Filodoksia - A Musical Production

To inform those of you who did not get to watch the Filodoksia one month ago, I have included some interesting pictures below to give you an idea of what has happened. Do take note that there are a lot of aspects of production which do not appear on the stage such as fund-raising, music-composing, marketing, sets-building, costumes-making, etc. Around 140 people are involved in this huge project! It's really great to see so many people willing to make some personal sacrifices (such as spending at least 4 hours per day for 5 day per week for 8 weeks to make preparation) to make a collective vision possible. I'm glad that it turned out to be a success.

The Publicity poster

Production Photos (2)

The Princess in her gown made by costume team

Sets team with the Greek City Hall Fascade

Costume team doing makeup

King and his maiden

Production Photos

The Prologue

The Celebration Scene

The Room with Talking Paintings

Ballroom scene

My life is a fire that burns

Remember that you are mortal,"

"eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die."

Manipulation(2)

Maybe I was wrong. People have their own rights to learn the truth in their own ways, even if they are the hard ones.

Maybe these internal struggles are meaningless. Who knows the truth anyway?

Manipulation

One who can only see the truth when manipulated deserves to be manipulated.

Intimate Expression

Ryuichi Sakamoto - Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (Trio Tour)




















It's ironic that the most intimate of expressions are conveyed through indirection and subtleties.

Let me contemplate

Thinking is resultless. It doesn't give you a pillar to lean on.

Would it be better to be a brainless (or headless) statue than a thinking being?

May be a little bit of hard work helps

And absorbing the knowledge too

May be I need some food

Chill... dude. I know the food is nice. Relax...

I miss philosophy... my brain is stagnant and decaying

Maybe the fountain of wisdom will keep me alive

Not thinking feels worst than being shot to death

P.S. On a serious note, my mind is dead now. I need strong stimulant to revive it. Can you help?

More pictures

Linsly-Chittenden Hall - the place where I have lessons.
I heard Stanley-Milgram experiment was carried out at its basement.

A tower that produces a chime many times a day
I think it was used to indicate time when watches were rare in the past.

Outdoor barbeque on a cold day after attending a talk by Spike Lee, a renowned director

Outdoor concert at the Green.
A symphony band played selected soundtracks from Spike Lee's movies
The atomosphere was great.

The entrance of Sterling Memorial Library

Moment of Happiness

"We're all faced throughout our lives with agonizing decisions, moral choices. Some are on a grand scale, most of these choices are on lesser points. But we define ourselves by the choices we have made. We are, in fact, the sum total of our choices. Events unfold so unpredictably, so unfairly, Human happiness does not seem to be included in the design of creation. it is only we, with our capacity to love that give meaning to the indifferent universe. And yet, most human beings seem to have the ability to keep trying and even try to find joy from simple things, like their family, their work, and from the hope that future generations might understand more."

Professor Louis Levy in Crimes and Misdemeanors, a great movie. I watched it for my course, Evil.

I am very happy with my life now. I seem to be able to derive happiness from doing simple things like reading, enjoying the breeze, basking in the sunlight and talking under the shade. Somehow, time halts to a standstill. I feel more connected to my soul. It feels like falling in love. I am in love not with a person or a place but rather a moment, a transient entity that consists of everything that I can capture through my senses. More importantly, I have realised that by leaving the suffocating tropics, I have escaped temporarily from the great currents of Progress. By isolating myself from the pursuit of Success, I have gained greater access to my trueself. Maybe that's happiness.

Yet, I am aware that this moment won't last long. The weather will become unbearable one day. The readings might become boring one day. Even love fades away with time. What I can do is to enjoy every moment, feel blessed that I am fortunate to be here and aware that this state can end anytime in this indifferent universe.

The Start of Happy Days - First Week at New Havens

My room at Morse College. The weather reminds me of Cameroon Highlands. It's like staying in a naturally air-conditioned room.
















Entrance B. Something like the block that you stay in the residential college
















Photosynthesising under the sun. The sun is as bright as it is back home. But it's unbelievably cool. The ground is soft and insect-less.

