Upon watching Up for the seccond time, I’ve decided to follow Carl Fredrickson’s lead and let the past go. A big thank you to all readers for being interested in my mundane life and toolerating mmy weird thoughts.

有缘分，一定有再见面的机会。

— nzj

Yeah~ End of my lab meeting presentation. Think it went okay and I have churned up quite some results to prove that nzj is no slacker. Will not have any other presentations too soon which means Thursday mornings may become slightly less irritating… Excepts for those that has journals to read…

First, the guys, which happens to be my favourite of the two… It’s a mashup of “It’s My Life” by Bon Jovi and “Confessions Part II” by Usher.

And next, the girls: “Halo” by Beyoncé and “Walking on Sunshine” by Katrina and the Waves. The “I can see your halo” action at 1:40 and 1:45 is super amusing… Hur hur~

Can’t wait for the next episode~!

Just in case you are wondering why the students looked so hyper and have their eyes wide open, that’s because Will’s wife Terri took a job as the school nurse (to stop him becoming closer to his female colleague Emma), and gave the students performance enhancing pseudoephedrine (with nervousness and excitability listed as one of the adverse effects of the drug). Oh, she doesn’t have any medical qualifications.

I shall leave all the negative comments about various MediaCorp artistes to myself, but Fen’s item, choreographed by Derrek, was quite well done! Fen was an expert in 抢镜头. He was faking some warm up in the background when the Michelle was interviewing the artistes at the backstage. The four of us at the audience seat couldn’t stop laughing when we saw that telecasted on the projection screen. And apparently the camera man loved him too. I believe he got 5-10 seconds of on screen time when he was the central focus during the performance. Hur hur~ Oh, Yeelian was one of the O School dancers doing the Michael Jackson repertoire and she looked great too. 心机没有那么重，但她跳得很有架势。:)

The dancers and the six of us (including Yuki and her husband-to-be) went to the post performance reception. It was my first time being so close to celebrities: Michelle (who remained beautiful even up close and had the practice of mumbling her scripts several times before she appeared on screen), Gurmit (who could dance surprisingly well), Kim Kym (who is really small and was really friendly to her fans), Nat Ho (who was very soft spoken)… Hur hur~ Saw many youngsters walked to the artistes to request for a photo to be taken with them. 有点心痒痒，但还是跟艺人有点距离感会比较好。哈哈哈…

Random events: 钟情 钟琴 walked past us and said “Hello” in a very soft and cute voice; someone patted Laval’s back and said “Well done!” Also observed that Patricia Mok was pulling Nat Ho everywhere. I would have had some snide remarks about that, but having saw her putting in so much energy into the performance (unlike J*d* S**h who had blank looks on her face from time to time), I thought she could have some fun with him after all.

See… I got evidence of Patricia Mok 死缠烂打-ing Nat Ho! Hahahaha…

Performed some super long (and tedious) experiment on Wednesday until late night. I was playing some games on my iPhone in between the incubation periods when my boss walked into the lab. She said I looked surprised to see her. Actually it was more of embarrassed to be seen playing games. Hur hur~ Didn’t get any nice pictures from this set of experiment too. I got fragmented pieces of cell sheet instead of a continuous one. Didn’t like them at all… Yucks.

I hate Thursday mornings. It’s either lab meeting or journal club from 9.30 a.m. I fear the latter more because that usually mean that I have to spend lots of time digesting dense papers like “Lamellipodial Actin Mechanically Links Myosin Activity with Adhesion-Site Formation” and “Induction of Human Mesenchymal Stem Cells into Dopamine-Producing Cells with Different Differentiation Protocols“ Was scrambling after the journal club to compile all the results for a one-to-one meeting with my boss to update her of my progress. I think it went not too bad… And my boss recommended me to consider taking up part time Master’s degree since the cost would be waived for all staffs. Sounds extremely attractive… (But looks like I’ve missed the deadline for the Jan 2010 intake already. :S)

Friday was a crazy day. I planned to end my day in the office on time but came in a SMS announcing that a corna graft was available for collection at Mount Alvernia Hospital. Why must cornea tissues come in on Fridays?! Having one coming in means that we have to spend hours to process the tissue before the tissue go bad. The good news was that my FYP student would be performing the cell isolation from the tissue; and the bad news was my FYP student would be performing the isolation. I knew how stressful and disorienting it would be to attempt to isolate the cells for the first time. On top of that, my FYP student’s cell type is more difficult to isolate than mine. So I tried my best to help her in the initial preparation and guide her as much as possible. Then came Saturday when I continued with the processing of the cornea tissue for my own experiments. My FYP student came in too to take a look at her isolated cells. They didn’t look good… Yikes~ She left and I watched Grey’s Anatomy, Desperate Housewives, Bleach and Naruto while I processed the tissue. Thank god for piracy~

Sunday was spent working on the lab website which my boss had been asking for weeks. I had been working on the website in my head; I just needed some time to translate the design into an actual site. She needed a very basic version rushed out first and therefore I did what I could do in one Sunday. Now that I look at the screenshot of the site, I think it looked oddly similar to something I’ve done before… Oops…

Well, good news is she came back with “That’s very nice!  =)“, “I really like the design” and “It’s definitely a great start!” Ho, ho, ho… *Pats myself on the back* Did I mention that I’d be paid for designing and maintaining website?!

Am locked out of my office right now (because I didn’t make a copy of the key when I had the chance)… So here’s a compilation of videos that attracted my attention over the week.

CCTV Commercial

Very nice advertisement for CCTV produced by Troublemakers.tv. Love the 水墨画 effect; it reminds me of the how Harry viewed captured memories in this year’s Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Favorite moments goes to all the animation of the human figures.

