hmm.... Haven't blogged in 2 weeks. bad me.

well, feel slightly justified - finals + plane trips + lack of net access because nessa's brother hogs the computer = no blog opportunities.

anyway, there's actually bunches of stuff to say, but have now forgotten most of it and am too blissed out to care. i'll stick to the high points.

ROTK!! Peter Jackson strikes again! Excellent film. My opinion is that i prefer the extended two towers, but then it's probably because i have a soft spot of sean bean (whom tara chace of Queen and Country likes, i must add) and also because of the final fragcount scene between gimli and legolas. still twitching, indeed! In rotk we see why elves are famed for their dex (and legolas has an _obscene_ dex score). the attack of spider-elf!

think that theoden and eomer are probably more inspiring than aragon and faramir. largely because eomer possibly has more sense than faramir (ie will not let himself get killed for no reason) and theoden makes better pre-battle speaches than aragon (whose slightly nasal voice can be a bit off-putting). also it's odd than aragon never upgrades to better armour than chainmail. the wonders of a high dex score, i presume. love the witch king of angmar. must be so cool being a bodiless spectral being of malign supernatural power. and the semi-invulnerability wouldn't hurt too. my impression is that if eowyn wasn't on hand to kill him gimli or legolas would have done it.

on returning to singapore i realised that i felt horribly disconnected from society there. also feel a bit disconnected from the singaporean students in berkeley. am one of the odd ones who spends more time with american people than people from "home." feel that 1)am a loner by nature, or at least am now. 2)have interests which are so bizzarre that few people would willingly associate with me in the long term lest i bring up something weird. and no, i do not have an off switch for the strangeness factor, and neither would i want to. am thankful that my, and nessa's friends are largely inured to this, being all either extremely liberal or in some way weird.

one of the main sources of this sense of disconnection is the fact that lots of people now speak chinese in singapore. and there seem to be a lot of young people hanging around and goofing off. it's orchard road, i know, and it's the school hols, and you can call me an old geezer if you want, but it discomfits me to see 14-15 year old pai kia couples wandering all over the place. *sigh*

i suspect the change in social climate that i'm noticing (increased use of chinese, pai kianess becoming more socially acceptable, etc) is a result of the governments admission to an underclass. this is my theory: before the heartlander/cosmpolitan social classes were acknowledged to exist, society tried to conform with what was assumed to be the "superior" or dominant culture - that of the english speaking elite. so if people didn't speak perfect english, at least they spoke singlish all the time. (for example, most parents, even if chinese educated, might place special effort in ensuring their kids learned good english, simply because good english skill was seen as a means of moving up in the world) when the government admitted to the existence of two seperate types of singaporean, it created an awareness on both sides of the existence of class structure. it also legitamatised "heartlanders," - where once they were seen as a class of people working upwards to the cosmopolitan way of life, now they were acknowledged as a class who not only existed, but whose culture could be admirable too. (for the willingness to work hard, strong sense of traditional values, for being reliable, average joe, unlike the cosmopolitans were were brain draining the country, breaking their scholarship bonds and otherwise exhibiting snotty upper class behavior)

is all this bad for the country? i wouldn't know, i'm not a social theorist. on the one hand, it saved the government at the polls because there was growing discontent among the heartlanders that they were not adaquately represented (and they should be, in any nation what is considered the "lower" class doubtless makes up the majority and democracies are obligated to represent the will of the people) it was also a well deserved slap in the face for the cosmopolitans, for by enfranchising the heartlanders and giving them a say, it meant that the cosmopolitans could no longer take for granted the wealth, position and power they had. on the other hand, there are certainly people like me, who's distinctly singaporean but no longer feels comfortable in a singaporean society that had radically redefined itself along bipartisan lines. i like swearing in hokkien, and i enjoy using slang. when i speak to other singaporeans, i enjoy messing around with my english. in a sense, i like to remind myself and the people around me of my middle-class roots. at the same time, i take pride in my academics, i like playing with ideas, with concepts and paradigms. i am an extremely verbose writer. i may not be a much of a poet, but i can argue that i'm a good engineer. i definitely have ideas and aspirations that are radical by many standards, even so-called liberal comopolitans. by defining two social groups, singaporean society has left the middleground empty - there is no place for someone who would say they belong to both camps. at the same time, both sides have begun to actively exclude those who do not belong to their own side - use of language is one way to do this (ie: if heartlanders actively speak chinese and cosmopolitans "queen's english", then the other group is excluded by the language barrier). where does that leave me, self confessed weirdo that i am? (i can't speak chinese and i don't feel fully comfortable being classified with the rest of the cosmopolitans, with whom i probably have deep philosophical differences, ditto with the heartlanders)

