Despondent Gripe

For the first time, I opted for jettison. Something I have never considered as an option.

The decision was made real late, at barely twenty hours before the peak of the torture, knowing full well that the choice will not signify the end, but the fact that the torment will have to be prolonged... but pushing it so long had only proved too detrimental, and beyond what I had imagined. Yea.. perhaps I have been over-estimating myself. The stress got so too immense yesterday, the connecting nerves in my head burst on me. It is not that I have never been through difficult times and failures, but for the first time, I could imagine what could be worse. I snapped. I have known what real stress was for the first time. My mind was almost incoherent, and I could feel that I would have burst out in public if I had not doggedly held on. I was nuts.

I had to take the choice to give up so as to continue on. Even then, I thought I could still push through. It is really dejecting that an eject should have to be a choice.

Haiz... that's life, i guess. Not everyone who tries pushing will push through. Only the ones who emerge winners get to say their endurance paid off.... or the smarter ones who quit the game ahead of time would say they have found better pay-offs elsewhere.... and I? I am obviously that loser who huffed-and-puffed my lungs out, only to get paid a punctured spirit. :'(

It ain't all fair play. Having survived two law papers within a day last year really did not mean that I can push for 3 in 2 days this year.. it is not fair that I get marginalise with such low down exam schedule just because i am probably the only joker in the whole island of thousands of candidates doing this combination.... plus, i am not doing this full time. I have other commitments. I have constraints. And my energy had been sapped. The accumulated fatigue is taking a toil on me. I am drained. I am in this predicament because I've been duped to take the unit that I had once decided against taking.... and I have missed out of the first semester and last semester of studies because of the time-table changes and clashes...

yea.... ok.... the reasonings and justifications can go on, but still, it makes me feel no better.

I feel I have been such a let-down. There were so many people who had stood by me, supporting, and having expectations... I have disappointed them all.

Mum had been staying up to wait and walk me from the bus stop, and washing up after my late dinners the many weekdays a week through it all. My sister had repeatedly put holidays on hold cos I can never make it for the last 2 years. Boss and colleagues had been enduring my intermittent absence for the past one month. And friends whom I had to miss cos there just wasn't enough time... they simply smiled and said "gambate!"...

.... And the encouragements and egging-on by more other nice friends... like Sab* who replied "definitely" instantaneously when I asked for prayer support.... the angel stranger who would remember me in prayers even at the late hours when he was stressed out preparing his own engagement session... and ESim* too... the phone rang immediately with only words of solaces when I sent out a text in distress... this, even though he too, had his own share of exam preparations to do. He even asked what he can do to help...

Gosh! As I am writing this, the FR tutor called to find out how the paper went. She's the only tutor who called to ask on how things went. She's so nice. I feel so bad telling her that I had given it up for the other units....

It felt that I have let all of them down.... and this is depressing.....

Panic Attack

Only 16 days to D-day, 5 units, with 3 papers scheduled within 2 days, still unable to get quite a number of fundamental principles.... Arghhhh... and I do really mean ARGHHHHHHHH!!!!!

I do not feel the least prepared.... plus the examination bureau sent out the admission notices, with all details but missing the venue for the law papers... oh man! this is so ominous.. is there a panic button that can be pressed and time may come to a stop for me?

*sigh* Why did I get myself into this torturous situation?

As the angel stranger said when he drove me home yesterday after sunday service (yea, I got an offer again cos he "really had no program on for the afternoon"... duh...), "The weather is so beautiful today, such a pity.... "

Extrapolating that, I felt that I have wasted 2 beautiful years of my life, torturing the hell out of myself. Such pity... Wait till the month is over, and the new half of the year begins..... I've really gotta be a little better to myself....

But till then, please continue to keep me in prayers....

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Marrying off a friend...

Hong got married over the weekend. Finally. hehehe.. Well, on a serious note, I felt lotsa mixed emotions overwhelming me for unknown reasons as I see this friend take her step onto the next stage of a more blissful life.

We've shared a lot through the 10 years *gasp!* we've known each other. From lecture halls to tutorial rooms, working differentiations & integrations, fourier series, waves and transforms... From labs, to stressing over a certain indian guy (for real unromantic reasons!), copying each other's lab results and designing circuits that we (or maybe it's only I) never quite understood and getting poisoned by soldering fumes... then to finding work, cursing politics, and wondering why love eludes,.... all the way to her meeting the man who'll fulfill her dreams... the highs and the lows... i suppose we've had come a long way. Seeing her get married, is probably like how i might also feel if my own sister get married one day...

