random thoughts and a sensation

Been having this niggling feeling lately, that there's something for me to write, something big for me to write about, but I can't grasp it. Its there, intangibly, and all I have to do to... is to... just figure it out what it is. Bleargh.

Meantime, something to chew about: technological development is stranger than our imagination. I mean, perhaps the cyberpunk novels conceived of the social web, but the semantic web? There is something to be said about the human mind and its capacity to blow apart present assumptions and circumstances that just seems remarkable.

Minority Report was not about the future, but rather the present... Is it how sci-fi works anyhow? Speculate works about the future that actually reflect a piece of our present? Guess so.

friends and tags

I'm having this concept: that somehow, the existence of our friends would be less complete if we can't tag on our photos in facebook.

I'm thinking, when we know a friend, we want to know the friend's email, add them to our facebook, get te number in our contacts - all of these allowing us to connect with the friend in one way or another. Having one less link seems to mean that the friend exists 'less' in our lives, since we can't tag a friend on facebook, or email a message, or calling the friend. So there is this cycle going on, in our real and digital lives, and they are not opposites, but they reinforce each other in a positive feedback loop. And the significance of these?

Haven't quite figure that one yet.

I hate the green eye monster

a friend of mine got shortlisted for a cool programme. and i'm jealous. the poisonous type. stupid me. because i had already decided not to sign on for additional programmes because of the commitments that i had, so in effect, i was in a stupid mood for sour grapes. WTH.

So yeah. The stupid green eye monster has that incredible propensity to poison friendships and all the wonderful beautiful things, so I dispensed with that. I mean, heck, i have so many other achieving friends that i no longer care. haha.

had a nice dinner with friends who lost their voices. haha. they could barely speak. and one of them was making funny voices to suppress his cough. and another acquaintance i barely knew kept badgering me about USP and NUS. told him not to worry about university life, but he kept on going. oh well.

just a lame note.

at night....

a couple of things for me to reflect about today... if i wasn't wanting the N97, my sister wouldn't have asked from Nokia a trial version... and if I wasn't wanting it badly, I wouldn't be at bukit batok, and i wouldn't have met a friend to talk about problems... if I woke up on sunday, i wouldn't have thought that my life would go through such turnings. but it did. God has His ways.

Talking about life's issues, i feel, always so insufficient, in not being completely able to minister to friends around me. there was actually very little i could do in answering the friend's need to find peace with God. and so i shared what i went through, very naturally. i shared about my own anger with God, and how I'm trying to find the peace. not exactly the same thing, but still... God knows I tried, and I pray that the words I spoke to my friend where the words that God needed to speak to her about. Funny. In that moment the Bible verses felt inadequate. Or I wasn't thinking of the 'right ones'.

So Lord, i need more of Your Spirit. help me minister to people...

this ghostly feeling

Lately, I've been feeling something weird. Its the feeling of knowing how things come together in some vague super-picture. I can *feel*, or *sense* that super-picture, but it has yet to become intangible in my head.

And I met Rajen, and the advice he gives is splendid: 'First do the thesis, then be famous', which I adapt to, 'First get the degree, then go change the world'.

I'm tired of thinking about the future and what I'm doing about my life. I'm tired. I realise that I can't do any of this actually, that I am dependent entirely upon the Lord. So God, I ask for more of You! I ask for the strength to get through another day, as You have given me the strength to last thus far. Lord I thank You!

And I'm also realising that good teachers make all the difference in the world. Teachers who go beyond the 'its not in the syllabus' answer.

Universities should focus on getting good teachers. Because if they do that, the research will come, the students will come. Good universities have good teachers, I hope.

And I need to read/write. So many things to do... so little time.

meet up with rajen

Had a meetup with rajen.

it was a lot of fun. asked a lot of things. many answered. and a lot of advice. i'm rather fortunate to have so much favour from all these working people.

So my life for the next few years is kinda set:

focus on sociology, explore a bit political science, geography, communication studies?

aim for a knowledgement management masters programme. work at NLB. social-knowledge nexus... collection of oral histories... dialects, linguistics... tie up with NUS...

meantime, continue to look at sustainable cities throughout holidays. keywords: compact city, ecocity...

really tired now.

incoherent... sigh

after going through catherine lim...

