vendredi, février 28, 2003

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jeudi, février 27, 2003

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What makes you think human beings are sentient and aware? There's no evidence for it. Human beings never think for themselves, they find it too uncomfortable. For the most part, members of our species simply repeat what they are told - and become upset if they are exposed to any different view. The characteristic human trait is not awareness but conformity, and the characteristic result is religious warfare. Other animals fight for territory or food; but, uniquely in the animal kingdom, human beings fight for their 'beliefs'...we are stubborn, self-destructive conformists. Any other view of our species is just a self-congratulatory delusion.




phew.




{*} And Vic got asked this question:

"So did you do a factorial analysis to test the loading of your questions in relation to your construct?"

Am I glad I'm not fooling about with spss now...

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mercredi, février 26, 2003

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mardi, février 25, 2003

If you've NOT watched the musical, then by all means please go watch it! It's fun enough.




{*} An unsuspecting victi.... I mean interviewee actually emailed me back to say:

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In any case, the hand's a little better today; still in the makeshift splint I made for it (yes, it's pathetic, but what can I say? I'm pathetic!) - thanks for the SMSes, calls, prayers, tsk-tsks and other sympathetic noises.

{*} CDs I want but never seem to get around to buying (and anyway I already have half of the album downloaded into my harddisk):
Annie Lennox's Medusa and Diva albums
Her slower songs get me all introspective and stuff. Love the old (and new!) Eurythmics stuff too - guess I'm an 80s disco girl after all, what with my preference for a spot of Wham! now and then too. :)

{*} Current Music:
Annie Lennox - Downtown Lights

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lundi, février 24, 2003

{*} And will all my final year friends PLEASE remember to register for commencement? Please?

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dimanche, février 23, 2003

Don't worry about not understanding it though, I am personally of the opinion that Pullman screwed the last book up - he introduced too many new characters into the book, killed too many old ones, varied too many myths that we hold canonical - any one of these would be alright, but he went and used all, hence overkill and confusion for us. Just try to enjoy it, yeah? They do get to ghost-meet each other in the botanic gardens once a year on midsummer's day... which is small consolation of course, but that's better than nothing, don't you think? Argh, I hate it too. *sniff.* Console yourself with the red bikini. :)

{*} Current music:

Dave Matthews Band, Satellite

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Sngs Alumni @ 23.2.03 { 0 comments }

To those who've expressed concern (yes estee, the things I do for the sake of academia...), prayed for me and my poor hand, told me to go and see the sinseh, offered to send me to the sinseh, recommended accupuncture and all sorts of other scary treatments, stayed on the phone with me for four hours to prevent me from doing any work on my thesis (you know who you are)... thanks. A lot.

{*} On the other hand (pun fully intended), although the work on the thesis has been considerably slowed down due to this debilitating illness (ha.) that I have, I'm still very excited about writing my thesis - which is unusual, given everyone's constant groaning and moaning about the writing. I suppose everyone is sort of still excited about their thesis, but I guess it's the writing and the analysis now that's giving everyone a headache (and me a handache).

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samedi, février 22, 2003

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vendredi, février 21, 2003

About The Lysistrata Project

The Lysistrata Project is a worldwide theatrical event, bringing theatre artists together in cities all around the world for a communal expression of concern for our globe on the brink of war. Actors, directors, writers, designers and arts administrators in each of the 38 countries involved will gather on the 3rd of March 2003 to mount 605 pure or semi-dramatised readings of Aristophanes� 411 B.C. hit comedy Lysistrata.

In this riotous Greek comedy, the women of Athens decide to put an end to the Peloponnesian War by abstaining from sex with their husbands until a peace treaty is signed. A play of biting social relevance in ancient Athens, Lysistrata is no less poignant today.

And Singapore's going to be doing it in ZOUK on Monday, 03 March 2003 - that's right, 030303. There'll be two readings, one at 730pm, and another at 10pm. Admission is free, but you really should donate to the charity that's going to be there... probably the Red Cross. Visit the website and see lah.

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Sngs Alumni @ 21.2.03 { 0 comments }

Jamus Jerome Lim is my hero. Not only did he agree to the interview, he said that if the answers were too long to type out, we could arrange a phone call interview - and he's in the USA!!!

Where's the logic in that? Two NUS professors turn me down, and one guy from the USA says yes! Hello?

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jeudi, février 20, 2003

{*} I saw a few wierd things today:



A man being hit by a car.

Not too badly, but still, he was hit. The lady (yes, it was a lady driver) looked equal amounts of pissed and distraught.



A car crossing two lanes, cutting in front of my bus, trying to charge into a slip road leading to Balestier Road, ALL IN THE SPACE OF 5 METRES.

He didn't make it (the slip road, I mean.)



Mad woman on the bus.

So I'm taking the bus home, standing in a transisland bus because there's no room. This lady presses the bell and starts to alight when the bus stops. This other lady suddenly stands up, says "B*TCH! YOU B*TCH!" in a really loud voice and hits the glass panel of the bus' open alighting doors before sitting down again. Bizzaro.




