Tranqulity Gold v8

Monday, April 30, 2007

Today is my 21st birthday! However it was less than ideal, I was woken up rudely last night by a thunderstorm, and today had to get up early to go to camp because we were activated to do some stupid fatigue work. Why the hell can't they activate others who are still in camp? Why must they deliberately call us back when they obviously know we were on leave today? We had to clear props because of the NS40 exhibition, of all the thousands of other men available, they must call us..

After the whole thing, which ended at about 11.30am, everyone just left and I had to navigate my way out of the mess. Luckily I was driving or else I would have been wasting more time taking public transport. My other plans had to be scrapped because of this unexpected situation. Wasn't very happy, wasn't a 21st supposed to be all bed and roses and people blowing confetti the moment you wake up? But alas, everyone's at work or at school or... just plainly forgotten about me..

But later I met up with some friends in m'sia and the guys celebrated my birthday with a coffee birthday cake =) Chilled a little around before heading home.

So far I've received very nice heartfelt messages from pals and friends alike with good wishes, but it's unpleasant to note that some of my friends whom I considered as close friends seemed to have completely forgotten my own birthday! Sad.. Some kind of birthday huh.. Not even a message or a phone call. Am I asking for too much?

Some kind of 21st…

6:31 PM

Sunday, April 29, 2007

A Day of fine dining

After church, I drove us to Great World City, where it was an impulse decision to celebrate an early mother's day lunch by dining at Crystal Jade Kitchen! We had a very sumptuous Cantonese lunch followed by a walk around the shopping centre. I bought a new rubber grip for my tennis racket, dad got himself 3 nice bottles of champagne and wine at the Oak Cellar. Amounting to over a $150 for the bottles.

The Oak Cellar at Great World City

A nice 1999 Moet and Chandon Chardonnay, a 1999 Bordeaux Chateau Cabernet Sauvignon and a 1999 Chateau Brannieu Blanc.

At night, I celebrated an early birthday dinner at Capella, Chijmes. The occasion? My 21st birthday! And I chose this exquisite restaurant to indulge in some very nice fine dining. It's a rare occasion and one that I intend to savor every moment of. It was a rather expensive Italian restaurant and we ordered a delectable selection of meats, seafood, pastas and desserts. It was a very luxurious gastronomic experience!

Garlic Bread appetizer

Wild mushroom soup

Tiramisu cake

A nice raspberry sorbet to sum up the night.

The food was nice, the ambience was very sensual and pleasant, and the most expensive meal I've ever consumed and I enjoyed every morsel of it.

6:20 AM

Saturday, April 28, 2007

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

Quite interesting, get your own!

5:48 AM

Friday, April 27, 2007

The dawn of the weekend signifies that we have finally finished our SUMMEX! It's the end of all the tough physical activities that we've been subjected to, and now that we've finished our Summary Exercise, Commissioning feels all the more closer.

Whilst you were all at home probably chatting on the computer, pouring over notes or textbooks in a nice warm house with a warm drink and proper lighting while the thunderstorm raged outside during Wednesday and Thursday. I was out there, braving the storm, I spent those days and nights, somewhere in Singapore huddled under the unrelenting frigid thunderstorm shivering in my armored vehicle for the exercise. I squelched in wet mud with water soaking into my boots, and ate muck-paste combat rations outfield. All to protect the skies of our nation from hostile aircraft and to protect the sovereignty of our nation. It's because of us that's the reason why Singapore sleeps peacefully.

5:42 AM

Sunday, April 22, 2007

Then I was thinking about all the pointless stuff in this world, why do I spend so many hours on things that meant absolutely nothing to me personally? So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they're busy doing things they think are important. This is because they are chasing the wrong things.

The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning. I've always wanted to do volunteer work or help some unfortunate children earning that sense of purpose that I am helping my community. But now I am turning not getting any younger, what is the point of doing all that? But I do want to get about doing one day, maybe after I have finished my education path. Then the next more logical step is to devote time into building relationships that I hold most dear.

Singapore is building a new Ferris wheel that is slowly taking shape every time I see it, people scrambling for units at Sentosa Cove, Reflections at Keppel Bay, the economy, murders and crime, the debate over Ministers pay raise. The newspapers seem to be always filled with news that have no direct impact or issue with our everyday lives yet people are always so mesmerized by it.