I've read a bit of Catherine Lim, and from her writings...

I suppose there is something there to write about: the description of people and their fates as they transit from one culture to another, through different generations. I guess thats why people can write about the displacement of values, as children become estranged from the values of their parents, as they go about their own ways...

But a lot of it is... from a macro point, understandable, since Singapore is still very much a society in transition, and even in the present today, the impacts of the past still linger with us. No generation of people can truly start anew, and us, those born in the late 1980s carry on the legacies of the past, and on and on... Things like 'generations' are an iffy term to use, but I think it'll take sometime before the transition peters out, and it will be true that someday, dialects will gradually become an extinct sound...

I'm thinking about Stanley Fish and his response to a book...http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/god-talk-part-2/ its so intelligent...

And suddenly this wider world of literary culture looms into view, and its a huge huge world to get lost into. I really want to be THERE, and READ, and WRITE!

I'm thinking, Singapore writers are really voices for the present. A kind of representation... Catherine Lim has one perspective, other authors have their perspective...

Meantime, I'm also thinking about a possible photo-journalistic work called, The Singapore Condition(s)...

Meant to capture a snapshot in time about what Singapore is, in all its diversity - that there really are many Singapore(s) existing in one place, and there are contestations.. The Singapore Govt is aware of that, but chooses to trump one perspective above others. Others the govt tolerates, still others, the govt declares illegal or forbidden. I remember somewhere, someone said, 'Singapore has no poverty/poor people' or something to that effect. Which is really interesting.

That is obviously a show of power and where media manifests that... Hmm.. I guess to narrow it down... have to choose a niche and show how diverse it really is...

just another thought. will blog about it more at

http://eddiechoo.wordpress.com/2009/05/18/writing-about-an-transition/

and...

http://eddiechoo.wordpress.com/2009/05/18/singapore-conditions/

i saw at a dinner table...

I had a wonderful dinner at an excellent chinese restaurant called Pu Tien at Kitchener Road. Excellent food. By the time my parents and I had finished our food, there was a long, long queue at the restaurant.

At the dinner table, sitting quite near us, was this father and 3 sons, eating together. And they were talking a lot of interesting stuff, which I didn't mean to overhear. But sounds waves spread out in space, so I couldn't help but catch a bit of the vibrations of the air coming from their table. The son was talking about 'Stem Cell' research, and I was checking to myself about what I know abot Stem Cell research and things like that. And I happen to know a bit... But the point was that there was an excellent conversation going down there, I bet...

And then... I go back home, flipped through the channels, and chanced upon a teenage girl from RGS/RJC who had won some essay competition, about the modern life and the materialistic, de-spiritual Singaporean... which was kinda Catherine Lim-ish, I suppose... but it was an excellent essay, I might add. And then there was some part about the parents' concern for the girl...

hmm... I suppose after all of that I would talk about my own family... but this time, I won't. I would say that the family is extremely important to the development of the kid, and kids who are intellectually demanding demand intellectual attention from their parents. I guess that works. Yes, a bit of enviousness inevitably rises up, but I feel ashamed after that because I know my parents do love me...

Which makes me want to move on about how I wanna parent my kid. I would have books, as I had, but I won't expect my kid to go read up... I would entertain my kids' questions, and answer them as meaningfully as I can, give them an answer, ask them to read up about it themselves, and then come back to me to talk about it... And this would go on and on... I wouldn't control them, I would only quietly push them in certain directions, to allow them to explore by themselves, but always around to talk about certain things, but I guess, never give them an answer directly. Whatever it is, I'll let them run away with whatever idea they have, but just that i'll guide them however i can...

yeah... i guess thats how I would teach my kid... i'm sure they'll surpass me sometime, and when they reach there i'll say... 'hey, i can't be there anymore. i can only guide, but i can't give the answers... you'll have to go there on your own...' ... but then, i would have always done that so much that they'll get it...

make their own destiny. thats what parenting is about, i guess.

one of those epiphanies...

I reflect on my life of contradictions - maybe those things have been the central tensions in my life, that's forcing me, compelling me to feel so much...