Single Ladies

Great cover for Beyonce’s Single Ladies by Pomplamoose. Heh~ This apparently is known as a VideoSong, a new medium with 2 rules:

1. What you see is what you hear (no lip-syncing for instruments or voice).
2. If you hear it, at some point you see it (no hidden sounds).

Interesting~ But I was hoping that there were more variations in the VideoSong. Then again, it’s something that I could never accomplish and I am extremely impressed with what they achieved.

Courier

Next is an update to the Microsoft Courier tablet. The user interface has become less futuristic (and more realistic?). For example, the URL bar now uses a GO button instead of a pen gesture to initiate loading of a webpage. Am quite curious to see how well the handwriting recognition works and how the user interface is going to present multiple search results when one searches through all his journal for a rather common keyword. Interesting to note that the pie-shaped menu design is once again used for the color palette.

This is still something that I look forward to its actual product launch.

Flash 10.1

This last bit belongs to the extremely geeky category. Adobe recently unveiled Adobe® Flash® Player 10.1 software with the public developer beta expected to be available later this year. The important bit of this release is that the player will finally be GPU-accelerated. No more high processor cycles when playing YouTube movies — reduced laptop heat and improved laptop battery life. This is extremely useful for my MacBook Pro considering that one of the internal fan is down, and the operating system is advising me to service my battery.

OK… Time to get back to work…

我们星期五无意的碰面。看见你的时候，心里是紧张了一下。但，还好你微笑了。

It was amazing (to me) how quickly we discussed about the elephant in the room, killed it, and moved on to other topics. Not many other people could get me converse and explain my thoughts as easily as you. Especially when it comes to admitting my mistakes, or explaining my dilemma. I even had the guts to comment how you made things about you even though you were not the protagonist of the event.

我其实也很但心不能再与你如常的沟通。

Do continue to be my strictest critic, my strongest confidant, and my cesspool for verbal diarrheas.

She’s my person. If I murdered someone, she’s the person I’d call to help me drag the corpse across the living room floor. She’s my person.

— Sandra Oh as Dr. Cristina Yang, Grey’s Anatomy

I’d probably call you if I murdered someone. Just like how I involved you in my IPPT mess. Hur hur~ It’s comforting to have someone who will help you get out of the muddle before asking any questions.

Grief may be a thing we all have in common, but it looks different on everyone.  It isn’t just death we have to grieve, its life, its loss, its change.  And when we wonder why it has to suck so much some times, has to hurt so bad, the thing we have to remember is it can turn on a dime.  That’s how you stay alive, when it hurts so much you can’t breath, that’s how you survive.  I remember that one day, somehow, and possibly you won’t feel this way, it won’t hurt this much.  Grief comes in its own time for everyone, in its own way.  So the best we can do, best anyone can do, is try for honesty.  The really crappy thing, the very worst part of grief, is that you can’t control it.  The best we can do is to try to let ourselves feel it when it comes.  And let it go when we can.  The very worst part is the minute you think your past it, it starts all over again.  And always, everytime, it takes your breath away.

More quotes from the episode:

According to Elizabeth Kubler Ross, when we are dying or have suffered a catostrophic loss we all move through five distinct stages of grief. We go into denial because the loss is so unthinkable, we can’t imagine it’s true. We become angry with everyone, angry with survivors, angry with ourselves. Then we bargain. We beg, we plead, we offer everything we have. We offer up our souls in exchange for just one more day. When the bargaining has failed, and the anger is too hard to maintain we fall into depression, despair. Until finally we have to accept that we have done everything we can. We let go. We let go and move into acceptance.

One that made my cringe slightly was how one patient described her mother:

She made me from scratch. That’s what she always says. When I wanted to go sky diving, y’know? “Don’t jump out of a plane, Clare, I made your body from scratch!” When I sprained my ankle, “Be more careful, darling, I made that ankle from scratch.”

Sigh~ I know that it’s not easy bringing an attention seeking, cry-during-midnight baby to the “rebellious” university graduate I am now. Every part of me is made from scratch and unceasing love. I should be treating my family better… But…

地球上住着很多人，
有些人我们认识，有些人我们不认识，
『有几个共同朋友』 『要不要加为好友』
熟悉了，亲密了，
然後，等到爱情终结了，
双方又将回到… 陌生的初始状态。
如果就像六度分隔理论说的，
『我与世界上任何一个陌生人的中间距离不会超过六个人!』
真的是这样吗?
穿梭在人群中的你　我　他
没有人能预知，我们明天　还会遇见　谁。

蔡健雅又出新专辑咯～！主打歌之一也是专辑的名称 —《若你碰到他》。

《若你碰到他》

词曲 演唱 制作：蔡健雅

我的脆弱坚强　互相作战
理性与感性失　去平衡感
不想让自己活在过去的遗憾
问宇宙　他是否还爱我吗
这问题　早就有答案

×
若你碰到了　替我问候他
告诉他　我过得很美满
已忘记他　已把泪水全部擦干

若你碰到了　替我问候他
祝福他和他的另一半
不在乎他　不再爱也不再等待

就这样吧　若你碰到他
×

我的自私慷慨　互相挑战
黑夜白天颠倒　造成困扰
常在最乐观时突然跌进沮丧
为何失恋后想恢复那么困难
只好找些催眠的话

爱　没有绝对
虽曾经以为 　我终於体会
爱　不能倒退
该让它颓废　收起心碎

Seems like more companies are willing to take the Apple route, where they design and control the user experience at every level…

Welcome to Microsoft take to tablet computing, take two.

