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Taking a look at it, my last two posts were short to the point of stupidity. My brain is dying from atrophy. It was good to be at home on friday. I was finally actually alone for awhile. For the first time in more than a month. It was divine. I missed the sound of my mind. For a long period i was subjected to the constant aural assault of 'nabei chee bye' all around me. "So much dust, nabei". "'I cannot find my underwear, chee bye." I can insult proficiently in Hokkien now. If only i knew how to say hello.
I've been eating alot of junk food. Chocolates, donuts, nachos, sweets. Was worried that i'd become fat and unfit. But i've become acquainted with some really fat people. Im talking really fat with layers upon layers, flowing like tidal waves with each step. Watching them, or rather being forced to watch them (some people just like to parade themselves, i dont get it, keep your damn clothes on. Unless you happen to be a hot girl. In which case feel free, the world needs art and my eyes need pleasing.) is simultaneously both an ego boost and a warning. I have recently been informed that only 2% of obese people can claim that their weight problem is glandular. The rest just eat too damn much. A mean person might say this is license to insult really fat people at will. This person might also claim that it is a rather fun activity. Especially when the fat person in question is a complete asshole. If you're big enough to be a landmark you'd better play nice you fat bastard.
Watched 3 movies this weekend id been waiting weeks to see. Star Trek was a blast, terminator was cool and wolverine was lame. Sabretooth and Gambit seemed to be pricks to him but they magically become Wolverine's friends towards the end. Oh darn, Gambit interferes and stops me from killing sabretooth but its okay, hes got a cool stick so he can be my butt buddy.
E3 is starting. Thats basically the biggest showcase of upcoming game releases. I don't really game that much anymore but theres afew things that would catch my eye. There's a game called bayonetta that looks pretty good. Some really slick action and gameplay but the heroine is somewhat insulting to gamers. Tsk tsk. Shamelessly panning to the slobbering perverse geekazoid shes insanely voluptuous and seductive. And the more she fights, the more her clothes come off. I can't wait for this game.
There's just some time left to go exercise and maybe read a few pages of a book and the newspaper. I miss school. Not the lectures, homework or studying(what little of it there was) and certainly not the food. Not the teachers, not the tutorials, not the stairs not the waiting for buses, not the fugly uniform. Did i say i miss school? Well ill be looking forward to heading to university. Was set on SMU for awhile but made a late U-turn to NUS. Sure she's older and less flexible but hey, maturity and sophistication has its appeals. So pucker up, here i come.. in a couple of years...
Time to get into Tekong again. Another fantastic weekend has passed! And so the countdown starts for the next one. Yipee...
Finally back from the first 2 weeks of bmt. Im not allowed to blog about army. But i will say this. There are some people in serious need of deoderant. The smells ive encountered these 14 days have ranged from unholy to life threatening. I was grateful when i had a blocked nose for awhile. But even then the little air that seeped through was nauseating. I should add bad body odour to my list of asthma triggers. Army has been...a unique experience so far. Should get more interesting. Less smelly too i hope.
Going into army tomorrow. Ive heard enough about it the past year with alot of friends already in army telling stories about it. Time to get a first hand look. Dont want to over dramatize the thing but its been a reflective day. Feels like the end of another chapter. And the start of perhaps a rather dreary one. Not looking forward to it, i really enjoyed the time ive had this year, but its about time i got it done. Ill go with an open mind.
Im not usually one for any advertised sentimentality so this is an anomaly, but i feel in the mood to indulge myself. Ignore this if you get bored easily. In other words if you're like me. Anyway, been treating every day like it was precious. The past two weeks or so have probably been the best in goodness knows how long. Eating extravagantly, meeting up with friends, even some really old ones from the past which was nice, reading on occasion, running when i wanted to, sleeping when i needed to and watching football with a cold ginger beer in hand. What a time. I will miss this.
Last day today. Had chats with a couple of friends. Went jogging with one in the morning and just had a long conversation with another. I was sleeping in between so the entire day had only two events. Three if i include eating. I really admire both these individuals though, even more so after today, so it was time well spent.
It got me thinking about the past few years. Regrets and guilt usually accompany that activity. Haven't exactly murdered anyone but im certainly glad its done with. It would be prudent not to hastily label transitions as progressions but if there's a basis for hope im going to go ahead and leap ahead of myself. Remorse can aid change but when chronic, taints. Quite apart from remorse specifically but still within that sphere of emotional turmoil it seems to me that moral anguish is essential in our embracing of the world that confronts us. Beautiful in some ways, perhaps even necessary. Wish i had time to type more but i am getting tired, should get to bed soon.
Listened to interviews of Alexander Nehamas and Mark Vernon on friendship recently. Credit to them as the progenitors of some interesting reflections ive had. Its hard to overestimate the potency of the globalised spread of information. The possibilities of the people we could become are constrained by the conditions in our immediate vicinity. Those contingencies frustratingly beyond our control. When those boundaries are moved by consciously exposing ourselves to information outside those traditional confines, the possibilites of who we could become increase multifold and a greater autonomy over who we are as individuals is birthed.
