "i need good grades", "i need to eat" rule. all of these rules make people unhappy.

"but i DO need to eat!". really, you do? what if you don't? then you'll die. whats so bad about dying? there's nothing bad about dying except for the rule put inside your head that says "dying is bad".

if you have that rule inside your head, you're up for some serious manipulation and evil. ww2 germany, hitler says "if you don't kill the jews, i'll fucking hang you" and if you think "dying is bad", ceteris paribus, you're going to kill those people. people become corrupt because of all these rules that they have in their head.






all these rules combine to form up what we call the ego. the ego is an identity formed by all those rules in your head. if you have a "exams are important rule" plus a "honest is important rule" plus a "football is important" rule, your ego is an exam-oriented, honest, footballer.

the most common denominator of a singaporean teenage ego would probably be exam-obsessed teenager in need of a relationship and afraid of speaking in public. the ego fears speaking in public and would almost never do it, its happiness is grealty dependent on their exam results and constantly longs to be in a relationship. this ego becomes who you think you ar.. you think you need good grades to be happy, you think when you get a gf/bf you will feel complete, you think you're a loser because you don't have either. these rules build up into emotions and the emotions reinforce these rules creating a vicious self-perpetuating cycle of misery

but this is not you. these are just rules that have been blasted or seeped into your brain through all sorts of outside influences. who you are is->go back to when you were a baby-> when you were free of all these rubbish rules and you were uncluttered and unclouded by the swirling mix of emotions and thoughts. you didn't need all these rules to live and have fun, learn to walk, run, stand up, talk, do math, discover, explore, make friends when you were a baby. you instinctively took the right action because you know what the right action is. you didn't need any rules to guide your actions.




that's the macro level lets gooooo to the micro level.

imagine being a j1 with the rule "exams are important" very much engrained in him. every mment, he is strangled by the need to do well for exams, constantly stressing himself worrying about it. if this is serious enough, it results in a mental breakdown. but lets assume it doesn't. instead of enjoying each and every moment, and there is only one moment, this moment, this moment is spent worrying and stressing himself over exams. in this way, every moment becomes less alive, less vibrant, insignificant. this is insignificant because its not the exams. only the exams hold any importance, any significance! when he walks to school, the walk is insignficant, merely an obstacle he needs to hurrry past in order to reach school so he can study. this moment becomes insignificant becomes he thinks it is. of course, life becomes so meaningless, so insignificant, so...dreary and painful because each and every moment is spent worrying about exams

each moment, he fights it. when people are disturbing the class, he fights it, he resists it, because they are disrupting his journey to get 4As. every moment not studying, he fights it, resists it, he says "it shouldn't be this way, i need to be doing something to help my exams"

when it crunchtime, the anxiety heightens, his stress and worry crescendos into a nerve-wracking climax, as he treads the line between a mental breakdown and barely managing to write his answers. narrowly he hangs on and manages to write down his answers. but the answers came from a blurry, racing, confused and stressed out mind. how well can he do?

he does badly and then there's deep pain. overwhelming, crushing, pain that depresses and destroys his soul. he deeply resents his grades, he keeps trying to fight it, resist it, he can't help but scream in anguish and break down in tears.

at this point, eckhart tolle would say, accept what is

resisting what is, the walk without studying, the bad grades, creates all the unhappiness. accepting what is, allowing yourself to walk, allowing yourself to have the bad grades, releases you from pain and puts you into peace. when you become at peace with what is, you become peaceful. when you mentally fight what has happened, you suffer. accept your unhappiness, accept your inability to accept.





back to the macro level.

acceptance frees you from suffering, but it doesn't tell you who you are. and to know who you are is the end of suffering, is enlightenment. who you are is the YOU that is unbounded by rules.

what does acceptance do? acceptance breaks down the rules, one by one, gradually and eventually. when you resist something, its because you have a rule inside that says "such and such is important" once you accept something, you no longer serve the rule. you begin to stop believing in it. it will take time before that rule and its corresponding emotions is erased away, but each time you accept it, it loses its power and begins to fade away.

the real you lives in the now. it isn't preoccupied with past and future although it can use it. accept what is happening now. most people unconsciously or consciously resist this moment, resist what is happening now.


if you understand all of this, then conceptually you are enlightened. you know how life works, what enlightenment means, and how to get there. it wasn't that hard was it

finally i know who i am

eckhart tolle keeps saying "its the silence, the still awareness"

and several times, i've kept on reaching and staying in that silence, that awareness. but i always had the impression that, that silence, was there, but didn't "feel" like that silence was me.

i don't know how it happened, but today, i just identified with that ...essence.its almost synonymous with silence, but its not the silence. its silent, but its not just silence.

who i am is silent, but not just that silence. who i am is not condemned to being silent, it can talk, it can sing, it can dance, music and words can come out of it, but paradoxically, it is the silence. or perhaps its better to say that, i am not that silence, but I am silent most of the time.