Courier is reported by Gizmodo to be in the “late prototype” stage of development. More:

The dual 7-inch (or so) screens are multitouch, and designed for writing, flicking and drawing with a stylus, in addition to fingers. They’re connected by a hinge that holds a single iPhone-esque home button. Statuses, like wireless signal and battery life, are displayed along the rim of one of the screens. On the back cover is a camera, and it might charge through an inductive pad, like the Palm Touchstone charging dock for Pre.

Technical details seemed rather boring and uninspiring. Take a look at the product video on the different ways you may use Courier.

Things I liked:

• 0:13 — Cross-screen flicking action looks cool and is quite a natural gesture to “throw” information to the other screen. Just wondering if the map will always be shown on the facing screen when I am viewing the list of contacts.
• 0:27 — I know Apple isn’t very keen in using a stylus as a input. However if the sensitivity of the screen is high enough, it could really enable users write thoughts quickly and more naturally. (I can be very old school)
• 0:31 — Flick to flip to a new page~!
• 0:37 — Create a to-do list by drawing a rectangle around some text. Cool~!
• 0:53 — (Seemed-to-be) iPhone inspired single-home-button-on-hardware design.
• 1:37 — A symbol is drawn to represent the Enter key on the URL bar. Interesting that even the user interface has all the “hand-drawn” design elements.
• 1:42 — Love the way items seem to float slightly after you’ve touched and held it to signify that the item has already been selected. Subtle but sufficient.
• 1:48 — Interesting choice of menu design. Reminds me of an article about Mozilla considering using pie-shaped menus to improve the user experience. This clashes a little with the previous selection process where one touched and held one’s finger there. I would prefer to have a uniform interface throughout. But hey, quite an ingenious way to take screen shots.

Ah~ I wonder why the video ended so abruptly. And Microsoft hasn’t release any official announcement on its website too. Am definitely looking forward to the live demonstration~!!! (And Apple, do launch your rumored tablet soon too, please. )

It’s been a while since I’ve the time to sit down and watch trailers. I’m finally not slacking today, just that there are so many one-hour incubation periods that I can do some other stuffs while I wait for my sample to be ready.

This is an adaptation of a 2002 novel by Alice Sebold with the same name. It is the story of a teenage girl who, after being brutally raped and murdered, watches from heaven as her family and friends go on with their lives, while she herself comes to terms with her own death.

Looking forward to Peter Jackson’s interpretation of the world of afterlife. The accompanying soundtrack seemed impressive too. 28 January 2010~!!! (Singapore’s release date is more than one month behind US’s :S)

I think it was quite hardcore of us for all the dancers who went down for the Dance Reflections 2009 combined preview and danced  just three hours before our flight. That was some true professionalism and our dedication~!

.

I slept throughout the flight to Kuala Lumpur. Didn’t even know that our flight was stuck in queue at Changi Airport for take off for an hour and even made a random loop in its flight.

.

First proper meal that I took for the day was the in-flight meal provided by Air Mauritius when we were flying from KL to Mauritius. I didn’t have time to eat breakfast and only ate some snacks that Kit bought at KL International Airport. The meal was abysmal. :S The lump of fish was tougher and dryer than overcooked chicken breast. Imagine that. Then again, I shouldn’t expect too much from Air Mauritius, should I?

.

Oh crap~ We were featured on a local Chinese newspaper?! It reported of delegates from Singapore arriving Mauritius on that very day?! *Sweat*

.

Soupy meal came just in time to satisfy my need for proper food. 好简单的一碗米粉汤，但它又煮得很有家的味道。新加坡怎么吃不到这种佳肴呢？And the self-made ginger paste… Mmm… Warmed me up very nicely. It’s really a pity that we didn’t manage to purchase any of it back to Singapore.

我回来了～

This trip started off just as a mini-project when everything seemed rather uncertain. Then it became more and more painful as the admin work piled up (including the cover page of the programme booklet you see up there). So much so that I was very much drained by the time I was on the flight. Then excitement and nervousness came as we saw profiles of ourselves published in the center fold of a local newspaper.

我们真的有那么大牌吗…

Threw all my concerns away and just focused on dancing and having fun. And I got much more than that. I got to know so many more people better; Talked to some of the dancers more in the seven days than the total amount accumulated since I first met them. And there was quite an amazing good mix of “chakras” — Minimal friction and maximum chemistry. It didn’t matter that we were seeing each other almost everyday before and during the trip.

每个人回来了都在问“下一站去哪里？”

Guess that’s quite a good indication of how we enjoyed each other’s presence.

Sidenote

Very happy to be travelling with several people with an eye for photography~! I’m one who strongly believes in using good photographs to help recall great moments during a trip. There were several “pro-looking” cameras around. These include ZY’s Nikon D40, WD’s Canon PowerShot SX1 IS and HZ’s Panasonic DMC-LX3. A pity that someone didn’t bring the battery charger for a severn-day long trip. YY’s Panasonic DMC-FX38 seemed like a great point and shoot camera too — good burst rates and can capture photos under poor lighting condition fairly nicely. Okay… Time to showcase the best photos taken from the cameras.

ZY’s Nikon D40

FYI, that smiling old man was really chocking me at that moment. HZ happened to be playing around with ZY’s camera and she managed to capture this shot.  Very rich color and has a depth of feel. Hmm~

WD’s Canon PowerShot SX1 IS

This was a much posy shot as compared to the one above. But by framing me in between the trunks/branches made me looked really long. Yeah~! Thanks to WD…

HZ’s Panasonic DMC-LX3

Taken by yours truly. Ho ho ho~ Loved the 晚霞 and the reflections. If only the background is less noisy…

YY’s Panasonic DMC-FX38

This was one of the best point and shoot camera that we had in the group. Would have tired ourselves out trying to capture our jumps if the camera didn’t had a burst mode that captured successive photos fast enough. YY surprised us with another of the camera’s feature during our last day in Mauritius — silhouette mode. And with that we took N photos at the beach, against a fantastic sunset backdrop.

