oohh wee

Vested Interested

This will be our fourth session of focus groups, for NM4101, and the participants are contacting me to sign up. Where previously we have had to beg and plead with our circle of friends to turn up and say something.

What's in it for the participants? Why, participation credits of course. This takes a lot of work out of our hands having to make sure friends came down. Should have 2101 and 1101 people take part as well. The power of 靠山 in this modern age and time I argue is still the same. I must internalize this, among other things which are evading me especially in terms of the objectives of NUS to turn me into a critical thinker. Like when I'm actually thinking and using some brain cells at all.

The phrase use it or lose it does jolt me into some awakening and I endeavour to be more active in thinking for all of 5 minutes of course. Can't wait for the next HK Outing, and Friday's dinner with the NOC gang at Seoul Garden, and my new phone on Thurs, and restocking on my aromatherapy incense from ebay.

All's good. I think. Until the thunder claps and the lighning strikes. Which would be soon. Transcripts, essays, presentations, are breathing hard and heavy. It's that time of the semester. That time. Bad time.

Comments on Singapore Gaga

Wanted to post this comment on their website but i think it failed:

just watched this film for a Singapore Studies lecture in NUS and I think this adds a much needed entry to the cultural heritage of Singapore for a collage of snapshots of Singapore in the 90s. Especially beautiful were the harmonica and guitar playing in harmony. Great video that emphasizes instead on the audio. However, certain cut scenes did not seem to match the mise-en-scene, like the harmonica on the MRT - clearly they didn't have the music played to them, a case of misplaced non-diegetic sound. And some enjambment in the mode when in Serangoon we hear the dialect news, an unlikely pairing of the Indian people's scene and the Chinese people's scene in Singapore. However the video inconsistency can be forgiven for the effort in the capturing of the soundscape of Singapore, so good work!

Thought it was another feature film that I can afford to miss since I haven't known much about it. But after watching it or rather listening to it another feeling came over me. It is the classic case of not appreciating what you have in front of you but instead you yearn for the world outside. The fact that it's a documentary gave it a bit more truth and awareness, with bits where you can hear the interviewer asking questions softly. It felt raw and a scene that you and I could have passed by without noticing anything special about it. Except it is.

http://tanpinpin.com/sgg/sggaga_trailer.mov

Why like that

I am confounded, flabbergasted, exasperated, frustrated, dumbfounded, about this fact about women. Why is it that we miss a 15 minute conversation with the other half thinking we can rest earlier because it has truly been a long day and we're just tired and stressed out. We hope to claim a private time to clam up and not say and word and hit the bed. And then the next thing you know, bam! you're hit with a 2-hour dreadful confrontation about missing the 15 minute conversation the previous night. 

Doesn't sound equitable for a case of borrowed time, with the interest rate at 8 times the borrowed rate. 

No, you don't get the point. It's not about the time, it's the period of silence and emotional blackmail they put you through during that 2-hour trial before the execution. With no consideration for the fact that you're physically unwell in a rare bout of flu and other combinations of afflictions. Despite having tried all sorts and means of pacifying them, with 'dog and pony' antics thrown into the mix, it did not work out any peace.

One more time.... Just one more time...