Inspired to read under the shade at Morse College. The photographer is Jan. We are discussing the anthropology theories. The summer courses, with tons of readings, are very intense. Yet, I love it!

Jose (second from the left), a Peruvian Yale student, is taking us to Sterling Memorial Library. The library is stunning. It has a Gothic architecture according to Jan (first from right), an architechture student from NUS. Prat (first from left) is a business student from NYU. We are all taking Anthropology of Religion. The class is fairly small. It has only six students.

















The lawn at the library. I am again inspired by the sight to do my readings. The campus seems to be designed to inspire people to learn.

HCAP Singapore Leg

In this photo: Aseem K Thakur, Vikram Parsani, Ankit Sachdev, Giselle Cheung, Israel Figueroa, Stephanie Kwong Set Ying Ting, Mike Nguyen , Rares Pamfil , Chen Li

Short essay written on this event:

HCAP Singapore was a refreshing experience for me because it gave me the chance to interact with students from Harvard University. To me, they are special not only because they come with a different perspective from the other side of the world but also because they represent the best the American universities can offer. In particular, having conversations with them about their background was a joy because every one of them is so different. Consisting of Puerto Rican, Romanians, Asian American and much more, the Harvard group can be seen as a melting pot of diverse cultures, a fitting tribute to the exchange conference’s theme, multiculturalism. I have found the friendships forged during the conference invaluable because of the shared interests that we had. We had spontaneous discussions on many issues sparked off by unrelated things that we saw along the trip. For instance, I had a serious discussion with Mike Nguyen on how Asians and Americans differ in perceiving China’s emergence when we saw foreign workers from China and an interesting and personal conversation on how modern consumerism is undermining masculinity when we were at VivoCity. During the bus trip to Sentosa, Rares and I tried and failed to do a “racial profiling” of everyone in bus and eventually concluded that dividing people by race is a futile effort. At Siloso beach, I defended the CMIO racial classification in Singapore in a debate with Michael Lin…… and more. As a slight introvert who rarely talks unless the conversation concerns something of importance, I really treasure those experiences of having meaningful conversations with people. It is certainly an experience that is hard to forget.

Barack Obama's Audacity of Hope

I have never heard such an inspiring speaker. His speech made me cry. Go Obama!

Love

“Do you actually love someone, or do you love the feeling you get when you love someone? If that someone does not make you feel something which you like, would you still love the person? At the end of the day it seems like we love ourselves more than anything else, no?”
Chan Ern Theng

Reading this quote on YH's paper on the philosophy of love brought a lot of personal questions to my mind. How do you know that you are in love? When you are willing to go beyond rationality to do something for a girl? When you feel like touching a girl whenever you are next to her? Suddenly I have found myself incapable of loving. It seems that I love nothing more than myself. Everyday I wake up wondering where I am on the path of self-fulfillment. Now, I cannot imagine myself spending my time doing those 'silly' things. I'm simply too tired to love. Can someone remind me how it is like to fall in love?

Philosophy, Luck and I

It has always been my interest to entertain subject matters concerning meaning, purpose, potential and destiny of humankind. Thinking about the big picture of humanity through holistic ideas and abstract concepts is a great retreat where I can seek refuge from the triviality and boredom of my routine life. It is liberating and invigorating. There are few moments that bring greater pleasure than when a thought struck me. Such is not a conscious effort to logically “come up with” creative ideas. It is an intuitive process triggered by observing patterns and identifying irregularities. It produces the pieces of images which help me to make sense of reality and form part of my “big picture of humanity”. The satisfaction derived from these mental processes motivates me over and over again to contemplate issues which are often beyond my sphere of influence. As the field of politics, philosophy and economics basically covers a major part of my “big picture of humanity”, it is impossible for me not to stop my mind from venturing into this field.