• Flexibility seemed to be the utmost important to me right now. I enjoy the freedom of reporting to work at any time (though I’ve been reporting to work rather timely at 9am daily, almost), going off work on time (to cater to my dance rehearsals), and I don’t mind working in the lab during weekends.
• People at the workplace allows me to enjoy my work there. We all, being engineers, have reduced ability to bitch and backstab. This mirrors my work experience in ST where the engineers were working conscientiously while the sales people and the secretaries created the majority of the drama in the department.
• I like implementing processes and workflow in my workplace. I helped organized a lab orientation for the incoming lab members and I like the idea of putting in a structured system which was never there before; and document events/skills so that the same process may be executed again easily when the day arrives.
• I have limited passion for research. Yixin suggested the possibility of me designing my own research but it didn’t excite me.

Just a little unsure about what I should do at the end of this contract. There’s an opportunity to undergo 15 months of training and attachment at a pharmaceutical facility in the United States of America, and I could choose to stay behind for one more year. Hmm… My only worries is that by being a research assistant, I am not developing the career path that I should be in. Then again, maybe I should be as aggressive as I was when I was doing my FYP.

Oh yar… I also like that I need not be in business attire on a daily basis. Some juniors wondered why I can work in NUS in T-shirts and bermudas. Speaking of encountering friends within NUS, the first questions they always ask are always “Why are you here?” and “Doing PhD?” I don’t mind explaining that I am only working as a Research Assistant but it does get tiresome after I repeat myself several times to different friends. (And neither Research Assistant not R.A. has a nice ring to it. =.=”)

Had a fun day in the lab yesterday when the few of us suddenly thought of conducting our lab meetings and discussions in Mandarin. Terms like 眼角膜 (cornea), 聚二甲基硅氧烷 (polydimethylsiloxane), 细胞外基质 (extracellular matrix) and 脱氧核糖核酸 (DNA) came out (mostly with the help of Google Translate).

Wahaha… Crappy lab jokes.

Another nice song on my replay list these few days. Would usually avoid recommending two songs from the same album but this song caught my attention recently.

词：陈镇川　　曲：阿弟仔

你整齐洁白的床
是我倾诉的地方
抱你哭著到天亮

你等待幸福的厨房
那次情人节晚餐
却是我陪你尝

衣柜不算太宽
藏著你的天堂
依然欢迎我分享

我们的爱很像
都因男人而受伤
却又继续碰撞

*
当天空昏暗　当气温失常
你用巨大的坚强总能抵挡
当尖锐眼光　当刺耳声响
你用彩虹的浪漫温柔包装
*

看我丢掉他的西装　比我先红了眼眶　笑我傻　陪我慌
当我找到幸福去向　帮我快乐的化妆　陪我傻　笑我慌

仔细阅读歌词会发现这首歌的主题是 *ahem*… But still, I like the simple song structure and the bridge portion.

心情不佳，借用好歌调试心情。欸，这次喜欢的歌还好不是太悲哀的。

所有有好嗓子的男生都应用这首歌和女友求婚。（能有一群好友做 background singers 就最好不过了。）条条词句都好有意思，非常喜欢～！

借你一辈子
借你我剩下的日子
答应过你的那些事
请你让我去证实
用你左手的无名指

借你我肩膀　借你温暖
借你美好的时光
借你胸膛　借你疯狂
借你放肆的飞翔

想不想永远留着这些不用问
永远到底有多长
我知道生命太短
所以不要有遗憾
如果你和我一样

时间像个陀螺般旋转
差点把我们的爱打乱
我不要再这样
我(真的)不要再流浪
我真的这么想

这一次我看见了生命的答案
就藏在你身上
让我完整的一半
最甜蜜的负担

*
借你一辈子
借你我剩下的日子
答应过你的那些事
请你(让我)去证实　对天使发誓

借我一辈子
借我你所有的日子
写下两个人的故事
用你左手的无名指
*

我们都曾经在爱里迷失方向
以为独自生活就不会受伤
不受伤　no no no no

我曾经把你错过
我不要把你错过
我认定你
一定会是我最美的结果

给你一辈子
给你我剩下的日子
答应过你的那些事
请你(让我)去证实　对天使发誓

给我一辈子
给我你所有的日子
写下两个人的故事

以前理智的我会坚持等待“天时地利人和”的降临才把心里的话说出口。可是人生其实是蛮短暂的；等着、等着，就可能会失去能相对方表白的机会。若爱身边的人，别在吝啬了；要大方的爱，用言语和行动证明。

一起相处其实不容易，因为从此以后你再也不是为自己做决定了。还有对方种种坏习惯和缺点呢？哇，能享受这过程而把它形容成“最甜蜜的负担”，谁听了都会感动吧～

我会要谁的一辈子？要谁剩下的日子？

I must be crazy to be blogging in my office now. Just got my official desk in the Research Staff Room. Wonder how long will I be at this place. Hmm…

Had practice for Dance Reflections 2009 last evening. Was (surprisingly) selected to dance a duet with Jiawen while the dance master Wang Da does his solo in a segment of NUSCD’s presentation. Didn’t feel the stress of dancing with so little people on the stage already. My only concern was the poor state of my body after not attending technique class for such a long period of time. From the last few choreography sessions, I realize that I’ve not danced so long that the body felt uncomfortable expressing Laoshi’s dance vocabulary. What that was familiar became a foreign language all over again. Worse still, all my previous bad dancing habits came back too. Really got to tune my body once again… With so many other better male dancers around, I couldn’t understand the selection and so I ended up asking Laoshi why I was chosen… Her choice seemed so obvious that even Jiawen who wasn’t around could guess the reason. So I got my queries answered. But secretly, I still dread  having to dance with such a untuned body.