here's a question i'd like to have answered - when i was in the army, i found that some people (the majority of those who would be considered "heartlanders") seemed to despise book learning, and found it profoundly disturbing that anyone would enjoy it. (i recall i was harrassed for reading a math textbook in my spare time. i admit that this sort of behavior might well be disturbing to almost everyone, though.) now, did this attitude exist prior to the heartlander/cosmopolitan divide? was there already resentment and did it grow (or did those who felt it feel more justified to express it) with the acknowledgement of singapore as a divided society?

comments, anyone? mail me, and maybe i can start some sort of email thing going. blogouts are waaaaayyy too small for this sort of stuff. but anyway, that's the gist of what i have to say about the matter. it's more complete because i've had time to think and talk about it with people, but my organisation is lacking, and i may have not paid enough attention to the key points.

went to kino in taka last week, and i noticed that the "gender relations" section contained books largely pertaining to gay couples. it is a good thing that taka doesn't feel obligated to make that part of the store "adult only," and it's placement with education bodes well for their respecting the topic (ie, it wasn't squeezed into the new age and tarot sections, though it is close), but why are they all about gay people? hetrosexual people make up the majority of the population, so why don't they have books on gender relations? same with bi people. it's weird.

nessa and me went to the library and to harvey norman today. waffle makers are bafflingly expensive - A$50 a piece! and they aren't even the type i like. these make the thick pancake like ones which are kinda spongy. nessa likes those though. i prefer the crunchy, fluffy type. ah well... at the library i was suprised to find compendiums of firearms and a book on sniper rifles stacked with woodworking. sniper rifles are cool, but i'm hardly a steady enough hand to handle them all that well. can say that i'm better at silent scope than either ness or her brother though. *grin*

we also went to perth yesterday to comic shop. sadly it is confirmed that age of magic #25 is the last of the series. damn, i liked it. at least i can claim to have a full collection. very annoying because i have been hunting it down for the last 6 months and it was only the guys at absolute comics who bothered to check with wizard and find out that issue 25 was the last. nick's hotdogs were also mildly dissapointing. they's still twice the size for the same price at top dog, and onions and cheese are still free, but the lady doing the dogs yesterday didn't toast the bread or heap as much onions and cheese as nick normally does. =( still good dogs, though. heartily recommended. nick's is in central perth near the train station outside myers and near the entrance to picaddilly arcade. speaking of which, we caught kill bill vol 1 at picadilly for $5 each. excellent price, and the run down cinema really adds to the atmosphere of kill bill, which was alternatively cool and hilarious. nessa got more of the older pop references (anything before the 80s) while i knew the bruce lee ones. i know i enjoyed the blood and gore a lot more than she did. disturbing that the two of were chuckling away in an otherwise quiet cinema as people were getting hacked up on-screen. but then as tarantino said: "no one's going to take this stuff seriously"

have discovered that i am not an anime fan. sadly have too high expectations of my media to be satisfied with most anime. still like eva for the psychodrama, but any programming the doesn't force me to think i don't really enjoy. which is why i watch CSI/without a trace/law and order, etc... really.

nessa likes my hair long. her first comment was that "it looks gorgeous." biased as she is, i'll still take that as a compliment. ;P

winter nights in berkeley remind me of perth. it's the smell and the chill of the night air. reminds me of nessa. could almost feel my arm around her, walking back to my room tonight.

oh yes, one more piece of news. have new external HDD. 60GB. =)