This is for anyone interested in the topic of friendship thats been somewhat neglected in modern and contemporary philosophy, but seems to be making a comeback with a generally renewed interest in reflections of how we should live with the emergence of virtue ethics. Ancient philosophy clearly viewed it with serious interest. To Aristotle it was an absolutely essential ingredient to the good life and Nietsczhe held it in high regard as well. Id agree that it should be back on the terrain of philosophers again. A rough excerpt from one of the interviews that i found interesting.
Alexander Nehamas - " (On a generalized reason of why people fall out of friendship) When we see that our friends have changed, we ourselves have changed as well. So a friendship generally speaking, falls apart when the friends have gradually began to take different directions in their lives and are no longer connected in the way they have been up to that point. Its very painful sometimes to fall out of friendship. No less painful than falling out of love with someone or the other person falling out of love with you, which is often worse. The reason it is so painful is i think the following. If you stop being my friend, you both suggest to me that (a) you no longer like the person i am, which shows that if i were to ask you what did i do wrong, that would have been the wrong question to ask. Its not that i did anything wrong, its who i am that you are no longer satisfied with. But (b), it also suggests something even more painful. Namely that you no longer like the person you have become, as a result of our friendship. And that suggests that you are giving something up that i have been responsible for creating. So once again, in this context, the expression that we often use (more in situations of love than friendship but also friendship) when we say 'Its not you its me' is no consolation to the person to whom its told, because 'Its not you its me', still means its you."
Brutal stuff. I think its fairly clear our friends have an important part to play in moulding us into the people that we are. And yet a yearning for independence and a desire to be indurated from emotional hurt such as the one described, might seem to make dependency on our friends somewhat undesirable. But what else is there to fulfill that longing to know and be known, to have as Aristotle would described a friendship of excellence with both individuals satiated by each other's company regardless of the activity. Not to mention they would be able to make observations over a varied range of a behavior and this would give them priviledged position to launch an attempt into genuine empathy if not sympathy. A sentiment which i think is quite removed from romantic love or even familial love because they are more possessive, protective and consequently rather skewed in their perspectives. (Not that those qualities are necessarily bad on their own, but just not suited for that purpose.) Too sleepy to write anymore. I do feel grateful for some of the individuals i have met.
The Prodigy.
Kaiser Chiefs. I am aware of the terrible quality.
Finally got some files off my phone and these were a couple of photos that were in there of two concerts i attended. The Prodigy was somewhere in February. The Kaiser Chiefs are still vivid in my lousy memory so they must be fairly recent. Both were at Fort Canning which, if you ask me, is a pretty lousy venue. The whole place is a slope and if you're down in front your feet have to bend at weired angles. It might be nice for a fucking picnic but its not fun to stand on. Both were general admission though, which is good for someone with too much free time because i could get there early and stay right up front. We actually went way too early for the Prodigy concert, most other people were really late. Fortunately for them(and a slice of shitcake for us) the band was extremely late so we went there early for nothing. There was an overweight dj playing some raver tunes but there wasn't any rush for standing space; took awhile for people to gather. Which is expected since it was a fairly old-ish crowd. Probably former ravers of the 90s come to be cool again. There were some lunatics with weired hairstyles like half their head shaved with the other half long and flowy. This is not cool. It is incredibly ugly and makes you look like a mental hobo.
When they finally did arrive the concert was not bad. Crowd was up for it and The Prodigy's electronic dance music is just kickass, no band in the world like them. They did seem a tad mechanical though, didn't have the spontaneity or crowd interaction id hoped for. Which wasn't a problem with the Kaiser Chiefs who gave one helluva show. I know maybe 3 songs from the Kaiser Chiefs to be honest, not really my thing. Also they were late. But their songs are fucking radical live and we were jumping to the beats the entire time. I don't know their names, don't know their songs, but ill be going if they come down to Singapore again. The straits times reviewer of the concert lambasted the audience as pretty pathetic. I didnt think they seemed all that bad, not at the front anyway. The songs were 'jumpy' ones, only problem was that it was raining earlier on so we were standing on mud. To actually jump took alot of effort because the ground sucked you right in everytime you landed. I didnt care about that but i paid the price with mud right up to my jeans. I got a few puzzled looks on the mrt afterwards.
There were some morons around though. Right as the band arrived there were these latecomers that tried to push their way through in front; big ogre like oafs yelling 'Scuse us, big fans yeap, big fans, coming through'. They soon had to get their big assess to the back with everyone yelling at them. There was one guy that pushed his way from the back and stood next to me. He folded his arms and just stood there, glaring and looking annoyed by the people jostling and jumping around while we were all singing along chanting 'We are the angry mob'. Tsk, jostling from an angry mob? Who would have thought.. There were afew of these people. Some holding on preciously to their handbags and looking shocked at the 'unruly' behavior at a rock concert. Still, it was largely good and i hope they come down again. I want to go to england someday for the Reading and Leeds Festivale. According to wiki 'the following acts are confirmed as headliners (for 2009): Radiohead, Arctic Monkeys, and Kings of Leon. Other acts include Kaiser Chiefs, The Prodigy, Bloc Party, Fall Out Boy, Deftones, Ian Brown, Enter Shikari, Placebo, Yeah Yeah Yeahs' etc etc. Some of my favourite acts there, talk about value for money. Except for Fall Out Boy, i would pay extra to see them removed from the line-up.