Then the choreography session started. Dancing with Jiawen reminded me of how fantastic/wonderful it is to dance with dedicated and professional dancers like her. It reminded me of dancing with Sophia too. She paid a lot of attention to details and the process helped me pick up the choreography more easily. Lifts that didn’t work became less imperfect, and kinks during the transition moves smoothed out. By the end of the session, I dread this segment no more and looked forward to the next choreography session. Wow…

That’s all the good things I’ve to say. Here comes the nasty portion.

也许我是太执着了。当事情不在于我控制的时候，我会觉得浑身不自在。It has come to my attention that quite a number of dancers around us seriously do not have a basic level of discipline and dedication. And I’m only referring to punctuality and attendance.

迟到的一点歉意也没有。到了，只是“嗨～”的一声，笑眯眯的走进来。
很久以前就安排好的排练日期最后因为太少人到了而被迫取消。

I find these unacceptable because dancers join a production voluntarily. Didn’t we join a production because we love to dance? What happened to the basic courtesy of informing someone that one would be late? I asked around if other dancers noticed this trend happening and realized that I’m not the only one who observed it. But this is a problem with no direct solution. We could only try to appeal to the dancers’ senses and hope that they would do the right thing.

Haiz… Having this happening among my dance friends is very disappointing~ For now I just play my part as a dancer and treasure all the dedicated and professional dancers around.

This number features “If It Kills Me” by Jason Mraz.

If I should be so bold
I’d ask you to hold my heart in your hand
Tell you from the start how I’ve longed to be your man
But I never said a word
I guess I’m gonna miss my chance again

All I really wanna do is love you
A kind much closer than friends use
But I still can’t say it after all we’ve been through
And all I really want from you is to feel me
As the feeling inside keeps building
And I will find a way to you if it kills me
If it kills me
If it kills me
I think it might kill me

And all I really want from you is to feel me
It’s a feeling inside that keeps building
And I will find a way to you if it kills me
If it kills me
If it kills me
It might kill me

Nothing specific to comment about since I love the entire choreography. The only tiny flaw with this dance was I found myself worry about the necklace and probably got slightly distracted. Otherwise, this dance is really nice~

One of the judges commented that this dance was one of the best dance of the season and should be featured in the tour that they would be doing after the entire season. Personally I hope that they do not because the raw emotions that they expressed then might get eroded with each performance… You can’t expect them to kiss with the same passion every time they perform this number right?

This is an expanded version of my previous Tweets. Plus: I need help in brainstorming a way to change this ridiculous ruling.

Was on my way to school last Friday via SMRT and was waiting at the platform when I had this thick phlegm that “bubbled” up my throat out of no where. Had to swallow it back because there was no easy way to dispose of it but that got my throat really uncomfortable. Naturally I took out my bottle of water and drank some water. Then this SMRT lady staff walked to me from behind and started mumbled something.

Oh, I was on my noise-isolating earphones listening to my podcast. I couldn’t hear what she was saying clearly but I guess it was easy for me to guess what it was about.

“But I was really thirsty,” I explained as I removed my earphones.
“If you are thirsty, you should have drank water outside the station, then step into the station. You are not suppose to drink water and I should be recording down you IC number. We are enforcing the law very strictly so please don’t drink water in the station again.”

My, oh my… The lady was really stern when she was talking to me and there was no one bit of hesitation. Even though when you think about it, there’s no proper logic behind the solution she provided. I should probably be grateful that I was only given a warning and not issued a fine, but such interpretation of the law is just too ridiculous for me to swallow. And I was surprised that the SMRT staffs believed that whatever they doing was right.

One possible reason behind this phenomenal could be explained by the Milgram experiment (excerpt from Conscience and Authority):

Subjects in (this) experiment were told that they were going to take part in exercises designed to test other people’s abilities to learn. They were seated at a mock “shock generator” with thirty switches marked from 15 volts (“slight shock”) to 450 volts (“danger–severe shock”). Through a small glass window they could see the “learner” in the adjoining room strapped to a chair with electrodes on his or her wrists. The subject was told he or she was to test the other person’s ability to memorize lists of words, and to administer a “shock” when the learner made the mistake, increasing the intensity each time. As the intensity of the “shocks” grew, and the learner pretended to cry out in more and more pain, eventually fainting, the experimenter told the subjects they had to continue administering the shocks. Astonishingly, although the subjects grew nervous and agitated, more than two-thirds administered the highest level of shocks to the learners when ordered to do so by the experimenter. Milgram concluded that when people are ordered to do something by someone they view in authority, most will obey even when doing so violates their consciences.

In view of Milgram experiment, the actions of the SMRT staffs become easy to understand. The staffs on duty, empowered by the corporation’s (i.e. SMRT) interpretation of the law, believe that they are doing their job by preventing commuters to eat sweets and drink plain water in stations and trains. The corporation’s decisions might go against their judgment, but according to Milgram, authority won more often than not.

Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process.

The sentence might sound too severe when applied in our context, but it does illustrate a problem that majority of Singaporeans are facing.

