Profile I am the boy-next-door who goes almost everywhere in a tee-shirt, jeans, and flip flops; the young and promising (just not in conventional ways) gentleman whom others stereotype as a bummer, a slacker, a buay-tak-che (cannot study); and someone who portrays the image of a beng without the dyed hair and the earholes. I am still the joker who occasionally pushes when the sign says pull; the sceptical miscief who touches anything that is labelled "wet paint", only to exclaim "the paint is wet, la!"; and the animal lover who picks up snails along pavements and puts them on the grass so that they will not be stepped on by people who are really bat-jiu-ta-stamp. I am the ex-full-time national serviceman in the republic of singapore air force, the ex-foh manager, ex-barista, ex-enroller; the present undergraduate and teacher; and the aspiring senior prisons officer. I am the guy you walked past once, but was just another face in the crowd. Archives November 2008 December 2008 April 2009 Credits skin by: Jane |
Monday, December 08, 2008 @ 02:53
Food for Thought On Life's Purpose "I hope that my achievements in life shall be these - that I will have fought for what was right and fair, that I will have risked for that which mattered, and that I will have given help to those who were in need, that I will have left the earth a better place for what I've done and who I've been." - C. Hoppe On Achieving Life's Purpose "I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life. The life of toil and effort, of labor and strife; to preach that highest form of success which comes, not to the man who desires mere easy peace, but to the man who does not shrink from danger, from hardship, or from bitter toil, and who out of these wins the splendid ultimate triumph." - Theodore Roosevelt On Morality "Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the oftener and more steadily we reflect on them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me." - Immanuel Kant On Resilience The United States Navy was racially segregated in 1948 when Carl Brashear, an African-American, enlisted. Brashear endured many challenges, limitations, prejudice and tragedies to become the Navy’s first African-American master diver. While assigned on a mission in 1966, an accident occurred which resulted in the amputation of his left leg below the knee. The Navy attempted to retire him but Brashear set out to prove that he could still dive. Under the close observation of the Navy, he began training in diving school, passed all tests and continued his career. Brashear rose above harsh and humble beginnings to excel in the most extraordinary ways. He was living proof that in a world which can at times be uncompromising and unfair, persistence and resilience triumphs all. On Education This is an extract from the movie Accepted. "You know what? You're a criminal. 'Cause you rob these kids of their creativity and their passion. That's the real crime! Well, what about you parents? Did -did the system really work out for you? Did it teach you to follow your heart, or to just play it safe, roll over? What about you guys? Did you always want to be school administrators? Dr. Alexander, was that your dream? Or maybe no, maybe you wanted to be a poet. Maybe you wanted to be a magician or an artist. Maybe you just wanted to travel the world. Look, I - I - I - I lied to you. I lied to all of you, and I'm sorry. Dad, especially to you. But out of that desperation, something happened that was so amazing. Life was full of possibilities. A - and isn't that what you ultimately want for us? As parents, I mean, is - is that, is possibilities. Well, we came here today to ask for your approval, and something just occurred to me. I don't give a shit. Who cares about your approval? We don't need your approval to tell us that what we did was real. 'Cause there are so few truths in this world, that when you see one, you just know it. And I know that it is a truth that real learning took place at South Harmon. Whether you like it or not, it did. 'Cause you don't need teachers or classrooms or - or fancy highbrow traditions or money to really learn. You just need people with a desire to better themselves, and we got that by the shit at South Harmon. So you can go ahead, sign your forms, reject us and shoot us down, and do whatever you gotta do. It doesn't really matter at this point. Because we'll never stop learning, and we'll never stop growing, and we'll never forget the ideals what were instilled in us at our place. 'Cause we are SHIT heads now, and we'll be SHIT heads forever and nothing you say can do or stamp can take that away from us! So go!" On Self-pity "I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A bird will fall frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself." - D. H. Lawrence |