Probably knowing me better than my own sister, she's the person I'll intuitively text to rant and to rave. She's the person who will go on musicals and boring stage plays with me. She's the one who will spend time to live a little chi-chi experience of afternoon teas and chill-out evenings with me. I'm glad my friend got what she deserves...

The groom was great. He took care of every details of the weddings because she's caught up at work - the planning schedules down to the corsages... the wedding went on smooth and without much sweat - that's how much love was put into it... and his profuse thankfulness.... (he definitely scored more points thanking us onstage, and twice at our table, before finally just before we depart. I could almost feel his sincerity in his firm handshake before we left.).

They sure deserve each other, and I'm really glad seeing true love and support between the two of them. I've seen and experienced imperfect relationships. Jaded, and cynical I might have been sometimes, but to taste a little sweetness in other people's lives sure had life a little brighter - especially when it is of someone near and real. =)

I have been to weddings more glam, but the little gestures of love between this couple illuminated a different kind of glitz & bling that overshadowed all the other weddings i've been to. As the song played "lucky, we're in love in every way...", and looking at her beng fussing over her, we know, and are glad she has found her perfect fairy-tale ending to this phase of life, and starting the next on a good footing.

Wish you lotsa love and happiness every of your waking hours, my dear friend !


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Blessed! Once more.

Woke up with a bad back again, but still glad I'm taking my breath. Almost died last night. Serious. Okay, perhaps not dead, dead, but probably crushed and definitely not able to be typing away like now….

While crossing a traffic junction after class in the late evening, a weekend-plate Honda zoomed right past our paths, clearly having been mistakenly thought that red lights meant “danger, go, and speed faster!” It zipped by so fast, ALow* was clearly shocked for an instant, before breaking out into curses & swears using all his tort law knowledge (the tort tutor must be very pleased that he remembers all his tort principles. Keke.).

ALow* was shocked because for that split second, if I kept my pace, or had taken a slightly bigger step ahead of him, I would probably have gone home to the emerald courts, up the sapphire skies. But it was not time yet. Haha…

After the car had whizzed out of sight, he turned to me and asked what made me slow down my pace at the instance that car made its dash towards us. I looked at him, blinked blankly, before struggling a lame answer like “my bag was too heavy. I had my notes and statutes in it. I couldn’t walk fast”. ok, that ain't exactly lame, cos my bag was really heavy, but..... Actually, I was equally puzzled. Seriously, I had not heard the booming engine signaling the charge like he did. But really, everything happened at such an instant, I truly cannot tell why or how I have just halt.

Anyway… It took me quite a while for the episode to sink in. Even as we take our last few steps on the tar ground and onto the red brick pedestrian curb, I was still chirping about the possible reasons why the driver had accelerated when we actually had the right of way (much to ALow*’s annoyance. heheh..).

After pacifying his frustration towards the inconsiderate driver, his question started sinking into me.

Why? Why did I slow down? Did I really and actually slow down?

* shrug * I don’t know. I really don’t. I was in some kind of daze at that late hour... But I know I did pray that I be guarded and guided through the week… and someone did say he would keep me in prayers too!


The angel stranger took the empty seat beside me on Sunday (again!) cos he was really late, and there was a convenient seat that I had deliberately left empty nearest the aisle.

On my right was an amiable young lad. He had, during the friendship break asked me if I was alone just like him, and I told him yes. He must have had felt pretty bewildered when the angel stranger and I started chatting during the break, and whispering short exchanges through the service like we were friends. Thinking back now, I felt a little bad that the boy must have felt kinda neglected as I might have, if I were him…. In fact, I do feel bad also cos I cannot even remember his name...

Anyway, back to the angel stranger... WH* seemed like he is quite a natural people-person. He responds to people very well. I really cannot remember the last time anyone would take an interest, and said he would keep me in prayers voluntarily. In fact, I cannot remember anyone who had used this approach - no questions asked about what I wanted to pray for… he just asked when my exams was (he actually remembered I was doing a course!) and said he would keep me in prayers…. And when the skies started to drip a few drops of rainwater as we parted, he asked if he could give me a ride somewhere (Note! Note! The question was not if I'd wanted or needed a ride...). The idea was later dropped as he had another lunch appointment, and we could not reconcile the directions we were each heading. Nevertheless, he was thoughtful enough to offer his black brolly (even that left an impression...), and asked if I had one. All without much fanfare.

It felt good that someone had shown such concern without seeming like he was patronising me.... and this was only our third encounter! I mean… sometimes, we will not even offer our own brolly to a long time friend if it means depriving ourselves of it in the face of the threatening skies, right? much less a casual acquaintance just met… (and especially if the walk to the car is two streets down without any shelter !)