who i am, does not need to think to figure things out. it already knows things and it communicate what it knows through thoughts. when i'm writing this down, its all ralked out in my head, but i don't have to try to figure out what to say. the thoughts just appear in my head and i put them down.

like, i don't need to think about what to say to a girl. that's my mind talking. i already know what to say. i know what to do. i screw up when my mind gets in the way.

and my mind can get in the way. when i don't know who i am, i think i'm the confused person, thinking the confused thoughts, feeling hurt. when i know who i am, i see that there is this mental fiction in me playing these thoughts and these emotions inside of me. but i'm not confused, i'm looking at a mind that's playing these confused thoughts

me, the real me, is silent. because i don't need to figure things out, i already know what to do. i' have infinitely more intelligence than my puny mind. i will just know the right thing to say and the right thing to do. the only reason why i don't have the perfect life is because my mind is blocking me


eckhart tolle likes to say "you are the silence, the awareness behind the thoughts, the emotions, the experience"

the silence and awareness is an essential part of me, but its not the whole part.




fully accepting or surrendeering to this moment, not fighting what already is, doesn't teach you who you are, but it helps you to remove those thoughts and emotions that make it so bloody difficult for you to access the silence that you are.


i think i can consider this a second stage of enlightenment. the first time i said i was enlightened simply meant that i intellectually knew how to be happy because i understood the method to get there. this time, i finally know who i am; previously, i knew i wasn't my thoughts, my emotions, my beliefs, but i didn't strongly feel that i was the silence/awareness. but now i do. i don't fully abide in myself 100% of the time now, maybe when i am fully 100% myself at all times and all situations, that can be another stage of enlightenment whatever who gives a fuck seriously

how the hell do banks get away with earning trillions of dollars for doing nothing?

i'm only talking about the part where banks loan money and profit by receiving the loan back on top of the interest

we all learnt from our 2 years of economics lesson that banks can loan far more than they actually physically have.

let's say they have 100 hard cash. however, they are allowed to loan up to 1000. but where is the other 900 coming from? the 900 doesn't exist at all. they just conjured it out of thin air. we could say that 100 in hard cash was real because its a means to exchange goods and services. but that other 900 wasn't exchanged for ANY goods or services. it was just "TADA" we can have 900 to loan out without doing anything, without providing any service or good to the world.

however, when people loan that 900 and repay that loan, that money suddenly turns real. the banks earn 900 PLUS INTEREST for conjuring out money out of nothing.

if you don't see how this is ridiculous, here's an example. lets say bank A has 100 hard cash.

if in a year, one trillion dollars is borrowed and repaid to the bank, bank A will have AT LEAST one trillion plus 100 (exlcuding interest)

if in a year, 0 dollars is borrowed and repaid to the bank, bank A will only have 100 hard cash.


if one trillion dollars are borrowed and repaid, there is suddenly one trillion more money circulating. and what happens is that because the goods and services remain constant, the increase in money supply devalues the worth of money. everything becomes more expensive, costs go up and only the banks profit. yes people, this is what we call inflation.


and we're not even talking about interest. i didn't want to include interest because it can be argued that the interest is the price of providing a loan, an exchange for a service. but that interest does inflate the prices of everything as well.



here's an alternative that several economists have suggested

instead of having banks provide the service of issuing out loans, have governments or non-profit organisations(npo) give out no-interest loans.

if the npo only has 100 hard cash, its allowed to loan the same as what a bank would loan, say a 1000. however, when the loans are repaid, these repayments are treated as non-existent. the repaid loans don't suddenly become real money. they came from nothing, and when they are returned, they become nothing. this way, the money supply doesn't get severely disrupted, corporations don't earn trillions of dollars doing nothing at the expense of the other 5.9 billion people in the world. even better, don't charge interest on the loans, except for maybe a one-time administration fee for the service of providing the loans.

kies anyway, what i wore for the prom shit was jeans, a purple hoodie and then a white shirt buttoned all the way. i was trying for a quirky, striking look where the purple hoodie made me look soft and informal but the white shirt added a "edgy"-smartness and i think it worked out okay. nick eng said i gave off the quirky-cool, yuan da ying feel which has a more silly feeling than what i planned. its my first time trying something more flamboyant (:. you can go see on facebook (: even if youse not a friend (: because i secretly dont want you to see my lousy photos and think you'll prolly be too lazy to go check

when i was at the prom omfg everyone i saw were in very formal attire. minjian and fabian had very nice quirky looks and kaiye had a elegant-simple-sophisticated style. i started to feel uncomfortable which you can always tell when a person begins to fidget and it became especially pronounced when chingto (verrryy nice also) commented "huh, they let you in like that".

