Sunday, November 27, 2005

Random threads about the plight of women in today's news

Mesdames Ellen Johnston-Sirleaf and Angela Merkel becomes first women presidents in Africa and Germany.

In a 7 year study of 24000 women in ten countries, WHO found that one in six women worldwide suffered violences at the hands of their husbands.

Party gal Mu Mu is one of china famous blogger. Xiaxue is singapore's own product.

Vietnamese women coming to Singapore have 14 days to find a husband.

Singaporean tertiary women are managing double majors - one is nus, one as bar-top dancers or drinks promoters, including a Singaporean government scholarship holder studying in Britain.

A housewife staying in Clementi was fined 15 000 dollars for pimping her maid.

Saturday, November 26, 2005

More Quotes

"The most important thing about a relationship is not how fast it starts, but how long it lasts."

"The smartest people are often not the first ones to figure out what is happening, but rather those who knows whether to acknowledge their knowledge or to fake ignorance. "

Friday, November 25, 2005

Graduation Trip with family

An incident during my graduation trip that truly made me pause and think:

In washington mall:

My parents and I were walking along the mall. There was this black family in front of us and they have quite a few young kids with them. My dad loves kids. In singapore when he sees kids he will laugh at them and go talk to them, (play with them and make them laugh)

He does this often in singapore.

What i did not expect is that he did the exact same thing to the black kids. He went up to chat with them a little. The kids looked surprise by his friendly gestures, and being young kids, they were shy and walked away in small giggles. But they did turn back occasionally to look at us.

The black parents soon realized that my dad was playing with their kids and chatted with us a bit, asking us where we were from and what we were doing in the states. My dad answered everything with smiles and laughs.

This is my first time in the states, where I see a stranger to a black family, extending such friendly gestures to the kids and family.

I am proud that stranger is my dad.

Sunday, November 20, 2005

Talking about quotations

I found a quote online

"It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere. "

-- Agnes Repplier

Dedicated to everyone who is thinking about their lives, their future and their loves ones.

1st duty as Byukuren

Today 20th Nov is the first day that I serve as a Byukuren in soka.

I reported at 11.30 a.m. to ICA and was briefed on what I had to do for the day. After that together with the other Byukuren I had to arrange the handouts that I was going to distribute later to the members coming for the meeting today.

Never thot simple stuff can be so difficult. I kneel on the carpeted floor to arrange the handouts and soon I realized that my feet were getting numb and that i was starting to have a backache.

Soon early bird members began to come and I had to tell them politely that the hall was not ready yet. This part was quite good actually. Most of them dun mind waiting outside and I had little problem.

But I did have a little problem with one of them. And the issue occurs caused i am assuming things.

She was glancing into the hall so i quickly walked up to her and told her that the hall was not ready yet. I think I sounded anxious for she quickly told me that she is a long long member and that she knows what is going on and that she is not going to trespass into the hall when i am not looking. I spent a while explaining to her that I was not accusing her of entering the hall where she is not supposed to.

Perhaps it was my tone ba. I guess I sound anxious when I am in duty, when I feel that i am responsible. So I think one take home is that I should sound calm and considerate in all situations. After all, I am there to serve the members not to instruct them.

After that the meeting starts and I had to stand outside the meeting room for two hours. Members move in and out of the meeting room intermittently and I had to open the door slowly, afraid that it may bang and disrupt the flow of the meeting and afraid that it will knock into members sitting too near the door.

This task sounds really easy but....

after constantly touching the icy cold metallic door knob with an injured hand in an aircon hand. The palm and fingers started to pain.

Then there was the serving of water to the speakers. We have to do it in a quiet, polite way and to enter through a "hidden door". I cannot imagine that there is so much detail to serving of the water. Basically someone has to come early to boil the water first (no. we dun take water from the water cooler) and pour the water in the glasses. We usually prepared two more glasses than we anticipated.

Before we serve the water, we have to make sure that there is no water droplets at the side of the glasses. Because the formation of these water droplets is a sign that the water is not fresh.

Soon, this part of the meeting ended and the members would move to the hall upstairs. It was a really huge crowd. I admit that i could not do my duty well from this point onwards cos I was getting very sleepy. Did not sleep well the night before.

.... ....

Basically my first day ended.

And I really wonder whether i am up to the job.

I do things cos they are fun. I think it is kind of fun to serve drinks and direct people to their respective destinations.

But i realise that to do this job well, I need a sense of public service. To sincerely care and to want to serve.

As I walked out of the HQ and looked at the faces of young lions (the name of the male duty group), I see this forever sunshine and this dedication to serve.

They can do it.

Can I ?

Friday, November 18, 2005

Bored.

Your Birthdate: July 15
You take life as it is, and you find happiness in a variety of things.You tend to be close to family and friends. But it's hard to get into your inner circle.Making the little things wonderful is important to you, and you probably have an inviting home.You seek harmony with others, but occasionally you have a very stubborn streak.
Your strength: Your intense optimism
Your weakness: You shy away from exploring your talents
Your power color: Jade
Your power symbol: Flower
Your power month: June
You Are French Food
Snobby yet ubiquitous.People act like they understand you more than they actually do.

Friday, November 11, 2005

Old photo.


Hihi.. This a photo taken in my house in cornell. Hehe... not bad huh.

Can tell that the weather must be really cold. haha

Working for five months

This coming Sunday marks my fifth month at IME. Good news? Seven more months and I can go. Bad News? What can be more usual, I realise that not much work has been done.