C! no comments for you because you don't blog enough! *pwaf! with a fish!*
of E's blog, ms. prolific when she's got my keyboard! (in either case, at least it stopped me blogging. if i'd blogged earlier, i'd still have a homework backlog now. and next week's finals!)
i am reminded why i am such a happy participant in flame wars, looking at the vast array of things to contradict and rant on on her blog. well, taking things, again, one at a time: (btw, should i just jump into the discussions? it's another case of not wanting to intrude on a private party)

on homosexual marriage:
yes! let people marry if they want! religion hasn't really been a major aspect of marriage for quite a while now. if it still was, then people of different religions wouldn't have to accept each other's marriages. moreover, we wouldn't have pre-nups and divorce courts and child custody cases if people stuck to their religion's definition of marriage. because marriage is now a largely social institutuion, and society seems to accept homosexuality, what's the problem with gay people marrying each other?
i realise that i don't want to read the rest of that rather heated discussion, or my poor engineer's brian might explode. so that's all the thought i have to offer on that matter.
on singaporean gay marriage:
consider the irony in the singaporean system: it's one of the only places in the world where the government can ignore the popular demand and legalise gay marriage (and being gay in general). they'd just use the "we need it to improve our competitiveness" slogan. after all, if people can accept a 10% pay cut, why not that? but then again, the government is too wise to make people angry for no reason at all - they're very pragmatic, after all.
On the sexuality quiz:
to a certain extent, i do not think that "homosexuality is not different from heterosexuality except in gender of the partner." i think that the nature of relationships are very much based on the dynamics between the individuals involved, and much as i hate to say this, i think that _in_general_ male and female mindsets are quite different. perhaps there will be some homosexual relationships where the dynamics are identical to a heterosexual one... but i guess i'm just saying that in general the relationships will have vastly different dynamics.
On homosexuality in general:
i find it amusing that ness and i are both bi and have, on occassion, discussed the attractiveness of our friends. maybe we often devolve into cuteseyness and/or "married with kids" behavior, but i'm glad our relationship is anything but typical.
and finally i'm down to the last point:
On America:
i've been doing my intro to cultures and the env class for a sem now, and what's been repeatedly driven home is that america's dominant white group has had a very long history of forced assimilation. this definitely includes religion (forced religious conversion for the Indians, etc...) . from where i'm sitting, in sunny california, in what is supposed to be most liberal campus in the world, the word "gay" is still a synonym for "weird" or "strange" (meant in a negative way, by the way). it is simply human nature to despise, fear and create illusions about what we don't know, americans in general are so banefully ill-informed, oblivious to the rest of the world (where else does "the world" only imply the continental united states?) and willing to accept whatever crap is presented to them (ie: george bush, wrestling, ABC coverage of the invasion of iraq) that it should not be surprising that they react badly to everything they don't consider normal. Warren Ellis wrote that america is a country of "conservative puritans" and he's right - because conservative puritanism is the default mode for everyone. and in a country where cultural mixing is rare ("we're all american" note, i said cultural, not racial...) and education is just poor (i feel this is largely because the tall poppy syndrome is so prevalent here. another example of american puritanism: "if you're not like me in every way, you must be evil"), this attitude is unlikely to change. (i need footnotes when writing. never been much of an essayist. )
it is also not surprising that the "land of the free" isn't. america's history is rife with hypocrisy. consider: what happened to the indian peoples? dragged off to reservations by government troops. when congressional leaders protested president jackson's "round -up", he laughed and said "you've got to stop me." by the way, it is a part of the constiution that all dealings with american indians are solely the province of congress, and that they must in all ways be treated and respected as sovereign powers. america never stuck to either spirit or letter of that law since they became significantly more powerful militarily than the indians.
the civil war: half the country decides to take america's holy of holies, the declaration of independence at it's word, decides to secede, and the central government fights them. why?
various prejudicial laws against new immigrant groups. "give me your huddled masses yearning to breathe free" is a lie. mostly it's "let them come so long as we profit and they don't offer any competition and they'd better go back to where they came from, smelly foreigners"
but i guess i have digressed more than a little. what i am trying to say is that america still views itself as protestant christian, and isn't about to change that for any old reason.