Ok. I’m sure many people who are aware of this ruling agrees that this is ridiculous and shouldn’t be happening in Singapore. A quick search in Twitter will show how many people have an opinion about this. How can we initiate a change? Any ideas? Maybe we can deliver a belated National Day present to every citizen in Singapore. Leave a comment…

Update: A friend of mine suggested organizing a flash mob at a SMRT station where hundreds of people drink water at a station simultaneously. The idea is simple and could actually be fun. Might not be able to change things immediately, but it’s a great way to attract media’s attention and have a viral spread of the idea~

• SMRT officer fines a lady $30 for eating sweets on the train. I believe somebody does not understand the rationale behind the ban on not eating in stations and trains. Of course, nothing is wrong by doing his work, but sometimes, some intelligence might be helpful.
  • By the way, Mr Roger Foo, Station Master of Yishun, said “If everyone were to say they have to take sweets because they are thirsty or giddy, where are we going to draw a line?” That was just much information. Not that I agree with you giving that lady a summon, but you should just say that she could appeal to LTA if she did not agree with the summon and leave. You earn no extra bonus for being a bastard doing your job blindly you know.
  • Lo and behold~! Earlier on (2:42 onwards), Roger could draw a line~!!! (for a lady who was drinking water for her medication)
  • 500 enforcement officers? Why not employ 1 ISE engineer and try improving the congestion commuters face even during off-peak hours?
• Don’t understand why some commuters can stand on the right side of the elevator and jam up the whole length behind him/her.
  • Been wanting to print some name card size reminders to raise the awareness of the inconvenience that person has caused. But this is on my super low priority list of social experiments.
  • Hong Kong and Beijing didn’t have such problem.
• Don’t like people who refuse to move to the back of the bus or in the middle portion of the train.
  • I’d suggest that you give yourself more breathing room by moving to the back of the bus or the middle portion of the train once you board either congested vehicle. Might need some squeezing, but nobody can fault you for doing the right thing.
• People who have loud ringtones or likes to share their music taste with the world by playing their music collection loud are why handphone manufacturers should not add loud speakers to their phones.
  • This is not allowed in Canada. At least the playing music loudly part.
• Smokers who think they are smart in smoking right next to the bus stops are just inconsiderate and selfish brats who wants the world to die with them.
  • We should further increase the smoke-free area and ban smoking at a 5 meter distance away from any smoke-free area. Such is implemented in Canada where no one is to smoke at a specific distance from the entrance of a building.

I would definitely laugh my head off if the first news happened in other countries. Feel so ashamed that we have such mindless things happening… Food for thought: Beijing and Shanghai have no such implementation, and don’t even have signs for no drinking and eating. Yet, their stations and trains are really clean. Is this a sign that they citizens are cultured enough already, or are there a huge team of cleaners on standby to clean up everybody’s mess? I personally vote for the former.

The Olympic event really improved the country a whole lot.

Sydney AFP (Tue Jul 14) – Australia ordered 21 million courses of H1N1 vaccine yesterday – enough to cover the country’s entire population – as the World Health Organization (WHO) warned that the pandemic was “unstoppable”.

Way to go Australia~! Wait a minute, I didn’t know that vaccines can be pushed out for mass production so quickly. What about the clinical trials necessarily to ensure that the vaccine is effective with well documented side effects?

With the global death toll from A(H1N1) now reaching at least 429, WHO director of vaccine research Marie-Paul Kieny said Monday (Jul 13) that a swine flu vaccine should be available as early as September.

Okay… This could be a possible source of confusion to the general public. I don’t understand why Marie-Paul Kiney would announce such optimistic estimates. Fortunately her boss provided more information two days later (bolded emphasis mine).

London AFP (Wed Jul 15) – Chan told the Guardian newspaper that a vaccine would not be available for several months, despite statements from health officials here that the first stocks would start arriving in August.

“There’s no vaccine. One should be available soon, in August. But having a vaccine available is not the same as having a vaccine that has proven safe,” WHO director general Chan said in an interview with the newspaper.

Oh~ So it was just a statement that an untested vaccine would be made available as early as September… But has everybody forgot about the 1976 swine flu vaccine complications (Guillain-Barré syndrome) experienced in the United States?

Time.com – Concerned that the U.S. was on the verge of a devastating epidemic, President Gerald Ford ordered a nationwide vaccination program at a cost of $135 million (some $500 million in today’s money). Within weeks, reports surfaced of people developing Guillain-Barré syndrome, a paralyzing nerve disease that can be caused by the vaccine. By April, more than 30 people had died of the condition. Facing protests, federal officials abruptly canceled the program on Dec. 16. The epidemic failed to materialize.

Sure, WHO had officially declared a swine flu pandemic. However, it is also important to remember that the flu is not more deadly now that it has been declared a pandemic. Rather, the announcement reflects the global spread of the disease, not an increase in its severity. Based on the 17 deaths in Britain after contracting H1N1, with nearly 10 000 confirmed to be carrying the virus, the recovery rate after contracting H1N1 stands at 99.8%. And it is important to highlight that some of the victims were diagnosed to have died of other causes other than swine flu after conducting post-mortem.

Update: Straits Times just published a Breaking News story (sgclub link if Straits Times remove this story from their server) as I finish this blog draft. I have to say that I am very satisfied with MOH’s decision. The story happens to cover a lot of what I’ve written. Haha… But I personally don’t believe that there’s a need to “order enough H1N1 vaccine for the entire population.”

Other Thoughts

Am also really surprised in the rush of various governments to vaccinate their entire population from this flu, which could eventually be happening as regularly as common flu. One sentence in the news report that irked me:

A group of vaccination experts had concluded that “the H1N1 pandemic is unstoppable and therefore all countries would need to have access to vaccines,” she said at WHO headquarters in Geneva.