I'm an English-proficient kid born to parents who hardly speak it...

A Christian in a family of traditionalists...

An extreme possessor of books in a pragmatic family that does not appreciate knowledge for its own sake.

I embrace the future, but aware of the past, stuck in the never-present, drifting between parents who can't comprehend the present, but still I hurtle towayds the present.

In an academic programme, full of students coming from the affluent edges of society, whereas I'm in contrast, a cultural simpeton, hardly knowing, barely appreciating, not understanding their affluent, sophisticated world.

And so, in between worlds, I find myself.

four tweets from running

I will soon be posting more elaborated tweets at ed-leading-edge.blogspot.com, but for now here they are:

Academic subject unimportance and labeling. Knowledge, nt parochial. Depth AND spread. multidisciplinary is only a fluff term if you don't know the disciplines in depth...

The unimportance of labels: move past ideology. Its not this ideo vs that ideo. Nowadays, it seems more like, this ideo is nice, combined with that component of another ideo... and then mash things up...

Design IS tech! You can't have good design without good technology (note: good, not BEST tech. very different things.)

People dont want tech! People want experience afforded by tech. Apple has been first mover, but MS catching up! Experience is design powered by technology! People DON'T want to know the technology behind their gadgets, they WANT the EXPERIENCE - and that can only be provided by DESIGN!

And a last note: running DOES create ideas!

inadequacy and confessions

Today was just one of those days where i learnt that it is useless to depend on myself because the the human-ness of ourselves, of myself, is really darn weak. Falls into temptation... and all I can do is to simply ask for the grace of God for forgiveness, to claim the blood of the cross and all that, and get moving ahead again.

As I go through this holidays, I am reminded that the most important objective in this holidays is to glorify God, through every word that i write, every SMS that i send, every facebook and twitter update (yes, I'm quite serious about that), and to really grow in however I can in this journey with God. There is really all there is to it. Any other objective is lame. Not by the volume of words and works - because that would simply be vanity, but to really ask myself how everything i do glorifies God, in doing the work that God calls me to.

I learn that i cannot lie to God. and this is also one of the major reasons i switched major to sociology and more. just not chemistry anymore.

a lot more to share but really tired. other than that, i learn to rededicate my life to Him...

tired. oh. and the passion can just drop...

I was on the bus back to school, and this emptiness feeling just hit me. Its that emptiness feeling where there is no passion at all, no motivation to do anything. Its aimlessness/lostness. Maybe I'm really tired...

Had a talk with academic advisor today. And she made me reconsider about all these talk about master programmes and whatnot. It really is too early for me to go talk about all these things. Sociology is such a wonderful major. She's been very encouraging though, about pursuing some overseas ISMs.

Need to remind myself of lessons learnt from WCT. my awfully bad. But yeah. I don't care about grades. More about learning. I shall be more mature - by the grace of God.

reflecting and reflecting again AWARE

I received an email from my cell leader about a Christian perspective.

Singapore lost on that day. The AWARE saga, despite being trumpeted by the CSOs as being a watershed moment for civil society in Singapore, was instead, a demonstration of the weaknesses of Singapore society. Despite being twitted and all, it instead showed mob rule, and it degenerated into intolerance and insensitivity - both of which reflected poorly on Singapore.

There was neither diversity of opinion nor debate, no persuasion nor compromise required for a democracy, for a genuine civil society.

Christians might have lost, but so did Singapore, and so did civil society. Is it possible to be religious in a secular context? How do people express religious perspective in a secular environment?

Words such as 'conservatism' and 'liberalism' don't mean anything anymore, judging from the American experience. Let's be real. Singapore is neither a conservative society, nor a liberal society, but a society in transition. I think there is a place, where homosexuals are allowed to live their lives unharassed, but at the same time, their viewpoints as only just one of the many perspectives in society.

A democracy does not mean the loudest voice win. Democracy means debate, persuasion, compromise: it means logic. Both sides, if to be put in so polarised way: means that both religious groups and secularist groups HAVE to give way to one another. This is what it takes to be a genuine open society, where all groups have their opportunity to express themselves, and to debate.

forgiveness/confession

Yesterday night was so, so intense. I went for a VCF meeting, which ended at 11. Reached room only around 1130. Blogged all the way till 0130. Bleargh.