now to the commentries!
taking stuff one step at a time, responses to things on D's blog, which, horrible friend that i am i have yet to properly reply (and i do find our friendship slightly gimli-legolas. D's so elf, i'm so dwarf. we got to know each other through gaming. ie: killing things)

about writing:
keep it up, D. i'll never be a writer, but you could be.
about literature:
why study literature? why do we value it so? a part of me says it's because some people want to feel more elite than others, those who are "too good" to get their hands dirty working. another part of me says that the soul needs sustenance, it's the words and the songs that carry us through the day. that we need to be reminded why we do what we do, that there is meaning and purpose. and the grief and the joy and the loves and the hates and everything that makes us what we are demand expression lest they become lost and meaningless. we need the poets and the writers and the singers because they speak for us, who are mute or otherwise able to express ourselves only in the most basic of ways.
about nature:
old friend, i hate to say this, but i really hate wild-and plantlife. am i like most typical engineers and think that nature is messy or badly designed? nope. i acknowledge the inherent order in emergent behavior and the amazing ability of evolutionary schemes to build better than almost any top down design approach. what i do know about nature, though, is that it doesn't answer to me. and that's a problem. out there, we are "at the mercy of the elements" indeed. and that lack of control is unsettling. (not to mention sleeping in the rough is uncomfortable, the bugs are a menace and it's always wet and icky...) i believe that i can manipulate my environment, and there's no real reason not to as long as i'm good about it: don't make a mess, basically. nature is a challenge, yes. to be seen for it's beauty, but also to be confronted and overcome. for what are frontiers for if not to go beyond the horizon?
on our group:
my thoughts on who we are
myself: yes, battlemage works. but i also like hitting things, so it's iffy. *grin* not ftr/mage because i hate not being able to cast in armour. sometimes i think pal or cleric suit me fine because i take up causes too easily.
D - bard. soc. definitely elvish to some degree. *grin*
X - elven wizard - oh yes. our resident mastermind. more H these days, though
V - human priest - too damn true
C - halfling thief - *laughter* yep! dead on.
i'd add nessa too, but the jury's really out here. i like to say halfling cleric, but she insists on human rogue or mage and her brother on priestess of lollth. i suspect most of the people she knows would classify bbrn or fighter, though.
on kine:
coooool! http://www.shagrat.net/Html/cows.htm>www.shagrat.net/Html/cows.htm
niiiiih!
don't get me started on the coolness factor of all this.
on society:
"Crime and the problems of a modern society arise from those-who-have's turning a blind eye towards the needs of those who do not. The people who do something wrong are those who society has rejected or cast aside, or those who have gone wrong somewhere."
i would like to be able to say that if everyone was brought up right, there wouldn't be crime. but then i'd simply be advocating mind control on a mass scale. there will always be those whose actions are not acceptable by society, those we call criminals. and there there will always be those who actions are nor wholly moral, like those who would ignore the suffering around them. i don't know if any case can be clear cut. one could argue that the criminal (in most cases, anyway) should know better, should be able to choose not to commit the crime. for is that not what free will means? that our choices are ultimately our own? but part of the onus also lies on society: that individuals might be tempted to unacceptable behavior, and that placing them in this sort of situation is society's fault. it is, after all easier to be law abiding if one is well fed and comfortable.
On God:
i'm still going with my (what E calls, anyway) "orthodox" view of christianity. i believe in an omnipotetent, omniscient and all loving God. and i believe implicitly. for someone who doesn't go to church i bizzarely have the equivalent of the white wolf game system's "true faith" trait. God watches over me, He walks with me, and i do my Creator's will. on reflection i realise that my relationship with God is representative of my only means of relating comfortably with authority: trust and mutual respect. a partnership.
On IRS:
damn i wish i still remember what we learned at JSIST! thanks to b, though, for subjecting me to java shop-talk for 2 years straight. good programming rubs off.
On laptops:
fujitsu's bloody ex! eek! i'll help you find something cheap! build a desktop! (i feel like largo now *grins*)

2 rants about class behavior:
am annoyed (well, was. i'll never meet them again) with some people in my math class because they're bloody disruptive. maybe it's because i don't enjoy drawing attention to myself, but what's with this shouting out bad answers, waiting for our TA's correct answer and then saying "i meant to say that!"??? do you gentlemen enjoy making fools of yourselves? (and i cringe everytime you do this, people...) maybe what i mean to say is: please don't torment us by acting happy that you don't have a clue. or maybe you really are truly happy about what little you know, or that you don't know. but damnit, this whole underacheiving attitude really gets on my nerves.