Guiness Stout ad in TODAY:


bet she's got a boyfriend
you can do it
he's 6'5"
you can do it
he's a psycho
you can do it


you can when you believe [guinness].




I'm going "what?"

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Sngs Alumni @ 20.2.03 { }

{*} On the other hand, I spent the WHOLE of yesterday emailing ALL the delegates to the e-ASEAN task force - and let me tell you, even my net skills were put to the test. See the people on this list? 25, that's right, TWENTY-FIVE people I emailed with careful words yesterday, most with unique email contents.

What does this mean, you say? It means that I spent the better part of yesterday:
1. Tracking down these people through either their individual ministries from their country websites,
and
2. Formulating email that would flatter and request for interviews at the same time.

Tracking these people down was a monumental task. Especially the ones from the countries who have different languages than us. I go to a website, and it's in (let's say) Thai. I click on the "english" tab to change the page to english. Fine. Everything works. English usage is a little funky, but hey, it's a foreign language to them, so I can understand. I go to the search engine to look for a particular ministry, or a particular person. I click "send" to process my request, and the search engine returns my search results....

Some people I found off totally unrelated websites - like their university alumni websites, or some non-governmental organisation's websites. Made me wonder about the whole notion of privacy - I mean, I don't know these people, and I'm not likely to meet them EVER (I think), and yet I can gain direct access to their mailbox. Freaky.

{*} Out of those 25 emails I sent out, I got four bad email addresses which bounced back (but two of which somehow got through despite the bounce - one of those vagaries of technology that everyone finds wierd), and (as of now-now-now kinda now -tm mayee-), I have THREE YES RESPONSES! One from the Philippines, and two from Vietnam! Hip hip hooray for my three interviewees!!! PTL!

Mr. George Lim, Senior Vice President, Philippine Long Distance and Telephone Corporation,

Mr. Nguyen Huu, Deputy Director-General Chief of Electronic Commerce Department , Ministry of Trade, Vietnam, and

Mr. Trieu Minh Long, Manager of International Cooperation Division of Science-Technology and International Cooperations Department - Dep't General of Posts and Telecoms Department of General Posts and Telecoms, Vietnam.

I know, that last one's a mouthful huh?

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mercredi, février 19, 2003

I've just asked for interviews with Jose Tongzon (NUS Econs lecturer, author of "The Economies of Southeast Asia: Before and After the Crisis"), Simon Tay (Associate Law Professor, with the scary initials LLB (NUS), LLM (Harv), Advocate & Solicitor (Singapore), co-editor of "A New ASEAN in a New Millennium"), and Jamus Jerome Lim (co-editor of the blue book you see featured on the left side of this blog.)

I'll probably behave like a blithering idiot, fumbling with my notes and mumbling through my stuffed nose as I take notes with bad handwriting. This, of couse, is my attempt to jinx the possibility of it actually happening to me. I'll keep you posted on whether the utterance worked.

{*} Thesis update:

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mardi, février 18, 2003

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lundi, février 17, 2003

Google's taking over the world!

{*} Also, calling all TECHNOPHOBES.

My friend Julian is looking for people who DON'T download and/or stream audio clips (MP3s lah) for his thesis experiment. If you're a luddite, please help him by contacting him.

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*thinks for a bit*

Nah.

That makes two days with nothing to post. Have I stopped thinking or what?

{*} On the other hand, I'm writing my thesis.
From 987 words this morning, to 3115 words tonight, and still counting.
Can I be just a wittle itty bit proud of myself? Not even just a little?

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samedi, février 15, 2003

My dad, of course, is from NIE.

{*} I'm featured as one of Fuzzy's friends!

I'm a Fren of Fuzz!

I hold my statue of the penguin proudly, and take my place beside Nurul on the red carpet.

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Sngs Alumni @ 15.2.03 { 0 comments }

Imagine:

Someone out there's listening to the same song
Feeling the same way that I do

{*} On PDAs*:

Today, I took the 96 into school, and sat behind this couple whose faces were about 3 inches apart. Which is all fine and dandy, no crime in that. Then.

She pinched his nose and wiggled it about, whispering something to him.
He pinched her nose and wiggled it about, whispering something to her as she giggled.
She pinched his cheek and cooed to him.
He pinched her cheek and cooed to her.

Of course, by this time, I wanted to bash their heads into each other.
Sophie Ellis-Bextor sings Murder on the Bus Floor...

*PDA = Public Displays of Affection.

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For the people who have been asking me what happened to me on Thursday, I'm working on a form of storytelling which won't cause me much grief as I recall the incident. Thanks for asking; the nauseating feeling of being tainted will pass.

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vendredi, février 14, 2003

Happy Valentines', everyone. Hope you guys feel infinitely better than I do at the moment.

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jeudi, février 13, 2003

Not too bad, considering I just switched topics two weeks ago, and am currently suffering from self-diagnosed anthrax poisoning.

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mercredi, février 12, 2003

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This spoils the whole look of my page, but will you
just look at your baby in carbon blue instead, Willis!

