Anthonyli88’s Blog

Genting escalator

Flashback(4 weeks ago): Genting – Holiday

Flashback(3 weeks ago): Zhenghua Secondary School – Relief teaching

Flashback(1+ week ago): Physics teacher Mr Teh’s wake – sadness

Flashback(1 week ago): Engin Oweek

Flashback(2 days ago): High fever

Wow, how time flies? It is quite amazing that within a mere 4 weeks my emotions changed drastically. Ha! Now, it is finally time to do what I am fated to do——–> study

The soul is languishing in one corner remembering the good old days….Ha!

I recently picked up this module in university called reason and persuasion(GEM1004) by prof. John Holbo. Do not be mistaken by the title for it is a philosophy module and definitely not entirely a module about how to convince and be convinced. For your information, I do not have any philosophy background. However, well, I thought it was kinda fun to read such a module. From the readings though which is simply inspirational and enlightening, I picked up a bit of background information on Plato and Socrates. You must be wondering now, what the hell is wrong with this guy yakking halfway through the blog post about a philosophy module which has nothing to do with the title “apology”. Well, for the seek of people who have never delved into western philosophy, apology is a dialogue of Socrates written by Plato. In essence, this dialogue shows Socrates defending against a jury trying to convict him. Well, apologia back in the old days is defined as simply as defence. Hence, my title. What am I ,as the author of this blog, defending against? Is there anybody to judge me? What crime has the author commited?

The soul is once again responsible of showing the puzzled reader the way for the soul declares the following felonies commited by the author: 1. the author had not been active and has let his faithful readers down. 2. the author had not kept his promise of constantly of producing new sections of interesting/quality reads for his readers. 3. Lack of discipline to read through his freinds’/ readers’ blogs and comments.

To be frank,  any form of explanation, defense or argument against my above crimes may seem like a mere excuse. To be precise, I really wanted to apologise for my inability to keep up with my own regime that I have promised myself and many people around me. I think action is more important than empty promises to myself or to anyone in particular. Having said that, I will work to be consistent/active and have more discipline.

The soul is sure and confident of the future as inaction is hopefully a thing of the past.

Finally, i will be taking a well deserved break Malaysia (KL). I have decided to resign from my second job for various reasons: 1) University life is beginning. 2) Time to begin another phase of my plans. 3Time to enjoy a few days of tranquility and total rest.

The soul is relieved.

300609 (sunny day)

Emotion: Ecstatic

After finishing a very intense round of assignments, I realised that I am very refreshed and relived that my stint is finally over and I can finally concentrate on the things that I alwasys wanted to do. The list simply goes on: Blogging, facebook, writing logs of debates I have seen, studying a bit of philosophy, understanding a bit about programming, etc, etc. So many things, so little time. The sense of lerthargy never seems to leave me as I attempt to muster strength to all these things. Even so, I can hardly contain my excitment of the things in store for me ahead. With all that in mind, I disciplined myself to head down to the library everyday to accomplish all these seemingly overbearing events on my newly acquired laptop.

The soul shirks off any complaints of fatigue as it deems it to be part of human nature to fight against such a terrible enemy that will always be at the doorstep of the determined and courageous. However, even if the tingling senses of excitement is constantly poking at the nerves,different emotions seem to merge into one and come back and haunt the soul.

Emotion: Sadness and loneliness

Indeed, I fight for a purpose that I and only I know. However, the fight as exciting as it seems is the cause of the nagging emotions of feeling both desolated and dejected. Emotions are the cause of weakness in humans as the “father”(an inhuman character fighting to be perfect in “full metal alchemist”) claims. To me, it is the source of strength nevertheless as it is only when I am weak and emotionally em-battered that I will fight to become stronger and remove these kinds of emotions. While I work hard in this direction, I will have to live with all these emotions. What I cannot comprehend until this very day is the intensity of some emotions and their duration. They bind me like a demonic contract with the devil. Years and months seem to me a joke as they mock me for I pine for the same thing. How ironic!

The soul has never been so confused this morning when it realised the stupidity of it’s actions which has all along been the motivation in life. At the same time, it refused to give up on any of it’s decisions beliving that one day it will be realized. If those dreams never ever come ture, it will proudly declare, “At least, I tried.”

Emotion: Sweetness (you know what I mean)

Last week, I dreamed about the past, the present and the future. This is the fourth time I dreamed about it in 7 years.

The soul thinks and will remember the pleasantness of these dreams.

Emotion: Euphoric (due to accomplishment)

Over the months of november 2008- June 2009, I went from being a student care teacher to reminiscing my JC experience of being a debates adjudicator to being a part time teacher at YMCA/tution teacher. A roller coaster ride indeed. Living a normal life has never been so pleasant and I would like to pay my compliments to National Service which taught me how to appreciate life and it’s beauties although some people will never be able to understand that concept. Accomplishment is ever present as I have done things that I always thought I can but never tried out.

The soul is comforted that it had attempted these things before another phase(university) in life begins.

The final combination of emotion: Mixed like a classic rojak dish. HaHa!!

In every stage of life, there is a twist, a turn and an unexpected corner or pitfall although benefits and perks are ever present as a holistic package of “the human experience”. The fact that all these emotions are present serves as a reminder that I need to push ahead with much more hard work and effort.