Call me a conspiracy theorist but I wonder if the vaccination experts with possible links to the pharmaceutical companies are so enthusiastic about vaccination because of some possible monetary benefits. I could imagine myself laughing to the bank if I am one of the appointed companies to manufacture the vaccine.

One last rant. Despite being wary about the effectiveness of the vaccine, I am personally disappointed that Singapore is not listed as one of the countries involved in the mass production of the vaccine. We should seriously invest some financial resources in tapping this gold pot.

WHO – Close to 90% of the global (production) capacity today is located in Europe and North America, with further significant manufacturing capacity in Australia and Japan. However, during the past five years, six manufacturers in developing countries have begun to acquire the technology to produce influenza vaccines and have received technical and financial support from WHO.

作词∶吴青峰　作曲∶吴青峰

心疼的玫瑰半夜还开著
找不到匆匆掉落的花蕊
回到现场却已来不及
等待任何回音都不可得

微弱的风筝冬天里飘著
回不去手中缠线的那个
没有蓝天又何必去飞怎么适合

*
黑色笑靥掉了雪白眼泪掉了
该出现的所有表情瞬间掉了
瞳孔没有颜色 结了冰的长河
回忆是最可怕的敌人

故事情节掉了　主角对白掉了
该属于剧中的对脚戏也掉了
胸口没有快乐　断了翅的白鸽
不枯萎的藉口全掉了
*

曾经唱过的歌　分享过的笑声
在心中不断拉扯
想念不能承认　偷偷擦去泪痕
冬天过了还是会很冷

Very uninspiring~ Very unrepresentative of Singapore except for the stars. And I don’t understand the brush stroke effect that they apply to the blue star and the green ball. Complicates the logo further and the effect does not translate well when the logo scales down to smaller sizes. And the official text didn’t explain the significance of the red sun and the green ball. Queer~ Alrighty, here’s the official text from the organizer:

The highly vibrant and energised star symbol is a unique combination of two overlapping and complimentary starbursts. This visual closeness of two stars that merge into one reflects the strong ties that have bonded over the years amongst the Asian countries for this international sporting event.

The star also symbolises the excellence each participating sportsman and sportswoman brings, and we salute their sportsmanship with a blue-green athlete embedded within the star symbol. A synergy of dynamic colour palette highlights the diverse participating Asian nations that come together in celebration of youth, sports and friendship.

Next is the mascot, Frasia.

The mascot looks rather decent in drawing but does not translate well into the real life form. It looks hideous~ His golden mane had a great reduction in fluff and volume. One other complain that I have about the mascot is that it has no visual relation to the games logo other than the logo on the t-shirt that it is wearing.

Moving on, the games icons…

Once again, the game icon designs have nothing in relation to the games logo. And what’s with using a sail boat to represent sailing? No consistency at all… Oh, and football looked like athletics. And diving looked like gymnastics. Yeah, you get my drift~

Am a little worried about the standard of the games and how the first Youth Olympics will turn out. Here’s hoping that the organizers learn and document down the lessons they’ve learnt and improve the standards of the games.

One more thing… Frasia has a few signature pose~! One that I could not understand is the one below which is suppose to represent “Excellence”.

Frasia dances and raises both arms, and flashes a victory hand sign in the spirit of true sportsman excellence.

*Yucks*

First i have to say that Nzj was deeply affected (Editor/nzj: Where got~!?) that the first show was cancelled! we still hung around for quite a bit even after they said “yi jing qu xiao le” several times… We both left disappointed but i suddenly remembered that our flight was late in the afternoon and after consulting with Nzj for a bit we managed to confirm that our flight was indeed in the afternoon and we could still catch the 10am show on the following day! Yays!

The plan was to rush down by cab by 930am, watch the show which starts at 10am till abt hopefully 11.30am then rush back by cab to the apartment get our luggage and rush to the aiport by 12.30pm to catch our plane at 1.30pm!

So to comment on this event, my main contribution was to get me, nzj and my aunt (who currently resides in Spain) to get into the performance venue! which i did! Mwahahaha!

We got there abt 30mins before the performance was set to start but there was a huge group of dance students crowding around the door already! As i peeked in, saw that most of the seats were taken except for the first two rows. There was a lady at the door who seemed to be the one in charge of the performance and she was telling the students to let the teachers in first… all said in chinese and too fast for me to understand so Nzj promptly translated to me.

After a quick consultation with Nzj, we decided that i will use my very proficient english and “very good” mandarin to help us get in! So i started questioning the girls at the door in english, getting them confused and getting their eyeballs big…then i started to talk to the lady in charge also. She didn’t understand me at all and ignored me! Urghs! And still said to let the teachers in first.

So i changed tactic and started speaking my “very good” mandarin to her! “Err dui bu qi wo men shi mao li qiu si, xi ban ya he xin jia bo lai de, xiang kan ni men de yan chu, shang ci lai le ke shi mei you biao yan! suo yi wo men jin tian you xia lai le, wo men ke yi jin qu kan ma?” She looked super stunned and started murmuring to herself, then she started saying, still murmuring “na wo ying gai rang ni men xian jin qu ba”! YES! Victory! Mwahahaha! And true enough we were let in before all the young punks outside the door and led to the VIP seats! Hoo Hoo!

Oh forgot to say in between she mistook my aunt for one of the teachers there! haha! Maybe we all looked too hip and happening among them! haha.. So then we got very good seats to enjoy the perf! the only perks we didn’t get to enjoy was the free mineral water offered to the teachers in front…damnz….