then, the a10 table me and aran were sppsed to join was full so we had to join a11 which continued my bad feeling cause i'm only acquaintances to most of them. if i sat with my class i could start talking and playing with my classmates which would release a lot of the tension and discomfort i was feeling.

but as the prom started and went on, the discomfort started to melt and melt and i began to feel better and started having more fun. it was the first time in weeks that i actually felt bad and it took about 1hr+ for that part of my ego to dissipate . i think i should have done sth like minjian and fabian, becoming quriky by working within the formal attire parameters rather than dropping out of it which would've been more appropriate. its a bit strange but as i felt better, i started to notice some guys who also had attire more or less as "casual" as mine and they didn't look out of place,

the whole thing was okay, probably would have been a lot more fun if i was hanging out with my friends rather than with people i didn't really know well.

highlihts

was jingxiang on the stage strutting to the front, turning his back to the audience, bending down and slapping his ass at the crowd. HILARIOUS

the emcee asked iype "timothy..you look unhappy" and then iype replied "ya i'm quite unhappy" which i thought was hilarious but i only noticed myself laughing.



the emcee was trying to get a response from the crowd (us) who were not very forthcoming. it got me started thinking whether an emcee should just go with the flow rather than forcing the crowd to "respond" to him. i noticed once where the crowd spontaneously became more rowdy and active and he said "eh, how come just now you alll so quiet then now so noisy" which made me think maybe the crowd will become spontaneous and active, but the emcee needs to sense when they wil be rather than trying to force them to respond.

hehe xingyun learnt my lesson when he told me "eh, don't force it" when i encouraged him to sing with me the huang cheng yo song.


its a pity the prom wasn't fantastic but just okay because i really thought it could've been fantastic. they interspersed the different competitions and inbetween, had bands or individuals performing whilst allowing people to go around takking photos which was very good for capturing our attention span when the performances are on and making the atmosphere more relaxed and happy by letting ppl go around taking photos with their friends.

my mind was racing with lots of witty comments ss i watched the contestants do their activties. like there was one scene where they had most compatible couple do the titanic scene. and the girl said "you jump, i jump" and i was like, damn if i was the guy, i'd take the mike and go "okay, i jump." (crowd laughs) "you coome down first" (crowd laughs more). he goes up and jumps, then turns around and says '"now your turn" (crowd explodes)

at the entrance where i calmly waited for my friends to do all the entry shit, i heard the guard yelling "YOUR FIRST TIME CLUBBING AH" at some don't know who. beside me, a few guys, tensed up and jumpy, try to control themselves from barging in. one of the more sober ones shakes his friend by the shoulder and tells him to "eh relax ah"

i walk in behind my group and after awhile, i realised what the whole clubbing thing is about.

they overload your senses with laser lights and deep, throbbing beats that reverberates through your body. this forces your attention onto the external stimuli away from your inner dialogue, those self-conscious thoughts. you become overwhelmed in the moment. you stop caring about the past, the future, you stop thinking.

the smoke, the dark, heavy air, the mess of bodies lets you hide your face, slip into the toxic stream of writhing and grinding. in this way, you lose your self-consciousness, allowed to wallow and drift in the primal beast that lurks beneath your normal sense of self.

and if you need more help to lose your self, there's alcohol.

its different from enlightenment. enlightenment is going beyond thought, clubbing is regressing below thought. clubbing lets you lose that miserable sense of self so you descend into your carnal, primal nature. and its exciting, spine-chillingly so. all that sexual tension you repress can finally be released. hot, sweaty lust takes control

that's why people you thought you knew don't seem like themselves. their primal nature that normally stays hidden emerges.



i walked to the second floor, taking in all that sensory overload and looked down at the pulsing, orgasmic body. there was this track playing where this girl was climaxing, screaming uh, uh, uh ,uh , the excitement of the crowd crescendos , uh,uh UHHHHHHHH. and the whole club explodes. it stirred up this carnal lust in me briefly, and then it passed. the narrow staircase...why is it that narrow that people walking by will inevitably rub their bodies across each other

it was interesting and mind-numbing to take in the entire thing from the second floor. no judgement, no "this is a whorehouse", no pull to join in the crowd. i thought maybe the whole thing might overwhelm me, but it never came close. i was tired and went to lie at the white beds and sat there just staring straight ahead taking in all the noise and colour.

the crowd got really excited whenever a more sex-charged song came up. when it was some neutral track like boom boom pow, it became calmer, more reserved .i thought about the phrase people used to describe clubbing..."good clean fun" and snickered. what i saw was sex with clothes on, the grinding and writhing and rubbing and pressing.



a few times a thought like "should i try joining in?" came up..but there was no emotional charge behind the thought. a part of me was scared about losing control, a part was unsure, uncertain about trying a "new" thing, a part just didn't feel the whole thing felt right, and most of all, i felt numb and apathetic towards the whole thing.