This is what I have written in the first paragraph of my application essay for the NUS-in-Yale Summer Programme. Reading this always makes me wonder why am I studying Engineering Science. After attending USP classes, I have realised I seem to have an aptitude in philosophy. It doesn't matter whether I am studying a literature or a psychology module. I always find it easy to come out with something philosophical about irony, values or whatever. (That's what my classmates told me. Sometimes, I am inclined to believe philosophical = talking crap.) Of course, I hope this is an illusion. This is because if I have "wonder kid" potential (This is how a soccer management game Championship Manager 03/04 classify potentials) in philosophy, I would have made the worst choice in my life. Let's hope my potentials for maths and physics are not "limited" (another classification).

By the way, I am going to attend Yale summer programme during the holidays. I have just received the news that I have been accepted a few days ago after being wait listed for an agonizing week. In short, NUS was choosing 10 person for the programme and I'm 11th person. After spending one week blaming a God(dess) of Luck for putting me in the "so-close-yet so-far" position, I am lucky to count myself now as the tenth person. Apparently, the person who quit ditch this progamme for an internship. Maybe I should pray for forgiveness for all the expletives that I threw at my God(dess) of Luck during the frustrating week. (Maybe I shouldn't. The alternative hypothesis is that: I became lucky after verbally abusing my God(dess) of Luck). Enough of all this crap! More importantly, the lesson for everyone: Always put in your 120% in achieving what you want because you'll never know whether you'll be the 1oth or the 11th person. Well said?

Concert Photos (2)

No!!!!!!!! I don't have a mistress!!!!!!

A man trying to explain himself out of trouble

Happily ever after. Super bear hug
(I think I look like a bear.
Pow commented that the swiftness and
the intensity of my hug made
it look like a pornographic film.
Yeah, I'm a porn star. Haha... )

Concert Photos

These are the photos taken when I was performing on stage.
These great photos are taken by Raffles Hall Board of Photographers.
Thanks BOP!

Darling... You're the only woman in my life.

Oh no, this old woman is going to say those stupid things again.

You're supposed to stay take care of our girl! Did you?!!!
(I think I look cool here. Hehe...)

Forgive me!

My seduction style?

Understanding Irony

* Philips HD1172. This is the iron I'm using. This design has been used for more than 20 years. Simple, elegant and timeless.

I've to say that understanding irony, is the most interesting module that I am taking so far. The title itself spells out its objective, to understand irony. Why understand irony? Other than the challenges it poses (it's a difficult-to-score literature module), I choose it because irony is a typical phenomena that I experience in my everyday life. For instance, it is indeed ironical that an engineering science student would find such a module more interesting than the science and engineering modules. Interestingly, some folks, knowing that I'm an engineering student, misheard the title of this module and thought that it's "understanding ironing". Well, I don't mind. I really need to improve my ironing skills to waste less time on doing laundry. (I spent 2 hours per week ironing clothes. But ironically, I enjoy it.)

Most importantly, I study irony because I believe it reveals he "truth" or more precisely the reality. My opinion is that irony occurs when there's mismatch between our expectations and reality. Thus, recognizing irony, I deduce, means seeing the mismatch and readjusting our expectations, thus discovering the reality. For example, as an engineering student, I am expected to be more interested in science than in humanities. (This is a reasonable contemporary assumption.) The irony reveals a reality: I'm more interested in humanities. (This is only argument's sake. In fact, my interests in humanities and sciences are oscillatory and anti-phase in nature.) Of course, this is just a trivial example. In this module, I wish to explore several of these more significant issues:

1. Ironies of life

"The supreme irony of life is that hardly anyone gets out of it alive."
Robert Heinlein (1907 -1988)

Understanding such ironies might give insight to the purposes of life.

2. Ironies of mankind

"We have guided missiles and misguided man."

I saw this on YH's msn nick. It is a great pun by Martin Luther King. It is ironical that missiles are more guided than man. It reveals a reality: our scientific capability is advancing much faster than our spiritual and moral capability.

3. Ironies of love

"我一定会爱你到地老到天长
我一定会陪你到海枯到石烂"

This is the lyrics I found in a 1990s Chinese pop. Isn't it ironical that such promises that supposedly last till the "eternity" are made (usually) in a moment of impulse when our passions are intense? Shouldn't there be more contemplation? The reality? Love is probably irrational.

