an entry to step aside from the perils of my emotional well-being to delve into some other stuff that i found interesting this week:

I.
corrie's leaving! so fast! time passes horribly quickly when your guard isn't up. i've hardly kept in contact of late, or even through the year. maybe it's one of those friendships that God makes to explode upon your life and make an irreversible change, then lets it peter off into memory. whatever it is, thank you for everything last year. God bless, and i hope to make it to see you off. have a good flight and enjoy the dream that God's carried you to.

II.
TSD has made me look at moments as 'theatre moments' and see the beauty in those little flashes of life that disappear as soon as they surface. ok, those aren't quite 'theatre moments', more like 'life moments'. before duos yesterday, there was a 'silent' duo preview with harris and imran. more like a duel really. harris taking the run up, bowling a lovely ball and imran hammering it away from the wicket with startling accuracy and force. against the wall, TSDians and albert watching slack-jawed, lining the stairs were students taking photos, videos, and equally in awe. that duel ingrained itself upon my mind as a vivd memory, though i don't quite know why yet. it was beautiful though :)

III.
we're an interesting country, Singapore. i was watching the numerous excavators unearth grass and soil alike with impunity along marina bay and wondering how we're numb to change. tell me a day that you don't see road works on a stretch of road that you distinctly remember being road-worked a year ago. or crane and vehicles tearing into virgin ground, pouring cement and piling metal to build yet another skyscraper, tunnel yet another MRT line. it's not a judgment, merely an observation. perhaps that creates our societal mindset, that everything should be fast, changing and now. perhaps that's why we're never a satisfied lot.

IV.
again, Singapore: why i don't like Singapore history. no, change that; i'm proud of our history as a nation. what i don't like is the spin that national education puts on it and how they drill into us. unknowingly, while everyone laughs NE off cynically, they don't realise how deeply the education has actually worked. we are taught to pride ourselves on our resilience - we bounced back from the japanese occupation, survived the rationing years, pulled through the 1997 economic crisis. we are a resilient nation., we are taught that efficiency is key - we are a small nation, our only resource is our people. we are taught the virtues of meritocracy - it is right to give our best the best, reward those with results. NE teaches us to rely on ourselves, that we can make history, that we create our own destiny. we are gods of our lives, and only by making ourselves tough and strong can we win the rat race that is in every part of life.

rubbish. no nation has crafted its own destiny, and unless Singapore can do that with a lasting impact of centuries, Singapore, too, will fail to do so. history teaches many things. one school of thought is that it is Great Men [and Women] who change the course of history. or maybe, like Marx, history is the result of class change and developments. whatever it is, we are in the hands of forces beyond our control, and relying on ourselves alone is merely going to lead to destruction. of course, i'm going to insist that it is the hand of God that guides this nation, but whether you're religious or not, it's reality, and i'm quite sure i can prove it to you. ok, i've gone roundabout with this thought. it just occured to me today anyway.

V.
"charity starts at home" - those words keep ringing in my ears. that's what this retired teacher at ngee ann primary's student care told me when i told her i wanted to help people. hm. i'll keep with that thought.