i can see why some people love clubbing. its the only outlet they have to release all that repressed energy and tension in their bodies, built up by all the self-constraints, conformity, rules and regulations in their otherwise normal and miserable lives. its a time where they can forget about all their worries and problems and just wallow into a stream of hazy senxuary bombardment. maybe, at another time under different circumstances, i'll enjoy all that writhing and grinding too (:

i don't feel any disgust or disapproval . it feels a little weird seeing normally reserved people go bestial. i felt concerned over the wasted people, concerned that other people will do some shit to them. in some sense, the whole experience was quite fascinating, strangely beautiful


at the end, when the place began to light up, the energy quickly subsided. light takes away that anonymity they need for their beastial nature to reign.

i recently read mr pavlina's post on fashion where he started learning and experimenting with fashion and it got me really interested in doing it too. his main reason for getting interested in fashion was that your clothes are a reflection of yourself, a means of self-expression to show who you are. that really resonated with me because a cool person like me MUST express myself right (:

i've always been a "oh my mom buys my clothes for me" kind of person but that's going to change (:! i never really paid attention to my clothes; as long as it was "okay", it was okay. i never had really bad problems because i kind of know what looks really bad but i never paid attention to dressing well either. i thought a handsome guy with a hot body like me would look hot in anything, but that isn't entirely true. sometimes when i happened to dress smartly(which is really occasionally), like wearing a white longsleeved shirt that fits me, i felt and looked better than when i was wearing a plain, baggy t-shirt.

when i didn't like what i wore, i dismissed it as "ego", vanity, but steve's post made me reconsider. i felt uncomfortable because what i wore didn't reflect me, or what i wanted to communicate. i felt uncomfortable because it wasn't me, not entirely because i was vain. its a bit like choosing a pair of shoes, or an email address, or a username, or hairstyle. its not vanity, its wanting to make sure everything reflects you as a person and that our external side reflects your inside.

its not okay "as long as i don't mind what other people think of me". how it looks isn't very different from how it feels. style and function should be seen equally. if a shirt feels uncomfortable, you're not considered fussy if you say "i don';t want this shirt its too tight". if the way a shirt looks makes you feel uncomfortable, you shouldn't be considered vain if you say "i don't like how i look in this shirt".





anyway, i went on my first ever shopping trip for clothes with jingyu (SERIOUSLY MY FIRST TIME D=)

oh wait, before that, i went through all the clothes i had to pick out the stuff that i thought were at least a 6, that i'd be willing to go out given my higher standards and there were only 3 shirts that passed the grade and 2 (berms/trous) that were -okay. tsk, tsk, i had a lot to do, but at least i started off by demanding i had a separate corner for my clothes (it used to be mixed in with all the family) and picked out the stuff that were okay.


shoes

first i needed to get a pair of shoes because i had no more left, my last one broke apart literally. i wanted a versatile shoe that i could wear with almost everything, that i could wear to prom and also to play soccer and run around in. i decided to buy street soccer shoes because they'd only look out of place in a very formal business situation. almost everywhere else, they're cool.

i rejected a lot of very 'Attract Attention" (AA) shoes that had really jarring colors or designs like bright yellow or solid red/black. i also intuitively didn't like black. there were a few shoes which were quite stylish, like the adidas shoe that was white with red stripes but i felt it was slightly too plain and also looked too common. i wanted something quirky, something that had a "slutty" quaity to it. there was one shoe jingyu said "why not this one" and i said "it stands out too much" he looked surprised and asked,"when did you fear standing out?"

which got me thinking. the way to stand out is not to wear stuff that screams "LOOK AT ME", but to wear stuff that is unique and catches people's eyes in a natural, comfortable manner. you stand out not by trying, but just by being your unique self.

after about an hour plus of cycling through a lot of shoe stores, i settled on a adidas sala that was dark brown with pink stripes which i got for 53 dollars. i liked it very much, a 9/10. it was quirky but not in a jarring way, easy on the eyes but also unique. i actually liked the same design with blue stripes but jingyu pointed out and showed me that it'd look strange with jeans and i agreed. the pink provides a nice contrast to the blue tones of jeans and would fit with almost everything i wore. gray, white, black, blue, which were the colors of the shorts i had all fit with pink.

observing people

we bought the shoes at queensway and then we went to orchard for the other shite. along the way, i commented to jingyu that actually i could learn by watching people (: ...well not really. the problem was that singaporeans by and large don't bother to dress up, especially guys. i saw a lot of solid red shirts that were terrible and i commented that solid red shirts always looked bad. jingyu questioned that statement and i thought about it. i realised actually white people could look quite okay with it and it also depended a lot on the cut and design of the red shirt. brown doesn't really go well with red, but white is actually pretty cool. then i thought about it more and realised actually you can wear almost any color if you're white-skinned.