Even through this, I think I have learnt something...

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Anyway..... Can this be true? Had he been a figment of my imagination? Haiz… I was and still am obviously swooned… haha… if only he was as young as I'd wish he is…. ay.......

Nonetheless, blessed, blessed am I, or so, was I reminded. That strange cloud of vexed emotions in me on Saturday was quickly dispelled by the time the new week begun… for I realised I had been blessed once again.

The Kind of smart that IQ tests miss

By Keith Stanovich
The writer is professor of human development and applied psychology at the University of Toronto

In 2002, cognitive scientist Daniel Kahneman of Princeton University won the Nobel Prize in Economics for work done with his longtime collaborator Amos Tversky (who died in 1996). Their research had to do with judgment and decision-making – what makes our thoughts and actions rational or irrational. They explored how people make choices and assess probabilities, and uncovered basic errors that are typical in decision-making.

The thinking errors they uncovered are not trivial mistakes in a parlour game. To be rational means to adopt appropriate goals, take the appropriate action given one’s goals and beliefs, and hold beliefs that are commensurate with available evidence. It means achieving one’s life goals using the best means possible. To violate the thinking rules examined by Kahneman and Tversky thus has the practical consequence that we are less satisfied with our lived than we might be, Research conducted in my own laboratory has indicated that there are systematic individual differences in the judgment and decision-making skills that Kahneman and Tversky studied.

Ironically, the Nobel Prize was awarded for studies of cognitive characteristics that are entirely missing from the most well-known mental assessment device in the behavioral sciences: intelligence tests. Scientists and laypeople alike tend to agree that “good thinking” encompasses sound judgment and decision-making – the type of thinking that helps us achieve our goals. Yet assessments of such good (rational) thinking are nowhere to be found on IQ tests.

Intelligence tests measure important things, but they do not assess the extent of rational thought. This might not be such a grave omission if intelligence were a strong predictor of rational thinking. But my research group found just the opposite: It is a mild predictor at best, and some rational thinking skills are totally dissociated from intelligence.

To an important degree, intelligence tests determine the career of millions of people. Children are given intelligence tests to determine eligibility for admission to school programmes for the gifted. Corporations and the military depend on assessments that are little more than disguised intelligence tests.

Perhaps some of this attention to intelligence is necessary, but what is not warranted is the tendency to ignore cognitive capacities that are at least equally important: the capacities that sustain rational thoughts and action.

Critics of intelligence tests have long pointed out that the tests ignore important parts of mental life, mainly non-cognitive domains such as socio-emotional abilities and interpersonal skills. But intelligence tests are also radically incomplete as measures of cognitive functioning, which is evident from the simple fact that many people display a systematic inability to think or behave rationally despite having more than adequate IQ.

For a variety of reasons, we have come to overvalue the kinds of thinking skills that intelligence tests measure and undervalue other important cognitive skills, such as the ability to think rationally.

Psychologies have studied the major classes of thinking errors that make people less than rational. They have studied people’s tendencies to show incoherent probability assessments; to be overconfident in knowledge judgments; to ignore the alternative hypothesis; to evaluate evidence with a “my side” bias; to show inconsistent preferences because of framing effects; to over-weigh short-term rewards at the expense of long-term well-being; to allow decisions to be affected by irrelevant context; and so on.

All of these categories of failure of rational judgment are very imperfectly correlated with intelligence – meaning IQ tests tend not to capture individual difference in rational thought. IQ tests measure mental skills that have been studied for a long time, whereas psychologists have only recently had the tools to measure the tendencies towards rational and irrational thinking.

Nevertheless, recent progress in the cognitive science of rational thought suggest that nothing could stop us from constructing an “RQ” test.

Such a test might prove highly useful. Sub-optimal investment decisions have, for example, been linked to overconfidence in knowledge judgments, the tendency to over-explain chance events, and the tendency to substitute affective valence for thought. Errors in medical and legal decision-making have also been linked to specific irrational thinking tendencies that psychologists have studied.

There are strategies and environmental fixes for the thinking errors that occur in all of these domains. But it is important to realize that these thinking errors are more related to rationality than intelligence. They would be reduced if schools, businesses and government focused on the parts of cognition that intelligence tests miss.

Instead, these institutions still devote far more attention and resources to intelligence than to teaching people how to think in order to reach their goals. It is as if intelligence has become totemic in our culture. But what we should really be pursuing is development of the reasoning strategies that could substantially increase human well-being.