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mardi, février 11, 2003

I mean, if you don't have a base-line to start arguing from, then how are you going to measure anything?

On a good note; Reddy said that if Karmakaze doesn't allow us any leeway in the contract negotiations, we can stop negotiating with him, and REDDY will be our client. No money of course, but hey, no more dealing with this total bleephole of a guy. Bah. Maybe Vic and I can do up the ICM website, but that would sort of leave some people in the lurch, which isn't a very nice thing to do, I guess. Especially not since they were sort of "conned" by grreddyfreddybeddie (tm nurul) coz they did ask him if a working knowledge of HTML and graphic design was required, and he said it wasn't (when it really is).

Hi mokkie! *waves*

And Eh-durh-leene has just called my blog "keewt"! I think I like that word much better than its mommy.

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But I'm so proud of it anyway! Seems silly huh? I guess I got lost somewhere in the whole anti-instant-gratification movement without realising that sometimes, instantaneous results are supremely satisfying.

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Dognabit! Now I've gone and made m3dia think about migrating servers... oops... but then again, he's the one who started me on this blog thing... :)

Don't give up, m3dia! We can't have the likes of B getting an honours degree and you don't! C'mon! That would so reinforce the idea that being good don't count for nuthin'! I can't take it... people try to explain it all the time with Christianity and stuff, and sometimes I believe, but sometimes when it comes to things like the greedy greddy project, I really start to wonder if there's any virtue in being good, besides wanting to have friends...

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lundi, février 10, 2003

 So much for backblog

Hmmph. So much for backblog.

[So much for backblog]
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Libellés : music

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Will probably still post more later. Helooooo everyone! *waves*

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 Bye Bye Xanga

What prompted this thought? Well, I guess blogs are like online diaries of a sort - semi-private entries to yourself and to people around the world. So as you post your thoughts and feelings online, you're "exposed" in the sense that all your thoughts are published on the net for the whole wide world to see, and there can be no mistaking what you're feeling (unless you write in some sort of obscure language, or your prose is really convoluted, sort of like Judith Butler's prose). And yet you're still sort of "shielded" from censureship (not censorship) because you're hidden in the anonymity that the 'net provides.

But what happens if someone you know in the real world reads your blog online? Like me reading BlueStars and Babymentos's blogs? I know them from real life, but we're not close-close in the sense that we hang out together outside of class time. And now as I read their blogs, I feel that I'm invading their privacy, and that I should really stop reading because it's really none of my business. I don't blog; have never blogged before this, so I don't know how blog protocol works... maybe Nurul knows...

Anyway, back to the issue - I'm not close-close with BlueStars and Babymentos, and I feel that the stuff that they're posting is too personal for someone like me to read, especially since I know them in real life. What should I do? What sort of computer ethical morality bullshit should I apply here? I guess there's nothing else to do but ask them... it might sound stupid and all academic-like of me, but I do think that these are philosophical questions worth asking:

RANT
On a totally different track, front page of The Sunday Times - most Singaporeans (apart from NS men and people in the military service) don't care about the terrorism risk in Singapore. D'uh! If national policy and politics are going to be top-down where you don't bother to engage the people, then of course they're just gonna not bother about anything that's important! You tell people from the birth of the nation that "the government will take care of you, don't worry", and now you want them to take an interest? You can't have your cake and eat it too! People won't bother if you've got them in a nice "I'll just think about myself and about how to attain the 5Cs, thank you very much" rut.
/RANT

Hmm. Anyhows. Back to Networked Readiness from the Harvard International Development Institute. Or something like that.

on the minus side, I'M SICK! I think it might be the combination of butter-lemon chicken from Swensens' and my total b*tching about the Greddy project situation... whatever it is, my head is pounding and everything aches... very painful just listening to my fingers clicking on the keyboard...

hey there! julz has left me a comment... haha...yep, time to b*tchb*tchb*tch about anything and everything... hopefully not too much, since my body seems to have an adverse reaction to it.

Gonna go away now to stuff my body with h20 and other dangerous sounding pills...

what's on today? nothing much... spent a truckload of money, banked in my savings and hongbao money, and am now late for Nagoya prayer meeting at Jiamin's place. I so don't feel like going, but Chiharu, Masami and Kengo are there. Bother.

thesis state: currently working on Networked Readiness Levels framework for comparing ASEAN countries... the rankings are as follows:

1. Singapore (duhhhh...)
2. Malaysia
3. Thailand
4. Philippines
5. Indonesia
6. Vietnam

Countries not in the "with IT" club (haha, can't believe I'm so witty huh?) are: Brunei, Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia. See the pattern? No money, no webby.

Should eat dinner soon. Have sore throat from eating Swensen's fried stuff at Thomson Plaza just now. Can't believe that my tolerance for fried stuff is now so low.

Other work than thesis? Hope that Carmazzi suffers from TTSICMSITA syndrome - Trying To Screw ICM Students In The Ass syndrome - you get a whole load of pain, and leave with a painful feeling up your own ass.

[Bye Bye Xanga]
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