One of my favourite chinese songs of recent times!

so much for a running shoe

I finally bought my running shoes today! Saucony Progrid Trigon 5 Guide...


...after 4 months!


Ok, here's the story: I decided on this brand and model mainly because it is one of the selected ones that the VJ PE department is selling, and at a much affordable price than outside. So I told this PE teacher the model of shoes that I wanted to order, with high hopes that I would actually get to save up quite abit. BUT THEN, time and again, when I nudged her about how my order is coming along, she's either saying that the supplier has no stock of this model or the model has been missed.

There was once when she informed me that the shoe has arrived. So with much delight, I went down to VJ on a weekday to make the payment and collect the shoes. To my horror, she showed me a Saucony Phoenix, which was entirely different from what I ordered! And she could even say, 'why don't you try this model? it's better than guide', when I had repeatedly told her that I only wanted the trigon 5 guide shoe and nothing else. I was thinking, how could a teacher be so careless and indifferent to others. Holding back my anger, I subsequently told her to cancel the order and that I might as well buy it outside. In crude words, I was telling her to 'forget it'.

I went back to the same shop at Queensway that I had been to 4 months earlier, and to my pleasure, learned that the price had dropped from around $115 to $97. They were also clearing all the saucony shoes, which I thought was a great opportunity to bargain.
Eventually, I got the shoes at $95, finally.


...FINALLY!

a peep into my future

I had a wonderful opportunity of being attached to Bedok Police Division as part my entire police internship. My National Service was in the Police, but never once was I attached to a land division, or had any real chance to see how things function there. Until now.

I had a peep into what I will be doing in 5 to 6 years' time. After my studies, I would have to start serving my scholarship bond for 4 years, which begins with a 9 months residential training at the nostalgic Home Team Academy. The first posting after passing out as a senior officer is always as an investigation officer, a posting which is compulsory in the route map of senior officers.

Last week, two other fellow scholars, Alvis and Chok, and I were attached to a particular investigation team from Bedok Division for one whole tour of 24 hours duty. This 24 hours duty was in no way like that of my SOC shift work, where one had the luxury of time to read the papers, play some sports, watch some shows on tv and work out in gym, because the nature of work was to basically stand-by for emergencies that warrants our activation.

However, this 24 hours duty of the investigation team is very different. There were quiet times, but there were also times when there was mad rush inside the office. There were also times when different parties in a particular case were brought into the room for statement recording. I refuse to go into details because there were simply too many cases and too many perspectives that you can have on each case. For example, a police report might be made by a lady saying she has been molested, but until you hear the story from all sides, you will never know if she is telling the truth. For all you know, she might be bearing a grudge against the defendant and decided to frame him. So one thing that I learned from this stint was to be open-minded and receptive to every possible senarios.

Apart from the cases, there were some very minimal informal chatting with the officers on duty, who educated us very much about the nature of their work and how it is very important to have a wife and family who is always there to support you, even when you have to spend more time at work than at home. An understanding family is vital to allow you to be able to concentrate on the work, which is highly stressful in nature.

This 24 hours stint has been quite physically and mentally exhausting for us, but it can in no way be compared to how the actual officers feels. There were many new things that I learned that would be very benefial for me to apply it in the future. There were also many soft skills that I am aware that I need to pick up or improve upon in order to be a good senior officer, a leader whom the followers can look up to.

Probation's over!

One year has passed since I got my driving license, and it is about time that triangle plates be chucked away for good. :)

Just a thought: I don’t feel as enthusiastic over driving as I was a year ago, and that’s mainly because of my realization of the harsh reality of driving in Singapore. Drivers here are mostly selfish and inconsiderate, that is not an empty claim at all.

Nevertheless, here’s to clean record for the past year and for many years to come!

The Science of Human Relationship

My experience in Cambodia as part of the Youth Expedition Project in December 2004 is littered with many experiences that I had from day-to-day living there. But if there was any enlightenment I gained after the conclusion of the project, it has to be how the collision of souls can be so powerful and influential to a person. We spent most of the trip staying in the orphanage, where we turned from strangers to close confidants and game buddies to the kids.

In a matter of 17 days, our relationship with the kids grew so strong that it teared some of us when the time came for us to leave. It was so strong that there has been occasional letters and cards sent to some of us ever since we left. It was so strong that we found ourselves making hasty promises to return there one day. That we were able to forge a bond this strong with the orphanage kids within such a short span of time still largely remains a mystery to me. But it never stopped me from appreciating that it happened. Towards the end of the stay and also after, it made me realize how powerful human relationship can be.

Yet on the hindsight, ironically though, I was reminded of how brittle human relationship can be. On more instances than one, I felt temporal disdain towards some people together on the same project. They were those whose actions annoyed me, whose words irked me, and whose behaviors never really impressed me. However, these were very, very temporary, yet because I never once expressed my emotions openly, I alienated myself from the rest for a short period, giving excuses like I was searching my true self, when that was actually but a lie.

The paradoxical thing here is that, all these were brewing in me the same time I was developing the sweet experience with the kids there. To me, that is the amazing thing about how human relationship works. It is not only how your inner values and attitudes very much shape the extent of relationship you forge with another individual, but also how there can be exclusions to it.

When you meet a like-minded person, it is most probable that you will be able to share many common interests with each other. It is quite the contrary when the person you meet stands for values that go head-on with yours.

And the interesting thing is that the previous paragraph does not always have to be true. You can meet a like-minded person, but something somehow prevents the two of you from clicking off nice and well. Or you can meet someone that you initially shun but eventually hits it off with you. But the reason you initially shun is not only limited to differences in values (as in most casual relationships), but also spanned across differences in backgrounds, cultures and social stigmas.

It is always a nice feeling when you are able to form chemistry with someone whom you have many differences with. This feeling beats that which you get when you hit it off with someone almost like another you.

I’m very happy to be able to recognize and appreciate this science of human relationship, because it is one very important aspect of how people work and on a macro level, how societies function. If I were to be teleported back to December 2004, I am certain that I will be able to handle my emotions in a more mature way, to be more embracing of the fact that God made us all different and to be more accommodating and tolerant to people’s values and actions.

Time and Us

“But the quest to spend time the way we do money is doomed to failure, because the time we experience bears little relation to time as read on a clock. The brain creates its own time, and it is this inner time, not clock time, that guides our actions. In the space of an hour, we can accomplish a great deal – or very little. Inner time is linked to activity. When we do nothing, and nothing happens around us, we’re unable to track time… Believing time is money to lose, we perceive our shortage of time as stressful. Thus, our fight-or-flight instinct is engaged, and the regions of the brain we use to calmly and sensibly plan our time get switched off…Tasks take longer. We make mistakes – which take still more time to iron out…. The perceived lack of time becomes real: We are not stressed because we have no time, but rather, we have no time because we are stressed.”

By Stefan Klein, “The time of our lives” – ST Review, March 8 2008.