(This article was taken from "The Straits Times", Wednesday, April 08, 2009 A22, Review & Forum)

Complete article in:
What Intelligence Tests Miss: The Psychology of Rational Thought
Hardcover: 328 pages
Publisher: Yale University Press; 1 edition (January 27, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 030012385X
ISBN-13: 978-0300123852
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I Wish...

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What’s wrong with a wish?
Something nice for your friends.
When the day’s not so great
You can change how it ends
It’s a wonderful gift
To wish someone a wish
But it seems that not everyone sees it like this

I wish all my troubles away
All my dreams come true
I wish for blue skies every day
And I can wish it for you
Why would I wait
For what a wish can create?
Why should I work so hard?
I wish, ‘cause wishing is great!

A wish is the best
No disappointments or tears
If something bad happens
I make it disappear
If there’s something I want
There’s no reason to fret
There’s no wish limit on all the things I can get

I wish all my troubles away
All my dreams come true
I wish for blue skies every day
And I can wish it for you
Why would I wait for what a wish can create?
Why should I work so hard?
I wish, ‘cause wishing is great!

When I wish, it feels right
The whole world’s shiny and bright
I know wishing makes everything all right.
Where there’s a wish
There’s a way
So I’ll keep wishing each day

I wish all my troubles away,
Doesn’t anybody see?
I wish for blue skies every day.
I wish there were others like me,
Others like me
Who like to wish all day long
Is there something I can do?
Wish I knew!

~ Stephanie Beard ~

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Tribute to the boyfriends

This is a tribute to the boyfriends whom God has kindly placed in my path when things are awry. Nothing romantic for all but one (I think) on the list are happily married men. But I love them - as much as I do my girlfriends. They may not read this, but I just thought it a good idea to pen (ok, key) down the thoughts and feelings that are going through me now....

The True Bro: Gus was among the first person to notice that i was in some kinds of dumps some time back, apart from my girlfriends whom I'd instinctively share rants and raves with (major or not). A little unexpected, but the constant and multiple texts and phone checks were like slated stilts of supports in the face of crumpling emotions.

He trusted me to get out of my dumps in a somehow accepting manner. There was no criticisms and no diversions when I vented. Nor was there any "standard" statements of comfort...

All there was were constant nudgings and full attention, his confidence... and of course some of his initiative ideas that I said thanks, but no to (haha)... The sincere genuineness had its therapeutic effect that helped me stand right back up in a way... Really love (not THAT kind of love) him for that...


The Chimney: My avenue to release. Oh yes, caught in the labryrinth of life's happenings, sometimes, all that is needed is some venting of all those gripes buried deep within and stenched with decompositions. The chimney is essential to carry off all the smog and soot, the grouses and questions.... My thanks to E* for listening to my grievances. There were loads and loads and loads of it, i guess, and i think i was not even quite finished yet... hahaha.

There were attempts to empathise and to share experiences. There were alternative perspectives.There he was, listening even when I don't even think I made any sense, and I was going in my rounds in circles through the night. Nonetheless, there was no impatience, no time limits, no cutting short. For that evening, the person who would sit beside has no TV to distract or snooze to catch up on, or work to complete. I do not believe that he doesn't have things he wanted or needed to catch up on, but I had the privilege of full attention. I was allowed to be seated alongside and go round and round and round (and many, many rounds) on my spins, coughing out the most insignificant grits.

Sometimes, all that is ever needed is someone who'd show some interest. It helped, perhaps, to be able to just be wilfully self-centred for that one moment, and have someone give me some undivided attention. It was emotionally intoxicating, I suppose and I appreciate it...


The Dreamer: ESim* has absolute no idea of what I was going through, or anything that is happening in my life for that matter. It all started with a pretty unexpected dream of his and an email without much content. From there spun exchanges of aspirations and ideals, dreams of desires..... Perhaps it was because he does not know me that well to the extend that there existed any presumptions that might hold back the sharing, or that he probably sees me as just a by-passer who will not judge him, hence, the open outpour of deep-seeded thoughts and perspectives, of failures and of pursuits.

There were sharings of laments... of being already caught where ideals conflict with practicalities and expectations. He too has his ideals (in other aspects), but he was caught on the bare cake with little icing. To expect fairytales to exist in practicality is a high order, he would say. Yet, even with that, he never cast my thoughts as impossibilities. Somehow, his messages had me find some lights of hope glimmers in his kind wish that my pursuit would be a different and fruitful one...


The Chaperon: It is scary to be alone too many a times. Perhaps I cannot bear being alone.. it makes me unsettled and scared. Or perhaps, I just needed to have someone to talk to as I journey... So I actually do appreciate the evenings when I have classes with ALow*, and someone would accompany me in the walk under the dark skies... along the dark roads. I need not be vigilant. I can afford to be careless. I can be in confidence that there is someone on the lookout for me, and pull me back onto the pathway when I stray to the road with oncoming traffic, or when I lose my balance. It just relaxes me....