I was furiously typing on 3 blogs, developing ideas as I went along. It got so intense that... well, that nauseating feeling came along - the feeling that says, 'you can't go on, you've done enough for the time being'...

And I stopped, and this haunting thought came to me. Yes, I'm in the process of realising my thing for writing. But no, I've strayed away this time. I've been blogging for recognition, instead of His glory. I went into my 'work' more, and lost a focus on Him. For me now, it is thinking about CONSCIOUSLY glorifying You, even as my fingers scramble across the keyboard, transcribing thoughts to bits.

"Lord with every blog post, with every tweet, with every facebook update, with every email, I really want to glorify You. Search my heart and make it pure. All that I have - Lord, crucify my every thought, every idea, every keystroke, every writing... I give unto You. I dedicate my life to You again."

Random thoughts sprouting out already

Here, I'll blog about something personal. At ed-leading-edge, I'll be blogging more about it, and the wordpress blog as well.

But for now:

There is a non-zero possibility that I will not finish university. Meaning, it is quite possible that I might just quit school and do my own things - the real, real things that I really want to do. Currently, at the top of my head, it includes,

quitting school to start learning code seriously to create the applications that I want to create;

travelling around the world to document the resilience of people living in poverty;

finding out the efforts that people are doing to create a better world.

writing about the things that i've always wanted to write about - is it possible for Singapore to become carbon-neutral yet be prosperous still?

I think there is an entire possibility for me to enter into once I'm committing myself to writing.

On the other hand, there is still that part of me still wanting to contribute something to the world, and one of the things that can be done through writing is to inspire - give people a tangible vision they can work towards, and to find ways that they can give off their entire lives to as well.

The rest I'll leave for another blog to elaborate about...

But just to end. Changing the world is really changing the hearts of people one at a time. And there really is one way that it could be done, and its through God. Everything else is meant to culminate in that eventuality. It could be through service of all kinds, but it can also be through urban planning, architecture - macro-level stuff, or the micro-level stuff. So that's where I stand in all of these.

my fantastic, as in fantasy-like university curriculum

My dream university curriculum:

Elaborated at: http://ed-leading-edge.blogspot.com/2009/05/my-ideal-fantastic-university-education.html

A fantasy, which I will develop in fullness another time. But meantime:

It could be something within USP.

Uber-selective. Looking for students who can move across things with equal ease.

First year will probably be... doing exposures and fundamentals across the major faculties - physics, chemistry, biology, sociology, history, literature, philosophy, writing... and maybe into second year. Depending on the students, they then start to explore and do research modules on their own, working closely with professors, maybe more than 1, esp if their research module is across different faculties. Mashups are encouraged!

So this goes on for years 2 and 3s. Their research projects ought to be massive, consolidating the connections between different areas of knowledge, and go from 8MCs to say, 16MCs. So every sem they might just do 2 or 3 research projects, but their research projects would be massive...

And then in their final year, they do a uber-thesis, a consolidation of all they have learnt during the years in university.

While majors will not exist, there will still exist clusters - some modules students could do in a certain track in order to attain a body of knowledge they can apply. While they might sit in regular lectures, attend laboratory sessions, they will not sit for their final exams, rather, they will just keep doing research projects.

This idea will definitely have limitations for the science, engineering-based people. But then, this concept of education would not apply to the hardcore, focused researchers anyway...

today 4th May 2009

Gah! Its Tuesday already! Which really shows how packed the latter half of the day was. I went to get a tilt-table thingy, which has been helping me with my wrist-typing ergonomics. Did a whole morning worth 0f updating and blogger, trying to feel how its like to be a full-time social journalist/public-intellect wannabe.

Having an idea to blog about, and its about the hedgehogs vs fox kind of mentality that I've been thinking of ever since a NYTimes guy wrote about it. David Brooks I think, in his recent columns. This kind of hedgehogs vs fox kind of idea has been around a bit, with reference to the complex issues, especialy about poverty, climate change, human footprint... So yeap. I have a response to that, and its about innovation and education, and i put will put it soon at ed-leading-edge.blogspot.com. and i think i'll put the social response to it at eddiechoo.wordpress.com.