the people who bothered to dress up were mostly girls. i definitely saw more than 100 girls who dressed up and looked nice but i don't think i noticed more than 20 guys who dressed up and looked really nice. most guys were t-shirt and berms/jeans. there were a few who wore some kind of hoodies but it just struck me and jingyu as...poseurish. they looked okay in it, but i don't know why wearing the hoodie felt so poserish.

walking past the prada and gucci stores, you'd have gone "what economic crisis =d"

i realised that the people who dressed up nicely really caught my eye a lot more especially the guys, maybe because i was looking out more for guys. they attracted my attention in a way that made me go "wow, that looks really neat" rather than the crass, "lol that shirt said "I LOVE YOUR MOM" manner. and i just felt that they were "cooler", more sophisticated, and probably more sophisticated and intelligent if i talked to them. the people(the majority) who dressed plainly gave my the impression of "oh just a common guy with a common personality and iq"

walking through the stores

remember i didn't have shoes? so what did i wear? i wore slippers. when i walked into those classy clothes stores, i felt out of place with my slightly too big shirt, too-baggy berms, and slippers. it felt a little bit uncomfortable but luckily i have my enlightened crazy-cool aura confidence which mitigated the problem. although i looked and felt out of place, i countered it somewhat with my "i know i'm cool" aura but even then, i'd much rather dress properly next time.

the classy, more sophisticated stores had sales people that just let you browse by yourself rather than crawling all over you which was different from what i expected and which i liked a lot more. i always get turned off when sales people approach me and ask me if there's anything i want when i didn't approach them for help. it puts pressure on me and feels pushy.

ahaha i could tell the sales people whom i interacted with me liked me even if all i said was a thank you. i have this calm disposition rather than the slightly nervous energy people give off when they wait at the counter for their purchase to be packed nicely. i just said a quiet thank you with a slight smile and always got a nice smile in return and in that exchange, a quiet, almost unnoticeable connection was made, different from the 'let's get this transaction over and done with" feeling.
i noticed i had this pressure of needing to buy something to justify me being in the store which was intensified when i was in a small store where me and the sales person are the only one inside. i took this chance to learn to become more comfortable with taking my own time to consider and browse through and after awhile, i felt more and more comfortable. one time i was browsing for caps at this small store and asked to see the caps that were available and when nothing caught my eye, i shook my head and gave a slight smile to the sales person who smiled back with an understanding nod.

THE TOP

i think i only realised the difference between a shirt and a t-shirt in sec 4 LOOOOOL anyway for people who don't know, a shirt always has a collar and is buttoned up whereas a t-shirt normally doesn't have a collar and buttons.

i asked jingyu lots uf questions and finally learnt the difference between a cardigan, a jacket and a hoodie. there was a lot of stuff which i didn't know would go well with a shirt but jingyu said they would and when i thought about it and imagined it in my mind, i realised was true. a lot of t-shirts which i would normally think of as AA or not-me actually looked quite stylish when you pair them up with a cardigan/hoodie/jacket.

me and jingyu went into a store and i was randomly browsing through when i noticed some long-sleeved t-shirts that i immediately felt were neat. i don't think i have a single long-sleeved tshirt before. i normally don't see guys with long-sleeved t shirts too but i thought those were neat and unique. the design was easy on the eyes without being too plain. they happened to be on sale so i bought 2 long-sleeved tshirts for 15 dollars each. they felt like a significant improvement on the 3 tshirts that i "passed"

i thought about getting sth to go with a white shirt but nothing really caught my eye. i didn't like most jackets because i felt they gave a rugged, manly feeling that didn't suit me. i wanted something softer, quirky, and more kiddish. i didn't think i wanted anything until jingyu asked me to consider browsing through some hoodies at topman. i rejected the common colors like black and white...i'm not sure why but i think its probably because they're too plain and common and would give off the 'poser" feeling. i chose a deep violet colored hoodie cause i somehow had the feeling it wouldn't look poserish and the quirkiness fitted me.

i went to try it out and at first, it was really weird seeing me wear that deep violet. i guess its because i'm too used to wearing normal colors like black/white/orange. it took me like 10-20 seconds to get used to seeing myself in that color and i started feeling better and better when i looked in the mirror. if i wear something that expresses myself rather than just something that looks decent, its probably going to be quite different and smething i needed to take some time getting used to. i'm more or less used to doing unconventional things, but not yet totally comfortable in wearing unconventional things. i got it for 63 dollars


more observations

i made another observation that it seems like there is this "designer" look. its like black, slim fit t shirt and pants with some variation of a quirky hairstyle.

there were a lot of tshirts which i dismissed as "damn beng" and "damn AA". tshirts that had crass phrases like "I LOVE YOUR MOM" or big faces or loud stuff sloshed in the center, and crude satirical stuff like 'ipood" with the picture of a person shitting. i was like "how come there are so many tshirts like that" and jingyu was like "supply meets demand". the "damn beng" tshirts just feel too loud and obnoxious, trying too hard to grab attention in a crass, ugly manner, trying to stand out or look witty in a unsophisticated and crude way.