The soul will treasure all these emotions despite the fact that some of these memories are gloomy by nature.

Wow I really cant believe that whenever I wanted to blog more often and start to be consistent, I would become extremely busy. The past four weeks were over before I knew it. To be precise, everyday there is something happening at whatever time of the day. However, at some point of time , I realised that I had simply done too much and I really wanted to simply take a much needed break. However ironic it might be, the truth is that deep in my heart I know that a break is unquestionably a setback to the goals in my life. Hence, I think the only possible route is to pressure forward and plan my time more efficently so I can rest my tired body more often. I think it is also the perfect time to start thinking about setting a portion of my time to routine affairs like for example: Facebook, Blogging, exercising and reading some routine books and newspapers. Hopefully, I can enhance my life even more in the upcoming weeks.

The soul is hopeful that things will be differnt in the next couple of weeks to come and my life can be even more progressive and more dynamic than ever. SHAG!

Ecclesiastes 3

A Time for Everything

¹ There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:

² a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,

³ a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,

⁴ a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,

⁵ a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,

⁶ a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,

⁷ a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,

⁸ a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

Ecclesiastes has always been my favourite book in the bible. It is because I love wisdom and this book written by Solomon himself who was granted wisdom by God. Indeed, there is a time for everything. The time came when I met with my old friends and we rejoiced. It one of the best blessings from god.

It was a series of fortunate events as I met up with friends of old and new more frequently than I have ever dream of. Very, very Old friends shared a lot with me as they have not seen me for a very long time. We talked and talked about our exploits over the past two years may it be army or studies or whatever under the sun. To have someone to listen to your complaints, your glorious adventures was indeed something welcoming and warm to the heart. I found that such times were very rare indeed.

It was difficult to express the feelings of sadness of the soul as the meeting drew to a resounding end. It was inevitable that the time to part had arrived for it was neither destiny nor fate but nature’s path that everything that has a beginning will have an end.

010209-160309

Recently, I managed to allow myself some free time to read manga extensively. Fortunately, I followed the recommendations and suggestions of my friends and began reading Full Metal Alchemist and Nodame Cantabile. The above two series ,as expected , depicted stories which were exciting and deep in depth.

Actually, I did watch the anime for FMA before. However, I was hardly convinced that it was a manga series worth reading for the anime version was shallow and weird in structure. On the contrary, the manga version provides the reader with a deep and refreshing insight into a fantasy story which is unrivalled by any other series for its frequent twists and smooth plot. Not only that, the author weaves “Operation Valkyrie”, “V for Vendetta” styled politics into its plot enhancing it’s ability to allow the reader to step back and re-examine the current status quo of ones societal infrastructure. There are many learning points in this wonderful story. Corruption and moral ethics in human biological research are just some of the learning points. Example, one of the key issues I took away on human biological research is not to mess within the boundaries of God himself or one will suffer his wrath.

The soul will try to keep up with change and will continue to learn from the smallest thing even during entertainment.

Sometime Late Jan (Raining/cold afternoon)

A particularly cold Chinese New Year I would say. Maybe the degree of coldness of this CNY celebration is as cold as the weather outside as I am writing this! By referring to the degree of frost, reality has never been so real! No signs of many relatives, just a few conversations with my cousin and a few well cooked dishes of CNY specialities. What’s making it worse? Guess what?!?! The conversations with my cousin was made over MSN. Not face to face!

The annual celebrations where huge numbers of people gather to celebrate, do some catch up with distant relatives and most importantly enjoy the festive mood are mere memories of the past glorious events now. It is apparent to me that in this world where people’s connections are so intricate that an individuals social path can affect a whole social group like in the case of this CNY celebrations. Just to give any reader insight into my current family tree activities. The cause of such an issue was not the result of a few days of conflict but a few months of constant “warfare” over my grandfather. That is the most I can reveal as an individual from this social group because I can understand that no one person involved in this would lile me to do the action of airing their dirty linens in public.

The soul finds it a crime to desecrate happy family reunions by direct or indirect sabotage.

310109(Friday evening/sunny)

My tour at the student care centre was something that allowed me to develop my teaching skills, classroom management skills, leadership skills and thinking skills. I had began my work there with a lot of positive thoughts and expectations for my work. However, the place was hardly the kind of place which was conducive for learning and improving ones character. There are many reasons why up till today I think it is so. Firstly, the supervisor of the centre will never do her part of bringing the students under control because she is imply incapable of doing it. Secondly, the students’ behavior was simply atrocious. Kids as young as 8 years old can utter vulgarities without any reservations. They totally don’t give a damn about authority and they are extremely spoilt. Thirdly, the working environment simply cannot support my attempts to change this environment. Every single day, I feel like fighting a war that I can never win. I cannot bring myself to continue at such a course of work when my friend offered me a path of education and work which i strongly endorse personally. Hence, my final decision to quit or more formally correct- to submit my resignation from this place of work.

Obviously, despite the negativity I brought along with me when i quited the job, I still do miss some of my students there which i fear over time will be corrupted by the rest. I can only pray that this group of students can develop into great men and women that can discern right from wrong and understand their true purpose in life.

The soul is saddened by the fact that I surrendered to this group of young barbarians and I failed to reform them due to circumstances.