Friday 28 September 2007

Rant 077 / I Love My New Phone!

My first prepared speech at the Toastmasters Club was almost a disaster. It was definitely a wise choice to choose a topic I'm very familiar with: the epic fantasy genre.

I didn't prepare my speech until the morning of that day, and spent most of my time fantasizing about how I will deliver it. No rehearsal, no editing, no preparation but the (draft) script.

The first thing I realized about the speech when it was finally my turn was that I didn't remember much of what I wrote down. I could remember that my speech was to start with Tolkien, followed by Robert Jordan, and ending with George R.R. Martin.

It was truly stage-fright at work. I didn't know what I was talking about at a conscious level. All I can remember about the speech was that I had to walk to the left and right, and to my script that I had placed on the lectern, pretending to read it when I was panicking too much to read anything. Everything I did then was decided at a subconscious level. My conscious mind was desperately searching my memories for materials to use. I can remember the encouraging looks they gave me, but I didn't acknowledge any. By walking around and pretending to read, I gave myself time to remember, though it wasn't perfect. It was only when my evaluator gave his speech that I realized at one point, I had looked at him when I stop at a certain part, then turn around and walked towards my script. I don't remember that part.

And worse, I had only used my right arm to gesture, making my left arm look crippled. I'm sure there were many parts where I paused in the middle of my words, because I distinctly remember that there were times when I had spoken the words before realizing they were not phrased in the way I wanted. They were probably thinking I was trying to remember my script.

And for all my pride I have in my grammar, I made the major mistake of speaking in present tense when I described the stories. Ouch.

The good thing was, I looked at the audience in the eye, even though it was something done unconsciously. I can never do that consciously, not without significant effort.

The best thing was, I looked relaxed as I spoke, even though I was panicking throughout. Amazing. Amazing because my hands were very cold and close to trembling. That I even used hand gestures during the speech was unexpected except in my fantasies.

When I finished the speech(I finished with a "thank you" instead of a summary/conclusion), I went back to my seat, and was surprised when my evaluator congratulated me for speaking well, and being relaxed during the whole speech. I didn't believe him, until the VP(Education) wrote me a slip giving his evaluation, which included describing me as being confident.

Hah! Confident my ass!

But then, that was only the first speech. I wasn't the one of the best speakers of that day, but I was definitely better than half of them. The 2 best speakers that night were so smooth I'd have thought they have been doing this often. The 3rd year accountancy student probably had... The other guy was in some drama society before too...

I sang in choirs before, but in all the performances I was never alone on stage!

And to the language evaluator: screw you! "Year" is pronounced as "y-eer" not "eer"! And "Tolkien" is pronounced as "toll-keen" not "toll-ki-en"! I'm accepting only the criticism on my erroneous usage of present tense in speech!

And screw the Potter series. All of them probably thought I was going to talk about Harry in the speech!




Wow! There went the week-long break! I haven't done a thing, yet I'm blogging now. What the hell...

Monday 24 September 2007

Rant 076 / If What We Get From The Gov Is What Everyone Else Is Getting In The World, What Would Be "Extraordinary" Here? My Gullibility?

I'm not unhappy with the way things are in Singapore, yet. It is worrying, as I learn more about the other side that they try to cover from our eyes. I'm not too familiar with the compulsory longevity insurance thing, so my mind isn't much affected by it.

What worries me is that our leaders are unable to do anything dynamic to regain our trust. Over the decades, the trust of the people in them has waned. Slowly, we realize that not everything they seem to be saying, are true. Whatever happened to their promise to stop raising costs, which someone seems to have made in the last election?

It is true that not many trust them now. But is this what a leader is supposed to be? To be somewhat respected, but not trusted?

I now see that democracy is not the ideal choice. It is the best choice only when no good leader is around and willing. When no true leadership is available, a group of mediocre leaders will be the best option. An example of a true leader is Otto von Bismarck, a cunning diplomat who rarely gets into a disadvantaged position. Pity Wilheim II ruined what he had created over his lifetime.

A real leader brings his nation forward, and ahead of others. A mediocre leader brings his nation forward, but maintains the status quo. A poor leader stagnates the development, or worse, cause degeneration.

What democracy can do, is to limit what the leaders can achieve, whether good or bad. By allowing each leader a maximum number of years to serve, he cannot do great harm to his own country.

But this, too, means that a good leader cannot be at his best in a democracy, because he does not have the time to achieve what great leaders in the past can create over a lifetime of hard work. He is also limited by a myriad of rules and regulation and other obstacles, because his rule isn't absolute.

Even if he gets into a position where he can have, indirectly, absolute rule, the fact that he is doing so indirectly reduces his efficiency. For one, he will always need to present his ideas in a way that is acceptable to the people, and may have to wait for the right time to do so.

In a way, we are sacrificing the chance of great progress for a safe and stagnant world.

But isn't this what civilization has always been about? Safety?

Civilization was invented as a safe haven for women, so that men can get laid and go on with life. This seems to make sense, really. It is the basic instinct of men to want to have sex. It is the basic instinct of women to search for a safe environment for the family. Civilization solves Problem 2, and thus solving Problem 1.