Now, I hope I have convinced you the importance of understanding irony. For the meanwhile, I have this unfounded (stupid) fear. I am worried by the possibility that after the Understanding Irony course, I might end up concluding that irony cannot be understood. That would be the greatest irony indeed. Haha...

Regional Outlook Forum

As part of the privileges of being an intern in Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS), I had been invited to participate in the Regional Outlook Forum 2007 at Shangri-la Hotel. I was impressed by the scale and the importance of the event. Diplomats from all over the world attended the event. I had seen the delegates from the European Union, Japan and Southeast Asian countries. Interestingly, I was seated in between a Japanese diplomat and a African diplomat. (As I was late and there were few seats available, the usher had not choice but to seat me there) Apart from the luxurious decoration of the ballroom, which seems to have unlimited amount of crystal chandeliers, the meals were excellent. Despite the "conducive" environment, I regret to say that after listening for one whole day, I can only recall 30% of it. (Not a bad ratio actually, considering the fact that I did not use the ACP skills. Haha...)

Here are some of the things that I remember:
1. Prof M, the speaker for Malaysia's economic outlook, gave the least impressive presentation. Ironically, it is this "least impressive" that made an impression on my mind. He gave sufficient attention to the economic data, but did not assess the possible economic impact of political issues like ethnic relations. That is what I wanted to hear.

2. Prof Emil Salim, the chairman of Indonesia's Economic Advisory Council, is a great visionary and idealist. His speech was enlightening. I learned from his speech that most issues are usually symptoms of a deeper problem. For instance, haze is actually a symptom of unsustainable development. His call to establish a spiritual and knowledge-based lifestyle and an sustainable economy that co-exist with our tropical rain forest struck the idealist chord in me. But the most difficult part of the haze problem is still the implementation of the measures.

3. Dr Victor Fung, the luncheon speaker and the Chairman of the Greater Pearl River Delta Council, gave the best speech. He was there to promote Hong Kong. I think he was probably "invited" to speak because the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office sponsored the lunch. His use of analogy is awesome. He compared the geographical position of Hong Kong as that of the narrow tube on a hourglass. While the top bulb is compared to the Southern China, the bottom bulb corresponds to Southeast Asia. Using this analogy, he then said that Hong Kong is the center for 4 flows: Capital flow, talent flow, goods flow and information flow. Great analogy to convince people.

All in all, it's a great experience to attend a forum like this. I hope I'll get to attend another one like this. And school is going to start. It's time to switch off my politics/economics learning mode and switch on my science and literature learning mode. Yeah! So exciting!

Semester 2 Outlook

A new year, a new semester, a new start. Thinking about the challenges ahead of me really excites me and scares me. These are the challenges:

1. Handling 7 modules
Yes, I'm mad. This is the number of modules I have decided to take for Sem 2. On top of my 3 core modules, I plan to take 2 USP modules, 1 seminar module and 1 foreign language module. That's 7.

2. Leading RH Orientation Marketing Committee
Yes, I am the head of the so called OMC. It's rare for a year one to head a committee, especially so when I have no direct experience in doing marketing work. As the head, I am responsible for leading the committee's sponsorship-seeking, fund-raising and materials-sourcing efforts. Without this committee, there will be no money for orientation and no materials for the float. That's how important it is. I'm really grateful to the JCRC (Junior Common Room Committee) for putting faith in me to do this job. When there's challenges, there's opportunity. The prospects of boundless opportunity to learn is exciting indeed.

3. Designing solar-powered fruit dryer for Indian farmers
This is a great opportunity to make use of all the knowledge I have learnt for the past. But so far, I have absolutely no idea what's going to be the end product. I guess I have to spend a lot of time to find out.

4. Writing a script for next year's hall play
I have made good progress in brainstorming. The gist of the story is already there. But I'm still very far away from completion. It's difficult to come out with ideas, and more difficult to write into a script. I don't know what this will lead me to. I expect a tough journey ahead.

5. Hall Cultural Concert
I'm in the hall choir.

I hope I am not over-ambitious. But I'll never know. To quote a line from my favorite movie, Gattaca , "No one can tell you what you can or can't do". Yeah, not even myself.