the bottom

i realised i didn't like long pants in general. they look too plain in general, and too formal. maybe i haven't seen really nice long pants yet, but the ones i saw were all pretty plain/nothing special. dress pants are very ugly. jeans are okay because they're the bridge between formal and informal. jingyu taught me the difference between shorts and berms; shorts are "cut" to fit your leg nicely which gives you a more edgy feel whereas berms or usually baggy which makes you look a lot more sloppy.

whether or not there's a pattern/design on the shorts actually make a significant but subtle difference. patterned looks more sophisticated in general but plain is just...plain. i bought two pairs of shorts for 25 dollars altogether at some street stall at haji lane which i quite liked.


round-up

aha i'm like a beginner to this shopping thing. learning to look for stuff that you really like as opposed to stuff that you find okay actually makes the whole experience more enjoyable and interesting. the reason why i didn't like shopping last time was probably because i never bothered to be more detailed and picky with what i wore and never thought of clothes as an art. cheeers

taken from singaporedissident.blogspot.com

Thursday, December 3, 2009 4:05 AM
From: "Gopalan Nair"

To: wong_kan_seng@mha.gov.sg, k_shanmugam@mlaw.gov.sg, audrey_wong@agc.gov.sg
Cc: angela_chopard@supcourt.gov.sg, yogeswari_n_vadivellu@supcourt.gov.sg

To,

1) Wong Kan Seng
Singapore Minister of Home Affairs

2) K Shanmugam
Singapore Minister of Law

3) Walter Woon
Singapore Attorney General

Dec 02, 2009
Ref: singapore dissident

Law Society of Singapore vs Gopalan Nair

1. The subject is the disciplinary proceedings brought against me by the Law Society of Singapore.

2. I am sure you are aware of this, but in any case, it is necessary to make this public and to demand an explanation.

3. There are 5 charges brought against me, 2 of them involving my conviction in Singapore ’s courts, namely one in the High Court for criticizing your Singapore judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean and another involving a disorderly conduct case/ insulting a police officer case in the Subordinate Court which resulted in convictions. For these 2 charges, the convictions form the basis of the disciplinary proceedings.

4. It is open to any Defendant in these proceedings to challenge the convictions themselves as a defense to these charges. In this case, with the appalling reputation of your courts being ordinarily used as a tool to destroy political opposition and government critics, and since these 2 convictions arose out of such misuse of the law, it is absolutely essential that I be provided with the transcripts and audio recordings (High Court) to prepare my defense.

5. I had written several Emails to the Disciplinary Tribunal asking that I be provided with these essential documents. Initially the Tribunal Head, Angela Chopard through someone called Audrey Lim whom no one knows, replied and said repeatedly that they are not required to provide anything and if I needed anything, I should write directly to the relevant authorities, in this case the courts.

6. Since she was not prepared to do anything, I had no choice but to write to the courts myself. I had written to the High Court asking for the court testimony transcripts and testimony audio recordings in my case there and to the Subordinate court for the testimony transcripts (Subordinate Courts do not record audio recordings).

7. Both the courts have in effect refused to provide anything at all.

8. On Nov 11, 2009, Jasmine Ong (Ms), acting fro Registrar Supreme Court writes "We refer to our earlier letter of Oct 30, 2009, informing you that a copy of the transcripts for the criminal case No 23 of 2008 will be provided to you at no charge............ Please make arrangements for an authorized person to collect the transcripts on your behalf". In other words, I or someone else has to go there physically.

9. We have had a similar letter from the Subordinate Courts telling me to go to Singapore to pick up the testimony court transcripts or to send an authorized representative to go to Singapore to pick it up.

10. As you are aware I live in California and not in Singapore . Secondly I have no one in Singapore to pick it up.

11. One more puzzling fact is this. Earlier the Tribunal itself in their letter dated Nov 4, 2009 again demands this. They say "The Disciplinary Tribunal also notes that the Supreme Court and the Subordinate Courts have acceded to the Respondents requests and made available the transcripts of the relevant court proceedings to the Respondent (subject to the Respondent or an authorized person collecting the transcripts).

12. This response from the tribunal is bewildering. Why in Heaven’s should someone go there personally for this! I then wrote to both the courts with copies sent to the tribunal, in my Email dated Nov 6, 2009, asking for the transcripts to be mailed to me in California . They have simply ignored my request.

13. You will appreciate that it takes no great effort for both courts to send the transcripts and the audio recordings (in the case of the High Court) to me in California . This is crucial evidence that a Defendant is entitled to rely on his defense.

14. It would be a waste of my time to tell the Minister for Law and the Attorney General what the law is, but let me say this again for the public and Singaporeans.