Meantime, had a great pizza time with Black Pacific classmates, and Bernard, Joel and me sent William off. It was all well and good. So yeap.

Which leaves me about what I'll do for post-grad and stuff. See how larh. Leave it to God already mah. So not really worrying. Something will come, and I'll definitely be praying about it...

reflecting on social activism

Lord I have dawdled the time away when I could have done something more meaningful... worship is one, serious devotion is another. Decent reflection is yet another.

(and now strangely it transits into reflection on social change)

Lord, You know how tired I am of the phrases such as 'changemaker' and 'social change'. These things have become so overused (at least for me), that they are hollowed out of meaning. I'm not sure aht to do regarding activism now. But still, a portion of my soul still yearns for social justice, for people to lead more meaningful lives, for people to have a decent shot at education and a fulfilling life. Thats social change for me, and its so different from the values-based notion of social change that some people might have, not all of them, definitely ('freedom?!?', 'democracy?!?'). or even specific causes. Yes, values and causes have their place in society, but not everyone is keen on them. And besides society is not about the values in themselves, but the lives that live out whatever values they hold most dear, or simply their lives as they live everyday. Father, I think thats the measure of real-ness, to be real, to live out love.

--- then i wandered off-topic---

But now, as I blog about it, I want to add: that the society that I wish to see, is a love-based society, of sensitivity and tolerance, no matter the religion.

Also, ref: http//www.eddiechoo.wordpress.com

A notice..

Here am I, thinking of the nonsense stuff now that my exams are over. I'm thinking, very consciously of my position as a social commentator, not that I add value to discussions. And since this has been a really personal blog, here's what I'm going to do from here on.

From time to time, I post my own prayers and mix them with other serious stuff. I think that has to change. Prayers and reflections remain on this blog, while some very obvious socially-related stuff I will put on this newly created blog - www.eddiechoo.wordpress.com

The more techie, hardcore-innovation stuff, hopefully, should stay on Ed-Leading-Edge.

Everyday reflections remain on this blog. Serious commentary should be on the wordpress blog.

All I need now is the discipline to maintain this habit.

Its tragic compartmentalisation, but I think it has to be.

awaresg, new media, implications

To be honest, I had no idea what AWARE was about. I mean, Repeal 377A came, and I let it passed me by, and this AWARE incident, and though I know that my CSO/NGO/activist friends would all be rather interested in all these, I well, just let it passed by. But this AWARE incident has demonstrated at least, I think 2 things. The first was the impact of the social technologies that are becoming more and more pervasive in Singapore society. Looking at the tweets that were revolving around the AWARE saga, it demonstrated that Singaporeans are becoming conscious of the use of social technologies to express themselves. This definitely has certain implications. But first, additional observations. The crowd that is using the technology seems to suggest that for a bunch of people, technological-savviness is coupled with a high level of social activism. My peers that are engaged in their CSO/NGO work know how to use technology to spread their message across. Many informal groups use Facebook extensively, and the use of Twitter and the ability to text updates through their mobile phones, is truly a powerful technology, and it will surely take a while for government to respond to the implications.I would think that these social technologies will finally begin to become pervasive throughout Singapore, and these technologies will come to centrestage come the next GE. It would be interesting to see how Singapore government and society will view these technologies...

The second thing, that I'm more worried about, is that the whole episode was perhaps an insight into Singapore society. While the whole issue has been framed in terms of societal maturity, I would actually think that the AWARE saga reflects that Singapore society, at least the bit that engages in such civil discourses, is highly polarised. As far as I can tell, it is only the English-speaking crowd that is engaged in this, and I can hardly see the same level of engagement within the rest of Singapore, in particular Chinese-speakers. What does that mean? Is social activism limited to the English-speaking crowd?

Regarding the maturity, the so-called secular bunch of people have been shown to be as intolerant as the so-called Christian Fundamentalists that, as others have framed, 'took over AWARE'.

To sum, while the entire episode has been interesting from a society-technological point of view, it does reflect rather troubling trends in Singapore society.