Constructive Deconstruction

Renewed Vigour.

After a few days of late nights and horrible deadlines to meet, i finally slowed down today. Went down to Geek Terminal after my meeting today to just casually upload stuff, clear some work(slowly) before meeting up with CJ, Genie and Brennan where we just lounged around and talked about tons of stuff like why gays(male-male relationships) are not as accepted as lesbian relationships.

Does it have anything to do with the fact that males are generally still dominant in the world and because males probably can’t see themselves in intimate positions with other males hence the disapproval and higher publicity?

I personally have nothing against such sexual preferences although I personally have no such preference myself. I mean, whatever makes people happy la. If they’re happy, let them be. The world’s short of that anyway.

Soon after that, I met Jasmine over at Riccioti at The Riverwalk for dinner. It was my first time there and found the place pretty cool. The food was good too. I had the Penne Arrabbiata(I shan’t put up a photo coz the one i took doesn’t do the dish justice) From there we chatted about tons of stuff again from the state of Youth Challenge, to Young PAP, to corporate governance, our dreams, the want to travel, her underpaying job….We talked for so long again that the place closed and we had to move location to TCC @ Circular Road. Stayed there all the way until 2am I think talking about what she wanted to do in the long run.

You know, she’s the one person whose dreams I cannot let die away. And i’ll make sure I keep her in check.

I must keep the team together. And beyond that, I’ve got to make sure we keep the fire burning. We can make change.

And,in time, make change we will.

Bitch.

This girl is such a bitch. If I meet anyone like her in my life, i’d want to ruin her life just so that she’d wise up. And if she still doesn’t…i won’t friend her. *hmph*

No time to blog? Just throw up videos…

Sorry ah…no time for blogging hence the flurry of video posts…Enjoy!

Drumming kids

Here’s a video of some local secondary school kids at Raffles City I caught while out with Steph a few weeks back…

Growing up

Growing up is a bittersweet thing isn’t it? On one end it leaves you empowered to do more…yet on the other, it introduces responsibilities to your seemingly small shoulders. Today I was reminded that I, this weak little self, am growing up.
I woke up to an sms of someone asking me for my address because another friend of mine needed to send me her wedding invitation. For my friends who read this, Adilah(aka ‘lalat’ back in the good ole days of IRC), is getting married in september. I also have a friend who’s registering over at ROM next week.

These are people who used to copy homework, bitch a hell lot about teachers and just tried to destroy the world in as many fun ways as possible. And now, here they are, making a commitment to spend their lives with another person. Yes, people from my generation have reached this stage of their lives.

Meeting Ivan reminded me of this coming-of-age even more. When I met him for dinner, there he was with his folder storing his policy papers which he’d have to read before actually writing a policy paper for submission himself. Look here world. My friend, the one I used to bitch with(and still do) and play CS during the exam period, and do so many childish things with is writing policy papers. Making a change in something that will affect how things work here in our island.

Mid-way through my coffee with him, an old secondary school friend of mine called to tell me that she too has joined the workforce. Honestly, she joined some financial institution doing financial consulting and was wondering if I could spare her some time for her to tell me what she’s doing and perhaps get my feedback on how she can improve. I know that she’d probably pitch something to me. And I also know that before I even meet her next week, I’m already not interested in buying anything. But yes, I will want to tell her how she can improve and perhaps see how I too can help her make progress. That’s one thing i’d like to do to support her. That’s one more thing to remind me that the world has become real.

It’s harsh realities will start to eat into the minds and hearts of the people that used to walk alongside myself. Some people like Jasmine, who’s still the gutsiest girl i know, are starting to get comfortable where they are(Jas: if you’re reading this, wake up! wake up! i’m going to make sure you don’t settle for anything less than what you are! And Ivan’s going to do the same! I told him liao). And as I write this, i’m thinking of people like Janine and Chonghan who are probably medical interns - people who are probably already actually treating people and making a difference in saving lives…and have probably seen more deaths than many of us have too.

We’re not kids anymore.

Yes.
To both the people from my generation and to those older than us…We. Are. Not. Kids. No. More.
To the former, wake up. Don’t live in that shell of yours thinking that you will be safe from the world. Don’t step out telling yourself you’ll be whatever the world wants you to be either.
To the latter, it’s time you listen to what we have to say. it’s time you teach us what you know, and then learn to let go. That way, when you’ve imparted your experience to us, we would both be ready to move into the next phase of leadership.

Truth is, we’re next in line in society. We hold the key to the future. We need to grasp that opportunity and make a difference. If not to the world or country. To make a difference in our families and in the lives of those who will come after us.