News of new property. Why can't we simply be Singapore? Chase for super-structures and marquee events shows Lion City's lack of confidence. Unless you've been living under a rock, you know there are grand plans in the pipeline for this tiny country.

From Formula 1 to integrated resorts, from skyscrapers designed by architects like Daniel Libeskind to plans to join the upper ranks of the First World list, Singapore seems to be embarking on a massive rebranding.

We aim to be Asia's raciest, sexiest and most happening city, The Capital of Cool in other words.

As if to endorse our efforts, earlier this year, Singapore was ranked No.2 after Italy for it's nightlife and dining in The Global Country Brand Index, which is based on a poll of more than 1,500 travelers and experts.

This would seem to suggest we are close to realizing the dream. But here's the beef: Why do we need to be told what we already know: That Singapore isn't half as boring as it is made out to be? Why do we need to appear on such surveys, enlist brand name foreign architects and describe ourselves as the New York, Paris or Monaco of Asia in order to feel that we're up to scratch in the coolness stakes?

What's wrong with simply wanting to be a better Singapore?

Sure, we need headline-grabbing physical structures and income-generating events – the must-haves for any aspiring world-class city. But they're just the tip of the iceberg of cool, not substitutes for what truly defines a cool city, which is it's soul. Soul, like hip and cool, is hard to define but it's for precisely this reason that nascent world-class cities such as Singapore prize their cachet.

Of course, some would argue that Paris wouldn't be Paris without the Eiffel Tower, but famous landmarks alone don't earn a city a spot on the “cool” radar. And it's likely that Parisians couldn't care less if they aren't on any list of what's hip or cool: They're too comfortable in their own skin to give a damn.

Right now, we seem to be in the process of creating a Singapore with all the physical form and feel of the First World. But scratch that glossy veneer and the reality is far different. By relentlessly chasing after super-structures and mega-profile events, we seem to be over-compensating for a lack of confidence in how cool we are already.

Obviously, this little red dot has a long way to go in developing the soul and spirit to match London or New York. And until we do so, our definition of hip and cool can only be confined to one-dimensional physical structures..

Will the opening of the Singapore Flyer mean we're world class?

The culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves, people are unhappy, the culture is teaching all the wrong things. I myself am feeling unhappy.

So why am I unhappy? Recently all that I've been bothered with was to keep my head above the choppy waters in my national service, it wasn't until recently that I refreshed myself and caught up with the events and lives of the people whom I socially interacted with. I read about all their new achievements that they've recently managed to acquire. I read about all the achievements that others that I know of are getting. Others who are achieving more than me while I mellowed in camp.

Others seem more successful, others seem more happy, others have more. I read about others going overseas for month-long attachment stints, visiting all the exotic places in that country, I read about friends going to the states to study and having a lot of fun there, experiencing a new culture and environment. Could this be the sentiment feelings of envy? Others seem to have caught up with the work that I've put in before. What can I do to set myself apart again?

I had juniors, but now they've caught up. I must really work to distinguish myself apart from the pack again. That is a very solid decision that I've decided what I must do. I cannot remain stagnant like this forever.

5:21 AM

Saturday, April 21, 2007

Played tennis for 2 solid hours today to relief some tension. Somehow I have been feeling gradually lower and moody these few days. What's happening? I have an inkling I know what's bothering me. But why is it bothering me? Why now?

No matter how I exerted myself today physically, there was still something missing, there was something nagging at the back of my mind telling me I am missing something. Why do I feel down?

1:30 AM

Friday, April 20, 2007

After a seemingly really long week at camp because all we did was study feverishly for our last 4 exams, now today it's finally over! We finished our last 2 papers today and immediately after we booked out, I went to SLS immediately and bought a new Sony DVD-writer drive on impulse.

The training at AFS is soon coming to an end. 3 more weeks in AFS, we have our upcoming Summex soon, an IPPT final test the week after that and our last week will be our COT (Combined Officer's Training) where we'll be joined by the pilots and C3s before heading back to OCS.

1:25 AM

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

The problem with Envy

With the rich getting richer, what does one do when envy strikes?

Is it just me, or do you also feel a sense of disquiet creeping up on you whenever you read the newspapers these days?

In particular, stories about the red-hot property market and how swanky apartments - with price tags to match are being snapped up left, right and centre and stories about people earning mind-blowing sums of $5 million a year?

Do these stories make you a little unhappy with your own life? Do they leave you with niggling feelings of being left out of the party, of the champagne bypassing you?

