So my dreams keep getting weirder and weirder. But maybe it's the fever.

Anyway, combo-broke my health streak, so down with the flu, after a few months. And before that it was like a year or something. Symptoms are fever, sore throat, occasional blocked nose, lethargy and sometimes general confusion. Sucks. These few days I'll probably appear dazed and confused so if I behave strangely or anything do ignore it kthx.

Saw someone's facebook status and it triggered my memory about a post I was gonna write a while back. Then again I may have posted about this topic before, but I can't remember it now. If I have just bear with me.

So it's safe to say that almost 100% of my readers are students? In view of that, here's a question: why are you in school? I don't feel like our generation thinks about this enough. Why are you in school? For the certificate? Because there's nothing else you can do so far? I don't feel like you can properly study and learn unless you can answer that question. If you don't know why you're in school, how would you motivate yourself to study.

I'm talking about this because most people I see just seem to go through school in a daze and shit. My idea of education is to learn how to learn, not to memorise stuff. Granted, the school doesn't really do that a lot(which does put a damper on my attitude towards school), but I do still try to go to school for that purpose. I don't think it's right to go to school expecting to be given information and then just absorbing that information. You don't need to go to school for that. You have Google and textbooks. I think the point of school is, in the words of an overused analogy, to teach you how to fish, rather than to give you fish. In view of that then, what is YOUR purpose for going to school? I don't know if this is accurate, but I'm guessing that many of you are doing this just to get the certificate at the end of your JC/Uni life. But then again, so what if you get that cert? If all you did was memorise a whole bunch of stuff to obtain that cert, without really picking up all those other essential skills on the way, what use are you to anyone? The certificate, when people came up with that idea, was supposed to represent the fact that the bearer of that certificate has been through education, and has all those skills that they're supposed to have. But I feel that more and more, students have been neglecting those skills. Rather than learning how to learn, we've become more focused on remembering certain things just to get that A in an exam, and then we forget it after the exam. It may not be our fault - after all, schools have become more focused on these things as well, all for the sake of competition, but what sort of impact does this have on future generations? Will we have a generation of people who only know how to regurgitate information? Who cannot innovate, or cannot learn on their own? Time will tell.

To add on, I don't feel like it's wrong or anything to be aiming for that cert at the end of school life. It's just, how you're getting that cert. Although personally I can't stand studying any more. It's getting very boring. Sure, the Uni cert gets you a job with more money, but do you really want/need all that money? I have been told that my current belief that I would not strongly desire to be affluent in the future will prove to be erroneous, but I think it'll stick.

Birthday Update

K here comes the long awaited birthday update. Some cock-up with blogger zzz.

3rd August 2011
Firstly, thanks to Ventures for the taupoks and the burgercake(Burger+cake = Bake?!)

Secondly, thanks to everyone else who remembered it was my birthday and wished me happy birthday, even if you didn't get me a present(it's alright).

Thirdly, thanks to everyone else who didn't remember it was my birthday because now I've seen/heard the word birthday too many times and it's starting to look/sound weird.

I started this post off having a lot of things to say but I kinda forgot, so instead I'll just end of with this video. It was on my facebook page but it sort of got buried beneath all the birthday wishes. If the video is too small view it on Youtube please. It's hilarious actually, so make sure to watch the whole thing. The beginning isn't as funny.


So once again thanks for everything, guys. xD

8th August

Today's National Day Celebration was quite abysmal. The emcee in the red shirt was bloody annoying. Actually, everyone should have noticed, but if miraculously you didn't, I'm sayin'. Bloody annoying. People should speak to her in that accent and tone, see if she gets pissed off. I understand if you're trying to speak good English but people have proved time and time again that you DO NOT NEED AN ACCENT to speak good English. Tone is important, but there's no need to over-dramatise it. Even on National Day. Or the National Day celebrations.

So anyway, since we're talking about National Day, you can almost definitely expect me to throw in a cynical post. Not in the sense of the Greek philosophers, but more of the modern dictionary definition of cynical. Every National Day, people will go "I love Singapore", blah blah blah and all sorts of patriotic proclamations. While that is just simply fantastic, how many of you truly mean it? It's one thing to say something. It's another to believe in it and live it. It's another as well, to make yourself believe that you believe it and are living it. I'll give you an example.

When I go training, I'll look at a gap from afar and say to myself, "I can jump that". That's the proclamation. As I'm standing next to the gap, I'm still thinking, "I can totally jump that". That's making myself believe I can do it. But when it comes time to jump, I can't do it. Either I think the gap is too far, or I'm afraid I'll jump too far or lose control, and fall over the edge, or I'm just scared. And that's realising the self-deceit. And here's the crazy thing. You don't realise that you're lying to yourself until it comes time to validate or prove those lies. Because otherwise it wouldn't work. So yes, you can tell yourself something, you may even really believe in it. If you truly and absolutely do believe in it, good. Fantastic. But from time to time, you may want to ask yourself, "Am I really thinking like this? Do I really believe it to be so?" and you will find that maybe your perspective will change. I'm not saying to doubt yourself. No, self-confidence is an important part of living a happy life. But what I'm saying is to challenge your own beliefs. It's easy enough to challenge others' beliefs. Can you challenge your own? Do you dare to tear down your own lies? This doesn't apply only to National Day proclamations of loving your home, where you grew up etc. This applies to your everyday life. When you say something, do you really believe it?

When you challenge yourself rigorously, physically and mentally, then you will discover a more fulfilling life, or at least, that is my experience. And when you discover your own lies, and find your true beliefs, then you can lead a life that is more true to who you are. The value of such is of course debatable, but I suppose the general consensus is that being yourself is just wonderful, what with so many teenagers going on and on about it in their blogs(irony lulz), twitter, facebook etc. I don't claim to have much experience, but based on the 17 short years that I've lived, I've found out that being yourself, being who you really are, is at the same time so easy, and so difficult to do.

Speaking of challenging yourself, I find that much of today's youth, especially you privileged lot living in cities and urbanised areas, are way too comfortable. You're living in sheer luxury, but you don't know it. So, as I'm in sort of a nice-guy mood today, here's a challenge to you. How strong is your willpower? Are you able to step out of your comfort zone? It doesn't have to be something big; you don't have to go and climb Mt. Kinabalu tomorrow or anything, but a sufficiently strong challenge. If you're a gamer, how long can you go without gaming? If you drink coffee all the time, like me, how long can you go without caffeine? Many of the activities we indulge in are actually bad for us, either physically, mentally or both. Caffeine is a drug, and like many drugs, you can get addicted to it. And there are withdrawal symptoms. Have you ever heard of people who experience headaches just because they didn't have their cup of coffee that morning? Or people who fall sick when they don't have their usual coffee break? Those are withdrawal symptoms. And people who say that drinking coffee doesn't help them stay awake? That just means their body has built up a tolerance to caffeine. So, how able are you to overcome your own mental barriers?

My own challenge will be to try and go two weeks without taking any caffeine, and if that works out well maybe I'll take it further. This effectively means no coffee, no tea, no milo, no energy drinks(most of them, anyway). Once I figure out what to drink in the morning if I don't drink coffee, tea or milo, I'll start this challenge. So come up with your own challenge today. Challenge yourself and you will find the limits of your willpower, and maybe even push beyond it. Also, do tell me about it and your experiences as you try to complete your challenge. I'm rather curious to see how this works out.

Of course judging by past experiences the odds are that none of you guys will do anything I mention in this post, so I'm ready for disappointment.

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