Of perceptions and the image we perpetuate, I wonder if it is common or only a trend of Asians to be especially mindful of how our superiors perceive the way we work, independent of the results produced. I was rather amused when my colleague said, the obvious, that we were not working in a Japanese company, that we did not have to wait for or bosses to leave before we could do so.
It will take some time for me to suss out the office culture.
Five years ago, I entered the workforce, unsure of my ambition and my desires uncertain. The latter has barely changed in spite of the passage of time in between. In these five years, much has been painted, underwent evolution and accumulated; much has been learnt.
For the past month, I took to shredding the memories printed and stashed away under my desk. I examined, and rather deeply, the loose ends of my working life and took to tying them up as tightly as I possibly could. For the most part, I would like to think I succeeded.
People, they are the hardest to leave behind. The laughter, fun, occasions of commiseration, and intangible memories created, all etched deeply in the spaces of recollection, echo strongly. Only reminisce the joy because taint is a terrible thing to waste on a beautiful mind.
Today, a new chapter, similar to every other day but just a bit different, like every other day. I do not see shades “for better or for worse”, but simply for their tones as they are.
This new palette, will take some getting used to.
Hello 2013. Hello blog.
So, I haven’t been blogging for quite some time. I guess the multitude of social media channels available has diluted my time writing in this space. Twitter has my updates on #McFlurry, #movies and other random thoughts that can be easily expressed via SMS in 140 characters. Facebook keeps my photos, albums, my comments about my photos and albums, and other Notes, posts and reactions. So, it’s just two social media channels taking time away from blogging. Then there are the games, like, The Secret World and well… Just The Secret World.
This blog, is for longer entries, posts that are less fictional but still I wish to and have deemed them on some level to be palatable for public consumption.
Certainly not the best way to start the year, nor the first blog entry of the year but in spite of that, I will write this anyway. Last Friday I, being the usual me, glanced to see the Chinese papers that some stranger was holding up to read. Everyone knows the Chinese papers to be of tabloid standards where headlines are sensationalised and truths probably exaggerated. Well, I know them to be such though I have never actually sat down to read a full article and compare it against the facts known. So I chanced across this headline, in Chinese, that had me puzzling over the seemingly odd choice of Chinese character used. It was to describe a car that had “wrapped” a tree. In my mind, I wondered if the correct choice of term was for the car to have “hugged” the tree. After pondering for a good while about my seeming inadequacy at understanding the Chinese character used and the writer’s intent of words, I got a glimpse of two of the photos for the report.
The large report photo showed a white car had appeared to be bisected by a tree, or the other way. The physics behind it was baffling to me as it would imply the driver had driven sideways into the tree, somehow. It was a horrific sight which prompted me to ponder the headline and how it may have been insensitive to the relatives of those affected by the accident. Certainly the headlines had grabbed quite a fair bit of attention but it made me wonder where laid the sensitive side of the journalist, to be impartial in his or her report and to give the accident just a simple title to acknowledge the tragedy. I had assumed, though I do not recall if the title implied it, that the car’s occupants met their demise.
The second photo I saw was presumably of the driver, who resembled my friend. The semblance was uncanny but I brushed it off as a coincidence even as I went closer to the stranger to try to take a closer look at the photo. I’m not sure if I did think of messaging my friend to point out the similarity, but I did not do it in the end anyway. Later that evening, I received news from Cheng Teng that Wilbert had passed away in an accident.
Indeed that friend whom I recognised in that photo, was Wilbert.
There were messages exchanged, arrangements to visit the wake and other thoughts about life, friendship, things that were too late, and why some people leave earlier than others. But it was mostly a dense feeling of sadness, like someone had dropped a weight that could not be undone. I don’t know what is the best way or how to deal with death. I guess, I just never managed to get to learning it. Perhaps this blog entry is a way of coping with it.
We may not have been close friends but the memories of the moments we shared still remain vivid in my mind – the brunches, times spent in the Level 8 School of Computing Lab at Block S16 and other times.
I remember you wanted to get a dog, but that was a while ago when we met for Peranakan cuisine at the Esplanade and the last time I saw you alive.
I remember you had quite a strong cologne or deodorant at times, but maybe that stood out because no one else in our Computing clique wore any scents of any sort.
I don’t remember how I first got to know you, but I recall the conversations of you and Si Wei and how shoulder injuries were sustained during tennis games not from swinging of the racket but from ramming oneself into the tennis court fence at the side.
I remember you had a thing for bread-and-butter pudding, and commenting about the ones we had at Paulaner’s when we had brunch, saying it was hard to find good ones, or something along that line.
I remember there was a time we drank at Timber @ The Arts House, that you were sometimes serious but mostly goofy and happy, that Zhenfeng, you and Cheng Teng had lively discussions about photography, that Xin-Wei called you “Bert” or maybe even “bird”, that you had your ear pierced in Australia, and probably more of other things if I sat down to do a recollection by the years.
Requiescat in pace, Wilbert. You will be remembered, perhaps of the fond times shared or as that missing friend in our sporadic gatherings.