By giving up clubbing each other over the head over the smallest excuse, men get to have sex more often. Fair deal.

Going back to democracy, it can be concluded that humans in general prefer not to gamble. Man has learnt that possible consequences of gambling, and now prefers to stay his hand. Or has he?

Theonlinecitizen blog claims to be neutral, but I find the ideas in there a little paranoid a few times in the past. More than half the time, they present analyses of current issues that are not what is shown in ther mainstream media. But there are just a few instances where I find them overboard.

It's not wrong to suspect the worst, but I find it wrong that so few standing up. It is their country! They are supposed to be a democracy, but if they have never voted for their President before, how long will it be before they start to call their system a dictatorship?

It is not just that they've always got one possible candidate for our Presidents. The fear of speaking against the government must also be taken into account. When no one says something, it doesn't mean no one is thinking it. When one person says something, it means many are thinking it.

And with the highest pay in the world, the ministers had better be the best in the world. Whatever they are doing up there, we expect extraordinary results, not just what we have always got. They said they were "extraordinary" after all. If what we get is what everyone else in the world is getting, what would be "extraordinary" here? My gullibility?

Wednesday 19 September 2007

Rant 075 / I Need A Bot That Programs Bots That Can Do My Tutorials

Time flies? Or is uni life much faster than what I'm use to?

1 month into the sem and tests are coming. At least they weren't hard.

Next week is the mid-term break. What break? This week is totally necessary for me to redo all those questions I didn't get right in my tutorials, and try to be far ahead of the tutors.







Spiderman 3 must be one of the worst movies I've ever watched. The story isn't great, the logic in many things are lacking, and coincidences are everywhere.

Like Advent's Children, this is clearly a movie meant for the fans, or rather, their purses. Back when I first saw the trailers, it seemed like such a great movie. Now that I've forgotten all those over-hyped scenes they had created for the advertisements, I find the movie a total bore.

A glaring example of the logical fallacies in this movie is that the guy who's made of sand, whatever his name was, didn't need to confront anyone. He didn't need to fight, or suffer fall injuries. All he had needed to do was turn to sand whenever he gets caught and slip away! He can be anywhere at anytime, and he didn't need to do anything by force.

Alright, enough of this criticizing. I'm not an expert in this sort of thing anyway.




Amazing how some of the thinner girls can eat a lot (or so they claim) and still look like war refugees. LOL I'm kidding. No one in Singapore can be that thin. Most girls, I'd say, are "acceptably thin". Recently I met another girl in one of my tutorial classes who's like that. She claims to eat more than other girls, but that isn't saying much. When I say that I can eat more than other guys, that's saying something.

I don't have the biggest appetite among all the people that I know though.

And even if I can eat so much, it doesn't imply that I always eat to that capacity. Maybe someday I should get her out to a buffet and see if she's as capable as she claims to be. I have my doubts, but I don't know if I'm wrong or right here.

How many good buffets do I know of anyway? Not many, and I tend to forget the less memorable ones.

For japanese buffets, I know this Suki Sushi at Cineleisure, which is pretty good, relative to the price. For 20+ bucks, which is low for a buffet, I can get a nice variety of food that is really worth the money.

For international buffets, I don't know of any cheap/affordable ones. I don't like international buffets, for some reasons I have yet to figure out. The best that I know of is Melt the World Cafe at Oriental Hotel. With a price of about 55-60+ per adult, the buffet spread can really open your eyes. But what is amazing isn't the main course, but the desserts. It is worthed the price, but the price is rarely worthed the occasion.

For Indian buffets, I remember this Annalakshmi chain that doesn't have a fixed price. I have only been to the buffet at Chinatown point, but the food is delicious, even if everything is vegetarian. The spread is small, with less than 10 types of curry, and not everything refilled continuously; some are just replaced with another type of food when the container is empty. They do have a rather large variety of drinks, and in fact, there are more drinks than food. Everything is worth the price, since the price is decided by you. You can pay as much/little as you wish, and that is their policy.

I haven't been to any Malay buffets. In fact, I don't know much about Malay cuisine, but it seems really underdeveloped to me. I've checked out the Wikipedia articles on various cuisines, like French and Cantonese, but the one on Malay cuisine is a disappointment. It includes a section on Indian food and Chinese food and several others, which are as large as the Malay section. Actually, the Chinese section is the largest of all.

So, this is not saying anything nice about Malay cuisine. What have they been doing all these centuries???

Well, the article on Singapore cuisine is just the same, but... doesn't Malaysia have a longer history as kingdoms/sultanates/cities than Singapore? Like, say, Kedah?

What have they been doing back then, instead of cooking up more fancy stuff?? I'm getting sick of Nasi Lemak, man!

I need to try more types of cuisines. My growth in this area is really stunted. Western cuisine at most places in Singapore is a joke, since everything European/American is fused together into one type of food. But then, I can probably say the same for Chinese food in Western countries, where Chinese food can only mean Cantonese food.

What is Taiwanese food? What is Burmese food? What is Cambodian food? What is Italian food? What is Spanish food? What is French food? What is distinctly unique about all these cuisines?

I need food.