Oh, don't shoot the messenger. Newspapers are merely reporting what's happening out there, and in all probability, the stories are just the tip of the iceberg.

Actually, what's happening in Singapore - to Singapore is a good thing, when has there been another period where there's been so much buoyancy, so much optimism and anticipation, about the country?

The tide turned when the okay was given for the integrated resorts. Imagine not one buy two casinos being allowed in famously constrained Singapore. Imagine the anticipation of the new Ferris Wheel being constructed right before your very eyes everytime you drive pass the Benjamin Sheres Bridge.

With the IRs come not just high-class gambling like the sort you see in Las Vegas but also an Art-Science museum in Marina Bay and a Universal Studios theme park in Sentosa. And it's all just two, three years away.

Then came the property boom, and what a boom this time around. Singapore has never seen apartments this luxe being launched, and with price tags that were unthinkable just a year ago.

New pricing benchmarks are set every other week. The current record? The Orchard Residences where the smallest unit - 1,800 sq ft - sold for at least $7.2 million. A 53rd storey penthouse was reportedly snapped up by a Singaporean businessman for more than $17 million.

Then came news that Singapore might host the Formula One Grand Prix and that one blew everyone away. If it materializes, no one can ever say that Singapore isn't one hot city.

Picture the circus that will roll into town every year. Imagine the maniacal drone of cars in the old city Hall area, Kimi Raikkonen in his Ferrari streaking past the Esplanade, good ole Merlion spouting water in the distance, the Singapore River shimmering behind.

Singapore will not just the Paris and Las Vegas of South-East Asia, but Monaco thrown in too and everyone will get to feast on the spoils. It's a vision that makes you glad you are Singaporean and which makes you wish you were 20 years younger so you can be a big part of the future.

It's also a vision that causes envy. The disquiet I feel when I read such stories is part fear, part envy. The fear comes from being worried that in this brave new world that will be Singapore; I will be left out and priced out.

And if I.. presumably attuned to change - am feeling this way, what about others around me?

Take property for example, with prices headed north, there's no way in this lifetime I'll ever get to live in a prime or near-prime district. I live in unfashionable public housing, in the same house for many years.

Save for my tech-toys, I live in rather mundane conditions by today's standards where chandeliers in living rooms are de rigueur, and I still use fluorescent lights at home.

Still living with my parents, one day I have to get a house to call my own.

Then what? Where can I uproot to? What can I afford then? With property priced so ridiculously high, will I have to settle for something sad in my old age?

It's a though that worries me and makes me unhappy.

Or take jobs and salaries. While the my chosen profession of Engineering in the near future will never pay as much as law or accountancy, I've always thought of it a decent enough pay-master. Decent, that is, until I read about how others are earning so much more.

Which makes me wonder why I’m not up there too? Is it for lack of intelligence, ability or opportunity? Lack of ambition, energy or drive? Lack of a mentor? Why are others more able and also luckier than me?

Self-doubt - Oh, let's be honest now and call it what it really is, which is envy - isn't a good feeling.

Aristotle described envy as pain at the good fortune of others. Immanuel Kant called it a propensity to view the well-being of others with distress, even though it does not detract from one's own.

Envy is different from jealousy in that jealousy involves three parties (the subject, the rival and the beloved), while envy is between two (you and the object of your envy). Envy as a moral ill pales in comparison to killing, stealing and lying. There's also benign envy, which is akin to grudging admiration, and the more malicious form where you have dark thoughts.

But whatever its definitions or place in the list of deadly sins, it is a sour, soul-destroying emotion. It corrodes your spirit, sets you against the world and shakes your sense of worth.

It is also a waste of time because really, comparing and worrying about other's success serves no purpose other than to cause you stress. Others earning more do not make you earn less, does it?

Last week, while mulling over this topic, I read an extract from a book titled Letter to a Great Grandson. It contains life's lessons which American TV host Hugh Downs has penned in 2002 when his great-grandson was born.

In it, Downs, now 86, says that "success" in life is "a matter of adjustment".

"If you fall short of a goal, but realize along the way that there are other valuable goals and are flexible enough to shift to better ones, you will also be successful."

"If the values you cherish have evolved only from the short-term, the selfish, the hedonistic, the frivolous, your success will not be genuine."

"Values that allow and encourage commitment and the desire to contribute to others, produce some enlightenment and ratchet the community one notch higher in quality of life are the ones that will undergird success of the kind you want."