(Oh yes, thanks to E* too for being the chaperon on one of the days last week too. The offer to carry my little "burden" and the company had me breathe a little easier under the starless night...)


The Angel Stranger: The first time we shook hands, "Angel..." was the first words he sprouted. No, I had not appeared to look like an angel. Apparently, he had just greeted some other person by the name Angeline before he turned my direction, and was probably having some synapses lapse. haha... Anyway, WH* is a stranger. Besides his name (which I hope I remembered correctly for my synapses do not just go on lapses, I suspect they are permanently demaged), I do not know him. He was just some random guy who happened to be sitting beside me for two consecutive sundays in a very big congregational church where different faces are greeted every week.

This sunday was a "prayer and praise" service. A new initiative by the church to give extended time to prayers and songs during the usual worship service. This is the second of such service this year, and having been to the first, I did not quite feel like going for another one. This is because the order of worship in these services will usually have a session called corporate prayer session where the leader would encourage people to pray with the person beside for a few minutes. Those minutes are a dread to me.

Half the time, I will be sandwiched between some lovey-dovey couples or families, feeling super-ultra marginalized. Otherwise, I will be sitting a few seats away from another singleton, acting anti-social. Why? Sometimes, i just don't know how to pray with someone whom I do not know... it somehow feels kinda superficial... or perhaps, i am just a little retard when warming up to people... and most times, if there is any singleton who would try to inch near, it will be some damsel-looking, dewy-eyed girls, expecting me to take intiatives (perhaps cos I look physically bigger.. haha). I guess i can if I want to, but I really do not feel like doing so most times. It just feels so unnecessarily superficial, I'd rather have some quiet time of my own. Ok, so I do know that i should stop being such an awkward porcupine, but.....

Such situations make me quite nervous really. I have even contemplated giving this sunday service a miss by telling myself that I have been to CCF on Saturday already. But well, I went nonetheless.

WH* came in a little late into the service, and took the empty seat beside me. We had a brush the week before when he sat (a seat away) beside me. Having had engaged in some small talks before, I can't say we are familar with each other, but at least, the initial ice had been broken.

When the pastor gave time (as expected) for corporate prayers, we managed to share some exchanges quickly. Both of us were probably not that comfy (singles are somewhat awkward creatures, I suppose), but I guess we take comfort to be able to talk to just another person like every others in the hall. He was sensitive to ask my comfort level, before asking on the things for myself that I'd want to pray for, and we comfortably settled on the group (I suggested) we pray for. There was no qualms too when I asked him to lead in the prayer. I was kinda glad that I can just let the man do it. (Haven't been able to do that for a long time!)

The prayer was natural and not intimidating (in the sense it was not "flowery" or with superfluous pious phrases. I think he prays very much like me, pretty simply, albeit a little better in his thought trend, so the minutes passed like a breeze). It simply covered my needs and his, plus the group that we had agreed to pray for - the GB/BB ministry... and the best thing was that he timed it so well..

When we ended, he lets on that he was in boy's brigade when he was in secondary school... ah.... don't I just love the BB boys.... (taller ones will be even better. hahah...)

A stranger he is, but an angel too. He had rescued me from the discomforts of that few minutes... Thank God!
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The Master Insects just cannot do...

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
~ Robert A. Heinlein ~

I'm glad I do not have to feel inadequate about not being able to claim being a master in anything... Frank Brown heads a top MBA school without a MBA in hand. All it takes are those down-to-earth and unassuming ideals, coupled with a certain steadfastness.

There was a time when my questions were scoffed at, and my why?s were met with expressions of mocking frustrations.. ah well... I stand comforted and glad that I am off being sneered at when throwing questions out of the norm that no professor addresses... and it makes me think... probably... just probably, I may do with someone who would spar with me intellectually without viewing my gonzo questions with contempt...

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Little Girl Blue

Thousand and one things to be done. But don't feel like doing even a single thing.... as if some nerves were wrecked and missing - grouchy, grumpy & blue... ... in need to swing to some Eden new...
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Sometimes, I just wonder if I am Perversely Unyielding or Persistent Resilience...

"Stubborn and ardent clinging to one's opinion is the best proof of stupidity”

Michel de Montaigne

(French Philosopher and Writer. 1533-1592)

"Time has a way of demonstrating that the most stubborn are the most intelligent”

Yevgeny Yevtushenko

(Russian Poet, b.1933)