sardonic fact of life #1: we live our lives trying our very best to be different from our parents in certain ways; ironically, many of us unwittingly become cheap photocopies of our parents as a result, our valiant lifelong struggles notwithstanding.

how then, are we to break free from this vicious cycle of the past repeating itself, generation after generation? is it truly impossible for us to break free from the sins of the fathers?

armed with a meager two months of first-year psychology readings, i have chanced upon the answer to this, arguably one of life’s greatest mysteries, and am thus filled with the utmost optimism for our future generations:

behold! the skinner box.

ahh yes, an ingenius invention by renowned psychologist bf skinner which limits the amount of stimuli a creature – or in our case, a child – is subject to, while at the same time allowing you, the parent, to ensure that apt and hasty reinforcement is applied unto the child whenever necessary, in the form of food pellets or electric shocks.

legend has it that skinner himself raised his daughter in a skinner box.

perhaps we should all learn from his twisted example and fling our kids in electric cages! maybe i should so my kids dont grow up becoming uh, me. i sure as heck wouldnt want a horde of little joels running around being utter dumbasses (like me) under MY roof.

dystopian schmystopian.

bah.

da weekend. saturday morning. usually a relaxed time but uh, not so today. lots of work. desperately need to catch up. have math n psy tests coming up. and feel that work has been so joel-consuming that have not had much time for insight lately. which. is. sad.

anyway it seems to me that ever since i got hurt ive been thinking a lot more than i usually do. consequently ive probably written more in this… blog-thing than ever before.

i also realize that being wheelchair bound for a coupla days, and then having to walk around on crutches for two months… having my once-legendary mobility shackled by horrible injury – all this has somehow slowed everything down for me.

i dont rush around anymore. i dont… get as flustered as i normally would over stuff, i think. unless i have to hurry somewhere, i just saunter around in… uh, semi-laziness. when im driving if people are being jerks i just let them by. whatever.

nonchalance? apathy? indifference?

i cant explain it myself. there just doesnt seem to be a point to rushing around.

maybe this is another, well, level of self sufficiency. and confidence? i love having people around me – its fun and everything – yet at the same time i feel that i dont need people around me.

at this point, i dont feel that my social skills are lacking in the least. maybe if i cared more about stuff. ugh. but do i want to? start caring about people and consequences and…

am i becoming cold, impersonal…? i dont know. maybe im deader inside than i once believed i was.

and maybe, rather than listlessly drift about in hope of redemption from this state,
ive taken my life into my own hands and… God knows what ive done with it.

not too long ago, my boss unwittingly gave me some really sound advice; advice that suddenly seems funnily relevant:

“a man without love is nothing – remember that.”

yeah, i guess he had a point now. though i dont want, dont need, dont care for any of that… right now.

its mid-week again, and im spent spent spent again. so much work and i was supposed to catch up with all the deficits this week – which i guess i have, to a point.

well. for whatever reason, i shall now post the ten songs i am listening to right now which would embarrass any (normal) guy worth his uh, salt.

i do know, however, that this just gives you GUYS out there more joel-bashing fuel. let me just say for the record that it takes a bitchload of testicular fortitude to admit to listening to uh these songs.

boyfriend – ashlee simpson
cool – gwen stefani
dont lie – black eyed peas
escape – enrique iglesias
their entire “bridge” cd- speed
perfect – simple plan
end of me / break you – marion raven
l’adventure fantastique – the fantastic plastic machine
don’t dream it’s over – sixpence none the richer
last christmas – wham

king’s college

hart house clocktower… ill get a proper pic next time

now the quality isn’t that great – i took this with my camera phone – but there you go: that’s king’s college and haha much of the field in front of it. this is the nicest part of my school; its got the really big (& freezing) domed convocation hall and the hart house which is this amazing place with a gym and a hairdresser and imho the nicest building in the entire school…

king’s college itself is really gorgeous too; i have my greek n german classics seminar there and there’s a huge shady courtyard inside… (more pictures next time sheesh)

robarts main library

now in stark, powerful contrast to the nicest part of the school here we have… the robarts library. no picture i took that day can do this juggernaut justice. this pic shows what is just a third? or a quarter of its imposing exterior.