I know I make it sound like it’s a lot of responsibility to bear. It is.
…and I’m scared too.

Whatever!

My Gypsy Blog

I was thinking about how the quality of my writing has deteriorated over the years and i came to realise that i feel less these days. I can’t seem to get in touch with my emotions and when I do, i’m so overwhelmed that i can’t express them in words. This is so unlike the days back in 1999 when I first got my opendiary account.

I still remember getting my first account back in secondary school. I think ‘blogging’ wasn’t even a term back then. It was just, an online diary. There was no wordpress, not even a blogspot. People were still trying to grasp things like html and javascript. I even once had a ‘blog’ that was purely coded out(meaning that my entries were hardcoded). Hosted on sites like geocities, It was nice back then because it was truly a diary. I wrote what I wrote almost knowing that no one would read it. In a way, it had that sense of anonymity yet it provided an avenue where I could somehow make a connection with people. That said, I think that was the time when I was most concerned about identity - using my online pseudonym “EagleOne” and giving various people codenames like “Scarlet” and “Tiffany” to refer to various crushes I had. Haha…I can’t even remember who had what codename now…Eventually it served to document how I felt when I was in JC and how I felt being madly in love with Catharine but not being able to tell her. When the not-being-able-to-tell-her phase passed, I think that was when it moved to become Cuppa Coffee Lovers - which served the time when I was already in a relationship.

And when that ended, I moved - Peaceful Struggles was born. As I grew up and life became seemingly more complicated, I wanted more attention. Yet, I didn’t want an audience. So I started leaking out the address of my blog to my friends. And if you followed me then, Peaceful Struggles II was then born for reasons even I can’t remember…I must have been trying out a new template or something. haha. But peaceful struggles was at a time when I was trying to make sense of my relationship coming to an end…

And when that phase was over, it was around there that Constructive Deconstruction was born. It’s purpose was, and i’m wondering if it still is, to deconstruct my thoughts, my values, my ’self’ and put it into perspective such that I could re-contruct myself to become the me that I want to be. And it was here that I joined Ping.sg. And for the first time, I had a real audience. And while I love all the great people that i’ve met through this, I can’t help but think that having this real audience hampers my ability to write freely about myself. There is always that element of,

“What if they question my values when I meet them?”
“Will they think any less of me?”
“Am I being petty? childish? immature?”
“Will they accept me?”

The sudden self-consciousness is great. And the need to balance the desire to satisfy the attention-seeking ego versus the private little person that just wants to reflect becomes a mountainous task.

It is through this entry that I find myself asking

“What is the purpose of me keeping this blog?”
Should this still be Constructive Deconstruction?
Am I still Constructively Deconstructing?

Can’t Wait To Masturbate

Can’t Wait to Masturbate from Ian Lucero on Vimeo

I’m not sure if this video is supposed to depict what goes on in the head…I just don’t know how to appreciate it. But it sure..feels…primal.

My body is revolting.

I have so much to write…For one, I came to realisation that my blog has evolved several times(meaning that it’s moved.) and each time it does that, it served a purpose. But i’ll write about this later…or some other time - I just wanted to write this out to serve as a reminder to myself.

The thing I wanted to rant about right now is how i’m sick. I haven’t been really online for a mixture of reasons. First and foremost is i’ve been playing Civilisation IV and i am “EagleOne, King of United States of America”. I kickass I tell you. Now I know how it feels to wield so much power over weak and powerless people…especially when i’ve got nukes and money…and navies ready to be deployed in any part of the world at a moment’s notice.

But here’s the main reason. I’m sick. After what must be 2 years of sleeping really little, having irregular living patterns, living off what seems to be the London timezone, my body is revolting. And it’s revolting in such an orchestrated fashion, it made it’s point very quickly.  First it was a short bout of diarrhoea, then the fever kicked in. then there was chest pains(which is still here), and then stomaches that well, didn’t allow me to sleep, and didn’t allow me to crap either.

It didn’t like make me sick enough to warrant a trip to the doctor…but it sure as hell didn’t allow me to live my weekend.

So yeah. All that in the past 2 days or so.  Sheesh.

Mid-Day: 21st June 2007

If anything, it’s been an extremely slow morning with my missing out on my run as well as the morning post…

I was reading about the dengue situation in Singapore and it begins to worry me because my brother had a bout of dengue last year which left him hospitalised and extremely weak for quite some time. It really sounds very trivial when you read about it in the papers but when you actually know someone who’s down with it, the severity of it starts to hit you.

If you’d like to know more about what the National Environment Agency is doing, head on over to their site

I think it’s time i head on down to Geek Terminal for my not-so-daily fix of solitude.