During the performance i keep looking at the time scared that they will overrun and we will miss our flight! I keep mumbling that they should hurry up and get the exercises done with and proceed on with the dance items!!! All the while i will mumble, Nzj will give me dirty looks…Yucks! (nzj: ???!!! What dirty looks?!) Totally in no hurry to catch the plane… Fortunately the solos were quite short and i could enjoy the rest of the performance in peace.

Anyway enjoy the short clips that we managed to illegally video down!

Fen

Editors’ Words

Well… We did eventually reach the airport on time… Fortunately we checked in online on the night before (using the CMI internet access in my Beijing accommodation) and we only need to reach the airport one hour before our flight took off. We rushed to the airport and reached the check in counter five minutes before the end of the stipulated timing. *Phew* Fen’s sister and her boyfriend was there with us to make sure that we were off to Hong Kong for good. (That’s what she said~)

Then after some fake-ly cold goodbyes between the siblings and photo taking, we were off to Hong Kong — the land of super nice baked rice.

Posts of my trip will be location-/venue-based rather than the usual chronological order. This allows me to collate activities spanned across several days and list the most exciting/happening ones on top. Just like this one below.

As a Chinese Dance dancer, one must visit 北京舞蹈学院 a.k.a. Beijing Dance Academy if one is in Beijing. Otherwise the trip will be totally wasted. Mothership of Chinese Dance that produced all the Ding Hongs and Zhou Leis lei~!

So Fen and myself went down excitedly to the academy, and we saw this poster…

Wow… Graduation exhibition for dancers who took the performance profession in the classical dance faculty?! This is a performance not to be missed~!!! (Especially after our failed attempts to search for dance performances in both Shanghai and Beijing.) There were two performance timings. We went down to the first one only to be told that the performance was cancelled due to the absence of the pianist. We went down again at 10am for the second run (which happened to be our flight day too) only to find out that the venue was already full.

Cue Fen’s broken Mandarin (more on this in a separate guest post). We, one from Mauritius, one from Singapore and one from Spain, were finally seated on VIP seats.

The exhibition was fantastic. I was very 激动 during the last item, the 特殊技巧组合. I was totally mentally prepared to miss the flight to watch the performance in whole. 原来基本公也可以很好看～

Okay… Here we go. Be prepared for a whole chunk of dance below.

第一部分、基训课教材

• This was the opening to the exhibition. And was followed by 舞姿辗转组合.
• The girl in the front row and has bandage on her left hand is one of the best dancers. Her face emotes constantly, and was nicknamed “emo girl”.

• This was taken over various sections: 控制、踢腿、旋转、翻身、跳跃。
• The guy at the front of the triangle right at the beginning of the video is one of the best dancers.
• 0:18 – When can I ever do this 控腿 and change from 勾脚 to 蹦脚? ;(
• 0:33 – Aiya~ How can their 控腿 be so high even when they change from 后腿 to 前腿? ;(
• 0:41 – Looking upwards is one of the new directions that I noticed them doing which I rarely do…
• 1:25 – Notice them looking upwards again?
• 2:33 – There was a minor mishap where the dancers’ hands hit. That was the moment when one of the teachers attempted to stop us from filming the exhibition. Erm… Should have more confidence in the standard of her dancers right? That minor accident didn’t affect the standard of the performance lei~
• 2:57 – It was a long while later when I thought the exhibition was too nice to not record down the moves. And so I activated my camera and resumed video taking…

第二部分、个人组合展示

• Emo girl’s solo~! It’s a pity that my camera couldn’t capture her facial expressions clearly.
• 1:50 – Impressive~! But no beauty at all lei~

• The only thing I remembered about this dance is that the dancer had a different finger expression for each move she had. She was practically dancing with her entire body.

• Fen captured this video.
• The most zai male dancer~! Very sharp dancer with extremely good technique and core control. *Drool*
• 0:57 – SUPERB MOVE~!!!
• 1:19 –  Did a freeze frame of his front split jump and it looked horribly good. *Jealous*

• Fen captured this video.
• 1:06 – He did the superb move too. Just not as superb as the most zai male dancer.

第三部分、特殊技巧组合

My translation for Fen for this section was “Special Skills Exhibition”. I thought they were going to show some unique skills like maybe the ability of their tongue to touch their elbow. (No… Don’t start trying that now…) Little did I know…

• 0:34 – This is the second most zai male dancer~
• 0:54 – Once again, the dancer had different finger expressions for each turn. Quite a huge vocabulary that we seem to be missing…
• 1:43 – The constantly low spinning move is nice~!
• 2:26 – The most zai male dancer returns to show off all the variations you can do while doing turns! Whoo~!
• 2:36 – The guy flipping around the circumference has his hands touching the floor. Quite a unique move~
• 3:25 – I was really that close to tearing at this moment and my hands were trembling…
• 3:34 – A very Ding Hong move~

Whoa~ That’s all. It’s a pity that these video is only 30% of the whole exhibition. Must go Beijing Dance Academy and crash any of their class performance ok!!!

Here’s more information about the Chinese Classical Dance Course extracted from the programme sheet.

中国古典舞基本公训练课程，是古典舞重要的专业课程，通过基本公教学确立了自己在训练功能上的优势，特别为优秀表演人才的培养，奠定了重要的专业基础。训练体系是一个不断完善和实践的工作，古典舞的训练如何更好的体现身体文化形态所需要的动作风格属性与特征、技术特征与方法，通过不同班级的实践来完善训练体系的建设。

This is a three year course, with fourteen female dancers and twelve male dancers. Some dancers were absent in the exhibition above due to injuries incurred during the preparation. And so here are the dancers:

Good dancers anyhow pose also look good~