for a centre of learning and knowledge, it sure looks spartan and severe – covered in armour plates and… missile emplacements or something. even the interior is bleak, stony and inhuman. i dont really get this building. the architect should be shot.

just TELL me it doesnt look like some futuristic space-orc fortress. or an undead demon-infested space installation from DOOM or QUAKE. sheeeesh. you half expect it to be swarming with storm troopers and Sith Lords… geez…

haha okay back to work… =D

love is dead.

i strongly doubt the existence of anything “pure” and “good” anymore. i don’t think i ever can feel that way again too.

everythings relative, i know; but “pure” and “good” and “wonderful”, seen from behind my blood-tinted shades… are just distilled self-delusions.

and lest any of you think theres anything wrong with me – there isn’t. nothing’s happened lately. to me. i’m downright peachy, in fact.

isn’t it sad though, that the people around me who believe in the possibility that something sweet and pure and greater than the sum of what two otherwise unconnected people represent – who believe in love – have fallen, leaving me to stand alone, doubled over in mocking laughter at the whole ridiculousness of the entire situation, laughing at myself and at everyone else, at the fools we’ve let ourselves become, at the cruel cold apathetic senselessness of it all, at the… whatever.

love has died, and nobody’s left to bury her except me.

I know I say this a lot but… time really does fly, doesn’t it?

To put things into perspective, for me at least, at this time last year I was training for my SOC (Standard Obstacle Course) with the BRC (ho’eh!)at Ang Moh Queee Camp in between rushing off with Abel for our pre-Australia trip attached to this other unit… while helping out with the other dudes’ training.

Good times there. Especially outta camp! Had HUGE dinner with the dudes at Chomp Chomp during one of the nights out. Had one more at Ang Moh Kio central where we ate legendary AJ Mountain ice kachang… haha that kicked serious ass. Ooh and I remember that was when I had dinner with Gwen and got to know Erin at the thomson prata joint…

My – our – time at Ang Moh Queee Camp was also marked by the coming of the one and only MIGHTY LTA WU LIANZHENG ( …RUN FOR YOUR LIVESS!!!) who everyone says looks a lot like me. I think he looks like me if I took steroids instead of vitamins when I was growing up…

Come to think of it – this time last year was when I began keeping a journal. I brought this little book around with me and wrote down all the negativity that was in my head and… found it surprisingly therapeutic… and after a while I decided that a little blue notebook was too flimsy so this blog came about.

nov 04, down un’dahh

yes thats me last november in australia, walking around this lovely rocky beach lagoon. more on that this weekend.

now though, i realize its midweek and i havent really sat down n uber-studied for my eco test this friday. however, up to this point ive been pretty up to date with my eco and my patented super joelnotes (in technicolour), so ill do okay with some practice questions over the next two or so days…

im so tired, though. so, so tired. had really tough physiotherapy session this morning. those big bouncy balls which you see ppl rollng around on for their physiotherapy exercise on tv… are gangsta. i was so exhausted after my sessiion. you can tell im exhausted when i dont type metaphorically. thats zero metaphors this paragraph.

oh and i realize one more thing; that ceterus paribus, my productivity has a negative relationship to the proximity between me and my laptop while i study.

tomorrow i shall test that economic model to see how much i can cover. yawn okay falling asleep. just spent the last hour or so explaining matrix math to my friend kathy haha online which is hilariously difficult…

night, world.

Haha in my free time last night – or rather when I was not doing work when I was supposed to, I went to download some of star-photographer-in-the-making Daniel Beh’s army pictures (PS guess who did the text for his website hur hur hur) which he took… and photoshopped around with them. The stunning result:

Ironically, I actually, finally agree with my old buddy Abel “I’m Not A Regular And I’m Not Gonna Sign On I’m Just An NSF And Yes I Still Get 3rd Sargeant Pay” Lee when he said I looked like that Korean bloke from Taegukgi… (the scruffy guy on the left…)

But, well, coming from Abel… a guy who looks like Fann Wong’s cutesy little brother… I’m not too bothered haha.

Abel “I’m Not A Regular And I’m Not Gonna Sign On I’m Just An NSF And Yes I Still Get 3rd Sargeant Pay” Lee