I realize that I have been put in charge of a project as it is still in the exploration stage. I heard from one of my supervisors that this is what they usual do to new PhD students. I wonder how the PhDs students cope with this situation. Do they really come out with a full iterinary on what they are going to do. Or are they as lost as me? Or do they get some help from their supervisors.? I heard that some supervisors are actually kind of ignorant about what exactly is going on and it is really e students who are doing teh work. So am I suppose to come out with the road map on my own? I feel like a one-eye turtle floating around in an ocean looking for a piece of log to hold on to. To grab on to something that will give me an idea of how my future will lead.

So after letting me float around for like three months, they decided to introduce a log into the picture. He has a lot of experience in bio-detection stuff and he should be a great guy to work with. But he seems to belittle every thing that i say. Hmm... and then the next day, he realize that I am not totally wrong and he comes out with an answer that will make me 70% wrong and him 100% percent right.

I wonder whether this is the right log for this turtle. Indeed the turtle has to figure out soon. Sometimes I wish I can be put into a smaller pond with some logs already so that I will not be so lost. But I heard that it is good to be swimming in a big pool. The bigger the better.

Hahaa... or should I say that i am the hamster who has been walking aimlessly through the maze that the psychologist creates. And just when the hamster is seeing something, suddenly the maze change again. This is the usual conditioning experiment in biology. But I am suppose to be smarter than a hamster so mebe I will find the exit sooner this time.

Mebe the hamster is not really unhappy with the change in maze.

Monday, November 07, 2005

What about love

I was talking to a friend some time back and our topic was about seeking of life partners. She said that she realize that many people tend to look for partners who have the qualities which they are lacking in. For example, if i am a shy person, there will be a natural tendency to look for someone who is outgoing.

I guess this idea is kind of right ba. People will definitely be attracted by people whom they wish to be. But I also think that as she had said, the main point is to develop this quantities within ourselves and not look for them in someone else.

Sunday, November 06, 2005

Two dumb dramas

I watched two dumb dramas over the weekend.
The first one is "Yun Hai Yu Gong Yuan". As usual, there is a love triange. My whole family has been spectulating about who the guy (Shiyi) will be with eventually. It turned up that one gal gave up her life in order to kill her evil master. She would well have kill her master without endangering her life if she had asked Shiyi to help her and the reason why she did not is because Shiyi accused her of being evil and that she is in cahoots with her master against him.

So she killed her master partly for revenge and partly to show Shiyi that she truly deeply love him. And so she died. And then as usual, Shiyi will be very sad and blame himself for all these. He decided that he will sail back to the island which has sentimental values for him and the gal. In the last scene, Shiyi is on a raft with her body and the other girl is looking at them from the shore.

Okie.... so none of my family members manage to guess the ending correctly.

Okie.... actually if a gal gave up her life to show that she really love you, then you will be sad and you may want to make amendments. This is understandable.

But throughout the whole show, after looking at his body language, facial expressions, everything, I still cannot gather who he actually like.

So frustrating. Actually e show is based in Qin dynasty, meaning that men can have more than one wife. In that case, why not just let all of them live happily ever after. That is at least more acceptable.

Another drama.....

The gal died too. My complaint against this show is "why issit that when the directors want a sad ending, it is the gal who has to die??" It makes no sense right? So MCP. =((

Okie... realize a lot of my nice weekend dramas are over.

Friday, November 04, 2005

A day on JI with Ef

got some work done.

He is a nice guy.

No wonder he is not attached.

There are only two kinds of guys who are not attached.

Those that are too nice and those that are too evil.

If you are anywhere in between then you are safe.

Did experiments on Ajay's substrate

But did not get experiments done on Ramana's substrate cos cannot focus the light.

how how???

when will I get my license????

at a better mood now.

cos Ef told me that there is someone in harvard doing Raman.

Yeah!!

Think Alvin is a nice guy. Quite friendly also.

Think life on JI will move towards the better.

Mebe I should stay here.

More peaceful.

Thursday, November 03, 2005

People who understand me

I was just wondering whether it is hard for people to understand me. This is with the assumption that people wants to understand me or try to understand me. Act. I feel that family members are often those who try to understand each other the least although they care the most. So mebe understanding is not really important. Haha.

Okie. back to the main point. There are a few people who said things about me that coses me to feel that they understand me a bit lah.

1st person:
JY.
really? Actually she always says that it is hard to understand me and I feel that every time she uses her logic to try to understand my logic then all logics fail.
Haha... but despite all that she did say something about me that I found rather enlightening.
She said that "when I am angry(sad, frustrated, unhappy, worried) and complaining and telling people why i am angry and what is causing me to be angry, then i am not really angry. I am just talking basically. "
I am really angry(sad, frustrated, unhappy) when I just dun say a single thing.
Actually though what she said seems to make perfect sense to most people and feel natural too, I nv know that this is the case and I nv know that is how to tell whether i am really angry(sad) or not.

2nd person:
SY.
Hmm.. basically he said something similar to jy in a different way. There is once I was complaining to him about work and sort of expecting him to console me. He did not seem to care and kept on watching tv. When I finally asked him whether he did not seem to care, his reply was "aiyah, everytime u ask me for advice, I will advise and console u only to find that you have everything sorted up in your mind liao."
hmmm.... does this mean that if i can start to talk, my problem will be solve liao?

3rd person:
This person is from the distant past.
He is less of a thinking person than JY and SY lah. Much less. What he learns about me is purely from empirical results meaning just looking at my reaction to situations. Anyway I was really impressed by how much he can predict my response just by observation. Haha.. he must have been a disciple of Aristotle.

Okie. End of list.
JC frens, secondary school frens??
I think Huihua must had understand me a lot although I did not understand her.

Okie. I guess the main point is not for people to understand you but to try to understand yourself. So I will try hard to understand myself better.
Seriously I dun understand myself.