15. In these proceedings just as in criminal proceedings, it is necessary not only to appraise the Defendant of the charges against him but also provide him with not only incriminating evidence but any exculpatory evidence or any other relevant evidence which he needs. And what is more the Tribunal has to do it without my asking.

16. In this case right form the very start, the Tribunal has failed in their duty. First except for the sending me charges and asking for my lawyer's name, which I have none, they did not provide anything else. Yet, for instance, their charges and notices refer to rules and statutes that they intend to rely on, which they totally fail to provide.

17. And then after my reminding them of this, they sent me a copy of the rules but nothing else.

18. Now, I have had no choice to file my defense (which I did) without the benefit of any of the testimony court transcripts of the court hearings nor the audio recordings. This has caused me undue prejudice.

19. Now about my travel to Singapore .

20. You would agree I hope that a Defendant has a right to defend himself in court. The court dates have been fixed either for February or March next year. As you are aware, I am prohibited from re-entering Singapore unless I have written permission as per your government order last year after my deportation from your island.

21. I had written to your Tribunal whose responsibility it is to arrange these things, but not surprisingly, yet again, they said they are not interested and that I should write to Singapore Immigration myself. So I did this on Nov 11, 2009 and received a response from them dated the same day saying merely "the matter is receiving attention and we will reply to you in due course". Up till now they have said nothing more.

22. Your Law Society of Singapore, is clearly flouting the basic rules of natural justice. Anyone reading this can see that you are deliberately denying me a fair chance to defend myself.

23. This is not looking good yet again on your claim that you have a first class legal system with the rule of law. This is not the rule of law.

24. In the past, without the benefit of the Internet and with a Defendant helpless in your island, you could get away with any injustice as you want. This time, what you do is being watched by quite a few.

25. I suggest you instruct your Law Society that this will not do. Instruct them to send the transcripts and audio recordings to me as they should and demand an explanation form them why they are deliberately refusing me a chance to defend myself. And with it, provide a sufficient time thereafter to file proper defense.

26. Also demand that they respond as they should to my Singapore travel request. And tell them the general duties of a Disciplinary Tribunal.

27. If you do not do this, once again, your claim to be a first rate legal system would sound familiarly hollow. This, if I may say, is not even third class.

27. I will be posting this on my blog Singapore Dissident and every subsequent development.

Sincerely,
Gopalan Nair

wheeewww busted is reallly cool. they're my kind of band, catchy melody with a kiddish-punk edge

i don't like formal, formal feels rigid, stiff, inflexible. smart casual is neat, its like formal but with a kiddy, relaxed feeling

leather shoes blowwww, you can only walk in them you can't jump, hop dance twirl in them

i don't like walking neatly, i like a little bit of swagger, not the catwalk siyu always does9ALWAYS SEE HER DOING IT), but a little striking edge in every step

a quiet, shu nu isn't interesting/exciting or fun to be with. i like girls that are very friendly and dare to tease and mock.

i don't like racquet sports, they're too repetitive, there isn't enough permutations and changes to look cool and do stuff that makes people go WOW THAT IS SWEEET. i can do that for soccer, and its possible for basketball too. i'm not v good with basketball but i can do all the cool steals and interceptions (:

i hate academic-all serious prose. i like articles, books, novels, letters, blog posts that can write about anything formal or informal with a spice of humour and cleverness. somehow, humour and cleverness is a marker of how well written the prose is. however, some really well-written prose can be extremely enjoyable to read even without any humour, but those are quite rare and are usually very clever(eckhart tolle!)


i like nice people but i absolutely LOVEEEEEEEEEEEEEE crazy-ass-hilarious people who are also nice, like yaohui, bing yeow and yipyang

i don't want to be seen as a nice person. definitely not a guru or wise person. what i really like to see myself is a clever-kid who loves to taunt and mock for laughs

i rather write wittily then write clearly

i rather be an insanely good dribbler/trickster who makes fools out of everyone else then a goal-scoring machine who wins games for his teams

WHAT THE FUCK! always sounds better than ARE YOU SERIOUS?


i like to purposely drop things like "omg siyu and hui yi damn chio" which i know will get people talking and yakking like its such a big deal...than self-censor myself and try to be socially-correct



i don't like to organise stuff, i just like to get invited and go in and whip people up. i don't want to be the leader, but i like to be the reluctant hero who goes..ahh fuck the leader sucks, lemme see what i can do

of all the superpowers i could have, i can't decide between being invisible or flying


omg funny incident of the day i was playin street soccer with iype and i was there available for him to pass but i didn't call out to him. wilson noticed me and told iype to pass to me. iype saw me and was like "junyang can you ask for the ball? are you mute?" and then i replied "ya i'm mute"

i think someone told me and i've heard my mind repeat this several times; too bad, you're not living in the right country

i don't want to accept the conventions that people like to push onto me. work first, play later, or not at all. having a job is more important than having fun. don't speak up for what is right, speak for what is right for you.