So as Singapore enters its next phase and becomes a very successful and splendid city of casinos and penthouses and rich, beautiful folk flocking to our shores, people like me will watch, partake of what they can offer and savor the riches on show.

It will hit me hard that some things will always be beyond my reach. If I can accept that, and my lot in life, I will be happy. If not, envy will breed and bitterness festers.

The choice is really ours to make.

12:08 AM

Sunday, April 15, 2007

I finally had the chance to book out again, weekends are a standard affair. I've been spending the week thinking, just thinking. Thinking about all the issues in the world, thinking about my interests, my goals, my dreams, my desires, my wishes, thinking how staying in camp shields my eyes from the outside world temporarily. Every weekend I read about issues that people devote themselves to the dramas of other's.

Singapore is building a new ferris wheel that is slowly taking shape every time I see it, people scrambling for units at Sentosa Cove, Reflections at Keppel Bay, the economy, murders and crime, the debate over Ministers pay raise.

So what is really important? I leave AFS in 3 weeks to return back to SAFTI OCS for my comissioning parade. That will be an event to look forward to. After 9 months of OCS training, am I finally ready to become an Officer of the Singapore Armed forces?

The next 2 weeks will be the cumulative, the cumulation of all our training set into 2 weeks of grueling tests and a full-week of Outfield Deployment. 2 more weeks to test our mettle and worth. I believe I am ready, and the next two weeks will take every ounce of energy, patience and willpower that I can muster... We will see how I emerge from then.

I managed to catch a movie, SHOOTER.

"Shooter" is an action-packed thriller starring Mark Wahlberg as Bob Lee Swagger, a former Army sniper who leaves the military after a mission goes bad. After he is reluctantly pressed back into service, Swagger is double-crossed again. With two bullets in him and the subject of a nationwide manhunt, Swagger begins his revenge, which will take down the most powerful people in the country.

Considering all the military and action-thrillers that I have watched so far, this is a sub-standard movie. If you liked "The Bourne Supremacy" or "The Bourne Identity", you will probably like this movie. Other than that, the plot development is rushed and poorly developed, action scenes are not refreshing, just another hollywood bang-bang explosion galore movie. Ending was cliched too.

2.5/5

I came across this video while browsing youtube, I know we've all seen countless of MAC Vs PC videos, but with the launch of Vista, I can't help but relate this video clip to the new Microsoft OS Vista! =D

2:14 AM

Saturday, April 07, 2007

Last night I spent the whole night doing the video editing for the my course video and I've made significant progress, it's my first time using the Ulead Videostudio Pro 11 and I must say it's really easy to use, I am avoiding using the Windows Movie Maker because it makes the videos really amateurish, and Adobe Aftereffects seemed a little too complicated to use and learn in such a short time. I've already finished 4 minutes of the video and making good progress after 10 hours of work.

Later I watched "Sunshine" with dad. Synopsis, Fifty years from now, the sun is dying, and mankind is dying with it. Our last hope: a spaceship and a crew of eight men and women. They carry a device which will breathe new life into the star. But deep into their voyage, out of radio contact with Earth, their mission is starting to unravel. There is an accident, a fatal mistake, and a distress beacon from a spaceship that disappeared seven years earlier. Soon the crew is fighting not only for their lives, but their sanity.

I liked the show, but i couldn't give it 4/5 because the movie ended poorly, if the ending was better developed, and if the characters didn't die in such a cliched manner it would have been better. Special Effects were top-notch, standard Hollywood stuff.

This movie is not for nitpickers or physicist. The plot outline (i.e. detonating a "stellar bomb" inside the sun) sounds ludicrous at first - but if you're able to ignore this and some other scientific nonsense, you get one great movie.

Apparently Sunshine can't deny the influences from 2001 or Event Horizon, nevertheless it should be treated as an independent film. The movie reminded me alot from Event Horizon, another psychological-horror thriller in space about another sci-fi (black-hole engine). And in the case of "sunshine", the sun is dying and the crew are going to detonate a "stellar" bomb the size of Manhatten to "restart" the sun. Reminds you of "The Core" ?

The actors weren't too bad themselves, plot development could have been better. I particularly liked the accurate representations of the spacecraft, Oxygen room, a sensory room, gold-shields to shield from the sun. Accurate spacesuits with gold-foil... But several other scientific inaccuracies, otherwise great entertainment!

3.5/5

2:53 AM