i share 2 classes with this idiot who asks inane questions, and then acts smug as if he understands the deep mysteries of whatever. sprouts off tidbits of information (like thougts about the nature of space time) from which i can tell he doesn't know jack shit. oh god, what an ass. you want to talk space-time? come on, lets play with the tensors, touch the warp and woof of reality itself. knowledge isn't there to impress people with. it's to act on or to understand for its own sake. loud smart aleck. ugh. and he isn't even competent...

10 days and no comments. you must all think i'm dead. *grin*
well, i am back now. thanks to a bunch of factors beginning with lots of homework, laziness and the horrible e28 final project i have been out of commission for a while. am back now though, even if our "devastating" project really did devastate me more than a little.

so, lets take things in order and deal with blog inspired rants later - because i will eventually rant anyway, but i'm much more likely to forget about what i actually did.

thanksgiving:
holiday! holiday! holiday!
i spent it doing homework, which just goes to show what an idiot i am. i did get some warcraft done, though, but minor.
went to mike's place for thanksgiving dinner, which was really nice of him. his mom makes delicious pecan pie. like the idiot i am i mentioned it was really good, so she gave me one. ought to watch out for those sneaky chinese mothers....

OUT! to monterey and beyond:
am so embarrassed that i always fall asleep in moving vehicles. it's this army thing, i swear... i would say it's a wonder that i don't fall asleep while driving my tank, but the truth is that i do fall asleep very often while driving...

the californian countryside, once you get away from the cities and fields is truly beautiful. i wasn't a sunny day - the clouds were pretty heavy and low, but the wind was absolutely amazing! it's ironic that i consider myself "dwarf" in the RPG sense, yet love the wind and the waves. but i adore stormy weather, the song of the wind the and crackling thunder. sometimes i feel like finding a high spot and howling defiance at the storm.... too embarrassing to do that though, as much as i want to.

we visited pebble beach golf course. _the_ pebble beach. i am distinctly uncomfortable anywhere the help is dressed better than i am. makes me feel like i've wondered away from where i should be. middle-class upbringing speaking to me, i guess - i feel uncomfortable in posh retaurants. of course, i certainly feel the sting whenever i pay, but...
there was a wedding there. isn't it cool to have a string quartet at your wedding? i know me an ness will probably never afford one (let alone get married on pebble beach. ouch!), but it gets me to thinking who we can drag together amongst our friends who can play and do it for free... suspect she may want to PLC choralle to sing. it'll be nice. *sigh* and another 3/4 years to wait.

speaking of waiting, i'm reverting to "missing nessa" mode from "oooooh wonderful university." i'm counting days till i get to see her instead of days till my finals. can't decide what to get her for christmas, though. you lot have any suggestions?

a week in school OR: "devastating projects"
S decided to name our final project the "f-6." this was after he'd been to WWE raw and seen the "devastating f5." (speaking of WWE... i used to watch wrestling as a kid when i didn't know better. it's gotten a lot worse. 'nuff said. ) pretty appropriate for a carrot spinning contraption to find a place for it on the fujita scale.

the good (because i am an optimist)
we're certainly in the top 10% of group trial scores for our device. i give credit to the following: tom for the restraint rings (our carrots were belted in place with restraining rings so the the CM of the spinning pod was perfectly centred under the support) and jer for the amazing "pop off" effect. between these two, we would have won the "shitload of spins" category if not the fact that the f6 spins things so fast you can't count the rotations (vs other projects which spin slowly but can keep it up for half an hour)
i had a great group, and a great time working on this project. seriously. if you guys ever read this, you're the best.

the bad: it is a bad idea to start the bulk of a project the day before it's due. it's an even worse thing when design errors (we overran material limits) makes you lose half your project group to jury-rigging a modification. now, everyone was running late, but we didn't expect it to be this bad. we certainly had left certain things undone when we submitted the final drawings. just crossing our fingers and hoping no one finds out...

okay. i don't want the blog to run too long in case of spontaneous system crashes. so i'll do another entry.