people like to think of themselves as essentially good people "deeeeeeeeeeeeep down", that they would do the right thing if they had a choice, but they need to "feed the family", blahblahblah. if only society was better, they would do the right thing. but because society is like that, we can't do the right thing.

its a self-perpetuating cycle. people think society is like that, so they only do "like that" things. but because people are the society, they by doing things "like that", they continue to create a society that is "like that".

authority represses people, but its people who allow authority to repress it. in this sense, the people are the authorities, repressing themselves.

if you say, i'm forced to be this way because the world is this way...well, you're making it this way. so sit down and don't complain. but you do complain, some paart of you complains because the world is crazy and you know it.

and then the most irritating people of all...not the ones who say there is something wrong but do nothing about it, but the ones who can't even see anything wrong or pretend not to. 'no what, singapore quite good compared to xxx what. be grateful la. be thankful la. its not so bad la"



government is repressive but most of the power lies in a bunch of middle-aged or nearly dying people. its the people under them, the editors, the policemen, the judiciary, the civil servants who enforce it. some enforce it ignorantly, some enforce it reluctantly, whining that (oh we need to feed our families). and then there's the rest who enforce it by conforming, obeying while repeating "oh i can't say/do what i want because they will hunt me down)

corporations put profits over people, but the people let them do it to them. mcdonalds pay its workers 3 dollars an hour and people scramble over each other for it. pharmaceuticals pay scientists and officials to distort research, the damned scientists willingly do it, and the officials pretend to see nothing wrong.






people like to say "we shouldn't be selfish, we need to be nice people" but their definition of selfish is very limited. you're selfish if you harm others to earn say a better salary, but its okay to harm others in order to save your own job. its okay to harm people if you're trying to protect your own life. why is it okay? because the people who say its okay are scared for their own lives and own jobs. if they were forced to decide between harming people/doing the wrong thing versus saving their own job/life, they'd choose to save their own skins. if people want to see a better world, they're going to have to be prepared to give up their lives for it.

the people who think they are pragmatic and "wise to the world" and go "oh, people are selfish, get real, this is the real world, this is a dog-eat-dog world". get ouf of my elite uncaring face, screeches wee dog face. they say "why rebel, so stupid, lose your job and your life" . and they don't realise they're the really stupid ones because their fear of death traps them in a coffin of boredom, fear, unhappiness. they're already dead, they merely exist.



so, with their fear and cynicism, people create the world they hate.

how do you go about changing the world you hate? well, you and the world aren't two things. you are part of the world, inseparable from it. if you want to make a difference, you can't make a difference by going to place which fits you. you go to a place which doesn't fit you, and then, because you bring something different, you start to change that place. you make a difference by being different.

can one person change the world? of course he can. he is part of the world. he changes, the world changes.

you want a free world...then you got to free yourself. and the most impt thing is probably to tell death to fuck off and die before you die. meaning, you accept that you are going to die, and then death holds its grip on you and then you can really start doing what is right, what you want, and make the difference.


i want a fairytale life with an awesome job and 2 beautifully cute girlfriends. so i'm not going to look for or accept anything that i don't want. if everyone did that, guess what would happen. the economy would change in order to suit that. people shape the economy, the economy doesn't shape people unless you let it. i want 2 beautifully cute girlfriends so i'm not going to talk to random girls that i don't feel like talking to even if they hella prettaye. and i'll tell them I WANT TWO i don't want to love you ONLY. if i'm going to get scared and think "omg that's never going to happen i can only take what there is...then what if what there is just isnt't good enough. i rather die then

superkid -a wink, a smile, a grin, a smirk then i trip SHIT says:
you know my friend christian what i do to him
#lester; ElNinoF9T says:
wat
superkid -a wink, a smile, a grin, a smirk then i trip SHIT says:
the wind blow his paper on the floor
i tell him
ask jesus blow back la
ask la
LOL
#lester; ElNinoF9T says:
lol
my uncle say
okay nxt time lester work
all of you wait for food drop down
superkid -a wink, a smile, a grin, a smirk then i trip SHIT says:
LOL

#lester; ElNinoF9T says:
i immediately laugh until beng on floor



2 MINUTES LATER



#lester; ElNinoF9T says:
EHH
cannot lidat
ppl think i racist
superkid -a wink, a smile, a grin, a smirk then i trip SHIT says:
LOL
#lester; ElNinoF9T says:
go put something like
superkid -a wink, a smile, a grin, a smirk then i trip SHIT says:
where got racist
#lester; ElNinoF9T says:
*lester is okay wif christianity*
i mean
religionist
superkid -a wink, a smile, a grin, a smirk then i trip SHIT says:
o
sorry lester
i don't care
#lester; ElNinoF9T says:
WA LAOOO NOO
still got one big
LOL there
jialat lol