“But I did okay, didn’t I? I mean I got, what, fifteen thousand years. That’s pretty good. Isn’t it? I live a pretty long time.”
“You lived what everybody gets, Bernie. You got a lifetime. No more. No less.”
– Brief Lives, Neil Gaiman
Somewhere out there, there surely must exist a checklist on what it means to be a “true blue Singaporean”. It is my belief the certainty of such an existence is buoyed by the ceaseless commentary about Singapore’s Olympics representatives and so-called “foreign imports”. It is however, not my belief that such commentary made have been responsible and unbiased. Naturally, everyone is entitled to their opinions.
As for that checklist, I surmise it to be lengthy, strict and unforgiving. After all, it is meant to differentiate a Singapore citizen from a “true blue Singaporean”, from the so-called “foreign imports”. I hazard a guess at some of the criteria in my list below.
Sometimes, I feel my identity being called into question when I read commentary lamenting and criticising others, and not feeling “proud” the country did not gain its achievements via a “true blue Singaporean”. I suppose those who speak as such, are themselves “true blue Singaporeans” who feel incensed their identity has been diluted and possibly replaced by others deemed not of similar par. I think of myself as a “true blue Singaporean” and so should I not feel the same? And since I do not, does that make me less than them as well? Not quite as “true” or “blue” perhaps.
Similarly, I react to criticisms of local policies and the government far differently from what I experience of the political rallies I attend and social media commentary I read. And these avenues seem to speak to me, whether implicitly or explicitly, telling me that it is time the brainwashing stops and I take the red pill, and that I see the truths and stop supporting the marginalisation.
For what it is worth, I am happy Feng Tianwei won that Bronze medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London as a representative of Singapore. I am proud of her achievements, and that we won a medal even if scores of others think otherwise. The moment is now and what was and what we speculate does not matter.
Given the amount of attention paid to corruption cases in the news these few weeks, and that the majority of them reported involved sexual intercourse in exchange for benefits, I think it is only a matter of time cases of the following nature received their spotlights in the media:
You know there’s one too many of such news floating about when you watch an infomercial segment in the cinema on resisting corruption by Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau just before your movie. I never knew they did such public service announcements, if at all. I suppose it is a sign of the current times when National Education, National Service and corruption takes the limelight in the theatres instead of piracy claims.
It is the year, the time, the era or epoch when you realise the value of the connections you have made over the course of your life and how they withstand the test of technological advances and other changes happening around you. Politics, social media waves, discussion of xenophobia and the likes that have taken our nation by storm, have taken root in relationships between friends and communities.
Five months into 2012 and I still cling on to my feature phone because I find no incentive to upgrade it with "smart" features. It is not a question or matter of whether I will succumb and "sell out" so I can get onto the same bus as all my friends, riding the waves of instant messaging with WhatsApp and sending hilarious art via the now-dead DrawSomething. So perhaps I am missing out on a good chunk of my friends’ lives and they on mine. But truly, is that an issue?
I would like to think not and that frequency, powerful as it seems, cannot withstand intensity. That said, I hope we have all built strong relationships that do not tether on a fundamental need for an external device to facilitate it.
Sometimes a storyline pops into my mind and I find myself expanding on it, indulging in the plot, its details and characters. But more often than not, these moments occur while I’m on the move, walking to a destination or simply hanging out on the public bus with no pen or paper on me but my trusty feature phone. The thing is, I don’t even use the Notes feature of my feature phone to record my then-current thoughts. I just let the ideas run through, and hope some will stick long around enough to translate to writing, though more correctly "typing", when I next come in contact with a keyboard and screen.
Time like these, I think whether it would have been different had I bought myself a smartphone with dictionary-referencing features on-the-move and a proper typing interface. But these ideas that run through, they do not run concurrently with the act of transcribing them.
So perhaps this is an example of men being unable to multi-task as well as ladies?
Change will come to work with the turn of the calendar quarter as 2012 heads into April. After three years and six months, I will be moving on to a new area of work in my present company. Change is welcome, even if I did not initiate it, and in spite of all that has been said and done. Maybe I have reached a narrow stage on the road that all forks are perceived as boons, and that the alternative option to find a new road has yet to surface itself as a better boon.
This shift in duties comes with it a shift in physical space as well which means having to clear all the personal clutter that has accumulated over the years. There’s that single poker card — a ten of clubs, that was given during the Liaison Officer training course to split the attendees into groups based on the random suits received. Black and white magnets resembling keyboard keys, a gift from a source I can no longer remember, will continue to be useful for holding pieces of random paper in place. That cut-out of a black piece of cardboard from that of a university assignment, I just might have to bring home instead of moving it since it is unlikely I find a use for it in my new area of work given I have not done so in my current job. That souvenir from San Diego Comic-Con 2009 — a poster of the movie 9 will have to be rolled up and put up at my new cubicle, to join the scores of fridge magnets accumulated through each of my trips since I began my foray into working life.
So much waiting to transpire but so little time for everything to fall into place.
WorQz 